LAMBS Improved Danger.fsm

[LSValmont 789]

May I ask for LAMBS DANGER to include an option to disable Ai going prone?

 

On some scenarios like tanoa and whatnot the ai going prone exasperate some of the frustrations players have when playing versus Ai specially the fact that Ai seems to have a much easier time detecting players and other units when prone in comparison to players in the prone position where even the smallest foliage impedes them from acquiring visual targets easily/fast.

 

There are other Ai mods that already do this but since LAMBS DANGER has become the GO TO Arma 3 Ai modification and having other Ai mods might cause incompatibilities and issues I guess the best solution is for LAMBS to include this toggle-able solution. 

 

[Machiya 19]

A user was suggesting that the ARMA 'engine' degraded decision-making when there were more than about 60-80 Ai.
I ran a few tests (1) Vanilla 32 units/side; (2) Vanilla 80 units/side & (3) LAMBS 80 units/side.
Interesting to see the differences: (1) lots of units get shot; (2) & (3) proportionately ALOT less get shot (for the increased fire volumes) - Vanilla 80 vs 80 and LAMBS 80 vs 80 are pretty similar.
 

 

[Machiya 19]

Just ran a comparison between Vanilla / LAMBS / VCOM 3.4.0 beta (19/06/2020).
 

 

[froggyluv 2135]

Whats the point of that video - theres no narration,  notes or anything remotely telling the viewer whats going on. Its just a camera panning high above

[LSValmont 789]

3 hours ago, froggyluv said:

Whats the point of that video - theres no narration,  notes or anything remotely telling the viewer whats going on. Its just a camera panning high above

 

If you look carefully it actually tells you which Ai Mod is active each run a the lower mid position.

 

That said I don't like they way the test is set up but still it is interesting. LAMBS is the second test and it is clearly the most realistic approach as units on both sides do far more evasive and human like movements in my opinion. 

[Machiya 19]

Sorry if they are not ideal videos, but I hope they are interesting to a few people.

I don't have a vast amount of time to do these tests. I don't see other people doing comparative tests, so I have put them up.  My hope is that they are OK  'as is'.  (honestly, if I get a pile of static I just won't post them).
I don't give my opinion, as we all have our own bias.  This is not a 'king of the hill' thing.

 

There are very clear differences between the MODS (and I did try to simply label which mod was running).

Each mission is:

3 Fire-teams with SENTRY + GUARD WP and a fourth with  a 'Seek and Destroy'. Both sides are identical.   I chose the terrain to have an initial blocking obstacle, with narrow exposure with trees on one side and a sloped field on the other.

@LSValmont - if you can suggest a preferable scenario/arrangement, I would be very interested.

p.s the video before is me beginning to explore a long-held view that ARMA throttles decision making over 50-80 active Ai.  At 160 Ai (subjectively) the engine appears to be 'dumping' hit detection.   

[mickeymen 324]

Hey @nkenny!

 

You have the opportunity to teach the AI to pick up a launcher (RPG, Titan etc) from the ground (corpses), if the enemy has vehicles and if there are no more soldiers with a launcher in current AI squad ?

Create a big priority for this - Is it possible ?

Very often a soldier with a launcher can be killed, but his comrades will never pick up a launcher from the ground - It looks stupid and makes remaining ai-opponents helpless against vehicles.

I have long dreamed of such a AI-feature, but no one has yet done so.

Such a feature would make the gameplay vs AI or with AI much more interesting.

 

 

[kremator 1065]

Agree that soldiers should pick up an AT if any vehicular threat is bearing down on them !

[froggyluv 2135]

@Machiya: sorry bro wasnt trying to give you a hard time - maybe a good idea to leave the mod name displayed while that particular mod is running. I dont think you have to be biased to comment on some strengths and weaknesses of each mod as they play out in real time. 

 

Theres one major flaw in AI design which so far no mod has managed to fix -that being orientation/animations. Almost all of my kills against AI even if they have better position on me is because for no real apparent reason -they tend to just stand up and randomly  swing away with scope help up high and rotate to go move somewhere else to go repeat the procedure of kneel/go prone re-orient back on threat. Ive watched hundreds of hours of iraq/afghan type infantry footage and this just never happens. Why if you have a known enemy shooting at you from one specific direction, would anyone stand up and rotate away (with scope up) UNLESS they were gonna perhaps sprint to known cover but they would never pull sights up while maneuvering. It is at this precise moment that a player can just dominate AI - i shot 9 at once recently all because of this most unnecessary movement. These types of kills are highly unsatisfying as your only winning a firefight due to poor ai design.

 

Whats even stranger is that Arma ai does have the very nice ability to strafe walk, walk backwards while staying oriented to threat but they are unable to lay down suppressive fire while moving -something i see alot of in real footage. My hope if there is ever an Armaa 4 is that this sort of crucial animation/movement flaw is fixed. That a finely tuned animation system that involves every aspect of these types of transition moves and how they would effect accuracy (on the move) be highly specific and highly calibrated. The recently released Bannerlord has done an outstanding job in precisely how even the slightest movement adjustment -stance being left leg or right leg forward would effect the power/precision of a sword swing on the physics level. Arma military simulator deserves this level of fine attention.

[SHIFTY WOLF 2]

Hey guys, I’m trying to get my head around the sharing of information and specifically the calling for help from other units. 

 

First up, I’m correct in saying an AI group in contact will ask for support from other nearby units?

Do the reinforcements need to be at a guard waypoint to be “available” to call?

Do the reinforcement need to be in danger themselves to be called? 

[B_Fox 132]

On 6/23/2020 at 1:51 PM, froggyluv said:

but they are unable to lay down suppressive fire while moving

I've seen the AI do something like this in modded Arma 2 and Arma 3 and the problem was they would sprint while shooting and shoot the ground or shoot while the sprint animation was still playing but the AI was coming to a stop. Now that might not be a big deal but if the AI had a RPG in hand they would blow themselves up same thing with AI laying down with RPGs, they can do it (modded) but they have a high risk of self detonation.

[gerhart 19]

Hi nkenny, I don't expect you to remember me but I mentioned awhile back that I had replaced the danger.fsm in a mod with yours but an much earlier version and wanted to know if that was ok.  You agreed and said for me to have it up on Github, that has been done by a gentleman that is helping out with the mod.  I came to ask if it was ok for us to update to your latest version as I don't want to just do this without your consent.  Here is the link to Martial Law (the mod) on Git Github for Martial Law and here is the link to the Steam page Martial Law Steam page.  My Martial Law mod is built off of the foundation of a mod by the name of Overthrow with permission just so you know it's all legit.  I can't express how much I love your mod and how much it is a game changer.

 

[mickeymen 324]

Hey @nkenny

 

I created tests and put the enemy AI (infantryman facing the player) opposite myself in the open spaces of the map.

At a distances > 200 meters, the AI already sees very poorly visually.  

It takes many time to detect me, even if the AI looks at me! (unit level was 50%, In the game settings - I use Total AI level 85%,  also tried 100% but did not see an explicit result)

Also I tried to give to this AI the SENTRY waypoint in the hope that this might somehow increase the range of his visual detection, but there was no improvement.

SENTRY is the same useless vanilla waypoint, like most other waypoints in the game, because there are no special AI-features.

 

I think, what the low vision and low alertness - This is a big weakness of Arma3 AI, since there is no way to create a sentinel on the observation tower (or any other place), that would closely observe long distances in its field of vision. 

AI also will not hear the sound of an approaching vehicle, while the player hears it perfectly.

 

Please try to create an additional waypoint - OBSERVE.

The main goal is that with this waypoint AI could detect the enemy at large distances, if this AI currently observe.

At this point, the behavior should be minimally aggressive, while this AI should be able to see and hear far.

Perfect for guard positions, now this is very lacking.

 

 

[LSValmont 789]

19 hours ago, mickeymen said:

Hey @nkenny

 

I created tests and put the enemy AI (infantryman facing the player) opposite myself in the open spaces of the map.

At a distances > 200 meters, the AI already sees very poorly visually.  

It takes many time to detect me, even if the AI looks at me! (unit level was 50%, In the game settings - I use Total AI level 85%,  also tried 100% but did not see an explicit result)

Also I tried to give to this AI the SENTRY waypoint in the hope that this might somehow increase the range of his visual detection, but there was no improvement.

SENTRY is the same useless vanilla waypoint, like most other waypoints in the game, because there are no special AI-features.

 

I think, what the low vision and low alertness - This is a big weakness of Arma3 AI, since there is no way to create a sentinel on the observation tower (or any other place), that would closely observe long distances in its field of vision. 

AI also will not hear the sound of an approaching vehicle, while the player hears it perfectly.

 

Please try to create an additional waypoint - OBSERVE.

The main goal is that with this waypoint AI could detect the enemy at large distances, if this AI currently observe.

At this point, the behavior should be minimally aggressive, while this AI should be able to see and hear far.

Perfect for guard positions, now this is very lacking.

 

Hey @mickeymen! 

 

Thanks for your input.

 

I would like to add that finding a sweet spot in Arma 3 is quite hard considering the huge amount of scenarios and environments that the game features and any configuration will of course never please everyone nor cover an optimal parameter for all scenarios but rather a middle ground.

 

In my experience for every player that complains about the Ai being too dumb (IE: Not reacting to enemies) and easy (such as yourself) there are 10 players that complain about the opposite:

 

1) The Ai always detects players before the players can detect them because:

- The Ai sees and confirms targets further than what a player would be able to do without a scope.

- The Ai reacts too fast giving players no time to confirm/spot them and so players are always on a defensive stance.

- The Ai sees/engages players through walls, foliage and obstacles that would render players unable to engage.

 

Additionally what you are describing really depends on the map and the environment you are playing.

 

For example if you are playing on the dense jungles of Tanoa then it is good that the Ai is engaging you from a close distance only while on the open plains of Altis the Ai should be engaging you past the 500 Mtrs.

 

Finally, some configurations such as your viewdistance and the dynamic Ai simulation could affect the distance at which the Ai is engaging you effectively so also consider those in your experiments.

[mickeymen 324]

15.07.2020 в 19:50 LSValmont сказал:

Привет @mickeymen! 

 

Похоже, вы не поняли, что я сказал, мне очень жаль. Речь идет о совершенно разных вещах.

 

15.07.2020 в 19:50 LSValmont сказал:

По моему опыту, для каждого игрока, который жалуется на то, что Ai слишком тупой и легкий (например, вы)

 

Покажи мне, где я сказал, что ИИ тупой и легкий?

Прочтите еще раз - я сказал, что ИИ слепой и глухой в режиме осведомленности - это разные вещи.

 

Если вы хотите оспорить то, что я сказал, тогда

 

1. Поместите вражеского красного солдата AI (100% сложность AI) на расстоянии около 200 м лицом к вам (отряд blufor) на аэродроме на полностью открытой местности.

2. создать триггер с такой активацией:

 

3. Запустите игру и начните ходить в радиусе 5-10 м.

 

вы увидите, о чем я говорю.

 ИИ будет смотреть на вас 8-15 и более секунд, прежде чем сработает триггер, но это всего лишь 200 метров!

если это здоровый солдат, то он должен визуально обнаруживать врага на расстоянии более 500 метров, особенно если у него есть путевая точка наблюдателя, например, SENTRY. А может Часовой на позиции должен быть слепым и глухим?

Я также говорил о шуме двигателя автомобиля. Когда тяжелая машина едет, ИИ должен обнаруживать ее на больших расстояниях.

Должна быть какая-то возня с движением, если ИИ стоял раньше как охранник / часовой, или должно быть сработано условие срабатывания. Это только для караула / караула

Это то, о чем просил @nkenny 

 

Что касается жалоб игроков на нечеловеческий ИИ, то это другие причины - чрезмерная точность стрельбы и обнаружение врага через препятствия. Я знаю это давно, но это уже другая тема.

Это уже боевой режим, но я говорил о режиме Aware, когда ИИ-наблюдатель, а не боец. 

[vafana 110]

18 hours ago, mickeymen said:

Hey @nkenny

 

Spoiler

 

I created tests and put the enemy AI (infantryman facing the player) opposite myself in the open spaces of the map.

At a distances > 200 meters, the AI already sees very poorly visually.  

It takes many time to detect me, even if the AI looks at me! (unit level was 50%, In the game settings - I use Total AI level 85%,  also tried 100% but did not see an explicit result)

Also I tried to give to this AI the SENTRY waypoint in the hope that this might somehow increase the range of his visual detection, but there was no improvement.

SENTRY is the same useless vanilla waypoint, like most other waypoints in the game, because there are no special AI-features.

 

I think, what the low vision and low alertness - This is a big weakness of Arma3 AI, since there is no way to create a sentinel on the observation tower (or any other place), that would closely observe long distances in its field of vision. 

AI also will not hear the sound of an approaching vehicle, while the player hears it perfectly.

 

Please try to create an additional waypoint - OBSERVE.

The main goal is that with this waypoint AI could detect the enemy at large distances, if this AI currently observe.

At this point, the behavior should be minimally aggressive, while this AI should be able to see and hear far.

Perfect for guard positions, now this is very lacking.

 

 

 

I can confirm what @mickeymen says.

[LSValmont 789]

1 hour ago, mickeymen said:

 

It looks like you don’t understand what I said, it’s very sorry. We are talking about completely different things.

 

 

Show me where I said that AI is dumb and easy?

Read it again - I said AI is blind and deaf in aware mode, are two different things.

 

If you want to challenge what I said, then

 

1. put the enemy AI red soldier (100% ai-difficulty) at the distance aprox 200 m facing you (blufor unit) at the airfield in the totally open area

2. create trigger with such activation:

 

opfor knowsAbout player > 0

3. run game and start walking there within radius 5-10 m

 

you will see what I'm talking about.

 AI will look at you for 8-15 and more seconds before the trigger works, but  it is only 200 meters!

if it is a healthy soldier then he must detect the enemy at distances greater than 500 meters visually,  especially if he has an observer's waypoint, such as SENTRY for example. Or maybe Sentry on position should be blind and deaf?

I also talked about engine noise for a vehicle. When the heavy vehicle is traveling, the AI should detect it at greater distances.

There must be some kind of movement fuss, if the AI stood before as a guard/sentry or trigger condition must be triggerd. This ll only for guard/sentry

This is what @nkenny asked for. 

 

As for the complaints of players about non-human AI, these are other reasons - excessive fire accuracy and detection of the enemy through obstacles. I have known from this for a long time, but this is a different topic.

This is already a battle mode, but I talked about Aware mode, when an AI observer but not a fighter. 

 

I see.

 

So it is NOT that the Ai is Dumb but rather it does not see and/or hears enemies fast enough (Their knows about values take 8-15 seconds to update) making it "Seem" dumb (thou they are not dumb they just seem to be due to not being blind/deaf). =p 

 

Well first you also need to understand a few things:

 

1) Many Ai behaviors in Arma 3 are hardcoded meaning that its values cannot be changed or at least it is very hard to do so.

2) LAMBS does not modify the Knows About mechanics in any way (At least it was not advertised) .

3) At the start of the mission depending on the load, your system resources and other considerations could make the Ai delay its normal behavior and functions so using the immediate start of a mission as a parameter is inadequate.  You would have more accurate test results if you measure Ai behavior a few seconds into the mission and the Ai's creation.

4) All in all I have not experienced a significant delay in the reaction of the Ai and they still engage me over 800+ meters under the 6 seconds windows once the mission has been running for some time.

[JD Wang 352]

@mickeymen We run CF_BAI alongside LAMBs and that does a great job of playing with the AI vision, making the AI spot you further out, but also taking in to account things like optics, movement speed, concealment etc.
We've found the AI will engage at much longer ranges, but if you're smart and stay concealed in tree lines etc you can actually sneak up on them as well.

 

[Steve 161st 26]

I think JD Wang makes a good point there. Have a read of the CF_BAI thread as that specifically attempts to deal with the AI spotting and reactions, especially at greater ranges.
From what I remember of the discussion, AI in the vanilla game have surprisingly short spotting distances when not in the alert state (300m ish). The distance from which they can spot you is also binary - i.e. 1m over the threshold and they will never spot you, 1m closer and the maths to spot you works normally.

We too, run Lambs and CF_BAI and find this a good combination. They can also be combined with VCOM but you might find you need more tweaking of parameters to get the balance you want when running all 3.

[mickeymen 324]

On 7/15/2020 at 11:41 PM, LSValmont said:

Well first you also need to understand a few things:

 

1) Many Ai behaviors in Arma 3 are hardcoded meaning that its values cannot be changed or at least it is very hard to do so.

2) LAMBS does not modify the Knows About mechanics in any way (At least it was not advertised) .

3) At the start of the mission depending on the load, your system resources and other considerations could make the Ai delay its normal behavior and functions so using the immediate start of a mission as a parameter is inadequate.  You would have more accurate test results if you measure Ai behavior a few seconds into the mission and the Ai's creation.

4) All in all I have not experienced a significant delay in the reaction of the Ai and they still engage me over 800+ meters under the 6 seconds windows once the mission has been running for some time.

 

On 7/16/2020 at 12:02 AM, JD Wang said:

@mickeymen We run CF_BAI alongside LAMBs and that does a great job of playing with the AI vision, making the AI spot you further out, but also taking in to account things like optics, movement speed, concealment etc.
We've found the AI will engage at much longer ranges, but if you're smart and stay concealed in tree lines etc you can actually sneak up on them as well.

 

Yes I understand, and I will say that you are even most likely right, but are you satisfied with the sentry AI in Arma 3 at the open map space? I want to narrow the question down to the capabilities of a sentry. Not more

 

Imagine a simple situation:

In an open field, the enemy garrison and there one observation tower.

This observation tower has an observer soldier looking to the southeast and you approach to this base as an enemy, also from the southeast.

At what distance will the AI lookout spot you? In an empty field? He is an observer and must peer into the horizon!

I'm 100% sure this will happen at close distances, which are typical of ordinary soldiers, but not observers.

 

In short, I will summarize - unfortunately in Arma 3 there is no way to create an observer on the observation tower that will be vigilant, as the observer should. In general, he will not use optics and will not be farsighted.

Maybe there is a way with heavy scripting, but not sure, I've always dreamed of simple features such as waypoints. Moreover, the game already has a SENTRY waypoint, but this will not work as an observer.

 

I really like that LAMBS makes additional waypoints, for this reason I asked @nkenny to create a waypoint - Observer.

I hope this is still possible

 

 

PS: 

I saw that the 3Den Editor Enhanced mod has a Spot Distance setting for each unit, this suggests that most likely LAMBS can also affect this value.

The problem is that missions created in 3Den Editor Enhanced, will not work completely correctly, if the user does not have this mod.

At least I've heard this from other users

[loopdk 92]

Just be aware CF_BA will kill  your rpt file with errors if the map isent well made

[FlatDarkSpace 2]

Excellent work! I'm using many of these features in a SP mission I'm building for myself and friends. I'm new at this, but this thread and the videos help immensely.

 

Idea:

Would it be feasible to make a version of the taskCreep behavior to alter the range at which the enemy tries to open fire? It seems like with a few tweaks, that could be turned into a fairly interesting AI mode for a sniper team. I don't know quite which AI behaviors the team has access to, but if the Creeping AI stops at, say, 500m and looks for the player - engaging if it can see the player, or if not then creeping to another position about 500m away from the player and scanning again. Could be fun.

[ayjay 117]

So this is my first day trying Lambs and obviously I'm a complete newbie with it. I only play offline so I'm wondering is there any way to disable casualties automatically respawning?

 

Apologies to nkenny. It wasn't this mod causing the respawning. 😕

Edited August 2, 2020 by ayjay
Wrong mod

[avibird 1 154]

Just curious does this mod make mission dependencies. Meaning if I have the mod loaded test out my mission and then want to play the mission without the most mod enabled do I need to go back into files to remove items that get copied and pasted throughout my mission in other files. 

[diwako 413]

8 hours ago, avibird 1 said:

Just curious does this mod make mission dependencies. Meaning if I have the mod loaded test out my mission and then want to play the mission without the most mod enabled do I need to go back into files to remove items that get copied and pasted throughout my mission in other files. 

Only if you use the modules or advanced unit check boxes when watching the properties of a unit.