Shoot from moving vehicles

[shinRaiden 0]

Very simple explanation :

For VBS1 a basic hack was created entirely by BIA in BIA's branch of the engine without any involvement by BIS. Most importantly, the state values of the components were integrated as part of the native netcode, so it 'just worked' in MP without any script hacks at all.

The primary difficulty with the system is that it essentially requires all the models to be remade from scratch. You can't model them using optimized virtual methods (eggshell model) you have to build your models as though you were building solid models, to account for the proper physics processing of the different components.

A scripted system is not going scale well because of the inherent latency of the system. The local pos of the cargo is dependent on the scripted pos of the transport. That then has to be transmitted and replicated on remote systems. In MP, the 'warping' or 'teleporting' shows evidence of client-side interpolation of MP pos data. So you'd have to wait for the warping to stabilize before you could accurately position the cargo in relation to the previously unknown object position. This situation is obviously complicated when the driver and the cargo are significantly remote to each other.

In regards to vehicle functionality, those suggesting hopping in and out of seats and gun positions need to go back and educate themselves on how the proxy system and vehicle logic works. When you're 'in' a vehicle, you are merely a rendered part of that vehicle, regardless of functionality. When you are in close proximity to a vehicle, but not actually in a proxy position, you are part of a completely independent entity, and are tracked as such. There is no connection in that case between you and the nearby vehicle, and in fact there would likely be significant collisions instead.

[goose63 0]

looks great, cant wait for it' releas.

i dont know much about modding/scripting, but wouldn't it be easier just to move the seating configuration in the blackhawk so you sit 3 or 4 abreast on the floor and just be able to look and shoot[just like real life]. it might get quite congested in the cabin wiht 8+ guys trying to engage out the door .you can look around quite well sitting on the planks in the little bird, why cant you shoot?thi sis a taught practise frol boht helo's IRL. it was so silly not adding that. if this is meant the most realistic militry sim out there[bar VBS1], then make it so.

[frederf 0]

Very simple explanation :

For VBS1 a basic hack was created entirely by BIA in BIA's branch of the engine without any involvement by BIS. Most importantly, the state values of the components were integrated as part of the native netcode, so it 'just worked' in MP without any script hacks at all.

The primary difficulty with the system is that it essentially requires all the models to be remade from scratch. You can't model them using optimized virtual methods (eggshell model) you have to build your models as though you were building solid models, to account for the proper physics processing of the different components.

A scripted system is not going scale well because of the inherent latency of the system. The local pos of the cargo is dependent on the scripted pos of the transport. That then has to be transmitted and replicated on remote systems. In MP, the 'warping' or 'teleporting' shows evidence of client-side interpolation of MP pos data. So you'd have to wait for the warping to stabilize before you could accurately position the cargo in relation to the previously unknown object position. This situation is obviously complicated when the driver and the cargo are significantly remote to each other.

In regards to vehicle functionality, those suggesting hopping in and out of seats and gun positions need to go back and educate themselves on how the proxy system and vehicle logic works. When you're 'in' a vehicle, you are merely a rendered part of that vehicle, regardless of functionality. When you are in close proximity to a vehicle, but not actually in a proxy position, you are part of a completely independent entity, and are tracked as such. There is no connection in that case between you and the nearby vehicle, and in fact there would likely be significant collisions instead.

There must be a way of transmitting the position of a character on top of a vehicle _relative_ to that vehicle.

You're saying that a character standing on the back of a truck will be seen to "warp" around because the updates about the character's absolute position and the truck's absolute position are coming independently. There's no guarantee that the truck and character will be updated in unison.

BIA's video of the "on vehicle" feature was known to be beta. Said so right on the video. Obviously it lacked a lot of sophistication, character was glued to the seat, no idea what would happen if the truck went over.

What needs to happen with proper netcode for this is once a character gets on a vehicle his position transitions from an absolute one to a position relative to the center of the vehicle. This way even for a remote 56K client the character is always assumed to be tied to the truck. If the client doesn't get any updates about the movement of the character, it will just assume that it's still in the exact same relation to the truck that it used to be. No relative warping of character and truck.

[Gedis 0]

great job, but those fireing animations looks ugly and unreal  

can't this be done using multiple gunner possitions in place of cargo proxys? so you just need to hack weapons in hand isues...

well i hope you will push your self and whole this thing to a limit

 

P.S. i don't know scripting at all, so my words may be (and probably are) wrong...

[quiet_man 8]

it was so silly not adding that. if this is meant the most realistic militry sim out there[bar VBS1], then make it so.

people are so easily blaming BIS for "this" and "that" missing

first tell me with how many people you want to play online!? 1 enough? You can drive and the other walks around in the vehicle. Great online gaming

how many armies train on public servers via internet? Arma is optimized for connecting lots instances via internet. If you would have read through the discussion, you would know that synchronization between clients in realtime is the main issue.

And if you don't understand what is written, you should be carefull naming someone silly

QuietMan

[Gedis 0]

BTW guys, i have to inform you that this feature of firing from moving vehicles is not that damn needed, you just look to the military, they are using this "feature" in RL very often? In ground transport vehicles yes, but thing is that transport vehicle's task is just to bring troops to their place on battle field, not to encounter heavy fire, which would lead, not only to troops destruction, but to transport vehicle's too.

Helicopters, once again, transport...

We all know what is to fire from helicopter which is in air. Vibration, wind (depens on height), besides there's cold out there. And now think about aiming at someone - almost imposible + that helicopters fly quite far from ground, will your fire affect the target? Nope, it'll be intact.

This goes for conventional troops.

And special ones...

now we are talking... more training, more live firing excercises leads to quite sucesfull usage of this transportation as a good platform of defensive firing = decreasing targets morale and advantage. Actualy "only" spec. ops. sniper units are using this thing.

I don't say that this feature is usless, in real life it's a need, but ingame AI morale has no effect on this

Forgot to mention, i have played BF2, have you too? you fired from vehicle and helicopter from their cargo possitions? is it easy, is it effective? well, in BF2 yes. Why? simple answer, it's not simulator, it doesn't simulate that much balistics as Arma does. And for me BF2 never was better than OFP what to say about Arma, BF2 for me is like simple stupid shooter game, just like Counter-Strike.

But it is what it is, we have simulator, let it be pushed to the limit, as close to the reality as it can be!

I have said what I had on my mind.

[Daniel 0]

Very interesting, keep up the effort. Being able to snipe from Blackhawks would make for some interesting co-op missions.

[WimpBastard 0]

Hopefully this'll work in MP, though I somehow doubt it

For realism it's good, but also for gameplay it's great too. When I'm riding in a truck or chopper I always feel so helpless, it'd be great to get the chance to shoot back.

[The Corinthian 0]

This looks amazing. I have to admit to being disappointed with the fact you couldnt fire out of vehicles in OFP and it was one of the first things I checked out in Arma and was sad to see it wasnt implemented.

The best example of this I have seen is in Joint Operations, players could walk around boats, inside helis, drive jeeps into helis, fire from side of littlebirds and so on. It also supported 150 player multiplayer games, day/night cycle, huge maps and so had many similarities with flashpoint.

I hope BIS decide to introduce this in an expansion pack or something or possibly a patch but in the meantime if the community can get a working alternative and it can work in MP then it gets my vote.

Well done lads...

[armatech 8]

Could you not do it this way?

and just define the offset to where on the model you would like your guy placed.

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

_Offset = [0.1,0.2,0.26];

_vectors =

{

(_this select 0) SetVelocity (Velocity (_this select 1));

(_this select 0) SetPos ((_this select 1) ModelToWorld _Offset);

_VUp=VectorUp (_this select 1);

_VDir=VectorDir (_this select 1);

(_this select 0) SetvectorDir _VDir;

(_this select 0) SetvectorUp _VUp;

};

while{true}do {

[_unit,_Vehicle] call _vectors;

sleep(0.001);

}:

[Commando84 0]

cant it be released soon it would be great to have it working decently as a beta version and then later maybe have a more better working version.

[NoRailgunner 0]

i prefer an final version v1.0 and stable working

*its done when its done

[Sleepdoc 0]

i prefer an final version v1.0 and stable working

*its done when its done  

I second that emotion!

[pepel 0]

don't be to much excited... if is done with scripts (ie. setpos every 0.01 seconds) won't be too much playable in multiplayer...

regards,

pepel

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

don't be to much excited... if is done with scripts (ie. setpos every 0.01 seconds) won't be too much playable in multiplayer...

regards,

pepel

Unless you simply assign new static cargospots in the helicopters, so people can shoot you from the ground - and then make everything else locally. Then you won't see any lag.

[[aps]gnat 28]

Quick and Dirty demo missions in the FIRST POST ...

Thanks for all your comments guys, when I get more time I'll do some more work on these.

Have fun

[frederf 0]

I can't wait for the ability to shoot from moving vehicles so I can forbid my squad in my realism unit from ever doing it.

[Kerry 0]

I cant wait to make Cops and Robbers missions with this script!!!!!

[ArmaVidz 0]

I can't wait for the ability to shoot from moving vehicles so I can forbid my squad in my realism unit from ever doing it.

~nice LOL. Neat addon, realy could come in handy in SWAT style missions

[hardrock 1]

Nice script. In my opinion this script would only make sense though while the helicopter is hovering or moving very calmly. The action to switch to "firing mode" for infantry inside should depend on the helicopter speed and be only available at speeds like below 10 km/h. This way snipers could fire from hovering helicopters, infantry units could shoot while a helicopter is landing.

This would have several upsides: First of all it's realistic, I can't imagine anyone shooting from a quicker moving helo without falling out. Also, there are far less scripts to run in a loop and sync over the netcode. And last but not least, it requires cooperation by the pilot and the infantry inside.

[Serclaes 0]

I can't wait for the ability to shoot from moving vehicles so I can forbid my squad in my realism unit from ever doing it.

x2

Tho, there may be some cases of emergency, where it /might/ come in handy. Like a landing with the littlebird where suddenly an enemy comes up on the roof.

[bravo 6 0]

iv'e tryed this, and my opinion is it will be hard to use it. I mean its hard to move inside the vehicles, ie, to the sides..

also i can't get out of the vehicles.

but the idea is there. still need some work. Wish you good luck m8!

[Panda-PL- 0]

One thing trougth: you need a script for when a bullet is fired.

Each time it happens from inside the vehicle you should add the vehicle's velocity to the bullet's velocity, just as it happens IRL.

[bugkill 7]

the script is cool and i wish that we could port BAS blackhawks to arma because they have BH's without seats. the sniping from the heli is realistic, but it is not just for shooting. the sniper can also relay intel from the outside and on an elevated platform to keep the entry team up to speed on what is going outside, and what could be in certain rooms that have windows. great work!

[rundll.exe 12]

@ June 26 2007,18:02)]One thing trougth: you need a script for when a bullet is fired.

Each time it happens from inside the vehicle you should add the vehicle's velocity to the bullet's velocity, just as it happens IRL.  

whehe, you forget only one thing:

mass

indeed you can add the velocity of the bullet/rocket to the velocity of the helo, but only when it weights the same :P

The idea of letting the client do the loop is good, but then we need a setposLocal, because a setpos is global, so you recieve the setpos of everyone + the setpos you're doing locally...

All this makes me wanna make a script for Sigma6's truck with working trailer in MP...

but no time :P