[SUGGESTION] Debug module for stalkers AI (GOAP graph in imgui window)

[Neloreck]

What is

Just suggesting adding something similar to weather editor debug window. Usually changing logic (evaluators/actions) and then debugging may be problematic because (1) logs are very noisy, (2) there may be many entities online, (3) mixed build + action log is not the most performant thing. While logging representation is good to track what happened, realtime observation could be few times better and generally faster.

Variant of implementation:

It may be challenging to display whole GOAP declaration at once, but implementation can be started with simple things.

What is needed: 1) Some dropdown/search/selector to pick any online stalker object OR optional toggle to display it for latest aim hover target 2) GOAP actions path to reach final goal, just few labels with arrows is usually enough to represent it 3) Details about current action -> action name, preconditions, state of evaluators, weights etc 4) Information about full current GOAP declaration for the object 5) Probably some controls to turn on / turn off GOAP graph state logging in mixed version of build

Possible problems:

• Capturing stalkers is handy, but many things may happen in between - unregister/going offline etc -> just needs testing
• Stalkers have script declared GOAP manager for StateManager which is not accessible from C++ side -> state manager is self contained, but having it for debug would be helpful too. Probably some variant of exposing it from scripts would work here
• Still is not perfect if interaction of 2+ objects should be measured. Probably some foldable / stackable elements could help here to observe few objects at once but it is too much for simple debug tool
• Some actions are represented as nested managers (alife, combat, anomaly, danger planners), in this case additional logic is needed to cast action to planner and display information about it. It adds complexity for rendering and should not be ignored

[Xottab-DUTY]

Game already has debug HUD for AI states, both stalkers GOAP, monster state machines, and more. I'm currently in bed, so can't provide 100% accurate details, but:

1. In Mixed build, hold Ctrl and then click with the left mouse button on an NPC — this will switch you into NPC's point of view.
2. Enable rs_stats (not sure if it's needed), and ai_debug.
3. Try exploring console commands like ai_debug_goap, etc.

For the first iteration, we could port this view-only functionality to be displayed in the ImGui window rather than in-game HUD, then we could add functionality to change states, etc.

[Neloreck]

Sounds good. Many great things are just not documented

[Neloreck]

ai_dbg_stalker on