Humvees won't open fire on Insurgent Civilian vehicles

[Bahger]

I have an Insurgent convoy that is a mixture of vehicles: 2x "civilian" VAZ-2109 sedans and 2x "Armor" ARV-BDRM 2s. I want a Blue Humvee group consisting of both TOW and Armament variants to open fire when they run into the Insurgent vehicles but they do not, even though other units, including AI Hogs, do.

 

Insurgents are definitely classified as Red in this mission, not Neutral. I have tried giving the vehicles explicit ROE "Weapons Free" orders and looked to see if they might be unarmed but there's no loadout control over vehicles.

 

I suppose I could change the target vehicles to a full-military convoy, i.e. no Civilian sedans but that would be a pity, as they contain an Insurgent warlord HVT and his family, who are travelling with an armed escort.

 

Is there anything coded into vehicles that might make them not attack a convoy containing unarmed "Civilian" units when aircraft will?

[Quirkitized]

Works here...

 

I'm guessing it's a line of sight or distance issue?

 

see attachment

hmvengage.miz

[Bahger]

Well it's close range but in some pretty hilly territory where LOS might be hard for the ME to calculate. Thanks, as always. I've adjusted the .miz and will post it here if it still won't work. Knowing you, you'll figure out something really dopey in my logic.

[Bahger]

It turned out to be all about range and elevation. I had the two groups going head-to-head but a crest with steep fall-offs on both sides meant that they didn't spot each other until they were almost on top of each other. This meant that the TOWs were useless and the .50 cals on the Humvees could not tilt their gun elevation down sufficiently and/or quickly enough, giving the more heavily-armored BDRM-2s the first (and last) shot. This is why, in this specific situation, not a single Humvee got off a shot.

 

At longer range it was a different story. Sometimes the BDRM-2s lit up a Hummer, but most of the time, the TOWs, which are very slow to reload, a problem that counts less at longer range, would take one APC out and the .50s would hose down the civ vehicles and the remaining APC.

 

Now I know how to organise this in my .miz so that there is no danger of what might look like anomalous behavior when the Humvees cannot bring their guns to bear on a target that looms up at close range and the TOWs are well inside their minimum range.

[mjeh]

mission building is quite like programming in that you build it in an hour and spend the next 3 days trying to get it to work :)

[Bahger]

mission building is quite like programming in that you build it in an hour and spend the next 3 days trying to get it to work :)

Ain't that the truth.

[Bahger]

Ok, very frustrated, I thought I'd fixed this but the AI behavior varies enormously in the mission vs. in the test I made.

 

I have attached two files:

 

1. The test .miz: This proves that a group of 3 Humvees will successfully attack a convoy of 3 unarmed Insurgent vehicles and their escort of 2 APCs.

 

2. The actual .miz: In this mission, over exactly the same terrain (therefore same LOS, ranges, distance between the groups, etc.) the Humvees just sit there and allow themselves to be lit up by the oncoming convoy. I am baffled.

 

For anyone kind enough to take a look at the mission, please bear in mind the following:

 

- Elect to play the mission as the C/O aircraft. You will not have to do any flying but this will activate both AI Hog client flights which will be occupied by players.

 

- Switch to F10 view.

 

- The confrontation takes place at the end of the mission, so ctrl-z ruthlessly BUT:

 

- Make sure you order the Airborne assault to commence via the Radio menu/F10/F1 at 12:19:30, as this will give the A-10s enough time to get rid of enemy AD in their path. The Chinook will then land successfully as its Apache escorts patrol.

 

- You will see the three Humvees spawn and take up a position south of the bridge.

 

- Shortly after this, the semi-civilian Insurgent convoy drives out of the town towards that bridge. The Humvees will not act aggressively and they get mulched by the APCs. They won't even fire on the civilian vehicles.

 

- Note that I have made the target convoy invisible until it gets almost in range of the Humvees. This is to prevent it from being hit from the air by over-competent AI; I want the humvees to kill the convoy to rewaed the player for getting the airborne assault in place on time to intercept it.

 

This skirmish is the climax of my mission, which in other respects plays out really well. If I can't fix this I'll need to consider awful kludges like scripting the convoy to blow up if the Blue airborne Humvees are in place on time. I have tied "Fire at point" orders for the Humvees; no dice. I don't know what it is that is making them so passive in a fully populated mission when in the test .miz containing only the two vehicle groups they act with proper aggression.

 

I realize I have asked a lot of you guys lately but this is my most ambitious, and potentially by far my best, mission. I've got the Airborne assault wiorking very well, I like the way the player has to give certain battlefield orders that require decent tactical SA on his part and the fight is pleasingly ferocious. It's going to have extensive custom radio comms files and will be playable in both SP and MP. However, if I can't fix this, I'm going to be very discouraged.

 

Thank you!

Humvee_test 03.miz

Patrol by Force 12.miz

[Druid_]

I suspect it may have something to do with settings in the advanced waypoint actions. I am unable to download and test at the moment until the w/e but I usually find that when something like this happens it's because I have disabled an action and forgotten to re-enable it.

[Bahger]

I suspect it may have something to do with settings in the advanced waypoint actions. I am unable to download and test at the moment until the w/e but I usually find that when something like this happens it's because I have disabled an action and forgotten to re-enable it.

Thanks, Druid, maybe that way lies salvation. I have taken a very careful look at the advanced waypoint options for both groups but now I'll look again. If you do get the time to check it out, I'd be very grateful.

[Bahger]

Look at these two tracks, towards the end. Not only do the Humvees passively get shwacked by the Insurgent convoy every time, but the assault helos are also strangely reluctant to take it on. Only the A-10s seem willing to attack these vehicles, the other units seem to have declared a cease-fire (suicidal in the case of the Hummers.)

 

In the second track, even the Hogs do not go for the Insurgent vehicles, leaving them to destroy the Humvees, that simply won't fire at them.

 

This is insane. Can anyone comment?

Passive Humvees & helos Fail.trk

Passive Humvees & helos Fail 02.trk

[Quirkitized]

Okay, a couple things.

 

1. It doesn't appear (invisible = false) advance waypoint action is actually working. I did not do further investigating but at least in this mission, it fails to work.

 

2. The insurgent convoy was spawning early and would make it past the bridge before the helicopter landed and hmmvs spawn.

 

So I did this as a work around:

 

On your trigger name

"Spawn insurgent Escape convoy" you had the spawn the insurgent convoy and flag 21 on, however I deleted the group activate insurgent convoy from that and added it to:

 

"Blue transport helo lands"

I added the group activate (insurgent convoy) to this trigger. This meant the convoy would come over the hill and the hmmvs would engage, instead of the insurgent convoy being past the bridge already.

 

I also replaced the insurgent convoy to spawn on the road instead of off the road near the building, and further up the road. Because invisible(false) is not working, they needed a short route so the hmmvs would engage them before the helicopters and a10s destroyed them.

 

So basically:

Removed invisible(true) and invisible(false) to waypoints from insurgent convoy

Shortened insurgent convoy route so there would be targets left for hmmvs to destroy

Change insurgent convoy spawn activation to when the chinook helicopter lands to get the timing right

 

Because invisible(false) doesn't seem to be working I would just continue to deal with work arounds. You could have the insurgent convoy spawn even further up the road for faster engagement with hmmmvs, or take away apache attack helicopters or have the apaches be there for show but ROE = weapon hold, the a10s did still try and drop gbu-12s on the insurgent convoy but by the time the bomb reached the target, usually the hmmvs or apache had already killed it.

 

edit: I have reported the invisible = false issue here with example

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=102517

Patrol by Force 12fix.miz

Edited March 7, 2013 by Quirkitized

[Bahger]

OK, well, first, thanks very much for taking a look and making cahanges, Quirk, if ever I meet you I'll owe you a beer (Druid and Grimes, too...)

 

You were absolutely right, the "Invisibility" order does not toggle. If "Invisible" is part of any vehicle group's advanced waypoint orders, there appears to be no switching it off. This was why my Humvees did not engage and possibly why the Apaches were often passive, too.

 

Here's where our solutions differ:

 

I can't make the appearance of the escaping Insurgent convoy conditional on the Chinook arriving because it's a very important tactical aspect of the mission that the player controls and has to time the ingress of the airborne assault group optimally. If he orders it to take off too early, the A-10Cs will not have found and killed the air defences and the helos might get shot down before they can deploy the humvees (and, eventually, infantry.) If he orders it too late, the airborne group will not be in time to intercept the escaping convoy and, assuming the other units don't catch them either (they drive fast) a mission objective will be left undone.

 

So, what I did was, following your advice, I eliminated all "Invisible" advanced waypoint orders and had the convoy spawn on the main road quite near the Chinook's LZ. However, I made the appearance of the Insurgent convoy a timed event tied to when Red suffers the first loss of a vehicle in the battle. This sets a seven-minute timer ticking, as the HVT in the convoy rushes to get his escape organised at the other end of town. Only if the airborne assault drops its Humvees at that end of town in time will the convoy get destroyed. There's a chance that the Hogs or Apaches will get it but that'll happen more often when testing with AI than when human pilots in the A-10Cs have about 45 seconds to spot, roll in, and kill all five vehicles. Making the Insurgent convoy spawn this way is less contrived, because it offers different possible outcomes based on the player's actions, and more realistic because it does not create an inevitable, set-piece battle with a preordained result between the Humvees and the vehicles.

 

Thanks to your intel re. the borked invisibility toggle function, I've now got my Humvees to fight (although the TOW gunner never gets a shot off, maybe he has a really high minimum range.)

 

The mission is going to be good. Here's the fixed WIP .miz, in case anyone is interested.

 

Thanks again!

Patrol by Force 13.miz

Edited March 7, 2013 by Bahger

[Quirkitized]

That sounds good. I just had no idea how the mission was to play out. Its a shame the invisible trigger is not working. Mission sounds fun.

[Druid_]

'Invisible FALSE' not working is Confirmed as bug in 1.2.3 and fixed in our internal build.

[Bahger]

Manu thanks for running it up the chain of command, Druid. Is there an ETA on an updated user manual for the ME?

[Quirkitized]

That's great news, I was getting a bit worried that the report in bug forum wasn't responded too. Glad it's fixed!

[Paco]

mission building is quite like programming in that you build it in an hour and spend the next 3 days trying to get it to work :)

 

You got that right!

[Bahger]

More like 3 days and 3 weeks. It's ok though.

[Druid_]

Manu thanks for running it up the chain of command, Druid. Is there an ETA on an updated user manual for the ME?

I have no idea I'm afraid. I'll see what I can find out. A few more features might find their way into 1.2.4 so that would be a good time to update the ME manual methinks.