Intermediate ground vehicle waypoints to lighten dserver load?

[LLv34_Temuri]

Does anyone know if having multiple waypoints instead of just one waypoint would cause a lighter load for the dserver?

 

We had supply convoys on the VirtualPilots' server, but the load was too much, so we had to remove them. The convoys were implemented pretty much so that there was only a single WP at the target airfields and the vehicles were using the on-road formation. I've since had a nagging feeling, that maybe if there were intermediate WPs, the dserver wouldn't need to "calculate so far", and that would result in a lighter load.

 

Maybe I need to test this...

[Habu]

I don't know if it's lighter for the Dserver (i didn't run test about that), but if you use the onroad command, you can minimise the number of waypoint. It's what i do, and it works fine.

[Urra]

Personal experience is it won't make a difference and will only bloat you Mission file size.

[coconut]

I don't think it will change anything.

 

I'm working on a tool to create "virtual convoys" among other things: group of vehicles that are activated when an enemy approaches, and gets deactivated when the enemy goes away. The group is duplicated at various places on the path of travel, together with the enemy detection logic. The point on the path that is active depends on how much time has passed, which simulates movement of the convoy along the path.

I don't know if that description is clear, but basically I think it's similar to what Patrick Wilson uses in his mission generator.

[Gambit21]

Ingenious, and it makes perfect sense

[Gambit21]

How 'expensive' in general are waypoints in say in SP mission?

I have vehicles driving circuits around the base for immersion's sake with a dozen to fifteen waypoints.

[Sim]

How 'expensive' in general are waypoints in say in SP mission?

I have vehicles driving circuits around the base for immersion's sake with a dozen to fifteen waypoints.

 

Since there is only one waypoint active at a given time - there shouldn't be any expenses performance wise. But don't quote me on this, maybe someone did some CPU usage test to confirm this?

 

 

I'm working on a tool to create "virtual convoys" among other things: group of vehicles that are activated when an enemy approaches, and gets deactivated when the enemy goes away. The group is duplicated at various places on the path of travel, together with the enemy detection logic. The point on the path that is active depends on how much time has passed, which simulates movement of the convoy along the path.

 

Sounds interesting. I am curious - how do you handle deactivation of convoys? Assuming they are mobile after activation - and the player is just taking time to kill them off. If its a fixed check zone trigger on the starting activation position - wouldn't that mean that you can essentially deactivate them while the player is still trying to finish the convoy and just happens to take too long? Or do you use proximity triggers?

Edited October 8, 2016 by Sim

[Urra]

How 'expensive' in general are waypoints in say in SP mission?

I have vehicles driving circuits around the base for immersion's sake with a dozen to fifteen waypoints.

What would be interesting to find out is five trucks individually travelling to the same point, are more or less burden for the CPU than 5 truck in one convoy.

[coconut]

 

 

Sounds interesting. I am curious - how do you handle deactivation of convoys? Assuming they are mobile after activation - and the player is just taking time to kill them off. If its a fixed check zone trigger on the starting activation position - wouldn't that mean that you can essentially deactivate them while the player is still trying to finish the convoy and just happens to take too long? Or do you use proximity triggers?

 

You answered your own question, I use proximity triggers for deactivation

 

With a twist: The proximity trigger works in "single shot monitoring mode". By that, I mean it is deactivated most of the time. It is reactivated once every 50s or so, at which point it fires if there is any enemy nearby. In that case, it restarts a 60s timer than triggers the deactivation of the group. I use that instead of the "inverse proximity continuous mode" of the MCU, because I don't want to deactivate the group as soon as some enemy plane exits the zone near the group.

[LLv34_Temuri]

I'm working on a tool to create "virtual convoys" among other things: group of vehicles that are activated when an enemy approaches, and gets deactivated when the enemy goes away. The group is duplicated at various places on the path of travel, together with the enemy detection logic. The point on the path that is active depends on how much time has passed, which simulates movement of the convoy along the path.

I don't know if that description is clear, but basically I think it's similar to what Patrick Wilson uses in his mission generator.

Thanks for sharing this idea! I think we'll be able to work around the load issue with this.