EricJ WIP Thread

[EricJ 761]

Just a quick update. Right now I'm looking to do proper weapons on the AH-1Z, namely the Hellfire racks that it uses. I've bounced the idea of using the Hellfires from the GitHub download from the Hatchet Team (the ones that made the H-60 pack), and incorporating them into the AH-1Z and the EricJ Helicopter Pack. While they're "decent", I could always go with better, so there's that. Other than that nothing else on the horizon, unless I'm missing something?

[EricJ 761]

ADuke Kiowa Alpha Notes:

 

This mod is not finished. Make sure you read that first sentence before subscribing. This is to prevent the "Needs work" comments because I at least can release it as such.

 

What it can do:
- Fly around (FM isn't the best, but it's what I got, I can take requests to work on that as I don't know the Kiowa as such).
- It can laser designate and the MMS works fine.
- It can use BIS weapons only right now, so until I get the custom weapons working, it will be that

 

Things to know:
- If you want to work on the helo, contact me either on my Discord:  https://discord.gg/afmPJCBRbh or contact me by Steam
- Right now I don't feel too motivated to work on it all of the time. Right now due to lack of interest in any help I'll work on it as much as possible without killing myself. I would really like some more experienced modders to work on it, given that they have more resources than I do, and can make it shine. But if you put up wth the infrequent updates, I can probably get it finished, sometime.

[EricJ 761]

For the AH-1Z I spent some hours working on wingtip pylons for some AIM-9Xs and no worky. Either it would work, and not disappear when I fire, to not show up on the pylon, despite it being loaded. No help from the Pylons either, as they're more "universal", and can't make a fake pylon to make it work, as it wouldn't load on two pylons, though I got the system working. I think the new pylon system took over the embedded work that was on there, so no seemingly way to do it. I'll keep the files handy, but I think that a version (or the base version) with some sort of AAM is out of the question for now.

[EricJ 761]

Well it's been a busy afternoon for me. I finally got the M197 and M230 armed helos gone away now permanently. I managed to figure out how to do a "gun pod" for the USN M197 and M230 armed helos. I managed to remove four models, config entries, and model.cfg entries today. That means you don't need to have a specific gun armed helo in order to do things. The good thing is that the co-pilot can now fire the gun, so if you don't have a pilot you can fire it. Note that the 240 and M134 guns are still slaved to the pilot, so you have something to work with. Other than that I'm sure I'll find something else to do with the Helicopter Pack. I may work on the Kiowa for a bit, but for now I'll deploy the update for the EricJ Helicopter tomorrow, just don't want to ruin missions that use my helos and cause issues with groups that depend on my mod. I don't think most people use my mod play on Sunday, and may move it to Monday, which was my original plan. The weapons are selectable in the appropriate slots where the gun used to be prior to the change, so there's no confusion. I'm not sure if the US Army has dual M230s, but I stuck with one gun on that specific pylon just to keep it somewhat real and should be accurate somewhat. This also helped me understand what to do with the Kiowa, as I had to eventually do the .50 cal  machine gun that is mounted on the left side. Given how the model works and with the Helicopter Pack, I should be able to model everything at least reasonably. Again if anybody is interested in helping with the Kiowa let me know and we can see what we can do, but looks like modeling and whatnot.

[EricJ 761]

Future Plans: As I wait for the Stable version of the game to update, I came up with a plan for the AH-6J. Given that back then they had Hellfires on the bird I'm looking to make the system a pylon system. Personally, I think I can get away with a normal rocket pod, and not have to make every tube for it. I asked around and one person on Discord replied, but none of the experts, so when I can pack the files and not cause a crash due to formatting I'll look into it. If I can do it then I'll go with that, but not looking to make the pylons universal (unless there's a desire to) so it uses BIS weapons. I want to actually limit the weaponry for once, and that's the best way to do it, once I get the rockets configged and model setup so it can work with the game. I'm looking to limit it to Hellfires and rockets. While the MELB featured removable miniguns, I see no reason to do that either, so it'll be just Hellfires and the rocket pods. The minis will stay there as they are now, and be done with it. I'm not looking to expand it and not looking to make an M version, because you can't beat the MELB anyway, so there's that. Other plans isn't really much, given that there's not much to do as of yet. I am thinking of allowing the gun pod from the BIS Buzzard on the AH-96, but that's again on hold until things are good with the Tools (I use the Dev version) and the new patched Stable game. I only do it this way because the Dev Tools work fine and I like the latest updates. I keep the Stable version of the game in case I actually go on a server and play. Otherwise, I'd use the Dev version of the game, and have one, but I prefer Stable. Anyway, that's my musings for now. Of course anything I may have missed let me know and I'll see if I can't do it.

[EricJ 761]

Here's a showoff video of the new cockpit textures for the Kiowa Warrior, done by Quiggs from the ADF Re-Cut mod:

 

 

[EricJ 761]

Current WIP shot of the M3P .50 machinegun. Not much to show but it is coming along nicely though, and will be finished in a few days or so:

 

http://ericjwrites.itgo.com/Arma3/wip1996.jpg

 

John Unden from LinkedIn was gracious enough to take screenshots of the VBS4 one since I really couldn't find any reliable photos after an image search on Google, so it is what it is so far.

[EricJ 761]

Pretty much "finished"

 

http://ericjwrites.itgo.com/Arma3/wip1997.jpg

 

It isn't perfect, especially the feed chute for the .50, but it does work and shoot, and so on. I'll probably get it UV Mapped sometime though, as I do have to do some work with the textures and the like, rather than a basic texture I was thinking of doing, but maybe I will or not. I'd like to detail it, and probably will later on, but it' s usable at least.

[EricJ 761]

Thar she blows:

 

http://ericjwrites.itgo.com/Arma3/wip1998.jpg

 

Thanks to Trueblood on Discord, the .50 is mapped finally, and for now is colored, but not the right color, which I have to dial in sometime. Right now finding a good color for the Kiowa is a bit difficult (unless you have DCS: Kiowa) for use in the game, as you can see in the image. Right now it is working fine, and I have to learn the UV map to figure out what is what and how to apply the textures to it at least, so there is some progress going on.

[wansec_6 200]

G'day @EricJ,

 

The .50 looks great.

 

Good luck with the textureing.

[EricJ 761]

Thanks man

[EricJ 761]

Starting to make the effort to get the right colors for the eventual PSD from ADuke:

 

http://ericjwrites.itgo.com/Arma3/wip1999.jpg

 

Right now it's just the gun pod, which shared the same overall camo, so once I get it dialed in I'll use that on the bird as well.

[EricJ 761]

Did some searching and some thinking about the CIA role in Afghanistan, and came up with my take on the Special Activities Division. Right now I'm focusing on the ArmaVerse and not trying to make a mod that requires twenty mods to work. Anyway, here's what I've come up with so far. I need to add an IR laser and have a Team Leader, and a Operator as units:

 

http://ericjwrites.itgo.com/Arma3/wip2000.jpg

 

Right now it's the counterpoint to the Taliban and is included (It's just a config file, like 2 - 3 KB, so not heavy in filesize at all) in the Taliban Fighters mod. Overall it's just some special forces units that I wanted to do for my Pilot missions that are in Clafghan right now. I figure since it's just a config file and I use A3 basic weapons it shouldn't cause too many issues. And given that there's obviously not much detail into the Special Activities Division as a whole, I can make up what I want and it is "okay" as well.

[EricJ 761]

With the success of implementing the AGM-145D on the wingtips, I opted for an adapter rail for the AGM-145D on other pylons for the AH-96. I'm thinking of adding it to the MH-92 DAP, but it seems outside the role of the helo. I found out that the AGM-145D, along with the AGM-122 from the Expeditionary Forces CDLC doesn't kill all targets. I think the Nyx has a different system than a radar, because it always misses. The Tigris can be destroyed, but the warhead is too light to disable the system, and I don't think the radar specifically gets killed (it hits, but doesn't take it out). The Cronus radar is destroyed by the AGM-145D, but other modded SAM systems may have different results (I only tested the stock SAM systems):

 

http://ericjwrites.itgo.com/Arma3/wip2001.jpg