Vehicles following roads

[TP_Fritz]

I apologize if this has been answered previously - I attempted a search and couldn't find a relevant topic.

 

I'm trying to set up some atmosphere on an airfield... activity and such so it doesn't look like just a dead field with no activity while the player waits to take off.  I've set up 3 trucks, each that follow a series of waypoints across the field.  The triggers work fine and the trucks begin rolling at their proper times; however, with only a few waypoints the trucks just follow those directly across the field rather than following the road itself between each waypoint.  To solve this, I created a slew of waypoints that follow the road - which works, but this just seems really inefficient.

 

Is there a way to have a vehicle follow the road automatically between waypoints, or is that only possible by putting down waypoints all along the road when it curves or turns to keep the vehicle on the road?

[Thad]

Assign in the  Command Formations advanced setting "Vehicle: On Road Column"... the column will then follow the road.

 

see below.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Thad

[JimTM]

See Make a Vehicle Follow a Route on pg. 67 of the editor manual. 

[Thad]

Or check out, starting at page 36 of, Pranksters Mission Building Guide.

[TP_Fritz]

Okay thanks - I've been following Prankster's guide, and didn't think to look in the Editor Manual.  Those examples seem to work great.

 

However, I guess the problem I'm having is because the Formation Command doesn't see certain parts of the airfield as roads.  I've added a screenshot to show the issue.

 

The truck is supposed to follow the "road" up to the taxiway area, along the road marked with the A arrow.  However, the moment it receives the Formation Command, it turns around and instead heads down the road marked as B.  It will continue following that road pretty much indefinitely, as there's no other road that links to where the waypoint is.  This is worse on the taxiway, marked C - if I put a truck there it acts as if there is no road present and just trundles along straight toward the destination.

 

 

The only thing I can figure is that the areas I'm trying to move the trucks over are not considered "roads" according to the game engine... which means I'd have to use a bunch of waypoints to accomplish what I'm trying to do, correct?

RoadTest.zip

[JimTM]

2 hours ago, cerebus06 said:

...

The only thing I can figure is that the areas I'm trying to move the trucks over are not considered "roads" according to the game engine... which means I'd have to use a bunch of waypoints to accomplish what I'm trying to do, correct?

...

 

Yes, that's right.

[TP_Fritz]

Alright.  I was hoping i could avoid that, but sadly that isn't going to happen.  Forces me to makes some changes as I don't want a slew of extra non-mission related waypoints adding to the mission file.

 

Thanks JimTM. 

[Gambit21]

The waypoints don’t cause problems FYI

[Thad]

All placed and used WPs are mission related. ?

[Gambit21]

Yep

[TP_Fritz]

6 hours ago, Thad said:

All placed and used WPs are mission related. ?

 

That's not quite what I meant.  I don't want 20+ waypoints in the mission that don't actually contribute to the player(s) mission itself, as in target waypoints, friendly / enemy aircraft waypoints, etc.  A whole bunch of waypoints just for eye candy is not something I really wanted to include - a few here and there, sure... but not 15+ just for a single truck.

[Sketch]

1 hour ago, cerebus06 said:

 

That's not quite what I meant.  I don't want 20+ waypoints in the mission that don't actually contribute to the player(s) mission itself, as in target waypoints, friendly / enemy aircraft waypoints, etc.  A whole bunch of waypoints just for eye candy is not something I really wanted to include - a few here and there, sure... but not 15+ just for a single truck.

 

I think we all get that... and maybe we were poking the fire a bit for a good laugh; not at your expense, but at the tediousness of the mission editor. You may not want 20+ waypoints, but if you want 20+ events to fire off while the vehicle is moving around in the mission, then you'll need 20+ waypoints and all the MCUs tied to those waypoints. Otherwise, don't include the waypoints.

 

As an example, you don't need a waypoint for every turn on a road if your vehicles already have an 'onRoad' Formation assigned to them. However, if you want to notify your player that "Hey, player... the vehicles are XYZ location!", then you'll need a wapoint at that location with a subtitle MCU tied to it. Pain in the ashtray to do, and can be very tedious - but ultimately rewarding when players play the mission and can see that the vehicles are at XYZ location.

[TP_Fritz]

Sure - and I totally get that.  I wasn't being touchy, just trying to bring up the point that with the waypoints in question, they really don't have anything to do with the mission itself at all - they are just eye candy on the airfield to make it look like it's an active field with other activities going on while the player(s) are preparing to take off.  These waypoints just keep the truck on a winding side road on the airfield and don't do anything other than that.  For waypoints that actually have a mission related reason - such as your example above - yes, absolutely.

 

The main reason I hesitate to add so many superfluous waypoints is in the interest of resource management while the mission is running.  It is my understanding that the system will consider a waypoint as an additional object that requires resources, so I didn't want to add a bunch that really didn't do anything beyond making things "look nice" if that makes sense.  If I am incorrect in that assumption, by all means let me know - I'll go waypoint happy then. 

[SCG_Schneemann]

I think you can go waypoint happy to a certain extent. It IS just a waypoint after all. I would think there would be way more logic (i.e. resources) expended making the convoy move. And it's the beginning of the mission... Targets aren't up yet, enemy fighters aren't activated, etc. Just put in a deactivate command with a proximity sensor and it goes away once the planes leave the airfield? Don't need it running in the background if no one is there.

[Gambit21]

Place as many waypoints as you wish.