Rangoon

Thanks again for this idea, 12Alfa. I created two triggers. One to damage the engines and one to repair the engines. No region necessary even. Just those triggers. Peace and quiet now when the support group is stopped, so I can listen for trouble. I would have been surprised/impressed if AI turned out to have hearing. I pity the programmer, though, who would have to (will someday have to?) sort that mess out. He/she will deserve many beers. I have what I need in these engine off/on triggers, but thanks for the tip!

That does sound like it would take some time. Like I said, I have no doubt there is a conscious reason why eSim doesn't by default allow fuel leaks to be repaired. I just wanted, since it is fathomable that they could be, to have the ability to press on during this particular SP mission using other support assets that I'm still exploring the use of (repair vehicles and area security infantry, etc.).

Hm, that is slick! :drink:

But I'm not AI. Of course I will be able to hear the vehicle. That doesn't mean that if I'm AI I will be able to hear the vehicle. Even if the contact doesn't show up on the map, that doesn't prove the AI don't "hear" the sound and just have no logic for handling it until there is further information. All due respect, but it didn't start with driving manually. It started with jumping to the vehicle in F8 view. My deeper question had to do with engine on/off, but I needed to be able to jump to the vehicle in order to do that. I can't do it from the map with a right click. In my OP, I never said I wanted to drive it manually. Not in the post nor in the title. I stated multiple times that I wanted to jump to it and use the F8 view, because to me that is the most basic aspect of jumping to a unit. Any vehicle that you can jump to can be viewed with F8. But not all vehicles have the other positions. I acknowledge that the literature stated I can't manually drive them, but that is not my concern. I totally respect your input generally, Gibsonm, and appreciate you taking the time to read/reply, but I don't think you actually are reading my posts today. "Where to next?" Man. I guess wherever productive discussion leads us. :icon_frown: They are with my entire support group, so they are escorted. I was asking if they shouldn't be per Real Life doctrine or something (because they are non-combat vehicles)? I was also asking if that is basically the best way to keep their noise out of the area since they won't apparently be targeted by enemy AI. I don't want to "spy" from them. I never suggested I did. My OP quotes the manual and the wiki, which says I should be able to use F8 view on these vehicles. What am I missing about that? Apparently that the manual and wiki are out of date, which others kindly pointed out by referring to the understandable changes made by eSim since those were published. That there are differences between test and play modes, specifically with this, I have already alluded to and understand. Thank you for clarifying that part though. That is not the focus of my thread, but thanks again for clarifying that. My intention here is to find a solution to the problem. That's a really good idea, thanks!

Does this mean that AI can't detect ambulances by engine sound? Does Steel Beasts AI even have the ability to detect by engine sound? If so, then that solves half my concern. That my ambulances keeping their engines running will give away my position while parked and engines off. But the other problem remains: I can't hear as well myself if everyone has engines off EXCEPT for the ambulances.

Sorry, but I'm not sure what you are replying to. If it's to me, please re-read what I wrote. I feel like you're replying to something others said about what other players were doing, not what I'm saying or asking about?

Thanks. That makes sense for both MP (sportsmanship) and SP (fairness to AI). Except that in SP, if the ambulance can't spot enemies, and enemies won't spot ambulances, I should still be able to F8 the ambulance. It should be up to me whether I want to play fair for fun gameplay or not fair for testing/experimentation/learning. But of course it seems for that I can just use the editor, so it doesn't really matter. Just the concept...whatever. Still, all of that I can live with. But that brings about a question which led me to want to F8 the ambulance in the first place. I wanted to shut its engine off to reduce the company's sound signature. Does the AI detect engine noise? If not, then I won't bother turning off engines for stealth. But still, turning off engines allows me to better detect enemies. If every vehicle in my company is shut down except for the ambulances, I can't really listen for enemy vehicles. So at the very least I'd like to be able to right click and turn engines on/off. Or...do ambulances not hang out with other vehicles in real life? Should I not be keeping my M113 medic vehicles with the rest of my vehicles but rather way back by themselves? They don't need to be protected, since enemies won't target them, but they're just farther away. I suppose then that's just a trade-off...either keep them close and noisy or far and quiet.

The manual states no driving input, and the wiki reiterates the manual. IIRC, in the mission editor test mode, I was able to jump to an M113 medic in F8 view. I'm playing in the normal "Single Player" mode now, however, and cannot seem to jump to the unit's Observer view. Wiki states "Such vehicles may not be directly crewed by players and no binocular or thermal/NVG view is available from the F8 observer position." Manual states "The external position cannot activate the binocular view." What am I missing here? Should I not be able to jump to this unit?

It wasn't the delay. I had it working with no delay and "unit is anywhere" FWIW. Not sure what the problem was at first. Not sure I follow this last part. I never said I wanted a repair vehicle 20km+ away to do the fixing. I want to be able to set a trigger since I can't find a logical argument that fits a certain unit (repair) being within a certain range (75m per the sim's rules) of another unit (the damaged unit). Doesn't a trigger take care of that? Or am I missing that line in the logical argument dialogue which allows for proving range between two specific units? And IF the repair vehicle is alongside the damaged vehicle (not sure why it wouldn't be when I activate the trigger), then how many minutes should a fuel leak take to fix? I mean how many minutes would satisfy you? I don't know tanks, but I do know helicopters. And I have seen a helicopter fuel leak be fixed in less than 15 minutes. So maybe an average time is longer, and maybe some cannot be fixed in the field, but some can be, and some can take very little time. So what would the be "right" amount of time? Are all of eSim's repair times correct? I have no way of knowing. They chose not to allow them to be fixed, but did specifically give the power in the editor to allow them to be repairable. I don't know how long this repair should take to emulate the scenario of a field repair of a fuel leak. So...15 minutes is just a number more than 1 and less than four hours I guess. In the end, I think it would be even better if the sim allowed fuel leaks to be repaired by default, but I'm sure they had a conscious, valid reason why they didn't. What I'm after at the moment is to keep working on a mission that is allowing me to learn how to play Steel Beasts better (including the editor). If I don't want a fuel leak to end my mission, I want to be able to fix it, but in a way that jives with the rest of the mechanics at play. Hopefully that explains it.

Got this to work. My first failure was that I was not using a custom region. :c: I set it up so that coolant and fuel leaks are repaired if the unit is in a custom region which encompasses the entire map, and if a trigger called "Repair Vehicle Present" is set, and then a delay of 15 minutes transpires. Edit: I thought at first it wasn't working to NOT use a region, but instead to use the "unit is anywhere" selection. For some reason I was since able to get that working. So if I want to have any Blue vehicle be able to have leaks repaired, I don't actually need to define such a "repairs" region unless I want to limit that ability of course to a specific area.

Thanks, I will give this a try. You absolutely can! Thank you and I will go seek these videos of Toyguy's out! :@!2:

I understand (basically) how they work in the planning and mission design phase. I'm talking strictly about the execution phase. And it's only in regard to a specific situation (which I find myself in a lot) when a unit is at a waypoint and already in a BP, but has no other routes attached. I then simply want to tell it to retreat along a specific route, but ONLY if it normally would under a Guard tactic response to incoming fire or (ideally, in a future iteration of Steel Beasts) under an "embark if" order. The problem I have is that when I assign such a unit a route, of course it immediately embarks on said route. I can tell it to halt, but then it has already started moving and has lost its Guard order from the BP. I want to tell it which route to take, but not to take it until it normally would under its current BP orders and/or a "proceed" command. I see two solutions presently. 1. I can do that trick where you place a new waypoint nearby (pixels), set it to Guard, then assign a route from there, and finally tell the unit to go to that waypoint (the nearby one). 2. I need to get smarter and better at thinking ahead. This way I will know ahead of time, before the unit arrives at the waypoint, which retreat (or other) route I want it to take after establishing its next BP. Therefore I can create those orders before it has arrived (maybe even before it embarks on the route to get there in the first place). I'm just not there yet in my ability, so I find myself in the above situation wishing I could easily assign a new route while tell him NOT to immediately embark (which could be done by, for example, holding Control while hitting that final right-click or something along those lines). The other thing is that, even when I get better, I don't think I will always be able to determine a plan ahead of time. I also think I will sometimes want to adjust the plan. And if you adjust the plan by designing a new route, we're back to square one: as soon as I hit right-click, the unit will embark but I don't want it to. I'm probably just playing the sim wrong, and eventually I will understand why it doesn't make sense what I'm asking for.

I got back to the editor and tried to make a box to globally allow fuel leak repairs. I can't find a way to assign this to a graphic. Sorry, but can someone point me in the right direction? Can't find anything in the manual about it, other than in the unit options. Do I somehow need to start in unit options and then it can be expanded to apply to all units within a specified "graphic" area?

Thanks for the replies. I just find myself in these situations where a unit is in a BP and I want to tell it "okay, from here, if you take fire or see at least one enemy unit, retreat." Once you're in the execution phase, it seems you simply can't without tricking it or catching it before the unit arrives at the final waypoint. Even just being able to hold a key (let's see, what is left, Control?) it would open up an "embark if" dialogue, or at least tell the unit not to embark until either told to proceed or if you take fire (guard) or losses (defend), etc. I will just keep doing what I'm doing and at least now won't wonder every time if there was an easier way.

I know, but for me not interesting enough. I have read the manual multiple times. I have read the routes section multiple times. The manual is not entirely complete or thorough in all cases. What I'm wondering is whether there is anything more to it than the simple statement in the manual that says during execution, once you finish a route, the unit embarks. What "tricks" that are not in the manual, if any, do ANY OF YOU MORE EXPERIENCED PLAYERS use to accomplish what I'm asking. Do you make a route start from a waypoint placed a couple pixels away and assign embark if orders to it (or non conditioned retreat route from a guard BP for example)? Then tell the unit to go to that waypoint/BP so that it never embarked on the intentioned route in question in the first place? Or what? Or, please, can you point me to where in the manual it answers my question? Because I cannot find it. Or is that simple statement the only end of that story? And if so, what do you guys do in that case to accomplish this? Thanks.

Thanks. Does the area mean that if a unit begins in that area it will always be allowed that repair even after it has left that area? Or the repair is only allowed while the unit is in that area? Drawing the area on the whole map takes care of that, but curious on that detail. Also, for forum searches, can a mod please correct the typo in my forum title?

Is there a way, on the fly, to set a retreat route for a unit on "Guard" tactics but NOT have it embark immediately? Once a unit is in a position, at a BP, how do I give it a route without it actually heading out? Similarly, can I also create "embark if" routes from that situation? Or can you only do this for a BP which hasn't been reached and occupied yet?

When designing a mission, do you have to apply "repair if" to each individual unit/platoon? Or can you somehow apply it to an entire side/force? I would like to have fuel leaks be repairable. If there is a way to apply that to an entire side it would save a lot of time.

Sure they did; my ineptness. A far more potent asset to them than any units I could reasonably add to my side. The point of this was not to keep some sense of fairness. I don't yet have much concept for what is fair as I flounder about the battlefield. All I wanted to do was push my own understanding of the editor, various units, and practice managing a larger, more diverse force. It still took me six hours and I only barely got a unit into Kermit. :gun::c: Thanks for chiming in here, GaryOwen. I'm grateful for your perspective and all the effort you put into this mission set. Considering your missions are always recommended when new players are asking for guidance on the forum, giving you legendary status here, I figured everyone would know the mission was yours by title. I never really gave much consideration to sharing it since I don't think it's inherently valuable to anyone but me. What I have done to change the mission only detracts from the original in the sense that the intent and the real value in the mission is exactly what is stated in the briefing. My modifications grew organically, one piece at a time, as I became more curious about: 1. The editor 2. What if... regarding addtional support to help sort out why I kept struggling so much with this perfectly unforgiving scenario (with maybe a hint of revenge in the form of the Apaches, though they certainly take a deliberate application as well, and seem perfectly willing to get themselves shot down in the ultimate anti-climax of revenge thrown back in my face) 3. on-screen artillery 4. etc. etc. from there... There was no grand vision, no master plan at work. Just my own bumbling and slapping on more units to try things out and learn what I could. My next step, honestly, is to go back and play it for the hundredth time in its original form and see if things go any better, and apprecitate the difference between my hand-crafted own-force advantage and having just those four tanks with no extra eyes or bail-outs. The impetus for posting my AAR was that somehow I just happened to stumble on an epic experience that truly drew me into the sim. An experience that may seem dreadfully rudimentary to most experienced players here, and one that is probably not likely to be replicated by another player even with this same exact scenario. But I had hoped some folks here would find it worth a read or a skim... Glad to find that was the case. So, GaryOwen thanks for your work on these Camp Hornfelt missions. They (along with Zipuli's "Tank Platoon in Attack" and a healthy does of the novel "Team Yankee") have given me the real bug for Steel Beasts that I had always intended to catch.

Thanks, I will keep that in mind!

This was my first expansive single-player experience. I have been running through just a few key missions to practice and build my Steel Beasts sensibilities. Camp Hornfelt Tactical Movement was one of them. So I used that as a template to expand my toolset and practice various tactics. I realize what I did totally undoes what that finely-crafted original mission achieves so well, which is force you to think quickly, maneuver deliberately, and react frequently. I'm sure this is all old hat to you guys, but for me it was a first, and probably no one else cares but a few people here in this forum (certainly not my wife and dog...well maybe the dog as he at least sat through some of it with me). I changed the mission to remove the time limit, and added: 4 Apaches as an "oh crap" measure 4 Humvees with .50 cal as scouts 4 M113 with infantry 2 M113 ITV 2 M113 repair 2 M113 ambulance 2 M88 for towing out of craters and swamps 4 supply trucks 4 fuel trucks 3 six-gun batteries of M109s support trucks for the Apaches and M109s I made so many mistakes in this runthrough, and vow to do better next time. Without going into agonizing detail, here's a quick rundown AAR.... The mission starts at noon and is meant to be done by 1:30 so everyone is back to camp ready for a late lunch. I started out getting the original 4 M1A1(HA)s rolling toward enemy lines. I also had the 4 Humvees fan out into recon positions in the wooded hills along the southwestern border, a central wooded hill, and a road toward the northeastern border overlooking an open valley. Once everyone was moving, I started moving the large support contingent into a ready position to the north, concealed along a road in a large woods. First contact was by one Humvee near the southwest border. This one got stuck just over a crest, rolling down the forward slope as contact was made. Called in artillery and tried to back up but the tires were just spinning and the attempt to roll forward and stay concealed was a failure. Death by BMP autocannon. I used the next Humvee on his right to poke my nose out again hoping to get updated positions for artillery and possible M1 action. He found another platoon of PCs and called it in for the next battery. The M1's are just about to take up their first position by now, but east of here in another valley. This second Humvee got a little greedy, kept poking out in the SAME SPOT, rather than at least repositioning laterally to keep the enemy guessing. He was destroyed as well before the 2nd battery's rounds landed. So now I had lost my eyes on that side of the map, but the M1's weren't having any luck in their valley. I sent one element of tanks to conduct some BDA west and engage as necessary. My third Humvee left his wooded hill and promptly got stuck in the sand. The fourth hugged the far east and verified that entire region of the map was safe for now. The infantry and support vehicles moved up further, with one M88 hitching up the stuck humvee and pulling him out. So this is how everything got going. I will skip ahead to highlights. After an elelment of M1s rolled through a small village and came under fire from enemy PCs, enemy infantry were spotted entering a house. A HEAT round took down said house and confirmed two killed infantry. Called in HE artillery to make sure the village was clear as the tanks moved on. As the support group moved through the same village, they came under RPG fire from enemy infantry. Someone got missed. The lead M113 sprung a fuel leak and engaged the offending infantry with the Ma Deuce while more HE artillery was called in, leveling four more houses. My infantry dismounted and secured the area while the repair vehicles took position near the damaged M113. Since fuel leaks are apparently not repairable, I was glad to have been playing in the Mission Editor and after what felt like a reasonable time used the hand-of-god right click to repair the leak. One M1 stumbled into a nest of BMP-2's while creeping through the woods to an overwatch position. During the engagement, one of them fired a missile. Suffered a wounded TC, gunner, and some extensive damage before destroying all three enemy vehicles. I split my support group into manageable subgroups and moved the required units into position near the damaged M1 after a long uphill climb through woods. Called in two long, thin smoke screens to cover the south entrance to the valley, positioned a humvee at the north, an M1 facing south through the smoke, M113 ITVs on either end of a section of road south of the repair effort to guard, and dismouted infantry in key positions throughout the area (including infantry, HMG, mortar, and missile teams). Kept repeating the smoke missions. I had killed two T-72s in the immediate area and was suspicious there was a third nearby. No sign of him, though, so I called in a single AH-64. The Apache hugged the northeastern border to stay out of sight, then slowly scouted the woods. Nothing. I guess the third tank high-tailed it out of the area. The Apache shut down, and I had all the vehicles shut down. The only thing I could hear was the distant whine of an enemy vehicle, but nothing close. That, and the soothing rumble of the M109s in the distance as the smoke missions continued. I wish Steal Beasts supported surround sound; it's hard to pinpoint sounds when you can only narrow down to one direction AND its reciprocal. With my mortar teams set up and a supply truck to support them, I started calling in 60mm smoke and HE missions in the woods to my west across the valley. Just to keep anyone from getting ideas about sneaking around and calling in their own artillery on us. The repairs on the crew and M1 took I think around two hours. In the meantime, the other M1 element engaged a few more enemy platoons and cautiously reconnoitered their side of the map. I also had the southern M1 move further south to get eyes out to his northwest and cover areas the western M1s couldn't see. However, he got stuck in a crater on the way into the woods and had to be saved by another M88. Once we were back to full strength (minus now three Humvees total), three M1s worked to clear out the western valley while the fourth (the repaired one) moved to a position over a large hill to the north. I lost two M1s to bad terrain management coinciding with enemy contact. Artillery was exchanged and another tank was moved in to help, but not in time to save the tanks. Around now the sun was starting to set (5:30pm local or so). As the sun was dipping below the horizon, an M113 ITV got some action but was destroyed close to the objective. Eventually I was able to get one tank into Objective Kermit. Mission time was five hours and 51 minutes. Very little of that was time accelerated. The things that really made this an unforgettable and I think formative (for me) Steel Beasts experience were so many elements of this sim coming together in harmony: - Stuck vehicles saved by M88s. - virtually defenseless humvees sneaking around (under my poor leadership) providing recon. - Distant rumbling of on-screen M109s firing almost constantly for six hours. - Multiple jobs for the M113 repair vehicles and some crew patching for the ambulances. - on-screen 60mm mortar crews going nuts on that western hill. - M113 ITV. - sunset, and what a sunset it was! Complete with plumes of oily smoke from dead enemy vehicles rising into the intense red of the western sky, pillars of black penetrating the red of the sun proper, and the fires from those vehicles a bright contrast to the darkness of the terrain below the horizon. - night vision donned by the tank commander of an M1 as he rolled along unbuttoned, surveying the scene of a post-engagement valley. - my own personal, real exhaustion after six hours of intense management of tactics and a variety of asset classifications. Well done, eSim! :luxhello:

The answer to this appears to be that it does need to be checked each time. Or at least each new time the mission is loaded up into the editor and saved for the first time prior to testing. Subsequent edits/saves/tests seem to be okay without, but the next time it's loaded fresh in the editor and then tested/played it will have problems without linking the height map.

You're absolutely right that in many single player scenarios there isn't time to deal with direct threats to your tanks while also micro-managing artillery. But in a more stealth-oriented mission, you might have exactly that amount of time. That's one reason why I qualified the ability to scale. I don't just mean that some players wouldn't care or want it, but sometimes it's not practical. Similar to what Ssnake mentioned about the purpose of a training scenario. Sometimes you may want to work on tankers coordinating in detail with fire support teams and forward observers, while other times you may just want them to have support available in its simplest abstraction but focus on other elements. In the end, though, it's a Tank Sim, so first things first (tanks, terrain, AI). It's relative when you consider that part of the role of a tank commander may be to direct artillery.

I personally would welcome more complexity to the artillery and close air support (on and off screen). If it can scale as far as user hassle and time commitment, that would be ideal of course. To have the option to expand the complexity from simple (like it was before on-screen artillery even, standard 2:30 or 2:45 wait times) through to complex (off-screen CAS with more munitions/aircraft/detailed zones [A-10 strafe] selectable, and more on-screen control of air units such as helicopters, plus everything that Ssnake was mentioning) would be divine. All in due time, of course, but I for one would welcome it.

:c: You are absolutely correct; that was it. Thanks!