Activating existing, disabled objects vs. spawning 'em

[Stoopy]

 

Greetings everyone,

 

First off - THANK YOU ALL for all of the help and advice I've gotten in the forum here the last couple of months, without you knowing about it, or me even asking anything yet!   I've been pouring through the threads here as I've learned the ME and have always, inevitably, run across answers to my questions, asked by others before me,  and have found a ton of really cool insights and advice - this is a fantastic knowledge base and great community!

 

All that being said I'm curious as to what the preferred approach might be, if any, for the following scenario:

 

If I have a group of like aircraft (or could be tanks, or ships) grouped together and I'd like them to act as a formation, it seems there are two choices:

 

- Trigger a Spawn MCU to generate them, but not assign them a formation command since spawned formations don't work (per the manual and my own attempts, at least) and object link them all to either common or individual waypoints, attack commands, etc.   Ending up with lots of green arrows, and no guarantee of keeping a formation, although it works. 

 

-  Place them on the map as objects that are not enabled, then enable them by triggering the Activate MCU, then a second or two after getting them to move trigger a Formation Command thats linked to them, and then all waypoints etc can be routed through the formation leader.  Cool. 

 

Is there a preferred method between the two, or a third option I am not thinking of?  Any idea which approach might be easier on system resources if I'm making a mission that has several groups of objects doing this, triggered at different times?

 

Thanks!

Edited September 19, 2019 by =[TIA]=Stoopy

[Leon_Portier]

Thats pretty much it as far as I know.

Usually I use the second method, exept when I something to respawn need.

Funny annectode: I was making a mission which involved constantly respawning vehicles, they had 2 waypoints. Because of the respawning the first and second waypoint were triggered repeadedly, making the vehicles frantically drive back and forth between the waypoints!

@=[TIA]=Stoopy

Edited September 19, 2019 by Leon_Portier

[Stoopy]

26 minutes ago, Leon_Portier said:

Funny annectode: I was making a mission which involved constantly respawning vehicles, they had 2 waypoints. Because of the respawning the first and second waypoint were triggered repeadedly, making the vehicles frantically drive back and forth between the waypoints!

@=[TIA]=Stoopy

 

Yep!  That's EXACTLY the same thing I ran into and it took me a while to stop scratching my head over why the first tank group was turning around. Real "lightbulb" moment when it hit me.   Fix was an additional waypoint early after the spawn point, so each group had their own active waypoint in the long (and slow, for tanks) string of WP's tot he target area. 

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by =[TIA]=Stoopy

[Habu]

it dépends of what you want. If it's just one go, then use activate, if you want an infinite loop, use the spawn.

 

if you are limited in ressource, use the spawn.

Edited September 19, 2019 by Habu