Safe Mode Broken

[Guest]

Umteenth millionth topic on this ive made ,last one for sure

I finally decided to put up the Safe Mode bug on the Arma Bugs Site, and, to no suprise have gotten little attention.

I am concerned, if this bug doesent get fixed, it will mean for my mission, and all others out there that use patrols and such with safe mode, these patrols will not be reliable to continue on their paths over time during a mission.

Again, the bug is:

If any units in safe mode encounter any nearby combat, have a bullet fly by them (even from freindlies), etc, they will go into combat mode and NEVER return to safe mode, and they will NEVER resume their WP plan, they will sit there flat on the ground, and according to ColonelSandersLite, you cant even reset their behaviour, basically, they are permanently stuck.

Ive found an easy way to test how severe this problem is by just making a group of west units in safe mode on a waypoint plan, then take West player and fire off a few rounds nearby the units till they drop down to prone, they will never get back up and return to their wp plan, ever. Of course, after a short time they should be returning to safe mode and resuming their wp plan, just like they did in Ofp, this is not happening.

Please feel free to contribute to the bug being fixed by adding at least a vote to my report on this bug guys, for all of our sakes, not just mine

Link to the Safe Mode bug report :

Bug Report

[baddo 0]

Well...

...I had doubts about this when I was editing a mission and I noticed that the friendly groups that I had put to patrol around a town did not behave the way I would have liked them to behave. Mainly the problem was that the groups were so stupid that when enemy attacked the town, especially this one group just laid down on a road and stayed there for the whole duration of the mission. They were on "safe" at the start but of course they shot back if enemy came close. Weird thing to me was that they really seemed to stay where they were on the moment of noticing the approaching enemy. I didn't go deeper into solving that problem but I recall that in OFP this didn't happen.

Also some words about ArmA non-US demo: I played the coop mission alone with AI units as team mates. A serious problem was, at least on some version of that demo, that the AI units got stuck not long after the mission had started. I had ordered them to lay down in line formation and assigned targets to them, on "hold fire" mode right from the start of the mission. When I ordered them to start shooting all seemed to go well, enemies got taken out. But then when I wanted to advance with the whole group to the town, some AI units just refused to move anymore. They just stood there and ignored all my commands. Then, when my unit died and I took control of such stuck AI unit, I couldn't move that character either. In one case I had a pistol in hand, the rifle in the back, and when I fired, it was the rifle at the back of the unit that fired... not the pistol in the hand. This was very serious problem and I think it went away with some patch to the demo but can't be completely sure.

I am quite sure that last time I play-tested the mission I am making, the AI groups behaved quite "dumb" and didn't do much after switching from "safe" to "combat", they were all in prone position like you mentioned. They took enemy out if the enemy came close but very rarely advanced to kill the enemy. This looked quite bad but as I said, I didn't yet go deeper into the problem - maybe it is a question of how the waypoints are set up. But I am sure it was not like this in OFP, there the AI groups were more active in this kind of situation as I recall (when using only "move" waypoints).

On the other hand I have also seen quite good behaviour of AI in ArmA this far; I have been flanked and been in serious survival problems because of enemy AI approaching from unexpected direction. This has improved over OFP.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Sounds like FSM trouble, maybe we need a new setBehaviour command (setBehaviourWeak?).

[Guest]

Well...

...I had doubts about this when I was editing a mission and I noticed that the friendly groups that I had put to patrol around a town did not behave the way I would have liked them to behave. Mainly the problem was that the groups were so stupid that when enemy attacked the town, especially this one group just laid down on a road and stayed there for the whole duration of the mission. They were on "safe" at the start but of course they shot back if enemy came close. Weird thing to me was that they really seemed to stay where they were on the moment of noticing the approaching enemy. I didn't go deeper into solving that problem but I recall that in OFP this didn't happen.

For the large scale mission ive been working on, this bug has forced me to disable all the safeMode settings in the scripts, which *used* to put various groups on patrols in towns across the island, but, like you have also discovered, SafeMode cannot be relied on, so now they stalk around in aware/speedMode Limited on their patrols, looking every second like they are under attack, a dramatic decrease in the appearance of my patrols

[ColonelSandersLite 0]

I can confirm safe mode is broken in this manner.

Mainly, this will affect larger missions that are likely to continue after contact with the enemy has ended.

If a unit has encountered enemy units or what have you, they will be stuck when in safe mode, even when switching from combat to safe.

It is broken, and yes, likely culprit is the FSMs.

[benreeper 0]

I did a test. After an attack and the GL stated that the area was clear, the units stayed in AWARE mode and would not go back to SAFE mode even when scripted to do so.

--Ben

[TheElite 0]

its linked to a major flaw with the arma engine .

when things pause like this nothing happens until another shot is fired and then things happen in small increments after each shot.

for example test your theory but place yourself in a mg2 static. you will see every time you do a burst of fire they crawl a little, eventually they leave some behind. this problem been here since 1.00 and i pointed out, they fixed for waypoints (which was same for first waypoint, uness you fire a gun nobody acknowledge first waypoint ,fixed).

something badly wrong somewhere with FSM as stated before.

[Op4 BuhBye 0]

Well Congrats! Its acknowledged!

I added a funny story and some SCs.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I believe I have had the "weapons on back firing" bug without any of my units ever being in safe mode, so I'm not sure if these are related. I changed to the handgun and back to get the rifle firing as normal again.

Funny though, I've never experienced this safe mode bug, or should I say; I've never cought it happening.

[baddo 0]

I believe I have had the "weapons on back firing" bug without any of my units ever being in safe mode, so I'm not sure if these are related. I changed to the handgun and back to get the rifle firing as normal again.

Well I brought it up only because it happened at the same time as a character got stuck into its position, first as an AI and later it was still stuck when I took control of that character (I could fire the gun in the back and turn around, but not change location).

[Guest]

Funny though, I've never experienced this safe mode bug, or should I say; I've never cought it happening.

Like ColonelSandersLite pointed out, this is a bug that will most affect medium to large scale missions, ones that have constant patrols moving about for hours, where these patrols would not be desired to be in anything but safe mode, moving about either in a town or patrolling out in the sticks, in these scenarios these patrols only need just a freindly unit nearby firing a shot or two (any sort of action nearby telling them to go into combat mode) to say Buh-by to their patrol path, permantently - they drop to prone and ignore behaviour resets, and ignore their wp plan as well.

Example, tons of examples, any sort of mission that uses "realistic" looking patrols, my mission uses multitudes of units in towns moving about patrolling the streets and town parimters, really only a matter of time before numbers of these units end up "stuck" due to come and gone attacks on their town, eventually wrecking the functionality of the patrols and their appearance as well.

[fasad 1]

Special Ed, for your mission I'd suggest a slow looping script that checks the position of the leader of each of the safe patrols. If he hasn't moved in say 30 seconds, reset his behaviour to "AWARE", then straight back to "SAFE" if desired. In my testing, this will make him stand up and continue walking. When they fix the bug you can remove the script.

I've seen your last note in the BTS (i'm ceeeb btw). My test situation used a radio trigger to send one enemy AI over a hill into sight of the stuck group. As soon as they spot him they switched to combat mode and stand up. Alternatively, revealing an enemy has the same effect. I'm using the 5143 beta if that makes any difference.

TheElite's comment is interesting. Very strange that AI movement is linked to shots from a gun! Each shot gives them ~1 second of movement.

[Guest]

This would not be easy, litterally endless numbers of patrols that can be spawned over time, aside from roaming units and civilians

Sounds like your solution would work, but to attempt to micro manage all these units is a little to much for me (mission is already taking way too long ) - Think I will see what Bis says/does about this, I know you are working on a big mission too, personally Ive already spent huge time creating numerous workarounds due to many, many Arma bugs, lots in Helos, starting to feel like Im trying to fix the dang game while im making my mission

At least the bug has been acknowledged, Id think this is a bug that should be addressed as high priority, considering its only a major flaw in the only behaviour setting that lets units look relaxed rather than in combat ready status.....

[ColonelSandersLite 0]

I've attempted fasad's solution in an older version of arma, and for me, the result was erratic. Some would continue, some wouldn't. It seemed to be random.

Testing it on 3 squads, if I recall correctly, on average 33% or so would continue, but only if the squad leader was one of those people. If the squad leader didn't resume, then nobody would.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Remembered this topic when I got into some really weird problems today. All my 9men squads in my current mission are custom setup starting with removeAllWeapons. They have recieved default weapons and ammo, and some of them have recieved the standard M9 pistol with some ammunition.

Those units with an M9 tend to get stuck in faulty weapon mode a LOT! That is, prone on ground with M9 in hand yet inventory claims it is the main weapon. As long as this continues, the unit remains stuck. I tried teamswitching and fix it myself, but ended up loosing control over my squad when I got back as leader -- "2 follow 2"?!? Wtf?

I had to go to the troubled unit via the map, groups, and select him. Drop his main weapon (and M9? not sure) to the ground. Then and only then would he manage to get up from prone and start listening to orders again.

So, big question: Are the sidearms (and most likely their use within FSM and/or load/save) completely bugged to the point of not being of any use in singleplayer games?

[5133p39 16]

I am using ArmA v1.14, and this bug (unit never returning to SAFE mode even if told by setBehavaviour command) is still there!

Have anyone found some workaround for this?

It is very, very annoying.

[5133p39 16]

Not only SAFE mode is broken, but CARELESS too.

Even if (after encountering enemy AND destroying this enemy) i set the unit's behaviour to CARELESS and speed mode to LIMITED, the unit is still running around like in combat mode.