Need help about usage of unit orders

[bluesilence 12]

Orders in ArmA2 sometimes are misleading and confusing, sometimes are redundant, and sometimes they’re cryptic. Knowing what to do is not a problem, the real problem is knowing how to do it.

I need your help to fully understand some of these commands and how to make them useful.

The orders manual on the Wiki applies to Operation Flashpoint, but the effects have changed since. This is based on my own experience in the game. If somebody knows an updated guide, I would appreciate.

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Move orders:

Return to formation is self explanatory. Advance, stay back, flank left and flank right (these later two being quite misleading) are useful for making a soldier become a practice target, keeping a valuable unit (like a paramedic) out of harms way, or creating wide formations or initial points for flanking attacks.

Next waypoint will make units go to the next mission or custom waypoints, custom ones having higher priority.

6 – Stop – self explanatory as well. I have to test if when given to a unit in combat (danger mode), it will stop on the spot or he will find cover nearby.

7 – Wait for me – it has the same effect as Stop. I think this was designed to be used with human players.

8 – Find cover – the unit moves close to an object nearby. However if the unit is not on danger mode it will not crouch or go prone. And sometimes the unit ends up in the wrong side of the cover…

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Target orders:

1 – No target – I feel that this tells the unit to not concentrate on a specific target so it can attack targets of opportunity, although I don’t exactly know if that’s its purpose.

Then comes a list of possible targets. Unless you don’t give an Engage order to the unit, or its in Engage at Will, it won’t leave the formation.

Again, I’m not totally sure if that’s what it does.

More targets gives a list of other possible targets (civilians, empty vehicles, friendly units… not recommended).

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Engage orders:

1 – Open fire – the unit can shoot. I don’t know if it will pick its own targets.

2 – Hold fire – the unit can’t shoot. Sometimes the unit can override this if an enemy gets dangerously close. I’m not completely sure if this has any effect on a vehicle gunner as the left mouse button does (fire/cease fire).

3 – Fire – I have absolutely no idea what this does...

4 – Engage – After assigning a target to a unit, giving this command will make it leave formation to pursue its target.

5 – Engage at Will – Not really sure what this does… I thought this would make units shoot at targets of opportunity, but they do that anyway…

6 – Disengage – Another misleading command. It only cancels the Engage at Will order. I don’t know what this really does.

7 – Scan the horizon – Instead of covering their arcs, units will sweep the entire horizon. Although it might initially seem useful with turret gunners in crowded areas, I feel it inhibits them from firing at targets of opportunity.

8 – Watch direction – Instead of locking the unit’s arc to a spot or object (what the “watch†click order does), this makes them look at that general direction.

9 – Suppressive fire – Another of the big, unknown ones. It would be useful if this made the unit spray bullets in a general area, but that’s not the case.

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Mount orders are quite simple.

The only remarkable order is that giving a Disembark order to a pilot will make him land. Helicopter pilots will land on the nearest suitable area, but airplane pilots will go to the nearest airport, even if its controlled by the enemy.

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Status orders are more useful as squad member than as leader. The most useful command in that role is the “report status†command, as you can use it when you suspect one of your units has been killed.

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Actions: Opening doors, hiding bodies, reloading, picking up weapons, healing other units… plus salute, sit down, and eject.

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Combat modes:

1 – Stealth – I’m not sure what makes this different from Danger other than making soldiers whisper. Also not sure what this does with vehicles.

2 – Danger – makes units run from cover to cover as they move and keeping close to the ground. The disadvantage is that it makes the formation advance more slowly. Not sure about its effect on vehicles as well.

3 – Aware – the basic mode. Nothing special about it.

4 – Safe – same as Aware, but soldiers will not stay in formation.

Stand up, stay crouched and go prone will force units to stand that way.

9 – Keep low – yet another misleading command. This makes units stand at will.

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And that's it. The rest is not complicated, other than the "attack" click order being a "Target" and "Engage" order all at once.

Edited January 18, 2011 by BlueSilence
some text corrections

[Beagle 684]

3 – Fire – I have absolutely no idea what this does...

Makes a vehicle Gunne fire blind if you are Commander same as fire button.

1 – Stealth – I’m not sure what makes this different from Danger other than making soldiers whisper. Also not sure what this does with vehicles.

Makes vehicles avoid roads, drive slowly and lights off at night, driver will turn off engine without move order.

2 – Danger – makes units run from cover to cover as they move and keeping close to the ground. The disadvantage is that it makes the formation advance more slowly. Not sure about its effect on vehicles as well.

Like "stealth" but using roads more and driving faster.

[max power 21]

generally I think your soldiers will only engage if they are attacked, so engage at will makes them go into danger mode the moment they see a badguy.

No target cancels a target action... so if the ai currently has a target, he will cancel that target.

I think 'Keep Low' puts a bias on the AI to assume the same stance you are in their decision making.

Edited January 18, 2011 by Max Power

[The Hebrew Hammer 10]

What the hell, how do I even issue these orders? Whenever I bring up the commands they're all greyed out.

[Tonci87 163]

You have to be squad leader to use them.

Some explanation then:

Engage Orders:

Open Fire: Cancels the Hold fire command. The unit will shoot at every enemy

Hold Fire: Your Units won't fire at all unless the enemy comes to close to them. Usefull if you want to sneak up on the enemy and surprise them.

Fire: Same as CTRL+Leftklick in a Tank

Engage: The unit will engage the given target and leave formation for that. The unit will return to formation after the target is killed

Engage at will: Units will not stay in formation during a firefight. Instead they will hunt down their targets until all enemys are killed. Use with caution, your units might get killed when moving to far away. Very usefull in vehicels. The gunner will use his MG faster!

Disengage: Cancels Engage at will. Units return to formation again

Combat Modes

Good explanation:

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_AI_Combat_Modes

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/AIBehaviour

[bluesilence 12]

Thanks for the replies. That additional info about combat modes will be very useful. I have a few more questions, but they will be the last ones since I don't want this thread to become too extended.

1 -If I want my soldiers to shoot enemies on sight, I should set them to open fire and engage at will, right?

2 - And during stealthy missions, I should use Stealth mode with hold fire, so they only fire at threats?

3 - What's the AI criteria for using grenades? Sometimes the enemy AI, when I try to hide behind cover, instead of suppressing me, they bombard me with grenades. It could be very useful to have a "grenade bombarment" for use when attacking fortifications. And I've never seen an AI use smoke grenades...

About disengage, it doesn't make units return to formation while they're in combat.

And Fire doesn't replace the Fire order from the commander. If I give the normal "control+left click", the gunner will fire. But giving the Fire command from the Engage orders doesn't do anything...

And suppressive fire remains a mystery. I've seen a few (long) threads about it, so I suppose it's time to do some reading...

---------- Post added at 04:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:04 PM ----------

What the hell, how do I even issue these orders? Whenever I bring up the commands they're all greyed out.

If you read the manual or run the commander tutorial mission, you will see that you can enter the advanced commands menu from both the quick contextual click orders by pressing a number key (not the numpad ones), or by pressing backspace. To issue a command, you need at least a unid selected with the Function (F1, F2... F12) keys.

Edited January 18, 2011 by BlueSilence

[Baz 0]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=107231

[Big Dawg KS 6]

3 – Fire – I have absolutely no idea what this does...

Not sure how much of this is still true, but historically this order tells the AI to fire on their designated target without breaking out of hold fire. So if you issue it to a unit who is holding fire and tracking a target, he will take out only that target then continue to hold fire (until of course the enemy returns fire). It can also be used to make them actually fire on non-enemy (those in the "more" section) targets; at least it used to, but now I'm unsure if they will just automatically fire once you assign said targets.

Edited January 18, 2011 by Big Dawg KS

[Gunter Severloh 3954]

A nice tutorial would help for commanding AI:

[GUIDE] AI Squad Command

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=81123

Comprehensive and In-Depth guide to commanding your AI squad

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=107231

[bluesilence 12]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=107231

Wow, your videos are gold!! They helped me a lot!!!! Thank you so much!!! :bounce3:

[Baz 0]

no problem, glad I could help

[The Hebrew Hammer 10]

I'll have to take a look at those links. But yes obviously I'm the squad leader when I try to issue commands besides the generic hold fire/fire at will and move/regroup. I think it's F4 that brings that up, and I see all of the options, but they're greyed out. My problem is my AI are set to stealth on a user made mission and they're just low crawling around when I need to hustle to an objective leaving me alone to fight the Takistanis.

[bluesilence 12]

I'll have to take a look at those links. But yes obviously I'm the squad leader when I try to issue commands besides the generic hold fire/fire at will and move/regroup. I think it's F4 that brings that up, and I see all of the options, but they're greyed out. My problem is my AI are set to stealth on a user made mission and they're just low crawling around when I need to hustle to an objective leaving me alone to fight the Takistanis.

the F keys (including F4) select which units you want to give orders to. You can select everybody by pressing ~ (between the Esc and Tab keys). Then you navigate through the menus with the number keys and move back with the backspace key.

[MulleDK19 21]

9 – Suppressive fire – Another of the big, unknown ones. It would be useful if this made the unit spray bullets in a general area, but that’s not the case.

Combat modes:

1 – Stealth – I’m not sure what makes this different from Danger other than making soldiers whisper. Also not sure what this does with vehicles.

2 – Danger – makes units run from cover to cover as they move and keeping close to the ground. The disadvantage is that it makes the formation advance more slowly. Not sure about its effect on vehicles as well.

3 – Aware – the basic mode. Nothing special about it.

4 – Safe – same as Aware, but soldiers will not stay in formation.

Stand up, stay crouched and go prone will force units to stand that way.

9 – Keep low – yet another misleading command. This makes units stand at will.

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And that's it. The rest is not complicated, other than the "attack" click order being a "Target" and "Engage" order all at once.

Suppressive fire: They should shoot. But only if there are enemies.

Safe: Safe is not the same as Aware. In Safe mode, they'll lower their weapons.

Stealth/Danger: Stealth will make units whisper, stay low, turn off laser pointers, etc. Danger is also known as Combat mode. This permits lasers, etc.

Keep low: This is actually "Copy my stance", which will make units stay in the same stance as their leader. If he go crouch, they crouch. If he go prone, they'll go prone, etc..

Edited January 19, 2011 by MulleDK19

[Muahaha 10]

Keep low: This is actually "Copy my stance", which will make units stay in the same stance as their leader. If he go crouch, they crouch. If he go prone, they'll go prone.

AFAIK, the vanilla "copy my stance" only copies the standing and prone position, crouch will be treated as standing.

[Alex72 1]

I'll have to take a look at those links. But yes obviously I'm the squad leader when I try to issue commands besides the generic hold fire/fire at will and move/regroup. I think it's F4 that brings that up, and I see all of the options, but they're greyed out. My problem is my AI are set to stealth on a user made mission and they're just low crawling around when I need to hustle to an objective leaving me alone to fight the Takistanis.

To add from bluesilence post.

You can press SPACE as well to select all squadmembers. And then you have 1 through 0 for orders and functions.

[stun 5]

As far as I know Keep Low (copy my stance) is used to set the units back to the their default status i.e. aware, stealth etc. It cancels a stand, crouch, prone order. So technically it doesn't order the unit to copy your stance or keep low it just sets them to follow whatever mode they were in before they were told to crouch, stand etc

"Engage" orders unit to break formation and attack a target that has been assigned previously. Once the target is destroyed the unit is no longer in engage mode and will return to formation. If no target has been assigned the unit will not break formation.

"Engage at will" keeps the unit permanently in engage mode, so every time you assign them a new target they will charge off and attack it.

Disengage cancels the engage at will command (it reverts to an engage command). I believe they will still attempt to destroy the current target, but will then return to formation. To completely cancel the current engage command you need to order the unit to return to formation.

Edited January 19, 2011 by stun

[tswords 10]

as most of the other conflicts have been resolved theres another use for "fire"

say your squad is in "hold fire" mode, and you go ahead and pick and choose which bad guy you want each of your individual squad member of yours to target, if they give the response such as "observing target" or "ready to fire", you give the "Fire" command.

what this does is it allows the AI to TEMPORARILY open fire until their prescribed target is destroyed/killed, after which they will continue to hold their fire, very useful for stealthy secret squirrel ambushes with silencers and suppressors....till you realize you forgot that 2 was a machinegunner and blow your entire SEAL teams cover.

another instance ill type out for you.

You: 8 TARGET THAT BMP-3

8: (points M16 at it)

You: 8, FIRE!

8: (whips out his SMAW) *BOOM!*

8: SCRATCH ONE!

You:....did i really have to specify?

8: WAITING

in closing, if the AI isnt really willing to go through all the hard labor of getting their AT weapon all the way off their back, the Fire command usually gives them the "you can do it!" motivation to haul that $32,000 tube off their back and into the broadside of the enemy armor.

hope that helps.

Edited January 20, 2011 by tswords

[Joe98 90]

How can I have troops fire at a spot where there are no enemy?

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[stun 5]

You can't. suppress will only work on location where the AI knows there were enemies recently. i.e. they saw the units move behind cover, but they can't see them now because they are crouched behind cover.