AI Driving - Feedback topic

[kremator 1065]

Please BIS tell us what we need to do to help you QA driving.  At present it is 'just' bearable but in no way can be relied upon.

[inlesco 233]

21 hours ago, kremator said:

Please BIS tell us what we need to do to help you QA driving.  At present it is 'just' bearable but in no way can be relied upon.

Unfortunately, I think there's no way to QA it 100% if you don't have the programming resources required. If BIS had at least a single AI-only programmer, they'd probably have to pay him a shit ton of $ since the market is exploding with good offers for machine learning among other opportunities.

[dragon01 902]

One of those "only in ArmA" moments. :) 
https://s29.postimg.org/h7s5ow3pj/20170604145701_1.jpg

I have no idea how it happened (nor was able to replicate it), but it seems that there's still room for improvement here.

 

On the plus side, the rest of the convoy drove more or less fine (at least until the point I blew it to pieces :)).

 

[pillerjong 3]

I made Mission with an Ifrit Vehicle and gave the Vehicle just 2 Waypoints with a Move Function  (Cycle is the same) - after reaching the 1st Waypoint, the Vehicle dont move and seems like stuck

Then i tested it with other Vehicle, and all Vehicle are moving to the given 2nd Waypoint - its only the Ifrit Vehicle (HMG, GMG and all other Variants have the same Bug)

 

I did it in this Video :

 

 

[joostsidy 685]

On 15-6-2017 at 6:49 AM, pillerjong said:

I made Mission with an Ifrit Vehicle and gave the Vehicle just 2 Waypoints with a Move Function  (Cycle is the same) - after reaching the 1st Waypoint, the Vehicle dont move and seems like stuck

Then i tested it with other Vehicle, and all Vehicle are moving to the given 2nd Waypoint - its only the Ifrit Vehicle (HMG, GMG and all other Variants have the same Bug)

 

 

I've encountered that bug as well with the ifrit. It has been there before the last update. In my situation I used scripts, so it isn't related per se to the editor waypoints. Can also happen with move or doMove commands.

 

The Ifrit doesn't stop completely, but moves very, very slowly.

[Guest]

I'll add some here - as I'm sure expected - issues

 

There are clearly a lot of issues with grouped vehicle driving, especially when there is combat involved, but not only limited to this.

 

In Single Player, I was only barely able to get a convoy to stay together and move through a city while under fire by a very strict set of script commands - and unfortunately due to the fact that the Gunner seat is almost always also the 'commander' seat for wheeled vehicles, it makes it nearly impossible to use these vehicles for this kind of purpose due to the fact that a variety of bugs come up along with the convoy often just not moving - the only workaround I could find was a Cup armored/armed truck that has a commander seat separate of the gunner seat.

 

In Multiplayer:

 

This is where I have given up. The same code that I used for the convoy in SP is completely MP compatible, yet unfortunately, everything is different, and a pretty big mess.

 

Scenario example in MP - Lead convoy vehicle has player gunner, AI controlled driver and commander:

The convoy lead vehicle gets destroyed, player respawns and is placed as gunner into the new lead vehicle - entire group is stuck, convoy will not move unless player gets out, then gets back in - and this is in a vehicle that actually has a separate commander slot apart from gunner. Worse than that, also the other convoy vehicles decide they now want to flee the scene, something that *was* eliminated in SP mode (eliminated through a ton of testing and trying things), despite allowfleeing 0 on all units, despite numerous other measures taken - off they go, back to their starting position, to sit there and do nothing. Also, the convoy vehicles are all locked for players at mission start, and then players are ordered in as gunners which opens up the gunner slot only - unfortunately in MP once the players get into the gunner seat they then are able to switch to any slot in the vehicle - this does not happen in SP, the other slots remain locked in SP.

 

For my mission, all of this means that in MP I have to take the AI out of the convoy part completely and require 8 or more players for the convoy part alone to fill both driver and gunner slots, which significantly reduces how usable the mission is in MP.

 

I do understand that the ground units should come first in what is both fixed and maintained in this type of game, but I hope at some point the company starts addressing the issues with vehicles, and vehicle group behavior - right now, as Kremator stated, the AI vehicle usage seems barely usable and very unreliable. And the MP issues seem very significant right now with ai vehicle group behavior.

 

/Edit

 

I'd like to add something more here -

 

After doing more testing with a 4 vehicle convoy doing ai pathing in a city, I have seen some things happening that are leading to a conclusion -

 

It appears as though even in SP mode, despite all that I could dig up to stop it - vehicles sometimes still just turn around and leave, returning to the first waypoint and sit there for great lengths of time, if not indefinitely. This is happening during intermittent combat, although I can't really say if the combat is or is not encouraging this - I do know that the vehicles are not technically fleeing. I can say that often the ai vehicles getting 'boggled' is due to basically nothing there in the way in the first place, they turn a bit off the road for no reason and then next thing you know they are running into a wall or building off the road completely, where they may eventually give up following the convoy, and then leave and return to the first waypoint of the plan.

 

How about this - it would not cover everything, but in situations where a vehicle is trying to get around something, if the final result is about to be for them to abandon their group formation or even abandon their destination and end up stuck out in the middle of nowhere - why not just allow the vehicle to 'pass through' a variety of objects? Objects that are not true buildings in general would all probably be safe, including vehicles, units, and dead units/vehicles. Of course DisableCollisionWith could be used, and Imo it would be better as a last resort that the vehicle 'went through' a wall, vehicle, etc then to completely abandon it's purpose in a mission where it ends up potentially breaking the mission content.

 

 

[.kju 3244]

 

[pierremgi 4862]

Is this something what we could have in Arma soon?

[Alwarren 2767]

1 hour ago, pierremgi said:

Is this something what we could have in Arma soon?

 

Not very likely. VBS and Arma have diverged quite a bit.

I think ,kju's point was more "we should get something similar" than "this is in VBS so it will be in Arma soon".

 

At this point, convoys in Arma are an effing mess. Yesterday, I curated one of my missions. The player's task was to protect a medical convoy  on Takistan (but the problem is neither CUP nor Takistan, in case you wonder; I have reproduced this on vanilla). When the convoy gets attacked, it will immediately turn around and drive back ALL THE WAY to its point of origin. It's 100% reproducible. 

Another issue is that the different speed/mass of different vehicles is not taken into account. A truck and a car in a convoy driving downhill will collide at a corner (or if you are lucky, the truck will get off the road) because the brake distance of the truck is much larger than the car, and there is no "communication" or looking-ahead.

 

In other words, convoys are a mess right now and need to be fixed.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

7 hours ago, Alwarren said:

 

Not very likely. VBS and Arma have diverged quite a bit.

I think ,kju's point was more "we should get something similar" than "this is in VBS so it will be in Arma soon".

 

At this point, convoys in Arma are an effing mess. Yesterday, I curated one of my missions. The player's task was to protect a medical convoy  on Takistan (but the problem is neither CUP nor Takistan, in case you wonder; I have reproduced this on vanilla). When the convoy gets attacked, it will immediately turn around and drive back ALL THE WAY to its point of origin. It's 100% reproducible. 

Another issue is that the different speed/mass of different vehicles is not taken into account. A truck and a car in a convoy driving downhill will collide at a corner (or if you are lucky, the truck will get off the road) because the brake distance of the truck is much larger than the car, and there is no "communication" or looking-ahead.

 

In other words, convoys are a mess right now and need to be fixed.

 

 

but but muh fanboys said the driving was overhauled ;)

[das attorney 858]

9 hours ago, Alwarren said:

 

Not very likely. VBS and Arma have diverged quite a bit.

I think ,kju's point was more "we should get something similar" than "this is in VBS so it will be in Arma soon".

 

At this point, convoys in Arma are an effing mess. Yesterday, I curated one of my missions. The player's task was to protect a medical convoy  on Takistan (but the problem is neither CUP nor Takistan, in case you wonder; I have reproduced this on vanilla). When the convoy gets attacked, it will immediately turn around and drive back ALL THE WAY to its point of origin. It's 100% reproducible. 

 

Another issue is that the different speed/mass of different vehicles is not taken into account. A truck and a car in a convoy driving downhill will collide at a corner (or if you are lucky, the truck will get off the road) because the brake distance of the truck is much larger than the car, and there is no "communication" or looking-ahead.

 

In other words, convoys are a mess right now and need to be fixed.

 

Wow that was 4:52 of watching you pull your own teeth rather than me.  But I pulled my teeth for you anyway as it was painful enough viewing.

 

The pathfinding is terrible, plus the reaction to danger is equally poor.  :\

[Tankbuster 1746]

4 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

 

but but muh fanboys said the driving was overhauled ;)

Fanboys gonna fan, mate.

[Alwarren 2767]

I think there were definite improvements to the driving made, but not enough, especially in convoy situations. As I said, convoys keep bumping into each other or pulling off road to avoid collusion, and the thing in the video makes all convoy missions practically useless. 

Anyway, I made a ticket, maybe someone at BIS reads this
https://feedback.bistudio.com/T126313

[joostsidy 685]

 

15 hours ago, Alwarren said:

In other words, convoys are a mess right now and need to be fixed.

 

Fanboy here ;-)

 

Convoy AI leaves room for improvement, but Alwarren's example is not properly optimized for convoy driving in my opinion:

- Convoys need to be set on 'CARELESS'. This behaviour is not so much truly careless, but more 'STICK TO YOUR WAYPOINTS WHATEVER HAPPENS'. Unlike 'CARELESS', the 'SAFE' behaviour allows for switching to 'COMBAT', which means evasive manoeuvres that you don't want in a convoy.
- Arma vehicles often drive too fast, which exaggerates the bumping problem. Use the limitSpeed command to fix speeds to more appropriate values for mountain roads and convoys.

 

In my replication of Alwarren's example I used one waypoint and this in the lead vehicles init:

this setBehaviour 'CARELESS'; this limitSpeed 60; this setFormation 'COLUMN'; {_x allowDamage false} forEach (units (group this));

 

 

 

[Tankbuster 1746]

 

{_x allowDamage false} forEach (units (group this)

Useful if you want to rig a repo so it doesn't break it would do under normal circumstances, but not really useful for mission makers.

[joostsidy 685]

15 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

 

{_x allowDamage false} forEach (units (group this)

Useful if you want to rig a repo so it doesn't break it would do under normal circumstances, but not really useful for mission makers.

 

I used the line because Alwarren's example used it as well.

 

I actually found out that this line protects only the drivers and not the vehicles. That's why in my example I set the speed to a fairly high 60 km/h (instead of - I think - a more appropriate 50 km/h) to 'rush' a bit past the ambush.

 

I just ran the example again a couple of times without the command and it still works most of the time! I think this is quite impressive for a totally unprotected convoy! Of course it is no surprise that in some cases the vehicles and drivers will get badly shot up and ruining the convoy, but this has less to do with driving AI than with driving straight into an ambush with unprotected vehicles.

[Tankbuster 1746]

Oh alright. I'll let you off.:)

Why, then, is the driver not taking damage part of the solution?

[joostsidy 685]

In the name of SCIENCE I did 10 test runs with the example without damage protection. :-)

 

1. Perfect run
2. Third vehicle lost a wheel. Two lead vehicles continue to drive on to the endpoint. After a while the last two vehicles show up as well!
3. Third vehicle lost another wheel. All vehicles make it to endpoint eventually :-)
4. Third vehicles stalls at ambush site, driver's legs are shot up! All vehicles make it to endpoint eventually
5. I died (passenger 2nd vehicle) and took over as driver last vehicle. All vehicles make it to endpoint.
6. Perfect run
7. Perfect run
8. I died, third and fourth vehicle are destroyed
9. Second vehicle driver and me were killed. I took over as driver third vehicle. Three vehicles made the endpoint.
10. Perfect run

 

Special example:
Immediately after passing the ambush I kill the lead driver with a radio trigger. The lead car drives straight into the trees.
Nr. 2 says 'Fuck man down, taking command' and the convoy continues without any stopping or wavering. Convoy makes endpoint.

 

Lessons learned:
1. 'CARELESS' mode is very important. In the above examples the vehicles kept very well to their appointed waypoint.
2. It's nerve wrecking riding through a hail of bullets multiple times as an unprotected passenger
3. Avoid being the third vehicle in a convoy

 

DISCLAIMER:
I know, driving is still not perfect. I hope my examples contribute to specific leads to the developers to further improve driving. For instance, if a (convoy) vehicle blocks the road, other vehicles will have a hard time continuing.

[lexx 1363]

I think the main problem here is that folks expect convoys to work "as is" - put down waypoints and suddenly everything happens the way you want it. But that's sadly not how ArmA works at all times. If you want advanced behavior, then you'll have to script it. For example... I don't know... Add event handlers to check for damage, then speed up the vehicles, or stop them, have the gunners attack or people disembark, etc... all that jazz.

 

/edit: I haven't tried it, but setting the whole convoy to careless should make the gunners ignore threats as well, no? In this case I'd set the gunners only to safe or aware. That should do it then.

[Tankbuster 1746]

1 hour ago, lexx said:

I think the main problem here is that folks expect convoys to work "as is" - put down waypoints and suddenly everything happens the way you want it.

 

I think there are wider problems outside of convoy operations. AI drivers run over their teammates without a care in the world, crash into each other, make what should be a 3-point-turn into a never ending series of manoeuvres where they should not move until the wheel is hard over and there are issues related to poor road network data, especially near bridges.

[lexx 1363]

Yeah, that certainly. It makes me crazy angry when a stupid tank is walzing over my men again. Though, that's as much the fault of the soldier ai as it's the driver... the soldiers should move away from the vehicles, not stand in their way, etc. Nobody expects a tank driver in reality to be aware of every person around his vehicle, so why should this be the case in the game. The soldiers around the vehicle on the other hand... they have no excuse.

[Tankbuster 1746]

^^^ _this.

 

 

I've got a video somewhere, shot in Agia Marina of me holding a secure and silent position (read: cowering in an upstairs room) while 10m away, an enemy foot patrol walk alongside and parallel to a road when an enemy Ifrit comes barrelling along the road, swerves off the empty road, mows his teammates into the dirt, swerves back onto the road and carries on his way without a care in the world. It would be funny if it wasn't unfunny.

[joostsidy 685]

1 hour ago, lexx said:

/edit: I haven't tried it, but setting the whole convoy to careless should make the gunners ignore threats as well, no?

Nope, gunners will still return fire in careless mode. They are not truly careless, but stick to their waypoints no matter what.

[joostsidy 685]

27 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

AI drivers run over their teammates without a care in the world,

I think I would pick this one as the first thing I would like to see fixed. In my missions I have a kind of rule to not have more than one unit on a certain road just because of this problem. So if a foot patrol is assigned to a certain area/road, I make sure that a vehicle patrol is not in the same area. This is super lame.

 

Vehicles vision for nearby obstacles is very limited, maybe it's because of some cap on AI for performance. If that's the case it would be cool if obstacle detecting distance could be variable: that vehicles can look further if there are fewer in your mission. I have plenty of missions with only about 5 or 10 vehicles, so they could get all the processing power they need.

 

[andersson 285]

3 hours ago, lexx said:

I think the main problem here is that folks expect convoys to work "as is" - put down waypoints and suddenly everything happens the way you want it.

Yep, we are spoiled with that behaviour since 2001. It changed in 2013 and it's hard to get over as there is not one reliable/repeatable solution.