Was the tank AI always this crazy?

[pooroldspike 129]

I've been playing exclusively on multiplayer servers this past year, but recently started dabbling in creating a few single-player scenarios and am shocked at how bad the tank commander AI seems to be!

Specifically when I lead my tank platoon into action, the instant my AI tanks see enemy tanks they go bananas, break formation and start racing wildly around like crackheads without rhyme or reason, and the enemy AI tanks do exactly the same thing and the whole show resembles an arcade game pantomime.

I don't remember the AI being as crazy as this, is it normal or am I doing something wrong?

[Savage_Donkey 243]

Well, they've alway been very derpy.  The only recent improvements have been with driving in convoys and avoiding hitting things.  I'm not really sure if there are even any ai scripts to deal with terrible tanks.

[Zhivets 2392]

The AI has always been terrible.

[joostsidy 685]

Yes, the tank AI is terrible, no, the tank AI has not always been this terrible.

 

OFP tank AI was better than we have now. You could do a proper attack with a tank platoon. With Arma3, there is no specific AI for tanks, if you observe closely you can see that the individual tanks are behaving as infantry soldiers: bumping into each other and moving all over the place.

 

Using multiple grouped tanks with default AI is functionally useless. I use scripts to direct ungrouped tanks individually and built-in behaviours to make them return to their waypoints.

[Rydygier 1317]

Let's hope, if not earlier, Tanks DLC will bring some serious changes here, in the accompanying free patch of course. Described status quo of the tanks' AI is not even a faulty feature, it is a wip placeholder. 

[andersson 285]

This is one of the reason I more or less gave up A3. Tanks are so important in so many scenarios and they behave like bumper cars due to physX and infantry AI.

[instagoat 133]

Saying that they are completely terrible is too much, I think, they are just not good.

 

As for the racing around, they are doing the same thing as the infantry, getting sent ahead by their commanders piecemeal. For the players platoon, usually mine get stuck on terrain, flip over from the bad physX or forget how to brake. The "always move fast" rule for combat mode is also terrible.

 

I won't expect AI to ever learn to do tank combat correctly. Current AI tech barely manages infantry being decent. Arma is the only game right now to do this (on the scale it does) anyway, so we should count our blessings. Most other games would rely on making the AI even more basic, and then giving them artificial boosts or make them appear in massive numbers to make them compete. Although maybe BI finds a way to make them cheat convincingly, sort of like the AI in FEAR. That would require a complete rework, it seems... which isn't a solution after 16 years of work going into the ofp/arma AI.

 

The only other game I know that runs on an approximately similar level of complexity is SABOW, but that one is designed around tanks specifically, and tanks only. So, the tanks are super, but everything else isn't accessible to the player and is running much more simple animation sets and behaviours compared to Arma. The one thing SABOW AI Infantry does way better than Arma is that they pick up dropped AT weapons, though.

[pooroldspike 129]

Thanks guys, it therefore seems the tank AI has always been krap but I think I notice its failings more nowadays because I've just spent the past year exclusively on the multiplayer servers playing against the most dangerous enemies in the known universe- human beings..:)

"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men for long enough and liked it, never care for anything else therafter"- Ernest Hemingway

Below- my multiplayer character and some of my boys, I tell them shite like- "Stick with me if you want to live.....Fight with your brain first and your weapons second......Never fear to use insanely overwhelming firepower, let the fear be your enemies......I'll kick out anybody who returns to base with too many tank shells left aboard"..

 

PS- in fairness to Arma3, I've been computer gaming for over 30 years and its AI is no worse than the majority of games I've come across, most of which also have weak AI..:)

[andersson 285]

Oh yes the AI is really amazing in A3! Just not suitable for tanks. There I would like OFP simple AI.

[Guest]

After Rydygier post i ended up all my discussion about Arma 3 tank AI. What i will do now is wait.

 

Bad the game have years and no tank AI.

Amazing, misterious, the game have years... and tank AI serious development right there.

 

From someone that had serious problems to leave Arma 2: long life Arma 3.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

On 2/28/2017 at 11:45 AM, Savage_Donkey said:

Well, they've alway been very derpy.  The only recent improvements have been with driving in convoys and avoiding hitting things.  I'm not really sure if there are even any ai scripts to deal with terrible tanks.

 

do you actually play arma or just parroting what is in the sitreps? :)

 

the wheeled driving is a disaster in 1.66

[Savage_Donkey 243]

I'll admit that I've been using Vcom Driving since before the driving ai updates. :)  However, before the updates, the ai would still occasionally kill teammates, but afterwards, I have yet to see one friendly hit by a vehicle.