Suggestion to Group Link Script

[KeyCat]

Been out of the loop for a while and yesterday I ran into toadlife's great Group Link Script as well as snYpir's awesome SP/MP Support Pack. What can I say.... You guys are incredible  ;D

Anyway, I played around with the Group Link Script and it will have a given place in my future missions. I like the genius way the rating system works in general but wonder if it's possible to optional disable it and instead have groups call for backup when 2/3 (or similar?) of them is dead? Why? You may ask...

The rating system seems to work well on big assaults etc. but sometimes when we play co-op's we are just a few players and quite often only a sniper team of 2. Therefor our group are given a very low rating (i.e 2 points) and in most cases the enemy doesn't feel they are overmatched and therefor don't call for backup until only one of them is left.

Hope you understand the point I'm trying to make here and wonder if this would be possible? Maybe two verisons of the scripts would be easiest but what would I know  

Thanks again!

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[DrStrangelove]

Yeah, good idea. Would be leet to hardcode this into the script. The moment they call for help could be reflected by their skill level or rank.

Let's say, a group of (mostly) privates (or low skills) would call for help if one of their group is dead. More experienced classes would call for help when 50 % of the group is dead and so on ...

That way the fightings will be more realistic i think.

[toadlife]

You can initialize the script so that the groups pay no attention to the ratings and call for backup on site of of target group.

As for your coop situtation, if you have a two man sniper team when you exectute the script with your sniper team as the "target group" then you could make that instance of the script cause the eneies to call for backup no matter what your rating is.

All that info is in the readme. Having a basic understanding exactly how the script works and what it does is important if you want to use it.

Specifically, you need to understand exactly what the variables you pass to the script mean.

[KeyCat]

Thanks for your reply toadlife. Seems like I've got a bit confused by what looks like an error in the readme () since it states the following....

Code: [Select]

Setting it to 0 would cause groups to never call,  so don't set it to this value. Setting it to 1 would cause a group to call for backup no matter how weak the enemy group was.

but I just found that oposite was true - i.e courage=0 will always make a group call for support.

Setting it to 0.00 is no good option to us since the enemy will call for support as soon as you are spotted, and the support arriving will in turn call for more support as soon they spots you and so on...

A value by 0.10-0.15 seems to give a better balance even for a small team as in our co-op's but more testing is needed.

Another thing I noticed was that when the AI infantry are transported to the support spot in a truck most times they don't unload and engage until you fire at the truck (BMP's with AI infantry seemed a bit better).

I peeked at your code and saw you use the "move" command so I understand there are no "unload" event like when using wp's so maybe there's no easy way around this? Preferable would be that the vheicle unloaded the AI infantry automaticly some distance before the final destination.

Thanks again for a great script!

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[toadlife]

Setting it to 0.00 is no good option to us since the enemy will call for support as soon as you are spotted, and the support arriving will in turn call for more support as soon they spots you and so on...

A value by 0.10-0.15 seems to give a better balance even for a small team as in our co-op's but more testing is needed.

Oops! Perhaps I should udpate the readme! I've been meaning to completely rewrite the readme. Now that you've pointed out this glaring mistake, I will get on it soon.

[KeyCat]

Oops! Perhaps I should udpate the readme!

Please let us know if/when you update it...

Skimming thru your code (trying to learn from you pro's) I noticed the following...

Code: [Select]

_leader = (leader (_groups select _groupselect))
?_leader knowsabout vehicle _unit > _awareness:goto "alert"

Wouldn't it be better to use...

Code: [Select]

?(_groups select _groupselect) knowsabout vehicle _unit > _awareness:goto "alert"

That way groups are detected by not only the AI leader in the group but by any AI in the group (if I understand the comref correct?). 12 pair of eyes must be better than only 1 pair in combat  

Not sure how it affects the AI awarness since I didn't noticed any major difference while testing but at least it makes your script one line leaner  

Any ideas/comments on how to make trucks loaded with AI perform better? And also wonder why there isn't any class for boats, maybe you just missed it?

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[LCD]

da leader knows bout ny1 dat his group c  

dey call him da enemies ;D

LCD OUT

[KeyCat]

OK, then all it does is making the script one line slimmer or maybe there is other benefits the way toadlife original wrote it that I'm missing?

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)

[KeyCat]

The past weeks I've been working on improving toadlifes original Group Link script for our own needs. Just finalized the readme.txt to it and put it up if someone wants it?

Group Link II is an heavily modified version of toadlifes script and is tweaked particular to be used in co-op multiplayer missions.

Below is a list of some of the things added:

- Verified to work in multiplayer.

- Enemy infantry will unmount their vehicles ~200 m prior to the last known location. They will proceed the last bit by foot.

- If enemy infantry is in a helicopter they may paradrop over the target area else the helicopter will try to land and they will be unloaded.

- Enemy AI may call in artillery support at your location if they spot you, but will only do so if no other enemy AI groups are in the target area.

- If the support group don't find you and the alert is canceled they will relocate and get back into their vehicles (if any) and resume to their original waypoints (if any).

- At daytime if enemy vehicles is engaged (or spot you) en route to the conflict point enemy AI may pop smoke while all infantry soldiers rapidly unmounts the vehicles.

- If it's dark enemy AI will most likely use flares at the conflict point to aid their search for you.

- The script randomly sets formation, speed, behavior and combat modes for each support group individually when they are called for.

See readme.txt and example mission for more details...

http://keycat.no-ip.com/files/Group_Link_II_116.zip

Found out it was quite easy so it's now also added to the OFPEC archive.

Enjoy!

/Christer (a.k.a KeyCat)