Something I don't understand about the AI.

[Jakerod]

Careless means they will react to nothing (in my experience). Safe means they will walk with their weapons lowered and react when shot at.

[willer357]

While the AI seem to only get faster response times the higher their difficulty is, I swear that even in novice mode I immediately get killed and watch as my team is slaughtered. Their use of tactics(which I've noticed is pretty much just shoot at them and have one guy flank) exceeds mine so much that it's almost impossible for me to win a fight, which pisses me off to no end because I've killed dozens of then online and such.

[NeMeSiS]

Careless is there just for mission editing purposes in case you dont want a unit to react to anything. Safe is pretty much the same, except it allows them to switch to 'combat' when necessary.
Its the reason you can set your group to 'safe' as leader, but not to 'careless'.

[Flametrace]

The AI is really not great, no, but it can do alot of things that most AI can't, even if not very well.

[EDcase]

Maybe difficulty settings need to go up...?
Also, note that the AI "intelligence" is directly related to CPU power. More power = faster reactions.
This is one reason why some people have a hard time dealing with AI and others can walk right up to them.

One advantage of playing online is that the server handles most of the AI so it reduces the load on the your computer.

[domokun]

The AI is really not great, no, but it can do alot of things that most AI can't, even if not very well.

I'd express reservations about such sweeping statements on such a sophisticated simulator.
Particularly from someone with such little experience of the game.
I think to really understand and appreciate the game you have to not only have tried scores of different missions, tinkered with mods, better still, used the editor.
OA is somewhat like an old sports car, if you get in a just drive it around the block, don't expect to appreciate it's potential.
You need to take it out onto a track, several tracks, in different weather conditions and then get under the bonnet.

[ChrisB]

I have played the arma series from the ofp days, I spend a lot of time making missions for a medium size group of us. As a group we play quite a complicated, intricate long term game world strategy, based on politics, resources, power and of course military warfare or clandestine covert ops etc, this is where the arma series forms the main part of the military side of our game, plus vbs2 (small part), & also the battlefield series did, until recently.

One of the most important things to setup in the arma series is the AI, they have to act or simulate as near as pos (as you can make them) to real life friendly & enemy units, be good at moving and taking orders without wondering or getting hooked up. Therefore AI has to be tweaked and experimented with over a period of some time to get it working the way you might want it to. As a group we use a little of several mods to do this, they include the unique ‘SLX’, the great ‘GL4’, a little from ‘ASR AI’ etc, when combined we have a nice balance for AI.
Really you can only experience Arma 2 to its fullest by investing in the game, perhaps go straight to ‘A2 Operation Arrowhead’ plus the BAF, PMC addons etc. We run a large amount of mods/addons, all push the game to new heights and add huge interest and variants, it’s a completely different game when setup correctly, but it will take time, the arma series plays an intricate part in the hobby myself and friends have enjoyed for quite a long period of time. It is by far the best of its type available, the ai can be as well, when tweaked correctly.

CB

[Bouben]

Maybe difficulty settings need to go up...?
Also, note that the AI "intelligence" is directly related to CPU power. More power = faster reactions.
This is one reason why some people have a hard time dealing with AI and others can walk right up to them.

One advantage of playing online is that the server handles most of the AI so it reduces the load on the your computer.

Can anyone with knowledge elaborate this topic more, preferably someone directly from BIS? Thank you.

I believe that if you have CPU not fast enough the game will simply lag and no delay in AI processing is therefore caused, cause the whole game is delayed by lagging.

But as I said, somebody from the field please correct my theory.

[metalcraze]

I think BIS have optimizations in place that when AI overload CPU too much bring too much FPS down makes them worse disabling scripts or making them be called more rarely.
In fact Suma added FPS limiter into the game in one of betas so you yourself can see the effects of lower FPS on AI with the game trying to make it "dumber" to bring FPS higher up.

[Bouben]

Right, I would understand that for distant AI units that are not in close proximity to a player and therefore have less priority for the engine.