AI Driving - Feedback topic

[kremator 1064]

Makes you want to reach out and smack someone !  If this kind of shit isn't fixed for Arma4 ... I won't be a supporter again (fuck it.  I will ... but I won't be a happy supporter !)

[Deathstrike. 15]

I've noticed since TACOP's hit that AI are struggling to move as a group in vehicles offroad. Using the CSAT Wheeled APC in group of three placed off road in a clear field, resulted in the vehicles breaking formation and ignoring waypoints to reach the closest road. Then they decide to try and move in the direction of the waypoint at full speed regardless of waypoint speed setting. Occasionally going off road to meet the waypoint before returning to the road. Tracked vehicles don't move at all for me either, either directly placed or with AI moved into crew positions. Whilst the convoy improvements and road pathing improvements were great to receive, there are side effects to this. I'm not able to write a full report or repro at this time sadly, but will try to get one done in the future.

 

I've seen others have had the tracked vehicle issue, but if others could verify the wheeled vehicle issue I'd appreciate that.

[mickeymen 322]

8 hours ago, Deathstrike. said:

I've noticed since TACOP's hit that AI

 

Yes, definitely and unfortunately update 1.80 with TacOps DLC, has a negative impact on the AI-driving and on the understanding waypoints for AI-drivers. 

Every time I go to Arma, I run into additional problems with AI drivers. Sometimes AI just ignores the waypoints (1st or subsequent waypoints)
 

[pierremgi 4737]

It seems one team works on AI behavior (driving), one team on collision with physX (perhaps), one team on simulation and performance (disabling AIs with distance), some other teams for charged addons ... and sometimes, say once per year, they meet each others in the "quality department" office, for an happy new year toast.

With the motto: "Never mind if it works".

[oukej 2910]

Wow, so many teams... :P

Jokes aside the A3 team is relatively small. And now we're more or less all in one office.
For some time already the AI focus has been shifted to Enfusion engine. We are aware of many of these issues (skipping first x waypoints and waiting, tank formations, places on map incorrectly marked as inaccessible that the AI is unable to path plan from, bridges...). But every fix is now more of a long run as we need to steal time from Enfusion development.

I'm really sorry about these issues and annoyances caused. It troubles us no less than you. I know it's not really a good excuse, but there's only so many of us. And when it comes to AI it's even worse than elsewhere. AI devs are a rare breed. So our apologies again :/

[dragon01 902]

Well, let's hope it'll be much better in Enfusion. That said, I hope ArmA3 can at least be returned to functionality. These things did use to work at some point.

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

1 hour ago, oukej said:

Wow, so many teams... :P

Jokes aside the A3 team is relatively small. And now we're more or less all in one office.
For some time already the AI focus has been shifted to Enfusion engine. We are aware of many of these issues (skipping first x waypoints and waiting, tank formations, places on map incorrectly marked as inaccessible that the AI is unable to path plan from, bridges...). But every fix is now more of a long run as we need to steal time from Enfusion development.

I'm really sorry about these issues and annoyances caused. It troubles us no less than you. I know it's not really a good excuse, but there's only so many of us. And when it comes to AI it's even worse than elsewhere. AI devs are a rare breed. So our apologies again :/

 

Its okay. From my perspective ArmA 3 development was successful overall. Can't have everything :)

 

If I had one last AI development request for A3 it would be to fix this issue of AI wheeled vehicles getting stuck on clear roads. We went over the repro script some time ago, with the Ifrit traveling back and forth between two points, and getting stuck like this.

 

If you have AI wheeled vehicle code from before the June 2016 overhaul, this issue was not present prior to then, so there might be a solution already in previous versions.

 

 

This is the line in my scripts which is severely affected by the bug:

 

https://github.com/auQuiksilver/Apex-Framework/blob/master/Apex_framework_beta_105.terrain/code/functions/fn_AIHandleGroup.sqf#L834

 

Don't feel bad for us :) Though we bitch about the AI, we (or at least I) thoroughly enjoyed the game and the post-release development.

 

>AI devs are a rare breed.

 

A rare and expensive breed :)

[Tankbuster 1733]

7 hours ago, oukej said:

Wow, so many teams... :P

Jokes aside the A3 team is relatively small. And now we're more or less all in one office.
For some time already the AI focus has been shifted to Enfusion engine. We are aware of many of these issues (skipping first x waypoints and waiting, tank formations, places on map incorrectly marked as inaccessible that the AI is unable to path plan from, bridges...). But every fix is now more of a long run as we need to steal time from Enfusion development.

I'm really sorry about these issues and annoyances caused. It troubles us no less than you. I know it's not really a good excuse, but there's only so many of us. And when it comes to AI it's even worse than elsewhere. AI devs are a rare breed. So our apologies again :/

Thanks for reading and replying. The frustrations for us are 3 fold.

 

Firstly, the AI driving seems to have been getting worse in updates since Apex. That's hard for us to swallow.

 

Secondly, while you say the team is small, and I accept your explanation for that, reading some dev changelogs is rather distressing. For example;

Quote

Fixed: Alpha sorting of insignias on several uniforms 

Tweaked: The Prowler and Qilin LSVs received an overhauled sound configuration (WIP)

Fixed: The ERCO scopes had an invisible front glass 

Fixed: Proxies for sight attachments on the AK-12 and AK-12 GL were not properly aligned 

 

From just a few weeks ago. We're questioning why there is time to do this stuff, but not stuff that actually matters to us and by your own admission, to you too.

 

Thirdly, we're assuming that the driving AI is going to be taken forward to Arma 4 via the much vaunted Enfusion engine, so it's going to need fixing sooner or later. We'd much prefer it was sooner as we don't want to get our Splendid™ new game and have the AI driving in the same way they do now.

[Greenfist 1863]

49 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

 

Secondly, while you say the team is small, and I accept your explanation for that, reading some dev changelogs is rather distressing. For example;

 

From just a few weeks ago. We're questioning why there is time to do this stuff, but not stuff that actually matters to us and by your own admission, to you too.

And that's exactly what he addressed in the comment you quoted; AI devs are a rare breed. I doubt the 3D artists and the sound guys could do much good in the AI coding department.

[dragon01 902]

That's pretty much it. AI development is its own separate specialty. Asking an artist to work on AI is like asking an ecologist to do theoretical physics, just because he's a scientist. Right now, they're messing with sound and art, because that's the guys they don't need to work on Enfusion (since they're developing the engine itself, not the assets). Thus, the sound and art teams are probably the only ones which were not gutted for that reason. I suspect this is also why Tanks DLC is going to be light on new features, but is going to include a monumental task of making functional interiors for every AV in game.

[.kju 3239]

maybe reach out to William van der Sterren, who did PlannedAssault for the Arma series, to see if he is interested in some form of cooperation.

 

 

 

ref: https://www.cgf-ai.com/cgfai.html

 

'Multi-Unit Planning with HTN and A*'

https://www.cgf-ai.com/docs/multi_unit_htn_with_astar.pdf

[Sparker 184]

Apart from all the things already mentioned, sometimes AI ground vehicles are stuck so much that they don't even switch on engine to move to the waypoint. Happens both whis wheeled and tracked vehicles. I have found out that assigning waypoints without index (groupName addWaypoint [center, radius] instead of ... addWaypoint [center, radius, index, name]) reduces the chance of such event a lot. Anyway they still might get stuck.
Also I've found that if they get stuck, assigning a new leader usually solves the problem. I guess that their brain gets reset or something like that.

If this is not going to be repaired any time soon, maybe we can get at least some commands to debug what's going on in their brain? Like why he doesn't want to move: because his pathfinding has failed or something else.

Or even better, some commands to reset their FSMs, redo the planning, etc.

Really, my attemts to make them move sometimes remind me of something like this:

 

[lex__1 422]

8 hours ago, Sparker said:

If this is not going to be repaired any time soon, maybe we can get at least some commands to debug what's going on in their brain? Like why he doesn't want to move: because his pathfinding has failed or something else.

Or even better, some commands to reset their FSMs, redo the planning, etc.

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Diagnostics_Exe

diag_toggle "AIDriving";

This allows you to see what happens

 

[dragon01 902]

15 hours ago, mickeymen said:

Perhaps in BIS you do not have enough programmers for AI-programing ? But why? I know that the sales of Arma 3 go well! I saw this in the Steam

Because there are too few AI devs around in general. This is not a common thing for a programmer to be able to do. AI is one of the most maddeningly complex issues in computer science. Even if we're not talking Turing-level AI, both AI-related courses I could find in my uni are big, though ones 60 solid hours of lectures and computer lab time (in addition to a lot of work at home), and I suspect it's no different on other universities. Consequently, high demand+low supply=high price. That's how market works. It may be too high for BIS or not, but I suspect a good AI developer can cherry-pick between a host of gaming and non-gaming companies, so whether you get one may well depend more on whether someone like this feels like working on ArmA and not, say, chess or go playing bots.

[lex__1 422]

3 hours ago, dragon01 said:

Because there are too few AI devs around in general. This is not a common thing for a programmer to be able to do. AI is one of the most maddeningly complex issues in computer science. Even if we're not talking Turing-level AI, both AI-related courses I could find in my uni are big, though ones 60 solid hours of lectures and computer lab time (in addition to a lot of work at home), and I suspect it's no different on other universities. Consequently, high demand+low supply=high price. That's how market works. It may be too high for BIS or not, but I suspect a good AI developer can cherry-pick between a host of gaming and non-gaming companies, so whether you get one may well depend more on whether someone like this feels like working on ArmA and not, say, chess or go playing bots.

And what does that justify? Or did it become known only today?
I understand that sometimes you have to compromise and prioritize.
I agree and understand that it makes no sense to work on AI before the release of the fusion engine.
But if only fusion plans to become part of ARMA3. The client expects from the product a working condition, information about the planning of the patches, rather than offers of DLC that do not work in full and it is not known will be the state of affairs to change.

New By Evan Lahti November 01, 2016

http://www.pcgamer.com/bohemia-interactive-just-announced-two-new-projects/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Quote

But it can also help guide the development of our technology and tools (such as our next engine, Enfusion), or supporting services......

 

What do we expect, a broken Arma 3 + all DLC and the New Arma + enfusion or Arma 3 + all DLC + enfusion?

 

 

 

 

[R0adki11 3945]

Thread cleaned up, can all forum users please try to stay on topic and within the rules of the forum. 

 

Quote

Offensive content, flaming, privacy:
Material that is overly sexual, graphic, obscene, racist, or otherwise overly discriminatory is not permitted on these forums. Any material which constitutes defamation, harassment, abuse or slander, towards developers, staff or users, is strictly prohibited; this includes the Personal Message service, do not post private messages or user pictures. Flamebaiting is not allowed. Please do not post any personal or identifying information such as postal addresses, IPs or UIDs.

 

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

On 03/02/2018 at 12:29 AM, oukej said:

Wow, so many teams... :P

Jokes aside the A3 team is relatively small. And now we're more or less all in one office.
For some time already the AI focus has been shifted to Enfusion engine. We are aware of many of these issues (skipping first x waypoints and waiting, tank formations, places on map incorrectly marked as inaccessible that the AI is unable to path plan from, bridges...). But every fix is now more of a long run as we need to steal time from Enfusion development.

I'm really sorry about these issues and annoyances caused. It troubles us no less than you. I know it's not really a good excuse, but there's only so many of us. And when it comes to AI it's even worse than elsewhere. AI devs are a rare breed. So our apologies again :/

 

But I try once more, since I guess I stay on-topic:

 

- this thread is about AI-AI driving in special

- oukej stating that the major part of AI programmer are shifted off-A3 already

- judging the outcome that 100% of AI programmer achieved before A3 launch and years after and the gap until AI would drive to our satisfaction + oukej's statement I conclude:

 

We have to wait and hope for A4...as we did for A1/2/3.

 

Don't worry BIS, I bought all, several times, will buy A4 too.

I am a natural born idiot.

[chrisb 196]

38 minutes ago, The Man Without Qualities said:

 

 

 

We have to wait and hope for A4...as we did for A1/2/3.

 

Don't worry BIS, I bought all, several times, will buy A4 too.

I am a natural born idiot.

Optimist. ;)

not idiot.

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

requesting fix pls

 

 

 

 

 

If I have to choose between a fix for this and a fix for the bridge crossing issues, ill take a fix for this.

 

[R0adki11 3945]

On 06/02/2018 at 10:24 AM, fn_Quiksilver said:

requesting fix pls

If I have to choose between a fix for this and a fix for the bridge crossing issues, ill take a fix for this.

 

Have you logged the issues on the tracker?

[Muecke 114]

Problem on bridges is that if you have more than 1 in the squad they try to keep formation.

Vehicles should have diffrent priority for formation...

[lex__1 422]

35 minutes ago, Muecke said:

Problem on bridges is that if you have more than 1 in the squad they try to keep formation.

Vehicles should have diffrent priority for formation...

I don't think that this formation. You can take any formation and send HEMT an open body through the bridge and he well will go on the bridge. But for HEMT ammunition it is 98% that it will get stuck on the bridge. If you could look in Arma3diag as the traveling AI line is under construction, you could see that for different cars it is under construction differently. Sometimes traveling at the roadside builds not a straight line and a zigzag. One car will pass on a zigzag exactly and directly, other car will stand and twist a wheel, to the left to the right. Or traveling has the direct traveling line, but on traveling the movement of a marker back\forward cyclically will appear. On it, some cars, always have a problem of the driver, traveling for AI.

[mickeymen 322]

6 hours ago, R0adki11 said:

Have you logged the issues on the tracker?

 

My experience shows that majority of my tickets hang there for several years (more than 2-3) and there are no results. For this reason, the user is forced to periodically create his complaints here. 

 

Unfortunately the feedback tracker works not well...

 

[Sparker 184]

I've found another condition when a vehicle gets stuck: if you order an inf. group to board an assigned vehicle and assign a "MOVE" waypoint to the group at the same time. They won't even attempt to turn on the engine. But if you add the waypoint after they have boarded the car, they start moving instantly.

Steps to reproduce:

//m0, m1 are guys of group g0.
//"car" is the vehicle
m0 assignAsDriver car;
m1 assignAsGunner car;
[m0, m1] orderGetIn true;
// If you execute the second part (below) after they get in, the car starts moving fine
wp0 = g0 addWaypoint [[2700, 3800, 0], 0];
wp0 setWaypointType "MOVE";
g0 setCurrentWaypoint _wp0;

 

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

15 hours ago, R0adki11 said:

Have you logged the issues on the tracker?

 

AI tickets do not get assigned to a dev, and have not been for years.

 

example:

 

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T124620

 

I speak to them directly occasionally too, but there is little evidence to suggest anything has been done to address AI driving issues since June 2016.