helicopter transport module Hermes Airlift Services Mod

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

4 hours ago, zagor64bz said:

maybe the GUI part could be interesting for you?

Pretty cool and very similar to HAS, it could be something added besides kb sentences, and voice, so allowing the player more to choose from.

     My personal preference is more manual method as currently, one of the functions in HAS is to have voice where the heli pilot responds to you.

I'm kinda of a minimal realist when it comes to this sorta of stuff, i like alot of interesting things like the GUI, but prefer small, simple, and not so much gadgettry

like a survivor, getting the utmost with the minimum.

Maybe Rydygier could look into it and see what he thinks, as said it could be something to add as another option to call, or embark on a flight.

[zagor64bz 1225]

1 hour ago, Gunter Severloh said:

Maybe Rydygier could look into it and see what he thinks, as said it could be something to add as another option to call, or embark on a flight.

That could be awesome. Just let me know if I can help in any way.

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

@Rydygier Got a comment on the module page for the workshop:

Quote

Hi,
Very awesome MOD, the only issue i`m having is sometimes when the first player to enter the chopper gets in,the chopper will explode.
Also is there anyway to use other faction Heli?
I can get one down and change it to Nato, but if it re-spawns it goes back to its default faction and becomes hostile.

Waiting for their response on the exploding heli if he was in mp or in sp, i thought this was in MP only as i dont recall ever the heli exploding in sp.

As for the other point he's stating that he has a heli of his choice setup for respawn but when it actually respawns, a Nato heli respawns instead of his heli of choice

did we set that up at all before for respawn, or is this something new you'd have to code in?

 

Anyone else with any feedback related to this?

[Rydygier 1302]

4 minutes ago, Gunter Severloh said:

exploding heli

 

Lately I was mentioning this as a known issue of unknown source (despite tests, I performed). I even suspect some kind of game bug. Wasn't that happening in some scenario, you mentioned too? I'm still focused elesewhere, so I will not check that that soon. 

 

6 minutes ago, Gunter Severloh said:

As for the other point he's stating that he has a heli of his choice setup for respawn but when it actually respawns, a Nato heli respawns instead of his heli of choice

 did we set that up at all before for respawn, or is this something new you'd have to code in?

 

The code grabs heli's type synced with module, as it was at the mission start and uses that type each respawn. Not sure, what exactly he mean by "change it to Nato", but if he tries to swap native heli's side with some scripted workaround, then obviously he must repeat same trick for each respawned heli, as vehicle of given class always will spawn with his native side. 

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

3 hours ago, Rydygier said:

Wasn't that happening in some scenario, you mentioned too?

Ya 2-3weeks ago i believe i was testing my ISIL foothold mission which uses HAS and i had a situation where i told the AI (1 soldier) under my command

to get into the heli and as soon as he did it exploded but when i got into it first nothing happened, thing is when i was playing it was through MP lan

i hosted the mission for myself to take advantage of the parameters in the lobby, i dont recall seeing the exploding heli in SP.

3 hours ago, Rydygier said:

I'm still focused elesewhere, so I will not check that that soon. 

No worries, when you are able to, this is a bug if it is that will need more testing and play to get more details on when it happens, maybe

other situations with it exploding may present itself be it mods being used when it happens, code/script conflicts, or just a game bug we dont know about, til then i will

just post any details/feedback from what i discover or anyone else so then we will have a reference to go back on when we have the time to focus on it so when you ready.

3 hours ago, Rydygier said:

Not sure, what exactly he mean by "change it to Nato",

He means the heli he has setup as in the faction, for example a AH1 Cobra initially changes to a nato heli (ghosthawk) on respawn instead

of the heli faction the (Ah1 Cobra) the module is synced with.

     So basically his helicopter he initially has placed and synced to the module doesn't respawn, what respawns in place of it is a vanilla heli like the

respawn falls to a default heli instead of the one he placed on the map.

Hopefully the heli he is using is synced to the module, wont know til he replies again, i will keep you posted.

 

Also for those fans of the mod whom have questions, or problems, cant fix what we dont know about so please do you due diligence

and provide some feedback on anything you find, cheers!

[Rydygier 1302]

24 minutes ago, Gunter Severloh said:

So basically his helicopter he initially has placed and synced to the module doesn't respawn, what respawns in place of it is a vanilla heli like the

respawn falls to a default heli instead of the one he placed on the map.

 

OK, that sounds like something specific in his setup, which would mean a repro request probably, because there's no any default heli class in the HAS code, that could be referred to at respawn, I mean, in the whole code any such specific heli class doesn't appear at all IIRC and the spawning code itself doesn't use any defaults. 

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

1 hour ago, Rydygier said:

that sounds like something specific in his setup

Yes it does, he just replied, heres what he had to say:

Quote

Yes the exploding chopper is in MP, LAN host not dedicated,it never happens in SP or if solo in MP LAN host,only if there is 2 or more players.
Yeah i place say a Kajman down group it to an officer it turns to bluefor, un-group, remove pilots delete them and put in Blufor pilots,then sync to module,

if the Heli gets destroyed for whatever reason it re-spawns as CSAT its default faction.

So i figured that it was MP that the exploding heli had occured, and even he said that he has not experienced it in SP only in MP as did i.

As for his faction issue, his comment explains it, its not the heli he's using thats changing to a nato one, its the crew.

[Rydygier 1302]

Quote

Yeah i place say a Kajman down group it to an officer it turns to bluefor, un-group, remove pilots delete them and put in Blufor pilots,then sync to module,

 

Well, that's, what I meant here:

 

5 hours ago, Rydygier said:

if he tries to swap native heli's side with some scripted workaround, then obviously he must repeat same trick for each respawned heli, as vehicle of given class always will spawn with his native side.

 

With the correction, that he needs to repeat same procedure with the crew of respawned heli. Crew, same as the heli, will always respawn on their default/native side, will not mimic his described side-swap workaround. 

[danidr 5]

Hi everyone,

First of all, amazing job with this mod! I downloaded it a long time ago but managed to use it only lately, but I must say it entirely changes the whole spec ops experience (which is what I mostly play).

I have a request though: right now, when requesting a transport, it will deny any waypoint set over the water. I believe this is an unnecessary restriction; I can imagine why it was done (too low on water and we have a splash), but maybe there could be a hard flyInHeight (5m?) that avoids this.

I'm asking because it would be cool to have a SEAL-like insertion over water from helicopters, either fast roping or directly diving into water. Therefore, a "regular" insertion could set the fly height to 5 and then "eject" the passengers, while a fast roping insertion would get to the preset fast rope height over water, and then fast rope the occupants.

Fast-roping could also allow insertion over boats/ships/platforms, which I believe is not possible right now.

Let me know what you think, and thanks for the great job so far!

[vengeance1 50]

30 minutes ago, danidr said:

Hi everyone,

First of all, amazing job with this mod! I downloaded it a long time ago but managed to use it only lately, but I must say it entirely changes the whole spec ops experience (which is what I mostly play).

I have a request though: right now, when requesting a transport, it will deny any waypoint set over the water. I believe this is an unnecessary restriction; I can imagine why it was done (too low on water and we have a splash), but maybe there could be a hard flyInHeight (5m?) that avoids this.

I'm asking because it would be cool to have a SEAL-like insertion over water from helicopters, either fast roping or directly diving into water. Therefore, a "regular" insertion could set the fly height to 5 and then "eject" the passengers, while a fast roping insertion would get to the preset fast rope height over water, and then fast rope the occupants.

Fast-roping could also allow insertion over boats/ships/platforms, which I believe is not possible right now.

Let me know what you think, and thanks for the great job so far!

Or rescue a downed Pilot! 😉 I use ALiVE to do this using the insertion feature.

[danidr 5]

4 hours ago, vengeance1 said:

Or rescue a downed Pilot! 😉 I use ALiVE to do this using the insertion feature.

Another interesting use! Even though 5m would be too much distance to embark, probably. And helicopters have a nasty habit of dropping into the sea when flying too low...

Can the ALiVE insertion feature be used together with the HAS module?

[Rydygier 1302]

Water surface destinations was disabled mostly because at that time there was no proper disembarking procedure for such situation (touchdown only, fast roping came later). Possibly it may change in the future, rather not so soon though - other stuff keeps me busy. 

[danidr 5]

2 hours ago, Rydygier said:

Water surface destinations was disabled mostly because at that time there was no proper disembarking procedure for such situation (touchdown only, fast roping came later). Possibly it may change in the future, rather not so soon though - other stuff keeps me busy. 

I understand; maybe the best solution would be to force eject all non-crew characters on board instead of using the built-in disembark function in that case.

Nonetheless, if you have a repository for it, I can try and put together a pull request enabling this option again with the needed changes. Or, if you agree, I'll dePBO it and play around with the code, letting you know when I come up with something so that you can push it back to the main code.

Thanks in the meantime!

[Rydygier 1302]

No repository, but there's a version in open script form:

 

also, if you prefer, feel free to dePbo the mod, unless @Gunter Severloh has something against?

 

Code is rather complex, so be careful with changes. To enable picking sea destinations, go to HAS_fnc.sqf, find 

 

RYD_HAS_MapPoint and RYD_HAS_MapPoint2 functions and remove/disable this exit code from the first:

 

	if ((surfaceIsWater _pos) or {not([_pos] call RYD_HAS_isOnMap)}) exitWith 
		{
		//hint 'Destination must be on land.'
		'Destination must be on land.' remoteExec ['hint']; 
		};

 

and similar from the latter:

 

	if ((surfaceIsWater _pos) or {not([_pos] call RYD_HAS_isOnMap)}) exitWith 
		{
		//hint 'Destination must be on land.'
		'Destination must be on land.' remoteExec ['hint'];
		RYD_HAS_clickedPos2 = [-1000,-1000];
		publicVariableServer "RYD_HAS_clickedPos2";
		};

 

Implementing desired way of disembarking over the water will require more work of course. 

 

A good spot for choosing disembarking way may be here, note also waitUntil lines below these:

 

		if (RYD_HAS_FastRoping) then
			{
			[RYD_HAS_Chopper,RYD_HAS_STT] spawn RYD_HAS_FastRope;
			}
		else
			{
			if ((RYD_HAS_AutoInOut) or {RYD_HAS_AlternativeLanding}) then
				{
				[] call RYD_HAS_AutoDisembark
				};
			};

 

RYD_HAS_AutoGuide and RYD_HAS_AutoGuideB functions are responsible for "forced" making the helo to reach and maintain certain position and altitude at disembark, respectively for fast roping and touchdown.

 

Note, RYD_HAS_FastRope function responsible for... fast roping/rapelling passengers, possibly could serve as a base for new disembarking way, as it already includes pushing passengers outside. Just remove all the part about ropes creation/removal and sliding units down the ropes and you have "hop into the water" disembarking. Namely note these lines:

 

				[_unit,_heli] remoteExecCall ["disableCollisionWith", 0,_unit];
				[_unit] remoteExec ["unassignVehicle",_unit];
				[_unit,["GetOut",_heli]] remoteExec ["action",_unit];				 
				waitUntil
					{
					sleep 0.1;
					(isNull (assignedVehicle _unit))
					};
					
				[_unit] orderGetIn false;
				
				waitUntil
					{
					sleep 0.1;
					(_unit == (vehicle _unit))
					};

There may be some redundancies, as I was fighting in various ways with MP issues that tend to happen sometimes... Or just write own disembarking function. Good luck. 🙂

 

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

1 hour ago, Rydygier said:

also, if you prefer, feel free to dePbo the mod, unless @Gunter Severloh has something against?

No not at all go ahead, if Danidr figures out what he hes looking to do then by all means let Rydygier implement it

for the next version of course after some good testing.

@danidr If you want to unpbo the mod, go to the OP of the thread and i have a zip file on my google drive linked there,

or as Rydygier suggested check out the script on the other release thread, its the same thing.

Let us know what you figure out with your idea it sounds pretty cool.

[danidr 5]

Thank you @Rydygier and @Gunter Severloh, much appreciated! I'll see if I can use RYD_HAS_AutoDisembark to customize behavior if over water, with the surfaceIsWater method. I believe that fast-roping should be working right away.

For the "picking up from water" part, as @vengeance1 suggested, that'll probably require a little more work, since the helo should be able to hover juuuust above the surface, or we would need some sort of inverse rappelling, with all its complications.

[vengeance1 50]

16 hours ago, danidr said:

Another interesting use! Even though 5m would be too much distance to embark, probably. And helicopters have a nasty habit of dropping into the sea when flying too low...

Can the ALiVE insertion feature be used together with the HAS module?

To answer your question YES I have used both for insertion/recovery in the same mission,  I have used several Helo's successfully to hover above sea as long as the weather permits.

[danidr 5]

So... I simply disabled the check of the surfaceIsWater result, and apparently both fast-roping and "touchdown" over water work fine, with the AI pilot being self-conservative enough that it doesn't crash into the sea.

I will now try and see if picking up works as well, considering that I will need to light a flare or a smoke to give the landing area signal. Otherwise, the "click on map" exact point will have to make-do in this case. Will keep you guys posted!

[danidr 5]

Quick update: I tried the "picking up from the water" part, and while the code still sees and reacts correctly to the smoke signal when the player is in the sea (via the "cook" action in ACE), the helicopter miserably crashes when trying to land.

@Gunter Severloh and @Rydygier, can you confirm that RYD_HAS_LZ is the only function handling the landing procedure? I will try and set a different helipad height when over water to make it hover a little higher.

Thanks!

[Rydygier 1302]

RYD_HAS_LZ picks the final spot for disembark. If you want to alter embarking phase, you probably should focus on lines 920-970:

 

		_pickPos = [_signalClasses,_pickPos,true,200] call RYD_HAS_Signal;
			
		if not (_alive) exitWith {};
		if (_unable) exitWith {};
		if (RYD_HAS_CallCancelled) exitWith {};
		RYD_HAS_done = false;
		
		_pickPosR = _pickPos;
				
		_wpRad = if not (RYD_HAS_AlternativeLanding) then
			{
			_pickPosR = RYD_HAS_Chopper getPos [(RYD_HAS_Chopper distance2D _pickPos) + 80, RYD_HAS_Chopper getDir _pickPos];
			50
			}
		else
			{
			0
			};

		_wp0 = group RYD_HAS_Chopper addWaypoint [_pickPosR, _wpRad];
		_wp0 setWaypointType "MOVE";
		
		_lvl = 4;
		if not (RYD_HAS_AlternativeLanding) then
			{
			_wp0 setWaypointStatements ["true", "RYD_HAS_Chopper land 'GET IN';RYD_HAS_done = true;"]
			}
		else
			{
			_lvl = 1;
			_wp0 setWaypointStatements ["true", "RYD_HAS_done = true;"]
			};
		
		group RYD_HAS_Chopper setCurrentWaypoint _wp0;
		
		waitUntil 
			{
			sleep 0.1;
			_alive = (alive RYD_HAS_Chopper) and {(canMove RYD_HAS_Chopper)};
			
			if not (_alive) exitWith {true};
			if not ([] call RYD_HAS_ifChopperReady) exitWith {_unable = true;true};
			if (RYD_HAS_CallCancelled) exitWith {true};
			
			if not (RYD_HAS_CruisingSpeed < 10) then
				{
				[RYD_HAS_Chopper] call RYD_HAS_TurningSpeed
				};

			(((((getPos RYD_HAS_Chopper) select 2) < _lvl) or {(RYD_HAS_AlternativeLanding)}) and {(RYD_HAS_done)})
			};

 

Two probably key differences, making heli to crash here, and not to crash at disembarking seems to be:

 

1. 

 

RYD_HAS_Chopper land 'GET IN'

 

in the contrast to:

 

RYD_HAS_Chopper land 'GET OUT' for disembark - you may try this one for embarking too

 

2. After the visible above waitUntil, that awaits till the heli is ready for embarking (low enough, landed), you may need to add second waitUntil with autoguide fucntion (that brings and keeps the heli at chosen spot and altitude), as it is for disembarking at destination phase. Also above waitUntil's condition may need to be changed, as currently it awaits for actual touchdown marked by RYD_HAS_done and altitude check.  

 

Or fiddle with alternative landing mode, which may be simplier way to achieve same thing (autoguide already applied, just its parameters need to be calibrated). 

[danidr 5]

9 hours ago, Rydygier said:

Or fiddle with alternative landing mode, which may be simplier way to achieve same thing (autoguide already applied, just its parameters need to be calibrated). 

 

Actually, all my tests were using alternative landing mode, which seems more reliable than the standard mode anyway; that might be the reason why the helicopter doesn't crash during drop (and if all works, transport on water may be enabled only using alternative mode).

 

I will play around with that function you specified and see where I get.

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

Hey Arma fans, this post really has nothing to do with the mod here, rather its asking for your support.

    Just want to let you know if you already didn't know about Rydygier's work, what im asking is to become a Patreon to Rydygier,

he has a link in his signature but i will post it here too: https://www.patreon.com/Rydygier/posts

 

   Why support him? Because this genius spends all his time coding and creating content for the community for those whom enjoy his work.

Even if you become a member for $1 a month, thats still something and it still helps a bit, it adds up over time, like myself Rydygier dont ask for donations,

or payments or anything for what he creates, he does it out of the interest, and sheer joy in his heart to create something fun, and interesting for others to use

in this awesome game of ours. Cheers!

[craig29592 0]

Hi, can you implement carrier permanent base (with ability to position it wherever) ; I tried to do so but all the helis land at single nearest to module helipad and collide with another heli parked there , so all helis get destroyed.

I tried adding a WP to move to and land at position of helipad placed away from the module but if that heli got destroyed it's back to square one i.e  collide and burn. Please share how I can do this or implement in your next update.

And also would be great if you made it compatible with antistasi MP, liberation MP, BECTI MP; you know like for doing recon , sling load, found supplies back to base etc

 

I sort off fixed respawn of helis of different faction by coping old grp and spawned vehicle using bis_fnc_spawnVehicle, but after one or two respawns multiple groups of same heli started top spawn, Please see if you can refine it

Thank you

[zegolem 1]

Hello, as said in the steam workshop thread, great mod! We are using the module with some success on a little test server based on Liberation RX with a carrier. We only can use RTB to get the helicopters to land correctly (we placed several heliports LZ with enough space to avoid a collision at maximum), but's it is working quite nicely. We, of course, can't use other orders touchdown or fastrope as the carrier is on the sea. I saw some good news above with some interesting approaches to solve the problem of the "sea". In that regard, the Advanced Transport MGI module has some good options to hover the sea ( but less options for our needs, so we prefer HAS ).

 

We also encountered a concern relating to the lack of an option to configure the init field of the helicopters synchronized with the module. The one synched and spawned at start got his appearance and init correctly activated, but as soon as it is replaced by the mod, it's a new version of the helicopter, with default appearance and no init script... A field in the module for activating a script at spawn like the BIS air support could be helpful there (instead of tracking the respawned choppers to force them to the good state).

[Gunter Severloh 3949]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:11 PM, craig29592 said:

all the helis land at single nearest to module helipad and collide with another heli parked there

Helipads dont need to be next to the module, make multiple heli pads and place them within the area, and the helis will land there.

 

On 6/22/2021 at 9:11 PM, craig29592 said:

would be great if you made it compatible with antistasi MP, liberation MP, BECTI MP;

idk how that would be done when the user of the module defines all the settings in the module they want in a mission, you would have to edit

the mission and add the module which wouldn't be hard to do. HAS is not really meant for MP it was mainly coded for SP and vanilla game play

this is how Rydygier plays.

   This is not to say that its all set to be SP only the helis will respawn and outside of MP lan i havent tested myself but everything works as it should

in mp from what i tested some time back.

 

1 hour ago, zegolem said:

A field in the module for activating a script at spawn like the BIS air support could be helpful there

You can also use the BI modules for air support for like planes.