DCS User Manual EN.pdf

ED [DCS USER MANUAL]
Task Planning for Unit Groups
Fundamental Concepts
Mission building involves creating unit groups, planning of group routes and combat
tasks, and developing a dynamic battlefield atmosphere using triggered events, mission
weather and time of day settings.
When designing a mission, you can choose one of two basic approaches to creating
battle scenarios:
1. Simple: Place and route groups with minimal adjustments of default route and
task settings (actions to determine behavior will be created automatically).
2. Advanced: Use the Advanced Actions Panel of the Group Properties Menu for
precise manual control over group actions.
The first method requires minimum use of the interface to create simple missions with
the idea that AI groups will act generally as envisioned by the designer, but using
automatic behavior actions programmed into the AI based on factors such as presence
of enemy units, contact range, etc. In this approach, the AI will generally move along its
route and engage enemy units as soon as they are within engagement range, which can
vary based on the unit type and task (in case of aircraft groups).
However, the automated AI actions created by default may not always produce the
desired results. In particular, if the mission calls for complex AI actions, for example
attacking only certain types of ground units in different target areas or restrictions on
the use of particular weapons, the desired behavior may be achieved more effectively by
using the Advanced Actions Panel to create and configure group actions in detail.
Although more time consuming and complex, this allows for much greater flexibility and
control in scripting AI behavior in the mission.
Actions refer to the various behaviors a mission designer can script for the AI to perform
in the mission. Before we describe all of the advanced actions in detail, you should
understand the following terms: Group Artificial Intelligence, Task, Enroute Task,
Command and Option.
Tasks and Enroute Tasks are the primary combat actions and include a number of
different targeting and engagement options for air, ground and naval groups. For
example, a task to attack an enemy group or to act as a Forward Air Controller (FAC) in
providing targeting commands to other friendly units. All Tasks and Enroute Tasks are
actions performed over a period of time. Commands are instantaneous actions, such as
setting a radio frequency for the group. Options are rules or limitations imposed on the
group in executing an action.
All actions include a number of conditions the mission designer can set to control the
starting and ending of the action. These include setting a mission time for starting
and/or ending the action, action duration time, flag states (on/off), action activation
probability, and custom scripting in LUA code language.
106 DCS USER MANUAL