Enhanced Skills Slider WIP

[Jedra]

Jedra's Enhanced Skills Slider [W.I.P]

With some of the changes to the way precision-enemy and precision-friendly work in the 1.6 patch, I started to look at how the AI works in Arma 2, paying particular attention to the Skills Array. In various bouts of testing I found that the skills array had a drastic effect on the way the AI behaved. I came to the conclusion that just having a slider for overall skill was not giving the player, or server admin the fine control they needed. Hence the Enhanced Skills Slider.

Pretty Pictures





Aim
The aim is for it to work in both single player and multiplayer and allow the player (or admin in MP) to change the skill array values for units/groups/sides on the fly. So, if a game is getting pretty tough, everyone is having their arses kicked, then the admin can adjust the skills of the AI on the fly with a fine level of detail.

Progress
So far it's in early alpha and is working in Single player on single units. I need to expand this to groups and all units before tackling getting it working in multi-player.
I am very happy with how it changes things on the fly in single player.

Addon or Script?
I am hoping to release it as both a signed addon and a script.

ETA?
When it's done Seriously, I have never worked with dialogues before, so I had to learn how to do it - I am getting there. Also I suspect a few 'gotchas' in the MP side of things, but I don't see any reason why I shouldn't get it working. Hopefully a week or so should see me a fair way doen the line.

WTF?
If anybody thinks this is a crazy idea (or even a good one!) then I would be happy to hear. Feel free to ask any questions (as no doubt I will be asking you some along the way!) or make any suggestions.

UI design is not my skill (Jedra setskill ["UIdesign", 1.0] didn't work for me!), so it will probably look butt-ugly, so any suggestions about how to make it better would be great once I get some more screen shots up.

That's it for now!

[Fox '09]

Very cool. Do you think you could have settings embedded in a userconfig that loads when you enter a mission / place a module?

[Angus S]

Sounds like an awesome idea! Now no one can complain about the AI spotting skill etc because they can just change it

[Jedra]

Very cool. Do you think you could have settings embedded in a userconfig that loads when you enter a mission / place a module?

@ Fox '09 - Hi, I will look into this, although Robalo's ASR_AI already does this so it may be able to just run alongside that amazing mod. He put a lot of effort into setting up the skill levels for different classes and it doesn't feel right just to do the same thing. The only issue with running alongside ASR_AI is that we both need to override CfgAISkill - so that's something I need to look at. This mod will not do a lot of the cool stuff that ASR_AI does, and it would be a shame it they were not compatible.

There may be some mileage in this though, so I will look at it once I have got the MP side working - maybe version two in a few more weeks!

@Angus S - Yes, the idea is that a big mission isn't lost and abandoned halfway through just because the AI insurgents are snipers with 20 year old rusty AK's! This seems to be the biggest problem with recent AI skill changes and it has taken the fun out of the game for a lot of people.

[Kremator]

This is looking good Jedra - even the UI is simple but functional.

What WOULD be good is to have a further option to globally change the AI in the dialog OR to have something that raises or lowers an individual slider (globally) by 0.1 for instance? So if the team are doing too well against the AI, a quick click and it raises all AI (that slider) by 0.1 . I could imagine AI1 on SpotTime 0.5 AI2 on SpotTime 0.3, but at a click both are raised by 0.1 (without going into each individual AIs stats) Possible ?

Whatever happens .... keep up the good work.

[Jedra]

@Kremator - yes, it's possible. I have implemented it so that you can set a value and apply it to the ALL EAST UNITS (or West etc). So if you wanted to set spottime for all east units to 0.5, you select 'All Units' in the East List, move the Spot Time slider to 0.5 and hit apply. This will change just the Spot Time for all East Units. You can do the same for Groups.

[KeyCat]

Nice idea Jedra!

Hope you don't mind a suggestion.... having a way to set min and max values on each skill and then let the script randomize between the two on all groups/units, that way no AI runs the same skills and it will be very unpredictable.

Anyway, keep it up!

/KC

[Jedra]

Nice idea Jedra!

Hope you don't mind a suggestion.... having a way to set min and max values on each skill and then let the script randomize between the two on all groups/units, that way no AI runs the same skills and it will be very unpredictable.

Anyway, keep it up!

/KC

Nice idea - I will look at adding this in. Thanks!

[.kju [PvPscene]]

a) AI is local to the owner/group leader. Keep that in mind for MP.
b) If you want to restrict it to server admin only, check the DevCon for the code.

[Jedra]

a) AI is local to the owner/group leader. Keep that in mind for MP.
b) If you want to restrict it to server admin only, check the DevCon for the code.

a) Thanks for the reminder - I have a few leads as to how to handle this.

b) I am glad you said that - me, breaking open your pbo today, nope, must have been someone else! It was the big 'Run on Server' button that gave me the idea!

Definitely Admins only, otherwise it would just be chaos. I guess someone will break it open to de-restrict it, but as it will be signed, they shouldn't be able to use a modified version.