Spawnmanager3 discussion

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Hi there, ppl 8)

Hope most guys enjoyed the SpawnManager-scripts so far. If you dunno what i'm talking about: SpMan-scripts provide a simple way to enhance your battlefield with respawning groups that randomly patrol certain areas.

SpawnManager2 (much better than SpMan1) can be downloaded at OPFEC.COM: http://www.ofpec.com/editors/resource_view.php?id=585

A german discription is available at www.mapfact.net:

http://www.mapfact.net/39845/25567.html

For the next version of my SpawnManager (3) i'm trying to come up with a simple & fast system for reporting enemy contacts to a central SpawnManager-AI. And it has to be multiplayer-compatible. Event handlers are still a problem in MP, no ? (or did i miss something ?)

I want to base this on group behaviour, like: if a group's behaviour changes to 'COMBAT' there must've be an enemy sighted.

Of course, this also means i can't issue a direct setbehaviour "combat" - command to my groups, but that's ok.

So basically i permanently loop thru all my patrolgroups if a group has switched to "COMBAT". Then i use a big trigger that covers the whole map to get a list of all enemy units and by checking against "knows about > 2" find the enemy unit that the patrolgroup-leader sighted.

After that i want to get what type the enemy unit is (Officer, AT, AA etc) or what vehicle he drives, and then report the info to the SpawnManager3 AI. Based on the reported threat-type specific groups are spawned that will have the best chance to fight off the threat (Choppers vs. Tanks, lots of Infantry vs. Commandos/Snipers, AA-Infantry vs. Choppers etc etc).

Basically SpawnManager3 will be a global AI that uses many SpawnManager2-scripts as 'portals' to fight specific threats.

Comments ? Helpful script pieces anyone ? Problems you see for use in MP ?

I appreciate any info you may throw in here. Thx in advance, ppl.

[D.murphy man 0]

Very nice idea! Spman2 helped a lot with my latest mission Gurilla Tatics and I might consider updateing it with Spman 3 when it is releaed, or make a sequal.

Any way good luck and keep up the good work!

Edit:

Allso maybe the AI could build engineer squads that place mines cross roads n build defence's like sandbags and machine guns etc... Like in the mission editor you could place Game Logic's witch in game will be the spots that engineer squads will go to and set up defences and repair defence's etc... Then any mission maker can set persific places for defence's to be built and have the defencive spots move around the map as the mission progresses (by simpley setpos'ing the Game logics)

[victorious 0]

is there any way to respawn a player? in the single player mode under editor

[D.murphy man 0]

nope, respawning players is only possible in MP due to my understanding.

[atfigure 0]

is there a way using this script or something, to move the respawn marker out of a certain area after an objective is met? i mean if you fly somewhere, and die across the sea, who wants to spawn back over on the island? right? i dunno, just a question

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Yes, it's possible to move respawn markers - they're only normal markers after all.

In this case (SpawnManager discussion) we're talking about enemy respawns, not player respawns though.

[Baphomet 0]

I caught on to this one late. However I still want to get my post in.

I e-mailed you not too long ago about my request, of which was adding support for vehicles respawning. Aside from that, I think it's pretty damned good. I don't think any obscure  features like engineer squads or somesuch should be a focus. Although it'd be cool. I'd like to see more control over how long it takes for a corpse to disappear, because hot-damn is it hard to survive in a combat situation when you've got a town crawling with guys and you can't just saunter out into the open and grab an enemy's gun before he sinks.

Second of all. Making perhaps a respawn interval control a bit more idiot friendly for people like me. I know you can conceivably set it so that if like 11 guys out of a 12 man squad are dead, they then respawn. However It'd also be useful to have a whole squad die and have an easy to set time limit before the squad starts respawning again.

One other thing that would be kind of useful is delayed or trigger activated respawning or patrols.

For example. Your spawnmanager is perfect for a mission I'm making on versus isle, where you attack the main town. Kill the barracks producing guys... and after that you get a patrol or two from the other towns or bases coming in to liberate, after all the guys in the town have gone kaput. (Sort of my attempt to make a Jagged alliance 2 en minature, sans npcs)

On top of which you still have the normal defenders and barracks in the towns. A delayed spawn and/or trigger activated patrol feature would be good so that it cuts down on the total amount of guys you'd constantly have roaming about.

Aside from that it pretty much accomplishes what it's intended to do. I've never been disappointed with it as of yet.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Whew, you really got to say something.

Ok, let's go thru your points one by one:

Email:

yeah, got ur mail and answered it. If i remember correctly, it was something like: "... bla bla bla, vehicles aren't planned atm, but they will be added to the next spawnmanager3." Which will take a while.

Fast corpse disappearance:

I can't give you any freedom in choosing when the corpses disappear because it's OpF that forces me to stay within save time periods. period. Otherwise you'd never see more soldiers spawn - the dead ones block the group positions for the respawners.

But i got some new info about corpses (from www.mapfact.net )- it has something to do with making a dead joining a group of a gamelogic. I'll test something out, maybe we can get rid of that small delay. I think there's hope.

Respawn interval, idiot friendly :

Hah. Got an easy excuse: it's because corpse disappearance delay and respawn delay are directly dependant on each other. So - no longer corpse delays, no choosable respawn intervals. Trust me, i would've made it idiot friendly if i'd had the choice. But there's still hope (see above).

Triggered / Delayed respawns:

That's easy. It's possible from within the editor, without any scripts.

TRIGGERED - say you want a trigger, that starts enemy (re)spawns when a us player approaches a certain area.

If player side is US, make a trigger that recognises west side objects and write the call-code for the spawnmanager into the "On Activation" line of the trigger. If you want the trigger to activate for a special person (player) only, sync the trigger with the player.

In your example mission you'd want to use a certain barrack object to be the spawn position. So just name your barrack ("barrack_1" for example) and supply this code to the trigger-activation-line:

["east","1985",[0,0,0],12,150,20,-1,12,getpos barrack_1,barrack_1] exec "spawnman.sqs"

As soon as a west unit / player gets into the trigger, "barrack_1" will start to function as an enemy spawn base for a 12 men squad of russians. In this example they will randomly patrol within 150m of the barracks.

DELAYED:

Take the same trigger, but don't let it recognise units of any side. Instead, write into the init line: "this and (time >= 120)"

Put the above spawnmanager-code into the OnActivation line.

This will activate the barracks 2 minutes after the mission started.

Hope this helps.

[muzzmuzz 1]

This is probabley a dumb question but I am looking for a respawn script that respawns both troops and tanks etc with full weapons and equipment.

[-)rStrangelove 0]

So far my script spawns soldiers. Although it may be not that hard to also spawn a tank per squad and order 2 of it to be driver and gunner. If you're an average scripter this would take half a day including tests.

[Harkonin 0]

check out doolittles eneyspawn, might give you some good ideas.

[Baphomet 0]

There's another one? What's that one like? Link? Or is it on ofpec (last I checked it was down).

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Check here, m8: http://www.ofpec.com/editors/browse.php?browsewhat=2&category=2_7

[Baphomet 0]

Hey. This might serve as a good makeshift solution until SPM3 comes out. Thanks for the link.