Help- Triggers are triggered on missionstart?!

Hi,

im really new to all that Mission building stuff but im desperate to learn it.

My last mission i made for our squad was awful, because the AI was spawned immediately.

Basically goal is to destroy a AI Flight. Last time i had a Trigger: When part of coalition BLUE is out of Triggerzone "Leave Airspace", then activate AI.

Problem with this was, that the friendly AWACS triggered this (at least i assume).

Now i set it up: When part of Group #1 [OR] Part of Group #2 is out of Triggerzone "Leave Airspace", then activate AI.

Still it does not work, AI is activated immediately.

Second problem, i have a Trigger "When AI is DEAD, [AND] Part of #1 [OR] #2 is in Triggerzone "Leave Airspace", THEN play sound xxx.

This is also played on mission start, i dont know whats happening :(

Link to mission:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u3rz27gwbt9w1dd/Intercept%20Dictator.miz?dl=0

Thank you!

Offhand, I'd say unless you have all 8 seats filled for the Banshee and Prophet group, the scripting engine is treating the unchosen client plane(s) as "out of zone". Nonetheless, instead of looking at it as a trigger for when a unit leaves a zone, how about when part of a group enters a zone. It looks like you already know about where you want the engagement to take place so I removed your "Leave Airspace" zone and established a "Start Intercept" zone in the attached edit.

I dumped the sound files out of the .miz for size considerations.

I think your second trigger, for mission success, is unnecessarily convoluted. If the mission is successful when the Dictator is dead, just make that the condition to trigger the messages.

1 ONCE

GROUP IS DEAD (Dictator)

MESSAGE TO ALL

There's also some cool stuff you can do with random flags to spawn different compositions of opfor aircraft.

Intercept Dictator_edit.miz

I changed the behavior of your Escorte group. Instead of the mission "escort", I created waypoints parallel to the Dictator group. When they tried to fly the "escort" task, they had a tendency to fly into mountains.

Test this iteration. I added a blue commander. I use them for testing purposes. Also, you can add a blue AI with a flightplan that flies it into the trigger zone for testing purposes. Just remember to edit the trigger to include the AI group as another 'OR' choice. Start the mission, choose the commander seat then watch what happens.

Intercept Dictator_edit.miz

Hey,

thanks for the advice. Your thoughts could be true, i just found that the "out of zone" is more flexible, since it caould be, that the flight is approaching fromt the East and wont hit the trigger at all.

But well - it is how it is.

The second trigger is that long, because there is a escorte and some clients might go for the Dictator, but after he is head, there still could be a fight going on. I dont wanna have the music on while dogfighting.

What do you mean with random flags? I dont like that my mission is so static - id prefer to have it more flexible so that there is some intelligence (or randomness) in the enemy flight :)

However, thanks again very much for you help!

Cheers, Mark

Hi MarkP,

There are a few issues here that are specific to multiplayer, and a few general ones.

First - "GROUP" level triggers do not work for client aircraft and "UNIT" level triggers must be used. Occasionally "XX OUTSIDE ZONE" seems to act up, even though it -should- only fire if the unit is alive, so I've also added a condition to check that the unit is both alive AND outside of the zone. As Dooden noted, checking if a client is in an intercept zone might be a better choice for future ops, but this approach works.

Second - The dictator's airspeed is too slow for his escort; 270kts ground speed at 29000 feet is well below stall speed for the MiG-21. I'd try setting his speed to at least 400kts.

Third - I've had spotty results with the "escort" tasking in a multiplayer environment. SEARCH THEN ENGAGE IN ZONE might be a better choice. I've coupled this with the "follow" action which will create a similar effect. This will also prevent the SU_BACKUP flight from engaging once players are a few miles outside of Russian airspace.

Fourth - As dooden noted, the audio files are a lot bigger than they need to be. I'd recommend turning them into .oggs to slim down the mission. You can use a free online encoder such as THIS one.

I've made the above changes (minus the audio conversion) but this is obviously going to affect the timing and will need some testing (and potentially further relocating of the Dictator and his escort) on your part. I've placed him in an approximate new location, see if it works out.

HERE is my revision.

Hey,

again, thank you very much for your input.

I tested both versions. The Search then engage option wasnt that good. The Escorte only engaged when i was like 2nm away from then, i fired the fox2 and only when i dived, they started to engage:

Other then that, thanks for the advices. The Audiofiles will be replaced and i wasnt aware of the airspeed.

One thing tho: Its really complicated and alot of hassle that you have to choose every unit by itself :/

By the way:

I set the Dictator IL to:

1. Reaction to thread: EVADE FIRE

2. Chaff Flare using: USE AGAINST MISSILE

Is that appropriate? Because it seems that he is not evading as he could..

Here's the other issue. I didn't want to overcomplicated things but since it didn't work - AI are limited to searching within the limits of their sensor suite, which in the case of the MiG21 is hot garbage. Add an EWR or AWACS to OPFOR and that should improve their performance.

As for not wanting your trigger to fire while friendlies are potentially still engaged - delete all current conditions from the "top gun"trigger and instead use GROUP DEAD (dictator) and ALL OF COALITION OUT OF ZONE (Blue, AO) where "AO" is a new trigger zone encompassing the same area as the "search then engage" tasking.

Re: reaction/countermeasures - The default options should be fine, you don't need to set those behaviors unless you're going for something specific. You can delete thise actions if desired.

What do you mean with random flags? I dont like that my mission is so static - id prefer to have it more flexible so that there is some intelligence (or randomness) in the enemy flight :)

This Wiki has an in-depth look at randomizing missions. It can't be easily explained in a single thread post unfortunately. In a nutshell, a "flag" is value that can be evaluated to trigger an action or not. Flags can be considered as 'ON/OFF', 'TRUE/FALSE', or they can have some numerical value.

In that first image I attached, I set Flag 3 once, at mission start with a slight time offset, and I'm allowing for a random choice of values 1 to 10 inclusively.

In the second, I've evaluated Flag 3's value, and if it is Flag 3 = 1, I trigger a script file to run. You'll see I evaluate 1 - 5. Why not all the way to 10? Because I want there to be a chance nothing spawns at all.

Here's the other issue. I didn't want to overcomplicated things but since it didn't work - AI are limited to searching within the limits of their sensor suite, which in the case of the MiG21 is hot garbage. Add an EWR or AWACS to OPFOR and that should improve their performance.

 

As for not wanting your trigger to fire while friendlies are potentially still engaged - delete all current conditions from the "top gun"trigger and instead use GROUP DEAD (dictator) and ALL OF COALITION OUT OF ZONE (Blue, AO) where "AO" is a new trigger zone encompassing the same area as the "search then engage" tasking.

Ahh ok i understand. Well, thats really cool. I think its a neat feature. We played the mission with the triggers "when in zone then..." and it worked like a charm. Same with the Top Gun music. Only drawback: When the Dictator was killed, the Escort did nothing and flew cycles :/ I think that would not happen with your Search and engage in zone type. I will remember for future.

I really like this AWACS thing, that they actually need to see you or find you on their sensors to engage. Really cool. Thanks for the advice.

This Wiki has an in-depth look at randomizing missions. It can't be easily explained in a single thread post unfortunately. In a nutshell, a "flag" is value that can be evaluated to trigger an action or not. Flags can be considered as 'ON/OFF', 'TRUE/FALSE', or they can have some numerical value.

 

 

 

In that first image I attached, I set Flag 3 once, at mission start with a slight time offset, and I'm allowing for a random choice of values 1 to 10 inclusively.

 

 

 

In the second, I've evaluated Flag 3's value, and if it is Flag 3 = 1, I trigger a script file to run. You'll see I evaluate 1 - 5. Why not all the way to 10? Because I want there to be a chance nothing spawns at all.

Okay at this point its getting complicated :) I will give that WIKI a go, already i learned alot from you guys, thansk again :)

I was going for "easy to understand" and "works with what you already wrote" but yes, checking for individual units can get tedious when you have a lot of players. The clone button helps a lot but it is indeed a pain.

I had a little time to kill, so here's a twiddled version with all the pieces in play and some rewritten triggers with new zones that I think will work a little better. This also removed the need for checks for individual units.

I've also resized your images to the native size of the briefing screen (500x500) which knocks another few MB off of the size of the .miz and prevents text and images from becoming distorted.

Intercept Dictator FIXED.miz

This is related to the op problem but was brought up in the topic.

How to use and and or to combine conditions

Adding multiple conditions to a trigger is essentially an "and" statement. There is an "OR" button at the top of the column.

PART OF GROUP IN ZONE (whatever, whatever)

FLAG IS TRUE (1)

OR

PART OF GROUP IN ZONE (whatever, whatever)

FLAG IS TRUE (2)

is the same as..

if

(part of group in zone and flag 1)

or

(part of group in zone and flag 2)

then