Helicopter landing problem

[gruukh 13]

I know this subject has been done to death in various threads, but i have a set up i haven't seen addressed in any of them, and i've searched around about this to the point where i'm starting to talk gibberish to myself out of frustration. I'm making a mission where the heli crew has to:

1) board the helicopter

2) pick up some infantry

3) deliver them to a hot LZ

4) provide CAS after dropping troops off

The mission i'm making has the heli crew and infantry as playable units in three different groups - snipers, mortar team and heli crew. Each group leader has waypoints to ensure they carry out their tasks in the absence of player control.

The problem i am having is as follows:

When the heli crew is AI controlled, they WILL NOT land. They just hover mindlessly. Until I shoot them down out of frustration. I have set their waypoints as follows:

1) GET IN NEAREST on empty helicopter (because if i set it to GET IN, even with correct waypoint placement right on the helicopter, they run round like idiots)

2) LOAD waypoint placed over an invisible Helipad and waypoint set to Never fire, Full Speed, Careless. This is sync'd to a GET IN waypoint from each of the infantry unit leaders.

3) TRANSPORT UNLOAD waypoint placed over an invisible Helipad at the destination, sync'd to GET OUT waypoints for each of the infantry unit group leaders.

4) SEEK AND DESTROY waypoint set to CAS area with Open Fire, Full Speed, Combat behaviours set.

I've used the above settings to do helicopter pickups before, and so have plenty of other people from what i can tell. Don't know why it doesn't work now.

I thought it might be something to do with a mod, so i tried it out running A3 without mods. No dice - they still hover. I created a test mission and set up the above waypoints free of other mission config and clutter. Same deal.

I've tried creating a helicopter unit instead of pilots on the ground, but that seems equally convinced that the ground is lava, and also refuses to land. The only way I can get it to land is by making a MOVE waypoint with <heli name> land "GET IN" in the waypoint's On Act. That only works if the unit spawns as a heli, not as a pilot.

Does anybody have any suggestions for me?

[Beerkan 71]

Place an invisible helipad at the waypoint. Then -in the OnAct of the waypoint put

doStop heli; heli land "land";

Where heli ia your NAME of the Helicopter

[gruukh 13]

That works, if i set the helicopter waypoint as MOVE. But if i set it to what i need it to be, which is LOAD, sync'd to a GET IN from an infantry group, it just hovers at 50 or so metres.

---------- Post added at 10:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:56 PM ----------

i must not have placed the invisible hpad properly; after some mucking about, it know works. Trying it with the "GET IN" parameter and then hopefully it'll work on dedi server. Thanks Beerkan!

---------- Post added at 10:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 PM ----------

OK i spoke too soon. As soon as i sync an infantry GET IN waypoint to the pilot's LOAD waypoint, it goes back to hovering like an idiot. Strange thing is it worked the first time. Every subsequent time, it doesn't.

Really don't understand why something so simple has to be so hard!

[axelius 10]

I spent a significant chunk of this week tearing my hair out trying to get the similar Unload to work and came to the following conclusion after reading about something similar in another thread.

The order you're giving is not given to a chopper, it is given to an infantryman, who just happens to sit in the pilot seat of a chopper. That's why the spawned pilot doesn't understand the "land" command and for it to remotely get close to work you need to give the order to the chopper, which you can't do if it spawns empty.

Why Load doesn't work for choppers, I don't know though.

For my mission (where I wanted separate units because I wanted the crew to have a different loadout) I decided to use the chopper and then run my loadout code in the init line picking out the different crew members instead of "this" in each crew member's own init line.

[gruukh 13]

Thanks Axelius. I may end up having to go to spawning the heli directly. What really gets to me is that this was working up until a week or so ago - now it doesn't work (at least not reliably).

Will try messing about with allowfleeing 0, disabling autotarget etc - anything that turns the AI from a lily-livered, hovering coward into an actual helicopter pilot who isn't scared of the big bad ground!

[silentghoust 132]

Need a bit more information, what kind of helicopter?

Edited August 11, 2014 by silentghoust

[Grumpy Old Man 3540]

Using waypoints for stuff more complex than move or cycle can be a nightmare.

Try getting used to a more scripted approach, as it's way better to control, commands like allowGetIn, orderGetIn and unassignVehicle are golden when doing stuff like multiple helo pick ups/insertions.

[gruukh 13]

WY-55 - the version with weapons

Need a bit more information, what kind of helicopter?

---------- Post added at 05:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:56 PM ----------

Using waypoints for stuff more complex than move or cycle can be a nightmare.

Try getting used to a more scripted approach, as it's way better to control, commands like allowGetIn, orderGetIn and unassignVehicle are golden when doing stuff like multiple helo pick ups/insertions.

Yeah, I'm starting to think that might be the approach I have to take.