Seek & Destroy

[Mr.BoDean]

What is the best way to get enemy AI units to attack a group of soldiers who will not yet be in the area yet?

i.e.   I want to trigger an enemy paradrop after the soldiers enter the area. Do I just place a large Seek and Destroy WP to include the area where the soldirers will initially be , or is it better to define the specifics with DoFire/DoTarget commands or other snippets?
  Thanx  

[Iwesshome]

I am in a rush right now to leave work but run a search on Switch Triggers... that will help you out.

IW

[macguba]

Yep, Iwesshome is right, what you need here are switch triggers.    You don't need doTarget or doFire, though they are sometimes very useful in other situations.

There are lots of threads, so use the forum search function.   I think there is a new tutorial in pending in the Ed Depot too.

Basically, you will have the chopper/aircraft on a hold waypoint somewhere.     The trigger which detects the presence of the loons in the relevant area should be type switch and synchroed to the chopper hold waypoint.    That wayt he chopper will come in when the loons are in the area.

If you're using a seek and destroy waypoint put a cycle waypoint next to it, otherwise the loons will eventually stop.  

[Mr.BoDean]

Okay, Mac,  Thanx for that answer. I have, in fact, been reading many posts regarding switch triggers and though I had already been using them, I have a better grasp on them now. My confusion relates to putting a Seek and Destroy WP over an area without there being anyone in it to Seek and Destroy, since they will be there activating the trigger later. I guess I thought that in order for a Seek and destroy WP to work , the target has to be in that WP area (from the beginning) for the AI to know what to go after!  
  So it sounds like they will just search and detect / attack ANY enemy they find , aided by a CYCLE WP  by the S&D. Is that right? I just thought it had to be more specific.

 i.e. , make the AI attack the soldiers and not the vehicles.
Thanx.  

[macguba]

Yes, you've worked it out.     S&D just means "wander around the area and zap any baddies that you find".     The area varies depending on the unit type:   a chopper will obviously search a bigger area than an infantry loon.   It doesn't have to be specific to any target and there doesn't have to be any enemy nearby.

In fact I don't use S&D much:  I tend to use move and cycle waypoints to ensure that the seeking group actually covers the area effectively.    Usually I have two or three small groups going in opposite directions, to prevent the risk of the enemy crossing an open space (for example) behind a patrolling group.

Then I have an east detected by west (or whatever) switch trigger covering the relevant area and synchroed to the cycle waypoints:   when it is fired, all the little patrols combine into one big group and get a GUARD waypoint.   This means that they all go after the detected enemy.     In my experience this gives a more realistic and more fun game, though of course I'm sure there are other ways of doing it and it does depend on the exact circumstances.

The next level of sophistication is to make the switch trigger fire if any of the patrolling loons are killed.   I  have completed plenty of mission by hiding in a bush and shooting the patrols one by one as the come past on "safe".   They  never detect you - because the patrol gets wiped out before they work out where you are - and so the trigger is never fired.

[Mr.BoDean]

The next level of sophistication is to make the switch trigger fire if any of the patrolling loons are killed.   I  have completed plenty of mission by hiding in a bush and shooting the patrols one by one as the come past on "safe".   They  never detect you - because the patrol gets wiped out before they work out where you are - and so the trigger is never fired.

Ah!  That's brilliant, man. I have encountered that also in some otherwise good missions and wondered if the solution was just to have the loons switch trigger their behaviour from "Safe" to "Combat" upon enemy detection. I totally agree about your Mission-creating tutorial in regards to the non-realism of troops standing around while their buddies get shot.  

Thanks, that will definitely help ....now to implement it all.  

[macguba]

I switch the behaviour from safe to aware - they go into combat themselves if somebody is shooting at them, and if you put them into combat straight away - for example in a join or guard WP - then they start crawling when in fact you want them to run towards the action.

Nice to hear somebody's read that little tute.  

[Mr.BoDean]

Hmmm ...actually ....how would you go about that last bit? Would you use a script that checks for any member of the squad dead? Or would you group a trigger to a squad or?  
  :-\

[macguba]

Which bit?   I just put behaviour "aware" in the drop down box in the join waypoint  if there is one, or the guard waypoint if there isn't.

[Mr.BoDean]

Okay, and you just Use a Join WP synced to a Leader's WP then , not a JoinGroup type command?

Also, I had this question with synching /making things happen. I've seen posts where you've said both "don't rely on WP's , especially for MP humans....use triggers instead" and also "triggers cause lag". So is there a way to know how many triggers are too many (obviously by playing MP online,    but....)

[macguba]

In the circumstances I'm talking about - and I should have made this clear - all the relevant groups are AI led.    For example they are guarding a village, the player has to sneak in and blow up the trucks or whatever.      So the waypoint sequence for a typical patrol group would be

move
move
move
cycle  <------ synch with switch trigger
join (or join and lead)   <----- set behaviour to aware
guard

(Aside just to make things more complicated:  I do sometimes switch a few of the groups into S&D rather than guard - it adds a bit of diversity to the way in which the loons are running around the battle.    I don't use if for a genuine search pattern though, say in the open ground between the village and the woods.   In other words I switch into S&D, not out of it.    That's just my personal style though.)

Waypoints for human players should always be just an extra aid for Cadet mode players.   If you delete all the player's waypoints it should have no impact on the game.   (Obviously you should use AI waypoints to make them do things all the time.)    

For example, if you want something to happen when the player gets to a certain area, don't use a waypoint to detect his presence or make something happen when he arrives.    Use other cues to get him there and a trigger to detect when he is.     You should of course add a waypoint for Cadet mode.

Triggers do indeed cause lag, as do waypoints ... but then everything causes lag.    How many is too many depends on what else is in the mission.   In general, however, if you want a bunch of things to happen and they can all be traced back to one event, use one trigger to spot the event and get the trigger to call a script, in which you can do everything that needs to be done.   In the end of the day triggers are what make missions interesting, so don't be afraid to use them.

If you're worried about lag I wrote a brief guide to reducing lag, it's on the forum somewhere - use the search function.

Edit:  found the lag post

[Mr.BoDean]

Again, Great Stuff  ..Thanks! ;D  Although all of that scripting stuff makes my head spin.      :noo: :help:

They should put that lag list up as a sticky somewhere.    

Now that I finally have a fast computer with 1GB of RAM, I forget slower PC's can contribute to the lag issues and not just Internet connections.