smashballs

Yeah... the game levels don't have nav-meshes or hints to tell the AI what to do... it has to be done by editor scripts, and that's not a full solution because even the campaign AI is a struggle to put up with. I have seen them vary in behavior too, it just makes things weird... I have seen them stare at walls instead of where the enemy has been, or just stand there absent minded. They AI at very least should be active and consistent!

What? .... I mean yeah, the terrible AI is no secrete, and I guess in that regard one should not have any expectations when investing into early access either.... that doesn't excuse it though. Especially since this had been one of the things that was supposed to be done at release. ZackTactical34 just got me hooked on Vcom + ALiVE, hehehe Trust me, I know BI's main thing is the modding and multiplayer... that's what sells... but I never think it's bad to share what you think needs to be discussed... usually if enough people complain, companies will fix problems. However, I think me and you both understand the AI is doomed to stay terrible.

The main reason I rant about strategic AI is because AI works so much better with hierarchies... This had been proven with games like Hearts of Iron 4... how you have generals under field marshes and they all work together to make battle plans get carried out in a fairly smooth matter. I don't really see that in Arma 3... There might be squad AI.. but it does the minimum and you can't reasonably give orders to your AI like AI squads can... its too hard to fight AND tell what each individual member should do. which is why there needs to be a more silent hierarchy AI... so that way your squads and AI squads will formulate tactics better without being 100% dependent on the squad commander.

That actually looks really good... I mean: - AI share info about threats with other groups in their proximity if they have radios. Enhances awareness for groups that are not directly in contact with an enemy. (The AI are very silent to eachother.) - AI machinegunners use suppressive fire. Makes them more effective and feared. (I have noticed that the machine gunner doesn't really do their job.) - AI groups coming into contact while in the open will try to move to cover. Helps them survive longer when caught in the open. (They usually just hit the dust and hope to not die.) - Buildings are used in combat by AI. You may see AI shooting from windows or rooftops and it may not be as easy to hide in a house anymore. (They usually will bunch up in the room and defend points that don't need defending.) - AI may move to cover and pop smoke when hit to help conceal while taking care of their wounds. (They will literally heal out in the open!... What the hell!?) Seriously... BIS needs to take notes from community add-ons like this! I mean this needs to just be vanilla to be honest... as much as I like modding, I don't believe that game systems should be left to the community. I like the community putting their own touch, but the developers should be actively working on it too. The AI is NO exception! It's been put off for far too long... In all honesty, I don't think the AI just needs better driving or have more realistic visibility... I just think the AI system needs to be totally scrapped and rebuilt...

Also, strategic AI would open a world of unique Zeus vs Zeus scenarios, including making the Zeus master scenario vastly improved... So instead of spending time baby sitting the AI... you could just give them some basic orders, and hang out with players or expand the scenario.

Its been 5 years... I still don't find the SP experience fun at all... I have been waiting since release for the AI to be fixed. I expected this to be tackled fast because not only is AI the star of the show in SP, you also have to depend on them. I waited a couple more years to pick back up Arma 3 to see if the AI has finally been fixed, and much to my disappointment its still embarrassing. I am playing the campaign again and guess what i still see? The AI is still terrible at navigation They don't communicated to other friendly AI, only to their squad. They don't have any initiative, I shouldn't have to micro the AI so hard... I want to give them basic orders... like: Defend this area, assault town form (direction), convoy, defend building, etc... AI won't follow precautions or find good cover when they are attacking. They don't think to rearm//repair/refuel any vehicles that need it. Helicopters cant simply land and let units out... most of the time they crash or land upside down. It's just ridiculous, I understand this game is huge and ambitious but there is a point where you no longer need more stuff. You just need to fix whats already there and the AI is still broken to this very day. What would make the AI super impressive, is strategic AI... Something that can give the AI squads across the entire game map strategic orders to help the military work in unison, and squad AI that can do proper tactics to follow the strategic AI. So if you have a squad not doing anything, have them called over to support an infantry division.... then have that squad get there by any means necessary (using any possible vehicles, etc...) and enter the area in a smart way. Imagine only having to draw up some orders on the map, assigning a squad or platoon to the orders, and have them carry out your master plan without needing tell them exactly what to do.... Even to the extent of using vehicles you assign them, so the AI will use transports or support vehicles properly. Also, have the strategic AI make use of planes/helicopters so the platoons/squads can call them in if necessary .... If you don't want AI to work with the strategic AI, then have an option to set that.... Arma 3 would probably be the only game I ever played! ... In all honesty though... I would be just fine too if they had some limited strategic ability.... so that way they aren't totally broken.. Here is something I want to see if nothing else, improved orders menu... its tedious to have to memorize which number gives them which set of orders... I know OFP:RD isn't even made by the same company, or affiliated but please take some pointers... their orders menu isn't the best but it's better then what I see in Arma 3 and it includes simpler orders that the AI seem to follow pretty well on their own.

It's good that you have turned your attention to the AI driving, this will make the AI %50 easier to handle. The AI though, struggle with a whole bunch of other things as well, I went out and made this silly video, that shows me in Zeus mode giving the AI orders, and seeing how they handle performing the orders on their own... I have to say... it's quiet a mess.... FYI this is NOT on the developer branch This isn't even all of the issues, this is just what I managed to film. I will admit, it must be complicated dealing with AI that has very little in hints around the level itself, and it mostly has to figure out everything on it's own. This though, is a real circus and needs to be fixed, but, to be fair, the AI isn't too bad at following carefully made instructions. If the AI is gonna handle player made scenarios on the fly, then its got to be more then capable of following one simple order, and, by itself, plan all the steps needed to accomplish it.

The AI has a lot of issues, but there is one major category, which makes he AI the most unplayable, and makes it to where they break missions or cause you to super micro manage, (navigation) Their navigation, in general but mostly vehicles, needs to be the most improved. I understand they have to be very dynamic with pretty much no AI hints in the level, but they need to asses vehicle usage and formation much better. I commanded a squad of subordinate tanks to go through a small town to reach the other side of an enemy front line, but they stalled at the town and just got stuck on some fences. They need to be able to adjust their formations based on the situation, like going into a single file and following one another to make it through tight stretches. It seems to me that their formation is the priority over navigation, it should be to where formation should only be done where its reasonable, smashing down an entire house just to keep a V formation is a bit too extreme. They have trouble assessing the speed they should go to take turns, it seems as if the AI, when driving, just goes at a default pace when navigating. I have seen the AI, nearly all the time, when they have to go fast, just sail into a building trying to take a tight turn into a town. They have trouble with moving around small objects, or multiple small objects (this includes fences, poles, and rocks) I have seen them on many occasions smash through fences when they are driving on a road with a lot of space, and get stuck on sandbags at military facilities. One big issue they have is identifying the difference between huge objects, such as a bridge from a building, to them its as if its all the same, I have seen convoys (which are tedious to make because, like before, they cant adjust formation to do what makes sense) just stop right a bridge, and get very confused, they try to drive around the bridges and into ditches and stuck on a rock, (this also happens a lot.) They have trouble with T sections on roads, they, most of time, take the turn too wide or too short, and that is what usually causes the hang-ups on small objects. Vehicles are a disaster to get into formation when they don't start in formation, through out all the time I have played in Arma, the AI has never pulled off a successful reformation when assigned to a leader... Lot of the time they are impatient about people in front of their car, they either just drive right into you when they get bored, or try to avoid you, but hit and kill someone else because the AI can only assess 1 obstacle at a time (like mentioned before). My biggest pet peeve above all! Is how horrid the AI is at correcting itself when it is stuck, they just can't do it, if only they could correct them self properly, nearly all the mentioned problems could be fixed without micromanagement. When they get stuck on objects, they can't figure out how to reverse, and when they do, they don't re-assess the turn, they just do it again! They need to re-assess mistakes, using different calculations, all knowing that their previous calculation is invalid and unusable, and make it so they can figure out that they aren't making progress when they should be (gets stuck on a rock) and try reversing or speeding up over the object to fix themselves (they do sometimes, but usually they just do the same mistake, and most of the time they just go as if they were making progress.) This isn't even all of AI's worst problems, this is just their most annoying ones. If you fixed all of their navigation issues (especially these), the game would be 150% better, and I would probably be a lot more inclined to play because the AI would be fun.

Ok, so a few people have this issue, but it is important that the VR entities survive because if respawnOnStart = 1; Then that would cause your controller to respawn making it impossible for him to become Zeus. So I need a way to work it so VR entities can be used in MP Zeus game master. This guy too has the same issue https://www.reddit.com/r/armadev/comments/46rjs1/zvzvz_sector_control_missions_zeus_problems/

So nobody has this issue? Nobody's virtual entities die on start when they make a Zeus scenario?

Thank you very much for your support!

Thank you for the response, but the script tries to read through the comments " */ " which just makes the script stop working altogether. So I tried just erasing everything underneath the comments, and it still added all structural object to the curator. Maybe I am not entirely sure how comment lines work? Or I am just misunderstanding. See only land and air vehicles should be added to the curator and absolutely nothing else, not even at the beginning. Not even players because the Game Master Module, I believe, now automatically adds ALL playable units to be edited.

My Zeus Game Master mission works near flawlessly, except for some reason all the virtual entities die when the mission starts. I will select the Zeus virtual entity at the start screen, and when it goes to the briefing it shows "No Signal", then starts with the screen pointing up and it shows me the death screen. Why is this happening? The Zeus can work if being used by a regular unit, but that causes strange re-spawning bugs. I want a normal virtual Zeus entity to be the Game Master, but that is impossible if it dies for no reason. Am I missing something for my virtual entities to be dying? I am using version 1.56 for the Eden editor, is that the cause of this strange bug? Description.ext author="Smash Balls"; onLoadName = "Overlord 42+1 Master Altis"; OnLoadMission = "There is an almighty Overlord of which I wouldn't disobey! The NATO faction has a starting desert HQ with a handful of starting assets to use."; loadScreen = "overlordCastle.jpg"; overviewText = "Our lord of death and destruction has arrived!"; displayName = "Overlord 42+1 Master Altis|Preset Base(NATO)"; respawnVehicleDelay = 30; respawn = "BASE"; respawndelay = 15; respawnDialog = 1; respawnTemplatesWest[] = {"MenuPosition","MenuInventory"}; respawnTemplatesCiv[] = {"MenuPosition","MenuInventory"}; respawnTemplatesVirtual[] = {}; respawnOnStart = 0; disabledAI = 1; joinUnassigned = 1; aiKills = 1; class Header { gameType = ZGM; //DM, Team, Coop, ... minPlayers = 1; //min # of players the mission supports maxPlayers = 43; //Max # of players the mission supports playerCountMultipleOf = 1; };

I love the idea of this script, but there is just one problem. I have static structures that I don't want the Zeus to access, this script just makes everything editable. Is there a way you can make it so it only adds vehicles? Or a way to tell the script what specific units classes to look for/check? I am not very good at scripting, so I would like as much pointers/help I can get.

Is there no way this can work? I did find a script that added any object in game for the curator to manipulate. It checked for objects every 5 seconds, the only issue is, it also adds custom static objects I don't wish the Zeus to edit. I need something that adds strictly Vehicles to be edited every 5 seconds.