Units Not Damaged by Ground Fire

[Habu23]

Hello all,

 

I am attempting to build a mission where friendly ground units fire on a group of enemy infantry to create the effect of a large shootout. In order to prevent the enemy infantry from being killed by the ground units before A-10C's can engage them, I have experimented with the immortal command and have failed to fix this problem. I have also attempted the "Fire At Point" and "ROE: Weapons Hold" to get the friendly ground units to intentionally miss the enemy infantry, but instead they kill them almost instantly and way before I get a chance to engage them with my A-10C.

 

Ideally, is there a way or method where enemy infantry are immortal to friendly AI ground units but vulnerable to the weapons of a player controlled A-10C? Any help is appreciated.

 

Habu

[Speed]

I think you're pretty much screwed, but maybe someone clever has some solutions. But... infantry are a HUGE pain in the ass to deal with. Apparently, no one told the them that they got an AI upgrade with A-10/BS2. I've never seen an example of ROE or ALERT STATUS options being successfully applied to infantry. They ignore almost all such commands. Oh and fire at point doesn't work either, I just checked. They also stop completely, every time they see an enemy. No way to make them advance, short of turning the enemy they are seeing invisible to AI.

 

Basically, I gave up trying to deal with them except under the most basic of circumstances.

 

ED really should 1) Make the infantry work correctly (as infantry support/anti-personnel type missions make up the majority of A-10 operations);

2) After these fixes are done, we will at least have infantry that have the mission-editor capabilities of vehicles. While we have these properly-working infantry to play around with, create a custom AI just for infantry soldiers. AFAIK, they currently share the same basic AI as vehicles- except that many things that work for actual vehicles don't work for infantry.

Edited March 15, 2012 by Speed

[Invisibull]

I know this isn't a very productive thing to say, but I've had no luck at all being able to implement infantry in any realistic way. It's a real shame because I'd love to get a nice CAS w infantry going, but they never seem to act very usefully.

 

My only suggestion to you, Habu, is to either have them just get into range of each other (about 600m) as you get into the area, or put a hold on both that will be canceled via a trigger as you or another a/c approach the area.

 

A big problem imo is that once they engage in a gunfight, it's impossible to get either side to retreat. So, basically we have very unrealistic contact sans any maneuvering at all. I'd love for someone to show me that I'm wrong about this.

[Invisibull]

ED really should 1) Make the infantry work correctly (as infantry support/anti-personnel type missions make up the majority of A-10 operations);

2) While we have properly-working infantry to play around with, create a custom AI just for infantry soldiers. Currently, AFAIK, they share the same basic AI as vehicles- except that many things that work for actual vehicles don't work for infantry.

 

Agreed wholeheartedly, Speed. It's a glaring deficiency in this sim that I'd really love to see get fixed.

[Speed]

Agreed wholeheartedly, Speed. It's a glaring deficiency in this sim that I'd really love to see get fixed.

 

Start another wish list thread. I guess. I tried, over a year ago, I only got three responses, of which two were basically "infantry don't matter".

 

At least if you start one, I'll support you on it. :)

Edited March 15, 2012 by Speed

[MadTommy]

Huba..what i would do is something like this..

 

Have a trigger zone around the infantry that when your A10c flies within the infantry AI get turn on (woof). Probably something like 8000m, but whatever suits your needs.

 

I would then have multiple infantry groups on both sides. Number depends on how long you want the firefight to last. I would stagger the size of these groups.. i.e 1st group on each side has 60 infantry.. the next 40 and the next 20.. or something like that.

 

Have all groups present, but with AI off.... when A10 flies into trigger zone, turn on the AI of the biggest group...have a trigger to turn on AI of 2nd group when 1st group damage = 50%, do this for both sides. Have AI set to lowest skill level i.e normal. And adjust to suit you needs. Adjust the number of groups, size of them, location, trigger zone to give the length of firefight you want.

 

This is just one of many ways to do what you want. You could have the AI on but 'immortal' and turn off immortal when A10 flies in zone.

 

Hope this helps.

 

edit: remember these two rules:

Infantry will fire for 2:30 minutes and NEVER relaod.

Infantry have a range <600m no matter the skill setting.

Edited March 15, 2012 by MadTommy

[repsol]

I had simular problems with some missions i made.

The way i did it was to have the BIG PART (group of maybe 15 soldier) of the enemy INVISIBLE and then have a SMALL PART (goup of 1 or 2 infantry) placed close and put to IMMORTAL but VISIBLE.

The friendly troops will se the IMMORTALl guys and fire on thoose.

The INVISIBLE guys may take minor casualties to but not very many if the IMMORTALS are placed well.

 

 

 

The downside to this is that the player will not be able to kill the IMORTALS either. But i think when engaging infantry tagets the players will not target individual soldiers most of the time but rather target them as a group...

You could put a trigger in if you like that will remove the IMMORTALS once the INVISIBLE guys have taken a set number of casualtie...Maybe 75 %.

[Invisibull]

It's just sad when such elaborate workarounds must be used to emulate below-average AI infantry behavior.

 

The A-10C's main mission in both

and Iraq was/is CAS for infantry in contact with the enemy. Yet, ponderously, the infantry in this sim are so utterly worthless that even a powerful imagination isn't enough to pretend that infantry implementation is anything but an afterthought.

 

If anyone is interested in working on an infantry mod, please let me know. (Is such a thing even possible?) I'm a safe distance from having any programming ability, but I'd still do what i could to help.

[MadTommy]

Whilst i agree that the AI should often be called AD, (D being the apposite to I ;) )

 

With imagination, time & effort you can get the AI to do just about anything. No reason why you can't get infantry to use cover, retreat because of taking casualties, call up reinforcements and anything else you can think of..

 

Whilst i agree AI needs some development love at least we have the tools to make them act more intelligent, its just a lot of work.

 

If the AI had 10% the intelligence of real humans we would each need a super computer to run the sim.

Edited March 16, 2012 by MadTommy

[Invisibull]

Whilst i agree that the AI should often be called AD, (D being the apposite to I ;) )

 

With imagination, time & effort you can get the AI to do just about anything. No reason why you can't get infantry to use cover, retreat because of taking casualties, call up reinforcements and anything else you can think of..

 

Whilst i agree AI needs some development love at least we have the tools to make them act more intelligent, its just a lot of work.

 

If the AI had 10% the intelligence of real humans we would each need a super computer to run the sim.

 

Tommy- how do you get infantry to retreat when taking losses? I've tried via trigger actions and they still just stand there.

[Grimes]

Without going into a rant, the limitations of the ground AI and non-specific AI for infantry severely hurt the quality of the sim and have honestly killed my motivation to finish some of the missions I had started building.

[Grimes]

Tommy- how do you get infantry to retreat when taking losses? I've tried via trigger actions and they still just stand there.

 

Infantry won't move unless they are "safe" (standing up). In order to become safe there cannot be enemies within their engagement range. So basically the enemy group must be dead or possibly the AI at least not longer be threatened.

 

As for retreating, I'll put it in terms of a vehicle group, which doesnt need to be "safe" in order to move as that is only an infantry issue. Commonly retreating is done by giving a stationary group waypoints toward friendly lines with a hold order at their starting waypoint. Then we simply trigger "group resume" when we want them to retreat.

 

Note that this is only for a stationary group, you can't have a convoy for example retreat at anypoint on their route. In essence the retreat must be planned beforehand and built into the mission.

[Invisibull]

that was my understanding as well, Grimes.

[Invisibull]

Without going into a rant, the limitations of the ground AI and non-specific AI for infantry severely hurt the quality of the sim and have honestly killed my motivation to finish some of the missions I had started building.

My sentiments exactly. An even somewhat competent infantry would open up endless mission-making possibilities.

[repsol]

with my limited mission editor experience i absolutely agree to...

I feel that the editor is fantastic in big parts but the ground part has some major flaws i feel...My top 3 would be...

 

- No 'switch waypoint' for ground units.

- No option to set 'unlimited ammo'

- No real working 'do not disperse under fire' for soft target ground units.

 

But still...It is the best editor i have ever seen in a game...

[MadTommy]

OK... i've just spent 20 mins looking at this.. and had some results.

 

You can get infantry to move after they have been engaged and taken losses and still within engagement zones.

 

Example mission: Two triggers:

Once > Group less than (80%) > AI task invisible (US inf), AI task (US inf) ROE= Hold, Flag 1 set

Continuous > Time since flag 1 (2sec) > AI task alarm state = Green (Rus inf & US inf)

 

After a bit US infantry continue on waypoints.. i.e retreat.

 

Not perfect, but something. I'm sure this could be refined. Only tested briefly, it works though.

 

You of course could turn visibility on and cancel green state etc etc.. when needed.

 

Nothing like a challenge! :smartass:

 

edit: You might be able to get them to move while under fire, i.e forcing green state.. i didn't try this..maybe someone else can play about with that. I just wanted to see if i could get them to move after taking fire and within engagement zone of active AI.

infantrySimpleMovetest.miz

Edited March 16, 2012 by MadTommy

[Invisibull]

Thanks, Tommy. I'll take a look at this.

[Invisibull]

 

After a bit US infantry continue on waypoints.. i.e retreat.

 

 

By 12:30 they still hadn't moved.

 

Frankly, going through all this seems a bit ridiculous to me. Operation Flashpoint, released over 10yrs ago, had a far more robust AI. It feels almost like I need to script every step of the infantry in this sim.

 

Getting an infantry squad to retreat under fire should not necessitate all these convoluted steps. The internal logic should already be there by default.

 

Thanks for your efforts, Tommy, but all you ended up doing is proving my point.

[Speed]

Whilst i agree that the AI should often be called AD, (D being the apposite to I ;) )

 

With imagination, time & effort you can get the AI to do just about anything. No reason why you can't get infantry to use cover, retreat because of taking casualties, call up reinforcements and anything else you can think of..

 

Whilst i agree AI needs some development love at least we have the tools to make them act more intelligent, its just a lot of work.

 

If the AI had 10% the intelligence of real humans we would each need a super computer to run the sim.

 

There's nothing artificial about the "D", MadTommy. Just call them GD.

 

But I disagree about this:

Whilst i agree AI needs some development love at least we have the tools to make them act more intelligent, its just a lot of work.

 

at least in the case of infantry, half of the AI options and conditions don't work. You mention making them move under fire, enforcing a green state- no, this doesn't work- that's the whole point. This feature doesn't work with infantry! Neither does ROE. I'll take a look at your mission, but when I tried alarm states and ROE, they both did nothing. So unless I was making a major mistake in my test missions, I disagree that we have the tools to make them act more intelligent, as, by my tests, those tools are not functioning:

 

By my tests:

Fire at Point doesn't work, so we can't over-ride their aiming logic with our own aiming logic.

 

Alarm states don't work.

 

ROE doesn't work.

 

Immortal doesn't make them immortal (but I've seen this with other units as well. There appears to be a general, non-uniform problem with the "immortal" option, as I've also seen immortal work correctly sometimes. Maybe we should characterize the behavior of the immortality option and put together a bug report for ED?).

Edited March 16, 2012 by Speed

[MadTommy]

I hadn't realised the infantry were so pinickity.

 

The mission i posted worked for the two times i ran it.. but clearly it is unreliable if it didn't work for you. If i recall correctly, they retreated after about 7/8 mins.

 

And i agree building missions where so many steps is needed to achieve something simple is a PITA.

 

Speed.. clearly its not reliable.. (the green state being forced).. but unless i'm delusional it worked for me twice in a row! There is nothing worse than something that is unreliable, drives me nuts,either work or don't but occasionally arrrgghh!

[repsol]

When doing some test for a mission i was making a few weeks ago i did some attacks on a infantry unit maching down a road.

 

I used:

 

TRIGGERED ACTION-DISPERSAL UNDER FIRE

 

and had the upper ENABLE check box TICKED

and the lower ENABLE check box UN-TICKED

 

This worked simular to what MadTommy described...

 

The infantry unit did not dispers but halted in place...6 minutes later they continued along their

waypoint like nothing had happened...

 

6 minutes stop was to long though i felt...

[Speed]

I hadn't realised the infantry were so pinickity.

 

The mission i posted worked for the two times i ran it.. but clearly it is unreliable if it didn't work for you. If i recall correctly, they retreated after about 7/8 mins.

 

And i agree building missions where so many steps is needed to achieve something simple is a PITA.

 

Speed.. clearly its not reliable.. (the green state being forced).. but unless i'm delusional it worked for me twice in a row! There is nothing worse than something that is unreliable, drives me nuts,either work or don't but occasionally arrrgghh!

 

I'll look at my mission again when I get a chance. Maybe it's in the different way we're using it. I was trying to use a trigger loop to make two groups of infantry advance into enemy opposition using bounding overwatch- so while one group was alarm state red, the other group is set to alarm state green, and vice-versa. Basically, the idea of this tactic is one group is running forward, while the other group applies suppressing/aimed fire. Then the group that ran forward stops, starts applying suppressing/aimed fire on the enemy, while the other group now advances forward. This way a group of infantry can leap-frog forward in a coordinated advance, while always having suppressing or aimed fire being laid down on the enemy.

 

Anyway, it didn't work, as both groups would always just stop once they got within firing range of the enemy, so SO MUCH FOR THAT IDEA. :cry:

 

That was the last time I tried to do anything with infantry in the ME- I gave up after that.

 

Who knows, maybe it's a problem like... infantry won't start moving again till they haven't been engaged with the enemy for more than a minute. I was counting on alarm states having instant and full effects though.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Speed

[Speed]

Here's a quick example showing alarm state not working with infantry. 45 seconds after the bullets start flying, I set the infantry to alarm state green, and yet they just keep sitting there.

 

The interesting thing is that if you make an example mission where the infantry is set to alarm state green BEFORE making contact with the enemy, they just run straight into enemy fire!

 

A clear bug, I'd say. I'm forwarding this up to a tester.

 

Edit:

 

A more clear example mission loaded. Description included:

If a set of infantry is given alarm state green prior to making contact with the enemy, they ignore enemy fire (ignoring enemy fire is the correct behavior).

 

HOWEVER, if a group of infantry is given alarm state green after making contract with the enemy, they just sit there. They don't start moving again. I believe this to be a bug.

 

In this mission, the group of blue infantry "inf2" is given alarm state green before making contact with the enemy. You can watch them ignore enemy the enemy and keep running towards them.

 

However, the blue infantry group "inf1" is given the alarm state green option AFTER making contact with the enemy, and they just sit there.

infantry alarm state bug.miz

Edited March 17, 2012 by Speed

[Nate--IRL--]

Here's a quick example showing alarm state not working with infantry. 45 seconds after the bullets start flying, I set the infantry to alarm state green, and yet they just keep sitting there.

 

The interesting thing is that if you make an example mission where the infantry is set to alarm state green BEFORE making contact with the enemy, they just run straight into enemy fire!

 

A clear bug, I'd say. I'm forwarding this up to a tester.

 

Edit:

 

A more clear example mission loaded. Description included:

 

Appears Fixed in my test build - both groups of Blue infantry run to their last waypoint, in v1.1.1.1 Inf1 just stops.

 

Nate

[Jona33]

Appears Fixed in my test build - both groups of Blue infantry run to their last waypoint, in v1.1.1.1 Inf1 just stops.

 

Nate

 

Great.