ARMA 3 "AI Comparison Vanilla" Part 1 DEC2014
17Bohemia Interactive Developer ARMA 3 AI thread - Aggressive Focused Movement towards Emeny - No Real Tactics - "Cant Get off the X"
http://dev.arma3.com/post/oprep-ai-configuration
UNIT: Ondřej Kužel, QA Specialist, QA Dept.
TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users
OPSUM: Taking on the whale: tweaking AI configuration options
To fight and move, command, flank and take cover; to aim and fire upon an enemy zigzagging across a fast-changing battlefield; to ultimately - on any terrain, without any predetermined paths or scripting - make independent decisions, the AI must take into account an immense number of variables. To achieve this, the AI has grown into an indeterministic beast living a life of its own. Semper AI. However, to strike that illusive (and subjective) balance between not being too lethal yet not too lenient also requires some measure of control. A well-defined set of default behaviours and access to ways of exacting influence upon these behaviours is, therefore, important for players and mission designers alike.
Taking both perspectives into account, we set out to improve the way we deal with these needs. So far, we've made some progress in terms of documenting and refining the basic values that affect our AI and in terms of giving players more meaningful control over setting up their game, making some tweaks and updates to the difficulty options. While our work isn't over yet, we wanted to share an update on the actions we've taken so far. We want to ensure we're on the right track, keep our community up to date with the latest changes, and gather any feedback that can help improve things further!
Our first step was updating documentation; Krzysztof Bielawski stripped the AI down to their parts and described how they work together with greater care. On an individual level, each AI unit is defined by its set of sub-skills. From a mission-making perspective - unless, of course, the designer didn't really care and the unit received a flat set of default values - explaining a little more accurately how these skills determine the ability of soldiers should enable a greater degree of control over them. It ain't much yet, but it ain't over either: you're always welcome to ask and learn more in our forums' dedicated AI configuration thread!
In fact, these 'raw' sub-skill values do not themselves alone drive AI behaviour. Rather, the value of each sub-skill is adjusted on mission start by another value - one that comes from the difficulty settings - a 'global' AI Level (see how here, to check it in-game use skillFinal). This so called 'AI Skill Level' (or just 'AI Level') previously enabled adjustments from 0 to 1 on any difficulty preset; it was configurable separately for enemy and friendly, with three predefined but modifiable values (and ranges as well) in each difficulty preset. From a player's point of view, this appeared to be more of a subject of research than a clear 'option'.
A quick poll about difficulty settings used among the players revealed - or, rather, confirmed - some issues in our difficulty configuration, including one top-level question: why do we have presets if each of them is customisable? Overall, we came to the conclusion that this state offered players a big, blunt weapon and, worse yet, didn't really tell players how to wield it, most often resulting in unpredictable and often unintended results. Now, together with Lord of UI, Vladimír Hynek, three fixed AI Levels have been implemented: Low, Normal and High (disclaimer: no, it doesn't help in MP yet). 'Normal' is the standard we work with and we tweak the AI to. Low and High are intended for reduced or increased challenge - turning e.g. a veteran AI into a trainee or a tier-1 operator. We have set the Low, Normal and High AI Levels to specific values (more details here). These may not be final. Internally, we have nothing to ensure such values are suitable for the majority of players; let's try to make it so together.
For your convenience, (and because you've asked for it and have always been a great help to us), we've added a 'Custom' AI level. This will allow you to freely adjust the Precision and Skill values. Several values (skillFriendly; skillEnemy; precisionFriendly; precisionEnemy) in the Arma3Profile have been made obsolete; in their place, skillAI & precisionAI are used instead. Remember, they are taken into account only if the selected AI Level is "Custom". aiLevelPreset is used to define selected AI Level in current difficulty preset (0 - Low, 1 - Normal, 2 - High, 3 - Custom). But here goes another disclaimer: by using custom settings, while you may see that some values may give better results than any of the 3 fixed levels (don't forget to tell us!), you can also completely break the AI. Your AI, your call.
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