Ambient Civilians won't talk to me :(

[bartkusa 10]

I've created a mission with the Ambient Civilians modules. You're a crashed pilot, you don't know where you are. One way to find out is to ask the locals where you are (if there's no patrols in the area).

However, none of the women and some of the men in the towns refuse to talk to me, even though I speak their language! The "Greetings (Chernarussian)" action simply does not come up when I flick the mousewheel while staring at them. They simply stare back with a hollow, sad expression.

Is this a bug, or do I need to set some variable on the AmbiCiv module? Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this?

[Arma-2-Guru 55]

I've never experienced this, but one speaking glitch I found was when I played as a Russian civillian and tried to talk to a Russian Soldier, it made the game crash, which was annoying.

[mpatton 10]

I think they don't like you =P

Maybe there's an issue where the player (I'm assuming american) doesn't speak Chernarussian?

[nichevo 2]

I have some ideas but these are just guesses. Nothing certain.

Firstly, you'll need to be playing as a unit that speaks the local language. American Army men are English only. Some Force Recon units are multi-lingual, though. Cooper is a good unit to test with.

Secondly, I think civilians come in two flavours -- Chenarussian and Russian. Methinks the developers were trying to go for that "ethnic divide" type thing. I don't think there's any visual difference between the civilians, but they seem to know different languages and have different attitudes toward Americans.

It may be possible that the ambient civilian module spawns Russian civilians near the Russian border (in the north, I think). Maybe try moving your pilot to the south for a test?

Or you might want to try changing the editor option of who independents are friendly to. It's in with the time and weather stuff if I remember correctly.

Again, I want to stress that these are just guesses. I would not be surprised if I was totally wrong.

[bartkusa 10]

Nichevo, those are good guesses.

The player is a CDF Pilot running from patrols in Southern Chernarus. Civilians are friendly to all sides.

[TinManNFO 10]

Has anyone seen if there is a command or parameter to set the initialization of a unit so that they can talk to locals in the local language like the special forces guys can? It would be useful for making a character who is an interpreter or a normal military person who happens to know the local language, etc.

[zwobot 22]

Bump!

Is there a way to force built in conversations to work? There are ways to disable them but does it work the other way around too?

I noticed too that the conversations don't work all the time. Strange thing is as a US soldier unit the conversation action appears near Chernarussian civilians (editor placed) but as CDF or russian unit there is no action at all...

[Kolmain 6]

Are you using ACE?

[zwobot 22]

I checked it with no addons loaded.

It seems to be a problem with Combined Operations. Loading up Arma2 I can talk even to people spawned by the ALICE module. Arma2 + OA behaves strange in this regard...

[ArmAddict 10]

Since you said Chernarussian, I'm assuming you are on Chernarus or another ArmA II terrain. There's an issue with the voice config or something that CO changes. I can't talk to USMC or any other ArmA II units. If you are using Takistan or another OA map, you need to use ambient civilian's expansion.

[ryguy 10]

Just pointing this out, but even if you speak a different language the option should pop up. The conversation will go something like this:

Pilot: Hi there!

Civ: Huh? What?

[zwobot 22]

I know that you have to use ALICE module on Arma2 terrain and ALICE (expansion) on OA terrain. That's not the point.

The point is that the conversations do not work consistently, e. g. an editor placed (not spawned with ALICE module) Chernarussian civilian on Chernarus cannot be talked to at all with a USMC or russian unit, whereas the same civilian can be talked to with a US army unit from OA.

[PELHAM 10]

That's realistic! It's Islamic custom for women not to speak to men they are not related to. Try it yourself - go to an Islamic area and try to ask directions. The men will help you but the women will wave a hand in your face and run away.

I thought they were being rude until I understood the cultural differences. Not sure if it works that way in game though.:rolleyes:

In Combined Ops the men talk to you if you play East. Not sure about ambient civilians.