DD_Friar Posted February 16 Posted February 16 @ChuckIV Check out page 338 and beyond of the full DML user guide... null Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
rmakowsky Posted February 16 Posted February 16 (edited) 22 hours ago, DD_Friar said: @rmakowsky Hi, glad you are finding DML so useful. I have done something similar before, here is what you do; Create a clone zone template that contains the soldiers you want to appear when the convoy is attacked. It can be placed anywhere on the map. they do not appear when the mission is run. Create a clone zone that references the template as its source and link the clone zone to the convoy vehicle. This will make it move with the convoy. Create a unit Zone flag that fires a trigger when the convoy enters. Use this flag/trigger to bang the "clone?" If you know the direction of the attack on the convoy you can also set the heading for the troops so that when they appear they are facing the attack. If they are in range they will then fire back. Hope this helps, if you need anything else please do not hesitate to post back. Friar. Hey, thank you very much! That is perfect. I was looking for how to link a zone with a unit (I knew I had seen it) but could not find it or remember about it. Magic (Edit to remove double posting) Edited February 16 by rmakowsky 1
mech79 Posted February 17 Posted February 17 On 2/10/2025 at 10:26 PM, cfrag said: Yes and no. Helotroops can currently load anything "ground" into helicopters, but will disregard the weight. Therefore, HeloTroops checks the things on the ground that for their type, and currenlty restricts all units to infantry. This can be overridden. So: transport - yes. Realism or visual slinging - no. Is there a way to restrict How many items a Helo can take?
DD_Friar Posted February 17 Posted February 17 @mech79 They can only take 1 load at a time, so if you limit the numbers available then I believe that is the only way. For example in one of my missions I have a spawned group called "platoon" (troops x 24) and a spawned group called "section" (troops x 6). Players can use either the CH-47 or the Huey. I also have a single JTAC unit which people tend to use the Gazelle for but they could use either of the other helicopters if they wanted. If you only place the "section" group within range of the Huey only then they could not take the platoon. That is about all you can do I am afraid. In my example if the Huey was to land near the Platoon loading point, there is nothing stopping him loading up 24 soldiers. My squad know this and act responsibly when it comes to what they put into their helicopters. Could your guys not do the same or is it for a public server? Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
mech79 Posted February 17 Posted February 17 10 hours ago, DD_Friar said: @mech79 They can only take 1 load at a time, so if you limit the numbers available then I believe that is the only way. For example in one of my missions I have a spawned group called "platoon" (troops x 24) and a spawned group called "section" (troops x 6). Players can use either the CH-47 or the Huey. I also have a single JTAC unit which people tend to use the Gazelle for but they could use either of the other helicopters if they wanted. If you only place the "section" group within range of the Huey only then they could not take the platoon. That is about all you can do I am afraid. In my example if the Huey was to land near the Platoon loading point, there is nothing stopping him loading up 24 soldiers. My squad know this and act responsibly when it comes to what they put into their helicopters. Could your guys not do the same or is it for a public server? Yeah I just thought that I was able to load more when I was playing with the module. Maybe I was mistaken. Currently we use Moose and CTLD on our server, and I am trying to create a LUA. that matches the possible loadouts. I just wanted to make sure they couldn't load up multiple items. Is there a way to max out weight if they get certain items?
Recluse Posted February 18 Posted February 18 I will provide more specifics... but first just asking if anyone else has seen strange Reaper behavior? What I am seeing is that sometimes the Reaper REFUSES to find/mark a target even though in the F10 map I can see their racetrack pattern CLEARLY over the target. Often happens when I put a single target out for testing, but also happens with multiple targets. Targets well within the Reaper zone. QUESTION: (I may have asked this before): Would it be possible to add a Reaper UI option to put smoke only on the current target, but not the current smoke option to put smoke on EVERY target (gets cluttered quickly with the 5 minute smoke marker). Useful in cases when attackers may not have Laser spot trackers.
cfrag Posted February 18 Author Posted February 18 1 minute ago, Recluse said: Would it be possible to add a Reaper UI option to put smoke only on the current target I'll look into it. Seems doable, but I haven't looked at the code for some time.
Recluse Posted February 18 Posted February 18 (edited) Small video showing Reaper behavior noted above. Note: There is an erroneous SHOW attribute in the Reaper zone. Trying to find a way to show the Zone on the F10 Map in mission, but that wasn't it. Same behavior observed without it. I should note that the Reaper works just fine when I spawn a bunch of targets, but at some point seems to stop finding them. Edited February 18 by Recluse
rmakowsky Posted February 19 Posted February 19 (edited) On 2/15/2025 at 9:13 AM, DD_Friar said: "A picture speaks a thousand words" I have just knocked up this little demo for you, hope it gives you some ideas. Here is a video of the mission so you can see what it does first. Again thank you. I made a similar setup but using the DML Convoy Module with convoys using three routes and clone zones tied to those three convoy units. The clones spawn at the convoy starting location. (The convoy units get an addition to their name so unit convoy-1-1 becomes convoy-1-1-76546 for example. I think the cloner does not follow that unit. Edited February 19 by rmakowsky more info after looking at mission
Recluse Posted February 19 Posted February 19 (edited) Issue with ownAll: - I have configured 4 (airfield) zones in the ownALL zone. 3 are owned by RED and one by BLUE I have configured: flags for blue# Goodguys red# Badguys total# allzones messenger? Badguys message: Bad guys own <v:Badguys> out of <v:allzones> zones messenger? Goodguys message Good guys own <v:Goodguys> out of <v:allzones> zones on mission start, it correctly reports: Bad Guys own 3 out of 4 zones but I never get a message that "Good guys own 1 out of 4 zones" (no message at all starting with "Good guys" with or without values) I checked for typos and case sensitivity and it all looks OK. I have the show attribute on for the airfield zones, and i can see all 4 zones along with their faction color in the F10 map. I know it is hard to diagnose without seeing it in mission, but any ideas why the blue# sequence is not showing? Edited February 19 by Recluse
cfrag Posted February 20 Author Posted February 20 14 hours ago, Recluse said: I know it is hard to diagnose without seeing it in mission, but any ideas why the blue# sequence is not showing? This may sound like a silly question: why do you think that you should see "Good guys own 1 out of 4 zones"?. I'm guessing that you progressively remove zones from red and cap them by blue. What is your procedure to do that, and have you also checked Message History that the message really do not appear but merely are erased quickly by a 'clear screen' command?
Recluse Posted February 20 Posted February 20 (edited) 5 hours ago, cfrag said: This may sound like a silly question: why do you think that you should see "Good guys own 1 out of 4 zones"?. I'm guessing that you progressively remove zones from red and cap them by blue. What is your procedure to do that, and have you also checked Message History that the message really do not appear but merely are erased quickly by a 'clear screen' command? Nothing is silly when trying to diagnose my errors or misunderstandings -This was at mission startup. From the docs, I believed that when all zones were initialized, the appropriate flags were banged and should generate outputs. I assumed this was both Red# and Blue#. In the list supplied to ownAll, there were 4 zones, 3 owned by the "Bad guys" (RED) and one owned by the Good Guys (BLUE). - I did check Message History and there were no clear view commands (though I usually put one in once I am convinced everything works and I know everything loads correctly) - My INTENT is indeed to use ownAll to keep track of stuff as it is captured by Red or Blue. As those # flags are banged on zones changing hands. Also added a Blue! and Red! output to report total WIN or LOSE conditions, but haven't tested for that yet. For now I was just testing at mission start to make sure I configured all the zones and flags correctly. Have a few zones configured and testing on one zone to make sure everything works whereupon I will copy everything to the other zones and adjust the parameters accordingly. - In my nascent mission, I have 3 methods for capturing zones (Airbases for now with Airfield zones to track ownership, FARPS to be added). Human BLUE Player captures a zone which has been cleared of defenders by inserting helo Troops. AI BLUE Helo commanded to enter the zone when cleared, (clear message triggered by a unit zone with exitZone! * (filter for ground units output)) and triggering a cloner of BLUE units when the particular helo group enters a unitZone (e.g. enterZone! BlueCapHelo*) AI Red Helo triggered to enter the zone when cleared and triggering a cloner of RED units when the particular helo group enters a unitZone. (e.g. enterZone! RedCapHelo*) I worry I have too many zones configured on each base - Airfield zone for ownership - 2 x Unit zones to cover exit and entry - RedSAM, RedArmor, BlueSam, BlueArmor cloners (yeah I know I could just use a Master Owner to change the affiliation of the clones, but I wanted RED to have Russian equipment and Blue to have Western equipment.) - Willipete zone -ReaperZone Edited February 20 by Recluse
cfrag Posted February 20 Author Posted February 20 12 minutes ago, Recluse said: -This was at mission startup. From the docs, I believed that when all zones were initialized, the appropriate flags were banged and should generate outputs. I assumed this was both Red# and Blue#. In the list supplied to ownAll, there were 4 zones, 3 owned by the "Bad guys" (RED) and one owned by the Good Guys (BLUE). Ah, indeed, Dr. Watson! However, if the module messenger loads after the ones that provide the outputs on red# and blue#, messenger will not hear those commands (in coding terms, it uses the current values of those flags as default, and only reacts to changes from that value.) You may get everything to work if you simply place 'messenger' in the load action before the other modules.
Recluse Posted February 20 Posted February 20 (edited) 6 minutes ago, cfrag said: Ah, indeed, Dr. Watson! However, if the module messenger loads after the ones that provide the outputs on red# and blue#, messenger will not hear those commands (in coding terms, it uses the current values of those flags as default, and only reacts to changes from that value.) You may get everything to work if you simply place 'messenger' in the load action before the other modules. Indeed, Holmes, your monograph was quite clear on this and I have endeavored to follow it Or should messenger load even before cfxZones? null Edited February 20 by Recluse
cfrag Posted February 20 Author Posted February 20 Just now, Recluse said: Or should messenger load even before cfxZones? No, that would be something only Moriarty would recommend. Dang! Looks like some more investigation is required.
Recluse Posted February 20 Posted February 20 7 minutes ago, cfrag said: No, that would be something only Moriarty would recommend. Dang! Looks like some more investigation is required. I can send you the mission but it is pretty much spaghetti code with me throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. I may create a new mission with ONLY some zones and ownAll to see if I can get it to work and see what I missed or did wrong in the main mission.
cfrag Posted February 20 Author Posted February 20 29 minutes ago, Recluse said: I may create a new mission with ONLY some zones and ownAll to see if I can get it to work and see what I missed or did wrong in the main mission. I think that would be the best approach - a cleanroom reproduction of the issue without the distraction of all the others. And of course I'll be happy to look at it. 1
Recluse Posted February 20 Posted February 20 (edited) OK I think I found a clue! though I don't quite understand it. I included both the messenger attributes in the ownAll zone. IT seems that only the FIRST one triggers, either GoodGuys or BadGuys. Can I not have 2 Messengers in a zone? I thought I had done this in the past. Whichever one is FIRST shows a message and the second does not. Maybe I need to stack the Messengers directly under the banged flags? null Edited February 20 by Recluse
cfrag Posted February 20 Author Posted February 20 (edited) 50 minutes ago, Recluse said: Can I not have 2 Messengers in a zone? Yes indeed: all Attributes must be zone-unique. Since you have two attributes named "messenger?" (and two named "message"), it is pure chance which one DML's parser fetches (it depends on how the mission loaded, and the flavor of the color green at that moment). Attributes are accessed by name, the order in which they appear in a zone is not significant. If two or more attributes share a name, it is undefined which will be returned. Hence, only one attribute can have any name per zone. Since all modules are identified by a unique attribute (e.g. "messenger?" for messenger, "smoke" for smoke zones, etc.), there can only ever be at most one instance of a module placed on a zone. Edited February 20 by cfrag
Recluse Posted February 20 Posted February 20 1 hour ago, cfrag said: Yes indeed: all Attributes must be zone-unique. Since you have two attributes named "messenger?" (and two named "message"), it is pure chance which one DML's parser fetches (it depends on how the mission loaded, and the flavor of the color green at that moment). Attributes are accessed by name, the order in which they appear in a zone is not significant. If two or more attributes share a name, it is undefined which will be returned. Hence, only one attribute can have any name per zone. Since all modules are identified by a unique attribute (e.g. "messenger?" for messenger, "smoke" for smoke zones, etc.), there can only ever be at most one instance of a module placed on a zone. OK!!! Learned something that perhaps should have been obvious Will have to create some more messengers all around
CidTheViking Posted February 21 Posted February 21 Quick question/feature request I am looking into ways to have ground vehicle do crate/troop transport. I have a fairly dedicated squad of members that are into to the combined arms. So we are looking a ways to have them build farps and transport supplies to the farps and transport troops to objectives. Is this something that may be possible in the current version of DML?
DD_Friar Posted February 22 Posted February 22 @CidTheViking HeloTroops enbale you to spec a group of troops (for example I have a section which is 6 times M4 soldier or a platoon which is x24) but the make up of what is legal to be transported is down to you. I have in fact also made a humvee a "legal" troop for "loading" into the Ch47. (although to be fair there is nothing stopping you putting on a Huey as well but I use the common sense approach with my squad) Once it is deployed it can then be driven by a player with CA. Using groundTroops and commander as well you can assign the transported troops orders. For example you can give them a "captureAndHold" order. With this the deployed troops will head towards the nearest enemy ownedZone. They will attack it and once secured will stay there. The beauty of heloTroops is that, unlike the default DCS option for troop movement, you can go back in and pick them up from wherever they are, no specific waypoints needed. There is also a cargo management module where you can off load a "crate" which can trigger a flag, once fired that flag can spawn a fuel tanker for example or an ammo truck for re-arm and re-fuel. Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted February 22 Author Posted February 22 12 hours ago, CidTheViking said: have ground vehicle do crate/troop transport. It's an intriguing concept - transport of cargo / troops in general, and using it to reinforce/build specifically. I have 'concepts of plans' for game mechanics that allows players to transport something (an abstract Whatchimacallit) some place arbitrarily and when put down, use it to establish tactical/strategic points: FARPs, Warehouses, Factories, Barracks, AAA etc. Bringing CA into this would add immersion and increase the scope of DCS and what we could do in missions, making missions less sterile and more organic. Alas, the current Warehouse/Cargo API is crap, and CA worse. Right now, neither is IMHO worth a time investment. Once the kind of folk at ED invest some real talent into developing a sensible cargo/warehouse API (e.g. one that allows arbitrary creation/destruction of warehouses, and doesn't always bind a warehouse to an airfield, can manage arbitrary goods not just fuel, ammo and aircraft, etc.), this may be worth further thought. Also, nobody today would claim CA to be a serious product - at least not with a straight face. Scripting for CA is a joke, as their unit API and UX departs radically from all others. Now, if there was a unified player API available that covered all player-controlled units, things may look different. So IMHO there's lots of potential in DCS, locked behind cheap, inept and/or clownish implementation. Missions could be so much grander in scale, just like the concepts that you outlined: create, build and expand your base of operations by creating a network of logistics: FARPs, factories, warehouses etc., and pay homage to the adage that 90% of warfare is logistics (or in the words of Gen. Pershing: "Infantry wins battles, logistics win wars"). I would be happy to explore those possibilities. But we (mission designers and script authors) need something to work with. Today we are far, far away from that.
DD_Friar Posted February 22 Posted February 22 @cfrag Something I have been meaning to ask whilst thinking about heloTroops, its too late for my current campaign but would be useful going forward if you found time for some development in the future. The excellent module allows me to move troops to a new location and once deployed they will set off and find the nearest enemy base and attack it and either stay there or move on to the next one. What I would like to be able to do is to pick up troops from a base and move them forward, ready for another hop perhaps in the next mission. I was half way through typing out my scenario request when I realised that what I was describing would not work for the second hop, so my idea is as follows, I take troops from a base, suppose they have orders to captureAndHold (does not matter really). I transport them to a forward location and drop them off in a "dropZone". After a few seconds they are removed, but that action then turns on the spawner for the next time, so that spawner is not active until troops have been brought to it? What do you think? Salute Friar Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted February 22 Author Posted February 22 Just now, DD_Friar said: After a few seconds they are removed, but that action then turns on the spawner for the next time, so that spawner is not active until troops have been brought to it? Silly Q: what is keeping you from disabling the spawner until the first time that troops are delivered into the zone? I could probably add a delivered! output to a dropzone to make this easier, until then I think a stacked LZ could do the job. Also, troops delivered to a dropZone by heloTroops could optionally preserve the "wait-" command and not remove them... What are your thoughts?
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