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ImperialAlex

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Posts posted by ImperialAlex

  1. Posted

    Any idea why this is? I'm guessing it's because they have to load the script each time they access the arsenal, is there a better solution?

    Has this delay been there before you added the magazine function? If not, and it's really due to the magazine thing, you could just run the magazine thing once during mission init (on each client) and make it available as a global variable.

  3. Posted

    Since I can not log in to the community wiki (could've sworn I had a working account), can someone please add this to the wiki? It's a bit strange to not mention there that the function used to load vehicles is also used to unload them.

    I've added a note, but somebody with more experience with the sqf template should probably add them as alternative syntax.
    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    I just played with the system some more and for me the AI reacted very realistically to being engaged at night. They returned a decisive burst of fire at the location of the muzzle blast. When I moved, they didn't magically know my position*, instead they'd turn and engage my muzzle flash once I opened up fire. Basically, I just want to say again job well done. I'm really looking forward to the new amazing night-time missions that will be possible with these AI improvements. 

     

    PS: Please note that this was tested using vanilla weapons. Modded weapons/ammo can sometimes have issues with their configuration that makes them perform oddly when used with AI (e.g. visibleFire not being defined properly )

     

    *small edit: If I move while they are still firing, they seem to be able to track me. It seems like "target position" ((_unit targetKnowledge player) select 6) is tracking my actual position rather than remaining centred on the location of my muzzle flash.

    edit2: Looks like they're just really good at seeing which way you're going. The tracking is not perfect though so looks like that's a feature, not a bug ;)

    • Like 5

  7. Posted

    PLEASE YES! Had a very frustrating experience last night with this. AI can lay prone in a field of tall grass and detect and shoot you perfectly fine. The only problems I see with reducing AI detection in grass is how after a certain distance grass doesn't render so if an AI was hiding in grass and couldn't detect enemies, but you were 200m away and could see the AI perfectly clearly because the grass wasn't rendered, it would give you an unfair advantage.

    But hey, the current "sink body into ground to simulate grass" system is such a *perfect* solution to the issue you described that I can't see why you're concerned at all. /s

    • Like 1

  11. Posted

    This is so incredibly genius. It's one of these things where it's totally obvious in hindsight yet in nearly two years of arsenal-related scripting/modding I've never once thought to use a faction's units to define what gear should be whitelisted. This is just so super freaking genius. Would you be ok with me integrating this functionality into XLA_FixedArsenal?

  12. Posted

    But how come then that in game you can drop on the ground any weapon (even those that are not under the prop category in eden) and have it show on the ground with its model ? Surely this must be replicable in the editor or via a script ?

     

    Also, if you drop multiple items at the same time they will all spawn on the ground in one "weaponholder" why can't I replicate this by simply modifying the content of a weaponholder in Eden ? Modifying the contents results in the weapon holder disappearing :/

     

    1.) Yeah, it's totally possible with scripting. Create a groundwaeponholder object and then addWeaponCargo a gun to it

    2.) I think that might be a limitation in eden. It might also just be a weird 'feature' of weaponholders. They've always been one of the glitchier parts of the Arma experience

  13. Posted

     It is frustrating because they always go dark on us for this conversation. There is no 'Audio Team expose' equivalent for the Ai squad with an in forum liason such as Mega...

    This, this so much. OndÅ™ej does a great job making sure we're aware of changes but we never hear about an AI roadmap or what the future plans/priorities are  :(

  15. Posted

    you have tried the ammo box in the props -> ammunition (yellow) section? 

    I think he's talking about groundweaponholders preconfigured with the guns. Like the way the vanilla guns are all available as "just the gun" (i.e. technically a groundweaponholder with the gun and a few magazines) as a placeable object.

    • Like 1

  16. Posted

    If you really want we can give you even more numbers - it would be good for feedback, testing, for your mods and missions ... on the other hand wouldn't too much info spoil some fun when playing against the AI? ;)

    ihj9Wst.png

    I'd love to see even more numbers. I don't think spoiling is too much of an issue, after all the people that read this thread are a tiny minority and we're already testing and 'reverse-guessgeneering' a lot of AI-related things so if knowing more about AI made our game less fun we probably wouldn't be doing that ;)

  17. Posted

    Tweaked: The AI visibility at night was optimized

    ☞ AI almost everything else feedback topic☜ ;)

    There have been some rather big changes to AI detection ranges and in general the detection should now more accurately reflect the audible and visual state (in harmony with vis. update).

    To give some more details and quick examples (approx. distances, Regular diff., 0.6 skilled AI, flat surface without clutter)

    • Previously, in full moon night the AI was able to spot a running target at 25m and track it up to 350m. Now the AI is able to spot such target at 40m but it won't be able to track it further than roughly 80m.
    • With a flashlight the AI was sometimes able to spot a running target at more than 100m. Now the flashlight won't help the AI detect targets beyond 30-40m. That is still better than - without FL or NVG - a pitch black night where the AI almost exclusively relies on its hearing. Of course, when you decide to wander under the lights of streetlamps .... better shoot the bulbs  ;) And don't even think about switchin on your own torch.
    • Previously the AI would almost always detect you if you got closer than 20m. Now you will be able to get more personal. But keep in mind that Arma is still not a super-stealthy come-tap-on-my-shoulder game. Our AI don't like hugging and shaking hands, they keep their comfy zone. Should you decide to poke the AI with your muzzle they will get angry at you. Even in the darkest night.
    • AI is always happy to use optics to spot scared players better. From now on the darker it gets the less useful are the optics to the AI. When you can't see your own toes seeing them 10x magnified doesn't help, right?  ;)
    • Previously there was a little difference between how far the AI spotted static and a walking target. At the same time there was much more noticeable gap between running and sprinting. From player's perspective - of what is easier to notice - it's more of a static vs. moving target dilemna. Next time you try to ambush the AI, plan your movement carefully and freeze when in the enemy's LOS. It may save your life. (In numbers the detection is approx. 100m for crouched static target vs. 240m for walking, 340m running, 360m sprinting, target)
    • And also the gap between AI spotting you and recognizing you as an enemy has been increased. You'll be able to notice this mainly when facing AI that is already in combat mode and is actively looking for enemies. Focusing its sight in narrow angle and using optics. Such AI will be able to spot you - if you get into its focus area - much further away than AI that has its weapon lowered. But it will only be able to recognize you once you get a bit closer. (If you get spotted by an unaware AI patrol you are usually close enough for them to recognize you by focusing)
    • :ph34r:

    WOW! Thanks for both the changes and the really detailed documentation! It's nice to see some numbers here rather than having to guess! Really looking forward to this update hitting main branch.

    • Like 4

  18. Posted

    Would be nice if the open ramp animation was implemented into the loading sequence, or become a requirement.

    Ideally, would be nice if you could still drive the vehicle in directly to secure it, and leave a simplified loading function for the AI.

    This, so much. However aren't there issues with roadway (stuff you can walk/drive on) lods inside vehicles? Or was that only for pathway (AI wayfinding) lods?

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    @ImperialAlex

    Thx for the explanation.

    Can you eplain to me what´s the best way to handle my two ingame sliders as a player that usualy downloads random missions from the workshop.

    Is the AI Precision Slider even relevant for your calculations? Normaly i keep my Skill slider between 0.5-0.7 but even with precision slider to 0,3 they are still really accurate.

    When i use mod´s like ASR AI, where do they influence the whole prozess?.

     

    skillAI influences all subskills except aimingAccuracy and aimingShake which are influenced by precisionAI. You can find an explanation of what each subskill does here: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/AI_Sub-skills

    As a player, it's going to be very hard to anticipate what a mission designer has done. The editor by default spawns in units with a skill (non-final) of around 0.4-0.5 however some mission designers change that to have a (non-final) skill of 0.7-1.0

    So you're basically going to have to trial&error it unless you look into the mission and see what the AI skills are actually set at, keeping in mind that scripts can later override the editor default settings. I'd recommend keeping skillAI high, around 0.7+ and precisionAI low (0.3) and setting to very low (0-0.2) if AI is still being stupidly accurate.  (The very low values are in case a mission designer has set the unit skill to 0.8+ in which case you want to the precision AI as low as possible. If the mission designer has set the unit skill to around 0.5 you can keep the precisionAI at 0.3-0.4 and still be fine.

     

    Mods like ASR AI do a great many things. Most of them will override CfgAiSkills which is another layer of transformations on the subskills. In vanilly, only a few subskills (spot distance, etc) are influenced by this. AI mods use CfgAiSkills more extensively to basically adjust the balance of subskills relative to each other. They also tend to include scripted components which can do tons of hard to predict things :)

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    What's the formula behind skillAI and precisionAI's influence on final skill values?
    I understand how CfgAiSkill interpolates the values (it's nicely documented on the wiki) but what's the formula that skillAI and precisionAI use internally?
    For those that aren't quite up-to-date with the new system that was recently introduced (OPREP), the wiki category page for AI has the most recent information.
     
    I did some basic testing to investigate how skillAI and precisionAI transform the values. This is ignoring the interpolation done by CfgAiSkill. Note that CfgAiSkill leaves all but three subskills unmodified anyway. The graphs are to be read as follows:

    Y-axis is the transformed final (sub)skill (ignoring CfgAiSkill) that results from setting a skill to X-axis value.

    The graphs show skillAI/precisionAI at 1, 0.5 and 0, respectively.

    ZDYyx2C.png

     

     
    64ZX5QJ.png
     
     
    zdWKOs1.png
     
    It seems like 0.2 is where the magic happens. The transformation is made up of two linear segments, one from 0 to 0.2 and one from 0.2 to 1. While the first segment always starts a 0 on the y-axis the second segment does not always end at 1 on the y-axis. I.e. setting your skillAI/precisionAI to anything less than 1 will mean that even "unit skill 1" will not give a skillFinal of 1.
    Sadly no value of skillAI/precisionAI will ever result in a completely linear transformation (i.e. skill = skillFinal, at least when ignoring CfgAiSkill interpolations that happens to certain subskills). 0.5 is close but not entirely linear, going up to only 0.9 skillFinal.
     
     
    What do these curves/graphs even mean?
    skillAI/precisionAI changes the way the skill-slider in the editor (or, for scripters, the (sub)skill command) affects the final result. Depending on the chosen skillAI/precisionAI the (sub)skill values are transformed into final skill values that are either higher or lower than the value that the slider (non-final 'skill') indicates. Set your skillAI to 1 and suddenly the 20% position on the slider actually results in a 60% finalSkill. 
     
    But what does it mean for me as a modder/mission maker?
    If you're making missions for a community that always plays with the same skillAI/precisionAI you can look at the curve that best fits your communities values and use it to predict the skillFinal of your units (less trial&error).
    If you want your mission to feel 'good' with various skillAI/precisionAI settings then you're going to have to realise that 20% (0.2) is a magic threshold below which you cannot predict anything. A 30% unit could be three times as clever as a 10% unit but it could also be virtually the same. Since units with very low skills don't tend to act nicely anyway this probably won't actually influence missions all that much. Just never use values below 20% and you'll always be able to rely on the fact that there'll be a linear slope between 20% and 100%. (EDIT: The GUI sliders in 3den/zeus only go down to 20% anyway)
     
    Why the two slopes/break at 0.2?
    Good question. It's a bit of an odd choice. I would personally think that a system like CfgAISkill uses (interpolation into new bounds) would be easier to understand for players. However that'd require setting min/max values which might be too many settings. Since there is no value that will result in a linear transformation I'd like to make a feature request and ask that "-1" be accepted as a value for the server.cfg values skillAI and precisionAI in custom AI settings and that it result in a completely linear 1:1 transformation. This would make things a bit easier for mission designers that are making missions for their communities, allowing them to know that skill = skillFinal (if ignoring CfgAiSkill).
    • Like 7

  21. Posted

    No comment  :D

    Shooting the floor is perfectly fine, that's what you ordered him to do after all. I'm more concerned by the last few rounds (those that nearly kill you). That seems like a bug where he's returning to his previous animation before the firing is actually completed.

  22. Posted

    I'm really freaked out by this: I've got an OPCOM (BLU REBELS) and a Custom Military Objective (150|500, faction BLU_G_F). If I set it to spawn e.g. 2, 10 or 50 groups of infantry then it'll give me an "groups not found for faction BLU_G_F" error. If I set the spawn to something high, e.g. 100 groups of infantry then it works, the units are spawned in correctly. What's going on here? 

    Disclaimer: Using current steam version of Alive, using current dev branch version of Arma. Only other mods are @3den enhanced and @ares (and yes, I'll go and test this with just CBA/ALiVE now ;)

     

    Can't reproduce this anymore after restarting the game. Very weird, since the error showed reliably with >10 trials (back to editor->change value->play mission) before the game restart.

  23. Posted

    How is this not the most popular thread about 3den mods? This is amazing!!!! 

    Not being able to quickly build walls in X-cam style was about the only major gripe I had with 3den and now you're showing off full splines? 

    OMFG YES PLEASE WITH A CHERRY ON TOP.

    It's hard to contain my level of excitement ;)

  25. Posted

    Line drawing is an awesome feature that I'm really looking foward to. Should it also happen to come with a set of script commands along the lines of what the ALiVE team requested...well, that'd be just incredible :)

     

    EDIT: Might be out of scope for your task, but since you're already working on the map: Would it be possible to get an optional toggle for icons so that they have the same scaling behaviour as the lines? (I.e. they behave as if drawn on paper, unlike the current icons). Currently if I zoom in and draw something detailed with both lines and icons then the lines and the icons will behave differently when I zoom out :)

    • Like 1
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