Zeus AI Combat Skills

[metalcraze 290]

They will run for cover and engage from there. Then they will run into another cover. Always staying in one place is a bad idea.

It's a logical thing to do. 'Hold' waypoint must mean nothing if AI wants to live (apart from staying around the waypoint which they do)

[galzohar 31]

It's the logical thing to do *in general*, but in a lot of situations in the world of Arma it just isn't. Like when you're standing in the middle of an open airfield (or any other open ground). Or when the enemy is right in front of you. Many situations call for shoot first and move to cover after. In fact, if they always fired a few shots before moving to cover, it would probably have been good.

[metalcraze 290]

When in open field and there is no cover nearby they lie down and fire.

AI scans for cover only in the limited range.

[galzohar 31]

Seems like they don't. They instead start running around aimlessly and fire very little giving you plenty of time to kill all of them. Without Zeus AI this does not happen. If it's not the find cover function then it is something else messing them up.

[maturin 12]

When in open field and there is no cover nearby they lie down and fire.

AI scans for cover only in the limited range.

I wish. Disable a tank in an open field and the crew members will go sprinting off to reach buildings over a hundred meters away.

And it's a shame that the AI doesn't know when to keep put.

They obviously know when they are in cover, otherwise how would they know to get there? Yet, you can put a squad in complete safety behind a hanger, and if a bit of ordinance lands nearby they will promptly run in front of the machineguns on the other side of the hanger and get cut down.

And I never thought I would be speaking up for the bounding overwatch system, but with the beta .pbos it is largely abandoned. As a result, the volume of fire an entire squad puts out is often inadequate as they go for cover slighting to their flank, often causing multiple friendly fire casualties in the meantime.

The these issues are most visible in a controlled Utes runway test environment, but the inability to disable involuntary squad movement really is a mission breaker. The AI seems a lot more lifeless since I've gone back to default Zeus, but not noticeably less competent and my team is far better behaved.

[metalcraze 290]

I wish. Disable a tank in an open field and the crew members will go sprinting off to reach buildings over a hundred meters away.

Yes they should stay in an open field and meet their death.

In vanilla when a tank blows up the crew just jumps out and lies next to it like a bunch of retards that want to die. With Zeus they are running for their life into the nearest cover which is the only thing any sane person will do. It isn't like they magically know that it may just be one person blowing the tank up and not a whole squad spraying them or another armored vehicle.

Seems like they don't. They instead start running around aimlessly and fire very little giving you plenty of time to kill all of them. Without Zeus AI this does not happen. If it's not the find cover function then it is something else messing them up.

I did a test by attacking a squad in the open field. Most of them immediately started to run away (which is the only logical thing to do) while two of them remained and started looking for the incoming fire. After spotting my squad the enemy squad actually started to fight back albeit giving a priority to finding cover. Which again is how it is should be as they don't know what they are facing.

When I lead teams in coop I always get them out of the open field first.

I really hate moments in vanilla when AI just lies in the open field making it very easy to zero in on and snipe him. Running target is much harder to hit.

[maturin 12]

Yes they should stay in an open field and meet their death.

In vanilla when a crew bails out, they usually shoot and kill me. In Zeus it turns into an amusing turkey shoot because they forget that they have guns. So good idea in theory, needs some tweaking in practice.

There is such thing as the 3 second rule. Only run for cover if it is close enough.

I really hate moments in vanilla when AI just lies in the open field making it very easy to zero in on and snipe him. Running target is much harder to hit.

I do miss that. AI with normal Zeus have improved enough to be effective, but I usually shoot at stationary me nowadays.

The beta Zeus .pbos just need to be tweaked so that a squad running for cover lays down more cover fire and doesn't shoot themselves so much.

But the mod hasn't been updated in a long time and Protegimus has for some reason resolved not to answer a single question about how to download the mod. Thank god for AnimalMother.

[metalcraze 290]

In vanilla when a crew bails out, they usually shoot and kill me. In Zeus it turns into an amusing turkey shoot because they forget that they have guns. So good idea in theory, needs some tweaking in practice.

Well yeah they need to bail out and start shooting at you and your 8 guys and maybe some vehicles that are with you.

They just need to kill you first before getting killed 2 seconds later by all other people - then it will be alright?

Note that I use Zeus AI with ACE without all those sys_AI and GLX pbos so AI may be more unresponsive in your case if you do use those pbos (main reason why I removed them when I used non-ACE version)

[maturin 12]

Well yeah they need to bail out and start shooting at you and your 8 guys and maybe some vehicles that are with you.

This is becoming silly, but if you have 8 guys with you, then they should have other tanks with them. And the safest place in tank battle where you are a low priority target is on the ground, looking inconspicuous, rather than running around getting hit by sabot petals.

I also use Zeus with ACE, and without sys_AI (don't even know what that does) and GLX. Do you use zeus_findcover?

A general needed tweak is that the AI shouldn't run for cover against a single man. I was trying to test a soundmod on the Utes runway, and I couldn't get the AI to kill me. He insisted on running away behind the control tower, when a single shot at close range would have sufficed.

[metalcraze 290]

This is becoming silly, but if you have 8 guys with you, then they should have other tanks with them. And the safest place in tank battle where you are a low priority target is on the ground, looking inconspicuous, rather than running around getting hit by sabot petals.

Yes it's a very good idea lying near a burning tank (especially with ACE) with ammunition blowing up once in a while. All while shooting back at enemies. That will keep the crew safe.

Do you use zeus_findcover?

Yes.

A general needed tweak is that the AI shouldn't run for cover against a single man.

Only you know that you are a single man. That was the point.

[maturin 12]

Only you know that you are a single man. That was the point.

The AI knows exactly how many men they know about. If they only know about one, and that one is close by and aiming at them (they know how to check for this as well) they should shoot, rather than presenting their backside. A human would do that.

[thearies 12]

hello folks,

which pbo of the zeus-ace pbo´s are responsible for long-range detection? may i can isolate that feature

cause i would like to test performance without too autonomous behavior of the AI like many before i thought that i loose control with the whole zeus-ace bundle...

greetings

[galzohar 31]

The solution would be simple - Delayed run for cover. Shoot first, then run. That way if you are an immediate threat they will take you out before running for cover, and if you're too far for them to hit effectively, then at least they'll scare you a bit before starting to run away. At least that's what I was trained - When you get contact by surprise, the first thing you do is always shoot. While you're shooting you can think about what to do next, but shoot first. Of course assuming the target is close enough for you to shoot (and in Arma, if they are running away from you, most likely they also know where you are in order to shoot you. AI doesn't "look" for you, they pretty much (not exactly, but pretty much) either know where you are or they don't).

If AI would shoot at least a few rounds first and only then run to cover things would have been much better IMO.

Besides, playing without Zeus AI, AI seems much much harder, but so much because the AI run around way too much, but more because AI with Zeus AI simply miss their shots too much. Maybe their miss rate is realistic, maybe not, but it's definitely a much higher miss rate than what human players have.

[maturin 12]

I play without the Zeus dispersion .pbo, but with precision turned down to the recommended level. Does simply tuning off the mod have a big effect on accuracy?

[Beagle 684]

It is very hard for me to see any real difference in sightly user.cfg tweaked A.I. and ZEUSD A.I. after 1.59.

I use to give "vanilla" A.I. a skill of 1 and accuracy of 0.5 since Armed Assault featured this values. With 1.59 A.I. improvements I can barely see what ZEUS is about now. It is quite oftem simply so that Mods don't catch up anymore with BIS improvements, betas included.

Edited April 28, 2011 by Beagle

[thearies 12]

@beagle

i think i will try this too...

you mean you change the values in the cfg... so you use the same skills and acurracy for friendly and hostile AI...right?!

[Beagle 684]

@beagle

i think i will try this too...

you mean you change the values in the cfg... so you use the same skills and acurracy for friendly and hostile AI...right?!

That's what I do but you can do with your .cfg whatever you like. But don't try to change it in game menu after editing .cfg.... it will revert to default.

[metalcraze 290]

I use enemy precision 0.55 and friendly precision 0.75 I think. This doesn't make AI snipers but makes them competent enough to kill you and your squad. Enemy precision is lower because the absolute majority of missions has more enemies than friendlies so one compensates for another.

Setting friendly precision to 0.8 or higher gives me machinegun snipers with Zeus.

The AI knows exactly how many men they know about. If they only know about one, and that one is close by and aiming at them (they know how to check for this as well) they should shoot, rather than presenting their backside. A human would do that.

They do shoot if you are close to them.

If you are at 100m and up the logical decision is to run. He may know about you, but maybe there are 10 of other dudes just behind that hill. And he will be right in "real-world" missions where you aren't rambo'ing tanks alone I'm sure.

Delayed run for cover won't work either. One tank blows up another tank. With Zeus AI crew runs like hell into the cover while the enemy tanks sprays them (and some even survive).

With a delay (which will have the same effect as playing without Zeus AI) they will just get wiped out right away.

Edited April 29, 2011 by metalcraze

[galzohar 31]

You are thinking about the exception - tank crew bailing. I'm thinking about the norm - Patrol getting caught in open ground. In any case your special case can be dealt with (ex: If no viable targets are around, just run for cover right away).

Also I don't know how you get MG snipers. With Zeus AI even with everything set to 1 AI still miss quite a lot more than players do.

[maturin 12]

They do shoot if you are close to them.

Not really. I had a hard time getting them to open fire at 20m before hightailing it.

[Victim ZSU 10]

This back and forth banter on the effectiveness of default vs Zeus AI has higlighted to me that there isn't a way of systematically testing the effectiveness of the AI, it all boils down to perception and playstyle.

There's also disagreement on what constitutes "good" AI behaviour which means building a robust and consistent framework to test AI settings, scripts and FSMs is more difficult.

Even being able to repeatedly simulate Zeus AI vs default AI battles is just pitching dumb vs dumb and leaves the player out of the equation.

So, for me, there are some basic questions about the behaviour which can't currently be answered to improve it, the ability to pause the game, rewind and replay, and analyse the behaviour and state of the AI at any instant in time:

* when you broke from cover, what caused that, was it an FSM? a findcover script? no more "knowsAbout" enemies?

* when you threw smoke, why did you do that, did morale play a part? was your squad leader still alive? were you wounded?

* when you abandoned your "hold" waypoint and rushed out to meet me, was that FSM behaviour? script? why did that happen? were you even attempting to bound? can you bound? how do you measure the effectiveness of bounding?

Too many questions and not enough visibility of what is happening under the hood to even align "bad" AI behaviour with the relevant scripts and FSMs.

Until we get more visiblity of what's going on it is difficult to pinpoint which script (or even conflicting AI scripts) are causing the problem, and begin to address them.

[Tankbuster 1733]

Ok, the Zeus AI stealing other factions vehicles is cause me problems now.

It was cute and funny at first, but now they are making off with assets I place on the map. This is ruining missions.

Does anyone know how I might stop this?

[Higgings. 0]

My main problem is, that when you creat a mission, like Take City and beat of enemy counter attack.

All the units which have a "move here and wait till trigger is activate before moveing further" they refuse to do so, and act like I have given them a "Guard" waypoint.

They dont move before trigger is activatet if I dont use Zeus, but they sure do when.

A bit tiresome.

But, beside that, the AI sure know to move queit realistic, have seen some nice attack and building clearing. :)

[Muzzleflash 111]

I get this error when I start some missions:

zeu_ACE_c_wep_dispersion missing.

ACE is on the server, and the server is running CO.

There is this thread: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=111912 however, here the solutions is to put this .pbo on the server. However, the server already has

@ZeusAI\addons\zeu_ACE_c_wep_dispersion.pbo among other files. And @ZeusAI is in the mod list of the server and being run. We can verify this by AI behaviour also.

The missions that won't work does not have anything zeus related on in their "addons" or "addOnsAuto" sections. Adding "zeu_ACE_c_wep_dispersion" does not fix it.

:(

How to solve this problem?

[Robalo 465]

If running ACE, please consider giving it a try without Zeus AI and re-evaluate.

The AI should be well improved after last few game patches and ACE updates.