AI Discussion (dev branch)

When does this trigger??? tried it by shooting at some enemies in the distance (~300m) but they still don't recognize me or the bullets (by changing behaviour)

It's not in the game yet, just the groundwork for it.

ah ok.. thought it's already implemented... thx

DATA

Added: New danger cause (dcbulletClose) to danger.fsm

ENGINE

Added: Detection of bullets flying close to unit

@Oukej: What kind of performance hit should we expect from this?

DATA

Added: New danger cause (dcbulletClose) to danger.fsm

ENGINE

Added: Detection of bullets flying close to unit

I've some questions too:

1) how close a bullet should fly in order to be detected?

2) detection of close bullets works whatever the distance of unit from the shooter?

3) does detection consider bullet speed (so excluding grenades, ricochets) ?

@Oukej: What kind of performance hit should we expect from this?

Negligible even on a larger scale (that's why the limitations).

I've some questions too:

1) how close a bullet should fly in order to be detected?

2) detection applies to BOTH enemy and friendly fired bullets being close to a unit ?

3) detection of close bullets works whatever the distance of unit from the shooter?

4) does detection consider bullet speed (so excluding grenades, ricochets) ?

1) Configurable per Ammo*

2) Only enemy (Dr.Hladik's post)

3) Yes, as long as the bullet is alive.

4) Bullet fly-by detection only applies to bullets (not shells, not grenades).

*ad 1 - Change in configs to reflect that should be available in the dev. branch tomorrow, together with more info. Your feedback will be more than welcome.

Negligible even on a larger scale (that's why the limitations).

1) Configurable per Ammo*

2) Only enemy (Dr.Hladik's post)

3) Yes, as long as the bullet is alive.

4) Bullet fly-by detection only applies to bullets (not shells, not grenades).

*ad 1 - Change in configs to reflect that should be available in the dev. branch tomorrow, together with more info. Your feedback will be more than welcome.

Sounds good, eager to hook this into bCombat for a comparison ...

Another question, somewhat related:

some weeks ago i think frequency of enemy detection within danger.fsm ( DCEnemyDetected ) was drastically increased. At least that's what i noticed.

I'm still wondering way DCEnemyDetected was tweaked instead of DCEnemyNear, can you give any insights on this choice?

Thanks.

EDIT: one more ...

i can't see mention of dcbulletClose into danger.fsm ( characters_f.pbo, "scripts" folder).

What's its _dangerCause number? 9 ?

Ty.

1) Configurable per Ammo*

2) Only enemy (Dr.Hladik's post)

3) Yes, as long as the bullet is alive.

4) Bullet fly-by detection only applies to bullets (not shells, not grenades).

*ad 1 - Change in configs to reflect that should be available in the dev. branch tomorrow, together with more info. Your feedback will be more than welcome.

Experimented a little bit ingame, and it's nice to finally see enemies hit the dirt when you throw a bullet right past them.

How about taking the projectiles speed into account? Bullets flying by aren't as scary once they go subsonic.

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm thinking of something like "if bullet's speed < 340m/s then suppressionRadiusBulletClose = initial value divided by 2"

Sounds good, eager to hook this into bCombat for a comparison ...

Another question, somewhat related:

some weeks ago i think frequency of enemy detection within danger.fsm ( DCEnemyDetected ) was drastically increased. At least that's what i noticed.

I'm still wondering way DCEnemyDetected was tweaked instead of DCEnemyNear, can you give any insights on this choice?

Thanks.

EDIT: one more ...

i can't see mention of dcbulletClose into danger.fsm ( characters_f.pbo, "scripts" folder).

What's its _dangerCause number? 9 ?

Ty.

Ok, _dangerCause = 9.

An important question: are we able to access to the bullet object itself via some variable from within danger.fsm?

At least speed and direction will matter.

Awaiting some answer on the DCEnemyDetected vs. DCEnemyNear matter. Ty.

Did some fast testing right now. I've tested the reaction from AI to incoming bullets and the recognition of Shooter towards the group, here is my conclusion

- ranges from 200 to 400 m (shooter, receiver) were tested. The shooter used a MX 3GL 6,5 mm Ammo, STANAG Mag. The Shots were fired 2-5 meters pass the group leader of receiving group, not impacting on ground. For the test only 1 shot was fired, afterwards the time needed until the group leader knows something about the shooter was investigated. The shooter was standing while shooting and there were no obstacles between the receiving group and the shooter (Tested at an airfield)

- The AI reacted properly at all distances (went into prone after bullets passed by)

- At a distance of 200 m the knowsabout value raises up to 0,33 to 0,44 (tested 3 times) after about 10 seconds (after first reaction of AI). ( - Some further tests showed that additional shots raise the knowsabout value), group returns fire after about further 10 to 20 seconds

- At distances of 300 and 400 m the AI doesn't recognize the shooter after one (or several shots), group doesn't return fire

Some further conclusions made while testing this

- Hitting a group member reveals the shooter immediately to the group at about 1.5 (but i think this value depends on distance from shooter to group?), group returns fire.

Edit:

- to the point above: Killing group members with the first shot fired doesn't reveal the shooter to the group (only injuring a group member does reveal the shooter)

maybe someone could confirm my observations?

I'm not an expert regarding firefights, only did some duel-simulator during my basic military service and during my actual military trainings. During firefights i was able to estimate where the shots came from (rough direction) when the first shots were fired. But I don't know if i would be able to do this in a real firefight.

In my point of view, the AI should gather more information about the shooter when bullets pass by. At least it's illogical why the group gathers more information about a shooter when a team member is hit compared to a bullet only passing by.

grz Cthulhu

Ambush

- Area with cover nearby: Go prone, find cover, find threat, win firefight.

- Open area: Run (sprint) straight for cover, find the threat, win the firefight

Standup fight (both forces are equally engaging)

-More the area is suppressed (quantity of bullets) = more hiding before cover less of engaging

-Less the area is suppressed = more bullets can soldier send down the range

How about taking the projectiles speed into account? Bullets flying by aren't as scary once they go subsonic.

It's configured like that currently, but so far we haven't had much subsonic ammo in the game. The subsonic ammo needs to fly much closer to the unit to make it notice it. (you can try it with dual-purpose SDAR ammo)

An important question: are we able to access to the bullet object itself via some variable from within danger.fsm? At least speed and direction will matter.

Let me take it another way - for what goal would you like to use the speed and direction of the projectile?

Regarding the question about danger causes - will need to check first.

@cthulhu - thanks a lot for notes!

Oh, cool :)

Hmmm

What are the chances of the new dcbulletClose working for static units, right now they are extremely slow to respond.

Multiple bullets fired close to the Machine Gunner and knowsabout remains at 0.4.

If you manage to hit the machine gun you can get it to rise to 1.5 but unless he sees you he won't respond.

On occasion it will rise above 1.5 if you wing him but the unit will then take an eternity to rotate.

Unless you reveal yourself to a Static Unit it's almost useless.

I'd expect if they heard a shot and didn't know where it came from they'd do a quick 360.

Threw a grenade at some unaware AAF and they tried to run when it hit the ground near them. Thought it would be cool if they shouted "Grenade!" since they can actually detect it now.

oukej, can you say at this point if there are any plans to bring back the AI suppression effect from Arma 2 in conjunction with the bullet detection, or at all?

Hmmm

Yeah, I saw that several times lately - see here at 0:48

Let me take it another way - for what goal would you like to use the speed and direction of the projectile?

Regarding the question about danger causes - will need to check first.

Speed is useful for handling ricocheting bullets differently, for instance.

Direction of bullet would be useful for adding RTS elements ( already coded them in bCombat): effect on morale of suppressive fire from flank, back or higher ground (sky also) can be tweaked.

Some vehicles move fast, so i can't simply rely on derivating direction based on checking actual position of shooter and position of bullet.

---------- Post added at 12:13 ---------- Previous post was at 12:08 ----------

Regarding the question about danger causes - will need to check first.

Thanks, let me know.

I find it strange having an unit which was detected already to be repeatedly re-discovered each few seconds, i think the way it worked originally ( a single enemy was just detected once ) was better.

Increased frequency for near enemies check would be a better solution imho.

Oukej, can we expect the following AI behaviors to be triggered or affected by suppression?

1. stance

2. precision

3. skill

4. movement to cover

AI seem to be engaging helicopters with unguided AT (RPG-42) now, that's nice, but gave me a bit of a shock!

I made sample for the slow reacting AI even skill slider is set 0.7. Issue seem to be much bigger if the enemies are in 1 man groups and in safe mode. In the sample mission, try letting the enemies walk bit by, then shoot one or few at back. After that you can basically walk behind them toward their waypoint, they keep scanning only toward their waypoint. Would seem they hear very bad. When speedmode wasnt set to Limited, one of them ran behind the wall where I was hiding. I could run then behind him ~100m, watch him using medicpack (behind his back) and follow again around 100m and he still didnt look back.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4k7plr7erqqbiyg/SlowAIReactSample.Altis.7z?dl=0

I am using much one man patrol teams in mission so this issue have big effect. I dont remember this issue being there in official build, noticed it when switching to dev-build recently.

@ SaOK

Thx for the details!

We'll be rolling out a fix (probably today into dev) of a bug when the AI didn't react properly to finding out about a threat - afaict it's this case as well.

Thanks, :) great to hear its getting better.

Switched over to to dev last night and really like the AI hitting the deck when bullets in their proximity. Their reaction seemed to be the biggest when the where in safe mode and you fired the first round of bullets near them. After they switched to combat mode it was much harder to get them to keep their heads down with suppressive fire.

/KC

After they switched to combat mode it was much harder to get them to keep their heads down with suppressive fire.

/KC

Yeah, that is probably because the combat routines are separate and needs to be tweaked individually.

Switched over to to dev last night and really like the AI hitting the deck when bullets in their proximity. Their reaction seemed to be the biggest when the where in safe mode and you fired the first round of bullets near them. After they switched to combat mode it was much harder to get them to keep their heads down with suppressive fire.

I think the current extent of the feature is that ai simply go to danger mode when bullets pass nearby (rather than before, when close impacts or wounds/death were needed to get them to enter danger mode). Otherwise I believe they are still using their regular danger routine. There is no new "suppression routines" as of yet. Nonetheless the new additions are a great step because it likely gives modders a much more efficient method of detecting flyby's (to trigger their own scripted routines) and comments like this: "Similar to recent work on pathfinding, these commits are part of longer-term AI development." indicate that devs are going to build upon this, hopefully making the suppression effects you are expecting.

Please try in game how far the AI reacts to bullets flying by

Only really tested flybys, and it seems ai detect all supersonic flybys at the same proximity: 7-8 metres and less. Only the subsonic had a different suppressionradius, which was far less. Generally I think that the 7-8m is a fair medium radius for all weapons. However I would have expected that different claibre's would have a different suppressionradius's. ie. bigger the bullet the louder it is, further you can detect it, and larger suppression radius. This should also apply to bullet impacts - bigger the bullet, more visible and frightening impact it will make.

Thats my feedback so far, I haven't really devised a way to test out nearby explosions and bullet impacts.

I made sample for the slow reacting AI even skill slider is set 0.7. Issue seem to be much bigger if the enemies are in 1 man groups and in safe mode. In the sample mission, try letting the enemies walk bit by, then shoot one or few at back. After that you can basically walk behind them toward their waypoint, they keep scanning only toward their waypoint. Would seem they hear very bad. When speedmode wasnt set to Limited, one of them ran behind the wall where I was hiding. I could run then behind him ~100m, watch him using medicpack (behind his back) and follow again around 100m and he still didnt look back.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4k7plr7erq....Altis.7z?dl=0

I am using much one man patrol teams in mission so this issue have big effect. I dont remember this issue being there in official build, noticed it when switching to dev-build recently.

Last edited by SaOk; Today at 12:01.

Yes I am finding this as well. In general ai seems to lack the ability to use sound to shift their facing in order to search for an enemy. Stand behind an ai and fire an entire magazine over their head and they will just go prone and continue facing forward. Even without sound they should be occasionally looking around checking their surroundings.