VFAI - AI Extension

[dmarkwick 261]

Hi Victor is the practise of units dropping weapons at the beginning of a mission a result of units holding non-standard weapons?

If so, is there any possibility of snagging those weapon types via a script as an init event and adding them dynamically into supported weapon types?

[VictorFarbau 0]

Hi DMarkwick,

here's the scoop, this should not happen anymore as of V2.0. Yet I was fighting with implementation problems using values from config files. Here's the story:

Editing Thread

Weapon and ammo types are being recognized and used at runtime. And in most cases this works so far. Can you tell me with which units/weapons you observe this behaviour?

Cheers,

VictorFarbau

[kroky 1]

@VictorFarbau

In general a great addon and very good idea to improve AI.

I noticed two problems with VFAI 2.0:

- Sometimes when a unit picks up another rifle, it still holds the pistol in arms but when shooting the muzzle/fire comes from the rifle which is on back of the unit. Strange...

- The other strange thing is, some units go to a soldier to pick up some ammo, kneel down, stand up say ready, run away (back to formation) come back again to pick up some ammo and so on and so on for several times. The point is that they sometimes are already full in their inventory, but they keep on coming to the same body.

I guess they just can't get enough

[VictorFarbau 0]

@Kroky,

1. I also saw units firing with a weapon still on their back. This should be an engine problem as the "ready to fire" state is apparently reached before the "change weapons" animation completes.

2. In general this is by design. I only allow them to take 1 item at a time to avoid a single unit robbing all resources while others are also in need. And they want everything; ammo, RPGs, smokeshells, grenades. I will observe this however to check for flaws.

VictorFarbau

[Winters1807 0]

Hi, i just want to say that i have just tried this out, and its a brilliant addon. However, i am a great fan of the RHS Opfor weapon pack, and your addon and the RHS weapons dont go to well, it seems that they fire a few rounds from the RHS rifle, and put it down, then go prone for a bit.

How easy would it be to fiddle to make it so that it is compatable with custom weapons?

And if it is really easy, could i have permission to do some fiddling with your addon ?( not for release, but for personal use)

[sprite 0]

becuase of the issues with non defualt weapons alot of my troops try to take towns with pistols :/

As such I was wondering how I would change this :

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

{

SLX_Init_Man="_this execVM ""\VFAI\equipment_ai.sqf""; (_this select 0) addMagazine ""SmokeShell""; (_this select 0) addEventHandler [""hit"", {_this execVM ""vfai\smokeshell_ai.sqf""}];";

};

so that it ONLY removes the equiptment and keeps it so they will throw a smoke when hit.

OR could I be linked to a addon that does this?

thanks all

[kuIoodporny 45]

I've noticed that VFAI makes all units several to enemy fire.

Example:

Infantry squad holding a position being stormed by enemy chopper.

1. Soldier with AA and several other get killed with FFAR.

2. Remaining soldiers won't try to take cover and send one brave man to retrieve Stinger, but the whole group will rush to the place where previous rocket landed.

3. Enemy gunner spots remaining squad members and kills all of them with single FFAR.

I suggest making some "combat delays" and "group resource thinking". ArmA AI has too much of it mixed with individual VFAI makes stupid ArmA soldier rich in ammo or weapons but on other side totally thoughtless    we can't call it tactics or self-caring when half of a squad risk their life to obtain single magazine or RPG.

With addition of some CQB scripts and group thinking w/ grouplink (so there won't be 5 soldiers from different groups of one side racing to the last remaining RPG)... it'll just be nice dream...  

[sorry for my awful English, I hardly said a word since May]

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

"sometimes I see snipers running around with no weapons now" This is on a dedi server. I must say though that recently I have not seen this behaviour - just a thought I wonder if it's related to whether or not the client also runs the VFAI addon? Could client-side use (or non use) have an effect on the server's AI? I have not looked into your addon coding at all, so no idea from this side.

1. What is the unit type of the sniper?

A: Standard East Sniper.

3. Are these snipers carrying launcher weapons when you observe them?

A: Nope, not even a handgun. Walking round empty-handed as if they never had a weapon.

No water near their location, so I dont think they had a swim.

Strange, if I see it again I'll take better note of the conditions and addons I have loaded.

[Makake 0]

I wonder if this mod lets ArmA somehow "inherit" its features. I disabled the mod and made sure that none of its addons is still present in the loaded folders... soldiers nevertheless throw smokeshells like crazy and still show strange behaviour (straying from formation, kneeling at dead bodies but not picking any gun and rejecting to get back to formation). I do not recall that ArmA 1.08 had those problems (or features? did they throw smokeshells before???). PLEASE! Any hints or ideas?

[dmarkwick 261]

I wonder if this mod lets ArmA somehow "inherit" its features. I disabled the mod and made sure that none of its addons is still present in the loaded folders... soldiers nevertheless throw smokeshells like crazy and still show strange behaviour (straying from formation, kneeling at dead bodies but not picking any gun and rejecting to get back to formation). I do not recall that ArmA 1.08 had those problems (or features? did they throw smokeshells before???). PLEASE! Any hints or ideas?

Obviously you still have a version active somewhere.

[kroky 1]

I wonder if this mod lets ArmA somehow "inherit" its features. I disabled the mod and made sure that none of its addons is still present in the loaded folders... soldiers nevertheless throw smokeshells like crazy and still show strange behaviour (straying from formation, kneeling at dead bodies but not picking any gun and rejecting to get back to formation). I do not recall that ArmA 1.08 had those problems (or features? did they throw smokeshells before???). PLEASE! Any hints or ideas?

It is possible that you have Second's suppression pack as addon with AI throwing smokes for cover.

Why soldiers are kneeling down to get weapons? Maybe because they have been given a command by their squad leader to rearm at .... o'clock.

[andersson 285]

I use 2nds suppression and they throw smokes. They also pick up weapons when needed, its been like that from OFP.

The thing that made me skip VFAI (for now) is that I dont like my soldiers drop their weapons. I had half my squad laying unarmed to many times. And I prefer to tell them myself what weapon to pick up.

BUT I follow this thread because VF is on to something

[VictorFarbau 0]

Quote[/b] ]BUT I follow this thread because VF is on to something

Very true I am also closely following the feedback here. I will release V2.1 soon which will address the annoyance with dropping weapons as well as some other bugs. Also global parameters will be used to turn some features on/off - that will be interesting for mission makers. To tune the behaviour (sometimes suicidal) and improve weapon/ammo recognition (still occasional errors with config files) will be on for V2.2. Goal is to be in final stage and perfect in V3.0.

EDIT: I saw that this function will be added as of patch 1.09:

toUpper

I need this function to correct the config class name bug I struggle with. I will work on a new release as soon as v1.09 is published by BIS.

VictorFarbau

[kroky 1]

One of the most annoying things in VFAI is:

- When some soldiers are running away from enemy fire they tend to stick all in the same place. Like in the misison delivery boy after a while they almost all get to the medical tent!

One grenade and they're all dead!

[kroky 1]

@Victor Farbau

It is annoying that the AI runs all the time to the dead soldiers (showing move down on screen, kneel down, tell then ready) and come back and do the same again. The point is most of the time they DON'T pick up anything. (Sometimes some pistols or smokes). And they keep on checking the dead bodies nonstop and yealling ready, ready, ready and never stop with this. The most annoying thing is that they still have the same amount of ammo. I wouldn't mind the yelling IF they would pick up the ammo at least!

EDIT: ok after testing it more, they finally stop searching the dead bodies and come back to formation. Does this mean every soldier is going to check every dead body in a certain area?

[kuIoodporny 45]

That's the reason I suggest making "group resource thinking" - if somebody has 5 empty slots and there's no enemy around, why won't he go on his own and catch some magazines. the problem is - what is the idea of having the whole team seeking for magazines madly? There should be something like that:

GROUP 10 ppl

80 stanags

6 M136s

30 M67s

Group leader won't order anyone to retrieve ammo while fighting comparable &/or beatable opponents (for example - if there comes enemy tank platoon, the squad doesn't have enough firepower to beat it and should try sending soldier with empty slots to obtain additional AT weapon). If there are no contacts - soldiers with less equipment will go and achieve some ammo connected with weapons (AT launchers preferable if not having MG, but limited to 3 rockets per soldier, 1 grenade per 2-3 magazines).

UNIT #x

M4A1

4 stanags

2 M67s

6 empty

If he finds AT launcher near him, he would take it "just in care"

I know - in my dreams  

[quiet_man 8]

it might be possible to limit the amount of soldiers of a group who search ammo at same time?

a simple Round-Robin system?

start first unit (if required), start second ... until 20% of the group are searching, wait until one has finished then continue

Quiet_man

[VictorFarbau 0]

Funny that I was just reading this forum when the VFAI stuff popped up again now. I am still revising the code for the next version to better balance the behaviour. Also found some bugs that would indeed lead to looting actions while not really taking anything.

I will also split out the smokeshell usage and make this a separate addon because that one is simple and stable. The Equipment.AI part is keeping me busy still and I want the next release to be a milestone in reliability. More context related behaviour and "group thinking" are interesting ideas which I will pursue this thing runs stable. But first it's christmas

VictorFarbau

[lee_h._oswald 0]

Thank you Victor and have a nice christmas.

MfG Lee

[VictorFarbau 0]

Next version uploaded. Split Equipment and Smoke into 2 separate addons finally. Made it compatible to XEH from Solus. Improved behaviour. Corrected bugs. Probably introduced new ones

Make sure to read the included readme file. It might really answer a lot of questions you sometimes have when wondering about behaviour. It also explains methods how to turn the feature on/off when needed.

Bug reports welcome as usual in this thread. I cannot test all possible situations and 3rd party weapon addons upfront of course. So the more precise you are in reporting bugs the quicker I can look into it.

Thanks and have fun!

VictorFarbau

[Deadeye 1]

Cool, here's the ArmedAssault.info Mirror to the latest version :

http://www.armedassault.info/index.p....lang=en

[VictorFarbau 0]

Thanks ofpdeadeye I updated the first post with this mirror.

VictorFarbau

[Guest]

Frontpaged at the Armaholic.com homepage.

The Armaholic.com download page can be found here:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=2198

[Stavanger 0]

Mirror by Combat-Prison.net

VFAI - AI Extension v2.2 by Victor Farbau

Regards,

Stavanger

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

I don't know if the AI "knows about" a weapon when they identify an enemy's class or hear the weapon discharge, but perhaps the scan range could be greater to acquire "knowledge" about the weapon, with a smaller scan range for "moving" to acquire the weapon or ammo.

Soldiers should always seek out weapons and ammo used by their SIDE, if they can't find ammo for their own weapon. If they can't find a weapon used by their side, THEN they should opt for OPFOR weaponry.

Also, will the A.I. compare what it is carrying with the current or impending threat and what is available?

For example, if a squad of infantrymen see tanks coming their way, will troops run to acquire the needed AT weapons that are available, so that the squad increases its number of AT soldiers?

AI always interests me, and I think far too little emphasis is placed on this most important aspect of gameplay.

I wonder if, when coupled with the jamming script, the soldier will dump the seized-up weapon and acquire another?

All of these great AI additions really need to be put together in one addon...something like a new ECP.