Creature Melee AI

1.8.17

1.8.17
Less server work per creature in large crowds. Creatures reuse their target lists, chase lanes, action reservations and formation slots instead of rebuilding them, and creatures or targets that are gone are cleared from the crowd lists. Debug-only chase log text is no longer built when logging is off. The shared scheduler now keeps its clock in whole milliseconds, which fixes creature timing that drifted on servers running for 18 hours or more.
Also: creatures no longer stand still for good after finishing a move. Ambient wanderers keep taking new legs, and a chase that finishes a leg picks the next one. Dead creatures are checked about every 1.5 seconds instead of four times a second, which frees time for the living. New shared head-first crawl animation and a prone leg-bite animation for crawling zombies.

1.8.16

1.8.16
Adds camera framing support for Tortuga, keeping both tortoise sizes and their sweeping fire attacks visible in third person. Preserves the existing camera defaults for other creatures.

1.8.15

1.8.15
Faster filtered Game Master lists and tab switching, improved creature camera clearance, and shared support for animated claw and weapon contact, giant throws and vehicle interactions. Adds private suppressed-hit targeting for compatible add-ons and updates shared melee animations. Reduces targeting work in large crowds.

1.8.11

1.8.11
Feral Ghouls no longer slide when they bound at full speed: their hands and feet stay planted on the ground while the body moves over them, and the hind knees stay below the back. Adds shared golem attack and giant stomp animations, with stomp contact support, for creature add-ons that use them. Existing creatures behave as before.

1.8.10

1.8.10
Carrying is more reliable in multiplayer: a carried player is no longer put down early, a finished carry no longer blocks the next pickup, and a grabbed player's weapon drops only after it has left their hands. Mods that use the existing carry functions keep working. Added animation support for Project Outbreak's cooperative zombie climbing. Feral Ghoul animations no longer pause for one frame at the end of each loop.

1.8.9

1.8.9
Allied creatures no longer block melee contacts in crowded fights. Adds shared support for creatures that prioritize active enemies over unconscious targets.

1.8.8

1.8.8
Feral (four-legged zombie) gaits now play at the speed the body moves and blend smoothly between crawl, fast crawl and bound, so their hands and feet slide much less.

1.8.7

1.8.7
Shared attack, stomp, feeding and spear animations are now available through Creature Melee AI. Repeated attacks retain their animation timing. Added animation support used by Project Outbreak's distant zombies. Reduced script initialization overhead while preserving compatibility for existing mods.

1.8.6

1.8.6
Adds an internal carry admission path used by creature add-ons that have already proved physical contact with the body they struck, such as the Eyekin bird's dive grab. Creature and player behaviour through the existing pickup search is unchanged.

1.8.5

1.8.5
Fixes Game Master cards spawning the wrong creature on dedicated servers, such as the Dark Werewolf card placing an Ice Werewolf. Each card now places exactly the creature it shows.

1.8.4

1.8.4
Add shared Bigfoot boxing and Werewolf claw animations for the new creature add-ons, plus an optional gesture component and a Fire hook that lets a creature take over Fire while carrying. Standalone creatures no longer report a missing Project Outbreak resource, and a possessed creature's head now shows correctly in third person.

1.8.1

1.8.1
Prevent missing bolt-cycle, shooting-seat and riding animation controls on zombies using the shared graph. Add a shared heavy footstep/stomp sound bank and a climbing motion helper for creature addons; existing creatures do not gain climbing automatically.

1.8.0

1.8.0
Added optional shared support for giant creatures: world crushing, fitted stomp animations, grounded footstep effects and impacts that scale with distance.

Improved pursuit of retreating enemies and decisions after switching targets. Creature add-ons can choose area attacks from perceived groups and keep their cast while parking their own movement.

Barefoot creatures no longer injure their feet while walking or running. Normal human footwear and other damage keep their existing behavior.

World crushing and giant presentation remain off unless an add-on explicitly enables them. CMAI still requires only the Base Game.

Giant gameplay remains experimental. Complete multiplayer, late-join and presentation coverage is still in progress.

Improved carry cleanup when a carrier disappears or loses its settings. Delayed commands from an ended carry no longer replace a newer carry, and cleanup preserves unrelated character commands.

Shared Mushroom Rift animation bank: the fitted creature clips and attack graphs are supplied by CMAI, preserving their motion and resource identities.

Added optional per-hand melee contact and shared dual-strike animations for creature authors. Existing attacks retain their ordinary contact rules unless an addon enables hand windows.

1.7.0

1.7.0
Creature creators can reuse shared Sprinter movement, melee, tackle, feeding and reaction animations through CMAI. Added contact hooks for possessed creatures and Goblin parries. Existing creature profiles keep their current behavior unless they opt into the new capabilities. Completed credits for the shared animation banks.

1.6.0

1.6.0
Flying creatures can keep their own flight animations while carrying a person and use authored talon or beak grip points. Fixed authored carry clips, grip bones and timings being overwritten by shared defaults. A refused pickup can retry after a short delay; successful grabs retain their normal cooldown. Improved precise pursuit to helicopter grab positions and recovery after a cancelled approach.

1.5.0

1.5.0
Creature creators can reuse a shared claw-slap profile, register separate durability settings for each creature type, and fit native first- and third-person cameras to their creatures. Durability changes preserve existing wounds and dead bodies. Startup settings can be configured in the profile Creatures JSON. Existing creatures retain their current behavior unless an addon opts into the new capabilities.
- Game Masters can let unarmed characters lift, walk with and throw another character. Held characters keep moving, sit higher on the hands and unlock after release.
- Fixed thrown players dropping at the release point on their own client while other players saw them fly.

1.4.0

1.4.0
- Adds a shared vehicle launch that other add-ons can give to their creatures. A struck car flies and rolls, a truck slides and tips, and armour only rocks. People seated in the vehicle stay seated. A vehicle class can set a weakest hit, so a launch is sometimes strong and sometimes weaker. Creature Melee AI's own creatures do not launch vehicles.
- When a target dies, creatures no longer change which of the remaining equal targets they choose first.
- Corrected the normal-map import settings of the sword textures on all six platforms.
- Game Masters can allow an unarmed character to slap and launch a nearby person or vehicle with the fire key.
- Creature add-ons can reuse the overhead pickup, carry and throw animations, including custom grips and timings.
- Improved carrying players in multiplayer so the held body does not push its carrier.

1.3.1

Adds a shared vehicle launch that other add-ons can give to their creatures.

Improved compatibility with servers that customize vehicle cleanup and persistence.

1.3.0

1.3.0
- Creatures that reach a dead end while chasing or following a sound now try another route instead of standing in the same place.
- Creatures can strike a prone or unconscious target that is within reach.
- Creature Melee AI now adds its Game Master faction without overwriting changes another mod made to the base factions.
- Shared scheduling and contact code reduce duplicated work while preserving the existing creature profiles and combat settings.

1.2.0

Creatures can now fight with melee weapons.

Added a shared melee animation family so any mod can give a creature a sword, club, blade, two-handed weapon or spear without building its own combat system.

This works alongside animation mods. Creature Melee AI does not replace the player animation graph, so it can be loaded next to an animation overhaul.

Creatures carry and swing correctly standing and crouched, and hold a weapon properly while prone.

Fixed a creature holding a short weapon standing too far away to ever land a hit. Fixed a weapon that could stay stuck in its holster while the creature kept trying to draw it. Armed creatures now report their hits, so armour and other mods that react to being struck work against them too.

Fixed other creators' scenarios failing to spawn players. This mod adds its own faction to the world's faction list, and the way it did that could replace a scenario's own faction setup, leaving the game with nothing to spawn players into. It now keeps everything the base game's list already had and only adds to it.

Fleeing creatures can now hide inside nearby buildings, go upstairs where a floor is reachable, shut doors behind them, and keep running the way they were going instead of doubling back. Creatures looking for cover now count buildings and vehicles as cover, search farther before settling for an exposed spot, and no longer treat other characters as walls.

Existing creatures are unchanged. The new behaviour is off unless a mod turns it on.

Known limits: two-handed weapons are built but not yet tested in play, and there is no example two-handed weapon yet. Thrusting one-handed weapons are not built. Crawling creatures cannot use a weapon at all.

Two-handed melee animation from Melee Combat Extended by Sanxisan, used under the Arma Public Licence.

Also in this release:
- Soldiers now shoot back at creatures in scenarios that replace the faction list. Previously they could stand and ignore them.
- Creatures no longer fight the creatures of another add-on. This works from our side only, so the other add-on's creatures may still attack ours.

1.1.5

1.1.5
Creatures can now fight with melee weapons (experimental)
Code and animation for that is re-used from Melee Combat Extended by Sanxisan, used under the Arma Public License. 
https://reforger.armaplatform.com/workshop/6595113A3678CF5D-MeleeCombatExtended

This works alongside animation mods. Creature Melee AI does not replace the player animation graph, so it can be loaded next to an animation overhaul.

Fixed other creators' scenarios failing to spawn players. This mod adds its own faction to the world's faction list, and the way it did that could replace a scenario's own faction setup, leaving the game with nothing to spawn players into. It now keeps everything the base game's list already had and only adds to it.

Fleeing creatures can now hide inside nearby buildings, go upstairs where a floor is reachable, shut doors behind them, and keep running the way they were going instead of doubling back. Creatures looking for cover now count buildings and vehicles as cover, search farther before settling for an exposed spot, and no longer treat other characters as walls.

1.1.3

- Reworked faction system to enable more compatibility with more scenarios

1.1.2

- Fixed living characters losing their faction on some custom scenarios. Creature hostility setup no longer forces a global target refresh after changing who is friendly with whom.

1.1.1

1.1.1
- Fixes creatures getting stuck at low fences that the game allows them to climb.
- Fixes ArmaVision camera properties failing to open when Creature Melee AI or Project Outbreak settings are loaded.

1.1.0

1.1.0
- Creatures that have to break in somewhere walk to the door or window and hold there under their own movement, so mods that let them break barriers no longer fight the creature AI for control.
- A creature that cannot reach its spot at a door gives that door up after a few seconds instead of standing beside it.
- A pack that loses sight of its prey keeps hunting to where it was last seen instead of stopping in the street.
- Creatures push straight through a door they just broke open instead of pausing in it, and no longer overlook a door a few steps ahead on their path.
- Creature pursuit keeps sole ownership of obstacle approaches and stock vault timing. Integrations such as electric fences can observe natural climbs without parking, steering or forcing creatures to move.
- Large populations cost far less: a creature far from its prey thinks less often than one in contact, and sight is checked four times a second instead of twenty. Nothing changes in what creatures do.
- A creature that cannot get any nearer to its prey for a few seconds stops trusting its path and looks for a way in, instead of pacing along a wall.
- Server logs are much quieter. Detailed creature movement logging is off by default and can be turned back on with -POLaneDiag.

1.0.4

Version 1.0.4:
- Fixed creatures freezing on the spot with prey right in front of them. When a body was removed at the wrong moment, nearby creatures lost track of every target for that moment. They now skip the removed body and keep hunting.
- Creature pursuit again keeps sole ownership of obstacle approaches and stock vault timing. Integrations such as electric fences can observe natural climbs without parking, steering, or forcing creatures to move.

1.0.3

Server logs are much quieter. Detailed creature movement logging is now off by default and can be turned back on with -POLaneDiag. No gameplay change.

1.0.2

1.0.2
- Better creature navigation when approaching obstacles

1.0.1

1.0.1:
Fixed a crash that could throw everyone off a multiplayer server at once, while the server itself kept running.
It happened when a creature was picking a target at the same moment something it had been tracking disappeared

1.0.0