Advance House Patrol Script -v0.9

[haroon 10]

F E A T U R E S

- Either put the array with your desired buildings to patrol

or let the script find enterable buildings within the radius you gave and make the group patrol them.

- Either make them patrol buildings orderly or randomly or even in reverse order of the given array.

- Building positions can also be altered in the same way above.

- Put the BlackList (as an array), which contains TypeNames of buildings which you want to exclude

from the buildings array to patrol.

- Provide your desired percentage of chance for the group to patrol outside areas around the buildings.

- Specify the Minimum and Maximum waiting time (in seconds) at each stop-point for the group.

- Specify how many times should the script Repeat the whole patrol plan.

- Script will stop for a pre-fixed amount of time, if group is NOT in SAFE mode

or

- if someone in the group died.

- informative, clear and beautiful debug system at a single variable switch for each group.

(Recommended : Debug one group at a time as debugging uses "hints")

- stuck control, unit will be commanded to move to another position if he is standing still at the same

place for "Max Waiting Time" + "10 seconds".

THE ARGUMENTS ARRAY

[<unit>,<buildings array>,[<min waitTime>,<max waitTime>],<Repeating>,[<building patrolmode>,<bpos patrolmode>],<chance to patrol outside>,<debug hint>,<black list>] spawn AHPS

C H A N G E L O G

Quote

Version 0.9

- Initial release.

This has been in my harddisk for a few months, as I lost in touch with ArmA 2 about 3 months.

So before someone encourages Bohemia Interactive to produce ArmA 3, I should upload my hardwork here.

(So far I've found that this script is compatible with UPS, and GroupLink3, but you need to change some settings on those mods,NOT in AHP, and you'll find what to do easily, as both of them have their respective readmes.)

Any feedback is welcome.

DOWNLOAD PAGE

http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=35433.0

Regards,

Haroon1992

[kremator 1064]

Hi Haroon,

Been playing with this all last night and I'm very impressed. Watching the debug log is very enlightening as well !

One improvement perhaps is that sometimes I see the leader of the team just enter the doorway of a building and will go no further. Even when they do enter (and they actually do a GOOD job) the rest of the AI really try to keep a set distance between each other - which looks a little odd.

Another thing would be that, in tasking a platoon to patrol houses, they split into a few seperate minigroups to search a few close buildings at a time.

I will be watching this script with great interest as house clearance and searching really put adrenaline into the veins !

Keep up the good work. Oh and your scripts work perfectly with spawned friendly and enemy troops (even MECH INF !!!) via gonza and L'Etranger's Virtual Training Space mission :)

Edited January 14, 2011 by Kremator

[haroon 10]

Thank you very much for the positive feedback.

I put a lot of efforts on AHP.

(Actually, the debugging system is built in a way so that it provides useful information to the mission makers as well as to find out what is being wrong.)

The debug system itself helped me alot in perfecting the script, yet the script still needs perfection.

One improvement perhaps is that sometimes I see the leader of the team just enter the doorway of a building and will go no further.

Yes, I've seen similar results in some of my previews(tests).

And I see no way of fixing it.

(I think it is caused by the "move" command. Which sometimes only commands a unit to go and stop within 4-5m from the actual position.)

By the way, I've only used the "move" command.

Because "doMove" tends to ignore unit's speedMode.

And I can't remember why I avoided using "commandMove".

If someone thinks there is a better solution that the "move" command, other that "waypoints", then please post your idea here.

Even when they do enter (and they actually do a GOOD job) the rest of the AI really try to keep a set distance between each other - which looks a little odd.

As the script is group-based, it only orders/command the leader of the group.

Meaning all other units just follows the leader.

I used this method because it is much more smoother than commanding individual units by using loops.

The only downside of this is that the script can't control the maintained distanced between members of the group.

So my advice is to use groups with no more than 4-5 members.

(From my tests, I found that groups with only 3 units are best.)

Also, I haven't tested this on MP. (if I remember correctly)

So if possible, could someone please test it for me?

(As I won't be able to use both my laptop and desktop for the coming few days.)

Regards,

haroon1992

[kremator 1064]

I use it with VTS so it is in an MP environment constantly :)

I will also host it on my dedi and check for you too. In my tests on Fallujah 8 full groups of west and east troops were carrying out house clearance at different ends of a city block and there were massive battles. Of course when the battles were over it was great to see the victors returning to house clearing (until they found more enemy troops !)

Shame about them not entering some buildings fully :( Also is it possible that you can add something that will make them carry out a continuous patrol of buildings and not just repeat for a certain number of times ?

[haroon 10]

Also is it possible that you can add something that will make them carry out a continuous patrol of buildings and not just repeat for a certain number of times ?

I think what you are asking is to make the script able to run for "infinite" times, right?

I'll try to add it in the next version.

(You can however, modify the script to add the function or just ask me if you are in a hurry.)

But I think just repeating the script for 500 times would take hours to complete.

(Especially when the buildings list is large.)

Regards,

Haroon1992

[haroon 10]

Can someone please tell me how to open the POLL again?

The POLL seemed to be closed, denying further users to vote. :(

Regards,

Haroon1992