VTOL Insertion issues

[cooked auto 6]

So I've been working on this mission where a team gets dropped off onto a beach by a VTOL (modded MV-22 Osprey) and then it flies away into the horizon to get deleted. But the issue I keep running into is that the aircraft always flies over the landing zone (Transport Unload WP on an empty Helipad object in this case) and then suddenly stops and realises "Oh dang, I was meant to land" and then double backs and lands. 

Spent the past couple of days trying to figure out how to make it not do that, because it looks silly, and make it land right away. 

 

So far I've tried various combinations with waypoint timers and forcespeed, and putting the AI to careless, all to no real avail. Beyond not making it land at all and just orbit and then bump into some trees.

 

I want to add that I don't want to use unitcapture because flying those things is an absolute pain, so is there some way to pull it off scriptwise? 

[pierremgi 4853]

I abandoned AI VTOL insertion. Only helo AI pilot can land on helipad. VTOL are planes. They land at airport(s).

[Melody_Mike 130]

@cooked auto If I understand correctly, this VTOL only has a single use before being deleted. Couldn't you use unitCapture/Play? I've used that for a coop mission with a paradrop using the Xi'an without issues.

[cooked auto 6]

I mean I could, but the thing is that they're absolute pains to fly because they behave like planes. Which means they don't slow down as easily as you can with helos even in hover mode.

 

Although I figure now that I could just make it do that on the landing and not the whole flight. I'd have to experiment a little with it.

[Melody_Mike 130]

Good point: I remember being too lazy to learn to fly and instead scripting that players exit the plane and get placed in parachutes (forgot if I used a trigger or timed script). To justify this, I sped the VTOL up with setVelocity in the init, had it fly very low, and had the players eject very quickly after each other. This had the effect of making it look like high speed LALO static line jump. Just an idea.. 

Your other alternative is using the Key Frame Animation tools. But understanding that might take some effort, and even then my attempts have always resulted in objects swirling like orbiting planets.  

[ozzyt109 12]

think i managed to make it work by using a condition with Limitspeed  on the VTOL, before the land command, i cant rember what speed it was though but it allowed me to force the VTOL to go to "helicopter mode" before landing.

I'll post my code snippet when i get home form work 

[cooked auto 6]

So I think I managed to figure it out. Turns out you can just set the crucial waypoint out in the water and then an invisible helipad on land and it will go for that. So now, thanks to some limitspeed commands on the waypoints, it does exactly what I want. And looks really good too.

 

Now I just need to setup the players getting unloaded automatically so that slowpokes don't get carried away by the VTOL taking off for the last WP. Unless the Transport Unload WP works with player crew with unloading them automatically as well.

I might increase the activation delay for the last WP a bit, but dumping them out might still be the better option.

[Melody_Mike 130]

On 8/31/2022 at 10:26 PM, cooked auto said:

Now I just need to setup the players getting unloaded automatically so that slowpokes don't get carried away by the VTOL taking off for the last WP.

player action ["Eject", vehicle player];

^In a trigger onActivation field. Perhaps set "repeatable" just in case. 

[cooked auto 6]

Nice, thanks. I'll give that a go if the transport unload doesn't work.