Waypoint Behaviour Questions

[Ubiquitous]

Hi

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a few questions about waypoints:

1.) I have a jeep that has 3 waypoints (lets call them 1 2 and 3), each of them simple move waypoints. The jeep follows the path as it should but it slows down and stops momentarily at the second waypoint before proceeding to the third. Is there any way that I can get a vehicle to move from waypoint to waypoint without stopping at each one?

2.) This is a related question. I have a blackhawk with multiple move waypoints, and at each one the helicopter slows, climbs dramatically and spins arround a little. Is there anyway that i can make a helicopter seamlessly move from waypoint to waypoint.

3.) (Please Excuse the Somewhat awkward description) I have a team of black ops guys with an AI leader and the player as one of the members. Their first waypoint is a move waypoint. I also have a blackhawk with a move waypoint as its first waypoint, and in the on activation field of the helicopters first waypoint I have: "_x assignascargo myheli" foreach units aigrp;"[_x] ordergetin true" foreach units aigrp

The two waypoints are synchronised so that the men move to their waypoint and wait for the heli. Once the Heli arrives the AI leader orders the men into the helicopter and it moves off along its waypoints until it reaches a 'transport unload' waypoint. The leader orders the men out and they go off along their waypoints. In the 'on activation' field of the 'transport unload waypoint I have this land "land" to keep the heli on the ground. The transport unload waypint is synchronised with the men's last waypoint, and in the men's last waypoints activation field is "[_x] ordergetin true" foreach units aigrp.

The way this is intended to play out is the heli lands, the men get out and do their stuff and when they return the helecopter is still on the ground waiting and the AI officer orders them back in before it speeds them off to safety. In reality what actually happens is that the men reach their last waypoint and the syncronisation kicks in: the chopper takes-off but no get in order is given, so the guys are left behind, alone on a small island inhabited only by enemy troops  :-\ .

Can anyone tell me how I might have the helicopter wait on the ground for the guys to finish their mission and then  when they get back to the helicopter they are ordered back in before the thing takes off.

4.) In a different mission that I am building I have a similar set up as the start of (3) where a group of men move to a waypoint to await their helicopter. However, when the helicopter arrives the leader issues a "Danger!" radio signal and all of the guys get on thie bellies and start crawling arround. Asside from guys taking cover in their own base being rather unrealistic this means that the guys move too slow and hence the helicopter takes off without them. I tried to move the soldiers' waypoint furthur from the helicopter, and also setting their behaviour to careless but neither of theese seemed to do the trick. Does anyone know what is going on here?


Thanks as always

Ubiquitous

[Kaliyuga]

 Well... for number one and two..... the most important thing to remember with waypoints is "less is more"

you should be able to use very few waypoints in most circumstances.

i.e. you need not place 10 waypoints between one town and the next if you want t jeep to drive there... giving them a single destination waypoint will usually suffice.

There is a slight pause at a waypoint by AI, I would imagine its as they are "looking" for the next waypoint, or possibly making sure the condition to move on is there.. something.  

anyways choppers are the worst about it as you mentioned they tend to turn circles and climb alot when they hit waypoints. You can always use a series of domove commands to guide your bird on it's way.

tell it to move to a spot, and then before it can actually get there and stop for a second, issue another domove command. I would imagine that would look pretty seamless.

as far as chopper stuff goes:  I saved this post a long time ago from Sui and it's always helped me with all my chopper problems:

Heli land "X"

There are a lot of misconceptions about the land command running around... when I use these (I'd rather use waypoints if at all possible), here's how I generally do it:



Heli land "get in"
This is used when picking up troops (duh ). The trick is to assign troops as cargo before you issue the chopper with the land command. Then the chopper will wait until all units assigned to it are aboard (or confirmed dead) before going anywhere

Heli land "get out"
Use this when unloading troops. Unassignvehicle _x all your troops that you wish to disembark before issuing the land command. Then the chopper will wait until all troops disembarking are out of the chopper (or confirmed dead) before taking off again

Heli land "land"
Unconditional land command. The chopper lands and stops it's engine (if left long enough). I don't often use this command, as normally loading and unloading are the only times I want the chopper on the ground.


Also remember when you issue a land command, the chopper will look for the best spot it can see (in otherwords, a spot 2km in the wrong direction) to put down in. Unless you put a helipad (it can be invisible) where you want it to land. For dynamic scripted insertions/extractions, I find it easiest to createvehicle an invisible helipad where I want the chopper to land

Sync'ed Get In/Load Waypoints

I advise caution when using these... the thing to remember is that the infantry group at the get in waypoint must have hit the waypoint before the chopper hits it's load waypoint. Otherwise the chopper may fly straight past the load waypoint (as there is nothing to pick up... the infantry hasn't been told to get in yet) and you won't get your guys loaded. It sometimes happens that way

Transport Unload Waypoints

These things are great. They get the chopper to land, and unload every unit riding in cargo (the exception being if the player is controlling the squad). No syncing to mess things up... simplicity means there are less things that might go wrong

Chopper wait conditions

Sometimes you want to type something in the condition field of your choppers waypoint to get it to wait...  here are a couple I often use:



count crew heli < 3
A condition to cause a chopper to wait for it's cargo to disembark.
With this one remember that it is crucial that the pilot and gunner can't be killed. If it is at all possible that they can, you should use something else

count crew heli == (west countside (units group) + 2)
A condition to cause a chopper to wait for all living units in group to be aboard. Again, this relies on the driver and gunner always being alive. Also, if your group is not west, change the west to what is applicable (east, civilian etc)



I generally find that the simpler the better. Simpler means there are less things to go wrong, and there are generally enough things chopper can do by themselves to screw things up

[IlikeOFP]

Well for question one I got a partial answer.  If you want the jeep to travel on a road and not stop as often you can set the behaviuor to safe.  

I am not exactly sure if this will work but I'll try to help any way I can, but hopefully you find the answers to your questions.  :cheers:

[deaddog]

tell it to move to a spot, and then before it can actually get there and stop for a second, issue another domove command. I would imagine that would look pretty seamless.

I'm pretty sure the chopper will still pause when using domove as well.  And the farther away a wapoint (or move destination) is from the current location, the longer the chopper will pause.  This is especially noticable if other scripts (many of them) are running, which eats up the CPU time.