Ai eating too many carrots?

[John C Flett 0]

Been away from OFP for a wee while and having come back now I've been making a lot of use of the sebnam2 pack. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed all this.

The one thing which strikes me which I don't remember from before is the amazing perception and accuracy of the AI at night.

A lot of the Nam missions are set at dusk or even in total darkness without the benefit of NV goggles. Half the time I can barely see the gun I'm holding let alone much beyond whats infront of me. The AI however seems to have little problem picking me out and shooting me at quite long ranges.

Now I don't want a return to the V1.0 days when you could make yourself invisible by lying down but the AI wasn't always this perceptive was it?

[Scorpio 0]

I agree...AI shouldn't really see in the dark. Hell, low-skilled AI shouldnt even get a good shot at broad daylight while shooting at long ranges... but you have to remember, wherever there is a game,

AI = Superman.

[InqWiper 0]

An AI with 0 skill will likely have to spend more than 1 magazine to kill you while you ae prone 200 meters away, they wount even engage you at 300 meters although you have releaved yourself with the reveal command.

I dont think the AI sees too good in the dark. I can see pretty well in the dark after a while and on the OFP islands it never gets really dark. If you can see the AI in the game then the AI should be able to see you. If the soldiers has an officer with NVG then only the officer has to see you and the soldier knows where you are too.

I think it would be stupid to make the AI too bad because then you have to find a way to make the player less skilled also or he could run around and kill everything without any problems. The problem with making it harder for the player to shoot would probably annoy many people because they would think the rifle would move too much and they bet they could shoot better IRL. The AI and the player has to be kinda on the same level, so since the player is unrealisticly good for a normal soldier then the AIs cant act like recriuts.

[iNeo 0]

AI's can see through smoke, can't they? Smoke can be a great tool sometimes, but if it doesn't work on AI's, you're only making it harder for yourself.

[John C Flett 0]

A lot of fair points InqWiper except that sometimes it can get very dark, pitch black even, and thats the point where I find the AI outstrips my ability to detect them. Its not all the time but there are some missions where I feel the AI is acting as if it had NV even without goggles.

It could be that the skill level of the AI has just been set too high in some missions to give a realistic performance but it doesn't feel right to me.

Now, I know I can help myself by playing around with the gamma settings but I kind of like the fact that nights can be black in OFP. Having grown up in the country I know that you can get nights which rally are black and I like that OFP can represent that rather than the 'blue wash' effect other games use.

Anyway, its not the biggest problem, just that I don't remember having it before and wondered if AI detection had been tweaked again.

[Homer Johnston 0]

John, if you ever go out at night under a half-moon and the starlight, you can see quite well if you have ok night-vision (I'm talking about real life)... since I'm pretty sure I usually see the moon in OFP, increase your game-brightness settings

also I sorta consider having it set on 16 bit color is more realistic for night; your eyes see things more patchy when the light band is from black to very dark IRL, and in-game if you run 16 bit color the display is sorta patchy at night

also, of course, if you're in a bright room you won't be able to see at night... night missions are best played at night!

[John C Flett 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">John, if you ever go out at night under a half-moon and the starlight, you can see quite well if you have ok night-vision (I'm talking about real life)<span id='postcolor'>

True, but try it on a moonless, cloudy night and it can be a very different matter. I actually walked into a deer once that way. Don't know who got the bigger fright out of it.

Ah well, guess I'm the only one finding this but its only a few missions. I just was ticked off at being continually taken out at a few hundred metres, in cover, in pitch black without a chance to even see the bad guys. I'll try that that 16 bit colour tip though.

Oops tried it, did strange things. I've mucked around with the monitor and gamma a bit and came to slightly more workable solution but its pushing again the sky to blue rather than black. It did clarify something though that perhaps I phrased badly. Yes, you can see in the dark up to a point, I guess its the difference between seeing and actively looking, that in the day I just see, at night I need to look and its easier to lose things. Especially when I take a shot and the muzzle flash takes my night vision for a moment. Thats what bothers me about the AI is they adjust too fast to different targets and movement in the dark.

Just personnal taste I guess but real darkness doesn't confuse them might be a better way of putting it. Too much situational awareness. Sound better?

[dayglow 2]

My scale is if I can deploy realistic tatics and manouver to overcome the enemy and in OFP right now it isn't possible. The ai is crack shots once they see you and are flustered by rounds landing around them. Lay down fire with a M-60 at a target 200m away and the ai will slowly draw a bead and drop you, even though bullets are flying all around them. Also they can detect you in unrealistic ways. I remember in the Resistance campaign I detinated some satchel charges that some tanks rolled over. Now I was prone in a forest around 300m away from the charges, whatever the max range is for detinating them. Well I took out 3 of the 4 tanks and the last one wheeled around and shot me. How the hell? Until the ai acts in a realistic manor there is a lot of room for improvement in the game.

COLINMAN

[Lt_Damage 0]

I have also noticed this sort of behaviour, was playing a mission where I lawed an enemy M113 and then hid in some bushes and they shot me in 2 shots. This was in complete darkness.

I read an article that many games cannot achieve AI that are good enough to play vs humans and still be hard, so programmers let the AI cheat a little bit, this is true for all games as it is believed for an AI to truly beat a human it would require months of developement by the best Artificial intelligence programmers in the world.

Of course it depends on the game, I think OFP programmers are pretty damn good they just need to maybe adjust the AI's detection when its dark, take into account the level of light, whether you are close enough to be detected by sound, whether you are using a weapon with a muzzle flash, many different things.

Hopefully it can be fixed up