a bunch of questions after our first session

  1. 7 years ago
    Edited 7 years ago by Imbazil

    Hi, my group had our first experience using the Alive mod yesterday, beta-testing a mission I made and overall we had a great time! So first off thank you for your work =)

    Some questions were raised during the session so I thought I try and get some answers.

    First off, the AI units were kinda passive. At first the all stormed off towards the nearest objective and captured it but after that they were mostly standing about 1 km behind it (on our side) and not really moving at all, with a few exceptions. This was on the map "Bozcaada" and using ASR_AI so either of these could be the issue i guess. The commander was set to "invade".

    Next is a question about the enemy reinforcements. I gave the opposing commander a maximum of 3 tank-groups (which I reduced in size to 1 vehicle) and they all became t34's (CUP Takistan Army). Odds that this will happen aren't that low since there are only 3 different groups in the category but after they get destroyed do the logistics module always spawn the same group or can it pick another one? Because we only saw t34's the whole game.

    I added C2ISTAR and pretty much have everything disabled except for the task generation for the player side. The first task we got told us to rescue some people at a specific location but when we got there we found nothing, we searched in about a 500m radius but maybe the marker are even more inaccurate? Nothing should have happened to them as the task was set within the blacklist radius for the enemy commander. After about 30 minutes the task failed (we ignored it) and we got a new one that told us to kill armored units, but again there were no units close to the marker.

    Lastly I have a small question about the module that let's players use the logistics system and request units, gear, vehicles and so on. By default every item is available, but if I only want a selected few items available (or even a crate with custom content) how would I accomplish this, I guess I use the whitelist box somehow and everything that is in there will automatically be blacklisted?

    Thank you for reading and sorry for the bazillion questions and wall of text, we see great potential in this mod and would like to be able to use it to it's fullest.

  2. Hi and welcome to ALiVE. I'm not positive on the answers to some of your questions, so I'll leave those to the experts.

    ASR_AI works perfectly fine with ALiVE's systems and what you're seeing even with the commander set to invade is normal. From what I can tell, objectives necessarily aren't small zones, but can be larger radius'. Even when a commander is "invading" the map, his overarching goal is still to take and hold the objectives he deems important. When a unit holds something, it's not unusual for the soldiers to just be standing there.

    Depending on the commander type, the amount of units he'll leave at the objective I'm pretty sure does change. But only a few will stay behind while the others will be moving to a new one in more of a combat oriented method.

    The logistics module will always replenish the profiles in the approximate numbers they start at (it may be identical to their starting units so don't quote me either way). If you want more control over which unit types will be used throughout the mission, simply manually place them, manned, and sync them to the virtual AI module.

    I haven't used the C2ISTAR tasks in awhile, but I wouldn't be surprised if the reason the rescue mission didn't work as intended was simply due to it spawning in an area that was blacklisted. I'd be curious to see if it works for you in a whitelisted area.

    Be advised on maps not named Altis or Stratis, some of the tasks will fail more often than not, which is one reason why I always request my own via the tablet rather than letting them auto-generate.

    Sometimes the taking out the patrol task can take quite some time for the units to appear. Especially when not using vanilla maps. The task types to likely work on all maps tend to be the more offensive ones (such as killing HVT, destroying vehicle, eliminating patrol). The defend ones fail often on A2 and custom made maps and clear the town is very broken the last I checked so I'd recommend never even trying that one (unless something changes).

    If you'd still prefer them being auto generated, here is a link to the wiki so you can blacklist the tasks you don't want to appear:

    http://alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Custom_Blacklists

    The one you're looking for is at the very bottom.

  3. Tupolov

    12 Nov 2016 Administrator

    CSAR missions are reasonably realistic in that you need to search the area - most likely by aircraft fly over to pick up any rescue beacon. If there's a crashsite, you can spot it usually by the smoke. The marker is only indicative of the area, not the actual location. Once close to the beacon, the downed pilot will activate his IR beacon, it should then be marked on the map.

    Rescue missions, usually once you get nearer the marker, HQ will update you with the location of hostage, the marker then is pretty exact.

    There shouldn't be any issues, i've testing the tasks heavily recently without any problem.

  4. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    @Tupolov I haven't checked with the last few updates. For the most part, would you say all of the C2ISTAR tasks are pretty much working now? Even on A2 maps?

    I haven't seen any changelog mentions that I can recall, or closed tickets on it since the last time I went through them all. Back then, about half of them failed due to bugs *most but not all* of the time (on A2 maps) but it's definitely been a few months since I used the built in tasks.

    Has the entire system received some love aside from the new tasks and eliminating lamposts from needing to be blown up? Those are the only improvements I remember reading about recently.

  5. Tupolov

    12 Nov 2016 Administrator
    Edited 7 years ago by Tupolov

    We went through and cleaned up a few. Can't guarantee they all work wonderfully with CUP maps, but certainly ones I've been testing work fine.

  6. Thanks for the replies, regarding the commander aggressiveness I still think something may have been odd for me. If they were set to guard a objective it was a small civilian one, should not be that important but who knows.

    Tanks also seemed to have issues on bozcaada and a saw some get stuck in a rocky hillside and such, i have now changed to Gunkizli (great looking map), since its so flat AI should have no issues navigating.

    What settings would you recommend for a large scale war with as high pace as possible on the attackers side? Filter away most minor objectives and fill the empty space using cqb perhaps? What about number of units for each side?

  7. You can limit the size of the objectives the commander recognizes in the mil/civ objective modules. Inside the module you can set them anywhere from not filtering anything, to only looking at the largest objectives.

    Regarding the driving, this is an Arma issue. Though AI driving has gotten better over time, it still leaves a lot to be desired and most of the vehicles in the game still don't have the new driving logic.

    The fastest pace possible would be to set both commanders to invasion, and sync each commander to the other side's objective modules. CQB ups the stakes too. As far as how many units and what to filter, that's entirely up to you. I debug the virtual AI module a lot and watch the map often when making missions.

    I prefer to set the virtual AI speed to 50% or so, this way battles are happening more in real time and I can stumble upon the two sides fighting organically when out in the field. The same goes for units per side, totally up to you. Just be mindful of not using too many objectives otherwise your performance would suffer.

    I'd say go ahead and try the default module settings and play for a bit and let your eye tell you what needs to be changed. From there, start tinkering or if you're not sure what to change, feel free to ask for some suggestions here.

  8. Yea, this feels like a addon I will spend many more hours on just testing different settings, Which is great!

    I guess the number of groups I select also is based on how many objectives the module have? I had a milobj only covering one airfield and set it to 60 groups (the player starting area) but with debug I counted maybe 10 on the map.

    Also what is the actual end goal of the AI? To exterminate all others from synced objectived, or might it "settle" with something else? For example if it feels like it cant push more without sacrificing its defence, or will it gradually abandon objectives that are considered safe or low prio to continue the attack? If for example it only have a few groups avalable.

  9. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    You are correct that the number of groups that spawn directly correlate with the number of objectives. So for example, a Platoon 60 (covering the entire map with identical filtering) would spawn more units on Altis than it would on Stratis.

    I'll leave the advanced end game, spawn sizes and AI goals stuff to other users to answer for you. My impression is that occupation/invasion commanders simply want to conquer the AO and hold all of the available objectives. Assymetric commanders would act a bit differently with their means but ultimately I think their goals are the same.

    Regarding the logic or behavior that goes into which objectives to abandon I can't say. Good question. I'd assume it basically just works on a system of priorities with the most important objectives taking precedent .

    I don't think you'd ever encounter a situation right off the bat on mission start where you wouldn't have enough profiles for the objectives available. Pretty sure this is why you see different amounts units per objectives on the map or as discussed above, AO size. I think the system always ensures at least one profile spawns per objective on mission initilization. Your goal being to eliminate these profiles and taking the objectives for yourself.

    Another thing you can explore is "dynamic" reinforcements" if you like the idea of being rewarded more/less battle casualty replacements depending on how many objectives you hold. I haven't used it much myself (I usually set my forcepool to a set size and replenish in "packets") but it seems like a neat idea and definite motivation for conquering sections of the map.

  10. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    Now that I think of it, I should explore dynamic reinforcements a bit more. Especially when my enemy is Assymetric (but I can see it being fun all around). As I mentioned above, I currently tend to use a set force size that replenishes in packets (at 75% strength) but that can lead to times while waiting for troops to come, the insurgents have free-reign to recruit and cause havoc.

    It may be fun to get reinforcements as I make progress and *could* as a result slow the insurgency down. Or it'll backfire because I suck but one way to find out I guess! :)

  11. Thanks again, so much to explore but i think I managed to get a decent balance now! :)

    Right now opfor start with control over most of the maps objectives, as blufor take control over these will the opfor get gradually get a lower cap on the max total active groups? Right now they have an infinate respawn pool since I have tied the win condition to the capture of some key areas, but i dont want the last objective to be guarded by a hundred groups, but i dont want the possibility that they run out of troops.

  12. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    No don't worry about them having hundreds of troops guarding the last objective. Again I don't claim to be an expert on this but as we discussed above, the amount of troops will be tied to the amount of objectives. It's not possible for that many units to be around an objective like that. The commander would demand some hold and send the rest out.

    As the mission progresses, any side with a military logistics module synced to the commander will get units replaced (Battle Casualty Replacements), assuming they hold a suitable military objective. Meaning, if you want to cripple their ability to reinforce, take them for yourself.

    With that in mind it certainly would be possible to cut off the enemy's ability to call in additional replacements but don't worry about the map getting too barren. Seems like with your settings that would be quite an accomplishment. That said, it's kind of the point to clear the map so feel good if you make that happen.

  13. Final question! Then I won't bug you guys for awhile :P

    I placed a cqb module and didn't sync it to anything so it covers the entire map (low density, 2% chance) and set the units it should spawn to dominant faction, but opfor as default.

    How does the module determine the units to spawn? Does it look at the entire map and spawn the faction who is currently "dominating" and spawn that faction everywhere? Or does it automatically work on a local level, and spawn the faction that holds the nearby building / town/ region?

  14. Don't worry about asking questions. This is what the forums are for. You're not bugging anyone.

    If you debug the CQB module, you'll see the map light up like a Christmas tree with green markers. After a little bit, some of them will become a lighter green and this means that units have spawned there. My best guess is this works exactly as it says. It accounts for all CQB buildings in the area you'll allowed based on the module parameters (blacklist, etc), and populates the buildings with units based on the percentage you selected and in the density you selected.

    The dominant faction option will ensure the only CQB units that appear in an area are the ones from the side that controls the area.

    One thing I'm unsure of is if you're using modded factions, if writing the groups in the force faction line is ever necessary or not. Example, if playing 3CB vs let's pretend myORBAT faction, I'd currently put UK3CB_BAF_Faction_Army_Desert,HV_Taliban in the factions line even though I set it to dominant.

    My best guess is this would be unnecessary and you'd want to leave it blank when using the dominant option but no one ever clarified to me the correct usage for this.

  15. Edited 7 years ago by Imbazil

    If you leave it blank you will recieve script errors once you get close to the area, as far as I understood it the faction you type in the field is the default/startimg one.

    @HeroesandvillainsOS The dominant faction option will ensure the only CQB units that appear in an area are the ones from the side that controls the area.

    This is the part im not really sure about, if my module is not synced to anything will cqb still spawn units based on who control the nearby area or does it count the entire map as its taor and you would have to be the dominant faction on the map to flip the module?

    If so i might have to break the map up in smaller bits with several modules.

  16. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    The CQB module should always remain unsynced unless one of the commanders is an Assymetric commander. Then it's up to you whether or not you want to sync CQB to that commander or not (if you do, it will use a different logic and populate CQB units with the areas the insurgency has been establish. How that differs from dominant faction though I'm not too sure).

    My presumption regarding normal unsynced use is that all objectives would have one side with more units than the other within the AO. The faction with the most units, using the dominant faction option, would be the ones inside buildings.

    If you limit your friendlies from being in certain areas, they certainly could not be the dominant faction there. If you absolutely need CQB units somewhere they wouldn't necessarily have a presence, you can force them to spawn in places by making a marker, blacklisting the rest of the map, and whitelisting the marker.

 

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