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Feint

RQ-11 Raven A

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This drone is A huge improvment for Tactical gameplay nice to make out snipers or get a overwiev off the battlefield , but there is 1 thing i saw in your update video (Gimbaled Sensor Payload) that doesn´t work out: The camera is not "Bound" to the gps marker and vice versa u can move the camera free with the new version of the Raven maybe u can make the camera moveable with the mouse like the Vanila UAV´s and move the marker with some other Keys!

€: Well remov that part u cant thrust google if u want to Translate a whole text!

But it would be nice if u cant shot down the raven in Flight or at least make it optional to toggle it on or off!

Edited by Germanfragger

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As far as I understand it, the camera can't work with the mouse because the Raven is technically not a "vehicle" object, and is created as an "animal" object with a camera attached. Correct me if that's not right Feint.

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Awesome! What will happen to the GCS for the destroyed Raven? Should the operator just drop it and forget about it, or is it removed from the world in some way?

Currently, that particular GCS is then useless if the Raven is destroyed. I might have long-term plans to "bind" a GCS to any Raven, but honestly, I don't know how to even approach that problem. It's just easier to have one GCS per Raven. Make note, once that Raven is destroyed, its corresponding GCS has the addActions removed. So you can still pick it up and drop it, but you won't have the actions to active the camera or place a new target.

This drone is A huge improvment for Tactical gameplay nice to make out snipers or get a overwiev off the battlefield , but there is 1 thing i saw in your update video (Gimbaled Sensor Payload) that doesn´t work out: The camera is not "Bound" to the gps marker and vice versa u can move the camera free with the new version of the Raven maybe u can make the camera moveable with the mouse like the Vanila UAV´s and move the marker with some other Keys!

€: Well remov that part u cant thrust google if u want to Translate a whole text!

But it would be nice if u cant shot down the raven in Flight or at least make it optional to toggle it on or off!

Nice idea, but I can't get it to work that way at the moment.

As far as I understand it, the camera can't work with the mouse because the Raven is technically not a "vehicle" object, and is created as an "animal" object with a camera attached. Correct me if that's not right Feint.

Yes, the camera can't be moved with the mouse because it's not a turret the way the cameras on the vanilla UAVs are.

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just tried this little piece of awesome out, pretty neat man and i love how much you went into detail in and off the game. ill be suggesting this to my mate for the missions we been running. it would be nice to make it more ace compatible though, simply being able to put it "on back" would already help. that would enable the player to carry an actual ace ruck as well as the raven and it would fix the issue. if thats not an option we can figure something out im sure. but keep up the good work, this is pretty awesome and we will most likely put it on our mso. the satnav tends to be useless in bad weather, this little buddy might come in handy ;)

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Sorry for asking in such a rude way and maybe you have answered it but what unit did you used in screens? they look sweet!

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Any idea of the latest version being released on six updater? As of right now it's 1.51. We would love to try this out but we don't use mods that aren't updated via six. Good work on this. Amazing stuff.

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is there a way to start 2 drone´s at same time by the same player?

Good question. Negative. Once you have launched one Raven, you can't even pick up another Raven until after it has landed. I've set this as a safety so that you don't have two sets of scripts running at the same time creating all sorts of problems. Have you run into the situation where you need to run two Ravens at the same time?

EDIT: Actually, I just tested in single player and by using Team Switch, I was able to use two different units to launch two Ravens. Then the controls for two different ravens were available to a single unit. Then, whatever commands the single unit made through the GCS were sent to BOTH Ravens. Grrrrrr. I'll have to fix that somehow.

EDIT2: Yup. I figured out a way to do it and it is working quite well now. So I'm excited.

Any idea of the latest version being released on six updater? As of right now it's 1.51. We would love to try this out but we don't use mods that aren't updated via six. Good work on this. Amazing stuff.

I'm not sure who is in charge of adding addons to SixUpdater (or Play withSix). If the most recent version is currently on there, I assume that the next version will be added as well after I release it.

Edited by Feint

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I'm not sure who is in charge of adding addons to SixUpdater (or Play withSix). If the most recent version is currently on there, I assume that the next version will be added as well after I release it.

Thank you. When i posted that it was still on the previous version. Now it's up to date with 1.6.

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Is this in any of the MSO 4.55 Ammoboxes... ACE Edition?

No. In case of Post before Read:

usage:

=================

1) Open editor.

2) Place a unit

3) Place an empty RQ-11 backpack (Empty > [RQ-11] Raven Backpacks > [RQ-11] Raven Backpack)

(SEE PREVIEW MISSION SUPPLIED WITH DOWNLOAD)

5) Preview mission.

6) OPTIONAL: You can place an already assembled Raven on the map instead (Empty > [RQ-11] Raven Parts > Raven (static))

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This is an excellent mod!

One request though, my community is very focused on realism and the global markers for the raven are a bit annoying.

Could you make the marker all localMarkers for the operator only?

Edited by Heaney

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Good news for arma3 u can easily port the Raven to it BUT it needs a work over first off al the backpack ist missing (because its uses a arma 2 model which is not /not yet in the Alpha) next thing the Text in the Screen is "missing" because it is another type of Font then in Arma 2(it gets replaced) and the Drone camera is fixed on a place i think ist the x/y/z zero point of the map (somwhere in the see) and it can´t move or return to the base (no movement which other Ported vehicles like the A-10 don´t have too)

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This is an excellent mod!

One request though, my community is very focused on realism and the global markers for the raven are a bit annoying.

Could you make the marker all localMarkers for the operator only?

Yeah, that's what's causing the current delay for me. I can't keep the markers local because I want to be able to hand off control from one player to another in multiplayer and the marker is what the Raven circles around. I could just change that to a point on the ground that the Raven circles around, an x,y,z position. But I don't know. Honestly, the easy solution is to have no visible markers on any maps. But that can be very disorienting if you don't keep track of where your bird is. I also don't know how markers work in multiplayer that well. Locality is beyond my experience. Maybe some of you can help me with my questions:

  • When someone runs the script that launches the Raven, is that script run only locally or is the script running on other people's machines or on the server?
  • The reason I ask is that if I set the marker to createMarkerLocal, does it only create the marker on the map of the person who activated the script? I assume yes.
  • I have been told that if I create the markers via createMarker, it shows up on everyone's maps. But if I add below that, setMarkerTransparencyLocal to 0 for someone who is not the player who started the script, would that work to erase the visibility of the marker on everyone else's maps?

Good news for arma3 u can easily port the Raven to it BUT it needs a work over first off al the backpack ist missing (because its uses a arma 2 model which is not /not yet in the Alpha) next thing the Text in the Screen is "missing" because it is another type of Font then in Arma 2(it gets replaced) and the Drone camera is fixed on a place i think ist the x/y/z zero point of the map (somwhere in the see) and it can´t move or return to the base (no movement which other Ported vehicles like the A-10 don´t have too)

I've been looking at porting this to Arma3 but yeah, the backpacks are a problem. I can't even pick up a backpack that I place in the editor. I was thinking a workaround could be placing a backpack into a crate and then getting it from there. I haven't tried that. The markers also don't work in Arma3 as they have new names, but I can't figure out why the names I've found don't work. The Biki hasn't been updated with whatever is screwing things up having to do with markers and searching the configs is making my eyes bleed. The errors I'm getting indicate something about markercolor. Maybe that's a part of the problem as I've not set markercolor to anything figuring it would default to black.

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I have been told that if I create the markers via createMarker, it shows up on everyone's maps. But if I add below that, setMarkerTransparencyLocal to 0 for someone who is not the player who started the script, would that work to erase the visibility of the marker on everyone else's maps?

Since your script is activated via an addaction, it will always be local to the player who executed it. Since addactions are always local, you should be able to use the createmarkerlocal command via the local addaction to create a marker that is only viable to you. (This is not the case for editor placed triggers/init lines). Creating the marker globally, which is what Createmarker does, then hiding it locally for everyone else but you is doable using PVEHs, but very inefficient in this case.

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This is an excellent mod, but I have a problem. I can't use it in multiplayer dedicated server, because all players lose connection. One to one and repeatedly.

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I'm still seeing crash issues here. We also have some clients dropping out (arma just crashing), and the server went AWOL at one point with a popup message:

ErrorMessage: Warning: preNLOD format in object ca\misc2\baseball\baseball.p3d

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I'm still seeing crash issues here. We also have some clients dropping out (arma just crashing), and the server went AWOL at one point with a popup message:

ErrorMessage: Warning: preNLOD format in object ca\misc2\baseball\baseball.p3d

The version I'm about to release removes the baseball. It's a known bug that's been mentioned before.

---------- Post added at 22:20 ---------- Previous post was at 22:19 ----------

This is an excellent mod, but I have a problem. I can't use it in multiplayer dedicated server, because all players lose connection. One to one and repeatedly.

Any more info? Crash files?

---------- Post added at 22:29 ---------- Previous post was at 22:20 ----------

I have been told that if I create the markers via createMarker, it shows up on everyone's maps. But if I add below that, setMarkerTransparencyLocal to 0 for someone who is not the player who started the script, would that work to erase the visibility of the marker on everyone else's maps?

Since your script is activated via an addaction, it will always be local to the player who executed it. Since addactions are always local, you should be able to use the createmarkerlocal command via the local addaction to create a marker that is only viable to you. (This is not the case for editor placed triggers/init lines). Creating the marker globally, which is what Createmarker does, then hiding it locally for everyone else but you is doable using PVEHs, but very inefficient in this case.

OK, cool. That's good to know. Thanks! I'll see what I can do. For the version I'm about to release, I've changed all of the markers to local. There's one marker that the Raven always flies around. It's like a reference point. Couldn't I use createMarker to make the marker local, and use setMarkerTransparency to 1 to make it invisible on everyone's maps, and then use createMarkerLocal to make a second marker on top of it that's only visible to the player currently controlling the Raven? Then I wouldn't have to use event handlers. Or maybe I'm thinking about this incorrectly.

Another question. The way I have things now (for the version I'm about to release), someone can launch the Raven using an addAction. The addAction runs a script that tells the Raven where to go. So if that player is killed, would the script end? Or would the script only end if that player disconnected? I have it set so that if the player is killed, the Raven lands. That way, someone else can then launch the Raven and have it running on their computer.

However, the way I have it written now is that if player 1 launches the Raven, player 2 or 3 or whomever can then pick up the GCS and look at the camera of that Raven, tell it where to go and when to land. That should work fine, I believe. But if player 1 disconnects, I'm afraid that the script that's guiding the Raven in circles would crash then, right? Any way to prevent that easily?

Edited by Feint

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What you might be able to do is perform a local command check to see if the player executing the script is local for keeping the marker visible, otherwise it's already hidden for everyone else. Something like this after the marker is made:

_marker setMarkerAlpha 0;
if (local _ravenController) then {_marker setMarkerAlphaLocal 1};

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The script runs on the player who executes it, so if the flight script is similar to the current version, that does mean that if player 1 disconnects it stops working. However, if you had some global location to store the necessary variables, such as on the GCS object, you could make it so that when another player picks up the GCS, controls transfer to that player. The coordination to make the flight pattern look as if this isnt happening is a potential problem but you might be able to reduce it by storing a variable on the GCS which states which leg you are currently flying.

Edited by gmt2001

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Thanks for the suggestions. :)

Well, I've completely rewritten the marker stuff so it's local only and I've transferred the camera target from the markers to an invisible 25mm helper sphere and everything runs a lot smoother even on single player. I've also wrangled in any variables that were not necessary to be broadcast over the network and have kept everything that can stay local... uh, local. So that should help reduce lag on servers.

I've also added a lot of features that will only work with Arma3 so I plan to release this for Arma3 in the next few days. Stay tuned while I try to figure out solutions to new problems like solving BI's backpack problems (which I've 3/4 solved). Some new features include:

  • Live Feed of Raven (Picture in Picture) including 3 modes (DTV, NV, FLIR-W)
  • Live Feed turns off if you are more than 3 meters from the GCS
  • Camera Steering
  • Camera Target Locking and unlocking
  • A bunch of new sounds for button presses and camera functions for the GCS and Raven
  • Camera Target ground/water sensing (no longer target the sea floor)
  • Improved Raven flight with expanded flight envelope
  • Ability to fly more than one Raven at a time by one person
  • Code Pairing between Raven and GCS (so you know which GCS operates which Raven)
  • Code of Raven appears on Map Markers
  • All Map Markers are now local and will only appear on the operator's map only
  • Ability to pick up and wear editor-placed backpacks (currently broken in Arma3 Alpha)

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