Intel gathering: add action to all civilians that is removed once used

[thirith 27]

I'm currently thinking of creating a mission where one team is tasked with gathering intel from the civilian population. The way this works in my mind is as follows: all the civilians in a Takistani village should have an action added (e.g. "Talk to civilian"); when it's used, a counter goes up by one and the action is removed from that particular civilian. Once the counter is higher than 3, a certain location is revealed.

 

I think I know how to do this in a heavy-handed way, adding it to each civilian manually - but I expect there'd be a smarter, more elegant way to script this. Any suggestions how best to get this done?

[Grumpy Old Man 3540]

Sketched up something, might do the trick:

 

//ask 3 civs, then remove action from everyone and reveal location
_civs = allUnits select {alive _x AND side _x isEqualTo civilian};

{
	_x linkItem "ItemRadio"; //so they can "talk" if they're editor placed civilian units

	_ID = _x addAction ["Talk to civilian",{

		params ["_object","_caller","_ID","_civs"];
		_reveal = (missionNamespace getVariable ["TAG_fnc_civsAsked",0]) >= 2;//will return true on the third unit
		if (_reveal) exitWith {
			_object globalChat "The bad guys are at grid 062262!";
			//remove all actions from the remaining civs
			{
				_x removeAction (_x getVariable ["TAG_fnc_revealActionID",-1]);
			} forEach _civs;
		};

	_randomAnswers = ["No idea what you're talking about!","Go bother someone else?","Oh look, a squirrel!","Behind you, a three headed monkey!"];
	_object globalChat selectRandom _randomAnswers;
	_counter = missionNamespace getVariable ["TAG_fnc_civsAsked",0];
	_counter = _counter + 1;
	missionNamespace setVariable ["TAG_fnc_civsAsked",_counter,true];
	_object removeAction _ID;


	},_civs];

	_x setVariable ["TAG_fnc_revealActionID",_ID];

} forEach _civs;

Will add an action to every civilian, you can also use specific units in the _civs array, action can only be used once.

Upon the third use of the action, the location will be revealed and all actions removed from every other civ.

 

Cheers

 

[thirith 27]

Brilliant, thanks! I'll try that out next time I work on the mission. (Also, love the random answers. Arma missions need more Monkey Island.)

 

The mission itself will be an asymmetrical versus mission: a squad is tasked with negotiating a truce with a couple of village leaders while a two-man sniper/spotter team is tasked with preventing this from happening. I don't know yet whether that'll actually work out, but I like the idea of asymmetrical versus missions as a nice change of pace from our usual coop fare.