ATLAS LHD: Plus standalone, Updated

[lumnuon 295]

15 minutes ago, Ex3B said:

So I think I know what to do with the walking sounds... but I was wondering, I could configure it to have a dynamic runway....

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Dynamic_Airport_Configuration

Now, it has no catapults, it has no arrestor wires, but it might make it easier to get planes to launch from it for the start of missions.

 

Do you think I should try and add one to this (otherwise when the AI tries to take off with me F-35Fs, it looks wonky), or would that cause more problems for people than they'd like?

 

Or perhaps leave it as something that can be placed in the editor, like this:

but resized to fit the LHD?

 

As far as I can tell larger airplanes that wouldn´t have enough space on the runway of the USS Freedom reject a landing there. If that assumption is correct and planes can be made to behave similarily on the LHD I don´t see any obvious downsides.

[Ex3B 266]

They reject a landing because of the part here:

Quote

isCarrier = true; // airplanes with "tailHook = true" will be able to land here

 

The Freedom dynamic airport with the "isCarrier = true" means that only planes with "tailHook = true" will land there.

If I don't put arrestor wires on it, then the Jets will try and land on it, but go flying off the end.

If I don't have "isCarrier = true", then any plane will try and land on it... I wish there was a "onlySTOVL = true" option.... but there isn't

[lumnuon 295]

37 minutes ago, Ex3B said:

They reject a landing because of the part here:

 

The Freedom dynamic airport with the "isCarrier = true" means that only planes with "tailHook = true" will land there.

If I don't put arrestor wires on it, then the Jets will try and land on it, but go flying off the end.

If I don't have "isCarrier = true", then any plane will try and land on it... I wish there was a "onlySTOVL = true" option.... but there isn't

I mean... just naval jets trying to land on it and failing is still better than jets and cargo planes trying to land on it and failing...

 

Would it at least allow the F-35 to land properly or would that one also try to land in conventional flight and therefore fly off the deck?

[Ex3B 266]

Well, last night I was trying to make a demo mission with F-35s launching from the LHD (not caring about the AI landing, as I'd just have the mission end when the player returns).

I noticed the following behaviour:

Even with  disableAI "ALL"; or   disableAI "MOVE"; in the init, planes will momentarily turn their nose gear to the direction of the nearest airport.

AI doesn't seem to be able to takeoff from the USS Freedom with stock carrier capable jets (but I guess this is related to needing to use catapults).

VTOL aircraft seem to ignore airports (aside from the nosewheel thing), and just takeoff vertically.

STOVL aircraft do seem to taxi towards runways.

 

So what I'm doing is scripting it:

Spoiler

I could not find anyway to stop the nosewheel from turning (and having not configured a runway for the LHD or hook on the F35 so that I could use "DynamicAirport_01_F", as per here:

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/219518-dynamic-airport-configuration-in-jets-dlc-scriptable-update-yes/

 

I was starting with the LHD way off the coast of altis (bottom-left/ south west), so I just angled it at 45 degrees North-East, and all the airports on Altis are in that direction. I then use a series of triggers linked to an F-35 (2 sets of triggers, to launch 2 AI wingmen, for a 3 ship flight. I could get rid of these for a multiplayer mission). One that initially adds a little velocity, then subsequent triggers fire as the plan enters them, and accelerate the F-35F. Then the last 2 add vertical velocity to lift it off the ground.. like so:

 

F35F_1 setVelocity
[
(F35F_1 select 0) + (sin 45 * 5),
(F35F_1 select 1) + (cos 45 * 5),
(F35F_1 select 2) + 5
];

 

Its a little jerky, with the sudden accelerations, but it works. If I don't have the aircraft facing the nearest runway, the first trigger to fire makes them crash, because they start with their nose wheel turned.

 

With a VTOL aircraft, I think the best chance of having them land on the LHD is to place an invisible helipad?

I haven't tested STOVL or VTOL landing behavior yet, I suspect they will land vertically anywhere and ignore runways.

 

On advantage for players though, is that the deck would have the HUD outline, as the USS Freedom does when flying the Black Wasp.

 

I'm thinking maybe I can make a small, placable dynamic airport, that can be placed in the editor, so that the option is there if the player wants it, for the purposes of launching planes.

It could be deleted by a script after launching if the AI don't play well with it, or a trigger/script could be added to stop planes once they touch down*

 

* I used such triggers to make CSAT carrier missions, where the USS freedom had its flag covered with CSAT banners (to act as a CSAT carrier). Any plane can use the catapults, so launching Shikras/neophrons/A1-43's with CSAT color schemes was no problem. I placed a trigger near the arrestor wires that would fire if a plane entered it within a given speed and direction range, and would then use set velocity to (instantly) lower the velocity of the plane to something low enough that it could stop in time.

I guess something like this should work with AI planes landing...

Although a lot of the point of this updated LHD is to get rid of the need for all this hassle to use it (the old one needed text editing of mission files to place it, then scripts/triggers to move planes from a landed position on land to the deck, otherwise they'd spawn in flight on the deck, ASRAAMs were broken and didn't use pylon magazines, so one had to script the weapon loadout rather than using dynamic loadouts... etc)

 

I think I'll add an optional and separate placeable dynamic airfield object for the LHD... it would be too problematic to incorporate it into the LHD as standard.

[lumnuon 295]

Considering all that I would probably drop the runway idea. The vanilla Destroyer ship has a helipad that works. Not sure if that requires any specific config entries since I am only familiar with terrain configs but that would seem like a workable route which wouldn´t mess with planes at all. 

[omri2050 197]

Hey man

Thanks for this

Is there any link to see the F-35B Images?

Thanks

[Ex3B 266]

 

I need to update that one, I think that one I slipped in some other small mods, and I've updated it since then to have working anti-collision and head-lights

[Ex3B 266]

Updated the LHD standalone

(are the walking sounds fixed guys? for some reason I was always hearing them anyway, even with a file that should have been a .paa as a .tga... I think because I also had base .tga files)

I also adjusted its deck lights and interior lighting

 

Updated the F-35 standalone, (also the lighting here, it has a working nosewheel light to illuminate in front of it, and working anti-collision lights)

 

The LHD+F35 combined link was updated.

 

And I have a new bundle:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1744603050

 

Its meant to give you more stuff to use from the LHD. To use something from the LHD, it needs to be either:

1) Capable of being airlifted

2) Amphibious and can drive out of the well dock

3) Used in conjunction with a landing craft mod (like an LCAC)

 

So, I added stuff for cases 1 and 2.

That means:

1) NATO versions of the Nyx, Strider, and Gorgon (sand and olive skins, matching camo nets). The NATO Nyx AT and NATO Nyx Autocannon are "upgraded". The AT fires Firefirst mk2 missiles which can be manually guided. The Nato Nyx autocannon fires 20mm SLAP rounds (APDS) instead of AP rounds, so its more effective against armored targets.

 

2) An "Assault" Marid that can be slingloaded by the Taru, which also fires 12.7x108mm APDS rounds from its HMG. It can also choose 20mm saboted shells to fire from its GMG. These use the B_20mm ammo type, and are fired at a higher velocity than the 40mm grenades (still much lower velocity than when fired out of a 20mm cannon), to extend its range and reduce the time to target. While the APDS rounds of the Assault Marid aren't effective at destroying a Marshal or Rhino, the can quickly disable the turret and get a firepower kill.

 

3) An A2A variant of the Xian. It has a wide angle 16km range radar, can hold up to 12 AAMs of the R77 or R73 type (or up to 4 Anti radar missiles), and has a larger countermeasure magazine. Its top speed and handling have been marginally improved. It has no cargo capacity. S

 

4) Upgunned and uparmored variants of the UGV Stomped/Saif. The "Assault" variants are more durable (still easily dispatched by 30mm and especially 40mm autocannons), use the 20mm saboted shells from their GMGs, and use SLAP/APDS rounds from their HMGs.

 

5) NATO variants of the Truck Fuel and Truck Boxer to serve as fuel, ammo, and repair trucks. CSAT can already lift the zamak repair and zamak ammo with a Taru, and it doesn't look right having nato blackfish lift reskinned Zamaks, so I gave them variants of the Truck (which is an Italian design, and therefore from a NATO country).

 

2+3 mean that you can use the no flag variant with CSAT, and operate air superiority fighters, and deploy APCs that can stand up to NATO ones

 

Images:

Spoiler

A2A Xian variant:

 

Nato Sand variants of AAF units:

Taru sling loading a marid (changed slightls since this image, more attachment points for ropes now)

Olive gorgon exiting the well ramp:

Olive striders and Nyxs below deck:

With the gorgon:

 

[Maj Ray 9]

The deck and interior lights are a very welcome addition. Thank you for those.

 

I can confirm the footsteps still don't work on the concrete surfaces. They're present on metal surfaces but not on the concrete.

[Ex3B 266]

Hmmm, I'll try to find what is missing for the concrete surfaces (which are those?).

 

*edit* just went through all the rvmats, and found many instances of stuff with a .tga extension instead of a .paa extension... re-uploaded again, I hope this fixes it. *edit*

 

In the meantime, I fixed a problem with my "Offshore Assault" bundle, and decked out the no Flag variant of the LHD with CSAT flags and CSAT craft.

I'm wondering if I should actually add a CSAT flag texture and make a CSAT flag variant... pasting a CSAT banner and a CSAT flag on it in the mission editor gives kind of small results

 

 

Spoiler

8 Xians: 4 Air defense variants (grey camo, with 6x R77+ 6x R73, or 3x R77 + 6x R73 +1x KH-58 ARM . 2 Infantry transport Xians, 2 vehicle transport Xians.

4 Tarus + the one I was going to use to demonstrate the marid sling loading,

1 orca,

and a ton of Ifrits, Saifs, Qilins, and Marids below deck

 

An "Air Dominance" Xian variant with an anti-radar missile:

 

'cause you know, CSAT lacks any static ships

[Maj Ray 9]

Sadly, the footsteps still are not present. I hate to be "that guy who only says the same thing", though, so I'll try to quit bringing it up. Thank you for looking through and attempting to fix it.

[Ex3B 266]

Have you tried re-installing the mod?

 

I'm sorry, but I can't reproduce this problem, as you can see, when I test it, I hear footsteps:

 

[pirkleawesome 8]

Quick question, does the carrier have catapults? Do you plan on adding them if if they don't have them currently?

[BadHabitz 235]

1 hour ago, pirkleawesome said:

Quick question, does the carrier have catapults? Do you plan on adding them if if they don't have them currently?

 

LHDs don't have catapults. They are helicopter/VTOL ships.

[Ex3B 266]

Just an FYI, I changed the elevator scripts a little in the last update of the standalone (not the combo with the F-35B), I think it works better with planes and helicopters now, but feedback would be appreciated.

21 hours ago, pirkleawesome said:

Quick question, does the carrier have catapults? Do you plan on adding them if if they don't have them currently?

As @BadHabitz says, they don't have catapults. They also don't have arrestor wires, so good luck landing a black wasp on this thing...

Helicopters and VTOL/STOVL aircraft are what you'd want to use with this.

As vanilla Arma only has 2 types of VTOL aircraft, its air wing is a little limited without mods.

That's the reason I also did a combo with the F-35B port, but you can take the standalone and use Firewill's F-35B/ Harriers/ whatever you want and can find.

[pirkleawesome 8]

OK thanks!

6 hours ago, Ex3B said:

Just an FYI, I changed the elevator scripts a little in the last update of the standalone (not the combo with the F-35B), I think it works better with planes and helicopters now, but feedback would be appreciated.

As @BadHabitz says, they don't have catapults. They also don't have arrestor wires, so good luck landing a black wasp on this thing...

Helicopters and VTOL/STOVL aircraft are what you'd want to use with this.

As vanilla Arma only has 2 types of VTOL aircraft, its air wing is a little limited without mods.

That's the reason I also did a combo with the F-35B port, but you can take the standalone and use Firewill's F-35B/ Harriers/ whatever you want and can find.

 

[Ex3B 266]

I accidentally uploaded a bunch of other files along with the LHD (F-35, tweaked variants of stock stuff, etc). The new upload is a proper standalone. Just an FYI for anyone who tested the "standalone", and found it was anything but. (Will steam properly and automatically remove the excess .pbo's included? if not , iguess you have to remove and re-add the mod)

[pirkleawesome 8]

I really like this craft, but there are a few spots where you slip through the decks! Any chance those could be fixed?

[imager6 40]

Thanks for this great LHD addition. I can not find a key to use on a  server. Where can I find the key?

 

[Ex3B 266]

On 9/23/2019 at 6:19 PM, pirkleawesome said:

I really like this craft, but there are a few spots where you slip through the decks! Any chance those could be fixed?

Can you show me where this still happens? I will try to fix it if I find a significant problem.

On 11/20/2019 at 3:25 AM, imager6 said:

Thanks for this great LHD addition. I can not find a key to use on a  server. Where can I find the key?

 

I thought I had included it... I plan on uploading an update soon, and I will make sure keys are included.

On 7/1/2019 at 12:09 AM, pirkleawesome said:

Quick question, does the carrier have catapults? Do you plan on adding them if if they don't have them currently?

While, as a Wasp class LHD, it shouldn't, I am playing around with a variant with a catapult now. I'm trying to get arrestor wires working too (I think a dynamic airport with carrier = true will do this, I can't find anything else in the Freedom files that would suggest otherwise).

Then I plan to tweak the island superstructure shape, disable the well deck and lower level, and have it be a "light carrier" (I just finished making a CSAT variant of the buzzard that has an arrestor hook, using the test_plane_01 sample model) - to exist alongside the standard LHD.

 

I'm also trying to get a VIV solution to work that should allow helicopters to be moved below deck (with the loading point being the two deck elevators) and back to the deck... But because of the way VIV unloads vehicles, I will need a script to get them to unload on the deck.