ARMA 2 Micro AI Thread

[Molke2005 10]

Hopefully will bring itself the KI with the next patch also massively behind vehicles, sandbags, trees or similar in cover! Then it would be a great game.

[fabrizio_t 58]

I see the next patch will be out hopefilly around 19th/20th.

I hope that some AI issues will be addressed too.

High in my AI wishlist are:

1) stopping group leaders from running far and away from their own groups. I hated that in ARMA, i hate it in ARMA2.

2) better use of cover, especially in forests;

3) better group cooperation (less individual actions, less spreading out of groups);

4) more dispersion for suppressive fire, now it's the no. 1 killer on distance;

5) reduced spotting ability through foliage and on distance;

6) better driving/flying pathfinding!

BI Fix these and i will forget about all the other issues :)

Edited June 9, 2009 by fabrizioT

[walker 0]

Hi all

Just to remind everyone of the difference between: Cover and Concealment.

Cover is something that stops bullets. Cover often also can mean concealment but not always, you may be covered inside M1A1 but you re not concealed, everyone knows precisely where you are.

Concealment does not stop bullets.

NB You are not concealed by the fact you are behind something!

This is the lesson you learn after many games with your parent or guardian of peekaboo behind the blankie! After much merriment and mirth one day you realise that the adult is in fact behind the blankie; at this point the merriment becomes less and the joke appears lame much to the distress of all concerned.

Following on from this the excuse of: I ran behind the tree/bush/house(insert object) and the AI still new where I was, so it must be cheating; is equally lame.

Shooting, making a noise, (and that includes direct speak), such as rustling in the bushes, or stomping your boots around, moving about and sky lining your head to take a peak when in the AI's or players arc of view, or trying to be stealthy with the telegraph poll of an AT weapon on your back; all bust concealment.

Concealment does not magically reappear because you want it to.

An extra note on the cover and concealment value of trees.

A foot wide tree is not cover or concealment. Trees that develop arms and shoulders draw attention to them selves. While a well camouflaged rucksack sticking out of the side might be confused for an outgrowth, if still; moving growths are unusual. Trees with AT weapons sticking jauntily out of them will almost certainly draw strange looks followed by a bullet.

Any tree less than 2 feet wide offers little cover and no concealment for the average human. Average human shoulders are between 16 inches and 26 inches wide, very fit people or those with a large frame, or playing sports or engaged in activities that require lots of upper body strength; can and do exceed this considerably. Soldiers may well fall in to the latter category.

Consider the circle to be a tree trunk in cross section: If a foot of wood will stop some bullets there is 4 inches of the width of 1 foot wide tree in cross section that is about 1 foot thick. At the edges it is zero inches thick. So out of its twelve inches 8 inches offer zero to very little cover. Since we already know humans can be more than two feet wide we must accept the fact that a foot wide tree is not and never will be cover.

Corners of walls are also not true cover. At its apex a corner offers zero cover. After this it offers a maximum of the square root of the 2n^2 inches of cover where n is the distance in inches you body is back from apex. Ah the joys of Pythagoras.

I point these things out because there are some new guys here who have playing other games where they negatively train you into thinking such objects offer cover. This is incorrect and can result in short games for the aforesaid miss trained individuals.

The situation with this negative training as a result of playing silly games like COD4 CS etc. is that I have even seen people "Taking cover" I kid you not, behind a 4 inch wide post and, I kid you not, peeking out from behind it.

All New guys please reassess the situation when we meet in MP I do not want to spend hours of game play dragging or carrying you bloody ass from one medic to the next.

The ground is your friend

The best cover is the ground, preferably mountains thick of it.

Crawling is good.

Laying down reduces your total target area to 26 inches by 8 inches in cross section, with a 6 by 8 inch oval in the centre that is your head bobbing up and down.

I can not emphasise this enough crawling is good

Caught by a sniper in the open (because you are a numpty)

When caught in the open by a sniper, running away is not a good option, if you are running away the sniper is firing at your back every minute you run.

Aggression is the best option put some fire on the sniper. If in a squad move toward the sniper in bounds, widen your spacing and makes sure you are suppressing at all times. By widening your line you increase the angle the sniper must lay at to fire upon you this means that for those suppressing the sniper their target gets wider when the sniper attempts to engage those who are running.

If you choose to retreat do so in good order by bounds so that you may suppress the sniper if required, pop smoke. If without smoke, run at a diagonal to the sniper this way you are adding elevation and traverse to the snipers calculations, vary the angle.

Of course I have to ask the question; why the heck were you caught out in the open?

Kind Regards walker

Edited June 10, 2009 by walker
added the M1A1 case, added AT telegraph poll example

[dmarkwick 261]

Of course I have to ask the question; why the heck were you caught out in the open?

Because pennies don't pick themselves up :)

But anyway, nice post :)

[charliereddog 9]

I'm more concerned by the lack of sustained fire by the AI in Mr gc's video, than their instant "cheating" couple of rounds. Once they've fired a couple, and you've moved, I'd expect their suppressive fire to kick into overdrive and make sure you can't do what you then do, kneel and fire repeatedly without moving your position.

[nodunit 397]

Hi all

Just to remind everyone of the difference between: Cover and Concealment.

Why thank you for that lesson Walker, and here is a video for the rest of the class demonstrating this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKhMOfaYwvE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w22M1DAQ59I&feature=related

[Scrub 0]

Why thank you for that lesson Walker, and here is a video for the rest of the class demonstrating this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKhMOfaYwvE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w22M1DAQ59I&feature=related

Here's another. Save yourselves some time and fast forward to 5:55 :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnINiiYJEIE

[Meek 10]

I am overall very impressed with the AI, that being said, there are moments where it behaves completely stupid.

I hope to see it improve in the future.

[EricM 0]

Beware though : Micro AI is good, but it's a sucker on your CPU.

Massive AI battle in town = heavy stuttering unless you have some horsepower.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

19m is the average engagement distance in urban fighting? Holy shit!!

[^Th0mas^ 10]

Beware though : Micro AI is good, but it's a sucker on your CPU.

Massive AI battle in town = heavy stuttering unless you have some horsepower.

Thats not a problem with your game, its your PC. ;)

Micro AI works fine, hope they can make the driving and air AI as good.

[whisper 0]

Beware though : Micro AI is good, but it's a sucker on your CPU.

Massive AI battle in town = heavy stuttering unless you have some horsepower.

I wanted to test exactly this, a not-so-massive-but-big-anyway battle and how my rather old rig could handle it (E6400 2G RAM + 8800GT).

And it worked perfectly (6 tanks group on each side, 6 mechanized group + few motorized here and there, making for like 30+ vehicles on each side and, well... 70+ infantry units) so far, it's like the PC is handling a skirmish.

Will try bigger next time :)

[walker 0]

Hi all

Nice to hear the large battles are running well.

Bodes well for future projects.

Kind Regards walker

Edited June 10, 2009 by walker

[BF2_Trooper 0]

Are USMC AIs more skilled, than say insurgent or Russian AIs? Do they use tactics that set them apart? Or is the only thing different about them the hardware/weapons they are stuck with?

[demonlord89 10]

Are USMC AIs more skilled, than say insurgent or Russian AIs? Do they use tactics that set them apart? Or is the only thing different about them the hardware/weapons they are stuck with?

Why should they?

[Maddmatt 1]

Are USMC AIs more skilled, than say insurgent or Russian AIs? Do they use tactics that set them apart? Or is the only thing different about them the hardware/weapons they are stuck with?

Skills are set in mission editor and difficulty options.

[walker 0]

Hi all

As Maddmatt says it is up to the mission maker to decide on the relative AI skill levels combined with their rank.

So BF2_Trooper you as a mission designer can set those relative skill levels same as you can set the rank distribution, weapons and vehicles or any other factor including the field of battle.

Kind Regards walker

Edited June 10, 2009 by walker

[llauma 0]

Hi all

As Maddmatt says it is up to the mission maker to decide on the relative AI skill levels combined with their rank.

So BF2_Trooper you as a mission designer can set those relative skill levels same as you can set the rank distribution, weapons and vehicles or any other factor including the field of battle.

Kind Regards walker

Though by default the US and Russian squads have higher skill levels than 'guerilla' squads.

Oh and one more thing..

Just a responce to everyone complaining about the AI..

What many people are asking for is impossible to achive. 20 years of hard research and probably close to a billion dollars spent by Honda has given us ASIMO, a robot with enough 'AI' to run and walk the stairs... Do I have to say more?

BIS has managed to create an unscripted AI superior to any other game I know of. It's not perfect, and definitely not anywhere near to human behaviour but that can only be found in fiction. At least for now.

Edited June 11, 2009 by Llauma

[walker 0]

Hi all

As I keep pointing give us the proof.

If you want to make a statment about the AI do a repeatable experiment.

Everything else is just opinion.

So far all the experimental data has blown myth after concern troll myth out of the water and I dare say it can do the same for fan boy myths.

AI cheat when tracking you, blown out of the water.

AI has eyes in the back of their head, blown out of the water.

AI can see through bushes, blown out of the water.

If aint an experiment your just an out gassing windbag.

Kind Regards walker

Edited June 11, 2009 by walker

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Maybe we should make an Arma MythBuster video? :)

[BF2_Trooper 0]

Hi all

As Maddmatt says it is up to the mission maker to decide on the relative AI skill levels combined with their rank.

So BF2_Trooper you as a mission designer can set those relative skill levels same as you can set the rank distribution, weapons and vehicles or any other factor including the field of battle.

Kind Regards walker

What are they set to in the regular campaign?

[walker 0]

What are they set to in the regular campaign?

Hi BF2_Trooper

You would have to depbo the missions to find out.

Kind Regards walker

---------- Post added at 03:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:13 AM ----------

Maybe we should make an Arma MythBuster video? :)

Hi CarlGustaffa

Good Idea.

I am sure somone will.

But who knows maybe BIS can get the real Mythbusters to do it for them.

Any one else think Kari Byron is hot?

Kind Regards walker

[whisper 0]

EDIT : Blah, as well rant a bit : Because Russian soldiers MUST be worse than US ones to be realistic? oO

Edited June 11, 2009 by whisper

[MBot 0]

How long were the firefights people had so far? For me the fights are still rather short and in concept very similar to the way we fought in OFP and ArmA.

The new AI shows some impressive abilities compared to ArmA but it seems mostly about moving close to cover, not to actually fight from cover. Kneeling next to a corner or tree is nice for looks but it provides as much cover as kneeling on open ground. As such it is my impression after playing Arma 2 for two weeks pretty intensively that combat is not fundamentally different than in ArmA.

There is AI that leans around corners or shoots over small walls but it happens not that often. Of course it has also to do with the fact that, save for urban terrain, there is not that much cover available in the world (as trees are no cover). The AI seems generally to be very reluctant to fight from good positions should they find one, moving further quite quickly. Also I do not have the impression that suppressive fire works for the AI on the receiving end. I do not say it isn’t in the engine but while playing I could not yet see it making any noticeable difference.

The concept of fighting from sheltered positions, exposing only as little as possible when firing and to quickly duck back to full cover when under fire, still seems to be missing from the AI. I hoped for longer firefights from clear positions in Arma 2 but my impression is that combat still plays pretty much the same as previously.

[fabrizio_t 58]

How long were the firefights people had so far? For me the fights are still rather short and in concept very similar to the way we fought in OFP and ArmA.

The new AI shows some impressive abilities compared to ArmA but it seems mostly about moving close to cover, not to actually fight from cover. Kneeling next to a corner or tree is nice for looks but it provides as much cover as kneeling on open ground. As such it is my impression after playing Arma 2 for two weeks pretty intensively that combat is not fundamentally different than in ArmA.

There is AI that leans around corners or shoots over small walls but it happens not that often. Of course it has also to do with the fact that, save for urban terrain, there is not that much cover available in the world (as trees are no cover). The AI seems generally to be very reluctant to fight from good positions should they find one, moving further quite quickly. Also I do not have the impression that suppressive fire works for the AI on the receiving end. I do not say it isn’t in the engine but while playing I could not yet see it making any noticeable difference.

The concept of fighting from sheltered positions, exposing only as little as possible when firing and to quickly duck back to full cover when under fire, still seems to be missing from the AI. I hoped for longer firefights from clear positions in Arma 2 but my impression is that combat still plays pretty much the same as previously.

Firefights definitely don't last long, at least if you play VETERAN.

The reason is simple: AI fires very accurately.

If you want longer firefights you may have to reduce AI fire precision in your profile file.

I think 0.75-0.85 for precisionEnemy and precisionFriendly is pretty enough.

With 1.0 precision there's no point with having partial cover and/or peeking to fire, AI can pinpoint units that are minimally exposed.

I agree that AI uses cover too sparingly and tends to move quite a lot, usually more than needed.

Also groups spread very much and units end engaging individually.

BEWARE: speaking of lowering precisionFriendly/precisionEnemy, it's probably better not to overdo it.

In ARMA1 at least lowering these values increased substantially the aiming shake for AI units.

That increased shaking meant more time needed for AI to take aim / less shots fired. Due to that the AI seemed "dumber" .

I have't tried very low (0,10-0,30) precisionFriendly/precisionEnemy values in ARMA2, but i bet the effect will be similar

Edited June 12, 2009 by fabrizioT