Random speed/depth

[fxn]

Hi, just a quick question, I've obviously missed it somewhere in the manual - how do you set an objects speed and/or depth to a random value in the mission editor? Say I want to add a sub in a random starting box but also want his speed to be anywhere between 5 and 10 knots and its depth between 500 and 1000ft.

I'm still learning DW and have found that designing your own missions is the easiest way to learn the simulation - you can easily scale the difficulty depending on your (percieved) skill level of a platform. With this in mind I can create objects that start in random places and have a random box tactic but to offer a more challenging scenario I don't want to know an objects depth and speed. Any help would be appreciated.

[SeaQueen]

Hi Fxn!

I'm glad you brought this up, because it's really important that people take the time to do this. It randomizes the parameters of TMA and sonar detection, so it makes missions much more replayable.

The solution is not in the manual. What I do is create a dynamic group, with a minimum number of objects of 1 and a maximum of 1. That way it just picks one from the group. Next I create a seperate submarine for each speed and depth combination and co-locate them. I draw random start boxes around each of them.

Now, depending how what distribution you want to govern the probability of a the game's sub having a given speed and depth combination (I usually just use the uniform distribution unless I can justify otherwise), you set the probabilities of each sub you just created.

Now on spawn, the game will "draw" a submarine with a random speed and depth, and then place it in the random start box. There's probably other ways to do it too.

One thing I've arrived at: Generally speaking, I don't usually worry too much about making very fine gradiations in the submarines depth, though. First off, it's a pain to make 500 individual submarines for each speed, and secondly it doesn't really buy you much. The AI will change depth occaisionally, and the sonar model doesn't seem to be extremely sensitive to small depth changes. Finally, bathymetry typically limits where you can go, anyhow, so one is forced to choose the shallowest of the bottom depths as the lower limit for the submarine's depth. Typically, I figure out where the thermal layer is approximately and create a "shallow" sub, a "deep" sub, and MAYBE a "medium" sub. That creates sufficient uncertainty in one's sonar performance that you run into weird cases like detecting things at extremely short ranges and what not.

Originally Posted by fxn

Hi, just a quick question, I've obviously missed it somewhere in the manual - how do you set an objects speed and/or depth to a random value in the mission editor? Say I want to add a sub in a random starting box but also want his speed to be anywhere between 5 and 10 knots and its depth between 500 and 1000ft.

I'm still learning DW and have found that designing your own missions is the easiest way to learn the simulation - you can easily scale the difficulty depending on your (percieved) skill level of a platform. With this in mind I can create objects that start in random places and have a random box tactic but to offer a more challenging scenario I don't want to know an objects depth and speed. Any help would be appreciated.

[fxn]

Thanks SeaQueen, I used your solution and it works great! I'm learning one platform at a time and this will certainly help the learning curve and provide a random element to each mission.