Strange problem with helicopter extraction

[Tempest67 10]

Hi guys,

I'm really new to mission making and I've used these forums to set me on my way to almost finishing my 1st small and straightforward sp mission. Well, straightforward till I decided to extract the troops with the Huey!

I used the Helicopter extraction procedure found on this forum and created a chopper, a move wp close by, an invisible helipad, placed a load wp and a move wp on this. I added the dostop Helicopter;Helicopter land "land" on the load wp and in the move wp the ((!alive unit1) OR (unit1 in helicopter)) AND ((!alive unit2) OR (unit2 in helicopter)) AND ((!alive unit3) OR (unit3 in helicopter)) AND ((!alive unit4) OR unit4 in helicopter) AND ((!alive unit5) OR (unit5 in helicopter)) . I followed this up with subsequent move wp(s) an unload wp (adding in the dostop code again) and another invisible helipad etc., etc., etc..

I tested this on the editor and to my surprise I got it to work! But, in my mission, using the same setup the chopper takes off as soon as anyway enters it, whether it be myself or fellow squad members. I assumed I had entered the code wrongly, or made some another error, but I hadn't. I even deleted what I had in the mission and merged it with the test setup that I knew was working, but still it doesn't work within the mission.

It seems that some other variable is throwing it out somehow, but after 4 days of trying to sort this out, I'm out of ideas. I realise it's hard to know what the problem is without seeing my mission, but I was hoping that some of you guys might have some ideas as to the possible cause.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[fabrizio_t 58]

Don't know what it's not working, probably some kind of scripting error is thrown in to your .rpt file.

However, a slightly better way to solve your problem is to give the infantry group a GETIN waypoint instead of a MOVE one.

Place this GETIN waypoint near the LOAD waypoint you've created for the heli

Finally SYNCHRONIZE these 2 waypoints (LOAD and GETIN).

That should do it, no need for scripting ;)

[Tempest67 10]

Thanks for the help Fabrizio.

Unfortunately that didnt seem to work. Most likely something I'm doing incorrectly.

I deleted the MOVE wp with the ((!alive t1) Or (t1 in heli1)) etc. as the condition, added a GETIN wp for the infantry group and syn'd this with the LOAD wp for heli1. The outcome was that the helicopter didn't land, it simply followed the wp's on an endless loop.

[fabrizio_t 58]

That's strange, it works fine for me ...

I suggest you to check your .rpt file to see if any errors are raised.

BTW: also remove any code eventually present as activation statements for the LOAD waypoint (eg. dostop Helicopter;Helicopter land "land" ... etc ) and reset its condition to TRUE.

Edited July 30, 2009 by fabrizio_T

[Tempest67 10]

I'd already taken all the activation statements out and reset the conditons to true, but still the problem persists - the helicopter refuses to land automatically.

The only way I can get it to work is to aim at the helicopter in mid-air and tell my squad to get in. The helicopter then lands, the squad gets in, I get in and it takes off to the predefined wp's.

I've got the helicopters first wp syn'd to a trigger with Radio Bravo as activation if this makes any odds.

Cheers for the help.

I forgot to mention: I checked the .rpt file and it contained no errors.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Tempest67

[JDog 11]

((!alive unit4) OR unit4 in helicopter)

You're missing a right parenthesis here.

dostop Helicopter

I'd say stay away from doStop, just because I've had problems with getting a unit to ever do anything after that command. Use "Helicopter stop true", then you can revoke it with "Helicopter stop false".

I'll try and make a quick sample mission if I can get it to work for you. You just want the chopper to land until 5 guys are in or dead, right?

---------- Post added at 11:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 AM ----------

Here you go. Nothing but waypoints and one or two short lines of code in them. No long business :P This will bring a chopper in to a helipad, keep the engine running, wait for the squad to board, then drop them off at another waypoint/helipad.

http://www.filefront.com/14158735/chopperExtraction.utes.rar

[Tempest67 10]

Cheers JDog. The really frustrating part is that I have got it to work when I'm testing it - like in the mission you've kindly attached.

The real problem is when I try the 'exact' same process in my mission and it simply doesn't work.

At the moment as soon as anyone enters the chopper it takes off, even though there are other alive team members left.

Thanks again.