Frustrations trying to make my first mission

[BTTW-DratsaB]

I am having a go at making my first DCS mission but I just keep running into brick walls.

The mission is for Combined Arms, but I want the player to be in control of a ground vehicle. There are no Ground Commanders set, I dont want them to play RTS style, I just want them to drive any one of the vehicles in their "squadron".

 

Firstly, I wanted to have some enemy AI units follow a looped waypoint patrol. I was very surprised to see that this is not possible as standard. I had to go and get the MIST script system and figure out how all that works. I'm still not 100% sure it's working, I have seen a couple of unexplained script errors.

 

Secondly, as I say, I wanted to have the player be in control of a vehicle as part of a group, just like you would if your where playing an A10c mission or a Su25 etc. But you can't do this. There is no option to set a ground unit's "skill" as "Client" like you can with aircraft. This means I have to have some convoluted system where I give a message to the player at the start of the mission to tell them to take control. Another problem with this is that the player is not part of a coalition when the game starts so the briefing system does not work properly.

 

Thirdly, the above would not be so bad if I could get the game to start the mission spectating the unit I intend the player to control. but I can't get this to work at all, the game starts the mission spectating every damn unit except the one I want the player to control! I have tried different tricks with the order of unit placement, but I cannot get it to work.

 

Now, I have hit another brick wall. The group of ground vehicles I want the player to be a part of has a set number of waypoints to follow to the objective. I was instructing the player to take control of the vehicle and Press "C" to engage autopilot so that they would follow the path to the objective. Today I tried this and the vehicle stopped dead and refused to move, it would not follow the preset path. Only option was to drive manually.

This was working for me up to now, is it possible the latest patch broke something?

 

Anyone have any tips for me on any of these points before I give up?

 

 

 

---------------

PS

For Combined Arms this game badly needs the following very basic features:

1. Built in ability to set a looping waypoint path for AI units.

2. The ability to set a ground unit's Skill as Client, just as you can with playable Aircraft. So that a player starts in a vehicle.

3. When a Player is in control of a ground unit, add HUD direction information so that the player can follow a Waypoint course laid out in the editor.

4. Less buggy Autopilot waypoint/route following mode

Edited October 25, 2013 by BTTW-DratsaB

[Exorcet]

Unfortunately, I barely use CA. I also haven't tried using it online.

 

For the looping waypoint, is it possible to use the switch waypoint command on ground units?

 

Another somewhat tedious option is to place new waypoints on top of old ones, but no one really wants to do this, nor should they have to.

 

I could help you with aircraft, but I don't really make CA missions or use it much in the first place. I also have taken a little brake from DCS at the moment, but maybe I'll turn it on tonight and see if I can figure things out a little more.

[Wrecking Crew]

Maybe you had set a new path for the group and so when you went to Autopilot it was already at the end point? <-- speculating.

 

All of the CA stuff you want to do is not possible.

 

Even if you had one CA JTAC slot and only one vehicle that had the Player Can Drive option checked True you still could not automatically place the Client into that vehicle. And if that vehicle was one in a bunch of vehicles, the Client would not know which one to occupy -- unless you did a Smoke On Unit to identify it. Even then, the Client would need to know where to look for the smoke.

 

For the looping thing, vehicles and ships, and w/o using scripts, you have to lay down a whole bunch of waypoints -- maybe 30 of them, enough to span the time frame that you want to cover at the speed the units are designated to travel.

 

 

CA is a big element in most of my missions. I feel your pain. I was very disparaged to discover that CA GCs cannot control a/c in MP -- and protested by taking a hiatus on mission design with CA. But I got over it somewhat. When I play an opposing GC, most all of my time is in the F10 View guiding groups and aiming arty. The AI is soo much better at combat that a Client in a vehicle hardly has a chance of surviving, vs the Client guiding the group can stand up to opposition, if you know what you are doing. A GC can really mess up a group, OTOH.

 

WC

[Flagrum]

Some hints/pointers that might help:

 

Looped route: there is a tutorial make by VJS161Fire covering exactly this topic. But it is in german. Anyhow, maybe it helps?

 

Player control of ground vehicles: I think, this is really only possible with ground commanders.

 

Controlling only specific units: as you can't set a ground unit as "client" and the only way to control ground units at all is the GC (who can controll all units), I fear, you are out of options here...

 

Any other tips: hrm. Check out Steel Beasts Pro PE ... :o)

[ENO]

Looping units is easy if you have MIST 3.2... go download it and take a look at the guide. I think it's a new feature in MIST- basically a "doubleback" patrol order gets the unit to reverse its waypoints until it gets back to the beginning at which point it repeats the path... until it's killed or the mission ends. 1,2,3,2,1,1,2,3,2,1 etc... the alternative is a 1,2,3,1,2,3 etc.

 

http://wiki.hoggit.us/view/GroundPatrol

Edited October 25, 2013 by ENO

[BTTW-DratsaB]

Thanks guys, I'll check some of that.

 

MIST works well and I have it set up so they are looping, but I have seen it give an error that may have had something to do with a unit being destroyed, at least it seemed that way, I need to test more.

 

True that I could just do 30 waypoints (the mission is only about 40mins), that's the sort of stuff I was hoping would be suggested, so thanks! It seems really obvious I know but I hadn't thought of that :).

 

It's a shame about the not being able to start a client in a vehicle. However, for vehicle control I have discovered that you actually don't need a Ground commander in the mission, you just have to set a vehicle as player controllable and the player can press RALT+J and take control. This would be ok except for the spectating problem, as you really need the game to be spectating the vehicle you want the player to control, other wise it's confusing (probably. You would need to explain it anyway, it's messy).

 

Do you guys know any tricks as to what defines which vehicle/group is being spectated when the mission starts?

 

I am very close to completing the mission. Technically everything I want it to do can be done except for some hiccups stopping me, like the spectating the correct unit problem and the recently discovered refusal of a player controlled vehicle to automatically follow a way point path.

 

Maybe CA 1.5 will give me more of the abilities I require.

 

Thanks again

Edited October 25, 2013 by BTTW-DratsaB

[Wrecking Crew]

Do you guys know any tricks as to what defines which vehicle/group is being spectated when the mission starts.

 

No, and that is an issue when multiple GC slots are available. One GC (or JTAC) doesn't know what the other is doing unless they are talking to each other.

 

 

Interesting about the RAlt+J. So you don't have a GC slot at all? And no JTAC slot either? Do you select the Pilot can control vehicles? I have never used that option.

 

WC

[BTTW-DratsaB]

Interesting about the RAlt+J. So you don't have a GC slot at all? And no JTAC slot either? Do you select the Pilot can control vehicles? I have never used that option.

 

WC

 

Yeah that's right. Basically if you start a mission with no roles specified, but with some vehicles set as "Player can Drive", you can just spectate the unit and then press Right Alt+J to take control of it. You don't need to have "Pilot can control vehicles" set either.

 

About my probs...I got round some by the following:

 

Waypoint/mist loop error:- just put heaps of waypoints :).

 

Can't chose what vehicle/group I need to be spectated:- I found that if you make any unit "Hidden On Map" then they can't be spectated either.

Lead vehicle not following path when human drives:- Make the lead vehicle not controllable, only the other 2 in the group are.

 

Not perfect, but what can ya do? :)

 

I release it in a day or two. It's probably crap, being my first mission and all, but I'll see what people think. I just hope people "get" what I'm trying to do :)

 

Thanks again for the tips guys. Wanted to give ya Rep WC, but it wont let me.

Edited October 26, 2013 by BTTW-DratsaB

[Wrecking Crew]

Lead vehicle not following path when human drives:-[/i] Make the lead vehicle not controllable, only the other 2 in the group are.

 

Thanks again for the tips guys. Wanted to give ya Rep WC, but it wont let me.

 

Say, that Lead Vehicle idea is a good one.

 

Hmmm, wonder why you can't give me a Rep? How 'bout all the other folks reading this give it a try, too? :music_whistling:

 

WC