HAIO — Human-AI Overhaul (Dynamic War & RTS Commander)
A standalone AI + dynamic-war + RTS-commander overhaul for Arma 3. Smarter soldiers, a living front
line, and a full commander mode — solo, co-op, or versus. Only needs CBA_A3, and it auto-detects your
faction mods.
⚠ Work in progress (v1.0). Playable and packed with features, but actively being built — expect rough
edges, especially in multiplayer and with unusual mod combos. Bug reports with an .rpt log get fixed fast.
HAIO drops onto almost any map and faction and runs a whole war. The AI scouts, captures towns, reinforces,
escalates and fights with real small-unit tactics — and you can step in as the commander and run the
campaign like an RTS. Play it three ways: a pure AI war you watch unfold, a solo commander, or co-op /
versus with a friend.
- Tactical decision brain — squads weigh the situation and pick advance, hold, flank, suppress,
withdraw, regroup or ambush, with hysteresis so they don’t flip-flop. - Real fog of war — the AI acts on what it has actually seen. Contacts are remembered as last-known
positions and decay over time; sightings are shared between groups by delayed, imperfect radio reports;
engine omniscience is suppressed so the AI isn’t cheating. It investigates sounds and last-known contacts
instead of magically knowing where you are. - Morale — suppression, fear, fatigue and leadership drive panic, broken units, surrender and POWs,
plus dynamic accuracy (veterans outshoot conscripts) and veterancy that grows with experience. - Squad coordination — fireteams, bounding overwatch, mutual support, covering fire, target sharing,
and shattered squads merging back into a fighting force. - Urban CQB & night ops, building clearing, vehicle discipline (convoy spacing, anti-roadkill,
unstuck, bail-when-immobilized), and anti-tank teams that actually engage armor.
- Territory & capture engine with automatic per-map objective scanning, plus a dynamic front
line (FLOT) drawn from who controls what. - War economy — hold ground to earn supply; tech tiers and war-XP unlock heavier kit over time, so
armor and air are something you earn, not spam from minute one. - Lean reinforcement — paced and capped, delivered by tier-gated transport: trucks → APC
mechanized assaults → helicopter air-lift, dropped at a safe staging point near the front. - Real strategy — recon-pull onto the weakest point, combined-arms pushes, counterattacks to retake
lost ground, committed reserves, and escalation as the war drags on. - Will-to-fight — a battered side goes defensive, then collapses and surrenders, so wars actually end.
- Strategic landmarks — capture special sites for one-time perks: airfields (air assets), military
bases (armor), factories (faster production), fuel depots, comms stations (reveal nearby enemy movement),
and hospitals (better recovery). - Logistics depth — supply convoys you can interdict, supply networks, field hospitals, vehicle
recovery/towing, field engineers, fuel and ammo as real constraints. - Insurgency layer — IEDs on enemy supply roads, asymmetric recruiting, and hearts-and-minds support.
- Salvage — take a town and crew the abandoned vehicles left behind.
- Dynamic events, war contracts and side tasks, refugees, reconstruction, sitreps and ambience for a
battlefield that feels alive.
- Overhead command camera (Ctrl+F): click / box-select your units, right-click to move, fast-travel
the camera from the map. - Tech-tree spawn menu — buy by category and tier; vehicle variants grouped by role
(Weaponized / Transport / Support). - Build menu — FOBs, forward spawn bases, and fortifications: sandbags, bunkers, trenches, HMG / AT /
AA nests, SAM / radar sites, watchtowers, mortar pits, roadblocks, minefields, ammo caches and field HQs. - Rank & promotion (unlock perks), commander doctrine, control groups (save/recall
squads like an RTS), floating 3D town tags, a fog-limited command map, and a war-overview panel. - Support powers — artillery, CAS, recon, and a shoot-down-able UAV recon perk; counter-battery
fire answers enemy guns.
- Air-assault waves (with optional ACE fast-roping), amphibious landings, SEAD, on-call CAS and recon.
- SAM / radar air defense and counter-battery artillery.
- An offshore warship staging base on coastal maps.
- Universal faction auto-detection — RHS, CUP, Project OPFOR, Faces of War, IFA3 and vanilla are
picked up automatically; no patches needed. - Cross-faction fill — a ground faction still gets its mod’s aircraft and support (e.g. RHS MSV draws
VVS helicopters; Project OPFOR pulls CUP/RHS air). - Per-faction static weapons (HMG / AT / AA / GMG / mortar) and JCA — Land Systems
(NASAMS / Skynex / Sentinel) support for air defense and SAM builds. - Runs alongside ACE (with optional ACE-medical handling) and defers small-unit combat to LAMBS
when present.
- Co-op (share a side) and versus (each player commands their own side).
- Strict per-player ownership — you only command your own units.
- Persistent campaigns — autosave and save slots carry the war across sessions.
- Restart-proof commander state and a host/client version-mismatch warning.
Almost everything is a CBA setting (Addon Options) — no scripting required. A few highlights:
- Confine the war to an area: place map markers named haio_obj… (a dot, or a rectangle/ellipse
for a radius) and enable "only placed objectives" — the war is fought over exactly those and the rest of
the map is ignored. - Set each side’s HQ: place haio_hq_west / haio_hq_east / haio_hq_guer markers and enable
custom HQs. - Tune the tech tree: tier thresholds, research/build costs and times, and tier-progression speed.
- Tune fog of war, reinforcement caps, war intensity, per-side aggression/difficulty, economy income,
victory condition + win share + time limit — and toggle every subsystem on or off. - Set up a war by placing units per side, or flip on Instant Action for an automatic laydown.
- A proper scenario / instant-action generator screen.
- Distinct Conventional vs Insurgency game modes that play differently.
- More objective variety (destroy / defend / hold-for-time / sabotage / rescue).
- Deeper ACE-medical integration and casualty evacuation.
- Headless-client support and a dedicated large-scale (200+ AI) performance pass.
- A "draw your combat zone in 3D" tool and more Zeus-side authoring.
- Required: CBA_A3
- Optional (auto-detected): RHS · CUP · Project OPFOR · Faces of War · IFA3 · JCA — Land Systems · ACE · LAMBS
- Load HAIO + CBA_A3 (plus any faction mods). In the editor, place a few units per side, OR enable
HAIO → Scenario → Instant Action. - Pick your side in the HAIO setup menu (or leave it off for a pure AI war).
- Press Ctrl+F to open the command camera and take charge. (Full controls are in the mod folder.)
Multiplayer note: every player must run the same HAIO version and the same mod set.
Made by a small team, for fun. Feedb