AI Driving - Feedback topic

[Sniperwolf572 758]

... but for one thing I don't know if the default base class has any data for this (AFAIR non-Apex vehicles didn't, like the pickup), and the data must match the vehicle in question.

 

The Car base class has a set of default values. That should cover anything with wheels (besides bikes).

[Alwarren 2765]

The Car base class has a set of default values. That should cover anything with wheels (besides bikes).

 

Well I haven't tested it in a while, but I had problems with the vanilla pickup not moving at all on dev. I need to check again, but there was definitely something wrong.

[klamacz 447]

Uhm, yeah obviously, but for one thing I don't know if the default base class has any data for this (AFAIR non-Apex vehicles didn't, like the pickup), and the data must match the vehicle in question.

All I'm saying is that using non-vanilla vehicles might not be a good idea for testing...

Send from my tablet, so pardon any autocorrect bollocks

 

I just tried it with custom cars and config values works, they are properly inherited from base Car class. 

Problems with pickup not driving at all could be related to any other bug reported already.

[Alwarren 2765]

I just tried it with custom cars and config values works, they are properly inherited from base Car class. 

Problems with pickup not driving at all could be related to any other bug reported already.

 

Thanks, as I said I haven't tried it in a while, I was just thinking that an issue reported might be related to it being an addon car.

[dragon01 902]

Just tried setting up a 6-truck convoy on the latest build, and I have to say it's still broken, despite recent(ish) changes. It either ends in a 6-truck pileup, or last vehicles driving off the road and into things.

 

I think I can propose a few restrictions on AI that could allow them to form convoys properly.

1. The "road mode". The AI will never, ever, under any circumstances move off the road. It'd be good for single vehicle traffic as well, but for a convoy, it's paramount. If the road is blocked, the convoy stops (from what I've gathered, that's what is usually done IRL). If the mission designer wants them to leave the road, the "road mode" should be disabled at the last waypoint that is on the road.

2. The "convoy mode". AI will religiously observe distance restrictions and copy the movements of the leader exactly. Because of that, speed of the leading vehicle would be clamped at top speed of the slowest vehicle in the convoy. The best way of achieving that would be to record the decisions made by the lead vehicle AI and "playback" them for the other vehicles, leading to them mindlessly copying the lead. With the usual distances between convoy vehicles, this should not lead to problems. Speed should be clamped to that of the lead vehicle, even if the change would exceed the usual acceleration and braking limits.
3. The only reaction to a threat should be stopping and dismounting units. No misguided attempts to reposition. In case that no "cargo" units are in the convoy, it should just keep driving.

[mickeymen 322]

Some thoughts about AI-driving problems:

 

1. If group of AI-vehicles in formation,  AI will never keep current formation. Thus the distance is constantly break between vehicles.

It is impossible to create a normal column-formation and go on the road without any problems.

 

2. In the formation or without formation, AI not reduce movement speed before allied vehicle. If you put two vehicles in one group, then I see constantly as they bump into each other and interfere with each other to move. When approaching other allied vehicle, AI should always slow down your speed to a minimum. But this will not happens. Most likely, before collision with allied vehicle. the AI will add speed. As seems to me, should be rule - If vehicle is move and when approaching other allied vehicle (distance < X meters), AI should always slow down your speed to a minimum. In the some cases, this will help to avoid collisions, and will look like logical and realistic.

 

3. Some AI drivers of heavy armored vehicles, in inappropriate situations, moving with incredible high speed and for this reason, the tanks can roll over. Need to either reduce the speed of some heavy vehicles  or force the AI to move more cautiously, during turns or while AI-driver located on the slopes of hills or inside towns.

 

4. AI can not drive around an obstacle when the obstacle located on the way. He's just a not lot goes back and again and again crashes into the obstacle. 

Examples:

 

 

 

 

Need to teach the AI to go around obstacles, use a greater angle of avoidance turn.

 

 

PS: BIS please Note! I think, this Important point. AI driving problem could be exacerbated by not destructible surrounding of AI driver objects. As seems to me, most of the objects from the map environment,  must be destroyed if the heavy vehicle runs into them! But this is not happening. For this reason, not smart AI drivers, sometimes can be trapped in such a subject. Even the player can be caught in such traps! When the tank at full speed crashed into the old barn and this old barn will not allow the tank to move on. Or very often, the player or AI stuck on the low stone-fences or and a little less in low fences along roads.

 

feedback - https://feedback.bistudio.com/T81804 

or feedback - https://feedback.bistudio.com/T82601

 

BIS, you should add destructible for such objects as the old barns, low fences along roads, low stone fences.  Low stone fences - should be primary target.  All maps (including Tanoa) are filled with such objects.This can greatly smooth out the problem of AI-driving, besause obstacles to AI will be always destroyed and also It will look much better and realistic for gameplay of Arma.

 

 

[x3kj 1247]

the stonewalls in particular are really something that should be destroyed. They are just stacked stones ffs. And there are hundreds of kilometers of those on the map, ready to mobility-kill any vehicle.

[dragon01 902]

One thing that I found that improves things is setting the AI behavior to "careless" in the waypoint options. It doesn't completely fix all the problems, but if you put them on a wide, largely straight road without any obstructions, they seem to manage a formation.

[mickeymen 322]

 

the stonewalls in particular are really something that should be destroyed. They are just stacked stones ffs. And there are hundreds of kilometers of those on the map, ready to mobility-kill any vehicle.

 

 

Exactly! Instead of being broken, it breaks the wheels of vehicles and sometimes even stops the tanks on the map!

I hate this, these low stone fences, it makes Arma gameplay is much worse, because it creates a problem:

 

1) next to these fences, the player's character is automatically raised to full height (even under attack!), And can be killed.

2) These fences can destroy wheels of vehicles.

3) Sometimes they are caught in a trapin vehicles.

 

It must be destroyed, with the first contact of any vehicle, or in hit with any heavy weapons

[das attorney 857]

On Tanoa, AI drivers will often try to traverse a patch of jungle and halt, never to move again (unless you order them somewhere else).  This is really bad for dynamic spawns as they often grind to a halt and sit there forever.

 

It seems as a consequence, they will try and drive miles out of their way to stay on the road and get slightly closer to a waypoint in the jungle and then give up on the edge of the jungle.  It doesn't seem to depend on the size of jungle as this often happens with small wooded areas as well as large patches.

 

There's no problem on Stratis/Altis so I'm thinking it's the density of forest that causes problems with their pathfinding.

 

Is the intention with Tanoa that there are areas you can't drive into?  If it is, then it creates a problem where I (a human) can drive through in a vehicle but any other AI vehicles grouped to me cannot.

 

Can/Will anything be done about this or do we have to accept that Tanoa's forests and wooded areas are off-limits for AI drivers? 

[dragon01 902]

If it's supposed to be anything like a real jungle, they should very well be off limits to human drivers, too. The AI issue is still a bug, but realistically, any vehicle would get quickly bogged down in mud (rainforest!) and vegetation if it tried to just drive into most things that could be considered "jungle".

[das attorney 857]

Agreed, something like the amazon would eat vehicles alive in 5 mins.

 

I'm interested in whether it's a gameplay decision or pathfinding problem.

[twistking 204]

i noticed that the AI driver have very big problems with judging the seize of the guard rails.

 

ai thinks the rails are shorter and always crashes when trying to make a turn after end of guard rail...

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

Did any of these changes or any vehicle AI make it into stable 1.62?

I was under the impression no, but over in general, a user said it did.

Can anyone clarify?

[bigshot 62]

I'm interested in whether it's a gameplay decision or pathfinding problem.

 

well...at roughly 100km2 Tanoa is much too large as an infantry-only map...but right now due to serious AI traversing issues that's all it's good for as far as the AI is concerned...I've been referring to it (Tanoa) as the "PvP map".

[x3kj 1247]

Much kudos to whoever implemented the rebinds for AI-driver-commanding. Now i can finally rotate turrets quickly and efficiently to a new direction with arrow keys.... instead of scratching a hole in my desk with my mouse.

[klamacz 447]

Hi best players of the world.

Since rev. 137926 there were few changes and tweaks under common name: 

Tweaked: Steering, convoy and formation behavior were improved for AI driving

 

 

So yeah, convoys. Still WIP, if you spot critical issues, please let me know.

 

Also, experimentally, there is new function 

vehicle forceFollowRoad true; // does what it says, vehicle can only steer on road network

[dragon01 902]

Awesome, will try it out. :) I hope that it'll work better now.

 

EDIT: It does. It really does. When I locked my arty truck convoy from the previous test to the road, set the speed to "fast" (otherwise they were dreadfully slow, but I suppose that's expected when driving in a convoy) and behavior to "careless", it behaved perfectly. It managed to take two sharp (90 degree) turns and stay in a tight formation the whole time.

 

Didn't do any tests without the "road lock" yet (I can't think of a situation where that'd be needed), but it looks really promising. I suppose the next step will be checking out "Moral Fiber" to see if the convoys now behave properly.

[klamacz 447]

Awesome, will try it out. :) I hope that it'll work better now.

 

EDIT: It does. It really does. When I locked my arty truck convoy from the previous test to the road, set the speed to "fast" (otherwise they were dreadfully slow, but I suppose that's expected when driving in a convoy) and behavior to "careless", it behaved perfectly. It managed to take two sharp (90 degree) turns and stay in a tight formation the whole time.

 

Didn't do any tests without the "road lock" yet (I can't think of a situation where that'd be needed), but it looks really promising. I suppose the next step will be checking out "Moral Fiber" to see if the convoys now behave properly.

 

Thanks for feedback.

Moral Fiber uses old driving now. I will let you guys know, when it's updated.

[R3vo 2652]

The Ai seems to be able to drive in a convoy quite nicely, however, the lead vehicle does alot of stop and go. If you could teach the AI to rather lift the gas pedal instead of doing an emergency break everytime the distance to the following vehicles becomes too big, would be great.

[dragon01 902]

Yeah, noticed that too. It seems that the issue might be that ArmA3 AI can only understand "stop", "slow", "normal" and "fast" speeds, as opposed to the full range of throttle settings. This particular design flaw seems to be deeply rooted in the RV engine, though, I don't know if it can be easily fixed.

[luizsilveira 5]

Yeah, noticed that too. It seems that the issue might be that ArmA3 AI can only understand "stop", "slow", "normal" and "fast" speeds, as opposed to the full range of throttle settings. This particular design flaw seems to be deeply rooted in the RV engine, though, I don't know if it can be easily fixed.

 

But the thing is that the lead vehicle should go into "slow" and not into "stop" when the distance to the trailing vehicle becomes too big. 

[dragon01 902]

What if it's already moving at "slow"? At least when I tested it, my convoy moved at a snail's pace. I'll do more testing, though. If they stop from "normal" or "fast" instead of slowing down, then there's definitely room for improvement there. I'm afraid it'll always be somewhat "jumpy", though. 

[x3kj 1247]

But the thing is that the lead vehicle should go into "slow" and not into "stop" when the distance to the trailing vehicle becomes too big. 

slow can still be quite fast (depending on vehicle)

[inlesco 233]

What if it's already moving at "slow"? At least when I tested it, my convoy moved at a snail's pace. I'll do more testing, though. If they stop from "normal" or "fast" instead of slowing down, then there's definitely room for improvement there. I'm afraid it'll always be somewhat "jumpy", though. 

Just tested the convoy pathfinding.

Info:

• leading veh - HEMMT, followed by 2 Hunters
• Island: Stratis
• Waypoint: MOVE, speedMode: FAST, behavior: SAFE
• A3 ver: vanilla, yesterday's dev branch

They moved at a snail's pace and even slower when driving uphill. Kinda disappointing. Also, the distances between convoy vehicles were disjoint, no proper formation kept. Hunters kept stopping at random points as there was no on-road obstacles, etc.