SLX Mod WIP

[Chris Willocks 10]

Here's another reality check -nobody gives a monkey's banana for your overbloated opinions. Don't like the mod -don't play it. It's still WIP and only worked on by one guy who's given us a lot since OFP. Like I said, think you can do better? Put up or shut up, but until then, you want to troll around criticising with no respect and crying like a lil' gherl because something don't suit your fancy-take it elsewhere.

Well said! I can't understand how some people can be so rude?

[node_runner 0]

Setting rudeness aside, I've played with this mod off and on over the past few weeks and it has been a mixed bag for me. I understand it is a WIP, so I'm not complaining, just giving feedback about the AI behavior.

Some of the behavior is really interesting and innovative, like when units surrender to other units. Sometimes they will actually give medical attention to enemy units who have surrendered, and then arrest them, which is excellent.

That said, the AI does tend to do some rather odd things almost every time I play with this mod activated. I've used the "TroopMon2" mod to monitor the AI with SLX in different situations and I've noticed that sometimes AI's can be looking right at each other, but not seem to be aware of each other until one AI finally realizes that there is an enemy 10 feet right in front of him and finally decides to shoot him. Other times, the AI rushes head on into bullets firing in their direction which makes no sense. The behavior is different every time, which makes it hard to pin down recurring patterns to help troubleshoot. I'm trying to find a particular recurring pattern that could be corrected, but I haven't narrowed it down enough yet.

Finally, I have two suggested improvements to the "vanilla" AI which I think would go a long way toward making them seem more human. Whether this is something that Solus thinks he could tackle or not, I have no idea, but they are just ideas.

1. Awareness of which directions are likely or unlikely positions for enemy units to be. As humans, we know that if we just cleared a southern town, and then start taking fire from a large group of infantry north of the town, there is very little reason to be watching the southern direction or to be cautious about moving in that direction to take cover. It would be nice if there were a way for the AI to figure out on its own if a particular direction is likely or unlikely to be a possible attack vector, and adjust behavior appropriately. If this can't be done dynamically, having a way for mission designers to designate these areas would also help. I notice that a lot of the time I'm monitoring the AI, when they are actively being shot at from the north, sometimes every single unit in the fireteam chooses to watch the southern direction, even with the AI skill turned all the way up. I don't know how much memory it would eat up or how much performance would be affected, but it would help if the AI could at least keep a running memory of recent areas it has been through and likely to still be relatively safe.

2. It would be nice if there were a way to modify waypoints and tell the AI that when moving to this waypoint, there is no need to follow a straight path. Try and work out a more tactically advantageous path to take to that waypoint. This would be especially useful if the AI had some awareness of where enemy locations are likely to be. It would be nice to set a waypoint toward an enemy position and have the AI dynamically choose on their own to take a longer, but safer route towards that point where they can have the best access to cover, concealment, or both along the way. It would be an even neater trick if the mission designer could tell the AI "this is where enemies are likely to be", and the AI would attempt to position themselves in the best spot around that position to fire on them from as much cover/concealment safety as possible, and to attempt gaining an elevation advantage.

I realize this is WAY easier said than done. But it really would be something to see it happen.

---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:56 PM ----------

Also, I just want to add that sometimes, it is difficult for us as humans to understand why an AI is behaving the way it is. Sometimes, we might think the AI is doing something dumb, when it is actually doing something pretty smart. The TroopMon2 mod helps, but it would be really useful if we could get some kind of running debug output while monitoring an AI that says "This is what I'm doing and why" kind of thing:

Taking Fire from North

Enemy Not Spotted

Looking for Cover from direction: North

Edited December 11, 2009 by node_runner

[froggyluv 2136]

1. Awareness of which directions are likely or unlikely positions for enemy units to be. As humans, we know that if we just cleared a southern town, and then start taking fire from a large group of infantry north of the town, there is very little reason to be watching the southern direction or to be cautious about moving in that direction to take cover. It would be nice if there were a way for the AI to figure out on its own if a particular direction is likely or unlikely to be a possible attack vector, and adjust behavior appropriately. If this can't be done dynamically, having a way for mission designers to designate these areas would also help. I notice that a lot of the time I'm monitoring the AI, when they are actively being shot at from the north, sometimes every single unit in the fireteam chooses to watch the southern direction, even with the AI skill turned all the way up. I don't know how much memory it would eat up or how much performance would be affected, but it would help if the AI could at least keep a running memory of recent areas it has been through and likely to still be relatively safe.

Yes I agree with this although it's probably outside the scope of this mod. AI orientation still seems flawed in that they seem to lose priority direction of the threat at hand. I also test this much using Troopmon and it seems to me that most of this has to do with group behaviour. Meaning, members of the group are given different orients to maintain a cover-arc and perhaps prevent flanking which is good -the problem is they are slow to re-orient back to the primary threat. The other problem is that this sometimes forces them to cover the ocean or a wall. I'd prefer that they face the direction of the primary threat and perhaps turn their heads more to check for flankers.

Try placing individual soldiers, ungrouped, and the vast majority if not all keep their orientation much tighter.

[kroky 1]

Did anybody successfully combine ACE2 with SLX?

- I experienced a lot of compatibility troubles, especially with SLX_Wounds

[Inkompetent 0]

A lot of SLX will NOT work with ACE. Simple as that. You'll probably have to toss away half of either SLX or ACE to get good compatability. Both are total conversion mods, and it's all natural they conflict the poop out of eachother.

[dmarkwick 261]

As I play ArmA2 almost exclusively SP I'll probably prune both mods for stuff I want & lose the rest. I definitely want the SLX wounding system in, as well as several other items that probably won't impact on ACE stuff.

[dayglow 2]

anessen: Thanks, I'll test to make sure the targets issue is solved.

DayGlow: I'll try making the AI only move around towards cover on their own when they are stopped, so they won't interrupt their movement to a position. Also I'm trying to fix a bug where the AI won't keep moving somewhere, they keep returning to formation. Sorry, no new description list yet. Are there any addons in particular that you are wondering about?

dialektiikka: Dismemberment is just the person being teleported out into negative map coordinates and replaced with smoke and default body part models. Something similar would only work for specific vehicle destruction effects, like the T72 blowing it's turret off, or car wheels flying off.

no worries. You will probably be in a state of constant flux and frustration until the betas nail down the new AI so you can work off of it. For now I'm trying to play with just the beta AI and keep everything else from your mod. I'm pretty sure I've removed all the .pbo's that cover AI for now.

[kroky 1]

As I play ArmA2 almost exclusively SP I'll probably prune both mods for stuff I want & lose the rest. I definitely want the SLX wounding system in, as well as several other items that probably won't impact on ACE stuff.

If you succeed to combine ACE/ACEX with SLX Wounds please let me know. Right now I was trying the same mission in the mission editor again and again and found a combo that works with the whole ACE/ACEX package and most of the SLX mod. BUT SLX_Wounds.pbo and makes definitely the game crash.

- i.e. just put 2x2 squads (infantry against each other on Utes Airport) and let them fight for a while. Until now I got always a CTD when SLX_Wounds was combined with ACE. (Even when I removed the ACE_sys_wounds.pbo).

- And yes I agree SLX Wounds system is very good working and its my favourite. (Wish it would be implemented in ACE...)

[Lack 10]

I managed to get SLX and ACE to work together fine, there are of course some problems, but none that weren't already present in SLX (understandable due to the nature and ambition of the project). I had my command line configured as such, running beta build 61062:

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe" -nosplash -mod=@ACE -mod=@ACEX -mod=@CBA [many different mods, effects mainly] -mod=@SLX [more mods, islands, units mainly] -mod=beta -world=empty

No problems with wounding what so ever, works just like it did in SLX + Vanilla.

This seemed to work, at least for me. Currently trying to cut down SLX to see if I can get maximum compatibility, I've also implemented the new zeus AI without significant problems.

[Inkompetent 0]

Didn't know one could use multiple -mod commands :o

Why not just use -mod=beta;@ACE;@ACEX;@CBA;@SLX;etc... ?

[Lack 10]

Didn't know one could do -mod=etc;etc;etc;...

I haven't tried it like that, I think I'll probably stick with what works for now. But I'll try it like that, see if it still works.

[kroky 1]

I managed to get SLX and ACE to work together fine, there are of course some problems, but none that weren't already present in SLX (understandable due to the nature and ambition of the project). I had my command line configured as such, running beta build 61062:

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe" -nosplash -mod=@ACE -mod=@ACEX -mod=@CBA [many different mods, effects mainly] -mod=@SLX [more mods, islands, units mainly] -mod=beta -world=empty

No problems with wounding what so ever, works just like it did in SLX + Vanilla.

This seemed to work, at least for me. Currently trying to cut down SLX to see if I can get maximum compatibility, I've also implemented the new zeus AI without significant problems.

Hmm, I tried now some mission with CBA/ACE/ACEX/SLX/JTD/ZEUSAI (for ACE) and it works fine even with SLX_Wounds. So no idea why it crashed when setting up a fight in the editor...nvm as long as the mission keep on working, I can live with that. ACE and SLX what a combo!

I left out some files, especially SLX_AI, because its causing much lag. Without it, and with beta 60819 (intentionally) it works very fluent and great gameplay!!

[Lack 10]

I haven't really been paying attention to the beta builds, what advantages might 60819 have over the later one (61062). I heard some talk about, can't remember what people were saying though.

[adamdf 10]

How do you turn thr crosshair back on with slx mod?

[TimRiceSE 10]

remove the "nocrosshair" pbo.................. from the @SLX/AddOns directory...

[adamdf 10]

Cheers mate

[nuggetz 0]

I kinda skimmed thru this thread and wanted to know what addons work with ACE? I disabled SLX since ACE launched for fear of problems but I really miss the SLX wounds and the ability to drag bodies around. Will these play well together.

[Lack 10]

I kinda skimmed thru this thread and wanted to know what addons work with ACE? I disabled SLX since ACE launched for fear of problems but I really miss the SLX wounds and the ability to drag bodies around. Will these play well together.

Yes, most of SLX will work with ACE2, as said on the previous page, I've got SLX_AI.pbo disabled, it seems to work better this way and I haven't seen the AI do their trick of moonwalking out of the way of my bullets that I saw with SLX_AI.pbo enabled. Which is definitely a good thing. I've removed a few others but I can't really remember why.

[jasonnoguchi 11]

I have SLX wounds with ACE2 and they work fine. Miss all that gibbing sometimes, hahahaha.

[spawncaptain 10]

After installing path 1.05 and SLX 1.8, groups no longer help each other. They still request backup though, as my custom artillery script that is called when they try to find friendly groups works.

Is that a general problem with 1.05? I'll have to admit that I didn't read every page since it's release.

Edit: I tried an older version of SLX and Grouplink still works correctly in 1.05. I also tried replacing the new SLX_GL3.pbo with the older one that works but that doesn't help either.

Edited December 26, 2009 by spawncaptain

[jblack9 10]

Hey Guys,

There are only two things from SLX mod I want, since I'm using ACE....

the Grouplink 3 AI and the thing which tells the AI to get behind cover?

How would I set this up? Would this conflict?

[oxmox 73]

This mod is just great, the AI reacts much better than vanilla and even better than with ACE2.

I wonder why i have not seen any multiplayer server with it, that would be so cool to see CTI warfare servers or coop servers with the SLX mode. I highly recommand this mod, thx a lot for this.

AI is using nades and smoke...brilliant.

[munger 25]

I noticed that the 1.8 mod contains many files which don't have a description in Solus' first post in this thread, so it's hard to know what they do or whether they are critical. Is there a more detailed description anywhere, like in a readme?

Many thanks Solus for your hard work on this rather large project!

[jblack9 10]

I'm also trying to use the dialogue with SLX with the ACE mod, which files do I need to use? I enjoy hearing Bravo, rather than 2, when orders are being yelled

[jblack9 10]

Does anybody know which file controls the speaking and/or what else it needs to work? So I can have the guys screaming out when under fire? Or yelling out "bravo (etc) rather than saying "2" I thought it was dialogue or shout effects, but on their own they don't work.