can the NPC´s see through walls?

[Ghostwind]

i was stealthing to an enemy squad from some house blocks away, perhaps around 300meters. there were the whole time houses between line of sight, when iam still around 75-100 meters away, they begin shooting and hitting me through the walls.

testet it around 5 times. everytime the same.

[Noodles]

The ai are Ninja`s, I tell no lie, they have xray vision too and bushes and trees are not in thier construct....
Yeah, basicly they can see you through walls sometimes, depends if you pass a window or open door, if there is any chance of los, they are on you.

[|H|H| Fr3ddi3]

Yes and No, but mostly no.

A human can see you, but not know they've seen you. The AI however does not have that kind of in depth coding, it has insane eyesight and good hearing so much so that it either sees you and reacts if you are within it's detection range, or it does not see you at all. Litterally a single pixel for less than a second is all it'll take to get spotted, even if you are completely stationary.

Unless it's night time and the AI does not have NVG's, in which case the AI is as dumb as a brick. Rule of thumb, if you are within 300 meters of the enemy, assume it'll spot you and be ready to react.

That being said, there are some objects and buildings which show up from time to time as buggy, if you think you've found a building like that report it as a bug so it can be fixed. But i strongly suggest you go into the editor and test it yourself to rule out the former.

[Desiire]

The AI have an effective vision distance of around I think 400M, and an effective aiming distance of 300M. A lot of the time you will see things in motion while you yourself are sitting still, but if you are in motion it becomes increasingly harder to see other things due to having a limited resolution monitor whereas your eyes can obviously see at near indefinite resolutions in comparison. You might not see them, but at 300M, they will definitely be able to see you, especially if you are standing or crouch-moving. Sprinting is always a dead giveaway. Likewise, prone and prone movement will always leave them completely blind. It's possible to crawl within around 10m of an unalert AI soldier until they hear your movement

Another thing is sound. They can hear your footsteps and will aim their weapons towards the sound source. They might not shoot "through the walls," but they will pop you the second you round the corner because they heard you making noise.

Lastly, an AI "group," AKA a bunch of soldiers operating under one chain of command, has the ability to communicate with itself. Every game since Operation Flashpoint has a really lame way for this communication to work, however: if one AI spots you, the rest of his group knows exactly, and I mean EXACTLY where you are. They have a bead on you down to the millimeter of dirt you stand on, meaning if one has line of sight of you, all of the other AI soldiers in his squad does too. They can shoot you through trees. They can shoot you through bushes. I have never witnessed it myself as far as I know, but they could probably shoot you through walls too... but like I said, I have no idea

Hopefully this intel update gives you a little bit more information on how the AI works! Low and slow wins the fight

[Ghostwind]

thank you very much all for your helpful anwers. its good to know, how the AI works.

[Noodles]

Also in respect to the AI distance ability to see you, I have done missions on Exile and been head shot from 1.2k away after they got a bead on me on top of a cliff, prone....Freekin` hardcore they were..lol

[Sgt Smash]

Originally posted by Noodles:

Also in respect to the AI distance ability to see you, I have done missions on Exile and been head shot from 1.2k away after they got a bead on me on top of a cliff, prone....Freekin` hardcore they were..lol

Exile servers don't use vanilla ai! and most owners ain't got a clue how to setup custom ai scripts

[Noodles]

But are we talking Vanilla here?
I used Exile as an AI example.

[Sgt Smash]

Originally posted by Noodles:

But are we talking Vanilla here?
I used Exile as an AI example.

well going off the only info the op has given yes vanilla.

Side note depends what ai mods you're talking about on exile servers, as there are 4 main ones people use and two of them are a lot better than vanilla ai if configed right!

[Ghostwind]

yes i play without mods😊

[Lucky]

Originally posted by Ghostwind:

i was stealthing to an enemy squad from some house blocks away, perhaps around 300meters. there were the whole time houses between line of sight, when iam still around 75-100 meters away, they begin shooting and hitting me through the walls.

testet it around 5 times. everytime the same.

They can see through shuttered windows all of the time. Sometimes through walls, if you're close to the wall. Sometimes they can see through multiple walls.

I think it might have something to do with the way the objects were modeled, the walls have skins on them, but there's not solid surface on them so AI can see right through. Could a thickness thing where the solid surface has zero value, or the AI have vision set to see through things that are thin. I can't say exactly what, because I don't have access to the code.

[Lucky]

Originally posted by Ghostwind:

i was stealthing to an enemy squad from some house blocks away, perhaps around 300meters. there were the whole time houses between line of sight, when iam still around 75-100 meters away, they begin shooting and hitting me through the walls.

testet it around 5 times. everytime the same.

I think this problem has something to do with how AI and buildings are layered in the game logic. AI seem to be on a different layer than some objects in the game, so those objects don't exist for the AI. Sometimes it's just parts of a building like a window shutter that you can't see out of,, but AI seem to see right through, because it's not there for the AI since it's on another layer.

[NZPorterDJ]

Test it: https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/191696-script-ai-detection-test-tool/

And to answer the question: no, no they can't. But they can still hear you even if they can't tell friend or foe. OFC a window is still a window and they can see through ANY small gap that allows LoS...

[Cajun Rabbit]

To be honest i play the game on very low Ai settings because of this. Generally putting their tactics at 1% and aiming at 5%

even then they can be damn hard... its just hard to code an ai to be competent without it being aimbotty i guess.

Ai are far far far far more accurate then any player would EVER be... been on a server that was "hardcore" with max setting ai, and they are ridiculous.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Ghostwind:

i was stealthing to an enemy squad from some house blocks away, perhaps around 300meters. there were the whole time houses between line of sight, when iam still around 75-100 meters away, they begin shooting and hitting me through the walls.

testet it around 5 times. everytime the same.

When you become detected by an enemy they relay that information to everyone with which they are grouped. Which includes units in buildings or otherwise not in your LOS.

If you could figure out which one is spotting you and avoid being seen or heard (yes, the AI can detect you by sound alone) you may succeed. However, if you continue to be detected try hiding some place that is out of the LOS of everyone. If you remain undetected by the enemy for 2 minutes they completely forget about you.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Desiire:

The AI have an effective vision distance of around I think 400M, and an effective aiming distance of 300M. A lot of the time you will see things in motion while you yourself are sitting still, but if you are in motion it becomes increasingly harder to see other things due to having a limited resolution monitor whereas your eyes can obviously see at near indefinite resolutions in comparison. You might not see them, but at 300M, they will definitely be able to see you, especially if you are standing or crouch-moving. Sprinting is always a dead giveaway. Likewise, prone and prone movement will always leave them completely blind. It's possible to crawl within around 10m of an unalert AI soldier until they hear your movement

Another thing is sound. They can hear your footsteps and will aim their weapons towards the sound source. They might not shoot "through the walls," but they will pop you the second you round the corner because they heard you making noise.

Lastly, an AI "group," AKA a bunch of soldiers operating under one chain of command, has the ability to communicate with itself. Every game since Operation Flashpoint has a really lame way for this communication to work, however: if one AI spots you, the rest of his group knows exactly, and I mean EXACTLY where you are. They have a bead on you down to the millimeter of dirt you stand on, meaning if one has line of sight of you, all of the other AI soldiers in his squad does too. They can shoot you through trees. They can shoot you through bushes. I have never witnessed it myself as far as I know, but they could probably shoot you through walls too... but like I said, I have no idea

Hopefully this intel update gives you a little bit more information on how the AI works! Low and slow wins the fight

Finally, someone who actually knows how the AI in Arma III works. Everyone else is completely ignorant.

Yes, the view distance of the AI is set exactly to the player's view distance. If you leave the view distance of the AI, they completely forget you exist. In my particular case I've got my view distance set to 3,800 meters, but it will vary for each player.

Just because an AI can see or hear you, doesn't necessarily mean that you will be treated as an enemy. The AI have a "knowsAbout" value that ranges between 0 and 4. The higher the value the more they know about you.

They do not specify exactly what the "knowsAbout" value must be, but after numerous trials I found that it needed to be in the 0.85 to 1.00 range before the enemy opened fire. I also discovered that shooting an enemy, assuming they survive, will give them an automatic "knowsAbout" value of 4.0. Which means that everyone they are connected with knows precisely where you are located.

There is also a very complex routine for vegetation when it concerns AI and their ability to detect you. Yes, they can shoot through bushes. So can you. But they cannot shoot through a tree. However, the AI cannot see through vegetation any better than you can, but it does depend on the vegetation. Some vegetation is more transparent than others, which effects its armor and penetration values.

See https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Vegetation_P3D#.5BViewGeometry.5D for more detail about AI and vegetation.

You consider it "lame," but do you complain when your AI squad mates inform you of an enemy they spotted? Why it is "lame" for the enemy to be informed of your whereabouts, and not visa versa?

The AI can also detect you if you make noise. Running and moving in Safe more makes more noise than walking or moving in Aware mode. Stealth modes, obviously, makes the least noise.

Regardless of how you become detected, if you can remain unseen and unheard for 120 seconds the "knowsAbout" value is reset to 0.