script JBOY Napalm FX

[johnnyboy 3742]

When the normal Prairie Fire napalm effects end, there is no visible damage to trees, bushes, grass and buildings.  This is bad for immersion. This script improves on that by detecting where the napalm bombs impact, and replacing trees, bushes and buildings with burnt and burning trees/bushes/buildings.  These scripts work for airstrikes called via the Air Support module or airstrikes created via scripts.

 

Download sample mission

 

Credits:

 

• @aliascartoons for his excellent Fire scripts.  All fires on trees, bushes, buildings, vehicles and men are created using his scripts.  Thank you Alias!  (I have modified these slightly to use arma sounds so the sample mission does not require his sound files or description.ext)
• @pierremgi for pointing me to the Prairie Fire airstrike scripts.

 

How to add to your mission:

...I will add in these instructions tomorrow!  🙂

[pierremgi 4739]

Much more immersive

[major-stiffy 269]

Awesome! Hope this is MP compatible.

[stburr91 995]

Johnny does it again.

 

I really like the effects of this, it really does make the awesome napalm strikes in SOG PF even better. 

[Valken 621]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNH-8zilTCs

 

[johnnyboy 3742]

3 hours ago, major-stiffy said:

Awesome! Hope this is MP compatible.

Thanks man.  MP untested, so maybe...

[Liberty Bull 23]

This is awesome!

[aliascartoons 182]

😀  Thank you for sharing mate! Keep it up! 🏋️‍♂️

[Play3r 143]

Absolute a masterpiece once again JohnnyBoy

 

Thanks alot

[lightspeed_aust 681]

love your work Johnnyboy, I feel like you might be the guy who can figure out how to get blufor to move in a tunnel..or is that a bridge too far.

either way, I feel like a number of your scripts including that beautiful, men moving through rice paddys, will make their way into my missions.

[johnnyboy 3742]

On 8/2/2021 at 6:33 AM, lightspeed_aust said:

love your work Johnnyboy, I feel like you might be the guy who can figure out how to get blufor to move in a tunnel..or is that a bridge too far.

either way, I feel like a number of your scripts including that beautiful, men moving through rice paddys, will make their way into my missions.

Thanks mate.  Regarding the tunnels, you could record multiple AI paths for my AI movement scripts, but it would be a lot of work.

 

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Thanks bud, yeh a lot of work particularly in those huge tunnel structures. Will have a think about a work around, perhaps teleporting the AI along the tunnel as you move along, maybe attach one to yourself so it simulates following, just to retain the immersion. 

[Soapbox0331 17]

@johnnyboy Great effect! I have the called in strike working just like your example mission. I am struggling to get the JBOY_monitorAirSupportClicks working. Using SOGPF Air Support menu and Sundowner strike, not getting the effects of your FX. I don't think I understand how to call it correctly from in the player's init?

Edited September 26, 2021 by Soapbox0331
clarify

[johnnyboy 3742]

On 9/23/2021 at 7:29 PM, Soapbox0331 said:

@johnnyboy Great effect! I have the called in strike working just like your example mission. I am struggling to get the JBOY_monitorAirSupportClicks working. Using SOGPF Air Support menu and Sundowner strike, not getting the effects of your FX. I don't think I understand how to call it correctly from in the player's init?

Sorry for the later reply, I've been traveling.  I just tried the sample mission and had the same problem, where the fx didn't appear when calling from the air support menu.  I tried a longer sleep  before calling JBOY_monitorAirSupportClicks, and its now working for me.  So its probably a client initialization issue.  I also commented out the jet enablesimulation false line that starts the initial example napalm strike.  So my init.sqf now looks like this:

_nul = [] spawn compile PreprocessFileLineNumbers "JBOY\JBOY_NapalmFx.sqf";
sleep 3;
// Will trigger napalm object destruction and burn effects for napalm strikes called via Air Support menu.
[] spawn JBOY_monitorAirSupportClicks;

// Start jet named jet1 to do napalm strike for demonstration
sleep 5;
//jet1 enablesimulation true;

That's working for me.  Hope it works for you!

[SirBassi 10]

Hi @johnnyboy,

When I first saw a script a few months ago, I fell in love with it.

Persistent destruction (at least during a mission run) is exactly the little icing on the cake that the wonderful SOG CDLC is still missing. And ever since then I've had to think about this script and what else would be possible with it.

 

So if I understand it correctly, the map item damage will remain (as long as the mission doesn't restart), right?

 

Wouldn't it be phenomenal if the effect weren't "just" limited to the Air Support Module, but expanded to include general monitoring during a mission where napalm bombs are falling (SOG and Unsung aircraft, RTO Module, etc.) and then triggering the effect leaves. I could imagine that for the Mike Force mode in particular, where you are usually active for 2 - 4 hours on a very small part of the map and gradually see how you have "worked on" a zone. That could be a huge immersion gain.

 

You could also design the script in such a way that the user then enters the config names for bombs that are supposed to trigger the script. But not the path of the trigger via the module, but the type of bomb itself. Maybe you can also "burn" for this idea 😉

 

Thank you in advance for this wonderful approach.

[johnnyboy 3742]

4 hours ago, SirBassi said:

So if I understand it correctly, the map item damage will remain (as long as the mission doesn't restart), right?

That's correct.  

 

I'm glad you like the script, and like you, I'm all for persistent destruction.

 

All your suggestions are good, but with limited time, I'm not sure I'll get around to doing it. I have lots of ideas that "burn" more for me at this time.

 

You might contact snafu on Prairie Fire discord channel.  He's been using the script successfully in an MP environment, and modified it a bit.  It's possible he's done some of what you described.  If you find out he's met your wishes, please report back here on what you find.

[SirBassi 10]

Hi, thank you very much for your feedback.

 

I was able to reach snafu directly yesterday and he showed me his customization incorporating the assets from Update 1.2. A great step in the right direction.

 

I will then experiment a bit with event handlers in the next few days. I think that could work very well with the current structure of your script and at the same time offers a very powerful possibility for monitoring. I could well imagine that the event handler Fired would fit well here, since you can then query the desired aircraft and bomb types (SOG and Unsung) in Arrays as kind of individual customization.

 

In any case, thank you in advance for your reply and contact info of snafu. If I reach any kind of success I let you know.

[SirBassi 10]

Hello @johnnyboy 

addressing or initiating the script via addEventhandler works very well in the first state.

 

I'm just stuck at one point when I go straight into your script.

You use

_position = vn_artillery_map_selecting_start; 

for handing over the position.

But I haven't been able to find this variable / function in the SOG Wiki so far and before I ask in the SOG Discord I wanted to ask you if you still know what data is in there?

I tried to script around it with a getPos

but then I get a Error in the function JBOY_NapalmFxFindBombs by the part

 

waitUntil {sleep .2; count(_pos nearObjects[_aircraftType, 2000]) > 0}; 

 

Maybe you still remember about the _pos data or what is expected there.

 

Thank you in advance. 🙂

[johnnyboy 3742]

It works like this:  In the init.sqf, this is called:

// Will trigger napalm object destruction and burn effects for napalm strikes called via Air Support menu.
[] spawn JBOY_monitorAirSupportClicks;

You will find that function in the JBOY/JBOY_NapalmFX.sqf, and it looks like this:

// Call this once from player's init.  It waits for player to use Prairie Fire Air Support menu
// and call in an airstrike. It then calls script to look for F4s dropping napalm.
JBOY_monitorAirSupportClicks =
{
	sleep 2;
	while {true} do 
	{
		waitUntil {!isNull (uiNamespace getVariable ["vn_artillery_display",displayNull])};
		waitUntil {isNull (uiNamespace getVariable ["vn_artillery_display",displayNull])};
		if (!isnil "vn_artillery_map_selecting_end") then {
			_dir = vn_artillery_map_selecting_end getDir vn_artillery_map_selecting_start;
			_position = vn_artillery_map_selecting_start;
			//_helper = ["Sign_Arrow_Cyan_F",_position] call JBOY_createHelperObj;
			["vn_air_f4_base",_position] spawn JBOY_NapalmFxFindBombs;
		};
	};
	sleep 10;
};

The first waitUntil senses when the player opens up the PF interface for calling in an air strike.  The second waitUntil senses when player closes the air strike interface.  It then gets the position of the airstrike as chosen by player, and direction of the airstrike.  And finally it passes in the type of aircraft that drops napalm (vn_air_f4_base) and position of strike to JBOY_NapalmFxFindBombs.  That script tracks the jet looking for a near bomb object that it drops.  Once it finds a bomb object, it calls a script to track the bomb to the ground.  Once bomb position is at ground level, we then know the impact point and we then call the FX script to replace objects with burned objects, spawn scorch marks, start fires, etc.

 

[SirBassi 10]

4 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

It then gets the position of the airstrike as chosen by player, and direction of the airstrike. 

 

Hi, thanks for your reply.
All you explained I finally understood and it works.

Ich reach with my changed calling and starting your Script the point where JBOY_NapalmFxFindBombs Fnc starts.

 

My problem seems to be that the

_position = vn_artillery_map_selecting_start;

receives other values as for a example a

getPos SometoOverwatchAircraftbyaddEventhandler

 

So it would be interesting which Params / Values the "vn_artillery_map_selecting_start" sends to _position.

 

I will use the weekend and try some other position commands.

 

But anyway thanks your overwatching this thread 🙂

[SirBassi 10]

Hi @johnnyboy,

 

just wanted to tell you that we tested your script with adjustments for dedicated use at the weekend for the first time in live operation at our weekly Mike Force evening with about 15 players and everyone was very enthusiastic because of the enormous gain in immersion.

 

The performance of client and server FPS was also very satisfactory.

 

I still need to make some minor adjustments now as some stuff from the alias part conflicts with the medic system and the Blueforce / Nametag transfer on the Map at the Mike Force mode but I'm optimistic we can work that out, too. Just wanted to leave that as a little feedback 🙂 Thank you again for your great work.

[johnnyboy 3742]

Thanks man, love to hear it.  Please send me your copy with the changes you made to make it MP compatible.  Snafu made a few changes in that regard (remoteExec-ing all the hideObjectGlobal commands) which I've incorporated in my dev version.  Snafu also added in some more burnt tree objects that came out in a later  PF version that spice it up. I can share that with you if you like.

 

I would love to see your changes also to make it as good as I can.

 

I'm close to releasing a new version of SOG AI that includes these Napalm FX. 

[SirBassi 10]

Hi, yes of course.

Do you mean I should make a Github Rep because of the structure with the alias files and your .sqf?  Seems best, or? But all is depending on your work and I don't wanna make somethinh wrong.

 

Yes, the Snafu changes are included. I changed by his remote executions just the target and jip state.

 

Oh Napalm FX with SOG AI sounds lovely 🙂

[johnnyboy 3742]

Thanks, you can zip it and put it on dropbox or somewhere. Github fine too.  Or I can pm you my email address.

 

But if its the same changes as Snafu's then I don't need it, as I have his.  Let me know.

[SirBassi 10]

Hi,

sorry was a lil bussy last days (christmas parties everywhere 😉 )

 

I made a Github Upload. Maybe it helps a bit.

 

Finally thanks to your awesome script, best to your SOG AI Mod and maybe we somewhere on the Battlefield 🙂

 

Github: https://github.com/SirBassi/NapalmFXforMP

 

Thanks.