squad ai mod SOG AI

[bardosy 158]

Congratulation!

 

And I report: I tried the Boots for walking mission with SOG AI and works fine. I was very accurate to find any issue, but I couldn't. Even my tasks worked fine.

I know it's not yet your script, but it looked great (and rare in PF) when AI walk across a bridge without stucking.

 

Oh and finally I met with those infamous patrol dogs. 🙂

[bardosy 158]

Hey Johnnyboy

 

Yesterday I tested SOG AI with my mission Search and Rescure.

I wantr only share with you the ending, because maybe you can improve SOG AI by this experience.

 

So at the very late game I have to liberate two POW pilots. They joined to my squad. Yes, Iknow SOG AI dont handle lately joined AI. Thats ok. I ordered them with vanilla command to follow me.

The terrain is not too AI freindly there so I use your wheel many times to order my original AI to follow me. Everything went fine.

But once I thought, the original AIs can be faster if I order them with your "move there". So I used the wheel and order them to "move there". And then, the two pilot UNjoin from my squad. They didnt die or injured, they just stand where they were when I use the wheel. All the original AI move where I told them. But the two pilot were not in my squad anymore.

 

It was not a showstopper (maybe a little story-killer), because the rescue helicopter took us and fly to the base and mission successful ended. But the tro pilot left in the rice field. 🙂

Fortunately my napalm script didnt work again, because by my original version, after the rescue helikopter took us, an F4 just napalm the rest of the prison camp. If it went fine, those pilots would roasted.

 

Back in the functionality: I thought you mod just dont care with the lately joined AIs, so I expect the original AIs will run to the point where I sent them, and the pilots will follow me slowly (as vanilla "back to formation" do), but they were detached from the squad.

[johnnyboy 3791]

10 hours ago, bardosy said:

And then, the two pilot UNjoin from my squad. They didnt die or injured, they just stand where they were when I use the wheel. All the original AI move where I told them. But the two pilot were not in my squad anymore.

That's a problem for new units joining squad later.  To do fast moves, my code gives each unit a separate doMove (instead of a set of units with a single doMove) so they don't run in formation (but arrive in formation at calculated relative positions).  This allows them to run faster.  But it also messes up the display under each unit of saying Move Stop or Ready,etc.  So to clear out that display, my code has them join grpNull, then rejoin player group.   That code is not working right for the new units.

 

Good bug report, I will try to fix that, but no promises on when. 

[johnnyboy 3791]

Mod updated.  v1.2 Changes:

• Changed Hold Actions to be regular actions to prevent transparent hold circle remaining on screen.  @bardosythis should fix the transparent circle staying on screen problem.
• Added "Burn that hootch!" action.  Player looks at hootch, and action appears.
• Some of the new ANZAC voice files used while leap frogging.  
• ANZAC units assigned English accented speakers (sounds closer to their accent than American accent)
• Western Units with Vietnamese faces are assigned French accented voices so they are not mute.
• For Headup's excellent Eyes and Ears mission, delayed mod initialization until after team lands at infil to prevent unit#5 from exiting chopper early
• Changed max dogs allowed to spawn for a tracker group to 1.
• Small changes to improve responsiveness of team.
• In Endgame Jungle mission, spawned explosion in base wall to make gap for AI to pass through.
• Enemies shot in sniper tree platforms will usually fall to ground.  More fun!

 

What's next:

My next priority is to support units joining player team after mission start, so that SOG AI is enabled for them.  This will make @bardosy's Search and Rescue work better, as well as make @HeadUp's Romp in the Swamp playable.

[johnnyboy 3791]

In other news:  SOG AI works for Escape from Altis!  🙂

 

It does not work for Escape from Tanoa, or any of the BI Combat Patrols and End Game missions, but I think I know a fix to make it work.  Stay tuned.

[maqim 33]

Thanks, man. This is exciting!!!

[praising 35]

Absolute masterpiece! I love the attention to details, and the will to make player's AI act like a real SOG team would while removing as much micro managing as possible. Not to mention all the other neat features, punji pits, exploding barrels, tracker dogs...
I have a few questions from a mission making perspective:

• Is it possible to have the respawn system work with this if playing solo but like on lan server? I did try some missions and didn't get any error though, always had the MIA event ending which ended the mission (got my ass handed to me).
• Does SOGAI affect the player's ai skills and subskills in anyway? And their camo coef and audible coef?
• For cases where player has editor placed ai squadmates, does SOGAI affect the ai's inventory? Thinking about the tailgunner for exemple, and his toe poppers.

Anyway, Thank you for your amazing work!

[johnnyboy 3791]

58 minutes ago, praising said:

Absolute masterpiece! I love the attention to details, and the will to make player's AI act like a real SOG team would while removing as much micro managing as possible.

Thanks dude, I appreciate the feedback!

59 minutes ago, praising said:

Is it possible to have the respawn system work with this if playing solo but like on lan server? I did try some missions and didn't get any error though, always had the MIA event ending which ended the mission (got my ass handed to me).

I'm not sure what an Ian server is, but SOG AI is unlikely to work with respawn.  By having AI allowed to revive player and vice-versa, I feel respawn is unnecessary (and immersion breaking IMO).  I may get to supporting respawn, but no promises. 

1 hour ago, praising said:

Does SOGAI affect the player's ai skills and subskills in anyway? And their camo coef and audible coef?

Since I built this with SOG recon teams in mind (and to play the Prairie Fire campaign missions), I set player's AI team to maximum skills.

1 hour ago, praising said:

For cases where player has editor placed ai squadmates, does SOGAI affect the ai's inventory? Thinking about the tailgunner for exemple, and his toe poppers.

Yes.  For editor placed squad-mates, the tail gunner is given up to 10 more toe poppers (if room in his inventory).  And all the AI get a couple more Willy Pete grenades (cuz they are so freakin' fun!).  I have on my to-do list to have tail-gunner take mines from other squad-mates (if he runs out, or original tail gunner killed, and new tail gunner has no mines).

 

1 hour ago, praising said:

Anyway, Thank you for your amazing work!

You are welcome sir!

 

I still have some planned updates:

• Make SOG AI work on units that join team after mission start.
• Add command and script for AI team to cross bridge quickly and use entire bridge (instead of slow centipeding down one side of bridge).
• Add command and script for AI to swim/wade across river at spot player chooses.
• Figure out how to handle injured/revive case where injured unit in 3 feet of water (currently he magically can breathe underwater until someone revives him).  This is immersion breaking.  Need to support him being incapacitated, but with head above water somehow.  Or let him drown.
• Add board boat script that sends units to closest edge of boat and boards them (to solve case of them swimming around and taking forever to get in a boat).
• Support Team Switch (this requires most work and may never get done).
• Fun Halloween Surprise!  (Hopefully anyway, but I'm running out of time to get this done).

[praising 35]

32 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

I'm not sure what an Ian server is, but SOG AI is unlikely to work with respawn.  By having AI allowed to revive player and vice-versa, I feel respawn is unnecessary (and immersion breaking IMO).  I may get to supporting respawn, but no promises. 

By Lan server I simply meant when one self host a mission in MP. Usually to benefit from the respawn system. The use for the respawn system can be, you got killed while some of your team is still alive. You respawn, grab some new gear some fresh squadmate and launch a BrightLight as a new team to rescue the 1st one. That's how I've been doing it before using your SOGAI anyhow. I understand your reasons. I don't mind losing the respawn possibilty by using SOGAI though, and the end events are actually quite cool.

 

54 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

Yes.  For editor placed squad-mates, the tail gunner is given up to 10 more toe poppers (if room in his inventory).  And all the AI get a couple more Willy Pete grenades (cuz they are so freakin' fun!).  I have on my to-do list to have tail-gunner take mines from other squad-mates (if he runs out, or original tail gunner killed, and new tail gunner has no mines).

Ok, I have another question about that though which I should have thought of in my previous post.  Does the "toe poppers action" only works with toe poppers? Or does it work with claymores, etc?

Those planned features sounds great! I hope you get  to find a work around the AIs and their inherent disdain for water lol. Thanks again!
 

[johnnyboy 3791]

32 minutes ago, praising said:

By Lan server I simply meant when one self host a mission in MP.

Haha, I read LAN as IAN (like the name Ian).  I get it now.  I understand your desired use case, but don't think I'll ever get around to making that happen.

32 minutes ago, praising said:

Does the "toe poppers action" only works with toe poppers? Or does it work with claymores, etc?

Tailgunner will choose to place any proximity type mine he has in inventory, in this preferential order:  toe-poppers, bounding mines, trip mines, punji traps.  So if you pick up some punji traps off of a dead sapper, give them to your TG, and he will use them if he runs out of other proximity mines.

[praising 35]

16 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

Haha, I read LAN as IAN (like the name Ian).  I get it now.  I understand your desired use case, but don't think I'll ever get around to making that happen.

I should have written it in caps, my bad lol.

16 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

Tailgunner will choose to place any proximity type mine he has in inventory, in this preferential order:  toe-poppers, bounding mines, trip mines, punji traps.  So if you pick up some punji traps off of a dead sapper, give them to your TG, and he will use them if he runs out of other proximity mines

Perfect! Hadn't thought to give him some on the few occasions I've seen him run out of mines.

I noticed there's seem to be some code to teleport the AI in the heli when they have a "get in order" and they're a close enough from the heli? If so that's definitely a cool idea. Last night they managed to get in a heli that was hovering a couple feet off the ground which they never would have on vanilla.

[johnnyboy 3791]

SOG AI version 1.3 released!

Changes:

Spoiler

- Added "Change Unit Loadout" feature (suggested by Velvet Mark on steam)
- Added "Change Player Loadout" feature 
- Allow toggling off SOG AI (Disable SOG AI action) (suggested by DrDetroit)
- Support units join team after start (Good for @bardosy's Search And Rescue mission and @HeadUp's Romp in the Swamp)
- BI Campaign missions now playable with SOG AI (East Wind, Beyond Hope, Stepping Stone)
    Note:  Only the missions where player leads a squad will use SOG AI.
-- Escape missions on Altis, Stratis, Tanoa now playable with SOG AI (via LAN)
-- Combat Patrol missions on Altis, Stratis, Tanoa, Livonia now playable with SOG AI (via LAN)
    Note: You need to use the VET-SOG:PF-Restore Vanilla Missions mod to access these missions with Prarie Fire DLC running
- Fixed player prone while healing bug (reported by Michael Rezendes on youtube)
- Player not playing ANZAC voice during healing. FIXED
- Fixed mute units so Koreans, Laotians, ARVNs all assigned English-French accents

 

[maqim 33]

Thanks so much for this update, johnnyboy!!!!

 

Haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but if it does what it says on the tin (and I know you wouldn't release if it didn't!) then things just got even better for SP 😎

While all of the new features are awesome, the "change loadout" thing is something I was really hoping for - I was about to start digging through the files to see if I could modify initial loadouts to include a few more silenced weapons. You've saved me from borking the mod 😄

 

Thanks for your continued work on this wonderful addition to the SP experience 🙏

[maqim 33]

Just had a quick crack on Eldest Son 1. Don't have time to complete the mission tonight, but I have to say, the new features are fantastic! Loadout change especially!

 

Next level stuff here, sir!!!!! Can't wait to try on non-SOG missions also.

 

👍😎👍

[johnnyboy 3791]

Here's some progress on new feature to command AI to swim (or wade) across a river.  Hat tip to @pierre MGI suggesting the BIS_fnc_nearestPoint command!

 

 

[maqim 33]

🤯🤯🤯

🤯🤯🤯

🤯🤯🤯

Cannot wait!!!

👍😎👍

[EO 11275]

Soggy AI. 

[johnnyboy 3791]

19 minutes ago, EO said:

Soggy AI. 

😁 I'm gonna use that mate!  You gotta love the pun...the highest form of humor!

[johnnyboy 3791]

Newsflash:  SOG AI was just reviewed by PCGamesN.  Woohoo!

[johnnyboy 3791]

Version 1.6 of SOG AI released.  Main new feature is ability to order team to cross rivers.

Change Log:

Spoiler

v1.6 Changes:
- Player can now order AI to swim across rivers.  Player looks at water, and action appears.
-- River crossings only available for these maps currently: Cam Lao Nam, The Bra, Khe Sanh.
-- In Cam Lao Nam, river crossing not supported in NE rivers North of Hanoi, and South of Mekong river.
- River crossing forbidden if far bank exit blocked by rocks, steep bank, piers, bridges, etc.
- VCOM AI mod now compatible by making VCOM disabled for player AI team.
- AI will die if incapacitated in water deep enough to drown (for sake of immersion).
- Player will immediately be given Withstand option if incapcitated in water deep enough to to drown.
I was going to make player die in water for immersion sake, but this caused weird game freeze.
So decided on instant Withstand, rather than very unrealistic incapacitated state under water.
- Tailgunner now says "Out of Ammo" when ordered to place mine, and he has no more to place.
- In "The Bra" map, in the big swamp, all hard bushes are replaced with elephant grass which allows AI to navigate better there.
- Fixed problem where player and his team was not taking full damage from grenades.  Grenades are deadly, so hit the dirt if you hear "Incoming!".

 

[madrussian 347]

Well done AI master, wonderful new water related features. 👍

 

4 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

- Fixed problem where player and his team was not taking full damage from grenades.  Grenades are deadly, so hit the dirt if you hear "Incoming!"

 

Curious about this one.  What was stopping full grenade damages?

[johnnyboy 3791]

4 minutes ago, madrussian said:

Curious about this one.  What was stopping full grenade damages?

I have a complicated (probably too complicated) damage eventHandler for limiting damage to a threshold that won't trigger respawn, and instead calls my set unconscious script, and sends AI to revive the downed unit.  I think nades slipped through the cracks because of 10 or 20 fragments triggering the handleDamage event simultaneously, so not all of the small incremental damages per fragment (per fired handleDamage EH) were applied to the unit.

[madrussian 347]

13 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

I have a complicated (probably too complicated) damage eventHandler for limiting damage to a threshold that won't trigger respawn, and instead calls my set unconscious script, and sends AI to revive the downed unit.  I think nades slipped through the cracks because of 10 or 20 fragments triggering the handleDamage event simultaneously, so not all of the small incremental damages per fragment (per fired handleDamage EH) were applied to the unit.

 

Ah-ha!  I did something similar in Fight Back mission related to Destroy Truck explosion.  Vanilla truck destruction was too wimpy looking so I spiced it up with a giant bomb.  Just for the visual & sound effect.  Used a handleDamage to detect the moment the truck was going to explode to know when to add the bomb.  I also recall handleDamage firing a whole bunch-o-times & having to account for that (not to mention trying to sync it all in MP), and that giving me fits.  Also to my surprise turns out bomb was waaay too powerful (killing people very very far away), so I had to make sure and spawn bomb right in the middle of the truck, with truck doing nice job of shielding surrounding units & more importantly players from that vast blast radius.  (Turns out vanilla truck explosion itself was just right amount of deadliness.)  On top of this, I also had to worry & fiddle a lot about where the middle of the truck actually was, having no standard destroy truck size or shape because enemy faction was selectable by the player from all factions detected in the config.  With A3, it's amazing how much is often involved in such seemingly trivial thing.  It's like... you start adding a bit, and pretty soon everything easily spirals out of control.

[johnnyboy 3791]

1 hour ago, madrussian said:

Ah-ha!  I did something similar in Fight Back mission related to Destroy Truck explosion.  Vanilla truck destruction was too wimpy looking so I spiced it up with a giant bomb.  Just for the visual & sound effect.  Used a handleDamage to detect the moment the truck was going to explode to know when to add the bomb.  I also recall handleDamage firing a whole bunch-o-times & having to account for that (not to mention trying to sync it all in MP), and that giving me fits.  Also to my surprise turns out bomb was waaay too powerful (killing people very very far away), so I had to make sure and spawn bomb right in the middle of the truck, with truck doing nice job of shielding surrounding units & more importantly players from that vast blast radius.  (Turns out vanilla truck explosion itself was just right amount of deadliness.)  On top of this, I also had to worry & fiddle a lot about where the middle of the truck actually was, having no standard destroy truck size or shape because enemy faction was selectable by the player from all factions detected in the config.  With A3, it's amazing how much is often involved in such seemingly trivial thing.  It's like... you start adding a bit, and pretty soon everything easily spirals out of control.

That's arma scripting in a nutshell.  One simple cool thing you want to do takes you down a 3 day rathole, and you do it, because you want it to be the best it can be.  

 

I seem to recall a similar issue where I spawned the explosion a few meters underground to mute the explosion fx.  I'd have to test that again to swear to it though.

 

There is a similar issue with grenades in water.  If you are standing on shore, and a grenade detonates 4 meters away in water 2 meters deep, the water gives units zero shielding from blast and shrapnel.  I want to fix that.  The other grenade issue is they don't splash when they hit the water, and water in no way impedes their velocity, so they can skip along the ocean floor for 30 meters before exploding.  This I have solved (coming soon).

[johnnyboy 3791]

I posted a topic for a sample mission for floating objects down river using SOG AI mod.  It includes a fun video.

Oh well, I guess I'll put the vid here too: