Bouben

This option has NO EFFECT on enemy AI. You are mistaken.

Just to share my recent experience with you. I had a great fun with a lot of excitement and thrilling moments with AI yesterday when I set their skill on 0.56 in the difficulty settings on both sides. When I put TPW EBS in it was obviously better but was good without it too.

Well, I will have to test it soon. Will be watching carefully. :-)

Arma would definitely benefit from this system. I believe there has to be some mapping already as units are behaving always the same with some objects. Or is there some different method how it works now? ---------- Post added at 11:27 ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 ---------- Excellent, thank you. EDIT: So I saw the video and wow, I have never seen that in my game. So is this vanilla or you are using some mods in the video that may influence this behaviour? Also, it would be nice if they start shooting like that when running from cover to cover in order to suppress the enemy. That would be very cool. Thanks for the video.

Are you sure you don't mistake it for movement when using an obstacle as a cover? They occasionally shoot in such situation but I have never ever seen them to shoot while in combat pace unless they suddenly made a turn and still kept firing or something. I would love to see a video when AI does it.

Yeah I would LOVE to have AI mates fire when moving in combat pace. That is something I wanted since OFP.

I respect your preference but tinitus is not something that should take away your hearing completely. It should just make more mess to the sound. The explosions should not be disabled completely, just muffled and lower in volume. But of course, this is a matter of taste. I would not mind tinnitus (in game! :D) and you would prefer the game without it. All cool.

Yes you have got a point with the resources. Definitely. But when there are too many enemies, the AI should just use some cover and pray for a luck or just retreat. I mean extreme situations are simply extreme. It is OK to do mistakes in such situations. However I was talking about situations where there is just two against two. The AI is simply bad in using cover effectively. Already mentioned standing up while using certain rocks or walls as a cover. I absolutely don't understand why is it scripted like that and not fixed already - it is nothing dynamic that would have to be calculated, because now it is just fixed per-object position that is simply wrongly chosen. They should simply keep the lowest possible profile and not standing up when using a cover such as a rock or a wall. It is much better for them to just ignore a cover if they keep standing up like that and instead just go prone and fire. Also, the cover behind an obstacle is useless if you don't peak and hide constantly. Right know it is just a less practical and less functional alternative for go prone. Also, AI is still using wire-fence as a solid cover - ARMA 2 problem already. Traffic signs not even mentioning. Look how precise (compared to Arma) is AI in using cover in Men of War series. Reacting to your unpredictable manoeuvres and nicely choosing which enemy is their priority when taking cover, running away from armored vehicles etc. They are taking cover very quickly without hassle and actually keep their head down when enemy fire is coming on them and shoot back and then quickly again keep their head down, constantly peaking, running away from grenades, throwing grenades back and changing their cover direction when enemy changes direction. And in case you don't know the game, it is not a corridor shooter. It is an RTS where you can be quite dynamic in terms of gameplay. The maps can also be quite big (although not as big as in Arma of course, but distant enemy is simply lower priority if it's not a tank or something). I mean, maybe BIS should just give up on some of their dynamic, non-scripted solutions and make something more simple but actually functional. Not simulating every bit of everything and just use what is really important for the gameplay. And man, fuck the formation keeping if it is killing my squad. Just give them radius how far they can run from their squad leader when choosing a cover. I can not care less about formation keeping - I need them to survive and return fire with minimum profile exposed to the enemy. But of course, I am not an AI programmer and have de facto no technical knowledge about it. Your points were fair but I just can't get rid of the feeling that BIS programmers have their priorities somewhere else than in AI. Yes I have noticed AI mates not crossing a street that was under constant fire from enemy SUV machinegun. Instead they tried to just peak around corner (quite successfully, sometimes made themselves too visible, but OK anyway) or tried to flank using different route. Was quite surprised to see that.

I have been messing around in editor two days back, making firefights with enemy 600 meters away and my machine-gunner indeed used short bursts instead of single shots. I was surprised myself. No mods used. ---------- Post added at 13:34 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ---------- While I agree the AI is incredibly advanced in Arma in some aspects it fails to deliver the most basic things that we would expect would be easy to implement. Such as using cover actively and not just staying behind an obstacle. This is the one of the most important, game-changing things that every other corridor shooter already has (and I don't believe that checking for priority and direction is something that cannot be done in Arma). Enemies lean from behind a corner and when under fire, they hide, wait a few moments and try to shoot again. In Arma it is just static. They just stand behind cover and sometimes even so badly that they are completely visible to the enemy (I absolutely cannot understand why a forced-to-be-crouched unit has to suddenly stand up when using cover behind a rock). It is better for AI to just simply lay on the ground and shoot than to seek obstacles for cover because they are useless to them. I cannot help the feeling, after 12 years of hoping, that programmers are simply not giving a lot of priority to the AI because some things the AI does are so absolutely unnecessary. I am sorry. PS: Every day after an update of the branch I seriously can't wait to check the changelog if there is some AI tweak or change. Most of the time I am just very disappointed because there is nothing and I am starting to be convinced that there is not a specialized AI programmer in BIS which is incredibly sad for me.

Yes, sometimes IRL you can notice that, because of echoes, you can even completely wrongly tell a direction a sound is coming from. Experienced it couple of times. It is definitely realistic. The problem with reverb in sound mods and with sound mods in general is their quality and logic of what they do. There is so many small elements that need be considered in sound mods to make it good sounding, logical and realistic and functional at the same time. Not a single sound mod I have tried have accomplished it very well yet, unfortunately. But I definitely give respect to their authors for accepting the challenge and at least trying. It is a huge task. Yes, don't worry, I understand you. You have a point. Well unless you want Arma to be so loud so that it does not have to simulate tinnitus there has to be some way of making this kind of impact on a player. It happens IRL and it is a realistic factor in a realistic game. Therefore I would simulate it.

Well, I must admit that this is a good point to be considered, metalcraze. Seems to me then, it would have to be a compromise between AI and direct control. Therefore making it like in ECP for OFP where your driver would do EXACTLY what you've told them to do. Therefore even running a tank into a sea if you, as a commander, wanted him to do so. And yes, it worked very well in ECP back those days. The drivers were just direct, moved over walls, trees etc. It was good. Maybe a possibility to switch (through the command menu) your driver behaviour between straightforward/autonomous would do the trick. Straightforward ("just trust me" - move over everything, into everything) and autonomous (current standard behvaiour). In both behaviours the delay between a command and execution of the command would be preserved. Just the execution of the order would behave differently.

Have you tried what I have suggested to you? If not, try it.

My only problem with the fatigue system right now are the terrible slowed down animations (the running animation is quite fine though).

I would like to see it too, because I saw a video with an American soldier getting hit by a sniper bullet in Iraq and he was knocked down (he then stood up and run for cover immediately - I am not an expert on military stuff so don't know what armor he had on himself).

Oh really? Have you ever tried to throw a grenade in any of the Arma series' games? And how did you like destroying tanks with machine-guns in Arma 2 for couple of years? And how do you like AI units taking bullets in their chest while still being perfectly able to shoot back? How do you like AI inability to peak and shoot from a cover, AI not running away from grenades or throwing them back? How do you like absence of proper stealth and stealth kills in Arma with no knifes at all? And don't even want me to mention sound-engine of BF3/4 (even the first two games had it on a completely different, more realistic level than Arma has now). Both COD and BF have these issues sorted long ago and for example in BF when you reload a weapon with a bullet already in the chamber it stays there so you have one extra bullet to shoot, just like IRL. Not happening in Arma. Quite a few would-be-good-in-arma features for a Quake, hm?

Man, please, stop with the BF3/4 bullshit. It seriously pisses me off how many times it was mentioned already when somebody wants to bring a compromise for sake of better gameplay. I am OFP player since 2001 and have never enjoyed Battlefield series nor COD series so go somewhere else with your rage against "BF agenda". Arma is so unrealistic in so many ways and in some even less realistic than BF or COD yet you still mention those two games regularly. You are so short-sighted.

Guys, explain to me how it is possible to hear a passing by air gun "bullet" in real life (experienced many times IRL) and not possible to hear much bigger rocket passing by? If a smaller and slower projectile is clearly hearable then it is a non-sense to me not to hear a bigger and faster one with some delay. ---------- Post added at 14:50 ---------- Previous post was at 14:49 ---------- No need to apologise, they mostly make it even worse.

All the wanna-be-realism-all-the-way guys who rather prefer bugged and boring gameplay instead of some functional compromises are simply ill. In other words: - don't forget to turn off your crosshair while having no muscle reference about your arms position - SO REAL! - don't forget to turn off your out-of-LOS indicators and third-person view while having no periphery vision at all - SO REAL! - don't forget to turn of your "target" and "engage" indicators while having AI incapable of explaining to you and showing you with their forefinger where exactly the enemy is - SO REAL! - don't forget to prevent functional cover system from happening again while having few robotic non-flexible-enough stances - SO REAL! Maturin and OP hit the nail on the head.

To the OP: do you use any mods? If so, disable them and test again. If no mods used, then use file or diamond formation and run away - the more distance between you and your team the more urgent will it be for them to keep formation with you. Hold fire "might" work sometimes but the thing is, when under fire the hold fire tends to get reset to open fire. Moreover the hold fire does not prevent the AI to constantly CHECK the enemy and area around and therefore standing and stupidly staring. I wonder how many confused/criticising threads about AI need to be made so that BIS finally give the AI (and commanding) the biggest priority in the development instead of programming other "neat" features while leaving the half-done ones in status quo for years.

Yeah the reverb thing (and distance filters) in the Speed of sound is maybe quite good but that mod is far from being really. I respect the effort made but I was very disappointed when testing it that sound volumes are terribly inbalanced and that stereo image does not reflect (in other word respect) the distance and the rest of the environment very well. Also the frequency content of sounds in the mod is simply wrong (inbalanced) - making distant sounds much closer then they are while some close sounds sound distant etc (most probably because of the stereo-image non-sense and insufficiently tweaked low-end and incorrect usage of dynamic compression (or absence of dynamic compression at all)). In other words the mix is not good. I mean it solved some vanilla issues but introduced whole series of another that was not in the vanilla. I stopped using it very quickly. Consistency is something that sound mods for Arma mostly do not deliver. Therefore I still play with vanilla sounds since arma 2 because there simply is no better alternative yet and eye-candy sweet sounding FX alone do not cut it for me.

I have noticed that AI have this annoying delay between standing up, running somewhere and getting prone/crouch. It always takes them a few moments before they finally get down again. I don't know why it is happening but it should be fixed somehow. They should be hitting dirt so fast in combat not thinking at all. They can think later after they are prone. Also, they are still standing too much in a combat. It is really annoying to see them as they stand up absolutely unnecessarily when in long distance fire-fight. I mean if they need to check (and I don't know if they are capable of it in the system) somebody behind terrain profile/obstacle they should do so only if not immediately visible target is in front of them that they can combat first. Only after that they should check for another ones (or some kind of QUICK peaking system should be implemented - ideally peaking from behind a cover but that is probably something we won't see in A3 maybe not even in A4, sadly). Another really needed tweak is that after some patch the AI is preferring shooting to taking cover. This is a great tweak in close combat but it should not apply in long range combat. In long range combat they should get maximum possible cover first and only then to start shooting because I have seen a lot of situations when this unfortunate preference killed them. They also need to stop thinking while taking cover. I don't know if it is possible but it should take them literally like one second to decide to change direction of movement when ambushed, getting prone and meanwhile with maximum speed getting behind a hard cover. I don't know why everything has to take AI so long. If it has to do with performance I understand that but it is so annoying and so bad looking and it is pissing me off and preventing from frequent playing since A2. Somehow in OFP I didn't mind their reactions while playing the whole campaign two years ago. Oh yeah, I almost forgot this one: snipers are useless because they fight like regular soldiers. They keep running around, STANDING, making too many stupid things and are generally speaking very ineffective. They also don't care for stealth at all (but stealthy behaviour for AI is not working in this game so...). There is so many things to fix with the AI that it should be in an expansion pack itself dealing with just it.

I am sure you are mistaken. Extended armor option is there only as a difficulty settings for you and your squad mates. It does not have any effect on enemy AI.

What he said.

Guys, this is an amazing change. Firefights seem to be significantly longer and realistic. The environment really steps in to the gameplay right now. Keep it up!

What happens if you give them HOLD or GUARD or SENTRY waypoint? Do they still run away then? And when they run, do they really run for their lives or stopping every ten or so meters to check their surroundings?