Serjames wrote:
GAIA in its pure form is a remarkably simple but effective script that takes existing Ai and has them "home" in on BluFor Players (simplified explanation here, all credit to Spirit of course as it's bloody good) - but that's ALL it does... If you watch the ai asset moving it's almost childlike in how it circles the "LastKnowAbout" location and then reduces the radius of the circule till it has you, simulating a surround and flank.
I don't think that's quite fair w.r.t GAIA.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/56634804/MCC%20GAIA%20V1.0%20Release.pdf
While it doesn't have automagical map-indexing, GAIA with nested zones can do the exact same job as alive with the exception of actually spawning units in (i.e. you'd need to create the zones and initial AI presences. You'd also need to add reinforcements) but it can handle caching of units, attacks, virtual movement, re-tasking of units from one area to another..etc.
I actually think that GAIA's classification of capabilities and threats works far better than @alive. Alive, if given the chance, will just throw everything it has, including tanks, at you until you die.
GAIA is much more reasonable in that it actually counters with proportional responses. A little 4-man team won't get a t-72 brigade sent their way but instead it'll trigger 2-3 sections to find you.
GAIA also intelligentiyl realizes when an AI group losses a capability (i.e. a mechanized unit loose their BTR) and GAIA is MUCH MUCH better at transport.
You can even have groups of solely transport vehicles which GAIA will then use to ferry other groups around.
@alive has some very impressive persistance technology in it but the actual alive OPCOM/TACOM is, from my observations, very simplistic. If there's a threat, it simply starts giving groups waypoints to go there (ok, there's a few staging points involved but that's minor). Once the groups actually get to the threat they'll just revert to pure AI control.
With GAIA you can see amazing emergent behaviour like a group of HEMTT's being ordered across an AO to pick up a section of infantry who are then moved to another part of the AO where they dismount and start a flanking attack.
Yes, the actual flanking is pretty straightforward (it just takes three groups and sends one straight forward, one left, one right, in a fairly rigid pattern of waypoints) but it works really really well.
