Remove delay from fireAtPoint task and add as a parameter.

[Ducku]

Currently when tasking artillery to fire at a point they take a few minutes to lay their guns. This time seems to be influenced slightly by the units skill.
It would however be much more convenient to add a parameter to the tasking with this delay (If left empty the default delay could be used).

[markom]

You can use multi-stage triggers.

[Ducku]

4 hours ago, markom said:

You can use multi-stage triggers.

Could you elaborate on this? I can't find anything online about multi stage triggers or how that would work around this issue.

[markom]

Yeah, when I clicked on "submit", I suspected I will need to explain this a bit.

So, DCS doesn't have the functionality you want, but... it has other functionality that you can use.

What you are asking for is:

• X happens
• Delay
• Unit starts preparing to fire
• Unit fires

To accomplish that, you can do:

• X happens; trigger "START_PREP" is set to TRUE
• Configure "UNIT_FIRE" to be set to TRUE xx seconds after "START_PREP"  (I believe this is "time after" in mission editor) has been set to TRUE
• Unit starts preparing to fire
• Unit fires

You can probably modify "xx seconds" above with some Lua-foo to be a random value. If Lue makes you uncomfortable, you can create a series of triggers with "xx, yy, zz" differences happening at say 25%, 50%, 75% probability and then "ww" with a 100%, all of them setting "UNIT_FIRE" to TRUE. That way ensuring some randomness, as well the fact that the unit will do what you want (within the confines of DCS).

Does this make sense? Would an example mission help?

[Ducku]

I think you misunderstood the problem.
 

The way it works now is:

• Push FireAtPoint task to unit
• Unit prepares to fire (laying the gun takes a few seconds)
• Unit waits for a couple minutes (probably emulating computing a firing solution)
• Unit fires

What I want is manual control over that waiting period.

I think this delay only applies to artillery and rocket artillery tho.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Ducku

[markom]

For artilerry units, unless they are in "RED" alert state, they go through that prep. You can somewhat control that time by manipulating their alert state.

[Ducku]

I just tested with alarm state on RED, and it seems to have no effect on the wait period. The only thing I've found that influences it is the units skill level.