Configuration

Where settings come from

Settings arrive in three layers, each overriding the one before.

Layer 1: defaults. Compiled into the mod. Every Default column on this page is the value the mod ships with, which is what the Workbench panel shows you. The mod’s own settings file carries only the three lists, the garrison profiles, the responders and the civilian prefabs, which cannot be expressed as script defaults.

Layer 2: an override in your own mod. In Workbench, with ATG AI among your loaded addons:

1. Find Configs/ATG/AI/InitialSettings.conf in the Resource Browser.
2. Right-click it → Override. Choose your own addon when asked where the override should live.
3. Open your new override and change only the settings you care about.

Everything you leave alone keeps the mod’s default. Lists in an override stack with the mod’s own entries rather than replacing them, which is how a map mod adds a garrison profile or swaps the shipped one out.

Layer 3: a per-server JSON file. $profile:ATG/atg-ai.json on the server, applied key by key. Only active when ATG Core is loaded ahead of this mod. It needs no mod changes at all, and /atg reload re-reads it on a running server — see ATG Core configuration for what a reload reaches.

Writing the JSON file by hand

• Booleans are true and false. A 1 is ignored, and the setting keeps the value it already had. Defaults on this page are listed as true/false, matching the tickboxes in Workbench.
• Enums are written by name, e.g. VETERAN, not by number.
• Resource paths carry a resource identity prefix in braces before the path. Take them from the Workbench picker rather than typing them.
• Lists are replaced whole. Naming one replaces every entry, layer-2 additions from other mods included, so a list you touch has to be written out in full and every entry needs a $type naming its class. A mistyped $type gives you an entry that loads and then does nothing.

The complete file is at the bottom of this page.

Editing settings from the Game Master

Open Game Master, then Scenario properties, and pick the ATG AI tab. It carries the switches this mod expects to be flipped while a session is running, at the values the server is actually using.

Confirming the dialog puts the values live at once, writes them to $profile:ATG/atg-ai.json, and sends them to every connected player. Only settings that differ from the shipped ones are written, and the previous file is kept beside it as atg-ai.bak.json. Without ATG Core loaded there is no file to write: the change lasts until the restart, and the server log says so.

Writing needs the administrator role. Reading does not, so any Game Master may open the tab and look. A confirm from somebody without the role changes nothing, and the server log names who tried and what:

[ATG_AI] <player> changed <settings> from Scenario properties and was refused - changing this mod's settings needs the administrator role, and they hold roles <roles>. Nothing changed.

Everything else on this page is set in the file. The distances, timings and thresholds are deliberately left off the tab.

Turning a subsystem off

A switch turned off stops ATG AI starting anything new, and lets what is already out run its course. Nothing is despawned to make the change take hold.

• m_bResponseEnabled: no position calls for help. Help already on its way still arrives.
• m_bCiviliansEnabled: no town is populated. People already out stay until they leave on their own.

Turning one back on takes effect without a restart.

Spawning

A garrison’s groups and a town’s residents arrive one at a time rather than together. Every man carries a uniform, a vest, a helmet, a weapon and its magazines, and a server comfortably inside its own frame budget can still hand a joining or nearby client more replicated state in one frame than that client can clear. The client reports that as its connection being dropped as flooded or stalled, which looks nothing like a spawning problem and sends you looking at the server.

The first group of a garrison and the first resident of a town are placed at once; only the ones behind them wait. So a garrison takes this long per group to be fully on its ground and a large town fills over a minute or two, both well before anybody arrives.

A group placed in answer to something a player has just done is never paced, whatever this is set to, because it is wanted standing there at the moment it is asked for: reinforcements, a hunting party, a relief section, or a named individual a scenario has put in a particular town. Zero switches the pacing off for everything else too.

Response

How a garrison under attack calls for help, hunts a distant shooter and gets ahead of a force that is leaving. What that looks like on an ATG Scenario server is on Reinforcements.

The ceiling is concurrent, not cumulative: help keeps coming, but never more than this multiple of the garrison is standing at once. Multiply m_iGarrisonStrengthMax by it, then by the number of positions held at once, to get the most AI that can be standing.

If nothing ever arrives in a vehicle, read the mounting distance against the minimum spawn distance. The concealment search usually succeeds on its first ring, so help is placed at almost exactly the minimum, and if the mounting distance is higher every wave walks the whole way with nothing in the log to say why.

The order responses are tried in

m_aResponders is the list a position in contact works down. It stops at the first entry that sends something, so an earlier entry is preferred over a later one, and removing an entry means that response is never made.

The mod ships them in that order. An ambush only goes out when attackers have broken contact and their heading can be read, so trying it first costs nothing while a fight is still on.

Other mods add entries here. ATG Scenario adds ATG_ScenarioAssaultWaveResponder, which attacks a Defend posting players have taken over. An entry like that can claim a position outright, so on a posting it is the only one tried, wherever it sits in the list. A JSON file that sets this list must keep it: the file replaces the whole list, entries added by other mods included, and a posting with no assault responder is never attacked.

{
  "m_aResponders": [
    { "$type": "ATG_AIAmbushResponder" },
    { "$type": "ATG_AIHuntResponder" },
    { "$type": "ATG_AIReinforceResponder" },
    { "$type": "ATG_ScenarioAssaultWaveResponder" }
  ]
}

Garrison

Who defends a position, and how dangerous they are. Where the men end up standing and what they do there is on Garrisons.

Difficulty is meant to come from who turns up and how good they are, not from how many bodies there are. Headcount costs server performance and makes a fight tedious rather than dangerous; skill and composition cost nothing. So player count scales the size of a fight, while the profile decides how hard it is.

A garrison is budgeted in men, not groups. Groups are drawn from the profile until the budget is filled, and the group that would overshoot it is trimmed to fit, which lets one profile list sentry teams and rifle squads together.

The shipped profile

The mod ships one profile, USSR regulars, built on the base game’s USSR groups, so a garrison is defended out of the box. It cannot be printed in the complete file below, because it arrives as a reference to a config file rather than as inline values.

To replace it in your own mod, override Configs/ATG/AI/InitialSettings.conf and re-parent its profile entry onto a profile of your own; to add one alongside it, add an entry. Both are done in the Workbench panel. In the JSON, write every profile you want out in full, the shape below.

Garrison profiles

Each entry has $type ATG_AIGarrisonProfile.

The reserve is measured against the garrison as placed rather than against who is still alive, so casualties make hunting harder rather than easier.

m_sMortarEmplacement must be a composition holding both a mortar and an ammo box. The base game’s USSR, US and FIA mortar placements qualify; a bare mortar stands silent, because the crew draw every round from a nearby arsenal.

The skill ladder runs NONE, NOOB, ROOKIE, REGULAR, VETERAN, EXPERT, CYLON, the last deliberately superhuman. Stepping a profile up the ladder as tiers rise is the cheapest way to make later fights harder.

Tier bounds are what let opposition change character rather than merely grow. Retiring a light profile at a given tier while a heavier one becomes available produces a genuine shift in who you are fighting, and overlapping the ranges gives a transition period where either might turn up.

The tier ladder

Each entry in m_aTiers has $type ATG_AIGarrisonTier. List a band wherever something changes; the highest band the faction has reached wins. Below every band listed, the lowest band applies. A profile with no bands fields nobody, and says so in the log.

Strength and skill share a band because they trade against each other: a rung that steps the skill up while dropping the headcount is a harder fight that costs the server less.

Response groups

Each entry in m_aResponseGroups has $type ATG_AIGarrisonResponseGroup.

In Workbench the purposes are tick boxes. In the JSON they are one number, the sum of the ones wanted: Reinforce 1, Hunt 2, Exfil 4, Ambush 8, Assault 16, Avenge 32, HVT 64, Patrol 128. Hunt and Exfil together is 6. A call no entry is ticked for is answered from the profile’s own group list, so ticking only Hunt and Exfil on a few better-equipped squads gives those two calls squads of their own and leaves the rest as they were.

Vehicles

Each entry in m_aVehicles has $type ATG_AIGarrisonVehicle.

A tier range lets a force’s motor pool grow with the campaign without a profile per tier. The shipped USSR profile runs jeeps and an open lorry from the start, a second jeep from tier 2, a covered lorry from tier 3, a BRDM from tier 4 and a BTR-70 from tier 5.

A parked gunner is one man on top of the garrison’s strength, and he holds the position like anyone else: it cannot be cleared while he is alive at his gun. A gunner on a wave’s transport belongs to the wave. An unarmed vehicle ignores the flag, so it can stay on for every entry.

AI cannot fly. Listing a helicopter will not give you an air response.

Fortifications the garrison mans

A garrison puts pairs of men on the guns, structures and posts standing on its ground. Guns and posts say what they are; a bunker does not, so the structures are a list, Configs/ATG/AI/GarrisonPosts.conf. It names the base game’s bunkers, sandbag bunkers, MG nests and small towers, and anything built from one of them counts as well.

A mod that ships fortifications of its own adds them by overriding that config in Workbench, the same way as InitialSettings.conf above, and listing its own prefabs. Overrides stack, so the base game’s entries stay.

A complete profile

{
  "m_aGarrisonProfiles": [
    {
      "$type": "ATG_AIGarrisonProfile",
      "m_sName": "Regulars",
      "m_iMinTier": 0,
      "m_iMaxTier": -1,
      "m_fWeight": 1,
      "m_fPerceptionFactor": 1,
      "m_bCanCallResponse": true,
      "m_iHuntReserve": 4,
      "m_fHuntReserveFraction": 0.4,
      "m_bHunkerWhileHunting": true,
      "m_aGroupPrefabs": [
        "{E552DABF3636C2AD}Prefabs/Groups/OPFOR/Group_USSR_RifleSquad.et"
      ],
      "m_aResponseGroups": [
        {
          "$type": "ATG_AIGarrisonResponseGroup",
          "m_sGroupPrefab": "{96BAB56E6558788E}Prefabs/Groups/OPFOR/Group_USSR_Team_AT.et",
          "m_fWeight": 1,
          "m_iPurposes": 6
        }
      ],
      "m_aVehicles": [
        {
          "$type": "ATG_AIGarrisonVehicle",
          "m_sVehiclePrefab": "{D9B91FAB817A6033}Prefabs/Vehicles/Wheeled/Ural4320/Ural4320_transport_covered.et",
          "m_iSeats": 12,
          "m_iMinTier": 3,
          "m_iMaxTier": -1,
          "m_fWeight": 3,
          "m_bParkWithGarrison": false,
          "m_bCarriesReinforcements": true,
          "m_bManTurret": true
        },
        {
          "$type": "ATG_AIGarrisonVehicle",
          "m_sVehiclePrefab": "{0B4DEA8078B78A9B}Prefabs/Vehicles/Wheeled/UAZ469/UAZ469_PKM.et",
          "m_iSeats": 4,
          "m_iMinTier": 0,
          "m_iMaxTier": -1,
          "m_fWeight": 2,
          "m_bParkWithGarrison": true,
          "m_bCarriesReinforcements": true,
          "m_bManTurret": true
        }
      ],
      "m_aTiers": [
        {
          "$type": "ATG_AIGarrisonTier",
          "m_iTier": 1,
          "m_iStrength": 8,
          "m_fMenPerPlayer": 2,
          "m_eAISkill": "REGULAR"
        },
        {
          "$type": "ATG_AIGarrisonTier",
          "m_iTier": 4,
          "m_iStrength": 6,
          "m_fMenPerPlayer": 2,
          "m_eAISkill": "VETERAN"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Naming m_aGarrisonProfiles with an empty array leaves every position undefended, and on ATG Scenario, Clear area objectives stop being placed at all.

Civilians

Who lives in the towns, how many, and when they are out. The towns themselves come from the scenario mod: on ATG Scenario they are its zones. What the people in them do is on Civilians.

Population is the rate multiplied by the town’s radius, then held between the floor and the ceiling, so the ceiling bounds one very large town and the rate bounds your server.

The prefabs are character prefabs, not groups: each civilian gets a group of their own and takes their faction from the prefab. The mod ships the base game’s generic civilian, businessman, dockworker and construction worker.

ATG Scenario reads the two distances for one more thing: a base capture’s standing garrison is on the ground while a player is inside the spawn distance, and gone once everyone is past the despawn distance.

If nobody appears

The server log says which reason applies at startup:

[ATG_AI] No civilian prefabs configured - none will be placed until the list has one
[ATG_AI] Civilians switched off in the settings - 6 town(s), and none fills until they are switched on

A healthy start names how many towns took part:

[ATG_AI] Civilians active - 6 town(s), 4 per 100m of radius (min 2, max 16), spawning within 600m, day/night 1

At verbose each town reports itself as it fills and stands down, with the number of houses it found. If people appear but every one of them is on the outskirts, the town’s buildings are not being recognised as somewhere anyone could live, and that house count is what to look at.

Logging

The levels are cumulative, and warnings and errors are never suppressed at any level. Lines from this mod start [ATG_AI], including the ones about garrisons, reinforcements and civilians on an ATG Scenario server, so this is the dial for those rather than ATG Scenario’s.

The complete settings file

Every setting, at the value the mod ships with, as <profile>/ATG/atg-ai.json. Delete the lines you do not want to change: a key you leave out keeps its shipped value. Keep a list intact if you keep it at all, since it replaces rather than merges.

{
  "m_iAiSpawnStaggerSec": 5,

  "m_iGarrisonStrengthMax": 40,

  "m_bResponseEnabled": true,
  "m_bResponseHearsShots": true,
  "m_fResponseStrengthCeiling": 1.5,
  "m_iResponseCasualtyThreshold": 4,
  "m_fResponseForceRatio": 1.5,
  "m_iResponseWaveBaseSec": 60,
  "m_fResponseWaveBackoff": 1.5,
  "m_iResponseWaveMaxSec": 900,
  "m_iResponseQuietDecaySec": 300,
  "m_iResponseWarningSec": 45,
  "m_fResponseSpawnMinM": 600,
  "m_fResponseSpawnMaxM": 2500,
  "m_fResponseSpawnStepM": 250,
  "m_fResponseMountThresholdM": 400,
  "m_fResponseDebusM": 60,
  "m_fResponseDefendRadiusM": 60,
  "m_iResponseHuntCooldownSec": 180,
  "m_iResponseHuntDurationSec": 300,
  "m_iResponseLingerSec": 120,
  "m_fResponseWithdrawRadiusM": 60,
  "m_fResponseHuntErrorMinM": 60,
  "m_fResponseHuntErrorMaxM": 250,
  "m_fResponseFlankOffsetM": 200,
  "m_fResponseHuntMinRangeM": 150,
  "m_fResponseAvengeFraction": 0.5,
  "m_bResponseAmbushEnabled": true,
  "m_iResponseAmbushLeadSec": 120,
  "m_fResponseAmbushSpawnMinM": 250,
  "m_iResponseAmbushHoldSec": 600,
  "m_aResponders": [
    { "$type": "ATG_AIAmbushResponder" },
    { "$type": "ATG_AIHuntResponder" },
    { "$type": "ATG_AIReinforceResponder" },
    { "$type": "ATG_ScenarioAssaultWaveResponder" }
  ],

  "m_bCiviliansEnabled": true,
  "m_aCivilianPrefabs": [
    "{22E43956740A6794}Prefabs/Characters/Factions/CIV/GenericCivilians/Character_CIV_Randomized.et",
    "{B3AB6D12D247DDB5}Prefabs/Characters/Factions/CIV/Businessman/Character_CIV_Businessman_Randomized.et",
    "{5882AE7A4543AFB4}Prefabs/Characters/Factions/CIV/Dockworker/Character_CIV_Dockworker_Randomized.et",
    "{D97EAE64721478F3}Prefabs/Characters/Factions/CIV/ConstructionWorker/Character_CIV_ConstructionWorker_Randomized.et"
  ],
  "m_sCivilianFactionKey": "CIV",
  "m_fCiviliansPer100M": 4,
  "m_iCiviliansMin": 2,
  "m_iCiviliansMax": 16,
  "m_fCivilianSpawnDistanceM": 600,
  "m_fCivilianDespawnDistanceM": 900,
  "m_fCivilianWanderRadiusM": 60,
  "m_bCivilianDayNight": true,
  "m_fCivilianNightIndoorsFraction": 0.6,

  "m_iLogVerbosity": -1
}

Three things above are not copy-and-go:

• m_aGarrisonProfiles is missing on purpose. The shipped profile is a reference to a config file and cannot be written inline. Leave the key out to keep it, or write your own profiles in full from A complete profile.
• m_aResponders lists ATG Scenario’s assault responder. Drop that entry on a server without ATG Scenario, where the class does not exist; keep it on one with.
• m_aCivilianPrefabs ships the four base game civilians. Replace them if your setting wants different people, with resource strings taken from the Workbench picker.