RQ-11 Raven A

[mrcash2009 0]

That video is great, shaping up nicely, I am holding out until this update, and this alone has sparked some personal missions to make excuses to use it all the time :)

[vengeance1 50]

Hey Feint love the Raven by the way but who's ship is that?

[J. Schmidt 10]

Keep up the awesome work, can't wait for the update.

[Feint 137]

has anyone found an issue when using ACE and trying to use the Z key to zoom... everything else seems to work fine.

Soon...it won't matter. (say in Darth Vader voice)

It's actually the "prone" key, not the "Z" key. I should have made that more clear in the readme. Iiiiiiii'm sorry.

---------- Post added at 22:32 ---------- Previous post was at 22:29 ----------

Hey Feint love the Raven by the way but who's ship is that?

Why, that's part of the FFAA mod which has a couple of kick-ass boats you should all download now and have fun exploring. I like promoting stuff that I like in my videos. I may never release the Raven update just so I can keep making videos which promote stuff I like. ;)

By the way, they are invincible as I found out much later after trying to destroy them several times without success.

---------- Post added at 22:51 ---------- Previous post was at 22:32 ----------

Awesome addon' date=' thank you for making it. My only suggestion would be to make the backpack a little lighter in color, and maybe add more variants.[/quote']

More backpack variants or more Raven variants? I'll assume you are talking about the backpack. FYI, the backpack is basically just a "reconfigged" (<-- not a real word) UAV backpack. Since I didn't make the model, the only way I can change the color is to hex-edit the original BIS model. I've done that in the past with other stuff, but it can lead to problems with binPBO as I discovered recently with my underwater limpet mine (different small thing I'm working on). Sooooo... for now, I think the backpack is fine. Maybe I'll try to change the gear picture (which doesn't match at all, BIS).

If you mean more Raven variants, then... I guess I could add tail flashes or whatever they are called but I've never seen anyone do that. I could maybe add a little label on the wing or side like, "If found, please return to US Army". I should have a contest for the best label to put on the Raven.

Possible labels:

• "If found, please return to US Army"
  
• "If you can see this, some people within 8km are about to kill you."
  
• "Sight From Above"
  
• "White Raven"
  
• "Sorry if I landed on you"
  

BTW, I'm kidding. I'm not going to put any labels on this thing. :)

[Pantheraguy 10]

How about

"don't tell my Daddy I got lost, he's gonna be here shortly"

or "I'm not playing with strangers" ...

I admire how fast you add the battery modules beside a lot of other wishes.

but one thing still worries me, was the view quality in your last vid.

It seems to be still quite blurry. I guess it's intended to be close to real FPV aerial optics.

The downside is the depreciation of the viewers pleasure while watching a big fight from distance.

This joy by reducing little of the "real Raven optics looklike-filter thing" would be fine, until you'll release it shortly.

that'll make it complete for spectating

Edited May 11, 2012 by Pantheraguy

[mrcash2009 0]

The downside is the depreciation of the viewers pleasure while watching a big fight from distance.

This joy by reducing little of the "real Raven optics looklike-filter thing" would be fine, until you'll release it shortly.

that'll make it complete for spectating

But unless im mistaken this project isnt some fancy battle camera script or an outright spectating tool, its based on recon of enemy positions to plan and advise, from a small drone with small camera, it would always have its limits.

If you want something like that I knocked together a rudimentary battle view camera from WOO script here (fairly sure there are others better):

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=15165

[Pantheraguy 10]

Yap, true. I agree to that.

Guess, decreasing the blurry rate a bit won't change the Raven Project way apart from the main thing.

[Baraka 10]

I have seen pictures where the Raven had some kind of camo. That looks really silly. Also the VBS2 one looked very similar, also it would be a blasphemy and not real!

[Feint 137]

I think the image quality is at a good point now. Maybe YouTube was making it look more blurry than it is.

Edited May 11, 2012 by Feint

[mugaben 10]

Nice job and very well done.

There is one thing I very much dislike about it though. Even though I have ace's Remove all markers on map thingy on, the raven force overides it and auto-marks everything on the map for everyone to be seen.

That actually makes me not want to use it. It just makes it to easy..

Also: Is it possible to make the beep and blink transmitable so everyone can hear it and it isnt only clientside?

[tpw 2315]

Hi Professor Feint

While you're hard at work on 1.2 (or 1.5), you might want to have a look at the following slight bug, which results in the "Take [RQ-11] Raven Backpack" addaction menu item not disappearing once the raven is assembled and the backpack has disappeared. Even once the raven has been disassembled and the backpack picked up again, the menu item persists.

If I add a raven backpack to a unit via something like: _unit addbackpack "MAV_RAVEN_BACKPACK";, then the above bug rears its head.

If I add the raven backpack to a vehicle via: _myvehicle addbackpackcargo ["MAV_RAVEN_BACKPACK",1] and order a unit to grab the backpack via his "gear" addaction, then I sometimes observe the bug.

However if I just place the backpack in the editor, and order a unit to pick it up, then the menu item disappears as expected.

The behaviour is not mod dependent. It's not major by any means, but the care you take with your mods suggests that you are a perfectionist :)

Edited May 12, 2012 by tpw

[mrcash2009 0]

Even though I have ace's Remove all markers on map thingy on, the raven force overides it and auto-marks everything on the map for everyone to be seen.

Just for the Author, the recent addon for Hi Command extensions uses some init lines to toggle this if that helps code wise. I wonder (and again it not me doing it or saying its easy) .. ever thought about an external config file to switch variables such as toggle markers or something like that. Would be nice to have some on the fly toggle for "broadcast to all" user only. Or at least just show for the user only.

I suppose an option for no marker is good so the user of the drone has to radio over positioning or manual mark on map for training / bit more realism.

Edited May 12, 2012 by mrcash2009

[zephyrdark 10]

Nice job and very well done.

There is one thing I very much dislike about it though. Even though I have ace's Remove all markers on map thingy on, the raven force overides it and auto-marks everything on the map for everyone to be seen.

That actually makes me not want to use it. It just makes it to easy..

Also: Is it possible to make the beep and blink transmitable so everyone can hear it and it isnt only clientside?

What difficulty are you on? ACE's "Force Group Markers off" only forces the military symbols that mark friendly locations on the map . It does not disable the "auto-spotting" on the map of normal & recruit difficulties.

[scarecrow398 43]

Possible labels:

*"If found, please return to US Army"

*"If you can see this, some people within 8km are about to kill you."

*"Sight From Above"

*"White Raven"

*"Sorry if I landed on you"

BTW, I'm kidding. I'm not going to put any labels on this thing. :)

Damn, that actually sounds like a cool little detail, i remember the Australian at war bushmasters having a random selection of names on the front above the tyre, it would be a cool little detail to add, especially if its somehow lost over enemy areas in PvP :P

[ravendk 25]

Bit of info abt the Raven

The range and service ceiling of the aircraft are 10km and 4,500m respectively. Its maximum endurance is 90min.

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/rq11-raven/

[scarecrow398 43]

Bit of info abt the Raven

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/rq11-raven/

It seems he's put a fair bit of detail into most aspects of this mod so i assume he is reducing the limit to scale with the armaverse, seeing half of the maps for arma are around 10km anyway, 8 seems resonable for the avarage size of a arma map, same with the 60min time limit (as long as the recharge time is resonable).

[Feint 137]

VERSION 1.51 NOW AVAILABLE:

http://www.gamefront.com/files/21693493/RQ-11_RAVEN_ARMA2OA_VERSION_1.51.rar<== problem with previous download - use this link instead

VERSION 1.51

-CBA IS NOW REQUIRED FOR MULTIPLAYER SOUND TO WORK

-ADDED: More zoom levels (11 now instead of 4)

-ADDED: Increased zoom max

-ADDED: new zoom controls (in and out)

-ADDED: Altitude ASL to in-camera data stream

-ADDED: Range limit of 8km (distance from Raven target to Ground Control Station)

-ADDED: marker elipse visible on map when changing targets

-ADDED: Battery limit of 60 minutes

-ADDED: Battery status to in-camera display

-ADDED: Autolanding near player when battery reaches zero percent charge

-ADDED: Camera shuts off when battery reaches zero percent charge

-ADDED: Ability to recharge battery in Raven

-ADDED: Restricted the ability to disassemble the raven when it is recharging

-ADDED: Battery level holds true from raven to raven (can recharge more than one raven at a time)

-ADDED: If you pick up a raven that is recharging, you can see a display of the charge level going up in real time

-ADDED: In-camera compass that tracks the camera position and rotation and zoom level

-ADDED: In-camera battery display shows minutes remaining on charge

-ADDED: Charge Battery action only visible if battery level is lower than 100%

-ADDED: Raven can be destroyed when engine is off (but not when flying)

-ADDED: New sounds for engine startup and engine loop

-TWEAKED: in-camera instructions so they are shorter for people running lower screen resolutions

-TWEAKED: in-camera data stream to better reflect altitude

-TWEAKED: in-camera data stream for easier and faster reading (right aligned right side elements)

-TWEAKED: DTV blurriness

-FIXED: Raven can now be assembled and disassembled from walkable ships (Nimitz, Kuznetzof, P99, BAM, Gnat's Warships, etc.)

-FIXED: Raven can now approach and land on elevated positions such as buildings and ships at sea (if there's enough room)

-FIXED: Multiplayer sounds should be heard on all clients now by using CBA

-FIXED: Autolanding was broken on certain maps with fake altitudes (Raven wouldn't land)

-FIXED: Added minor fixes to autolanding script when autolanding is active

-FIXED: Added minor fixes to new target script when autolanding is active

-FIXED: addActions so that they can't be activated during team switching by another unit (thanks DeltaForce96)

-FIXED: Missing semicolon in strobe script

-FIXED: Rare disappearing backpack problem

-FIXED: Changed the way the Raven chooses altitude so that it no longer flies underwater when depth of water is below 30 meters

---------- Post added at 22:09 ---------- Previous post was at 21:48 ----------

Nice job and very well done.

There is one thing I very much dislike about it though. Even though I have ace's Remove all markers on map thingy on, the raven force overides it and auto-marks everything on the map for everyone to be seen.

That actually makes me not want to use it. It just makes it too easy..

Also: Is it possible to make the beep and blink transmitable so everyone can hear it and it isnt only clientside?

The Raven is a force multiplier. It provides location information on the battlefield of all units, friendly, enemy, civilian, etc. similar to how a pilot flying overhead would mark up the map automatically. However, the icons, once revealed, don't seem to be updated very well by the Raven. So after the initial information dump, it's really up to the player to make use of that location information before it expires. Further, the "scanning radius" of the Raven is a bubble 250 meters from the Raven. So if a unit is outside of that 250 meter radius, it won't be revealed.

Regarding the beeps, all sounds should now be available in multiplayer as long as everyone is using CBA (which is now listed as a requirement). As for the flashing not appearing in multiplayer, this is the first I heard about that bug. Can you confirm that the flashing isn't visible (at night) in multiplayer?

Hi Professor Feint

While you're hard at work on 1.2 (or 1.5), you might want to have a look at the following slight bug, which results in the "Take [RQ-11] Raven Backpack" addaction menu item not disappearing once the raven is assembled and the backpack has disappeared. Even once the raven has been disassembled and the backpack picked up again, the menu item persists.

If I add a raven backpack to a unit via something like: _unit addbackpack "MAV_RAVEN_BACKPACK";, then the above bug rears its head.

If I add the raven backpack to a vehicle via: _myvehicle addbackpackcargo ["MAV_RAVEN_BACKPACK",1] and order a unit to grab the backpack via his "gear" addaction, then I sometimes observe the bug.

However if I just place the backpack in the editor, and order a unit to pick it up, then the menu item disappears as expected.

The behaviour is not mod dependent. It's not major by any means, but the care you take with your mods suggests that you are a perfectionist :)

Thanks for telling me about it. I was not able to reproduce this when putting these commands within the init lines of the player or a vehicle. Can you PM me more information?

Just for the Author, the recent addon for Hi Command extensions uses some init lines to toggle this if that helps code wise. I wonder (and again it not me doing it or saying its easy) .. ever thought about an external config file to switch variables such as toggle markers or something like that. Would be nice to have some on the fly toggle for "broadcast to all" user only. Or at least just show for the user only.

I suppose an option for no marker is good so the user of the drone has to radio over positioning or manual mark on map for training / bit more realism.

Thanks for the suggestion. If other users cry out for it, I'll see if I can implement something like that.

What difficulty are you on? ACE's "Force Group Markers off" only forces the military symbols that mark friendly locations on the map . It does not disable the "auto-spotting" on the map of normal & recruit difficulties.

Thanks for the additional info. :)

Damn, that actually sounds like a cool little detail, i remember the Australian at war bushmasters having a random selection of names on the front above the tyre, it would be a cool little detail to add, especially if its somehow lost over enemy areas in PvP :P

Aw. I didn't follow through with it. Honestly, the Raven can't be shot down while in flight. So no one but the user would ever read it, unless the squad using the Raven was overrun and captured or killed, and then the enemy would see it.

Bit of info abt the Raven

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/rq11-raven/

Thanks. I went with the information listed on the manufacturer's website and their numbers were repeated on several other sites and videos. Anyway, the numbers you quote are close to what my numbers are (see below). The 4500m service ceiling could be referring to several different things, i.e. max operational ceiling above sea level, max distance above ground target, etc. These numbers can be very different depending on the area of operations. For ex. a 150 meter height above a target in Tibet could be 4500 meters above sea level. But a 150 meter height above a ground target in Hawaii could be 160 meters above sea level.

It seems he's put a fair bit of detail into most aspects of this mod so i assume he is reducing the limit to scale with the armaverse, seeing half of the maps for arma are around 10km anyway, 8 seems resonable for the avarage size of a arma map, same with the 60min time limit (as long as the recharge time is resonable).

The battery time limit listed on the AV website is 60-90 minutes. This probably depends on how much maneuvering the Raven does. Since I can't easily simulate increases and decreases on battery strain, I chose a 60 minute time limit to make things more interesting. Battery recharge time from 0% battery is 5 minutes. Obviously, if you have 20% or 50% battery left, the recharge time is shorter.

Similarly, the range was listed as between 8 and 10km. I chose 8 which will cover almost all of Chernarus. I considered reducing it to 6 or 5, but whatevs. If people complain that the range is too large, I can always reduce it in a later update.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions an bug reports everyone. I hope you all enjoy version 1.5 as much as I enjoyed making it for all of you.

Edited May 13, 2012 by Feint

[tpw 2315]

Thanks for telling me about it. I was not able to reproduce this when putting these commands within the init lines of the player or a vehicle. Can you PM me more information?

Feint, it turns out the problem was actually mine. My init.sqf automatically "force loads" each of my units with a DE Backpack AND an M136 (something you can't do in-game via the gear menu). As soon as I removed the force loading the Raven backpack behaves as it says on the box.

Sorry for wasting your time! (...and looking like a tool).

Oh and by the way, the v1.5 improvements are really great. I particularly like the compass display, very very nice work!

[kremator 1065]

Grats on 1.51! Looking forward to seeing what she can do.

[mugaben 10]

What difficulty are you on? ACE's "Force Group Markers off" only forces the military symbols that mark friendly locations on the map . It does not disable the "auto-spotting" on the map of normal & recruit difficulties.

Thank you, I have been playing arma for a long time, so i am aware of this.

I and the guys I game with, play on a edited veteran diff. Sort of in between vet/hardcore. For maximum realism while keeping the AI at realistic levels.

@Faint:

The fact thats it doing it by it self is a bit ridiculous. At least make it an option so an operator can use it like real. You made so much detail in it, its really good. But the auto-mark thingy regardless of ones difficulty etc is to much BF3 I think..

(All those blue and red markers that stays on the map in MSO or the like, are just spamming the map, confusing to some and none-usefull for most)

Thanks for fixing the sound.

Edited May 13, 2012 by MugAben

[Harine 40]

Very very nice good job !!

Have you project to make a russian model like the ZALA 421-08 ?

Good video :

[mrcash2009 0]

Thanks for the latest update :)

I would say for online use and clans etc it would be beneficial all round if markers can be toggled on/off either via the raven menu or from a config var switch, or at least an init file switch for mission makers :)

Is there a possibilty when viewing from the camera to be able to select option to create a new waypoint, so it stays on camera but opens the map (or minimap?) to place the waypoint, so you can plot its movement without leaving the camera and exiting?

I may have missed something silly though.

Edited May 13, 2012 by mrcash2009

[Donny 10]

Hi,

nice work have you done here!

Is there an option for the Missionmaker to control the battery power?

Maybe to set it down for only 5 minutes?

greetings

Donny

[Feint 137]

Feint, it turns out the problem was actually mine. My init.sqf automatically "force loads" each of my units with a DE Backpack AND an M136 (something you can't do in-game via the gear menu). As soon as I removed the force loading the Raven backpack behaves as it says on the box.

Sorry for wasting your time! (...and looking like a tool).

Oh and by the way, the v1.5 improvements are really great. I particularly like the compass display, very very nice work!

No problem at all. Thanks for clarifying. Mistakes don't make people look like tools.

Grats on 1.51! Looking forward to seeing what she can do.

Thanks man. Thanks for your ongoing support!

@Faint:

The fact thats it doing it by it self is a bit ridiculous. At least make it an option so an operator can use it like real. You made so much detail in it, its really good. But the auto-mark thingy regardless of ones difficulty etc is to much BF3 I think..

(All those blue and red markers that stays on the map in MSO or the like, are just spamming the map, confusing to some and none-usefull for most)

Wow. OK, MugAben, here's my response.

First, have a look at the software being used in the ground control station for the actual Raven:

http://www.avinc.com/uas/kestrel/

Clearly it marks locations on the camera view, creating metadata on locations which can be transmitted up and down the battlefield and forwarded to bluforce trackers. I doubt in real life some commanders would choose to turn off this map updating feature and let their troops shoot each other to make battle more difficult. If you want to make the battle more difficult, I suggest not using the Raven system.

Second, the only thing that happens in my scripts is that when the Raven overflies an area, it gets the nearest entities within a scanning radius and uses the command "reveal" on them, which is the same thing that happens when you encounter an enemy unit in the vanilla game. I'm not forcing any map marking, the game does this automatically. If the locations of enemies, friendlies and vehicles are being marked in your map when they are not supposed to be, that's something that the game is doing automatically, something that would happen if you were to fly over an area looking down. Maybe the settings you play on block the map marking somehow via some sort of trick that the "reveal" command is sidestepping. I'm not sure how it works. But it sounds to me like a bug on the part of the vanilla game or ACE or whatever you are playing with. I would go to them for a fix.

Third, if this addon is too "Battlefield 3" for you, I suggest you not use it and look elsewhere for battlefield info. I've acknowledged your earlier post regarding this complaint and this post as well. If you wish to discuss further about this particular feature, please feel free to PM me.

And as a final suggestion to you: Asking for a change to something that someone has worked very hard on almost every night for a month and then comparing their work to an arcade style fps shooter is probably not a good way to get what you want.

Also, my name is Feint, as in the maneuver, not faint as in fainting on the floor.

Very very nice good job !!

Have you project to make a russian model like the ZALA 421-08 ?

Good video :

This question was answered previously. Thanks for the video.

Thanks for the latest update :)

I would say for online use and clans etc it would be beneficial all round if markers can be toggled on/off either via the raven menu or from a config var switch, or at least an init file switch for mission makers :)

Is there a possibilty when viewing from the camera to be able to select option to create a new waypoint, so it stays on camera but opens the map (or minimap?) to place the waypoint, so you can plot its movement without leaving the camera and exiting?

I may have missed something silly though.

See above regarding the map icons. Good suggestion. I'll think about creating a switch that would turn off the scanner as a compromise.

New target positions are selected outside of the camera view. This is answered on page 10 and 11 of the 17 page readme file. :) As for selecting a new position while inside the camera view, this isn't possible because the mouse cursor is not visible while in the camera view. I would need to make a steerable camera which might work as a cursor, which I've already said I'm not doing, or I would need to find a way to click inside of a minimap, which I don't think is possible, or I would need to figure out how to get the cursor visible while inside the camera view. Honestly, it's not worth it to me and not close to reality either. In the real Raven GCS, you have to exit the camera view and go to the map screen to select waypoints. For them, it's just a few button clicks. Since I can't seem to be able to overlap the map view on top of the camera view, you just have to exit the camera view for a few seconds and click the addAction to create the new camera target position. I know it's a bit of a pain, but it's closer to reality and is the best fix I've been able to figure out so far to what appears to me to be a coding limitation (or my own knowledge limitation).

---------- Post added at 12:08 ---------- Previous post was at 11:55 ----------

Hi,

nice work have you done here!

Is there an option for the Missionmaker to control the battery power?

Maybe to set it down for only 5 minutes?

greetings

Donny

Hmm. Here's what I would do. Place either the static raven or the backpack on the map. Then in the init line, write the following:

this setVariable ["ravenBatteryLevel",8.50,true];

You can play around with the 8.5 number to get it exactly at 5 minutes. 8.5% battery life is equal to about 4.8 minutes of flying time. Hope this helps.

[Donny 10]

Hi,

thanks for your reply, works fine with that :)

is there a way more for setting down the Batterypack too? :)

But for the first this is good enough, thanks ;)