AI Improvement

[maturin]

It's a far bigger problem that the AI are usually glacially slow to aim and open fire. They have an hour-long turn radius and no aiming deadzone. On the flipside of the problem, it shouldn't be too hard to make them aim for longer at the appropriate ranges. If their guns are zeroed at 300m, they don't need to adjust it all for a normal firefight. The AKM is something of an exception to this in real life, because of the round trajectory.

[froggyluv]

Judging by the lack of games that successfully transition AI between long and short (or CQB) behaviour, I gotta assume that this is hard as hell to pull off. I honestly can't think of a game that even attempts to do this with any sort of tactics in mind. So say Player is in a town and targets an enemy AI at under 100m with the AI doing the same. If a new set of behaviours/animations were to shift to the AI, what would happen if he also KnowsAbout an enemy firing at him from 300m from that hill outside of town? Does he shift to a dual mode and is this type of behaviour shifting even feasible with such a large possible entity count?

Im just asking as it really is unprecedented.

[Scrub]

I'd have to believe the A.I. would determine the method of fire, stance, movement and such simply by the environment. If they are in a MOUT setting, the range does not matter to a great extent as they could brace on a corner of a building or window if accessible for long distance shooting... That, or they could go prone in the middle of the street.

RIP Paul Castle - Chuck Norris's cousin, Shogun of Harlem's love child.

[maturin]

Judging by the lack of games that successfully transition AI between long and short (or CQB) behaviour, I gotta assume that this is hard as hell to pull off. I honestly can't think of a game that even attempts to do this with any sort of tactics in mind. So say Player is in a town and targets an enemy AI at under 100m with the AI doing the same. If a new set of behaviours/animations were to shift to the AI, what would happen if he also KnowsAbout an enemy firing at him from 300m from that hill outside of town? Does he shift to a dual mode and is this type of behaviour shifting even feasible with such a large possible entity count?

Im just asking as it really is unprecedented.

Not sure we need different modes, just config tweaks based on range.

If the AI aims at a target 100m or more away, he acts normally. If the target is under that, he suddenly gets a large aiming dead zone and faster reaction and turn speed. Likewise, the predictive position tracking system could have a hard distance limit if the target is nearby, with the AI switching attention between predicted position and the point where the enemy disappeared. (Vehicles already do the latter.)

[froggyluv]

Not sure we need different modes, just config tweaks based on range.

If the AI aims at a target 100m or more away, he acts normally. If the target is under that, he suddenly gets a large aiming dead zone and faster reaction and turn speed. Likewise, the predictive position tracking system could have a hard distance limit if the target is nearby, with the AI switching attention between predicted position and the point where the enemy disappeared. (Vehicles already do the latter.)

Well that sounds easy enough! A simple Distance check and the listed tweaks go into effect - is this in effect in any way now via Vanilla or AI mod? Is the Distance check quick enough to give the hair splitting reaction time we need?

[maturin]

Every AI process from spotting to tracking to shooting already relies on real-time, complex distance data. It would cost absolutely nothing to take distance into account.

Now, I know almost nothing about coding, but from my experience with what modders have been able to do so far, I would guess that this sort of thing is pretty difficult to tack on to an existing system. Simple and cheap if you're looking at the source code, but tricky for modders.

[froggyluv]

Well then, you make a strong case for a CIT request at the very least.

[kimozabbi]

Simple and cheap if you're looking at the source code

If this is true (and I'm not doubting you that it is) I'm curious as to why it hasn't already been resolved.

[maturin]

If this is true (and I'm not doubting you that it is) I'm curious as to why it hasn't already been resolved.

The list of relatively simple tweaks that would vastly improve gameplay is pages long. Put it together and runs to thousands of man-hours. Only so much time in a fiscal year.

[dingbat91]

I'd personally love AI wise is the ability to ask them to deploy and crew based weapons via actions (Select both units-> actions->deploy crew weapon) would make mortar deployment so much easier.

oh and for the ability to order helocopters to land at a location without disembarking (possibly require smoke to designate the LZ?)