SUGGESTIONS FOR THE AI DEV(S)

[Ivancic1941]

Don't worry, they'll keep raining explosive stuff down randomly. That sentence was about cutting a thing which bots don't understand anyway. The only differences in gameplay will be no more unfair spotting points and maybe one or two additional frames per second on the maps heavily laden with arty.

Nice to hear for frames,I realy need them

[nysä]

How high is the Operation Cobra on the fix list? This currently my #1 favourite map in the Coop mode, but it has quite many glitches - especially on the German side: bots generally drive too "carefully", getting stuck on the bridges, bomb crates, even the smallest upward slopes (driving back and forth).

Btw - I did little tweaking on this map, namely replaced some of the 88s with the shield with 88's w/o the shield (flak18ns_fr), but the bots doesn't seem to respond to the enemy planes. Does this require some further AI tweaking?

[gavrant]

Fine, fine, fine, I must confess: while tweaking vehicle weapons for FH 2.48, I made one tiny mistake, and as a result in 2.48 bots don't shoot the 88's at airplanes. You can fix it locally by going into mods/fh2/objects_vehicles_server.zip and finding Vehicles\Land\Common\ai\ammo_aa_4.inc file in there. In that file delete the line which starts with "weaponTemplate.setExplosionRadius" and they will shoot the 88's again. BTW, gun shields don't obstruct vision of the bots, so it doesn't matter if it's a shield-less 88 or not.

How high is the Operation Cobra on the fix list? This currently my #1 favourite map in the SP mode, but it has quite many glitches - especially on the German side: bots generally drive too "carefully", getting stuck on the bridges, bomb crates, even the smallest upward slopes.

Oh, come on! Operation Cobra is far from being the map with the worst pathfinding. Try St Vith or Ramelle if you truly want to enjoy more than a half of your team's vehicles being stuck somewhere between the main base and the front line

[Darman]

Try Bastogne as Defenders and wait for the German tanks to arrive on the front line... Or wait for armored support as German... Nope, they are all stuck in the woods 50m from the base. The Armor driven assault never really happens. Bastogne is one of the greatest maps out there, yet in COOP it can never unfold its full potential (thats also because you can't assign more than 48 bots to team 1 (Axis), but thats another story).

That is something that needs to be fixed. Never had major issues of that scale on St Vith, Cobra or Ramelle.

[nysä]

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[Michael Z Freeman]

Hi gavrant and bot fans !

I was playing with the artillery spotting on Bastogne. Thought I might be able to create an artillery request position (the red explosion icon that appears on the map) by getting up high and pointing my bonoc's across the map. But does not work.

Then I thought why not just drive in a fast vehicle near to where I want the artillery, spot from there then just drive back to the artillery guns to open fire ? A better idea, but unfortunately there is a time out on the spot position so there's never enough time to get back.

How about for SP /Coop (started from MP menu) increasing the time out or doing away with it altogether ? That way the player can spot positions at their leisure and then use the artillery when they get back to the rear of the map. An entire minigame in itself, and a worthy replacement for lack of AI commander artillery ? Not sure if the spot positions disappear at death but that could be an extra incentive to try and stay alive 

Fine, fine, fine, I must confess: while tweaking vehicle weapons for FH 2.48, I made one tiny mistake, and as a result in 2.48 bots don't shoot the 88's at airplanes. You can fix it locally by going into mods/fh2/objects_vehicles_server.zip and finding Vehicles\Land\Common\ai\ammo_aa_4.inc file in there. In that file delete the line which starts with "weaponTemplate.setExplosionRadius" and they will shoot the 88's again. BTW, gun shields don't obstruct vision of the bots, so it doesn't matter if it's a shield-less 88 or not.

How high is the Operation Cobra on the fix list? This currently my #1 favourite map in the SP mode, but it has quite many glitches - especially on the German side: bots generally drive too "carefully", getting stuck on the bridges, bomb crates, even the smallest upward slopes.

Oh, come on! Operation Cobra is far from being the map with the worst pathfinding. Try St Vith or Ramelle if you truly want to enjoy more than a half of your team's vehicles being stuck somewhere between the main base and the front line

I usually (If I'm not shouting and cussing at bot soldiers who will never hear me  ) treat that as a logistics problem...

"Tank X has broken down and/or driver has gone mad from battle fatigue and needs to be positioned correctly again by an engineer ..."

"Tank Y has a busted track that needs replacing ... then ... it can be test drivin by an engineer onto the correct path."

Really if you stop cussing at them, bots can provide endless ideas for imaginary battle scenarios .

[Michael Z Freeman]

Another artillery related one. A request. Give mortar kits binoculars then the mortar can be dropped and artillery request can be put in. Then this kit can be as good to use as the artillery tank on one of the desert maps which I use with recon or sniper kit 

[Ivancic1941]

But that will be good in SP but cant be used in MP

[gavrant]

How about for SP /Coop (started from MP menu) increasing the time out or doing away with it altogether ? That way the player can spot positions at their leisure and then use the artillery when they get back to the rear of the map. An entire minigame in itself, and a worthy replacement for lack of AI commander artillery ? Not sure if the spot positions disappear at death but that could be an extra incentive to try and stay alive 

Another artillery related one. A request. Give mortar kits binoculars then the mortar can be dropped and artillery request can be put in. Then this kit can be as good to use as the artillery tank on one of the desert maps which I use with recon or sniper kit 

Don't know. On the one hand, these suggestions sound rather "gamely", especially the artilleryman running to a spot and back to the mortar. On the other hand, both these requests are rather easy to do, and I don't see any harm in increasing the time-to-live for spots up to, say, 5 mins in singleplayer instead of the current 2.

But that will be good in SP but cant be used in MP

It's the least of the problems here, we already have a lot of stuff behaving differently in SP and MP, like some of the explosives flying slightly further in SP (stupid bots constantly underthrew thermite grenades on Pointe du Hoc), the Garand rifle reloaded by pressing R, the shotgun in most of the Bazooka kits, and so on.

[nysä]

I usually (If I'm not shouting and cussing at bot soldiers who will never hear me  ) treat that as a logistics problem...

"Tank X has broken down and/or driver has gone mad from battle fatigue and needs to be positioned correctly again by an engineer ..."

"Tank Y has a busted track that needs replacing ... then ... it can be test drivin by an engineer onto the correct path."

Nice! Sometimes the German base reminds me of a Wehrmacht training ground. Makes sense.. kinda.

[Michael Z Freeman]

I usually (If I'm not shouting and cussing at bot soldiers who will never hear me  ) treat that as a logistics problem...

"Tank X has broken down and/or driver has gone mad from battle fatigue and needs to be positioned correctly again by an engineer ..."

"Tank Y has a busted track that needs replacing ... then ... it can be test drivin by an engineer onto the correct path."

Nice! Sometimes the German base reminds me of a Wehrmacht training ground. Makes sense.. kinda.

Bots ... endless amusement   

How about for SP /Coop (started from MP menu) increasing the time out or doing away with it altogether ? That way the player can spot positions at their leisure and then use the artillery when they get back to the rear of the map. An entire minigame in itself, and a worthy replacement for lack of AI commander artillery ? Not sure if the spot positions disappear at death but that could be an extra incentive to try and stay alive 

Another artillery related one. A request. Give mortar kits binoculars then the mortar can be dropped and artillery request can be put in. Then this kit can be as good to use as the artillery tank on one of the desert maps which I use with recon or sniper kit 

Don't know. On the one hand, these suggestions sound rather "gamely", especially the artilleryman running to a spot and back to the mortar. On the other hand, both these requests are rather easy to do, and I don't see any harm in increasing the time-to-live for spots up to, say, 5 mins in singleplayer instead of the current 2.

Sounds good. The mortar pickup kit involves a lot less running around.

I also notice that the raised artillery and mortar positions (so bots using them have extended range) seem to mess up targeting to artillery spot locations using the dials, although this could be something weird going on with the Fall of Tobruk map that I noticed it on. If its the raised artillery positions, I wonder if there's a way of fixing that, or lowering them to normal level ? Whatever you decide ... I can always create a personal build of FH.

[gavrant]

I also notice that the raised artillery and mortar positions (so bots using them have extended range) seem to mess up targeting to artillery spot locations using the dials, although this could be something weird going on with the Fall of Tobruk map that I noticed it on. If its the raised artillery positions, I wonder if there's a way of fixing that, or lowering them to normal level ? Whatever you decide ... I can always create a personal build of FH.

If you mean the British mortars on FoT, the dials of the "AI" 3 inch mortar are broken which makes them useless for human players. This will be fixed in the next release. All other artillery guns are "spot-compatible".

[Michael Z Freeman]

Wow, amazing as always gavrant  I'll look forward to the fixes.

[nysä]

Is there a way to support / donate to individual developer? Paypal?

[Michael Z Freeman]

So. Smoke grenade thing. Make bots target the grenade ? Think this is the target weighting thing ? If they're too busy shooting at the grenade then the AI is effectivly blinded. Had a sort of eureka moment with this. Not sure if its as amazing as I think, but probably potentially more elegant than spawning a big transparent sphere model