The Helicopter transport enigma

[nickmow 10]

I have lost count of the times I have re-learned editing in the Arma series. However with age and the onset of short term memory loss, I am extending a request.

Scene. Multiplayer mission. two or more squads, each lead by a player online. The module based support requester/Transport Helo combination works well in single player. I think its a known bug that in MP

anyone but the server host can call a chopper get on it but then gets dumped out......annoying.

All I want is for squad leaders in MP to be able to be inserted and extracted at will by Rotary wing assets. This needs to be flexible, so the standard linked waypoint mission edit is not what I need, works well for a scripted insert but theres not much flexibility when it comes to dust off.

Any thoughts chaps ? Has someone cracked this ? I have Norrins excellent script but again that only accomodates 1 heli for 1 player. I want to fill the skys with the sound of rotor blades and happy squad leaders

all suggestions gratefully appreciated

Nick (OFP vet)

[hkurban 1]

Radio trigger for the SL's to call for evac, maybe?

[nickmow 10]

Radio trigger for the SL's to call for evac, maybe?

thanks Urban, yep but that would (as far as I know) would still need preset wp's

[tinter 186]

Find the landing point by smoke grenades?

[cameroon 12]

thanks Urban, yep but that would (as far as I know) would still need preset wp's

It doesn't need preset WPs (the script called by the radio trigger would need create the WPs), but AI helicopter load and unload MP gets _tricky_. By which I mean painful ;) And that doesn't even take into account what happens if the AI pilot sees an enemy it thinks it can engage; it will just fly off to do that for awhile instead.

I've been down this road and solved this a bunch of different ways (including having one in A2 with Tinter's suggestion of LZ by smoke grenades). Right now I have a pair of fairly robust functions for loading/unloading that has been working great for me in MP, but it comes with its own sets of trade-offs ;)

I have to head out, but I think I have all the pieces here, just not quite in the combination that you're trying to use. Without building a whole bunch of tools, it should be pretty straightforward to use what I've already got to fly between points and do load/unload - but it would be very much "on rails". That is, no deviation, change of plans, advanced routing (it'd be a straight line between each stop - pickup, load, unload, return-to-wherever).

Questions:

- Should the AI pilots be targets for the enemy

- Do you care if collision lights come on

- Are you thinking that they have a home base that they fly to/from each time, or that they stay grounded at last landing, or return to some other activity?

The collision lights might be unavoidable, but I saw that there was a fix related to collision lights in the patch notes for 1.12 so maybe that fixed it so they can be turned off (and stay off).

I built this mission for testing my helicopter unload/load so it's nothing special, but it works fine in MP: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8018430/DynamicHeliTransports.Stratis.zip

Things to note:

- It's using fixed drop-off/pickup zones via markers (this is easy to make dynamic though)

- If the helicopters are staying too long for search-and-destroy, use the radio trigger to (try) to tell them to leave (this is a mission design issue, nothing w/ the unload/load)

- When you want to call for pickup, use the other radio trigger

- In this particular setup, each heli only waits on pickup for the one group it's assigned to transport. This mostly a mission design issue; this is a testing mission for me so I didn't try to cover all the bases

So if the demo mission is kind of what you're looking for, but you just need for the pickup/drop-off points to be dynamic, I can probably get you another demo mission in a night or two that shows you how you can set it up for your own mission building.

[weparo 10]

If you want units on a MP server to enter a helo, use {_x assignAsCargo the_heli; [_x] orderGetIn true;} forEach units that_group_of_yours;

Have this code executed by a trigger if the helo has landed (use the 'land' command and a invisible helipad) or is close to the LZ and the units of that_group_of_yours will board the heli.

simplest way. :P It should be possible to set the location of the LZ and the WP for the heli per smoke grenade, right?

[cameroon 12]

If you want units on a MP server to enter a helo, use {_x assignAsCargo the_heli; [_x] orderGetIn true;} forEach units that_group_of_yours;

Have this code executed by a trigger if the helo has landed (use the 'land' command and a invisible helipad) or is close to the LZ and the units of that_group_of_yours will board the heli.

simplest way. :P It should be possible to set the location of the LZ and the WP for the heli per smoke grenade, right?

Essentially you're right - using land, orderGetIn, etc (and similar sets of commands for unloading) are all the building blocks. But making those work together and trying to make sure the pilot picks a clear LZ end up being a lot of effort to get working reliably, and that's why I ended up writing a pair of functions that babysit the pilot(s) and try to find clear LZs.

It really, really sucks to have a mission fall apart in the last few minutes because the AI pilot who is coming to pick you up gets near the LZ and spots a soft target 2km away and flies off to engage it instead. And then promptly gets shot down.

I really want a way to tell the AI pilot that his primary job is to load or unload troops that stops them from flying off to engage units without using the CARELESS behavior. Allow them to use their weapons defensively without deviating from their purpose. If we had that, and fixed load/unload behavior in MP, it would solve most of these threads ;)

[weparo 10]

without using the CARELESS behavior

Well, THEN... :( that's gonn' be tough :P

[cameroon 12]

Well, THEN... :( that's gonn' be tough :P

Yeah, if I wrote a wishlist for the Arma engine - that's a feature I'd be asking for. Having to use CARELESS just to get the pilot to follow orders is beyond frustrating ;)

[nickmow 10]

Splendid explanation and efforts Cameroon. Thanks. How hard would it be for BI to "fix" the modules....I read all the details of the latest patch only to find......no love for helo supports. Ah well back to re--re-learning !

[cameroon 12]

Splendid explanation and efforts Cameroon. Thanks. How hard would it be for BI to "fix" the modules....I read all the details of the latest patch only to find......no love for helo supports. Ah well back to re--re-learning !

Some of the things seem like they'd be pretty reasonable to fix, like loading/unloading in MP missions, and others are probably so tied into the basic way that the AI works that it might be impossible for them to fix without a massive undertaking. I'd love for them to prove me wrong and get better transport pilot behavior! :)

Feel free to use anything out of the demo mission that meets your purposes and let me know if you have any questions, etc. - I've already spent way more hours than I should messing with making helicopter AI do less stupid things (but some things are beyond me: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=228598973) ;)

[cameroon 12]

Splendid explanation and efforts Cameroon. Thanks. How hard would it be for BI to "fix" the modules....I read all the details of the latest patch only to find......no love for helo supports. Ah well back to re--re-learning !

nickmow, if you're still watching this thread, I actually ended up doing a bunch of work on the functions I used in that demo mission. It should be better all around and with appropriate commands, one helicopter can carry multiple groups (for instance, two fire teams) that can be dropped off separately now.

In addition, I did a demo of how you could use them for on-demand transportation in MP. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8018430/HeliTests.Stratis.zip Of course if used in MP like in the demo, you'll be stuck with the CARELESS behavior (so, collision lights, etc.). If you used a combination of waypoints and these functions, you could potentially route the AI in Stealth or something where they'd turn off their lights (but then they might wander off, so it's a tough call).

I added functions that can be used to disable the collision lights or enable the search light, but those are really only effective in SP. Would be nice if those were fixed, sigh.

There are two Add Actions, one on the helicopter that's visible when your'e in the helicopter and one on the player that's visible when you aren't in any vehicle. Also, I have the debug flag set in the function that finds a suitable LZ for the purposes of providing some feedback in the demo. The player is informed via chat if the helicopter is in the middle of a task already or if there's no suitable LZ within ~260 or so meters of the map-click.

[cobra4v320 27]

I have an extraction function that will:

• Move to a marker location with the lights out
  
• The pilot will ignore ground fire
  
• The door gunners will fire at enemys
  
• Once the helicopter has reached extraction it will open its doors
  
• Once the entire group is on board it will close its doors then move to the next dropoff mark
  
• Once it reaches the drop off mark it will open its doors
  
• The helicopter will then wait until all units are disembarked and about 20m away before it takes off
  
• The helicopter then moves back to its spawn point and deletes the crew, heli, and group.
  
• Other options would be setcaptive, allowdamage, and flyinheight
  

Im currently working on a escort attack helicopter version as well. I will post up the extraction version shortly.

[cameroon 12]

I have an extraction function that will:

• Move to a marker location with the lights out
  
• The pilot will ignore ground fire
  
• The door gunners will fire at enemys
  
• Once the helicopter has reached extraction it will open its doors
  
• Once the entire group is on board it will close its doors then move to the next dropoff mark
  
• Once it reaches the drop off mark it will open its doors
  
• The helicopter will then wait until all units are disembarked and about 20m away before it takes off
  
• The helicopter then moves back to its spawn point and deletes the crew, heli, and group.
  
• Other options would be setcaptive, allowdamage, and flyinheight
  

Im currently working on a escort attack helicopter version as well. I will post up the extraction version shortly.

I'm definitely interested in how you are keeping the lights out - it's straight-forward enough in SP (if silly that we have to do it), but in MP the collisionLightOff method doesn't seem very effective. I also quite like the idea of keeping it grounded until the transported units are a distance away.