Roaming AI?

[Link]

Okay So I have had people playing on my server request Roaming AI. I have DZMS & WAI installed however their features in terms of AI vehicles roaming around the map feels very limited to me. In the following video on a sever that Devil Dog plays on there are AI that roam in SUV's and Armed humvees that travel around on the roads and even jump out of their vehicle when they spot players.

 

 

(skip to 3:12)

 

It may just be a custom script edit that their admin has created themselves, I am curious however on wherever this mod/script addition exists on these forums. If not how would such a system be possible?

 

Thanks.

[ZENITHOVMAN]

Hello Link,

IMHO DZAI 2.1.2 (just updated) is the best for roaming AI,very customizable/balanced and dynamic.

Lots of features as well. 

Buttface [creator] has done a really good job with this AI Addon.

 

Link for Link:

http://opendayz.net/threads/dzai-2-1-2-release-and-changelog.20829/

 

I use DZAI on my Overpoch PvE server and the players just go nuts for them.

DZAI are so good that there is often cases of mistaken identity in firefights, great for immersion.

They have Overpoch weapons and removable Overpoch skins as well.

By default the numbers of DZAI are balanced with the size of the towns.

Go nuts in the config for it is extensive in it's construct.

 

STENCH

[Link]

Thanks. Yeah I tried installing it but i'm having issues. I made a thread if perhaps you could check it out, thanks.

[Nakama Mind]

IMO sarge is the only true roaming AI without despawns ;)

 

[Guest]

IMO sarge is the only true roaming AI without despawns ;)

 

 by chance have you been able to run sarge ai without all those errors? 1.0.5.1?

[Nakama Mind]

 by chance have you been able to run sarge ai without all those errors? 1.0.5.1?

What errors? RPT spam happens unless you make sure debug is off for sarge.

[Externized]

Sarge looks the best to me

[RimBlock]

I have been using DZAI for a while and quite liked it.  The heli and vehicle patrols were fairly fun and making the bandits hostile to the zombies and each other was great as bandits would shoot at other bandits rather than just keep adding to the ranks of bandits already pinning me down and would shoot at and be chased by zombies which is much better than the zombies just ignoring them and their shots.

 

I recently upgraded and the switch to make bandits hostile to each other seems to have dissapeared.  There also seemed to be a 10 unit limit (heli / vehicle / ai groups combined).  Strangely, even though hostile to zombies was on they also tended to ignore zombies for the most part and zombies only chased them after they fired.  vehicle patrols (land vehicles) also seem not to give chase in vehicles which is a shame.

 

Hopefully the new version will fix these items or I may have to look elsewhere.

[ekroemer]

Yes, DZAI has removed the FreeForAll mode, afaik because of unwanted interactions with other mission systems, e.g. Helipatrols shooting all AI at DZMS missions :-)

 

Shooting Z's: yes, they don't shoot all of them, but I don't know if that would be ideal, either, using them to protect you, so you can snipe them better ;-)

 

I don't think there is a 10 group limit, Using the admin tool I can see my 3 heli and 8 vehicle patrols just fine and the groups statically spawning in my vicinity, too. Did you increase the respective heli/car pools? You cannot have more than 1 each if you don't change the default (e.g. ["UH1Y", 1]) of vehicles to choose from.

 

Vehicle patrols won't chase you in the car once you've succesfully disengaged, in other words: they won't search for you in more as the usual radius used for infantry. But at least in the new version the patrol will re-embark and continue on their way instead of standing just outside the car indefinitely like it was in former versions (where you could fly low over the car, they'd disembark and you needn't concern yourself with them, anymore; same with close driveby).

[bFe]

Any updates on Sarge AI this year?

[RimBlock]

Yes, DZAI has removed the FreeForAll mode, afaik because of unwanted interactions with other mission systems, e.g. Helipatrols shooting all AI at DZMS missions :-)

 

Shooting Z's: yes, they don't shoot all of them, but I don't know if that would be ideal, either, using them to protect you, so you can snipe them better ;-)

 

I don't think there is a 10 group limit, Using the admin tool I can see my 3 heli and 8 vehicle patrols just fine and the groups statically spawning in my vicinity, too. Did you increase the respective heli/car pools? You cannot have more than 1 each if you don't change the default (e.g. ["UH1Y", 1]) of vehicles to choose from.

 

Vehicle patrols won't chase you in the car once you've succesfully disengaged, in other words: they won't search for you in more as the usual radius used for infantry. But at least in the new version the patrol will re-embark and continue on their way instead of standing just outside the car indefinitely like it was in former versions (where you could fly low over the car, they'd disembark and you needn't concern yourself with them, anymore; same with close driveby).

 

Shame as the bandit AI on bandit AI interaction prevented ganging up of bandit AI.  I found myself in Elektro in the firestation tower and got attacked by bandit AI.  Whilst trying to make my way down and trying to carefully get angles on them, 3 more groups arrived and just camped outside the firestation (around 12 AI in all ) until one got me with a headshot.  Bandit vs Bandit stopped that and it was an option to turn on and off if needed so it could have been turned off for others with the mentioned ai systems installed.

 

I would expect zombies to react to them as they would to players and for the AI to shoot the zombies in a XX mtr range.  Them running past zombies without any reaction is not great for immersion.

 

I will check the vehicle pool but from the logs I kept seeing 9 heli patrols, 1 land patrol, 0 (or 1) group.  I have both land and heli patrols set to 10.  I have now lowered them so there are a max of 10 between them and it seems to be working.

 

Unfortunately I seem to be disengaging by driving right past them on a road as they do not follow if in land vehicles.  I had a heli shooting me all the way down a road.  I stopped under a tree, got out with the aim of shooting it down and it vanished.  Time between it shooting me last and getting out of the vehicle was 10 seconds max.

 

The bandits also seem to spawn at the same places at the hight static spawn locations so, for example, If I sit in the control tower with a long range sniper and look west past the hangers of the NE airfield I can usually snipe the AI each time they spawn, usually without them even getting close enough to find me and I am not that good at sniping.  THey used to come up the hill to the side of the airfield as well but I have not seen them do that now.

 

Don't get me wrong, I do like DZAI but just prefered the setup of the older version.  If felt more random and real although land patrols didn't chase in the vehicle then either.

 

Those AI in a little bird with gunz are pretty deadly though.  They destroyed the roof of the red barn where I was hiding in Starey one time.

[ekroemer]

As for the Zs not reacting to the AI (has been alway that way) Buttface had explained that behaviour, afair Zs are spawned locally and can't see the server-side AI.

 

I don't know of any group limit withing DZAI, though there seems to be an Arma-wide limit that every group of Zs or any AI counts towards.

 

Did you wait long enough? In setup_veh_patrols.sqf there seems to be a sleep of 20s after each patrol group spawn, so your 9 heli patrols will take 3 minutes to spawn before the first car will be handled.

 

You could try setting the debug level to something >0, then you'd see any spawn attempts in the server rpt.

 

As for heli patrols: neat when the last thing you see through the optics of your BTR60 is a stream of rockets accelerating towards you :-)

[fr1nk]

I also prefer the old dynamic spawn system. The current one doesn't truly feel "random". Sarge AI was good too when he was actively developing/supporting it. 

[Face]

AI-to-AI hostility:

 

This was option that I really did not want to remove because it was my only answer/compromise to people who wanted friendly AI. This option was only viable when the only AI system you used on your server was DZAI. However, the scripting command that DZAI uses for AI-to-AI hostility affects the entire server. So every AI spawned by the server would become hostile to each other, and this would be a massive problem for people with AI missions installed.

 

 

AI-to-Zombie hostility:

 

AI-to-Zombie hostility requires use of the client-side addon as the warning above the setting states, otherwise you'll never see AI shooting zombies. The reason is that the player's client needs to do the work that makes the AI recognize zombies. Older versions of DZAI did everything on the server but that was extremely unreliable.

 

AI Vehicle chasing:

 

This is completely impossible to my knowledge. 99% of AI behavior in DZAI is controlled by the default Arma 2 AI, and the default behavior dictates that vehicle AI passengers disembark whenever they spot enemies to engage. No other DayZ AI system supports passenger units to my knowledge so that's why you don't see the same thing happen in other addons. If you don't want AI to exit their vehicles when they spot an enemy, consider using only armed vehicles with no passenger (cargo) units.

 

AI pathing:

 

You can adjust the patrol paths yourself if you just move the spawn area markers for the static spawns. The folder you would be looking for is in world_spawn_configs/spawn_areas.

 

Dynamic AI spawn system

 

Mostly a response to fr1nk: Do you have any specific dislikes about the current system or preferences about the old system? The old system was actually a lot less random as the spawns tended to concentrate towards the center of the map and never reached the coastal areas. For Chernarus servers, you would have Stary constantly under assault by dynamic AI, which was doubly problematic if the server was also running Epoch.

 

Because the dynamic spawn locations were predetermined, a very lucky person could manage to travel in between all the spawn areas and never be ambushed by dynamic AI. On the other hand, a very unlucky person could run smack into every dynamic spawn as they traveled from Point A to Point B. A person who just sat around AFK all day on an open field could probably never encounter any dynamic AI. Sometimes, the dynamic spawn areas would be bunched up together in clusters, leaving a huge portion of the map without any dynamic AI spawns. From my point of view, this old system was extremely not random.

 

I designed the new dynamic spawn system to deal with these issues of non-randomness. Instead of users walking themselves into an area to trigger a dynamic AI spawn, DZAI would choose a handful of players that haven't recently been targets, then create a dynamic AI spawn area around the player. Players who've recently been targets would have less chance of being targeted, while players who haven't been targeted in a while (or ever) would "accumulate" a % chance to be targeted. This was the equalizer that would ensure all players would encounter dynamic AI.

 

To the OP (original poster):

 

The AI in that video is most definitely DZAI.

 

And DZAI does have true roaming AI - air and land vehicle AI that never despawns. Only infantry AI are despawned when nobody is around. DZAI's philosophy is that "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody's around to hear it, it doesn't make a sound".

[fr1nk]

Well, I guess the old system was more "simulated randomness" than truly being random since the spawn areas were predefined. Although, for folks who didn't pay full attention while playing (i.e. the majority of DayZ players), the old spawn system did present an illusion of randomness. Even though spawns were concentrated in particular areas, they were still a consequence of player action (driving through Cherno, running across a field somewhere, etc). In terms of location, I definitely agree the new system is more diverse, since it's dependent on player location and not static triggers. Still, it felt more authentic to be attacked/pursued as a result of something I did, as opposed to being selected just because it was my turn to be (this happened several times while semi-AFK and crafting in some obscure part of the map - although the update you did a while ago to account for plot poles did help). 

 

The initial shift over to the new system was slightly problematic, since my servers are typically private and meant for a small community of friends. With a high server population, I suppose it wouldn't be a very noticeable change...but when you average no more than 10 players at any given time, the initial frequency settings were a tad much for our liking. Though, after spending some time tinkering, everything worked out fine. No real complaints about the new system though, it basically achieves the same thing as before, just has a slightly different way of doing it.

[RimBlock]

AI-to-AI hostility:

 

This was option that I really did not want to remove because it was my only answer/compromise to people who wanted friendly AI. This option was only viable when the only AI system you used on your server was DZAI. However, the scripting command that DZAI uses for AI-to-AI hostility affects the entire server. So every AI spawned by the server would become hostile to each other, and this would be a massive problem for people with AI missions installed.

 

 

AI-to-Zombie hostility:

 

AI-to-Zombie hostility requires use of the client-side addon as the warning above the setting states, otherwise you'll never see AI shooting zombies. The reason is that the player's client needs to do the work that makes the AI recognize zombies. Older versions of DZAI did everything on the server but that was extremely unreliable.

 

AI Vehicle chasing:

 

This is completely impossible to my knowledge. 99% of AI behavior in DZAI is controlled by the default Arma 2 AI, and the default behavior dictates that vehicle AI passengers disembark whenever they spot enemies to engage. No other DayZ AI system supports passenger units to my knowledge so that's why you don't see the same thing happen in other addons. If you don't want AI to exit their vehicles when they spot an enemy, consider using only armed vehicles with no passenger (cargo) units.

 

AI pathing:

 

You can adjust the patrol paths yourself if you just move the spawn area markers for the static spawns. The folder you would be looking for is in world_spawn_configs/spawn_areas.

 

Dynamic AI spawn system

 

Mostly a response to fr1nk: Do you have any specific dislikes about the current system or preferences about the old system? The old system was actually a lot less random as the spawns tended to concentrate towards the center of the map and never reached the coastal areas. For Chernarus servers, you would have Stary constantly under assault by dynamic AI, which was doubly problematic if the server was also running Epoch.

 

Because the dynamic spawn locations were predetermined, a very lucky person could manage to travel in between all the spawn areas and never be ambushed by dynamic AI. On the other hand, a very unlucky person could run smack into every dynamic spawn as they traveled from Point A to Point B. A person who just sat around AFK all day on an open field could probably never encounter any dynamic AI. Sometimes, the dynamic spawn areas would be bunched up together in clusters, leaving a huge portion of the map without any dynamic AI spawns. From my point of view, this old system was extremely not random.

 

I designed the new dynamic spawn system to deal with these issues of non-randomness. Instead of users walking themselves into an area to trigger a dynamic AI spawn, DZAI would choose a handful of players that haven't recently been targets, then create a dynamic AI spawn area around the player. Players who've recently been targets would have less chance of being targeted, while players who haven't been targeted in a while (or ever) would "accumulate" a % chance to be targeted. This was the equalizer that would ensure all players would encounter dynamic AI.

 

To the OP (original poster):

 

The AI in that video is most definitely DZAI.

 

And DZAI does have true roaming AI - air and land vehicle AI that never despawns. Only infantry AI are despawned when nobody is around. DZAI's philosophy is that "if a tree falls in a forest and nobody's around to hear it, it doesn't make a sound".

 

Thanks for the detailed reply. 

 

I should really define what I mean by previous version.  THe first version I tried was the one where the random spawn points were amended so they were not generated overlapping each other.

 

AI-to-AI hostility:.  IIRC this was a configable option in the settings for DZAI.  Did it not completely turn off ?. 

 

AI-to-Zombie hostility: Understood and makes sense (thanks ekroemer as well for your reply).  Spawn both locally / Spawn both server side / Spawn one cleint and one server and try to manage the traffic / no interaction.  Any thoughts of a headless client compatible version (I appreciate there is no real standatd HC mod as of yet).

 

AI Vehicle chasing: Shame.  If someone was able to get it to work I can imagine some great Benny Hill moments :) .

 

AI pathing: Sure although it is more the selection from multiple static spawn point to add more of the illusion of randomness.  For the NE Airfield, for example, maybe one to the West (seems to be one there currently), one to the South and one to the North in the forest by the hero trader and then randomise which one spawns.  This seemed to be the way in the older version but the current (previous if there was just a new release) they seem to come only from the West.  I will have a look at reconfiguring them when I get a chance.

 

Thanks again for taking the time.