Changed the way units keep in formation

[neokika 62]

Its amazing how more responsive the AI is with this "soft" formation. In "DANGER" mode is now a lot faster moving from cover to cover etc.

I just want to ask you if its possible to "smooth" the AI team members when in "AWARE" mode, what I mean is that if you are the team leader and in aware mode and for example in formation Line and start moving or turn direction your team mates seem to read your thoughts, because the moment you start walking so does the AI team members. What do you think?

Thanks

_neo_

[santafee 10]

I have serious issues with my team stucking up, keeping in formation now.

I did my stealth mission with the new betapatch and they get to cover and nearly dont move in the night! in safe formation or aware?!?

please look into that !

[suma 8]

I have serious issues with my team stucking up, keeping in formation now.

I did my stealth mission with the new betapatch and they get to cover and nearly dont move in the night! in safe formation or aware?!?

please look into that !

If you want me to look into that, please, attach the mission, so that I can see and debug the problem.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Wouldnt it be better if the first group to arrive waits for the LAST soldier before moving? That way everyone have time to get back into formation etc.

No, because it would break mission when someone is stuck. If you want this effect, you can create a close waypoint and sync it to a trigger with "All team members) before it's completed.

I'd rather have in between waypoints with a countdown/wait value. Stuck AI is nowhere near the same problem as it was in Arma1, but it still happens from time to time.

[santafee 10]

If you want me to look into that, please, attach the mission, so that I can see and debug the problem.

I uploaded the mission on rapidshare.Heres the link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/314372044/Operation_Skidrow1.Chernarus.rar

Notice that im using 60323 Beta.

I set my guys on

-cease Fire

-Safe or other States, dont matter

-crouch

Now try to get kinda fast trough the enemies without beeing seen to the town...They take a break on every bush and hide..

Thank you for looking into it!

I added a new link, last version required addons.

Edited November 30, 2009 by Himmelsfeuer

[suma 8]

I uploaded the mission on rapidshare.Heres the link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/314372044/Operation_Skidrow1.Chernarus.rar

Can you please upload it someplace else or perhaps attach straight to the forum post? This download is now available to premium users only (too many downloads).

[santafee 10]

Oh i see sry..

Since i dont find any button here to attach i hope you can download it here:

http://ul.to/omm8wn

[suma 8]

Oh i see sry..

Since i dont find any button here to attach i hope you can download it here:

http://ul.to/omm8wn

OK. I have the mission now. Now only if I would know what to look for. What am I supposed to do in it? What does happen which should not? Or what does not happen which should?

[santafee 10]

Just do this:

Order your Team to

-Cease Fire

-Stay Crouch

-Stay Safe, or Alert

-Formation Kolomne[to make them stick close behind you]

Idea of the Mission is to sneak trough the enemy lines without triggering the alarm[means no enemy should see you].

Problem:

If your guys see the first enemys, they report them and go for cover,leaving formation and waiting for firecommand. They dont move any more[Very!Slow] at all. If my team is "Safe", i expect them to stack up close to me in formation and dont hide or engage the enemy.

Sure if they are in "Combat Mode" i expect them to wait for firecommand and go for cover. With that issue you need 2 hours to sneak 300 meters trough enemy terretory...

This Issue is only with the new Beta, in Patch 1.4 they stay close in Safemode, doesnt matter if there are enemys ore not.

Also many people would love to see "Cease Fire" being not ignored sometimes. I would suggest a "Fire on my Lead only" Command, where your Squad joins the Attack if you fired the first shoot.

Thanks for your support!

Edited December 1, 2009 by Himmelsfeuer

[suma 8]

If your guys see the first enemys, they report them and go for cover,leaving formation and waiting for firecommand. They dont move any more[Very!Slow] at all.

I am playing through the mission, but I do not see then leaving formation, waiting or not moving. Can anyone else confirm? Most likely there are some additonal steps needed, or some particular way how to play through the mission.

[santafee 10]

I posted a video of the problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Alw21mGZ0

Around the 1.00 Minute Marker you can see that the third guy of my Squad is allready 150 Meters away. They are in Safe Mode, Cease Fire and Formation Kolomnel.Like i said in 1.4 they stack up in this mission in safemode and are close to the player.With the new beta the guys lost sight and were "away" multiple times.

[old_painless 182]

Would your observations be related to the difficulty level? I think it would help if you could state your settings - Suma may have different settings .....

[suma 8]

I posted a video of the problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3Alw21mGZ0

Around the 1.00 Minute Marker you can see that the third guy of my Squad is allready 150 Meters away. They are in Safe Mode, Cease Fire and Formation Kolomnel.Like i said in 1.4 they stack up in this mission in safemode and are close to the player.With the new beta the guys lost sight and were "away" multiple times.

Unfortunately the video helped me little to reproduce. I guess I would need some small synthetic repro mission instead.

However, there is a chance the problem will be fixed for you in 60718, as different logic is used for behaviour changes in that version (should be online within half an hour).

[neokika 62]

Unfortunately the video helped me little to reproduce. I guess I would need some small synthetic repro mission instead.

However, there is a chance the problem will be fixed for you in 60718, as different logic is used for behaviour changes in that version (should be online within half an hour).

Really nice news...Waitng for the beta..=D

[santafee 10]

Nice, thats pretty fast!Hope my problem is also fixed with that..Thanks!

Sadly the problem is not fixed with the Beta.My Squad is still moving very slow and do not stay close to me when i orderd them "Safe, Cease Fire";

It worked pretty good with 1.4.They allways stack up in SafeMod and do not leave formation.

Edited December 2, 2009 by Himmelsfeuer

[suma 8]

Sadly the problem is not fixed with the Beta.My Squad is still moving very slow and do not stay close to me when i orderd them "Safe, Cease Fire";

I tried it once again, and did not see the problem. I would like to fix the issue, however I cannot do this unless I have very exact repro steps. The repro steps should be very detailed, they should describe each action you do when you see the problem. Here is what I have tried:

- launch the mission

- order All, At ease

- order All, Hold fire

- order Formation Column

- run along the coast (grid coordinates 030/133 ... 034/132)

- hear team members report APC to our left, far

- continue running along the coast to the complex at 036/131

- wait for the enemy guard group to come, turn their back and starts leaving the area

- run behind the enemy group

- hear team members reporting enemy soldier to our front

- continue running along the coast through 037/131

Followind those steps, I never saw anyone to stop and stay behind me. If I should do something different, please, write what should I do.

[ceeeb 147]

After noticing some weird formation issues during gameplay with 60718, I've just done some testing with the latest beta against 1.04. I like the idea of less rigid formation behaviour, but I don't think it works very well as implemented in 60718. I've only tested movement patterns rather than combat performance. I am however delighted to see that the user is given some control over these different behaviour modes :)

Alert formation works as advertised when group starts in alert mode, but the group formation heading can become locked if the group encounters enemies and automatically switches to combat mode, then later switches back to alert. Ah, I see, the formation automatically faces known enemy positions!

New Combat formation behaviour

- formation tends to settle while offset perpendicular to group formation heading. (ie, out to left/right of player). AI subordinates do not seem to be concerned about their distance from leader in the x axis (left/right), while quiet sensitive to being offset in the y axis (behind/in front).

- makes group less mobile (slower to move) than 1.04 (human leaders are almost certain to run off ahead of formation)

- more, smaller movementswithout clear purpose (such standing up, moving 1m sideways, then returning crouching/going prone). 1.04 seemed to involve larger movements.

- units tend to congregate around cover (grenade target).

- distant units seem to get less priority in movement tha 1.04 (meaning they get left further and further behind)

Topical feature requests:

1. More flexible combat behaviour, specifically to group movement speed and human leaders. Ideally the bounding movement would adjust to suit the leader's movement rate. When slow, say 10-20% of group would be moving at once. When leader is further away, up to 50% of the group would be moving at once.

2. If the player tells his units to return to formation, the formation should update to his position and heading at time of issue of the command. This would be useful when trying to set units to a desired formationCurrently the only way to achieve setting the formation heading deliberately is to run back & forth on the spot until the desired formation heading is achieved.

Edited December 2, 2009 by ceeeb

[santafee 10]

Well, i think you are allready doing the mission like im starting it, there could be only one detail which changes the Units Way. Just dont try to flank the enemy on the coastside, stay close to the railroads.

But unfortanitly there are nearly all people reporting in the beta sections, that the new changes dont work or at all some of it doesnt.

I hope you guys do a closer look in the command system before releasing 1.5, cause this really breakes the gameplay. Thanks!

I dont want to spam all threads now, since this is no single problem no more, so feel free end the discussion here, i suggest you just tracking the beta section where similar problems are.-

I tried it once again, and did not see the problem. I would like to fix the issue, however I cannot do this unless I have very exact repro steps. The repro steps should be very detailed, they should describe each action you do when you see the problem. Here is what I have tried:

- launch the mission

- order All, At ease

- order All, Hold fire

- order Formation Column

- run along the coast (grid coordinates 030/133 ... 034/132)

- hear team members report APC to our left, far

- continue running along the coast to the complex at 036/131

- wait for the enemy guard group to come, turn their back and starts leaving the area

- run behind the enemy group

- hear team members reporting enemy soldier to our front

- continue running along the coast through 037/131

Followind those steps, I never saw anyone to stop and stay behind me. If I should do something different, please, write what should I do.

Edited December 2, 2009 by Himmelsfeuer

[instagoat 133]

I´ve also had the problem with the AI Units falling behind after making contact once, but I couldn´t reproduce it in the Editor.

I noticed it happening when loading savegames for missions (I´ve tried two of my Cipher Savegames and had it happen both times. One was done in vanilla 1.04, one was done with beta 60393) only so far.

Possibly it´s got something to do with something in the savegames not working with the new AI adjustments?

[stick_hogue 10]

Instead of the new command enableAIFeature, which seems to act globally, wouldn't it be better to use commands disableAI and enableAI "AwareFormationSoft" etc for single individuals or whole groups (most probable use)?

Some kind of unit level override would really, really help. I have some scripted helicopter shuttles flying in a circuit of three helipads. If an enemy far away detects them and/or shoots at them they completely abandon their assigned waypoint and go flying off into enemy territory, inevitably getting shot down. DISABLEAI "target" and "autotarget" and combatmode "blue" don't prevent this, and reassigning the waypoint or issuing a moveto doesn't bring them back. They fly away and get shot down.

What we have here is a situation in which APPROPRIATE INFANTRY BEHAVIOR IS INAPPROPRIATELY APPLIED TO VEHICLE/AIRCRAFT BEHAVIOR. I like the new soft formation behaviors (with noted suggestions by others in this thread regarding retreat, healing buddies, etc.) FOR INFANTRY, but I want to be able to DISABLE IT FOR PILOTS. The behavior of investigating enemy detections and fire DOES NOT SCALE UP to aircraft speeds.

************* UPDATE **************

As it turns out, even if I disable "aware" and "combat" soft formations I still see the above described behavior when my aircraft start in "stealth" mode (I keep them in stealth mode so they'll keep their lights off at night except when landing). I assumed they were automatically going into combat mode when they exhibit this automatic, uncontrollable seek-and-destroy behavior, so I disabled soft formations. But no dice. They still fly off and get shot down when detected or shot at. There must be some way to stop pilots from engaging in infantry behavior! Ack!

**********************************

thanks,

Stick

Edited December 28, 2009 by Stick_Hogue

[fabrizio_t 58]

Some kind of unit level override would really, really help. I have some scripted helicopter shuttles flying in a circuit of three helipads. If an enemy far away detects them and/or shoots at them they completely abandon their assigned waypoint and go flying off into enemy territory, inevitably getting shot down. DISABLEAI "target" and "autotarget" and combatmode "blue" don't prevent this, and reassigning the waypoint or issuing a moveto doesn't bring them back. They fly away and get shot down.

What we have here is a situation in which APPROPRIATE INFANTRY BEHAVIOR IS INAPPROPRIATELY APPLIED TO VEHICLE/AIRCRAFT BEHAVIOR. I like the new soft formation behaviors (with noted suggestions by others in this thread regarding retreat, healing buddies, etc.) FOR INFANTRY, but I want to be able to DISABLE IT FOR PILOTS. The behavior of investigating enemy detections and fire DOES NOT SCALE UP to aircraft speeds.

************* UPDATE **************

As it turns out, even if I disable "aware" and "combat" soft formations I still see the above described behavior when my aircraft start in "stealth" mode (I keep them in stealth mode so they'll keep their lights off at night except when landing). I assumed they were automatically going into combat mode when they exhibit this automatic, uncontrollable seek-and-destroy behavior, so I disabled soft formations. But no dice. They still fly off and get shot down when detected or shot at. There must be some way to stop pilots from engaging in infantry behavior! Ack!

**********************************

thanks,

Stick

The problem with helis doing strange things such as abandoning path when under fire existed well before patch 1.05. I posted about this issue onto the bugtracker much time ago.

Judging from your words it seems it's still not fixed.

[froggyluv 2130]

Is the AI still going to be rolled back to the earlier beta version in which squaddies don't fall behind? I notice the issue at Dev-Heaven is expired :confused:

[Potatomasher 0]

The problem with helis doing strange things such as abandoning path when under fire existed well before patch 1.05. I posted about this issue onto the bugtracker much time ago.

Judging from your words it seems it's still not fixed.

Yes it's not fixed and i'm eagerly waiting a beta patch to fix it.

This behauviour kills couple of my missions where you get extracted under enemy fire. Now the only solution is killing all enemies near landing area so that the chopper don't go after them and forget the extraction duty he was supposed to do.

[SaOk 112]

I reproduced the AI problem in this sample mission. Player squad is immortal to show it in easiest way. Just move away without shooting anybody and you can see that the group refuses to follow you efficiently. Thats the common behaviour that AI member show also after the combat until they declare that area is cleared.

http://www.filefront.com/15975861/slowcombatAI.utes.rar