AI can not traverse rice paddies / AI pathfinding

PrivateEvans

As the title says, AI team mates are not able to traverse the rice paddies, to be exact they can not cross the elevated borders. If you place AI soldiers inside one of them they are trapped. Same problem we had back then with the low stone walls on Altis/Stratis until BI fixed it. As you all know you can now just walk/ run over them. Since it is nearly the same height, a fix should be possible. Without a fix large potions of the map will be completely useless for playing with any kind of AI.

Bridges are working fine, even the smal rope bridges 🙂. Rope bridges and some of the large wooden piers (Mekong Delta markets) seem to have bad collision though, units are walking in the air above them.

AI controlled vehicles seem to do a lot of zig zag on roads as as if to search for the right path. During the SP mission, when driving to the shooting range our jeep hit nearly every lamp post beside the road.

Other than that the dlc is just awesome and probably the best and most immersive gaming experience I've ever had in Arma !! Thx a lot for your hard work over all the years !!

DarkSnake

The problem with Water and IA is in Arma 3 .But you have solution for Fix this problem . Use All In One AI : https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/224834-all-in-one-single-player-project/ look the video here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXmke6nnXDs&ab_channel=Leopard20 Or You can use VCOM AI for Add More Logic in IA

PrivateEvans

Yeah thx this seems to help with a lot of vanilla problems, but the problem with the rice paddies is simply prop related.

Jack4607

Thank you for the report, we will investigate this issue.

stormridersp

I was going to report this bug now. The vanilla AI is incapable of navigating through rice paddies or flooded areas. Although I think they look pretty nice, there are many things amongst the rice paddies in this map that represents "AI fence jumping olympics" which, in other terms, can be said to be detrimental to the simulation value of the DLC.

I understand that the reason behind the lack of single player content is attributed to the utter incompetence of Arma's AI, but at the same time, it's impossible to get rid of it completely, for even in the included multiplayer coop modes there is always a necessary AI presence.

My suggestion is that the map should be revised and simplified in terms of obstacles and superfluous eye-candy objects but also, not less important, be made with dried rice paddies. There is no point in having a pretty map when it's unplayable.

Edit: Apparently the problem goes beyond just flooded riced paddies. I think that the problem are the mounds that divide each paddie. The AI path finding can't cross them. Perhaps making them lower in height will solve the issue.

PrivateEvans

As I wrote above, the problem is not related to the paddies being flooded! AI can perfectly walk inside the paddies but can not travers the elevated borders surrounding them.

I absolutely agree that the focus here is on Coop/PVE and I am absolutely fine with it but every improvement made for AI pathfinding makes the COOP experience better also🙂

Nearly every village and every town is surrounded by fields and rice paddies so this for me is a real must have fix 🙂

Talking about making maps more AI friendly in general is a thing of its own and should be discussed in an own thread 🙂

Jack4607

Hi, thanks for the further feedback, we will look into this and hopefully can ensure that the AI can navigate the rice paddy objects successfully, thanks again for the report.

stormridersp

Jack4607 wrote:
Hi, thanks for the further feedback, we will look into this and hopefully can ensure that the AI can navigate the rice paddy objects successfully, thanks again for the report.

Using the module Hide terrain object, it's possible to create gaps in these obstacles. Perhaps the map could be revised to include built-in gaps.

PrivateEvans

Edit: It is possible to use invisible pathways from the editor ( 1m are looking the best). If you place them correctly AI is able to traverse the rice paddies dike walls.

tonic

[MENTION=417]PrivateEvans[/MENTION]:

What du you mean by invisible pathways?

PrivateEvans

tonic wrote:
@PrivateEvans:

What du you mean by invisible pathways?

You can find them in the Editor under VietnamObjects/Structures / Rocks or simply search them by typing invisible. These are invisible objects, having pathways on them to allow AI to walk over them, provided in different lenghts ranging from 1 to 10 meters.
My guess is they were made as an easy solution for all the structures and bridges and stuff that had no pathways for AI. You can notice that when you see AI traversing these small rope bridges...AI is walking far above them in the air...Also AI is only traversing in a column one by one.
Anyway this maybe works well as a solution for the handfull of bridges and tunnels etc but not for the hundreds and hundreds of rice paddies...it is only one object that has to be changed or redone and this is the rice paddy dike wall, it needs pathways attached.

tonic

[MENTION=417]PrivateEvans[/MENTION]

Thank you very much for sharing that information!

krzychuzokecia

Jack4607 wrote:
Hi, thanks for the further feedback, we will look into this and hopefully can ensure that the AI can navigate the rice paddy objects successfully, thanks again for the report.

Would be very appreciated: I've played several "random mission generators" which are already available on Steam Workshop, and rice paddies are bane of AI existence. They not only won't go through the paddies' walls, but even walking between two paddies (on a road) they will often stop. It's a problem that not only makes impossible commanding AI squads, but also affects the mobility of AI enemies.

Also, it might be worth taking a look at swamps/marshes and other flooded areas on map (for example Mekong Delta) - they also slow AIs down, maybe adding a few dry "land bridges" could fix it.

Jack4607

We have had AI navigate these successfully in the past so it's definitely something were looking into hopefully we can restore the functionality, as for the swamp areas that is something we can also look at thanks for the suggestion.

PrivateEvans

krzychuzokecia wrote:
but even walking between two paddies (on a road) they will often stop.

This is a general Problem with Arma 3 pathfinding..same happens with large Rock formations. Even if you leave a gap between the rocks and have a path leading through them, AI will not pass through and simply stop. Same with a lot of Buildings. I guess the collision boxes are simply so big that they are blocking the AI.

A lot of these things are not obvious until tested properly...or not even known by people making maps. Another thing that is very annoying on most maps...people tend to place walls and fences around every orchard , farm, field and compound, wich loooks of course very nice...but having very often just one entrance is also a nightmare for AI.