Mining
 

Hi Guys!

I wanted to create a mission where the goal was to mine an area to a certain level of effectiveness. I didn't see any triggers, though, that would trap the placement of mines in a certain area. Has anyone had any luck with this sort of thing?

Destination trigger. The mines will be listed on the object to complete page under Civilian--Torpedo.

Excellent. Now... the question is how to make it have to be triggered by 16 different mines in order to be true...

I don't know for sure if this will work, but if it does, the easy way would be to allow the trigger to refire sixteen times; I think there is a doctrine that will count the number of refires. The reason this might not work is that the same mine might cycle the refiring trigger all 16 times.

The sure way to do it is more labor intensive. You copy the trigger 15 times, and place every trigger in its own dynamic group that spawns only when the previous trigger is completed. An aggregate goal trigger would be used to test for the completion of all 16 destination triggers. Edit: no, wait, that doesn't solve the uniqueness problem...hold on, still thinking.

...I don't think there is a way around the uniqueness issue. Assuming the first technique doesn't work, there are no conditions that can be used to distinguish the first mine, e.g., from setting off the second trigger, with the possible exception of speed. But speed doesn't get you very far. So, I think the method you might be stuck with is having to specify places where the mines would be placed rather than just designating a large area. This doesn't necessarily have to be precise coordinates, but could also take the form of intervals, as long as the "line" upon which they will be placed is known to the player. The idea would be that the player is required to spread the mines out a certain amount, stacking them on top of each other would only count for one mine deployed.

Yeah... honestly the way it's set up right now, I'm not sure if it's firing at all, but I digress...

Rats... I was hoping to avoid that. I don't like to micromanage players like that. I was hoping to make a scenario where people could use mines realistically rather than as just another slightly eccentric torpedo.

I know how you feel. As many features as the editor has, it just feels like they never "filled out" all the possibilities that should logically (to me anyways) follow the features they implemented. If you have the capability to test for the presence of an object, why not have an argument that allows you set the # of those objects to test for? If you can test for the presence of an object in a circular area, why not be able to test for one in a retangular area? If you can test a platform for relative position, why not include an argument to restrict its bearing? I can go on..... It's really frustrating because inevitably any great idea you get will probably have to be dumbed down in some way to get it to work, and even then it only works so well. We just have to do the best we can with the tools we have.

I think the way to do it with the least amount of micromanaging--but still involving plenty, unfortunately, is to draw lines on the map indicating a continuum of points eligible for mine placement. In the editor, along those lines will be destination goals that are tangent to one another at the points where they intersect the line. You specifiy an interval to the player that is equal to the diameter of the destination goal circles. You can place more than 16 of these triggers; as long as 16 of them are fired the objective is satisfied. At least this way, the player has discretion about which lines to place the mines on and where on those lines to place them, subject to the condition that it must be on a line and must be spaced by the minimum amount specified to be assured of receiving credit. note: be sure to set the object speed to 0, or at most 2 (it takes a few moments for the thrust to "officially" bring the mine to a stop, even though for practical purposes it is no longer moving), to prevent transiting mines from firing the triggers.

Depending on how many triggers you're willing to pack into the area, you can create the same practical effect you were going for, it's just going to be an ugly and difficult way of acheiving it.

This is just my insight as a professional defense analyst, but looking at the scripting language in DW, I can't help but wonder if SCS was trying to copy GCAM, which is programming language for modeling war and is a lot more flexible. I wonder if their language is in fact much more extensive and the user interface keeps us from fully exploiting it.

Do you think they won't take your suggestions and questions seriously? I've wondered on multiple occasions why you haven't suggested, or contacted, SCS. Your one of the same when it comes to the US Navy...you just don't get paid as much.

I'm sure they take my suggestions seriously. I had from time to time sent bug reports and things. My experience has been that if you make suggestions privately, in a low-key sort of way they're often more frequently heeded and remembered.

As for getting paid less... says who? If that's the case it just adds one more thing to my list of grumblings. I'm am perfectly shameless when it comes to Beltway Banditry. Thank god for the war, because it bought me a house.

Actually... my theory about how military think-tanks arose is that the government needed to keep academics gainfully employed because they realized if they didn't they'd end up with... Leon Trotsky... Fidel Castro... Che Gueverra... i.e. discontent left-leaning intellectuals with automatic rifles. Military think tanks keep the brainiacs vested in the state, thus minimizing the potential for revolution.

I was elluding to you not getting a multi-billion account for a project. Granted, I'm sure that your salary is something that I would beg for at this moment and why I'm looking at Lockheed Martin for jobs working with the sonar crew.

Check out APL and other think tanks as well. Northop-Grumman also does a lot of sonar work.

Sorry that I saw this so late. If you're still looking, you might also check out the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) . They do modeling work as well. If you're into that sort of thing and can afford to live in Monterey, CA you could also try the Naval Postgraduate School there.

-feld