Q&A about gameplay and mechanics

[PFMM]

hobo, that doesn't seem true. I've played the training mission 3 (the awf ullone with the AT guns) and if you put your AT man in the bushes he can pop a way for awhile without being spotted. In fact I crawled him around for a while and he nailed two PzIIIs before he was killed.

On the same front though I cannot get a grip with the visibility model.

I'm using tutorial 1 as test for visibility effects for my missions (I want to do a suprise dawn attack in fog) and am getting unwanted results.

For instance, I have fog at 0 20 0 500 1000 and rain falling, yet just after the snipers appear and walk a few metres down the road both they can see the AT gun and the AT gun can see them a about 150 metres, and through a cluster of bushes to boot. And nothing I try seems to change this. What am I doing wrong?

Help.

[Vladinir Schotitov]

What key orients a unit during placement if any?

[FinnN]

Right click on where you want the selected unit to look at.

Have fun

Finn

[Vergeltung]

this is a great thread. it should be "stickied".

[hobo]

I have played the second battle in the Polish campaign at least a 15 times trying to win it. I noticed that wherever I put my guys, the Germans attack directly at them. When I sneak a group across the field, the AT will not shoot them, but the German attack is oriented directly on them. They will not shoot until they get close enough to really spot them.

- Hobo

[hobo]

I forgot to add that my setup is always on the other side of the hill with no possible LOS towards the Germans.

I suspect that there are several layers to the AI algorithm. A strategic level that determines where the troops will attack and a tactical one that guides the actual aiming and shooting. That is why units will not shoot at a non-spotted unit but seem to know where my troops are when they attack.

Just to be clear, I really love the game and this is not intended as a flame at all. Add a PBEM feature and this will be a non-issue.

- Hobo

[Moon]

hobo, as far as I can tell, the AI has the same knowledge as the human player of spotted enemy units. You, as the human player, always see the combined info from what all of your units see as well. Your units may not engaged units out of sight (faded icons), but you from your god-like view of course still know that they're there if one of your soldiers spotted them. The AI seems to have the same kind of info, or at least it would indeed seem so from my own playing. Hardly a cheat therefore, just putting the AI on part with the human player in this regard.

Martin

[Dennis50]

" Your units may not engaged units out of sight (faded icons), but you from your god-like view of course still know that they're there if one of your soldiers spotted them. "

Last known location of the spotted enemy ..sort of speak.

Gunz

Edit for misspelling..

[hobo]

Martin - Thanks for the quick response. I am going to beat this damn battle this weekend if I have to spend 48 hours straight playing it.

- Hobo

[PFMM]

hobo, the real answer to your question lies in the script that governs the scenario. Quite often the script will check wether there are units in a given area, and if present vector units to it. Other times the forces are arranged in such a way as to force an engagement. Once there, they (in theory and from my observation) use the same rules as you.

My wish for help about the environmental visibility mentioned in my previous post still stands. Any takers?

[Oudy]

Hobo is absolutely right. In this battle the Germans know exactly where the Polish units are because they are scripted to know. There is a trigger called ConstantAttack that draws a small 50x50 rectangle around your units and orders the Germans to storm. Tanks will storm your greatest concentration of tanks and the same for infantry. Just because they attack in the direction of your troops, however, they use regular LOS rules; ie they don't automatically see you and fire unless they have LOS. I imagine it is coded this way to prevent German troops from wandering aimlessly around the map.

You can still hide units from the enemy if you have a small group doing a flanking movement since the Germans are scripted to attack your main force. Consequently, this is not a case of "all-knowing" AI, but it is the way this particular encounter is scripted.

Hope that helps

Oudy

[SlapHappy]

Moon or Soan

Just wanted to clarify, if a tank, for instance is firing on an enemy infantryman and is moving towards him because of a targeting order, he will break off movement if the target becomes unspottable? That seems to be my experience. The only way to re-initialize movement in that direction is with an actual move order, correct?

[Moon]

Oudy, I stand corrected, you're right about the scripting in this mission.

Martin

[SlapHappy]

Are the unit status types definable in the editor so that units can be assigned them when the game actually starts? For instance, "hold position", to keep enemy AI units who aren't in trenches in place without having to write scripts to make them do so? Not including morale failure situations, of course.

[SoaN]

Originally posted by SlapHappy:

Are the unit status types definable in the editor so that units can be assigned them when the game actually starts? For instance, "hold position", to keep enemy AI units who aren't in trenches in place without having to write scripts to make them do so? Not including morale failure situations, of course.

Yes there are some commands for making them do so. TOW-> Mission Editor -> Description of mission triggers.chm -> Controlling the troops -> Position mode (3.5.15), Body mode (3.5.16)

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">PositionMode

Sets the movement modus for a unit, group, or army

Syntax:

PositionMode ( <ObjectType> , <ObjectID> , <Mode> )

This function/procedure uses the army identifier set with the help of the procedure SetWorkArmy with no influence exerted upon ObjectType – “ARMY”

<ObjectType> - “UNIT” || “GROUP” || “ARMY”

<ObjectID> - identifier of an object of the specified type (a constant or variable)

<Mode> - “HOLD (hold position)” || “FREE” (movement is allowed)

Example:

[Trigger]

PositionMode ( UNIT , 4 , “HOLD” )

// The unit with the identification number 4 was set to the hold position

Halt

[Trigger]

SET @groupVar = “Group”

PositionMode ( GROUP , @groupVar , FREE )

// The group of units “Group” was allowed to move

Halt

BodyMode

Sets the movement modus for a unit, group, or army (only for infantrymen)

Syntax:

BodyMode ( <ObjectType> , <ObjectID> , <Mode> )

This function/procedure uses the army identifier set with the help of the procedure SetWorkArmy with no influence exerted upon ObjectType – “ARMY”

<ObjectType> - “UNIT” || “GROUP” || “ARMY”

<ObjectID> - identifier of an object of the specified type (a constant or variable)

<Mode> - STAY || KNEE || LAY || FREE

Example:

[Trigger]

BodyMode ( ARMY , 2 , “KNEE” )

Halt

[Trigger]

SET @UnitIDToSTAY = 29

BodyMode ( UNIT , @UnitIDToSTAY , STAY )

Halt</pre>

[SoaN]

Originally posted by SlapHappy:

Moon or Soan

Just wanted to clarify, if a tank, for instance is firing on an enemy infantryman and is moving towards him because of a targeting order, he will break off movement if the target becomes unspottable? That seems to be my experience. The only way to re-initialize movement in that direction is with an actual move order, correct?

In this case you should better use “STORM” to the area. With that command your units will try to reach the spot at medium speed killing enemy troops on there way.

Another command is “ATTACK”. You can also use this command on area. When this command is given your troops will kill ALL the enemies that they will see before they rich the spot (if it will be needed to stop for killing one of the troops that they see they will stop and will not continue moving in needed direction before they kill this unit).

[TracGunny]

Been digging around the forum & RTFM looking for this answer; missed or can't find:

Is there a way to give units multiple waypoints when moving, or must I set a new waypoint each time last ordered waypoint is made.

[Oudy]

TracGunny

You can't move your own troops using waypoints, but you can set up an array and use code to move troops. It's in one of the code snippets I posted earlier.

Oudy

[TracGunny]

Originally posted by Oudy:

TracGunny

You can't move your own troops using waypoints, but you can set up an array and use code to move troops. It's in one of the code snippets I posted earlier.

Oudy

Thanks Oudy, I found the coding snippet to set a movement array in your earlier "snippet-fest" post, however,

(1) I haven't tried coding since the GUI KO'd DOS, and

(2) It'll take away from my game experience if I were to try to code a unit(s) movement every time I bump into a gun/tank I want to flank.

I am quickly learning to master & love the PAUSE and will just try to keep up with unit progress, perhaps a future ToW version will allow movement waypoints (CM-style)...

[SoaN]

Originally posted by TracGunny:

I am quickly learning to master & love the PAUSE and will just try to keep up with unit progress, perhaps a future ToW version will allow movement waypoints (CM-style)...

Waypoints feature will be shipping with future patch...

[nonickch]

Whom do I have to beg so we can get an updated documentation on the scripting commands?

It is quite obvious that there are a few undocumented features. For example creategroupbyrect is overloaded to accept UNIT as first param with int unit_ID as 2nd (instead of string). Compiler knows of this, we don't . Still haven't managed to figure out what it exactly does since I see no results.

Also, any future in creating the missing basic commands?

Oh, and everyone should be warned. There's no types for vars so you may accidentally pass a string where you're supposed to pass an int and the trigger compiler will never even warn you.

If your map crashes, that's the bugger.

This is obviously a bug, but probably a design one and I wouldn't expect it to be corrected.

[FinnN]

Was reading the printed manual yesterday, and it says that commanders affect people in the same arm as them. Does this mean that a nearby commander affects all infantry and not just those in his squad?

Also it mentions a 'chance to hit at 1000m' - but I don't see this. Am I missing something or did this get removed?

Have fun

Finn