ai compilation AI Facts & Myths Compilation List

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

4 minutes ago, snkman said:

What sound source exactly do you mean? 

Could be an AI or player shooting a gun, but the AI that dont see who is doing the shooting cant identify if its friend or foe shooting unless they have a line of site correct?

6 minutes ago, snkman said:

A.I. enemy to the mortar and within audible hearing range to the mortar firing sound will be aware of the mortar.

Ya but are they able to determine if its from their side or the enemy side and then respond accordingly?

7 minutes ago, snkman said:

As far as i know A.I. does not react to any death screams or voices in general.

Ok i had figured that so i will make that False on the list, unless someone else comes on and can verify it that they do.

 

What about radio protocols like when the AI say "move im covering" does the AI in the team hear that and respond accordingly, i mean what sense

does it have to have them saying that if they dont actually respond to it

and its really their to add more ambient "immersion" for the AI.

 

10 minutes ago, snkman said:

If you use a smoke shell / grenade A.I. does not react to it. ( Back in the days i created a A.I. feature which does exactly this make A.I. react to any kind of smoke shell / grenades nearby ) 

If you use a greanade the explosion of the nearby grenade will trigger A.I. to get into "COMBAT" behaviour but this will be pretty much the same as if you shoot very close to their position.

So i don't think there is any A.I. behaviour / reaction used for this specific kind of situation.

They do react to grenades as you said and triggers them into combat, but do they target the sound as in aim or look in the direction of the explosion?

[snkman 351]

Quote

Ya but are they able to determine if its from their side or the enemy side and then respond accordingly?

Yes they are able to determine if its enemy or friendly.

 

Quote

 

What about radio protocols like when the AI say "move im covering" does the AI in the team hear that and respond accordingly, i mean what sense

does it have to have them saying that if they dont actually respond to it

and its really their to add more ambient "immersion" for the AI.

 

Most of the radio protocols you are talking about are triggered by script commands.

So if you for example give A.I. a move command the group leader will say "All move to this position" of if you change the A.I. group formation the A.I. group leader will tell this to his units by just using the <group setFormation "LINE"> command for example.

B.I.S. is using some more micro A.I. behaviours where they do pretty much the same.

So most of the time those radio protocols are triggered by any kind of command to fit what ever A.I. is about to do.

 

Quote

They do react to grenades as you said and triggers them into combat, but do they target the sound as in aim or look in the direction of the explosion?

Nope.

They switch to "COMBAT" behaviour which makes them go prone and scan the area for any kind of enemy but they will not react in any other way to the grenade explosion than to any other kind of threat which to me makes pretty much sense because the grenade in my case was thrown from behind the enemy A.I. group facing away from my position.

So if they all would just look / focus at the explosion of the grenade i could very easily just go ahead and shoot them point blank into their back.

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Nice!

Thanks for the information and insights, i added these to the list as well, so added the statement and then if they needed more explaining they were added

to a spoiler underneath to further clear up what was asked. Cheers! Snkman thanks for your help!

[snkman 351]

Sure you're very welcome Gunter!

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Update

• Reordered the Categories in alphabetical order.
• Fixed a few misspelled words.

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Update

• Added a video to the AI Detection: Visibility category for the AI without direct LOS will only fire for a limited amount of time, and will stop firing - TRUE  statement.
• Added a video to the AI Detection: Vegetation category under the AI cannot see through vegetation - TRUE statement.
• Increased font size from 14 to 16 on all the True, False, and Unknown statements to help them to be better seen/standout.
• Added Notes title in red to those areas that had notes after a statement.
• Made bold and reduced the font size to 12 for those version numbers, dates and some notes after some statements.
• Adjusted the spacing, indent of paragraphs in the areas where there were some and larger amounts of notes to better able to read them.
• Removed a couple of spoilers with notes in them and moved the notes in their empty spaces.
• Found and fixed (idk how that happened 😄 ) one statement that was missing a True, False, & unknown answer.

Hopefully that doesn't make the thread's categories to gaudy as my mother would say, lol and allows one to see better the statements and get the info they came for.

Happy New Years!

[doc. caliban 34]

Great topic!  Thank you for all the work you've put into compiling this.

 

Regarding hearing, in my limited testing I don't think that the AI hear the supersonic crack of ammo which is kind of disappointing.  I could be wrong, but I've tried firing both supersonic and subsonic ammo from a suppressed weapon past an AI and get no reaction either way.  (Definitely close enough for the round to still be supersonic, but far enough that they don't hear the suppressed weapon.)  And example would be a subsonic 9mm round from 100m away, and a .338 round out of a suppressed MAR-10 from the same distance.  No reaction either way with the rounds going right over their heads.

 

Our little group mod includes custom ammo for 9mm and .45 ACP that is modeled on real life ballistics of subsonic and +P loads, and we use the subsonic when it would be appropriate in a mission to do so.  Sadly, the AI don't seem to notice either way.

 

I wonder if an event handler could be used that triggers awareness if an AI unit hears whatever sound file is used for the sonic crack?  That would be a great bit of additional realism.

 

-Doc

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Hi doc, thanks for the compliments,

list was actually a spur of the moment, another thread inspired me to create it, next thing you know im 4hours into it and this was the result, lol

     But you got to thank the devs for their changelog, and a good bunch of members that help to add to the list with their tests, and knowledge of the AI.

 

10 hours ago, doc. caliban said:

I've tried firing both supersonic and subsonic ammo from a suppressed weapon past an AI and get no reaction either way. 

What i would recommend is do the same with vanilla weapons and ammo, suppressed and unsuppressed, and see if the AI respond.

You ever see Dslyecxi's Ballistics video, it demonstrates the ballistics in general and penetration values, nothing with AI but imo it seems fairly realistic.

 

10 hours ago, doc. caliban said:

I wonder if an event handler could be used that triggers awareness if an AI unit hears whatever sound file is used for the sonic crack? 

Check out these threads, it was linked in my AI compilation list

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/165896-ai-detection/

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/220939-detect-if-ai-is-being-fired-upon/

also check this out by greenfist, a script:

Quote

 

AI Detection test tool

by Greenfist

https://tinyurl.com/t76js4p

There's you and an enemy AI unit on the map. You try to get his attention while observing a couple of visual indicators and vital

numbers about his spotting and target tracking.
Can he see through bushes? Can you hide in tall grass? Can you flank and surprise him?

How does the gear and AI skills affect all this? etc.

 

 

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Update

• Removed a video from one of the statements that was set to private as its not viewable.
• Fixed some misspells.

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Want to bring up an interesting subject in previous replies here

there was a short discussion on AI hearing and how AI hear and react to grenades, i quote:

Quote

If you use a grenade the explosion of the nearby grenade will trigger A.I. to get into "COMBAT" behaviour but this will be pretty much the same as if you shoot very close to their position.

also

On 9/3/2019 at 1:12 AM, snkman said:

Quote

They do react to grenades as you said and triggers them into combat, but do they target the sound as in aim or look in the direction of the explosion?

Nope.

They switch to "COMBAT" behaviour which makes them go prone and scan the area for any kind of enemy but they will not react in any other way to the grenade explosion

than to any other kind of threat which to me makes pretty much sense because the grenade in my case was thrown from behind the enemy A.I. group facing away from my position.

So if they all would just look / focus at the explosion of the grenade i could very easily just go ahead and shoot them point blank into their back.

Alright this brings to mind something i been wanting to do, and have tried some things at least to get the AI to react or move, or adjust

their position for me to shoot them.

 What i'd like to discuss which is:   masking, and decoys

 

Something i noticed when i was playing a mission recently, i had a situation where the AI was behind closed doors, i was but 100m away on a 2nd floor,

AI on ground level in a house behind a wall, on his right a window, on his left a wooden door, i only vaguely spotted the AI there because part of his

gun silhouetted in the window which there was no glass it was an open window.

     i could not shoot him at all as he was not exposed enough to hit, so i shot the door to the right of him, which then made him react

and he turned exposing more of himself as he looked to his right, and then i shot him then, at the same time he had no idea it seems where the threat was coming from

which im assuming due to him having no LOS line of sight on me.

 

    So heres my question, was and or is it possible that even though the AI had or has no line of sight on you that he has an idea of where you at in that situation or

would line of sight would make him target you, as it seems after he was shot at, he did not get down, he just turned

a little and that was it, would that be an aware mode?

 

Also masking, and decoys, is it possible to shoot at the AI while having something else create a noise that would then make them target that noise instead of your shot

i mean you could time it so that something else be it another shooter, or something the AI would respond too could go off at the same time you wanted to shoot, however

is there someway to take either a grenade, smoke grenade, even a glowstick add a noise of some sort to it that would then make the AI feel threatened

by it and target it, and not target as to shoot but because they heard it, even though in the quotes above grenades

landing next to the AI are what is not making the AI go into combat mode.

 

Lastly Does the AI hear the point of impact from your shot fired as in from the gun itself or the general area of where the

sound came from, or the shot landing (if missed) itself that they respond too?

 

[pierremgi 4875]

It seems to me AIs knows your position, even through walls, just by knowsAbout intensity (0 - 4). As example, when you're renegade (rating < -2000) , you're known = 4 by any unit, then finally shot wherever you try to hide, even if you teleport behind a building. AIs will not see you through walls, but high "knowsAbout" (more than 1.5) updates your position, more or less accurately (errors). As renegade, you're definitely 4 til death (or better rating). As usual player, the knowsAbout drops after 6 minutes w/o sight (roughly).

See also targetKnowledge

 

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Whats interesting about this knowsabout, it reminds me of the game Sniper Elite V2, there was a feature in it where if the enemy seen you somewhere,

your body would leave like a visible marker or ghost silhouette of himself when you moved, and the AI would come and target that, but there was a timer on it,

so if you moved elseware then the enemy would have to reestablished contact or go back to their patrol routine after so much time.

      Tactically it would be best to move then, as we know smoke may block their view but they have an "idea" of where your at or last position, so best relocate.

 

I wish we could script someway to actually distract the enemy, like have something you can throw that they would target and respond too, and if no threat after

so much time then they return to their mode would make for some interesting stealth missions.

[pierremgi 4875]

Perhaps with forgetTarget , then an adapted reveal, but the knowledge amount, and the conditions for it, are not obvious. The balance between Arma engine and such scripts is to be tuned.

[soultechnology 11]

Any information on fact/myth of "AI prefer/priority target teamleads over other equally or more favourable targets of the same group"? Didn't see it in the list and havent found any documentation for it, but years of obvservations strongly suggest this is a thing. 

[drebin052 323]

16 hours ago, soultechnology said:

Any information on fact/myth of "AI prefer/priority target teamleads over other equally or more favourable targets of the same group"? Didn't see it in the list and havent found any documentation for it, but years of obvservations strongly suggest this is a thing. 

 

There is plenty of documentation on this. Has been the case since OFP actually, with cost and threat being used for AI target evaluation.

 

In-game wise, a NATO Squad Leader has a cost value of 250000 whereas a Grenadier is 200000 and a plain jane Rifleman at a measly 100000. Enemy infantry will naturally prioritise the SL first as he's worth more even though all three classes have the same threat value of 0.8.

In contrast, if you had an enemy tank commander faced with a team comprising of an AT Missile Specialist (130000), a Squad Leader (250000) and a Recon Team Leader (250000), the commander will order the gunner to focus down the AT Missile Specialist because his threat value towards ground vehicles is significantly higher (0.8 vs 0.1) even though his cost is less than half of the other two (assuming all three soldiers have been detected simultanously).

[Gunter Severloh 4056]

Question for you guys, asked on the steam forum discussians:

Quote

Does the AI automaticly choose the "right" ammo type for the situation? Because the AI don't use AP with the Titan rocket laucher.

So about all i know from this is number 16 on the list under

AI Gear, Shooting, & Weapons

• AI prefer not to waste rockets on infantry rather shoot them at vehicles - TRUE  (if the cost value of the infantry is lower then the one of the enemy vehicle.)

Do we know if they AI are choosing certain ammo types for the given situation, i dont recall ever seeing AI shoot AP rockets at infantry

from my own tests, if enemy is in a truck not armored, they will use their assault weapon to kill the driver, if APC, or tank, they will choose AT rocket

over AP even though both are in their inventory, that may answer the question but is there more to this?

[drebin052 323]

Vanilla AI don't use HE rounds with the RPG-42 or Titan APs with the Titan MPRL Compact because they're specifically not "permitted" to do so. The configs for R_TBG32V_F (RPG-42's HE grenade) and M_Titan_AP (Titan MPRL Compact's AP missile) inherit from their anti-vehicle parents (R_PG32V_F/M_Titan_AT) which, at least in the case of the RPG-42's HE grenades, have the allowAgainstInfantry token set to 0 (false). If you were to set this token to 1 (true) specifically for the HE grenade, you would potentially see the AI employ them against enemy infantry. If I recall correctly, this behaviour was actually present back in the Alpha for a short time before the changes were reverted due to the AI spamming the RPG-42.

 

Funnily enough, the MAAWS Mk4 does not face this problem. If you gave a NATO LAT soldier a whole stack of HE 44 and HEAT 75 rounds, you can actually see them swap to firing HE 44 against infantry sometimes if they don't have any other weapons on them. This is because all three of the MAAWS Mk4's rounds (R_MRAAWS_HE_F, R_MRAAWS_HEAT_F and R_MRAAWS_HEAT55_F) have allowAgainstInfantry set to 1 (true) in their configs. In stark contrast if you did the same thing with the RPG-42/Titan MPRL Compact, the soldier will either attempt to run away or go prone to lower his camouflage rating.

 

For instance, as a test I made this AI invulnerable, removed his rifle/pistol, set him to maximum courage (allowFleeing 0), and gave him a Bergen Backpack filled with one HE 44 and the rest HEAT 75 rounds. In two out of five tests, he loaded the HE 44 round and fired it at the two CSAT squads in front of him. For the other three tests he simply fired the pre-loaded HEAT 75 straight away:

 

 

(Apologies for the grey filter-like effect. That isn't edited into the screenshot - it's the MAAWS backblast smoke)

 

[pierremgi 4875]

AIs are using binoculars too often (and for nuts).

This feedback is still (or again) topical:

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T66380

AIs are sighting thru binoculars even in close combat situation. Not sure there is an added value in enemy detection, but for sure they should fire!

I decided to remove all binoculars for AIs.

 

[redarmy 422]

2 hours ago, pierremgi said:

AIs are using binoculars too often (and for nuts).

This feedback is still (or again) topical:

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T66380

AIs are sighting thru binoculars even in close combat situation. Not sure there is an added value in enemy detection, but for sure they should fire!

I decided to remove all binoculars for AIs.

 

its the first thing i did when creating custom factions for my scenarios. Made sure no SL had binoc's. Not only do they hold them constantly whispering "myyyy preciousssss"  it also seems to have a serious effect on their pathing.Enabling them to move hundreds of meters away from the actual group,making any kind of marker system wether HC or other,completely useless and making the element act weaker because one man less.But also as a side effect,stronger as the SL sub skill courage effectevly affects the entire squad and if he is hundreds of meters away NOT getting suppressed but his subordinates are,well,you see how that mitigates suppression at least in a vanlla sense.

 

TLDR This breaks missions in a light sense.

[froggyluv 2136]

7 hours ago, pierremgi said:

AIs are using binoculars too often (and for nuts).

This feedback is still (or again) topical:

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T66380

AIs are sighting thru binoculars even in close combat situation. Not sure there is an added value in enemy detection, but for sure they should fire!

I decided to remove all binoculars for AIs.

 

 

Same here i use alot of Recon style troops and was nauseated how often they walk around with their Binocs up in CQB?! Wasnt worth the effect so just eradicated them out of my game. Now if i could just find a way to get soldiers to stop walking and wheeling around with their rifle sights up glued to their eyeballs...

[joostsidy 685]

15 hours ago, pierremgi said:

AIs are using binoculars too often (and for nuts).

This feedback is still (or again) topical:

https://feedback.bistudio.com/T66380

AIs are sighting thru binoculars even in close combat situation. Not sure there is an added value in enemy detection, but for sure they should fire!

I decided to remove all binoculars for AIs.

 

Yeah, this is more like a bug. I've never seen them put away their binocs once they get them out, so I believe they get stuck in this mode. I believe the trigger for getting the binocs out is fine though, they seem to get them out when they hear/see things some distance away.

 

I also remove all binocs from ai.

[redarmy 422]

6 hours ago, joostsidy said:

Yeah, this is more like a bug. I've never seen them put away their binocs once they get them out, so I believe they get stuck in this mode. I believe the trigger for getting the binocs out is fine though, they seem to get them out when they hear/see things some distance away.

 

I also remove all binocs from ai.

As a side note,this SHOULD be vanilla behaviour tied into the sentry WP imo.

 

Give a spotter team sentry WP...other units on Gaurd WP..binocs affecting spotting positively = PROFIT. Slightly better AI.

[joostsidy 685]

On 1/3/2021 at 5:40 AM, redarmy said:

Slightly better AI.

This is everybody's wish for Arma 4 😁

[nkenny 1057]

On 11/15/2020 at 1:44 PM, Gunter Severloh said:

(1)    So heres my question, was and or is it possible that even though the AI had or has no line of sight on you that he has an idea of where you at in that situation or

would line of sight would make him target you, as it seems after he was shot at, he did not get down, he just turned

a little and that was it, would that be an aware mode?

 

(2) Also masking, and decoys, is it possible to shoot at the AI while having something else create a noise that would then make them target that noise instead of your shot

i mean you could time it so that something else be it another shooter, or something the AI would respond too could go off at the same time you wanted to shoot, however

is there someway to take either a grenade, smoke grenade, even a glowstick add a noise of some sort to it that would then make the AI feel threatened

by it and target it, and not target as to shoot but because they heard it, even though in the quotes above grenades

landing next to the AI are what is not making the AI go into combat mode.

 

(3) Lastly Does the AI hear the point of impact from your shot fired as in from the gun itself or the general area of where the

sound came from, or the shot landing (if missed) itself that they respond too?

 

 

Emphasis and underlines my own. My answers are derived from extensive testing and working with the danger FSM for the LAMBS Danger.fsm mod. @Gunter Severloh

 

1. AI knowledge is not perfect and can be off by many hundred meters if the conditions are right! A single sniper shot, even if not suppressed, will rarely give the AI perfect knowledge of the shooters position.  This can be tested by playing with LAMBS Danger.fsm and switching on the various debug modes.  In vanilla it is easily demonstrated by looking at where reinforcing units with a GUARD waypoint choose to move. If the shooter makes noise or otherwise exposes himself, the AI's knowledge will quickly become more accurate. 

 

2. That is an intriguing idea. There is per now no way to consistently direct the AI's attention--- aside from shooting, suppressing and flanking!  Which TOTALLY works! 

 

3. The answer is both! The relevant danger.fsm data is  "Explosion" and "Bullet Close".   The former reports position of impact, the latter the shooters position. There is a system of weighting within the FSM which decides which response is prioritised. It is not entirely clear by which process these individual events are triggered. Bullet close does seem to require some previous knowledge of the shooter, but it is not consistently the case that a single shooting event causes both and explosion and a "bullet close" (assuming the bullet whizzes past the listener).  It gets more complicated. If a shooting event happens nearby-- another event is triggered "Fire" which reports the shooters location.  Interestingly, the shooter need not be an enemy. 

 

Arma3 AI is pretty good. Whats lacking is some pathfinding, but more importantly, feedback of the AI's current state. 

-k 

 

[froggyluv 2136]

On 1/22/2021 at 4:33 PM, nkenny said:

(2) Also masking, and decoys, is it possible to shoot at the AI while having something else create a noise that would then make them target that noise instead of your shot

i mean you could time it so that something else be it another shooter, or something the AI would respond too could go off at the same time you wanted to shoot, however

is there someway to take either a grenade, smoke grenade, even a glowstick add a noise of some sort to it that would then make the AI feel threatened

by it and target it, and not target as to shoot but because they heard it, even though in the quotes above grenades

landing next to the AI are what is not making the AI go into combat mode.

 

The game is somewhat lacking in reactionary type animations - you can get them to focus on something briefly but they tend to just raise their gun up if you give them an invisible target. One thing that i like to do is have them use the Point Gesture - its janky but at least gives a little variety