DPICM Artillery Addon

[.kju 3245]

Charon and anyone else doing ARTY simulation might want to contact Luke

at OFPEC. He made a Physics-based Artillery effects for a1,

is looking for support to port and improve them. As well as some GUI interface to manage them. :)

[charon productions 10]

Charon and anyone else doing ARTY simulation might want to contact Luke

at OFPEC. He made a Physics-based Artillery effects for a1,

is looking for support to port and improve them. As well as some GUI interface to manage them. :)

Hmm, Arma2`s artillery is already physics-based, nothing needs to be added to make it simulate shells physically accurate. He seems to work on vaccum-based simulations where Arma2 considers air friction, which is central in the calculation of the firing solutions of Arma2`s artillery.

Charon, have you considered modeling the speed of sound into your sound effects for the artillery firing in the distance?

Just spawn off a sound execution script that sleeps for a (distance/340) seconds or some similar thing?

I have, but it doesn`t actually matter when the sound is played, because in 99% of the cases the player won`t be able to simultaneously see and hear the artillery at the same time when being away more then 1000 or 1500 meters. The distant sounds only kick in at that distance, before that Arma2 is doing the normal sound effect. In non-time critical scripts i can for the sake of physical correctness consider it nonetheless.

@franklin: Time on target would necessitate to completely rewrite all interdependent artillery scripts, to make the units fire at the same time, which they are not considered to do, the way they are now.

It all depends on when the AI is actually firing the weapon AFTER the actual command has been issued, which has a certain delay. Also the firing solutions can never be as accurate to really hit the exact same spot, probably related to rounding mistakes. If i find the time i will do some experiments to see if this is feasible to implement.

Concerning the air-burst, as Nou nicely demonstrates VT offers that option and it will be added to this as well.

MRSI is impossible, because it needs so much math, that this will not be worth the development time and again, if the vehicle does not fire at the exact time when the script wants it to fire, the whole thing won`t work.

Edited December 9, 2009 by Charon Productions

[noubernou 77]

Also franklin, I do not believe that they attempt MRSI with the M119, or even a lot of other systems, maybe Paladin. MRSI seems to be a feature on newer automated gun systems with automated loaders and turrets. I am not sure if even the M109A6 does it though. Mostly the best scenario is to mass multiple fires for different batteries if you need that many rounds initially. Its easier to get a bunch of batteries on a time on target mission than it is to get a few doing an MRSI.

That being said, CoC's UA for OFP had the AMOS platform and did simulate MRSI which was pretty cool.

[charon productions 10]

Also franklin, I do not believe that they attempt MRSI with the M119, or even a lot of other systems, maybe Paladin. MRSI seems to be a feature on newer automated gun systems with automated loaders and turrets. I am not sure if even the M109A6 does it though. Mostly the best scenario is to mass multiple fires for different batteries if you need that many rounds initially. Its easier to get a bunch of batteries on a time on target mission than it is to get a few doing an MRSI.

That being said, CoC's UA for OFP had the AMOS platform and did simulate MRSI which was pretty cool.

This one could probably do MRSI-type of fire:

But the math to realize that would be enormous, and Nou is right saying that it`s easier to just pound the target with more batteries.

Didn`t know that UA had that feature, i am surprised that i never stumbled upon it hehe.

[mr burns 132]

Nice work again! That DPICM strike looks kinda scary

A shame that the soundengine still is so fucked up. From your other 2 videos it seemed to me as if the mentioned limitations (1000-1500) somehow were put out of order, be it by not using soundmods, scripting tricks or etc.

BI really need to buff this out some more, as right now ArmA2 doesn´t live up in terms of battle ambience as much as it actually could.

Didn`t know that UA had that feature, i am surprised that i never stumbled upon it hehe.

Maybe you were missing out on the update? AMOS system got introduced in UA 1.1, besides many other nice things like a graphical dialing computer (or whatever that thing is called) instead of action menu hopping that was present in 1.0

Ah, the memories! All that talk of UA is making me ... hungry .. need moar ... UA :crazy_o:

Mr Burns is leaving the room to play OFP

[noubernou 77]

Sorry to spam this sorta Charon, but for anyone wanting even more awesome arty stuff (this is more on the players shooting the guns side of things) if anyone can give me any help on this: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=91323 I would be able to really start busting out some awesome stuff.

BTW Charon, the math is intense, but I have actually simulated a manually done MRSI with my manual artillery addon. I get the LA/HA calculations and I fired a HA round and then a LA round and was able to get simultaneous impact on Elektro from the northern airfield... :P Its a pain in the butt tho.

[major woody 11]

What to expect...?

- At least two new addons (2S19 MSTA and M224 60mm Mortar)

- New types of Artillery Ammo

- What about a new artillery interface - will they use default BIS artillery module interface or a custom made one...? :)

[charon productions 10]

What to expect...?

- At least two new addons (2S19 MSTA and M224 60mm Mortar)

- New types of Artillery Ammo

- What about a new artillery interface - will they use default BIS artillery module interface or a custom made one...? :)

Well you can expect:

Vehicles:

- 2S19 MSTA

- M224 60mm Mortar

- M109 Paladin (at a later date)

Ammo:

- DPICM:

-M916 (with XM80 submunition)

-9M27K

- various DPICM

- ERGM:

-Excalibur

-Krasnopol-M

- ADAM deploying anti-personel mines

- RAMM deploying anti-vehicular mines

- AD/EXJAM :

- 9M519 and other jammer submunition

- AD/ECM :

- Experimental ECM device submunition

- Custom impact effects for nearly all munition

- New sound effects for any artillery shell as well

as the sound effect management system

- Vehicle and infantry evasion scripts when they are under fire

The module is an independent, custom module, because the in-game module

is suffering script errors that did not allow to simply hi-hack that one in use, so it had to be a new one, but it uses many of the arty-modules scripts.

Edited December 11, 2009 by Charon Productions

[Franklin 0]

well i figured the math would be pretty tough to do those things properly... sucks to hear that. Have you thought of writing the script so that instead of actually firing the round at the time and trajectory you need, simply have the cannon fire a few times, then delete the projectile, and then spawn new ones (near the target) on the trajectory and angle that would be desired?

note: i dont mean to seem demanding, your mod is badass, and i love what you have made already... just figured if you were going to do something already so cool id push your buttons and see if it was possible. if not, oh well... i wont be dissapointed. thanks for at least looking into it.

also, no the m119 doesnt do MRSI, nor does the upgraded M109. but even though i am an american, not everybody here is. I just figured if you were gonna build the best artillery simulation addon out there, it might be a feature you would want to attempt to include.

[charon productions 10]

well i figured the math would be pretty tough to do those things properly... sucks to hear that. Have you thought of writing the script so that instead of actually firing the round at the time and trajectory you need, simply have the cannon fire a few times, then delete the projectile, and then spawn new ones (near the target) on the trajectory and angle that would be desired?

note: i dont mean to seem demanding, your mod is badass, and i love what you have made already... just figured if you were going to do something already so cool id push your buttons and see if it was possible. if not, oh well... i wont be dissapointed. thanks for at least looking into it.

also, no the m119 doesnt do MRSI, nor does the upgraded M109. but even though i am an american, not everybody here is. I just figured if you were gonna build the best artillery simulation addon out there, it might be a feature you would want to attempt to include.

I understand your position.

Even though i wanted to keep this as physics-based as possible,

the ERGM was decided to be realized with an in-air spawn too, just like

the arty-mod MLRS was done.

So, hypothetically, MRSI could be sort of remotely simulated that way too, but of course for the player it won`t be noticable what actually happens with the projectiles.

I will put it on the never-ending ToDo-List ;)

[noubernou 77]

Franklin, the main issue with MRSI is that as it stands now in the artillery module, and I am guessing in Charons as well, is that it is not simulating multiple propellant charge levels.

Real artillery uses different charge numbers, or amounts of propellant, for different ranges and elevations. With MRSI you'd start with a higher angle and a higher charge number, you'd then lower the angle and the charge number for each computed charges elevation and fire at the correct time to maintain the simultaneous impact. As you move down in elevation you'd then increase again in charge number. Lower angles would need higher charge numbers... It is sort of complex, once again why it is handled by automated gun systems like AMOS and some of the newer self-propelled gun systems. Most of these use auto-loaders because the time between rounds is too short for a human crew to manually load, lay and fire.

---------- Post added at 08:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:55 AM ----------

In that regard, massing fire from multiple batteries is the best way to get MRSI with out one gun doing the work. Massing fire is one of the main goals in battery position planning, where can you get the most effective use of all of your guns should you need massive amounts of fire power.

[Franklin 0]

@ NouberNou; technically that wouldnt be MRSI then, that would be ToT - Time on Target.

i already understood the issue of there not being differing propellant charges in the game, i thought about this the other night after i had posted my original post in this thread. One way to attempt to work around this would be to create an addon that had different "muzzles" and each with its own ammunition, the difference between the ammunition being its velocity. You could possibly simulate the different charges this way. Then in the scripting of the addon, if possible make it so that a player couldnt switch the muzzles by pressing F, and the Ai also couldnt switch automatically. use wait commands to make the switching between muzzles take just as long as reloading a shell on any muzzle.

to enable MRSI, it could be set to enable on certain classes of vehicles, or possibly something the mission maker could assign in a .cfg file... (all of these are just ideas btw) that way if a mission maker wanted it, they could assign a certain vehicle the ability to conduct MRSI missions, and then a seperate script that handles the msri could be called. If the initial script for the addon was coded properly to detect "if MRSI = true" then goto... (im no scripter so i dunno exactly how to do all that, but i hope that gives you the idea), then the script would skip the waits for switching muzzles, simulating an autoloader (although i dont mean for it to be able to fire each muzzle instantly.. there would still be a wait or two in there im sure). Im not even sure if any of that is possible.. i dont make addons, or script, i just know enough to get myself in trouble lol. anyway, I am not asking for all that work to be done, thats craziness... spawning the rounds would be much simpler im sure.

Edited December 11, 2009 by franklin

[charon productions 10]

It`s always a compromise with Arma.

BI did not anticipate the demand to have their arty vehicles fire with different charges. One of the reasons why the in-game M119 has such a limited range.

Nou explained it well. That MRSI thing would have to be majorly faked to look real with just the guns firing "something" and then everything spawning above target. Things like that always repell me a bit, because it reminds me of the old OFP days where you had to setpos grenades in mid air to half-ways simulated artillery, but it`s the only way to do it in this case.

[noubernou 77]

Technically I could probably wing it now using the M119 model and my new animation abilities (self-whoring, sorry). There is nothing really stopping you from doing it, but it is a larger hassle than it is probably worth (well not for you Franklin).

I'll put this challenge out there:

If someone can get me a model and the model.cfg (or related class) for a South African G6, German PzH 2000, or the AMOS I will make a player controlled MRSI implementation.

If you really want MRSI wait for my stuff to come out and get some really nerdy friends that will do manual MRSI... :P

Also Franklin, I know its ToT, its the poor mans MRSI! :D

*edit*

Along with the models can you get me how its autoloader (they all use autoloaders I believe) works and how its charges are handled (including muzzle velocity to calculate ballistics tables). :P

[charon productions 10]

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[noubernou 77]

SIIIIIIIICK

Is that Villas? It'd be sick if he had a M110 too... 8inch furry!

[gunterlund21 10]

lookin good Charon

[krazikilla 5]

sorry for asking, but when you will release a version of it?

could need it for a mission i am just creating^^

[kremator 1065]

When it's ready ! You should know better than to ask questions like this !

[Hboybowen 10]

what is the status on this addon? still active?

[charon productions 10]

what is the status on this addon? still active?

Active, but hard to find enough time for it.

It is veeery complex and hard to debug.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Looking awesome so far, as far as the big stuff is concerned. But I kind of miss the "small stuff", like

* Proper artillery flares (burn time, HOBs, smoke effects, wind drift, descent speed, illumination power (and proper colors).

* Proper HC smoke (fake it with a big cloud like todays smoke arty, plenty of smoke grenades look aweful. Also here burn time, wind drift, weather effects (rain), view blocks).

* Proper WP smoke (again fake it, but prolong the damage time, and make airburst delivery look nice :))

* HE VT (airburst) fusing (each fuse (say 2m, 7m, and 20m) have distinct damage and radius capability, but also distinct sound (bigger 'snap' with altitude due to low obstruction))

* Copperhead with PRF code and a weather based (overcast value would suffice) footprint (circular also sufficient).

* SADARM without MP locality issues.

Other stuff I thought about while watching the videos and reading the thread:

* Be careful about splitting up groups for incoming reaction patterns. May brake missions based on counts, and may cause breaking the 144 group limit. Keeping formation would be any unit in the soup's least concern :) If they are inside the damage zone, they should run for their life to get out of hit, then hit the dirt. Wouldn't normal commands combined with doStop or similar aid with this?

* Reaction to flares would be get down, scan towards the flares (or already known enemy positions), and lay still. Crawl slowly (stealth mode?) to cover after a while if not shot upon.

* Reaction to smoke could be get to cover and scan smoke area. Might even do it as a group. Scanning smoke area would make smoke a good deception technique against AI as well. Unless they already have some targets.

* Reaction to DPICM? Hit the dirt and pray like crazy :D

* Only RAP rounds or similar (rocket artillery?) should have tracers (only other benefit would be farther range?). The tracers talked about are dim tracers, but I doubt a rocket engine would be visible only through NVGs. Regular "tracers" would probably be better.

My biggest concern however, is multiplayer. How does that many DPICM submunitions and dud handling work with a lot of players? I tried something similar with Arma1, and everytime it was used on our server with more than two people, server would go 1 FPS and stay that forever. I'm guessing for airburst WP, you would have to use a similar technique for each pellet, even if actual resulting smoke would be generated similar to todays WP.

For sake of discussion, real point artillery flare and WP airburst:

Now consider this light power in a range and lateral spread :)

Doesn't look like much, but I'm sure the guys on the ground had daylight.

vs Arma2 artillery illumination, with same power as M203 flare :(:

(splash at 1:21)

vs Arma2 artillery WP, note the extreme range and no burning pellets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sya-_hQjdF4 (WP splash at 0:40)

Real impact sounds (I assume, at least):

and real airburst sounds (note the 'snap' of the sound at this height, due to no obstructions):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuzT9sMkmVM

Just pushing ideas to you, which I'm not capable of fulfilling myself.

Edited January 30, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[charon productions 10]

Looking awesome so far, as far as the big stuff is concerned. But I kind of miss the "small stuff", like

* Proper artillery flares (burn time, HOBs, smoke effects, wind drift, descent speed, illumination power (and proper colors).

* Proper HC smoke (fake it with a big cloud like todays smoke arty, plenty of smoke grenades look aweful. Also here burn time, wind drift, weather effects (rain), view blocks).

* Proper WP smoke (again fake it, but prolong the damage time, and make airburst delivery look nice :))

* HE VT (airburst) fusing (each fuse (say 2m, 7m, and 20m) have distinct damage and radius capability, but also distinct sound (bigger 'snap' with altitude due to low obstruction))

* Copperhead with PRF code and a weather based (overcast value would suffice) footprint (circular also sufficient).

* SADARM without MP locality issues.

Your point about the small stuff is well taken.

The thing is that the mod is already that complex, that it takes ages to debug.

Adding all that stuff would really cost a lot of time, maybe in the future.

Other stuff I thought about while watching the videos and reading the thread:

* Be careful about splitting up groups for incoming reaction patterns. May brake missions based on counts, and may cause breaking the 144 group limit. Keeping formation would be any unit in the soup's least concern :) If they are inside the damage zone, they should run for their life to get out of hit, then hit the dirt. Wouldn't normal commands combined with doStop or similar aid with this?

Hmm, i never said the groups would be split up, just a waypoint gets added for evasion. Groups stay as they are.

* Reaction to flares would be get down, scan towards the flares (or already known enemy positions), and lay still. Crawl slowly (stealth mode?) to cover after a while if not shot upon.

* Reaction to smoke could be get to cover and scan smoke area. Might even do it as a group. Scanning smoke area would make smoke a good deception technique against AI as well. Unless they already have some targets.

* Reaction to DPICM? Hit the dirt and pray like crazy :D

That will be a bit difficult to determine when to react to flares.

Most mission makers would want to keep control of their groups when a distant flare is up in the sky.

I might add variables, so the mission maker can read that out on the event.

* Only RAP rounds or similar (rocket artillery?) should have tracers (only other benefit would be farther range?). The tracers talked about are dim tracers, but I doubt a rocket engine would be visible only through NVGs. Regular "tracers" would probably be better.

The dim tracers will only be visible with NVG.

All other tracers in the demo videos are just for visualization purposes.

My biggest concern however, is multiplayer. How does that many DPICM submunitions and dud handling work with a lot of players? I tried something similar with Arma1, and everytime it was used on our server with more than two people, server would go 1 FPS and stay that forever. I'm guessing for airburst WP, you would have to use a similar technique for each pellet, even if actual resulting smoke would be generated similar to todays WP.

Needs to be tested. I think as long as the submun is spawned only locally i see no problems.

Thanks for your points and interest in this

[charon productions 10]

@CarlGustaffa:

I gave a little consideration to improve the artillery illum rounds.

A new ammo type was added that simulates the parachute-braked movement as opposed to the vanilla arma flares just falling from the sky.

Burn time is unfortunately hard-coded, but i might come up with some "cheat" to make it look like the proper real life 120 seconds rather than 25 seconds.

The brightness is difficult to alter.Things get easily just too bright and blurry in Arma2.

EDIT: I found a workaround to have them burn 120 seconds now and descend slowly.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Charon Productions

[charon productions 10]

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