*sam* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 10:01 am	This patch adds the improved combat driving AI that I have been working on. There are numerous areas I have worked on.. the ones I can remember are: * Improved pathfinding in cluttered environments * Improved collision avoidance, especially cliffs * NPC cars will now chase and shoot at pedestrians * In wilderness combats, NPC cars work more as a team, so they don't all target the same car. Also they attempt to apply some "common sense" so a slow car is less likely to chase after a fast car, etc. * They should 'change their mind' less often, but more so when they decide a particular chase isn't working out. * They specifically check for a situation where they're becoming isolated and taking heavy hits; in this case they back off and await backup * Long range cars will attempt to find static locations to sit and shell you from, if appropriate. Even short-range cars will sit still if they seem to be doing well at their current location.
*Zothen* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 10:11 am	Its ALIVE! Seems AIs will get a brain now! Thank you very much, Sam! Dinner is served - so lets go to our bloody work and test the stuff! =)
*viKKing* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 11:10 am	Woot!  I hope I will be able to test that. We only need to find players with a brain now!  (I'm joking guys, don't shoot me, please)
Parduz Posted Jun 4, 2008, 11:28 am	viKKing said: (I'm joking guys, don't shoot me, please) Bounty placed Great, Sam!!! This night i'll go scouting with some fear, for sure.
*Zothen* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 1:37 pm	Ive noticed that the AIs are more able to break off the roads. They will do it much sooner and chase you through the wilds. I had a chomper that was following my (exact?) trail so I couldnt shake him off as easily as I was used to. The times where they were heading directly towards you and get stuck behind hills seem to end. Beware when you head out! Also there seems to be a bug that can crash the event servers. So be careful out there! Sam is already investigating the problem. Lets press thumbs for a short bug hunt! =)
*sam* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 3:29 pm	Several event server crashes have happened since the patch, sorry everyone. I'm just about to upload a server-side patch that will hopefully fix it.
Alocalypse Posted Jun 4, 2008, 4:38 pm	It's still crashing, latest one was an arrival just now at 17:37 server time.
*sam* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 4:49 pm	I know...
Jansan Posted Jun 4, 2008, 6:18 pm	Was there any tweaks to NPC accuracy vs Pedestrians? With this change, they are going to be more likely to shoot at them, and they're pretty hyper-accurate as it is right now.
*Zothen* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 6:36 pm	Yeah, Im worried about my human capital, too, cos I think its related to combats, too - so no more escaping...!
*sam* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 7:13 pm	Quote: Was there any tweaks to NPC accuracy vs Pedestrians? With this change, they are going to be more likely to shoot at them, and they're pretty hyper-accurate as it is right now. You probably mean vehicle weapon accuracy vs. peds, not NPC accuracy vs. peds? No changes.. I haven't played much lately so I can make this tweak if you think it should be done? Possibly make a reduced accuracy based on the activity level of the target, to simulate rolling/diving etc..?
Jansan Posted Jun 4, 2008, 7:26 pm	*sam* said: Quote: Was there any tweaks to NPC accuracy vs Pedestrians? With this change, they are going to be more likely to shoot at them, and they're pretty hyper-accurate as it is right now. You probably mean vehicle weapon accuracy vs. peds, not NPC accuracy vs. peds? No changes.. I haven't played much lately so I can make this tweak if you think it should be done? Possibly make a reduced accuracy based on the activity level of the target, to simulate rolling/diving etc..? Oh, sorry, yes, specifically any vehicle accuracy vs. peds. That's right. I do honestly believe this. I've been fielding peds a lot lately (just check out my events), and have been using all squads of infantry. My experience thus far is: 1. Cover does seem to be working, in general. 2. Vehicle accuracy vs. peds is still far too good. I firmly believe it does need a serious downtweak. 3. As I posted in the suggestions thread, peds need some sort of fallback melee weapon or a way to carry more ammo. It gets kind of stupid when I'm running around a badly wounded enemy pickup truck and can't do anything to it because I just ran out of bullets. 4. I almost forgot to ask, do these collision fixes fix ped-to-ped and ped-to-object collisions? One of the NPC peds bumped into me while I was chasing him and concaved my characters chest and killed her. I just replaced her, but I did want to post that is a serious issue. I wouldn't mind if the NPC ped had actually punched me or kicked me, but we just ran into each other. 5. Now that we have peds, cars with no engine and/or no concoius passengers should not disappear from the battle map in scouts. 6. For fellow players, squad-tactics seem to work best. Too many and it becomes a hassle, too little and you can't do too much against a vehicle. Overall, good experiences but yes vehicles are still far too accurate against peds. Ped damage seems well balanced, but ammo count is a problem. So I'm not asking for more damage, just a way to damage cars when I'm out of bullets, or at least a way to carry more in a car or something.
Mad Mike Posted Jun 4, 2008, 7:35 pm	Event ID S49250 crash 20:33 server time
Alocalypse Posted Jun 4, 2008, 7:49 pm	Quote: Possibly make a reduced accuracy based on the activity level of the target, to simulate rolling/diving etc..? Quote: 2. Vehicle accuracy vs. peds is still far too good. I firmly believe it does need a serious downtweak. I like the activity level idea, if it'll make downed peds easier to hit, right now they're still almost impossible to hit with weapons, even at point-blank ranges and since they go down in 1 hit it's very hard to score kills against them unless you run them over repeatedly (my cars are tanks and thus really too slow for that sort of thing). I think some kind of riot shield that can block ~1 hmg shot worth of damage in the direction the ped is facing would also be a good idea to increase survivability.
Jansan Posted Jun 4, 2008, 8:02 pm	Alocalypse said: Quote: Possibly make a reduced accuracy based on the activity level of the target, to simulate rolling/diving etc..? Quote: 2. Vehicle accuracy vs. peds is still far too good. I firmly believe it does need a serious downtweak. I like the activity level idea, if it'll make downed peds easier to hit, right now they're still almost impossible to hit with weapons, even at point-blank ranges and since they go down in 1 hit it's very hard to score kills against them unless you run them over repeatedly (my cars are tanks and thus really too slow for that sort of thing). I think some kind of riot shield that can block ~1 hmg shot worth of damage in the direction the ped is facing would also be a good idea to increase survivability. I'd be okay with downed peds being easier to hit as long as active ones are a helluva lot harder to hit. The riot shield idea (should be in the weapons thread, you might have suggested it already) is a good idea and I support it, but it's a nice addition, not a solution to the problem in my view. The high activity level bonus is a good solution though, with a higher bonus giving better defense, a 100% giving an especially nice bonus and 10% a tiny bump. 0% activity could in turn grant a penalty to defense since hey, it's not moving.
pweelg Posted Jun 4, 2008, 8:09 pm	Wouldn't like to see all weapons suffer a ped to hit nerf.... I think shotguns etc should remain fairly easy to hit a ped, but weapons that fire a single round...yeah should be harder
*sam* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 8:10 pm	Quote: Event ID S49250 crash 20:33 server time Yeah sorry, we had a couple more crashes this evening. One that alo was playing was really strange, it bombed out on a section of code I have never touched. I'm trying a complete rebuild of the server engine, see if that helps.
Jansan Posted Jun 4, 2008, 8:23 pm	pweelg said: Wouldn't like to see all weapons suffer a ped to hit nerf.... I think shotguns etc should remain fairly easy to hit a ped, but weapons that fire a single round...yeah should be harder Vehicle Shotguns and Flechette guns (especially) should probably have a better chance than most other guns, but still not as good as ped shotguns. And the especially heavy weapons should have almost no chance to hit. You don't use a vehicular missile to pinpoint strike a single human target, that's total crap.
*sam* Posted Jun 4, 2008, 11:36 pm	The crashes have still continued, and something weird that happened in a scout event I was involved in was totally bizarre. Memory seems to be getting corrupted somehow, so I have rolled back the pathing code for the moment. If stability improves, I'll know it's to blame. Sorry again...
madmax Posted Jun 5, 2008, 12:19 am	Was the bizarre part the you were playing? Good luck on finding the problem.
*sam* Posted Jun 5, 2008, 12:31 am	Quote: Was the bizarre part the you were playing? Heh, no even more bizarre would you believe? A bunch of data that's totally unrelated to the pathing code got zeroed, and the event ended because the server thought we had no cars. Plus it thought the NPCs were human playerrs and started the looting process. Seriously. It all makes sense now I have (I think) found the bug. I wasn't resizing the block of memory used to store pathing data when new path points were added, and then elsewhere I was setting NPC path data to zero... which was overrunning the end of the allocated memory and screwing with other data in the game. It explains all the random crash points. I hope. C++ is an evil language.
madmax Posted Jun 5, 2008, 1:17 am	Ok what I got out of that is that the pathing data stuff started using memory that was needed for other things, and confused the hell out of the server. Is that basically it, or am I a very confused person?
Marrkos Posted Jun 5, 2008, 1:30 am	madmax said: Is that basically it, or am I a very confused person? Are these really mutually exclusive?
*Zothen* Posted Jun 5, 2008, 2:33 am	Sounds like messed up pointers to me... Yes, C++ is straight outta hell! Sam, the AIs still do a lot of "Bumblebee dances" at the start of an event! They circle alot around themselves... Quiete aesthetic but...
Parduz Posted Jun 5, 2008, 6:03 am	*sam* said: ...Plus it thought the NPCs were human playerrs and started the looting process. Seriously. You see? give to the AI enough of the "I" and it will start to pretend to be human! Glad you've found the bug. Quote: Ok what I got out of that is that the pathing data stuff started using memory that was needed for other things Yeah, there was no enough space to write all that data, but the only one that check it is Sam when write code. The CPU just write till the end
Parduz Posted Jun 5, 2008, 6:58 am	About the "Bumblebee dance"... do they have a sort of priority betweem them? Says, the most courage goes first and do not care at all about who'is in front of him.... the second one just tries to avoid the first, and then choose his path, and so on?...
*viKKing* Posted Jun 5, 2008, 10:52 am	Parduz said: About the "Bumblebee dance"... do they have a sort of priority betweem them? Says, the most courage goes first and do not care at all about who'is in front of him.... the second one just tries to avoid the first, and then choose his path, and so on?... I don't think so Parduz, that could be needed, yes.
madmax Posted Jun 5, 2008, 11:47 am	Marrkos said: madmax said: Is that basically it, or am I a very confused person? Are these really mutually exclusive? Good point, make it "a person who is very confused about this."
Jansan Posted Jun 6, 2008, 7:59 am	*sam* said: Quote: Was there any tweaks to NPC accuracy vs Pedestrians? With this change, they are going to be more likely to shoot at them, and they're pretty hyper-accurate as it is right now. You probably mean vehicle weapon accuracy vs. peds, not NPC accuracy vs. peds? No changes.. I haven't played much lately so I can make this tweak if you think it should be done? Possibly make a reduced accuracy based on the activity level of the target, to simulate rolling/diving etc..? This change really needs to happen sooner rather than later with these AI changes. All they're doing is picking off my peds now regardless of their cover instead of taking cars as priority targets as they used to (which is why the extreme over-accuracy of cars vs humans was acceptable in fighting NPCs). I'm going to cross-post this because I've brought this up a number of times before and it's kinda critical now due to this AI change for ped combat.
Acierocolotl Posted Jun 7, 2008, 5:01 am	Quick commentary: Event S49582: my dune buggy was crippled with a blown engine. Spying a chance to leg it, my driver jumped out and started running. One car came back and spent a LOT of time shooting up the crippled, driverless car, ignoring the driver who was right out in the open for a bit. I'm not sure at all if that was by design or an oversight.