Platoon Errors

[Fildred]

I have just begun using platoons to make my maps a little more interesting. Unfortunatley, as everyhting i experiment with, something has gone wrong. I read the scripting tutorials on the platoon function, but it is acting very strange. They do what they're supposed to, but whenever my units get near them, the game does one of two things: it either crashs outright, or it says about 30,000 times "ai buffer overide" before it crashes outright. I'm guessing im somehow screwing up the "Radii" setting in the platoon move action. the tutorial said 20 and 20. So, i clicked on "radii" then clicked "add" and typed 20, clicked add again and typed 20 again. As soon as i came within what i am guessing is 20 units of the enemy however, game crash. So, i thought "hrm...the minimum should be 0 shouldnt it?" So, i changed it to 0 and 20. thats how i got the "buffer ovveride" and crash. Anyone have any ideas what im doing wrong here?

Seperate, less urgent problem: Once my platoon moves into position, i want it to then begin attacking the player and villagers. As of right now, i have a TUNI action that tests to make sure they are where they're supposed to be, and that deactivates all the squad and platoon stuff, and activates a straightforward melee action. Is this the best way to do this? Or is there like a "platoon attack action?"

Lastly, a different platoon is supposed to get to the town square and then defend it from the players. I assume there is no "platoon defend" action so, like above, should i use a TUNI, deactivate the platoon actions, and then use a geom and a geom attack action? Basically im looking for an opinion on these last two before i go through the effort of scripting it all only to find out it doesnt work or there is a better way. I just dont totally understand platoons and if they can stay as a platoon and still perform attack actions...can they?

[A-Red]

I have just begun using platoons to make my maps a little more interesting. Unfortunatley, as everyhting i experiment with, something has gone wrong. I read the scripting tutorials on the platoon function, but it is acting very strange. They do what they're supposed to, but whenever my units get near them, the game does one of two things: it either crashs outright, or it says about 30,000 times "ai buffer overide" before it crashes outright. I'm guessing im somehow screwing up the "Radii" setting in the platoon move action. the tutorial said 20 and 20. So, i clicked on "radii" then clicked "add" and typed 20, clicked add again and typed 20 again. As soon as i came within what i am guessing is 20 units of the enemy however, game crash. So, i thought "hrm...the minimum should be 0 shouldnt it?" So, i changed it to 0 and 20. thats how i got the "buffer ovveride" and crash. Anyone have any ideas what im doing wrong here?

Strange. Platoons shouldn't do that no matter how badly you set them up, so I'm not sure what to tell you. No, the minimum Radius should not be 0--The platoon will have a random detection radius in between the two numbers you set. I've tried low minimums before, and ended up with platoons that wouldn't attack me until I was right on top of them.

If I saw your script, I might be able to figure out what's going wrong, but otherwise I can't. This is a really unusual problem (in fact, I've only known one other buffer overrun to occur in all my time playing and making maps for Myth--for the record, patch 1.7 solved that other issue, so you might want to try the update).

Seperate, less urgent problem: Once my platoon moves into position, i want it to then begin attacking the player and villagers. As of right now, i have a TUNI action that tests to make sure they are where they're supposed to be, and that deactivates all the squad and platoon stuff, and activates a straightforward melee action. Is this the best way to do this? Or is there like a "platoon attack action?"

No, sounds like you've got the right idea. Most mapmakers I know of use the ATTA exclusively instead of the MELE, because the MELE can be really unreliable--at least, it was when I started mapmaking back on Myth 1.3.2. See if you like it, but I've gotten the feeling there's no real advantages to using it.

Lastly, a different platoon is supposed to get to the town square and then defend it from the players. I assume there is no "platoon defend" action so, like above, should i use a TUNI, deactivate the platoon actions, and then use a geom and a geom attack action? Basically im looking for an opinion on these last two before i go through the effort of scripting it all only to find out it doesnt work or there is a better way. I just dont totally understand platoons and if they can stay as a platoon and still perform attack actions...can they?

There's an action called Legion which is basically the defensive equivalent of a Platoon--the enemy will fall back a little and then attack the player when they get near, and break off attacking and return to position if the player runs away (e.g. Force Ten from Stoneheim, or Beyond the Cloudspine). In some situations it's extremely useful, and in others it just causes a mess. If your enemy defense is mostly melee units, I'd set them up in formations and just use a TUNI with a proximity test. If there are lots of Soulless or other missile units, you might want to try a Legion.

[Fildred]

yeah i just struggled with it for a nother 2 hours, and i cant seem to get it to work. The entire map works great, except for this ONE thing where if i get within the set radii of any platoons i have set, the game instantly crashes, with no error in the log, nothing, just quits. Too bad, too, cuz if i could just get this working i'd do final testing, balance, and touch ups and i'd be done with it.

How do oyu suggest i send you my scripting? Honestly, without having someone more advanced look at it, i dont know HOW to get this thing working right. Ive never sent scripting or ANYTHING ive made out before so im not sure what to do.

[A-Red]

Well, you can go to the Mesh menu in Loathing, select Export Map Actions, and save it somewhere as a text file. Or, if the plug is pretty small, maybe you could upload it somewhere and PM me a link?

[Graydon]

Another thing you could try is right before you get too close and cause the buffer override, turn on Map Action Debugging. It reports what actions are doing what at that time, and reports the info to your Debug.txt

The key combination for MA Debugging in-game I believe is ctrl+ F12. I recommend, since it records every action every few tics (there's 30 tics to a second) and the pileup can be quite huge, that you only turn on the debugging right before you're going to cause the crash.