[MELB] Mission Enhanced Little Bird

[delta3242 399]

Can anybody else confirm that they have an eject option?

They don't have one.

[robowilso 40]

There's definitely no 'eject' button for me...mod conflict perhaps? Can anybody else confirm that they have an eject option?

If it's that important for you to eject from the bird, go to your helicopter controls (vanilla helo controls) and set hotkey for eject, and your issue will be fixed

[SSG-Viktor 13]

Excellent job, these MHs and AHs look mean as hell. Looking forwardo to the full release!

[Sorken 19]

Getting alot of:

19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:43 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:43 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:43 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.

When you activate the countermeasures and it goes on for 30sec(the full duration when the jammer is active).

I've also added a rpt file to your feedback tracker.

[singleton 22]

If it's that important for you to eject from the bird, go to your helicopter controls (vanilla helo controls) and set hotkey for eject, and your issue will be fixed

This is not the 'eject' I'm talking about. ACE Eject allows you to land, and hit eject and the rotors keep spinning. Default eject still turns the engine off. ACE Eject must be done by mod maker. Also miniguns are TOO accurate on the AH6 unfortunately. Grap a vanilla AH6 and a MELB AH6 with dual miniguns and practice hosing down 15 or 20 pop-up targets. You will see what I mean.

[DAGGER ARMANET 172]

This is not the 'eject' I'm talking about. ACE Eject allows you to land, and hit eject and the rotors keep spinning. Default eject still turns the engine off. ACE Eject must be done by mod maker. Also miniguns are TOO accurate on the AH6 unfortunately. Grap a vanilla AH6 and a MELB AH6 with dual miniguns and practice hosing down 15 or 20 pop-up targets. You will see what I mean.

Are you saying the vanilla AH6 is the metric for how accurate the miniguns should be on the MELB ? Definitely everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I would say that some may disagree with you on that point. I like improved accuracy over the vanilla AH6 "faux littlebird". But again thats just my opinion. Or am I reading your concern with the accuracy wrong ? I may be as its late and its been a long day. Also i didnt realize that ACE eject kept the engine running thats pretty cool!

Either way guys the MELB is proving to be the mainstay in my groups operations. Seriously this is now the only helo we use. WELL DONE.

[singleton 22]

Are you saying the vanilla AH6 is the metric for how accurate the miniguns should be on the MELB ? Definitely everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I would say that some may disagree with you on that point. I like improved accuracy over the vanilla AH6 "faux littlebird". But again thats just my opinion. Or am I reading your concern with the accuracy wrong ? I may be as its late and its been a long day. Also i didnt realize that ACE eject kept the engine running thats pretty cool!

Either way guys the MELB is proving to be the mainstay in my groups operations. Seriously this is now the only helo we use. WELL DONE.

I am saying that the vanilla AH6's miniguns are both more effective and more true to life than the MELBs. I am not completely sure if it is either the guns being 'too accurate' or only a certain number of rounds actually being accounted for. Like in A2, the M240s were more effective than the M134 because only every 10th round of the M134 was a true round, the rest did nothing. Regardless, have a test for youself. Throw 15 targets down in formation and use both littlebirds miniguns, the vanilla ones are much more effective either due to dispersion, or more rounds are actually calculated. MELB is great, I completely agree our community used all of the MELBs with the exception of the dual minigun/rockets as the vanilla miniguns are more true to real life through both testing and examination of minigun footage through youtube.

[Gruman 122]

I agree. The M134 could use a bit more dispersion (like back in A2 ACE AH-6J). Didnt look in the config, but would need to check there how many rounds are really fired. But in the end it also depends (sadly) on your framerates...

Also, ejecting with the rotors still spinning would be good, to bad we do not have throttle control like in ToH so we can put the engines to idle...

Anyway, just add driverCanEject = 1; to the config and it should work. class helicopter, which this MELB is inherting its class from, has set this to "0". Its a vanilla function, ACE just reenables it on all helicopters.

[dslyecxi 23]

I am saying that the vanilla AH6's miniguns are both more effective and more true to life than the MELBs. I am not completely sure if it is either the guns being 'too accurate' or only a certain number of rounds actually being accounted for. Like in A2, the M240s were more effective than the M134 because only every 10th round of the M134 was a true round, the rest did nothing.

Are you talking about the vanilla AH-9? As to A2 - there were mods to fix the default M134s, STLB being an example of that. It was one round fired per three ammo expended in vanilla, not "every 10th round".

the vanilla miniguns are more true to real life through both testing and examination of minigun footage through youtube.

Emphatically "No". The exact same issue that was in A2 is reintroduced in A3 - the vanilla miniguns expend 3 units of ammo for every 1 shot actually fired. This is trivially easy to check even without scripting - fire a short burst (just tap the trigger) at water, count how many impact splashes you see, look at how many bullets were expended. They will not match - it will be a 1:3 of hits:ammo lost. The MELB helos do not have this issue any longer (though they did in the past). They are absolutely more capable than the vanilla ones ever were. Perhaps you're using an oudated version, or have a mod conflict?

An example of your "15 targets" being knocked down easily with a MELB's miniguns: http://gfycat.com/HighlevelKnobbyAfricanharrierhawk

The shot density and dispersion of the MELB M134: http://gfycat.com/UniqueForsakenAmericanalligator

The shot density and dispersion of a vanilla AH-9: http://gfycat.com/MindlessOldAustraliankelpie

[singleton 22]

Are you talking about the vanilla AH-9? As to A2 - there were mods to fix the default M134s, STLB being an example of that. It was one round fired per three ammo expended in vanilla, not "every 10th round".

Emphatically "No". The exact same issue that was in A2 is reintroduced in A3 - the vanilla miniguns expend 3 units of ammo for every 1 shot actually fired. This is trivially easy to check even without scripting - fire a short burst (just tap the trigger) at water, count how many impact splashes you see, look at how many bullets were expended. They will not match - it will be a 1:3 of hits:ammo lost. The MELB helos do not have this issue any longer (though they did in the past). They are absolutely more capable than the vanilla ones ever were. Perhaps you're using an oudated version, or have a mod conflict?

An example of your "15 targets" being knocked down easily with a MELB's miniguns: http://gfycat.com/HighlevelKnobbyAfricanharrierhawk

The shot density and dispersion of the MELB M134: http://gfycat.com/UniqueForsakenAmericanalligator

The shot density and dispersion of a vanilla AH-9: http://gfycat.com/MindlessOldAustraliankelpie

Very interesting! Those results are definitely not in line with the tests which I did. I hawked over footage and tried comparing both little birds and had fairly different results! I am beginning to think that it may very well be a mod conflict as we do have a 13GB modpack.

[sykocrazy 67]

Thanks everyone for the amazing feedback!

A lot of stuff has been looked at and fixed or improved. The A3 update has brought some new bugs that we weren't aware of but, again, thanks to you guys we were able to find and fix those as well.

About ejecting from the pilot/copilot seat. I'm hesitant to add another entry into the action menu, right now i'm working on the MFDs so that i can remove an addAction. But i'll throw the "eject" option in the next update and see what the reaction is.

Very interesting! Those results are definitely not in line with the tests which I did. I hawked over footage and tried comparing both little birds and had fairly different results! I am beginning to think that it may very well be a mod conflict as we do have a 13GB modpack.

As Dslyecxi said, when we released the first public version of the mod, the miniguns were poorly configured. I'll add the GAU-19 to that list as well, it was too accurate and didn't fire fast enough. After many days of heated discussion between me, Diesel and a few other friends we reached a point where we felt comfortable sharing it with more people. We're still not 100% sure that this is the final version of these guns but we're always working to improve them. Please let us know if it's a mod conflict so we can test it and find a fix for it :D

Our main focus now with regards to weapons is aiming. The grease pencil mark is a cool idea but it doesn't work too well, especially when flying around using head tracking. We're trying different things to improve this crucial component of the AH-6.

You guys might see a small update next week to fix some of the bugs that showed up after the Arma 3 update. If we do it there will be some other fixes as well, like the completely broken FFV seats(thanks to Dslyecxi), tweaks to the AFM(thanks to swissMAG and nightsta1ker), some small sound fixes and i might throw these babies in:

[Squeeky 10]

Our main focus now with regards to weapons is aiming. The grease pencil mark is a cool idea but it doesn't work too well, especially when flying around using head tracking. We're trying different things to improve this crucial component of the AH-6.

You guys might see a small update next week to fix some of the bugs that showed up after the Arma 3 update. If we do it there will be some other fixes as well, like the completely broken FFV seats(thanks to Dslyecxi), tweaks to the AFM(thanks to swissMAG and nightsta1ker), some small sound fixes and i might throw these babies in:

http://i.imgur.com/5snIqKf.jpg?1

Great news on the work around the current grease marks. I myself have had issues with TIR, mainly around the horizontal side movement when aligning for a shot. I look forward to seeing the solutions you've come up with. I'm guessing it has something to do with the red dots in Dslyecxi's clips on the previous page :)

[ricardo92 10]

Amazing work once more! Have you looked into FFV for Pilot/Copilot yet?

[dslyecxi 23]

Great news on the work around the current grease marks. I myself have had issues with TIR, mainly around the horizontal side movement when aligning for a shot. I look forward to seeing the solutions you've come up with. I'm guessing it has something to do with the red dots in Dslyecxi's clips on the previous page :)

What you see in that clip is something I did for myself/ST, along with some other tweaks to the MELBs to bring them more in line with the gameplay experience we're looking for. It's not representative of what might be officially added.

edit:

Also, it came up earlier in the thread, but re: having a TOW missile variant - I would love to see that, that'd be amazing!

[Squeeky 10]

What you see in that clip is something I did for myself/ST, along with some other tweaks to the MELBs to bring them more in line with the gameplay experience we're looking for. It's not representative of what might be officially added.

Ahh should of guessed you/ST had modded it internally. Either way I still look forward to see what the MELB team introduce over the next week or so. For now I have had to deactivate the horizontal tracking on TIR.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Squeeky

[robowilso 40]

you guys apparentyl are more in depth than myself, but if I am allowed to 'vote' as to this issue, I would by far prefer that every round expended be a True round. Anything else would be uncivilised ;)

[gheoss 10]

Awesome mod, a must for SF insertion and Seals Operations.

Thank you from the Team SFS milsim!

[kimi_uy 134]

Getting alot of:

19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:41 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:42 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:43 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:43 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.
19:02:43 Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin.SmokeShellWhite'.

When you activate the countermeasures and it goes on for 30sec(the full duration when the jammer is active).

I've also added a rpt file to your feedback tracker.

Yeap I've noticed this in my hmd mod too, cause of the jammer. Something must have changed on the latest game update.

[sykocrazy 67]

Yeap I've noticed this in my hmd mod too, cause of the jammer. Something must have changed on the latest game update.

Yeah for some reason it's trying to call for a nonexistent entry in the BulletBase class. I think i fixed it by adding the following line to the jammer ammo class.

effectsSmoke = "EmptyEffect";

Let me know if it works for you too!

[machineabuse 11]

Our main focus now with regards to weapons is aiming. The grease pencil mark is a cool idea but it doesn't work too well, especially when flying around using head tracking. We're trying different things to improve this crucial component of the AH-6.

A HMD an option so that pilots who prefer/need it can have that would go a long way to ensuring MELB has good reach in the community.

For everyone else who may make use of the grease pencil mark I suppose I would ask what is the standard practice for AH6 weapons employment in reality? Do they really just put a dot on the windscreen or do they draw some kind of reticule? Half of my problems come from head tracking my target and trying to bring the dot into my field of view and not immediately realizing that it's my aiming mark. The other of course is being off center when I pull the trigger which is something I've just tried to "deal with", but makes me wonder how less or more difficult than reality it is.

Following what I've seen of AH6s on Youtube I've been try to gun my way onto target before squeezing off a quick rocket but that often requires me to come off a flight control to switch weapon via Num key. Having many modes for guns and rockets doesn't help much for being able to make that informed switch rapidly into the correct rocket/guns mode via the fire mode key.

I do like the authenticity but this level of commitment to it may require some kind of pilot's resource for MELB users to learn from and reference. Real pilots of course get trained ;)

[Gruman 122]

Had a lot of fun with AFM flying the MH-6M (RotorLib a bit tweaked).

The Hellfire Variant looks hot. Looking forward. I do not really need a TOW Variant, but heck, why not :)

I would prefer a HMD-Free version. I think there will be enough HMD-Mods coming out. I actually like the grease pencil variant, I would just prefer a simple cross like it was in A2 ACE. The Cross and Circle was to much, the dot a bit minimalistic :D

I have a key on by Warthog Throttle which pauses TrackIR for the time beeing. Very happy with that solution.

Just a question about the service menu. Will we be able to define the fuel level in the Service menu also? Would be nice if we could load up only 50% of the fuel to have a bit less weight.

Yeah for some reason it's trying to call for a nonexistent entry in the BulletBase class. I think i fixed it by adding the following line to the jammer ammo class.

Didnt BIS added Chaffs to the Flaredispensers in 1.48? That probably caused the issue

Best regards

[robowilso 40]

Had a lot of fun with AFM flying the MH-6M (RotorLib a bit tweaked).

The Hellfire Variant looks hot. Looking forward. I do not really need a TOW Variant, but heck, why not :)

I would prefer a HMD-Free version. I think there will be enough HMD-Mods coming out. I actually like the grease pencil variant, I would just prefer a simple cross like it was in A2 ACE. The Cross and Circle was to much, the dot a bit minimalistic :D

I have a key on by Warthog Throttle which pauses TrackIR for the time beeing. Very happy with that solution.

Just a question about the service menu. Will we be able to define the fuel level in the Service menu also? Would be nice if we could load up only 50% of the fuel to have a bit less weight.

Didnt BIS added Chaffs to the Flaredispensers in 1.48? That probably caused the issue

Best regards

@SwissMAF, I think that's a very insightful question to ask to all the addon authros out there that have integrated John Spartan's and Sauls's 'Service menu'! The very visualization i'm getting imagining choosing to disassemble benches and bolt on missle pylons and vulcans (or w.e. GAU) they decide to go with, missle variants, rocket variants [please guys create rocket varities similiar to NodUnit and Franze's AH-64 Apache mod. I know the weapon payloads of the two aircrafts are very different; options is what i'm trying to get at. Most everyone loves to have the option to do something. I have a thing with lights, console lights, cargo lights, collision lights etc... You guys are really doing [and on the path TO DO alot} to change the dynamics of this airframe and bring to life all of the many roles it can fulfill on the battlefield. I love it!

[ruPal 143]

IMO, pencil mark works well and pencil cross was better. HMD looks pretty strange on such small birds. Keep it simple, please. If someone needs HMD, ask Kimi to add this little bird to his HMD mod. This will help to keep this mod modular: want a simple pencil sight - MELB alone, want MELB with HMD - use MELB + Kimi's HMD.

Personaly I don't like HMD on such helicopters, cause it take too much space screen and annoy you when you use Track IR.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Kukus

[cygan 16]

Don't agree ....pencil cross mask/hide the target when you firing from a longer distance. Meaby if cross without circle.

[ruPal 143]

Maybe it is possible to make a small separate pbo with different configs and textures (or hidden selections). You want pencil cross - install MELB.pbo + MELB_cross.pbo, circle - install MELB.pbo + MELB_circle.pbo, clear windshield - MELB.pbo only. Something like that. Just a suggestion.