AI Runways

[UNN 0]

Hi,

Thanks for the info guys; it's a big time saver for me. One more question regarding something brought up else where, regarding the landing gear.

How far out from runway would an aircraft normally lower it's landing gear, on the final approach?

ATM I have it lowered as soon as it starts on it's final approach. The final approach distance, is relative to it's max speed and agility. So it can be anything from 2000m (Minimum) to 5000m+

Quote[/b] ]Military hangers are not usually used for storage or parking aircraft, they are for scheduled/unscheduled maintenance activities

Out of curiosity, how often do they receive maintenance?

Landing most of the addons, results in some minor damage to the aircraft. If left unchecked, after a while this becomes fatal. I could bypass this, but I prefer to leave it to who ever is using them. Plus I like the element of uncertainty when an already, heavily damaged aircraft, is coming in to land.

Good point about the Hangers & Gameplay, I will have it taxiing in and out for now. Once I've got that working, it will be easier to introduce plane tugs e.t.c

Quote[/b] ]Pilot's are meat-heads, plain and simple!

I had the pleasure of visiting RAF Mildenhall on a regular basis, a few years back. So I have first hand experience of the noise cargo plane, jet engines can generate. They where supposed to keep thier distance from the terminal, when the engines where running.

Quote[/b] ]Sounds like you've already got the script in the works so... WoooHooo!!!!

Not had chance to start on them yet, catching up on a few things that I've had on hold. But I can now see how it all fits together, which is half the battle.

Quote[/b] ]Any hopes of simulating this obscure scenario?

I don’t see why not, it should not be that different (code wise). But a couple of questions though:

How long could the glide path be maintained, and what is the rate of decent?

Would the heli's nose be up, down or as level as possible?

There are a few tail rotor failure scripts kicking about, not sure which is the best though. Assuming they fit the bill?

Cheers

[Bobcatt666 0]

In my chopper units the UH1s OH6 and OH58s still taxied out on the flightline in colum formation . Saving the ground crews the noise and propblast of birds taking off near the repair areas causing fod danager.

The UH60s, and AH64s litlerly roll out on the runway on their tires and take off.

[cytosine 0]

Yeah, Bobcatt is right, even helo's with skids will taxi out. These are rules imposed by the tower and apply to all fixed wing (planes) and rotary wing (helo's) aircraft. But with skids, the pilot needs to bring the aircraft to a 2-5 foot hover and then taxi to the appropriate position on the flight line before 'pulling pitch' and starting ascent (usually a helo takes off right from the end of the run-way in the direction the runway points). There's no 'rolling' involved in the take-off. But helo's do obey all the same ground rules and take orders from tower concerning departure/approach headings and which run-way to come in on. "Roll on landings" like I described before, were only something we'd do as a 'training' excercises for the pilot's. They are not how we would commonly land. It's common to approach, then fly down the runway, then taxi to a flight line or tower designated parking area. It's the same motions an airplane would do, but helo's have the choice of setting wheels down or not. Some pilots maintain hover until in or close to their parking spot. It saves fuel to put it down on the tarmac, then taxi in.

When I was with the 101st in Ft. Campbell, we had over 100 helo's (Blackhawk and Apache with a few Kiowa Warriors) parked on the east flight line and our own private run-way that only helo's used for departure and approach. For multi-ship missions a 5 ship "chalk" would taxi out onto the runway and line up before taking off. The flight commander would take orders from the tower and then give the command to depart. It was a beautiful sight to see 5 aircraft taking off at the same time!!!!

As far the approach for a 'roll on landing', I believe vectors and distances are similar, if not the same, to fixed wing approaches. The nose does not tilt up like fixed wing aircraft as wheel brakes would be used to slow the aircraft once the tires hit the ground (our aft tire always hit first, so I guess the nose was slightly up, but probably because a Blackhawk's main rotors are tilted forward by default). During approach, the aircraft is gliding on the rotors, so no forward or negative airspeed is being pushed from the main's.

However, regular helo landings (non-roll on) would require the pilot to pull back on the stick to slow his forward airspeed, but this isn't usually done until over the run-way.

Quote[/b] ]

Out of curiosity, how often do they receive maintenance?

Let's just say that aircraft tech's get paid quite well (but only when you get out of the military and work for a civilian company like DynaCorp.) Blackhawk's have quite a long list of scheduled activities (this list does not include the "un-scheduled" problems that will 'ground' and aircraft making it unsafe or unwise to fly.) For every 11 hours of flight time on the Blackhawk, a PM-I maintenance activity had to be scheduled (a good crew-dawg could hammer this out in 30 minutes). At 30 hours, an engine flush. And at other intervals there were oil changes, avoinic checks, blade changes, hydraulic pressure tests, etc, etc... Minor stuff like this never really needed hangar time. Bigger maintenance activities like main rotor head changes, hydraulic pump replacement, gear box replacement, engine swaps, or the dreaded 500 hour maintenance check (PM-II) would prefer hangar time. But with 30 birds and only 6 spaces in our hangar, a crew chief might be stuck doing this work on the flight line. Not a big deal, unless it's raining or snowing out.... :~) Heck, in the field there is no such thing as a 'hangar' to perform these tasks, so like we used to say "it's good trainin!!!".

Well, hope that helps. I'm an ex-crewchief, not a pilot, so I hope my answers are accurate enough for our purposes.

Cytosine

"Helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission!!!"

[Bobcatt666 0]

Well adding more realistic situations to helio units is kinda a waste of time, I will mention I bitched to get better helo support under the FlashFX mod so just run that when using the ATC mods and keep them compatable FlashFX mods with handle things like engine fires tail rotor failure and pretty well covers most addons, only units noticed had problem were martains Bel206s which, There was an airtraffic control system imposed byt Takeoff Tim you should try to intergrate as well. Been told it was pretty neat, I myself never got it operational on my system. there is also a beta autopilot system slated for choppers, never really understood it by the demo made a AH64 fly low-level altitude over Nagova without running into buildings trees and such..

Other big drawback is making it better but simple enough players will use it. Otherwize it will go nowhere. Face it most players that use addons pretty much just collect em play with em for a few hours in the editor and run off to get the next thing.

FlashFX mods will handle most of the FX and scripts on fixed and rotory winged aircraft for you.. Follow suit make a config to handle the aircraft rather than redoing, then editing the original units. then you just update the config instead of trying to maintain a addon DB of modified units.

In flash FX mods the pilot AI works better in fixed winged lessens midair colssions enabling better dogfighting abilities. Get the choppers to inherte this and should make choppers a bit more usable.

[UNN 0]

Quote[/b] ]There's no 'rolling' involved in the take-off.  But helo's do obey all the same ground rules and take orders from tower concerning departure/approach headings and which run-way to come in on.

I just expected heli's to take off from some specialy designated spot, rather than use the runway. I never realy considered Heli's having to adhere to runway protocol. It would be a shame not to support them with this system, considering they are such an integral part of OFP.

Quote[/b] ]It was a beautiful sight to see 5 aircraft taking off at the same time!!!!

Yeah, I'm beginging to think the same myself, in terms of OFP.

Quote[/b] ]Face it most players that use addons pretty much just collect em play with'em for a few hours in the editor and run off to get the next thing.

I have plans to use these and others in some MP missions, when I get my hands on a dedicated server (probably by the time OFP2 comes around). In the mean time it's an interesting challenge, to automate the whole thing. On the off chance it will make it easier for someone to use it in there mission.

Quote[/b] ]Other big drawback is making it better but simple enough players will use it.

I hope, just the two commands ATC_Launch & ATC_Land will be enough to use the basic\default functionality. Anything over and above that, should be available to the more adventuress mission designer. I'm toying with different ways to use the system with the editor, perhaps just using waypoint poitions, relative to the runways start and end points. But sounds like a fully automated system would be the way to go as a default.

Quote[/b] ]FlashFX mods will handle most of the FX and scripts on fixed and rotory winged aircraft for you..

I must admit I'm a bit reluctant to add anymore FX's scripts myself, at the moment. Mainly because the system is for AI aircraft, so many of the addons should have half thier player orientated FX scripts disabled. Also, this is really down to the addon maker. At least I try and change as little as possible, from the original.

Quote[/b] ]Get the choppers to inherit this and should make choppers a bit more usable.

Giving each aircraft it's own waypoints, rather than relying on group formation, allows you to maintain a tight formation. As a test I had five F16's land at the same time with about 10 meters between them. I'm sure the same will apply for helicopters.

Cheers

[cytosine 0]

The more I play this addon, the more I like it!!! You rock UNN!!!

If you can make 5 aircraft takeoff and maintain formation, we might actually be able to make some decent "Air Assault" or "Arty Raid" missions... NICE!!!!

Cyto

[Bobcatt666 0]

Durring start up I get "addon 'ATC_AEC' requires addon 'aec' " Everyting seems to work but the traffic verssions which bomb, even after getting the floating civiy plane.

[UNN 0]

Hi,

Quote[/b] ]Durring start up I get "addon 'ATC_AEC' requires addon 'aec' "

AEC Is Everon - Malden - Kolguev in one super size map. So you can use both the runways on Everon and Malden.

You can download it here if you are missing it:

http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=6085

But it's probably down to my mistake, for some reason I thought OFP would not object to the ATC_ addons, if you did not have the required addons for a particular Island or Aircraft. Don't know how I got this idea into my head

Quote[/b] ]Everyting seems to work but the traffic verssions which bomb, even after getting the floating civiy plane.

Again probably more missing addons, OFP will only warn you at startup, about the first addon it finds missing. It will not tell you about the rest. Although I get an error in the mission editor saying it can open float plane scripts.

Sorry about this, I'll have to update my original post. But I guess I will have to maintain individual ATC addons for all the aircraft and islands, to help avoid the problem.

P.S I'm slowly updating the links in my original post, but you can get Capt Moores flaot plane here:

Capt Moore's Float Plane

Cheers

[cytosine 0]

I ran into a problem with the rtk_tomcat, but later realized I have a newer version than what ATC_rtktomcat is probably looking for. This version causes CTD if used with ATC.

I believe this is the newest release (v0.95 released in November):

Footmunch & TomiD's F14

It must be maddening trying to keep up with all the new releases, so I hope these links help.

Also, I just d'loaded the newest Antonov addon v1.2. It's really nice, but only slightly works with the ATC_antonov config. Vit seems to have changed it from three models into one fully working model. It's great:

Vit Antonov-124 v1.2

Hope these help.

Quote[/b] ]

Again probably more missing addons, OFP will only warn you at startup, about the first addon it finds missing. It will not tell you about the rest.

Yeah, I ran into the same since I only have limited number of craft in my mods/Addons dir and started out by loading your entire set into ATC/Addons. I would then "End Process" the flashpointbeta.exe each time and delete the appropriate ATC_* pbo. I wish there were a -debug flag that would just give you a list of all errors or missing addons at once!

Such is life...

;~)

Cyto

[UNN 0]

I've update the Antonov.pbo to v1.2, I'm still working out a easy way of changing all of TomID's texture paths so I can support both versions.

ATC Antonov

I will get myself a web page at some point, and post individual links to each ATC addon.

Cheers

[cytosine 0]

Suite!!! ATC Antonov works great and tastes like chicken!!!!

Thanks!

Cyto

[deanosbeano 0]

hey this looks fantastic.nice job. i been making ai.airport scripts for a few month now.just gotta download this and work with it.looks fantastic.heres an old vid of an early one i made.

i used scripts to stop ai taking off over grass etc. and airport is all ai controlled. it has medivac and planes will stack if runway is in use. and all with voice over loudspeaker.( i used say command.so nobody will hear unless at airport). i love games with ambience especially ai ,ambience.

heres a link .paste into ya mediaplayer the linkhttp if it wont play. . btw ,my video taking is a lil carp.

airport_vid

[UNN 0]

Quote[/b] ]and airport is all ai controlled. it has medivac and planes will stack if runway is in use. and all with voice over loudspeaker.( i used say command.so nobody will hear unless at airport). i love games with ambience especially ai ,ambience.

heres a link .paste into ya mediaplayer the linkhttp if it wont play. . btw ,my video taking is a lil carp.

I dont worry about that to much, the idea looks great. I noticed you have your own take off scripts to? At least it looked like it, how far have you got with that side?

Looking forward to checking them out, I'm sure the two systems could be intergrated.

BTW I noticed some of the AI voice files sounded computer generated? But still good considering, do you have predefined sentences, or make them up during the game from individual words?

[deanosbeano 0]

hi,

voices are from at&t website,text and speak.

they are predefined. but there is a randomness to the whole thing.

ie. if no plane is on runway ,it is pronounced clear . if runway is in use. then its pronounced busy and planes landing waypoint or script is ignored and it goes to next defined.

i also have same randomness in vehicles crossing runway. thats is. a value is set for runway .if runway = 1 then nothing lands or crosses. and many more little curios , to me it makes for a better ambience.and the beauty with the say command as we know, is that unless your near or you activated a switch in @player circumstances. you wont hear it all.and ya can get on with the fighting.or whatever .

as for the take off script ,its just a simple velocity script.(tested on ded server and works.) just make triggers or wp or even a full script in sqs and set the velocity that you want . ie at the end of a runway ,ap2 setvelocity [0,-90,90].

-90 because plane is traveling south. if north would be 90. etc ect

i hope to release a full working map soon. allthough a working but smaller version is on fraghaus now, if ya want to rip it. under oil mish on raz island.

if anyone has any nice airport sounds for real and could link, would be apreciated.

[HAV 0]

Quote[/b] ]if anyone has any nice airport sounds for real and could link, would be apreciated

There is some sound pack at ATWAR.net containing variously sounds like:

* U.S. Air Traffic Control

* Russian Air Traffic Control

* U.S. Ground Control

* Russian Ground Control

* Aircraft Cockpit Warnings

* Russian Aircraft Cockpit Warnings

* Helicopter Sounds

* Aircraft Sounds

* Vehicle Sounds

* Weapon Sounds

* Radio Commands And Sounds

* Misc Sounds

Maybe this will help you....... if I well understand what you mean

Direct Download link ~30 MB - needed acount at fileplanet

[deanosbeano 0]

cheers m8 , looks good to me. ill have a go . ty

[UNN 0]

I think ambient sound is relevant to the game, after all it should give your position away. Will the AI respond to the say command. I mean will they hear and react to an enemy, using say?

Quote[/b] ]voices are from at&t website,text and speak.

I just tried it out, works very well for the American voices. The German is not bad either, the French and British are a bit wierd though

Quote[/b] ]they are predefined. but there is a randomness to the whole thing.

I wanted to build a library of words and phrases so I can compile a larger range of sentences during runtime. The At&T site is great to test out the idea, should be able to make the radio dialog as realistic as I want.

Cheers

[deanosbeano 0]

yeh ,i understand what ya mean and agree. i was thinking of back engineering ,the ingame one, alpha ,bravo ,enemy t80 ,etc and you could even name certain buildings. ie.instead of 2 go to house at 12 oclock, could become 2 goto xxxxx on xxxxxstreet in xxxx town.

or i tough of just applying it specificilly to the runway.(also toyed with an idea of an adult version lol.).

anyway let me know how you progressing ,i would be glad to help with some problem solving etc.

[UNN 0]

Hi,

I've added support for the Finish Defence Mod's aircraft and Islands:

Finnish Hawk (FDF)

Finnish Hawk (FDF)

Finnish Piper Chieftain (FDF)

Finnish F-18C Hornet (FDF)

Finnish MiG-21 (FDF)

MiG-21 (FDF)

Islands:

Eastborder (2 Runways)

Eastborder W (2 Runways)

Karjal

Maldevic (2 Runways)

ATC FDF

The default fly in height once an aircraft has taken off is 30m. On the FDF East Border maps, larger plans will crash into the tree tops.

To set a new default FlyInHeight you can either:

Modify the constant for a particular Aircraft,Runway or combination by adding the following to the aircrafts init field or Init.sqs. Sixty meters should be enough:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[[Plane01],[ATC_LFLYHEIGHT],[60]] Call ATC_ApplyConstant

Or call FlyInHeight from a script using the ATC Event ATC_EVENT_ENDLAUNCH

@deanosbeano

I've been updating some other things, so I've not had chance to do much more. The Radio Message Generator is the next addon I want to try after I've finished more on the Runways. I'm starting to test everything in MP now, so progress will be slow.

Cheers

[cornhelium 0]

Great work again, UNN.

[harley 3 1185 0]

Sorry to dredge up the old topic; just downloading the whole shebang now.  Any new developments in the works regarding ATC, UNN?  Also, has anyone tried coming up with a script which allows a Humvee of a Jeep to tow an aircraft across the field?  I think I may have asked this question elsewhere a loooong time ago, and cannot remember the answer.  It's been fascinating reading through this thread - lots of great feedback .  Cheers,

EDIT: Hmm, just stumbled upon a discussion of the tractor on the Mapfact forum. Alas, I know no German, and this thread looked quite interesting too.

[UNN 0]

Hi,

Quote[/b] ]Sorry to dredge up the old topic

No worries, I was going to do the same myself I'm just adding support for the Footmunch's AN-72 and CSJ's PC-6, and hopefully some more runway types to.Been side tracked finishing off some other stuff, but it's full steam ahead after that. I'm not going to be happy until I see hordes of air strikes being sent, head to head over Armoured Assaults giant maps..well thats the idea  

Quote[/b] ]EDIT:  Hmm, just stumbled upon a discussion of the tractor on the Mapfact forum.  Alas, I know no German, and this thread looked quite interesting too.

Yeah there is loads of detail I would like to add on the ground crew side. Should know more in a week or so, about what’s possible for the AI.

Cheers

P.S Lets us know how you get on, ideas or suggestion e.t.c

[UNN 0]

Hi,

I've added support for some more Mods:

Liberation 1941 - 1945

La5

La5bomb

La5FN

La5FNbomb

La5 168IAP

La5bomb 168IAP

La5 159IAP

La5bomb 159IAP

PO2

As well as the original mod you will also need ATC LIB Mod

CSLA II

L-410 UVP T

L-410 UVP E

L-410 Aeroflot

L-410 Sky Diver

L-410 UVP spec.ops

L-410 UVP T

MiG-21

As well as the original mod you will also need ATC CSLA II

The Swiss Mod

F-5 Tiger II

As well as the original mod you will also need ATC Swiss Mod

Individual addons:

SU-17 by TomiID

F117 by TomiID

An-72 Coaler by Footmunch

F-14 Tomcat by Footmunch & TomiID

Pilatus Porter By CSJ

Mig 31 by Timamas

As well as the original addons you will also need:

ATC TMD SU17

ATC TMD F117

ATC RKT An-72 Coaler

ATC (RKT&TMD) Tomcat

ATC CSJ PPPC6 (Pilatus Porter)

ATC MIG31

Cheers

[[aps]gnat 28]

Hi UNN,

What have I to do to enable my B52 to be compatible ?

[UNN 0]

Hi,

Quote[/b] ]Hi UNN, What have I to do to enable my B52 to be compatible ?

Assuming you probably already have your own custom landing gear.

You need to determine the height it sits above ground, it's taxi speed and turning circle. There are three utility missions to that. Then just add those parameters to a function called from the init event of the ATC class.

Or you could just send me a copy when your done I have to start looking into adding the ATC stuff straight from the original addon, just to keep the number of pbo's down.