AI programming

[PEB14]

Hi,

I'm starting to program AI for a second scenario but I'm still confused about one specific issue: switch conditions from one order to the next. Let me explain my concern by one generic example.

Let's assume it's now 30 minutes into the game. AI order n°4 is the active one.

Order 4

• dash to yellow painted zone A
• Stance: cautious
• 1st timestamp is 35:00
• 2nd timestamp is 40:00
• no trigger

Order 5

• assault to yellow painted zone B
• Stance: active
• No timestamp (order 5 is last order)

 

What happens?

1. From 30:00 to 35:00, AI dashes to painted zone A then sits on painted zone A with a cautious stance
2. From 35:00 to 40:00, AI dashed to painted zone A; once it reaches painted zone A, order 5 is activated and AI assaults to yellow painted zone B; once there, its stays there with an active stance until the end of the game
3. From 40:00: whatever happened previously, order 5 is activated and AI assaults to yellow painted zone B; once there, its stays there with an active stance until the end of the game

 

Now let's add a trigger:

It's now 30 minutes into the game. AI order n°4 is the active one.

Order 4

• dash to yellow painted zone A
• Stance: cautious
• 1st timestamp is 35:00
• 2nd timestamp is 40:00
• Trigger (whatever it is)

Order 5

• assault to yellow painted zone B
• Stance: active
• No timestamp (order 5 is last order)

 

What happens?

1. From 30:00 to 35:00, AI dashes to painted zone A then sits on painted zone A with a cautious stance, even if trigger is activated
2. From 35:00 to 40:00, AI dashed to painted zone A then sits on painted zone A with a cautious stance. As soon as the trigger is activated, and even if painted zone A has not been reached, order 5 is activated and AI assaults to yellow painted zone B; once there, its stays there with an active stance until the end of the game
3. From 40:00: whatever happened previously, and even if the trigger has never been actiated, order 5 is activated and AI assaults to yellow painted zone B; once there, its stays there with an active stance until the end of the game

 

I'm pretty sure of the above, except the red written parts... Basically, shall an order be fullfilled before switching to the next one?

[George MC]

Try having :

 

Order 4

dash to yellow painted zone A
Stance: cautious
1st timestamp is 00:00
2nd timestamp is 40:00
Trigger (whatever it is)

The AI group will not follow the order until EITHER the trigger is tripped OR the clocks runs to 40:00 at which point it will move off.

[George MC]

This is my AI aide memoire - not own work as I've copied and pasted and edited from various other designers.

AI Plans

When creating orders the behaviour in an order group refers to the PREVIOUS order.

"Exit Between" times affect the next order. They tell the AI what time period to enact an order. The first time tells the AI to NEVER start the Order until that time. The second time tells the AI to NEVER start the Order later than that time. The time period between the first and second settings is the phase where the AI attempts to carry out the planned order. The behaviour affecting this order is allocated in the next order. 

So simply put (!) when creating an order you are telling the AI the behaviour to adopt for the preceding order and telling it when to carry out the next order.
Set-up: 00:00 – 00:01
Order 2 behaviour here refers to order when moving out from set-up. Timing phase refers to the next order. So if the behaviour is ‘ADVANCE’ for Order 2 the AI will immediately at set- up move out using the ‘ADVANCE’ command. 

Timing shown in this order i.e. order 2 now refers to the NEXT order i.e. Order 3, so 00:04 – 00:06 means that the unit will sit at this painted spot till the clock reaches four minutes then it will move out (using the behaviour as indicated under ORDER 3).

Order 3 DASH – the AI after sitting at it’s current location for four minutes will DASH to the painted objective and attempt to reach that before the clock strikes 00:06. The timing under Order 3 now refers to the time phase before it starts on Order 4.

AI Triggers Overview
Sometimes you'll want an AI Group to act based on battlefield conditions rather than set times. This is achieved with the use of Triggers. You can tell an AI Group to "Wait For" another AI Group to execute an Order or to "Wait for" a unit (enemy or friendly) to touch a Trigger Objective. The same basic principles apply to both Order and Objective type Triggers, however you'll probably find some situations where one type works better than the other.

What Triggers cannot do is provide alternate commands. AI Orders are still followed one-after-another without branching. Triggers simply allow you to control when the next Order executes based on the Trigger parameters you choose.

Setting up a Trigger
Triggers are always set up first and then linked to specific Orders. A Trigger can be used by as many Orders in as many Friendly AI Groups as you want, but an Order can only be assigned to use one Trigger. Setup can never be used as a Trigger and the last Order of an AI Group can never be triggered.

For an Objective Trigger you must first designate a Terrain Objective on the map, then choose what sort of unit can trip it. You can choose between friendly or enemy and either any type of unit or only armoured ones.

For an Orders Trigger you must identify a specific Order (Setup is not an Order) in a friendly AI Group and change the popup just below the Order Number to "Can Trigger" from "Not Trigger". 

Now that you have a Trigger specified you need to instruct one or more AI Groups to use it. Find the Order you want to wait for a Trigger and click on the "Wait For..." button at the bottom of the Orders panel. When you do this a dialog appears with a popup menu that shows all the Triggers you have made. Select one and it becomes the active Trigger for that Order. 

Exit Between Times
The first thing to understand is how the "Exit Between" times affect tripping. The first time tells the AI to NEVER start the Order until that time even if the Trigger is tripped. The second time tells the AI to NEVER start the Order later than that time even if the Trigger is not tripped. The time period between the first and second settings is when the Order is paused waiting for the Trigger to be tripped. 

If you want an AI Group to always wait for a Trigger to be tripped leave the first timer to 00:00 and set the second timer to something greater than the scenario's maximum game time. If you want an AI Group to give up on a Trigger if it isn't tripped by a particular time (a failsafe) then leave the first timer to 00:00 and set the second timer to the time you have in mind. Sometimes you will want an AI Group to wait until a specific time even if the Trigger is tripped, in which case you set the first timer to that time. If the Trigger is tripped before then the AI Group will start executing it's Order only when the first timer's time is reached. If it hasn't been tripped by then the AI Group will remain idle until either the Trigger is tripped or the second timer's time is reached (whichever happens first).

The Tricky Part
While setting up Triggers is fairly straight forward, getting them to do what you expect is not necessarily as easily done. The more complex your Plan is, the more interdependent AI Groups are to each other, the more challenging it is to get the results you want. This section tries to get you started on the right path.

The most important, and definitely most difficult, concept to understand is which Order to select as the Trigger. The natural inclination is think of Triggers being tripped when an Order is complete (i.e. the units arrive in the painted area). This is not how it works. Instead a Trigger is tripped when the designated Order starts, not when it ends. Which means if you want to key off of units arriving in the painted area of Order 5 you must select Order 6 as the Trigger, not Order 5. While this may be counter intuitive to us Humans, to the computer it's solidly logical and there are very good reasons for it.

The second most common source of error is having two or more AI Groups use Triggers to "leap frog" each other. This can definitely work, however designer error and/or unforeseen game events can cause a huge chain reaction that stops your AI from functioning. For example, you could find Group 2 waiting for Group 3 which is waiting for Group 4 which is unexpectedly waiting for Group 2. This error is commonly called "circular logic". Careful use of the Exit Between timers can limit the damage, but keeping things simple is an even better way to go.

Combining Objective and Orders Triggers can produce some sophisticated behaviour if done right. For example, AI Group 2 Order 4 waits until Objective Blue is tripped by enemy armour, at which point it starts a wide flanking action using three additional Orders. Order 6 places the units in a key spot which signals that AI Group 3 should begin its own movement. In which case AI Group 3 would be set to trigger off Order 7 so that it starts it's attack when AI Group 2 is at the key spot.

TIP! In the event that you want the last action of an AI Group to be a Trigger (which it can not be by default) you can fake out the system. Create your last Order to do whatever action it is you want done, then create a new last Order with the parameters to be the same as the previous one and no painted objective zone. Then go back and assign a Trigger to the previous Order. This allows the last meaningful action of that AI Group to act as a Trigger even though technically it's not it's last set of instructions. That's because the actual last Order is nothing but a repeat of the previous instructions.

TIP! There is no explicit way to instruct a Group to face after completing an Order. However, you can "paint" the rearward destination 1 Action Spot further than you want them to go, then create a new Order and paint the Action Spot where you want them to end up. What happens is the units move past where you want them to wind up, end that Order, then start the new Order which requires them to turn around and drive "forward" towards the enemy by 1 Action Spot. If you do not use Exit Before/After time variables then the progression from one Order to the next will be seamless.
 

[PEB14]

@George MC

Thanks for the answer. I use the same text that you posted as reference. But I'm still not sure about the mutual relationship between "Exit Between" timestamps and order completion. Does the latter have any influence on transition to the next order? What does happen if the unit has not completed order 4 when the first "Exit Between" timestamp is reached?

 

In cases where there is no trigger, transition to next order only IF:

 

• { [1st timestamp is reached] AND [AI unit has reached painted zone A] } OR
• { 2nd timestamp is reached }

Is the red text correct?

 

In cases where there is a trigger, transition to next order only IF:

• { [1st timestamp is reached] AND [trigger condition satisfied] } OR
• { 2nd timestamp is reached }

Is the red text correct?

[George MC]

Not sure what you mean? I'm assuming you mean if the AI takes longer to than planned to reach a point? If so it will still try to achieve the order - just not in the designers allocated time frame.

page 107 of the CM game engine manual:

The second number defines the latest time that an AI Group should arrive at it’s next order, and causes the Group to try very hard to get to the next Order in the plan before the specified scenario time is reached. This does not mean the Group will do it, just that it will try. If it has taken excessive casualties, is immobilized or heavily engaged, it may blow the set time. It will still attempt to execute the next order in the plan, just not within the time that the scenario designer allotted for it.

Re triggers. The AI group will only react to a trigger if either the trigger is tripped OR the timer is reached. You can also have the AI move out at a set time after a trigger is tripped rather than immediately by setting a suitable time in the following AI order. e.g.

Example 1

ORDER 2

Exit between 00:00

...and 30:00

WAIT FOR (Trigger objective EXAMPLE)

ORDER 3

Exit between 00:00

...and 00:00

In this one the AI unit will stay put until either an enemy activates (triggers) 'Trigger objective EXAMPLE)

In which case it will begin to move off as soon as it the AI Plan objective is triggered.

OR

Example 2

ORDER 2

Exit between 00:00

...and 30:00

WAIT FOR (Trigger objective EXAMPLE)

ORDER 3

Exit between 20:00

...and 25:00

In example 2 the AI group will move off only when the AI plan trigger is activated BUT it won't do so until the clock on the next order reaches 20 minutes from the start of the scenario in which case it has five minutes to reach the next point. If it fails to do so in that time i.e. due to enemy fire it will still seek to reach the point just it can throw the whole AI plan timeline out.

Its wrinkles like that I tend to iron out during testing though sometimes the AI plan being totally out of whack can produce some interesting results!

Hope this helps?

[PEB14]

36 minutes ago, George MC said:

Not sure what you mean? I'm assuming you mean if the AI takes longer to than planned to reach a point?

That's exactly my point.

 

36 minutes ago, George MC said:

Not sure what you mean? I'm assuming you mean if the AI takes longer to than planned to reach a point? If so it will still try to achieve the order - just not in the designers allocated time frame.

page 107 of the CM game engine manual:

The second number defines the latest time that an AI Group should arrive at it’s next order, and causes the Group to try very hard to get to the next Order in the plan before the specified scenario time is reached. This does not mean the Group will do it, just that it will try. If it has taken excessive casualties, is immobilized or heavily engaged, it may blow the set time. It will still attempt to execute the next order in the plan, just not within the time that the scenario designer allotted for it.

And that's precisely what I find utterly confusing. Perhaps it is just a matter of English not being my native language, but this paragraph just makes no sense to me. What does mean "The second number defines the latest time that an AI Group should arrive at it’s next order, and causes the Group to try very hard to get to the next Order in the plan before the specified scenario time is reached"??? You can arrive to a position/location/area, but you just switch to the next order; you don't arrive at an order?! How the hell does a group have to try very hard to get to the next Order ???? There is no matter of struggle to switch from one order to another!

I mean, either the AI group is trying to to fullfill order 4, or it switches to order 5. It's pure binary.

Very confusing indeed.

So my understanding is, paraphrasing the manual:

The second number defines the latest time that an AI Group should switch to it’s next order, and causes the Group to try very hard to get to the next Order in the plan before the specified scenario time is reached. This does not mean the Group will be able to fullfill the next order, just that it will try. If it has taken excessive casualties, is immobilized or heavily engaged, it may blow the set time. It will still attempt to execute the next order in the plan, just not within the time that the scenario designer allotted for it.

If my above interpretation of the manual is not correct, then I just don't understand what the second timestamp does.

 

Paradoxically, the situation is easier to understand in case there is a trigger. The second timestamp then just cancels the trigger effect: once the second timestamp is reached, the next order in the plan starts. This is exactly what you explain in your previous message and I completely understand it.

Still, there is one question remaining: if the Group has not reached the destination painted by Order 4, does it switch to Order 5 when trigger is tripped (assuming the first timestamp is set at 0:00)?

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by PEB14
Typo (again...)

[CarlXII]

1 hour ago, PEB14 said:

Still, there is one question remaining: if the Group has not reached the destination painted by Order 4, does it switch to Order 5 when trigger is tripped (assuming the first timestamp is set at 0:00)?

In my experience the AI will never skip an unfinished order and jump to another...In order to carry out the next order in a chain the previous order location will have to have been reached...

 

 

[George MC]

6 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

In my experience the AI will never skip an unfinished order and jump to another...In order to carry out the next order in a chain the previous order location will have to have been reached...

 

 

@PEB14 what Carl wrote. Yup the AI will not skip an order. It'll move onto the next and the next. The risk here, especially with infantry teams is they can become exhausted. So testing your plan to avoid the worse impact of this - exhausted teams crawling their way to their doom - is a must.

[PEB14]

7 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

In my experience the AI will never skip an unfinished order and jump to another...In order to carry out the next order in a chain the previous order location will have to have been reached...

 

This is also what my (very modest) tests tend to indicate. Which is IMHO a big limitation to the use of triggers. If you want the AI to react to an enemy movement, the AI will first finish its current movement and only then perform the triggered reaction.

[George MC]

1 minute ago, PEB14 said:

This is also what my (very modest) tests tend to indicate. Which is IMHO a big limitation to the use of triggers. If you want the AI to react to an enemy movement, the AI will first finish its current movement and only then perform the triggered reaction.

Yeah, no - I've not found this to be a limitation using triggers. Thats why you need to test your AI Plan. You can achieve what you are after but you need to test your plan. I've never managed to create a plan off the bat without lots of testing and subsequent amending. Even then players can do weird **** that totally whacks your plan, but then good luck to them for getting within the AIs ODA loop!!

You're trying to fight this - just go wi the flow man

 

[CarlXII]

2 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

This is also what my (very modest) tests tend to indicate. Which is IMHO a big limitation to the use of triggers. If you want the AI to react to an enemy movement, the AI will first finish its current movement and only then perform the triggered reaction.

It is not ideal...no.

[George MC]

The key to making triggers work is good terrain analysis and thinking what the enemy player might do. Then you adapt your plan accordingly to minimise the possibility of your AI being outwitted. But players eventually find more ways of approaching a scenario than you can often anticipate so sometimes yeah the AI will steadfastly continue on its merry way to its doom attempting to compete its AI plan orders...

[PEB14]

1 minute ago, George MC said:

Yeah, no - I've not found this to be a limitation using triggers. Thats why you need to test your AI Plan. You can achieve what you are after but you need to test your plan. I've never managed to create a plan off the bat without lots of testing and subsequent amending. Even then players can do weird **** that totally whacks your plan, but then good luck to them for getting within the AIs ODA loop!!

You're trying to fight this - just go wi the flow man

 

Well, I get your point, but I agree with @CarlXII that it's not ideal...

Let's say you want to move an AI group from A to B, but if the enemy gets to a specific location you prefer to get the group to C....

Whatever you do the AI group will go to B first, and only then it will be able to move to C...

You therefore must have the AI go from A to B in small movements, each time with the very same trigger (enemy location), for your AI group to be reactive enough...

The art to build complicated things out of simple ones...

 

Anyway, thank you very much @George MC and @CarlXII for your explanations. Now the AI triggering system is clear enough for me.

[CarlXII]

3 hours ago, George MC said:

Order 3 DASH – the AI after sitting at it’s current location for four minutes will DASH to the painted objective and attempt to reach that before the clock strikes 00:06. The timing under Order 3 now refers to the time phase before it starts on Order 4.

 

Am i understanding you correctly ? Are you saying that you can asign specific delay times for each waypoint individually ? 

For example...

A StuG III is hidden behind a hill and when enemy armour moves into its kill zone (trigger area) it will move into a  hull down possition and remain there for 4 minutes...

regardless of what the game clock is showing. Using only the exit befor and after settings.

In my experience the exit before and after times refers to the game clock and not each individual waypoint...Hopefully i have been wrong about this. I would very much prefer if you could set a delay for each individual waypoint rather the being limited to the actual gameclock.

 

[George MC]

Just now, PEB14 said:

Well, I get your point, but I agree with @CarlXII that it's not ideal...

Let's say you want to move an AI group from A to B, but if the enemy gets to a specific location you prefer to get the group to C....

Whatever you do the AI group will go to B first, and only then it will be able to move to C...

You therefore must have the AI go from A to B in small movements, each time with the very same trigger (enemy location), for your AI group to be reactive enough...

The art to build complicated things out of simple ones...

 

Anyway, thank you very much @George MC and @CarlXII for your explanations. Now the AI triggering system is clear enough for me.

What you seeking and describing are conditional triggers and we don't have them. So you have to work around this cos we have the tools we have. As I said you can fudge this to an extent by lots of testing, and at least anticipating common courses of action.

Playing against he AI will never (well least just now) be like playing a human, and attempting to have the AI operate like a human is a road to frustration cos it cant and it wont.

For what its worth my own personal goal it to at least create an AI plan that has the computer player operate in a way that at least appears realistic and tactically sound and reflects the tactics that national armed force might have used. Oh and it provides some fun and enjoyment for the player.

Or in short hand - its good enough but not perfect.

[CarlXII]

Perhaps i should clarify what i mean with gameclock ...

The amount of minutes that have passed since the start of the scenariol....

[PEB14]

1 minute ago, George MC said:

What you seeking and describing are conditional triggers and we don't have them. So you have to work around this cos we have the tools we have. As I said you can fudge this to an extent by lots of testing, and at least anticipating common courses of action.

Playing against he AI will never (well least just now) be like playing a human, and attempting to have the AI operate like a human is a road to frustration cos it cant and it wont.

For what its worth my own personal goal it to at least create an AI plan that has the computer player operate in a way that at least appears realistic and tactically sound and reflects the tactics that national armed force might have used. Oh and it provides some fun and enjoyment for the player.

Or in short hand - its good enough but not perfect.

I'm totally in agreement with your statements - except on one point: we do have conditional triggers. The triggers are INTRISICALLY conditional. The issue is, they are not programmed in a way that they cause the current order to stop and have the AI group skip to the next order in the plan. This is a limitation of the available conditional triggers that appears unnecesary (but I suppose there is a good reason for that, only the programmer knows).

I have a deep admiration for scenario designers who manage to build well coordinated AI attacks. The amount of patience and testing work that it requires ...  Stunning!

Oh well @George MC, you're one of those, aren't you?

[George MC]

1 minute ago, CarlXII said:

Am i understanding you correctly ? Are you saying that you can asign specific delay times for each waypoint individually ? 

For example...

A StuG III is hidden behind a hill and when enemy armour moves into its kill zone (trigger area) it will move into a  hull down possition and remain there for 4 minutes...

regardless of what the game clock is showing. Using only the exit befor and after settings.

In my experience the exit before and after times refers to the game clock and not each individual waypoint...Hopefully i have been wrong about this. I would very much prefer if you could set a delay for each individual waypoint rather the being limited to the actual gameclock.

 

Errm no - the time is the game clock time. So it would be hard to create what you are stating as the time the trigger is activated would be very variable depending on enemy action i.e. it could be triggered right at the very start or right at the very end. You can mitigate this by having the next order painted pretty close so the unit would move up, but working out how long it would stay there for would be hard.

[PEB14]

9 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

Am i understanding you correctly ? Are you saying that you can asign specific delay times for each waypoint individually ? 

For example...

A StuG III is hidden behind a hill and when enemy armour moves into its kill zone (trigger area) it will move into a  hull down possition and remain there for 4 minutes...

regardless of what the game clock is showing. Using only the exit befor and after settings.

In my experience the exit before and after times refers to the game clock and not each individual waypoint...Hopefully i have been wrong about this. I would very much prefer if you could set a delay for each individual waypoint rather the being limited to the actual gameclock.

 

Well @CarlXII, you've shown me the way to build relative clock in a previous discussion, using another unit's hidden movement! And it works nicely, by the way!

[George MC]

1 minute ago, PEB14 said:

I'm totally in agreement with your statements - except on one point: we do have conditional triggers. The triggers are INTRISICALLY conditional. The issue is, they are not programmed in a way that they cause the current order to stop and have the AI group skip to the next order in the plan. This is a limitation of the available conditional triggers that appears unnecesary (but I suppose there is a good reason for that, only the programmer knows).

I have a deep admiration for scenario designers who manage to build well coordinated AI attacks. The amount of patience and testing work that it requires ...  Stunning!

Oh well @George MC, you're one of those, aren't you?

Aye you are right but only a binary sort of way either stay or go. I meant there were no other varibalkes like if you have taken 30% casualties don;t do this - this then gets into branching etc..

He! Thanks - yup it does all come down to hours of testing - nae short cuts. But good planning and terrain analysis at the start really does play dividends as you can anticipate the most likely enemy COA.

[CarlXII]

6 minutes ago, George MC said:

Errm no - the time is the game clock time. So it would be hard to create what you are stating as the time the trigger is activated would be very variable depending on enemy action i.e.

Yepp...This has been my understanding. I must have missunderstood what you ment with this statement...

4 hours ago, George MC said:

Order 3 DASH – the AI after sitting at it’s current location for four minutes will DASH to the painted objective and attempt to reach that before the clock strikes 00:06.

I kind of hoped that i had been wrong and that we could somehow set individual delays for each waypoint...But no...

10 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Well @CarlXII, you've shown me the way to build relative clock in a previous discussion, using another unit's hidden movement! And it works nicely, by the way!

Yepp...That is the tool we have right now...It's usable but not perfect 

[Combatintman]

Basically what @George MC says towards the latter end of this is perhaps the key piece.  To knock out a decent AI plan you have to have a fairly good appreciation of time and distance - eg, how long does it take for a dismounted unit to move from one end of the map to another, when is it likely/feasible for it to arrive at objective X etc etc.  Then you test the hell out of it and adjust as you go.  I rarely use triggers due to the combination of struggling to get them to work and because there is huge potential for them to have unintended consequences which then become a sh1t fight to unsnarl.  I'm actually in the early stages of an AI plan right now in between checking in on the forum.  To get to this stage, I've listed all of my AI groups and their individual components, drawn a scheme of manoeuvre for them and that scheme of manouevre graphic is now my Special Editor overlay.  I've painted out the full move sequence for half of the AI groups and am plugging away at the rest.  Next step will be to assign a couple of timings for those groups and then hit play in Scenario Editor mode.  I will then see what happens and firm up the move timings, adjust any that are wonky and add more move timings further down the orders sequence.  Then ... I'll test again, then I'll see what happens when I properly lay out the defender's forces.  Then I'll test again.

The image below is the scheme of manoeuvre - I've stripped out the underlying base map that it has been drawn on in order to avoid any spoilers ...

Edited June 2, 2023 by Combatintman

[CarlXII]

20 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Oh well @George MC, you're one of those, aren't you?

PEB14 if you have not experienced any of George MCs scenarios and campaigns you should do a search for them and download them all for the various titles you own.

They are easily among the best scenarios/campaigns made for CM...Highly recomended ! 

[PEB14]

19 hours ago, CarlXII said:

PEB14 if you have not experienced any of George MCs scenarios and campaigns you should do a search for them and download them all for the various titles you own.

I do!

But to be fair I've only played one of them, the SPW lesson 1. I'm not playing a lot CMRT these days though, and I especially don't like playing PanzerGrenadier whereas @George MC did quite a few scenarios for them…

AFAIK @George MC didn't release any scenario for CMFI?

[PEB14]

19 hours ago, Combatintman said:

To get to this stage, I've listed all of my AI groups and their individual components, drawn a scheme of manoeuvre for them and that scheme of manouevre graphic is now my Special Editor overlay.

That is just… awesome! What a wonderful idea! Thank you for sharing it!

And thanks again to all of you @Combatintman@CarlXII@George MC. Ìt's incredibly helpful to have experienced scenario designers like you patiently explaining things over and over through long posts and sharing great advices!