After 2.26 - The way foward

[djinn]

So I tried 2.26.

Its ok. I appreciate ALOT of work went under the hood and I know I can give the devs a bit more slack than I have. There is clearly some improvement to AI. Not enough to make your eye pop, hardly... But certainly its fairly decent... Still not playable though.

Drawde's mod, unchanged still carries a nearly 100% improvement over everything, with the single exception of fighter planes. These seem to fly so gracefully in 2.26 and strafe from far off rather than waiting for the last possible moment. Drawde, I really think you should take a look and see how you might incorporate that into your mod.

The PAK40 still CTDs in 2.26, no big surprise there. I think WinterHilf had already gone AWOL by the time we found out about that bug

Also, I think the 88 in Drawde's mod could have increased range with regard to infantry. It's already handicapped greatly in that it focuses on aircrafts, then tanks, then infantry, making it easy for them to sneak up. However, that can be slightly balanced by given it a bit more HE range.. Not close to as far as AP, but a bit further off.

I dunno why, but all hmgs are can now be fired standing?! I'm sure its fixable, so that might you might definitely want to look at. For some reason, although they can't see as far, the nebelwerfer in 2.26 is actually more active than that in your mod, Drawde. It fires repeatedly, specifically at vehicles. Sure, the priorities should be the same as yours so that with an absence of vehicles, it fires at infantry, but the agression would definitely be appreciated, as with its priority.. it seems to get manned more often also.

For the maps however, there is some good news. Goodwood still needs the patch since its still using the old outdated pathmapping, but Cobra seems to have some new toys. Remick, you might want to update your file with the 2.26 CQ gameobjects file. All vehicles, even the new ones are with ai code so it wont ctd, and we now have the thunderbolt with rockets and the p51 with bombs, making air assets even more interesting

Also, PHL has a new and improved map layout with a flag at the nebelwerfer base, and germans spawning at each base starting from the very first one! Its hectic fighting now, but it should be super fun since no mg, it seems is out of Jerry's way now - I got fired upon by the mg in the open area to the east of the nebelwerfer base.. there is some bot issue which displays an error ever so often with the orchard and the bot number, not sure what that's all about, but it isn't fatal.

Well, just waiting excited for Drawde's mod to be back online. With some sound improvement and a few things like i already mentioned, we might actually have some natural improvements all across

[Drawde]

I was going to start a thread like this myself, but no need now! Here's what I've noticed so far, from playing or looking through the files - probably not a complete list, though. I wrote this before seeing your post, so it repeats a few things you've already mentioned.

- SP support for Gazala! (no Alam Halfa, though) - plus PHL is now available in the SP menu (previously co-op only)
- Bombers now work properly (and the Stuka strafes targets as well)
- Bots can aim AT guns (the ones I saw - 2pdr, 6pdr and Flak 88 - at least)
- Bots use mortars! - at least when they can see their targets; the German mortar was shelling the British lines on Siege of Tobruk.
- The Sherman .50 cal bug (which caused the Luttich loading CTD) is fixed.
- Satchel TKing has been fixed ("c4" behaviour is set to 0.0 in the AI behaviour file - which seems to have had quite a few other tweaks since 2.25)
- The train locomotive has an AI profile (still no SP maps with it in, though)

On a less positive note, the static Pak40 CTD is still there (at least this is an easy fix). Some other things haven't been fixed, such as the messed-up min/max ranges for tank weapons, and the kamikaze AT mine attacks; playing 2.26 has reminded me how bad the unmodded AI is, bots are much less aggressive and there's a lot of clueless/"headless chicken" behaviour, with opposing bots and vehicles running around or facing each other apparently trying to work out how to fire their weapons...

Still, it's good that most of the serious bugs and CTD causes have been addressed. AI modding should now mostly just be a case of tweaking + improving rather than fixing (hopefully).

Since the next version of my minimod will be 100% re-done using the 2.26 files, it should incorporate all of the 2.26 improvements such as Nebelwerfer use (haven't seen this yet) and plane behaviour. (Really not sure how the latter got "broken" in my mod, but since planes need much less modification now, it shouldn't happen again)

[djinn]

aww...100% redone.. But all that work!

Isn't it possible to just incorporate it. We really had some good stuff in yours. Mortar always fired from 2.0, except it couldn't aim well, it only used to fire on El Alamein if it was manned, which was rare, and a tank was right next to it, then its accuracy was such that it aimed at the British outpost.

Personally, I think yours is more aggressive, which is better. Not sure the 2.26 one will even target infantry at all...


The so-called fixes applied exist, yes, but they are nothing close to what you have. I really think you should use all your exact values save for perhaps aircrafts and the nebelwerfer.


But I do agree, if you must do things again, perhaps make it replace the stock files. Sure, it would require people backup stuff, but then it makes it easier for the devs to just pick and use. You can upload it in bundles so that people won't have to open zips to put each aspect. Say, a complete zip file replacement rather than smaller bits.

[Shears]

HI guys,

Im verry impressed with your comments you have obviously spent a great deal of time
evaluating 2.26 allready. I emplore you to check out my post on easy map swapping
http://fhpubforum.warumdarum.de/index.php?topic=6536.0
If we can get people using this tool mods can be released in a format that is super
easy to enable / disable. Its perfect for these type of mods. I dont know if anyone
plays submarine sims but SUBSIM forums use this tool for the majority of their mods.
Anyway back to FH2.26,
Im intersted as to where we now stand. Currently I am using the following modifications

drawdes AI mod
Mt Olympus
Cobra
Totalise
Anctoville
Falaiser
Goodwood

Can you tell me , Are some of these mods now no longer needed ?

Thanks

Shears

[djinn]

I realize the AI family has gotten bigger...

Ok, so here it is in a nutshell:

Drawde's mod would NOT work with 2.26 until he makes some modifications.
All the custom-bot supported official maps i.e
Goodwood
Falaise Pocket
Anctoville
Cobra
Olympus
Totalize
Alam Halfa
Bardia.. someone needs to find the link to this
any other I missed

These should ALL work
Any CTD ingame you get is simply a CTD from a faulty weapon or vehicle that up till now had been fixed in Drawde's mod, not the map itself. The known issues with porting these maps from 2.25 to 2.26 is Olympus modified layout. Bot still see roads where there are now trees... But I don't think it is major, after all, having bad ai is better than having no ai at all, right?

[Devilman]

The known issues with porting these maps from 2.25 to 2.26 is Olympus modified layout. Bot still see roads where there are now trees...   

what if you used the statics con file from the 2.25 version

[djinn]

meh...Temporary solution. Sooner or later, its gotta be compatible with what;s out there... it shouldn't be too bad as it is, we should just wait for the update from Remick

[Drawde]

aww...100% redone.. But all that work!

Isn't it possible to just incorporate it.

Honestly, it's a lot less work starting from scratch with the new files than having to methodically compare the 2.26 and mod files to incorporate all the official changes + additions (of which there are a lot - many not AI-related).
Most of the work is just copying and pasting data from the old mod files into the new ones; it'll take a fraction of the time it took me to develop the minimod to its current state - the one thing that may cause problems is tracking down CTDs caused by typos in the files (especially when creating a new AI template for a vehicle which doesn't have one, copied from an existing .ai file - if you forget to rename all the aiTemplatePlugIn classes, you inevitably get a CTD) - this happened a lot when making the first version.

(edit: Just discovered that, if you run BF2 in windowed mode, it tells you exactly what line in what file caused the CTD. This should make things a -lot- quicker)

The finished 2.26-compatible minimod should include everything that the last release (1.2) did, plus a few more minor additions.

[Raziel]

Woot Woot! Thanks Drawde

[Spike1942]

Great project guys!  Let me know if you need help with historical research.  I'm not so good at the advanced AI coding processes anymore, been a long while since I modded FH1 maps.

[Drawde]

A quick update: I've now finished most of the work on the vehicle data (land and air) and emplaced/armament weapons, and am now making a start on infantry weapons. I should hopefully have the 2.26-compatible minimod more or less complete within a week, but I'll still have to do a lot of testing before release just to check there's nothing "broken".

One thing I have noticed about 2.26 is that the aibehaviours.ai file (in mods\fh2\ai) is a HUGE step backwards from 2.25 - it looks like all Legion's improvements have been abandoned. I'd highly recommend you replace it with either the original 2.25 file, or the one from my minimod v1.2 (which should be compatible with 2.26)

[djinn]

Really? What exactly is different? It feels just as nerfed to me. German tanks seldom fire but just aim alot, Tanks don't use HE at all, German tanks keep fleeing back to their lines... And all tanks still have the chance of camping areas indefinitely.

[Drawde]

Really? What exactly is different? It feels just as nerfed to me. German tanks seldom fire but just aim alot, Tanks don't use HE at all, German tanks keep fleeing back to their lines... And all tanks still have the chance of camping areas indefinitely.

It basically uses the same set of behaviour values for all unit/vehicle types (even though different values are defined at the start of the file), and those values don't seem to be very well optimised.
The only good things about it are that bots no longer TK with AT charges ("c4" value set to 0) and they will also bail from vehicles and switch crew positions (but for the same reason, don't stay on AT/AA guns)

Anyway, most of the basic work on vehicle/weapon AI data for the 2.26 minimod is now done, it's now just a matter of adding in small fixes (such as the British mortar aiming bug) and playtesting.

[djinn]

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?

[djinn]

Also i noted in alam halfa, though the artillery was manned with 15 foot high perspective, it didnt see far enough to be of use. Maybe making line of sight alot further will allow it to fire at the battle area. I would also say, make it only choose HE as that still damages armor and even a miss would work for infantry, since it never seems to fire at them otherwise.