AI view distance

[SuaveSteve]

Something that is very clear between Thief 2 and TDM is how far you have to be away from a guard while fully lit for them to not notice you. Thief 2 is very lenient in comparison but I find the range TDM gives to guards to be borderline anal. It is something that hits me only in big city missions. The two that cause it the most for me is Penny Dreadful 3 and Crucible of Omens. Crucible more so.

So here's a compacted scenario from Crucible I will use as an example: I'm in the dark in the street and I see a well-lit door. I'm not sure whether the door is frobbable or not. I look around and decide it's safe to investigate. I find out it's a door purely taking up space and I move on.

Cool?

No. Cause as I go on and eventually make it to the Old Mill, I come across the guard which goes out on the balcony but his sword is out. I'm confused for a second but eventually I realise this guy actually saw me earlier. I reload a previous save and I watch that balcony while standing in the same lit spot and confirm my suspicions.

Now, "is that fair?" Maybe, maybe not. I could argue it wasn't fair because I couldn't hear the AI bark. I could argue it was because even at that distance, the guard can make out this hooded character slinking about. Perhaps the question needs to be asked, "Should players ever be unwarned of guards who have become alerted?"

My 2 cents is that at a certain range, a human can't tell whether you are friend or foe. How did the guard standing some 40 meters away from me, tell me apart from his mates who aren't even wearing a uniform!

I'm not 100% on what routines the AI takes, but assuming there is time allowance given for them to move to a heightened state (let’s call it time-to-acquire), then perhaps the function that gives time-to-acquire should be revised to follow a steeper curve. At 40 meters, guard takes 10 seconds, at 1000 meters, he takes a month

[Anderson]

Makes sense considering the desire of map makers to make greater FM's.

In spite of 60-70% of FM's easily rubbing shoulders with every NPC of under 30-15 meters.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Anderson

[Springheel]

You can adjust the AI vision in the options menu and control how quickly they become alert from spotting you.

[Destined]

Here is the wiki article to AI seeing. Apparently, you can reduce the cvar "tdm_ai_sightmax" (that according to this article defaults to 60 m) to a lower value to reduce the maximum distance that AI can see you. I believe in your case the problem was that you stood in complete brightness, which greatly increases the probalbility that an AI can see you as soon as you are closer than 60 m.

 

Edit: Sorry, Springheel, mised your post, as I was writing mine. Is the mentioned cvar reduced in the menu or is it the whole probability to be spotted?

Edited February 8, 2017 by Destined

[grayman]

Edit: Sorry, Springheel, mised your post, as I was writing mine. Is the mentioned cvar reduced in the menu or is it the whole probability to be spotted?

 

The vision slider is just one more factor in the math that determines how 'bright' you are.

[Destined]

Ok, so it influences the whole probability to be spotted. Thanks! I will keep that in mind, wehn I write abut it in the AI stats Wiki article.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Destined