Civilian vehicles?

[Chain]

Does Pro PE have any civilian vehicles or actual civilians? It would be great to add some neutral units into the missions.

[Sean]

No, not yet.

[Ssnake]

It would be a blast to have them, and I think that chances are rather high that we will see them in the future (they are at least a rather high priority item for me, and I don't know if anyone would seriously oppose the idea to add them) - but they will require a considerable effort to implement them because it is impractical to treat them like ordinary military units. Instead there is the need for completely autonomous car traffic to populate the area, which warrants the development of new algorithms to control the behavior. Just adding the car models simply doesn't cut it.

[Chain]

How about civilians? Changing the sprites to civ clothing and take the ammo/weapons away? :)

[Ssnake]

Unfortunately, it's not that easy - again, because you need to implement a much higher degree of autonomy here to relieve the scenario developer from the need to define movement paths for individual humans (unless they have a tactical relevance). We simply can't treat them like soldiers, as far as the program code is concerned.

[Chain]

I understand, but just by being able to place them in the maps would be great. For example parked cars in the cities etc. Placeholders for more intelligent objects of the future.

Man can dream X)

[RENEGADE-623]

Im sure that it can be done at a later date. I know in The U.S Army, we are now and have been for a while training with Civilians on the Battlefield. The vehicles would be a great start, as in scenerios you could be able to dock points from any unit that destroys a non combatant vehicle.

[Retro]

Instead there is the need for completely autonomous car traffic to populate the area, which warrants the development of new algorithms to control the behavior.

Dangerous Waters (http://www.scs-dangerouswaters.com/) models civilian aircraft in this way.. the scenario designer creates 'air corridors' which cross the map (and may optionally be connected to an airport located in the map), he then specifies things like min/max flying altitude, number of planes in the corridor, plane generation rate per hour etc and the sim takes it from there.. but of course (civilian) aircraft fly only straight and level so doing this for cars will be a bit more complicated :?

[jens198]

Unfortunately, it's not that easy - again, because you need to implement a much higher degree of autonomy here to relieve the scenario developer from the need to define movement paths for individual humans (unless they have a tactical relevance). We simply can't treat them like soldiers, as far as the program code is concerned.

Well, that's what I like about the eSim stuff. Adding civies? Other products would say: "Hey no problem! Just add some new textures, some new models and we got our civilians ready". The guys at eSim think several steps ahead. Hm, civies, those aren't soldiers in other clothes. Theres something different about them. They behave different, react different. Seems like we need some additional code there...

Keep up the good work Ssnake and friends!! :D

Jens

[Ssnake]

Well, I think that other game developers aren't exactly brain-dead either. There really are some smart people working in the game industry. SimCity's micro behavior was a direct spin-off of university research on agents and artificial intelligence. I don't think that our craniums are bigger than theirs - other game developers simply have different priorities.

[jens198]

Yep. of course. Didn't want to say you're the only good one out there. Just wanna be a little bit supportive to eSim :wink:

Jens

[Banshee-66]

I've read about putting civilians and their vehicles in the simulation, so I take it we have or will have urban, or city type warfare?
I mean imagine all the things that can happen mocing through a city block by block. Just a thought. :wink: