A3EAI - Roaming/Vehicle AI Patrols - Discontinued

[Scaris]

Face,

 

This script is absolutely beautifully written and my server would quite frankly be a shadow of what it is now without it. Thank you very much for sharing your labors with us. I have had no issues with it at all, plug and play and very configurable. One thing that I have gotten requests for however and I am in agreement with the players on is the ability to take and keep the vehicles they take off the AI if they manage to disable them without trashing the vehicle completely. So my question is:

 

Is there a way to configure the AI to use vehicles already spawned on the map that are in the database?

 

or

 

Set it so players can get in the AI vehicles and if they lock it, it will write out to the database in the vehicle and vehicle lock table?

[Scaris]

thanks, this a3eai works well,but how can i add more ai respwan?tell  me please.

 

All of that is in the config file in @epochhive. You don't even need to open the .pbo to adjust that.

[Sneakydude]

Hey face, great work as always.

 

I was wondering, if you could or have been doing.

 

I want to be able to change the skins of the AI to something different I see everyone using I_Soldier_F type thing. Is there any others that work with this epoch?

 

1. What is I_Soldier_F anyways?

 

Otherwise, most of the AI script is working except for the helicopter random spawns. Not sure why that's broken to be honest on my server.

What I would like to see, is a separate AI Attack Helicopter base script that patrols out there. It looks for Players, and heads back, refuels and re ammo's.

The script would be separate from the Ground AI script.

 

Unless of course having 2 different AI scripts is not a good function for the client.

[Face]

@Scaris: I'm not a fan of either idea for many reasons. I don't want AI to use vehicles on map because: 1) I don't want to hear players complain about vehicles being stolen, 2) AI are notoriously bad drivers and they will wreck every single vehicle that they come across.

 

I don't want players to use AI vehicles because: 1) Users will ask for vehicle saving to DB and DB-saving is something I want to avoid with a thousand mile pole (a potentially unlimited number of vehicles saving to the DB is an extremely bad idea and will cause all sorts of gameplay and technical issues. 2) Difficulty of distinguishing between AI and player-usable vehicles. 3) Devaluation of vehicles spawned by A3EAI due to the sheer amount spawned.

 

@Sneakydude: The actual base unit (A3EAI uses "i_survivor_F") is completely irrelevant because the uniforms dictate the unit's model. This is why all units become the default male player unit (even female units) when their uniforms are removed. I chose to use the i_survivor_F unit since it has almost nothing for its default loadout (just a uniform that is immediately replaced upon spawning), and will unlikely cause problems if a scripting problem prevents A3EAI from properly clearing the unit's default loadout before creating a new loadout.

 

For your helicopters, first check your RPT log for anything that contains "error". It's very likely that you made a config file mistake somewhere.

[numitv]

Face bud could  you upload a version of this script  that you know is working with ai useing cars and helis no matter what i do i cant get it to work all that works is random and static spawns

[Face]

The current version is already working and has been working since the beginning of time. Just change the A3EAI_maxHeliPatrols and A3EAI_maxLandPatrols and nothing else.

[prue420]

Can someone post a step by step instructions for headless client please.

[second_coming]

Face,

 

This script is absolutely beautifully written and my server would quite frankly be a shadow of what it is now without it. Thank you very much for sharing your labors with us. I have had no issues with it at all, plug and play and very configurable. One thing that I have gotten requests for however and I am in agreement with the players on is the ability to take and keep the vehicles they take off the AI if they manage to disable them without trashing the vehicle completely. So my question is:

 

Is there a way to configure the AI to use vehicles already spawned on the map that are in the database?

 

or

 

Set it so players can get in the AI vehicles and if they lock it, it will write out to the database in the vehicle and vehicle lock table?

 

As Face says, he has reasons for not wanting to allow players to have them. Rather than edit his code if you are desperate for that function then you could write a separate script running periodically checking if a vehicle has a database entry or not and making one if it doesn't have.

[Scaris]

@Scaris: I'm not a fan of either idea for many reasons. I don't want AI to use vehicles on map because: 1) I don't want to hear players complain about vehicles being stolen, 2) AI are notoriously bad drivers and they will wreck every single vehicle that they come across.

 

I don't want players to use AI vehicles because: 1) Users will ask for vehicle saving to DB and DB-saving is something I want to avoid with a thousand mile pole (a potentially unlimited number of vehicles saving to the DB is an extremely bad idea and will cause all sorts of gameplay and technical issues. 2) Difficulty of distinguishing between AI and player-usable vehicles. 3) Devaluation of vehicles spawned by A3EAI due to the sheer amount spawned.

 

@Sneakydude: The actual base unit (A3EAI uses "i_survivor_F") is completely irrelevant because the uniforms dictate the unit's model. This is why all units become the default male player unit (even female units) when their uniforms are removed. I chose to use the i_survivor_F unit since it has almost nothing for its default loadout (just a uniform that is immediately replaced upon spawning), and will unlikely cause problems if a scripting problem prevents A3EAI from properly clearing the unit's default loadout before creating a new loadout.

 

For your helicopters, first check your RPT log for anything that contains "error". It's very likely that you made a config file mistake somewhere.

 

Face,

 

Thanks for the reply and I can understand both those reasons.

[Sneakydude]

@face

What vehicles are we allowed to us? Since I have allowed Massi vehicles to spawn, can we use some of those or are they specific to epoch only?

 

out of curiosity, I was trying a tank, and none spawned in one.

 

Thanks

[Face]

@Sneakydude: Currently only Car-type vehicles are allowed to spawn for land vehicles. I may have decided on disallowing tanks to be used (in the past) but now I think they should be usable if the user decides to, so in the next update tanks will be usable.

[Sneakydude]

That is awesome, keep up the good work.

 

Your script is rounding out nicely. The more options we have available the better :)

[Sneakydude]

@face, hey bud been messing with your AI editor, works well btw. Easy to understand by the wiki. Not sure what headless client means yet.

The thing I would like to add to the custom is a marker, and a message on the screen that AI have attacked AKA spot on the map.

Is it possible to do? just need a marker and announcement. How would I go about doing that?

 

- possible as in adding a feature, to allow us to drop a message, and marker from inside the game command console. That way, we can mark the markers at any time.

I wouldn't mind a timer setup, so that it randomly happens multi times during the 4 hr server static.

 

And better yet, can we do #include random.sqf if needed to get out of that custom sqf.

 

 

Oh and btw, heli's work on custom AI, but not in the sqf maxhelispawns so I just turned them off made static runs from locations seems to be working very well.

[Scaris]

I read up on the headless client because I had never heard of it before. From what I understand it's a low overhead method of running AI that doesn't use the server processes. The AI utilizes the client's resources instead. I am by no means an expert so someone else is likely to come correct me but that was what I got out of it. I am running a pretty solid server that runs consistently at 50fps so I haven't been worried about doing the headless option otherwise I may have dug more.

[mimic]

I read up on the headless client because I had never heard of it before. From what I understand it's a low overhead method of running AI that doesn't use the server processes. The AI utilizes the client's resources instead. I am by no means an expert so someone else is likely to come correct me but that was what I got out of it. I am running a pretty solid server that runs consistently at 50fps so I haven't been worried about doing the headless option otherwise I may have dug more.

A headless client at it's core is a method of off-loading the AI processing to a dedicated machine, separate from the server.

 

Purpose: To reduce CPU load on the server and improve AI responsiveness.

 

Deployment: Setup a client on a 2nd dedicated machine that connects to the primary server and processes all the AI.

 

Pros: Reduced CPU load on primary server / Ability to have 200+ AI running around on the server with minimal impact to performance / Faster, more accurate, and more responsive AI

 

Cons: Extra cost/resources needed to run the headless client

[Sneakydude]

Sounds like I need to invest into this. I own a computer firm so hardware doesn't mean much to me.

Now to figure this all out, and how to go about it.

 

I would assume i5, 16gb, 750+ video for arma only, ssd should do nicely. Any other specs we need?

I might change some of the hardware in the house, to cat 6 and re fish some wires.

[spartan]

I have been meaning to post this for some time but have not got around to it.

 

When the vehicle ai's vehicle is blown up say by a mine or collision with another vehicle the ai just casually jump out of the burning wreck as if they had just come to a normal stop so they appear to not suffer any damage from this like a player would, player normally dies in this situation.

[V1va]

Is it possible to get air patrols to land every once in a while so there's a chance the heli's can be hijacked? anyone know if any code exists for this?

[Scaris]

Is it possible to get air patrols to land every once in a while so there's a chance the heli's can be hijacked? anyone know if any code exists for this?

 

You can't... players get ejected from any vehicle they try to enter.

[Stroker]

Hello. Maybe this is stupid question, but... How to force the AI driving with lights (in cars) at night?

 

 

Thanks for help! I love your script!

[Darth_Rogue]

Face, can you add the ability to blacklist patrol areas via map coords instead of just bu using named towns?  I'd like to blacklist the spawn areas and some other custom areas I've set up so AI don't roll up to them.

 

Also, could you add code to prevent units from spawning in near jammers?  I've had a few cases of players complaining about AI spawning in the wilderness right on top of player bases.  

[Face]

No to every question on this page.

[Face]

Face, can you add the ability to blacklist patrol areas via map coords instead of just bu using named towns?  I'd like to blacklist the spawn areas and some other custom areas I've set up so AI don't roll up to them.

 

Also, could you add code to prevent units from spawning in near jammers?  I've had a few cases of players complaining about AI spawning in the wilderness right on top of player bases.  

 

First request is simply impossible since A3EAI doesn't control pathing, only destination blacklisting.

 

Second request is impossible since this code already exists. The bases are likely near a named location where a static spawn is located. If you can find where these bases tend to be located, disabling static spawns near this location type will help.

 

Edit: I will look into the second request further, but the first request remains impossible.

[V1va]

You can't... players get ejected from any vehicle they try to enter.

 

Oh yea sorry forgot AI vehicles aren't driveable, just wondering why is this the case?

 

The reason i ask about them landing is it seems like there's no way to take them out, the second a pawnee or orca gets sight of a player they're almost instantly dead, AI almost never misses a shot and without AA launchers trying to take on oncoming pawnee with with rifle by trying to shoot pilot seems like suicide.

 

Curious how other players deal with them?

[cyncrwler]

Curious how other players deal with them?

First, you can set the detect chance a lot lower. This does help slightly. You can also add a couple helis that are not armed, just for the ambiance. As for taking them out. I have taken out a ton of Pawnees with a rifle, and even a pistol. The key is hitting the pilot. No sense shooting the chopper unless you have a M107 or Lynx. As for the Orca. Go for the pilot, or rotors, or just get out of your vehicle until they go away.