USEC C130 Hercules

[trinder1 0]

Icemotoboy from New Zealand is developing a C130 Hercules unfortunatley a disgruntled ex USEC clan member who is now a member of the VMA Virtual Maori Army claimed it was his upcoming release. The true developer Icemotoboy who spent a year working on this excellent addon almost lost faith in his own addon. We here at VMA Virtual Maori Army would like to extend our sincere apology to Icemotoboy,USEC and especially the ARMA community for endangering an excellent addon that was almost never released.

This Aircraft will be one of the most high profile addons this year and I'm sure your all looking forward to Paradrop missions.

[gsleighter 0]

Holy awesome, will this come in different paint patterns?

Some USAF patterns for different eras, from modern to 1980's, maybe?

Can't wait to jump out of this thing.

[rocket 9]

I confirm Trinder's comments, both being Kiwi's - we sorted things out.

I'm happy to make the addon available, although I may not be devoting as much time as initially anticiapted, as the guys at RKSL are producing a C130 I suspect is of a very high standard. Instead I will devoting most of my time to my new island and getting the F117 finished completely. Some of this will rub off on the C130, as we use it alot of USEC already.

Currently the C130 has a number of issues that prevent an Alpha release:

* Corrupt Geometry. There is some geometry corruption that prevents binarization. Hence there is a noticably lag when it is introducted in game, which affects performance.

* Loading and Unloading cargo. You can load cargo pallets into the back of the C130, using a special truck. Outside of our special "USEC Revolutions" map, this really has little effect, but you can do Air Drops with it of things like vehicles etc...

* Textures. The textures on the inside are temporary only, as I didn't have the full permissions to use the textures. I will be replacing the textures inside with something else, unless I can gain permission.

These pictures were taken from OPERATION GREEN FIELD, which was a test of a special map file created that allows an operation to be conducted over a long number of days as a persistent map, building bases etc...

edit: typos....

[Pirin 0]

Is this being released Soonâ„¢, or will it wait till after your arctic map is completed? Just trying to get a feel for time line here, days, weeks, months, years? I'm just too excited about this plane finally coming out.

[icebreakr 3120]

Hopefully there will be a gray "civilian" version of it, too.

[rocket 9]

If I can solve the problem preventing binarization, I can then ship something that has an acceptable FPS.

I am firmly of the opinion that this is not what I intented as a super-high quality, outstanding, C130 addon for Armed Assault. I would like to stress that RKSL are working on a C130, and from all accounts it looks outstanding. Maybe this C130 will be one that people can use as an interim, until the RKSL one is released.

It was really designed purely around out logistics missions that we use for Base Building, that have not been released, so it may - as it stands now - have limited functionality outside of that. But I did also run up a version as a gunship, which was surprising easy to do.

Because I want to get a reputation for releasing stuff on-time, I will put some effort in to tidy this up so its at least "presentable", and aim to get "something" out within weeks/days.

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

And whos saying yours will be done before theirs....

Sorry couldnt help myself...

It really looks nice..

[sparks50 0]

Holy sh**

[ravendk 25]

keep up the good work

[Enixj7 0]

Looks good mate, glad the issue was resolved!

[slatts 1978]

i see a AC-130 coming!!

cant wait to fly this

[wika_woo 182]

looks real cool man

[[aps]gnat 28]

i see a AC-130 coming!!

Hmmm ... dont think so. If I remember correctly turrets in Aircraft types dont work in ArmA ...... unless *cross fingers* unless BIS fixed that in 1 of the recent patches

Lovely work anyhow boys ..... (might have to finish the An12 to match up )

[VXR 9]

Gnat @ May 21 2008,01:36)]

i see a AC-130 coming!!

Hmmm ... dont think so. If I remember correctly turrets in Aircraft types dont work in ArmA ...... unless *cross fingers* unless BIS fixed that in 1 of the recent patches  

Lovely work anyhow boys ..... (might have to finish the An12 to match up    )

Turrets work

Reply on the youtube movie from rock.

"Technically yes, but the AI are too stupid to use it. They constantly try to dive bomb targets making the AC-130 utterly pointless. It would have to be flown and manned by players.

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Gnat @ May 21 2008,01:36)]

i see a AC-130 coming!!

Hmmm ... dont think so. If I remember correctly turrets in Aircraft types dont work in ArmA ...... unless *cross fingers* unless BIS fixed that in 1 of the recent patches  

Lovely work anyhow boys ..... (might have to finish the An12 to match up    )

Turrets work

Reply on the youtube movie from rock.

"Technically yes, but the AI are too stupid to use it. They constantly try to dive bomb targets making the AC-130 utterly pointless. It would have to be flown and manned by players.

Well unscripted turrets don't work on Plane class addons as Gnat says.  The system demonstrated in that vid is quite heavily scripted.

[Fo333 0]

Looks awesome!

[VIPER SHIVA 0]

Gnat @ May 21 2008,01:36)]

i see a AC-130 coming!!

Hmmm ... dont think so. If I remember correctly turrets in Aircraft types dont work in ArmA ...... unless *cross fingers* unless BIS fixed that in 1 of the recent patches

Lovely work anyhow boys ..... (might have to finish the An12 to match up )

Turrets work

Reply on the youtube movie from rock.

"Technically yes, but the AI are too stupid to use it. They constantly try to dive bomb targets making the AC-130 utterly pointless. It would have to be flown and manned by players.

Well unscripted turrets don't work on Plane class addons as Gnat says. The system demonstrated in that vid is quite heavily scripted.

I don't want to get off on a rant here: But am I correct in assuming that if the guns were made to be useable by human players only, and the model was simply combined with Mandos' scripting, the AI could effectively use the AC-130 to attack ground targets?

ATM, the AI can effectively use artillery and airstrikes against human players through rather genius scripting. We just need a damn model with GUNS sticking out the side! For the LUV of GAWD!!!

amirite? kthnxbi!

[miles teg 1]

Um...back to the original topic of this C130.  Guys, you are doing one hell of a job on this C130 as is RKSL.   What I would recommend is this:   Release this C130 but make the cargo scripts available to RKSL if they don't have them already (or if theirs aren't as good).   RKSL generally takes their time to make their addons perfect.  So it will probably be some time I'm assuming before their C130 is released.  

Rock'o can confirm this or not.    RKSL is a kick ass mod but I think they'd agree with me that there is nothing wrong with two excellent C130 addons.   Variety is a good thing.  

But if the best of yours and the best of theirs can be combined, that would be even better.  So yeah just communicate with their team to figure out what is the best way for a release.   One other idea is that your model gets used for a "Stretched" version of the C-130 or for a AC130.  That way, if both models are good, they both end up being used.  

From personal experience I know Rock'o is one hell of a guy who has helped out my mod with great generosity.  I hold him up there with other great OFP/ArmA legends such as Footmunch, Marss911, Martin, Col. Klink, Cpt.Adammo, and Trenchfeet (and other greats who I can't remember at the moment).  

So  yeah, just work with ol' Rock'o, share info and I think that if their C130 is awhile off, they will be cool with helping you release this one.   But if theirs is coming out soon, but yours is a kick ass model, I think they would be very cool with using your model for maybe one version of their C130's...or you could just release it as a specialized version for you particular mod.    Nothing wrong with that.    

We're all in this together as a community.  

Just talk like civilized men to each other with respect and I think some good ideas will come out of it.

Oh and KIWI POWER!   Just because I love Kiwi birds, crazy New Zealanders, and Hobbits. Just lay off the sheep and raise more Kiwi birds...cuz they got a fighting chance at avoiding being shanked.  lol!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[[aps]gnat 28]

I don't want to get off on a rant here:    But am I correct in assuming that if the guns were made to be useable by human players only, and the model was simply combined with Mandos' scripting, the AI could effectively use the AC-130 to attack ground targets?

ATM, the AI can effectively use artillery and airstrikes against human players through rather genius scripting. We just need a damn model with GUNS sticking out the side! For the LUV of GAWD!!!

Scripting is the LAST resort.

If you take your sort of logic further, we might as well just stick a few old OFP models in game and not worry about how it all actually looks or works.

All the other classes have multi-turrets ... why not aircraft?

Bugger ..... with 1.14 out our chances of getting a fix become limited

[MehMan 0]

Gnat @ May 22 2008,11:52)]

I don't want to get off on a rant here:    But am I correct in assuming that if the guns were made to be useable by human players only, and the model was simply combined with Mandos' scripting, the AI could effectively use the AC-130 to attack ground targets?

ATM, the AI can effectively use artillery and airstrikes against human players through rather genius scripting. We just need a damn model with GUNS sticking out the side! For the LUV of GAWD!!!

Scripting is the LAST resort.

If you take your sort of logic further, we might as well just stick a few old OFP models in game and not worry about how it all actually looks or works.

All the other classes have multi-turrets ... why not aircraft?

Bugger ..... with 1.14 out our chances of getting a fix become limited

IIRC, Shin Raiden said the code is there, but was turned off as it was far too laggy in SP and MP. I guess there just wasn't enough time to do it properly. Who knows, perhaps ArmA2?

[rocket 9]

Good discussion all, can't wait to see RKSL produce - I'm a BIG fan!

To stress again, this is not my best work. USEC needed a C130 to do cargo runs as part of our persistent operations, so I made a C130.

I suppose I should come clean about how our cargo system works:

* Issue a Supply Truck (special truck with container on back) from Motor Transport

* Open ramp of USEC C130

* Drive truck to back of USEC C130

* Action appears in menu "Load Cargo"

* When cargo is loaded, a container appears

* You can load up to two containers

* Hop in USEC C130, fly to a dropzone, and drop out a chosen type of cargo, ie:

- HMMWVs

- Strykers

- Cargo Supplies (used in our maps to give resources for base building)

- Etc...

* Typically, our policy states two personnel must be in the C130, one to pilot and other to control drops

* Once above 10m, using the "open ramp" option opens the ramp only partially to the cargo drop angle (horizontal).

* Now options appear to do cargo drops

* Once cargo drop is done, parachute with container at base deploys and heads towards ground

* Once on ground message is broadcast to all players via chat on location of cargo, who dropped it, and Grid reference

* Smoke is deployed, container disappears and is replaced by the cargo (container stays if the cargo is supplies).

* Supplies can be collected by people and take to base for base building.

Its late, I hope that explains how the C130 currently works. Our aim was not to make a C130, the C130 is merely a part of a wider logistics process. As a former Logistics officer, I was interested more in the doctrine and decision making process that officers face - than a realistic (read graphical) depiction of logistcs and cargo management. In this respect, I think we have been very successful with both the C130 and the USEC Revolutions system.

It has, however, very limited operation and is no magic bullet for those seeking to have C130's picking up and delivering cargo. Again, this was all designed with USEC's specific needs in mind and my belief in building ArmA systems that reinforce doctrine.

There are many people who no doubt have much better understanding of how to get cargo proxies working. This method of using the animation phase has worked well for our purposes, but may not be "realistic" enough for many.

[miles teg 1]

Ah I see.. Ok. I think that is a unique system that still isn't bad by any means. You might perhaps design it to be AI friendly or at least make a demo mission showing how triggers can be scripted to make the Ai use it.

By the way I was drinking my happy juice (rum) last night and probably shouldn't have spoken on behalf of RKSL without knowing anything about the current status of their C130 or current workload (as they may be way too busy to work on any side projects). So I apologize to RKSL members about that. Nevertheless, I REALLY hope that you keep working on your C130 for the USEC mod as it looks beautiful and sounds like you did way too much work to let it go to waste.

Whatever form it takes, I know it will be greatly appreciated.

So keep up the excellent work!! You are appreciated!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[UNN 0]

Quote[/b] ]Nevertheless, I REALLY hope that you keep working on your C130 for the USEC mod as it looks beautiful and sounds like you did way too much work to let it go to waste.

Perhaps more emphasis should be placed on the fact that, there is an active group of people who share the same interest in developing the more esoteric aspects of game? As icemotoboy says, logistics are an important aspect, even if they do lack the glamour. I can't see why there should be any conflict or contradiction, in striving to further shared goals?

[rocket 9]

About time for an update.

I have had a considerable amount of PM's, and unfortunately I have not been able to reply to all of them yet. I will do in due time.

I have opted to entirely redo the mesh, and textures. Currently I have the external mesh at around 9000 polygons, and I have run an ambient bake and done inital painting in "Body Paint". I am basing my model off reference photos, and I bought a C130 model kit which I am using also.

Currently the exterior is textured with 4 2048x2048 textures, and this means it can run a little slow. I will probably realese it with 1024x1024 textures, but will see.

I have been focusing on tidying up animations, such as the flaps, which now operate much like a C130 should.

It is now stable, with an okay flight model, so I will be releasing it as an alpha within the next three weeks.

[Pauldarrington 9]

wow that looks amazing mate... youve done an excellent job