Make only some Units steerable for Tactical Commander

[MasterZelgadis]

I want to make a mission, where a ombined arms player can steer some tank and AA forces via map or by driving the vehicles. But I also have an artillery battalion,that must not be controled by that CA player. I already unticked the option "player can drive", but he can still give orders via map. How can I set this group to be not controllable at all?

[feefifofum]

Hey Zelgadis; select the group in the Mission Editor and uncheck the "PLAYER CAN DRIVE" box.

 

EDIT: misread...unfortunately that one is all or nothing AFAIK; there is an option in the commanders window to set pilots to be unable to command units, but I think the tactical commander will still have access to all ground forces via F10...

Edited June 22, 2016 by feefifofum

[Wrecking Crew]

The Player Can Drive checkbox is for each unit in a group. Note some units can never be player driven and their checkbox will be greyed out, like tanker and generator trucks. If every unit in a group has the box unchecked then a Game Master and Tactical Commander will not be able to control the group.

 

WC

[MasterZelgadis]

Hm, I already had the boxes unchecked for every unit, knew that already. The Tactical Cmdr can't take direct control now ("drive" in the 3D environment), but he can still give move or fire orders via the F10 map.

[EntropySG]

May I hijack this thread and ask if anyone knows why as a tactical commander often times I simply can't move infantry via F10 map? They will just stand still after spotting hostiles and not doing anything

[MasterZelgadis]

Noticed the same, I think it has to do with the type of enemy they spotted. I once had a small infantry squad I wanted to use as JTAC, but they just didn't want to move across a town full of BTR-80. Maybe because this would be suicide (they didn't know they were set to invulnarable ^^)

[SNAFU]

Is the group generated by script? Then it is a bug.

 

Otherwise it might be related to one of the units being a MANPADS or other static kind of infantry like mortar.

[MasterZelgadis]

It is a group I placed in the editor, not script generated. 6 Artillery vehicles, a few trucks and jeeps (for flavor) and a mechanized infantry squad..with, indeed, some manpads. I try making them to ragular infantry..

 

Background is: A Huey player must insert a spotter team to an overwatch position, using terrain cover to avoid being taken out by a SAM. The spotter team then calls for an artillery strike on the radar vehicles. That is the only purpose for the artillery. The CA player must use the tank groups I give him, to take a village then, and I want to avoid that he just uses the tanks as scouts and then bombs everything down using the artillery units

Edited June 23, 2016 by MasterZelgadis

[MasterZelgadis]

Ok, removed all MANPADS from the group and via texteditor set all player can drive values to false, even the greyed out ones. Now I can't give them waypoints or targets (yay) but still can order them to form a different formation (gnah!!).

Is it not possible to just set them as a group with which the CA player can do nothing at all?

[feefifofum]

@ Entropy alarm state green will make them walk regardless of nearby threats. I have noticed that occasionally I cannot move non-deployed infantry groups via F10. The button simply does nothing when I click on it. I tried again a little later in the same op and they moved for me..haven't tracked down the cause yet.

[Wrecking Crew]

If the infantry is alerted to enemy they will stay in place. I have set their ROE to hold and that has gotten them to continue on their pathway.

 

MZ, I'm a bit surprised that you can move a group when every unit is unchecked. I've been messing around lately with small 3-unit groups where only unit 1 was checked to drive, and was getting frustrated because I would click on the tightly formed group and not be able to set a new path because I had focus on unit 2 or 3. I'll mess around some more with this...

 

There sure seems to be a lot of tweaks to DCS recently and it wouldn't surprise me if some things work a little differently now. Another thing bugging me is Uncontrolled aircraft and helicopters sitting in a parking slot or FARP - I think a TC should be able to set paths and targets for these, too, but for instance AH-64s don't want to go anywhere. I'll put together a test mission. I'm still running v1.5.

 

WC

[MasterZelgadis]

Oh, running 1.5 also. Maybe I can put together a video

[Looney]

I hope they cleared the dynamic spawn bug for Infantry so that they will actually be able to move and shoot instead of standing around like lemons..