AI idea: fake units, fake noise, and fake smoke

[exsonic01]

I'm not sure if it is possible in this game. But when I was in army, we all loved to use some 'fakes' to give enemy confusion during large scale field exercise. I was not in US army and I served long time ago, so things might be different these days.

1) During night or heavy rain or foggy day and in closed terrain like forest, valley, or city, it was possible to make fake tank sounds to lure enemy. Equip a big speaker in car (and one or two real tanks join the group sometimes), and make them play tank engine / track sound loudly, and drive slowly along the places where the OPFOR recon guys might near, such as behind the hills or over the forest of possible opponent recon or elements.

2) In similar fashion, with a small squad of tracked vehicles, it was possible to make them drive through specific roads or narrow fields with smoke generator on. Of course they should have some distance from possible opponent recon area, or their 'fake' will be revealed easily. Dust particles in dry day also could bring kinda similar effect. If nicely planned and orchestrated, it really makes OPFOR guys to believe we were heading specific region.

3) Fake units with balloons are so famous, so I don't need to explain further. Some folks think this only works against aerial recon and air strike, but fake balloon vehicles & object these days are so realistic, that they have similar surface characteristic, and emit quite plausible heat signatures. Some fake balloons back in the day I was in army was not that bad. We also used to make fake tents with heat signature, which is easy to make. Sometimes this worked so great, that OPFOR guys thought their artillery and air strike annihilated us, but in fact they wasted ammo on middle of nowhere.

Honestly, most of the time, they didn't worked that much. And we didn't used such fake measure every single time, decision was based on situation and weather and opponent condition. Sometimes opponent was almost deceived but later they figured out the trap card. But time to time, they worked like a charm. I clearly remember, it was one winter dawn~morning with not-that-good weather day of weak snow and wintry mix. It was regiment size exercise, and we faked some noise with speaker, try to make them believe we were attempting blitzkrieg style armored assault through major road networks with the cover from bad weather condition. That day OPFOR guys were totally tricked by us, they wasted all their FASCAMs to useless positions, and their faces were like they saw a ghost when we backstabbed them from the valley.



It seems AI of AB love to use smoke generator. I'm OK with that, I'm also using that option quite frequently. However, too frequent smoke generator reveals AI's plan or axis of attack during game. On the other hand, this might be possible for AI to cover his intention and divert player attention to wrong area using smoke generator trail. It would need some good algorithm, but I guess this might worth to invest some time for. Because, in MP, so many players will try the similar thing, so those 'fake' behavior would make this game so interesting.

It would be easy to make "fake" jeep unit with sound signature of tanks, or make "fake" tanks of boards or balloons with no ability, yet looks like a real tank to opponent when they see it from far distance. Those might bring more interesting features to game.

[nikolas93TS]

Maybe not as an actual unit on map, but it can be abstracted. Current neutral units partially have that purpose.

[exsonic01]

I think fake balloon or panel units might be easy to implement. Unlike neutral unit, let player and AI able to set up fake units in position they want. Also, make it recognized as opponent up to 500m but recognize it as neutral within 500m. But this might needs some work.

For fake noise unit, I was thinking of tweaked jeep model. For fake smoke trail, I was thinking of some algorithm change for recon tanks or recon vehicles. I'm curious about any other abstracted expressions. If there is a good way, we would absolutely love them.

Speaking of neutral units, I think neutral units should have their own AI to move (AI dedicated to run for survive) and count neutral unit damage as penalty score. But neutral unit AI might not that urgent I guess.

[lancer]

I've moved this to a new topic so it doesn't hijack the thread

[nikolas93TS]

I think AI is currently able of deploying decoy smoke screen, and I think it was implemented on your suggestion. Engine-generated smoke is used just to cover up following forces, and it is not visible on map unless you have a direct vision (exactly to prevent human player to guess-estimate where enemy forces are on map).

[exsonic01]

ORIGINAL: nikolas93TS
I think AI is currently able of deploying decoy smoke screen, and I think it was implemented on your suggestion. Engine-generated smoke is used just to cover up following forces, and it is not visible on map unless you have a direct vision (exactly to prevent human player to guess-estimate where enemy forces are on map).

Well, I didn't noticed, or I failed to catch them. But maybe because of my play style. Anyway, it would be great if you abstract other fake measures in game.

It is true neutral units are kinda similar with #3, but my suggestion is little bit different. I was thinking of fake balloon unit, which can be recognized as an enemy unit only up to specific distance. (recognized as enemy before 500m -> changed to neutral or yellow unit, if any of friendly unit observe the fake unit within 500m. 500m is just an example) This lure will work much better than neutral units for fishing of player's tanks.

Regarding #2, if it is nicely abstracted, fake sound units will lure players time to time in very dramatic fashion.

I don't expect such fake measures will always work. But still, if it works, it will make the game really good interesting one.

[nikolas93TS]

You mean something like this?

[exsonic01]

Something similar? But I think cold war armies used much better model than that... If well painted and well camouflaged by woods and branches, sometimes it looked promising, at least from my memory.

Speaking of camouflage, would it be possible to introduce model decorated with woods and branches, or camouflage net + branches and leaves and etc? Give a bit of additional price but give a bit of bonus in concealment, but better concealment against airplanes. Maybe it might be distinguishable by weak camo (only trees and leaves) and good camo (camo net plus others) and extreme camo (modern camo nets with conceal thermal signature, might be OOTF for AB) and etc...