Paper Tiger
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Posts posted by Paper Tiger
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Like the others, I noticed that my units light up when I click on a spotted enemy unit but most of them actually have no LoS at all. Maybe this will be fixed later?
Actually, my main gripe with Elite is that you get too much information. My units seem to know instantly if they are looking at an HQ, AT team or whatever. Maybe this really happens in real life, I don't know. Or maybe I'm still stuck in the CMx1 WW2 frame of mind when it takes some time to identify enemy units.
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Being a big fan of CMBB, when I bought CMSF I thought "Real Time? No thanks. I'll stick with WEGO". I played the tutorial campaign and found it too boring with WEGO so I started up again in RT and had a blast. I've never played WEGO since then.
I agree, if the WEGO turn length was much shorter, I'd play it again. I like the suspense of watching to see what happens during the turn. With WW2, 1 min is about right. In modern combat, 1 minute can see the bulk of your forces killed outright. It's too long to be out of control.
With RT, I tend to be focussed on one part of the battlefield at a time and the other parts are out of my control. I rarely use PAUSE when I'm playing unless the battle is very big or the action is too furious.
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I'd like to see some commercial buildings, shops etc buildings with glass fronts. (Actually, I can simulate this already just by removing the wall but it looks weird.) And billboards. They're everywhere man. Maybe Battlefront could earn some extra cash by selling advertising on shop fronts and billboards
(BTW, is there a MacDonalds in Damascus?)For the AI, I'd like to be able to tell units to pop smoke at a location. It would be nice to script vehicles to move to a location, pop smoke and then dismount their passengers. :cool:
I'm assuming that fences are coming in a module?
There are literally thousands of things that could go into the editor but one thing I think would be really cool would be some sports, recreation areas, basketball courts, soccer fields with the boxes. They are ubiquitous.
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Oops, posted in the wrong place. Please delete
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Whew. It was a lot tougher to beat this time. I managed to capture both the objectives, the primary only in the last minute. Managed to get a US Tactical Victory only.
Nice update. Thanks for sharing
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Maybe he's got Vista. I have it and Prt Scr doesn't work for me either.
Hey Gdog, download the FRAPS
I was really frustrated that I couldn't get screenshots too. Downloaded FRAPS and now it works a treat and doesn't affect the program at all. And you can see your framerate too if you want to. -
Hey, good to hear that you've improved it. I had a blast playing the first version. Just downloaded it and will play through later today. (Got to go shopping with the wife now)
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I think the routers show up as Missing in Action in the AAR? Just guessing but it seems logical. Feel freee to correct
Yes, the Crawl of Death is still there but it doesn't appear to be happening nearly so often. I reported this elsewhere but in the scenario I am designing, the AI (US side) couldn't make an effective attack as they hit the dirt and crawled after receiving a little incoming. Now, they're moving very aggressively and it requires some serious firepower to put them down like before.
The US attack is now irresistable. It's now a question of balancing casualties to give the game some balance.
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Just downloaded the Paradox patch and played through three (ultra) quick battles and a scenario a couple of times to see how things are working.
The AI seems to be considerably improved in 1.03. I have been working on a small scenario where two US platoons attack a small uncon held village at dawn, to be played as the Red side. I created it to see how IEDs worked in the game. In 1.02, the AI couldn't make an effective attack because the infantry crawled and the Strykers just stood idly by while their charges gotr shot to hell. It was too easy for red to get a total victory.
After playing it twice this morning, I got slaughtered twice by the AI. Yes, the Crawl of Death is still there but I would have expected that squad to do that seeing as how it was just blasted by a huge IED and ambushed by a small fireteam. Or again, when the squad in question was the target of a lot of incoming fire. Otherwise, the squads are moving aggressively and the Strykers are putting out an enormous amount of fire. Once somebody opens up, he has about 5 seconds before incoming suppresses him. The scenario was over in 15 minutes. Whew, it will require a lot more work to balance it.
Can't say it looks all that much different but I have been running the game on Best settings since I got it. (I only play on smallish maps so it's doable. I don't have a NASA computer)
Now I can start playing the Campaign. I'm looking forward to some QB force selection fixes later. I seem to get very odd force mixes. Especially frustrating receiving Syrian FOs but no artillery (playing as Red) They're just cannon fodder.
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Interesting anecdote. Also noted that there was a building left for them to explore. The javelin ingame is VERY destructive and occasionally takes the whole building out too.
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Downloaded it yesterday and had a QB on it. It's a beautiful map. Thanks for sharing it.
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Nope. For RT play only.
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Hey man, thanks for that, really. Can't wait for the new patch:) And I've seen that other 'bug' too. I set up a group with three vehicles and passengers and then added a fourth to the group and the fourth just sat there a couple of times so I thought the vehicle was immobilised or something.
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After futher playtesting my scenario, I've noticed that AI controlled Strykers rarely fire upon known enemy units. They have the active weapons command. They can sit less than 100m from known enemy positions and do nothing while their infantry is crawling along behind them. The AI controlled side seems to be incredibly passive.
To contrast this, my Red units are hammering the US forces with everything they've got without any intervention on my part so the player TACAI is pretty aggressive.
And the situation is not unbalanced. When I play Blue, I never use the artillery and I steamroll the Red Force within a few minutes of the start and with almost zero casualties. I script the AI to do something similar and I sit back and watch my Red forces slaughter the Blue side. And all because they CRAWL... BOO!
Is this game only designed to be played as the attacking side or two player only?
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This phenomenon is really KILLING my attempts to create a Blue AI attack on a Red Insurgents player scenario. I have tried ALL the different permutations of orders for my AI groups and they ALWAYS perform the crawl of death after receiving incoming fire. Surely it would be better for them to 'drop and return fire' rather than perform this suicidal action which exhausts them rapidly. In fact, that's what I thought the Assault/Max Assault + Active was supposed to work. :confused:
The game works fine as long as the player is the attacker because I can issue sensible orders and keep things moving or get them organised to return fire but once I start a scenario, the AI is out of my control.
Also, vehicles sporadically pop smoke after they have dismounted their charges. It would be nice if there was some way to put this option under the scenario designers control. The AI does use it occassionally so it's in the game somewhere, I just haven't figured out how to make it use the smoke BEFORE tha passenger dismount. Even when it does use smoke, the infantry is still crawling.
I haven't seen any mention of this in the upcoming 1.03 patch. Is this considered to be a problem or is it WAD?
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Slowmotion: No, Exit Before tells the unit to move to the defined map zone within X mins.
The Exit After command tells the unit not to look at the NEXT order until this time has been reached.
Example, order 1 for units starting in the set-up zone, you give the unit Exit Before 2:00 and Exit After 5:00. You paint a map zone 100m away.
The unit will try to move from the set-up zone to map zone 1 within 2 minutes and then sit there, support firing or whatever until the 5 minutes are up. Ie, if they get there in 1 minute, they'll sit there for 4 minutes, or if they take 3 minutes to get there, they'll sit there for 2 more minutes. Then it moves on to order 2.
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Yup. But if it's an open map and you set up the QB as a hilly map, it'll just dump you back to the main menu.
Just now I have one open and one village map in my QB Map folder, both my own design. Moving out the unwanted maps is definitely the way to go.
Cpl Steiner: Yes, I read that too. I was wrong
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Okay, I did another experiment this morning. This seems to be the way it works.
The scenario starts at 0.00. (T+0)
If you want your group to move from waypoint to waypoint at five minute stages the instructions are:
Set-up Exit Before 0.00 Exit After 0.00
They will go to order 1 immediately.
Order 1 I want them to move to waypoint 1 as quickly as possible. I want them to wait until T+5. The order is:
Exit before 2.00 Exit After 5.00.
(they should try to reach waypoint 1 within 2 mins and then wait until T+5)
Then, I want them to move to waypoint 2. I want them to do exactly the same. This time the order is:
Exit before 2.00 Exit after 10.00
So the Exit After time should be T+ whatever from the beginning of the scenario.
If I wanted the do exactly the same but delay the groups movement from the set-up zone by 2 mins, I would enter:
Set-up Exit After 2.00
Order 1 Exit after 7.00
Order 2 Exit after 12.00
I admit that I was confused when I read the manual because I thought that it meant, "don't look at the next order until X minutes after this order begins."
I hope this helps.
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The Louch: Ha ha! I had to laugh. The manual is pretty good on most things but not this. I have read and read that many times but it's not clear at all. It's obvious that Rotapper has read it too.
My experiments were with Exit After and I think I've understood it. You have designed a couple of corking scenarios, what's your take on this? People are looking for clearer explanations than the manual.
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Yair
You'll probably find that they were crawling. In most of my QB games, the AI starts crawling when they receive even a SMALL amount of incoming fire. It seems that the key to avoiding this is to keep the distance between the waypoints as short as possible. Hopefully the Operational AI will get tweaked to prevent this crawling very soon.
Rune: thanks for that clarification about battle maps. I hadn't noticed that.
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Surprisingly, RT. When I bought the game I thought to myself that I would never play RT but on Day 2, I gave it a try and I've been playing RT exclusively ever since.
Yeah, I pause a LOT in the first few minutes of a situation but once everything is up and running, I'm mostly just sitting watching the action with the occassional intervention. And it plays so FAST compared to WEGO.
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I'm not an expert but I've done a few experiments with AI scripting to see how it all works and here's what I think I know...
The Exit After time is since the start of the scenario, not since the new order became active.
I tried an experiment where an Infantry platoon had to move from waypoint to waypoint on an otherwise empty map. They would move from one identifiable terrain feature to another.
The planned sequence was, 3 mins to get there, exit after 5 mins. On to waypoint 2, repeat, the idea being that they would move there, wait until 5 mins were up and then move on again etc... Worked fine for the first waypoint but after that, they were moving out after a brief regrouping.
Tried again with Exit before 3 mins, Exit after 10 for the second waypoint and it worked like a charm. The third waypoint, 3 mins to get there, Exit after 15 mins. So they moved from waypoint to waypoint in 5 minute waves.
As long as nobody shoots at them, they'll do it like you command. But they are HORRIBLY prone to do the Crawl of Death if they receive even a small amount of incoming fire.
I'd be very happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.
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a design your map
b give both sides set up zones
c create at least one AI plan for both sides
d save in the QB Map folder
If it's from an existing scenario map, this is already done for you. You only lose the scenario defined units.
Just remember, if it's a Blue attack, Red defend scenario and you want to defend as Blue, you'll have to change the AI plans to give the Red AI an attack plan.
(BTW, is there a MacDonalds in Damascus?)
I was really frustrated that I couldn't get screenshots too. Downloaded FRAPS and now it works a treat and doesn't affect the program at all. And you can see your framerate too if you want to.
Desirable new features for AI scripting
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
Okay, I'm a sad b@#%*&d and I play this game against the AI exclusively. But my main pleasure is designing scenarios, mainly for myself. I would like to ask if there are any plans to expand the number of options for the present AI scripting. I'm not asking about reactive scripting. The way I see it, there's still an enormous potential within the present system.
What I'd like to see is a command to make the AI units pop smoke, possibly added like the Passenger Dismount command. "Units in Group 1 move to zone A, pop smoke and dismount passengers".
Secondly, I'd like to be able to instruct the AI units to use area fire from their present location. Maybe painting a zone like the AI artillery plans/ And units in that group would fire on the painted locations until the order expired.
Thirdly, the present artillery system is (IMO) a bit lame. It would be nice if it could be added to an order like the Passenger Dismount command.
At the very least, it would be nice to have different artillery plans for each attack plan and not just one for all five plans. These changes would all make the AI a more challenging opponent.
At the moment, I'm designing a scenario where a couple of US Stryker platoons attack an Uncon held village to be played as the Red side. It's just too easy to kill the AI by hiding my units and waiting for them to move on my positions across open ground as they never use area fire on suspected enemy positions.