A-life 2.0 is a glorified spawner(for now), and I will walk you through the proof.

[Digitalcat]

Heya, I see a lot of discussion regarding A-life 2.0, and it's existence in the game, While yes, something resembling A-life is in the game, it's not actually a simulation, but rather a scenario script, that uses various scenario variables, stored in a file, and a huge one at that, spawning different events around you ranging from just people randomly walking past, to stalker fighting a lair, or finding a wounded group.

The point of the script is to give the illusion of life around you, while in reality, there is very little simulation if at all, because if it exists, I cannot find any .cfg's relating to it. Groups you find fighting are decided by a dice roll, emissions happening and stalkers running to your location to hide, is literally a script that spawns people in to hide with you, to give the illusion of people existing around you. Now you may say, that sounds like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what do you know and where is your proof? Well, the proof is quite easily to find, UE5 is easy to decrypt the package and through the power of FMODEL we can actually peak into some of the game systems and it's variables that have been set.

And that bring us to AlifeDirectorScenarioPrototypes.cfg, the config in charge of providing the illusion of living world, while in reality it's fake. So lets actually go through the config, to look even further.

The config it self is about 2308 lines tall with different variables, with the average scenario taking about 23 lines start to finish. The type of scenarios range from, and these are directly from the file:

- Humans_Wounded_Friendly_vs_Dead_Mutants
- HumansFriendly (A group of passerby's, can be a single person, or a group of three)
- HumansVsDeadHumans_Friendly
- HumansVsHumans
- HumansVsMutants
- Mutants
- BlinddogPack
- And much much more, but these are most likely the ones you'll see the most, but now it's time to go through how it works.

How it works:
https://imgur.com/J955wMc

As you can see from the image, this is the starting section of the config, this defines the global rules of the config.

DefaultSpawnDistanceMin = 6000 / This defines the minimum spawn distance a scenario can appear.
DefaultSpawnDistanceMax = 6500 / The maximum spawn distance the scenario can appear, probably the same as the view distance in the game for objects.
DefaultSpawnDelayMin = 30 / The minimum cooldown time for another event to pop is atleast 30 minutes
DefaultSpawnDelayMax = 120 / The max cooldown time for another event to pop up.
DefaultPostSpawnDirectorTimeoutMin = 40 / Another time out regarding spawning. This one probably handles spawning time out for scenarios that have no PostSpawnDirectorTimeoutMin defined themself hence the default. Most scenarios do however.
DefaultPostSpawnDirectorTimeoutMax = Same as above but the max time out.
DefaultSpawnDirectionAngleMin = -180 / The infamous radius events can spawn around you.
DefaultSpawnDirectionAngleMax = 180 / The infamous radius events can spawn around you.
DefaultALifeLairExpansionToPlayerTimeMin = 120 / The min and max timeouts regarding Lair expansion scripted scenarios. Do not confuse this for "simulation", the config has a bunch of scripted scenarios regarding fights between groups of people, and designated "lairs" aka buildings they have designated as a possible location for this script to pop off in or infront.
DefaultALifeLairExpansionToPlayerTimeMax = 180 / Same as above but max timeout.
DefaultExpansionSquadNumMin = 4 / The size of the squads that fight in these scenarios. Ever seen a group of loners fight a bunch of soldiers at a checkpoint? This is that.
DefaultExpansionSquadNumMax = 7 / Same as above but the max size allowed. DefaultExpansionLairDistanceMin = 6000 / The range these expansion lair scenarios are allowed to spawn. Min max respectively.
DefaultExpansionLairDistanceMax = 8000
DefaultShouldDespawnNPCs = true / By default, unless specified different by a scenario, every scenario's spawned NPC's, be this factions, loners, mutants and such, will despawn if you go out of range.


Now comes the scenario group definers, this will filter the scenarios based on what should be able to pop in your area, This is for it to make sense as there would be no reason to pop a Mutant vs Loner event if you are in a military base.
DefaultContextualActionSearchRange = 7500 / not sure what this does, some events are marked with a ContextualActions, probably a pre-defined action you have to trigger for it to spawn. A locational trigger perhaps and maybe even some dialogue options.
DefaultEmissionScenarioGroup = Emission / These contain the events that can dice roll and happen during a emission , ever had a group of stalkers or a stalker randomly show up during a emission to hide next to you? That was a scenario from this group, there wasn't a real stalker nearby that was on a mission and just happened to hide near you. It was a actor that got spawned in to give the illusion of something around you. During Emission there is a scenario weight of 6 for Humans_Friendly to spawn, because of AI game logic, these friendlies will instantly try to search for a hiding spot during a emission
DefaultScenarioGroup = Global / All events categorised under Global, these contain the majority of the scenarios that spawn.
DefaultEmptyScenarioGroup = EmptyGroup / Literally no event spawn, it's a empty strut, probably for times during a heavily scripted mission or in a mission area.

Within the file there is also a EALifeDirectorScenarioTarget:
As you can probably guess, this defines the target that these events go after, once spawned. These can include targets such as
- AttackEnemyLair
- Player
- AllyLair
- ContextualAction
- And more.

Now you might think, wow this makes the world alive! Yes, it does, but it's not real. The biggest problem is that, no it's not because this config of scenarios and rules exist, it's that everything involves spawning things that did not exist prior! That is the biggest issue! Instead of assigning these missions so to say, or rules to enemies and people existing in the world, actively walking around, instead everything involves just magically spawning what is needed at that time.

Instead of giving a pack of dogs roaming nearby a friendly lair, the trigger to go attack it at random chance, instead it spawns a pack of dogs to go attack it. There are no roaming mobs, no roaming bandits, no roaming soldiers, and no roaming factions. It's all spawned in whenever the director says it's time for them to spawn in AND you have to be in spitting distance for it to even happen. Nothing happens without you being there! The only time AI exists outside of these rules, is when they are part of a respawning base. Like, outposts for example, or the villages you visit with traders in them. These have actors placed that stay there and are on a respawn timer, clear a military checkpoint, come back later, and they have all respawned for example.

Now you can argue "Well the old games had this, so why does it matter?" Well the old games had this + actual persistent characters that would exist in the world and do things, and regardless, the last game was in 2007, using the argument "well the old game had it so why is it a problem here" is not as valid as you think. We moved 17 years, and we still can't have a improvement on the systems of old?

Right now as it stands if there is a secondary system that handles simulation in a offline world so to say, that we cannot peak into, because yes, we can't look into everything since we do not have access to the blueprints, well that secondary system does not seem to work or seem to run. However right now, the director does seem to run, and it runs A LOT to the point it is probably responsible of the majority of random wild encounters you experience and what it outputs is not what A-life should be. Stalker has always had a Scenario spawner but this was combined with a secondary system that would simulate things outside of your visions and create some of the personal stories we love and have experienced in the original saga as well as with questing and roaming stalkers with permanence in the world that we eventually started recognising in our play throughs.

The Devs are adamant that a-life 2.0 is real, and just very broken, and as I have said in prior threads discussing a-life, I am inclined to believe them, however as said before, if it's there, we don't have access and if it's present, it is most definitely not working, resulting in a a-life that is only being a glorified spawner relying purely on a aidirector that is going rather crazy.

I highly recommend you unpacking the scenario file your self, and having a peak into it, it answers a lot of questions regarding how it works. And as you play the game, I recommend you keep the file open, and anytime and everytime something happens around you, you can literally find said scenario back in the .cfg files.

I however do want to say, that despite all of this, and it's disappointment to me personally, I don't mean this post as a f-you to gsc game world, they have said they are aware of the issues and committed in fixing them, I had different expectations coming into this game, partly because of what the marketing said. Sadly what I expected wasnt what I got, if you like the game how it is, and you have no problem with it, don't let me change your mind. I hope you have enough fun for the both of us, and I truly wish you a great time with it, but for me, I will let the devs do their thing for a bit longer.

[Cheyenesku]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Crow:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cheyenesku:

Refund what? The game you dont own?

I bought it on GOG dude.

Fair enough, good luck waiting for a month to get your money back unless you get money funds.
But maybe you will be lucky like I was - I refunded Bloodlines 2 after two years of waiting (waited a month for money) but they forgot to remove the game from my profile :D

[Sayuri]

Początkowo opublikowane przez BIG GUY 4U:

To be honest I never understood why something like this

1. Divide the map into squares, say 100 meters by 100 meters
2. Take a list of NPCs and monsters, let's say 500 pieces of different factions with their own properties, inventory
3. Take a list of small camps in the squares: Sheds, huts, fires, checkpoints
4. Set these 500 NPCs to initial spawns at these camps
5. Give each NPC random tasks: go there, capture something, patrols, scour for food/artifacts, robbery, rest, make them collide with each other when they enter the same square with different consequences
6. Update the information every few game hours, who went where, who killed whom
7. As soon as the player enters the square, online NPCs will spawn there, who behave in accordance with the usual combat AI
8. As soon as the player leaves the square, transfer them back to offline

is hard to implement. These are, in theory, fairly simple background calculations and should take place in a matter of seconds without harming performance. Or is it not so?

You are absolutely correct in every point : "Offline"-AI (aka ai for NPCs that are not present in the nearby area) in open world games is usually very simplified and abstracted to simple calculations and simple timers and it pretty much works as you described.

Well, except for point 6 : Rather than every few hours, it probably would update every few seconds, to keep track of, update and get notified when someone reached their destination to assign new tasks or to roll a die to determine who won a combat scenario, but even that (every few seconds instead of hour) should not impact performance at all, even with hundreds of NPCs moving around in the entire world.

Heck, knowing Unreal's character / physics / animation code, a thousand "offline" NPCs simulated on the other side of the world, if done correctly, would probably take less CPU time than a single "active" character that you can see on your screen near you in-game.

[Sir Galahad]

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Początkowo opublikowane przez Kankaku:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cheyenesku:

PC players would also be upset. As I stated before - its impossible to have that without server based instancing.

This isn't true. It would be zone based. There is occlusion culling between bridged areas. There are ways to do it but Xbox series s wouldn't be able to run it. Neither would lower end PCs.

It's not impossible it just wouldn't be playable on lower end hardware like it already isn't.

That's not entirely true either, the game is perfectly playable on old systems, i should know with my system running on its 12th year.

Ryzen 7 5800X, 32gb DDR4 ram and a very old and trusty 1660S, 60fps using a performance mod on nexus and frame generation in low to medium settings in 1080p.

With A-life i'm sure you would be right, there is no way in my mind a system such as this would be able to run the game once implemented, and that is another obstacle they have to deal with, because how can they possibly implement something that further increase the system requirements? very unlikely.

The only time i can recall this is when an expansion or DLC is released which can increase the requirements needed.

I am certain that we will see this happen through the modding scene and not through patches.

[Saul Goodman]

Początkowo opublikowane przez author:

And that bring us to AlifeDirectorScenarioPrototypes.cfg, the config in charge of providing the illusion of living world, while in reality it's fake

Now you should definitely bring us magic living real world code from an original trilogy, right?

The author is purposely misleading the public. Every AI is just a simulation of computer variables. The argument about 17 years also doesn't make any sense. Author is talking and comparing not a product released in 2007 (btw, why?), but a heavily patched and modded version from the latter years.

TLDR: This post is just another piece of info attack on this product due to the origin of the devs. Thank God, nowadays you can simply go to the twitch and decide whether you like the product or not.

[Kankaku]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cheyenesku:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kankaku:

This isn't true. It would be zone based. There is occlusion culling between bridged areas. There are ways to do it but Xbox series s wouldn't be able to run it. Neither would lower end PCs.

It's not impossible it just wouldn't be playable on lower end hardware like it already isn't.

Yeah, but I meant the whole map at the same time. They could do it Zone based or at least make the radius the size on og games zones.

Well it will be the whole map in the background. The objects just won't be rendered until you're in the zone within a certain distance.

Doing the whole map with everything on a server would make sense for co-op or MMO though. That way you could have people in different zones. That's honestly how I thought the PvP was going to be. Open world Tarkov essentially. Kinda bummed out it's not going to be.

[Đeath’ş Aļļ | Horst Fuchs]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cheyenesku:

Początkowo opublikowane przez 🆇🅸🅸🅸:

Gunfights with AI is way more tactical and fun in FC2 than in this game. In FC2 you actually can snipe enemies from far away. Because they're there. Here? Yeah ... within 100 meters around you. Even if the base you saw from above was empty before ...

Far Cry 2 could spawn enemies 20 meters from you. And in your face.
And the spawn radius of enemies as in visible for your eye is around 100 meters. you dont even realize how long is 100 meters.

I, mot sure how random encounters work in this game, but my first confrontation with enemies in start of openworld part happened very oddly.

I was attacked by two guys, which appeared behind some car wreck just cca 10 or 15 meters away on my right side, there was no way they could come in there, they just spawned.
Even more bizarre thing happened only few seconds later, i grabbed their stuff, came on the other of car back on my way and again, after cca 10 or 15 meters someone is hooting on me, and guess what, it was some guy which appeared right on those dead bodies i just created. WTF is this?

[tr0nio]

I guess it's the cp2077 syndrome again. I'm glad I decided to wait until the game gets polished or modded to a better quality

[Cheyenesku]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kankaku:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cheyenesku:

Yeah, but I meant the whole map at the same time. They could do it Zone based or at least make the radius the size on og games zones.

Well it will be the whole map in the background. The objects just won't be rendered until you're in the zone within a certain distance.

Doing the whole map with everything on a server would make sense for co-op or MMO though. That way you could have people in different zones. That's honestly how I thought the PvP was going to be. Open world Tarkov essentially. Kinda bummed out it's not going to be.

true, they can just save persistence of, lets say, dudes at the building, and render them when you are closer. The visible radius just needs to be bigger.

[Cheyenesku]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Đeath’ş Aļļ | Horst Fuchs:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cheyenesku:

Far Cry 2 could spawn enemies 20 meters from you. And in your face.
And the spawn radius of enemies as in visible for your eye is around 100 meters. you dont even realize how long is 100 meters.

I, mot sure how random encounters work in this game, but my first confrontation with enemies in start of openworld part happened very oddly.

I was attacked by two guys, which appeared behind some car wreck just cca 10 or 15 meters away on my right side, there was no way they could come in there, they just spawned.
Even more bizarre thing happened only few seconds later, i grabbed their stuff, came on the other of car back on my way and again, after cca 10 or 15 meters someone is hooting on me, and guess what, it was guys which was right on dead bodies i just made. WTF is this?

Yeah, the spawns can get crazy, but for some reason some people have them different - i never had someone spawn close to me. Its usually 50-100 meters.

[Kankaku]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Sir Galahad:

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Początkowo opublikowane przez Kankaku:

This isn't true. It would be zone based. There is occlusion culling between bridged areas. There are ways to do it but Xbox series s wouldn't be able to run it. Neither would lower end PCs.

It's not impossible it just wouldn't be playable on lower end hardware like it already isn't.

That's not entirely true either, the game is perfectly playable on old systems, i should know with my system running on its 12th year.

Ryzen 7 5800X, 32gb DDR4 ram and a very old and trusty 1660S, 60fps using a performance mod on nexus and frame generation in low to medium settings in 1080p.

With A-life i'm sure you would be right, there is no way in my mind a system such as this would be able to run the game once implemented, and that is another obstacle they have to deal with, because how can they possibly implement something that further increase the system requirements? very unlikely.

The only time i can recall this is when an expansion or DLC is released which can increase the requirements needed.

I am certain that we will see this happen through the modding scene and not through patches.

What specs are you running out of curiosity? With the optimization the game has right now having full zones running at once would probably fry even higher end hardware.

[Kankaku]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Cheyenesku:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kankaku:

Well it will be the whole map in the background. The objects just won't be rendered until you're in the zone within a certain distance.

Doing the whole map with everything on a server would make sense for co-op or MMO though. That way you could have people in different zones. That's honestly how I thought the PvP was going to be. Open world Tarkov essentially. Kinda bummed out it's not going to be.

true, they can just save persistence of, lets say, dudes at the building, and render them when you are closer. The visible radius just needs to be bigger.

That's exactly how the original A-life worked. Not server based though lol.

[Frosty]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Saul Goodman:

Początkowo opublikowane przez author:

And that bring us to AlifeDirectorScenarioPrototypes.cfg, the config in charge of providing the illusion of living world, while in reality it's fake

Now you should definitely bring us magic living real world code from an original trilogy, right?

The author is purposely misleading the public. Every AI is just a simulation of computer variables. The argument about 17 years also doesn't make any sense. Author is talking and comparing not a product released in 2007 (btw, why?), but a heavily patched and modded version from the latter years.

TLDR: This post is just another piece of info attack on this product due to the origin of the devs. Thank God, nowadays you can simply go to the twitch and decide whether you like the product or not.

What you say is partly correct, but in this case the game uses pre-defined scenario's, with almost no randomization. A-life as it was used a tick system with usage of smart terrain to which those ticks were attached. Each tick had variables like human npc (in which case there would also be a skill level and faction be attached), mutant (where the type of mutant would have a behavior attached). Then the smart terrain would give instructions to those ticks (patrol, attack other smart-terrain, hunt, rest and such) and the ticks would stay in their primitive state until they crossed the audible range of the player character, and would be rendered just outside the visible range. And the visible range was scale able with scopes and binoculars.

Direct ai wise the old games considered the behavior of mutants, pack of dogs if to injured they would flee, flesh did not engage unless engaged themselves for instance, here the mutants use rush scripts, human npc had different behaviors related to the faction the belonged to, army would try and surround you, bandits when to many dead would flee and such. Here human npc are too easy you can cheese them, and how many times did i not hear them say "there is no one here", after i shot one, and they returned to an idle state.

[Kai]

If you can decrypt the game, can you enable console functionality ingame?
I wanna check out UE5 Cvar for optimizing it on my end.

[Sir Galahad]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Kankaku:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Sir Galahad:

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That's not entirely true either, the game is perfectly playable on old systems, i should know with my system running on its 12th year.

Ryzen 7 5800X, 32gb DDR4 ram and a very old and trusty 1660S, 60fps using a performance mod on nexus and frame generation in low to medium settings in 1080p.

With A-life i'm sure you would be right, there is no way in my mind a system such as this would be able to run the game once implemented, and that is another obstacle they have to deal with, because how can they possibly implement something that further increase the system requirements? very unlikely.

The only time i can recall this is when an expansion or DLC is released which can increase the requirements needed.

I am certain that we will see this happen through the modding scene and not through patches.

What specs are you running out of curiosity? With the optimization the game has right now having full zones running at once would probably fry even higher end hardware.

I listed it in the quoted post, Ryzen 7 5800X, 32gb DDR4 ram and a very old and trusty 1660S.

My GPU is at around 70-75C with 80-85% load

My CPU is what i'm mostly worried about is at 75-81c in 85-89% load, which i have never seen before and i have a good airflow with 3 140mm and 6 120mm fans in the case and a good air cooler, however i haven't reapplied thermal paste in about 3 years which could easily be one if the culprits.

[Kai]

Basically as time passes, good game devs become rare and scarce.
The reason being, you need a strong foundation in programming to get anywhere.

By using UE5, you are kinda forced to program alongside the engine to make sure it works.

Also the current devs did say in a article that they are learning UE5.

The graphical fidelity and simulations is not enough to strain a mid grade hardware... It's engine exclusive features like Nanite, Lumen, and Raytracing enabled. When you use these, it's self sustained system which lets the dev launch the game sooner.

But it does not optimize or make the game any better performing or stable.

I look side by side of Stalker 2 and Anomaly and the graphics are very similar. If you look at Gamma, the graphics are higher than Anomaly too, and performance stress is the same as Stalker 2 or a bit more performant.