Island War 2017 - Ultimate Artificial Warfare

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp_AJQlYKHo



I apologize for the performance, my computer is still the one I built with the I7 I won entering the "Intel grab-and-dash" competition held at OFDR's release!  Yep, this is on an 8 year old computer!   Without the video recording software IW2017 runs at 50-60 fps with dips to 35 fps in larger towns (because of the visual object upgrade IW2017 gives them).  Better machines will not have a problem!


Everything in this video is dynamically generated by artificial intelligence.  There are no paths or scripted sequences or other tricks used.


Island War 2017 is full rebuild of the original Island War mission for Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising I produced back in 2009.
I worked on the original version for 2 years full time, and a further 2 years before shelving the project.    With much more experience coding, and a revival of the Multiplayer aspect of Dragon Rising I decided to finish Island War once and for all.


Island War is essentially an Artificial Intelligence.  The goal from the beginning was to take the already incredible Ai built into OFDR and layer a third, as-complex Ai on top to control what each group of soldiers does on the Island as a whole.

The result is Ai controlled enemy and ally armies unlike anything you have seen in a game before!

Each soldier is provided a complex reactive Ai by the core game itself. This as is extremely good at reacting to a situation by using what are called "playbooks" these are lists of orders to give themselves depending on the type of soldier they are, and the situation they are in. 

Each Echelon (group of soldiers) also has a "playbook" which in a similar manner, tells the group they should do in what situation depending on who is in the squad.

This is where the Ai built into Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising Ends.  And it is, in my opinion, some of the most impressive Ai written for a first person shooter.
When the game came out however it is important to stress that development issues and a rushed release meant it was configured very badly, and did not work well. I fixed this myself with a modification called Ultimate AI in 2009.

Ultimate AI is just a reconfiguration of the built in Ai's setup to maximize their effectiveness. I have also upgraded UAI along with Island War with improved movement, healing, weapon usage, vehicle driving, flight behavior and a host of other areas.

Island War creates a final additional Ai for each echelon that is in play and is designed as a goal oriented situation-ally aware behavior system.

At all times each echelon remembers what it was doing last "update", what it is doing now and what it plans to do in the future.  It takes this information each update along with all the information it can grab from the game engine about the current situation around it, and runs this data through an extremely complex logic system which shuffles information between past/current/future to come to a final decision as what to do at that very moment.

Rather than having the goal "capture the Skarinka", each Ai has a "home" and a "goal". 
Locations that are under enemy control nearby effect the behavior of defenders for example, and naturally creates a situation where defenders gather and eventually attack that location (safest defense is a good offense!)


This video is a perfect example of the emergent behavior.  Once the US forces landed the Seahawk's south of the airfield (scripted mission start) they are handed over to the Ai.  Most choose to defend their new home as there will be enemies there. One echelon became a defender, saw there was a (now empty) Seahawk nearby. That is considered to be combat effective and there is 3 of them, so they jumped in and started defending. Because they are in a helicopter there defense tactic changes also.

There are 13 goals that can be chosen from : Defend, Patrol, Roam, Travel, Advance, Attack, Defend Unit, Defend Player, Helicopter Attack and Passenger, Wait Until Bored

Each goal is associated to another, so a Defender may go Patrol, but not Roam, unless it decides to not defend home for example.


Please Note that while almost complete, Island War 2017 is still in progress and not yet complete. There are still in a few odd behaviors that need fixing!

More details to come

I was hoping for more close up action, but those Seahawk's just annihilated everyone!

From the other side, mission restarted

This is amazing. I was super impressed with 2.8, I can't wait for 2017.

Templar I just had a read of this and I must say the way you have written the AI package now, to me, sounds like we could be in for some serious fighting to try and take back the island. 

While I was reading it, I could not help but think about OPNighthawk that me and TJ made a few years back. I know that is has a few bugs in it, but do you think you could incorperate the type of thing we were trying to reproduce with the stealth aspect of the mission with the AI itself. 

I don't know whether you actually had a play through the mission but, we had a system that would have the player literally have to plan the mission before hand to get the mission done. The enemy would react to loud weapons fired and investigate with roving patrols to where they thought the sound came from, silenced weapons didn't have this effect.

Players were detected depending time of day and distance from the enemy also. If the enemy suspected something was out of place within their viewcone, they would investigate the area they thought something was out of place, this could movement by a player, firing a non silenced weapon, or finding a dead body. the dead body one was the best because you had to scoot your ass out of their quick as before the reinforcements arrived. 

The stealth monitor was a system that worked something like Metal Gear Solid of Assasins Creed, where detection would mean your stealth meter would decrease depending on how detected you were by the enemy. The more you were detected the more likely reinforcements would come to investigate your location, this would be patrols in vehicles land and air too. the frigging heli's when they searched for you were a bloody nightmare. But I did love the transport search party, if you were detected a heli transport would drop troops off and search for you, the heli would fly around and search while the troops on the ground looked for you too. If you were not found the heli would land and pick up the troops and fly off again. 

You basically had to go off and hide until your stealth meter reached 100 again and you were back to being in full stealth mode. It worked kinda like a traffic light system. Green being you were full stealth. Amber suspected, Red you were fucked, HIDE OR DIE Fighting! lol

I know you UAI is mainly squad based inteligence but couold there be some sort of system like that incorperated into the code for the player. This would make the SP and COOP missions played liked never before unless you have played Nighthawk. 

It did turn the turkey shooting into a game of cat and mouse and have you thinking about your actions alot more than just going in Guns blazing and then restarting. It also meant that teamwork WAS VITAL to complete the mission. 

All in all though, the UAI17 sounds fantastic and I think the dangling dog toy on a string is getting closer to my chops. As always you never fail to impress us with your abilities. 

MD.

I did play OPNightHawk actually!

As I am sure you remember, UAI has alot of setting that allow you to improve the night-time somewhat, but at the end of the day the AI still acted the same night or day when not notsuspected/suspected/detected. just at a shorter distance

UAI2017 is the same, the settings are slightly better, with more middle-ground on the hearing sensor, and a smaller critical detection area to increase stealthy aspects of play. 

IW2017 has only simple day/night gampeplay mechanics but day/night is taken into account.  For example only flashlight teams and stealth specops spawn during the night, though in lower numbers than the day.   Their abilities are altered by UAI as mentioned, and IW goes a bit further to manage mood, doctrine and behavioral links during the night to make them act differently.

Its an area that could definately be expanded on however!


For now though, its just about finishing what is IW right now, so it all works properly!

yeah no worries.

One thing I especially liked on Nighthawk was  the on the fly thinking you had to do because of the way the AI would work. You could force them to move to your advantage by creating distractions. This gave you windows of opportunity to reach objectives or move to a certain area. 

Be interesting to see the AI work with the system. It certainly would make the missions different not just from a gameplay aspect but from a player "lets think about this a sec" pov.

There was a good discussion on Bohemia as members are STILL trying to come up a good stealth script.  Anyway the most straight forward approach sounded like a players status is made a captive (or other neutral character) then as the player is seen a revealed score is added (dependant on distance and last known location all with a cooldown) - the idea is until a certain level is reach (scoring by frequency or number of enemy witness) THEN the player status if switched to BLUFOR and everything works as normal until the player evades and waits out a cooldown at a new higher starting level (until there is no cooldown)

Sounded like a very good approach that balanced existing AI and a straightforward approach to stealth

John J. Stevens wrote:There was a good discussion on Bohemia as members are STILL trying to come up a good stealth script.  Anyway the most straight forward approach sounded like a players status is made a captive (or other neutral character) then as the player is seen a revealed score is added (dependant on distance and last known location all with a cooldown) - the idea is until a certain level is reach (scoring by frequency or number of enemy witness) THEN the player status if switched to BLUFOR and everything works as normal until the player evades and waits out a cooldown at a new higher starting level (until there is no cooldown)

Sounded like a very good approach that balanced existing AI and a straightforward approach to stealth

Did you ever try Tactical Engagement Simulator back in the day?  Thats exactly what that did.  You had a detected meter from 0-100, and it used the neutral army team to move the entire PLA over to neutral when you were hidden, and back over to PLA if you were not.

Unfortunately TES was built around the system I came up with for zoning bushes and trees and grass areas to allow full stealth, so I don't think its portable to IW.

I might give IW a few runs at night,  I'll admit I don't test it nearly enough at night

yes, I gave TES a run but don't recall any discussion about how STEALTH worked - it would make for a nice module to link into.

Recall a discussion that talked about a file that showed every obstacles location- it may have been TVIG or you.  Either case, good tactical stealth will always be preferred.

Hello everyone!

an update on Island War 2017!

I have been working hard getting the last bits of the code re-written and then integrated back into IW and along the way I have managed to add something quite interesting into the mix.

Firstly I added a mission "seed" which is set via config and allows you to experience the same starting invasion each restart with the same "random" choices being made by the mission generator.  Next I made a slight reconfiguration to the how echelons are handed over to the IWai system, so that each AI gets its own unique seed as well.

When it comes time for the ai to make a decision, it now implements its seed first.  This means all of its "random" choices that make up its logic, now have fixed outcomes in fixed situations.    For example Echelon with seed 3053 (happens to be one that comes up while testing) always switched to attack when defending and then always switches back to patrol once whoever it is attacking is dead.  Echelon with seed 1104 is the opposite, this one never leaves its defend position once its chosen one, it never investigates and doesn't switch up its location.

Whether or not a random number generated for the AI is the same or different to last time it made a decision is now based on its current situation rather than pure randomness. Different situation require different amounts of random numbers, meaning the numbers it generated will be used for different things depending on what is going on, but the same things if the same thing is going on.  This has added a surprising feeling of predictability to the AI and a bit of character as well!   


Other than this small addition, I have also given the logic a bit of a tactical boost (mainly for nights, but the logic effects the day too).   ai now use their Doctrine, Mood and ROE along with T.O.D. to modify the logic they choose to act on. Each order switches Mood and ROE to an appropriate setting according to what they are doing, with stealth leanings at night time.  Any friendly ai within earshot of the AI will allow mimic your ROE if they are not in direct combat, allowing you to stealth up somewhere with a group of AI without them revealing your position at the first sight of the enemy.
I also played IW a few times at night, and adjusted the hearing and critical detection sensors some more.   I managed to sneak into a destroyed building and sneak right passed the back of 2 PLA soldiers in the same building without them noticing me, so that worked


I have just one function left to do, the Spawn Timer.  its expensive and bloated and is the final re-code required for IW.  After that its just continuing to tweak the logic to get the right balance of offense and defense.  Since adding in the seeds, the Americans became super damn gun-ho and this often led them to their glorious deaths.  I think I've fixed that, but a bit more tweaking is definitely needed!

Templar this new UAI sounds awesome. I think i might have a blast at this later tonight.

IWai wrote:\order control start (2/18)
|checking/ordering dyn03tv (locationi1,attack,startguyi16,22,advance)
|is alive
|echelon is 222.03926086426 from player
|in range, giving order 
|inrange locations count 7
|setting personal seed 1931
|set personal seed. first random is 20
|Echelon Info : dyn03tv
|Orders (locationi1|attack|startguyi16|22|advance)
|Leader of echelon : dyn23tv
|Doctrine : ECombat
|Side : 1
|Other side is 0
|Current Mount : 
|Morale is : 0
|Support Helicopter : False
|Night Time : False
|Distance to Player 222.03926086426
|Nearest Free Location : faraway
|Nearest Friend Location : locationi1
|Nearest Enemy Location : location
|My Random Number : 1
|Defendable Points Count : 3
|Friends : plagroup Enemies : usgroup
|Initial Invasion : False
|Nearest Enemy : player Distance : 222.03926086426
|checking for vehicles
|1xHeli vehicle found
|1xHeli vehicle found
|Nearest Non Combat Vehicle :  Driver is : 
|Nearest Combat Vehicle :  Driver is : 
|Nearest Helicopter : seahawk01 Pilot is : startguyi3
|Location Unit : True
|Checking current order status
|checking links
|Mood is eMoodAggressive
|ROE is eFireAtWill
|checking if mount is a helicopter
|Current State is (locationi1,attack,startguyi16,22,advance)
\ Flashlight start 
|switching off
/ Flashlight end
|travelling unit check
|defender check
|Initial invasion override check
|Order validated to (locationi1|attack|startguyi16|22|advance)
|forcing pla to act near player
|choosing defend
|checking starting location status
|there are 1 unoccupied defendable points
|All situation checks are complete order status dyn03tv (locationi1|attack|startguyi16|22|advance) executing
|looking for free vehicle
|doing attack
|Ordered to move on startguyi16
|attack order given (startguyi16)
/Give Order - attack end

And example of an IWai thought

I think like that but every other line has sex in in it. Lol!

Will you be releasing UAI2017 as a seperate mod?

Mdog wrote:Will you be releasing UAI2017 as a seperate mod?

Hi MDog,  All the mods will be available seperately and as a complete IW pack



Just doing some final MP playtesting with friends today before I upload this for everyone

Nice shots dewi.


I'm sure there's a screenshot thread around here somewhere.

guess I will be the first to say - very very nice

http://www.moddb.com/mods/island-war-2017/downloads

if only we got paid for this ****! well here's my five pence to ya. lol! 

NIiiiiiiiiice. can't wait to get playing it now. Good work dude. I'll be having a go very soon.

Great work Templar!

Had a fun little romp on the island today. Started in Madlenka, my favorite "big" village on the island. Pretty challenging just getting into the town. Very nicely done!

Cheers
--tvig