X-Ray Vision AI

[maturin]

Not until ArmA 3 will we see .50 rifles disabling the engine blocks of cars. However, that round will go through certain light armored vehicles with ease, and kill any crew who are sitting in the way. This works best with ACE mod, of course.

So far as choppers go, you're best off hitting the pilot, as most components take multiple .50 rounds to disable. Tail rotor and main rotor engine block are valid targets for any 12.7mm weapon.

Edit: And if your Chernarus nights are pitch dark at midnight and early morning, be sure to run without beta patches. They're experimenting with the gamma.

[Anthropoid]

Is there a way to tell the AI to "Throw Smoke Grenades."

I'm using ASR AI, and I know that they will use them with that mod, but I'm curious if it is possible to get them to use it when I say?

[NoRailgunner]

Back in good old times one could order/micromanage his own OFP/CWA AI much better but time is is changing and some working/useful things got "fixed" too.... Guess BIS just listen more and more to potential buyers aka shooter/action and casual game players. How can you run a business and make profit with a simgame?

[Anthropoid]

Dang.

[froggyluv]

Back in good old times one could order/micromanage his own OFP/CWA AI much better but time is is changing and some working/useful things got "fixed" too.... Guess BIS just listen more and more to potential buyers aka shooter/action and casual game players. How can you run a business and make profit with a simgame?

One thing I miss is the ability to tell your AT soldier to arm his AT weapon and the like. But I also remember AI in OFP being too robotic if given a 'watch direction' or 'hold fire' when they have an enemy in imminent vicinity for contact. Auto Danger obviously sometimes break command but is a necessary evil and is also getting further streamlined.

What I'd like to see added in the future is an exasberated command qualifier. So normally you hit F2 -1 to tell '2' to move somewhere (or Return to Formation) - now hold Shift and it adds a compelling, strained on the shitter, neck vein pulsing and abusive "Thats an order Gawdammit!!!!". The AI will now do whatever you say maybe mumbling something about your mother and him getting killed while under such an order of duress would lower squad morale - just dreamin

[gunso]

i miss the OFP targeting style where you can right click using binocular for units hiding behind trees and the gunship radar where you can click on individual dots. Not tab lock spamming like now T_T

[erupter]

It's not directly related to night situations, although recently my clan's been fighting mainly during night.
And while we humans have trouble even spotting them, they have no trouble at all hitting us hard.

Anyway here is a video I made yesterday


Description really says it all.
300m, dense forest, plants inbetween, no binoculars. Yet they spot instantly and even fire granades with laser precision.
Player is dead 1 minute after, being running since spotting, granade landed directly on his head.
All of this through thick trees.

This really ruined it as I couldn't even see them without the binoculars.
After starting to run, they had to climb the hill, and reach me.
Launching granades through thick trees isn't going to end up good easily.

Yet it does.
In one minute flat.

[NoRailgunner]

Hmm.... you are standing there a little bit exposed. From 0:12 they notice a contact and 7/8 seconds later they move into combat, sounds like one of your team is firing first. If you don't want to be located + targeted don't reveal yourself (incl. movements/gunfire). Try to see the situation from the oppenents side too so you can guess/predict what he can see and where he can move. Don't set the AI skill + AI precision/UltraAI to max = 1 thats just good for testing. If you have to move in close range to enemy use the slowest speed and don't expose yourself. If player can aim/shoot through two branches or a gap in foliage - AI should be able to do the same.

[erupter]

Hmm.... you are standing there a little bit exposed. From 0:12 they notice a contact and 7/8 seconds later they move into combat, sounds like one of your team is firing first. If you don't want to be located + targeted don't reveal yourself (incl. movements/gunfire). Try to see the situation from the oppenents side too so you can guess/predict what he can see and where he can move. Don't set the AI skill + AI precision/UltraAI to max = 1 thats just good for testing. If you have to move in close range to enemy use the slowest speed and don't expose yourself. If player can aim/shoot through two branches or a gap in foliage - AI should be able to do the same.

My team was being engaged by another squad 500m or so south-west. My bino were pointing north-north-west in the video.
There were two enemy teams, one engaged my CSAR team, and another engaged me. And I'm critizing the fact that I was complitely unable to see them without binoculars while they saw me instantly through foliage and without vision aids.

[Anthropoid]

Yeah the AI in the game are badasses there is no doubt about it:

1. they are generally alert
2. they see far (maybe too far as you note)
3. they fire in directions/at positions and often tend to get hits even at high ranges for the weapons involved
4. they shoot through obstructions at targets that are barely visible (to be fair, I bet you COULD see them without the binoculars; it is just that it would be like 3 pixels at a time that would flash in between two blades of grass and a leaf a couple times)
5. they react quickly (generally)
6. they are courageous (generally)
7. they are tenacious and aggressive (generally)
8. they don't waver and they swing into a coordinated response to a contact almost immediately, including flanking or going stealthy or taking cover.
9. they sometimes ignore suppressive fire

None of the above is totally 'unrealistic' per se, certainly a spec ops or very solidary group of experienced soldiers could exhibit all those behaviors. Indeed, something like that set of behaviors is probably what makes the differnece between squads/platoons that win with few casualties and those that get pawned in real life . . . The one thing that I do agree is somewhat 'questionable' is the resolution of their sighting. I too have noted that even if I'm prone and focused on an area where there is suspected AI, I find it very hard to distinguish which blob of pixels is the enemy moving around behind that mess of obstructions, a perceptual limitation that does not seem to hamper either my own AI teammates, nor the enemy AI. Having never been in a fire fight I'll just assume that this is 'realistic' and that soldiers often have to fire on targets that are scarcely visible or even to just observer where their mates are firing and just take lucky shots in the same direction? For a while there I really did think the AI had "X-ray Vision" but I have subsequently observed that: when I or one of my AI do an Auto-report of a contact, if I am sufficiently quick to scan the area with a scope or bino I can in fact catch glimpses of the contact flitting into and out of view between the trees.

I think the way to make sense of the contact reports is: glimpse that the viewer is 75% confident about . . . but then they don't always report these contacts as positive contacts of enemies (annoyingly they often report our own troops as 'unknowns') . . .

Clearly the current system can be mastered as I've seen videos of humans vs. AI players doing amazing things. In part I think playing as if you really are out there in the field and you don't want to die might be part of that. It can seem like gaming the system, but as someone pointed out, we are dealing with a lot of limitations: 2d presentation without well integrated peripheral sound/vision input being the main one, but a foe that is ultimately nothing but a bunch of behavior algorithms executed in that fake 3d game world being the other.

I think that mastring ArmA2, even just mastering PVE, takes a lot of play.