The non-beta version of the 2.26 minimod is now reasonably close to being finished, though I'm still trying to fix a problem with German bots being unable to use the Geballte Ladung (they run up to tanks, then run away without dropping the charge; this didn't occur with 2.25). Anyone else getting this issue? And does it occur with any other AT charge/grenade weapons?

Also regarding the smoke shell issue, I didn't notice it earlier as I did most of my playtesting on North Africa maps -  tried playing Cobra as Allied and lost mainly due to Shermans firing smoke at enemy tanks + guns (the Germans don't have smoke rounds) rather than something actually capable of doing damage! I've now completely disabled smoke shell use for tanks and AT guns (infantry will still throw smoke nades, mainly at tanks and gun positions)

Similarly I've now stopped aircraft (except the Hurricane IID with its 40mm guns) from strafing medium + heavy armour, They'll still strafe unarmoured vehicles and light armour (halftracks, armoured cars, some light tanks)

I don't think there's any way of specifying a particular weapon (e.g bombs) to use against concealed targets... bots sometimes seem to know that a target's concealed, but this is presumably part of the hard-coded BF2 AI.

A few new issues:
Clearly an issue with ratios where increasing bot count above 32 dumps the remainder on allies. You can rebalance it by moving the ratio in the axis favor to rebalance, but its not ideal. Using a functional FH toolbox, you can go as far as 96 bots with the ratio slider @ 98% to get a 50:50 ratio, but higher and it will be impossible to fix the bias. 128 bots, and you can't even be in a squad along with 32 other bots.

Bots in halftrucks or APcs will never fire on open spots on enemy APCs eg. 2 hanomags or a hanomag and bren carrier.
Bots don't fire at hanomags any longer or at tank top mgs

Many vehicles with the mg34 used by bots have continued mg firing sound in between bursts i.e when the gun is not firing
 
German binocs dont spot in SP/COOP, no matter the kit its with. You can fire a spot at a target, but no remote cam is created. Allied binocs work though.

Not sure what's causing the bot count issue, it shouldn't be anything to do with the minimod as I haven't edited (or even included in the release) any files relating to this area.
Similarly I don't know what's causing the binocular issue as the minimod shouldn't contain any files (edited or otherwise) for binoculars.

I'll definitely look into to the issue with bots not firing at open positions, I suspect this is because bots no longer MGs/small arms at vehicles in the "LightArmour" category (as unarmoured vehicles now have their own category) and somehow aren't recognising the MG crew positions as exposed. I've tried giving the gunner crew positions a different armour category, but this just causes a CTD 

The MG34 sound loop bug was also present in 2.25, I managed to fix the 2pdr + 88 sound loops but haven't yet managed to track down the source of the MG34 one.

Sorry it's off-topic, but I thought this might be of interest: http://www.battlefieldsingleplayer.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15109

Thanks for the link - I'll definitely have a look at this, some of it at least might be usable in FH2 map AI.

I haven't tested howitzers enough to see if they work better or not, but the new SP-only objects have identical raised perspective to the ones in the 2.25 minimod - they're just new objects/entities that only appear in SP and co-op maps.
I have, however, already coded howitzers to fire HE only, in the hope this might make them more effective. One reason they don't work properly may be that bots treat them as direct-fire weapons (as their primary shell type is AP, direct fire); disabling the AP shells might fix this.

The problem, though, may be less to do with any hard-coded difference between howitzers and mortars, than the fact that howitzers are usually placed a long way from the front line (and often behind visual obstructions like treelines and buildings) so rarely get the chance to see enemy targets, even with the raised view perspective.
Nebelwerfers seem to be usually placed closer to areas where combat takes place, so get more of a chance to fire at things. They're the only non-mortar artillery I've regularly seen firing at anything, though the 25pdr on Supercharge will occasionally fire AP at German vehicles that get too near the British main base.

I'm planning to try setting 20mm-equipped armoured cars to IsAntiAircraft=1 (currently it's set to 2, for opportunity shots only), if it doesn't distract them from ground targets too much I'll keep this change in.

HE shells (for all weapons) have the same maximum range as AP - 500m - and I've noticed tanks are much more effective with HE since my last update (with the new armour classification system) though they're still not perfect.

No idea about the fleeing/evasion code, I might look at this later though, I suspect it's in the AI behaviour file, possibly increasing the "take cover" priority will help. I think it's also affected by the "explosion radius" setting for weapons - I deliberately disabled this for AT charges, as their throw range is less than their blast radius so bots never used them - I thought kamikaze bots would be preferable to ones that never used explosives at all 

Haven't seen tanks fire smoke rounds yet, infantry will still (sometimes) throw smoke grenades at vehicles and guns, but won't drop them randomly anymore (this was caused by the same C4 code that caused the satchel TKing)

Tanks should, theoretically, use special AP rounds against heavy armour, but don't always do, maybe there isn't enough difference between the AP and special AP target priorities.

The AI's reluctance to use the guns on Kidney Ridge may be partly because a lot of them are miles from the CP's spawn point; even the Pak38s are rarely occupied. The mortar and flak gun inside the base itself almost invariably get used.

I haven't seriously looked into fixing the aircraft rockets yet (mainly because before Remick04's map addons, there weren't any fully playable SP maps with rocket-armed planes) - but I'm sure I'll work out how to fix this problem eventually, though maybe not in the next AI minimod version.
 
Rockets definitely don't appear to have the same "reversed model" problem as bombs did pre-2.26, so what's stopping the bots firing them is a mystery so far!

Now back to working on the minimod, might take another couple of weeks to complete the final version but I'll definitely get it done eventually.

I've managed to create separate artillery/mortar objects (with raised perspective) for the SP maps, they work fine but every single SP map (at least ones with artillery) needs its gameplayobjects.con editing. I'll include the edited map files with the minimod, but users will have to manually install them into the map archives.

The finished version will definitely have a fix for the standing MG bots (this is caused by a Python script which disables the "only fire when prone" for AT guns and LMGs in SP mode)

DOWNLOAD LINK

This is a BETA 2.26-compatible version of my FH2 AI minimod, compatible with the 2.26 patch version.

It includes most of the major fixes and improvements in the previous version 1.2, but is missing some of the smaller changes (such as raised viewpoints for howitzers; mortars are OK though), and has also not been fully playtested so may have some bugs and CTD issues on some maps. I've tested it on quite a few NA and Normandy maps (including Remick04's additions) and haven't had any CTDs or other major issues, but I haven't tried all the maps yet.

I will be away from home for a week tomorrow, hence the final 1.3 minimod will not be ready for at least 2 weeks - so I thought it would be a good idea to get a more or less complete and playable 2.26-compatible version sooner rather than later.

Reports on CTDs, bugs, AI issues etc. are still welcome (though I probably won't be able to read them till next week); some of them may just be things I haven't got round to fixing yet, but they could also be new issues introduced by 2.26 or (like the Jeep CTD in the last version) as a result of my own errors/typos.

Thanks for the info... looks like some tweaking of the SP gameplayobjects.con files is needed. I'll hopefully include updated SP map files (bringing them closer to the 2.26 MP setup and including the missing vehicles) in the future minimod release with SP-specific artillery objects (not the next version, but probably the one after that).

Not sure why Mareth Line is the only map with a Deacon - the Allies are on the offensive on this map, making it fairly useless, especially since it doesn't have HE rounds. Not sure if this vehicle was historically present at Tobruk or Mersa Matruh but either of those maps seem like the sort of setting where it'd be more useful!

The AVRE is definitely working, I put it into Totalise when I was playtesting it back in 2.25  (can take out an entire CP with one shot if you're lucky... not surprised it isn't in the game yet) but I didn't think to try out the Jackson and GPA.

A small note before you release: heavy mgs now fire standing, totally makes the game feel like battlefield heroes.

A small good thing infantry do have in 2.26 is the charge-retreat when under fire or startled, eg. If a rifleman runs into an enemy at close range.

Any way this can be maintained?

I suspect that's due to the "take cover" setting having a much higher priority than the "move" and "avoid" ones. It might be possible to integrate this into the mod AI. The standing HMGs should be easy to fix, AFAIK this is enabled by one of the Python scripts.

Hopefully in a day or two I'll release a "beta" 2.26-compatible version of the minimod. This will be missing some of the smaller tweaks + fixes in 1.2, and may have some bugs, but will be better than nothing for now (I'll be away for a week on Tuesday so it may be a couple of weeks at least for the final 2.26-compatible version to be complete)

I plan to have another look at artillery after this. There may be a way to raise the viewpoint higher than 15 without causing the spawnpoint blocking issue.

Most static objects do not require the line of code, "aiTemplate.addType ITHasWreck". Hmm... I wonder if WinterHilf, when he was creating alot of the missing ai templates, pulled the ai template from the moveable AT guns and reworked them. 

In anycase, I also noticed in many of the static ai templates that some of them are missing the line of code, "aiTemplate.addType ITUnit".  I do not know if this missing template would cause any issues or not, but I am adding to those tweaks that do not have it.

Thanks for the info - definitely helpful to know. Should mobile vehicle ai templates have the ITUnit line as well? Some have it and some don't.
On a similar subject, do you know what the "cover" setting in objects.ai does, and why some FH2 vehicles (particularly tanks) have these lines disabled or missing entirely? I'm guessing it relates to bots being able to take cover behind vehicles, and/or recognising enemies as being in cover when they're behind a vehicle.

Regarding Djinn's post, alternate SP-only artillery objects won't be in the next (2.26 compatible) version of my minimod, as I want to get it finished ASAP and doing this will require a lot more work and testing (since I'll have to modify the map object files for all the SP maps with artillery in). But it's definitely a priority for the next version after that.
The artillery viewpoint is the only major change in my minimod that isn't purely AI/bot-related, the only other non-AI change I can think of is tweaks to some weapon sound scripts (to fix the looping with the 2pdr and 88 sounds, and give more consistency to gunfire audibility distances for weapons of the same/similar type)

BTW, I noticed 2.26 has "AI" versions of some static guns, such as the Bofors; not sure how these differ from the standard versions, but the Bofors aiming bug definitely seems to have been fixed!