Opinion/Breakthru on Bugged AI Crackpot shooters

[Eclipse4349 0]

So crewmen are... terminators? *gasp

[Squigibo 10]

Huh not sure what your talking about :p

My main issue is AI shooting you through foliage where a human in same position wouldn't be able to see anything. Some say it's because they can hear you, but when your like 100m away AI shouldn't be able to pinpoint you based on hearing.

oh sorry, it was really meant for another poster, but what I meant was people say they go by hearing, but I was so close he could have heard me running back and forth, but still he didn't turn.

---------- Post added at 03:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:57 PM ----------

Just because a red dot shows on your map, doesn't mean the enemy is there remember. It's where it's assumed to be either by sound, or a squad member sighting them. It's the last known position. He could have crawled off someplace in the grass but not updated the map.

[Squigibo 10]

I believe now that AI CAN see through walls. I took the editor and put a OPFOR squad on the other side of a building. They just stood there. I then put my squad on other side of building, then hit Preview. Immediately, my squad started shouting out targets on the other side of the building even though I put them right up on the building. There is NO WAY they could see them. But they were identifying them. This is easily reproduced.

[R.Reagan 10]

I can confirm like many other posters here that AI manned tank secondary and machinegun spots do fire through most if not all objects. Typically this wouldn't be such an issue, depending on caliber and object of course, but the shots will not only travel through the thickest of trees or the top angles of hills but also most buildings and objects. I've had T-90's lay down fire and kill me through a MH-60 while I was on the other side (watched the round go through the side of the helicopter) and didn't blow up the helicopter. I've had a commander of a T-72 fire his gun through a house out of frustration at my M1A1 and watch as the bullets passed through the corner of the house and hit the armor on the tank. Additionally, I've also seen the badass crewmember shoot at me from well over 100m with a pistol and hit me too. Aside from crew members (primarily armor crews) I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary minus the super sensitive sight that AI who are set to Veteran or Expert posses and the Tunguska set to recruit being able to lock on to your plane at 4.1k out yet you can't get a lock on them. (Again, I know real life yada yada but in game is always represented differently.)

In retrospect, if the vanilla AI in Arma 2 are anything like Arma than few things hold constant:

1. SU and KA pilot AI are top-notched marksmen with an AKS at 500+m being able to 1 shot a player. These AI are to be hunted and taken out with extreme prejudice.
   
2. Firing any designated sniper rifle (M24/M107/SVD [marksman rifle]/KSVK) default to Arma in and immediately around an AO gained the operator of said weapon instant hate by the AI within the AO and usually didn't lose focus of AI attention until the player's death. Rifles such as the Mk12, Vintorez, add-on long range rifles do not generate such disgust by the AI as they will generally ignore the operator of said weapon until you've hit them in the foot or ass whichever happens first.
   
3. AI pilots, while sneaky and relentless, can be brought down by simply firing upon their craft (be it plane or helicopter) as they attempt to find you and kill you. You typically cannot kill them with small arms fire; however, it's the AI's lack of proper discipline that causes him to go into a literal blind rage and fly into trees, buildings, hillsides or even friendlies in an attempt to shoot at you with his machinegun(s).
   
4. Tires are rather expensive for the forces native to Sahrani so when one has been deflated either due to multiple projectile penetration or a simple removal of the valve steam needle the crew will abandon their craft and stand at around while waiting for their AAA service provider to show up. In Sahrani there is no such saying as "go down with the ship".
   
5. The saying "the hat makes the man" is true to APC or lightly armored vehicles in Arma that are manned by AI. When the turret is gone so goes the crew as they decide it's easier to stand around and wait for the AAA guy to show up. Fortunate is the engineer who knows that 30 - 50 well placed 5.56 or 7.62x39 rounds placed into the turret will cause this phenomena to happen thus allowing said engineer to carjack the AI crew Sahrani style.
   
6. Tired of running from house to house only to find that no AI are around? Can’t find the one AI who’s lost and/or missing in a city that you know is cleared by hasn’t? Setup a MASH and just watch the number of customers who’ll stop by for a quick hit of morphine and bandages. Who says AI are dumb and especially the disabled AI as you can always find them healing up at a player’s MASH if it’s setup in the AO. Some would say this borders on collaborating with the enemy other say whatever it takes to seal the deal (or clear the AO).
   
7. It’s said you do yourself and your enemy honor when you face them in combat; however, that doesn’t hold true to AI in mounted locations. AI on land based machineguns, grenade and AA pods as well as AT positions always take more than the one shot to the head to toss them off the position and this is even at point-blank range. Knife them I would but that is not in game so shoot them from a safe distance or open up at point blank on full auto or as quick as you can click the mouse.
   

As for Arma 2 I can say that #3 works well, #4 and #5 not so well as the Russians, CDF, and others can afford new tires and it takes many more than 45 rounds to the turret to disable as you typically just piss off the crew. Number 2 doesn’t seem to apply thankfully but I do know that it takes about 5 minutes after combat for the AI crew of any armor to get ballsy and turn out giving you a second, third or whatever attempt you’re on to put the crew down. 7 is still in effect and I haven’t played enough as medic to know whether or not #6 still works. It’s always fun catching the AI healing at your MASH like it’s theirs.

Edited July 14, 2009 by R.Reagan

[StrifeRaZoR 10]

Someone mentioned earlier that the AI relies on sound more than anything. Which I believe this is true. I play on a 2-man dedicated Domination server, and over the past 2 or 3 days, we've managed to take out 17 of the 21 cities. The last few have been insanely easy (Mainly due to crazy amount of AH1's delivered to our base...7 total...why 2 guys would need that many choppers is beyond me...). The main reason it's been easy though, is the fact that regardless of visibility...I've found that kneeling down, keeping your head low, and holding SHIFT is somehow or another an instant win for me.

The AI will look right at me, up to 50-100m away...and as long as I'm holding shift, they won't do a thing. I've actually gone prone, held SHIFT, and slowly made my way through a town with nothing but a pistol and a ton of satchel charges. Crawling right through the middle of the streets, very slowly. I placed a satchel under each vehicle I found, slowly crawled to the safety of a building, detonated all of them, and never took a shot.

Even after detonating the satchel charges, the enemy just seems to freak out and scatter or go prone and look around.

I don't use the editor, so no clue how to test this viably. But if someone could set up a nice cluttered area with a ton of AI and try to sneak through in broad daylight just by holding shift...you can see a MAJOR difference in the AI's behavior. Even aircraft seem to do it. I was shot down by a KA when I was in my AH1. I was close enough to land safely. The KA was no more than 150m from me in the air, coming in for the kill. I got out, crouched, and held shift, and he just hovered over me for a few seconds before flying off. I was in plain sight.

[S_Z 0]

I believe now that AI CAN see through walls. I took the editor and put a OPFOR squad on the other side of a building. They just stood there. I then put my squad on other side of building, then hit Preview. Immediately, my squad started shouting out targets on the other side of the building even though I put them right up on the building. There is NO WAY they could see them. But they were identifying them. This is easily reproduced.

Are you sure none of them moved? I did the same experiment myself and from my experience they do not know of each other as long as no one moves.

I used the barracks next to the airstrip on the small island. I put one solder on each side next to a window then start the mission. Both solders just stand there, if i go inside and open a door so the two soldiers see each other through the windows they both react and hit the ground :)

I then put a group on each side instead. At start they are unaware of each other but as soon as someone moves they all get alerted.

Im not sure what to make out of it. I saw soldiers running pass each other which showed they did not see though buildings. But at one point I saw two soldiers try to shoot one another though a corner of the building. It looked quite funny, both shooting straight in the wall, it ended with both soldiers throw a grenade at the same time and kill each other :D

I think as many other already said that the hearing is the biggest issue, they seem to hear a bit too well.

[cackle 0]

I revisit this thread, and give some more thought..

As we see in the 1.3 patch notes, that dead soldiers are reporting where you are.. (edit: please note 1.3 is not out at this time 7/18/09, only some info on sme things that will be addressed)

I am guessing that tanks are more prevy to this information for whatever reason game engine needs thems to be.. and this same info is passed to AI crew members, might be why they are so deadly.. and of course if dead AI is continually feeding them info, it may simply be this reason they are so effective and deadly.. and not totally testable, unless now you have the new hint.. dead people :)

make missions with dead AI, or shoot them and see now if your crew member test missions act like supermen

[nkenny 1057]

Someone mentioned earlier that the AI relies on sound more than anything. Which I believe this is true. I play on a 2-man dedicated Domination server, and over the past 2 or 3 days, we've managed to take out 17 of the 21 cities. The last few have been insanely easy (Mainly due to crazy amount of AH1's delivered to our base...7 total...why 2 guys would need that many choppers is beyond me...). The main reason it's been easy though, is the fact that regardless of visibility...I've found that kneeling down, keeping your head low, and holding SHIFT is somehow or another an instant win for me.

The AI will look right at me, up to 50-100m away...and as long as I'm holding shift, they won't do a thing. I've actually gone prone, held SHIFT, and slowly made my way through a town with nothing but a pistol and a ton of satchel charges. Crawling right through the middle of the streets, very slowly. I placed a satchel under each vehicle I found, slowly crawled to the safety of a building, detonated all of them, and never took a shot.

Even after detonating the satchel charges, the enemy just seems to freak out and scatter or go prone and look around.

I don't use the editor, so no clue how to test this viably. But if someone could set up a nice cluttered area with a ton of AI and try to sneak through in broad daylight just by holding shift...you can see a MAJOR difference in the AI's behavior. Even aircraft seem to do it. I was shot down by a KA when I was in my AH1. I was close enough to land safely. The KA was no more than 150m from me in the air, coming in for the kill. I got out, crouched, and held shift, and he just hovered over me for a few seconds before flying off. I was in plain sight.

I assume your SHIFT is bound to 'slow/walking speed' ? If so I have something similar to confirm. Albeit I experienced this thing the dead of night. Slow-prone is nearly invisible at any range.

-K

[r3volution 0]

I've had some interesting AI one-shot moments, but haven't been able to trace them to any one specific unit or set of circumstances. As others have said though, Arma's AI had super-hearing and so could pinpoint your position and drop a round through your face after only hearing one footstep, eventually patches and mods neutered it a little. I hope its just the same case here.

Cackle, bout that 'ground wave' thing, I'm running latest Nvidia drivers and I've been seeing it too. Its like a little 'ripple' that seems to run through the terrain about 3 metres in front of the character model. Its quite bizzare, and I'm SURE i wasn't getting it before latest drivers, but I don't have older ones to roll back to to verify.

[Trapper 0]

Maybe it's time to cool down this discussion with some old explanations:

Coming from OFP and ArmA, one of the most important values for the ai is knowsabout. The higher this value gets, the more "fog of war" is removed from a target.

It's raised by the noise simulation and other situational awareness things and only lowered very slowly over time (minutes) when the target is no longer reported by anyone. But the target/supposed movement will be roughly chased and probably spotted again because of the slow value decrease in between.

For a human the best visible recreation of this ai mechanic is the tracking red target marker that ai commanders are able to call out for players.

One thing that raises knowsabout drastically to it's max was/is(?) hitting and hurting an ai. Plus this info/report is shared along it's group.

Killing an ai involves hurting it before, so the last action of the victim was always to reveal the enemy to it's group leader. But only once with the highest knowsabout, not continuously.

This is were the common satchel/AT problem is located. The units are hurt when they are forced to disembark. They're aware of the attacker at once, like an infantry group would be that's under fire for seconds and already suffering losses. And the player is the only aggressor in this case, while the caused damage between infantry groups is divided.

I don't believe tank crews got a personal additional cheat in ArmA II. It's just that at the moment ai in general is setup to cheat to react challenging and does not just ignore it when a group member is hit/killed by a single shot from a before hidden enemy.

[An Fiach 10]

I revisit this thread, and give some more thought..

As we see in the 1.3 patch notes, that dead soldiers are reporting where you are.. (edit: please note 1.3 is not out at this time 7/18/09, only some info on sme things that will be addressed)

I am guessing that tanks are more prevy to this information for whatever reason game engine needs thems to be.. and this same info is passed to AI crew members, might be why they are so deadly.. and of course if dead AI is continually feeding them info, it may simply be this reason they are so effective and deadly.. and not totally testable, unless now you have the new hint.. dead people :)

make missions with dead AI, or shoot them and see now if your crew member test missions act like supermen

They don't continually feed info IIRC they are just able to report your location at the time that you kill them.

[fabrizio_t 58]

Maybe it's time to cool down this discussion with some old explanations:

Coming from OFP and ArmA, one of the most important values for the ai is knowsabout. The higher this value gets, the more "fog of war" is removed from a target.

It's raised by the noise simulation and other situational awareness things and only lowered very slowly over time (minutes) when the target is no longer reported by anyone. But the target/supposed movement will be roughly chased and probably spotted again because of the slow value decrease in between.

For a human the best visible recreation of this ai mechanic is the tracking red target marker that ai commanders are able to call out for players.

One thing that raises knowsabout drastically to it's max was/is(?) hitting and hurting an ai. Plus this info/report is shared along it's group.

Killing an ai involves hurting it before, so the last action of the victim was always to reveal the enemy to it's group leader. But only once with the highest knowsabout, not continuously.

This is were the common satchel/AT problem is located. The units are hurt when they are forced to disembark. They're aware of the attacker at once, like an infantry group would be that's under fire for seconds and already suffering losses. And the player is the only aggressor in this case, while the caused damage between infantry groups is divided.

I don't believe tank crews got a personal additional cheat in ArmA II. It's just that at the moment ai in general is setup to cheat to react challenging and does not just ignore it when a group member is hit/killed by a single shot from a before hidden enemy.

Hi,

i agree with you that for OFP and at least initially for ArmA the "knowsabout" value was the key parameter to check AI knowledge about threats.

Now, with ArmA 2, developers stated that "knowsabout" should NOT be considered a 100% "reliable" evaluation criterium.

"Neartargets" info is considered to a better meter (SUMA said).

---------- Post added at 06:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:29 PM ----------

They don't continually feed info IIRC they are just able to report your location at the time that you kill them.

Currently i suspect they do.

Edited July 19, 2009 by fabrizio_T

[sakura_chan 9]

This is really going to cook your noodle, but in the config, crewmen are actually LESS sensitive than other units. A sniper has a sensitivity of 4, a generic rifleman is 3.4 and the crewmen (both sides) are 2.8. There aren't any other differences in the config to produce this error. Maybe somehow the AI is keeping the vehicle's targeting accuracy when they disembark?

[jw custom 56]

About AI shooting through objects..

I haven't experienced that, but today for the first time i noticed my own AI team members was walking through a concrete wall. I tried walking through same spot on the wall but without success. Later in another mission was walking along same type of concrete wall, turned around to check my six and in the same second 2 enemies walked through the concrete wall.

Thank god i turned around at that exact time so i saved my virtual life :p

[Vanten 10]

AI behavior of APCs & armed motor vehicles needs to be addressed. Facing a car with machinegun or a static defense is a nightmare. They instantly know where you and your team are, and nearly always place 100% accurate shots.

Compared to AI infantry; AI crewman in vehicles does not seem to have their vision obscured by trees, grass or a person being prone. It also appears that they can track a target even whilst it’s in cover by terrain.

[walker 0]

Hi all

On the matter of concealment and what constitutes cover. Contrary to opinion trees of less then 2 foot thickness and most house walls do not constitute cover!

It has been discussed many, many times on this forum.

I draw you attention to this BIS wiki page where it is explained with evidential links including US Military training videos. http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA_II_Hints_and_Tips#The_difference_between_cover_and_concealment

Could all people reading such posts in the future just point them at the Wiki.

Kind regards walker