Sunday, May 31, 2015

Arma 3 Now Has Built In AI Suppression

There were and there are third party mods for AI suppression. From the videos that I've seen, one could argue that those work better than the new Arma 3 built in suppression features. But I am happy to see all these goodies slowly creeping into plain vanilla Arma 3.

In this very simple custom, single player setup I am about to make contact with an enemy rifleman.
I peek around the corner and I shoot with vigor against the enemy, who returns fire. His aim is all over the place (purple lines are the path of his bullets).
As I slacken my rate of fire, the enemy's fire becomes more precise. Note the tight grouping of the bullets (purple lines) of the non-suppressed enemy.
I absolutely love it. Now leap frogging a group forward will be more realistic.

I was expecting the enemy not returning fire while suppressed. Indeed it looks like it is the AI's aim is what is thrown off by suppression rather than the rate of fire. But as always it is one thing at a time with Arma 3's development.

Cheers,












13 comments:

badanov said...

Was this a single sniper, or part of a squad you just engaged?

Usually, once it makes contact, the AI begins its counter maneuvers. Sometimes the AI separates a single rifleman once it gets smacked and starts its own suppression.

JC said...

Hi again, badanov. :)

It was a single enemy rifleman. I wanted to make sure I was suppressing the whole enemy force. You are right in your assessment and more enemies would have complicated the setup.

Cheers,

Unknown said...

I'd love to see this demonstrated with squads or platoons, but I can tell that the suppression system's changed things up a lot in the short time it's been released. Dog Company's missions have been going a lot better since the AI isn't immune to suppression. It's a huge impact on a games when they don't whirl around and shoot you right in the head at 700m away.

Do we know if vehicles are impacted at all?

JC said...

Hi Tony!

Yes indeed. One has to be careful, though, making sure that all the enemy force is suppressed. One enemy guy left on the loose and you are in trouble.

I'm working on a mission that I had on hold. It's about an assault on an AI-held strongpoint. I am hoping I can see the suppression effect in that mission.

Cheers,

Unknown said...

I suppose it'll be worth seeing if there's any kind of shared suppression. Maybe a kind of psychological concept of "the guy next to me is suppressed, I'm in a like kind of danger" is there? Probably not, but we can dream, right?

Can't wait to see how it goes!

JC said...

That would be something to watch! :)

Cheers,

Anonymous said...

Well currently at the 1.46 update I must say that the AI actually react pretty damn brutally and in a very realistic manner too. I for one personally find it more of a challenge to play against native AI and not ASR AI when my clan does us native AI for some ops. Also in cqb situations I have noticed the enemy continuously suppress the wall corners you last peeped out from and basically just do a damn good job of suppressing. I also like how the AI now use smoke and also split into groups to fall back, suppress, outmaneuver and flank the opposing force. It's all getting so much better and I do hope they keep on polishing the AI.
Cheers!
-AP

JC said...

Hi AP,

It is getting better. The thing I would love to have is that thing where you point at a building and order your AI squad mates to throw suppressive fire. VBS has it ... Why not in ArmA?

Cheers,

Anonymous said...

Can anybody tell me the criteria to have this work? For example I put an unarmed CSAT soldier in a map and shot at him, he didn't even flinch.
So...for example does he have to have a weapon, and does the suppression only work in SP and not MP?

Johan said...

The supression works by reducing the accuracy of the AI when firing a weapon, if there are shots going close by them. So, you will not notice anything with an unarmed soldier.

Johan said...

I might also add that this is of course far from an ideal solution. As far as I know, the AI rate of fire is not affected, for instance. A better system would be to have the AI not fire at all, instead just taking cover, while suppressed. But remember, this is just a first implementation of suppression in Arma, which was previously totally lacking. There will certainly be many improvements made to the suppression system in the future.

Anonymous said...

Hi Johan

You just described TPWCAS for Arma 3 that does just that. Our clan used it until we thought the new Arma 3 suppression system made it redundant. But now we'll probably go back to it as Arma's version doesn't seem quite ready.
The reason I raised whether the AI needs to be armed is that with TPWCAS, the AI will drop whether armed or not, under suppressive fire.

Johan said...

Ok, in that case it sounds like you're right in sticking with the mod for now.