ALiVE.OS · ALiVE 3 Development
Ambient Civilian Population
Populates towns with living, reactive civilians and ambient traffic, who talk about local insurgents and accept humanitarian aid.
Overhaul complete · ALiVE 3
ALiVE 3 is in active development. This briefing describes work in progress, and the behaviour it covers is subject to change as testing continues. Check the changelog at the foot of the page for what has moved recently.
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Overview
What Ambient Civilian Population does
Ambient Civilian Population fills a mission's towns and cities with everyday civilian life. A mission maker places this module together with a Civilian Placement module and the Virtual AI System, and it spawns civilians and ambient traffic around occupied areas, using a spawn radius and density settings so the population thins out or fills in as players move around. It is meant to make an area feel lived-in rather than empty, without the mission maker having to hand-place every civilian.
Beyond just background crowds, the module also drives the "Advanced Civilians" behaviour layer (civilians reacting to danger, sleeping at night, and so on), lets players interact with civilians directly to gather intel or hand out humanitarian aid, and lets civilians warn players about the insurgent factions you name, for a mission maker who wants that extra layer of tension.
Follow and go home
Taking a civilian along, then sending him home
You can ask a civilian to come with you. He joins your group until you tell him Go Home, then he walks back to where he lives and picks up his normal life.
- Ask him to followGet within Interaction Range (4 m), look at him and press Follow in the Talk to Civilian dialog (which needs Enable Interaction set to Yes). With ACE it's Follow Me in the ACE menu; with Civilian Interaction UI set to Classic scroll-wheel (legacy), it's Follow Me on the scroll menu. The dialog greys Follow out, and the ACE menu hides it, once his hostility reaches 60 (about where the Hostility Indicator starts reading Defiant); the Classic scroll menu offers it whatever his mood.
- FollowingHe joins your group and keeps up with you like one of your squad. While he's with you Advanced Civilians leaves him alone, so he doesn't panic at gunfire or wander off to sleep at night. He stays in your group until you tell him Go Home.
- Go HomeHe leaves your group for a civilian group of his own. Advanced Civilians takes him straight back, and he keeps the Go Home order and his real home.
- Walking homeHe walks, not runs, back to his home spot: where he first appeared. Tell him Stay on the way and he stops where he is; a fresh Go Home sets him off again.
- HomeWithin 5 m of home his order clears and he's calm again. He goes back to his normal life near home, inside Home Radius (150 m).
Worth knowing. Go Home is offered at every hostility level, in the dialog and the ACE menu alike, so you can always send a follower home even when he's too hostile to follow, stay or kneel for you. All of this needs Enable Advanced Civilians left on Yes (the default): Follow, Stay and Go Home are greyed out, with the tooltip This civilian doesn't take orders, for a civilian it doesn't run, such as a town elder or priest.
Capabilities
What it handles
Multi-crowd ambient life
Places believable crowds of civilians and vehicles around towns, with density, spawn radius and active limits all tunable per mission.
Talk to civilians
Players can approach civilians, gauge their mood from a hostility indicator, and question them for intel through a simple dialog. A player fighting for the insurgents is asked "Have you seen any soldiers nearby?" instead, and civilians mark the nearest hostile military group. Civilians an insurgent patrol has passed close to answer yes to "Has anyone been pressuring you?".
Water and rations
Give bottled water or ration packs to civilians from a dedicated humanitarian items list. A handout that works lowers their hostility, and the Hostility Indicator, when it's switched on, updates straight away.
Multi-faction insurgents
Pick more than one insurgent faction at once, so civilians warn players about, and give intel on, any of them instead of a single side.
Advanced civilian reactions
Civilians flee, freeze, hide, put their hands up or scream when threatened, sleep at night, and settle back to neutral as their hostility fades over time.
The town remembers what you do
Destroying a building people live in turns that town 5 points more hostile to your side, half what killing a civilian does. Walls, sheds and buildings outside a settlement change nothing. Aid and irritation from the dialog now stick to the civilian instead of being wiped by their next activity.
Aid crates, no task needed
Bring a box holding 10 or more food and water items within 200 m of a town's centre and hand it over. Tension towards your side drops across the sector, as a successful Negotiate does, and the town calms down. Each town takes one every 30 minutes. Only the food and water are taken.
Where can I find the town elder?
With Civilian Roles set, civilians can be asked where the town elder (Eastern) or mayor (Western) lives. A willing one marks the house on your map; a hostile one refuses or points you somewhere else. Then Negotiate with them.
How to use it
Getting started
- Place the module and its partnersDrag Civilian Population onto the map; its position doesn't matter. It needs a Virtual AI System module and a Civilian Placement module, which places the civilians, but no sync links.
- Set the spawn and crowd settingsUnder General, set Spawn Radius and Active Limiter for how far from players and how many civilians spawn. For extra crowds in the houses around players, set Crowd Spawn Radius above 0 (it's off by default) and Crowd Civs per House under Interaction & Crowd.
- Turn on player interactionSet Enable Interaction to Yes and pick a Civilian Interaction UI so players can approach and talk to civilians. Hostility Indicator is a separate setting and defaults to Off, so set it to Descriptive or Numeric if you want players to see it.
- Set how civilians feel about each sideUnder Civilian Hostility, set BLUFOR, OPFOR or Independent Hostility for where civilians start (Low is neutral, High means they refuse to cooperate). They can be won over and settle back towards neutral over time. Set the matching Hostility Floor above None only if a side should never be able to win them over.
- Pick insurgent factions if wantedUnder Civilian Hostility, use Insurgent Factions to choose one or more factions civilians treat as insurgents: they'll warn players about them and report their groups nearby when asked.
- Choose humanitarian aid itemsUnder Humanitarian, use the Humanitarian Items picker to select water and ration items players can hand out, and set Humanitarian Aid Limit (count) for the limit per civilian.
- Test in game as a playerApproach a civilian and look at them (the Talk to Civilian action only shows on the civilian under your crosshair), talk to them and check their hostility indicator, give them water or rations and confirm the indicator drops when a handout works, then fire a weapon nearby and watch civilians flee or freeze and calm down afterward. Hold aim on a calm civilian to see a mood-based shrug, hands up or flee.
Settings
Every setting, and what it does
These settings decide how many civilians appear around players, how they feel about each side, and what players can do when they talk to them, aim at them or hand them aid. The Advanced Civilians sections control how civilians react to gunfire, explosions and danger: panicking, hiding, fleeing, shouting and escaping in vehicles.
Presets that use this module: Hearts and minds: NATO wins over the towns, Hunt the recruiters: NATO against FIA, Insurgency: FIA against NATO, Outbreak: zombies hold an area. Place one in the editor to see it set up.
Quick setups
A population that starts out resenting BLUFOR
- BLUFOR Hostility: High
- Enable Interaction: Yes
- Hostility Indicator: Descriptive (perceived)
Every town and every civilian starts at hostility 60 toward BLUFOR. They refuse to cooperate, drivers won't pull over and nobody surrenders at gunpoint, and players can see each civilian's mood in the dialog. Aid and good treatment can still win them over, and they settle back towards neutral (30) over time. Keep Enable Advanced Civilians on: with it off, drivers ignore stop signals altogether, so there's nothing for them to refuse.
A town BLUFOR can never fully win over
- BLUFOR Hostility: High
- BLUFOR Hostility Floor: High
- Enable Interaction: Yes
The floor means no civilian ever reads friendlier than 60 to BLUFOR, whatever aid they're given, so they keep refusing, drivers keep driving past and nobody surrenders at gunpoint. Leave the floor on None and players can bring civilians round.
Hearts and minds through aid
- Enable Interaction: Yes
- Humanitarian Hostility Decrease (%): 60
- Humanitarian Aid Limit (count): 5
Each handout has a 60% chance of lowering that civilian's hostility by 7 points, and each civilian will take up to 5 items before refusing. The lowered figure sticks, then drifts back towards 30 at the Hostility decay rate.
Busy streets with crowds
- Crowd Spawn Radius (m): 300
- Crowd Civs per House (count): 4
- Crowd Limit (count): 50
Crowds are off by default; any radius above 0 fills houses near players with up to 50 extra civilians in total.
Lighter load on a busy server
- Active Limiter (count): 15
- Spawn Heli Radius (m): 0
- Brain Batch Size: 10
Fewer civilians are spawned at once, none spawn under helicopters, and the Advanced Civilians brain only updates 10 civilians per pass.
Noisy, frightened civilians
- Enable Voice Lines: Yes
- Unsuppressed Gunfire Range (m): 400
Voice lines are off by default, and a longer gunfire range means civilians further from a firefight react to it.
Win towns over without any C2ISTAR task
- Civilian Roles: Western or Eastern
- Aid Crates: Yes
Players hand boxes of food and water to towns, ask civilians where the elder or mayor lives, and Negotiate with them, all without the task list.
General
6 settings
Choices: Yes / No
Turns on debug output for the civilian population system, so its spawning and handling decisions are logged and shown for testing.
How close a player on foot or in a ground vehicle must be before the civilians of a town spawn in. Further out, they stay virtual.
AffectsA UAV radius of -1 is worked out from this value (this plus 800 m).
TryDrop it to 800 on a crowded map to spawn civilians only in the towns players are actually in.
The spawn distance used while a player is in a helicopter. Set it to 0 and civilians won't spawn around players flying helicopters.
TrySet 0 if your players spend a lot of time flying and you want to save performance.
The spawn distance used while a player is in a plane. At 0, the default, civilians don't spawn around players in planes.
The spawn distance around a UAV a player is controlling. 0 stops civilians spawning for UAV operators, and -1 uses the Spawn Radius plus 800 m.
The most civilians this module will have spawned at any one time, across the whole map.
TryLower it to 15 on a busy server.
Civilian Hostility
7 settings
Choices: Low / Medium / High / Extreme
How hostile civilians are toward BLUFOR from the start. It sets every town's starting hostility toward BLUFOR, and each civilian starts at the least-liked side's figure, calming towards neutral over time unless given cause. It is no longer a floor: use BLUFOR Hostility Floor for that.
AffectsCivilians start at this figure and settle back towards 30, neutral, over time, so players can win them over. While a civilian sits at 60 or more they refuse to cooperate, drivers won't stop, nobody surrenders at gunpoint and the Gather Intel button is off. Set BLUFOR Hostility Floor as well to keep them there. The wave, driver and weapon-aim checks need Enable Advanced Civilians set to Yes.
TryPick High for a counter-insurgency where BLUFOR are unwelcome from day one, and add the matching Hostility Floor if that should last.
See it inHearts and minds: NATO wins over the towns (30), Hunt the recruiters: NATO against FIA (30), Insurgency: FIA against NATO (30)
Choices: Low / Medium / High / Extreme
How hostile civilians are toward OPFOR from the start. It sets every town's starting hostility toward OPFOR, and each civilian starts at the least-liked side's figure, calming towards neutral over time unless given cause. It is no longer a floor: use OPFOR Hostility Floor for that.
AffectsCivilians start at this figure and settle back towards 30, neutral, over time, so players can win them over. While a civilian sits at 60 or more they refuse to cooperate, drivers won't stop, nobody surrenders at gunpoint and the Gather Intel button is off. Set OPFOR Hostility Floor as well to keep them there. The wave, driver and weapon-aim checks need Enable Advanced Civilians set to Yes.
TryPick High for a counter-insurgency where OPFOR are unwelcome from day one, and add the matching Hostility Floor if that should last.
Choices: Low / Medium / High / Extreme
How hostile civilians are toward INDFOR from the start. It sets every town's starting hostility toward INDFOR, and each civilian starts at the least-liked side's figure, calming towards neutral over time unless given cause. It is no longer a floor: use Independent Hostility Floor for that.
AffectsCivilians start at this figure and settle back towards 30, neutral, over time, so players can win them over. While a civilian sits at 60 or more they refuse to cooperate, drivers won't stop, nobody surrenders at gunpoint and the Gather Intel button is off. Set Independent Hostility Floor as well to keep them there. The wave, driver and weapon-aim checks need Enable Advanced Civilians set to Yes.
TryPick High for a counter-insurgency where INDFOR are unwelcome from day one, and add the matching Hostility Floor if that should last.
Choices: None / Medium / High / Extreme
The friendliest a civilian ever shows BLUFOR, whatever their own mood. None (default) leaves civilians free to be won over.
TrySet High for a mission where BLUFOR can never fully win a town over.
Choices: None / Medium / High / Extreme
The friendliest a civilian ever shows OPFOR, whatever their own mood. None (default) leaves civilians free to be won over.
TrySet High for a mission where OPFOR can never fully win a town over.
Choices: None / Medium / High / Extreme
The friendliest a civilian ever shows INDFOR, whatever their own mood. None (default) leaves civilians free to be won over.
TrySet High for a mission where INDFOR can never fully win a town over.
How many points a civilian's own hostility moves each minute back toward 30, its resting value, from either side: an angry civilian calms down, and one you've won over slowly drifts back to neutral. Every civilian does this, with Advanced Civilians on or off, and civilians from Civilian Placement do it even while they're not spawned in. 0 stops it, so hostility stays wherever aid, questions or wounds left it.
AffectsWary civilians who were made to surrender at gunpoint calm down at half this rate but drift back up at the full rate. The dialog never reads lower than the threat the civilian's town is under at the time, or than the Hostility Floor for the player's side.
Interaction
8 settings
Choices: Yes / No
Turns on the civilian dialogue and interaction system: talking to civilians, asking questions, gathering intel and giving aid.
AffectsInsurgent factions, Gather Intel Chance, Hostility Indicator, Limit Interaction and the whole Humanitarian section do nothing unless this is Yes. The Civilian Interaction UI choice still matters with No: Classic brings back the Advanced Civilians scroll-wheel commands and turns off the pause-and-wave when a player walks up.
TrySet Yes for any mission where players should question civilians or win them over with aid.
See it inHearts and minds: NATO wins over the towns (true), Hunt the recruiters: NATO against FIA (true), Insurgency: FIA against NATO (true)
Choices: Auto (Dialog + ACE when loaded) / Dialog / Classic scroll-wheel (legacy) / ACE Interaction Menu
How players reach the interaction dialog. Auto gives a single "Talk to Civilian" scroll-wheel entry plus an ACE menu branch when ACE is loaded; Dialog gives only the scroll-wheel entry; ACE gives only the ACE menu; Classic brings back the old long list of scroll-wheel actions, including the Advanced Civilians commands (follow, stay, hands up and so on), and civilians no longer stop and wave when a player walks up to them.
Only the players listed here can interact with civilians. Type a comma-separated list of player IDs, unit classnames, names, factions or ranks; leave it empty to let everyone interact.
AffectsApplies to both the dialog and the ACE menu, and only when Enable Interaction is Yes.
The chance, out of 100, that a civilian who agrees to talk shares intel that marks enemy installations on the map. Hostile civilians may refuse first or lie with false markers, whatever this is set to, and each civilian can only be asked once.
AffectsHas no effect with the Classic UI, which keeps its old always-truthful behaviour.
Choices: Off / Descriptive (perceived) / Numeric (perceived)
Whether the interaction dialog shows how hostile the civilian seems. Descriptive shows a label (Friendly, Neutral, Wary, Defiant, Hostile) and Numeric shows a rough percentage; both are nudged by up to 5 points per civilian so they're an estimate, not the exact value.
See it inHearts and minds: NATO wins over the towns (DESCRIPTIVE)
The factions civilians treat as insurgents. When a player asks about insurgents, civilians report groups of these factions within about 1100 m, and they'll warn players about them in conversation.
AffectsOnly used when Enable Interaction is Yes.
See it inHearts and minds: NATO wins over the towns (OPF_G_F), Hunt the recruiters: NATO against FIA (OPF_G_F), Insurgency: FIA against NATO (OPF_G_F)
Extra insurgent faction classnames, typed as a comma-separated list with no spaces (for example OPF_F,rhs_faction_msv). They're added to the ones ticked above, so you can name factions from mods that aren't loaded in the editor.
AffectsOnly used when Enable Interaction is Yes.
Crowds
4 settings
Houses within this distance of a player spawn extra civilians as crowds. 0 turns crowds off.
TrySet 300 to fill the streets around players.
How many crowd civilians each activated house spawns.
AffectsOnly used when Crowd Spawn Radius is above 0.
The most crowd civilians that can be spawned at once across all crowds.
AffectsOnly used when Crowd Spawn Radius is above 0.
The civilian faction crowds are drawn from. If it's cleared, each building picks a faction from the civilians near it instead, which costs a little more.
AffectsOnly used when Crowd Spawn Radius is above 0.
Roles, Sounds and Parked Cars
4 settings
Choices: None / Western / Eastern
Gives about half of the spawned civilians a special role: Western adds mayors, priests and politicians; Eastern adds town elders, muezzins and politicians. None turns roles off.
AffectsIt only works if a Civilian Placement module is also in the mission, because that module hands out the roles as it spawns civilians.
See it inHearts and minds: NATO wins over the towns ([ "major" , "priest" , "politician" ])
Choices: No / Yes
Turns off the radio, TV, music and prayer-call sounds that play from civilian buildings. Crowd noise, panic shouts and civilian voice lines aren't affected.
TrySet Yes if the built-in sounds don't suit your map's setting.
Choices: Normal / 1.5x / 2x / 3x / 4x / 5x
How loud the town sounds are: markets, homes, calls to prayer and the rest. Normal plays them as before; turn it up to make a busy place sound busy.
AffectsDisable Ambient Sounds still turns them all off.
TrySet 3x on a mission in a large town and walk through the market.
The chance a parked civilian car spawns with a nearby civilian (within 100 m) sat in the driver's seat. Crowd civilians are never borrowed for this. The driver doesn't drive off; 0 leaves every parked car empty.
Humanitarian Aid
6 settings
Lets players hand a box of food and water to the nearest town, with no C2ISTAR task needed. Any ammo or supply box holding at least 10 of the Humanitarian Items offers Hand over aid to the town (on the box, in the talk window, in the ACE menu, or on the scroll menu of a civilian within 15 m of it). The town's centre must be within 200 m. Tension towards the giver's side drops across the sector as a successful Negotiate does, and everyone living in that town calms down a little. Only the food and water are taken; anything else stays in the box.
How long a town, and every town within 1.5 km of it, waits before it takes another box.
The most one box can lower hostility by. A box is worth 5 plus 1 for every 5 food and water items in it, so a full ALiVE Humanitarian Crate reaches the default 35, the same as winning over a town elder.
Choices: A percentage, 0 to 100
The chance that handing a civilian water or rations works. When it does, their hostility drops by 7 points (never below 0), and the ACE menu, approach gesture, weapon-aim reactions and Gather Intel all see it. It drifts back toward 30 at the Hostility decay rate. Aid works on a Defiant civilian but not a Hostile one. For Civilian Placement civilians, their town's mood only dips by 1 to 4 for a few seconds.
AffectsOnly used when Enable Interaction is Yes.
See it inHearts and minds: NATO wins over the towns (40)
How many water or ration items each civilian will accept. After that, that civilian refuses any more.
AffectsOnly used when Enable Interaction is Yes.
The items that count as water and rations when giving aid. Civilians who ask for water accept the water items and those who ask for food accept the rations; any classnames you type into the override field are added too. A class copied from the editor's object list, such as Item_ACE_Can, is the holder an item lies in on the ground, so it is swapped for the items it holds; a class that holds nothing is kept as typed.
AffectsThese are added to the built-in water and ration lists, not used instead of them.
Advanced Civilians - General
4 settings
Choices: Yes / No
Turns on the Advanced Civilians behaviour: reacting to gunfire and explosions, hiding, fleeing, going home at night and escaping in vehicles. With No, the Advanced Civilians settings below are ignored (except Ambient Vehicle Civ Driver Chance), as are Weapon Aim Reaction Range and Vehicle Stops on Aim/Gesture. Spawning, town hostility, crowds, the Talk to Civilian dialog and Interaction Range keep working.
AffectsMayors, priests, elders, muezzins and politicians never get Advanced Civilians behaviour, whatever this is set to.
Choices: No / Yes
Shows a colour-coded state label above each civilian's head and extra debug messages. For testing only.
How many seconds between each update of civilian behaviour. Lower is more responsive but costs more performance.
TryRaise it to 5 on a heavily loaded server.
How many civilians are updated on each tick, taking turns round the whole group. 0 updates every active civilian every tick.
TrySet 10 to spread the work out when many civilians are spawned.
Advanced Civilians - Weapon Aim
4 settings
How far away a civilian will react to a player on foot aiming a raised weapon at them, with line of sight, for the hold time. Friendly civilians look confused, Neutral and Wary ones surrender, Defiant and Hostile ones run; 0 turns this off.
AffectsNeeds Enable Advanced Civilians set to Yes. The reaction is picked from the civilian's own hostility or the Hostility Floor for the aiming player's side, whichever is higher, so with a High or Extreme floor nobody surrenders to that side.
How many seconds a player has to keep aiming at a civilian before they react. 0 makes the reaction instant.
AffectsNeeds Enable Advanced Civilians set to Yes.
Choices: Yes / No
Scales the hold time by each civilian's hostility, or the Hostility Floor for the aiming player's side if that's higher, from 0.75 times for Friendly to 2.5 times for Hostile, with a fixed random spread per civilian, so friendly civilians comply quickly and hostile ones hold out longer.
AffectsNeeds Enable Advanced Civilians set to Yes.
Choices: Yes / No
Lets players stop a civilian driver by aiming at the vehicle within 50 m or making a stop gesture at it within 30 m. The driver brakes, gets out and surrenders, unless their hostility (counting the Hostility Floor) is 60 or more; passengers stay seated.
AffectsNeeds Enable Advanced Civilians set to Yes. The player also has to be looking almost straight at the vehicle (within about 10 degrees).
Advanced Civilians - Trigger Ranges
3 settings
Civilians within this distance react to gunfire from a weapon without a suppressor.
Civilians within this distance react to gunfire from a suppressed weapon.
TryDrop it to 20 if you want stealthy play to go almost unnoticed.
Civilians within this distance react to explosions and vehicles being destroyed.
Advanced Civilians - Panic
7 settings
How far civilians look for danger: when a civilian is killed, others within this distance panic; alert or hidden civilians check this far for anyone who's recently fired near civilians before calming down; and a civilian who's hit alarms others within a third of this distance.
How far away a civilian standing outside in the morning or daytime looks for a moving vehicle or aircraft to turn and watch.
The chance a civilian close to a shot (within 75 m, or within half the gunfire range if that is further) panics when shots are fired near them. It's rolled once per incident: one who doesn't panic turns alert, stands up and watches where the shot came from, and keeps that while the shooting goes on, as long as the shots come less than Shot Memory Time apart.
The chance a civilian far from a shot (more than half the gunfire range away and at least 75 m away) becomes alert when they hear it. Closer civilians go through Panic Chance instead. Every shot adds stress that raises the roll by 0.05 a point (a shot at the edge of the range adds 1 point, a close one up to 10), and once stress passes 4 they panic instead, if Panic Chance comes up.
How close other civilians must be to a panicking civilian to be set off by them. 0 turns this spreading off.
The chance each nearby civilian is set off by a panicking one. They become alert rather than fully panicked, and the same civilian can't be set off again for 10 seconds.
How many seconds after the last shot a civilian stays on edge before starting to calm down.
Advanced Civilians - Hit and Voice
6 settings
The chance a civilian who's hit stops dead and stands still for a few seconds before panicking.
AffectsShares one roll with the Drop, Freeze and Scream chances; whatever is left over after all four makes the civilian crawl away.
The chance a civilian who's hit drops to the ground.
AffectsShares one roll with the Stand Still, Freeze and Scream chances.
The chance a civilian who's hit drops to a crouch and freezes for a few seconds before panicking.
AffectsShares one roll with the Stand Still, Drop and Scream chances.
The chance a civilian who's hit screams and sprints away from whoever hurt them. With Enable Voice Lines on No they still sprint away, but without the scream.
AffectsShares one roll with the Stand Still, Drop and Freeze chances; if the four add up to 1 or more, civilians never crawl away.
Choices: Yes / No
Lets civilians shout when they hear gunfire close by, when they're hit, when they start running for cover and while they're hiding, and gives the Scream hit reaction its scream. It's off by default. Turning it off doesn't stop the frightened cries a civilian gives when someone fires within about 50 m of them.
The chance a civilian shouts when reacting to gunfire or being hit. Some other shouts, like those on hearing nearby shots, use their own fixed chances and ignore this.
AffectsOnly used when Enable Voice Lines is Yes.
Advanced Civilians - Shelter and Home
6 settings
How far civilians run across open ground when they flee (between half and all of this distance). It's also how far they search for a building to shelter in, widening to 2 and 3 times this if nothing is found.
The shortest time a civilian stays hidden after danger.
AffectsKeep it below Max Hide Time; the code doesn't check this.
The longest time a civilian stays hidden after danger. Each hiding civilian picks a random time between the minimum and this.
Choices: Yes / No
With Yes, fleeing civilians look for a building to hide in first and only run into the open if they can't find one. With No, they run into the open and hide out there, without going into a building.
How far from their home spot civilians may drift when things are calm. Their walks only go out to about 60% of this, and a civilian found further away than this is sent back home.
Choices: Yes / No
Civilians indoors at night (22:00 to 06:00) lie down to sleep. With No, they still go indoors but just stand.
Advanced Civilians - Vehicle
6 settings
Choices: Yes / No
Lets panicking civilians try to escape in a nearby vehicle.
The chance a panicking civilian tries to escape by vehicle instead of on foot. It's rolled once each time they panic.
AffectsOnly used when Allow Vehicle Escape is Yes.
Choices: Yes / No
Stops fleeing civilians taking vehicles whose type belongs to BLUFOR, OPFOR or Independent. It's judged by the vehicle's class, not by who's been driving it.
AffectsAlso makes a civilian refuse a player's Get In order for such a vehicle.
Choices: Yes / No
Stops fleeing civilians taking any vehicle a player has got into at some point, in any seat.
AffectsAlso makes a civilian refuse a player's Get In order for such a vehicle.
TryLeave it on so players don't come back to find their car gone.
Choices: Yes / No
Stops fleeing civilians taking a vehicle carrying more items than the Loaded Vehicle Threshold.
AffectsAlso makes a civilian refuse a player's Get In order for such a vehicle.
The most weapons, magazines and items combined a vehicle can hold and still be taken by a fleeing civilian.
AffectsOnly used when No Loaded Vehicle Theft is Yes.
Advanced Civilians - Compatibility
1 setting
Choices: Yes / No
Leaves civilians out of Advanced Civilians behaviour if they're in a group with soldiers or synced to other objects, so your scripted civilians aren't sent running.
AffectsCivilians a script has blacklisted are always left out, whichever you choose. With Yes, a civilian placed by a Zeus is left out too, and so are the other men in its group and the crew of a vehicle a Zeus places.
On Spawn Hook
1 setting
Choices: SQF code
Code run on the server for every ambient civilian as it spawns (crowd civilians are not included), with _this = [unit, agentID], like the placement modules' On Each Spawn.
AffectsRuns in its own thread; use remoteExec to reach players.
TryPut _this params ["_unit"]; _unit addItem "FirstAidKit"; and check a civilian's inventory.
Overhaul
What changed
- Talk to Civilian only shows on the civilian you're looking atThe scroll-wheel action used to appear for any civilian within the Interaction Range, even one behind a wall or a closed door. It now also needs the civilian to be what your crosshair is on, so a wall between you hides it.
- Civilians can be won over, whatever Hostility is set toThe BLUFOR, OPFOR and Independent Hostility settings are now where civilians start, not a floor under them. They settle towards neutral over time and players can bring them round with aid. A new Hostility Floor setting per side, None by default, brings the old never-friendlier-than behaviour back for a mission that wants it.
- Civilians tell an insurgent player where the soldiers areA player on the side of one of the module's Insurgent Factions is now asked "Have you seen any soldiers nearby?" in place of the insurgent questions. A civilian who answers marks the nearest military group within 1100 m that is hostile to that player. How willing and how truthful they are works as before.
- Aid and irritation now change how civilians actWhat you do in the Talk to Civilian dialog reaches the approach gesture, the ACE menu, the reaction to a raised weapon, drivers stopping and Gather Intel, for every civilian, and it lasts instead of being wiped by their next activity. Hostility settles back towards 30 from either side at the Hostility decay rate.
- Destroying homes turns the town against youA side that destroys a building people live in makes that town 5 points more hostile to it. Walls, sheds and buildings outside a settlement change nothing.
- Louder town sounds and a hook for every spawnAmbient Sound Volume turns the market, radio and prayer-call sounds up from Normal to 5x. On Each Spawn runs your own code on every ambient civilian as it spawns, with the unit and its agent ID.
Status
Where it stands
Multi-crowd support
Multiple ambient crowd groups can be placed and run at once without civilians being lost or bunched up incorrectly.
Multiplayer parity
Civilian interaction, aid-giving, and the hostility indicator work the same for every player, including those who join a mission already running.
Advanced Civilians integration
Civilians flee, freeze, hide, surrender, scream, or sleep at night based on threat level and time of day, with hostility settling back to neutral over time.
Multi-select insurgent factions and humanitarian items registry
Civilians can talk about insurgents from several factions at once, and water/ration aid items are managed through one consolidated, translated picker.
Hostility start, floor and town mood
Hostility sets where civilians start, Hostility Floor holds a side's standing down if a mission wants that, and aid, irritation and destroyed homes all change how a town feels.
Testing
How you can help
Place the module near a town with a reasonable spawn radius and crowd settings, then check that civilians and ambient vehicles appear and move naturally, that vehicles do not visibly pop in or out, and that civilians in cars sit correctly. Approach a civilian and look straight at them (not through a wall) to test the interaction dialog and hostility indicator, try giving water or rations (carried in a vest, uniform or backpack slot, such as the ALiVE Water Bottle (Full) or ALiVE Rice Pack items, both found in the ALiVE Humanitarian Crate) and confirm the hostility indicator drops straight away when a handout works, and fire a weapon or throw a grenade near a group to see how they react (fleeing, freezing, hiding, screaming) and whether they calm down afterward. If testing in multiplayer, repeat the interaction and aid checks as a non-host client and as a player who joins after the mission has started. Note the map, location, what the civilians or vehicles were doing, and include an RPT log if anything looks wrong (missing spawns, frozen civilians, interaction menu not appearing).
Spotted a problem? Please report it on the ALiVE issue tracker on GitHub, with the map, rough location and what the units were doing so it can be reproduced.
Changelog
Updates to this page
- 2026-11-02Talking to civilians works on missions where the module started while map data was still loading; before, the civilian menu never opened, with an RPT line about alive_civpop_interaction_wateritems.
- 2026-11-02Headless clients no longer count as players for civilian clusters and crowds, so civilians stop spawning round a headless client's slot.
- 2026-11-01In Eden the Civilian Population settings sit under the switches that run them: interaction, crowds, humanitarian aid and each Advanced Civilians section hide while their switch is off.
- 2026-10-29In Outbreak mode, zombies in civilian clothes are no longer counted as civilians.
- 2026-10-27In Eden this module's settings now sit under shorter headers, at most 8 settings in a group, and the Settings section here follows the same headers. Every setting keeps its name and default, so saved missions load as before.
- 2026-10-26Detaining a civilian from the interaction dialog no longer leaves his old group behind, empty, one for every civilian detained.
- 2026-10-26In multiplayer, a civilian you Arrest with the classic scroll action stays with the server and stands still until released. Before, he became yours, and if never released the server could not move him again.
- 2026-10-26In multiplayer, Stop now holds a civilian for 60 to 80 s instead of him walking on, and a civilian you Release goes back to the server and wanders off again. Before, he stayed yours and stood still for good. Both the dialog and the classic scroll actions.
- 2026-10-25With the module's Debug on, opening the map shows every civilian again, virtual ones included. Before, a civilian only got his marker if the map was already open when he spawned, despawned or moved, so mostly the ones near you showed. The markers show in single player or on the host's map.
- 2026-10-25A civilian told to Go home after following you now walks home. Before, he forgot the order within about ten seconds and stood where he was, with his home moved to that spot.
- 2026-10-24Civilians asked about hideouts now also talk about the Insurgency's recruiter: 2 times in 3 they name his Recruitment HQ, say whether he's inside or out walking with his minders, and put a Recruiter marker on him.
- 2026-10-24Civilian orders (Stay, Hands up, Get down, Kneel, Calm, Get in, Get out, Go home) now work on a dedicated server or with a headless client. Before, most of the order did nothing there: Kneel and Get down left him standing and Stay never held him.
- 2026-10-24A civilian you detain now follows your group instead of standing where you stopped him.
- 2026-10-24ALiVE's own map pins (Addon Options, Map pins and markers) now cover the places civilians point out when you question them: homes, threats and installations.
- 2026-10-23What civilians tell you about the enemy now also becomes known to your side's AI Commander, so tasks set to known enemy only can be aimed at it.
- 2026-10-22Talking to a civilian works on a mission with no AI Commander: the talk window used to open and never fill in.
- 2026-10-22Hand a box of food and water to a town to win it over, with no C2ISTAR task: new settings Aid Crates, Aid Crate Cooldown (s) and Aid Crate Max Effect (points). With Civilian Roles set, civilians can also be asked where the town elder or mayor lives.
- 2026-10-22Talk to Civilian only shows on the civilian under your crosshair, so it no longer shows through a wall or a closed door. Suggested by A. Ares.
- 2026-10-20The Hostility settings are now where civilians start, not a floor under them: each one starts at the least-liked side's figure and calms towards neutral unless given cause, so a town can be won over on any setting. A new Hostility Floor per side brings the old floor back for missions that want it (None by default).
- 2026-10-19Typed number settings now show their unit in the label, for example Humanitarian Hostility Decrease (%).
- 2026-10-17A player fighting for the insurgents is asked "Have you seen any soldiers nearby?" instead, and civilians mark the nearest hostile military group, with the same trust and lies as before.
- 2026-10-17Civilians an insurgent patrol has passed close to now answer yes to "Has anyone been pressuring you?".
- 2026-10-15The Insurgent Factions list has a Find box, and the empty band under its manual override field is gone.
- 2026-10-14Humanitarian hostility decrease is now a typed percentage instead of a few fixed choices (#1083).
- 2026-10-12Civilian Population messages (questioning, detaining, a full inventory) now show in the ALiVE message box, with the logo and the module's name as the title, instead of a plain hint.
- 2026-10-11The food and water pickers list ACE and S.O.G. items by the names those mods really use, so they can be handed to civilians. The Arma 3 cans and Tactical Bacon, which nobody can carry, are gone.
- 2026-10-11Food or water entered by its ground object name (Item_...) is swapped for the item it holds, so a player carrying it can hand it over.
- 2026-10-10New On Each Spawn setting runs your own code on every civilian as it spawns.
- 2026-10-10Destroying a building people live in makes that town more hostile to whoever destroyed it.
- 2026-10-10New Ambient Sound Volume setting makes town sounds up to 5 times louder.
- 2026-10-10Custom food and water count as humanitarian aid however their class names are typed.
- 2026-10-09False intel from a civilian is drawn like a real reveal: MIL or CIV labels, and most decoys show an installation icon.
- 2026-10-08Civilians spawned within 50 m of an insurgent installation now answer yes to "Has anyone been pressuring you?". Before, none ever did: with six installations on Altis, not one civilian was flagged.
- 2026-10-08Talk to Civilian no longer shows while you carry or drag a body with ACE, or on an unconscious civilian (#1025).
- 2026-10-07The civilian crowd animations no longer log 854 bone errors in the RPT at every mission start. They play as before.
- 2026-10-07The RPT no longer reports a missing calming animation (C5calming_apc.rtm) at every start.
- 2026-10-03A Civilian Population module made by script now fills its crowds from CIV_F, the editor's choice, rather than picking a faction per building.
- 2026-09-28Intel pins from questioning civilians are drawn flat, with no drop shadow.
- 2026-09-28Panic Chance now decides who panics at gunfire, and a side's Hostility on High or Extreme stops civilians surrendering to its players at gunpoint. With Advanced Civilians off, Talk to Civilian now reaches players who join late. Prefer Buildings on No keeps fleeing civilians outdoors, and a mayor no longer shows as "Major".
- 2026-09-25Hands Up Chance is now Stand Still Chance, since a civilian who's hit stands still rather than raising their hands. Enable Voice Lines and 6 other Advanced Civilians settings have tooltips that now match what they do.
- 2026-09-25Aid and irritation from the dialog now reach the approach gesture, the ACE menu, aim reactions, the vehicle stop and Gather Intel, and Eden-placed and crowd civilians keep them too.
- 2026-09-25Hostility rests at 30, Neutral, and drifts back to it from either side, so a civilian you've won over slowly returns to neutral. Fresh civilians read Neutral in the dialog now.
- 2026-09-25Every civilian calms down over time now, with Advanced Civilians on or off, including ones placed by Zeus or synced to a module.
- 2026-09-25Rations and water can still be given to a Defiant civilian.
- 2026-09-25A civilian nobody has upset is never hostile in conversation, while a town under threat still makes its civilians guarded.
- 2026-09-25Crowd civilians start at 30 or their town's hostility, whichever is higher, and every player sees the same value.
- 2026-09-25On a dedicated server, players now get the mission's BLUFOR, OPFOR and Independent Hostility settings, so the hostility indicator, ACE menu options, approach gesture and vehicle stop no longer start from 0 there.
- 2026-09-25Aid and irritation now last. Come back to a civilian later and they're where you left them, less 1 point a minute at the default decay rate.
- 2026-09-25Civilians from Civilian Placement now calm down over time even out of sight, and with Advanced Civilians off.
- 2026-09-25The dialog never reads a civilian as calmer than the threat their town is under at the time, so aid in a threatened town won't take the reading below that.
- 2026-09-25With the module's Debug on, each conversation logs a line starting "ALiVE Civilian Interaction -" with the civilian's own hostility, the town's and what the dialog reads.
- 2026-09-24Asking a civilian's opinion, or their town's, can no longer irritate them twice in one go, so one question adds at most 10 hostility.
- 2026-09-24Repeating a question they've already answered now shows any irritation on the hostility indicator straight away, not the next time the dialog opens.
- 2026-09-24A question a civilian won't answer no longer raises a script error.
- 2026-09-24Giving aid, or pestering a civilian with questions, now changes their hostility on a dedicated server too, as it already did in single player. Re-open the dialog straight away to see the change.
- 2026-09-23Civilians held by ACE, whether cuffed, surrendering or unconscious, are left out of the Advanced Civilians brain until released.
- 2026-09-22Civilian Population no longer announces its debug helper in everyone's chat at mission start. You'll only see it now with Advanced Civilians Debug set to Yes.
- 2026-09-22Town elders, majors, muezzins, priests and politicians are left out of the Advanced Civilians brain, as intended. They were all getting the full treatment on top of their own role.
- 2026-09-12Civilians cost less to run, with no change meant to their behaviour. Report it if aiming a weapon at a civilian stops getting the reaction it used to, or if someone fleeing across open ground runs somewhere odd.
- 2026-08-18Asking a civilian how their town feels now answers about their town. You could be told the mood of a town on the far side of the map; the nearest one wins now.
- 2026-08-18Talking to a civilian in a town nobody has spawned into yet no longer leaves you stuck on Loading with no questions, gear list or hostility reading.
- 2026-08-16Decoy intel markers no longer reach further out than real ones. Where the population is hostile you can get 2 to 4 decoys, and any past 2000 m used to be a giveaway. A marker inside 800 m is still always real.
- 2026-08-14Pausing a module no longer switches its debug output on and leaves it on, which happened every time the last player left a server. Civilian population also records its paused state now, so asking whether it's paused gives a real answer.
- 2026-08-13Civilian crowds no longer lose their mood when you move into a new part of the map; they fall back to the mission-wide figure instead of a default. Worth watching civilian behaviour shortly after arriving somewhere new.
- 2026-07-29Weapon Aim Hold Time is now a setting rather than a fixed 2 seconds, with an optional dynamic mode that varies it with each civilian's hostility. Civilian Interaction button captions now scale with Interface Size instead of being cut off.
- 2026-07-27Overhaul briefing first published.