AI vehicles - formations and engagment rules

[Moritori]

These two issues appear to work only with INF groups;

1) Formations - a group of vehicles DO NOT seem to change to indicated formation change ie WEDGE. They appear to be stuck on a default COLUMN.

Have tried the formation option in the WAYPOINT screen- nil result
Have tried the INIT line in the group leader ie grp1 setformation "WEDGE" - nil result.
Have ensured Leader (and each member as well) has the 'SPECIAL' box in EDIT UNIT screen set to "IN FORMATION" - nil result.

2) Combat Mode and Behaviour- vehicles appear to engage regardless of indicated command.

Have tried the 'combat mode' option (ie Never Fire) in the WAYPOINT screen - nil result.
Have tried the INIT line in the group leader (and each group member) ie this setcombatmode "BLUE"
Have also tried a setbehaviour command of "CARELESS" - nil result.

Only result i have so far is really not appropiate - set ammo to 0%.

Any ideas?

[Trapper]

Have tried the formation option in the WAYPOINT screen

Have tried the 'combat mode' option (ie Never Fire) in the WAYPOINT screen

It should work for vehicles...  
Do you know that these waypoint settings are executed as soon as the waypoint before is reached/finished? Maybe that's the problem.

[macguba]

Moritori,

Welcome to the forum!

[penguinman]

Have ensured Leader (and each member as well) has the 'SPECIAL' box in EDIT UNIT screen set to "IN FORMATION" - nil result.

have all members and leaders set to no formation, that will make it so they have to move into column in the begining and keep them from getting locked up

[Kyle Sarnik]

Ok, Moritori, one thing you have to consider is the nature of the vehicle. Lets go through each type.

1. Wheeled Vehicles - wheeled vehicles have trouble moving in formations because they are config'd to "prefer roads", meaning if they can, they will allways take and follow roads to get to their destination, if they get to a point where no road can take them any closer to their destination, they will leave it, but when they leave the roads they have a hard time even driving in a straight line, much less in formation.

2. Trached Vehicles - tracked vehicles are excellent at moving in formation, since they don't really care where they drive (unless turned out/set to safe mode - where they prefer roads), however you have to consider the differences in max and cruising speeds for the different types of vehicles in the formation.

3. Rotary-wing Aircraft - the worst at moving in formation, helicopters just can't do it. The reason is because of the delay in a helicopter's movement, basically when the lead chopper starts to move forward, it first pitches forward to get forward thrust, and the rest won't follow it until it starts moving, and then they will have to pitch forward, and will end up way behind the lead chopper.

4. Fixed-wing Aircraft - given the behavior of helicopter formations, planes are suprisingly good at flying in formation. There is only a slight delay in following aircraft to mimic the lead aircrafts movement, but alot better than helicopters since planes usualy have very responsive controls.