guard waypoint troubles...

[bedges]

the guard waypoint is indeed handy for making ai react a wee bit more realistically, but only up to a point.

scenario: i have 3 locations which are attacked by the enemy. when they're detected by the defenders, the defenders go to guard mode. fine. however, once the enemy in a particular "guarded by" area is dealt with, the guarding defenders decide to guard the next "guarded by" area, which happens to be miles away.

is there any way to make a "guarded by" waypoint trigger specific to a group so they stay in that area?

[macguba]

Use guard waypoints, yes, but don't use "guarded by" triggers.   The problem is exactly as you describe - they are too blunt an instrument.    I found it hard to figure out how you could conveniently use more than one per side per mission, and I no longer use them at all.  

The solution is to use much more sophisticated waypoint sequences controlled by switch triggers.  (Use extra move waypoints to give you waypoints to synchro the triggers to.)

[bedges]

right. thought as much. it is interesting watching groups move between areas as they see fit, it's just not helpful when there's an enemy 100 metres ahead, and the commander tells us to engage a bmp 5 miles away....

[rado1265]

Maybe this information will help you to find more apropriate solution; by my expirience the guard waypoint functioning on 'enemy detected' base, and do this cyclicly - as soon as new enemy is detected, it is set as their new target (engage), regardless of a present distance between them.  So the guard waypoint is not so suitable for defenders (maybe only on a way as macguba describes); it's more suitable for 'free roaming units' and as 'aditional help' in conflict area.

[Chris Death]

I remember having tested guard waypoints in combo with
guarded by triggers and i even posted that somewhere
here or on BI forums - too bad it's been at least 2 years ago
and will maybe consume some (some more (some much more))
time until i find it (if i find it anyway)  

However - what i remember is:

I made let's say: 6 guarded by triggers and placed 10 inf. groups
with a guard waypoint only (on top of the leader).

Now when the game starts, 6 of 10 groups will move each into
one of the guarded by trigger areas to await further orders by
the game engine. The remaining 4 groups will wait at their
starting location.

Then when i started completely removing one of the groups
inside one of the trigger areas (hell what a massacre)  ;D
guarding groups will start refilling empty areas - in other words
one of the four remaining groups will move the a trigger close
by and others will move from their actual area to another one
(like some kind of rochade) - :note - about that rochade thingy
i'm not entirely sure anymore but i think it's been like that - shouldn't be difficult to recreate the situation again  

About mixing infantry and armored guarding groups it's a little
bit different, as the guard waypoint is executed by the engine
like: we send what is required there -> not so easy to figure
out how it's been setup by the developers without intensive
testing (...but possible)  

Right - now i'll give it a go for a search, but if it was at OFPEC
where i posted that last time, i doubt to find it, as i think there
happened to be a forum rebirth and old threads weren't taken
over from the old forums (we will see).

If i find it, i'll post a link in here  

:edit - ok - found some on a first search:

Here you find two posts of mine from September/October 2003;

http://www.ofpec.com/yabbse/index.php?board=8;action=display;threadid=13059;start=0


And here one post from May 2004;

http://www.ofpec.com/yabbse/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=17373;start=0

I will continue the search and if i find more (maybe on BI-forums) expect
to find it here too  

~S~ CD

[macguba]

Once its all been found and figured out, would somebody please write it up into a tutorial and submit it to the Ed Depot?

Many thanks.

[ONoSixIsDown]

hmmm... i gave this some thought and maybe this might work.

perhaps make a logic that is right on top of
the "guarded by" trigger and set it up so that when the unit set to guard strays to far away from their designated area they return to their original guard waypoint....

just a thought

[LoTekK]

Did some playing around a bit with this, and my findings don't seem to match the info that's been put forth. I'm not sure if it's down to something I did differently or if Guard is simply wonky.

Desert Island, I setup one Guarded By trigger, and two groups, each with a Guard WP on top of the group leader. Initial behavior is as expected, the closer group moves to occupy the Guard trigger. However, killing that group resulted in... Nothing. The second group didn't bother to reinforce.

Next up, I expanded the scenario by setting up an encounter between an East infantry squad, and a West fireteam about 300m from the Guard groups. Once contact was made, both Guard groups made their way to the firefight to help out, leaving the Guard trigger unoccupied.

Once the East squad was taken care of, the group that was occupying the Guard trigger made its way back, while the other Guard group stayed put. 300m from its original Guard WP.

Once more, I decimated the group in the Guard trigger, and the other group stayed firmly on their asses.

I'm confused.