CoC Combat Swimmer

[Viriato 0]

Gentelmens, i had discovered that if you "start" the engine of the diving AI unit once it is in the water, the A.I. has no problem on managing the vehicle.

If you simply put the unit on the water, the AI freezes, and just stay there, no matter waypoints and such. But if in the initialition line you wrote;

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> This action ["Engine on"] <span id='postcolor'>

You don´t have any problem and sub units AI controlled just do their job.

[Viriato 0]

Matthijs, i think it will be easy to implement on the script a feature that starts the engine once the dive "Vehicle" is created, the Unit action ["Engine on"] and Unit action ["Engine off"] works great.

Note: all the units of the group has to had the Engine On, if any of them don´t have this, they don´t work also.

[Guest jacobaby]

Matth,

I can help you with it if you like, you know where to get me

[Matthijs 40]

I did a quick trial, and to be quite honest, I really don't see any difference in AI behaviour.

Nevertheless, with the next update the swimmers will have "engines started" from the beginning, as it seems to help for a lot of people.

Too bad I can't profit from it myself.

Next update will probably be in a week or so. Business, sports and (sort of) a social life take its toll on my OFP-addon-creating time.

[stgn 39]

you guys know so much is ti pusible to change the uniform while playing. what I mean it that the Froemankorps carry there uniform under the dry suit and when they are in safty inland they take the drys suit of can it be done in OFP whit a command.

STGN

[-radkeff- 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (STGN @ 20 May 2003,17:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">is ti pusible to change the uniform while playing<span id='postcolor'>

If you mean like changing skin Im pretty sure you cant...

[stgn 39]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (-radkeff- @ 20 May 2003,17:59)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (STGN @ 20 May 2003,17:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">is ti pusible to change the uniform while playing<span id='postcolor'>

If you mean like changing skin Im pretty sure you cant...<span id='postcolor'>

No I was thinking of the hole Model

STGN

[Matthijs 40]

Changing the whole model can only be done by removing the object and placing a new object.

You might be able to pull some nice tricks using "SetObjectTexture"

[furia 10]

I like this add on a lot but in my squad we aim for realism and we do not think it is too realistic that a diver while submerged can see 900 mts ahead of him. Divers while submerged must have reduced visibility of about 5 mts. One he is out of water he must retain normal visibility.

I also really hope a proper way to board vehicles is figured out.

I cannot even board the LSD using is rear ramp.

Can you fix this 2 issues?

[bn880 5]

Just to interject here Furia,

it's not a matter of a fix for both issues, it's a matter of making a workaround or add new features/functionality. OFP provides little in terms of setting visibility to 5m, so it may be difficult.

Certainly it may be a good idea to plug into the fog/view distance functions when a diver is in=under water...

[Matthijs 40]

I like this add on a lot but in my squad we aim for realism and we do not think it is too realistic that a diver while submerged can see 900 mts ahead of him. Divers while submerged must have reduced visibility of about 5 mts. One he is out of water he must retain normal visibility.

I also really hope a proper way to board vehicles is figured out.

I cannot even board the LSD using is rear ramp.

Can you fix this 2 issues?

Hi,

Good point about the vision. In reality, the diver can't see anything of what is happening on the surface. Even under water, visibility is often less than 3ft. I'll see if I can make a "submerge/emerge" feature and a setviewdistance/total blackout while submerged.

I must say that OFP is a computergame. If you want to make it perfect, you'll end up creating the real thing. The diver has been made with the help of veteran combat divers, to ensure its realism as best as possible.

In real life, swimmers have:

- mines and other under-water explosives

- specialized under-water weapons

- drypacks for sensitive equipment

- swimming depth they choose

- turning ability "on the spot"

- an O2 supply that depletes according to exertion

- a drysuit that can be taken off

- manual O2 purge knob

- special navigational aids

- audible breathing sound hearable only by themself

The OFP diver doesn't have all this. (not even mentioning all the AI troubles)

We at CoC, had long talks about what to implement and what not to implement. If we would have implemented all the ideas, you would probably not have seen a diver until fall 2004, at which time we would have decided to drop the project alltogether and start over with an OFP2 combat swimmer.

The first concern was to have it released in a basic form, to help other addon-makers on their way, and provide a standard.

----

About boarding vessels, that is something that will have to be done from the vessel. There is no way to make the diver board random vehicles from the water.

The CoCOSS document holds all the information needed for addon makers. So if you want to board things, try to convince addon makers to support CoCOSS swimmers on their vehicles.

[lpdotcom 0]

How do you get your team mates to exit the water with you?

[furia 10]

That is what I meant, either to make fog maximum or to make a script to make visibility 5 mt or something like that.

[-iCeMaN- 0]

..wow

[attilauk 0]

just gotta say i love this addon, divers were the one thing that i thought flashpoint needed from the start!

i was wondering is there any plans for a diver in a full face mask?  when you dive in a half mask and standard DV one of the first things you notice is if you open your mouth your only air supply tends to fall out making voice communication (and Breathing) slightly challenging! AGA type full face masks with through-water comms systems are now used by most armed forces around the world because of the advantages of being able to talk to the members of your unit and would be a great addition to this superb addon (as well as making the divers look really cool!) If you want pictures try here Ocean Technology Systems

thankyou CoC you have answered my flashpoint prayers!

[Matthijs 40]

How do you get your team mates to exit the water with you?

Tell your multiplayer team-members to follow you.

For AI:

Write a script that forces AI to follow you, by using setdirection and setvelocity, as AI cannot handle swimming in the LAR VII properly.

Walker is working on a scuba diver, which should eliminate 90% of the AI problems.

[The Frenchman 0]

What would the 10% of the problems be?

[walker 0]

Hi The Frenchman

The problems with AI in a diver addon are in two areas

The first is in choice of simulation; you have three choices:

The Car with can float set to true

Pro: very good visual effect and good manuverability. Good for player and in MP as it is completly invisable.

Con: AI Fears water and looks for paths that exclude it when it cant find a path it freezes. This is an intermittent problem and as such none predictable. So some times the AI in the combat divers may work and others it wont but in the main the AI avoids water

The tank simulation

Pro: AI is amphibious so it would be ideal. Very good mauverability, so it can get to the correct spot

Con: The visual effect of the wake is not good and useless for nonbubling rebreathers but just about excusable in a scuba system

The ship

Con: Visual effect is atrocious: large ship wake and bow wave, not very manuverable.

Pro: cant think of any.

The next problem is geting soldiers to go close enough to water to swim and yet leave a reasonable point where the diver emerges from water in swimming gear for it to look good.

Consider in reality there is no swimmnig in OFP we are spoofing swimming. We cheat and spawn and remove vehicles to get the effect. The question is how to transition from the car/tank vehicle to the man vehicle and back?

For humans players there is no real problem they go below a certain depth (about 1.5m) and they spawn into the swimming vehicle.

For AI there are several solutions

For AI it will not always go beyond the edge of the sea. In Fact the AI exhibits a vast range of willingness to obey a player or waypoint order to move into the sea. Some will do it unquestioningly others refuse point blank others will dither going in and coming out, yet others will obey until another unit disobeys. It is part of the rich divergence of personality traits in the AI that makes OFP so realistic.

So you have a few possibilities:

  1. Use a script to drag them kicking and screaming into the water to a depth where the vehicle spawn is trigered and the problem is solved. Messy.

  2. Have the vehicle trigger activate at 0 m depth. Ugly

  3. Have the trigger set by an action under the control of the player or mission designer. Good for player controled groups and good for waypointed groups but may cause some units to drown.

The above is a sample of the discusions we have had on the subject on the CoC Developers forum. The solutions are not all possabilities to be honest half the mooted solutions were lost in our ISPs forum foul up but those are the key ones. An obvious solution is a hybrid of the three but a few moments thought will see some of the problems with such a solution.

In reality the true solution lies in OFP2 when we hope we will get a better water and swimming world physics (Hopes Prays). Until then we offer our humble best and when you consider that until we came up with the idea all the other great minds in OFP said it was completly imposable you will perhaps look on it a little more kindly.

So to answer you original question the 10% is getting in and out of the water.

Kind Regards walker

[Barry the baldy 0]

Where is the CoC home page if there is one?

[bn880 5]

www.thechainofcommand.com

[MAsta_KFC 0]

I hope posting here now doesn't count as reviving an old thread.

After a long holiday from OFP, I uninstalled the game and reinstalled for a fresh new start. I've been tinkering around with the swimmers for some time now, mainly with the AI, and have the following observations.

The AI is actually quite dependable, depending on how the mission is set up. I usually paradrop/halo/rapel the swimmers into the water (coz it looks kewl ) and have had SOME success in them doing what I want. I find that the success rate is based on 2 main factors:

1. The distance from the shore. Maybe it's just me but it seems the closer I drop them to the shore, the better chance they have of navigating to the objectives. If I drop them further from the shore (say 300-400m), apart from the longer wait, I find that if they are in a group, some (most) of them refuse to budge. Needless to say, it was driving me crazy. I think this was mentioned earlier in this thread. This leads me to point 2.

2. Groups. Like I mentioned, the bigger the group, the less chance they have of all getting ashore. I have, however, found a workaround for this. Simply not group the swimmers and set indivifual waypoints for wach swimmer. Wait until AFTER they have reached shore, then user trigger to group them. So far I have had 100% success with this method, regardless of distance from shore I drop them. I have yet to do further extensive testing.

So for any of you guys out there who may be interested, thats my 2 cents of help. On a side note, have you guys at CoC planned to further expand and steamline this addon? I think the potential is amazing, I hope you guys haven't abandoned it.

Cheers!

P.S. i might add for point 1 that perhaps the scripts for the rapelling (BAS), HALO (toadlife) and paradrop (forgot author) may cause conflicts with performance.

[walker 0]

On a side note, have you guys at CoC planned to further expand and steamline this addon? I think the potential is amazing, I hope you guys haven't abandoned it.

Hi MAsta_KFC

No we have not abandoned this addon we continue to develop it as prommised we are doing other versions.

Your assesment of AI is pretty much as we found it. Although your point about groups size was something I had noted but did not study further. Your solution is a good one and one we will with your permision include our Readme as a solution to Car simulation versions.

We are developing a tank simulation version of scuba divers as a general solution. As I stated before no AI problems with that simulation. Matthijs is working on other addons but we will be revisiting the Divers in light of changes in OFP 1.92b

I have not been able to work on this as much as it needs; I spent the last few months recovering our forum database as it contained masses of research for all CoC projects. That has been acheved; from our checks at Ikonboard's home page and support forum we are the only team to recover a DBM database that got that corrupted. So now I have time to put on other projects.

On another note the team has been working on another project the CoC UA that is the key item for public release in the near future and where the teams efforts are concentrated at the moment.

I hope that I can now finaly get back to working on: the Scuba divers, The War for Oil project and the M224 Mortar.

Kind Regards Walker

[Major Gripe 0]

The War for Oil project

What is this? Sounds exciting!

[MAsta_KFC 0]

Your solution is a good one and one we will with your permision include our Readme as a solution to Car simulation versions.

By all means, please do! Glad to be of some help.

Keep up the good work guys, I admire the way CoC continues to push up to and beyond the limits of the OFP engine!!

[MAsta_KFC 0]

Have done some more testing with the divers.

I usually set up a condition where I am a Res: Sniper on the shoreline and I watch the divers inserted into the water. After being certain that they have been inserted correctly, I set the time accel. to 4x for about 5 mins or so. If they reach the shore then everything is good. If not...

Like Walker posted earlier, the AI is still quite fickle. The use of the 'individual group, then join on shore' seems to eliminate SOME of the problems, however, I notice that if the divers are still anything more than 200-250m out of the shoreline (ie deeper waters) they still have a tendancy to stay there. This is most obvious as there is a distinct lack of the funny 'swimming' sound when they are moving.

Conclusion: Approx 100m, maybe 150-200m, seems to be the optimal insertion distances for paradrop, rappel and HALO. This means the divers will work in most small lakes and the inland river on Nogova. However, for realism purposes, if it is a chopper insertion,i don't see why the chopper couldn't move the extra 100m or so to drop them directly on land. The excuse would be passable for a HALO drop though.

Good luck with the Scuba diver, guys!