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Bon

Advanced Artillery Request System

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Hi Folks,

this script lets you call in Artillery Fire Missions.

Instead of letting you set coordinates for splashdown by simply clicking on the map, its goal is to be a bit more realistic.

picture.php?id=1089

It features

  • Registering for fire missions.
  • Designating targets using polar coordinates.
  • Accurate Fire Missions require Adjustment Fire.
  • Designating via Lasermarker.
  • Different options for Artillery Setup, like types of rounds, spread radius.
  • Delaying Fire.
  • Full customization support.
  • Fancy artillery sounds captured from the GL4SFX Mod.
  • Respawn compatibility.
  • PvP support, means, playerside dependent.
  • An enclosed detailed Installation/Usage Manual.pdf.



In the following video I demonstrate how to attack three different targets by artillery. (older version)



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In the following video I demonstrate the two variants of requesting precise fire missions. (final version)



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The code is very easy to integrate into your own, download it here:

chernarus-force.net

Armaholic.com

Edited by Bon
Added Armaholic Download link

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Feine Arbeit.

Do u think u ll be able to get it MP-able for dedicated servers?

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Feine Arbeit.

Do u think u ll be able to get it MP-able for dedicated servers?

It is totally MP compatible (as all my work is), on a hosted environment as well as on dedicated servers. Just make sure you have a game logic called "Server" placed onto the map.

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hey man im currently a 13fox forward observer i know alot shit you'll probably wanna know send me a pm if ya want me to help you out:yay:

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Have been waiting for something like this for a while! Kinda cool, thanks for it.

p.s: lynx you should try it and give feedback back, if you wish off course.

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Really nice script.. I like it.. The only thing i think it is missing is some sounds for the incomming shells. Keep up the excellent work and thank you for the hard work.

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im gonna try it as soon as i get home im in washington dc right now

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What this need is a crutial part of today's artillery. Adjusting fire. IRL you ajuste fire for 1 target, fire for effect, end mission(or some ugly a_s corrections)

2nd target , ajust fire , fire for effect , end mission...

---------- Post added at 05:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:04 PM ----------

You should take the help of the Forward observer last page ! it would be cool.

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Firstly nice looking adon Bon.

If you wanted to get a little more realistic, here is how a very basic fire mission would be called.

First Initate a Fire Mission

Gun Battery (Callsign) this is Forward Observer (Callsign) Fire Mission Over

Grid 112 111

Altitude 146

Direction 180

Troops in woods

1 round HE over

Ok so the grid is where the target is.

Altitude is the height of the target.

Direction is the angle from the forward observer to the target.

Once the first round has landed you can then adjust fire. Usually the most basic form is Add Drop Left and Right, all relative to the Forward observers perspective. This is why the direction value is included in the call.

That way if the first round falls inbetween the target and the FO and slightly to the left the adjustment would be Add 100 Right 50 or the like. Once the forward observer is confident he is on target you would call for Fire for Effect, where all guns in the battery would fire.

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Ignoring the carry in the vid does have an adjustment call.

Here is a link of an excel calculator I did to use with Jones artillery mod. It wouldn't work ingame as it calculates all the solutions using massive numbers of calculations, but you might find it useful as a reference to what information is required for your dialog. It would at least contain the formulae for calculating the adjustments relative to the Forward Observer.

If you were being proper the Battery radio operator would be saying everything back to you to ensure all inforamtion is correct.

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=2892

Would be nice to have something realistic in game for calling for fire.

Hope this helps.

Another quick vid.

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Here is a Wikipedia entry showing a simple fire mission comms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_discipline

Edited by blakeace

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I really need some clarification on usage. It needs a mapclick option as well.

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Excellent feature!

Can you make the x and y update on your position automatically when you go into the menu?

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This is nice, thanks. One question though:

How is this supposed to be used if I leave out the code at the bottom of the init.sqf. Is there a mapclick option or a way to call it through the radio? Also, anyone know of a simple way to limit the usage of this to a unit with a radio(ACE_Radio's specifically.) I'd like to link this to the actual radio pack in ACE2 so a unit would only get the capability to call if they had a radio equipped.

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Some criticism and suggestions:

1) No flight time, but should be easy enough to delay. It doesn't have to be "realistic", it only have to be made "less convenient". A simple delay based on target distance from gun position would suffice. Fires that are "always" high angle can be forced to a longer delay.

2) No FO-FDC chatter. Even whatever goes on at FDC is instantaneous. A complex mission like the way your video shows might have looked something like this at the other end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEt5EHZ-GM. From the observers point of view (training):

3) I've heard that grid reference is most commonly used, but polar hasn't been completely forgotten either, as seen here:

. I think both should be present (if you want to go "all the way" with this): 6 digit grid assumes center of a 100 meter square, 8 digit grid assumes center of 10 meter square, 10 digit grid too cumbersome and not of practical use in Arma :). If using polar reference with distance and angle, player should have to put in his grid reference by memorizing his grid location from the map, not simply copying it off numbers. If you're using getPos, that will work without fuzz on any map, proper grid reference might be trickier, and I'm not sure if BIS functions for this will work on all maps.

4) Airbursts are completely lacking, but they also can't be done without adding special shell types as an addon. Exploding regular shells at altitude have very little effect at all. So, understandable that this is not present.

5) Without addon to respecify candle power of illumination, you have to resort to attaching #lightpoint to the created flare for illumination missions, but even that doesn't come without its problems. You can also attach special smoke effect. This is especially important if you're considering realistic height of burst for these.

6) Personally I would very much like to see the adjustment phase going on, complete with aimpoint shifts. For a good example of this, listen to the ending of one of the Generation Kill episodes. It has adjust fire followed by fire for effect.

7) When and if using polar reference, the error of observer designation should be added to target designation. See my comments and script solutions in this thread for inspiration if you want: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=86016. If FO can't see his own location on map via stupid markers and GPS, this can add some interresting fires if he has no idea how to use a map and compass :) Puts a little extra demand on the FO player, which is always nice, considering he should have better understanding of things than the regular grunt.

8) If no other data is given on a battery fire, FDC assumes a 100 meter circular distribution pattern (aiming circle). The actual hit circle will become more elliptical with distance, due to charge variation (the guns can still aim well).

9) Additional highly educational read if you're into artillery. Read about FO stuff here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/6-30/index.html and gunnery (FDC duties) stuff here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/6-40/index.html

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Hi guys,

thanks for the feedback. Totally forgot about this script, but the activity in this thread proves the overall interest in an artillery request system being as realistic as possible, so I am going to improve it in this way as much as I can - lynx sent me the "bible for FO's" which will be a great help, however, what blakeace have written comes close to what the current version provides yet.

What I will do for sure is to add a random "unpreciseness" (even when precise fire selected) so you have to use one designated cannon for adjusting fire before calling other cannons for fire for effect. Adjusting fire will simply happen by yourself updating direction and distance in the dialog. Scripting new functions and buttons etc. for adjustment fire would be nice, however not worth the effort, since this way does the trick already.

Now to all your specific concerns:

I really need some clarification on usage. It needs a mapclick option as well.

No mapclick feature. This will waste what the script actually is supposed to.

Let me just try to explain the usage in a few steps:

  1. The spotter must have visual on the target so he/she can get direction and distance to it. For obtaining direction you usually use the compass, for distance simply press "SPACE". In ACE mod you need to use a rangefinding device.
  2. Enter the spotters x- and y-coordinates (if the spotter is actually the one with the dialog these coordinates are displayed in the upper middle of the dialog) into the fields marked with "x-ray" and "yankee".
  3. Set the height difference between spotter and target with the slider on the right-hand side.
  4. Mark the cannons you wish to be fired in the list box on the left-hand side.
  5. Then simply select type of rounds, number of rounds and spread and click "Confirm" to confirm these settings to the designated cannons.
  6. To reset a cannon's setup mark the particular cannon and press "Reset".
  7. Finally click "Execute" to fire for effect.

Can you make the x and y update on your position automatically when you go into the menu?

Less to click and set for the caller (and one intention was to have the player having some work to do before pressing "Execute"), but I will think about it (can be done easily).

How is this supposed to be used if I leave out the code at the bottom of the init.sqf. Is there a mapclick option or a way to call it through the radio? Also, anyone know of a simple way to limit the usage of this to a unit with a radio(ACE_Radio's specifically.) I'd like to link this to the actual radio pack in ACE2 so a unit would only get the capability to call if they had a radio equipped.

Simplest way would be to add an action to the player unit:

player addAction ["Call Artillery","bon_artillery\dialog\openMenu.sqf",["Arti_dlg"],-1,false,true,"","player hasWeapon 'ACE_P159_RD90'"];

Here I also added (last parameter) the condition for having this action to have the ACE Radio type "ACE_P159_RD90", hope that gives you the idea.

1) No flight time, but should be easy enough to delay.[...]

2) No FO-FDC chatter.[...]

3) I've heard that grid reference is most commonly used, but polar hasn't been completely forgotten either [...] I think both should be present (if you want to go "all the way" with this): 6 digit grid assumes center of a 100 meter square, 8 digit grid assumes center of 10 meter square [...]

4) Airbursts are completely lacking, but they also can't be done without adding special shell types as an addon. Exploding regular shells at altitude have very little effect at all. So, understandable that this is not present.

1) Yes, the current flight time is between 5 and 10 seconds, which is, of course, pretty unrealistic. But having a more realistic flight time it will be very hard to plan complex fire missions with different delays, and this feature becomes dispensable. But I suggest to extract this delaytime to a parameter everyone can set in the Init.sqf to his/her own desires.

2) Provide me with appropriate chatter sounds, be assured, I will integrate them.

3) My basic idea contained grid positions instead of polar coordinates. Problem in ArmA: I can convert polar coordinates into mapgrids, but not the other way around. So providing a grid to the cannons I can't extract any map position from it.

4) Thanks.

5) - 9) Thanks for the information and suggestions, will think about them seriously.

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Simplest way would be to add an action to the player unit:

player addAction ["Call Artillery","bon_artillery\dialog\openMenu.sqf",["Arti_dlg"],-1,false,true,"","player hasWeapon 'ACE_P159_RD90'"];

Here I also added (last parameter) the condition for having this action to have the ACE Radio type "ACE_P159_RD90", hope that gives you the idea.

Thanks Bon! Question though. How would I set this up so not only the player but if anyone in the unit(all playable AI in this case) has the ACE2 radio then they could call the artillery. But if a unit gets killed that has the radio, artillery will not be able to be called until an existing in the group equips the radio.

Unless I'm wrong, what you provided seems to only have the radio tied to the player having it equipped.

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Have loaded test-mission. In the list of weapons cannot find Weapon 21 HITE. So coordinates can not be settled on. What's a mistake?

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No mistake I guess.

You using ACE?

Write this into the units init line before starting the preview:

this addWeapon "ACE_Rangefinder_OD"; this addMagazine "ACE_Battery_Rangefinder"

There happened a lot with the rangefinder in ACE since the last version changes, read here for further information:

http://ace.wikkii.com/wiki/Features_of_ACE2#Rangefinding_Devices

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I don't use ACE, and there is cannon call interface. Still don't have 21 HITE in the list

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without ace you have no rangefinder. You have to use spacebar and compass for range and direction without ACE.

Greetings

Jack

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1) Not really. Delay between each "gun firing" is simply added to the flight time :) Flight time can even be related to the observers position, for simplicity (not realistic though), just so you have longer flight times when you're located farther from the guns.

2) "Chatter" isn't all that important. I tried splitting up and extracting data from the mentioned Generation Kill episode. Measured each sample lenght and put in chatter sequences given relatively precise delays. Coordinates would be "read out". But, meh, it just didn't sound too good. What I was talking about was chatter in textual form. The links I provided and the FO bible you got should have plenty of proper "textual chatter" examples.

3) It should only be a matter of maths and script. Not that I have tried myself on that particular problem :)

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Bon,

I tried your code in the player's init line but I can still access the "Call Artillery" option in the action menu even if no players in my group have the ACE Radio. Any ideas?

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