When will we see more vehicle-centric missions?

[trent 14]

After replaying East Wind for the nth time it really reminded me how little Arma makes use of its vehicles. BIS make dozens of fully-realised, controllable vehicles and they use them as window dressing for missions. Things fighting in the background to give some nice explosions or parked up to flesh out an FOB. No different from the scripted blackhawk helicopter rides in CoD. Even the damned new VTOL in Apex only got used as a stationary prop.

 

There are 3 tanks, 3 IFVs and 3 APCs but only 1 single, solitary showcase mission for armor. 3 jets but again only 1 mission, the rest content to fly around in the background for the campaign. And whilst posters here routinely decry arcade shooters for being so scripted, every jet attack (or in most cases failure to attack the player) is entirely scripted. 11 helicopters/VTOLs now with Apex but only 3 showcases.

 

So to recount out of a 28 mission campaign (that's discounting all the Camp interludes), a 5 mission mini-campaign (DLC), a 7 mission co-op campaign (Apex) and 21 stand-alone missions there are, what, 8 vehicle missions?

 

You may point to modders for a solution but their Scenarios really aren't on the same level as a those made by a dedicated team who do this as their full-time employment and know the technology the game is built on inside and out.

[Tuskegee_99th 43]

I could be wrong but I believe it is the intention of the developer that Arma 3 is infantry focused, with other assets there primarily as support.

[target_practice 163]

I could be wrong but I believe it is the intention of the developer that Arma 3 is infantry focused, with other assets there primarily as support.

Not really true when previous Arma games had the same focus, but their campaigns had a decent amount of vehicular combat.

But to be honest, unless BIS comes up with a new gamemode, it will be unlikely to find such gameplay outside of user-created missions.

[silentghoust 132]

I have a feeling once the new driving AI is implemented we might see some more missions. The issue is it's impossible to command say a tank platoon driven by AI do to the inability to keep formations. 

[angel24marin 34]

I find that the AI is trying to move 4 tanks of 72 tons like 4 footmens. So it become very chaotic and dumb. (Like tanks advancing with the rear towards the enemy).

[lexx 1364]

If you move in formation and suddenly there is a rock, a soldier can avoid it and "collide" with the soldier next to him and still continue moving forward. Meanwhile, a vehicle does exactly the same, but will then crash into the vehicle next to him, blocking and stopping it. This is a problematic case, because it's kinda hard to decide what to do. The vehicle could try to evade and hope for the best... or stop and wait, which will definitely fuck up the formation and make him drag behind (happens often enough already too). In my experience, the "line" formation works the worst, exactly because of that behavior (they are too close to each other).

 

I wouldn't really know how to fix vehicle formations. Maybe increase the distance from each other, make them check their positions more often when driving in formation (bad for performance at some point, I'll guess) or let them stop completely in worst case (which most likely slows them down a lot. Forget your fast paced attack then).

Vehicles rotating like crazy is a problem too. Again, it's like the ai is checking their surroundings not often enough. Starts calculating, moves, realizes something doesn't work, moves again, etc. Stuff that works for soldiers simply doesn't for vehicles / tanks.

 

Oh, and it seems there are quite a few objects being ignored when checking for valid paths. Otherwise I don't get why they would bump into the same house / car wreck (map object) over and over again.

[andersson 285]

Turn of the micro AI for vehicles.

 

(it is probably a bit harder than 'microAI = 0;'.......)

[silentghoust 132]

From my study on it, it simply seems the AI formation wise, still acts like infantry even when in vehicles. Clearly something is very different from the Operation Arrowhead AI and the current one. In arrowhead tanks stay in formation fantastically and will properly stop when you stop. 

[joostsidy 685]

BIS make dozens of fully-realised, controllable vehicles

This is where you make an error. All the vehicles are only complete at a very simplefied level. Any attempt to create an mission with combined arms with some complex or dynamic behaviour will fail with the vanilla assets. BIS has chosen / was forced to spend its time and money on other parts of the game. The game assets are not balanced in terms of quality.

 

I am very disappointed that Arma is not very developed in this area because I'm very interested in combined arms missions. Vanilla AI vehicles are indeed only a little more than window dressing. :.-(

 

I have managed to create somewhat decent vehicle combat and support behaviour through scripting. Some things I fixed where:

- Vehicles are individually directed, not through squad mechanics as this doesnt work properly for vehicles (they get stuck, bump into each other etc.)

- Vehicles fire missiles at enemy tanks if available, instead of suicidal strategy of engaging with machine gun against tanks

- Vehicles remember what their objective was, so if they 'wander off' because of COMBAT mode, they will eventually return to where they were supposed to be going instead of sitting in a ditch being useless

- Vehicles use a little smarter looking around behaviour, like 360 scanning or 180 scanning

 

I don't have a solution yet for the 'stuck on terrain' problem that leads to a lot of 'mobility kill' losses amongst your vehicles. The vehicles don't know that they are stuck (keep spinning their wheels). I'm thinking about a script that will detect if a lot of time has passed, but delta distance is small, meaning they are driving but not moving. Upon detecting such a stuck, try some stuff to get unstuck or just get out or at least stop etc.

[lexx 1364]

I do not really remember the A2 / OA terrains right now, because I haven't played on them in years, but don't they also have a lot less environment clutter like rocks, etc? As far as I can tell, this stuff is the No1 vehicle killer in A3.

[joostsidy 685]

There is definitely more clutter in A3, which is a good thing in itself of course, providing cover, obstacles and scenery. Unfortunately vehicles can't handle this very well.

[lexx 1364]

I've toyed around with the CUP terrains and a 3 tanks group a bit right now. First thing I've noticed is the total absence of any scenery clutter in the very old maps. Therefore, unless you more or less tried hard, the group behaved good enough. Same on Chernarus (looks a lot better already just because of uneven terrain textures, wow). First thing I noticed on Altis then: All the tiny stone walls. Either the ai tries to avoid them or drives over with varying success. Most of the time, these walls will negatively influence the formation. Next thing is the uneven terrain. Unless you are on the east side of the island, you've got a truckton of hills and ditches, etc. where the ai tries to get around (or not), this again has a negative effect on the formation. Oh, and your ai pals don't give a flying f about you as the formation lead- if they want to go somewhere, they do so and totally ignore the player (or any other group) vehicle... and then they will crash into it.

 

tl;dr - as far as I can tell, the main problem is that they cannot handle the detailed environment very well. They get stuck here and there, which slows them down or stops them completely, which rips them out of formation, which makes them go faster to get back into formation, which makes them crash into something else, and so on, and so on.

 

No idea how to solve that. I am certain that "just" increasing the vehicle to vehicle distance in a formation movement will not fix this issue.

[joostsidy 685]

No idea how to solve that. I am certain that "just" increasing the vehicle to vehicle distance in a formation movement will not fix this issue.

Ha, definitely not indeed. Vehicle AI need to be more aware that they're vehicles with high mass and speed. For instance, vehicles can pick up a lot of speed going downhill (they don't brake going down) and can flip or bump (the flipping might have been improved lately)

 

Vehicles don't need to follow super-exact formation, but require some sense of positioning that makes sense for vehicles, not bump into each other, keep a line of sight etc. If vehicles could drive effectively over/around the low stone walls, the plains of Altis are good tank country.

 

The north-western hilly country is less suitable for offroad vehicles. I can understand that vehicles would keep more or less to the roads.

 

A simple thing is that vehicles simply drive way too fast for the terrain and (combat) situation. I usually limit the speed of vehicles with limitSpeed to 30 or 50 km/h depending on circumstances.

 

 

I have the feeling that overall vehicle movement has degraded a bit compared to the older games in part due to the PhysicX system. The clutching mechanism (which is part of PsysicX?) is somewhat f*-ed up: a lot of the armor is weak in traction in low speeds/gear, and have a hard time going up a slope (seriously?)

 

If you search around on the forum, there is a lot of threads about vehicles: faulty tank steering, faulty gears, faulty ai weapon selection/use, faulty ai driving, faulty ai squad behavior, faulty ai obstacle avoidance, faulty ai convoy behavior etc. I shed a lot of tears about all of this .. :-) :-(

 

FFV for IFV's and tanks was one of the few armor things I was pleasantly surprised with :-)

[lugiahua 26]

Another problem we have currently is AI commanding UI.
It's utterly frustrating that vehicle crew and dismounted infantry are "sharing" same layer

for example, you would get unit 1,2,3 as infantry, 4,5 as crews, then 6,7,8,9 again as infantry, mixed by pilots, indirect gunners etc..

 

We need a layered commanding UI for different types of units
Like layer 1 as dismounted infantry, layer 2 as crews, layer 3 as UGV, layer 4 for indirect fire so forth.

[lexx 1364]

You can work around this with splitting vehicle and soldiers into different teams. E.g. vehicle becomes Team Green, while everyone else is White, etc. Makes everything a lot easier and faster to handle.

[trent 14]

AI has never been a problem from me. Aside from the fact all the Air missions are done alone, the one Armour mission I'm fine with just having friendly units in the general AO. I don't need them to match formations with me.

[lexx 1364]

Problem isn't necessarily that they don't stay in line, but that they clutter up, crash and block into each other. You actually can see this very behavior in the tank showcase, which already even uses an area of Altis that is mostly flat and should be well suited for vehicles. It doesn't happen "just sometimes", it happens all the time.

 

You can easily reproduce this: Place a group of three vehicles on the most flat area on Altis that you can find, then drive around with them. Make a circle or two (or don't). I guarantee it doesn't take long till they try to avoid rocks or something, then crash into each other.

[joostsidy 685]

I'm fine with just having friendly units in the general AO.

Even this doesn't always work. A very simple scenario like placing an IFV on a crossroads to give cover and firepower to advancing infantry can lead to facepalming situations. For instance the IFV will start moving under fire and stop in at ditch where it cannot see, move or shoot.

 

There are ways to lock a vehicle in position, but it's hard to use them in a dynamic situation. That is why you don't see much dynamic vehicle use in any of the campaigns. I think the campaigns uses a lot of recorded movement from a human player that is attached to ai vehicles (helicopters, convoys).

 

What is feasible at the moment is that you take a couple of vehicles ungrouped and move them 50 meters apart at low speed on 'easy' terrain. I don't mind this too much, because it seems realistic. But you still have to use a lot of scripting to use them effectively on the battlefied.

[andersson 285]

I tried to make an easy mission for my friends and I. I know about the limitations and frustrations since 2001 so I thought KISS. Let the AI free to do what they want, BUT I wanted some kind of insertion on a beach....... After trying a few scenarios where the boats did all kinds of face palm things I gave that one. Next was helicopter insertion. I managed to get some kind of maybe it will work if I used unarmed troop helicopters with AI pilots on careless. But man, is it difficult today to incorporate any AI vehicles today. Even the most simple tasks can go so shit ape wrong that you can't risk giving them any purpose in the mission.

One of the beauties since OFP has been the AI because you never get exact outcome and sometimes it has been hilarious. But now it's not funny.

[lexx 1364]

Well, you can't expect a linear outcome in any case. For that, you'll have to set the vehicles invulnerable. We can't blame it all on BI - sometimes, the mission designer is at fault too, because he needs to know how to best use the available assets. For example, you can't let a tank rush into an enemy AT team and expect the ai to dodge every attack. Also the mission designer needs to take care of all the possible what-if scenarios. What if the vehicle gets destroyed before reaching the target? What if the vehicle gets stuck by whatever (even if it's just the player trying to fuck things up)? What if the vehicle reached the target, but the enemy did x now, instead of y? And so on, and so on. You can't prevent everything bad with some form of mystical super-ai.

[andersson 285]

No. But I have made missions since 2001 and I have never struggled so much with what I considered before A3 as basic things. I knew the limitations very well, Im learning the new ones and it is frustrating.