Some general questions

[markturner1960]

Hi, I am making a mission with a "Ground war" going on and realised that while I kind of understand how to build missions with Jets, I dont really understand much about the ground units.....so I have some basic queries to hopefully save me some time:

1) When placing infantry, are these individual soldiers ? Can you place them in units such as a company or section? Or do you need to do each and every individual soldier?

2) Following from 1, how do these operate? I made a group comprising some tanks, some Bradleys, a couple of SPG's and then some infantry and a couple of mortars -  like a Mech battalion, around 25 individual units. I can give them waypoints, but will they advance at the rate of soldiers walking? 

3) What is the "logic" for them engaging the enemy? Obviously infantry IRL would use cover etc if engaged, at what ranges will they detect the enemy and how do they do this? 

4) Is their movement affected by the terrain? Can they cross water for example or must they use a bridge? 

I guess in a way, I want something like Company of heroes going on, but I think the reality is a little different isnt it? Does teh fact that I have combined arms give me more flexible options etc? 

 

Thanks

[razo+r]

30 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

Hi, I am making a mission with a "Ground war" going on and realised that while I kind of understand how to build missions with Jets, I dont really understand much about the ground units.....so I have some basic queries to hopefully save me some time:

1) When placing infantry, are these individual soldiers ? Can you place them in units such as a company or section? Or do you need to do each and every individual soldier?

If you place down a ground unit you can increase the group size like you would for aircraft. Only difference is that a group, unlike an aircraft group, is not limited to 4 units per group but pretty much hundreds of individual units.

But yes, you place down an individual unit. So if you select Infantry AKS, you get 1 soldier. Increase the group size and you'll get more.

30 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

2) Following from 1, how do these operate? I made a group comprising some tanks, some Bradleys, a couple of SPG's and then some infantry and a couple of mortars -  like a Mech battalion, around 25 individual units. I can give them waypoints, but will they advance at the rate of soldiers walking? 

I think they will indeed move forward at the pace of the slowest unit in the group. I don't think mortars move though so you might have to delete those out of the group.

As a workaround, you could seperate infantry and vehicles in different groups, or use scripts that load/unload infantry automatically (may affect performance though depending on the amount of units involved)

30 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

3) What is the "logic" for them engaging the enemy? Obviously infantry IRL would use cover etc if engaged, at what ranges will they detect the enemy and how do they do this? 

If unit in range -> shoot, if unit out of range -> move. There is no taking cover. They will stand wherever they currently are and engage the enemy until they are dead or the enemy is dead.

The range for detection is visible on the F10 map/editor in form of the red circle. Anything in it can and will be engaged if possible.

Detection also depends on time of day though. At daylight, they have max range, at night they will have severly reduced range.

30 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

4) Is their movement affected by the terrain? Can they cross water for example or must they use a bridge? 

Small rivers can be crossed, larger ones need bridges. Same logic as any non-amphibious vehicle in DCS.

30 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

I guess in a way, I want something like Company of heroes going on, but I think the reality is a little different isnt it? Does teh fact that I have combined arms give me more flexible options etc? 

Doing something like COH will be extremely tedious as the AI in DCS is severly limited and finiky to control. 

Having combined arms will not grant you any more options in the editor, but it will allow you to control the groups ingame. So in that sense yes, a COH-like option.

Edited March 24 by razo+r

[markturner1960]

Really helpful, thank you! If I may expand on some of those points:

If a unit comes to a river it cant cross, will they just stop or do they move down to the nearest crossing point?

I discovered they can move through a wood no problem, what about steep hills / mountains, how does that limit their travel and does this vary depending on the type of unit? 

So there is no way to make an infantry unit apart from placing say 50 individual soldiers in a group ? Is there such a thing as mechanized infantry?

Can you direct me to a script for the infantry loading etc? 

Do you have any other tips etc for making some realistic ground war scenarios? I want to make a background battle that I can engage in some CAS using my AH64D. 

Is there a way to quickly jump to individual units apart from cycling through F7? And to keep track of group status and damage etc? 

Thanks again!

Edited March 24 by markturner1960

[razo+r]

25 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

Really helpful, thank you! If I may expand on some of those points:

If a unit comes to a river it cant cross, will they just stop or do they move down to the nearest crossing point?

They will automatically set up their pathing to the nearest crossing point. 

25 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

I discovered they can move through a wood no problem, what about steep hills / mountains, how does that limit their travel and does this vary depending on the type of unit? 

There was a bug where incline didn't matter so the units were able to traverse vertical inclines. I don't know if that has been fixed, but generally inclines make them move slower. 

And ground defined as "forest" will impose a speed restriction on the units even if there is no tree around at all. 

25 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

So there is no way to make an infantry unit apart from placing say 50 individual soldiers in a group ?

That is exactly how you make a group. You don't place them manually, you just expand the group like you would add a wingman to an aircraft. 

25 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

Can you direct me to a script for the infantry loading etc? 

Sorry, I dont know the name of it. I just now it exists. 

25 minutes ago, markturner1960 said:

Is there a way to quickly jump to individual units apart from cycling through F7? And to keep track of group status and damage etc? 

For damage look on the F10 map. 

For viewing a unit, select it on the F10 map and press F7

 

Edited March 24 by razo+r