recognising my "left" when AI calls for threats.

[inspectorn 10]

That doesn't seem to work, if I order the men to return to formation they still don't return to the correct direction.

[festivus 10]

That's strange, I just tested it in the editor and it worked for me. What formation is your squad in?

[inspectorn 10]

Line formation

---------- Post added at 02:11 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 AM ----------

To get them back to formation I'm using the Return to formation command in menu 1, the movement menu

[festivus 10]

Did you issue them a targeting order or to watch a specific direction? Try giving them a "No target" order.

[inspectorn 10]

Ah I think I did, that might be the problem. It's too late to test now but I'll see about it tomorrow. Thanks for the help anyway

[frederf 0]

Targeting, no target, or watch all should have no effect on the formation.

[becubed 24]

QFT. Cardinal directions are absolute, i.e. the same for everyone, therefore they are the most ideal reference point. All it takes is a quick glance at the compass, and that's only if you don't know where you're currently facing.

Everything else, be it "left/right" or "x O'clock" is relative, subjective and thus generally unreliable in my opinion.

No they are not. They are absolute only if everyone is standing in the same location.

Picture a squad moving in line formation directly North. Imagine a clock face over the top. The point man is on the 12 the tail end is on the 6.

A target appears on the 3.

To the tail end the target is NE to the man in the middle its directly E to the point guy it's SE.

All methods short of a grid co-ordinate are relative to some location.

[An Fiach 10]

No they are not. They are absolute only if everyone is standing in the same location.

Picture a squad moving in line formation directly North. Imagine a clock face over the top. The point man is on the 12 the tail end is on the 6.

A target appears on the 3.

To the tail end the target is NE to the man in the middle its directly E to the point guy it's SE.

All methods short of a grid co-ordinate are relative to some location.

Do you have a brigade walking in a file?

[frederf 0]

No they are not. They are absolute only if everyone is standing in the same location.

He meant that cardinal directions are absolute directions, not that contacts at a finite distance will always have the same direction regardless of position.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

All methods short of a grid co-ordinate are relative to some location.

I take it you ment column/file and not line? Anyways, cardinal direction (nw) or approximate bearings (200) work better than relative directions (left, right 12 o'clock) since you don't always know how the leader currently moves. In coop, we can ask for more specific information by a human leader, but we can't with AI. Grid would have to be a supplement for AI in text form only, not a replacement.

And in Arma1 the popup clock indicator failed to work more often than not. In addition the whole formation often became completely wacked. If I as leader walked in one direction and had every AI return to formation, the formation direction did not correspond to the direction of travel. Sometimes even 90° off. So the clock failed bigtime for me.

With absolute bearings or cardinal directions, you might have to apply some quick math to determine direction from your position. But you should know where your leader is. With relative clock bearings or left right, you also have to know his current direction of travel/watch, which is a hell of a lot harder to obtain, even when you are 5 meters away from him and covered behind a corner.

Edited June 23, 2009 by CarlGustaffa

[76 0]

All methods short of a grid co-ordinate are relative to some location.

+1 Absolutely :)

Though if not all soldiers are issued with compasses I can safely say 90% less than that would have GPS... and if its crazy for a soldier to look at a compass with enemies near by then what is it if he/she pulls up a map and GPS to locate an enemy?

My point is that apart from grid references (which are absolute) the next best thing by far is cardinal direction, AI in A2 are pretty bloody good but they are NOT human and we all know what they can be like... trusting an AI member to be accurate using clock direction IS crazy. :)

I take it you ment column/file and not line? Anyways, cardinal direction (nw) or approximate bearings (200) work better than relative directions (left, right 12 o'clock) since you don't always know how the leader currently moves. In coop, we can ask for more specific information by a human leader, but we can't with AI. Grid would have to be a supplement for AI in text form only, not a replacement.

And in Arma1 the popup clock indicator failed to work more often than not. In addition the whole formation often became completely wacked. If I as leader walked in one direction and had every AI return to formation, the formation direction did not correspond to the direction of travel. Sometimes even 90° off. So the clock failed bigtime for me.

With absolute bearings or cardinal directions, you might have to apply some quick math to determine direction from your position. But you should know where your leader is. With relative clock bearings or left right, you also have to know his current direction of travel/watch, which is a hell of a lot harder to obtain, even when you are 5 meters away from him and covered behind a corner.

+1 I was going to give an example, but I'm lazy :) thx CarlGustaffa

Edited June 23, 2009 by 76
missed a question mark

[no use for a name 0]

In the server I play on (usually co-op), we only call out threats left, right, 10 o'clock, etc. when they're danger close (usually ~50m); because we don't have time to pull out compasses and it gives a general direction to look for enemies. Besides, you don't need an exact bearing if they're 30m away, you just need to let everyone know where to look/fire.

If they're further away, and don't present a threat then we use a compass bearing, since it's more accurate and everyone has time to pull up the compass and get a lock. I wish it was the same in the game

Edited June 23, 2009 by No Use For A Name

[NoRailgunner 0]

All soldiers are teached to use compass directions and short but clear reports.

Clock or relative directions are only used if its sure that all are looking in the same direction.

Imho a good report for AI and human players in Arma2 would be like this:

"Contact! South-West, 800m, Enemy APCs, driving north to Staroye."

I would say only in close combat (max 100m) AI should use relative directions.

[galzohar 31]

In human to human communication, it's usually pretty obvious what "front" or "12 o'clock" mean, and thus those are used most of the time, and when it's not obvious N/S/E/W is used. The problem is the AI can't tell the difference between when it's obvious and when it isn't.

Also, it would be nice if in addition to "near that truck" and the likes, they'd also be able to say "on/at the 326" where 326 is the altitude point of the top of the hill the enemy is at. I don't know about the US army/marines, but in the IDF that is often used as an accepted identifier for hilltops, at least for the big ones in the area.

Every time that you can use some more understandable stuff over coordinates or even N/S/E/W, it's a good thing. But again, then AI needs to know when he needs to resort to N/S/E/W or coordinates - and it would be better if he did it unrealistically too much rather unrealistically than too little. If he can't tell which form of reporting he should use, he should use the more generalized one.

[76 0]

In the server I play on (usually co-op), we only call out threats left, right, 10 o'clock, etc. when they're danger close (usually ~50m); because we don't have time to pull out compasses and it gives a general direction to look for enemies. Besides, you don't need an exact bearing if they're 30m away, you just need to let everyone know where to look/fire.

If they're further away, and don't present a threat then we use a compass bearing, since it's more accurate and everyone has time to pull up the compass and get a lock. I wish it was the same in the game

Its in relation to AI, humans to humans can be any form of communication... we are talking about AI communicating with humans.

I don't care about humans to human cause you can talk directly (VoIP) to each other, human situation awareness is far superior to AI, you know where your commander is, you can correct yourself if you missed something and so on and so on... human to human is irrelevant in this topic.

Edited June 23, 2009 by 76
Dyslexia :D

[walker 0]

Hi all

I new we had talked about this before, took some searching but...

Hi all

My suggestion:

Contact Reports should then be given based on a reference.

LINE OF MARCH first reference

Groups, line of march in degrees should always be given by team leader every time there is a major direction change. There should be an option for group commanders to give it to subordinates, AI or human. That is your first and primary reference. Ideally all waypoints and lines of march are given both at the briefing before the mission and repeated in small briefings at waypoints, rally points, LZs etc.

1) Less than 150 m Range:

You should use 90 Degree arcs from line of march:

Contact Left, Contact, Right, Contact Front, Contact Rear.

Add Close, for less than 50 m

Add Near for 50 m to 100 m

2) 150 m to 300 m Range

Clock position from line of march and range to contact.

3) 300 m to 500 m Range, plus all air contacts

Compass bearing, plus range.

4) 500m plus

Designated Reference object:

The ability to reference geographical objects, such as Forrest, building by general type eg church farmhouse, office block etc, town, village, lone tree and hill top, designated point by colour eg point red, point green etc and person eg player or external group member or even target.

Ability to do this in first/third/command mode with a right click menu, then match option to above type to map object. And the ability to use the map to do same both in briefing and in mission. Reference objects need, names.

Ability for the AI and players to say "Seen!" when can see the object in first/third/command view otherwise they refer to map and say acknowledged/understood/got that.

Then use distance left, right, front, past for close. Clock for 150 m to 300 m, compass and map for greater distance.

Kind Regards walker

For close quarters in Urban terrain a good procedure is to:

1) Number all buildings in the map, before the assault, assign members of team to number each area it is quicker, if the town is big break it up into zones by main roads. Number one zone, clear it, secure it, then take a rest, re-org and number next zone.

2) Give each building face a colour. A good SOP might be: Red for primary ingress point, BLue for left, GReen for right, Yellow for rear where the OPFOR chickens might run out from. Add colours for multi sided buildings.

Edited June 23, 2009 by walker

[CarlGustaffa 4]

These problems only exist when playing with AI. Making AI use color designation doesn't work well for obvious reasons. There are no problems when using only human players, since we can basically ask if there are any confusion.