Scripted Scavs

March 28, 2019

Is it possible to script scavs without too much strain on performance?

What I mean is recording movement of someone "playing" as a scav. Just like a car game's ghost car. If you'd have 20-25 scripted scavs on e.g. Interchange , looking like ordinary players as they move around the map, even as groups moving tactically as units, and if they spot someone they enter scav AI-mode, cyka blyat and all that... would it kill the server dead?

It's kind of immersion breaking when the scavs walk around like zombies, blindly walking past corners, making way too much noise, and not paying attention to their environment.

I am not saying a full blown script with animations or whatever. Just recorded movement, and if a PMC enters their field of view or produce a lot of sound close to the scripted scav they'd enter AI-scav attack- or alert mode.

Let's say a dev roleplays as a scav for 40 minutes, just moving around a map with no PMCs. Then on a map like interchange, this particular scav spawns about 20 min after the raid started. If the scav doesn't encounter any PMCs, he'll just do his little walk around. If he does encounter a PMC, scav-AI is triggered, and if he survives he stays on alert scav-mode for a couple of minutes and then returns to the script.

Is it at all possible, or do we have to wait for quantum computer servers ?

March 28, 2019

I shouldn't spam my own post, but I am at work, down-time, and bored out of my head. Also too late to edit post.

Just imagine the possibilities!? Let's say a 100 scripted scavs are recorded for a map. Everywhere from full raid-time scripts down to 10 minute late spawn scripts. With each raid 25 random scripts are selected for that particular server. Each script recorded with the other scripts on the map, so there are no collisions or weird stuff going on. We could have scavs roll in groups of four, setting up 360 defenses in different places. Lone Mosin scavs sneaking around in the outer perimeter of the map. Anything. As you would spawn in different places, and encounter the scavs on different occasions of their timeline, you could meet the same scav many many times without noticing. It would also be impossible to tell PMC from scav at a distance, as it's a recording of a human being playing as the scav.

March 29, 2019

Its a good idea but I do think that might be abit taxing on the servers. I dont know what kind of equipment tarkov has but AI really tanks servers hard, the more complex you make them the worse it gets. But idk it very well might be possible!

1.3k · March 29, 2019

Problem with scripts is unless you account for everything they tend to go off track fairly easily even more so when people are introduced and they intentionally try and pull them off track or push the ai into places it shouldn't go. the "go investigate sound you heard" scripted behavior you have seen in lots of games normally allows you to lead the ai around like a cow if you can throw rocks or something.

Better to get the ai working properly and make a system that "self-rights" rather than hope that someone made a script that caters for that scenario.

The other one is that scripts are only surprising the first time after you learn the trick then you know how its gonna play out every time with that script unless you have thousands of them all similar but not quite the same to randomly switch in and out as needed (but then your not really running "a" script then)

March 29, 2019

Tbh I would rather see scavs do something other than walk around. How about we actually see them scavenging, eating, sitting around a fire drinking and singing? Make it more immersive, at least untill all hell breaks out

1.2k · March 29, 2019

10 hours ago, PuddleMurda said:

I shouldn't spam my own post, but I am at work, down-time, and bored out of my head. Also too late to edit post.

Just imagine the possibilities!? Let's say a 100 scripted scavs are recorded for a map. Everywhere from full raid-time scripts down to 10 minute late spawn scripts. With each raid 25 random scripts are selected for that particular server. Each script recorded with the other scripts on the map, so there are no collisions or weird stuff going on. We could have scavs roll in groups of four, setting up 360 defenses in different places. Lone Mosin scavs sneaking around in the outer perimeter of the map. Anything. As you would spawn in different places, and encounter the scavs on different occasions of their timeline, you could meet the same scav many many times without noticing. It would also be impossible to tell PMC from scav at a distance, as it's a recording of a human being playing as the scav.

Replying to your self once is not spamming lol. Ppl who create the same posts 10+ times, now thats a different case.

March 29, 2019

13 hours ago, smokey-phil said:

Problem with scripts is unless you account for everything they tend to go off track fairly easily even more so when people are introduced and they intentionally try and pull them off track or push the ai into places it shouldn't go. the "go investigate sound you heard" scripted behavior you have seen in lots of games normally allows you to lead the ai around like a cow if you can throw rocks or something.

What I was thinking was more in the line of the scav-AI being the same, more or less, but the scav behaves like a player up until the point where you trigger the scav-script to enter AI-mode. Triggering the script to go AI would be the same trigger as of now. Enter line of sight, or make enough noise.

This would make it very difficult to determine whether or not the scav is a scav-player. You could be stalking a group of scavs moving tactically through an area, but until they are triggered it's anyone's guess if they are AI or players.

I think that if there were enough scripted scavs for each map, and a number of randomly selected scripts would spawn, and at different times during the raid, you could encounter the same script many times, and never know it's one you've encountered before.

As it is now, all the scavs are pretty much in the same locations, and their behavior very predictable.

I would also like to see much more intelligent AI, in the industry in general, but until then other creative solutions are needed. If scripted scavs is plausible in regards to performance, I think it would make a hell of a difference.

Edited March 29, 2019 by PuddleMurda

2.5k · March 30, 2019

Hello @PuddleMurda! That's a very interesting idea, I love how you likened to a ghost car route in racing games, very easy to understand

I wonder how that same idea could work when it comes to scavs taking a defensive position? Maybe it's just me, but I've always viewed AI scavs as defenders of the map moreso than active participants trying to enter and extract from the raid.

Maybe this could apply to generating patrol routes, though?

Hmm...

March 30, 2019

1 hour ago, Spectator6 said:

Hello @PuddleMurda! That's a very interesting idea, I love how you likened to a ghost car route in racing games, very easy to understand

I wonder how that same idea could work when it comes to scavs taking a defensive position? Maybe it's just me, but I've always viewed AI scavs as defenders of the map moreso than active participants trying to enter and extract from the raid.

Maybe this could apply to generating patrol routes, though?

Hmm...

So, imagine four devs spawning in on Interchange. They move in to the Ultra mall, planning on starting the "recording" of these ghost-scavs. Let's say they start recording all four devs at the same time. These devs go deep roleplaying and start moving around the map. They just play as if they are playing a raid. They check corners, cover each other as they run across open ground, they stop occasionally and set up a perimeter, 360 defense. They Just hold that position for 5 minutes, as if players could be rolling up on them at any second. They continue on, pushing out to the outskirts of the map, breaching the power station, and then holding up there for a bit. Then eventually move back to where they started recording the script. Let's say their little excursion takes around 20-25 minutes.

Each devs ghost-scav is recorded individually, and can spawn individually or as a group. Which of the 100 different scripts recorded for this specific map that actually spawn is completely random. So maybe you encounter a lone scav on that route at one point. The next time you are in the same location and roughly at the same time in the raid, and you expect to run in to that one scav. This time you might not run in to anything, but the next time you encounter a squad of scavs tactically pushing through that same area.

If you enter the scavs line of sight, or make enough noise, the same aggro AI-scav as we see now is triggered. If they kill you, they stay in scav AI-mode for a minute or two, then return to the script.

This would make the scavs a real threat, as they could be sneaking up on you. If you got two scavs who catch you totally off guard, even if they scream "cyka!" and alert you a bit before they engage, they could still mess you up big time.

If it's possible, without killing performance, they should get on it straight away. Or at least look into it, if it has not been done already. I just don't see how a ghost-scav, just like a ghost car in a racing game, is more straining on servers than a constantly running AI for each individual scav. But then again, I am not a developer, so I might be talking out of my a$$ here.

Edited March 30, 2019 by PuddleMurda