Fire For Effect: The God of War - smart & simple AI artillery

[autigergrad 2034]

Can this be used in conjunction with ASR AI without issue? Would be a nice supplement for sure!

[Rydygier 1317]

Not 100% sure, you have to test, but my guess is, both will work OK together.

[eric963 23]

I have been using both without any noticeable issues.

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[autigergrad 2034]

So all I have to do is place the module down correct?

 

I jumped in and tested by putting a player model down, and some vanilla NATO artillery (Sharef and the Mechanized Artillery forget the name)

 

I used Zeus to place down a couple of CSAT squads and then I placed a NATO squad within viewing distance of the troops.

 

 

Even though the infantry began to engage....the Artillery didn't fire.  

 

Just making sure I'm doing this correctly.

[Rydygier 1317]

Check "how it works" chapter in the manual. Most often reason of mysterious lack of arty fire would be allied troops within danger zone. Also targeting takes some time (defining target's real movement vector). Use demo mission as reference for setup comparison. 

[autigergrad 2034]

Check "how it works" chapter in the manual. Most often reason of mysterious lack of arty fire would be allied troops within danger zone. Also targeting takes some time (defining target's real movement vector). Use demo mission as reference for setup comparison. 

So I loaded up the demo mission and it still won't fire.

 

I turned off ACE.  I had CBA, ALiVE, ASR AI, and FFE active.  

 

I also noticed that the debug wasn't showing up either.  I tried using the module as well as the script version and had no success.

[Rydygier 1317]

Well, demo works just fine for me on vanilla - try, then also without ALiVE but with ASR perhaps. After 25-30 seconds I have arty firing, debug and booms at the target. BTW note, demo consist scripted version of FFE, thus for it addon version should be not active. Also it's for old editor, I have to some day remember to migrate it to Eden. 

[autigergrad 2034]

Well, demo works just fine for me on vanilla - try, then also without ALiVE but with ASR perhaps. After 25-30 seconds I have arty firing, debug and booms at the target. BTW note, demo consist scripted version of FFE, thus for it addon version should be not active. Also it's for old editor, I have to some day remember to migrate it to Eden. 

Will do.  I hope ALiVE isn't causing it to break as I use ALiVE in just about all of my missions.  

 

I did take the script out when I tried the addon version.  I let the demo run for a good 5-6 minutes while painting the target.  I'll try without ALiVE and report back.

[Rydygier 1317]

EDIT... Note - addon version needs module placed on the map, not present in the demo, because demo is for scripted version. 

 

Tested both, scripted and addon versions in my demo, and both are working OK with ASR AI and CBA active (CBA shouldn't be necessary for FFE though, since it's initialization is module-based in addon version).

[3l0ckad3 17]

Howdy,, nice mod
Does anyone know how to make the mortars not spam so many shots at once on the script version  ?
Would be nice if they had to wait a short while before cracking off another shot to avoid the mortar mini gun effect lol
Cheers :)  

[Rydygier 1317]

Perhaps try set this to 1:

 

RydFFE_Amount (6) –this holds number of shells, that in summary should be fired in each fire mission. CLUSTER and GUIDED salvo amount is always divided by 3 (rounded up);

 

 

Maybe combined with:

 

RydFFE_Interval (10)- time gap (in seconds) between each “seek for targets†cycle (each cycle each not busy battery on map looks for new fire mission opportunity);

 

 

 

How fast mortars are firing? Is the fire rate realistic or abnormal? Shouldn't be abnoraml fast, not due to FFE. 

[Devastator_cm 434]

Short description: "Fire For Effect" provides fully autonomous AI artillery, that reacts on current situation by smart shelling enemy targets spotted by allied forces.

Can I not use this mod to let enemy forces shell the blufor where players are?
 

[Rydygier 1317]

If all the players are only blufor - no problem (jus note, FFE wasn't tested nor designed by me for MP, so not sure, how it behaves in MP). But if there are also non-player blufor units and arty should ignore all blufor AI and focus on shelling players - it may require some script customization (hence also require scripting knowledge). Also, units allied with arty (acting like FO) have to actually know about the unit, before it may be cosidered a target. 

 

In general - if you just want drop some arty shells around the players, especially, if you want strict control, when, where and how, there are much simplier ways to do so than adjusting FFE code (regardless requiring some scripting though). 

[Devastator_cm 434]

hmm

I want some realistic arty fire on them. So not 100% hit or miss but random hit ratio depending on conditions. I don't need to seperate AI blufor from player blufor. They are all enemy to opfor :)
So if they are discovered by opfor forces arty can attack them without showing any mercy :)
I think I will give a try your mode in my MP missions soon

[Rydygier 1317]

Ah, in that case FFE may serve you well. As for the MP, IMHO just run it on the server only, and it should work OK, I hope. 

[Devastator_cm 434]

so only server needs the mod and not the players? That's nice :)

[Rydygier 1317]

I think so - not a MP specialist, but AFAIK this just need to be kept server side and it does all the things from there.

[kdub40k 12]

If Im using hetman ai commander can i use this with it or is it the same script thats in hetman for artillery?

[Rydygier 1317]

Indeed, Hetman contains his own adapted version of FFE code - same script inside HAL, so no need to use FFE with HAL.

 

Unless you like to handle arty out of HAL for some reason, but then be sure, you disabled internal HAL's version of FFE - don't use both together. 

[gfresco 21]

Rydygier - Thanks for an excellent script. As a mission maker who more or less only makes dynamic psuedo-sandbox style missions being able to enable A.I to utilize combined arms more is essential to replicating realistic combat scenarios.

 

My one issue is this: I cannot, despite using all the specific commands listed, get modded/add-on mortar units to work with FFE. My "work around" is by placing modded units as the operators of default arma 3 mortar units. However I'd like to REALLY be able to utilize add-on artillery assets more effectively by making the add-on artillery piece itself work.

I've tested this with only FFE & the relevant add on installed, no other confounding variables. (For the record I am trying to get the Unsung Charlie artillery units to work)

[odie0351 67]

@gfrescoI'm pretty sure the problem is from unsung charlie as I've been unable to get most of their artillery to function properly with regular call for fire stuff. Think the issue has been brought up already on their post and if I recall correctly they may have already fixed it? Not sure though.

[eric963 23]

Have you tried using

RydFFE_Add_Mortar ([])

With the units classname entered in all lowercase?


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[gfresco 21]

@Odie0351

Could well be but I also had an identical issue with Massi's African Forces mod (if I'm remembering the name correctly, one of the larger African forces mod). I should sit down and test more thoroughly with modded units others have confirmed work but alas I seem to have bad/zero luck getting FFE & add-on artillery to work together.\

 

Edit

 

@Eric963

 

Yes I've added that to my init.sqf as well as editing it right into the FFE files when using the script version instead of the add-on one. It doesn't seem to work & I'm not sure where to go from there beyond my current less-than-ideal work around.

[Rydygier 1317]

From my past experience, indeed some custom artillery pieces was not working with FFE - got such reports some time ago. Not all though, so it's not like FFE just doesn't work with modded arty (unless something changed lately). FFE is based on vanilla A3 arty engine/scripting commands like doArtilleryFire or inRangeOfArtillery. If given arty piece doesn't respond properly to such commands - will not work with FFE, so compatibility may be checked this way. Or maybe even simplier, if this:

 

Quote

I've been unable to get most of their artillery to function properly with regular call for fire stuff. 

 

is the case. Perhaps there's something tricky about configuring A3's arty features, if modded artillery tends to have problems with it. But if arty piece will respond well on arty script commands (simple testing mission may be prepared to test that), but still not working with FFE - then this may be something requiring my investigation within FFE code. 

[DEV614 33]

@Rydygier Is there a way to block a certain artillery class from firing? I only want to use this for my M252 mortars, and have my artillery batteries at base hold fire until commanded by me. The .pdf says something about blocking an artillery group, but it was somewhat unclear. Do I put the group name i.e. "group o1a" in the brackets? Or would I put the classname of the artillery unit?