ILBE Assault Pack with RT-1523G / TFAR

[Guest]

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

ILBE Assault Pack with RT-1523G / TFAR v1.2

Community Base addons A3

Advanced Combat Environment 3 (ACE 3)

Task Force Arrowhead Radio

[Frag The Cullen 38]

Something I've been struggling with:

RT-1523G (next-gen AN/PRC-119F)

5 watts transmit, 30-87.975 MHz, 8 lbs with battery

VHF Blade Assembly (modeled), 30-108 MHz

VHF Whip Assembly (modeled), 30-108 MHz

Not compatible:

VHF/UHF Antenna (DD antenna, modeled), 90-512 MHZ

RF-3080 SATCOM Antenna (modeled, awesome), 240-400 MHZ

See the problem? These awesome antennas you've modeled are not compatible with the existing TFAR radios. I don't know what you have access to in terms of radio interfaces, but I know TFAR has more radios than just the RT-1523G.

Suggestion:

RT-1949 (AN/PRC-117G)

10 watts transmit, 30-512 MHZ voice (up to 2000 MHZ data), 12 lbs with battery

Antenna ranges doubled due to double transmit power, compatible with all four antennas you've modeled; has a fifth antenna style used for data only (AN/W. It turns out that this radio has range equivalent to the existing ARC-210 radio currently in TFAR - I asked around about the PRC-117 on a 10 foot whip, and the responses were consistent at ~25 miles, or 40 km.

Ignore what I said previously about the PRC-150; HF is terrible and nobody likes it. If you want to keep your antennas, I strongly suggest you make a new radio interface in the form of the RT-1949. It will work the same way as the existing radios, but will have different face and wider frequency band. It's made easier by the fact that you already have a HAPPIS logo to stand in for the HARRIS logo. The other option is to remove the DD and SATCOM antennas for the sake of accuracy, which is an option I don't like - I saw that the file size for the SATCOM PBO went from 7 mb to 13 mb in the latest patch; you've been a very busy man.

To leave it as it is is to skew players' understanding of what radios can and can't do.

[raspu86 92]

Hey Frag,

 

I'm aware of that. That's because the antennas were made mainly with the AN/PRC-117F from ACRE in mind. I hope to port this pack to ACRE anyway in the future.

 

I do have an interface for the AN/PRC-117G laying around somewhere. It still would need quite some work and I'm not sure about the compatible antennas either.

[Frag The Cullen 38]

Cool, glad to hear. It's difficult to gauge how much research/experience someone already has, or how much they already know about a given subject.

 

I do have an interface for the AN/PRC-117G laying around somewhere. It still would need quite some work and I'm not sure about the compatible antennas either.

The PRC-117G is compatible with all of the antennas you've modeled, yeah. It's roughly the same size as the RT-1523, so you don't need to change need your models. There is a fifth antenna that you shouldn't bother modelling; it's used specifically for ANW2 data networking, which is useless inside ARMA.

Also, a caveat: due to the nature of UHF, the DD antenna is line-of-sight only; it has no beyond-line-of-sight capability like the traditional VHF comms we're familiar with, as far as I can tell. The understanding of every other radio operator I've met is that the DD antenna follows the guideline, "If you can see it, you can hit it." The SATCOM antenna, also in the UHF band, avoids this by shooting at satellites.

This weekend my friends and I found out that you also included the ability to swap between all three antennas on the fly, which is rad. I was curious, so I went and verified the ingame weights of the antennas, and they do all weigh 1 lb each IRL.

Would you mind if I wrote a new Read Me? This mod is so much more well-featured than it initially appears.

 

_assemble_antenna = ["assemble antenna" call fn_tfw_lbe_classnames;

...

player playAction "medicStop";

player forcewalk true;

_disassemble_antenna = ["disassemble antenna" call fn_tfw_lbe_classnames;

...

player playAction "medicStop";

player forcewalk false;

Poking around inside Zade's Backpack on Chest mod, is that really all the code that would be required to force the player to walk after they perform "assemble antenna"? (With forcewalk false; on every other function including disassmeble_antenna, as insurance.)

Edit: I don't think I understand this yet. Seems too easy.

Just brainstorming here:

Current situation: Running is allowed while the antenna is up. Hilarious, but immersion-breaking.

Alternative 1: instead of forced walking, execute disassemble_antenna if the player tries to run with it up. If they tried to run for a reason, medicstop will get them killed; no good.

Alternative 2: instead of forced walking, execute disassemble_antenna_fast, which is identical to the existing function but without medicstop. Could be used as a quick way to disassemble the antenna when action demands; could be abused by players who simply don't want to wait for medicstop, no good.

Alternative 3: running while the antenna is up is allowed, but only in short bursts, because in real life the antenna will repeatedly hit you in the back of the head and throw you off balance. Could use forcespeed function to just keep it slow, but requires a lot more effort to code. I'm sure there is a way to set up a function that if the player is still running after a given time, disassemble_antenna will be automatically executed, and the player will be warned by text message when they start running.

Alternative 4: Force walking while the antenna is assmembled. Uses the forcewalk function. Possibly dangerous to the player via not being able to run, but they made that choice when they assembled the antenna. An assembled antenna and a high knee in the tree line go hand in hand.

I remember you said you were considering an unfolded blade antenna, so to to give incentive and and meaning to each antenna choice, the range of each would be ordered from least to most: folded whip, folded blade, unfolded blade, unfolded whip. I have no idea where the DD antenna fits, because "line of sight only" might only be an option to you in ACRE 2. It's current use would be role playing a dedicated air support net, because that's the primary function of UHF antennas: talking to things in the sky.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Frag The Cullen

[raspu86 92]

@Frag: I'll think about the extended whip antenna. It's not just setting forceWalk to true. I also have to take into account what to do if the player drops/changes the pack. Because of your nagging  ;) I also revisited the AN/PRC-117G. The model is there I just have to paint it and get it into the game: https://i.imgur.com/WBpivKB.png

[Frag The Cullen 38]

@Frag: I'll think about the extended whip antenna. It's not just setting forceWalk to true. I also have to take into account what to do if the player drops/changes the pack. Because of your nagging ;) I also revisited the AN/PRC-117G. The model is there I just have to paint it and get it into the game: https://i.imgur.com/WBpivKB.png

Lol. I'm a patient man; I dont expect to see these changes immediately or at all, and I don't expect these sorts of features to take more than a year to get running. I see great potential in this mod, and I know that you have the ability to achieve whatever it is that YOU want to do with YOUR mod. I want to help make that happen. I've pretty much laid down all the ideas I had, now it's time for me to put critical thought into helping apply those ideas.

Dropping or changing the pack is a problem, yeah. There's no way to change how dropping a pack happens without possibly messing with other mods. The only thing I can think of right now is to make that prominently listed as a known bug, just like how the medicstop animation doesn't play in certain stances. That bug isn't your fault, it's the fault of whoever created medicstop. The only solution I can think of to solve the animation issue is to have the function put (not force) the player into a stance where the animation DOES play, and then running the medicstop animation.

The simplest and least disruptive solution is to not force players to walk when they have an assembled antenna, but I consider this an interesting challenge. The only things I know that force you to walk are ACE's carry/drag commands, having leg wounds in ACE, and Zade's Backpack On Chest, which also stops working if the player dies with a backpack on his chest in the current session. I'm working on it; the solution I'm working on does not involve just putting forcewalk true in assemble_antenna or forcewalk false in the rest.

That PRC-117G work in progress you posted looks pretty good - it will be nice to see modern Marine Corps radios in a TFAR setting. I'm sure the Army still plays with the RT-1523G, but the Marine Corps is retiring the RT-1523E and F, and is most likely passing up the G.

Edited June 15, 2016 by Frag The Cullen

[Midgard_117th 11]

Good job, could you add the empty backpacks? (without the radios) for the rest of the troop? I mean this for aesthetics mostly hee.

[Frag The Cullen 38]

Here's what I've got so far, in a very basic concept (this space reserved for me slowly learning how to script):

It would be a new script that is called in the init.sqf,

it looks for a special counter that tells whether the script is already running, to prevent double instances,

it looks for whether the player is wearing a backpack starting with tfw_ilbe_a, and whether the player is in a vehicle,

If backpack is tfw_ilbe_a and player is not in vehicle,

forcespeed=the speed of walking

If backpack is not tfw_ilbe_a or player is in a vehicle,

forcespeed=false;

wait two seconds and run again

(forever)

Totally not gross.

Given that people seem to want all the colors and all the variants, the arsenal could be cleaned up by unlisting the extended antenna versions, so they're... only available through ACE interaction? Harumph. I'm gonna go sit down.

[raspu86 92]

A bit more work on the AN/PRC-117G 'interface model'. https://i.imgur.com/We5VV56.jpg

This is getting out of hand  :lol:

[Singh Aram 137]

 

Looks  ........

[raspu86 92]

finally somewhat satisfied with it https://i.imgur.com/7CTDneo.png

[RangerDobby 0]

finally somewhat satisfied with it https://i.imgur.com/7CTDneo.png

This looks awesome. I'm having flashbacks to my time in the Middle East :lol:

[Coastie07 0]

As a radio operator, this is excellent work! My Arma unit uses ACRE, so I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

[xxgetbuck123 945]

G'day mate, love the mod but quick question

 

I'm unable to extend/deploy any antenna when I've got the backpack as a custom classname for our milsim community? I've specifically configed the radios to have the stuff we need in them however, like I said, can't change antenna. Works fine with the standalone ILBE radios, but not the custom classname ones. You wouldn't happen to have any idea why this would happen would you? 

 

Cheers

[raspu86 92]

G'day mate, love the mod but quick question

 

I'm unable to extend/deploy any antenna when I've got the backpack as a custom classname for our milsim community? I've specifically configed the radios to have the stuff we need in them however, like I said, can't change antenna. Works fine with the standalone ILBE radios, but not the custom classname ones. You wouldn't happen to have any idea why this would happen would you? 

 

Cheers

 

Does your custom class inherit from the original class? Can you post your config?

[ayylmao 30]

*correction

please add a version thats just the backpacks with no TFR dependencies, these backpacks are hot, would love to use them with ACRE

[raspu86 92]

Hey guys, I just wanted to inform you that there is version without the TFAR dependency available for download in the first post.

[Guest]

ACRE version frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

ILBE Assault Pack with RT-1523G / TFAR v1.2

ILBE Assault Pack with RT-1523G / ACRE v1.2

Community Base addons A3

Advanced Combat Environment 3 (ACE 3)

Task Force Arrowhead Radio (TFAR version)

ACRE2 (ACRE version)

[stabcon 3]

Quick question, does the acre version have any functionality other than looks? As in, will range be increased if an acre radio is put in them? Thanks for all the hard work.

[pandex 10]

^ +1 on this, as we are thinking of moving over to ACRE, but we heavily use these radios. and not sure if the ACRE versions actually do anything... 

[Capt Childs 178]

Off-topic, we were also thinking of moving to ACRE, but it looks like TFAR 1.0 is (finally!!) going to support half-duplex, which for us is the main reason to go to ACRE in the first place.

[raspu86 92]

Unfortunately the ACRE version is cosmetics only. It does not include the RF-3080 either. To replace the antenna of a radio (imo most of them in this mod should fit the 117F) they first would have to be modelled/simulated in ACRE. Also there is no API available to change the antenna of a radio as far as I know.

[Capt Reese 1]

Having issues deploying the SATCOM radio and the animation is stuck for whatever reason. Please reply with an update, thanks!

[Spatsiba 88]

Having issues deploying the SATCOM radio and the animation is stuck for whatever reason. Please reply with an update, thanks!

Asking for updates is considered as spam. I don't have any problems with the SATCOM. What other mods are you using? What are you doing when deplyoing it? 

[ski2060 167]

Reporting a bug I wouldn't consider as spam.

My unit is having the same issue.  We're running a bunch of other mods, but I'll see if we can get some minimal mods testing to verify this is happening without our usual stuff.