Aliens Mod

[hcpookie 3770]

Aliens Mod v2.0  🙂 Vilas has granted me permission to port his Colonial Marines items into Arma 3.  This is based on Vilas' work and credit goes to him! 

 

NOW available on Steam!  Onedrive d.l location is being updated (it is SLOW).

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2221541445

 

Copyright 2018 hcpookie.  This item is not authorized for posting on Steam, except under the Steam account named hcpookie

 

changelog:

Spoiler

v2:

- First version available on Steam

- New improved APC model (Vilas)
- Improved pulse rifle model (Vilas)
- Added static Sulaco 3D model
- Improved dropship textures
- Added loadout edit capability to dropship
- Additional dropship textures based on the "Colonial Marines Technical Manual".
- Dropship now capable of reaching "dropship" heights - now mission makeers can setpos "2" to achieve dropship heights. Tested up to 50km!

 

 

- FIX:  dropship crashes when vehicle cargo is loaded

 - FIX:  dropship damage textures

 - FIX:  Vilas P4 flashlight direction was reversed

 - IMPROVED:  VTOL / Hover indicator display settings

 - IMPROVED:  dropship cargo affects flight dynamics

 - IMPROVED:  dropship now uses custom script to attach APC to the ramp instead of the "default" VIV location

 - IMPROVED:  dropship damage values

 - IMPROVED:  dropship physX gear values

 - NEW:  dropship pilot cockpit "cargo secured" indicator to know when the vehicle is loaded, and vehicle chat pointers

 

 

Vilas' original A2 work can be found here:    http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=7128

 

I have updated the models and features to Arma3 standards... PhysX, handling, all the characteristics are present.  I have also added a few extra goodies along the way.  Download may be found here:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AGVykadR_FRbicMP

 

As this is a new release it may have some undiscovered issues... we'll have to play it out and see.

 

APC

The APC needed very little work.  PhysX is present.  She carries a full complement of Colonial Marines as well as UA-571 turrets in cargo.  I have adjusted the geometry so it can drive over rough terrain a little better... the APC in the movie was based on an airport tow truck and was not well equipped for offroad terrain... we'll just have to see how well she works over rough terrain!  🙂

 

      

 

UA571 Turret

Did I say turrets?  Yes I did!  They are automated and can be controlled via the UAV operator.  The turrets can be disassembled into a backpack!  Colonial Marines have a UAV operator that carries this pack and the UAV terminal that can take control of any turrets within the area.  The numbers are synchronized in MP and are persistent, even if the turret is packed and re-deployed.  So "turret 5" will always be "turret 5".   🙂

 

The ammo will reload after a few minutes time, so when it runs dry, give it 10 minutes or so.

 

 

 

UDL-4 "Cheyenne" Dropship

The dropship works pretty well.  As you can see I added many PIP screens to both the pilot and gunner seats.  The dropship uses the BIS cargo feature to carry the APC within the cargo, and is subject to the limitations thereof.  The weapons located within the weapon pods will work ONLY when deployed, with the exception of the A-A missiles, which are available when the pods are stowed.  You can do some serious damage with the rockets so use sparingly!

 

Use the "flapsdown" shortcut on your HOTAS to open the weapon struts, and "flapsup" to store them.

 

The dropship is equipped with the sling load configuration although this has not been fully tested.  She flies and hovers pretty well, and overall seems fairly well polished.  Texture is "OK" and lacks a good UV map with features (rivet panels etc) but I am having difficulty with Blender mapping so this will have to do for now.

 

       
 

 

Soldiers

The Colonial Marines and Weyland-Yutani Operatives are present.  Colonial Marines in BLUFOR with forest camo, and WY Operatives in INDEPENDENT, with sand-colored camo.  OPFOR - that is as close as the BIS Vanilla CSAT soldiers 🙂
 

The "classic" colonial marines are present - M41 pulse rifle, M-240 flame unit, M-56 heavy gunner, Officer and Pilot.  Additionally, the "extra" weapon sets found in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual are also present - sniper, DMR, grenadier, A-T soldier, etc.  Ammo and Equipment crates, as well as USCM and WY flags, are present in their respective categories... simply search for "colonial" or "weyland" to find them if you have trouble with them.

 

The shoulder-mounted lights do not operate.  There seems to be a limitation on the uniforms' ability to use the light feature, although they are within the weapon category.

 

   

 

 

I strongly recommend downloading other "scifi" addons to complement this mod, such as:

 

The Pandora map: 

 

The Trebuchet Halo mod:

 

Raptors pack: 

 

... and others that may be 'futuristic'. 

 

 

[Eldowww 9]

fuck yeah, this looks beautiful man, great to see somebody has continued on the work from Vilas :) 

keen to see future progress with this!

[hcpookie 3770]

Small update - the cockpit of the dropship is actually improved since those pics, so don't be surprised to see a little better (I hesitate to say "more realistic") cockpit!

 

[TechThings 22]

Great Mod.

I Really loved Vilas's USCM units when he released them for ARMA 2 and your porting and refinement of those units is pretty damn cool.

To simulate the shoulder mounted torchs i have been using the shoulder mounted flashlight mod by Feint on a few of my missions and that seems to work.

 

There was a small issue of the UDL-4 Cheyenne being unable to fly with the APC stored inside. The dropship pitches its nose up then will explode. This was tested on stable with only CBA, Dynasound 2 and Aliens mods active.

 

Thank you for your hard work and i look forward to what you create in the future.

[Guest]

Good to see this released.

Can confirm the APC in cargo bug, no other mods used.

And a couple wish-list things:

The Smart Gun uses a thermal image feed that goes to the head set. So instead of using the little post thing, it would be more ideal to have a TWS using the camera on top of the barrel.

Also could you make the ramp separate from the landing gear on the dropship? And it seems like the UD-4L can't hover for crap.

Aside from me picking nits, good first release.

[jeza 5416]

Yes Pookie, Maybe we can build a fire, sing a couple of songs!

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

1 hour ago, jeza said:

Yes Pookie, Maybe we can build a fire, sing a couple of songs!

 

Hum... We should get back, 'cause it'll be dark soon. They come mostly at night. Mostly.

 

Great mod, thanks again !! 

[sammael 366]

Thank you for your hard work . Cool mod

[hcpookie 3770]

Apologies... the "cannot load APC into the dropship" is indeed frustrating! 

 

I had an attachto script I was using, and found that the BIS stuff worked and opted to use that.  I swear it was working in the October time frame so perhaps a more recent update has affected this behavior.  :( 

 

I'll have another look at this... I recall the dropship would fly a while and then explode, however I thought that was addressed.  Let me dig into the dropship some more... that attachto script may be the only way to make this work after all.

9 hours ago, b00ce said:

Also could you make the ramp separate from the landing gear on the dropship?

 

 

And it seems like the UD-4L can't hover for crap.

 

 

Ramp is part of the gear.  Not planning to remove that to avoid user action menu clutter.  There is no need for the ramp to open if the dropship gear is down.

 

It hovers fine.  You must remember this is a "VTOL plane" class and not a helicopter class, so if you engage the VTOL before spooling up the engine, it will hover with zero problems.  If you don't engage VTOL (there is a huge indicator on the dashboard to let you know) then it will behave as an airplane.

 

Edit to add: 

 

Use the "flapsdown" shortcut on your HOTAS to open the hovership weapon struts, and "flapsup" to store them.

 

And yes to answer questions those sounds are sampled from clips in the movie! 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, hcpookie said:

It hovers fine.  You must remember this is a "VTOL plane" class and not a helicopter class, so if you engage the VTOL before spooling up the engine, it will hover with zero problems.  If you don't engage VTOL (there is a huge indicator on the dashboard to let you know) then it will behave as an airplane.

By that I mean it gets like 15 feet off the ground and I have to switch to forward flight to get any higher.

 

2 hours ago, hcpookie said:

And yes to answer questions those sounds are sampled from clips in the movie! 

Is the dropship landing gear sound the one from the cockpit door?

 

Quote

Ramp is part of the gear.  Not planning to remove that to avoid user action menu clutter.  There is no need for the ramp to open if the dropship gear is down.

Fair enough I guess, it is your mod after all. All I can do is look at you like this and say "Pweeeeeaaaaaase..."

 

Quote

I'll have another look at this... I recall the dropship would fly a while and then explode, however I thought that was addressed.  Let me dig into the dropship some more... that attachto script may be the only way to make this work after all.

Good luck, godspeed, may the force be with you.

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

Hey hcpookie, solid port as always, having a darn good time with those Space Mariners on Hardley´s Hope and beyond... but as I haven´t seen nobody posting it, maybe anybody noticed yet:

 

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/170410300188695615/15F30D46FACA53E49955B321C80083861BF60AC2/

 

The light source of the tac light beneath the P4A1 pistol is inverted (the light axis is illuminating my Avatar´s face... good for night selfies on space, I guess ;)

 

I hope BB and McRupert let you retexture their Raptors with a Giger black skin, so we can have makeshift Xenomorphs for a while 8D

 

Keep up the great work!

 

Cheers 

[hcpookie 3770]

OK I took lunch break to answer some questions since the new forum format is blocked at work.  Can't even logon from my work computer... I guess they want me to work at work :)

 

 

12 hours ago, corporal_lib[br] said:

The light source of the tac light beneath the P4A1 pistol is inverted (the light axis is illuminating my Avatar´s face... good for night selfies on space, I guess ;)

 

Noted!

 

15 hours ago, b00ce said:

By that I mean it gets like 15 feet off the ground and I have to switch to forward flight to get any higher.

 

HRM that's interesting.  I'm using a Thrustmaster HOTAS setup, so YMMV.  I mapped a key to the autohover engage and autohover cancel commands.  So when I start the mission, sitting with engine off, I press the autohover engage button.  This is the same as using the "Vectoring Off" user action.  The little green icon in the vehicle status display (upper left) with an arrow UP and arrow DOWN will turn green.

 

I increase throttle, engine comes on, dust, etc. and I can hover up hundreds of feet.  Now IF I am on a slope, I of course will gently roll with the slope.  I always test on an airfield or parking lot to ensure the hovering is working.

 

When I select the autohover cancel command button on my HOTAS, I start to move forward at airplane speeds.  The nozzles eventually rotate backward in this configuration.  If they never rotate backward, you will know you are still in the autohover mode.

 

 

Regarding the ramp, it was just one of those things.  Never need the ramp w/o the gear anyway, so just apply the KISS method and keep it on the gear.  Not ideal but anything to reduce action menu clutter!  I'm not against the ramp being separate, but why bother.

[Guest]

I figured out what the exact issue is. With the aircraft level or nose down in "auto-hover" ( 'X' Reticule at or below the horizon) it will not climb at all If you nose up it climbs just fine. Its weird.

[Crielaard 435]

Are me LEAN!!!?

YEAH!

Are we MEAN!?

YEAH

WHAT ARE We!!?

MARINES!

 

-Colonial Marines Aliens

 

[Guest]

Found another bug with the dropship. It appears that either a fire/geo LoD geometry or Ground contact/hit point don't animate with the landing gear. When flying low over water, you can detonate without touching it.
http://imgur.com/a/u9aXI

 

Edit:

[hcpookie 3770]

Damn PhysX 

 

LOL

 

 

[hcpookie 3770]

That "lands on invisible pieces" problem definitely seems to be an issue with physx.  No matter what I do I cannot make the front gear physx pieces "retract" in the model.  Curiously, the rear does seem to do this, which suggests it is NOT physx.  The only things down there are view, shadow, geo, geo physx, and landcontact.  So I removed landcontact (physx!) and no joy... same problem.  I'm going to walk through the other LOD's to see if anything else is obvious.

 

I fixed the "pitches back when cargo is loaded" issue.

 

I also removed the VIV and am using the attachto script I've been working on... cargo now loads onto the ramp "just right"... stay tuned here.

[Defilerhxc 4]

Your a hero!

[hcpookie 3770]

That behavior is damn peculiar.  It is definitely the physx lod, all others seem to have no effect on the behavior. 

 

Out of desperation I renamed the physx parts from "pad" (the landing pad part of the gear) to "gear" and suddenly it rotates up.  So that tells me that perhaps the physx doesn't like the complicated gear animations.  Not sure.  So with it like it is, I can make it hover down to about 1m off the ground before it gets stupid.  Perhaps the bones arrangement isn't "right" however we can all see it looks right...

 

SOOOO.... kind of frustrated.  I will update it but it will never be able to make a "belly landing" so to speak... at least it will no longer float in the air like in that pic.

 

I'll update the pistol and probably release an update later tonight.

[hcpookie 3770]

Version 1.1 uploaded to the same d/l location on my onedrive in the first post.  That physx issue is problematic and not ideal.  So just don't hover too low to the ground :)

 

•  FIX:  dropship crashes when vehicle cargo is loaded
•  FIX:  dropship damage textures
•  FIX:  Vilas P4 flashlight direction was reversed
•  IMPROVED:  VTOL / Hover indicator display settings
•  IMPROVED:  dropship cargo affects flight dynamics
•  IMPROVED:  dropship now uses custom script to attach APC to the ramp instead of the "default" VIV location
•  IMPROVED:  dropship damage values
•  IMPROVED:  dropship physX gear values
•  NEW:  dropship pilot cockpit "cargo secured" indicator to know when the vehicle is loaded, and vehicle chat pointers

[the dunny 10]

Hey am I only one getting this error  "bin\config.bin/cfgweapons/vil_m39smg/burst/:cannot find base class 'burst', its crashing my game I cant use the mod unless I remove the aliens pbo?

[Guest]

The release has been frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

Aliens Mod v1.1

[hcpookie 3770]

3 hours ago, the dunny said:

Hey am I only one getting this error  "bin\config.bin/cfgweapons/vil_m39smg/burst/:cannot find base class 'burst', its crashing my game I cant use the mod unless I remove the aliens pbo?

I just loaded up and tested to be certain - no problems.  What version is your Arma3?

 

2 hours ago, foxhound said:

The release has been frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

 

Thanks Foxhound!  :D

[the dunny 10]

Hey am I only one getting this error  "bin\config.bin/cfgweapons/vil_m39smg/burst/:cannot find base class 'burst', its crashing my game I cant use the mod unless I remove the aliens pbo?

 

I apparently as missing some core files wow, got it all straight, thank you for porting this and bringing one of my all time favorites 2 SCIfi vehicles into arma man.

[djotacon 190]

Such a wonderful surprise... a bit later to but... great work!

 

Thanks

hcpookie