AI Driving - Feedback topic

[Alwarren 2767]

@oukej As I mentioned in chat already, I had a rather frustrating experience yesterday curating one of my missions that contained a convoy. It consisted of three trucks and two M113'S (CUP vehicles, so if anything is misconfigured it's our fault). Lead vehicle would suddenly veer off and crash into another vehicle, breaking a tire, while the last truck suddenly turned around and drove into the M113, flipped over, and exploded with a full squad of infantry in it. Vehicles were set to Safe and Column, and it worked in the editor several times but failed miserably on dedicated server.

These were CUP vehicles, but I (and others of our mission makers) had similar problems with RHS vehicles and also vanilla.

 

I really don't want to whine, but the convoy driving really needs fixing, right now, I am considering canning every mission in the works that has any sort of convoy in it because it is an exercise in frustration :(

[pierremgi 4887]

Yes frustrating. I had some success in missions, with 3 different vehicles in convoy ( 2 CUP_O_Ural_Open_TKA full of units && CUP_O_T72_TKA) just using the "safe" behavior, staggered column and this limitSpeed 50 in each init field. Sometimes one of the trucks/tank can be stuck against a rock (Kunduz map but same on Tanoa).

You can use setDriveOnPath for hard path finding.

NB: the setconvoySeparation wasn't a great help for me.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

30 minutes ago, Alwarren said:

 

I really don't want to whine, but the convoy driving really needs fixing, right now, I am considering canning every mission in the works that has any sort of convoy in it because it is an exercise in frustration :(

 

For every 1 of us there are 5 "fanboi's" who will try to tell us and others how good arma AI driving is for what it has to do and how our criticisms aren't wanted, and praise BI for every tweak and hold up their 'driving overhauls' as evidence.

 

its not whining, the driving is terrible and getting worse. how many hours of dev time in 2018 devoted to fixing the glaring ai driving bugs ... 0? thats my guess

 

I wonder what the excuse will be for this one:

 

 

 

[lexx 1364]

Well, it's not even convoy anymore. In the mission I am currently working on I can't even get an AI tank to follow me correctly in line formation. The ai can never keep up with me (same vehicle), gets stuck in pretty much anything, and at times I'm wondering if it actually tries to hit every building and unit on purpose.

[zukov 490]

IMHO the turret rotation in MGS Rhino is too fast
there isn't the interior recoil in T100

please add the same jungle camo to T100 Varsuk  and a rpg42 in green!
ops wrong section

[AveryTheKitty 2626]

5 minutes ago, zukov said:

IMHO the turret rotation in MGS Rhino is too fast
there isn't the interior recoil in T100

please add the same jungle camo to T100 Varsuk  and a rpg42 in green!

 

IRL the Rooikat's turret rotation is 6 to 9 seconds so I wouldn't say so.

[Alwarren 2767]

2 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

its not whining, the driving is terrible and getting worse. 

 

Yeah, there are some things I really don't get. I mean, like AI all of a sudden turning off road as if there was an invisible obstacle, or they drive against a wall, back up and drive against the same wall again and again until one of their tires blow. This is especially frustrating when Curating since there is no way to set enough waypoints quickly enough for a dynamically spawned vehicle.

 

I would be wondering if there is something wrong with the configs and/or roads in CUP and CUP Terrains, but it also happens with Vanilla assets on vanilla islands.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

10 hours ago, Alwarren said:

 

Yeah, there are some things I really don't get. I mean, like AI all of a sudden turning off road as if there was an invisible obstacle, or they drive against a wall, back up and drive against the same wall again and again until one of their tires blow. This is especially frustrating when Curating since there is no way to set enough waypoints quickly enough for a dynamically spawned vehicle.

 

I would be wondering if there is something wrong with the configs and/or roads in CUP and CUP Terrains, but it also happens with Vanilla assets on vanilla islands.

 

i just focus on the vanilla assets and vanilla terrain. simple 3-waypoint road patrol is no longer possible in MP

[R3vo 2654]

Can anyone confirm that convoys lead by player driving vehicles work more reliably? For me it seems that way.

[lexx 1364]

Probably because you're driving with a little more care than the ai. On the other hand, I didn't had much troubles with convoys anymore since about a year or so now. It's important to not mix the vehicles too much, also they need a speed limit applied. If the route isn't too stupid, it works quite well.

 

 

For me, driving with tanks in a platoon (heck, just 2 vehicles) is a very sad experience right now. Feels like it's worse than ever before. Vehicles get stuck everywhere, start rotating around like crazy, are unable to stay in formation... And this is in the north eastern parts of Altis, where you get the most open spaces on the whole island. Especially houses and (invulnerable) power poles seem to be completely ignored by the ai. They just drive right into it and then that's it.... Time to manually tell them to drive somewhere else before giving the order to return to formation (not even that works half of the time).

 

You have to babysit them *so much* now, it's pointless to drive in a group of multiple vehicles. Really hope we can expect some improvement in this area till the DLC hits release, because as it is right now, it's simply broken. Just think about it: If not even the more experienced players can take it, how will the "normal" players see this?

[SuicideKing 233]

On 3/10/2018 at 3:43 PM, R3vo said:

Can anyone confirm that convoys lead by player driving vehicles work more reliably? For me it seems that way.

The vehicles following the lead follow in the tracks of the lead vehicle. So with humans leading it will obviously be more reliable, unless the human is a bad driver :P

[mad_cheese 593]

On 3/9/2018 at 5:59 PM, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

For every 1 of us there are 5 "fanboi's" who will try to tell us and others how good arma AI driving is for what it has to do and how our criticisms aren't wanted, and praise BI for every tweak and hold up their 'driving overhauls' as evidence.

 

its not whining, the driving is terrible and getting worse. how many hours of dev time in 2018 devoted to fixing the glaring ai driving bugs ... 0? thats my guess

 

I wonder what the excuse will be for this one:

 

 

 

 

Claiming White Knight 1/5! I would explain but I don't think you are asking for arguments in the first place. Not from me (random white knight) or anyone else (like BIS staff)

 

Three questions though:

1. Why did the creator of that video go through the trouble of removing the dev-watermark by script? Pointless question if you consider oukej's 'excuse' that he did actually give -  but still curious. 

2. How do you get to a destination if you are not allowed to improve in smaller steps?

 

I furiate over AI-driving as much as the next guy. Just a bit less since a few months back (driving overhaul) and again a bit less with the last Dev-Patches. And I guess that is 'enough' for me after considering if I wanted to keep smashing my keyboard against the wall.

It's really frustrating with Arma to see that it could be the game you really want, but it's not. There is two options: You can either accept this state as an ongoing thing, take the game for what it is and be happy about the changes and improvements, or you can use it as another ventilation for your personal anger management.

 

 

On 3/9/2018 at 5:29 PM, Alwarren said:

These were CUP vehicles, but I (and others of our mission makers) had similar problems with RHS vehicles and also vanilla.

I really don't want to whine, but the convoy driving really needs fixing, right now, I am considering canning every mission in the works that has any sort of convoy in it because it is an exercise in frustration :(

Just wanted to add that this sounds perfectly reasonable.

 

There's a difference between constructive feedback and venting. I guess the only reason why this thread even exists is that BI tolerate a ton of the latter in order to receive a bit of the former.

 

Excuse me as I crawl back to the round table of white knights where I came from! :D

 

[Alwarren 2767]

6 hours ago, mad_cheese said:

There's a difference between constructive feedback and venting.

 

I completely agree, however, there is another facet to this. There are numerous bug reports with repros that have not been taken care of in spite of game breaking bugs. It's only natural that some times people get so frustrated that they only vent, especially if they previously had done everything "the right way".

It's easy to blame only one side.

[mad_cheese 593]

 

31 minutes ago, Alwarren said:

 

I completely agree, however, there is another facet to this. There are numerous bug reports with repros that have not been taken care of in spite of game breaking bugs. It's only natural that some times people get so frustrated that they only vent, especially if they previously had done everything "the right way".

It's easy to blame only one side.

 

Can not argue with this in the slightest. I can understand the venting here and there to be honest. Be it related to map-data or ai-driving - it's not like i'm trying to defend or advocate  breakdancing tanks.

 

My opinion is personal and irrelevant, but I wish this thread would be more editor-based reports than assumptions about hiring patterns and the resources allocated to improve this or that. If I may add, the only reason why I felt I wanted to chip in was that the creator of that very video called me a 'white knight' when it was obviously a cheap shot to get some upvotes, most likely not recorded in Dev-branch as claimed.

 

 

 

[R3vo 2654]

So I started working on an older mission again and I couldn't get a convoy with three T140 tanks going straight.

I placed then in a row, formation column, behaviour safe and slow speed. At the beginning they wanted to overtake each other despite the fact that they were intially placed in the correct order. After that, they kept bumping into each other and eventually two tanks flipped over. Tried it several times without success.

 

Any suggestion on the settings I should use?

[lexx 1364]

1. Did you place the tanks into the editor "in the correct way"? I remember that at least back in the day, convoy order was kinda depending on which vehicle was created first. Don't know if that is still the case.

 

2. Did you manually turn them into a group one by one, in convoy order? Not sure if this has an impact either, but I'm doing it anyway.

 

3. Try to keep their speed to normal and instead use this limitSpeed x on each vehicle.

 

Maybe this will help?

 

I'm not sure if convoy behavior for tracked vehicles was fixed at all, to be honest. I can remember a post that said convoy overhaul was only for wheeled vehicles. However, having an all-wheeled convoy with a tracked lead vehicle did have some ok-ish outcome for me when I tried it.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

 

15 hours ago, mad_cheese said:

 

Claiming White Knight 1/5! I would explain but I don't think you are asking for arguments in the first place. Not from me (random white knight) or anyone else (like BIS staff)

 

you're right, we've only asked for 2-3 bugs to be fixed for 21+ months

 

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Three questions though:

1. Why did the creator of that video go through the trouble of removing the dev-watermark by script? Pointless question if you consider oukej's 'excuse' that he did actually give -  but still curious. 

 

do you even play arma? hit backspace in zeus = hides ui

 

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2. How do you get to a destination if you are not allowed to improve in smaller steps?

 

theres no evidence of steps being taken. the AI wheeled vehicle driving has been broken since the overhaul in june 2016 (21 months ago), with devs making excuses and deflecting responsibility since.

 

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I furiate over AI-driving as much as the next guy.

 

clearly not, your posts defend the lack of progress and fixes, effectively running out the clock until there are no devs available to make fixes

 

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Just a bit less since a few months back (driving overhaul)

 

June 2016, 21 months

 

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It's really frustrating with Arma to see that it could be the game you really want, but it's not. There is two options: You can either accept this state as an ongoing thing, take the game for what it is and be happy about the changes and improvements, or you can use it as another ventilation for your personal anger management.

 

you're into the fanboi/whiteknight stuff here, nothing to respond to or comment on

 

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There's a difference between constructive feedback and venting. I guess the only reason why this thread even exists is that BI tolerate a ton of the latter in order to receive a bit of the former.

 

 

Constructive feedback has been given, here and elsewhere. there is no one actually receiving feedback on AI in a long time. occasionally a dev will hop in here to deflect responsibility onto others, but at least I was interested in fixes, not debate or argument. call it venting if you like, but if no one speaks up about the serious driving issues, is that a suitable situation? As expected you held up the 'overhauls' as evidence, despite 5 mins in the editor showing the driving is in fact worse now than before the 2016 overhaul.

 

also, why it is of interest now:

 

1.00 - 1.61

Wheeled vehicle driving - mediocre, needs some fixes

Tracked vehicle driving - good enough to be fun

 

1.61-1.81

Wheeled vehicle driving - some parts better, other parts broken

Tracked vehicle driving - good enough to be fun

 

1.81+

Wheeled vehicle driving - some parts better, other parts broken

Tracked vehicle driving - some parts better, other parts broken

 

^ We could previously work around by simply not using wheeled vehicles in missions, not anymore. See Revo's post. He's as nice and polite and "dont rock the boat" toward BIS as you'll find around here, so when he is bluntly pointing out the difference, maybe a fanboi will listen. I prefer to rock the boat when nothing gets done, although one takes more slings and arrows as a result

 

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If I may add, the only reason why I felt I wanted to chip in was that the creator of that very video called me a 'white knight' when it was obviously a cheap shot to get some upvotes, most likely not recorded in Dev-branch as claimed.

 

I created that video (i thought the YT account name gave it away!!), and while it was a hyperbolic shot in the dark, I see i hit the mark as you openly admit it here ;)

 

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Claiming White Knight 1/5!

 

It doesnt help get bugs fixed to attack modders and community designers for pointing out gamebreaking bugs. I occasionaally post videos on reddit about these things since threads like this and the feedback tracker are dead ends.

 

glad we could exchange some civil comments.

 

ultimately the goal is dev attention toward AI driving and these 2-3 bugs fixed

[kremator 1065]

Right, gents no fighting ... this is a WAR ROOM !  As you are both respected members of community we all want the BEST solution to the Tanks DLC but also much all other AI driving.  With the remaining time left for development at BIS, I have regretfully given up hope that we will ever get the driving 100% sorted.

 

I do agree that BIS has had a quite a long time to sort issues listed above - perhaps Arma4 (crosses fingers) will finally be built with AI at the core!

[R0adki11 3949]

For those that post in this thread, please refrain from posting flame-baiting posts, please post in a constructive manner. Otherwise forum infractions/penalties will be issued. 

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

 

[R3vo 2654]

6 hours ago, lexx said:

1. Did you place the tanks into the editor "in the correct way"? I remember that at least back in the day, convoy order was kinda depending on which vehicle was created first. Don't know if that is still the case.

Yes, I used the context menu option to move them into formation

2. Did you manually turn them into a group one by one, in convoy order? Not sure if this has an impact either, but I'm doing it anyway.

Yes, I did.

3. Try to keep their speed to normal and instead use this limitSpeed x on each vehicle.

Gonna try that.

Maybe this will help?

 

I'm not sure if convoy behavior for tracked vehicles was fixed at all, to be honest. I can remember a post that said convoy overhaul was only for wheeled vehicles. However, having an all-wheeled convoy with a tracked lead vehicle did have some ok-ish outcome for me when I tried it.

 

[Alwarren 2767]

5 hours ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

 

 

I tried this in the latest dev branch (the one from today) and it works there if I set the convoy to SAFE. I would always set convoys to SAFE, it really prevents some issues.

EDIT: Just tried setting them to "aware" during the drive - it will almost immediately make them go off road and turn stupid.

[mickeymen 324]

avoidance maneuver for AI-drivers...

 

Hi to all.

 

Today, unfortunately, after 3 minutes of Arma3 gameplay, every third tank will demonstrate this:

 

 

 

AI-driving looks catastrophically bad.

@BIS if in the moments, when the AI is stuck before the any obstacle, it will work a special behavior (avoidance maneuver) for the AI-drivers would be great.

All that is needed - is that at such times the AI should use a slight backward movement (for example 10-20 meters) and after this use a 90 degree turn in either direction and again movement 10-20 meters. After such a maneuver, let him seek his pathway again. Perhaps the main thing in this matter - the game must correctly determine the moment when the AI is stuck and there is an obstacle ahead.

If this is implemented, I'm sure such a small AI-feature in the Arma3, could significantly reduce the forever-stuck AI-drivers/

Please try to consider creation of avoidance maneuver

 

[xon2 102]

I am not on dev branch atm: but has ai boat driving improved? Last time i checked the ai was not able to back-up from the shore and drive a bit rearwards. Sending the ai anywhere within 100 meters of a shore or rock almost always ended up with the ai getting stuck. Any improvements on this one in the lates dev builds?

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

1 hour ago, xon2 said:

I am not on dev branch atm: but has ai boat driving improved? Last time i checked the ai was not able to back-up from the shore and drive a bit rearwards. Sending the ai anywhere within 100 meters of a shore or rock almost always ended up with the ai getting stuck. Any improvements on this one in the lates dev builds?

 

this is incredibly optimistic

 

im going to go ahead and make a wild, unfounded assumption ... no :)