Does AI suffer from poor visibility conditions at all?

[Bulldog72 10]

Topic says it all...

I just played a mission with heavy fog - could barely spot my own humvee parking 75m away out in the open desert but an enemy squad had no problem spotting, hitting and killing me from about 500m away.

Do they cheat here? *g*

[hund 0]

Ah well, that is an argument which is older than dirt.

Assuming the server's view distance was also very low (which would be the case if you were playing the mission on your own computer - since that effectively makes you the host) the AI should be able to "see" you as far away as the view distance has been set. That's view distance. Visual efects like dust storms, heavy rain or blizzards might be a whole other ball game, since those are picked up by humans (obviously) but not nescessarily by AI.

That being said, AI do work differently than the rest of us. So while it may seem to the human mind as cheating, my own experience is that they play fair, by and large. In most cases the player just didn't see what was coming and subsequently called a foul.

Other people have a different opinion of course, which is where the whole argument aspect comes in...

Edited July 18, 2010 by Hund

[ATP Arma 2 OA Fan 10]

Ah well, that is an argument which is older than dirt.

Assuming the server's view distance was also very low (which would be the case if you were playing the mission on your own computer - since that effectively makes you the host) the AI should be able to "see" you as far away as the view distance has been set. That's view distance. Visual efects like dust storms, heavy rain or blizzards might be a whole other ball game, since those are picked up by humans (obviously) but not nescessarily by AI.

That being said, AI do work differently than the rest of us. So while it may seem to the human mind as cheating, my own experience is that they play fair, by and large. In most cases the player just didn't see what was coming and subsequently called a foul.

Other people have a different opinion of course, which is where the whole argument aspect comes in...

:butbut::cool:

[Bulldog72 10]

Interesting... and a little disappointing to be honest.

So does this mean against the AI its no use at all trying to stay out of sight / behind cover because they will always "see" me within view distance?

It just comes down to who draws and hits quicker then?

[Luomu 10]

Interesting... and a little disappointing to be honest.

So does this mean against the AI its no use at all trying to stay out of sight / behind cover because they will always "see" me within view distance?

It just comes down to who draws and hits quicker then?

They do not see through objects (houses, grass) or always magically know your position, so if you were to shoot at them, hide, and then teleport to some other location (with script command) they would still advance towards your last known position.

As for weather conditions I don't know but darkness does hinder their spotting distance. They do not currently react to flashlights at all (fixed in upcoming patch).

[xALIENAx 10]

They do not see through objects (houses, grass) or always magically know your position, so if you were to shoot at them, hide, and then teleport to some other location (with script command) they would still advance towards your last known position.

As for weather conditions I don't know but darkness does hinder their spotting distance. They do not currently react to flashlights at all (fixed in upcoming patch).

Ive noticed the Dark/Light difference seems steeper in OA then A2. atleast it has for me. ive tried with a variety of units.

One mission i set on the map "desert" i placed about 8 cargo trucks of OPFOR origin, a few tanks, and some static defences. I also placed about 30 patrolling soldiers in 4 or 5 groups using the "cycle" waypoints (speed limited, Behavior Combat).

Daytime results:

I set up on a distant Hill prone and comenced sniping the drivers out of the trucks. After about 3 shots i came under heavy fire from the Tanks MG's and the static MGs, only one of the "patrols" actually stopped to engage me.

Night results:

I sucessfully sniped All the drivers out of the trucks then all of the static gunners, the then "leaders" of each of the patrols before the tanks began to spray in my general direction, and even then it was far from concentrated.

Even when a patrol of about 6 men started shooting at my position after i sniped thier leader, the 2 T90's less then 20ft away did NOTHING

[LJF 0]

Ive noticed the Dark/Light difference seems steeper in OA then A2. atleast it has for me. ive tried with a variety of units.

One mission i set on the map "desert" i placed about 8 cargo trucks of OPFOR origin, a few tanks, and some static defences. I also placed about 30 patrolling soldiers in 4 or 5 groups using the "cycle" waypoints (speed limited, Behavior Combat).

Daytime results:

I set up on a distant Hill prone and comenced sniping the drivers out of the trucks. After about 3 shots i came under heavy fire from the Tanks MG's and the static MGs, only one of the "patrols" actually stopped to engage me.

Night results:

I sucessfully sniped All the drivers out of the trucks then all of the static gunners, the then "leaders" of each of the patrols before the tanks began to spray in my general direction, and even then it was far from concentrated.

Even when a patrol of about 6 men started shooting at my position after i sniped thier leader, the 2 T90's less then 20ft away did NOTHING

Wow that's pretty awesome actually, I'll have to try that out myself :) Also, I want your computer! :D

[walker 0]

Hi all

First Up

No AI in any game sees anything!

They never have and it will be some time, involving masses of work by serious computer scientists and professors, until they do. Along the way several Nobel Prizes will be given to the computer scientists that achieve each bit of it.

Some Myths:

The AI sees through bushes!

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-oYzp2iyqQ&hl=en_GB&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-oYzp2iyqQ&hl=en_GB&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Because this questions is asked and answered and discussed so frequently a lot of this answer is just copy and paste or paraphrased.

Being in cover does not mean you are concealed! and of course vis a versa!

Hi all

Just to remind everyone of the difference between: Cover and Concealment.

Cover is something that stops bullets. Cover often also can mean concealment but not always, you may be covered inside M1A1 but you re not concealed, everyone knows precisely where you are.

Concealment does not stop bullets.

NB You are not concealed by the fact you are behind something! ...

The peekaboo behind the blankie effects!

NB You are not concealed by the fact your eyes are behind something!

This is the lesson you learn after many games with your parent or guardian of peekaboo behind the blankie! You remember this game The adult holds the blankie up in front of your eyes so you cannot see them. They watch your little legs kick in joy and listen to your little giggles of anticipation; because this the great all time bestseller, Game of the Eon (GOTEee) classic, "Peekaboo behind the blankie" game; and suddenly they pull the blankie away from in front of your eyes and say Peekaboo and you laugh and they laugh and much merriment is had by all!

One Day after much merriment and mirth playing "Peekaboo behind the blankie" you realise that the adult is in fact behind the blankie and that they can see you all the time; at this point the merriment becomes less and the joke appears lame, much to the distress of all concerned, because the little baby is growing up.

The grass may be covering your eyes but it ain't concealing your ass or your legs; because your fat ass lying down in it flattened it! Ever see those gaps in the corn where two people have been eh? nods as good as wink to the blind soldier with a grass blankie in front of his eyes!

Also we probably work out the adult is behind said blankie because they giggle too, and we saw them put the blankie up, which when you think about it later is a dead give away.

NB You are not concealed by the fact you are behind something!

Following on from this, the excuse of: I ran behind the tree/bush/house(insert object) and the AI still new where I was, so it must be cheating; is equally lame.

Shooting, making a noise, such as rustling in the bushes, or stomping your boots around, moving about and sky lining your head to take a peak when in the AI's or players arc of view, or trying to be stealthy with the telegraph poll of an AT weapon on your back; all bust concealment.

Concealment does not magically reappear because you want it to.

The AI is affected by Pekaboo Behind the Blankie same as you!

The following test using a team switch to set up an AI behind an obscuring grass object proves they too are affected by it!

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKMe2Z-dbxA&hl=en_GB&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKMe2Z-dbxA&hl=en_GB&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

What AI does to those still playing Peekaboo Behind the Blankie is the same as what happens to a noob in PvP

Following on from that, this is what the AI does when it realises you are still playing and giggling at the Peakaboo Behind the Blankie game!

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrfTQXXOxMI&hl=en_GB&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrfTQXXOxMI&hl=en_GB&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

As you can see the AI is reacting almost exactly the way a human MP player does to any noob who does not realise they have been seen. I must embasingly admit that this still happens to me sometimes in PvP. :(

....An extra note on the cover and concealment value of trees.

A foot wide tree is not cover or concealment. Trees that develop arms and shoulders draw attention to them selves. While a well camouflaged rucksack sticking out of the side might be confused for an outgrowth, if still; moving growths are unusual. Trees with AT weapons sticking jauntily out of them will almost certainly draw strange looks followed by a bullet.

Any tree less than 2 feet wide offers little cover and no concealment for the average human. Average human shoulders are between 16 inches and 26 inches wide, very fit people or those with a large frame, or playing sports or engaged in activities that require lots of upper body strength; can and do exceed this considerably. Soldiers may well fall in to the latter category.

Consider the circle to be a tree trunk in cross section: If a foot of wood will stop some bullets there is 4 inches of the width of 1 foot wide tree in cross section that is about 1 foot thick. At the edges it is zero inches thick. So out of its twelve inches 8 inches offer zero to very little cover. Since we already know humans can be more than two feet wide we must accept the fact that a foot wide tree is not and never will be cover.

Corners of walls are also not true cover. At its apex a corner offers zero cover. After this it offers a maximum of the square root of the 2n^2 inches of cover where n is the distance in inches you body is back from apex. Ah the joys of Pythagoras.

I point these things out because there are some new guys here who have playing other games where they negatively train you into thinking such objects offer cover. This is incorrect and can result in short games for the aforesaid miss trained individuals.

The situation with this negative training as a result of playing silly games like COD4 CS etc. is that I have even seen people "Taking cover" I kid you not, behind a 4 inch wide post and, I kid you not, peeking out from behind it.

All New guys please reassess the situation when we meet in MP I do not want to spend hours of game play dragging or carrying you bloody ass from one medic to the next.

The ground is your friend

The best cover is the ground, preferably mountains thick of it.

Crawling is good.

Laying down reduces your total target area to 26 inches by 8 inches in cross section, with a 6 by 8 inch oval in the centre that is your head bobbing up and down.

I can not emphasise this enough crawling is good

Caught by a sniper in the open (because you are a numpty)

When caught in the open by a sniper, running away is not a good option, if you are running away the sniper is firing at your back every minute you run.

Aggression is the best option put some fire on the sniper. If in a squad move toward the sniper in bounds, widen your spacing and makes sure you are suppressing at all times. By widening your line you increase the angle the sniper must lay at to fire upon you this means that for those suppressing the sniper their target gets wider when the sniper attempts to engage those who are running.

If you choose to retreat do so in good order by bounds so that you may suppress the sniper if required, pop smoke. If without smoke, run at a diagonal to the sniper this way you are adding elevation and traverse to the snipers calculations, vary the angle.

Of course I have to ask the question; why the heck were you caught out in the open?

Kind Regards walker

Quoted from and previously thoroughly discussed in this thread

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73139

NB DONT CRAWL OVER THE CREST AND THINK YOU ARE IN COVER!

Or a hill side is not a tacically superior position to being at the bottom of the slope

There was a time when I used to make this mistake. It comes from seeing all those films where they take the hill to be in a tacticaly superior position. A case of hollywood negative training as it were.

In the old days of land wars, of cavalry charges and short range misile weapons like spears and bows, the gravity well afforded by a hill gave you a big advantage, With high powered rifles and machine guns, rockets and artillery that has disapeared.

When you crawl over the crest of a hill you are just as exposed as the person at the bottom of the hill. Depending on steepness pehaps you are in a worse position! If it is very steep and your enemy is far enough away he can stand up and take shots at you when you are laid down and he is the smaller target! Think about it. Worse if you stand up you do not get the same target size reduction he does. And it is impossible to duck while being on your belly.

While crawling to the crest is correct for observation (preferably near some bushes or trees so you do not skyline), going on to the forward slope is inadvisable in almost all cases.

The correct way to use the crest of a hill is to use it as cover. Eg standing up so that only your head shoulders and gun are presented to the enemy as a target then ducking down when under fire. When you recieve fire change firing position. Better still change position after every (shot/burst)

For MGs this is all different the key protection to using an MG is primarily distance with a spotter calling in your round impacts and tracer same as a sniper all MG assistants need binoculars, and secondly hard cover such as MG nests, sandbags, walls etc.

For the Umpteenth time

THE AI DOES NOT SEE ANYTHING IN ANY GAME!

For the AI Grass clutter, smoke, fog rain and perhaps dust is a statistical factor this is true in all games not just BIS's.

This is what Marek the CEO of BIS has said about the grass layer concealment:

As a matter of fact and unlike popular belief, the AI is affected by grass in Arma 2. There is approximation for clutter surrounding every unit affecting how well the AI can see it.

As always, there is a room for improvements in fidelity, so feel free to complain (but probably with better words, can you?)

That "lame" layer as present in Arma 1 was not very compatible with new rendering system and we are trying to come up with a better and more accurate solution but that of course is only visual effect important for human players, AI is unfair and doesn't use image recognition from the real rendering of game world :p

All discussed in more detail in this thread

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=81935

And the test that proves the AI are affected by the distant grass layer and assault and or shoot at last known position is here:

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I copy and paste and paraphrase much of what I said in the previous thread here:

From experience I would say that fog and rain both reduce AI spotting capability.

Ray tracing eye to object for each AI in waving grass with the entity count in ArmA II would just be too costly in terms of CPU, that said offloading it to the GPU may prove profitable. While I think single ray-trace from object to spotter happens as part of of the whole spotting algorithm as a final check, just because you can register a pixel of a target in grass does not mean you would recognise it!

So one must use a statistical model.

Until we have decent real object heuristic recognition algorithms in games the AI does not recognise anything. Instead the game state knows all the time where all targets are, and applies a statistical probability to whether and how much a particular AI knows about the subject.

I think distance, surface that the target is on, previous experience of the subject, camouflage, object and subject type and capability, speed of movement, stance and noise produced, all play their part in that statistical calculation; incidentally firing a loud gun with smoke coming out of the end makes even a single pixel obviously a target.

Maybe number of pixels ray-traced after a probability threshold is reached also plays its part but the AI does not see anything, to do that the human brain sorts complex factors from information given by the human eye in a neural area devoted to pattern recognition that has developed by evolution for over five hundred of million years back in the Cambrian age or may be even the Precambrian era; as well as a personal lifetime of experience to the problem of recognising a subject. This is not what any game does; ArmA like every other game applies some kind of probability formulae that approximates human ability.

I am sure BIS are trying to match human capability to spot to their algorithm but short of sticking human eyes and a human brain inside every computer it will always be an approximation.

I am not saying such debates should not take place like Marek and Suma I hope that one post in such a thread can come to some new insight that improves our understanding of what is after all one of the most researched and studied subjects in computer software.

I am just going over the basics of the debate that has been discussed many times, so we do not repeat ourselves for the umpteenth time.

Interestingly ArmA is an ideal tool with which to test and experiment in this subject area, anyone one know of any grants going? As I am interested in money for research.

Kind Regards walker

Edited July 18, 2010 by walker

[Bulldog72 10]

Ty, thats really a lot important info for a new player like me!

[NeMeSiS 11]

THE AI DOES NOT SEE ANYTHING IN ANY GAME!

I am going to keep saying it though, the word 'seeing' sums up quite nicely what the code is trying to do. :p

I like the post though, keep throwing it at every topic like this.

[4 IN 1 0]

The only problem for the AI in the open area is that their hearing is too good and the time taken to find the poor bastard that shooting at him is too damn fast when compare with their total inability to runaway and find cover first.(Sorry, been watching a bit too much Zero Punctuation bitching and moaning recently)

[jacobj9 10]

If that was in the game (which i have never noticed before) it would make me fall on the floor...

[CarlGustaffa 4]

NB DONT CRAWL OVER THE CREST AND THINK YOU ARE IN COVER!

Or a hill side is not a tacically superior position to being at the bottom of the slope

There was a time when I used to make this mistake. It comes from seeing all those films where they take the hill to be in a tacticaly superior position. A case of hollywood negative training as it were.

In the old days of land wars, of cavalry charges and short range misile weapons like spears and bows, the gravity well afforded by a hill gave you a big advantage, With high powered rifles and machine guns, rockets and artillery that has disapeared.

I see the point and agree with it, but technically it's not 100% accurate. Reasons to attack a hill (real life, does not apply much to A2OA):

* Enemy occupy it. You do not want to occupy nearby positions while enemy can shoot at you from a hill.

* Strategical asset in forms of watch position making you hard to get to unseen (not the hill itself, but nearby positions surrounding it, or on its slopes).

* Easy to setup and hide guns on the slope towards it, making it easy to defend. "Taking a hill" is not something you'd want to do. Ref anything from Iwo Jima to Hamburger Hill (good read here) to more recent Operation Anaconda (mountainous fighting, not so much about a specific hill).

In A2OA, the opposite tends to be true - hills are the worst place you can be:

* You're easy pickings from D30 direct fire and Shilkas. Always approach these bastards from below. It always amuses me in public Domination how attacks are always done from above, with devastating results for our side :)

* There are pretty much no cover up there, compared to real life.

* You can't setup effective overwatch, the enemy can shoot at anything they like, as everything is completely exposed.

* Everything in A2OA is always on a smaller scale; valleys not as deep or wide, "mountain" peaks not as high or inaccesible, long range suppression not as long range as it should have been etc. But, it needs to be as well.

* In Chernarus, coming from above is particularly bad due to tree crowns blocking your view.

* However, in Chernarus, attacking a hilltop is horror too due to tall grass blocking view near the top on a convex surface. Keep that in mind when attacking AI on a Chernarus hilltop as AI view is not blocked by grass :)

So, are hilltops useful at all? Sure. Use them for observer teams. On the Takistan map in particular they are extremely useful due to basically nothing blocking their view. Once an observer team starts shooting, they have lost their advantage.

This means there are key differences to real tactics and strategies and those that exist in the game. Think twice before applying real world tactics (or, strategies more likely in this case) - does it really serve a purpose? A hilltop may have a real life strategical value, but reverse slope could be a much better defence tactics.

[WhoCares 0]

...

In A2OA, the opposite tends to be true - hills are the worst place you can be:

* You're easy pickings from D30 direct fire ....

I tend to disagree here:

To note is that the proper position is slightly forward already on the descending slope - right on the crest would give the enemy a safe abroach, covered by the hill. On an ideally sinusoid slope the proper military position would be that far forward to allow to cover most of the ascent: Military crest.

To your D30 example, the advantage of this position is that the artillery will have to properly range your position in to harm you, to short and you are covered by the hill, to long and it overshoots.

During the American Civil war you get some prime examples of good and bad positioning. At Gettysburg the Union had the higher ground and badly mauled the Confeds advances. At the same time, the Confed Artillery mostly overshot their target and as was unable to suppress the Union Artillery.

A bad example of positioning was the Battle of Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga, where some southern defenses where located on the actual crest, leaving blind spots used by union forces for their advance.

A problem with this position is, that while prone you tend to shoot into the ground, so being crouched behind some solid breastwork/cover/fortification would be the prefered position.

Edited July 19, 2010 by WhoCares

[stk2008 14]

Hi there sorry to be a noob but in your example your able to look through the eyes of the AI that's sweet there's a lot to learn from doing this and all so able to learn from your mistakes.

Are we able to look through the eyes of all AI (cycle through them all?).

If so could you please please please tell me how to go about doing this.

Thanks very much :)

EDIT

Not just for OA ARMA2 all so if its different thanks.

[froggyluv 2135]

Hi stk2008,

don't know if it works with OA, but for Arma2 theres an excellent tool called Troopmon that allows you to follow every AI on the map and see what he's really up to.

[GHOG 0]

Troopmon works fine for me in OA.

GHOG

[stk2008 14]

Hi Froggyluv and GHOG thanks for the replys thats great to hear ok I will get that ASAP im looking forward to testing this tonight should help me improve being a sniper and my sneaking and stealth etc :)