The way you play against and with the AI soldiers

[Possessed]

What is the way you play in single player missions?

Do you try to simulate the war battle situation as realistically as possible? Using your own men to plant satchel charges http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/rofl.gif, split your group in two halves to make other group to make diversity attacks through waypoints in the map, let your AA-men to shoot down helicopters etc..

Or do you exploit the weakness of AI and misuse triggers? Attack enemy camps with HE shelling from 1.5km cause you just know the enemy is there and don't fight back since the trigger is not yet on? Do everything more complicated than shooting rifles by yourselves? Shoot airplanes, plant bombs and even drive trucks by yourselves since you don't trust in AI capability to do it? Use your men for carrying your ammo load?

So far the only realistic war simulation experience can be found via multiplayer on good closed servers with other war simulation enthusiasts. It seems that succesful single player campaign is all about tweaking triggers and exploiting AI stupidness. If you try to simulate a real battle, you will be dead in minutes.

This was the problem with hardest OFP missions but in Armed Assault the AI seems to be so broken that you can't trust your men at all. They could casually stand up if they are ordered to prone and get spotted by enemy. Not good when your last save point was 15 minutes ago http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/mad_o.gif

[Shadow NX]

Not another one of these annoying threads... http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/sad_o.gif

First of all the ArmA AI is better than in OFP, lot better ( still dumb but hey its only AI and the island is huge ).
Been replaying the campaign atm to see if they edited it ( yep they did ) and im surprised sometimes by them.

Oh and if you dont want them to stand up just order keep low, in Blackop missions i used that few times and it worked well for me.

[b1sh0p]

I always try to use my AI in a realistic manner.   When  moving, I break them into two teams.   The first team is mostly rifles, and the second team are my AT troops and MG's.   The first team assaults and the second team covers them.

That's the theory anyway.   Usually doesn't quite work so well.   One time they all get slaughtered, and then the second time they pull it off wonderfully.  

As far as giving the Ai special tasks, I do to a certain extent.   If there is a tank that needs blown up, I don't really trust the AI to get into firing position without getting killed, but I do trust the AI's aim with the AT weapon.   Regardless, I always order my AI AT soldiers to do the dirty work, but I'm always keeping my eye out for a dead AT specialist so I can pick up his launcher and make sure things get done right. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/smile_o.gif

I always drive if I have the option though.   The AI need to go to driver's ed.  

Basically I treat the AI is raw recruits.   I give them their orders, but I don't rely on them to get the job done right.   Sometimes they amaze me, and sometimes they let me down.  

The one thing I don't understand about the AI is their ability to, or not to locate targets.   Half of the time I'm amazed at their ability to pick out a target and put him down before I even see him, and then the other half of the time they'll run right up to and past an enemy, with neither of them seeing eachother.

For example, on that official mission where you have to defend the airport... I pick up alpha squad, and then move to the airport armybase and group up with bravo squad.   I set my guys up in strategic positions to watch the armybase gate entrance, so we can cut down the enemy soldiers as they try to get in.   Usually the enemy runs in, and kills my AI team mates at will.   They won't even open fire, even though they're all positioned watching the doorway.  

And yet other times they'll engage an enemy as soon as he comes into visual range, coming over a hill or around a building.

I guess I just wish the Ai had a little more reliability.   I wish there weren't such large extremes in the AI's behaviour.   Half the time they're seasoned vets, half the time they're just cannon fodder.

And the Ai's skill level doesn't matter in that regard either.   Even with their skill set to the highest it can be, sometimes they do very, very stupid things.

So in closing, yes, I try to use my AI in a realistic manner and try to make them do a lot of the work, so I don't have to rambo the whole mission.   But more often than not, they end up dieing and I end up finishing the mission by myself.  I'd say a good 75% of my missions when I have a good squad sized force to begin with, I end up rambo'ing it in the end. It's quite rare for my AI squad mates to survive most missions, especially if there are any CQB town fights involved.

[Chipper]

I play ArmA like any other FPS. KILL KILL KILL

cept in arma I can't get shot as much or else I die stupid realism

[Baff1]

I break them into two teams. The AI and me.
The AI covers my assault or it hides.

The micromanagement required to make the AI highly effective prohibits their use in complex manouvres.

Just stick em at the back and tell them to engage anything from one direction and then get on with the game.

[Col. Faulkner]

If Tom Hanks had been trying to save Pvt Ryan in ArmA:

Capt Miller: "Do you know how many men I've lost under my command?"
Sgt Horvath: "How many?"
Capt Miller: "350,942 - and I aint even finished the campaign yet"

[walker]

Hi all

In reply to Possessed on the use of AI and the matter of artillery:

The basic rule with regard to using AI is all down to the use of guard type waypoints. Insert a waypoint over each group you want to use to react to an attack with these settings:
(Select Type) Guard
(Combat Mode) Open Fire, Engage at will
(Speed) No Change (leave it to the AI to decide) or Full
(Formation) No Change (leave it to the AI to decide) or line or V or maybe an echelon
(Behaviour) combat or maybe stealth

Oh if you want them to stay and defend a particular place(s) putting some "guarded by" triggers over the spots you want guarded will help.

Some AI Recon with Sentry type waypoints (Select Type) with behaviour set to stealth. To give the AI some additional situational awareness either patrolling or static in likely avenues of approach. Insert a waypoint over each group you want to use as a static recon with these settings:
(Select Type) Sentry
(Combat Mode) Hold Fire or Hold Fire, Engage at will
(Speed) No Change
(Formation) No Change
(Behaviour) Stealth

Insert a waypoint over each group you want to use as a patrol recon with these settings:
(Select Type) Move
(Combat Mode) Hold Fire, Engage at will
(Speed) No Change
(Formation) Column
(Behaviour) Aware or Safe (if in wheeled vehicles and they have to navigate roads.)

If you are using CoC (Applied Gnosis Group LLC) artillery the AI reacts to it. They dive for cover when it is coming in they will attempt to hunt down and destroy the source of the artillery.

When we were first beta testing our artillery in MP we thought we had a bug.  After a little while our artillery would stop responding; we would go to see what was wrong and all the units would be destroyed. We thought shells were exploding in the barrels. But hours of observation with no enemy AI and many shells being fired resulted in no repeat of the problem. We thought maybe the shells were hitting nearby buildings or trees. So we move the artillery to open spots like the airfields still it happened. We thought maybe one of the AI artillery units had shot a shell that had killed one of its team mates and a whole mess AI fratricidal TKS had resulted. We could never get them to repeat it.

Eventually we found out what it was. The enemy AI after a few hits were assessing our Artillery (rightly) as the biggest threat and locating the sound of the shots and getting closer to them with each shot until they eventually hunted them down.

We now recommend a shoot and scoot policy ArmA/OFP AI is that good.

Of course if you are using Cam Created Artillery you can get none of this; Dinger the head of the Unified Artillery project made the best Cam Created artillery script there was in OFP.

It took a while but with some persuasion from both Jostapo and myself some experimentation and a proof of concept by myself; but eventualy he took on with the rest of the CoC Artillery team in particular Jostapo, Denoir and BN880 and the modelers of BAS DKM SEB and UK Forces the mammoth task of putting true ballistic artillery in OFP then in VBS and who knows maybe we might see it in ArmA. http://forums.bistudio.com/oldsmileys/wink_o.gif

Dinger now says, as most of us do, that Cam Created Artilery of any kind will just never cut it.

Kind Regards walker