Let me just complain a bit about jtac and then ill be happy

[maxmax]

I just need to complain a little bit. About Jtac - it's seriously messed up. In no special order:

 

1. Set Jtac to invisible and roe to hold fire. Jtac gets killed.:thumbup:

 

2. Set Jtac to enroute task fac. "No targets but thx for help dude. Now go back home". And thats close to the damned targets. A blind man without a cane should find the targets.:thumbup:

 

3. Set jtac to fac - engage targets. "No more targets available, thanks for da help, man. Now go home". Even though there are still several groups to destroy according to the list.:thumbup:

 

4. A little complaining on Ai as well. "Damn it to hell, there is a bridge ahead!" Tanks get stuck on bridges and will not move anywhere causing a traffic jam. Ai behind them start driving in circles.:thumbup:

[Quirkitized]

1 - If you don't want jtac to get killed, set Immortal, not invisible.

 

2 - Assign the groups that the jtac will call out

 

3 - Assign the groups that you want the jtac to attack

 

4 - Ya, that does suck, agreed.

[maxmax]

1 - If you don't want jtac to get killed, set Immortal, not invisible.

 

2 - Assign the groups that the jtac will call out

 

3 - Assign the groups that you want the jtac to attack

 

4 - Ya, that does suck, agreed.

 

Its all very simple when you don't have any kind of randomnesses involved. But as soon as you have a few groups that will spawn randomly, jtac goes all confused. I still havent found a good solution for this.

 

One option is to just use fac - which means he has to spot the targets. Which he rarely does.

 

Other option is to spawn one jtac along with each random spawning. This makes it kind of complicated and usually ends up with a jtac that says no more targets, even though his targets are specified.

[Grimes]

I'll need to confirm this via a test, but you can use triggered actions on a per group basis to give the JTAC the corresponding FAC-Group assignment. I know the JTAC will assign the targets based on whichever group it was given last. The one thing I'm not sure about is whether or not they will give you a previous target once the new one is destroyed.

[Druid_]

I think there might be a problem when units are activated/spawned after the FAC has been activated. The programming logic might not do a continous sweep for targets throughout its lifespan. More testing required on this for SP but for MP it definately doesn't work.

 

As for 4. If you have a convoy then I find different units travel at different speeds and exhibit different behavious resulting in the convoy acting like a drunken herd of animals. Once solution I have found with bridges is to place a WP HOLD for 20 seconds prior to the bridge (lets units ocatch up & organise themselves) and then have them cross the bridge at 10 km/h max, a good 100m after the bridge set a WP which allows them to speed up again.

 

Also when individual units within a convoy get destroyed on a road, the remainder of the convoy exhibit a drunken coral/circling tendancy for which I have found the only solution to be to send convoys off road as much as possible & keep their numbers to a minimum.

[Speed]

.

 

Also when individual units within a convoy get destroyed on a road, the remainder of the convoy exhibit a drunken coral/circling tendancy for which I have found the only solution to be to send convoys off road as much as possible & keep their numbers to a minimum.

 

Yup, in one of the missions I made, Kashuri CAS, even with "disperse under fire" turned off the convoys had to be reduced to four vehicles each and avoid all bridges or else they would just go stupid. Even then, they would still get occasionally stuck. About 30% of the time spent developing the mission was spent trying to figure out ways to keep the ground units from getting stuck. I did finally get it so that 80% of the time, no ground units ever got stuck, but it took a VERY long time to get there. Total time spent developing the mission: 100 hours at least. That's the last time I'm doing a major ground battle on hilly or mountainous terrain. The ground AI just isn't good enough to handle it.

 

Then 1108 came out and broke artillery. Then patch 1109 came out and broke scripting. Yay. Maybe I can get this mission working again by patch 11010.

Edited August 5, 2011 by Speed

[Druid_]

When you are sending vehicles off-road in hilly terrrain then atm hours of testing is the only solution to seeing how they cope. It would be nice if within the ME there was a check route button which would compute the terrain inclines that the vehicle travels over and report the point at which it will get stuck. Even better would be computing the WP route on the-fly and show the route in amber where problems will occur. You can then move your WPs until they all display green (or whatever colour designated OK).

 

Total time spent developing the mission: 100 hours at least. That's the last time I'm doing a major ground battle on hilly or mountainous terrain. The ground AI just isn't good enough to handle it.

Now there's devotion for you. Not sure I can handle those levels of frustration anymore.

[maxmax]

Time, yea, that's the thing. And when you dont know when there will be problems, theres nothing but testing to do.

 

Just now i have been testing a mission with several jtacs and a couple of F15s in reserve to call on in case the jtacs dont work.

 

In the SP-verision jtacs answer. sometimes they give targets, sometimes not. works sort of ok. F15s take off when asked to (F10-other) and also answer as JTAC, even though they cant find any targets.

 

In MP-version no jtac even bothers to answer. Same mission, just more A10s as clients. F15s dont show up in F10-other. Annoys the hell out of me.

 

One good thing to have would be a sort of google street view. Zoom in enough and you will see how it looks in game. Now that would be useful. Now you ahve to start the mission every time you want to see exactly where a group has been placed.

[Druid_]

Satellite view for the ME is something we've been asking for since the release of BS. Maybe one day. The ME does look like its getting more & more attention but I'd think Sat View is a major upgrade that possibly keeps falling to the bottom of the list.

[Mud]

Concerning 2 and 3: Are the groups mixed by any chance?

 

I had a group made up of a truck and a soldier and when I contacted JTAC they also told me to go bugger off. When I removed the soldier, the problem was gone.

 

Perhaps it bugs on the point where it figures out what to call your target.

 

EDIT: Never mind that. I just did some more tests and even with an assign group set on a single tank, JTAC seems to sometimes fail to give a target. Back to testing for now!

Edited August 5, 2011 by Mud
Addition

[BrumTx]

Satellite view for the ME is something we've been asking for since the release of BS. Maybe one day. The ME does look like its getting more & more attention but I'd think Sat View is a major upgrade that possibly keeps falling to the bottom of the list.

 

 

 

I agree 100% and I'm sick of e mailing people about it, from what I have found out there is no legal reason we can't have it, it's just ED don't think we need it I guess

[cichlidfan]

I agree 100% and I'm sick of e mailing people about it, from what I have found out there is no legal reason we can't have it, it's just ED don't think we need it I guess

 

My understanding, from other posts on the subject...

 

The sat view is generated from within the actual sim environment, which is not running when you are in the mission editor. The view is not just a picture but a view of the world model.

 

This is the major stumbling block and, again from what I have read, the reason why it is not a simple change to impliment.

 

I would love to see it as well if it can be done. I would even be happy if a major ME upgrade ended up as a DLC. Increased functionality would be worth the cost, IMHO.

[GGTharos]

^^^^

 

A+

[BrumTx]

@ Cichlidfan,

 

Would you agree that if it was implemented that it would make placing static objects or other objects a lot easier than the present system ?

instead of placing and then having to run etc to check position

[LostOblivion]

We need a 3D environment in the ME, not just sat view. :)

[cichlidfan]

@ Cichlidfan,

 

Would you agree that if it was implemented that it would make placing static objects or other objects a lot easier than the present system ?

instead of placing and then having to run etc to check position

 

Of course, who wouldn't. Even with the little time I have spent in the ME I have spent my time moving units a bit and checking. It is not too bad if you use the fly button in the editor (a fast machine helps of course:P).

 

I was just pointing out that the subject has been discussed and an explanation of the relevant issues had been put forth, IIRC from the 'horses mouth' albeit second hand.

 

I don't feel that the need, or utility is being ignored. Also, I try to keep in mind that everyone has a different perspective on what should be a priority.

[Druid_]

The sat view is generated from within the actual sim environment, which is not running when you are in the mission editor. The view is not just a picture but a view of the world model.

 

This is the major stumbling block and, again from what I have read, the reason why it is not a simple change to impliment.

Funnily enough you can have the sim environment & the ME running at the same time (run the ME, then run DCS Multiplayer) so that's not a problem.

 

At the moment, all units are placed on the Map at mission start when the ME lua library is loaded into memory. Therefore, through C++, or whatever programming language they choose, they should be able to access & modify those parts of memory in real time.

 

In short, the position, elevation & orientation is known to DCS when running in the sim environment. Allow the Modders access to this information (quite possibly stored in an array/table/stack) and it won't be too long before we have 3D satellite view along with a great many happy miz builders.

[WildFire]

I am actually building a mission right now that uses facs. 3 areas in the mountains, its basically the reality of the afghanistan mountain missions I posted about a while ago, rocket and gun runs on hilltops, fun sh#@. I have to create multiple facs to activate at random times because within my testing I could not get the facs to work if you used a triggered task.

 

So I just spawned new ones for different pre-existing groups. One problem I have come across though is getting an AFAC to spot infantry once hes been activated. I put him five thousand feet over them, they are in a very small clearing, and i tried assigning the group but he still tells me to bugger off.

 

I'll figure something out though, as far as it goes its about done. I was waiting to release my first two for the update then they broke speeds stuff, so that went out the window, when I get done with this I'll be releasing two. The second one is super hard, this one is relatively easy just kind of quick fun. I know doing CAS for hog pilots in afghanistan is easy so this is my best take so far.

 

Druid, I havent checked but Im assuming the patch snafu'd your random gen that I was using? I just figured cause it used os. commands.

Edited August 6, 2011 by WildFire
Question

[Druid_]

Druid, I havent checked but Im assuming the patch snafu'd your random gen that I was using? I just figured cause it used os. commands.

Yes it did I'm afraid.

 

Look forward to your mission. Are you using the same callsign and frequency for all of your FACs. You can do as long as you deactivate the previous FAC before activating a new one. It will then appear to the player as if there is only one FAC. Requires a bit of timing though, but possible.

[WildFire]

Excellent advice Druid, however through fubar'ng it all up I found this on my own. Yes they have different numbers but same callsign and the callsigns are named on the waypoints in your flight plan to limit confusion. Just about done now, I just came on here to verify something-

 

As to the original post with infantry my AFAC is worthless. I also notice I cant see any ground troops from the air, maybe Im not looking for them hard enough(in this mission im building their all in trees, apparently that doesnt stop FAC thankfully) so either not looking hard enough or they arent rendered. If they arent rendered then perhaps if they arent rendered then there is no way an airborne fac can see them. Perhaps this is a related issue, maybe even bug worthy. Well have to do some more fact finding but this indeed warrants some research. Also I tested with the fac within 3000 feet.

 

Edit** I just flew real low and seen my guys, so I guess you can see enemies too, probably. If your close enough.

Edited August 6, 2011 by WildFire

[Druid_]

an A10 AFAC wouldn't designate ground troops in a miz that I still have under development (1.1.09 broke it). I guess you could utilise the F10 radio menu "1. Request WP on enemy troops" set a moving zone on em and then mark them. Or just give them a talk on to their position.

 

If Bluefor are pinned down they sometimes fire coloured smoke on their position and fire a different colour on the enemies position, don't know if that helps.

 

AFAC would be best, if it worked. I do agree however that ground troops are very hard to spot from the air but I'm pretty sure they render ok (caveat: haven't checked in 1.1.09).

[rockyalexander]

Here are a few various sound files I use when smoke-marking via triggers.

JTAC Sound Pack.rar

[BrumTx]

cant dl track

[rockyalexander]

cant dl track

 

No track. Ogg sound files.

[WildFire]

Yeah I ended up canning the troops on that target but it was alright cause that is the only one that wasnt just troops so it works now. As soon as I have the 3 different paths that you can choose at the beginning itll be done. Although they dont change much.

 

Did you make those sound files yourself? Pretty neat, I wish they had more options for the initial contact jtac. Like the ability to set up fac to use all your own ogg files. From start to finish. Of course youd have to record each line seperately and have different options but then Im sure people would be making soundpacks like mad.