@The Bay Harbour Butcher Blastcore

@vbnshi The minimum size of target that the AI will currently target is 4 weight within 150m, so 4 infantry, or 2 infantry and 1 vehicle, or 1 APC will be enough to trigger support. I'll likely include the option to lower this further in the new update, but this is intentionally set at 4 to prevent the AI from constantly using support on lone hostiles.

@miss12135 Watch the video, download the demo mission or use the wiki. You have many options.

how to use it

Could you please explain it simply? The website won't open

so good , can you make the AI call in air support or artillery support on a small number of targets? Our server usually only has a squad of 12 people, and the AI doesn't really like calling in support.

whats your explosion mod called?

@ItsJustRyan2701 Kindly direct your eyes to the "Compatibility" section. I didn't write it for fun.

@boomsoldier05 If the mod is configured in a similar way to vanilla, then yes. Certain mods are, certain mods aren't. Test it yourself, and especially try different weapons on the pylons.

3. Yes, supply is set with the variable "LAFS_var_supportAmmunition". In the upcoming update the artillery supply cap can be adjusted and the drone group supply cap is determined by the number of drone operators actually in the group itself.

@AHarmlessAvocado
1. Slight correction - the CLASSNAME of a unit synced to the Spotter Module will become the "Spotter" classname list. Any group with these Spotters in them will then become a Spotter Group. So, sync 1 Sniper to the module. It will be scanned and deleted. Then you place 3 different groups with a Sniper in them, and those groups will become Spotter Groups. And no, groups cannot both be Support and Spotter. They will preference Spotter if they have both types of classname iirc, but in general just do not combine those groups.

2. You should use different groups for all of these due to conflicting behaviours. A group simply cannot be a Spotter & Support Group. It would technically be possible to be a LAFS Group as well as a DAM Group, but that would lead to conflicts when the AI receives orders while on another mission, and the code is not made to check for this.

@Sneep Snorp It should but you should not give the artillery/support groups to NR6. Instead, give only the Spotter groups, that way NR6 orders the spotters towards the enemy while the Support groups respond when called in.

@Shizzak FPVs take off and have a check to see if the sky above them is clear, they rapidly ascend and then move towards the target. I wouldn't recommend garrisoning the groups in buildings but rather behind them. I've not experienced this behaviour, if you can post a video in the discord that would help

@GuitarJones18 The number of rounds fired is decided by both randomness and the size of the target. So a target with loads of infantry and tanks present will get hammered, while a squad sized target might only get a few rounds.

@UnconvictedFelon I actually have another mod for that called DAM, Dynamic AI Minefields. It works with IEDs. It is a bit older and unwieldy though as it is simply hard for the AI to decide when to do these things given the rapid pace of ArmA operations. I am considering including missions from DAM into LAFS but I would want to rework the system heavily first.

@Derp Thank you thank you, that was the intent!

@Shizzak No, that is not yet implemented. I am adding it for the next patch as well as an air start option. It already exists but is just in testing.

Do i really need the FPV mod? I just want to have AI call in artillery :/

im pretty sure. just as long as a mod gets rid of fire support it should work, all this mod does is allows and makes the ai use Fire support like MLRS, SPG, Drones, CAS, and more. it should also beable to work with other mods that add in more fire support vehicles, aircraft

can this mod run with other mods like warhammer 40k and star wars?

I've noticed recently FPVs are spawning way to close to the ground and exploding 50% of the time. Is there a way they can spawn much higher in the air. For example a group is in a building and it needs to spawn at least 20m above the building

Quick questions!

1. Your wiki states that units (synced to the Spotter module) become "spotter groups and it lightly disables parts of lambs". So I'm assuming, a group can't be both a spotter and say a "drone controller"?

2. I'm also using your AI Mine mod, can (lol) a group be a spotter group, drone controller, and AI mine layer group?

3. Can I override the 5 supply max?

Does this work alongside NR6

I know its slightly unrelated to this mod but couldnt this be used to great effect as a framework to have the enemy ai plant IEDs as well?

Also, is there any way to set how many shells the artillery guns fire per mission?

PSA for Spearhead 1944 users: If you're having trouble getting this to work with the artillery guns in the DLC, I think I might have found one possible troubleshooting method: traditional, vehicle-towed howitzers in Arma kinda suck, in that they tend to flop all over the place quite easily. Half the time they were aiming their barrels in the air when receiving fire missions, but not firing. I believe for the best results, you need to place them on as flat a surface as possible. This means for mountainous maps, you're going to want to place your guns on top of prop platforms to get them to actually fire. It's not foolproof by any means. I am still noticing some of the guns not firing or still doing some janky stuff, but it's better than them not working at all. Hopefully it works decently enough to have a good experience, though. After all, what would a World War Two battlefield be without some good ol' brass rain falling about?

oooooooh cant wait to play it!!

i need a bit of help the mod doesnt work the artillery, planes, tanks and choppers doesnt react to the spotters contact. Even in the Demo mission it didnt work.

I am using a map that doesn't have an airstrip can the airbase spawn aircraft in the air without having me to use an airstrip?

Very cool mod! One of the saddest things about ARMA is that a lot of the campaigns (except CWA and AA's), singleplayer and multiplayer missions always revolve around the player. Giving the AI the ability to spot & call fires, on its own, (relatively) intelligently, goes a long way in helping the game convey a lot more scale of the player being "another brick in the wall".

@GRIM LAFS in no way affects the behaviour of your artillery like that and especially of player artillery. What you're describing sounds like ACE Artillery server settings.

For players, the only thing LAFS does is place an eventhandler on you so that when you get into a vehicle, it checks if it is an artillery piece and if so, places an event handler when you fire. That firing event handler checks for any nearby enemies and if the enemy actually has counterbattery capabilities. If so, it will record your artillery firing location into the counterbattery memory, potentially resulting in a counterbattery strike.

So no, LAFS is not the problem there.

hey rimmy just letting you know, my unit uses LAFS and we love it, one issue is that i run our artillery detachment and when LAFS is enabled the range on player used Artillery/mortars is reduced greatly, IE. the 60mm mortar no longer fires its max effective range and rounds land 100-150m short, whereas AI artillery is able to still use full range, is that a server setting that got fucked or a possible bug with the mod

@Dillion For the Mortar, check your ACE settings. You likely have ammunition handling turned on, which removes any ammunition in an AI mortar making them unable to fire the Mk6 Mortar.

As for the uniform, that sounds like a USP problem. Either that they apply a heavy camouflage to your unit like a ghillie which reduces the knowsAbout or that acts like a Side setter. Either way, not something that my mod even checks for, so it would be a USP issue - except I believe that's less likely than it being a classname problem with the units that you are placing. Some units in modded ArmA are weird when placed, and will have scripts run on them by the mod that added them into the game. It is more likely to be something like that.

Update: After updating ACE to 3.19.3 the MK6 Mortar is also no longer working with LAFS for me

@Rimmy I found an issue where if any units are using uniform's from the USP (UnderSiege Productions) mod the opposing side will not use fire support on them. I've tested this where I've used regular nato uniforms, rhs uniforms and the opposing side will in fact use arty on me. As soon as I use any USP uniforms they will not.

@Pat In the latest version there will a manual weight modifier to allow mission makers to completely disable certain missions, but for now if you want to remove smoke as an option just remove the smoke rounds from the artillery piece.

Awesome mod! Just one thing that popped up last night: Is there any way to turn off smoke for artillery?

Could do, the demo mission has that already, you could just form your own comps out of them, but I might do a comp list at some point

Could also do a composition that has the setup already done kind of like the NR6 stuff on the workshop.

Additional info for the variable dump below, I forgot to include how the classnames are stored. It is;
[(typeOf _x), _unitVariables]

_unitVariables can be nil for most classes, but they must still be stored in this form. The only classes that care about variables are Drones and Tank QRF.

[B_Man_UAV_Operator, [Grenade Dropper, Mortar Dropper, AP FPV, AT FPV]]

[B_Tank, [Anti-Infantry, Anti-Vehicle]]

So for example, a tank that only targets other vehicles would be:

[B_Tank_Destroyer, [false, true]]

@Timoruz The quick start is the demo mission. It has comments absolutely everywhere that explains how the modules work, and the demo mission's set up already functions so it can be easily copy and pasted into a mission to use it.

I have no plans for further DCO support as I'd have to figure out how it defines and uses squads, and I just personally do not play with the mod. The exception rule was easy to include and improved compatibility massively, so that was easy to add in. I've also had contact from DCO's dev who helped me with that.

Any chance you could add a "quick start" section to the wiki?

DCO has a squad type named "recon". If you wanted to add more DCO support, allowing recon squads to spot for artillery would be a nice feature.

The question below was answered on Discord, but for Steam users here's the answer:

Replace SIDE with the side of the LAFS module.

LAFS_var_spotterClasses_SIDE < Spotter (Man)
LAFS_var_droneClasses_SIDE < Drone Operator (Man)
LAFS_var_planeClasses_SIDE < Fixed Wing (Loadout Determines Role)
LAFS_var_attackHeliClasses_SIDE < Helicopters
LAFS_var_tankHunterClasses_SIDE < Tank Hunters (Man)
LAFS_var_sniperClasses_SIDE < Sniper (Man)
LAFS_var_tankQRFClasses_SIDE < Tank (Land Vehicle)
LAFS_var_mobileAAClasses_SIDE < Mobile AA (Land Vehicle)
LAFS_var_supplyTruckClasses_SIDE < Supply Vehicles (Land Vehicle)
LAFS_var_supplyMenClasses__SIDE < Supply Crewmen (Man)

LAFS_var_MobileArtillery < Group Variable
LAFS_var_droneGroupVariables < Group Variable for Drone Types - Grenade Dropper, Mortar Dropper, AP FPV, AT FPV. Example: [true, true, false, true]

Artillery is automatically detected. For something to be considered 'Artillery' it must have an Artillery Computer.

Is there any way that the definitions for Spotters / Support can be done through code, rather than modules?

I have a mission where the OPFOR faction is set in the parameters and units are spawned dynamically. At the moment, the factions work perfectly but obviously with the use of modules the Spotters themselves are hardcoded.

I'd like to know if there is a way to register a classname as a Spotter externally so that I can swap them out depending on the faction?

Absolutely lovely mod thanks mr rimmy! <3

@Sgt.Johnson maybe you can try to provide some more information about your set up instead of swearing.

Download the demo mission. You can see there will be drone operator groups and spotter groups already set up. Delete the other support groups if you don't want them. Those will function. If you want FPVs to work instead of just Droppers, you need Crocus FPV enabled.

why the fuck does the ai not send out drones. what else does it possibly need more than a spotter

Hey! Is there Any chance to integrate this mod into antistasi?

After a few months using it now, I can confirm, both works with VCOM, LAMBS, both dev and regular, as you already knew. I also saw it work just fine with 40 players, and even tried once with 70 players, and it still functioned without lag, though we did have a headless client for the 70 player one. I have been using it to help simulate the call in system from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and it has worked wonders. I can simply place a few units at mission start, or tied to a trigger to spawn, then let them get automatically called in when the group is noticed by OPFOR or BLUFOR as they are INDEP. I am simulating the Angolan Civil War, so they find themselves in the middle of a battle between UNITA (BLUFOR) and the MPLA (OPFOR), with a mix of Western and Easten Bloc equipment. This made it easier for me to actually focus on interacting with the players as Zeus, or putting more emphasis onto known locations for intel, triggers, sounds, etc.

I wish Arma had ai this smart in vanilla haha

@Coltrigun Thank you mate, that means a lot! I'm glad the mod works for you!

You made my biggest dreams come true ! Amazing mod !

@Oxide Read the compatibility section, yes.

will this work without the FPV mod?