All Round Defence

[das attorney 857]

Good idea!

I want to finish off what I'm doing with the flares and then I'll have a look at this. And I need to fix sideChat for the ECHO artillery pieces. Plus I found another bug to do with UAV's which I'll have to fix :(

This could go in (assuming I can code it to play nice), but with an option to exclude it in the userconfig. I don't want to force the player to have it with no choice in the matter though.

Thanks for your input. :)

Edited February 19, 2011 by Das Attorney

[niall0 10]

Nice one Ryan, now we can finally use AI to replace 2 section.

still, is a useful mod. Amount of times I have fiddled trying to get the AI into some for of all round isn't worth counting.

[kremator 1064]

Have now got goliath's medevac script working with ARD now. Of course I tweaked the dialog a little to fit in 'Call Medevac' but it works great from within VTS too :) The medic that joins your team is then sent on a heal team mission. Just working on him autohealing once he joins the team.

Question for DA .... it would be GREAT if the ECHO fire director was able to call on ANY arty piece not just the one in your team. Also not having a lot of use with the CSW stuff as I don't use ACE but meh, I can live with it.

Also once in ARD is it possible for the team to shout their remaining rounds of ammo ? Or some way to distribute it ?

[das attorney 857]

Nice one Ryan, now we can finally use AI to replace 2 section.

lol, that was the intention. I'm on a Big Society commission in this 'Age Of Austerity' to cut VCB's budget by 20%. Replacing 2 Sec with AI seemed the logical and only step to take ;)

Have now got goliath's medevac script working with ARD now. Of course I tweaked the dialog a little to fit in 'Call Medevac' but it works great from within VTS too The medic that joins your team is then sent on a heal team mission. Just working on him autohealing once he joins the team.

I'll be in touch with you on PM about the medevac thing if that's cool. I'd like to see what you've got going on there. If it helps you though, the next iteration of this mod will have support for the BIS First Aid Simulation Module. At the moment, if you have the module enabled, the medic will perform the healing action but the unit will stay writhing on the floor in agony... and then die.

BTW, what's VTS when it's at home??

it would be GREAT if the ECHO fire director was able to call on ANY arty piece not just the one in your team.

I'll look into this, but it would be super-complicated to do. Lot's of other things to fix/add at this point.

Also not having a lot of use with the CSW stuff as I don't use ACE but meh, I can live with it.

You don't need ACE to use the CSW functions. They're designed with vanilla in mind and are there to speed up the usually boring process of setting and breaking down CSW's.

Go into the editor and place a squad and empty CSW (OA model). Form your men into ARD near it and then press the 'CSW Breakdown' button. As long as you have 2 units that aren't:

1. carrying backpacks
   
2. carrying a LMG/HMG/AT/AA
   
3. a medic
   
4. the player
   

then they will pick it up. When you want to drop it back down, then form up into ARD (if you aren't in it already) and click the 'CSW Deploy' button.

I'm going to check into ammo distribution, but don't expect it anytime soon. RobaloAS's rearming mod should (sort of) work for now. Cyborg11 kindly sent me some code to check out that could make them fully compatible so I'll investigate that first. :)

[kremator 1064]

I'll PM you the link of the mission DA. VTS is Virtual Training System by gonza and L'Etranger and is an 'on the fly' mission maker.

The only limit is my imagination then :)

[das attorney 857]

Quick update.

There's been a lot of bugfixing with the new version, which is coming along nicely. The CSW deploy functions have had a rework, so they are now compatible with the flare illumination support. Units with any GL can fire flares too. There's also some special FX on CSW (slight blur and recoil effect when firing). The mod runs better too and units are responding well under all combat conditions. The medic function is now compatible with the BIS first aid modules.

New for this version:

UAV targetting module for ECHO artillery.

New shiny custom GUI for issuing orders

Rearming for group members. Your men can now reload from dead guys, dead guys with backpacks, ammo crates, vehicles, magazines lying on the floor, backpacks on group units and spare ammo from other group units. They will even fill up their backpacks when their inventory is full. There's still some debugging that needs to be done, but it's about 90% there.

[kremator 1064]

Ooohhh shiny ... I like shiny !

[cleggy 297]

Das

Just started to play around with ARD and I have to say it's bloody fantastic!

Certainly gives the impression that the AI know what they are doing - instead of just standing around.

In the demo mission the first move waypoint for the warrior has a 'distance to' value of 3 meters? - couldn't get that to trigger the next part of the mission until I increased it to 50 due to my crappy mouse control.

I also replaced the warrior with one of my 432's for 'testing purposes' -

seems to work OK - which was a surprise:)

btw if there's anything I need to do to get my 432 mortar variant to work with this do please let me know - it did work with an earlier version of Echo's artillery scripts.

[manzilla 1]

Das, I love the news! This script is a thing of beauty and just gets better. Thank sir for all the work!

[das attorney 857]

Pleased it's working out for you guys. :)

btw if there's anything I need to do to get my 432 mortar variant to work with this do please let me know - it did work with an earlier version of Echo's artillery scripts.

I'm going to check out making it compatible with the FV432. It's one of my favourite addons (all versions of it) as it's a decent troop carrier but without being total overkill like the Warrior/Bradley/BMP3 are sometimes.

I did check it out making it compatible but got as far as stopping the gunner from trying to scan the horizon and then I got stuck. If I can't sort it, could you possibly send over a working test mission with the ECHO scripts in?

I've also messed around with the config a bit. The hotkeys wouldn't work if you loaded a saved mission, but that's fixed now in the new version. You can now also use SHIFT, CTRL and ALT in conjunction with your chosen hotkeys, which should give you a bit more choice for assigning keys.

[das attorney 857]

I just had a couple of ideas and wanted to get some thoughts. They're procedural stuff that lets the AI take over some basic functions and makes them behave (hopefully) a bit more thoughtfully.

• Units with a Javelin, Metis, Igla, Strela or Stinger will automatically find a unit with a spare missile and grab it off them after firing their missile.
  
• Units on .50 cals without sights get a boost to their "spotDistance" and "spotTime" if a unit with a scoped weapon or binoculars are near them (simulating a spotter for the gunner).
  

Would people like this sort of stuff??? (there would be the option to disable it)

[kremator 1064]

Yes and Yes mate :)

[NoRailgunner 0]

1. Only if those AI units stay close to their team/group - max ~50m search & grab.

2. Only if the "scoped AI" is very close to the .50 cal AI gunner (don't forget the OPFOR faction AI's with machineguns) and only if the spotter/"scoped AI" looks through his scope/binoculars.

[manzilla 1]

Has anybody run into problems like I described in Sdood's EOD Alpha thread? I had the same problem with one of my missions in my ACE2 campaign and had to take ARD out.

Here's what I wrote:

ARD seems to muck up this mission when using ACE2. I had the same problem with my campaign. Right now I'm using the newest ACE2 v1.10RC3 but I had this same problem back in Feb when I was making a campaign mission using ARD. Once you hit the ` key to select all units and try to order them to return to formation I also order my team to form ARD. There's no way to stop it.

It seems to be the newest version ARD that does this. When you used to be able to bring up the ARD dialog with numpad 2 it worked find but now that has been changed I run into this problem.

And here's the ArmAholic page for his mission in case someone wants to test it. Just order the team out of the MTVR and then order the whole team to return to formation. An ARD order keeps being issued and the team will never return to formation.

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=13676

EDIT:

Christ I forgot that in the new version you can set the keys. I moved them to numpad 2 and numpad 8(I hope these don't conflict with anything ACE2 related) and all seems to work fine. Now I can add it back to my ACE2 campaign. Excellent!

Edited April 22, 2011 by Manzilla

[das attorney 857]

Glad to hear you got it sorted :)

I've kind of hit a wall as far as the new version goes. There's lots of good new stuff, but I can't get the rearming script to work correctly. There's two bugs with the scripting commands which is causing problems for units with backpacks. They will get things like mags for their primary weapon or Grenade Launcher rounds and stuff the backpacks with them, but none of the juicy stuff like spare rockets and mags for the LMG/MG gunners.

The script works perfectly for units without backpacks, but is doing all the wrong things for units with them. It works ok if you reload the units with backpacks individually, but thats a bit meh and defeats the point of having the script do all the boring work for you.

Anyway, I've reported the bugs over at DH. The backpackspacefor bug is annoying, but doesn't cause any problems. Just loads of shit in the rpt. The takeMagazine one is the more severe of the two IMO.

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/18810

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/19235

[das attorney 857]

Bad news for me I'm afraid.

My PC decided to die last night, and I'm not really sure what the extent of the damage is at this point. I'm pretty sure it's the power supply, but it might have nuked the motherboard, GPU or CPU as well.

I've got my Mac (which I'm on at the moment) and PC hooked into the same surge-protected power source, but when I switched off the PC last night, I powered up the studio monitors for the Mac as the PC was shutting down. Maybe that sent a spike to the PC, or it could have been when I next switched the PC on. I'm not sure. I didn't get the "scalextrix controller" smell at any point, but it must have blown at either one of those two times.

I've checked the kettle lead going into the PC and that's fine. I've tried the PC in a different socket, (just to be sure), but no joy. Yes, the power switch is set to 1 ;)

I'm sure it's the PSU because the PC has got one of those EX58-UD5 boards that has a couple of little blue lights on it and they aren't glowing blue like they normally do when power is being fed in, but the PC is off.

The fact that there's no power to the MB would infer that it's nothing to do with the switch on the front, but I will make a point to check it with a multimeter anyway.

I very much doubt it's nuked the HDD's but if it has, then I'll be bloody annoyed. I don't mind replacing components, but to replace the work I've done on this crappy mod would Grind my Gears. It's kind of like when you lose your mobile (cell) phone. It's only a phone, but if you don't have the numbers backed up, then you're totally fucked and it takes ages to get your friends numbers again. Sometimes, there's no way to get a couple of the numbers and you lose contact.

So, I'm gonna try and be pragmatic about it, (as there's nothing I can do about it if everything is FUBAR). If I've still got the code, then mega. If not, I'll have to re-write it. I have got a back-up version, but there's been a lot more work go in since it was last backed up.

Ironically, I read about Lord Jarhead and OpticalSnare's HDD fails and thought "I should really back up all of my data"; but I didn't bother because it involved doing "stuff". Respect to them for carrying on with their mods after they lost work.

Two things to take from this are:

• Back up data regularly
  
• If you're making a mod, put a bloody changelog in. Because otherwise you won't remember where you were up to if you have to go back to an earlier version.
  

Anyway, I wanted to update you good people with my bad news.

Every cloud......

Edited May 16, 2011 by Das Attorney

[kremator 1064]

Well mate, did you get PC sorted?

I've been playing around with ARD for quite a bit and love it. The artillery is deadly but having difficulty breaking the CSW stuff down. ANy ideas?

[GROM64 10]

You can now also use SHIFT, CTRL and ALT in conjunction with your chosen hotkeys, which should give you a bit more choice for assigning keys.

I've been trying to do just that, with:

ARD_quick = 56+16; //for Alt+Q 

in userconfig/ard/ard.hpp

but it didn't work, so what did I do wrong ?

thanks.

-----------------------------------------------------

EDIT:

Ok, i found out, should be:

ARD_quick = 16; ALT= 1; //for Alt+Q 

in userconfig/ard/ard.hpp

EDIT2:

nope, that didn't work either :mad:

Edited July 27, 2011 by GROM64
Found out, what was wrong

[das attorney 857]

Necro reply: Sorry about the config. It's been updated I think and should work perfectly with CBA.

It's been a long time as I've had all sorts of things going on.

Been updating the scripts. Pretty much done a rewrite and now the formation automatically updates when units are not busy doing other stuff. The behaviour for vehicles in your squad has changed and there's some new features like attaching IR strobes to your men (all scripted) and a reloading script so your men reload any weapons they're carrying. Units with backpacks will fill them up with ammo for your AT guy and MG equipped units, plus a few mags for themselves. Should save you (as commander) loads of hassle.

The following video demonstates what I mean. There's four units reloading and five in formation. When one of them finishes reloading at 0.38 for example, the formation changes to dynamically allow him back in.

hSaK9tbO4vs

I'm really pleased with it so far. Most issues are resolved so I'll be releasing soon. Just need to make a couple of decent tutorial vids.

[kremator 1064]

Ooooh sounds good DA !!

Glad to see this is still being worked on. I use it a lot (except the mortar observe and fire part)

[das attorney 857]

I've removed the mortar scripts in the new version. There's no disrespect meant to Evil Echo's work, but it provides infinite ammo and that was too much of a game changer for me.

A quick list of changes is as follows:

• Updated ARD formation - now moves your men around dynamically (as in the video). Lots of other behavioural changes.
  
• Reloading Script - checks for ammo in primary and sec weapons + sidearm. Looks for Satchel Charges if unit has no sec weapon. Also looks for blooper rounds if one or more of your units has a grenade launcher. Backpacks are filled with extra rounds for Missile Launchers, machine guns and so on.
  
• Units with missile launchers will automatically look for missiles if they run out
  
• Updated CSW deploy/retrieve scripts. They work a bit better now.
  
• Updated Grenade flare scripts.
  
• Updated medic script. Prioritizes unconcscious units first.
  
• Added script so units can breakdown ammo belts into magazines (eg 200 5.56 belt becomes 6 mags STANAG)
  
• New UI for menu (finally)
  
• UI shouldn't corrupt now if game is saved and reloaded
  
• IR strobes can be attached to units (if in their inventory)
  

There's a few other things but I can't remember them right now.

[mjolnir66 48]

• Added script so units can breakdown ammo belts into magazines (eg 200 5.56 belt becomes 6 mags STANAG)
  

Having had to do this in reality, I pity people who have to do it. :D

[Noraku 0]

I have a bit of an Odd problem. Whenever I start a Mission with the "Mod" version of ARD, partial members of my team Spawn with an M16 w/M203 GL, and not their originally assigned load-outs. has anyone else experienced this error?

[Angus S 10]

I have but I always thought that it was related to another mod

[das attorney 857]

It's definitely this mod causing it but I'll have a new version out in about a week or so that fixes all of that. I used an adapted early version of Demonized's AI flare script which replaces any Grenade Launchers with M4A2GL's for Blufor and AK74GL's for Opfor. It'll be sorted in the new version though so you keep what you pick.

I'm just wrapping it up and ironing out bugs as they appear and then you guys can play with it.

EDIT: Oh yeah it should be MP compatible for locally hosted and DS as well. I've got to run some tests this week with a couple of people and if nothing breaks, then it's a goer.