One tweak that will change alot

[KeyCat 131]

Hi,

After several hours testing I think I've found one issue with the AI, this also somewhat explains why the enemy AI can track you down like a wounded dog even if you are trying to play "by the book".

If enemy AI spotted/noticed you once (?) they are able to pinpoint (and update) your exact location for every shot you fire (unless you use a silenced weapon). This happens without valid LOS and their "perceived" position of you is spot on - within decimeters.

IMHO the enemy AI should not be able to pinpoint your exact position just by a single shot, all they should know is the general direction (+/- ~30 degrees), not the exact position where in the 3D world you fired from (unless they spot you as well of course).

I don't know how hard it would be to fix this but I think this tweak/fix will dramaticly change the gameplay to the better!

My tests was with East/West infantry and I tried different skill settings in editor (0.2 - 1.00) and it doesn't seems to matter (current skill level in ArmAProfile is skillEnemy=0.650000).

It's a bit ironic tho, since one of the things I "complained" about in OFP was that the AI where more or less completely deaf and now BIS gave them "uber-triangulation ears"

If anyone is interested I will try to whip up a simple test script that clearly demonstrates this, just let me know.

Any comments?

/KC

[troop 0]

+1

BIS, please take note and somewhat tone down the AIs capability

to 'eartrack' player 99% exact. 70% (?) should be ok for an

*much* better and way less (sometimes) frustrating experience.

[-Puma- 2]

+1

BIS, please take note and somewhat tone down the AIs capability

to 'eartrack' player 99% exact. 70% (?) should be ok for an

*much* better and way less (sometimes) frustrating experience.

+2 When u shoot from well hidden POS at an uaz with MG or Grenade launcher, after the fisrt shot the shooter immidiatly turns his gun at u and after that theres not much to do. (after 1.08 there must some wait time implemented, because they dot fire instantly at u, like in prevuis versions)

[l mandrake 9]

I certainly agree; they should know your general bearing and distance but not have pinpont knowledge after every shot.

However I find this very confusing.

If the AI 'knows' exactly where you are firing from, why don't they move and find cover instead of lying on the ground in the open waiting to get shot? The AI's lack of 'cover awareness' is for me the one major problem with ARMA single-player at the moment, I really hope something can be done.

[sickboy 13]

I agree aswell..

The test mission would be a goody, please do!

I have some remarks though:

[*] In real life, one could possibly track Tracer Fire (esp when other enemies look from a different angle)

[*] Muzzleflashes can disclose a position

[*] Sound possibly discloses a position pretty wild, especially when ur firing multiple times

Those things should be taken into consideration, but indeed, they should not be able to pinpoint your exact position when ur hidden behind cover etc.

Have you tested how long it takes for the knowsAbout values to drop below a level where they can't pinpoint you any longer, aswell as tested how far they can "hear" you?

[cain2001 0]

Acually, now its fun playing agains the Ai because they are really good! You never fire just one bullet, you are always behind some cover wasting 2 mags on enemies. Why shouldnt they move up and flank you from behind? I get my ass handed to me pretty bad and its more enjoyable rather than havign the stupid Ai that spins and cant hitt you for shit.

Keep the Ai I say.

[USSRsniper 0]

Yes, AI is able to pinpoint. Fired AT from cover when tank was not looking into my direction, hidden behind building. Then tank fires canon at corner of building and kills me..... One bullet from M16 lets tank pinpoint my position?   When this happens I usually Ctrl + Alt + Del out from the ArmA  

[Sc@tterbrain 0]

I have had several experiences where I have been spotted (and ocassionaly shot at) from a concealed location.

When I say conceled I mean on the other side of a building or behind the crest of a hill.

This "spotting" usually only occurs when ai is in a vehicle.

My point: Do ai in vehicles have a different locating ability then those on foot?

Thanks in advance to anyone with this knowledge.

[4 IN 1 0]

i just wish that the AIs wont follow me as much when i when behind cover and walk out the other side

[troop 0]

Have you tested how long it takes for the knowsAbout values to drop below a level where they can't pinpoint you any longer, aswell as tested how far they can "hear" you?

I can post my 'AhA' experience in one (own test) mission, like

there have been posted several similar situations already.

1. I had set up several OPFOR squads with AI skill 1.0 (= best)

within/close around Paraiso, with my own squad to the north

outside LOS to enemy. (Road towards 'Bonanza' )

2. Ordered my squad to move to Bonanza and made my way

alone to an building complex right above Paraiso; west side..

good overlooks for sniping.

3. I made sure to be *behind* an walls corner and only lean

and fire *one* shot ~400m out and immediately unlean back

to cover. Ai was set to be 'Aware' and I hit one regular Squad member.

4. 1 minute later, I leaned and fired second shot (AI had hit the dirt)

which connected as well.. > unlean.

5. ~10 secs later, I heard: 'Engage that man' from my

12 'o clock, and immediately (wondering...) retreated around an

second corner, switching to tactical view to discover, who the hell

got my position! 3 OPFOR specops were coming for me;..

and now guess what: They pointed their weapons right at the position

(and heres the quirk...even *through* the wall! )

I was just seconds before!

6. One of them did then come around the corner to gain LOS

of my *former* position;.. then tracing around the *second* corner,

where I had taken cover behind. I shot him..and

immediately retreated once more. (The area is ideal for testing this! )

7. Needless to say, the remaining 2 Specops immediately homed in

on my *third* position. (ok, one shot fired; 25m distance to those guys)

8. What else? There were stairs on that particular building, so I retreated

all around it and laid low on the roof. And here, they

lost me. I heard 'Negative' after approx. 5 Minutes and they

returned downhill towards their former 'Guard' position.

9. When I shot one of them in the back from the roof (and hit the dirt

after the shot;..they could *not* have seen me! )

they immediately turned around and *sure enough* the last remaining

Specop came right for me onto the roof via the stairs!

10. 'You are dead, Mr. perfect eartrack AI'

[frederf 0]

The AI is good enough at "hearing" to hit you blindfolded at 100 yards. I don't mind them getting a vector +/- 10 degrees and a distance +/-100m on my position through hearing, but anything else is just too much.

The AI would be about 100x better if they just:

1. Saw you much farther away

2. Shot real suppressive fire

3. Shot with less than 100% assurance of a hit

I think a lot of complaints at the AI's accuracy come from

1. Being allowed to get up real close

2. Not getting shot at and missed

3. The AI only shoots with a very high confidence

[l mandrake 9]

The AI would be about 100x better if they just:

1. Saw you much farther away

2. Shot real suppressive fire

3. Shot with less than 100% assurance of a hit

I agree. If we can't have the AI diving for cover and performing co-ordinated fighting withdrawals, then these suggested tweaks would IMO be the next best thing.

[KeyCat 131]

OK, below is a link to a simple test mission that demonstrates it all.

Do the following:

1. When the mission begins stay put behind the ridge and fire a magazine with the M24 up in the air - nothing happens (?).

2. Now walk ~15 m forward at SW and crest the ridge. Look down in the village in the scope and you will see one single East soldier.

3. Fire a few shots close by his feet (not at him) and he will soon detect you.

4. When you see the message "You are detected" a flag pole is positioned at the position where the AI "think" you are (i.e your perceived position). So far so good since he probably saw you.

5. No walk back again 50-100 m out of LOS and fire a single shot in the air at NW or whatever. You will see that instantly the flag pole (indicating the AI's perceived position of you) will move to your exact position. Move again a couple of times (out of AI's LOS) and fire and you will see that the enemy AI pinpoints you with 100% accuracy.

Try different things, different weapons, different skilllevels, try behind buildings etc. in village.

http://keycat.no-ip.com/files/ArmA_108_AI_Uber_triangulation.zip

Post your thoughts/comments in this thread and keep it on-topic, pls!

/KC

[jasono 0]

I didn't know that this was so bad. When you actually look at the problem, and thanks to KeyCat, see what the AI see's.. it's an even more serious issue than I thought.

I think firing a shot should give your position away, depending on distance so they are facing in roughly the right direction. The closer they are, the easier they can pinpoint you and it would make more sense.

[dmitri 0]

I appreciate the effort. However, I still feel the AI needs all the help it can get while fighting humans. We can predict the AI's position after they've fired. Perhaps not an exact pinpoint of their position, but unlike the AI, we can move effectively to cover, we know exactly when to go prone, when to fire (and when not to fire), when to flee, exactly which targets to prioritize. In the majority of these tasks, the best the AI can do is "predict" - but not to the degree a human can.

[frederf 0]

Are you sure that the AI knows exactly your position? Maybe the flagpole experiment was incomplete because the AI would know that you're "Right there +/- a radius around it" so just because the flag pole was there might not mean that the AI was pin point certain of your position but just that that position was the center of the zone it thought you were in?

Or maybe the AI does...

[andersson 285]

Maybe the good hearing is to simulate smarter AI, so they come after you and "search" behind buildings and hills?

But the hearing should be less precise, the "keycats flagpole" should be near you but not exactly on your pos.

[STRYKER555 0]

Yes I agree that the AI is pin pointing u by sound. I have noticed this my self, everytime I fire a weapon they immediately know where I am even without LOS and start to score very accurate hits. I have been noticing this since the first coop demo, I grab a sniper rifle and from medium distance shoot two enemy AI in quick succession from heavy foliage, I immediately started taking fire and was wounded.

With the full game I fire AT4 and retreat from location, surely enough enemy AI found my old location and started to track me down as I fired at other enemy targets with M4 rifle, then sprayed very accurate fire full auto at me severely wounding my arms so I cant aim properly.

What I want BIS to do is turn down their hearing locating accuracy ability from medium distance say 300m AND make weapon recoil/bullet spread affect on full auto affect their accuracy just like how they affect us human players, Im tired to be killed from enemy AI full auto blasts from over 200 meters. Also PLEASE stop the AI shooting me through bushes!

[sanctuary 19]

In the OFP main config.bin , the following variables controlled most, if not all, the AI (soldiers or vehicle AI) settings responsible for spotting, hearing and will of targetting.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">camouflage=...; // how dificult to spot - bigger - better spotable

audible=...; // audible - bigger - better heard

accuracy=...; // accuracy needed to recognize type of this target

spotableNightLightsOff=...; // night spotability coeficients

spotableNightLightsOn=...;

insideSoundCoef = ...;

visibleNightLightsOff=...; // night target recognition

visibleNightLightsOn=...;

// vehicle sensitivity, most vehicles see and hear less than man

sensitivity=...; // sensor sensitivity

sensitivityEar=...;

When tweaking those values in OFP you could obtain very different and sometime interesting results for the AI, from the default OFP that was nearly blind/deaf one to some kind of superhuman AI capable of spotting an ant under cover at several kilometers.

Experimenting with those variables, whatever is their name now in the Arma main config, should help you for your AI project.

For the engagement distance or the fire dispersion, the AI was controlled by the ammo and weapon class definitions.

[NeMeSiS 11]

What I want BIS to do is turn down their hearing locating accuracy ability from medium distance say 300m AND make weapon recoil/bullet spread affect on full auto affect their accuracy just like how they affect us human players, Im tired to be killed from enemy AI full auto blasts from over 200 meters. Also PLEASE stop the AI shooting me through bushes!

No, the AI shooting trough bushes is an awesome feature, they shoot on your estimated position, not your exact position. However this can be bugged at times by the fact that moving makes so much sound that they can actually hear your exact position.

[froggyluv 2130]

Tracers should play a factor as well. Using tracers should up the AI's awareness of you and vice versa.

[Eda Mrcoch 0]

Could someone please put it on bugtracker? I don't have time to properly test and describe it in detail, but I would certainly vote for this.

[Second 0]

OK, below is a link to a simple test mission that demonstrates it all.

Okay i tested my own version, and i think that your results are partially true partially false.

My test was like this:

1. I was sniper i shot at squad they shot at me

2. I went to hide inside spunce (no better cover than that) and shot few times in side it

3. Teamswitched to squad that i shot at and observed their actions

4. engage square wasn't anywhere near the spot from where i shot at them or where i (sniper) is. Troops did check the close area of engage square. they didn't care the actual spot where i shot first time. Or the spoot i was in to (that sprunce).

So this test resulted that AI don't know the actual spot.

But then i tested differently.

1. I shot at squad from 300 meters. allowed them to shoot me.

2. Pulled back about 100 meter and shot few times to air (in visual cover of enemy: Hill was in between)). Spot was marked with road cone.

3. Pulled back 100 meter again (is was now over 500 meters away from their leader) and shot several times and laid down to that spot. And started to observe. They seemed to check that spot which was marked by road cone (second shooting spot). And when found it clear went back to their squads. Team switching to target squad did confirm this.

and again i tested differently.

Same test as earlier, but now when i went to 500 meters away from squad i hid inside sprunce (again) and when units were checking that first or second spot.

[side note]

This was depend of how much noise i produced in second spot, one shot wasn't enough (they checked the first spot where they had visual on me spot) but seemed that over 5 shots was enough for them to "find" my position with their ears from that second spot.

[/side note]

so once they searched me from last spot i shot again (they were about 200-300 meters away) they received istantly my new position and it was accurate (i could shoot the sniper using engage square). But funny thing that they didn't engage me anymore, which most likely was because of long range (over 500 meter from leader). But if i chosed to move sneakly away from sprunce, they ofcourse did think that i was under that sprunce still, if not noticing me.

So. They pick locations very well with their ears, the spot is accurately where some one shot or caused other noise that they did hear. But it's possible to counter with movement: they have to quess where did you move after they saw you. This infact was what happened in my first test: they saw me moving after i shot, and then they lost me. They didn't track the last place where i was seen, but estimated place where i would be. That is the reason why the engage square was in totally wrong place.

So best idea to avoid them to finding your place is to move after you shoot. I've been saying this from begining and now it seems that my gut-feeling was right: Shoot and move after that (this is what OFP told too). It's nothing but reqular sniper- or AT-way.

EDIT: Sorry about typos. Hopefully everyone understood even part of it.

I have had several experiences where I have been spotted (and ocassionaly shot at) from a concealed location.

When I say conceled I mean on the other side of a building or behind the crest of a hill.

This "spotting" usually only occurs when ai is in a vehicle.

My point: Do ai in vehicles have a different locating ability then those on foot?

Thanks in advance to anyone with this knowledge.

I would guess that it has more to do with suppressive fire ability of some vehicles or weapons, as some weapons seems to be able to suppress. Those are mostly vehicle weapons, which seems to be able to shoot targets inside buildings (i tested it with gamelogic), without visual contact. Not necessarily suppressive fire, but i'll call it like that.

I'd quess that this has something to do with that my test: They shoot that engage square, and if their squadmember with better "sensors" (like infantry on foot) hears from you last then that engage square points directly to your position. Sometimes vehicles might shoot totally wrong place, but might be because of you were lastly seen (and not heard) and they shoot at you esitmated position.

[KeyCat 131]

Are you sure that the AI knows exactly your position? Maybe the flagpole experiment was incomplete because the AI would know that you're "Right there +/- a radius around it" so just because the flag pole was there might not mean that the AI was pin point certain of your position but just that that position was the center of the zone it thought you were in?

Or maybe the AI does...

According to the information in the Biki the nearTargets command returns the perceived knowlegde an AI unit has about other units (including you). I have no idea how this information is handled internally (only BIS knows) but by the looks of it the AI knows exactly where you are if you fires a regular firearm even if the AI doesn't have LOS to you.

Since ArmA strives for realism this is (IMHO of course) a flaw. In RL it's very very hard for a human to pinpoint a shot to the exact firing location (unless you visually see him or the muzzleflash) and even harder to do so in an urban environment due to echos and such.

For me it becomes a gameplay issue to know that after I carefully selecting a nice concealed position to snipe from the enemy AI will know my exact location after firing a single shot!

I don't suggest that BIS should spare precious CPU cycles to calculate exactly how every soundsource acts in the 3D world (i.e bouncing of walls, ground and other objects) but I think a simple solution like adding some randomness routines to the perceived information when the AI units doesn't sees you would go a long way both for gameplay as well as increase the realism.

As said before when you fire your weapon and are outside the enemies LOS all they should know is the general direction (+/- ~30 degrees maybe) and then "guess" (i.e random) the range to you. The further away you are when firing the more judgement error should apply. Sometimes they will "guess" close and other times they will be more wrong.

Also, why is it that you can stay outside LOS in the test mission and fire a whole M24 mag in the air (i'm not that far away) without AI hearing/detecting you but as soon they spotted you once they can hear - and pinpoint you within decimeters - every shot you fire after that?

I'm all for difficulty in ArmA but prefer if things are adjustable as well as having the AI act/behave with as many of humans limitations as possible. That way you can apply RL tactics otherwise not. I would have no problem with the AI's "uber triangulation" using the following settings.

UltraAI=1;

skillEnemy=1.000000;

and skill slider for the unit in editor set to max

However, in the my tests the AI skillevel is set to minimum (I use UltraAI=0 and skillEnemy=0.650000) and it makes no difference in AI's ability to pinpoint you.

I'm just guessing here but could this relate to the compliants where people gets sniped in the head at long ranges by an AK47/M16 if they use high settings for precisionEnemy?

If you try the mission notice that the AI knows your location on all vectors (X,Y,Z). Fire once standing and you will see the flag pole ~1 m up in the air, now try again prone and the flag pole is at ground level. Origin at the weapons barrel maybe?

@ sickboy: No, I haven't done any serious testing on KA or hearing ranges yet.

@ ofpforum: I agree AI shooting at bushes at perceived positions is great. Using the test mission above you can actually confirm that the AI lose track on you when LOS is broken (i.e behind a bush or other object) and they only remember your last seen position, until you fire you next shot that is

@ Sanctuary: We are not talking about an AI project/mod. This is an ArmA engine thing and I think all ArmA customers will benefit from more "realistic" AI and IMO it would provide much better gameplay!

@ Second: Have you tried my mission at all? If not do so and you will notice what I mean.

/KC

[STRYKER555 0]

What I want BIS to do is turn down their hearing locating accuracy ability from medium distance say 300m AND make weapon recoil/bullet spread affect on full auto affect their accuracy just like how they affect us human players, Im tired to be killed from enemy AI full auto blasts from over 200 meters. Also PLEASE stop the AI shooting me through bushes!

No, the AI shooting trough bushes is an awesome feature, they shoot on your estimated position, not your exact position. However this can be bugged at times by the fact that moving makes so much sound that they can actually hear your exact position.

Yes you are correct its an awesome feature but why are they so damn accurate? Im behind foliage they are behind foliage, I cant see them yet they can see me and take me out in an accurate spray, their hearing is as good as thermal imaging, it seems they have 3D sound positioning built in.

Oh I forgot. Yes it seems we really have to do the "OFP shuffle" with these AI in ARMA too, meaning shoot move shoot move in random directions.