@aah11b
5. Next I place a Military Placement (Mil. Obj) inside of the BLUE1 area. On the menu, I enable debug, TAOR marker "BLUE1", blacklist marker "OPF_F" (why not CSAT? I wonder) no filters (although usually I use filter medium and small for objective size and priority filter, and I wonder what the difference is, here), force size 200, weighing random, camps none, no overrides, FORCE FACTION "BLU_F" (why not "NATO" I wonder), yes HQ, no field HQ, place air units and supply yes, ambient vehicles medium.

6. I do the same for the other side. TAOR marker "RED1", blacklist BLU_F? or NATO?, all the rest the same except force faction OPF_F? Correct? Again, why not CSAT?

Blacklist is to use a marker, not a faction. Eg if you made a huge marker but wanted to exclude a town, you'd place a marker over that town, and include it in the blacklist section. ;) As far as BLU_F instead of NATO, that portion is using the faction naming used within the config files of the game.

@aah11b 7. Ok now, do I sync the Commander module to the Placement module, or visa versa? Does it matter? Does the location of the Placement module matter? I have seen videos of people doing it both ways. I take a guess, and sync the commander TO the Placement module, as I want the friendly side to defend the friendly airbase. I do the same for the enemy side. I locate the placement markers on their respective airbases, somewhere off the runway in a clear, flat area.

8. I then sync the friendly commander mod to the enemy military placement module, and do the same for the opposite side.

Always sync TO the commander. Eg sync placement module to NATO and opfor commander. Sync logistics module to commander, etc. Placement can matter for logistics and commander module. They will try to use a nearby objective, HQ for commander, logistics for insertion. Latter is especially important if using static logistics mode.

@aah11b 9. I create and place a military logistics module next to the commander modules and change nothing except setting the air transport to "faction only". (I read somewhere to do this, and I have no idea what it does or means). I next sync this friendly Logistic module to the friendly Commander module, and I sync the enemy Logistic module to the enemy Commander module.

Setting faction only means they will only use transport assets of that faction. If set to side, they can use any assets from that side. Eg if you had a mod that added Germany to BLUFOR, and used them with faction only, only German transport (if any) would be used. If set to side, than each asset is randomly selected. One transport/truck may be NATO, the next German, etc.

@aah11b I have further questions about selecting other factions. I have loaded USA (Army - W) into my mods list. However, on the Military AI Commander module, the drop-down factions menu, USA (Army -W) isn't anywhere on the list. Do I select "none" and then enter USA (Army - W) in the override box? If I do, how will this affect what I type into the other modules? Do I then have to go to the RED Military Placement module and change the blacklist to "USA (Army -W)? Or do I leave it saying "BLU_F"?

Yes, you would select none in the dropdown list (that's just for quickly choosing default/non mod factions) , then use the faction name in the override. As said before, factions don't go in blacklist. ;) As for what goes in the faction override, you'll need the "real" (Config file) name of the faction, this would be something like USA_W or somesuch, no spaces. You can get this in the editor by selecting a unit of the faction and then selecting copy faction to clipboard. But, it will also copy quotation marks etc that you'll need to remove.

@aah11b What about on the friendly Military Placement module? Do I have to go to each override box for infantry, armor, motorized, mechanized, etc, and change all of these to USA (Army -W)?

You do need to set the faction in the placement module, each module can have a different faction even for the same side (but make sure all factions are set in the commander's override list). The unit/group overrides (INF, MECH etc) are to set a specific number of that type of group to be placed within the objectives of that module. leaving blank ALIVE will set them based on force size and type. You can also overide some of them, eg set size 200, infantry, but then set an override of 5 armor.

For logistics, sync to commander. For Air Tasking, sync to commander. ATO you can set whether or not it will place aircraft automatically, and whether they will be replaced (using the logistics system, but don't sync logistics to commander, he's good people and takes care of it for you :). Combat support is separate, it is at the top of it's module chain, you sync the various support types to it (arty, CAS, transport). You can use it on it's own, even if you don't use ALIVE commanders etc in a given mission. Player logistics doesn't get synced, it just enables it and allows settings for what the player can call in.

First I'd double check the placed modules. Most have CSAT/OPF_F set by default.

Marcel had posted it previously as an unknown "Maybe it will work?" :) In my attempts it has worked without issue thus far.
Specify side (side== xxxx) and # of each group/profile type. Fire the code via script, trigger etc and the OPCOM will now have force cap set to those values and bring in "replacements" to get up to strength.

{
    private _side = [_x, "side", ""] call ALIVE_fnc_hashGet;

    if (_side == "WEST") then {
        [
            _x,
            "startForceStrength",
            [
                0, // Infantry
                0, // Motorized
                0, // Mechanized
                0, // Armored
                0, // Artillery
                0, // AAA
                0, // Air
                0  // Sea
            ]
        ] call ALIVE_fnc_hashSet;
    };
} forEach OPCOM_INSTANCES;

I know you can increase size (set by type Inf/Mot/Mech etc..) at least for OPCOM. Won't be home till Wed to grab the code. Imagine it would work fine for reducing size but delayed since it is setting the cap which replacement groups are pulled against. Essentially turning off replacements until attrition brings it below the new values then replacement groups spawned as usual.

Unless something changed under the radar, vehicles won't get replaced for assym forces.

You'd have to do separate opcoms, can't be 2 on same side. As for vehicle insertion, I tend to do a high priority custom objective on a map edge that I expect to be the least likely visited and place the logistics module there. That way no seeing tanks parachute in.

Wish there was an option to just have units "spawn" in, so we could use that if desired. Still useful on smaller maps, a 5x5km players are likely gooing to see the parachutes.

Shooting from the hip, for the rations and whatnot, maybe init eventhandlers? Not good enough with scripting to type out something workable without consulting documentation, but could do one for class man, then use IF/Then to check for or against side (Eg side = Civ if only for civs, or side != West to run for everyone but), then could use another IF/Then with X > random 100 to add the item or not.

The basics to check, is the map indexed? Also if using mod factions, try setting up with vanilla/stock factions first, to rule out any issues there.

IED wise are you using the module synced to the commander or unsynced? If synced and not starting with the insurgency established it can take a while for them to place any. Additionally, even with debug mode on, IEDs will not show up (no marker etc) untill they are in spawn distance to you/another player.

Posting this here and the github forum:
Any chance of either updating this branch to the current version of Alive? I ran it a lot with RHS, IFA and Unsung without issue. I also tested it quite a bit with CUP & Pook's arty, again no issues, only added functionality from the units that won't work with regular Alive combat support. Now that Alive has progressed several versions since this release, using this requires forfeiting the fixes/features that have come out in the mean time.

One other feature request (which is a default alive issue, but can't hurt to put here too) would it be possible to use the direction/facing of the module to set the guns? EG: Face module west, all 3 guns face west? This can be an issue for arty units that can't freely rotate 360 degrees, as by default one faces North, one East, on South. Ideally all 3 would face the same direction, those that can rotate 360deg can still fire in any direction, those that cannot could at least be placed such that they can cover a desired segment of the battlefield.

Thanks again for getting this out, the units it "unlocks" were some I had tried repeatedly without success in the past.

Ill try and do some more controlled tests in Anizay,l. I could be wrong, but I believe some of the more extreme cases I saw they were spawning in more distant clusters than the one I was in. It was definitely a more distant objective but with the density of civ structures it may be the civ portion was much larger than the objectibe itself (and it was set to mapwide, unfiltered if that could also play a role).

Initial impression was it was spawning by a list, but seemed to be based on max spawn range alone (900m or whatever default is). Will also reindex the map, could well be something funky with the index.

Is it possible Alive uses order the objects exist within the index files? Eg: checks proximity, then spawns down the list till cap is reached? I've noticed very similar behavior on Anizay, where some areas civs spawn in a cluster quite distant from the player.

Have seen instances where I am at point A, they spawn at point B. Then later Ill be at point C and they spawn around point A (all within the module set spawn distance of course, but in a blob a fair ways away while many nearer potential spawn locations aren't used.