A bit of randomization and waypoint cycling

[EasyEB]

Hi all! New to DCS and the forums. Nice to meet you all!

 

I have recently started fiddling with the mission editor and it seems kind of straight forward (I am used to the mission editor in Arma and I find them kind of similar). I do however have a couple of questions but I don't really know where to begin looking for answers.

 

What I'd like to do is create some default template for a base mission where the map is a bit populated. It was really simple to do this with civilian traffic but what I'd like is to have enemy ground units patroling around.

 

From what I can gather this is not really an easy task but the first fundamental things I'm looking for is:

 

1. Waypoint looping/cycling for ground units. To make a unit go from waypoint 1 to waypoint 2 to waypoint 3 and then back to waypoint 1 again and start over in an endless loop.

 

2. Random placement of random number of enemy units.

 

I've been scratching my head trying to get these things sorted with no success. Is such a thing even possible? I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post this question or if it has been answered a hundred times before.

 

Cheers!

Edited March 9, 2015 by EasyEB

[Weta43]

Bed time here, so only the first one...

 

add a plane, & add some waypoints.

 

select the last WP of the loop, go to advanced (waypoint actions, and add an action.

Type > perform command

Action > switch waypoint

pick the waypoint you want to loop to.

Press conditions to see your options (or don't - it will work like that)

 

You can get more tricky with triggers (or scripts), but that's the simplest way.

 

It's worth exploring the options under advanced (waypoint actions) with a few different units selected...

[EasyEB]

Hey Weta43, thanks for your reply! Ah, yes. I found that gem, really nice feature. It doesn't show on ground units though. Or am I missing something? Sleep well! Cheers.

[DarkFire]

Unfortunately the 'perform loop' and 'select waypoint' commands aren't available for ground units. The only way to get ground units or ground unit groups to perform loops, e.g. simulated patrols, is to use the Lua scripting engine.

 

I believe there was a thread on a very similar topic not too long ago which included the necessary Lua script, though I can't remember what the thread was called. Try searching for ground unit script in this sub-forum.

[mwd2]

Ground Patrol: http://wiki.hoggit.us/view/GroundPatrol

[EasyEB]

Oh man that Ground Patrol sounds even better than what I wanted! Now to figure out how to implement such a thing. Thanks!

[nickexists]

Mist, which contains that ground control function, also provides easy ways to implement the randomization. The scripting engine can be daunting at first but it's actually quite simple. I reccomend using Dcs witchcraft and notepad++. https://github.com/jboecker/dcs-witchcraft

 

Here are some other helpful links. http://wiki. The hoggit.us/view/Simulator_Scripting_Engine_Documentation

 

http://wiki.hoggit.us/view/Mission_Scripting_Tools_Documentation

[EasyEB]

You are correct, it does feel a bit daunting :)

 

So if I understand this correctly, what I'm looking for is:

 

1. Something that tells the mission to look into and execute an external file for scripts (Mistv3_4.lua) when the mission starts.

 

2. Something that tells the ground units to do a specific part of that script file when they reach their destination waypoint (like say "when you are at your last waypoint, do "mist.ground.patrol")?

 

I have a tiny bit of understanding of how scripting works in general (be it html/css or in ArmA). I have however always learned scripting by reverse engineering, is there any place where one can download an example mission of an AI unit executing a Mist script?

[EasyEB]

Hey I got it! Wun't dat 'ard.

 

Thanks so much for the help guys!