Help with infantry AI

[fabrizio_T]

Hello,

can anybody help me to fix some extremely annoying AI behaviours ? I'm pretty frustrated with these problems (most still here 4 years after OFP ):

1) squad members ordered to engage by leader rush without any caution just stopping a few steps in front of enemy (normally they're wiped out way before coming so close ...)

2) many times AI is unable to "see" enemies standing less than 100 meters away. They open fire only as consequence of casualties sustained or -instantly- after a "reveal" command is given by the player.

3) especially in towns AI is not able to keep formation at all. Even "Column compact" is screwed.

4) Most of the time an AI formation advancing ***through a road does not use its firepower. 1 or 2 men will fire at once when needed: there are serious issues with fire and movement.

5) AI can't make any proper use of cover at all. Also command "findCover" seems pretty useless since it ignores all the objects eventually ***put on the map by the mission designers. ***"findCover" is actually useless, ***good only for "hiding" behind buildings, not for cover.

I've managed to minimize ***problem 1) through a simple script, but issues with visibility, cover ***and fire/movement are way too hard to fix for me.

Any advice ?

[CrashDome]

1) Do not order "Engage at Will". Just tell them to open fire... they stay in formation better that way.

I've never had a problem with AI behavior since I stopped using "Engage at Will". I avoid that command like the plague.

[ColonelSandersLite]

The down side to that is they never take cover. The squad leader may, but the squad will always be neatly in formation, regardless of terrain.

Also, arma seems to be a little lax on checking to make sure no firendlies are directly in the field of fire, so be carefull what formations you use...

[CrashDome]

The down side to that is they never take cover. ***The squad leader may, but the squad will always be neatly in formation, regardless of terrain.

Also, arma seems to be a little lax on checking to make sure no firendlies are directly in the field of fire, so be carefull what formations you use...

That may be true, but I'd rather have them where I know they are then running around like chickens. Where's the cover in that? Plus, you should be using formations to your advantage.

[Rhodite]

You could of course set a few men in your AI section to Engage at will.

Thus keeping some order and having an aggressive edge.

[70gunner]

Can you import other formations types I'm used to some who are not included in the standard formations.

[marcusm_uk]

Isnt this where those new FSM files come into play? It would be great if some kind of tutorial was put up at the biki for these.

Marcus

[TJ72]

For suppressive fire: We should be able to use an invisible object and have units fire on that as a dofire action from a script. As if the squadleader points at a treeline or ridge or bulding and orders the squad to use suppressive fire. The invisible object is placed and the AI simply fires on the object in a spread.
If we can get the AI to see properly hopefully that will collapse one or two of these other "issues".
If anythings broken I hope it gets fixed in a patch. Otherwise we will need user made workarounds and scripts to bring a solution.
Lets try to sort out what BIS definitely needs to fix versus what enhancements can be provided by the community. Finding cover properly might be one of these things that the scripting community will tackle.

[fabrizio_T]

I agree that the main problem is getting AI "seeing" correctly.

Then I think that Suppression can be eventually easily coded (maybe with Camcreate Game logic and the "fire" command). The problem is opponent AI probably won't "know" it's being suppressed and keep being aggressive. So we have to code the "suppression behaviour" and the "being suppressed" behaviour. Both.

Cover can be coded, it's a matter of finding workarounds to default behaviour. Implementing peeking around cover for suppression fire will be for sure a pain, depending on type and size of the object providing cover.

Coordinating cover, suppression and advancing can be a nightmare, unless some geek finds out how to work with FSM files ...

[deanosbeano]

if you want to script when and where ai know about eachother (outside of the engine fsm ), the "reveal" command along with other parameters is what i use.