TEMPEST.114

There is a 'secret' function. You have to work out the params for yourself as there is no documentation, but it's not too hard. This way you can add triggers with conditions and actions at runtime.

Adding trigger zones to a mission is expensive (bad performance). This is NOT the way. You could more easily use the 'drawing' tools to create the path from line segments and then use some scripting to read that path and generate waypoints for aircraft at the start of the mission.

You could maybe try using the hidden & undocumented add trigger command, but it's probably not worth all the work.

Thanks for the correction. Must have dreamt it. lol

I’m not sure, I haven’t flown in months but I *think* that’s what I experienced. *I could be wrong, I have slept since.

It won’t show either if it’s the wrong type for your aircraft even when all other requirements pass.

https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_func_searchObjects

If you know scripting, then this should already be kinda obvious, but I'd start with this: https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_func_getDetectedTargets based at the location of a the trigger zone and go from there.

via scripting or M.E.? I suggest you have a variable (flag) that works as a counter and use the UNIT IN ZONE to increment it and UNIT OUTSIDE ZONE to decrement it.

I do indeed. Here's my macro that turns a clean .wav or .mp3 of speech into a .ogg of Radio Comms:

@Flappie Hi. Do you know if this got missed or if someone looked at it and gave it a considered response? It would be an amazing QoL addition.

Great question. It all comes down to flexibility. If you want to spend the time and effort in Audacity making a playlist into one file, then great; it's certainly the easiest from a M.E. & Scripting DCS point of view because that's all it can handle. The problem obviously comes when you want to add a new sound or change some. It may mean that you start to create a library of single files that are a mashup of different audio files. That is totally fine and doesn't need anything else than vanilla DCS M.E. and scripting to work. You are also then locked into that sequence; what if you decide two missions from now you want to have a branching conversation? Then that sound file doesn't work anymore. However, if you want/need these to change on the fly, or react to a mission/story branch or some other 'cool' thing, then you're going to have to go down the same road I did, which is write your own audio file handler in lua and then the extremely annoying/boring/frustrating bull-crap of loading each sound into the .miz via the M.E. SOUND TO COALITION NEUTRAL at MISSION START so that you can just refer to them in code. I'm now at almost 200 audio files for my 'SuperScript'. This means that I have had to make a default empty .miz for every map that has 200 lines in the ACTION box for loading audio files into the .miz. I had to do that by hand. It's pathetic and stupid and dumb, but that's the only mechanism that ED have given us unless you want to de-sanitise DCS. tl;dr If you're just having short conversations, I'd have separate audio files - it gives you much more flexibility. If you're starting to get into spending a lot of time in Audacity mashing them up and then making new ones for different branching storylines, then start to think about scripting and making template mission files you copy and then rename the copy to use as a base for each mission you make. Personally, for my missions, having a much greater degree of interactivity and pilot led choices is most important. To that end, all my 'pilot' conversations are done via the awful and unweildy F10 menu, and then the AI NPC 'talks' back with audio (I also have optional subtitles too that can be toggled on/off). This way, you're not forcing your players to have a specific voice, and because you can have a selection of items in an F10 menu, you're giving your pilots the opportunity to choose their own preferred response. I've found that it makes pilots feel more immersed.

Did that help?

Do NOT rely on any AI for scripting DCS - they have no idea of the API and the complexities of the scripting engine. They just make suggestions based on generalities. On top of that it's a braindead way of getting jobs done; you're not learning anything. If you want to learn scripting - do the work or ask for help. Us crazies love talking about scripting DCS. We're a community but we're not your minions. It takes time and effort to download run and read your missions but if you'd just prefaced it with "I want to turn on/off nav lights on AI aircraft" we wouldn't even have had to bother downloading and looking at it - we'd just have told you it can't be done. Or you could have searched for that in the root M.E. forum; it comes up regularly.

You haven't exactly given us a lot to work on; what are you trying to do and what is going wrong? My mind reading skills are rusty. ETA: https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_enum_AI If you'd searched the forums first, you'd have found out that there is no way to control AI nav lights or landing lights.

What 'nav system errors' are you having unless you're talking about enabling system failures? The nav systems in all the aircraft are excellent and you should never need to look at the F10 map unless it's for freqs and borders etc. You've admitted to needing a crutch and want more features added, when really you should be learning how to navigate and use the navaids properly so you don't need a crutch.

Remember flags are just variables; get into the habit of using WORDS for flags - they help you keep your logic and state machine organised and clear and help when you return to the mission weeks later and can't remember what the numbers are without having to look at the triggers and work it all out again. Using only numbers is quite silly since they changed them to allow alphanumerics years ago. @Squiggs Read the Mission Editor manual - this kind of stuff is easily covered in it. It's very useful. Almost every question you'll ever have (except scripting) is already answered in the manual:

EXACTLY! Glad it helped. It's SO useful as a reference as there is a lot of hidden info.

From what you've said that would never work, because setting the gates flag to 0 hides, them, setting them to anything else, increments that flag's value with each gate they pass. This has nothing to do with setting a specific and unique flag on passing a specific waypoint. Do you see what I'm talking about now or are we still talking at crossed purposes? @Flappie

Ah, gotcha. Thanks. Yeah, there are SO many little niceties that could be added quite quickly that would really help the community out; I think it's time we start listing them and pushing ED to do the work.

I know this command; It's why I said 'it can be done via run script'. But just because *I CAN* using scripting, doesn't mean everyone can, and I'm always approaching the M.E. with the non-scripter point of view. Adding this single, simple waypoint action to the PERFORM COMMAND menu, means that novices and average M.E. users can get a lot more performance and flexibility from the M.E. but it's also a great deal more performant.

But I'm not talking about 'gates'. I'm talking about a waypoint action for any unit that has waypoints to follow. I just think we need an ACTION that can set a flag when the unit gets to a waypoint and processes its waypoint actions. There is nothing in PERFORM COMMANDS or SET OPTIONS or any of the other things, for setting a flag, unless you resort to scripting.

Can you elaborate because I certainly can't find it. If I'm in error then fantastic, but I just don't see any option to set a flag on passing a waypoint other than via a run script @Flappie