One tweak that will change alot

[KeyCat 131]

Welcome to the forum FinGuerilla!

With what version of the game are you experiencing this "pinpointing"?

Version 1.08

/KC

[jasono 0]

If what FinGuerilla is saying is true (which he is of course), it means AI accuracy has got worse (as in better aim and more likly to find us/hit us) since the original versions?

[KeyCat 131]

Hard to say but maybe FinGuerilla can use the testmission and exact procedure I posted earlier to verify if the AI's ability to triangulate your exact position by ears alone is different in pre-1.08 ArmA or the same?

/KC

[Sevan 0]

I've not read the the entire thread so far, but I did read the first 6 pages, which were very interesting. I'm going to summarize, what I think are the main problems with the AI. I'm just writing what comes to mind and I hope it makes sense:

-Detection range: many times you can get within 200m of AI, without them spotting you, in clear line of sight. (There was a mod recently released that raised the AI detection range, but with the mod, they AI seem to have super detection. will instantly spot and identify a target from 500m or more it seems.) But when they do spot you, it's laser accurate.

-Suppression: AI never gets suppressed, never seeks cover. They will usually drop if you fire near them, but that's all. Even if bullets are impacting all over them, they remain calm and continue to shoot with pinpoint accuracy. There is AI fleeing, but is this caused by suppression or casualties? A large portion of fire in real life is suppressive fire. In ArmA this is pointless since the AI cannot become suppressed.

-Cover: already mentioned, but the AI never takes cover. even in danger mode, they will rigidly maintain formation and not take any sort of cover during a firefight. Also, they AI does not shoot over any objects, even when there is visibility.

-Accuracy and Shooting: the AI has laser accuracy, and never shoots suppressing fire. They will not shoot from long range. If an enemy is spotted at a distance, they will run forward like chickens until they get within a certain distance before firing. No suppressing or over-watch fire. As a human you are free to shoot at them until they get within this range.

-Never surrender: the AI will continue to fight until it's death, all firefights are always "last-man-standing". If your squad is down to 1 or 2 men, and all the leaders are dead, you would not continue fighting like nothing happened. They should run away and leave the battle area, or disperse and cease to be an effective fighting force, maybe even actually raise their hands and surrendering.

-AI leaders: they seem to order a single unit to run out and engage an enemy target. Usually resulting in a dead unit, the AI leader will then proceed to order another single unit to run out and engage the enemy. Leaders are always at the point of a formation. They do not seem to use any sort of point-man. This is not only unrealistic but very stupid.

[frederf 0]

The AI does flee, the code is there, it just isn't used too much. And the US Army puts its fire team leaders at the points of the formation, so it's not that unusual to have the leader up in front.

I'm not saying that the AI don't have their problems but I think too many people have the wrong idea about the expected outcome. If it's you and your buddy against a squad of AI... the squad should win. I mean it's a bleedin' whole squad. This would make people have to rethink their "5 man team against a whole company of mechanized AI" approach to mission design.

If I had to describe the lackings of the combat AI, I would break it down into the following categories:

Detection: The AI are 99% of the time, not the first to detect the player before the player detects them. The stock AI are just plain blind outside of 300m? or so. 50/50 player-or-AI-first detection ratio wouldn't be bad, maybe in favor of the player by some.

Tracking: The AI can track like nobody's business. Through solid buildings they can keep their ironsights on a player for a full minute even as he moves around unseen. The AI are pretty harsh in this regard.

Returning Fire: The AI return fire instantly and with deadly accuracy. The average human under fire has a few second "OH SH*T" moment for 3-5 seconds, then a period of "Where did that come from?" (possibly getting it wrong, the tracers are easy to be off 180 degrees), and then the scan for the target, rounds in the general direction, starting to hone in your jumpy mouse resolution over the pixel in the distance to start doing some damage. The AI needs to get a personality and a little fear into them. Low FPSs of players cause all manner of slow target acquision. Even with a medium-fast rig I noticed some AI out-speedying me.

Supressive Fire: Unless you have a mod or script that's doing it, the AI just plain doesn't do it in the game. And I don't mean the full cyclic ammo waste you see in the movies, I mean proper suppressive fire.

Cover and living: The AI needs to do 3-5 second rushes, leaning out from corners, 3 second exposures every 30 seconds, staggered fire, the whole lot. The AI have little to no sense of self preservation. They need to have "tactical retreats" more, ambush, fall backs by teams, use smoke, etc. I want a FT of AI to see me at 600m, ambush me at 200m, shoot for 5-10 seconds, actually disengage, then run back a whole block in town to do it again.

[Heatseeker 0]

I'll be defending the a.i. somewhat in here .

The ubber acuracy is quite simple to adjust, just decrease their precision in the cfg, servers should adjust theirs too, forget the dificulty selection menu and go into you profile/cfg as described in the previous posts many times already.

There are many new interesting comands available, like http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setHideBehind , lets wait and see what the talented scripters out there can make out of these.

Its unfair to judge the a.i. by throwing them in the editor or playing Evolution, Arma comes with a mission editor and the a.i. is meant to be editable so that the mission maker can manipulate them, when you play any other game the a.i. is not just placed in the mission and expected to work.

Tactics

Guerrilla works, ambushes, hit and run, etc. These are good (and realistic) tactics that work vs a.i. but most missions force the destruction of all enemy forces in a suicidal way wich is not the best aproach.

[Sevan 0]

good points, and I agree with all of them.

Quote[/b] ]And the US Army puts its fire team leaders at the points of the formation, so it's not that unusual to have the leader up in front.

fireteam leaders maybe, but the squad leader would not be at the point of formation.

edit: I understand your point but Heatseeker my and other's criticisms are still valid. Adjusting AI accuracy is just a small part of problem. Don't get me wrong, ArmA AI is probably some of the smartest in any video game, but the realistic game-play requires much smarter and more realistic AI. Most missions against the AI turn into a fight to the last-man “suicide†operations, because the AI never breaks, or becomes suppressed.

[funnyguy1 0]

-Detection range: many times you can get within 200m of AI, without them spotting you, in clear line of sight. (There was a mod recently released that raised the AI detection range, but with the mod, they AI seem to have super detection. will instantly spot and identify a target from 500m or more it seems.) But when they do spot you, it's laser accurate.

-Suppression: AI never gets suppressed, never seeks cover. They will usually drop if you fire near them, but that's all. Even if bullets are impacting all over them, they remain calm and continue to shoot with pinpoint accuracy. There is AI fleeing, but is this caused by suppression or casualties? A large portion of fire in real life is suppressive fire. In ArmA this is pointless since the AI cannot become suppressed.

-Cover: already mentioned, but the AI never takes cover. even in danger mode, they will rigidly maintain formation and not take any sort of cover during a firefight. Also, they AI does not shoot over any objects, even when there is visibility.

-Accuracy and Shooting: the AI has laser accuracy, and never shoots suppressing fire. They will not shoot from long range. If an enemy is spotted at a distance, they will run forward like chickens until they get within a certain distance before firing. No suppressing or over-watch fire. As a human you are free to shoot at them until they get within this range.

-Never surrender: the AI will continue to fight until it's death, all firefights are always "last-man-standing". If your squad is down to 1 or 2 men, and all the leaders are dead, you would not continue fighting like nothing happened. They should run away and leave the battle area, or disperse and cease to be an effective fighting force, maybe even actually raise their hands and surrendering.

-AI leaders: they seem to order a single unit to run out and engage an enemy target. Usually resulting in a dead unit, the AI leader will then proceed to order another single unit to run out and engage the enemy. Leaders are always at the point of a formation. They do not seem to use any sort of point-man. This is not only unrealistic but very stupid.

First of all, there mod allows the AI to see you @ about 500/600m. I don't know what you mean by "But when they do spot you, it's laser accurate"

For me It's pointless for them to hesitate whether you're an enemy or not, since you know that every little moving pixel on the horizon is your enemy, or you can use the binos.

I don't remember how low was the default thing set, but in order to change the spotting distance it's "sensitivity = X" what should be increased to improove it. (for ~500m spotting distance, the value should be above 20)

Secondly, the way to simualte suppression is to increase the burst for Mgunners. Currently the farther the target is, the smaller the burst is. If you decrease the disperssion at the bigger distances a bit, and increase the burst, you'll be surprised how hard they'll be suppressing you. Besides, the suppression scripts made by Second are now in addon form, so it's just a matter of throwing it into your addon folder, and it just "works". Taking cover has been already taken care of in the above mentioned pack.

Increasing the burst may force the AI to shoot more, and therefore run out of ammo faster, but you can always order your men to stop shooting, while the enemy AI don't live long enough to use all their ammo anyway.

When it comes to accuracy and shooting. The weapons config is the key. You need to increase the engagement ranges for every weapon, so that AI could engage you at the same distance you can pwn them. Moreover, with this 500+ engagement range it's necessary to increase the accuracy!

Well, they don't surrender. That's stupid, but I'm sure somebody will take care of it sooner or later.

Well, leaders don't order single units to run out and engage single enemy target anymore, because even if they do, those units are being pinned down pretty fast (second's scripts imho). I'm not the expert and the right person to ask, but I know what I see.

Let me just describe how the firefights look like. The AI spots you and engages you at about 500+ meters. Soon the Mgunners fire a rain of bullets in your direction. The suppressed AI kinda freaks out, doesn't know what to do (well that's a small disadvantage actually, looks like default vs modded scripts conflict), but they lay down, not run everywhere in the middle of firefight, they take cover, and flee if outnumbered. The firefights also last much longer.

Sorry for typos and grammar stuff. I was busy with something else.

[Sevan 0]

Quote[/b] ]First of all, there mod allows the AI to see you @ about 500/600m.

I mentioned it in my post.

Quote[/b] ] I don't know what you mean by "But when they do spot you, it's laser accurate"

That's the premise of this thread. that the enemy can detect you through walls even.

Thanks for the responses. yes, I'm sure the community and BIS will eventually fix these shortcomings. My intention was to try and list and summarize some of them. There have been hundreds of mods in other areas, but AI has thus far recieved little attention. and I think it's one of the most important areas that should be worked on.

edit: If second's addon version of the suppression script works as promised, I would like to see it on the ArmA community sites like armaholic.com. this is the first time I'm hearing about it.

[funnyguy1 0]

Well, Second's scripts don't make miracles, but I strongly recommend playing (any mission you want) with them, as they improove the AI significantly.

There's no point in changing the configs by yourself anymore, because Durg and rg are working on a mod that'll change both engagement and spotting ranges. I just wanted to say, that such tweaks (that are kinda DIY thing) together with e.g. suppression scripts, and/or Grouplink/UPS (if you make missions) change the gameplay a lot.

If you, however, want to experiment with the AI by yourself, here's the right tool. PROPER AI

[frederf 0]

My problem with (and this is hardly a criticism of their invaluable work on the issue) is that shooting longer bursts does not change the fundamental limitation of the AI in that they will not fire at you unless they think they can hit you.

Suppressive fire requires that the AI shoot at you even when you're not visible, able to be hit, or otherwise a normal point target. And it requires not so many rounds to make a nuisance of yourself at distance. 1-2 rounds a second coming from a squad can be sustained for a long, long time while still being rather effective.

I don't wanna pick a forum-fight with anyone here because I believe we are all on the same page/team with regards to our opinions of how the AI should/could be.

Has anyone opened up the stock AI routines in a FSM editor? I'm really curious how detailed they are. It's a fantasy of mine to work on the AI routines, using actually military field manuals of leadership decision trees, to get them up to the tactical level. It seems most of the Urban Patrol and GroupLink efforts have been using the possibly less-optimized scripts instead of FSMs.

[KeyCat 131]

Noticed this specific line in the upcoming VBS2 1.18 change log.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

...

* CHNGD: AI is no longer as good at locating / returning fire on shooters

...

Any chance to see this fix/tweak implemented in the upcoming ArmA 1.09 patch?

/KC

[sparks50 0]

Quote[/b] ]As HeatSeeker explained, you can tweak these values to your own likings. By setting in difficulty friendly AI precision as twice the enemy value, you of course get an easier game.

I find myself comfortable with the following values for regular:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">skillFriendly=0.850000;

skillEnemy=0.750000;

precisionFriendly=0.550000;

precisionEnemy=0.450000;

It makes firefight last longer and don't make friendly AI super human. Your team still has the edge over the enemy, but it's not exagerated in regular difficulty.

Malick

WHere is the config file where i can edit these values?

[KeyCat 131]

WHere is the config file where i can edit these values?

Open up your [your arma username].ArmAProfile file in Notepad. You should find it in C:\Documents and Settings\[your windows username]\Local Settings\ArmA

Tweaking thoose values helps alot and is highly recommended! However, it doesn't solve the main problem where AI pinpoints your exact location every time you fire your (non-silenced) weapon.

/KC

[sparks50 0]

WHere is the config file where i can edit these values?

Open up your [your arma username].ArmAProfile file in Notepad. You should find it in C:\Documents and Settings\[your windows username]\Local Settings\ArmA

Tweaking thoose values helps alot and is highly recommended! However, it doesn't solve the main problem where AI pinpoints your exact location every time you fire your (non-silenced) weapon.

/KC

Thanks, now all i have to do is to find this damn file in Vista

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

username>Documents>ArmA Other Profiles>"PlayerName">

You will see your character name within that folder, a ARMAPROFILE File

[sparks50 0]

no such parameters in that file, it only configures GFX, Controlls and volume options.

[W0lle 1046]

the parameteres mentioned above are not by default in the name.ArmAProfile file.

You either need to add the section manually, or better set the values in the Difficulty options inside ArmA:

Options->Difficulty->Enemy Units (scroll down to "custom") then you can use the sliders to set the units skill level.

If you want to add it manually, open the file in a texteditor and search for the lines

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">showTitles=1;

showRadio=1;

above these lines add the following:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">class Difficulties

{

class regular

{

class Flags

{

Armor=1;

FriendlyTag=1;

EnemyTag=0;

HUD=1;

HUDPerm=0;

HUDWp=1;

HUDWpPerm=0;

AutoSpot=1;

Map=1;

WeaponCursor=1;

AutoGuideAT=1;

ClockIndicator=1;

3rdPersonView=1;

Tracers=1;

UltraAI=0;

AutoAim=0;

UnlimitedSaves=1;

};

skillFriendly=0.600000;

skillEnemy=0.500000;

precisionFriendly=0.600000;

precisionEnemy=0.500000;

};

class veteran

{

class Flags

{

HUD=1;

HUDWp=1;

HUDWpPerm=1;

WeaponCursor=1;

ClockIndicator=1;

3rdPersonView=1;

Tracers=1;

UltraAI=0;

};

skillFriendly=0.950000;

skillEnemy=0.850000;

precisionFriendly=0.950000;

precisionEnemy=0.850000;

};

};

But again, using the options menu is more comfortable

[Teliko 0]

You can't change precision from the options menu though

[Maddmatt 1]

You can't change precision from the options menu though

Yes you can, it's just set to the same value as the skill. Which IMO is fine unless you want the AI to aim like retards

At 0.7 their aim is average IMO. Surely real soldiers can aim at least that well?

[KeyCat 131]

Can we stick to the topic here, pls?!

Any chance we see fix/tweaks to AI's "uber triangulation" issue in upcoming ArmA 1.09 patch?

/KC

[KeyCat 131]

We all know information about the upcoming 1.09 patch is spare but the lines qouted below (posted in another post, thanks for sharing Dslyecxi) at least give me some hope, what do you guys think???

Quote[/b] ]

...

- AI has been improved in several ways (ie: they do not zero in on your so accurately based upon sound, their dispersion is related to their skill more clearly now, and a few other things).

...

/KC

[malick 0]

This indeed gives me some hope. But I expect more than just a config tweak, even if that's good tweaking...

I hope to see changed AI behaviour, which implies modifying the logic behind the AI, which we cannot do, only BIS. But I might have my expectations too high

Malick

[wolfsblut_ 0]

What are the default-values for "enemyprecision" and "friendlyprecision" in mode veteran?

It is 0.750000?

[mr.g-c 6]

And, was it changed in any further patches so far?

Regards, Christian