Need some help, rusty and crap. Lots of questions. :)

[Wolfsbane]

 

Hey guys. Trying to get back into OFP, or ArmA II as you young kids call it nowadays (I remember when all this was fields..)

I'm working from Mr Murrays Deluxe Edition, which is a great help, but sometimes I just have trouble understanding some of it and the simplest things beat me.

I have looked in the Depots, before anyone says  , but I'm struggling to find what I need   and I'm strapped for time. So any help greatly appreciated.

The first thing that's stumping me is conversations.

Once my guy gets in the car, I want a timed conversation to take place, one sided, from the driver.
I could hodge it and just use waypoints to do it, but I know there's a smoother way, and I distinctly remember doing something with time delays for OFP, but that was about eight years ago!

So how do I have a time delayed chat dialogue from the driver? So his first sentence is said as soon as you get in, then he just natters on for the duration of the journey?

Second one:

I'm using radio commands to achieve objectives. So the first objective is to achieve pickup.
So for this, you've got a trigger with Radio alpha as activation, and it wont let you send it unless Player in Pickup. However, once he's in the pickup, and has sent the message, I want a reply from another C/S. This however, I can't achieve.

So I need to figure out how the C/S (Finder15) replies once the message is sent.

Third one:

I did a workaround using waypoints for this, using waypoints, but I am really monging it on this one -
I wanted a radio comms to occur once a trigger was activated by the Player moving into the trigger. Now, I know that's fairly simple, but because I wanted it to happen only if the Player in Pickup, for some reason, it would happen as soon as he got into the car, regardless if he was in the trigger or not.
Hell, I'm even confusing myself now.

Anyway, any help, greatly appreciated.

For an idea of what I'm trying to achieve, as I left OFPEC many moons ago to actually do it for real, I'm trying to create a solid, realistic mission which starts off as a CTR (Close Target Reconnaissance) of an enemy installation. What you report back from your expedition will directly affect what resources you are given later on in the game in order to subsequently assault that facility. So if you do a half arsed job, you'll go in with few resources and either have a hell of a hard time or get your ass whipped all together.

I'm  also using my experience to create proper comms procedures, markings, briefings, etcetc, as well as representing on the ground the reality of an op.

Should be good, but expect many more questions from me.
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p.s - Happy snap from Afghanistan where I'm typing from attached, big hello to all the old salts I used to know and love! The weather is crap, wish you were here?


Edit: 2MB photo attachment removed after ~6 months - WEK

[Wolfrug]

Heeey Wolfsbane! Awesome to have you here!  Hope you're liking what Arma 2 can offer, I sure do. Now, I'll answer some of your questions at least a little bit, but they're not the only answer really.

One-sided conversation: Really, this should be done with an .fms using BIS new conversation system, but since I've never actually tried it I'm afraid I can't give you any advice regarding it. The way -I- would do it is simply with a series of game logics and AND waypoints. First GL: condition Player in Vehicle. Second GL (Delay: whatever you want), On Activation: Driver1 say "bla bla bla!" (or however you've got it set up, with titleText or whatever), and so on. Basically have the GL "move" (with the AND WP), with delays (timeout or somesuch) corresponding to the amount of time it takes the driver to say the preceding sentence.

GL --> AND --> AND --> AND
Cond - Say1 - Say2 - Say3

That's how I do it, and it's useful in that you don't have to have an external file for it. Making an easy script is of course also possible!

Radio message:

Simplest (non-external script) version is this:

Condition: bla bla
On Activation: Player sideradio "InCar"; nul= spawn {sleep 5; Finder15 sideradio "Coolbeans"};

Basically you'd spawn a little script which waits 5 seconds and then sends the reply. It'd be great if you could just put sleeps straight into triggers, but I think they kind of function like...uh...functions, so that doesn't work of course.

Trigger and pickups and stuff:

Sounds confusing! You can do the radio convo the same way as detailed above with the Game Logics if you want. As to how to trigger it, well...

Activated by BLUFOR (or whichever) Present
Condition: Vehicle Player in thisList && Player in Pickup1

If you want that to start a GL conversation, simply name the trigger something (in name, not Text!, say Trigger1), and then use this for the Condition field of the first GL waypoint:

Condition: Vehicle Player in list trigger1 && Player in Pickup1

Should work out okay!

Your idea sounds great, I'm looking forward to seeing it Good luck! If any of the above is unclear, do tell me. Most of it can be done in alternative ways, and much prettier probably, but at least this is fairly idiot-proof. 

Wolfrug out.