Yes. Set them as allies, with no surrounding enemy group, placement "front." They may not be RIGHT there (and in outdoor maps, are pretty much guaranteed not to be, as they don't have a "front, middle or back" in that case.)
(At least by memory.)
I want to say that in the Ally menu, there's a menu to select how tough you want the mob guarding them to be - if you set this to "single" the ally will be alone, with no guards.
Has been killed by the DoT on Throwing Knives and proud of it.
If you do set them alone as an ally, though, don't have them say anything unless you want them to like call out to let you know where they are. They won't usually be right there at the entrance. If you do set something for them to say, they'll say it right as you enter the mission, so you can follow their speech bubbles.
Post deleted by XPushingOBorders
Bumping and asking again:
Is there a way to make the allies standing at the door waiting for you when you arrive? If not, is there a way to get them to fight the mobs and then become allies rather than being "captured"?
...er, other folks have already answered both these questions in the thread. Not sure what else you're asking for.
Hm. Okay, see...the most you can do to determine an ally's placement is to set 'em 'Front, Middle, Back'. If you put 'em to 'Front', they'll appear somewhere in the front of the map.
That might be next to the door.
Or it might be a little further in...depends on the map, and where the 'front' spawn points for allies are. If the map has multiple 'front' ally spawn points, then the NPC could appear in any of those places, not necessarily the same place every time.
As other folks have noted, if you set the enemy group difficulty for the the ally to 'single', they will appear on the map standing by themselves. Technically speaking they'd still be 'captured', though; they won't be in an active combat state until you go within range of 'em.
That's the best we can do, and it's the same answer the other folks here have already given. It's not like we're hiding super-secret Mission Architect haxx0r tricks from ya, that's all that can be done, unfortunately.
If I may suggest, though - you could set up the animations for your ally NPC and make it look like he's fighting or threatening the bad guys...
@Acyl
VIRTUE
Blue: Realpolitik, Leading Lady, Glass Lass, Superball, Alec Kazam
Red: Battery Acid, Obsolete, Bugfix
I apologize. It didnt seem like the second question I posed was answered for me about being able to set them next to a door... but I could also have missed it. And no one had (until now) answered the fighting question. Thank you.
Well, the reason I answered the way I did (apologies if it came across as sarcastic or chastising)...
But yeah, the answer I gave was the same as everyone else did - ie. the best we can do is to set the ally to 'front' placement and 'single' enemy difficulty.
The answer was the same, but I tried to explain why it's like that, and how it relates to what you're looking for.
I should note that precise spawn placement is one of the most common requests for the mission architect. The developers have said they'll continue to improve the system, and given all the MA tweaks that are in Issue 15, this seems to be true for now.
So there's a chance we might get something closer to what you're looking for, but not right now...
@Acyl
VIRTUE
Blue: Realpolitik, Leading Lady, Glass Lass, Superball, Alec Kazam
Red: Battery Acid, Obsolete, Bugfix
I have a sorta newb question, and I apologize if it's been asked before...
I want to create a mish in MA that involves rescuing your allies. That I can do. But I want you to start the next mish with them at the gate. Is that possible? Like when you start the ITF and Daedalus is waiting for you and then follows you. Does MA give us this ability? And if not, is there a way to set it up so that the Allies are not being surrounded by mobs?
Thanks for the replies or redirections guys!