Helicopters flying in formation...

[Mr. Snrub 0]

This is something I've been wondering about for a while, and can't seem to find any answers by searching...

Is there any way to keep two or more helicopters (that have been grouped together) flying in formation at 'normal' or 'full' speeds?

At the moment, the group leader flies off immediately (whether already flying or not) and the others follow soon after. The leader then waits for the others to catch up, who do so, then slow down by which time the leader has flown off again - and it goes on and on.

They keep in formation if their speed is set to 'limited', but i'd rather have my attack helicopters flying at a respectable speed towards their targets

[sanctuary 16]

A workaround i use because of this problem with choppers not keeping formation at higher speed is the following

Do not group those helicopters at start.

In the editor place them in the formation you want (put them in a line if you want a line formation etc...)

Give a waypoint to each of those choppers , (but make those waypoint , in parrallel to each others, so the helicos seems to continue flying in formation)

That is the best way i found to keep a chopper squadron to fly at higher speed and to stay in formation

In the code they are not in formation and are not a squadron , but ingame it seems that they are ;)

But if you really want to group them you can always , start like previously (do not group them + make individual waypoints) , but give a name to each helicos

Near the target create a trigger with something like that

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[Helico1] join HelicoLeader

to have a chopper named Helico to join the group of the one named HelicoLeader.

Etc..

[Cephalid 0]

Yep I would do it the same way as Sanc describes.

To build formation at the beginning, insert for each chopper two waypoints close after each other. The first one will set a redy_chopper_x to true and the second will be activated via a script with a little time delay. In the second waypoint of this pair, the condition for activation will be: go

This delay ensures that all helos will start with zero speed, so they keep formation more or less.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">go = flase

@(redy_chopper_1 && redy_chopper_2 && redy_chopper_3 && ...)

~5

go = true

[Mr. Snrub 0]

Cheers fellers!

Looks much better without all that stopping and starting

[sanctuary 16]

Another small hint for this case

Give a different " flyinheight " to each of your chopper , as you certainly already noticed that the AI like a lot to run into other friendly helico when they turn or try to acquire a specific target