Cars to follow lead vehicle

[wass24 0]

I am setting up a convoy mission with 6 cars. Right now the cars are grouped to the lead and the drivers are set as "careless" with their ranks from Colonel to Private starting with the first car. When I get in a vehicle as a passenger and execute the trigger to start them moving, only the cars up to mine will move, none of the cars behind me will follow. They either sit still or do some funky OFP movements. Is there an easier way to get all cars to follow in a certain order?

[sanctuary 19]

set their formation to "column" , as the default formation is "vee" (and so in "vee" they will not follow in a convoy format but more in anarchy due to the trees and bushes they will try to avoid).

[wass24 0]

I have them set to column. I should also add that the vehicles will run fine about 99% of the time when I'm just watching the vehicles form the side. It's almost like it changes behavior when their is a player in one of the cars. I am using a resistance and civilian units with resistance set as friendly to everyone.

[sanctuary 19]

Your problem seems to be very similar to the one described there, when the AI is acting differently if a human player is inside a vehicle or not.

And it seems to be an OFP problem (so without real solution other than making a workaround).

A possibility of workaround in your situation would be to create , far away from your convoy a vehicle similar to the one the human player will enter.

Then as soon as the player is going in the vehicle, teleport him to that far away vehicle , and launch a camera cinematic to film the convoy moving (so the player will not be able to switch to external view and notice that he is not where he thinks he is).

When the convoy arrive at destination, you can stop the camera cinematic, re-teleport the human player in the real vehicle.

[wass24 0]

Thanks for the insight. I'm not that great of a scripter and I try to stay away from cinematic effects.

[gandalf the white 0]

I think it's because the OFP AI communicate with the other vehicles, so they know their movements in advance, with players they're just "objects" they will need to avoid.

[sanctuary 19]

Thanks for the insight. I'm not that great of a scripter and I try to stay away from cinematic effects.

Without using camera scripts you can use the camera effects from triggers (the fixed, turn around, zoom ones) , thos built-in cameras don't play for very long, so making several triggers on the convoy road to have several camera effect should do the trick.

[wass24 0]

I can remember during some of the campaign missions you had to get in the back of a 5t truck and your AI driver was following other vehicles. Do you think it would work if they were all on the same side?

[sanctuary 19]

I am not sure.

But a workaround would be to place the human player as a passenger of the last vehicle of the convoy, this should make the other vehicles of the convoy less "afraid" by the human presence.

Or you can try to put the human player as the driver of the last vehicle , if the AI driver of this last vehicle begins to act "weird".

[wass24 0]

I've gotten into every vehicle as a passenger and every time the vehicle(s) behind me act wierd and everything in front works fine. In my mission, I have human players in the 2nd, 3rd, and fourth cars.

[-HUNTER- 1]

are the cars nicely alligned on the road?

do they have enough space between them in the beginning?

did you check all the waypoints and ranks and that stuff?

are you sure your not forgetting something small?

make em drive in SAFE instead of careless, speed normal

What rank are you?

are you the squad leader?

6 vehicels with weapons or not?

All those little things have to be right in order to get a nice convoy to go for some distance... its just as hard as making a flight of helicopters fly to LZ in reasonable good fashion...

Smarter AI would be nice for v2!

[crashdome 3]

did you try using the assignAsCargo command on the player? The AI might have a better time dealing with them in that scenario.

EDIT: What I mean in practice is to put perhaps a "GetIn" eventhandler on the player and when he gets in a vehicle have the script assign him as cargo

Example:

eventhandler added within Init.sqs:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">player addEventHandler ["GetIn", {_this exec "getInScript.sqs"}]

"getInScript.sqs:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">PRIVATE ["_unit","_position"]

_unit = _this select 1

_position = _this select 0

call Format["_unit assignAs%1 vehicle _unit",_position]

This will assign the player into whatever position he jumps into in a vehicle... be it gunner, commander, driver, or cargo.

I am not sure if the OFP engine does this automatically, but it will execute globally and therefore may provide better stability even in a MP enviroment (assuming the OFP engine doesn't already do this).

[Winters 1]

Set the behaviour to "CARELESS" and the combatmode to "YELLOW"

Also,

Place each vehicle in a column along the road with a little space in between and have the first vehicle the highest rank and each subsequent vehicle 1 rank below.

Now,

Place a move waypoint almost on top of the lead vehicle and in that waypoints formation field set it to column.

It does not matter if a human player is in any of the vehicles or not. One other thing that helps is if you have anyone riding inside as cargo set their ranks to "Private" as well as the player.

This is how i make columns and its never failed me yet.

Hope this helps