Sirex1

Hi! Introduction/Description: This is a script which makes infantry fighting vehicles and their infantry squad cooperate better. It does so in a simple way, when the vehicle discovers an enemy and the enemy is within preset engagement range then: 1. The vehicle stops. 2. The infantry squad dismounts and get locked out of their vehicle. 3. The infantry goes in to combat mode and moves to the enemy position. 4. The vehicle follows the infantry and support its attack. 5. After the engagement the infantry mounts up. This script is intended for use by anyone and as long as my nick is shown in my file i am happy. Feel free to integrate this script in your missions and or addons! This script is designed to be easy to customize and have good documentation. Planned features: Make the script work for choppers. Background: I am/was a trained mech infantry soldier, so when i saw the standard behavior of the ai during assault, with its constant dismount and mount up with no logic and that the ifv wondered off i decided to code my own ai script to solve this. So i started this summer and got a basic version up fast, but now i got a good version up which is highly customizable. The original thread is in the mission section here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=105064 . Install instructions: You download the demo mission. In it will be a file named init.sqf and a directory named "mechInfTac". These two you need to copy and place in your mission folder, then the script will activate for all vehicles which got infantry in their group, which is the standard behavior. Or you use the pbo, it might be outdated sometimes but i will try to keep it up to date. Instructions on how to only make it work for some vehilces (the script version not the pbo): In order to have different scripts with different variable values, thus behavior, running you need to copy the script and pass vehicle to the copy. You then edit the copy with the values you want. Example: I copy my script and rename the copy to mechInfTac_init_amph. In mechInfTac_init_amph i rename MechInfTac_LockCargo to MechInfTac_LockCargo_Amph. And in the init file i declare MechInfTac_LockCargo="false"; and MechInfTac_LockCargo_Amph="true"; And then i pass all my LAV vehicles to mechInfTac_init_amph and the rest of the vehicles on the map to the ordinary mechInfTac_init script. Features and Options: - Provides more realistic combat behavior from mechanized infantry squads. - Default behavior is that the script identifies every ifv with a squad on the start of the mission, in cargo or dismounted, and connects these to each other via code (2 arrays with same index) and activates the script for these units. - Can be changed via init file value so it discovers new vehicle with infantry continually during game run. - Can easily be modified so it only activates the script for the vehicles you pass to the script, just disable the automatic discovery code and pass an array with vehicle objects in the init file, instructions are on the top of the script file in comments and in the init file. - In init their is a variable to make the ifv halt and stand still during combat. - Easy to customize the behavior during different parts of the combat. - Script only tested with IFV and APC. - Tested with vanilla Arma2. But i have AO also. - Added so you can lock the infantry in to the cargo with radio command or by global value. - Known problems, sometime if the soldier the vehicle is following dies the ifv might wounder off a bit, but often it will stay with the group and if it moves if often does so to a better firing position or to the current waypoint. Please give feedback and request for features and report bugs! Also i would like to thank a bunch of people who helped me in the Mission thread, also the guy who made Squint, excellent tool! http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?t2d6nbg77c28neo The important files are the mechInfTac_init.sqf (located in the directory mechInfTac ) which contains the script, then the init file that has some instructions, also their now exist a readme.txt file. This zip contains a demo mission. Only readme file. http://www.mediafire.com/?hy0ianuholl354q Also got an amphibious assault demo where the infantry is locked in the cargo untill they hit the beach. http://www.mediafire.com/?68bpy83npah3t4c Pbo version with standard behavior. http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1yzqux7ckuswqrj

Sounds like someone skipped National service, or are you American/Brittish? Line or what in arma 2 is called staggered column are most common formations depending on expection where the enemy is and where friendly units are. No need for staggered column if you got friendly gruops on both your sides. Go prone and start shooting is a valid response if you are on after hand in the engagement. If you set the AI to combat i find that they try bounding technique ( nothing beneath battalion size is called tactic, it is called combat technique on low level ). Flanking when only having one squad after the engagement has started i would say would be tricky, that's why you have platoons and companies. What do you mean by support fire? Any fire that kills an enemy shooter is supportive, any fire that doesn't is not supporting. I will agree that there is a lack of natural stones in the forrest and small ditches that exist in real life.

About the locking down data, isn't that really only a concern if you use standard imperative programming? If you program some essential parts with functional programming concepts you can get immutable data set that can bu shared with no worries. And against the ordinary "you need to reconstruct data" argument you can simply use old immutable data replacing what is new for each world tick or how it now is handled.

domokun, okay good that you informed me! I am just a undergraduate programmer that made this script before i even started the education, as a pre school project to get me going and that i have an interest in the tactics. It is only tested on my computer with and against ai with only me. But the source code is not that hard so you can try to make it multiplayer compaitlb eif you have the means to try it on a real server. I bet that it is some Move or Stop command to some ai that makes desync, think i rememberd that from the biki function wiki.

Thank you for bringing this up, i will look into it. My first throught was that it is a problem with the alert level but will check it out. Could you upload your example mission that you tried? It sounds that the script is not kicking in proberly.

Well if you try to kill the enemy with the machniguns instead of "suppressing" i think you will find that you don't get sniped as often :p.

Yes that works, even thou the ai is a bit slow in the video. All that needs to happen much faster. Another good retreat tactic is to retreat to the side. Here is a video showing this. Otherwise you could try a corridor backwards. Shown at 0:25. Don't mind the soldiers performance, they are only part-time national-defence units. But the best way is to have a combat vehicle with you, kill all the enemy that is shooting at you, mount up and withdraw.

One plausible way is when a mechanized infantry platoon dismounts its infantry, and have them assault through forrest area to clear the area or establish a fireing line at a clearing over some field. In the mean time the platoon commander uses the combat vehicles as light tanks and uses the infantry as a secure fire "anchor" point. This is extremely more likely to happen when the platoon is doing a delay battle. Having the combat vehicles several 100 meters in front of the infantry making fire ambushes and withdrawing, while the infantry has a stationary ambush with mines set up and are ready to mount up after the ambush.

As topic. It is not fun having to run 2km in Takistan when i want to move up form the chair and get coffe but instead need to press down W for 5 minutes.

I think that instead of trying to compete with BF2:PR on their own turf i think we should be able to gear this game towards the more strategic size. The i atleast love most about playing BE Warfare is to be able to be a platoon commander, controlling 2-3 squads or tanks and orchestrating assaults. Love when my squads of riflemen on danger kills of rambos in towns. Especially fun when talking to other players who also plays like platoon commanders instead of playing solo without ai. And normal players being platoon commander or even company commanders is something BF2 has a hard time competing with and we should exploit it. How do people feel about this, what do you guys appreciate most with Warfare? Atleast i feel that MP wise we won't be able to compete with BF2:Pr on the single person PvP area until Arma2:PR comes out. Unless ofcourse you play in a clan then it rocks Bf2:PR as a military simulation experience. We have High command, ACE2, group and platoon system, artillery mod. So i have been thinking of doing a strategy mod for it, just not put the time down to it yet. How would people feel about that?

Well ofcourse you won't find it funny if you have no humor.

Okay, time to bring this discussion around. How do we fix better fov in firstperson view? Does increasing resolution and playing in zoomed out mode give more realistic fov? Do trackir as infantry to an extend minilise the "nervous looking to side to side" behavior sence you get better fluent control? What aspects of a monitor is important to look at for wanting to get better fov and still see things? How do we tweak our setting? Does it exist tri monitor that don't cost redicoulos amount of money? Overall i think it's alright with zoomed out firstperson, if you need to fire at something at a distance, start fire then right click zoom and kill it. All tanks firstperson then use the normal view so this is a none issue. Cars don't matter, as much, you have a such high profile you really can't exploit corner and ridges like when infantry. Aircraft and helicopters i really don't know, maybe third person with track ir?

Unbelievable, nobody here has humor. It was a joke.

That is becouse with nato 7.62 (note nato 7.62m!=sovjet 7.62) you only need half as many rounds :p.

1. First you keep your empty/near empty mags in a separate bag, usually dump them in your knee pocket. If you have some time you can yourself start to move rounds from near empty mags to one mag. Also after combat/firefights the squad leader usually does a ammo and wounded check and report in to higher chief so that the commanders are aware of your ammo situation. 2. 6 mag is somewhat low, it is not hard to stuff in 8 mags. Or as a soldier you can carry the paper ammo boxes and later on fill up your mags. I think with just 6 mags you need to be mindfull of your ammo useage. 3. Don't know.

The order seemed to be overwritten later on. Probably some other part of my script that tried to get things moving. AllowGetIn False is used in the dismount main part of the script during combat.

Hi again! I tried to fix to get the infantry to walk outside but lockcargo didnt fix it. I think you might have more success issuing orders then try to work it through my script. I released a new script version. Tweaked it a bit, the infantry are now on aware and not danger, gives more fluent to the assault. Also i fixed so that the IFV if the solider it follows dies it follows a new soldier instead of driving off. I tried to get a pbo version but it failed, didn't behave like the script when i tried. Anyone as always have full permission to modify and use these scripts, hint a would welcome a working pbo :). This is the link, also updated the link on the front page. http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?t2d6nbg77c28neo

Hi, sorry for long time to respond. But had much in the university with course finals and been busy on almost every weekend. The amphibious mission is only indented as a demo and how-to make the script to work with waypoints when you want to lock in infantry and is not to be viewed as a separate maintained script, maybe should have had made that a bit clearer. Driving off is a known problem, the combat ai sometimes takes over, and code for trying to have it refollow the squad just breaks the following behavior faster. I have set the infantry on danger mode that may be why they are a bit careful, will try to experiment with this. Maybe aware gives better agressive behaviour. But the script should work well enough i hope, i have tried it and it seems to give the same performance since the latest release. I have not implemented a way but it is doable, i could add it when i update the script. The command needed is "ARRAY/OBJECT allowGetIn false". The script now tries to bring both firepowere forward at the same time.

Remember that the speed you see in standard zoom appears slower. Hold down the numpad - while driving and you see what i mean.

It exist anti personal grenades in game for rpg-7, the soldiers seems to use them when the eneym is hard to reach with rifles. Otherwise maybe you can access it with the action menu, i will try to look into this.

Hmm that seems strange indeed. I have basically only tested the script with BMP3 actually, as you can see in the test demo and then it seems to work. The only time i have seen crew dismount is when the vehicle in some manner is disabled, the easiest way to see this is to play the demo, then switch on high command mode, and when a vehicle get disabled it icon changes and the crew dismounts. But i will try to look in to it. But in either case the soldiers should not enter a crippled vehicle, that i need to fix, currently they are hard coded to mount up if the fight is over, so good find! I think i will delete them from the array if their vehicle gets knocked out. Known issue is that if you order the AI to drive in to the woods it will take forever for the ai to calculate a path and thus it may seem as they are stuck, this happens without my script as far as i have managed to understand. Glad you like it! I appreciate the feedback! Do the requested stay at the vehicle feature work for you?

Let me know how it behaved! No problem :). Thanks!

Hi again! I have updated my script, changes: - Changed the command that infantry uses to move to the enemy from "commandMove" to "move". Seems like an improvement, now the groupleader often issues order to move to the new threat when dismounting. - Made an option to have the infantry stay at the vehicles during combat. - Updated readme for the new option. http://www.mediafire.com/?b6go2xua7bgzu03 Pbo: http://www.mediafire.com/?lcxohk3lgjglns4 Next feature left is to make it work with helicopter. I have not tested the PBO, but i think it will work. I di not have much experience with pbo. And as always feedback is appreciated and i gladly try to add feature.

I have finished a basic readme. http://www.mediafire.com/?hy0ianuholl354q Also changed the detection range to 200 meters. Features planned to add are: Option to make the infantry stay with the vehicles in combat. Make the script work for choppers also. I always like some more feedback :P! You guys that wanted to test it with amphibious missions, how did it work out? Did you find out what was happening? Merry Christmas and happy new year to you too :)!

Are they moved in without animation? If that is the case it is with most certanty the lock in cargo part of the code. Sure you have not activated lock in cargo with radio or trigger? The amphibious demo has lock in cargo as default. The lock in cargo is scripted so they will stay in cargo untill the group reaches their next waypoint, then they will behave normally. That is the only part of the code that uses the moveIn command. The rest of the code uses radio commands like commandFollow. Otherwise it might be becaose of enemies death. For example, you see enemy at 275 meters, infantry starts to dismount, the distance value is increased by 20 meters to avoid mounting up if enemy moves one meter away, but then the ifv maybe killes all enemies up to 295 meters, then the mountup code kick in. In that case maybe only two soldier had been able to dismount before the mount up commands comes. I understand if this explaination might be a bit tricky :p, but i hope you see the underlying cause.