Virtual AI System

ALiVE Systems

How It Works

The revolutionary Virtual AI System processes a complete set of data about every AI unit allowing them to be despawned from the game world yet still interact with other ALiVE modules. This allows the ‘virtual battle’ to continue in the background without taking up valuable server resources. Units will reappear in the game world as soon as a player comes within visual range.

Usage: Place the Virtual AI System in the editor and set the desired visual spawn radius. Note that high spawn ranges in excess of 3KM may have an impact on performance. Separate spawn radius options are available for players on the ground or piloting helicopters and planes.

• Persistence: enables Virtual AI [Persistence] for multi session operations with ALiVE Data.

• Sync Options: Units and Groups can be explicitly Excluded or Included from Profiles by Synchronising (F5) to the Virtual AI module. The behaviour of the module can be configured in the drop down menu. It is not recommended to profile units that you need to be in an exact location or facing such as static guns in a bunker.

• Active Limiter: caps the number of Virtual Profiles that can be spawned into the game world at any one time. Note that a Virtual Profile can be a Group of AI, or a vehicle, or a single Player. The Active Limit is NOT the max number of individual units that will ever spawn. The default value is 144. Groups are spawned on a first-come, first-served basis - so whichever happens to be closest to a player at the time will spawn first. Any remaining virtual groups above the limit will be moved outside of spawn range.

• Profile Speed Modifier: alters the speed at which virtual units move across the map. None equates to 100% normal unit speed.

Editor Notes

Making a mission with a lot of Virtual AI then artificially spawn-limiting them is inefficient and may get weird results, such as units spawning in behind players and moving into areas already cleared. Best practice is to reduce the density or number of Virtual Profiles in the Placement Modules to improve performance.

The profile system currently only supports Move and Cycle waypoints.

Triggers and other complex editor tools do not function in the virtual battle space, though it is possible to detect the presence of Profiles via scripts. See Script Snippets for details.

Do not sync players to the Profiler - they are handled separately by ALiVE.