n00b wants to know how to script SP/COOP civilian infiltration and insurrection

[oktyabr 12]

Long title, I know.

This is what I envision:

Small team acting as tier one operators tasked with gathering intel from civilians. I can't have them running around the city dressed in BDUs so I wonder if I can have the players play as civilians, as if undercover?

Event: Military coup takes over local government. How to script this sort of violence realistically? Like soldiers moving into town and shooting *some* of the civilians?

Task: Join gorilla insurgency as an adviser. How to script military to then only fire on civilians carrying weapons, i.e. the insurgents? If the players carry weapons on a short mission and then proceed the next day *unarmed* will they still be recognized as hostiles?

Task: Free gorilla leader and other VIP(s), exfil VIPs using civilian vehicles, etc. How to script military action to prevent escape?

Problems with this concept? Suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[sudslv 10]

I believe this is wrong part of forum? you are saying what you want to make but not where you need help (where you are stuck). And all this is easy to make, im not a *pro* in editor/scripts but for example:

1. player spawns as civilian and recieves task "gather intel from..." grouped with other civilians(undercover soldiers).

2. when player does something(ex: goes to waypoint) Trigger will start, it will trigger a already spawned/will spawn group and use Setpos, give Waypoint and For each civillian (who this army will kill) in init field add "this addRating -10000;" (this will make the group move to the destination and will kill any bad rated unit in their way).

3. add another Task "...", then i think it could be made with Setside but i fully didnt understand what you want.

4. again add Task "...", i think again Setside and Join Group, you can make Trigger to activate for example this.

use KEYWORDS to search how to use them in editor and make a mission(atleast try) and then make thread where are you stuck (and please dont ignore the main rule "Search before post").

Edited July 19, 2013 by sudslv

[oktyabr 12]

Thanks for the reply!

Yes, I know how to use the search function ;) I read page after page relating to "infiltrate as civilian" hoping to find someone else who had already blazed a path this direction.

Let's try this one... players are infil as civs when coup event happens. There is now a military force in a town where there was not previously. I'm basically looking for an elegant way to script what would equate to human rights violations for the players to witness... troops occupying a town (waypoints -> guard), the shooting of say 30% of the civilians (ALICE or is something more complicated required to pull this off?) and then once the impression of dominance is given (30% dead or wounded) they STOP the shooting and just patrol the city, only shooting armed civilians.

Task unarmed (so they are not shot on the street); task *with* weapons (risk of being shot); drop all weapons when mission complete... IF they have already engaged the opfor in previous mission what flag needs to be reset so they are treated as neutral the following day, when they are once again unarmed?

---------- Post added at 11:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:48 AM ----------

OK, talking to my son, who has more experience with this stuff than I do, he says there is no way to use ALICE to play civilians in a town and then get AI troops to shoot some of them. I can't believe there isn't a work around for this...

---------- Post added at 12:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 AM ----------

So far it sounds like the best "work around" is to manually place civilian AI as Independents around the city and use ALICE to fill the gaps with true civilians. Set the opfor so they kill the independents, spawn more later as the rebel fighters that the players need to work with.

[sudslv 10]

i quite dont understand what you are trying to do... make "raw, ugly" map with your idea and then try to make "pretty" the specefic things and if you get stuck at something then post on forums but search first. about "ALICE" i just yesterday got arma 2 operation arrowhead so idk what it is however you can do the following to units u want to ai be able to kill: in units init field write:

this addmagazine "30Rnd_762x39_AK47"; this addweapon "AK_47_M"; this addrating -1000;

if you want the unit start with loaded weapon put magazine infront of weapon. weapons. please dont say what you want to make but say what you are stuck with otherwise nobody cant help you and nobody will spoonfeed you.

EDIT:

googled about ALICE. so i think you want to spawn random civilians and few of them are hostile and armed against blufor? if yes then i guess easy ways would be like you did only if you want them to have civillian skins just spawn civilians, paste the above code into their init field and add: this Setside east; you can use "resistance" instead of east too however there is workaround for ALICE but it would require some good scripting.

Edited July 19, 2013 by sudslv

[panther42 53]

Small team acting as tier one operators tasked with gathering intel from civilians. I can't have them running around the city dressed in BDUs so I wonder if I can have the players play as civilians, as if undercover?

At least for this part, you could use Tier One Operators by McNools

[oktyabr 12]

please dont say what you want to make but say what you are stuck with otherwise nobody cant help you and nobody will spoonfeed you.

EDIT:

googled about ALICE. so i think you want to spawn random civilians and few of them are hostile and armed against blufor? if yes then i guess easy ways would be like you did only if you want them to have civillian skins just spawn civilians, paste the above code into their init field and add: this Setside east; you can use "resistance" instead of east too however there is workaround for ALICE but it would require some good scripting.

I know how to ask to be "spoon fed" and that's not what I'm after at all. I am purposely being vague because I realize there may be MANY different ways to do a thing and I am more interested in what experienced mission makers might suggest as *their* solution. If nothing else I hope this thread to be a form of documentation of how I solve the problems myself, if no one has anything useful to contribute. After all, the forum search would be useless if no one ever posted problems and solutions.

But obviously I haven't made it clear enough so one little thing at a time, I suppose.

ALICE spawns civilians, populating towns for you, *within your proximity*. This is useful for a few reasons, first it doesn't require elaborate scripts (it's a module included with the editor), second because they act semi-intelligently according to how "threatened" they feel, etc. Plop it on an appropriate designed map and your town has civilians walking around in it. That simple. This is not the problem.

OPFOR come into town. By default they will not fire on civilians. You can manually script civilians as independents and align them against OPFOR but then they are automatically at war, 100%. I only want to simulate a hostile force coming into a town and occupying it by force, meaning that a certain percentage of the civilians should be shot. "How to get AI to shoot civilians" has been discussed many times... (SEE, I DO use google and forum search!) So it seems that ONE WAY of doing this is to use the ambient civ module to populate a town AND manually place groups of "independents" that the OPFOR should shoot on sight. This problem will probably work itself out as I have described, unless someone suggests something that might work better.

Problem: Resistance fighters have a few tasks for the players. Some involve weapons and some do not. I *know* how to equip players and make them drop their weapons. What I don't know is how to script it so they, the players and the AI resistance (side: Independent) are only fired on by the OPFOR *when weapons are visible*. In other words I want the OPFOR to shoot if they see someone, including the players, carrying an AK, RPG, etc. Ideally I would like to allow the players to carry pistols safely (concealed) but I doubt this is easy to accomplish. Would the best way be to check for weapons excluding pistols and setside to neutral if none are present or is there a better way?

---------- Post added at 05:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:25 PM ----------

At least for this part, you could use Tier One Operators by McNools

Nice mod and it might come in useful but it doesn't answer how to get OPFOR to hold fire in specific situations. Thanks though!

[sudslv 10]

okay finnaly you said what is your problem but i cant help right now. I will take a look tomorrow as im editing my own map.

Edited July 20, 2013 by sudslv