Defend this building at all costs

[jpinard 10]

If I place an ehntire squad of infantry inside a building, is there a script command I can add to the initialization field to make them stay and defend that structure to the death?

[Sardaukar17 10]

I am not a pro but the first thing that comes to mind would be to crate one or 2 Defend waypoints in the building using the editor and a trigger or marker covering basically the floor area of the building that would force a new combat behavioral mode and add a waypoint back into the building should any of the units inside leave. I would set it up as a script activated by the trigger. Not sure if that would work... but I have only been thinking about it while typing here. Hope it helps. Good luck

[Evil_Echo 11]

Look at the guard waypoint. That might do the trick for you.

[Inkompetent 0]

Wouldn't a Hold waypoint, or disableAI "MOVE" do the job better? With Guard waypoints they can run off, even with a guard-trigger, to engage their target.

[Beagle 684]

Wouldn't a Hold waypoint, or disableAI "MOVE" do the job better? With Guard waypoints they can run off, even with a guard-trigger, to engage their target.

Attack is the best defense! Just sitting at a place know to enemies and waiting for the end in form of sem heavy impact is fatalistic and "movielike".

Using a "guarded by" trigger and "guard" waypoint makes it more dynamic and interesting to both sides.

Edited May 12, 2010 by Beagle

[Inkompetent 0]

Definitely. Just depends on the goal of it. If one really wants the soldiers to stay in the building Guard isn't the best of choices. If one wants to just defend the building, but be free to leave it until all known threats are dead, then it is :)

[galzohar 31]

If you want to just defend it from the inside, then your best options are:

1. Just place them 1 by 1 with setPosASL (can choose random positions or use probability of presence to have some randomness) and give them a setUnitPos "UP" command so that they don't go prone and clip with the walls.

2. Use UPSMON with the "fortify" parameter. Though you have to make sure the building actually has valid buildingPos positions and that those positions are reachable (if UPSMON succeeds in making them go in there then it means it's working, and most buildings will not cause problems with this).

[nettrucker 142]

With a guard waypoint they will engage the enemy and don't stay in the building which you want them to defend.

I normally use following code snippet in the units init field to make them stay in a building

this setPos ((nearestBuilding this) buildingPos 1); doStop this

and I use that command only for single units placed, because in case they are grouped, the AI team leader will give the command to engage enemy units as soon as he detects them.

Enterable buildings have various building positions where the units will stay once you assigned a building position in the units init field.

Hope that helps a bit.

regards

[galzohar 31]

The problem with the above command is that some buildings have bad building positions, and while telling the AI to move into those positions will usually work, setPosing then will make them clip with the building (because they are too low, too high or inside a wall) and often die as a result. Also, it's a good idea to only setPos AI/objects on the server in the unit's/object's init line, that is, use if (isServer) then {....};

[jpinard 10]

Thanks, you've given me some great ideas.

The reason why I didn't want to use the disablemove command is I want them to be able to take up defensive positions within the structre, and not just stay put to be slaughtered ex. inside an aircraft hangar or the air-traffic control tower.

[galzohar 31]

The smartest you can get regarding taking defensive positions is UPSMON with fortify, but even that is very limited, as after all the AI position quality is only as good as the building positions defined by whoever made the building (usually BIS).