soulis6

It's another problem of what the AI should 'know about' though. They can't (or don't) know if they're the only friendly squad on the map and any gunfire is hostile, or if enemy rebels have been using exclusively AK-47s, or even if the crunch of unknown boots nearby should be threatening (no one else is supposed to be in this AO!), etc. That's a pretty tricky situation to solve. You'd have to do something like set "signature" weapons for each faction in the config or mission intel, and then they would go into combat upon hearing this type of gun (assuming it actually is distinctive enough sounding). And even this is a flawed solution that I can already see some problems with.

There's nothing wrong with that mechanic at all IMO, it's just a usability feature (why would you want to look down the sights while behind cover > because you want to lean out of cover to fire: so just simplify that into one action instead of two), but i'm not sure about that mod. It doesn't look like it's very smooth or responsive, and it's something that i think would be better left out if not implemented almost perfectly.

This is 100% true. They're working with about 1000x less freedom and abilities, and it's mostly 'faked' (pre-set where they will run to, move behind, etc). Comparing the AI in most linear FPS to ones in a sandbox game is not comparable at all. The closest AI you could compare Arma's too, as a modern game, would be something like Just Cause 3, or maybe the new Ghost Recon: Wildlands when it's out, both sandbox games. And I think you'd find that in most cases, Arma is actually on the top of the list for good sandbox AI, because no one has perfected good reactive AI yet; it's very very very hard.

So you're upset because a mod (CTI) isn't as popular on arma 3 than 2? If you don't like it as much as a2, that's cool, that's your call, but I'd like to point out that I think it's silly to judge a game solely based on one niche mod. The large majority of people I know who play Arma basically never play on any public server, only private coop or pvp missions/campaigns. Also, i'd just like to say I think weird that you say that the houses are empty husks, when compared to arma 2, you can actually go inside all of them, and not just admire them from the outside. And to say the AI hasn't improved is IMO just flat out untrue.

I'm having a bit of a problem with the RegisterCustomModule on a dedicated server. I had been previously using a locally hosted game, not an actual dedicated server (though it's still on my machine), and everything had been working great with the custom modules. However now on the server, the modules show up, but when dropped down they don't actually do anything. They stick around in the Zeus entity list, and don't seem to call the code they're registered to. Do you have any ideas why this might be happening? I can call the code manually with the debug console and it works fine, along with all the other standard Ares special functions, it's just the custom modules. I really hope I can get those to work again, I have a ton of them and use them all the time, they're really helpful.

Thanks for all your help, finally managed to get this to work! Definitely excited about that. Somewhat related, does anyone know any good ways to get/set a loadout in script? There used to be a really get GET/SET Loadout script that was in the forums here, but it's not being updated any longer and unfortunately doesn't work. Is there a quick way or easier way of doing this?

Is this with basic medical or advanced medical? I still can't seem to get it to work, even on a test scenario.

I agree with most people here, the vehicle sounds are far too quiet. Not going to repeat what everyone else has said too much, just that vehicles and specifically tanks and helicopters should be able to be heard much further away. Personally i'd also really like it if footstep sounds, especially in forests/tallgrass/etc were made much louder when units aren't sneaking around or going slow. You should be able to hear a group of people sprinting through the forest (stepping on leaves, twigs, bushes) from a decent distance away. I don't think i've ever been able to hear an enemy unit's footsteps, even when listening for it and they're not attempting to be stealthy. Somewhat related: There was a sound mod that someone posted up a while back, making footsteps and bodies hitting the floor a bit louder, along with adding screams or grunts when soldiers got hit/died. I thought it was really cool, added a lot more atmosphere to the combat environment, although unfortunately it looks like it's been abandoned now. What would be awesome is if BIS integrated this (with some bug fixes) with their continued work on the game audio.

That's true, and I definitely understand that there's so many different situations that make it really hard to make one universal solution, but like Ruebe says, it's more about the rules of engagement. I agree with all of what he said, it would be awesome to have some more control over the enemies training/instruction and their behavior while not in combat. Tweaking the skills wouldn't really fix the fact that most of the time when you're sneaking around somewhere that's not on the frontlines they just don't really react with any restraint or sense. It's not an easy problem for sure, because as soon as you get into more nuanced reactions than just 'OPEN FIRE', it throws all kinds of potential problems in there; if the unidentified unit is too far away, or there's no clear path to investigate, or the group is busy with another command, and so on and so on. But even just a simple reaction where they see something nearby and stopping and looking over to where they see the unidentified unit or possible contact or whatnot, and waiting for a few seconds while they focus in that direction with an animation that is visibly showing them looking at where the contact was, would go a long long way. I think no matter what, there's basically no reason for a unit that's in SAFE combat mode to immediately open fire without even confirming with their SL, or giving pause to confirm that what they're seeing is an enemy, unless of course their under fire or someone has just died nearby or whatever else normally sets them into danger mode. The only sub-skills listed there that would tie into this, would be Spotting time and spotting accuracy. In my example of the 'perceived danger' stat, that stat would probably affect both of these sub-skills heavily, but it would just be one component i think that would be needed.

I posted this a topic on AI reaction times, but I think it should go here too, it's something i've been thinking about a lot for the Arma AI: Basically the problem is that unit identification and hostile engagement is instant and automagical, there's no 'threat condition' or 'perceived danger' value with units. A routine patrol in a friendly controlled base next to a civilian city, where they may not have seen enemy contact for months will react just as fast to a half-glimpse of an enemy or a partial ID and will be just as quick to fire, as a fire team in hostile territory who were recently engaged and are expecting to see enemies around the next corner. In both cases, just seeing unknown movement from the corner of their vision for a second will cause them to immediately open fire without warning their surrounding group or double checking that the threat is indeed an enemy, but really in the case of the routine patrol in the friendly base, you'd want them to maybe call out or move to get a closer look or report something suspicious to their squad leader. Not to mention that units will fire on shadowy figures in the dark that are barely visible at all, regardless of what their state or surrounding context is. I think a good solution would be to give AI groups an 'expected danger' setting, able to be set by the mission editor, and possibly changed during gameplay (if they move from a friendly base to the frontlines for example), along with a unit specific internal suspicion gauge/meter. This suspicion meter would go up faster or slower depending on this expected danger setting, whenever they see something out of the ordinary (i.e. sighting an unknown partially obscured unit, or seeing movement on the edge of their peripheral vision, etc), and when this meter reaches a threshold it would kick off some sort of behavior. If it was just a quick glimpse where they aren't sure they actually saw anything (the meter didn't reach this threshold), they would just resume normal behavior and the meter would slowly decrease. What behavior it kicks off is a whole other question, and not an easy one, given the amount of variables and different situations that are possible, but something easy and more effective at the least would be to let the squad leader know they saw something unidentified over in X direction, so they could at least direct someone to watch that area, and maybe bump them up to 'Aware' if they were in 'Safe' mode, for a couple minutes maybe. More advanced would be having someone go over and get a closer look if it's nearby, or yell a warning or identification request, etc. This behavior could be specified by the groups 'expected danger', as it would certainly change depending on situation. And all of this would of course be inactive while the group is in a active combat state, they just continue to act as they do now, being quick to identify and target hostile units. But all of this would allow a lot more nuanced stealth and special ops gameplay, which to my mind is pretty essential considering the game is often geared towards "Behind enemy lines" type special ops missions, or nighttime raids, that sort of thing. It definitely wouldn't need to be as in depth as a full on stealth game, but just a few changes in the way that target ID works would go a long way I think.

I think you hit the nail on the head with your first point, that enemy ID is just automagical and usually instant. Although to be fair, most games that aren't stealth focused(metal gear, splinter cell, etc) have this problem. This is the biggest glaring problem with the AI in my opinion, and if it were up to me, the first thing i'd try and make changes to. Basically the problem is that there's no 'threat condition' or 'perceived danger' value with units. A routine patrol in a friendly controlled base next to a civilian city, where they may not have seen enemy contact for months will react just as fast to a half-glimpse of an enemy or a partial ID and will be just as quick to fire, as a fire team in hostile territory who were recently engaged and are expecting to see enemies around the next corner. In both cases, just seeing unknown movement from the corner of their vision for a second will cause them to immediately open fire without warning their surrounding group or double checking that the threat is indeed an enemy, but really in the case of the routine patrol in a friendly base, you'd want them to maybe call out or move to get a closer look or report something suspicious to their squad leader. I think a good solution would be to give AI groups an 'expected danger' setting, able to be set by the mission editor, and possibly changed during gameplay (if they move from a friendly base to the frontlines for example), along with a unit specific internal suspicion gauge/meter. This suspicion meter would go up faster or slower depending on this expected danger setting, whenever they see something out of the ordinary (i.e. sighting an unknown partially obscured unit, or seeing movement on the edge of their peripheral vision, etc), and when this meter reaches a threshold it would kick off some sort of behavior. If it was just a quick glimpse where they aren't sure they actually saw anything (the meter didn't reach this threshold), they would just resume normal behavior and the meter would slowly decrease. What behavior it kicks off is a whole other question, and not an easy one, given the amount of variables and different situations that could arise from this, but something easy at least would be to let the squad leader know they saw something unidentified over in X direction, so they could at least direct someone to watch that area. More advanced would be having someone go over and get a closer look if it's nearby, or yell a warning or identification request, etc. This behavior could be specified by the groups 'expected danger', as it would certainly change depending on situation. And all of this would of course be inactive while the group is in a active combat state, they just continue to act as they do now, being quick to identify and target hostile units. But all of this would allow a lot more nuanced stealth and special ops gameplay, which to my mind is pretty essential considering the game is often geared towards "Behind enemy lines" type special ops missions, or nighttime raids, that sort of thing. It definitely wouldn't need to be as in depth as a full on stealth game, but just a few changes in the way that target ID works would go a long way I think.

Anyone have any idea for this? Also got a response a while back, about how to set a player to fully healed and not in pain/blood loss, and I got two responses: [player,player] call ACE_medical_fnc_treatmentAdvanced_fullHealLocal; and playerName setVariable ["ace_medical_bloodVolume", 100, true]; playerName setVariable ["ace_medical_pain", 0, true]; playerName setVariable ["ACE_isUnconscious", false, true]; Unfortunately, i didn't see either of these working, can anyone confirm if they should work, or if there's another way to heal a player in MP, from bleeding or injured and in pain to back to normal?

Is there a way to change the basic medical's 'Player Damage coefficient' to different values for different players?

Oh ok, thanks, I will try that, didn't know about that one.

Hmm, not sure what you mean, I'm just starting it both trying it in the editor, and starting a locally hosted MP game and having a friend join to try and test it. I'm not running a local server or anything, would that make a difference?

Thanks for the help Alganthe. Does anyone feel like the values of damage and armor tweaked by ACE are a little too brutal? I'm not sure which module is causing it (maybe Protection?), but i'm playing around with things, and it looks like a pistol shot to the leg is instantly fatal most of the time, and even with the heavier armor on, one normal pistol shot or rifle round to the chest will be enough to kill. Is this normal?

I'm only seeing smoke grenades that look messed up, is there a way to just disable those only? Everything else still looks great, and i'd really like use blastcore still, been a must have addon for me and my group for as long as it's existed.

Am i correct in assuming that you can't use the ACE settings framework to disable modules that would otherwise need to have their PBOs deleted (i.e. realistic names, protection, etc)? I looked at the wiki page for it, but it seemed like it was just for the in game settings and modules.

Thanks a bunch for the help, that fixed that (although sometimes i don't understand the SQF syntax at all, why would it need a semicolon at the end of the first array, but not that one?), i'm still struggling with getting this working though. Following your example, after putting diag_logs everywhere, what's happening is that the publicVariableEventHandler is not firing on the server, so after autoSendingProfile is started and the player profile is created, it's never passed to the server and saved in the DB. So basically the event handlers on the server don't seem to be working. Can you think of any reason this might be happening? Thanks again for your help

Speak for yourself there buddy. Don't try and lump all the players into the forum into some 'players vs devs' sides. I notice the AI plenty, and have been playing the series since OFP, and the AI is miles better than it ever was Arma 2. Try taking off the rose colored glasses next time. Returning to buildings, I agree that i'd rather have empty buildings that are enter-able, but if it's more like a half-and-half thing, with some of the large ones only climbable or having a lobby or something (like the previously mentioned kavala hospital) i'm fine with that too.

Don't know if anyone is still following this, but ACE 3 mod fixes this in their Zeus module, it removes the minefield marker when you place down mines as Zeus. Very nice!

You can spawn him in, then open the Arsenal on him and load your saved loadout, but I think that's about it without going into making a custom Config for the units, which I don't know much about. I'm interested in this too though, if anyone else knows the basics of setting up custom units in a config.

Yeah this has been an issue for as long as Zeus has existed. Would be great to have some sort of 'immediate waypoint' or something, a command that says 'go here and do this right now no matter what', but I know there's nothing like that built into the system.

Mabye this has already answered, didn't see it in a search, but is there good way to get the CBA keybindings to work during Zeus? I know TFAR found a way and are using that, but I couldn't find much information about it. Basically i'd just like some keybindings to be universally able to be pressed, controlling a unit, or in zeus control.

A quick search of this topic confirms that. Not sure why it wasn't carried over from AGM yet, but must have had some problems with it, and it wasn't ready for launch. Does anyone know how you actually use the new finger pointing ability? I don't see a keybinding or action for it