Halo Driving AI???

[theultimateend]

One of the few things I liked about the Halo series was the driving mechanics. While it had already been done by CnC Renegade (unless I'm getting my years mixed up) I do think that Halo did it better than most.

I also LOVED having the AI have 200 million choices for where to drive the warthog and it would choose the 1 that drives straight up a rock and flips it.

I'm not being sarcastic either. It was pretty funny. I half roleplayed that my partners were retarded from sniffing glue and joined the military because they watched SPIKE and thought it was awesome.

 

[Eldarion]

The drivers suck in ODST, but the turret AI more than makes up for it.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Driving AI pretty fecking hard to pull off. You've got to make your NPC's path finding compensate for being larger than it's supposed to be and suddenly having different moving parameters.

If you look at most NPC driven vehicles they tend to either be scripted or have pretty limited movement patterns, or be an NPC them self and not driven by the NPC at all

This. I remember in Halo 1 I loved to ride shotgun, but it was insanity to let the AI drive... It was a sure ticket down the closest ledge.

NPC's didn't drive anything you could ride shotgun in Halo 1, at all, ever. They would occasionally mount up Ghosts and drive them, but the Warthog and Scorpion were strictly off limits to NPC's.

Cannoning in co-op was awesome though.

 

[TPiddy]

Thinking about it just now, I think the drivers in GTA4 were pretty good compared to the other AI drivers. Besides some of the scripted driving, they chased you and ran away from you relatively well.

Halo, I loved, but could be ten times better if they just placed more soldiers on the line and gave them better. I remember them advertising bigger battles and in the end, besides some of the theatrical moments, it only resulted in mostly Banshees and Hornets flying around shooting at each other miles off.

Ah, yes... Gears was guilty of this too somewhat... promised larger, epic-scale battles, but all that shit happened in the background and you could do nothing but stare at it. You couldn't help or anything.

 

[soren7550]

I think Bungie improved their AI's driving abilities in ODST, but they're still pretty bad. I had to jump out of the Warthog several times and set it in the right direction so that I could stick to the turret. The AI didn't even bother trying to man the tank in one level.

But hey, at least it's better than Halo 3 (in more ways than one.)

 

[Gyrefalcon]

Good topic.

I have to agree that the Star Wars ones seemed to do okay.

(But I'd also like to understand why vehicles have to be a pain to handle in the first place. Unless it takes damage and loses automatic steering, why do so many vehicles drive like hippos on land? Cars and boats are NOT hard in reality unless something goes wrong with them or the weather or the terrain.) :/

 

[Twilight_guy]

I have to say unreal tournament 3. I'm in a class where we are making custom maps for said game and even on my cruddy map the AI doesn't get lost (sometimes they fail to realize that a wall stands in between them and suicide bombing the enemy with a scorpion though). It usually navigates fairly well but, It also really operates based on paths laid down in the level behind the scenes so I don't know.

 

[dthvirus]

Vehicle AI is much harder to program smoothly than other AI functions. First off, you're in something that can go very fast. So things can go very wrong or very right. However, when you give the player the ability to go very fast, they just want to cruise around and get a feel for a bit, and then make their own route. The player needs full control because he can't afford to make mistakes in a vehicle.

Say, in Halo, you're the rear gunner on that Warthog and the AI is taking over the driving. You do a drive-by on a pack of Grunts, but one remains after your first run. Now, you could either keep going, or return for the last Grunt.

Well, the computer doesn't know what you want to do. Maybe if there was a system of orders you wanted to relay to your driver. Say you want to return for that last kill. You order him to make another pass. Oh, you wanted to pass him on the left side? What if he's up against a wall? What if he ran off, and chasing him would be a waste of time?

I guess what I'm saying, is that driving is something the player needs total control of to not feel disconnected. If not, the game starts to become a vehicle-RTS with you relaying orders and perhaps gunning down the occasional enemy. A clunky RTS too, since it isn't doing exactly what you want. AI should take over mundane tasks, like say gunning, since it's easy to program: you either shoot or don't.

 

[Caliostro]

NPC's didn't drive anything you could ride shotgun in Halo 1, at all, ever. They would occasionally mount up Ghosts and drive them, but the Warthog and Scorpion were strictly off limits to NPC's.

Cannoning in co-op was awesome though.

I'm pretty sure I remember them driving in Halo 1, at least on the PC version...

 

[shadow skill]

I just got to a mission in ODST where you have to get into a vehicle...The AI being so terrible at driving is making me want to hurry up and send the game back to Gamefly. I want to man the turret not drive. If I wanted to drive I would be playing GT5P or the Forza demo I downloaded. This kind of thing gets on my nerves so much, I do not think I have ever had fun in a single player game where you had to do a driving sub-mission.

 

[Capn Disco]

I was playing the lvl where you have to take out the 6 wraiths and I was on gun. The ai smashed into things repeatedly and then he would just stop at some points. I would try to get him going but it seemed the only thing to do was to flip it and then get in the gun again so they would start driving again.

 

[Haunted Serenity]

The Star Wars: Battlefront series seemed to do it moderately well. Not outlandishly great, but good enough that it didn't come to mind as a problem. Although, it's hard to find AI for anything that's thinking about doing the same thing as you, so I usually don't go shotgun with an NPC at the wheel. It's more of a players mistake than the developers if you crash because an NPC is driving, in my opinion.

EDIT: Also, most games can do NPC driving better when the vehicle is slower. For example, you're not going anywhere letting an NPC drive a warthog, but they do fine in a Scorpion... unless it's a very uneven surface.

Yeah Battlefront had decent A.I drivers but they had 2 downfalls. 1) they wouldn't move if there was an ally within 5m's so anti-tank troopers blew them ack to hell 2)they didn't like to stay in excellent shooting locations, and would get much closer than nessacary to the enemy.

Mercanaries Playground of Destruction had the best computer driving A.I i've seen in my opinion(i use the word best in a very slim way)

 

[archvile93]

Nope can't think of any. I heard the driving AI in Borderlands is going to be very competent, but we'll have to wait and see if the guys and girls at Gearbox can actually pull it off.

 

[toapat]

Hey, I know one which.... Oh... Wait...

I'm guessing that driving AI is pretty hard to do. Each game that involves drivig has its flaws.

have you played a good NFS? the AI if you are yourself good enough, will be able to beat you while maintaining momentum perpendicular to how they are facing

 

[fix-the-spade]

-snip-

I'm pretty sure I remember them driving in Halo 1, at least on the PC version...

Nope, NPC's couldn't drive anything but Ghosts until Halo 2.

Halo PC's single player is identical to the Xbox version save a few very minor graphical upgrades.

Halo Custom Edition has a few mods that let the Marines drive bigger stuff (and fly Pelicans, Hornets, Mongooses, Wraiths etc), but it's all user created content.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Hey, I know one which.... Oh... Wait...

I'm guessing that driving AI is pretty hard to do. Each game that involves drivig has its flaws.

have you played a good NFS? the AI if you are yourself good enough, will be able to beat you while maintaining momentum perpendicular to how they are facing

Oh dear God Need for Speed cheating AI!

I hate that, you can drive a perfect race and they'll still breeze past you like it's nothing. By far the worst was Road Challenge, in the top tiers they could get round hairpins without braking, without braking. Although the Underground games were pretty awful with their random crashes and rubber banding, bastards...

 

[Chicago Ted]

I remember me and a friend once hopped in the gunner and passenger position to test the AI in Halo 3. It went straight for a few few, turned right 90 degrees so that it faced a cliff face, and stopped. He didn't reverse or move at all, just stopped there. We laughed about that for a while.

 

[Spitfire175]

Well, there are the GTA games... And Operation: Flashpoint.

 

[A.I. Sigma]

The Halo AI deserve to be killed by me. I don't know why they get so upset about it.

 

[L3m0n_L1m3]

I ALWAYS let my AI buddies drive because it's hilarious to watch them attempt to get out of a corner, or drive off a cliff.

But I usually walk, unless it's a Ghost or Scorpion.