Reverse to safety

[SlowMotion]

In several games I have noticed that tanks and vehicles have this reaction. When they are hit by enemy firing, they try to drive to a safe positon. But: even if the firing comes from behind they always seem to reverse. In other words the AI driver doesn't think where bullets come from. Always reverse even when it actually increases danger.

At least to me this seems like a bug. Comments?

[Serk]

Playing Real Time kinda solve this problem

[YankeeDog]

Yes; this can be a problem at time, though in my experience it's rarely a problem for very long since the lifespan of an AFV with its ass-end to an enemy is generally measured in fractions of a second.

I think the difficulty is in programming an AI that can "know" what a safe direction of retreat is. This is a highly contextual evaluation. Presumably, the AFV is facing a certain direction because there's a known or expected threat in that direction. So if a threat suddenly appears to the rear, it's not necessarily a good idea to go forward, as this is quite possibly heading right towards another threat.

Ideally, the vehicle-level AI evaluates local terrain and conditions, and determines a direction to move that will likely break contact, while not putting it in danger from any other known or suspected threats, and heads that way. Perhaps over time we'll get some improvements to the AI in this direction, but I would not expect miracles.