Close quarter AI

[cartier90 0]

I have noticed the AI in ARMA improve with patches and ACE - I still often find that AI units seem to rotate very slowly on their axis when within about 30-40 m , almost like tanks, they cannot respond particularly quickly for some reason. I am patched to 1.07 .

[ben_s 11]

Fallout 3, Oblivion, GTA IV, the lot ... all render a maximum of several dozen AI entities in a ~100/200 meter radius around you. Anything outside of this radius is reduced to little more than a regional statistic.

The "broken core AI" you're referencing is in fact the consequence of retaining an actual AI presence throughout ArmA's game world. If you want to be able to have 50+ simultaneously active and adaptive combatants in your game world, you'll have to accept the resulting impact on performance. If your system can't deliver the required CPU muscle, you'll start seeing AI blackouts.

That was a reply on a thread not long ago... I think it applies here, too.

[cartier90 0]

Ben - so when I see AI failings , its down to my CPU ?, im talking about perhaps 40 enemys - spread out. Again, its thankfully not frequent.

[sniper pilot 36]

Ben - so when I see AI failings , its down to my CPU ?, im talking about perhaps 40 enemys - spread out. Again, its thankfully not frequent.

No i really dont think its your CPU in this case, though it is a very small possibility.

I have seen this with only 20 units at times, the AI doesnt (can't?) turn as fast as players can (In MP, Ive witnessed players zip around pretty fast before.)

EDIT: I sorta take that back, ive seen a couple times the AI turn around real fast before too, maybe that was because of the SLX mod tho.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Sniper Pilot

[cossack8559 10]

Do you have your a.i set to maximum skill? also enable super a.i... i find that the a.i is very deadly at close range once they have spotted you...

[cartier90 0]

Well Im in the quick editor , but have put enemy skill up to max - and Super AI. I walked literally right up to a soldier in a firefight, perhaps 20 degrees off his centre FOV and only when I walked directly infront did he engage. Seems odd, I am patched to 1.07 and am running ACE2 .

edit - I have just gone into a firefight, injured OPFOR crawling away and I could not get him to fire at me, walked right over him, virtually on him - check his gear and he had weapons.

The problem seems to be worse near large amounts of vegetation, but I was clearly visible. Any patches coming soon ?

Edited July 11, 2010 by cartier90

[cossack8559 10]

Try disabling your mods that might edit a.i such as ace and give it a quick check to see how the a.i respond without them.

[cartier90 0]

I havent checked without the mod - do enemys who are injured and are crawling away not attack ?, I have seen this several times now, I cant instigate them to attack me.

[EDcase 87]

...do enemys who are injured and are crawling away not attack ?, I have seen this several times now, I cant instigate them to attack me.

I've seen injured AI crawling away from enemy AI without engaging, even with a clear shot.

I think this is how it should be. They try to take cover as any real human would. Their wounds affect their aim (you can see the gun waving around) so they don't attack because they might miss and attract fire in a very vulnerable situation.

----------------

Its true that the AI sometimes have blackouts when they don't react at all and its worse the closer you are to them. I wonder if BIS give priority to AI closer to humans. That would improve their reactions.

Edited July 11, 2010 by EDcase

[cartier90 0]

Ed - yes fair point, Id imagine a bullet wound would be quite distracting...

[Murklor 10]

I've seen injured AI crawling away from enemy AI without engaging, even with a clear shot.

I think this is how it should be. They try to take cover as any real human would. Their wounds affect their aim (you can see the gun waving around) so they don't attack because they might miss and attract fire in a very vulnerable situation.

Problem is, it can break missions... Lets face fact: A realistic AI is a poor AI in many ways.

Imagine if you where playing Domination and had to capture the last zone, only to realize that the AI units themselves have realized that they cant possibly win this battle so they've all fled, gone into hiding and made it impossible for players to claim victory :p

IMO the core AI should always try to kill the player to its last breath, unless otherwise instructed by mission design.

[Zipper5 74]

this allowFleeing 0

That will solve most AI woes. ;)

[cossack8559 10]

IMO the core AI should always try to kill the player to its last breath, unless otherwise instructed by mission design.

This sounds more like Cod a.i than a.i i'd expect from a simulator. ;)

[Murklor 10]

This sounds more like Cod a.i than a.i i'd expect from a simulator. ;)

Or fanatisicm, a rather realistic concept?

Arma2 isnt a simulator. Its a game. A very extensive and one of the most realistcally scaled games perhaps, but a game nonetheless. When the core of the game is war, I expect the AI to fight you at every turn...

Which they do. When their code isnt lobotomized mid-mission.

[5133p39 16]

As was already posted this allowFleeing 0 should prevent the AI from retreating, making it "fight you to the last breath".

Also the higher "skill" has some impact on AI fleeing.

My point:

if the default AI is retreating when wounded => good thing

and if you do not want this behaviour, you have easy methods how to prevent it => good thing

So, what are you all arguing about then? Everybody wins.

[ProfTournesol 956]

As was already posted this allowFleeing 0 should prevent the AI from retreating, making it "fight you to the last breath".

Also the higher "skill" has some impact on AI fleeing.

My point:

if the default AI is retreating when wounded => good thing

and if you do not want this behaviour, you have easy methods how to prevent it => good thing

So, what are you all arguing about then? Everybody wins.

Some are constantly arguing because whining has become a part time job for them.

[spamurai 3]

There are 3 considerations that effect the AI's behavior in the manor described by the OP.

The most prominent of the 3 is the AI Skill Level setting in the mission file for the mission being played. Each unit placed in the mission can have their Skill Level parameter set from 0.1 up to 1.0.

This parameter is directly connected to AI behaviors like "Sensor Distance" (the maximum range an AI is capable of sensing other units), "Accuracy" (Storm Trooper effect), "Fanaticism" (their fight or flee tendency) and "Reaction Time". The lower the Skill Level of an AI, the more "grace" an AI gives the player to react to it and take action against the AI once that AI has committed itself to taking action against the player. In other words, the lower the Skill Level, the more time the AI takes to aim and shoot at the player. This can be observed in the AI when they are very slow to pivot and track the player and they take longer to train their weapons on the player. Thus, affording the player more (or less) time to react and take the first shot.

While the mission designer can set individual Skill Level parameters for each unit in the mission, there is also a Global setting that can sometimes override these settings during mission setup. The "Recruit, Veteran, Expert" difficulty settings can attenuate the Skill Levels of all AI in the mission up or down on a global scale accordingly.

From having built and customized mission myself, I found the default settings for ArmA2 to be surprisingly low and thus, the AI were often less challenging then desired in MP Co-Op and PvP missions. Tweaking these settings were a surprisingly simple, yet effective way of making the AI "more responsive".

------------------

To a lesser extent, the second Parameter that affects AI behavior and their performance is AI Rank Level. Every unit in the mission (including the player) is assigned a Rank from Private to Colonel. The higher an AI's Rank the more options that AI utilizes when making decisions. The AI is more likely to show a greater variety of behaviors when giving orders to subordinate units, like using forms of cover, flanking and choice of weapon systems (grenades, rockets, guns ect). Low ranked AI that have lost their Higher ranked AI commanders often perform poorly and their abilities as a group suffer accordingly. Shooting the Squad Leader first often causes the group to behave poorly if the group is comprised of a large number of low ranked AI. How a Mission Designer sets and assigns individual AI their Rank can greatly impact how challenging... or better yet, how interesting and fun the AI are as both friend and foe.

Finally there is "Server Load". This is not a parameter that can be adjusted in the AI themselves... but reflects the considerable amount of CPU effort needed to control AI. Programing the use of AI in games is a balance between game performance and AI ability. In ArmA the Server is only capable of giving the AI an instruction so many times per cycle in order to keep game performance manageable. The More AI being handled by the server, the more AI present in a mission, the fewer instructions per cycle the server can give to the AI.

This means that an individual AI can only react or take an action or change an action already taken so many times a second. This is usually far less then what a human being can perform. The higher the load on the server (The more AI present, or the more scripts its running), the longer it takes the server to evaluate the condition of all it's AI and then give instructions accordingly. If you are finding that AI are becoming very slow to respond to obvious stimulus (like you shooting at them)... it could be because the server hasn't had the time to process an action for that particular AI unit.

This could be because there are too many AI present for the servers ability, the network connection lacks sufficient bandwidth or the server is bogged down with other tasks... such as a failed script or too many complex scripts running for the scale of the game being played. Some mission are designed to simply dump a large number of AI at the player in hopes of creating a greater challenge, when in fact, this can be detrimental to AI performance and thus actually make for less challenge.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Spamurai

[weegee_101 0]

Problem is, it can break missions... Lets face fact: A realistic AI is a poor AI in many ways.

Imagine if you where playing Domination and had to capture the last zone, only to realize that the AI units themselves have realized that they cant possibly win this battle so they've all fled, gone into hiding and made it impossible for players to claim victory :p

IMO the core AI should always try to kill the player to its last breath, unless otherwise instructed by mission design.

I would argue this is less an AI problem and more a issue with the mission designer failing to account for AI that may flee. A wiser idea would be to use a trigger zone surrounding the town that fires and sets a "success" variable once all of the enemy AI have died or fled.

[cartier90 0]

Has anyone noticed a detrimental affect on AI performance with a larger numbre of units ?, I have a quad core and notice occasional issues with as few as 20 - with a framerate of 45 , so the game isnt 'struggling' as such.

It just seems that reaction time is a little slow when close up, from afar - forget about it ! . Since posting , I have found Zeus to remedy some problems, they are insanely good !.