Weird guard waypoint behavior, and others.

[Baphomet]

I am making a mission on which I have small bases that have vehicles that are to behave as perimeter defences in the event that an enemy is detected.

They are set to a guard waypoint and the guard waypoints for both the M2A2 and the AH1 in this case both have their guard waypoints synchronized to a trigger of limited size around the area I wish them to start to respond to threats in.

The trigger is set to east, and the condition is set to detection by west.

However. I haven't put any eastern units in the map yet. After a few minutes both the M2A2 and the AH1 both start moving about and "patrolling". I don't really like this behavior much. What kind of bothers me is that when they "stop" their patrol the crew will just get right out from wherever they please and stand there waiting to get shot.

Sometimes the AH1 will land in a forest full of trees and crash.

Is there any way, failing the prevention of the guard waypoint and subsequent behavior from being activated prematurely that I can make sure they return to their original spot when they took off/moved from?

[PsyWarrior]

Greetings,

Ah, the guard waypoint is fantastic. It makes the AI very effective at defending installations.

Unfortunately, it does this by getting the AI to patrol, engage troops, and counterattack more realistically. If you want them to do a perimiter patrol around a base, this is not the WP for you. Use "Move" with "Open fire, engage at will" instead.

Sometimes the AH1 will land in a forest full of trees and crash.

Well forests are, generally speaking, full of trees... ;D

Sorry...

I have noticed recently that choppers seem to fly into things like forests and mountains more often... you can't exactly argue that the mountain 'jumped in front of you at the last minuite' can you?

For instance, I've seen a squad of two AH64s plow themselves into a hill within seconds of each other, with no apparent attempt to resist it. A 1.96 'feature' perhaps?

Anyway, Baphomet, I believe your best course of action would be to not use the 'Guard' WP.

their patrol the crew will just get right out from wherever they please and stand there waiting to get shot.

I have never noticed this before...

make sure they return to their original spot when they took off/moved from?

Yep. Put a 'Move' waypoint on their start position, as their last WP (or the last one before the cycle WP).

Hopefully, that should help you. If not then...  

-Supreme Commander PsyWarrior
-Psychic Productions Studios

[Dubieman]

I've had a chopper problem like this before only with 1.96.
In the first CWC campiagn mission, the attack on Morton the second chopper usually lands in the trees as you land and fucks up the rest of the mission since no other waypoints or triggers fire. What a pain but I don't care, I never play CWC campaign anymore.....

Edit: And the second Uh60 does blow up in the trees and Bravo squad is gone.... :'(

[Baphomet]

Unfortunately That would sort of negate a lot of the stealth involved in the mission since I'm wanting to design it so that you must decide where and when you fight your battles. Lest you get an IFV or a chopper sent in your direction.

As far as them getting out...

Basically they'll drive around for a bit. If they cannot find any enemies... they'll basically find a place (often a not so intelligent one) to stop and get out and wait for another report of an enemy to pile back into their vehicles and take up the task once more.

As far as the piloting ai. Well. My mission is on Visnorsk which has a -lot- of hilly and deep canyon like regions. The AH1 was very impressive in it's navigation of this area when it was persuing a threat. Deftly avoiding sides of large cliffs and hills. However their choice of landing spots just boggles the mind however. Not to mention that this mission is intended to emphasize minimal use of technology so that strategic thinking must be considered instead of just whipping out a law or getting in a chopper and laying waste to the area.

[PsyWarrior]

Greets, RoachKilla,

ROFL... 1.97 anybody... ;D

Maybe BIS accidently recoded forests as helipads?

And the second Uh60 does blow up in the trees and Bravo squad is gone....

Poor Bravo Squad... They didn't deserve to go like that.

@Baphomet: You may want to consider scrapping the WPs and scripting all the engagement (with the help of some triggers). You would use doMove/ doTarget commands to move your groups out, and prioritise targets for them.

-Supr. Cmdr. PsyWarrior
-Psychic Productions Studios

[Dubieman]

Just tell me when 1.9999999 comes out. I want that one.

[macguba]

This happened to me and it had me stumped for a looooong time.    Thanks to some of the helpful folk on this forum we figured it out in the end.

The problem is that you have synchroed the trigger to the guard waypoint - that is what is causing them to get out.   In fact, in this particular case, you shouldn't have the trigger synchroed to the guard waypoint anyway.    We don't know why syncroing a trigger to a guard waypoint makes the loons get out of their wagons, but it does.

What you do is this.    Create a bunch of move waypoints to give the wagons/chopper the patrol path you want.   Complete it with a cycle waypoint, so that they keep going round.    Now add the guard waypoint after the cycle one.    Synchro the trigger (make sure it is type switch) to the cycle waypoint.

When the enemy is detected the guard waypoint is activated and your loons will go hunting.   When the enemy is destroyed they will go back to the location of the guard waypoint.    However, if you set a trigger of type guard, they will eventually go to the centre of the trigger area.  Probably.

[Baphomet]

Interesting.

Well. Being that I'm not much of a scripter at all. I can pretty much discard any notion of manually fabricating the proper responses and criteria for certain events. Unless it's just stuff I can look at as examples with the syntax intact. Since ofttimes that's my biggest problem.

I kind of like how the AH1 starts off with them outside the vehicle so that it gives the appearance of them responding to a distress call, however if they're always going to fly about and land in stupid places so they can be killed easily. That's not going to help either.

So I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I had a good idea but now I don't know.

Those are all helpful suggestions I think I'll experiment with some of them. However I'm not sure if I can create the initially desired effect.

For the most part traveling over fairly open ground would make avoiding the sight of an AH1 on patrol (save for making fuel stops at the BAS "repair-"H) very difficult. As it stands being attacked by an AH1 in my mission is supposed to be an extraordinarily bad thing. Since there's minimal access to AT and no real access to AA launchers. Basically you'd pick and choose your fights and avoid being spotted by ground patrols so you weren't hunted down by the choppers or tanks.