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Kill3rCat

Getting AI to fire MANPADS at long ranges

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So, there are a lot of man-portable surface-to-air missiles in Arma 3 plus the many mods on the workshop. The FIM-92F Stinger, both from CUP and RHS, has a range of about 6500km, or at least that is about the max range I was able to get a lock with it.

 

However, AI refuse to engage targets at this range. Even when using a variety of methods; 'reveal', 'doFire', 'doTarget', etc. Any ideas?

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Hi, from my AI compilation list (linked in my sig)

see if these threads have any info that could help you:

 

Ai view distance
http://tinyurl.com/nbkwr5w

How do I get an AI-sniper shoot at human over long distance?

https://tinyurl.com/y8ygg32d

Make AI sniper shoots at 2000m

https://tinyurl.com/y7k7yr5g

Problems on AT Path finding,Spotting, and Targeting
http://tinyurl.com/k6ar3lv

Forcing AI to fire rpgs at helicopter
http://tinyurl.com/kj8l7fk

 

Hope that helps.

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Thanks for the quick reply. I looked through those posts, but none of them had the answers I needed.

 

For AI view distance:

The method of accomplishing this is something along the lines of unit setSkill ["spotDistance", number];. The obvious problem with this for getting AI to fire at long range, is that setSkill doesn't work for values > 1. Another issue with setSkill is that I am using the ASR AI mod, which afaik, is constantly overwriting the unit's Skill values as that is part of how that mod simulates suppression.

 

For the second and third posts:

I don't know if ForceWeaponFire would work, because I am not sure if the AI is even obtaining a lock with the launcher. I know it's possible to at those ranges, because I've done so, but the AI doesn't seem to. 

As for the third post, I'm already using reveal (4, not 1) as well as doTarget and doFire. The solution for the OP in the third post seemed to be slapping a Nightstalker on the AI's rifle... that is obviously not applicable here.

 

The fourth post is basically a bug report and contains no useful info. :/

 

The fifth post is entirely useless because the OP's question wasn't even answered.

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Just tested it without ASR_AI, the results are exactly the same. For testing purposes, I am using a trigger set to BLUFOR present, with the following as the Activation:

 

{_x setSkill ["spotDistance",1]; _x reveal [target, 4]; _x doTarget target; _x doFire target;} forEach units group manpads;

 

This is the result (a picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is a lot of pictures):

 

 

I also tried without doTarget and doFire, in case the AI interpreted that as 'use your rifle', but this did not fix the issue. At the end, I get a lock and fire the launcher myself, to prove that the weapon system is capable of engaging at that range, and it is the AI at fault. Scenario settings had all weather effects to 0, so they wouldn't affect view distance for either the AI or the player. Moving the target around, the furthest the AI will engage is at just under 5km. Using the same script the AI has no difficulty engaging targets closer than this, such as this target at about 3km:

 

 

For reference, the furthest I was able to get the AI to engage at was from the hill 'Klen', near Krasnostav, to just beyond Devil's Castle.

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range of the stinger is 4.8km however firing at that range is the effective range (most favorable outcome). when a target is moving the effective range is reduced by a large amount even more so when the target is flying fast and its IR output is out of sight of the seeker like flying towards the sam head on in IRL.

 

in the game you have to consider a few things, arma maps are big but only for infantry... for a aircraft its pretty small and having a SAM like the Tunguska cover an area that is a little less then 10km and is a much more advanced system then manpads are, the balance of having a manpad which can shoot out to 5km is a little unfair. the ai weapons have set ranges, cool down for firing ect. in the AI skillset as you know values cant be placed above 1 in this instance, so yeah the weapon AI range is short at least for that weapon. I have tested the new long range Sams DLC as well as from pooks sam mod they have a BVR capability so its not a problem with arma AI but rather the weapon/vehicles stats 

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Veles, not sure what you're saying. The Stinger I am using can definitely hit targets at the desired range, because if I remote control the AI in Zeus, I am able to get a lock and fire the launcher, and using the camera I can see the missile fly to and hit the target helo.

 

In the game, regarding balance, I can understand why you'd want to limit the manpads range for balance considerations, but that falls apart when you realise that missiles launched from helicopter and fixed wing platforms can easily outrange the manpads. This leads inevitably to attack helicopters being really kind of OP. Hence why I want manpads to be able to fire at the range they can actually fire at IRL.

 

Anyway, your closing statement is 'I have tested the new long range Sams DLC as well as from pooks sam mod they have a BVR capability so its not a problem with arma AI but rather the weapon/vehicles stats'; could you clarify this statement? Are you saying that with vanilla MANPADS, AI can engage targets at longer range?

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not with vanilla manpads im talking about the static long range sams . S-750 Rhea and MIM-145 Defender.

 

AI config for weapons have things like Min and Max range the Ai are allowed to use their weapons. as to how you can change those stats. I do not know how and if its a mod I think you cant because its encrypted as far as i understand so you would have to know the password I could be 100% wrong on that however.  

 

what the player can do and the ai are too different things. for instance the player config for that weapon can have a range of 10km but the AI can only lock on and engage at a range of 5km. 

 

min/mid/maxRange...

Class

ArmaModeClass

Type

Integer

Description

Together with range and rangeProbab values, defines probability to use this weapon for AI units at given distance.

For OFP these parameters were specified in cfgAmmo, rendering all rifles the same.

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