Apache Pilot or Gunner? Which would you rather play?

[wyskass 10]

Let's say in a campaign where missions range from direct attacks, CAS, convoy escort, patrols, recon, night/day. Let's also say this will be with ACE and Single Player.

Would you rather play as the Apache gunner or pilot?

[rejenorst 18]

If possible the campaign might be playable as both.

I made one mission were you could play as either and used a dialog screen for giving commands to the pilot from the gunner pos. If you can do something along those lines would be cool. I for one usually prefer gunner pos.

[sxp2high 22]

If i have to choose... and the second dude is AI...

Pilot.

[wyskass 10]

If possible the campaign might be playable as both.

I made one mission were you could play as either and used a dialog screen for giving commands to the pilot from the gunner pos. If you can do something along those lines would be cool. I for one usually prefer gunner pos.

Ya I have to agree with you. I think doing something along those lines would be best. If the pilot is well scripted, and/or with the addition of some commands you can give to your AI pilot, playing as gunner is more fun and also you have better control.

The problem with playing as pilot is trying to get the gunner to target what you want, and fast enough. Also you can't see that well, and it gets annoying cycling through targets constantly.

But then again, default AI pilot doesn't react very well, to situations and tends to speed up when engaging and flies right past the target which makes things worse.

[sickboy 13]

Cycling through targets? Shouldn't you be able to select targets from the radio menu, as well as mark targets with your helmet + right mouse click?

[wyskass 10]

Cycling through targets? Shouldn't you be able to select targets from the radio menu, as well as mark targets with your helmet + right mouse click?

Yes radio menu. Either way, what I mean is you need to mouse and fidget with the interface quickly to select targets. I don't know about you, but I'd rather fly or shoot then select menu items.

About the helmet + right mouse, how exactly do you do that? I only had that working in land vehicles. I use TrackIR so aiming with your head movements, then trying to click never works, plus right mouse is also zoom, so it's a big mess. I'm not even sure if it works at all, I tried to do this before and it was futile, and even when I'm directly on something and click, nothing happens.

What key command is that supposed to be. Many of my keys are remapped.

Many things in Arma are a complicated mess of keystrokes, menu selections, key combinations, and it becomes more about keys then game play. Having Voice commanding helps but it's still the most annoying aspect of the game.

And another thing, is what happens often times, is that the lock on indicator will be showing a lock, but the target is behind a building so when I command fire it doesn't hit. By being the gunner you could see that, but from pilot position it's not evident, so you waste a missile.

Edited July 6, 2011 by wyskass

[kremator 1065]

I use SLX file that allows me to do both (can't remember the file presently) :) I have the AI just in the seat to spot.

When I see a target (or one is called) I then use action menu to jump to gunner and kill it.

[rejenorst 18]

You can also give the gunner the ability to place the laser marker wherever:

[kremator 1065]

I like that. Also looks like there are some interesting options in that video too.

[rejenorst 18]

Well I just added the ability to tell the pilot what height/behaviour/combatmode to use, ability to set a waypoint for the pilot and to set a laser target. All fairly basic except the laser designator which took a bit of experimenting but which is also fairly simple once you have the command needed.

[kremator 1065]

That would be useful as a released script mate ..... can see wonderful uses for it. I take it that the pilot must be in your group?

[rejenorst 18]

He doesn't really have to be in your group as far as I know but I would have to double check. There are some parts where the coder would have to change the code.

As for the scripts themselves, I code using SQS so might be more effective for someone to reverse engineer what I've done and turn it into SQF script(s). SQS is laughed at by SQF coders *shakes fist*. You can try out the mission in my Rejenorst's mission thread and see the short comings/benefits.

Someone with better coding knowledge then me might be able to make a more accessible/packaged script(s).

Anyway if anyone wants to unpack my mission pbo and use bits and pieces of it for their own mission/scripts they are welcome to, as well as the radio sounds I made for it. Just reference my website www.rejenorst.com and I am happy.

The laser itself is attached to a hidden (hideobject) eastern ammo box (otherwise the laser dissapears within 8 seconds.) I then use setasl command to have the box sit on top of the houses rather than inside otherwise the laser target is obscured from the helicopter targeting system.

Anyway hope this helps any helicopter mission makers. Cheers.

[wyskass 10]

He doesn't really have to be in your group as far as I know but I would have to double check. There are some parts where the coder would have to change the code.

As for the scripts themselves, I code using SQS so might be more effective for someone to reverse engineer what I've done and turn it into SQF script(s). SQS is laughed at by SQF coders *shakes fist*. You can try out the mission in my Rejenorst's mission thread and see the short comings/benefits.

Someone with better coding knowledge then me might be able to make a more accessible/packaged script(s).

Anyway if anyone wants to unpack my mission pbo and use bits and pieces of it for their own mission/scripts they are welcome to, as well as the radio sounds I made for it. Just reference my website www.rejenorst.com and I am happy.

The laser itself is attached to a hidden (hideobject) eastern ammo box (otherwise the laser dissapears within 8 seconds.) I then use setasl command to have the box sit on top of the houses rather than inside otherwise the laser target is obscured from the helicopter targeting system.

Anyway hope this helps any helicopter mission makers. Cheers.

Where can we get this mission and script?

[ArmAriffic 10]

Gunner (In MP or SP with unitcapture/unitplay, AI pilots suck)

[rejenorst 18]

Where can we get this mission and script?

For the laser I used (delete everything in bold):

//Script is executed with the desired position of the laser

_laserpos = _this select 0

//Am using global variable as only one laser is allowed at a time. This //checks if I already placed a laser target and deletes it

?(!isnil "lazer"):deletevehicle lazer

// This sets the position of the ammobox with the hideobject command. //Note: That the ammo box must have hitboxes. Not all the ammo boxes //in Arma2/A2:OA have hitboxes. To test if an object has a hitbox use the //hit eventhandler to give you a hint "Has hitbox" when you fire a test //round at it.

laserm setpos _laserpos

// Sets the ammo box height. Initially to 30 meters in the air while the //second setposATL lowers the object down from 30 meters until it hits an //object/terrain or building and will then stay at the first point of contact.

laserm setPosATL [getPos laserm select 0,getPos laserm select 1,30]

laserm setPosATL [getPos laserm select 0,getPos laserm select 1,(getPosATL laserm select 2)-(getPos laserm select 2)]

//Create laser and attach it to hidden ammobox.

lazer = "LaserTargetW" createVehicle _laserpos

lazer attachTo [laserm,[0,0,0]]

//This is just the end part of the script along with pilot response to gunner //request via radio. Ie: Not needed for your own script really unless you //want verbal confirmation.

_laserr = ceil (random 2)

_lc = ceil (random 4)

?(_laserr == 1):[]exec "rgr.sqs"

?(_laserr == 2) && (alive pl2):pl2 vehicleradio format["laser%1",(_lc)]

#end

~1

exit

And if you want to extract and unpack the mission for the dialog you can get the mission here:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=14584

[wyskass 10]

For the laser I used (delete everything in bold):

And if you want to extract and unpack the mission for the dialog you can get the mission here:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=14584

Checked out the video, and will need to get into the details of your code. I like what you've done with it so far.

The key here is having to start gameplay on the ground with an empty chopper, creating a group where you command and enter as gunner, because by default only the pilot is able to command.

I'm also curious how you were able to limit the helo speed and preventing the attitude changing stops and starts. By having the pilot under your command does he no longer choose to engage and fly toward targets?

What I thought about recently would be to make helos behave just like commanded vehicles, with the pilot being driver, and gunner the commander/gunner.

Mainly being able to command forward, left, right, slow, fast just like in vehicles. The 3 speeds can be configured and then I'd just add the altitude command dialog or keystroke, similar to what you've done in your script.

That way you wouldn't have to learn anything new and would be like commanding tanks. Also the same commander/gunner switch key would allow you to quickly swap positions without needing teamswitch which would put you out of command when you switch.

On top of that more advanced commands can be added to command your pilot to perform specific maneuvers like maybe circling or fig-8 over a waypoint, or following a selected unit on the ground.

I think there's a lot of potential for improving AI control for SP helo gameplay.

Edited July 7, 2011 by wyskass

[rejenorst 18]

I'm also curious how you were able to limit the helo speed and preventing the attitude changing stops and starts. By having the pilot under your command does he no longer choose to engage and fly toward targets?

I set the team on careless by default but also had a behavior menu so that you could quickly press buttons which would change the setbehaviour code for the team. Careless stops the pilot from reacting to enemies and therefore stops him from changing altitude and flying this way or that. You can set it to aware and or back to careless while ingame so that he does or doesn't use evasive manuevers.

A keystroke system would be cool but I haven't tried doing it yet, the code would be a bit more complex I'd imagine.

For the the altitude I had buttons with different heights which would use the flyinheight command.

Implementing a player switch would also be good. For the altitude I am planning to put buttons in along the lines of +50, +10, +5,-5,-10,-50 etc instead of preset heights or along with preset heights.

[wyskass 10]

Can someone explain to me the Hellfire 114-L. The description of how to target for that missile on http://ace.dev-heaven.net/wagn/Features makes absolutely no sense.

I know I can use the laser and both 114-L and 114-K seem to behave the same. The stuff about fire and forget, GPS and radar guides, mapclicking, holding down right mouse for 1 second, makes no sense at all and none of that works.

[Mrobertnoel 1]

Ya I have to agree with you. I think doing something along those lines would be best. If the pilot is well scripted, and/or with the addition of some commands you can give to your AI pilot, playing as gunner is more fun and also you have better control.

The problem with playing as pilot is trying to get the gunner to target what you want, and fast enough. Also you can't see that well, and it gets annoying cycling through targets constantly.

But then again, default AI pilot doesn't react very well, to situations and tends to speed up when engaging and flies right past the target which makes things worse.[/quote

I like to play as the gunner as well and agree with everything you said...other than control, but have no clue how to exactly control the pilots movement and take off/Altitude and move to a location and/or turn to face the right way (left/right pedal x/c). I know that you can activate LASE he the AI pilot will move, face and attack the location if not facing where my scope/monocle/laser is facing. Also, sometimes when already in the air if i just open the map and click where I would like to go the AI will take me there, but I don't have any control over altitude, and end up behind a building and cant see the target. I know there is a way to have control just like in a vehicle, I just cant seem t find a key binding anywhere online..I appreciate any help!

[Wiki 1558]

Well, in my Afghan War Diary, there is a mission in which you play as gunner in a Tigre with AI pilot, and it works fine for me.

It is possible to make a mission with player as gunner.