Draw or outline a map area within which a set (or random) number of enemies will spawn at random locations

[Tree_Beard]

This way you would be able to enter the combat zone knowing the approximate area or direction to look for enemy forces, but not their exact location. Just like how it would be in most real life scenarios. Could be useful for ground assets or enemy bandits. This would create a much higher degree of replayability for single player, user created missions. I understand you can add some degree of randomness with triggers and flags now, however it is quite tedious and you still don't end up with much being "unknown" at the end of the day, since you've still hand placed each asset. 

The "Instant Action" missions already demonstrate that the game engine can generate groups of enemies, with flight plans and orders to engage, that you can fight against. So it seems to me like it would be very possible to incorporate something similar into the mission editor that the player has more control over and can be regenerated each time the mission is run. 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Tree_Beard

[dmatsch]

you already can do this within ME.  I just did it for a training mission.

You use the Random Mission generator in the top menu.  What really surprised me is that it worked in an existing mission, and just added the red units to the area I defined.  I can provide further instruction if needed.

[dark_wood]

2 hours ago, dmatsch said:

I can provide further instruction if needed

Hi @dmatsch, can you explain this method?

Thanks

[dmatsch]

I can.  I'm not at home now, so this is going off of memory.  This feature was broken for some time.  Like years.  On a whim, I tried it on an existing Syria generic environment mission I created -- one already populated with units, waypoints, triggers, scripts, etc and it seemed to work perfectly.

Again, from memory, so play around with it:

On the top menu, you'll see a "mission generator" menu option.  You'll get a map screen that will show you different pre-defined areas/zones (little green bullseyes) you can select.  You can also create custom ones based on coordinates anywhere on the map.

You then have another set of menus where you can set the template type for red/blue or both.  There are dozens of options like "blue, large offensive", "red small defensive".  you can also define your own.  These are your templates.

Select one of these and you'll see either red or blue boxes overlaid on the map at the zone you selected.  You can move these boxes around.  Units from your selected template will be placed in these boxes according to it's labeled type.

Click the "generate mission" button (or menu item -- I forget) and you're done.  It'll add all the units randomly in the boxes according to the selected template types.  it will even generate some simple tasking.

Edit this further to add/remove units as desired.  You're done.  Bob's your uncle.

be prepared to lose any mission you add this to.  It took me several tries and several lost mission files to get it right.

[dark_wood]

Thanks man!

[Exorcet]

This would be a nice feature to add, however there could be a few different ways of implementing it. Tying spawns to a zone is nice and simple, but I think we also need the option to place AI commanders at bases to create tasking for units.

Example:

Place a commander at Bandar Abbas in the Gulf map and add a bunch of uncontrolled MiG-29's to the base without waypoints or tasks.

Pass the list of MiG's to the commander and assign the commander a task, such as "defend Bandar Abbas", "attack Dubai", or "defend Trigger Zone". Additional settings could be used for fine tuning, such "prioritize survival of units" (units would rather abort mission than take losses) or "units are expendable" (units will pursue their objective above all else).

Based on the commander's task and the units given to the commander, auto generated flights will be created out of Bandar Abbas. Some might be triggered by other events, for example defense flight might only start up if enemies are nearby.

The advantage of this is that it could react to events in a mission in real time and it also enforces resource constraints. Once a commander is out of units, it can't create any more tasking (unless there is a method to resupply them, which could tie in to the warehousing system).

[dmatsch]

all of that can be done with moose and IADS/Skynet.  Requires heavy lua scripting, though.