Groups of static objects?

[Aginor]

Hi there!

 

Today I made a small mission where I built a fuel depot made of a lot of fuel tanks, watch towers, a few AAAs, bunkers, and other buildings. Placing them accurately so they look good took a while but I like it now.

Also, it is a nice fireworks if you drop some CBUs on it, which is the purpose of the mission.

 

So far so good, but....

now I want to build another one that looks the same somewhere else.

And that's where the problem starts:

I can move the objects only one by one. That is very annoying.

 

Is it possible to group static objects in order to make a template of it, to copy the fuel depot to where I want?

If yes: how does that work?

 

If no:

PLEASE implement that, ED! That would be sooo great.

Either the possibility to draw some kind of selection box to move all the single objects (I would actually prefer this one) or at least the possibility to make groups of static objects.

[LostOblivion]

I AGREE!!! This would def be something I'd like to see too. The only problem I see here is that rotating them should be possible to do for both individual and the group as a whole.

 

+1

[SmokeyTheLung]

I *think* this option has been in the pipeline for a few years now. I seem to remember reading about in the black shark days.

 

My workaround (a bit cumbersome) is to snap a photo of the ME screen, over the "group"'in question (at full zoom), with my phone. Since Ive been known to stack static objects on top of one another to make some really strange structures, this has been indispensable.

 

With any luck an upgrade like this will make it into this module

[Grimes]

I wonder if its possible to mod the mission editor to allow for static objects to use groups. Either by adding the static objects to a normal group, or by making a group for static objects. There should be no limitation to it as static objects are simply sans AI. Although the "group alive/dead" triggers do not work with AI.. even with just one building. Unit dead/alive does work though.

[Nate--IRL--]

Can this not be done with Templates system in the ME? Or does that not apply to static units?

 

Edit:- To answer my own question - no it can't.

 

Nate

Edited August 23, 2011 by Nate--IRL--

[Speed]

I wonder if its possible to mod the mission editor to allow for static objects to use groups. Either by adding the static objects to a normal group, or by making a group for static objects. There should be no limitation to it as static objects are simply sans AI. Although the "group alive/dead" triggers do not work with AI.. even with just one building. Unit dead/alive does work though.

 

I doubt it, static objects, last I checked, were not units. The mission environment Lua function that supports the "Unit Dead" trigger may be overloaded in C to accept non units (or hell, it may even be an entirely different Lua function entirely when you use Unit Dead on a static building- I've never looked). Anyway, static objects are certainly not units, for example, you can't use Unit.getByName on a static object. Groups are defined to be composed of units, so since static objects are not units, it is not likely to work. You can try though. Maybe ED has written support for static objects in groups into the C/C++/C#/whatever-the-hell-they-use source code but just not yet into Lua. Doubtful, though.

 

Best way to replicate an arrangement of static buildings is to place units directly over them (and I mean exactly on top of them, at max zoom level). Name a solder placed directly over a helipad something like "helipad hdg 340", so that the unit tells you the structure type, and heading that the structure is supposed to be set to. Place another nearby soldier on top of another building, name him something like "hanger hdg 70". And so on. Now that you have units placed directly on top of all the structures, and have them named to tell you what type of building and at what heading, take that group of units and either drag or copy them to somewhere else. If you copy them, I believe the names will change to like, "helipad hdg 340#1" since there is already a "helipad hdg 340" unit in the mission.

 

Maybe you could set this group as a template, but would that destroy the names you gave them entirely on any new groups created from the template?

Edited August 23, 2011 by Speed

[Grimes]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1719724/DCS/Static_obj_trigger_test.miz

 

Unit Dead Trigger activates.

Group Dead Trigger doesn't activate.

 

It took 4 tries to figure out the best task, weapons combination, and task location to get the AI to hit and kill the targets... in hindsight I coulda just used time more and check if each is alive. Oops.