Making Two Indiviual AI Spawn Separatly

[Beebop]

A friend asked for a practice mission with two 109's to practice air to air combat.  He didn't want to use the Quick Mission because the two planes worked as a unit so while he was attacking one the other came after him.
So I put together on Lapino a Dogfight map with two planes.  See attached.  Plane 1 and Plane 2 waypoints and logic are separated for clarity  Plane 2's complex trigger radius  was originally right under Plane 1's.

 

Plane 1 is triggered by the player entering into the complex trigger's radius.  If Plane 1 sustains enough damage it will head to the "Common Landing Area", so called because the other plane goes there too if damaged.
Both planes are set up using a Counter MCU and Activate/Deactivate MCU's for the damage logic to return to their home base.

 

"AI Plane 2" is a clone of "AI Plane 1".  Initially I had the two complex triggers right next to each other, not overlapping.  It occurred to me that during his engagement with Plane 1 they might drift into Plane 2' trigger area.  I though that maybe I would just set Plane 2 to not trigger for 10 minutes or so but realized that the player might still be engaging Plane 1.  (after all it's a learning tool).  Then I thought how about Plane 2 doesn't spawn until Plane 1 is damaged enough to head for home.  Problem with that was the player might continue to engage Plane 1 on it's way home and get ambushed by Plane 2.  Realistic but not what the client wants right now.

Then my "Eureka!" moment, have Plane 2 spawn after Plane 1 was destroyed.
Right now both planes spawn "On Object Entered".  But what if I change Plane 2 to "On Object Destroyed"?

How would I link Plane 2's complex trigger?  Event Link to Plane 1?  Would I still Object Link Plane 2 to it's complex trigger?

If it helps I can post the mission.

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by Beebop

[Stoopy]

This sounds pretty straightforward. I don't get why you are using complex triggers when check zones seem like they'd work just as well.  Just enable them to be triggered by an Allied plane.  Target link the output to a Disable command that target links back to the Check zone, and it will shut off after it's triggered the first time. 

 

But I also don't get why your friend would ask for there to be 2 109's if he doesn't want to have the opportunity to take them both on at once if he felt like it (spawning them separately, they still may not work together as they might if they were in the same flight, but who knows).

 

Speaking of that in a case like this I would Spawn them rather than use Activate & Deactivate.    Just simpler and if you're not putting them together in a flight to use formation commands, common waypoints, or other MCU's that could object link to a flight leader like Cover, Attack etc., which seems to me to be the big advantage of using Activate vs. Spawn.  In this case you then might as well spawn them and keep it simple.  

 

To limit it to one-on-one I'd enable only one check zone at a time, switching them based on an OnKilled event from the other 109.  If you wanted to get fancy you could pipe with through a counter MCU set to 2,  the first input coming from the other check zone and the second input coming from an OnKilled event from the 109 spawned by that same check zone.  Or use OnCriticalDamage if you want to have it head to the landing area and enable the check zone for the other 109.  I'd think your friend will probably be too tempted to finish off the damaged plane anyway so what are the odds they will ever get to land?

 

But there's so many ways to skin a cat with this editor, the approach I'd take is probably too different to modify to work with the above. 

 

Edited January 22, 2020 by =[TIA]=Stoopy

[No_85_Gramps]

28 minutes ago, =[TIA]=Stoopy said:

This sounds pretty straightforward. I don't get why you are using complex triggers when check zones seem like they'd work just as well. 

 

If they are running this mission using the in-game dserver, check zones and proximity triggers do not work, thus the use of the complex trigger. I haven't checked after the most recent update, but the check zones cannot detect player planes, and the proximity trigger seems to have a mind of it's own.

[Stoopy]

2 minutes ago, No_85_Gramps said:

If they are running this mission using the in-game dserver, check zones and proximity triggers do not work, thus the use of the complex trigger. I haven't checked after the most recent update, but the check zones cannot detect player planes, and the proximity trigger seems to have a mind of it's own.

 

Ahh so. Thanks Gramps!

 

[IckyATLAS]

12 hours ago, No_85_Gramps said:

If they are running this mission using the in-game dserver, check zones and proximity triggers do not work, thus the use of the complex trigger. I haven't checked after the most recent update, but the check zones cannot detect player planes, and the proximity trigger seems to have a mind of it's own.

Maybe here it is the case that justifies the complex trigger: the use of D-Server. 

[Beebop]

Sorry to be so thick, what is a D Server?  Is that the one you use when you "Create Server" in Multiplayer?  That's what I use to test and host Dogfight missions.

[No_85_Gramps]

12 minutes ago, Beebop said:

Sorry to be so thick, what is a D Server?  Is that the one you use when you "Create Server" in Multiplayer?  That's what I use to test and host Dogfight missions.

Yes, that is correct. The other dserver is a stand alone that normally is run on a separate PC, or server.

[Beebop]

Thanks.  You know, I might learn this game after all. ?

[Beebop]

Had a thought.  Could I trigger the second plane by sending the START Timer for that plane an Event Message "On Killed"?

Edited January 23, 2020 by Beebop