Fight For Nogova - say goodbye to idiotic AI behavior.

[icehollowpoint]

Sick of AI going prone in urban settings? Sick of AI not clearing buildings? Sick of AI not being effective urban fighters? Sick of idiotic AI behavior in general?

The solution in ArmA used to be ramping up the difficulty so AI were super accurate shots, which personally is a crappy quick fix. Well I got sick of that, so I went and did some hunting on the official forums. I was answered with several possibilities to two most prominent ones were SLX and FFN. SLX is bugged to craphouse unless you want to fiddle with the pbos and uses alot of CPU power, so I decided to check out FFN instead.

FFN, or Fight For Nogova, is originally intended to be a campaign. But the developer in his greatness, realized for his campaign to be enjoyable the AI needed to be worked on for Urban firefights and skillsets in general.

So what's so great about this mod ice?

Well here's a list off the top of my head:
-AI now work as a team more effectively
-AI will now use suppressive fire to a good degree, including firing on your position if they see you duck behind a wall
-AI are now really effective urban fighters, they will dodge and they will crouch-run and stop going prone like idiots
- AI will now effectively figure out how to flank you or get a better position to engage (one example when I was in rahmadi and ran behind a wall, one soldier ran up the scaffolding so he could deny me my cover!)
- AI will chuck alot of smoke to cover their flanks
- AI will run away from grenades AND, if the grenade is close enough, they may throw it back at you!
- Suppression fire has an effect on BOTH AI and Players!
- Players and AI have new moves they can and will perform, such as the crouched run and the sidestep dodge (cheeky AI will perform this when you start shooting at them and there is a wall near them.
- Animations transitions for the whole game are alot smoother and fixed, there's alot less clipping now.

But best of all the AI now actually CLEAR BUILDINGS AND TAKE POSITIONS INSIDE! No more seeing the rare occasion of AI stuck in a building prone, they now actually move inside and clear the rooms. Other features include WGL (Know known as A.C.E) style wound effects, dragging wounded soldiers and capturing enemy soldiers. There's alot more features, but none I'm interested in. Search for it on youtube if you want to see some examples, the mod is great.

[Rhodesy_77]

LOL i was just looking into thos last night! havnt tried it yet, sorta hoping they come out with a seperate addon, sorta like the sixth sense stuff.

[icehollowpoint]

LOL i was just looking into thos last night! havnt tried it yet, sorta hoping they come out with a seperate addon, sorta like the sixth sense stuff.

Doesn't really need to be seperate unless you don't like the class system (i.e riflemen not being able to just cruise around in a tank), it seems to run along side the Sixth sense mods fine, the only thing you'd have to do is remove six_suppression.

[wolffy.au]

Sounds excellent Ice, good work. Some many addons, so little time... :)

[Aus Sniper01]

*Slaps Ice*

[pogoman]

i've just been reading through BIS thread. apparently he's added deviation to the weapons so that the lower the rank you are (ie private compared with lance corporal etc), the higher your deviation. only the super l33t spec ops and snipers have normal accuracy. sounds like the guys a bit of a tard, however everyones raving about the ai so maybe its worth it.

i still cant beleive there are people out there who think things like that are a good idea, hes obviously been playing too much PR :P

[icehollowpoint]

i've just been reading through BIS thread. apparently he's added deviation to the weapons so that the lower the rank you are (ie private compared with lance corporal etc), the higher your deviation. only the super l33t spec ops and snipers have normal accuracy. sounds like the guys a bit of a tard, however everyones raving about the ai so maybe its worth it.

i still cant beleive there are people out there who think things like that are a good idea, hes obviously been playing too much PR :P

Well there is a problem with the accuracy in ArmA. Like I've said in another thread, it's like a game of laser tag, it's too easy to be hit and too easy to hit. There's really two solutions you can do then:

1. Decrease the steadiness/increase sway of aim, as well as increase recoil, especially in automatic fire. And most of all increase the current breathing cycle, running has crap all effect on aim atm.

or : Deviation.

It's really up to the players which system they prefer, I know long time realism gamers on either side of the fence. Me personally, I would like to see the increased sway + recoil combination.

As for FFN, although I do praise it highly, it's not without it's problems, and it does have quite a few, although keep in mind it's a beta, the guy is experimenting like he said himself. However despite these shortcomings, FFN is still worlds apart from the default AI. IMO, from what I've seen SLX is still a better mod all round and especially for AI behavior, but alas, until they can fix up the cluster of problems the mod has with MP and system performance, I doubt we'll be seeing much of it.

In the long run however, I think ACE will deliver the payload. Not only on ultimate realism, but also in AI behavior.

[pogoman]

yeah just tried it out then, the ai was OK. it was nice to see them not hitting the deck upon being fired upon, however they didnt exactly take cover either, they just strafed around like mad so i guess you could say they were pretty human :P. unfortunately the mod seems to take its toll on the comp, i was sitting at about 30fps most of the time when im usually on 50+, also i couldnt tell if it was the deviation or not but some enemies just wouldnt seem to die, and engaging at long range even with an acog was virtually pointless.

it was a nice change but just reminded me too much of PR.

[Rhodesy_77]

i really think modders should focus on a smaller scale, enough of these massive super mods where the conflict with every other fn mod, and start working on smaller addons that can suplement other mods, for example the sixth sense mods. and dont hold your breath for ACE....

[Swordsman]

ACE is closer than you think Rhodesy ;)

Problem with the FFN mod is that it causes dedicated server instability on MP, so its banned from all servers.

[icehollowpoint]

ACE is closer than you think Rhodesy ;)

Problem with the FFN mod is that it causes dedicated server instability on MP, so its banned from all servers.

Yeah and considering the scale ACE is going for, a release this year would be impressive to say the least.

Besides Rhodesy, there's nothing saying ACE won't be compatible with other mods. 95% of ArmA mods can run together fine even when they have conflicting purposes. It's just that ACE is so awesome it won't need other mods XD

[Rhodesy_77]

yer i understand that, but as a mission maker i like to pick and choose certain things, just a personal thing i guess

[Swordsman]

The idea behind ACE is not only to provide a realistic mod for ArmA but to prevent people from running all kinds of different rubbish when you can run one mod that does it all - they're hoping to do what WGL did and unify the majority of the ArmA community under one mod, rather than having people running different addons etc :)

The scale of units and such included in the ACE project will mean either most addons out there have been included one way or another, and if they havent been, they probably aren't worth looking at if you want realism. :)

[AllYourBase11]

I hadn't really taken an interest in the large scale mods etc. until now, but ACE looks sick! im excited!

[SmOOvDoGG]

Yeah I've been waiting for ACE to come out, hopefully gets release before Arma 2.