All, Disengage

[Mikero]

does any1 know why, on some very very few missions, the 'squad' is in engage mode to start?

It doesn't appear to be a deliberate thing on the authors part and causes a surprise when you get your people to 'target' anything. They all rush off to their doom.

[THobson]

Could you say more about this?  

The mission builder has several choices on how a squad will behave:
One of:
- Stealth
- Combat
- Aware
- Safe
- Careless

These are probably self explanatory except the last two.  Safe == standing up, gun on back, but will hit the deck when enemies are about; Careless == standing up, gun on back and will remain so whatever enemies there are nearby and whatever those enemies are doing.

and one of:
- Open fire, engage at will
- Open fire
- Hold fire, engage at will
- Hold fire
- Never fire

Without going into a detailed description: the engage at will bit involves them running off to target an enemy they are aware of in their usual AI way.

The default, unless the mission builder make a conscious decision to do something else, is Aware/Open fire, engage at will

[Pilot]

Are you sure it's Aware/Open Fire, Engage at will?

I always thought they behaved as if they were on Open Fire.

-Student Pilot

[CameronMcDonald]

Kind of a weird question.
I thought the default setting was aware, open fire. Engage at will can be set through init lines, however, and the first waypoint - this is common in the campaigns. So, there's not much you can do about it besides tell your men to disengage at the start of a mission: if you say "all, disengage" it means they have been set to engage or engage at will, and will now no longer do so.

C"G"McD.

[The-Architect]

Just make sure you take control of them right from the start. I usually give them a bundle of commands from the start anyway, like Hold Fire, Form Line, Danger (If I start near badguys) and Keep Low.

[Mikero]

Not so wierd a question @Cameron, since you understood it. Some very few missions when pbo'd exhibit this behaviour, and generally not so in folder format. I am not 100% on the last remark. It is not engage at will, it is engage mode. It is possible of course that quite a few people haven't encountered it as it is not common

the characteristics are, if you tell tour team members to target anything they immediately engage it and attack. This and the fact that they generally don't follow formation but tend to be ahead of you (despite being in 'wedge' formation)

Because it _seems_ to be a pbo issue, and because I'm not a scripter, I was hoping for some solution i could advise people on when encountered in beta tests of their missions.

Some examples perhaps? 3 or 4 of the PMC ranger missions and some 6 or 7 of the 200 + pmc fury missions. One one the beta board right now (Op Lightning). The latter might be a separate issue.

[h-]

And there's no waypoint directly on the group leader which would issue the "Open fire, engage at will" to the squad??
Or such thing issued for the squad in the init.sqs??

Because I have never seen that kind of behaviour you describe unless the mission designer has done one of the above...

[Mikero]

Thanx for that everone. I'll check into this myself more thouroughly than I have done, so that I can pick a specific (faulty) mission with no init= etc causing it.

I had a false hope that this issue might be known, similar to the M2 machine gun nest problem.

I'll get back to you all, thank you.

[Mikero]

am unlocking this thread to say thank you to Trapper for explaining to me that 'you lot' were right all along. It is indeed an engage-at-will issue, and is only a 'problem' when authors protest their innocence not realising they caused it (and people like me not knowing the answer)

An added wrinkle is that scripts such as Bas cargo rope set units into this mode when used. An effect perhaps not entirely wanted

I'll leave the thread open in case others have more to say (apart from throwing bricks at me)

[Sui]

Engage at will can be a pain in the rear... there's a line I use that will disable it:

"_x disableAI {target}" foreach units group

That will mean that the AI won't get commands to engage a tank 2km away and go running off by themselves...

Be aware the savegame command will 'reset' the disableAI, so you'd have to re-run that line after any save games