Glubokii Boy

1. You have 4 different terraintriggers to chose from: - trigger friendly (any friendly unit in zone) - trigger friendly armour (only friendly armour in zone) - trigger enemy (any enemy unit in zone) - trigger enemy armour (only enemy armour in zone) They work as one would suspect 2. The timer will block any triggered movement until the first time is reached and any trigger present will block the first time until the trigger is activated or the second time is reached. 2a. i belive you are correct. 2b. AI-troops would rush the enemy at 09:00. 2c. AI-troops would rush the enemy 12.00.

Ok, thanks

I belive i might have found 'the problem' ... You have to pay proper attention to this section of the manual: "Note: for upper levels without balconies, door configurations are skipped except when the camera view is inside the building. This makes it easier to set up “interior” walls between immediately adjecent buildings"... When the manual states that you have to be inside the buildings...it really means that you have to be inside ! the building...It will not do if you are hovering halfway outside and looking in...clicking on any interior wall will not do the trick...atleast not all the time...but making sure that the camera is indeed well inside (very close to the wall you would like to tweak) it seems to be working as intended. Next question though...How do you toggle on the blown out windows ?...I managed to do it a few days ago using the CTRL-click i belive...but not today

Thanks MikeyD for having a look at this... It is my oppinion also that this does not seem to be working fully as intended. Using various tricks and tweaks its seems to be possible to get the doors in in most situations but it does not work as smoothely as desired i fear. With this being this complicated i belive any major 're-dooring' is not likely to happen to any great extent. It's been a while since i tried doing this last but i don't recall seeing these kinds of problems when i did something simular a few year ago. I know that this is obviously not the most important feature but if it could be made to work as smoothely as intended...all the time...It might make this kind of tweaking more appealing Thanks !

The good old suggestion...To start simple ! certainly holds true here when trying to learn triggers and timings. What i'd suggest you do is something like this... - Start a new scenario - Use the map you originally start with when opening the editor without adding anything. - Add a single platoon to one of the sides and asign each individual squad as its own AI group. - Add a small terrain trigger. With this set-up try to get the AI to move this platoon forward in the way you want... Try using the AI-order triggers to get the squads to advance in a staggered fashion one after the other. experiment with the exit before and after times to see how those changes play out and how they allow or not allow the squads to move forward. When you got the platoon advancing nicely using the AI-order triggers add the terrain trigger to the mix and see if you can get that to works the way you want... With a simple set-up like this you can run many tests quickly and change any detail you like in a very short time.

hello.. The scenario is for CMSF2...link below. The Bad Boys - AI lead US troops tries a snatch/rescue mission against local ISIS forces in Syria (new scenario). - CM Shock Force 2 Maps and Mods - Battlefront.com Community Use the link in the last post. The updated one .. You are offcourse free to have a look at it in the editor. Keep in mind though that i'm not one of the 'scenario designing pros' but rather a happy amateur. The AI plan do work though..atleast in my testing. Hopefully it will help you with some of your ideas. Keep on struggeling...scenario designing gets more intresting the more you learn .

The trigger function is indeed a nice feature. It comes in 2 flavours. The terrain triggers and the AI-order triggers. Both are very useful imo. Up until recently i have only used the terrain trigger. I thought the AI-order trigger seemed a bit more complicated but with my latest scenario (The Bad Boys, CMSF2), released a few weeks ago, i decided to take the plunge and try to add the AI-order trigger into the mix. I'm glad i did ! this is a really nice feature. The way it works is that you can specify any order you give to any particular AI group to work as a trigger for other AI groups (select - CAN TRIGGER in the dropdown menu). This trigger will be activated as soon as that AI group starts to perform that particular order. This can be very handy when trying to coordinate the moves between your AI-groups I guess it can be argued if it is the best choise to have these triggers activate when the AI group starts its order (as it currently works) or if it would be better to have the trigger activated when the AI group have actually finished that order. I'm currently of the opinion that the second option would be better but i guess that this might depend on the situation. Using only the game clock to direct the AI units movements will work well in most situations i guess but ones the AI troops comes under fire things can get messed up and the AI force may well lose its coordinated moves as some part of that force might fall behind due to taking fire. those units will simply not be in the right place at the right time as originaly set out in the AI plan. Without any triggers to check this the other units in the AI force will still continue with the original plan (and timing) regardless of the fact that some vital parts of that plan might be missing due to being delayed by enemy fire. One solution to safeguard against this or atleast improve the likelyhood that tha AI plan will remain in a coordinated fashion even ones the AI force comes under fire is to include these triggers imo. The difference between using terrain triggers and AI-order triggers is that with the terrain trigger ANY friendly unit will be able to set-off that trigger witch might be what you want in some situations. With the AI-order trigger you as the designer will be able to specify a particular unit (AI-group) to actually be in a particular location in order to spring the associated trigger. Dependant on the situation one or the other might be better. For example...Lets say you have 4 tanks advancing (each in their own AI-group) - Tank 1 move out first with a dash order. It reaches its first location and switches to a static max assult order. This max assult order is set to CAN TRIGGER. - Tank 2 and 3 are set to WAIT FOR TRIGGER and in the triggerlist you will now find - AI GROUP 1, ORDER 2 - (the max assult order from above) as an option to select for the trigger. Selecting this will see tank 2 and 3 wait at their current location until tank 1 starts its max assult order at its new location and then they inturn start to perform their order (move to their first location). - Ones tank 2 reaches its location it in turn will skip to a static max assult order set to CAN TRIGGER. This trigger - AI GROUP 2, ORDER 2 - is the used to send tank 4 on its way. This tank have been waiting (wait for trigger - ai-group 2, order 2) at its starting location. And now moves out. Using these AI-order triggers will ensure that the other units are actually in place where they are supposed to be before the following units move out. Things stay coordinated even if one or more of the first tanks gets delayed by enemy fire. the following tanks will wait until the first ones are actually in place. In the example above it might have been just as good or even better to use a terrain trigger for one (or more) of the moves. But this was just a simple example. But how long should the following tanks wait if some other tank do get delayed ? forever ? What if one of the tanks gets destroyed and never makes it to its intended location ? Well here is where things gets a bit more complicated and the exit before and exit after times comes into play. Simply using the AI-order triggers and no exit before and after times set will not work. If one of the tanks gets destroyed the other ones will be waiting forever. Or even if the first tanks gets delay for...to long...the others will still be waiting for it to reach its location and the whole attack might get hopelessly delayed. Adding the exit before and after values will be essential for this to work and prevent any complete failures of the AI plan. The first value...exit before set the first possible time that the AI-group will be allowed to start this order...regardless of if the other unit, that have been set to trigger this unit, has started its order or not. The waiting unit will not start its order until this time is reached no matter what. The exit after set the time that this unit will be forced to start to execute their order...regardless of if the triggering unit has indeed started its order or not. So this exit after will be sort of a safeguard to ensure that the attack will carry on even if the triggering unit fails in its mission (dead, delayed to long). Combining triggers (terrain or AI-orders) with a working set of timings will result in a really well functioning AI plan i belive. Even when under fire. Or atleast as good as the current game engine will allow. The challange is to get all these things to work together though...It's not all that easy or even neccesary i guess but if done right you will have a nice AI-plan. The way i did it in The Bad Boys scenario was that i first designed the AI plan using only the timing options and rewiewed it in scenario author mode with the player forces set to hide to ensure that the AI would meet no opposition. Ones the AI plan worked as i liked using only timings and unopposed i added triggers to the plan. Both AI-order triggers and terrain triggers. I then tweaked the initial timings of the orders that had triggers added to them to allow for exit before slightelly before the intially set times and exit after to slightelly after the intially set times for those orders. Then i played the 'player' side in scenario author mode to se how things played out and tweaked some of the order-timings as needed. This actually was not all that complicated that i had feared that it might have been and i'm really happy with how the AI-plan turned out. The AI in this scenario is capable of conducting a two pronged attack followed by a fighting wihtdrawl in a rather nice way imo.

I seem to recall that the manual actually has two different explenations for these timings. In one location it mentions something like this: - Exit before is the first time the AI group will be allowed to start that order and - Exit after is the time by witch the AI group will try to have completed that particular order (reached its objective location). and in another section it mentions something like. - Exit before is the first time the AI group will be allowed to start that order and - Exit after is the time the AI group WILL start that particular order even if the movement has not been triggered by other means (terrain trigger or AI-order trigger). In my experience the later explenation seems to be more correct and the way it actually works. And...Sorry ! It's not my goal to try and correct you Combatintman but i belive that the timing options are limited to half minute increments...(maybe you ment to write minutes and not seconds ? )...Or is it indeed possible to set these timings at the desired second level ? If so...How ?

I agree with Aragorn ...I bought this one a few months ago...It's no brainer...buy it !

What you can also do if you want to is to 'combine' the various orders types... order 1. DASH to the first firering location order 2. MAX ASSULT with no painted (yellow) order loaction but add a facing dot (alt-click to do (green dot)) in the direction of travel or the direction you like the tank to face. order 3. The same as 2. order 4. DASH to next firering location. order 5. same as 2. order 6. DASH to next firering location. order 7. same as 2 order 8. same as 2 This way the AI tank will move at full speed to its first firering location and ones it gets there wait for TWO minutes (one for each of the added orders 2 and 3) with full (MAX ASSULT) fire readiness. after two minutes at this location it will move at full speed to its next firering locattion and wait for ONE minute (only one added order here...order 5.) at full fire readiness before moving on at full speed to its 3rd firering location and ones again wait at that location for TWO minutes (orders 7 and 8 ) at full readiness. Adding extra orders like these without any yellow boxes painted you can add a delay (one minute/order) and also change the stance to anything you prefer or even add an areatarget order if you so wish...

With regards to movement....If you are using ONE AI group per tank....Do this ! When you paint the area for your orders (the yellow filles boxes)...Only paint ONE grid square for each order. This way you will get controll of where the AI tank will move. It WILL move to that location and not wander off. If you are using one of the bounded movements it might possibly temporarely stop somewhere mid between to order-locations...and then move on to your disgnated grid square...but if you use quick or dash it should move straight towards the location you have specified and go as far as it can in a single turn (minute). Also...To increase the controll of how and where the AI tanks move...Use many orders. You have 32 avaliable for each AI group. You might as well use them. The more complicated the terrain is the more tightely you place them...The main point is...Don't use long distances between each AI order location...The longer the distance the greater the chans is that the AI will get some 'stupid' idea of its own. Keep the AI-orders tight and use ONE hex grid /order...This will give you decent controll If your AI group contains more then one unit increase the size of the AI-order...but only slightely...

Canuck21...Did your tanks actually see the enemy. You can check this when wiewing in scenario testing mode just in the same way as you can check this when actually playing a scenario. simply click on one of the tanks and any enemy unit incon that that clicked unit is able to see will be shown as a brighter colour. Besides the ORDER choises you also have the 'stance' setting below. ACTIVE, NORMAL and CAUTIOUS...this setting will also to some degree influence the AIs willingness to open fire. But you are right about MAX ASSULT...that should give the highest priority to the AI to open fire...

It can indeed be tricky to get the AI to perform as one would like. Imo one thing you could do to atleast limit the AI suicidal tendances is to keep the AI troops advance pretty narrow. If they advance on a broad front (using the same AI group) criss-crossing will be almost garantied. You will need to considder if its worth it for the AI group to cover a wide area and risk criss-crossing or if you instead use a somewhat more narrow front for that particular AI-group. It may not be what you intially had wanted but in the end it may very well prove to be a better choise for your AI troops. For example...If you have an AI group you intend to have advance up a street. You initially intended for it to advance on both side of the street. You will need to considder if this is really neccesary or if they could instead advance on only one side of the street. This will atleast avoid seeing the AI troops criss-crossing over the street as they advance and getting gunned down crossing that danger area over and over agian. It might not be exactelly what you want but you will need to find compromises to be able to handle the AI programing. Nice things can be done with it but unfortunatelly it is a bit tricky. Especially when first starting out. You will learn more and more tricks with experience.

Yepp...This criss-cross behavior many times ruins AI infantry movement also. It's really bad ! It looks wierd and it is tactically...far from ideal. Hopefully a fix could be found...Or even better...More AI-groups !!!

But if you can 'afford' to use more AI groups...Smaller is better. Remember you only have 16 AI-groups avaliable for your entire force.

Any order other then QUICK or DASH will use bounded movement. That is probably the reason for your first vehicle not moving out as you desire. If these tanks are not likely to come under direct fire you might try to use the QUICK AI order. This way they should all start their movement right away...It might make things somewhat better if you keep the larger AI-group (all 4 vehicles).

Have you tried to add more AI-orders and space them closer together...Might help with the road following. What order have you given the AI group ? Advance ? quick ? dash ? or something else... How much space do you have between the vehicles ? Getting a single AI-group to perform well when it comes under fire or get interupted for some other reason is tricky,,,as is getting the AI to use clever formations and bounding...It can be most frustrating to try and tweak these things...To make things even worse...There is some sort of randomness to how the AI will act...so if you think you have gotten a nice solution there is no garantee that the AI will act in a simular way the next time you play the scenario... To get good controll of the AI smaller AI groups are preferable imo...An AI group with only 4 vehicles may not seem very big but unfortunatelly it can become tricky to get the AI troopers to do what you want.

Thanks for the answer... Yepp...balconies ....That is not a place i like to send my trusted old pixel truppen. But it's not really balconies i'm looking for. What i'm cosiddering doing is to perhaps tweak one of the FR city maps and add some internal doors and rubbled walls to the buildings to allow for some more internal movement. Being able to move around inside the building blocks without having to vaste a huge amount of demo charges improves urban fighting quite alot imo. I had another look at this and it still seems somewhat wierd. In my latest try a placed 2 five story buildings (of the same type) right next to eachother and attempted to add internal doors. I could do it on floor 1,2 and 5....but not on floor 3 and 4 for some strange reason. Additionally one one of the floors i initially managed to toggle the door on but after going past the door toggle option i could not get it back....only windows. I toggled and toggled and toggled and it seemed to me atleast that i went through all the avaliable options...and still no doors on floor 3 and 4 and no new door after toggeling away the initial one. Shouldn't a door be the first option avaliable with the first CTRL-click on the intack wall ? It was on floor 1,2 and 5 atleast...And seems to be all the time when trying this (when it actually works).

Hello... I can't quite figure out what the requirement to be able to toggle a door on any floor above the first one...It's seems more or less random to me...or very variable atleast...On some walls you can toggle the door and for some reason on others you can not. at times even with in the same building (and floor)... Sometimes you cant place a door if another building is placed adjacent and sometimes you can...Sometimes you can not toggle a door on from the outside but you can from the inside....sometimes you can toggle a door on from the outside... Is there some simple 'rule' to how this works ? Thanks

Hello... I have finished my udated version of the scenario. Changes made: - Increased the scenario lenth to 50 min. - Changed the scenario description text to more clearly state that the scenario is playable as RED vs BLUE AI only. - Added a notification on the BLUE briefing screen to state that the scenario is only playable as the RED side. - Added some clarifications to the briefing with regards to how Abu Bel Air is supposed to be treated... "As for Abu Bel Air unless he actually manages to escape you are NOT to touch him. Our plans to publically execute him at noon still stand. If this plan gets interupted it will be a significant propaganda failure on our part as the information about his execution has already been spread all over the internet." - Some changes to the map to make the WHOLE map more intersting and force the americans to advance further in certain areas. - Added some more reasons to fight for the secondary objectives. - Changed Abu Bel Air from initially a spy to a HQ unit (1 man). - Added more AI-order triggers, terrain triggers and 'clocktime safeguards' to the AI-plan to make the whole AI plan more resiliant to enemy fire. - Some changes to the scoring. - A few more units on both side. - Changed the gametime to early morning. - Increased the chans to actually catch/kill Abu Bel Air. - I made the american evac-zones visible to the player. - Added designer notes. Link to updated version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nv7ig16e4ttbeys/The Bad Boys Updated.btt?dl=0 I will also try to upload it to the scenario depot Enjoy !

hello... I will be making an updated version of the scenario.... The information provided to the player have been somewhat lacking as mentioned by Erwin and also this guy... US Forces vs ISIS in Syria - Combat Mission Shock Force 2 - YouTube (Huge SPOILER-WARNING !) both with regards to this version as well as the updated one....some parts of the gameplay will remain the same I honestly did not expect a livestream of the scenario ... Many thanks to SmartWargames for doing it...It will provide some useful fedback... I will inprove the information given to the player and also make some changes to the actuall gameplay....A few things came up during the stream that i will have a look at...

Good luck, playing it... Getting the dificulty right is a bit tricky imo...I could have made the attacking AI EVEN MORE deadly/effective with the current units roster...changing some things in the AI programing....As it currently works i think the AI will give the player a decent challange and i'm sure some will even find the americans to be to effective... As for the AI plan i belive i could get the AI to do pretty much what i wanted using these 16 AI groups...Unless rather strongly opposed by the player they will indeed succed in their task...More experienced players might be able to stop them cold though...

Good Yes...F.R. will indeed be intresting and take up quite some time Second place will have to do I mentioned it in this thread as well as stated in the scenario description field that the AI was leading the Americans. But point take... i will make a note off this for the future and try to be more clear as to wich side the player is commanding. More directly state this in the scenario description field and also add a short notice on the non playable briefing screen that this scenario is ment to be played from the other side... thanks...

It may not have worked....here is a link to the ZIPed version... https://www.dropbox.com/s/zllsxp63p6h9z0k/The Bad Boys.zip?dl=0

Hello... RL issiues have prevented me from buying a new gaming computer for almost two years now...But finally...things are sorted and i'm currently typing on my new machine. I initially did not plan for this to be a full scenario but rather a practice session to get back into AI programing. But one thing led to another and this ended up as a full scenario. The AI will be leading an American force of two reinforced infantry platoons against player controlled unconventional forces. I wanted to try out how i could program a small force with pretty much each individual squad, vehicle and special team as its own dedicated AI group. So i did just that. This scenario will use all 16 AI groups. The map is one of the stock QB-maps... From the briefing... "Situation Mars 15 2015, Syria Late last night a small ISIS faction know to the americans as 'The Bad Boys' abducted the local clan leader Abu Bel Air from his residence outside of Beir al-Zour. Through a combination of local informants and information provided by the CIA the american troops got wind of the terrorist groups plans to publically execute Abu Bel Air at 20.00 mars 15. This man is one of the more liberal leaders in the area and his wiew on Islam is a far strech from that of 'the bad boys'. Because of this he is considdered an infidel by the 'boys' and deservs nothing else then a cruel ending. The allies on the other hand have great hopes for this man and intend to se him as one of the future leaders of this area. His death would be a severe blow to allied plans. Being heavely engaged elsewhere though means that only very limited allied forces can be allocated to this rescue mission. Time is of the essence. A small american force consisting of a reduced company is all that is avaliable for the operation. Simularely 'the bad boys' will also be light on firepower as the majority of their fighting men are away on other duties. The question is will the americans be able to free Abu Bel Air from the prison before 'the bad boys' manages to reinforce their limited troops that are avaliable to oppose the armericans advance. Time is working against the americans they need to work fast. Mission: Akif Bishara ! You, as a section leader of The Bad Boys, will have a difficult task before you. Our plans to publically execute the treacherous dog Abu Bel Air later tonight has been betrayed by one of our own men. The americans are aware of our plans and have gathered a force to try and rescue this faitless man. Unfortunatelly our forward observation post have failed to spot the american force approaching. We just got word of their intentions a few minutes ago. This is bad news indeed ! The bulk of our fighters are currently away on other tasks and will not be avaliable to defend against this american aggretion. As for troops...The only thing that is currently avaliable are some of our newest recruits that until recently where resting at their homes. The alarm call went out five minutes ago. These men are barely trained at all and carry only light weapons. However ! this is what you have got and you will need to make best use of them until further reinforcements can reach you. Word has gone out to your brother, Fahrid, among others. Fahrid and his heavy vehicles (BMP1 + 2 APCs) are currently in the area of Baghiliyan and will be making his way here as fast as possible. Other reinforcements from all over town are also trying to reach you at full speed. These reinforcements will mostly be in the form of small fighter groups supported by a few armed pick-up trucks. Any heavier equipment will have to wait until Fahrid gets here. You are free to commit the avaliable reinforcements as soon as they arrive. Friendly forces: As mentioned above you initialy only have a small number of new recruits avaliable to stall the americans. Better trained and equiped troops are on the way to you at full speed. These will include the groups lead by Hadem, Karem and Nazimuddin. These fighter groups have some limited support in the form of armed pick-up trucks. Trucks or no truck we will still be at a severe firepower dissadvantage against the well equiped amaricans. You need to use your troops accordingly. Plan: As we have been caught by supprise by the enemy advance our situation is truely bad. Non of our troops are deployed in any beneficial tactical possition and given the devestating firepower of the americans any repossitioning will be difficult. Appart from the bombed out buldings the terrain is primarely flat and with limited vegitation. Movement will be difficult. Trying to engage the enemy at long range will be futile. you will need to try and get your men into possition to be able to ambush the americans at short range if you are to have any chans. Your RPGs will probably be your best weapon. make a note of wich teams are armed with this weapon. The reinforcing troops will be somewhat more well equiped with these RPGs and also be slightely better trained. As for Fahrid he is not expected to arrive for quite some time yet. He actually might not even make it here in time. Apart from guarding the prision we can also assume that whoever betrayed our plans to kill Abu Bel Air will most likely also have shared with the americans the locations of the bomb workshop and our weapon storage warehouse. We can expect that the enemy, if given the oppertunity, will try to destroy these buildings using democharges. These buildings will also need to be guarded. Notes: On a more possitive note. The americans seems to be fairly lightly equiped. No AFVs have been reported and the skies, atleast for now, is clear from enemy airsupport. This looks like a light infantry unit that is approaching us and the only spotted support are a number of humvees. Expect these troops to attack immidiatelly. Our best guesses have put the american strenth at a reduced company, maybe only two platoons. The humvees armed with the grenade launchers will pose the greatest threat to your troops. Destroying these Humvees will be seen with possetive eyes from the higher leadership. As an additional note. Remember that Abu Bel Air is an old man and after our recent interigation he will not be i great shape. Even if the americans manages to free him he will not be able to move fast. Even if freed we might be able to kill him on the run." Download link (i hope this works).. https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4tqrl9bt0leifj/The Bad Boys.btt?dl=0 Enjoy !