Zeus AI Combat Skills

[nomadd 66]

I have been using the addon for months and love it, but I have been seeing some pretty bad accuracy with the AI. The worst seems to be snipers and machine gunners. I have stood about 15-20m from a Russian machine gunner and he never hit me. I am running CBA,ACE,ACEX,ACE_SM,GL4 (yes I disabled the AI difficulty in GL4) as my main mods I also have misc mods for islands, vehicles,etc. The AI inaccuracies are recent. I know this is not much to go on. I will try and do some more testing.

One last note, I have been doing a lot of mission making on IslaDuala so it may be something with that island. I will try and test some on Utes and Cher.

I would love to get this resolved. This is a great mod.

Nomadd

[mrcash2009 0]

Whats your accuracy settings in your config? Is it lower than the mentioned setting in the first post?

[galzohar 31]

I'd assume the Zeus server is adjusted to the same values as stated in the first post, but I still get the same inaccuracy issues there. I'd guess it's either bad tweaking on the last version or some changes in ACE that needed to be accounted for but hadn't been since this addon hadn't been updated for a while.

[SnR 1]

I too was hoping for a update inline with ACE stable

[nomadd 66]

Well I have tested (as much as my time will allow) and I can't figure it out. Sometimes the AI is just insanely fun/good to fight ,othertimes I can walk up to an AI and they just stand in place looking dumb. I have tried dropping mods etc, etc I have also played with the skill and precision settings.

The problem seems to be mainly Machinegunners and snipers from what I can tell. AI with just rifles seem to work fine. I don't think the problem is Zeus. It is a conflict somewhere. I just have to find it.

Luckily most of the time everything plays well

Nomadd

[galzohar 31]

If there's a conflict it's probably between this and ACE, as me and the Zeus server just run ACE and Zcommon.

[fideco 1]

That's exactly the problem i tried to highlight above :)

I'm having some better balance with sensitivity raised to around 5 as a base (about +25/30% compared to Zeus 1.3) and maximum "spotDistance" lowered to 1.

With these values stealth works to some extents (there are still some issues though, probably "camouflage" values need to be fine-tuned).

All that said, thx for your great work here, Protegimus.

Which files have i to edit to modify "Spotdistance" and "Sensitivity" values, according to your tips?

Thanks

Cheers

[fideco 1]

Anyone?

[snkman 351]

UnPbo: zeu_cfg_core_ai_skills.pbo

Open "zeu_core_ai_skills.h" in the folder "zeu_cfg_core_ai_skills"

There you can see the "spotDistance" values.

UnPbo: zeu_cfg_core_ai_spotting.pbo

Open "zeu_core_ai_spotting.h" in the folder "zeu_cfg_core_ai_spotting"

There you can see the "Sensitivity" values.

[gunterlund21 10]

Protegimus

A quick update on your Zeus AI. Ive added and use it with a modifed version of Domination that has been enhanced with Ace2 and Mandoble air controller system. Ive set it so only the FAC in the mission has the ability to use the controller. Along with the R3f Arty system, it has allowed a few people to have a great time playing this mission on expert mode. Its made the odds of city capture more available and increased our enjoyment level tremendously. Thank you so much for creating this new AI spec for Arma2. Keep up the good work.

[kremator 1065]

Hmmmm triple post (3 threads) on the same thing ;) Tut tut

[fideco 1]

There you can see the "spotDistance" values.

There you can see the "Sensitivity" values.

SNKMAN,

you are always very helpful:)

Thanks!

[metalcraze 290]

So after this time what are the best settings for sensitivity and spotting to disable the all-seeing AI?

I'm having certain problems trying to play a deep night stealth mission

BLUFOR has silenced weapons (meaning no muzzle flashes and no noise that would give them away)

OPFOR is about 150-200m away and has no NVG. When I try to play as them all I can see at night is stars and blackness.

The problem is after my BLUFOR squad starts firing while crouching in grass it takes about 3-5 seconds for AI to find them and place very precise shots - which is absolutely impossible considering the situation.

[Tonci87 163]

Yes this really need tweaking

[galzohar 31]

The night thing is less about Zeus AI and more about Arma 2 itself, though it would be nice if Zeus AI found a way to make things work more realistically. But then again I don't know if it's worth an effort (to tweak AI abilities at very dark nights) as right now for players dark nights are not at all realistic in the firstplace. When was the last time you were outside and could see nothing but sky and black?

[metalcraze 290]

When you are outside the city or in some unlit location (inside the city too)?

ArmA2 models the night visually just fine.

As for it being ArmA2 thing - no it's not. The problem with vanilla AA2 is the opposite extreme - AI is totally blind and deaf at night. The golden middle is what is needed.

So I have to stick with unchanged GL4 for now.

[galzohar 31]

Well AI is totally blind past ~50m at night even if you help it by supporting it with a lot of flares (and 50m is not very far at all! You can see them way further than that in a full moon night, at least as long as you don't make noise. AI hearing is messy with both Zeus AI and vanilla). That is, placing AI just outside of the detection distance at night and firing flares will be no different to not firing flares (having the flare shooter neutral to both so that he doesn't mess things up other than lightning up the area).

Edited April 22, 2010 by galzohar

[Protegimus 0]

I've prepared updated versions of Zeus AI Combat Skills for ArmA II and for ACE2...but unfortunately the web server isn't serving pages atm. Hopefully something can be sorted out fairly soon.

This is a fairly significant re-write, with the objective of maintaining extended engagements at range, improving the players possibility of covert approach and assessing some of the issues mentioned about the ACE2 version with precision (accuracy) of enemy fire, without destroying the possibility of CQB.

Covert approach has been addressed through the reduction of spotDistance[] =

to less than the normal (1) bound (as discussed and recommended by fabrizio_T), together with fine tuning of class sensitivities.

Many thanks to fabrizio_T for the test mission he provided, it has proven very useful.

Using the test setup it was clear to see that to make as covert approach to enemy as possible you either have to move slowly (simply not running will immediately get you around 100m closer before the enemy will see you), use cover and concealment as far as possible, or better - approach from a flank.

The imbalance in the above scenario was largely caused by the moving unit running. To me this is perfectly reasonable, it is easier to spot quick motion and Zeus AI also do so. Somewhat surprisingly, testing with the new version produced almost exactly the same results as with .03 release, in spite of the spotDistance[] = changes.

metalcraze, I tested carelessly approaching enemy AI at night with and without Zeus AI and the AI is basically blind without NV.

I'd be surprised if you can get as close without Zeus, as most other setups have way too sensitive hearing, allowing the AI to detect and pinpoint you even when you're behind solid cover.

The above changes may help once the rounds start flying as there is a lower chance of the AI detecting you, but once you go loud (irrespective of whether you're using a silencer, right?) I expect you'll be getting involved. I'd be interested to know if you see any changes.

If anyone's aware of possibility to change AI's vision at night that would be interesting.

Regarding precision, accuracy has been improved to take ACE2 changes into account. It is now pretty much at the limit of what I want to hard code, fine tuning to ones preference should be done by adjusting profile precision.

Regarding Galzohar's report about the AI missing with AT/RPG, I believe this was an ArmA II bug:

[62868] Fixed: AT/RPG soldiers often missed targets

The update follows ArmA II beta release 69645 which has put the AI back on track to more sensible combat behaviour, features such as:

[60220] Improved: AI covering units tend to stay close to each other

are immediately obvious, AI is religiously using pairs with bounding overwatch. I'd generally prefer to see the AI use a more realistic approach and it would be great if the AI would move behind their buddy rather than crossing anothers arc, but one step at a time...

AI also appears less likely to fire when moving/changing position, resulting in less friendly fire - another welcome improvement.

I wouldn't think the issue reported with missing ground textures would affect a server, so notwithstanding any other dedicated server issues (my testing is limited to a couple of days) we should see much improved co-op gameplay.

Extensive testing has been completed, however it's obviously nothing like the exposure once the mod is on general release, so I do expect some feedback.

Protegimus

Edited April 25, 2010 by Protegimus

[manzilla 1]

Sounds exciting. I look forward to it.

[Inkompetent 0]

Really nice news, Protegimus! Looking forward to next release! :D

[galzohar 31]

Is it at all possible to control the time you need to be in the AI's LOS before he spots you? Being harder to spot while walking is nice, but only if walking in front of the AI will eventually get you spotted even if you don't move any closer.

If, for example, I'm standing North of an AI and am walking to the west, he should take longer to spot me than if I was running, but should still spot me sooner or later. Just like if you stood in front of me for a while I would eventually spot you even if you're very far away, just not as fast as if you were walking not to mention running.

The main thing I disliked about vanilla AI is that you could stand for unlimited durations outside their detection distance while getting inside their detection distance would get you instantly detected. This resulted in some "dirty" coop tactics taking advantage of it. As in, having unrealistic amounts of time to set up who shoots what and/or to get into proper positions for engaging etc, while realistically you should've had much less time to do that before the enemy would notice you're sitting right in front of him.

It's not that I mind leaving the precision settings up to the user, but still the user can't set different precision for different weapons etc, so (at least) things like snipers (and machinegunners) could really use tuning.

Anyway, great to hear that you're updating this. This is one of the few things that stop me from pulling my hairs playing coop due to how in-humane (mostly in a bad way) the AI is.

Edited April 25, 2010 by galzohar

[MadMike-Brig2010- 10]

Great news. Looking forward to next release.

[AnimalMother92 10]

Sounds great Pro, really looking forward to it.

[Tonci87 163]

Me and my Clan are really looking forward to this

[HateDread 13]

I know this is going to sound stupid...

But what is the difference between the common and ACE 2 versions? I assume ACE 2 version is obviously set-up for use with ACE 2?

And so, to get this to work, I just drop in the addon folder it comes in, and activate using AddonSync, and then all AI are changed?

Is there a way to test how good they are/what's different? Any examples?

Cheers for this.

- HateDread.