beagle23

Such a good idea. Currently there's a feature for 'dont show while behind cover' what about removing ping when the target goes behind cover? So if I mark a target and that target disappears behind cover, the mark is removed permanently until I mark again, that sort of thing. Lets people disappear and not be immediately re-spotted when they poke out from somewhere totally different.

Sounds excellent. Will there be a way to get around the unit leader death delaying their reactions? Such as speeding up how quickly a new leader is chosen and takes command, or allowing individuals to act on more initiative in the absence of leadership? I think the 'kill the leader to disorient them' idea is interesting in theory but in practice I expect it to not be super transparent to the player; most of the time, they won't realise they're specifically killing the leader when it happens, and either way the result will be the AI performing worse, so I think I'd prefer to run with that being less of a thing.

😂 Yeah, they definitely act like they're in their own little world. It'd be a shame if if truly is unfixable.

@nkenny Great! danger.fsm is definitely an improvement. I'm definitely curious how far you want to go with improving the AI's reaction to contact and being an active player. I think we're all familiar with the feel of fighting AI in Arma/OFP; they don't present a credible threat and they're very easy to exploit. One of the most fundamental parts of this is their bad habits... things like not understanding what makes good cover or making the wrong tactical decisions are understandable and I wouldn't complain about as much, but one of the biggest problems with the AI compared to players or even other games is they just stop all the time. Arma AI hesitates and gets interrupted constantly. They don't like to shoot on the move much, and they'll often interrupt whatever they're doing to stand or take a knee in the open and start shooting as soon as they spot a target. On the attack, they'll often stall out as they go prone and fail to move forward much, and again, as soon as they spot an enemy they'll sit still and slowly potshot at them. All of this makes it trivially easy to exploit them as a player. To both present a more credible threat and to better replicate player behaviour, it'd be great if the AI could stop doing these bad habits. When they react to contact, they should either sprint straight for cover or lay rapid fire at the enemy while moving to cover at a jog. When they get stuck into a fight, they should move more instead of hesitating and sitting still all the time. And when they do decide to move, they shouldn't stop in the middle of that movement because they spotted a target - that's how a lot of AI get themselves killed, hillariously easy as they try to cross an open area or street and stop in the middle of it with a 'kill me' sign. And when they do fire, it would help if they did so more snappily - the 'pop pop pop' slow potshotting by the AI is rarely a concern compared to how much faster a player will fire at you. If they're going to snipe from cover, it'd be better for them if they'd pop out for a second, fire a few shots and then pop back into cover - again, the AI just loves to be slow and hesitant, sitting still and peeking out for an hour while slowly shooting, making them ludicrously easy targets. Curious to know what your thoughts are on these behaviours and if they fall within your scope or not! These bad habits make Arma AI probably some of the worst I've seen in gaming - they're worse than even the worst human FPS players I've seen. They don't move, they hesitate, they don't get anything done and they're so easily outsmarted, and they don't understand the basic fundamental of all FPS games which is you often have to combine movement and shooting, not just use one or the other. If all their pauses and interrupts were removed or dialed down, I think it'd go a long way towards fixing that - it's not that the AI never does anything good, its just that the good is so often diluted by all the hesitating and bad they do in between.

Thank you! I'll try this out for now, I have console on my server as well. I'm very interested in this initiative, I think the AI in Arma is disturbingly ineffective and it brings the whole PvE experience down time after time. Do you mind if I ask, what's some of your ideal goals for the AI with this initiative? How interested are you in feedback?

Thanks for this! Looks great. If you're able to allow the new waypoints to be given in Zeus, that'd be helpful - I do a lot of play in there and the AI really needs a kick in the ass to get rushing sometimes when they're using regular waypoint behaviour.

Unless the fundementals of base defense involve building a giant diamond-encased roof over your entire base, the reason he and anyone at all can do that is because once you find the enemy base you can artillery it to hell in a very short amount of time. As I continue to play I'm still convinced the best solution is to build your base so that it appears that it isn't even there, and I pick up more tricks to accomplish this daily. It's quite the art, and fun to boot.

If your tail rotor fails and you're at speed, you won't even notice. If you slow down, you'll suddenly realise you're spinning out of control. As long as you've got speed, you've got control of the aircraft. If you lose your tail rotor speed is your only way to regain control apart from impressive piloting skills if you need to crash land it then and there. If you lose tail rotor in the middle of combat, and there's no chance of escaping the danger zone, all you can do is try to minimize the helicopter dancing around, and put her down in a big open area as gently as possible.

ArmA 2 Autorotation Don't listen to the tutorial about autorotation, it tells you to do the complete opposite of what you want to. Nosing down as soon as you lose engine is, in my experience, the fastest way to achieve NO NO NO NO NONOONON OH GOD 275 KNOTS INTO THE GROUND As soon as you lose power, flare (nose up) and keep Z held. Flare enough that you aren't going forward any faster than 20 or 30, but not so much you start going backwards. Keeping a nice gradual flare seems to give me the best results for a smooth autorotation. JUST before you hit the ground, switch to holding Q at the last possible second. Timed right, you'll soften your landing, and you'll already be on the ground so losing rotor speed because you're not holding down anymore isn't an issue. However, even if you can't pull this off, you can still expect a fine, safe landing as long as you do the important flare and slow descent part right. Once you know you can autorotate safely and reliably pretty much anytime, the only problem is if you're flying over terrain that you can't crashland in. Keep a mindset of "If I lost engine power RIGHT now, how screwed would I be?", which means don't fly over forests, dense cities, horribly slopey terrain, or the ocean, whenever possible. Also try to only go as low as necessary - flying 5 feet off the ground is awesome and believe me, I've spent hours in the editor doing it just for kicks, but if you lose engine at 5 feet you're going to pancake harder than IHOP. Play around with helos in the editor (set up a trigger that removes all your Helo's fuel when you hit a radio command, to simulate the engine failure) and get a feel for what situations you can successfully get yourself out of. Tail Rotor Failure in ArmA 2 The air passing over the heli at high speed stops it from spinning out of control, just like it'll stop you from using rudder effectively at high speed. If you've got a tail rotor failure it'll get worse as you slow down, so if you can't get control: 1. Go really really high. How high is a "safe margin" is proportional to how much keeping helicopter and yourself alive means to you. 2. Cut your engine. Without the main rotor trying to spin you the hell around, you're free from your dizzy nightmare. 3. Nose down and start gliding to get some speed up. Once you've got enough speed, you can engine up without fear of the main rotor spinning you to the schmithouse. 4. With helo in control, land fast enough that you don't start spinning again, in a nice open area clear of aggresive trees, mean buildings or completely unsociable powerlines.

Thank you very much for the example you made me earlier, and the spawning example here! I'd have responded earlier but internet troubles are bugging me until the 6th. Anyway, thank you very much for being so helpful and for this script!

Oh, so I can just use a trigger to spawn the units when the player gets nearby, and then a few seconds later run your script on those spawned units and it'll work as expected? That should work just as well, awesome!

Is this something that can be called later by a trigger and spawn the group then, or does it only work at the start of the mission? I'm an editing rook and I'd like to be able to spawn defense forces for when a player gets near that objective, not before, to save on processing until those AI need to be in the game. Just like how its done with spawning town defenses in Warfare and its contemparies. If this script doesn't fulfill that need, would anyone be able to point me in the right direction? I've tried searching but I can't anything, I'm probably a searching rook too :p

Female troops for CDF, particularly for the Officer, Militia and maybe even Soldier (Unarmed) positions. I haven't dabbled in modding but I wouldn't suspect it to be a hard task - at its most basic application, it could be troops using the in-built Civ faces and with radio pitch altered as high as possible (like the OFP women civi radio voice, heh) I'm making a Resistance-style mission and I'm using the CDF instead of the Guerillas; mainly because the Guerillas look so inhuman with their army of balaclavas, and the CDF are much better for that role, particularly with the Officer/Militia roles reminding me of the OFP Resistance with their awesome caps.

This is a really great idea, glad to see it. I'm happy to offer my voice for anyone who needs it. 19, Australian, though English parent/grandparents so I can do my normal blend, a hardcore HOW YA GO-AN, GIDDAY MAYTE Australian, or a nice normal English. Or anything in between, of course, if Crocodile Dundee isn't your cup of tea.

You don't have to build completely in the open just because you want to be near cities for your 'rush the cities' strategy. Chernarus has a lot of diverse terrain and its very difficult to build a base that is not near any cities at all, unless you're on the map's flanks proper. If you still want to 'RUSH THE CITIES' so much that you need a spawn within 500m, you can then remobilize your HQ and park it outside towns as a spawn point. I try not to die when I play, so needing a spawn kind of becomes a lesser concern compared to making your entire base incredibly easy to see, but hey, that's just me. Like you said, your base will come under artillery fire as soon as it is spotted, which is why bothering to build any defenses above a few MGs to keep out saboutuers is useless. Your only defense is to not be seen in the first place. Building in the open is asking for your base to be easily spotted in demolished. The same with roads, you're practically asking to be found. I actually prefer to play with Artillery off, which makes things different - I like how you actually have to assault bases instead of just pressing a few buttons and watching them turn to dust. This means that easily discoverable bases are fine as long as they're well defended. Not so with artillery on, so again, the rule I live by is if this base is found, its going to be pounded. Build factories on the edges of forests with their spawning sides facing out so AI don't get stuck. Build them inside hangars. Build them in cities, build them in at the bottom of big valleys, and most importantly, don't build them near points of interest. Defenses are irrelevant, just don't get spotted. Walls are fine, just leave big gaps for the AI. You have a map, use it when taking off to check for vehicles crossing the strip. Really easy thing to do.