v1.10 AI Artillery - a whole new game

[Paper Tiger]

This morning I sat down to my first extended play session with the Marines module and I started out by playing a short compilation of the Special Forces missions from Hasrabit to see how much things had changed. I played my way happily through Ambush and Strong Stand and in the latter mission, I noticed that the Green troops were not quite so trigger happy. Perhaps friendly fire has been toned down a bit in the new module? I actually had a blast playing Strong Stand this time. And then I got to The Farm mission. At this point I was already content with what I was seeing, i.e. that the Hasrabit missions are slightly easier to win with 1.10. I noticed that the AI artillery was using air bursts so I took some unnecessary casualties in a couple of missions because I had set up too close to their area of effect. Cool!:cool:

But of course, I didn't see any dynamic AI artillery in any of these missions. Why? Because prior to v1.10 there was no point in giving the AI more artillery modules than it had support zones. So I decided to test out the version of the Farm mission you go to if you lose Hill 142. I started out by giving the AI some extra artillery so that there was a surplus and I also expanded one of the support zones to take advantage of the air bursts. Then I fired it up and waited... and waited. No opening barrage. What was going on?:confused:

Then after about one and a half minutes, I saw a spotting round. Weird! I still was a bit confused but after about 4-5 minutes the spotting rounds changed to Fire for Effect and the results were spectacular. But I hadn't seen anything like this in my first playtest earlier this morning. What had changed?

I hope somebody can confirm this for me to save me spending too much time experimenting but I think that any changes made to missions after V1.10 will see the AI handle it's opening artillery barrage in this way i.e. start with spotting rounds that zero in on their support zone and then FFE after 4-5 minutes. The versions I was playing before were all made with v1.08 and so the artillery barrage started in earnest after about 25 seconds just like usual. But missions edited or created using v1.10 will have this new artillery implementation.

I never actually saw any dynamic use of artillery by the AI in any mission today so I'm going to have to figure that one out. I DID set up a couple of SMOKE fire missions to see what that was like and it was brilliant. I am definitely going to work it into one or two of the new missions for the new version of Hasrabit. Just how long it will take to do this though, I'm not so sure. Because there is quite a long delay to the start of the opening barrage I was seeing Red units run into their own artillery barrage so I'm going to have to retime the attacks where necessary.

Anyway, I must confess that I'm HUGELY impressed by the new game. The Best just got better, and not just a bit better, more like 100% better. Congratulations to BFC and your beta testers on a spectacular job. Now that I've finally got it, I know that it was worth waiting for.

P.S.

If anybody can point me to a mission where I'll see the AI use it's artillery dynamically during he mission, I'd be grateful as I'd like to see it in action so that I know what to look for.

[Cpl Steiner]

Paper Tiger,

First off, weren't you having trouble running the game initially? If so, I'm glad you got it sorted.

Secondly, I too am intrigued by how the AI will use artillery during a game in 1.10. I started another thread before I read yours, in which I said I'd created a test scenario to do this but so far had not seen any AI-controlled fire missions mid-game.

I do hope this feature is working. As I said in the other thread, I'm hoping it just depends on how you set up the AI spotters.

I really want to see AI-controlled Marines calling in Harriers and Naval gunfire when I assault them with Red forces!

[SgtMuhammed]

I think one thing you are seeing is that you are getting inside the AI command loop. In other words, you are changing things faster than the AI can adapt to them. I noticed during testing that because of the delay in Red arty, I haven't done too much with Blue AI, the only things it tends to target are stationary, visible targets. I suspect this holds for Blue as well.

What this means is that most human players will rarely be in place long enough to have fire called upon him. I believe that the AI will Cease Fire any missions that lose their targets. This is a problem even with Blue arty since it is rare for a target to be spotted for even a couple minutes without being engaged by direct fire.

We'll keep playing around with it.

[SgtMuhammed]

One thing you can do to see that the AI does actually call arty is set up a line of enemy bunkers or vehicles and put an FO with some arty and air. Make sure your FO doesn't give himself away. After a while he will call fire.

It is there and we will keep working at it.

[satan]

Paper Tiger - i think it was "day at the beach" that AI arti chewed me up!. Fear of ATGM's made me disembark all troops from the Amtracks prior to game start. Playing in RT i started to move units up the beach but before i was clear the syrians had landed shells on the beach pinning and crushing several squads, ouch!

Maybe it was poor tactics by me but the AI can punch you with arti if ya let it.

[Inkompetent]

During the 3rd mission of the campaign my FO apparantly was spotted, because all of a sudden I had air-bursting mortar shells all over his position. Really nice to see 'counter-artillery' that at least tries to make me blind.

I also think SgtMuhammed is correct, sadly enough. They only seem to shoot on visible targets, rather than on a suspected or known enemy positions, whether they still can see the enemy or not.

[Topo]

For AI arty fire on suspected enemy position, a good system can be a preprogrammed arty shell that is activated after a certain time on a some spot.

What do you think?

[missinginreality]

Whilst I'm still on 'vanilla' I did notice my Blue F/O keep his fire mission on track of a point target while it was moving and still in LOS.

[Paper Tiger]

I've spent pretty much the whole afternoon today working on a single mission trying to set up an opening artillery barrage and I'm getting horribly inconsistent results. Some of the time the artillery comes in quite quickly, within the first minute or so but otherwise it's taking nearly five minutes for it to start up. I've been testing this while I've been typing this and seen that the artillery spotting rounds start coming in after about a minute and a half and continue sporadically for the next 3-4 minutes. Nearly 6-7 minutes after the scenario has started and there's still no artillery barrage?

I have already set up the artillery in Ambush and Strong Stand just the way I want it and also the first two variations of The Farm mission and they're perfect. But I'm getting wildly different results with the mission that has the extra artillery. The enemy is set up in exactly the same place so there's no difference in the LOS at the start of the game. I have tried correcting the artillery to compensate for this and then it starts coming in within a minute. I have no idea as yet what's going on.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Battlefront.com]

We're double checking to make sure there's no artificial reason for the starting time issue raise here, however there are many real factors that do determine when artillery arrives. First, remember that all game factors that apply to the player apply to the AI as well. If a particular type of artillery takes 8 minutes to get going, then from the time the AI decides to use it there will be an 8 minute delay. Secondly, the AI is not going to throw the artillery around willy-nilly, therefore it waits for the time when it thinks it is most useful. If this is 10 minutes into the battle and there is a 5 minute delay, that means 15 minutes for the first shells to come down.

TRPs are something we will get in eventually. Unfortunately, there is no code to support that specific type of "unit". Even CMx1 TRPs were a bloody hack This time around they won't be because the code was set up to handle them. It's just that we haven't prioritized the coding time to make it happen.

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

I decided to create a simple map and mission to test the AI's ability to use artillery dynamically throughout a mission. It is essentially a 1km long strip of table flat desert terrain with a small hill at the north end. On that hill is a 'normal' FO unit (regular experience and normal motivation) and at the other end, a Militia company for Blue. there are no pre-planned strikes and the Red player has two modules of 82mm mortars.

The first experiment revealed that after about 15 minutes of painfully boring walking across the board, I did see some spotting rounds coming in. After another couple of minutes they fired for effect but on empty ground as my trooops had continued walking throughout the mission. So the AI won't 'correct' it's fire if it's target keeps moving. Fair enough.

Then I expanded the mission slightly and gave Red a Recon platoon and added a couple of F-15 Ground support aircraft. After about 14 minutes I heard the aircraft come in but nothing happened. Hmmm. The artillery did it's usual trick of firing on long vacated positions.

I decided to repeat the experiment to see if the AI could call in artillery without the FO having LoS to any part of the board but with the Recon platoon in their same positions. there was no AI artillery at all in this mission so I guess that settles the issue about who calls in the artillery. Once again, I heard the aircraft noises but nothing happened.

So, for my final experiment, I moved the FO back to his regular position, gave him Elite status and bumped the Recon company commander up to Crack level, added some F-16s and finally, some Kiowa light helos to the mix and sat back. The results this time were spectacular. Since the aircraft noises were different this time around I think the F-16s put down some heavy strikes pinning down my boys and then the AI artillery took out the rest. I heard the F-15s but they still seemed to do nothing.

So what do I believe I have discovered?

a Only a Syrian FO unit can call in artillery. His mere presence on the map is meaningless unless he has LoS to the enemy.

b Once he has committed to a strike, he can't adjust it.

c That means that as long as you keep advancing, the AI artillery will just hit the empty ground behind you.

d F-15s don't seem to do anything except overfly the battlezone. Otherwise aircraft are just fine. The trouble is that there are, as yet, no realistic rules for handling Red air power.

Obviously, these are not thorough tests so my comments on the effectiveness of the F-15s need a lot more testing to verify them. However, that concludes my results for this morning. I haven't done any tests to see how the AI handles it's artillery or airstrikes against enemy armour when it is present in the game. That's for later.

[Paper Tiger]

I know it'll never happen but might I suggest that you reduce the delay time for calling in missions for the Syrian AI side, perhaps by up to three minutes? It's certainly fair that the AI doesn't get to cheat but, until you guys work out some way to program the AI to 'follow' it's targets, reducing the delay time for AI controlled Syrian (NOT US) artillery would help to make it just a bit more effective in the game.

Lest some object, just consider that when we use our artillery, we can quite happily dump our artillery on known enemy positions, reverse slope positions for example, just by keeping placing the radii on the visible side of the crest. Or watch the AI's movements and dump a load in it's path. This isn't cheating, it's just intelligent speculation and it probably happens in real life too. The AI can't do any anticipating. Another example of the Iron Man rules AI player.

[SlowMotion]

I know it'll never happen but might I suggest that you reduce the delay time for calling in missions for the Syrian AI side, perhaps by up to three minutes?

...

The AI can't do any anticipating. Another example of the Iron Man rules AI player.

One reason why this anticipation is more difficult for the AI is that it's trying to guess what a *human player* will do. Much more difficult than computer following an AI plan. If you've played against a human player who attacks you know how easy it is to miss targets.

[SgtMuhammed]

As an example of how it can work, I was playing the campaign and was on the Battle for Pooh. I had a couple Javelin teams and MMGs in overwatch along with an M2 Hummer. My attack stalled when a flanking position opened up on us so it took a few minutes to move forces over to contain the new threat.

While this is happening I am also calling for fire on some other Syrian positions, so there is a lot happening. I noticed a couple spotter rounds coming in but couldn't really tell where they were targeted. I had just resumed my attack when the AI barrage hit my support position hard. I scrambled to move my guys inside buildings but it was too late. I ended up losing an MMG team, a Javelin team (that really hurt), and the Hummer. It also further delayed my attack as I now had to reestablish my support fires.

Sweet and frustrating at the same time.

[afreu]

*spoilers*

Made some interesting experience with artillery in the fourth campaign mission (the one after you get to choose the way to Hims, I chose the right way).

I managed to sneak my troops onto the hill at the right side of the map and with the help of a LAV, capture the largest building. This position provided an excellent overview of large parts of the map. With the arriving infantry I continued further into the town and got surprised by an enemy counter attack towards the large building. The recon troops fought of the first wave until an enemy artillery barrage reduced the building to rubble and nearly annihilated my recon section.

While advancing with the infantry and AAVs as direct fire support into town I was constantly harassed by enemy mortar strikes. Apparently not only FOs but SFs in general have the ability to call in artillery.

With dynamic enemy artillery I've to rethink all the tactics I used in pre 1.10 CMSF. Makes the game much more challenging and interesting. I love it!

[Marwek77 aka Red Reporter]

What is the best result in delivery to give to RED Forces - mortars which ones? or field guns which ones?

[SgtMuhammed]

Use mortars, they have a shorter delay. The AI will use bigger guns but they aren't quite as useful for it because it lacks the ability to lead targets that human players can use. Just think of all the problems you have trying to target arty with long delays and then remove your ability to predict rather than just react. That is what the AI is facing.

[Gridley]

Perhaps this should be in a new thread...

Any comments regarding accuracy of artillery fire in 1.10? Not AI, but all. I find a need to adjust missions much more frequently than I recall previously, and initial spotting rounds can be WAY off. This might be true more of naval fire, but I haven't had enough time to experiment...

Thanks,

sg

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Really? Artillery fire seems much, much more accurate to me in 1.10.

[SgtMuhammed]

Yes, I often have the opposite feeling. I noticed that 99 times out of 100 if you call for arty against an enemy vehicle you will destroy it unless it moves out of the target area. That is a little too good too me.

Remember that spotting rounds don't really matter. Usually after three, even if none are close to the target, there will be a fire for effect that is pretty well exactly on target. On the other hand I have had several times where the spotting round has landed on the target and destroyed it.

One thing you will notice about AI arty is that most of it tends to be area fire. Don't count on it though.

[Paper Tiger]

In my original post in this thread I speculated that the AI waiting to fire it's artillery in new v1.10 missions was a feature. I have since discovered that it was caused by very poor frame rates and that when the game was stuttering at the start up, it was unable to effectively handle it's artillery. Since reworking these missions to substantially improve frame rates at the start, the AI has fired off it's artillery in the usual fashion, i.e. after 25 seconds or so. I was mistaken.

[SgtMuhammed]

Actually the thing you noticed was actually happening. The AI would generally wait for almost half the scenario before calling in arty. I made a test scenario that showed that no matter what the time was set at the AI would not call the first fire mission till half the mission had past. Even when given a nice juicy target like a bunker complex surrounded by enemy troops and armor.

This is being updated. I will try to look into the issue with F15s that you noted. I gave the AI a bunch of different aircraft during one test and they seemed to be working fine. I will try to look at F15s by themselves.

[SlowMotion]

What about air support? I've noticed in more than one scenario that sometimes air support (probably marines helicopters mostly) attacks a totally wrong place.

Yesterday I played USMC Just Around the Bend scenario and tried to use helicopters against AI units where they are on that map. When the support came, the attacked location wasn't even on the map. Several hundred meters from the target. Can the map prevent proper air support (like the mountains of this map)? Is the AI smart enough to select flying direction that makes attack possible or does it choose it randomly and because of this sometime fail?

[Sven Dufva]

A minor issue, but I noticed in the last mission in the USMC campaign that the enemy artillery shells were landing on their targets from behind my troops, as if their batteries were located in my rear area. And vice versa.