Two Q's about the ME

I've been training to learn the F/A-18C for a few months (very intermittently, so slow progress) up to a point where I decided to try out the F/A-18C Agressor campaign from Maple Leaf. I very quickly realized my old dogfighting skills where just that: very old. I suck, to put it plainly.

So, I put together a quick mission for dogfighting training but for some reason my adversary (an F-5E3) won't engage. I set it up so that the F5 gets activated for a CAP mission some 15 miles to my east as I enter a trigger zone. He's then heading west towards me (for WP1) where he's supposd to "Search then engage unit (me)". The triggering works fine and he's popping up on my radar as expected but then immediately turns to the east, picking up speed.

The F-5 is armed with guns only, just like me.

So, question 1is: Why is the F-5 displaying this craven behavior? Have I missed something?

I tried checking out the seconds mission in the F/A-18C Aggressor Campaign (Maple Leaf) and it appears to be done more or less the same way. But for some reason I can't see any trigger logics in that mission.

And that's my seconds question: Is the Maple Leaf campaign missions somehow protected (to avoid IP theft perhaps) preventing curious guys like me from peeping? :-)

I would love to learn some more advanced mission building stuff, and I assume I need some LUA skills for that, but I have no idea even where to begin. The DCS World manual seems pretty vanilla in this regard.

An easier solution might be to download on of the Through the Inferno missions (see the missions sub folder), and use that, which includes the ability to spawn enemies on the fly.

Hi,

 

 

1. Can you attach your quick mission, we can take a look and give advice better.

 

Did you set advanced waypoint actions for the AI?

 

2. Yes paid missions are protected and can not be edited.

I attached the mission.

In the advanced waypoint action menu is a point called SET OPTION

Perhaps REACTION TO THREAT is set to ALLOW ABORT MISSION.

I did wonder sometimes why the enemie droped all its weapons and tried to escape,

Found out, the above was the reason.

Just my thoughts.

Remove the CAP task, it is deciding to attack the AWACS first rather than going after you.

Whenever you want AI to only attack certain objects or certain locations its usually best to delete their default task and then use search and engage in zone, group, or unit to narrow down their focus. Otherwise they will be free to attack anything they detect anywhere with the broad category of any aircraft.

Remove the CAP task, it is deciding to attack the AWACS first rather than going after you.

 

Whenever you want AI to only attack certain objects or certain locations its usually best to delete their default task and then use search and engage in zone, group, or unit to narrow down their focus. Otherwise they will be free to attack anything they detect anywhere with the broad category of any aircraft.

You are correct. The F5 does go after the AWACS. I experimented with removing the CAP mission but that seems to just transform the F5 to a mindless zombie, with no purpose at all. Seems my trigger (FLAG 1) isn't actually doing what I hope it would do.

Thanks

 

I could not use the mission as it contains unofficial mods.

 

I have attached a very simple example below.

 

check the advanced waypoint actions on the f-5 on waypoint 1

 

hope it helps

That mission works fine. But I would like to control when the fight is ON, using a zone and trigger (flag). I removed the left-over ground NTTR targets that require the mod. Do you mind having a sscond look at the mission file? I would really like to understand how to work with triggers and do more in-depth stuff with the mission editor if possible.

Thanks!

FA-18 - training - nevada - AA.miz

With the original group activate, it would have worked fine. It just required for the unit to reach the first waypoint where it was assigned the task to attack you.

In your updated mission you get to learn a little with how AI executes tasking. Basically upon reaching a waypoint it will go through each of the tasks listed and evaluate whether or not to do it.* But it only does that evaluation once upon reaching the waypoint, and that is where your issues arise.

Basically it has the CAP task, checks the status of flag 1 and because flag 1 is false it sets ROE to hold, then checks if the status of flag 1 is true to activate the search and engage task. So you have set ROE to hold and the search and engage task is not activated.

There are at least two ways to fix it, and this is assuming that you want the AI to attack you once you enter the zone.

1. Ignore the use of triggers. Delete the CAP task, add a search and engage in zone task, then give them the orbit at WP1. Make sure the "zone" is on the larger side because once any aircraft gets outside of that area, then the AI will stop the attack.

2. Use triggered actions. Delete the CAP task and just have the Orbit set as needed. Go to the tab with the hint "triggered actions" and add a Enroute task>Search and engage unit. Now go to your triggers and change the trigger action for once your F-18 enters the zone to "AI Task Push" and select the one option that should be listed.

* https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_editor_AITasking#Perform_Task_vs_Enroute_Task

With the original group activate, it would have worked fine. It just required for the unit to reach the first waypoint where it was assigned the task to attack you.

 

In your updated mission you get to learn a little with how AI executes tasking. Basically upon reaching a waypoint it will go through each of the tasks listed and evaluate whether or not to do it.* But it only does that evaluation once upon reaching the waypoint, and that is where your issues arise. ...

Thank you! Not only does your suggestion work great (I went with the second option). You also made me understand how it works. Exactly what I was looking for.

These forums are a refreshing reminder of what the internet should be: A friendly place where people exchange ideas, find inspiration and have a good time.

Again: thank you!