Lesh's Towing Mod 1.0 (2018-06-16)

[leshrack 50]

Funny thing is. If you went ahead and for example configured a static object to be towable and configured for example the pickup truck to be able to tow it would work just fine *wink wink*. (currently the towable object has to have at least one of the following base classes for it to work though "Air", "LandVehicle", "Ship", "thingX", if you feel like there is an object that doesn't have a base class that is in this set let me know and i'll see about adding it in a future version).

 

I already did experiments with the mobile landing platform that was added in the helo dlc in order to add support to choppers that have skids instead of wheels but i need a way to tie down the chopper (or any other object on top of the platform) for it to make any sense as they keep sliding off as soon as you start moving. I also had a working example of a pickup towing a pickup towing a pickup towing a pickup towing a pickup towing a pickup which was cool and possible in the current version as long as you configure the pickup to be a towable and a towing vehicle.

 

In other news i'm also working on a way to have mass affect the acceleration of the towing vehicle to discourage towing b-2's and c-5's with an ugv at least very fast. But altering a vehicles acceleration is not an easy thing unfortunately.

 

 

So i am abit confused. This mod could be configured to tow regular vehicles?  one thing i miss from arma2 is being able to tow vehicles and currently the only thing ive seen in the R3Logic which is great it gets the job done but the complete lack of phyic's is nasty.  I want to be able to setup a weight system so that lets say an mrap could tow and mrap but not a tank and only tanks could be towed by that hemit tow truck or the bobcat, just stuff that makes sense.  after reading threw all the post that seems to be the case but i just wanted clarification! def something that should be in ace. nice work!

 

The mass based selection isn't quite yet possible. Like I mentioned above I'm looking into having mass play a role in the towing but currently no luck yet on that front. A way around this would be to configure the tow points to be at a different altitude. so that you'd have heavy vehicles be able to pull heavy things and light things light. but you wouldn't be able to pull a light thing with a heavy thing or vice versa.

As I understand Leshrack have already implemented vehicle towing in his mod. All you need is compatibility mods for other vehicle mods. But it is not Leshrack work but vehicle mod authors, am I right? And as I understand all you need is to add specific config entries into original vehicle configs.

 

This is true, however vanilla vehicles are sort of my responsibility i'd say. So far i'm still focusing on the air operations side of it but i will be expanding the list of vanilla vehicles in future versions.

[Moon_chilD 200]

So I basically have to create my own config pbo for making vehicles able to tow other vehicles (For example a hunter tow another hunter). 
I'd do that. Is there an easy way to find out the positions for the tow attachment point (The Yellow ball thingy xD)

[dixon13 15]

In your readme file, it says,"Download the latest version of CBA here: http://dev.withsix.com/projects/cca/wiki/CBA".CBA has now transferred to GitHub. Here is the link to their latest stable builds: "https://github.com/CBATeam/CBA_A3/releases"

[druminator 10]

Great mod and it works great however here comes a noob question: What exactly do I do with the pbo files if I wanna make the F-18 towable for example? 

[leshrack 50]

In order to be able to tow the F-18's you need to copy the leshtow_jcjs_f18_configs.pbo and leshtow_jcjs_f18_configs.pbo.leshtow.bisign files from the optionals folder into the addons folder (both inside the mod folder). Hope this helps.

 

In other news both CUP and RHS have natively supported towing for a vast majority of their air assets that have wheels for a while now. There are a few missing with the latest updates but I will be looking into those and providing the authors with the required adjustments. Additionally I have provided Fuller (USAF airforce pack) with values for all his planes so hopefully when an update for that comes around the planes included will also be towable.

 

So with that I would like at this point thank the authors of CUP and RHS as well as Firewill and Fuller for giving their birds support for my towing mod.

[druminator 10]

In order to be able to tow the F-18's you need to copy the leshtow_jcjs_f18_configs.pbo and leshtow_jcjs_f18_configs.pbo.leshtow.bisign files from the optionals folder into the addons folder (both inside the mod folder). Hope this helps.

Thx, got it to work now.

 

Is the tweak only local in mp? Meaning that if I host it's just me that can tow the F-18 unless everyone else also moves their files?

[leshrack 50]

Yes, that is correct.

[madpat3 29]

"If you are a mod maker and would like to enable your vehicles for towing there will be documentation made available soonâ„¢. In the meanwhile shoot me a pm (Leshrack on the bohemia forums or discord) and I'll walk you through it."

 

is this docu available, already?

 

"In other news i have been running tests on the mobile landing platform to make that towable and as such have even succeeded. Now I just need to figure out how to keep anything thats parked ontop of it in place as the platform beneath moves."

 

any Progress in that? what addon is required for the mobile landing platform? the classname is Land_MobileLandingPlatform_01_F

[leshrack 50]

Hah. To be honest i haven't had much time to look at this for quite a while. I'll need to do an update to coincide with Tanoa anyway maybe i'll get to writing that documentation. I never had real luck with the mobile landing platform but i'll have another crack at it.

[madpat3 29]

currently the mod ain't working with the latest cba.

[leshrack 50]

that would be unfortunate, which version of CBA is this?

[madpat3 29]

omg!

i made the most stupid mistake. i didn't start it with your mod :wacko:

 

sorry for the false Alarm.

[KENNETH03 13]

Very nice MOD, but work with F/A-18 Hornet??????

[leshrack 50]

Very nice MOD, but work with F/A-18 Hornet??????

 

It works with John and Saul's F/A-18 if you copy the correct pbo from the optionals folder into the addons folder.

[madpat3 29]

i tried to make a helicopter towing compatible. it works, but when i push it backwards, it lifts its nose and its tail hits the ground. maybe something to do with the "wheels Offset"? what Funktion has it?

[leshrack 50]

The issue where you push it backwards and it lifts its nose has to do with the chopper itself. I can't remember the reason as to why that happens unfortunately but you'd see the same behaviour if you just gave the chopper a negative speed without using the towing mod. (Perhaps Chairborne can remember what the cause was as he was the one that figured it out iirc)

 

The wheel offset is the coordinates which it uses to calculate the direction of the towed vehicle. I wrote a fancier setDir function to take it into account which actually also rotates the object around that point instead of [0,0,0] which is what setDir rotates around by default. It'll be included in the next update which i will endevour to get out in the following weeks to add APEX vehicle support.

[madpat3 29]

would you consider integrating the towing tractor from airfield logistics? the mod hasn't been updated for a while and somehow the signs ain't working on our servers. i know we could run it with cup's tractor, but the mod is too big just for one vehicle.

[leshrack 50]

I might make a seperate mod for that at some point. I'd have to speak with Peral / the cup guys about it. But at this point its not in the plans. I'm struggling to find time to make the improvements that i want as it is :)

[VTOLAFMPLS:3 36]

skid helicopter support ?

[SGT Fuller 856]

This mod is now compatible with the USAF mod with the upcoming release

[madpat3 29]

I might make a seperate mod for that at some point. I'd have to speak with Peral / the cup guys about it. But at this point its not in the plans. I'm struggling to find time to make the improvements that i want as it is :)

 

how about, if you create a new class of the stomper and make it driveable. like a substitude for a "real" towing tractor.

for driving the stomper via "drone-remotecontrol" is practically very inconvenient.

[TeTeT 1523]

14 hours ago, ss9 said:

This thing is throwing me an error every time I start a mission because of a dependency on Chairborne's Harrier, which I'm not using since it's rolled into CUP and would be redundant.  Probably out of date.

Take care to only copy the optional pbo's you actually use in the addons directory. If you don't use Chairborne's Harrier, simply remove the optional pbo for it (leshtow_cb_harrier_configs.pbo I believe).

[ElCharismo 0]

Any updates to which mods include this functionality natively, or whether full Apex compatibility has been achieved?

 

In a moderate amount of research time I have yet to see a superior alternative (Advanced Towing using ropes, for example, is frought with peril when used on aerial vehicles). Would love to hear the latest!

[leshrack 50]

Hey sorry for the late response. Currently Tanoa vehicles aren't supported. I was planning on adding support but never really got around to it. Now I'm waiting for the Plane DLC to hit and I will be updating the mod with a few optimizations and a cool new feature(maybe(tm)) and up-to-date vanilla configs. If below you can't find a mod listed that you'd like to be supported let me know and I'll contact the author to find a solution (either native support or compat patch).

 

As far as I'm aware the following mods support towing now without compat patches.

RHS

CUP

F-18 and SU-35

Firewill's planes (might be out of date thought)

USAF pack

Unsung (forgot about this one :) )

 

Edited March 17, 2017 by leshrack
added another mod to the list

[madpat3 29]

speaking of rhs. does anyone know how to make rhs' ch53 towable?

 

i tried it with this:

 

class CfgPatches
{
    class lesh_tow_CH53E
    {
        units[]={};
        weapons[]={};
        requiredVersion=0.1;
        requiredAddons[]=
        {
            "rhsusf_c_ch53"
        };
    };
};
class CfgVehicles
{
    class rhsusf_CH53E_USMC
    {
        LESH_canBeTowed=1;
        LESH_towFromFront=1;
        LESH_AxisOffsetTarget[]={0,11.3,-3.5999999};
        LESH_WheelOffset[]={0,-3};
    };
    class rhsusf_CH53_USMC_D: rhsusf_CH53E_USMC
    {
        LESH_canBeTowed=1;
        LESH_towFromFront=1;
        LESH_AxisOffsetTarget[]={0,11.3,-3.5999999};
        LESH_WheelOffset[]={0,-3};
    };
};

 

but it doesn't work at all.

 

i'm new to this, so please excuse foolishness.