AI question

[allthumbs 0]

In the first mission, Flashpoint I think, securing the village of Morton. I'm told my group is to come in from the left, and the other group will go through the woods to the right. I've played this mission several times. Sometimes the leader takes us through the woods instead of to the left. Sometimes we start down the hill to the left, then go back up and through the woods. Sometimes we actually do approach from the left as planned and all goes well. Is this normal; why does this happen?

Also sometimes I am assigned a target that is way the hell up in the woods. So I've actually ran back up into the woods to the place where the indicator says the enemy is, and no one is even there?

[raum_schiff 0]

The Ai waypoints can be randomly assigned by the mission maker so the mission doesn't play the same every time.

The Ai will follow waypoints, but will usually react to ennemy and terrain and make it to the objective but not in a straight line.

--- This is the disturbing and fun part of OFP ---

The leader points you to ennemies when HE sees them, but allas !), they move, and if he looses contact with the ennemy, the ennemy marker you were assigned to does not change ... until you (or anyone of your squad ) spot the ennemy again.

To summ it up + some advice :

- Don't blindly trust your Ai group leader.

- If not the leader, try to survive ... not die as a hero.

- Mark ennemies you see for your group (right-click)

- Keep WIDE with the formation

- Expect ANYTHING even the WORSE/BETTER from Ai.

Bregs,

Raum_Schiff.

[AdmiralKarlDonuts 0]

Taking casualties might have something to do with it. If a squad is losing men the leader will actually retreat to the previous waypoint and attempt to move to the next one again eventually.

However, it sounds like your squad leader is seeing the enemy in those woods and is intent on killing them. The problem in this case, particularly with the target box problem, is that he sees them but then loses sight of them. When the AI loses line of sight on a target, it will "guess" and predict where the target is going to be based on last known location and direction of movement. Sometimes the target doesn't continue going where the AI thinks it's going, and in that case, you chase down the target box and there's nobody there. If a squad member sees the target again, the box will jump over to that location. Tends to happen near buildings, forests, etc, anything that can block line of sight.

But, are you playing the 'vanilla' game or are you running any mods like SLX, FFUR, etc? Those run a whole bag of ai-scripts that pretty much render the traditional waypoint system useless once combat starts.

[allthumbs 0]

I have GRAA 3.0 installed, but that's it. Thanks for the explanations

[AdmiralKarlDonuts 0]

Hmm, GRAA could be causing it. I don't remember how much (if any) AI "enhancement" Sanctuary included in it. Take a look at the readme. If the AI is tweaked in that mod, that's probably the explanation here.

As far as random waypoints, yes that's possible but this is an official mission built on OFP 1.0, so it's probably not an issue.

[sanctuary 19]

With BIS default values the AI awareness , it is nearly blind and deaf

As an example in the single mission "Clean Sweep II" you can crawl at +/- 50m in front of an AI looking in your direction and it will not even react most of the time.

At some long range it can't really notice an enemy squad while you can see them easily (that's why it is important for you to spot enemy and report them to your AI leader so your squad can have an edge in an upcoming firefight by knowing where to aim)

So it is not surprising that if you improve the AI virtual "eyes" and "ears" to allow the AI at least to be able to see things roughly like a human player could, suddenly some missions will not play the same as your leader (and so your enemies) will be able to see better.

In an OFP mission remember you have the plan and you have the execution. A mission can quickly go to hell for your squad if you follow exactly the plan and ignore the fact it is likely an enemy squad can be in an ambush position in the middle of your path.

Anyways, if you want to see how a mission is playing with BIS AI, you can disable the AI awareness option in the config.cpp.

Open it, and in the beginning just change

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

into

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

And the AI will be as blind and deaf as normal.

The target lost in the forest is exactly what SEAL84 is describing .

In OFP do not believe the yellow target box is a 100% accurate position of your target, this yellow box is in reality a "guess" from your leader.

And guesses can sometime be very wrong when your leader has lost your target from its sight.

[Nightjay0044 1]

It may also greatly depend on the version or MOD you have downloaded into your OFP folder or are using.

Because I played "Flashpoint" in the 1985 1.96 version and the helicopter with the other squad of soldiers would crash right into the forest and it wouldn't happen with the original version of 1.46 and below and such.

So don't blame BIS if it may be your version...hope that helps..