Capture the Island: AI vs AI spawning problem

[Aurora152 4]

Hello all,

 

I am currently making a CTI mission, but I have become stuck on one part. The mission is designed to be AI vs AI going on to be an endless conflict between factions. This is so the player feels like more of a small cog than the main instigator.

 

The mission layout at the moment is:

 

Zones placed on points around the map. BLUFOR and OPFOR both have a main base. Units spawn via the Spawn AI module and are coordinated automatically using the Spawn AI: Sector Tactics Module. This means the player has no input (in-game) as to what the AI do and where they go next.

 

There is a High Command Module synced to each player in case they specifically want the AI to do something, but its a little buggy...

As the faction captures a base, on some of the larger zones (cities or major towns) there are AI spawn points which are only activated when the zone is under the factions control.

This goes on until both factions meet at a zone and then the battle begins.

 

The problem I have is:

 

To make the mission feel as if there is an actual battle going on, there needs to be a sufficient amount of AI units on either faction which obviously is a very fine balance.

I need to find a way to have enough AI units on either side to make the battle seem sufficient, but not too many so that it kills fps.

With the current layout, once you get to a point where the enemy are able to sufficiently hold you off, every previously captured base is still supplying units to the current battle. This means that you get a congregation of over a hundred units all sat in the same city battling the oppositions 100+ units...

 

Ideas I have tried:

 

1. Captured zones spawn AI dependant on who controls the specific zone.
   1. Ends up with there being way too many units.
2. The same as above with only a limited amount of zones that spawn AI, not every zone.
   1. Ends up with there being too many units.
3. Tried only having AI spawn from their main base and travel independently to the AO.
   1. Too few units making for a very boring battle.

 

I had the idea of changing it so that a single zone pops up randomly around the map, then the Ai will spawn around the zone and battle for control. But this defeats the point of a CTI style mission.

 

Any ideas on how I can do this would be much appreciated.

TIA.

[pierremgi 4905]

Typically the reason why I created my spawn group(s) module.

[gc8 977]

In my CTI mission the way I did unit spawning was to first create only empty groups and give them position where they are at, like defending town etc. And once enemy force like for example player get's near one of these groups then the group is spawned (units are created). And once there is no longer enemy near then the group despawns (units are deleted). This helps to keep the lag in minimum... Also when the group needs to move only single unit/vehicle is spawned so that the group can move.

[Larrow 2822]

On 1/18/2021 at 10:43 AM, Aurora152 said:

every previously captured base is still supplying units to the current battle

They shouldn't keep spawning AI if you have your 'Man Power Cap' set properly on your spawn AI Modules.

This is exactly what this setting is for, if the number of units currently spawned is greater or equal to the man power cap then it will not spawn any more AI.

This is on a per spawnAI Module, so if you need to control spawning more granular then limit the number of spawn AI Modules and instead use spawn AI SpawnPoints.

Both of these ( spawn AI & Spawn AI Point modules ) are also trigger-able, so you can also use this to your advantage to limit what are currently spawning AI.