Realistic Human and AI Commanding - Discuss

Here is something that I do believe should be changed about Arma 3 - AI and Human Commanding. It's been really frustrating to not be able to command the AI or human players under me, using the ingame commands (and not simply voice chat), because I've got an AI or human commander. Has BIS ever heard of the term "delegation"? In simple, it's this: I have a boss (boss 1). My boss has a boss (boss 2). His boss has a boss (boss 3). I am a boss (boss 0), and there are people who call me boss. Boss 2 shouldn not be telling me what to do. Boss 3 should not be telling Boss 1 what to do. Boss 3 tells Boss 2 what to do. Boss 2 delegates that to Boss 1, telling him what to do. Boss 1 tells me what to do, and I tell my subordinates what to do. That's how the military works. Ask any of the prior service (current or ex-military) members of your dev team. That's the whole point of military rank structure. The General tells the LTG what to do. The LTG tells the MAJ General what to do. The Maj General tells the Brigadier General what to do. The Brigadier General tells the Colonel what to do. The Colonel tells the Lieutenant Colonel what to do. The Lieutenant Colonel tells the Major what to do. The Major gives his orders to the Captain. The Captain tells the Lieutenant what to do. The Lieutenant tells his Platoon Sergeant, or Sergeant First Class, what to do. The SFC tells his SSGs what to do. They, in turn, tell their squads (their sergeants, corporals, privates, and other junior enlisted) what to do. That's the way the military works. The General doesn't bypass his Colonels, LT Colonels, Majors, Captains, and LTs to tell the private what to do, nor does the General micro-manage every single soldier of his 40,000-man Field Army. In short, if I'm playing as Lieutenant and I've got an AI Captain, I want to be able to directly tell my Sergeants what to do, where to move, who to kill, etc. And if I'm playing as the Captain, and I've got 3 AI Lieutenants who also have subordinate AI, I don't want to see all their names. I only want to see and command the 3 LTs.

ArmA3 should follow proper military unit structure, with more ranks to facilitate this. AI commanders and leaders should manage their subordinate leaders. Players who have an AI commander/leader should be able to command their subordinate leaders. Players/AI should ONLY be able to command the leaders under them, not the subordinates of those leaders.

Just having private, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, major, colonel, general doesn't cut it. You need: Private (basic rifleman), Corporal (for your specialized roles, like grenadier or automatic rifleman or sniper), Sergeant (team leader), Staff Sergeant or Sergeant First Class (squad leader), Master Sergeant (Special Forces team leader), Lieutenant (platoon leader), Captain (company commander), Major, Lieutenant Colonel (battalion commander), Colonel (brigade commander), Major General (division commander), Lieutenant General (corps commander), General (Field Army).

Note: These is the US Army Operational Unit Structure; ArmA3 features the US Army, specifically 7th Special Forces Group, as the primary playable faction. I'm sure Iran has a comparable military unit structure.

You shouldn't have to micro-manage all of the soldiers (in this case, AI or players) under your command. The General (of the Field Army) manages his 2-5 Corps Commanders. The Corps Commander manages his 2-5 Division Commanders. The Division Commander manages his 3 Brigade Commanders. The Brigade Commander manages his 3+ Battalion Commanders. The Battalion Commander manages his 3-5 Company Commanders. The Company Commander manages his 3-4 Platoon Leaders. The Platoon Leader manages his 3-4 Squad Leaders. The Squad Leader manages his 2 Team Leaders. The Team Leader manages his 3 soldiers. EVERYONE manages between 1 and 5 individuals (once again, in this case AI). No more than that. IF a squad leader goes down, the A Team Leader assumes the position of Squad Leader, while one of the Corporals assumes the position of squad leader. And so on and so on. This takes away the chore of having to micro-manage a whole lot of AI, but still allows you to lead some AI while also accounting for situations where you leaders are killed.

This is not a feature request. It was requested last year as a wishlist feature. I'd like for you guys to discuss. Is this something that others feel is important, or is it not necessary for Arma 3? Please list pros and cons to a feature like this and or other possible improvements to AI management in the game.

The bolded sounds good, but might be campaign-breaking - I didn't read the TLDR rest :)

I feel it is VERY important AF! Even as a fireteam lead I do expect the troops to think for themselves a bit! At higher levels of command I want to be able to place a general order (take this, defend that, fortify heree, etc) without having to micromanage placing an AI at position 1 in a house! Now I do expect that I would have to give additional information to the troops ie general direction of threat, type of threat etc, but I don't mind having to do that!

We have some VERY talented programmers at BIS, and some very talented community members that need to upscale the ideas regarding command. I think it would change the nature of Arma3 for the better - don't get me wrong it is good as it is, but surely the goal can be 'bigger, better, faster, more' !!

This should be done via implementing proper high command module (I hope there is going to be one - better than in Arma 2 which only allowed you to have like 2 levels of command). Definitely there should be some chain of command but still I want to be able to task organize my forces, so let's say I have a platoon of 3 squads but sometimes I want to command 2 squads and 1 squad (-) and keep one fire team as a reserve or for some special tasks.

Once you create a group - red,green,whatever - they should "fold" into a single unit in the display and manage themselves just like a mini HC. You just pick the ROE, behaviour and maybe the formation.

^^ yep, agree with Smurf there, they should be in their own group, commanded by highest ranking AI in that group, or the highest skill

With a really working AI it sounds very good! Well, this sounds very good anyhow!

I am only playing SP for different reasons, and I've always been in A2 and in A3 too. After experimenting with lots of ideas I decided to go for micro management with my team. I have a small tool for that (which I like to add to every SP mission I am playing): I use simplified team switch, and always make the current player the leader. This way the AI leader won't issue suicide orders (so I basically never let any AI to issue orders in my team). This way AI works exceptionally good, and all my games are enjoyable for me (I love to micromanage, I must add.)

Allinall: we would need sane AI for your idea to work with AI commanding chains. But that would be heaven for me. :)

Once you create a group - red,green,whatever - they should "fold" into a single unit in the display and manage themselves just like a mini HC. You just pick the ROE, behaviour and maybe the formation.

Smurf ... you have just nailed it !! FFS get this idea to BIS NOW !! It is so obvious it is pure genius.

To be clear this should not be High Command, this is lower level stuff.

There is already a very good mod for arma 2 that does this

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?129003-HETMAN-Artificial-Commander/page1

Nope sorry. HETMAN is not for what we are talking about. Please read the post above yours ... this is NOT anything to do with High Command.

Anyone able to help out on Smurf's idea ?

Interesting idea indeed. I remember, that before I started with scripting, tried to create chain of command using HC modules. But this was somehow broken - subordinated TLs moved, but their subordinated team members stayed on place. When TL reached its destination - only then all his subordinates followed him, but not in formation, but all on exact position of their TL. This was on A2 1.10. Since then I did not more tests. So yeah, could be nice to have such thing, especially also AI compatibile, so AI could effectively use benefits of such hierarchic commanding too, including complex orders like "search this town", "trench at this position", "patrol the area", "support that squad", "outflank that enemy" etc... Perhaps even somehow compatibile with A3 HAC. Looks ambitious, complex orders are doable, but AI must to know, when should to use which. So needs to implement for AI wider level of thinking about battlefield, ability to recognize overall battle situation with own goal in mind and to act respectively. Not so far from HAC in fact. Though personally I'll rather not touch A3 scripting till A3 1.0 release, and as for A2 I'm still busy with some other stuff, someday I'll be happy to try to do something about. Anyway perhaps best person to ask for help could be author of this project:

HCE

He seems to be most to date in such topic and perhaps without my obsession with AI-centric ("human-players-are-only-annoying-complication") scripting.

But it can't go to high in the chain, as this would mean whole army below to command - too many units. Company level at most, I think. And needed is exact knowledge about real such structures.

Of course best solution would be to have such thing implemented by BIS itself.

Before we dive into things and make it all over-complicated, lets us re-confirm with ourselves that ARMA is an FPS by nature at its core, not a strategy game (RTS or Turn-base ala Combat mission). This is important because we don't want to get in too deep because of AI programming for strategy game is not the same as an FPS. (but of course, it would be nice to have All the things)

So personally, I think the highest level would be on the platoon level. My idea of it is simple, take High Command command bar to control your squads, but also have normal command menu (1-9 complex menu), so that I can have my platoon moving with me as in normal squad commanding without the HC mode.

I think we already have the basics: AI commanders to control the squads and player with HC command the AI commanders (only 2 tiers). It just need the same commanding menu as the non HC command menu.

A long time ago I read something about the structure in the USMC. It was like this: Every leader controls three subordinates. The fireteam leader controls three soldiers, the squad leader controls three fireteam leaders and the platoon leader controls three squad leaders. This is designed to keep the leadership role streamlined. Would this system be practical for the game ArmA3?

I've just had a play with Domz's High Command Extensions in Arma3 and it is awesome. However it doesn't collapse a squad the way we are wanting.

I notice in the beta that the communication menu is now missing and replaced with Supports...Hence all of DOMZ HC Extensions wont work, nor is the HC module yet present. Any ideas?

Los