Enemy always detects me

[GhostFaceSaint]

Hey, so I'm having a bit of an issue at the moment. No matter how far out I am, the uniform I wear adapts to the environment, suppressor equipped, the enemy always detects me.

I'm trying to be as sneaky as possible but it is not working in my favour. If there's more than one unit and I take out his buddy, the other unit turns round and starts picking me directly.

Is there a certain range you have to be before they can't see you? My average sneak kills is approx 175m away. Sometimes more.

[Snek Overlord]

Yeah arma ai

[Pathfinder Serza]

Suppressors aren't actually Hollywood quiet. The base game does not have subsonic ammunition, either, as I recall. Well, it does, on the .45 ACP weapons.

They aren't so that the guy's buddy in the next room can't hear the gunshots, they're so that their collective buddies a few hundred meters down the road can't hear the gunshots.

Obviously, there will be exceptions (a .22LR is already very quiet, and if reports are to be trusted, can easily be mistaken for an exhaust on a busy street - that is unsuppressed, and both the Welrod and the DeLisle carbine are said to actually be inaudible past a few meters. The DeLisle specifically is reported as "the bolt chambering a new round being louder than the discharge of the previous round") but they are not the norm, and the game does not actually contain any of the weapons that could be so.

As for sneaking up to the AI... I've managed a few stealth kills over my time with WebKnight's Melee, but they can be counted on one sapper's hand's worth of fingers.

[frostm1911]

Use subsonic ammo, or use a pistol or smg

I recommend you mods like "Dynamic Camo", you can configure it as you want

But even in vanilla game, you can do this:

If enemies have NVG, they will react to your IR Laser, and if you use a visible laser, even without nvg, they will react to you

I would only recommend being "Stealthy" crawling with a ghillie, or during night, also, the weather affect AI vision

Like i said, Ghillies have the "Better" Camo Porcentage, at least in my experience

Try to not shot anyone, just continue your path, even if you shot with a 9mm with supresor, or with subsonic ammo, ai can be alert, maybe they will not find you at that momment, but they will be searching the area for you, and they never stop xD. If you shoot someone, try to not miss, u know, one shot, one kill :v, and then, try to avoid enemy contact, or just don't move and pray xD

Also, the hablitie and the difficult in general the ai have, will affect their vision, hearing, and all of that (More difficult, more trained, less difficult, lesst trained xD)

[Pathfinder Serza]

Originally posted by Twitch.tv/princessbuttonmasher:

Originally posted by Pathfinder Serza:

Suppressors aren't actually Hollywood quiet. The base game does not have subsonic ammunition, either, as I recall. Well, it does, on the .45 ACP weapons.

They aren't so that the guy's buddy in the next room can't hear the gunshots, they're so that their collective buddies a few hundred meters down the road can't hear the gunshots.

Obviously, there will be exceptions (a .22LR is already very quiet, and if reports are to be trusted, can easily be mistaken for an exhaust on a busy street - that is unsuppressed, and both the Welrod and the DeLisle carbine are said to actually be inaudible past a few meters. The DeLisle specifically is reported as "the bolt chambering a new round being louder than the discharge of the previous round") but they are not the norm, and the game does not actually contain any of the weapons that could be so.

As for sneaking up to the AI... I've managed a few stealth kills over my time with WebKnight's Melee, but they can be counted on one sapper's hand's worth of fingers.

It's not about IRL.

If you link two units in a group and put them 25km away (outside of Radio range 0 excuse here)

Kill one, other is alerted instantly and knows to a high level of accuracy exactly where you are.

Arma AI is definitely a good answer.

The more you learn scripting/use Eden you'll learn to either deal with it in unique ways or just completely use scripts to re-write how they work.

Arma's AI is pretty bad in a lot of ways.

Well, it is and it is not about reality. The AI's trying to simulate real perception of the environment.

Regarding your claim, I could test that. Chances are it wouldn't be too hard, either... Actually, if I'm right, it's like two minutes, give me a moment...

[Valen]

You never said anything about slow walk mode, crouch/prone/walk stance. Those also come into play. They can hear you move at some point. And will just fire in that direction even if they have not seen you directly.

[Pathfinder Serza]

Alright, I'm back...

Using a tiny bit of scripting magic, I came to the conclusion that it is possible to avoid alerting the other AI if you're fast enough with the kill.

With my first attempt I just did what amounted to an execution. With the second I did some mess, threw some frags, fired some rounds, then killed the guy.

To illustrate, I was down by Kavala, I had the other unit up by Molos.
The knowledge value if I let the guy next to me report skyrocketed up to max value. It then took maybe 10 seconds or so to decay back down to zero.

I confirmed these findings with a third attempt that basically mirrored the results of the second.

I'm led to believe that this is by design. The game is actually simplified in terms of communication (as you say, radio range is not modelled at all in vanilla - or for the AI). This leads me to believe that by design, you're not really supposed to have squads all over the island like that. If they're not in the same group, the guy on the other side of the island has no idea, no matter how much of a mess I cause.

Limitations of design. Easily avoided with some thinking as a mission creator or Zeus, quite possibly to the point of just by utilizing common sense.

[Pathfinder Serza]

Originally posted by Valen:

You never said anything about slow walk mode, crouch/prone/walk stance. Those also come into play. They can hear you move at some point. And will just fire in that direction even if they have not seen you directly.

This is true. You should be able to very nearly get right up next to them if you crawl slowly, from the rear.

[lawnmower501]

It's a stupid A.I. situation.:
-Players want to rush in using real life conditions. And they should succeed. Promote success. That is what gaming is about.
-Or peek a corner...aim at a moving vehicle many hundreds of yards away..bouncing....but get shot immediately.
-Get killed through walls.
-Get killed after dodging behind safety.

Call it "game balance" or whatever.
Basically the game is cheating by punishing those who do too well.

[XG867699223]

QAQ

[zeeb]

The AI is wonky, let's just leave it at that.
You'll have a much higher success rate with camoflauge and the like against other players. If you stand still, you're MUCH harder to spot since we automatically look for movement due to being predators, like cats, we have an easier time noticing movement.

So in MP, the most effective thing you can do is camp.
Grab an MG or a silenced sniper, a launcher and a ghillie suit and you'll see that you'll rack up a ton of kills. The one that kills you will most likely be someone you killed from that position or someone with thermals, that's why you should relocate every 5 minutes and wear the full stealth gear.

I employed this playstyle to GREAT efficiency in Warlords, flew a heli close to the enemy air base, got into position and just shot down anything that took off from their runway, I got killed once by a player with thermals, then I added on the stealth uniform and accessoaries and never died again. But it eventually became boring because it was too easy to abuse it. Basically I spent 2k resources and destroyed 100k's worth of enemy resources in several games, pretty efficient economically.

Bonus points if you add on the rebreather and retreat under water if you get a search party on you and wait until they give up and leave. Sneaky and works wonders, no one expects it.

However, stealth is not a gameplay style that suits everyone, it's just my personal go-to, I like it a lot in most games I play. You can most likely destroy way more if you're good at using tanks or jets without getting killed yourself. But this is getting a bit off-topic.

TLDR
Camoflauge works better against players than it does AI, AI is unreliable and unpredictable.

[Valmont]

If you remove all the radios from the Ai groups then they have a harder time telling other Ai squad members of your location and so you will only have one Ai shooting at you for the first seconds instead of the whole Ai Squad engaging you, that should buy you extra seconds to eliminate an enemy without alerting the rest

[the.lovewyrm]

Arma usually does not employ many AI opponents, you don't generally go through a "designated fighting arena section" of a shooter where a parade of enemies/monsters pour in to get vaporized by plasma fire, then a few corridors and stuff to the next arena.

Arma thus has to pull in, and keep as much of heat active from the handful of squads most skirmishes have (big combined arms ops nonwithstanding).

In essence, 'Stealth' in Arma is more about having a getaway, than an entry.

The AI is set up in a way that you can absolutely get a drop of them and take out a chunk of a patrol without getting much heat in return.

But the heat that IS generated goes straight into an EXCELLENT prediction algorithm that susses out where you are considering the terrain and options it gives you, and keeping the search on for several minutes.

But they do NOT magically see you during that time (grass alone does not help, it does not reduce the view of the AI enough on its own to trigger blindness).
So, it's more important to get away from a "guerrilla strike" ambush you conducted.

And the slow and meticulous nature of infantry combat Arma has, coupled with the expectations instilled from many many stealth videogames out there where you just have to slink around the corner, well.
In Arma you better skeedaddle for half a click at least. Yes. THAT far. THAT far through obscuring terrain. Minimum.

"But my soldier walks so slow and running makes him huff and puff so I don't want to"

And that is the crux, the thing you have to get over to really stay on top of the enemy AI.
You have to embrace mobility, the more you move, the safer you are, really get out of dodge, every time. Don't even look back, just run for a couple of minutes straight if possible.

At least as a lone wolf or small recon squad. A proper fireteam can reposition less drastically.
Otherwise:
Run.
Ay.
Way.

Edit/P.S.:
The more you consider the AI soldier to be real people, with lives, wives, homes, etc.
The more patient you could perhaps become.

The less you see them as AI mob statistics, the easier of a time you could perhaps have fostering the patient mindset required for this.

If you ambush a patrol of 5 men, and shoot 3 or 4, then these men will not return home, and the survivors, in a properly scripted/set up scenario, will have to return to their duties at some point. They can't chase you forever, they have to do their soldier work again at some point.

So, look at it this way, you reduced enemy fighting strength that does not easily come back (scenarios with random spawns ...don't really apply here, but running away still does)
That's worth 5-10 minutes of repositioning, don't you think?
You didn't just "Null out" a bunch of variables, you actually made a dent, a change in their fighting force.

And they simply cannot chase you forever, what would they do? leave their base of operation alone? their patrols not in place anymore to chase you, where in a real conflict that could be exploited too?

Just...take your partial wins, regroup, and hit them again.
It's not as 'easy' as going round the corner and after 15 seconds the guy goes: "Must have been the wind"
But, every victory is an advantage.