Convoy will not stay in formation when gunner slots are occupied by Ai while under fire

[Guest]

Hello

 

After a good amount of testing, I've finally managed to get a vehicle convoy to be able to stay in column formation and stay moving down designated city routes while under enemy fire - unfortunately there is a hitch - if the gunner slot is occupied by AI for most vehicle types, it seems the gunner ends up commanding the vehicle instead of the driver, and this results in them no longer staying in group formation and rather doing all sorts of undesirable things. This issue does not seem to happen if the gunner is a player unit though.

 

I have found that so far only the Prowler type vehicle actually is an exemption to this, where the gunner slot does not cause the AI gunner to take command of the vehicle. Unfortunately this particular vehicle, the prowler, is the worst pick of all for a scenario involving trying to drive a convoy through a city under heavy fire, as they are more of a beefed up 4 man Atv with almost no protection. By adding gunners of separate groups to the Prowlers, with group set to fully engage, the combination actually works - the drivers in their group do their thing, driving routes to a "T" while under fire in formation while the gunners in their separate groups do their thing, firing on enemies as the convoy comes upon them. Again, unfortunately, only the prowler so far is allowing this though. 

 

What I really would like is for a convoy of Humvees that have mounted Mg's which are manned to be able to stay in formation and on the roads while under fire.

 

What I have right now:

 

4 manned CUP Humvees in a group

 

Group is set to only fire if engaged, stay in formation - Careless

 

Each Humvee operated by one driver, drivers are all setSkill Courage 1.0. - Leader is maximum rank

 

This alone works fine, they will plow through the worst heavy fire and stay in formation going down a road following the waypoint plan exactly as if they were no enemies around. As soon as gunners are added, they start doing their own thing in combat, moving all different directions, etc.

 

I've tried putting in gunners that are of separate groups, and this makes them not move at all, because it seems again that the gunner slot is the 'commander' slot for most armed vehicles, therefore the new group takes control of the vehicle.

 

That's where things are now, I've tried a few different addons in case maybe some other vehicles out there have gunner slots that don't turn the gunner into the vehicle owner/commander, and have found no difference.

 

Any help, advice, input would be appreciated - at this point I really don't mind trying different things in order to get this to work.

 

Tia :)

 

 

[swtx 42]

Try This

 

Armaholic D'load

[Guest]

Thanks for the link Swtx

 

After looking over the description though, it appears that the convoy system there integrates combat response behavior - which is actually what I am trying to avoid, and just want the convoy to keep going.

 

I'm thinking at this point that the only alternative may be to just leave the vehicle gunner slots empty for the MP version, where players can man them and this will not cause any issue with the vehicles movement - and in SP mode I'll probably just have the entire convoy without mounted MG's and lessen the danger, as the player will be likely doing something else in that scenario. Downside is that the MP version will pretty much demand that at least 1 player take up a gun in the convoy to defend during the drive, but at this point it may be as good as it gets.

[f2k sel 164]

None of the old tricks seem to work, the commander or gunner has to issue the commands.

Previously in A2/OA the commander/Gunner only had control if they were in the same group as the driver, the current situation sucks.

 

There are times when you want a gunner/commander to be in charge and times when you don't.

 

 

[Guest]

I didn't know that - yes that would have been nice if the separate groups method worked in A3.

 

At least things work with the convoy without the gunner slots filled, probably going to just require a certain volume of players for the Mp version of the mission to fill the empty mg positions, there really isn't any other way I can see.

[f2k sel 164]

You might try this work around by JB47394 towards the end of the thread. I haven't tried it myself.

 

https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/191955-make-pilot-ignore-enemy-contacts/#comment-3194628

[Guest]

Thanks a ton f2k sel for the link and help :)

 

After sifting through things there in that thread, found a combination of commands that is indeed finally working.

 

(On a side note, things were a bit different on my end than what some of the content suggested in the thread, as most of my car type vehicles have no "commander" slot, and the command "commander" actually returns a null object even when technically the gunner is the commander - effectivecommander command confirmed this - in fact only the Prowler car type vehicle has a commander seat that I have seen, ironically it's the only one that works with a separate group gunner method)

 

So, finally with just everyone in the convoy in the same group, Cup humvee/m2 vehicles, 1 driver, 1 gunner per vehicle, lead vehicle has group leader as gunner with max rank, all others private rank -

 

Group is set to: Do Not Fire Unless Fired Upon Stay In Formation - and CARELESS.

 

Waypoint plan is placed that sends convoy through a city area down various streets. The lead vehicle Init field has : this forceSpeed 10; <-- for effect only, as even limited speed without forcing speed makes the convoy go 50 Mph through the city..

 

Drivers Init field : this setskill ["Courage",1.0];this disableAI "FSM"; this disableAI "TARGET"; this disableAI "AUTOTARGET"; this disableAI "AUTOCOMBAT";

 

Gunners Init field : This DisableAI "Target",This DisableAI "FSM",This DisableAI "Suppression",This DisableAI "Cover";This SetSkill ["Courage",1.0];

 

/Update: Forgot to mention that I have fleeing turned off on all of these guys as well. One can just add to the units init field code the following: This AllowFleeing 0;

 

The convoy of 4 hummers drives right through a couple of engagements while firing back - the gunners fire a bit less than what might be preferred sometimes, but it works, and looks quite good overall for the effect of a convoy running and gunning.

 

I was actually amazed to see it work, after the 20th test I was prepared to abandon using gunners.

 

For the test, I do have damage disabled on the Humvees, so I don't know yet what repercussions may come up for either vehicles or units being killed, but the core stuff is working which is enough for me right now.

 

There probably is a few disableAi commands in there that are not necessary, at some point I will whittle it down to the essentials and put down the final init code here, but for now I'm happy.

 

Thanks everyone for the help :)

 

 

/Edit

 

Forgot that I also have fleeing turned off on all of these guys too - for testing I have a trigger set to true - activation : {_x AllowFleeing 0;} ForEach AllUnits; - alternatively one can just put: This AllowFleeing 0;  in unit init fields (just fyi - I know most people know this :p)

 

 

 

[Guest]

I'm going to put down some findings in regards to players being involved in the convoy scenario here, as it seems things are pretty fickle -

 

/Edit

For scenarios where a player is going to be the group leader of the convoy, it would be desirable to set the combat mode to yellow (open fire/keep formation), as this is something that the player would have to enable anyhow for the convoy to open fire. For scenarios where a player is not going to be group leader, I'm sticking with combat mode Green (Do not fire unless fired upon/keep formation) due to the possibility that this is encouraging the convoy to stay together under fire when the group leader is an Ai unit. A check could be put in to universally check on the group leader as well, if player then change to combat mode yellow.

 

If a player is the group leader, switching the group behavior from careless to anything else is devastating to the convoy, and will make them do all the things that a run-and-gun convoy should not do - I'm just going to specify this in my mission in the briefing or even maybe an in game hint. It should be noted as well that through quite a few tests, even with careless behavior the gunners are actually firing pretty heavily in general.

 

I've kept damage off on the humvees for now, and have added allowfleeing 0 to the vehicles themselves as well as the units, due to the fact I saw one time during a number of tests with damage enabled two of the humvees appearing like they were fleeing, driving away the opposite direction of the engagement - and fleeing was set to 0 on the units - Im hoping this was due to damage inflicted on the vehicles in general, have to test more.

 

Convoy vehicles consist of CUP Humvees with mounted Mg's:

Lead vehicle of convoy has driver only, no gunner (When player is not group leader, then lead vehicle driver is group leader):

 

Player is outside of the lead vehicle, in group:

If a player IS the group leader, and they board the lead vehicle as gunner, the vehicle and entire convoy will follow move orders and maintain formation.

If a player is Not group leader, and they board the lead vehicle as gunner, the vehicle will not follow a waypoint plan, convoy will not move.

 

Player is Inside the lead vehicle, in group:

If a player IS the group leader, and is gunner of the lead vehicle, the vehicle and the entire convoy will follow more orders and maintain formation.

If a player is Not the group leader, and is gunner of lead vehicle, the vehicle will not follow a waypoint plan,  convoy will not move.

 

For players using Non lead-vehicle gunner slots:

If a player is Not group leader, and they board any Non Lead vehicle as gunner, the vehicle Will move normally and stay in formation.

If a player is Not group leader, and is initially gunner of any Non Lead vehicle, the vehicle Will move normally and stay in formation.

 

Player is Not in group initially:

Player cannot do anything with lead vehicle gunner slot, starting inside or out - the vehicle and convoy will not move - even if after boarding the player joins and leads the group.

Player Cannot board and *stay* in their own group in a non-lead vehicle gunner slot, the vehicle will not move yet the rest of the convoy will move on.

Player CAN board any Non lead vehicle as gunner and *then* join the group - this does work and will allow the vehicle to properly move with the rest of the convoy.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

I've only tested a little with the passenger slots with nothing happening, I doubt they affect anything.

When the player boards a non lead vehicle gun seat, sometimes the vehicle moves to a different formation position - last usually it seems, there probably is a way to stop this - possibly by joining separately grouped vehicles as they are boarded, if that doesn't cause other issues that is.

 

So much for getting other stuff done in my mission today lol - the convoy thing has taken quite some time to work out, at least it's working out though.

 

Any contributions to the improvement of the overall functionality of the run-and-gun convoy usage here is welcome and appreciated.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

After doing a lot more testing, it has become solidly evident that using Ai drivers along with *players* manning the vehicle mounted guns, of which such gun slots are considered 'commander' as well in most car type vehicles with guns, is nearly impossible to deal with a vast variety of issues that come up that result in the convoy drivers becoming unresponsive and the convoy gets stuck.

 

The small selection of car type vehicles that actually have a commander seat do work universally with both Ai drivers and player gunners, because the Ai commander is controlling the vehicle and therefore the players in the gun slots are not causing any issue with things. Unfortunately, there are no armored humvees that have commander slots (only one variant that has no armor which would never work for being under heavy fire).

 

I've managed to find a British armed/armored heavy truck that has a commander seat, an armed US truck that is similar that has a commander seat, and that's it.

 

I can probably break down the 'convoy run' in the city to 1 SP version that uses the trucks, 1 MP version that uses the trucks which only allows gunner seats for players, and 1 MP version that has all of the main convoy vehicles empty, where the players must fill both driver and gunner slots, with no Ai units involved - in this case the armored+gun humvees will work. Kind of a bummer to lose the Humvees for most of the mission versions, they fit the scenario the best, but what can one do.

 

I should mention that roadways have to be very clear of obstacles including having no enemy soldiers on them for the Ai driven convoys to work, sometimes it only takes one little thing to affect the first vehicle that causes a chain reaction, where the last few vehicles end up getting totally boggled trying to follow the vehicles in front of them that are swinging around something, sometimes causing the rear vehicles to turn around and pick a different route to link up with the other vehicles (took a number of tests to realize that was actually why the last two vehicles would occasionally seem to 'leave' the scene'). Sometimes even an object near a road can be a problem, not a big deal to remove them using nearestTerrainObjects though.

 

If anyone might know of an armored+Gun Humvee addon out there that has a commander seat provided I'd really appreciate posting it.

 

 

[f2k sel 164]

A lot of us keep trying but making critical missions involving vehicles especially convoys is almost impossible.

You may be lucky and find the odd script that works in certain situations for a specific issue but I still wouldn't rely on them.

As for convoys the do get stuck even when there are no enemy on the map you may want to take a look the AI driving issues here     https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/191515-ai-driving-feedback-topic/

I think it's been pretty much abandoned again by the DEVs as they would rather add more paid for content than fix  a serious issue that's been around from day one.

 

 

[Guest]

I hear that :)

 

Yea, I can see how one starts making a nice scenario involving vehicles, and the effect can be - wow- cool .. which encourages the motivation to keep putting it together, while at the same time, issues that come up sometimes scream 'it can't be done!' lol

I'm really starting to accept that maybe some things, like convoy stuff, at least for me, is going to chance some issues in game if there is AI involved.