Unusual AI behaviour?

[Fragorl]

I just noticed this.....

When I gave a domove command to an ai soldier, it happened to be inside a building (an editor-placed one - of the type "East command HQ"). Now, in my experience the ai often treats buildings as if they arent there, running straight through them. Imagine my suprise when the loon stops, looks at the front door, walks throught it, turns right, navigates the building perfectly and arrives at his set destination! I repeated this with several different locations in the building - there was no coincidence. He even managed to navigate his way - correctly - to the most difficult-to-reach room in the building. And, what's more, he came to rest in a perfect tactical position, at a window.

Is this usual AI behaviour? I've never heard of ai doing this before, so please tell me if I'm getting worked up over nothing. But if not....

So here is some info for the situation:

Editor map - desert island
Unit - just a good ol' soldierWB
Building - editor placed 'East command HQ' (from one of the editor upgrades)
OFP - 1.96, no mods runnig. Quite a few addons in my addon folder though

This is the sort of behaviour it would be awesome to see more often, it would add much more to combat against the ai if they used their brains the way this guy did !

[macguba]

I've seen both of the things you have:  AI just running through walls and also AI navigating a building perfectly.    The commonest behaviour in my experience is something in between:  trying to use doors with varying degrees of success.  

What you saw is what is supposed to happen in the game.  But for some technical reason it doesn't always work.

[THobson]

I also have seen an ai loon standing in the building rotating permanently and also in the case of an area closed off by fencing, with only one exit a doMove to somewhere outside can result in random running about before coming to halt ignoring all subsequent doMove commands.

So it is a case of trial and error, if they do what you want first time - feel blessed and move on, if not then it gets fiddly.

[dmakatra]

I think it also has something to do with the buildings model. Maybe the geometry LOD. And don't qoute me on this because I'm no addon maker but I think there is a pathfinding LOD.

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[Pilot]

And don't qoute me on this because I'm no addon maker but I think there is a pathfinding LOD.

You are right.  There is a lod addonmakers can use called 'paths'.  A 'paths' lod tells the unit where in the building he is supposed to go.  Some buildings may not have this 'paths' lod, hence the ai will not use the building properly.

[h-]

Well, it doesn't matter if you have the AI paths there because the game engine is so crippled the AI just gets confused in the buildings...
The physics engine is also so crippled that the walls on houses just barely exist as a physical obstacle...

Maybe in some rare optimal situation the AI can read the paths perfectly and thus navigate inside the building, as described above...

All enterable BIS houses have AI pathways and the lot (afaik)...

Of course if some enterable building (or a forest object) doesn't have the AI paths AI is unable to 'use' it properly...

I myself have not witnessed such sane AI in buildings as described in the first post, but it has been a looooooooooong time since I've done something else than straight forward scripting with OFP so maybe I have just forgotten witnessing such behaviour...

[DBR_ONIX]

Me and a friend who play coop a lot see stuff like that. AI going in to house perfectly, loooking scarily close to clearing it, going back out. AI covering each other, and other genral-smartness..
Using Y2K3 most of the time prob helps, but it can sometimes be scarey how decent the AI is. The weirdest time was playing Lost Squad with no addons or mods, the AI shot me though a window, then walking into town, looked in about 3 buildings, the tanks stoped if their routes had mines in it.

..the AI is learning?  
- Ben
Oh, the VME AI (THe version that is released, or the new one, both are/look great), make AI amazing. Again, in coop, the infantry couldn't shoot Gand, so the tanks sharted shelling his location, the snipers can acctualy hit you from >10m away, the driver gets out of the MG Jeep and uses gun if you cap driver.. Impressive..

[macguba]

The AI get a lot of stick, and sometimes rightly so.    Which makes easy to forget that it is largely the high quality of the AI that has kept us all interested in this game for so long.

[Fragorl]

I guess that this is true about the ai, that it's part of ther reason so many of us are still playing OFP (well, we all are ). There are many aspects of the ai that are superb, and are taken for granted. However, it would be nice if they used their knowledge of the building to good effect, though, instead of the usual strategy of proning and not moving at all until they're shot to death.

I was going to say, maybe there was some in-built part of the building itself that let the ai navigate throught it. Not being an addon editor at all, I was completely stumped as to what this might be, and actually entertained the idea that maybe the ai just got smart all of a sudden A path lod, eh.

It seems that, unfortunately, this only works if the move target is inside the building; if it's outside, the AI is back to being lost, and defualts to lying down.

Annoyingly, this effect showed up for me as i was testing a script to allow the AI to find cover from a tank. This movetarget overlapped the building slightly; I figured that the AI would just move as close to the point as he could, and stop. Instead, he goes on a jaunt round the side of the building, walks right past the tank, and through the front door. Thanks to this behaviour, my script is completely unreliable around buildings with path LODs now    Looks like a case of a blessing being a curse in disguise.

[Blanco]

Oh, the VME AI (THe version that is released, or the new one, both are/look great), make AI amazing.

What is VME AI?  

[Fragorl]

Ok, i did a search, here are some videos of the VME ai....

I don't know what to make of them, but they certainly look very good. I'd like to see some videos of the ai acting in a wider range of situations, though

[h-]

At least none of the released VME AddOns I found (AddOn Pack 1.something) include any kind of scripting or config tweaks that would suggest that something was done to the AI...

DBR, are you perhaps talking about the PLA AddOns, not VME_PLA ??

Or are you sure you have not been involved in some sort of VME AI MP beta test

EDIT:

I'd like to see some videos of the ai acting in a wider range of situations, though

Me too, since that kind of thing is very easy to 'stage' in the mission editor and the 'film' it...

The engagement ranges can be improved via config (afaik), nothing special about that...
And before resistance or some patch for it the AI snipers did engage from very long distances...
In some test I made (on the desert Isle though) a loong while ago the AI sniper engaged my group from at least 1000 meters... It was kinda cool when suddenly one of my group dropped and it took a while until I heard the shot
And if someone dared to stand up from our cover he was immediately shot in the head...
But that doesn't seem happen anymore...

Also I think the AI reaction time might be partly tied to the sensitivity and sensitivityEar values in the config, so tweaking those may make the AI to react faster... At least rising those values makes the AI spot you more effectively...

EDIT2:
Oh, ok... Now I got the right version of the VME
Haven't tested it yet though...

[Fragorl]

Alright, I think i've also got the right vesrion, 1.01b? It took a fair while to dl all that! I'm about to check it out

EDIT: Well, credit where due, the ai *seems* to be really, really good. I saw an effective flanking maneuver for the first time. I had two opposing CQB (that's the urban AI) squads going into trinite town centre at right angles to each other. As the conflict broke out, part of one of the squads detached themselves from the main group and headed round some houses,navigating very well, until they emerged on the right flank of the enemy. Also: I saw a couple of other very interesting things, which I would like to test further to confirm. All in all, so far... phew!

[h-]

Yeah, the AI seemed to be better, but I did not se any flanking...
Unless all the enemy groups tried to flank from the same side

Also, looking at the scripts there seems to actually nothing going on
Just some random 'move there using this anim' lines
Of course haven't had the time to really dig into those...

But AI was indeed more eager to use nades (M203) etc.. This far they've been quite useless...
Didn't try if they would use the rifle nades (mortar) which I think they don't do at all in vanilla OFP...

What was a bit odd that amidst quite intensive firefight quite a few of my AI (on 'danger' mode) just stood up firing altough crouching or prone would have been a lot better idea...

Anyway, this seems to be a good AI addition so this must be tested further...

[Fragorl]

Now, I dePBO's the scripts and couldn't find anyting much either. I was looking in the VME_events addon and the VME_CQB addon. No, there's no script n either of those that could be doing anything spectacular.The largest ones seem to contain a whole bunch of nearestobj calls, checking against a  whole bunch of object types, but not doing much with it.  

On the other hand, taht ai was doing some scary things, so... don't know what the story is there. Needs more investigation, most likely.