Worrazen Posted June 17, 2019 Posted June 17, 2019 (edited) This one's more for the future unless it's not that hard to do, not sure, so I used the term units, but in practice it mostly benefits aircraft, where it's most useful, and probably not that important right now, but it can add to the ME experience quite a bit in certain situations. This would probably be very useful for making cinematic type videos where you want accurate replayability for developing a specific scene. And ofcourse campaign and missions, where applicable, it feels as if it's a step backward, but the AI's own pathing isn't exactly ace-perfect especially at low altitude and obstacles, unless if it gets heavily improved, still this isn't meant as a replacement at all, this is not for dogfights or any active combat area situation, this is for scripting the path of some background units, support units, AWACS, Tankers, Cargo, Paradrop, Carpet Bombing, the units that wouldn't normally go into a direct fight and wouldn't want to deviate, for example some critical supplies have to be delivered and you need to defend the C-180 flying low over a valley, you don't really want to deviate out of a valley as there's more units on each side, you're a cargo plane so you can't respond, you and if you're shot down the mission ends anyway so this feature is perfect for that. SCENARIO: An F/A-18 trying to wiggle between mountains, rivers, trees, passing close to mountain tops, while 2 F-16s are in hot pursuit. You could, if you want to, spend time and effort scripting that F/A-18C really good, then letting the F-16 on their own AI's pathing (depending on how good that is) and that might end up with some awesome results, if not better, probably a lot faster and less tedius than the clicks required to do the same with waypoint system. Remember, waypoints are just DOTs, the lines connecting them are just for visuals, they're not a path that the airplane necessairly follows, as much as it looks at first, which I fell for in the beginning, they are just defining the absolute shortest distance in between. A draft on would it work: (just an idea how I see it now, not how it must, ofcourse, could be better ways beyond this for sure) The ME would require some kind of a TacView-type 3D path creating capability for the user to accurately draw a path/track in full 3D. And/Or .. you guessed it ... ability to import a valid pre-recorded track replay that you did your self with any kind of aircraft and use it for the AI unit-s in your mission you're developing. Unfortunately, it's not that easy at first, for this to actually work right and be reliable, the valid 3D path/track has to be within unit-specific simulation parameters, it can't specify too fast or too slow speed for that aircraft, AOA, so it can't be out of bounds, and this may be depending on the factors I'm afraid a quite bit difficult, to do that and write it accurately, this is the hardest part of the feature most likely. The user can draw or generate a track no problem, but the target aircraft may not be able to fulfill it. Let's ignore the fact that AI-only aircraft aren't fully simulated as the paid modules right now, but they will be improved sooner or later, so that fact should be put aside and this 3D track validation system would target what an real fully simmed for example A-10C could do, and then you just happen to use an AI-A-10C in practice however it is simulated, because usually the less simulated it is the more capable/cheaty it probably can get (AOA, etc). So you can't just generate a track with your F/A-18 doing everything specific what an F/A-18 can do and "paste" it onto an A-10C to ride on, it won't be able to follow and will deviate considerably. So ... I mentioned how it may be the hardest part, there's many ways that can be done, like using the track can checking all corners and comparing the angle/distance to detect too tight corners, and that would have to be compared against a chart, ofcourse the devs would have to spend a ton of effort making such a chart as well ... but here's a very clever idea to save a ton of testing and manual scripting of the validation procedure... Once you've imported your generated track, or drawn up it your self manually in ME (or if a 3DTrackDrawer would be made separate?) ... You could just click "Verify 3D Tracks" and the engine would execute a special renderless preview of the actual gameplay sped-up in the background and wouldn't need to do any corner-calulation, in basics all it would need to do is to monitor the track-to-unit DELTA distance, the distance between the track and the unit, and that's super easy computationally, and you would then see the report in the end in a dialog with bunch of numbers. Everything we need to know are EASY calculations that can be obtained from time (completely free) and delta distance, average track deviation distance, max deviation distance and it's location(LAT-LONG and/or point on track lenght as distance from start), perhaps a list of top 5-10 biggest deviation distances and their positions, a bunch of other parameters I can't think of right now, and some kind of a final score/result number, and lastly the verdict statemement, in color, PASSED or FAILED. Additionally, the sensetivity/strictness of the test could also be adjusted a bit, perhaps allowing deviation off by a 1-2 meters/feet, absolute minimal wouldn't be 0 ofcourse, but some 0.1 or something even more for the engine inaccuracies and other factors (wind, etc) which is normal but in practice that's nothing. This test would also run on special circumstances, such as disable all other units, weapons, godmode, unlimited fuel, to test the track it self from start to finish completely (absolute). Even better, this testing ability could also DO enable low fuel and weapons, but for a DIFFERENT test, to test WHERE your riding path aircraft first got hit, or ran out of fuel, etc, it could do a bunch of such tests by default all in one or more runs, or you could choose just one you're looking if you're in hurry. The 3D path/track also should need to be speed-sensetive so the AI aircraft would replay at the same speed it was in the original replayed track, but that would be optional, you could be able to override the speed-layer with your own (repaint the path with speed-applying-brush) or the third option of just specifying constant speed, or average speed with min/max and a randomness slider. Then the AI support for such path-riding would be expanded with other capabilities, specifying the conditions where (numbered circle do-actions checkpoint) the AI could detach from the 3D path/track, do some actions like patrol for a certain amount of time, or detach and kill some enemies on the ground (normal AI's own pathing) then return to the 3D track by reattaching to it in the same place or another (actions checkpoing on the track) And a FORCE option to keep it attached even if it's attacked/damaged/low fuel/RTB/no engine which would just make it stay as close to the track as possible, ofocurse it would eventually deviate due to physics, but physics alone, the AI logic would still force controls to follow the track no matter what, to the death! This could initially just be done for limited amount of aircraft/units, for videos surely the top paid ones are the pick with shiny new visuals over the older AI-only model/livery aircraft/units. That's the idea that I had in mind for some years and another Wishlist post reminded me again about :) Now that I finished it I have a slight sense I might have posted this already years ago, but I remember having lot's of ideas stashed in unfinished posts, but whatever, at least it's written in a clearer/coherent/better way probably. Edited June 17, 2019 by Worrazen Modules: A-10C I/II, F/A-18C, Mig-21Bis, M-2000C, AJS-37, Spitfire LF Mk. IX, P-47, FC3, SC, CA, WW2AP, CE2. Terrains: NTTR, Normandy, Persian Gulf, Syria
Recommended Posts