CA1.5 Req Improvement: Way to moderate the all seeing eyes of AI ground units

I bought CA expecting it to be a more polished experience. Despite that I am falling for it and now I want to see it improved to be closer to what it should be. Like many others I have grand ideas that probably require EDGE 2016 but at the same time I keep wondering about improvements that can be made right now without requiring a brand new engine or stacks of new content and models.

The number one most jarring part of CA for me right now is the apparent x-ray vision and 100% situational awareness of AI ground based enemy units. I don't like how they can see me when I can't see them. Note* I am specifically talking about ground to ground visual contact.

I think the evidence of this is that so many CA mods use "HIDDEN on map" as a trick just to keep units from being clobbered. :bash:

There is no denying that 'hidden' even if it is a hack does work and that is why I wonder if "hidden" was made into a visibility flag with an integer value (visible->some percentage of visual cover->hidden) instead of boolean (visible/hidden) then engine code and mods could use that.

Off the top of my head I think mission designers and modders could use the mission editor more or less instantly to create zones on the map offering visual concealment bonuses. Infantry inside an urban/town zone would be in better cover and tree zones wouldn't have to be totally transparent to AI like they are now. Unit to unit visual contact could check which flagged zones (zones are always 2D?) line of sight vectors are traversing and height check for forests or . The pragmatic solution I propose is that visibility checks on units be made into something we can tweak via mods (to improve and modify) ourselves.

I am not claiming that the modelling of visual cover for ground vs ground units doesn't take a lot of things into account,; what I am saying is that mission scripters and modders would be able to improve the realism of visual contact checks if they had better tools to override or augment the engine.

Of course the EDGE engine and/or a new map format might be introducing new techniques for modelling this stuff with greater fidelity but even then I'd like to see scripts be able to manipulate and peek at the calculations the engine is doing.

Your thoughts?

There are several aspects in which the AI could be improved, not only for CA. Actually, the AI already uses some algorithms that influence their ability to detect and engage enemies, taking into account things like light (day/night), skill and some others. This should be improved, imo.

There are also already some great scripts made by the community that enhance the AI behaviour. One example is the "Supression" script which makes AI units stop shooting if they are under fire - makes the experience probably a bit more realistic than as it is today where you are dropping a few Mk-82 around a MANPAD while he calm as ice is aiming at you and blowing you out of the sky... :o) This kind of stuff should be somehow integrated as well.

Thanks for reply. Of course I agree AI can always be improved. I have checked out many mission scripts to see what people are doing from that direction and I am impressed.

This thread I will try to keep focused on one subject. That subject is of visual contact of ground to ground unit. Can we make trees and smoke provide partial cover with tricks.

Even looking to see what can be done with scripts in terms of calculating a "visual cover" value (MIST will help me with many useful functions) in the end is it true that I can only make a unit HIDDEN or NOT HIDDEN. This to me seems not good enough.

The fog of war effect on a unit on the command map where it is translucent. Is that a unit property?

If one day we get thermal sights - we'll be able to see AI as easily as they can see us.

Thanks for reply. Of course I agree AI can always be improved. I have checked out many mission scripts to see what people are doing from that direction and I am impressed.

 

This thread I will try to keep focused on one subject. That subject is of visual contact of ground to ground unit. Can we make trees and smoke provide partial cover with tricks.

 

Even looking to see what can be done with scripts in terms of calculating a "visual cover" value (MIST will help me with many useful functions) in the end is it true that I can only make a unit HIDDEN or NOT HIDDEN. This to me seems not good enough.

 

The fog of war effect on a unit on the command map where it is translucent. Is that a unit property?

If I understand you correctly, then you are talking of some sort of "camouflage" here? Because units can not hide in tall grass or behind bushes and also have no camouflage nets and the like, you want to make them "partially invisible"?

Well, I think, I was trying to say that there are already concepts (partially) implemented that would provide this kind of feature and that ED should work on those to fix this problem. A unit "hides" in a town? Would be no problem if the line-of-sight mechanisms would work accordingly (i.e. not being able to look through buildings). Same for trees.

Adding a new makeshift concept would probably the wrong way.

The number one most jarring part of CA for me right now is the apparent x-ray vision and 100% situational awareness of AI ground based enemy units.

You do your best to stalk, and often time go out of your way to be stealthy by taking that 10-15 minute drive around woods to avoid detection. You sneak up behind a building that is surely going to shield most of you. BOOM! You dead. You get back in and repeat the dying process.

It was why I traded CA for Huey with a forum member. So for now I just ponder the potential of what it'll be one of these days.

Flagram, yes I just ran across some work by mbot. He has made a LOS mod which weights the probability of ground units making visual contact with attacking aircraft based on some nice calculations.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=117424 and http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=116726&highlight=LOS

It comes with limitations but I'm going to give it a go.

A unit "hides" in a town?

As far as I know that should be possible. If you draw a zone encompassing a town and make a unit in that zone hidden and then do a visual detection check of your own design of that unit vs enemy units within visual range. Once your unit hidden in the town fails the check then it becomes visible to the standard enemy LOS check.

I'll test some stuff out and see if it makes sense.

I'm using Mbots script in my mission, quite awesome just be careful of pouncing on an OSA or something, it will go active inside threat!

having said that though absolutely terrific that you can now surprise convoys etc.

There is a fog of war effect on a unit on the command map where it appears translucent.

I am still very much interested in this property. I would love to be able to make units appear translucent on the map via script.

This shouldnt be something people have to script in , i just played a dedicated CA mission for the first time in a long while and i'm lost for words really , if EDGE doesn't change the "xray 360 degrees vision" of the AI , CA will be a lost cause for sure... the fact we dont have IR and the enemy has god vision makes it completely unplayable.

Like , seriously this needs to be pinned and sent to wags or whoever is in charge of AI ... CA has so much potential especially now with EDGE coming in, dont abandon this PLEASE....

Right now it's usefull as a tool for pilots , but it could be so much more...

CA isn't really core to ED flight sim focus so I don't mind having to script stuff for CA. I just want an API that let's me make improvements where I can.

I think I've stumbled on a fix for the AI x-ray vision. I'm still testing to make sure it works properly and doesn't cause any stability issues. It's such a stupid and easy fix, its laughable.

I'm testing it in single player btw.

You has make changes on the sensor. lua or other solution?

You has make changes on the sensor. lua or other solution?

OK

I've done some testing and it seems that ED did create a system to block the AI sight thru buildings and trees.

While creating a mod to re-work the HUD I came across a script called "Detection.lua" and it's located in the " \DCS World\Scripts\AI " folder. There are entry's at lines 20 and 21 that are as follows.

objects_LOS_test = false,

trees_LOS_test = false,

I think ED turned these off, by default, because there are some issues with the system.

Simply change them to true and see them work.

After some testing I can report that the AI sight line is blocked by trees and buildings, but there seems to be some bugging as the exact path blocked.

For instance, the map has a lot of thin tree lines between fields that will completely block the AI's line of sight even though there are substantial gaps between the trees.

Also vehicles may be visually outside of a treeline (say 50 feet) and still remain invisible to other AI.

Personally I like the system ON since it makes the AI more human and fallible and they don't shoot from positions you can't see. The trade off is that they might appear more stupid when near tree lines.

Try it for yourself and see which way you like it. :thumbup:

Nice Thread. It Is all we need to start a decent CA combat against AI units. We really need this improvement

objects_LOS_test = false,

trees_LOS_test = false,

D'oh!

I remember coming across these a year ago, setting objects_LOS_test to true and still being killed by tanks on the other side of town. That said, I dismissed those as "doesn't work, they probably never finished that feature" after one five-minute test. Looks like I should have kept experimenting with those.

Well, at least, we know ED is working on it and making some progress.

Also - the fake IR view doesn't show tree, so you are on par with AI. :P

Pretty sure I did the same thing [FSF]Ian. I'm sure I tested this last year and it didn't work.

I really did think that 1.5 was going to come out a lot sooner and even though I said STOP waiting for 1.5 to come out guys. I actually stopped doing a lot of experiments with CA scripting and waited for 1.5 to come out. :music_whistling:

One script in particular is something I was going to return to if the CA unit AI in 1.5 was not much improved. I wrote a script that allows an AI unit to target and track enemy units with it's turret but to hold fire at the same time. Normally putting an AI unit into HOLD FIRE means that the unit stops tracking targets altogether and goes into a very dumb form of sleep. It then takes a tactically significant amount of time for the AI unit to powerup and rotate the turret onto the enemy target you want engaged. The script I wrote made going from HOLD to FIRE almost instant which made ambush attacks work a lot better.

So Vandal I am glad you are into CA and testing this stuff. It's good to know this is working. Looks like everyone who has posted in this thread is in the Combined Arms Mafia. We almost got a team here.

OK

 

I've done some testing and it seems that ED did create a system to block the AI sight thru buildings and trees.

 

While creating a mod to re-work the HUD I came across a script called "Detection.lua" and it's located in the " \DCS World\Scripts\AI " folder. There are entry's at lines 20 and 21 that are as follows.

 

objects_LOS_test = false,

trees_LOS_test = false,

 

I think ED turned these off, by default, because there are some issues with the system.

Simply change them to true and see them work.

 

After some testing I can report that the AI sight line is blocked by trees and buildings, but there seems to be some bugging as the exact path blocked.

 

For instance, the map has a lot of thin tree lines between fields that will completely block the AI's line of sight even though there are substantial gaps between the trees.

 

Also vehicles may be visually outside of a treeline (say 50 feet) and still remain invisible to other AI.

 

Personally I like the system ON since it makes the AI more human and fallible and they don't shoot from positions you can't see. The trade off is that they might appear more stupid when near tree lines.

 

Try it for yourself and see which way you like it. :thumbup:

Hmm, it seems that it only blocks line of sight against other ground vehicles. I tested with KA 50 and hiding behind buildings work but not trees. I put 2 ground vehicles within range of each other and neither one reacted. Of course I could be doing something wrong ;)

I did not try it with aircraft, so you maybe right that the tree blocking only works with ground vehicles.

I did not try it with aircraft, so you maybe right that the tree blocking only works with ground vehicles.

Yeah, It seems there wouldn't be a difference in spotting ability between air and land vehicles but i guess so, maybe there is a file somewhere that needs to be edited...:)