ARMA II Beta Builds Released: Latest version/build: 1.04.6xxxx

[PuFu 4600]

Performance drop here with 718 also..

same....and drop is not negligible

[suma 8]

• AI is really slow, using bounding overwatch also in aware mode since even if only one enemy is detected and then killed - they won't return to aware mode and stay in combat mode instead.
  

• Taking cover take them ages to done (they should not watch - they should run and take cover).
  

• Some AI also stand up or crouch when the rest of a group is regrouped and in prone position following leader.
  

• Also, AI is unable to follow you fast enough, so when you're runing over an open ground under fire, they tend to be very slow and get killed (delta and file formation too). When you are finally in cover, they are dead or 150 - 300 meters away. It will need lot of tuning yet.
  

EDIT: Also, they actually go to COMBAT mode when in delta and file formation. Just like any other formation. Present AI seem to me as worse than with previous beta and moreover - this patch doesn't do what is said in it's changeLog. So I hope for a hot fix.

The problems you report seem pretty serious to me. Would you (or someone else) be able to create and attach a simple mission accompanied with detailed steps how to reproduce them?

[SaOk 112]

I had very bad AI problems too with the latest beta (718). In multiplayer warfare my AI teammembers were ultra slow with any behaviour (safe,aware,danger,engage at will, disengane). 150m took at least 10 minutes to go and there wasnt any enemy contacts nearby. They couldnt stay in formation at all.

[Bouben 3]

The problems you report seem pretty serious to me. Would you (or someone else) be able to create and attach a simple mission accompanied with detailed steps how to reproduce them?

Of course. (Zdravím, Sumo)

Here is the mission: http://leteckaposta.cz/963339909

1. Start the mission.

2. Set your team to HOLD FIRE mode and DIAMOND (Ätverec) formation. You can choose either SAFE or AWARE mode. Impact on AI's behaviour is minimal.

3. Go straight ahead to the hangar's corner and lean out. You will see the enemy soldier standing near the fireplace and showing his back to you. He is not aware of your group at all.

4. Report him to your squad and watch what happens. Every member of your squad who doesn't have the enemy soldier in his line of sight will stay in normal, properly functional aware position yet.

5. So run closer to the enemy soldier (as close as you can get) and you will see that since your members have the enemy in their LOS they will start to act as if in the combat mode.

So when you're already close to the enemy soldier, your squad is delayed and you have to wait for them quite long time in a context of military action.

What you can find out from the mission is that your squad will follow you more properly with less bounding overwatching when you walk instead of running.

And sometimes but often happens, that if you or someone else from your squad have already killed the enemy soldier, they still tend to stay in somehow combat mode and are really slow (most often when enemy had shooted some bullets on your squad before got killed). And this could last for tens of minutes or forever I don't know exactly. But it is more likely to happen when number of enemies were higher than one but they are also all killed anyway. But it is not said, that it will happen everytime you try to reproduce it. Anyway, player has no possibility of forcing them back to calm status, because we can't say to our squad "area clear" or something like that.

And problem with taking cover can be reproduced in any situation in any time in any mission. AI will set to combat mode and start bounding overwatch. Proper behaviour IMHO should be AI taking cover as if in the combat mode (leaning, crouching behind walls etc), but not moving in bounding overwatch. They should run REALLY FAST as if in the careless mode and then hide and only after that start shooting from cover. They should not stop and scan in open, when bullets are flying around them. Priority is to take cover, not to shoot at enemy. But I think there have been some better articles about that with possible solutions too.

* Mission reproduced without any modifications running and with this config:

skillFriendly=0.89999998;

skillEnemy=0.89999998;

precisionFriendly=0.7;

precisionEnemy=0.5;

Edited December 2, 2009 by Bouben

[Herbal Influence 10]

Yeah, tested the mission.

And my AIs didn't feel easy after they shot the OPFOR soldier.

They didn't advance (run before me), but hesitated in a somewhat secure or combat mode - moving very hesitatingly and slow.

This, though I told them to be easy, advance and me running towards the dead OPFOR soldier ...

Seems they have mental problems with killing .. ;-)

ps.

I didn't check this before - maybe it was in it before? Newest Beta is fine for me. Tested it several hours.

Edited December 2, 2009 by Herbal Influence

[KeyCat 131]

Nice input Bouben!

I have no chance to test until I get back home, just wanted to add that it could be helpfull to also know what settings you used in your x.ArmA2Profie while testing...

skillFriendly=?;

skillEnemy=?;

precisionFriendly=?;

precisionEnemy=?;

My experience is that the AI behavior can differ quite much depending on these settings.

/KC

Edited December 2, 2009 by KeyCat

[Colt45_GTO 10]

ok my first impression of the AI was wrong, just been in a few missions selecting rilfemen and corpsmen only for my squad. they did everything i asked except the medics were slow to respond. although they did get round to healing after they had tea and biscuits.

apart from that i found one small issue, not sure yet need to test further but it looks like a white out when firing the M107 looking down the scope. this was a cround few shots i'll try pron after my tea and biscuits.

[jw custom 56]

Just played a bit... at one point someone started shooting at my group and pinned my 3 AI team mates down. I couldn't get to them and revive them because we were sniped at with full auto so i had to find out where exactly the shooting came from, it took a bit to see the little dot almost 500m away sniping at us with his full auto spray.... this is not right!

[Bouben 3]

Nice input Bouben!

I have no chance to test until I get back home, just wanted to add that it could be helpfull to also know what settings you used in your x.ArmA2Profie while testing...

skillFriendly=?;

skillEnemy=?;

precisionFriendly=?;

precisionEnemy=?;

My experience is that the AI behavior can differ quite much depending on these settings.

/KC

Yes, I'll add it to my bigger post (so it's there from now). Thanks!

Edited December 2, 2009 by Bouben

[Colt45_GTO 10]

Just played a bit... at one point someone started shooting at my group and pinned my 3 AI team mates down. I couldn't get to them and revive them because we were sniped at with full auto so i had to find out where exactly the shooting came from, it took a bit to see the little dot almost 500m away sniping at us with his full auto spray.... this is not right!

depends on what they was sniping with. SVD yes unscoped bit wrong. chances are if you replayed the same thing went the same way you would encounter it again? get yourself a m14 sniper take him down and see what equipment he has ;)

[jw custom 56]

depends on what they was sniping with. SVD yes unscoped bit wrong. chances are if you replayed the same thing went the same way you would encounter it again? get yourself a m14 sniper take him down and see what equipment he has ;)

Like i said full auto... i could see impacts with very little dispersion ;)

[Falco1.01 19]

Grey display and not responding aplication upon exit is still there in 718, I just got one after playing multi

[maturin 12]

Like i said full auto... i could see impacts with very little dispersion ;)

I never even see the impacts that do have dispersion...

[jw custom 56]

Nice input Bouben!

I have no chance to test until I get back home, just wanted to add that it could be helpfull to also know what settings you used in your x.ArmA2Profie while testing...

skillFriendly=?;

skillEnemy=?;

precisionFriendly=?;

precisionEnemy=?;

My experience is that the AI behavior can differ quite much depending on these settings.

/KC

It's correct these settings deffinitely effects units skills and accuracy but using the setSkill command or the unit skill slider doesn't change anything.

The settings in your profile should be default unit skill settings and then you should be able to change a particular units skill with either the skill slider(to adjust skills in general) or the setSkill command to adjust a particualr skill like accuracy.

As it is now all units are equally dumb or smart, lol :p

Getting this fixed would make me squeze a little tear and pee a little in my pants of happyness :D

[NoRailgunner 0]

Now the AI is often too close to each other.

Just remember what you have learnt in OFP Ambush mission:

"Stay sharp, maintain unit cohesion - but keep your distance to each other! I dont wanna see one handgrenade take out half my squad!" ;)

Keep on and make the AI using different tactics in urban areas and in the open countryside.

Perhaps its possible to integrate "urban zones" so the AI switches automatically to a proper behaviour/formation when entering towns, villages and leaving them?

[Colt45_GTO 10]

the M107 was my stance plus my position, its fine. the whole thing seems very good at the moment.

going back in for more punishment.

[thr0tt 12]

Performance well down again, laggy mess for me now.

[suma 8]

Here is the mission: http://leteckaposta.cz/963339909

5. So run closer to the enemy soldier (as close as you can get) and you will see that since your members have the enemy in their LOS they will start to act as if in the combat mode.

While I am not sure I have observed exactly the same as you did (I never seen them performing bounding overwatch), I have seen they were still considering themselves "partially combat" once they have acquired the target, which affected their pathfinding and made them move slower. This should be fixed in 60803 (which is being deployed right now).

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

Performance drop by 5% average in Arma2Mark (in 60718)

[mr.g-c 6]

This should be fixed in 60803 (which is being deployed right now).

Great, really great!

Suma can i ask you something?:D I try to keep it short:

It seems the issues with the AI Formation keeping and combat mode will be fully solved very soon, so when you have still fun/mood in tweaking AI with the help community suggestions, i have something which is in my personal opinion the major thing which is missing since OFP to let AI almost act fully human like (sorry for that huge exaggeration):

Its AI's almost non-proper reaction on getting fired at, or in other words, AI needs more self-caring, or like i call it:

A "Basic survival/self-caring FSM", which should be always active.

If you would be in general up for it, i make over the weekend a few quick repro-missions and videos with different situations and file a big feature/bug report in the bugtracker or here in forums (like you wish).

[froggyluv 2136]

This should be fixed in 60803 (which is being deployed right now).

Your awesome.

[sbsmac 0]

I just posted http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/6447 "Groups do not react to friendly fire from behind".

Not strictly a beta issue since I can also repro it in 1.04 but may perhaps be related to some of the other AI issues that are being reported. Video and mission is attached to ticket.

Also, a comment on the excellent ALT-enter window toggle... I have noticed that after switching to windowed mode and back again to full-screen, the 3d resolution is left at the window-resolution so I have to keep going back to the video-options screen to change it back to 100%. I like to switch to windowed mode so I can leave the game on the desktop whilst I quickly check email/web etc so it would be far more convenient if ArmA2 remembered the full-screen settings when it toggled back to them.

Edited December 2, 2009 by sbsmac

[Bouben 3]

While I am not sure I have observed exactly the same as you did (I never seen them performing bounding overwatch), I have seen they were still considering themselves "partially combat" once they have acquired the target, which affected their pathfinding and made them move slower. This should be fixed in 60803 (which is being deployed right now).

Looking forward to that.

[Colt45_GTO 10]

Performance well down again, laggy mess for me now.

i dunno man, i went ingame and cranked it max. on war welcome, 12 man squad, there are guys doing what they do and explosions, fire, gunfire all over the place, it played absolutely flawelessly. thats with view distance maxed too.

i only have 2 gig of 667 ram and its cheap stuff ddr2

so i dunno it seems to have worked the oposit way for me.

[ceeeb 147]

Your awesome.

You're :p