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This is a rebalancing of the human NPC configuration file for Dead Air v0.98b.
This configuration touches on aspects of NPC i.e. visual/sound perception and immunities. I was very sad to see that the AI in Dead Air 0.98b is not what was advertised.
Many times I noticed more or less blind enemies who would rarely engage me of their own volition. Also NPCs would get attacked by mutants without ever realizing any threat.
This config does NOT change fire dispersion or general behaviour of NPCs only perception and resistances have been altered.
NPCs will see further in free and danger mode. Some parameters were set to very odd values by the DA dev team and I took the freedom to correct them as I saw fit.
Fret not though! I did not simply copy over values from another "m_stalker.ltx" but adjusted the values to in-game observation and tried to verify my findings over multiple instances of test-sessions.
With this config NPCs should be completely aware of the players presence at around 80m, when walking towards an NPC in full vision and without stopping.
Fast movements i.e. running/jumping will trigger a much larger effect on AI detection causing them to spot the player earlier.
NPCs' reaction to mutants has also been increased with AI engaging them much earlier now.
Essentially Stalkers will be more aware of what is happening around them. So no more dogs running into camps unhindered by gunfire.
Considering stealth-gameplay: I tried to leave ample room for sneaky snipers as well as up-close axe murderers. Yet the xray engine is not really accomodating when it comes to stealthyness. One should bear in mind that there is no "stealth kill" currently in DA. I can reduce the AI's reaction to corpses and NPCs being killed yet the AI will still turn towards the sound of the falling body or completely ignore corpses. One would have to reduce the volume and perception range of the corresponding *.ogg files but this is not in the scope of this mod.
*Personal note: I can only test the stealth so much. Any feedback is highly welcome.*
NPCs will now perceive more sound such as inventory scrounging and player footsteps.
All NPCs have received a 5% resistance to all damage types excluding wound immunity.
NPCs that call the immunities table for sakharov [stalker_immunities_sakharov] have been made invincible. Assuming that it is only sakharov and a few other traders (hopefully).
Reintegrated some artefact finding values for NPCs when in offline a-life. Not entirely sure if they are used by the game to assert items to NPC loot table.
Included is an optional xr_danger.ltx. Building on N0ps' ricochet fix I reworked some of the other values to get a bit more diversity in actions out of NPCs apart from idle/looking and danger/shooting. It is highly suggested to use the xr_danger from this archive. Using this rebalance together with N0ps' ricochet fix might cause unintended behaviour.
-> Update v. 0.3
"The Grand Deflation"
Lots of changes in this update. Most prominently there are big number changes in the AI perception. I finally came around to applying light perception in free-mode correctly making for a much better flow in AI recognition. Also some minor adjustments to NPC walk speed so they will no longer skate in slow-motion.
Secondly I merged the Companion Inventory add-on from the Anomaly section into DA. You can now use you companion as a mobile container and remove items that are not in use. Small caveat: you cannot directly re-equip a companion's weapon (but I'm working on that). Furthermore items that were assigned to the NPC's regular trade inventory will not show up in the companion's capacity inventory. Also you can "lend" items over great distances so it is a little bit cheaty, maybe, probably.
Included are 2 new optional files. The "simulation_objects.ltx" will increase simulation range to more territories around the player. In general the simulation should stil be active on terrains that are 2 level transitions away. TAKE NOTE: this will increase stress on the engine by quite a lot and may come with performance impact depending on your system. Especially noticable on the larger COP maps.
Also new is a revised "gamerelations.ltx" in which mutant relations have been set to interact (kill) each other. I tried to follow some common sense and how a food chain *might* work amongst the zone mutants so chimeras won't be hunting rats because... silly... just to give one example. Changed is also the impact of neutral kills which will yield -25 instead of -50. Gameperformance may again suffer a little bit with the new mutant relations.
Known bugs: Game will crash upon opening both trading windows at the same time. Passing healing items into new NPC inventory will cause a crash.
How to install:
- drop the gamedata folder included in the zip-archive in the DA main directory
- Done.
How to uninstall:
- remove m_stalker.ltx from Dead Air/gamedata/configs/creatures, standard AI settings will take over again
- remove ui_pda_relations_tab.ltx from Dead Air/gamedata/configs/scripts
- Done.
New game is not needed. Loading a game that is in combat with NPCs could be a problem. It also might take a reload for any already spawned NPC to take over the new settings. Bringing those NPCs into offline A-life once should fix that.
Credit goes to whereismy for his NPC rebalance for Anomaly & N0ps for porting it (or at least parts of it) over to DA.
Also credits aaaanon for his Companion Inventory Mod for Anomaly.
Again, as you can see lots of changes so bugs are not unlikely. I'm more than happy to receive feedback, critizism and bugreports. :D
Have a good one
Dhatri
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in the Archive there are two game data carpets and another one with optional name, which is installed?
m_stalker.ltx belongs into dead air/gamedata/configs/creatures.
The optional file is as stated *optional* you don't need it for the balance changes to work.
If you want the xr_danger.ltx I reconfigured then you have to paste it into dead air/gamedate/configd/ai_tweaks.
If those folders are not yet existant on your install then simply establish a folder structure that reads like I wrote above. :D
Just realized it should read: dead air/gamedata/configs/ai_tweaks. Sorry for the typos I hope you managed anyways. :D
Great man, thanks
Always happy to serve. :D
Glad to see you came out with the mod! I'll try it out and give you my results!
Initial observations:
* AI seem to react nicely to my axe hitting boxes, which I found funny.
* AI spend twice the time in alert than I remembered, which is very nice. It gives a real feel of them calming their nerves.
* Sneaking in and out of the tunnel in the south of that goes to the Great Swamp is still possible in heavy fog. Sneaking into the tunnel at daylight is also still possible, but I only tested by jumping over the fence, rather than walk all around it. I did not test sneaking back into Cordon in broad daylight.
* Stalker's detection of mutants is now really good! It is a bit cheaty, but Stalker's hearing/seeing mutants at night before I can is a lot better than them not hearing them at all. Now they actually feel rather competent.
* In the Great Swamp, I was looting one of the houses in the village north of the Church- The one with the powerbox that acts as a stash. While I was looting, I heard human footsteps, so I hid in a corner and pulled my gun... And then I heard the other human pull their gun in response. Nice work there. I waited a while for an attack, but none came, and I booked it as cautiously as I could out of there. Didn't hear hide nor hair of that Stalker since. We didn't see each other, either because of sight lines or because of the fog.
Thank you for your feedback!
Results seem encouraging on my end too. Just took another merc with me as a companion and indeed he seems rather competent as you say.
*Sneaking* into the tunnel should well be possible. Running there will most likely provoke a response from at least the sniper that is overlooking the road. It's kinda hard not to get shot by that guy because he is always in danger mode which confused the hell out of me when I started testing.
I'll have to admit that the mutant detection is not quite as refined as I tried it to make for actor.
I might change some of the [ignore_monster_threshholds] since I just adjusted them "on the fly" from what i had learned working with the m_stalker.ltx. So slim chance of a bit less cheaty detection for mutants in the future maybe.
The swamp-story is really nice. :D
The AI is quite sharp in danger-mode and there is actually a very good chance they will investigate the location they heard the sound from. Them not immediately tossing a grenade for good measure might be the changes to the xr_danger.ltx.
As you suggested the values in there apply a certain aggro/danger value to events. The breakpoint for full combat alertness seems to be around 60k-ish but that's hard to test since many times danger values will compound when AI is standing close together (a they usually do).
Considering fog: I have yet to test the settings in very foggy conditions. There is a good chance AI has the upper hand on actor detection wise. My test environments were the military checkpoint in cordon and the Limansk area. Both of which don't feature too much foggy weather conditions.
Thanks for your time, I'm having a good experience so far but haven't played that much to provide valid feedback for such complex behaviours.
My experience in AI modding is non-existant, however reading the milestones you want to achieve I recall the behaviour of the Complete (SHoC) mod AI being exactly what you are after. This is from the mod's summary:
·Early detection - Removed the ability for NPC's to notice you at unrealistically large distances.
·Stealth - Knife and other critical sounds such as falling dead bodies, grass, and footsteps have been properly commented to reduce their sound radius, making the gameplay much more realistic.
·Death panic - Reduced the sound distance of death cries (in the original game it caused the entire camp to alert once one member was hit, as it was set to be heard at a great distance).
Strangely, they do behave like the summary says in this case :P
In my opinion, the AI from that mod was the best I've experienced so far. My point is that you might be able to get some ideas from that code, even if it's from Shadow of Chernobyl.
Unfortunately I don't have those files on this PC, but mod is available here at Moddb.com
Well I know the Complete mod. I always thought though that it was not held in very high esteem since it changed some aspects of the game that made it incredibly easy.
I had played it years ago in 2012. And it might very well be that the Complete NPCs work of very similar values in the m_stalker.ltx hence the similar behaviour. Can't say I explicitly looked at the config file from Complete.
Truth be told I looked at many different m_stalker.ltx files from many different sources just to see how those guys approach the visibility-equasion.
Many of those reference files were pulled from all over the web.
Sadly, I had to realize that pretty much non of the config files for stalker were what I was looking for.
I did start by copy pasting values over from other stalker configs yet the effects I wanted to have were not existant. So not starting from total scratch but close to it.
I think by now I can tell what the AI will be like by just looking at the config pretty much.
And some of those configs have quite peculiar numbers since the authors wanted to achieve different things with their "stealth" approach.
Funnily enough there are !7! guys that are credited in the AI section of the Complete mod description. Which should give you an indication that it is usually a group effort to figure out and change the AI.
And it is since extensive testing is needed to make the AI look working smooth. I know now the AI is working far from smooth buuuuuut in normal gameplay you will most likely not notice it.
Keep in mind though: this is not a complete revamp. This is me setting sliders to values I find bearable or halfway realistic considering the scope, size and area of the game. The stealth mentioned in the Complete mod's description will not be reached here (at least not as long as I'm too lazy to edit soundfiles).
I always imagined AI conifg would be a nightmare, specially because of the testing part.. I haven't even opened the m_stalker.ltx file!
So I'm glad there is people willing to do it haha, so far I'm more than satisfied with your file. Thanks!
What is indeed a nightmare is the documentation.
I mentioned somewhere else that most of it is in russian/ukrainian and the learning process of what each parameter really does is quite tedious.
Luckily for me there were some english-speaking sources who had recommented some of the parameters (sometimes not 100% correct though).
The testing itself... well, it is lengthy but once you get into the rhythm and know what you are looking for in the AI behaviour change, it is satisfiying to see results coming your way.
Oddly enough the config files all pretty much look alike. ;D
>Reintegrated some artefact finding values for NPCs when in offline a-life. Not entirely sure if they are used by the game to assert items to NPC loot table.
They do actually, it's a feature added by Call of Chernobyl. But, this only seems to actually take place within the same map and the adjacent maps of the player (in my experience)
I think the parameters for artefact finding have been there long before CoC. CoP m_stalker.ltx files have those parameters too. It migt be CoC just makes better use of it.
I reintegrated the values because non-monolith stalkers never carried any artefact.
As I said tho I'm not entirely sure whether the artefact finding behaviour itself is actually still called over scripts in DA. The loot-distribution could well be managed by another file in general in DA.
Is it still possible to sneak in and out of the southern checkpoint for the RPG with this?
Yes it it should very well be possible to sneak inside that particular checkpoint.
In fact that cordon checkpoint was one of my testing grounds for long-range detection. I snuck in and out there several times on my settings without too much trouble.
Bear in mind tho visual acuity is higher for NPCs now.
So staying out of their visual arc for prolonged times is key. [especially when jumping/falling ;) ]
Thanks! I never used Ai mods for Dead Air because they tend to break that quest and I consider getting the RPG crucial for getting far into the game
I see your point.
One explicit goal of mine was to keep the stealth intact for at least that area.
It will be harder to get in there and shalt a mutant attack change any of the standard layouts for location and/or orientation for any of the soldiers you could be in quite some trouble.
Side note: NPCs do not react to the actor stepping onto a mine. Increasing the NPCs perception for anomalies yielded some strange results with AI aggroing onto anomalies.
N0ps said some of the anomalies have aggro values assigned to them. I'm guessing they are leftovers from the AI's anomaly detection (currently AI cannot die in anomalies; it is switched off in general). So the enemy won't hear explosions from mines.
A funny thought came to me yesterday while playing DA on maxed settings. Noticing how much the regular ground flora is in your vision pretty much all of the time i thought maybe the AI in Dead Air was balanced for exactly those conditions.
Funnily enough I fixed one of the problems I described in the spoiler-text. Uploaded new version, recommend using this one instead of the old file.
I cant seem to sneak in the checkpoint. All soldiers detect me whenever i jump through the wall
Keep in mind bulk of apparell does count. So mkae sure you carry as little as necessary when you need to sneak in close range.
Spoiler: Since you pick your way over the wall I'd advise you to hop onto the barbed wire and drop down inside the compound where *you* cannot see the soldier that is inside their main-baracks.
If you are still not getting in that way, please report back and will double check as soon as I find the time.
Considering the swarm AI: it's hard to not aggro the whole checkpoint in Cordon once you get spotted. The xRay engine allows only for so much stealth.
I see. I ll try to lessen my weight maybe that’s the one that causing the detection. But i guess it’s also possible that the soldier close in the window is the one causing it. They’re positioning became messed up after the dogs attack :/
Oww..this can be a problem...the soldiers *usually* reset their positions/orientation to standard layout. It might take a *very* long time tho.
You could try to change areas and return to Cordon that should force a reset on their locations.
I successfully sneak in and out of the checkpoint. They still detect me after jumping on the wall tho. What i did is hid in the corner until they stop searching. They keep throwing grenades in my last known position. Luckily it’s just smoke or else im dead xD i have another problem after playing sometime... the game crash and it says “invalid parameter” i don’t know how to fix it -.-“. I guess its because im using tons of mod *sigh
Invalid parameters are easy to fix usually. The error-report states the file that causes the error and also tells you the line in which the error occurred. Invalid parameters are just the wrong numbers.
Thank you for your report. I will check whether I have unintentionally broken the stealth in that area with my last update.
Alright ill try to do that. Anyways thanks for the help and replies!
Can confirm stelth is broken. There is no way you can sneak on military to get the RPG for quest with this addon. Also i didn't noticed any improvements in AI. Only that stelth is broken now. They are as stupid as they were. Tho, they detect you or anyone else much faster and from high distance.
Thank you for reporting. I had indeed not double-checked the latest Free-mode settings on the military checkpoint. Both entries to the checkpoint that I know of which worked last time didn't work now. Will have to alter some settings. Not too much tho. Pick up ranges were indeed longer than intended reaching out beyong 125m when it was around 85m before. Must have botched something on the range_factor multipliers.
This is not so much an Ai improvement as rather a different flavor of difficulty since it is clearly stated that this mod adds no new scripts or anything to actually improve the available actions to NPCs in combat and whatnot. It is merely a rebelance of the visual accuity as stated in the description text.
Might be able to fix on the weekend.
Your report is very much appreciated.
Bro cool addon, all I wanted was for the NPCs to have sharp eyesight and not be as blind as they used to be. Cool compared to the original, where NPCs do not shoot further than 50 meters, and even stealth remains, you can quietly sneak up before killing. Shooting the monolith all day long, everything is cool and pretty realistic.
Thank you. I'm pleased you approve of my configs. :D
I stated in another thread that this still very much is a WIP.
Sadly I didn't have too much free-time to further refine the perception ranges/rates. Changes are likely.
NPCs still have fairly far vision that might be tuned down to not have firefights between hostile NPCs all over the place.
FInally gave this one a try and i gotta say, it really changes the feel of combat, NPC's actually see you in a more realistic manner now and the benefit of that is that they can actually miss shots, as opposed to vanilla DA AI where they only shot you when they're sure they can **** you up.
Although i'd go so far to say their eyesight and hearing is a little bit too good sometimes. Like for example: I've started a new game to try this on and as soon as i climb the little hill in the rookie village to get the stash on the stump and the military guys all the way back in the base opened fire at me, of course they missed every single shot but still. Actually gives me a reason to try and sneak at night now so that's a plus in my book. It's one of the things i think vanilla DA lacked, a reason to go out at night and try to be sneaky again.
This is quickly becoming one of my must have mods for every playthrough now, good stuff man.
The fact that i don't need to babysit the guys at the farm or Yanov all the time now actually is very, VERY appreciated too.
Well, thank you. Happy to be of service. :D
About the military checkpoint in Cordon: those soldiers shouldn't be shooting at you when you are plainly looting the stump stash on the hill south of rookie village. Who will shoot at you is the sniper who is situated in the guard tower. This guy is always in dangermode so he will be sharp as **** and might very well alert other soldiers with his shooting. Most of the times he can be ignored by walking a longer flank towards the west when going to swamps.
Actually when I started to reconfigure the AI's perception my goal was to give them more survivability against mutants, I too didn't like the babysitting of NPCs, especially on COP maps it is very annoying since you can't go anywhere without the bases being swarmed by spawns that occur in the middle of a "seemingly" secure area. The spawn-sections, respawn-timers and ranges are set in a way that will kill off most traders and important NPCs.
Oh, that explains a lot then, they were being attacked by some dogs a few minutes prior to me looting the stash so they were in alert mode already i suppose, still a good thing they can actually miss shots now so it's no big deal.
The North is now a lot more enjoyable for me, there's actually Freedom, Loner and Ecologist squads going around regularly and cleaning up entire mutant lairs, and they're pretty good at it too, much more realistic than seeing a dude in a exo with a LMG getting ****** up by some rats. NPC's actually feel like they're people now kinda.
They're so much sharper against human enemies too, i saw a single Clear Sky dude with a RPK **** up a entire Merc squad, of course he died due to bleeding after killing everyone, still cool as **** though. And for the first time ever i saw Beard and the Loners repel a massive monolith attack and make it out alive, it was beautiful.
Companions are actually viable now too, i never had any before because it was like full time babysitting and i felt bad about them dying so often.
This addon is a real game changer for me, it renewed my interest in DA once again so all i have to say is: Thanks, Stalker.
Wow can`t believe ur still updating ur addons. Good job! Im getting back to play some Dead Air too
oh yea, it's a past-time. ;D
also have a new update for NPC in the making which is about 90% finished.
AI detection is more balance now and I can successfully sneak in Cordon checkpoint :D my only problem tho is that i can`t use the optional game relations file. It crashes whenever I try to use it and load a game
*ugh*... wrong save file format again...open the gamerelations.ltx with notepad and re-save in "ansi" instead of "utf-8" that should solve the problem.
Got it, thanks! Do i need to start new game when using it?
I would suggest it. It *should* work "on the fly" though so new is not *needed*.
FATAL ERROR
[error]Expression : <no expression>
[error]Function : CIni_IdToIndex<1,struct COMMUNITY_DATA,class shared_str,int,class CHARACTER_COMMUNITY>::GetByIndex
[error]File : d:\projects\x-ray_callofchernobyl-master\src\xrgame\ini_id_loader.h
[error]Line : 147
[error]Description : fatal error
[error]Arguments : item by index not found in section game_relations, line communities
it still crashes, i already convert it to ansi btw
hmmm... unusual... the error would tell me i removed a line or something that was called elsewhere and would be expected. tbh there are some small changes in the gamerelations.ltx that i have not removed e.g. traders being neutral to every faction. many of the traders are not in the "trader" faction hence i did not anticipate problems there.
needless to say the file does not cause errors on my system. the biggest changes in the gamerelations are concerning the mutants and if you just want that then it *should* be easy to just copy paste the last relationstable in that file over the part that is vanilla in DA.
also it it a crash on laoding the savegame or a crash before you even get to the main menu screen?
i see. it crashes after a load a save game or even create a new game. im usind DAR too btw. maybe that`s why it crash?
hmm DAR could be a reason. not quite sure what those guys might have changed about the community lines. if you can provide me with a un-altered vanilla DAR gamerelations.ltx i could *probably* have a look at it and see where it is different from the DA file.
the relations should in any case be an easy matter of copy & paste of the last relations table as i already mentioned.
Do NPCs react to weather and time? For example, heavy fog or dark night? Or do they always see like a clear day?
weather does have an influence albeit not quite as big as the DA devs may have intended. very foggy weather could have the AI being a bit too sharp. luminocity is broken in stalker games in hear. i put it this way: the last time i tested light perception i was standing in a pitch black room waitnng for a monolith to come for me, so he did took him about 1.5-2 seconds of standing right infront of me before he smacked me down with his rifle-stock. mind you he was doing a looking around animation so i kinda left it there.
Good job
tyvm.
Hello there, i decided to give another try with all updates you've done so far. And my experience is much better now. Whatever you did, you actually nailed it. It does feels much better now, and stealth is still viable option somehow, since i even managed to sneak into ATP to steal RPG7. The key for succes was - moving slowly the whole time, and never using backpack, so no one would hear it's opening noise. Weight doesn't affect it much i think, since i was in a good weight as well (50kg at least). I will make it a part of my own DA build, thank you for your work, Dhatri. Job well done o7
Tyvm. The weight does have an effect but tghe effect is "always on". meaning you are *always* generating extra aggro when being over weight threshold even when not moving. that means even when totally concealed by a bush and not in motion enemy will see you when you carry excessive amounts of gear. i think the behaviour there could be improved but i haven't really looked into it.
II dont know if it is related to this mod or not, but i have a problem where the duty NPC dont attack bandit even when they are shot at by them
hmm, weird. if anything NPCs should fight each other more with these settings.
is all of duty who are ignorant of the bandits or is it just some squads? i didn't change anything about the faction relations really, you can try to delete the optional "gamerelations.ltx" and see if that helps; I have to stress here: changes to gamerelations are best made with a new game. they do work in a game in progress yet unforeseen glitches might arise.
again more detail to your bug will help me a great deal here to track it down since AI can break quite easily in DA (e.g. fast-travel, quickloading, bugged AI schemes in general).
side note: the camper scheme which is used for NPCs around a campfire for example will make them *FAR* less observant to the point of being blind and deaf.
Thanks for your reply.
I was following a patrol of 3 duty in garbage who were walking into a bandit checkpoint. Despite being shot at, they didn't even react, they continued walking as if they didn't get hit.
I installed this mod in a new game. After deleting game relations and ui_pda_relations the behavior was fixed.
I might add that I also have N0ps_Deaf_Stalkers that might cause compatibility issues
hmm, curious. it could be that in conjunction with the other changes to the NPCs visual accuity N0ps' fix is not working too well anymore with my re-config. keep in mind: N0ps' ricochet fix is already included in the xr_danger from the rebalance archive you downloaded. compatibility is not so much an issue as Nops' xr_danger will overwrite mine if you installed in that order. may i ask whether you are using any sort of modmanager for your DA install? or are you modding it by hand?
i'd like to ask to try the same Duty patrol again but with the xr_danger.ltx i reconfigured instead of N0ps' fix and see if that changes anything. i know the description text says it is compatible but tbh i haven't double checked that and especially not after my last update which is almost a year old.