OA Store bags in ammobox

[Delta 51 10]

Quick query for the smarties out there, anyone figured out how to store the rucks into ammobox's? You can store them in there but the awc command does nothing

[xeno 234]

Sadly, there is no command to store rucksacks into ammoboxes. The only option you have is to place them in the editor or spawn them or add a rucksack via scripting command to a unit.

Another problem is that transportMaxBackpacks limits the number of backpacks you can put into an ammobox. Highest value is 10, for example for the UH60 but most have values around 1-5.

Xeno

[BelgarionNL 10]

wow weird

[Muzzleflash 111]

ACE help us ! :)

[CarlGustaffa 4]

@Xeno: I think that the transportMaxBackpacks is a good thing. Otherwise the obvious exploit is to dismantle every static you see and just put them in any vehicle. The transportMaxBackpacks forces people to prioritize what they need. Ok, so you can't have both a launcher and a backpack. But you can't store everyones backpack in a vehicle so you can carry a launcher. You shouldn't be able to store a platoons worth of mortars in a HMMWV. If the mission requires it, add sufficient vehicles.

The biggest problem is that there is no indication on how full a vehicle is wrt stored ammo, weapons, and now also backpacks. So I'm beginning to support the idea of not allowing backpacks into ammo crates. Maybe there could be a special type of ammo crate that actually had this space (maybe only this space)? It would be useful to store the players sack in a createVehicleLocal ammocrate that nobody could steal if he wanted to. I'm already doing that to other ammo crates to prevent theft and limit weapon access.

Edited July 1, 2010 by CarlGustaffa

[BelgarionNL 10]

@CarlGustaffa!

NO i absolutely disagree! what if you have a multiplayer game (like xeno's domi) where you want players to pickup some M2 bags and tripod bags en use them for objectives!

if you die & respawn, its bye bye bag that was set as custom loadout or picked up while in the mission on a HUGE pile of bags!(since thats the only way to provide some additional static weapon bags!)

big FAIL

[CarlGustaffa 4]

So, uh, yeah, let's disregard the exploitability for missions that try to be realistic and make it easy for missions that doesn't try to be realistic by design - that sounds smart... Btw, I love Domination myself for what it is, but I prefer to use the rules that makes it a little more realistic (like limited weapons, preventing everyone from being a sniper or in this case, gun crew).

In the case of a crew served weapon, Xeno could keep respawning heavy weapons near the crate after a delay, as long as the weapon has been dismantled (is not there). People can grab the gun parts and store them in vehicles, i.e. a HMMWV. It takes three men to man such a weapon in real life; i.e. gunner/gun carrier, assistant/tripod carrier, and an ammo bearer.

In the game, this is reduced to two; gunner/gun carrier and assistant/tripod carrier, ammo being free but kind of hard to get to. So in one HMMWV you get two guns and five men (incl the gun crew team leader who decides where the guns are setup, and directs the general direction in which to fire them). The assistant should have binoculars so he can guide the guns fire (similar to how you'd gun a scopeless M240 in a realistic setup), as the gunner may not be able to zoom good enough for long range (or defilade fires for the Mk19). And if you want, you can still "cheat" and get two extra guns if 4 of the men don't take normal backpacks.

That's five crew and four guns in a single HMMWV. How is that not enough?

In the case of a UH60, you have five complete guns stored onboard, pluss whatever the units themselves carry. How is that not enough?

Big pile of bags is "the only way"? In the case of Domination...

unitBackpack - Check if unit already have a backpack. If he do, he can't get flag action to:

addBackpack, based on a list of available packs in the mission, or a stored variable of what you had when you joined the mission.

So on player death/respawn, it should be fully possible to get the actual backpack back.

Yes there is a problem that since the backpack is in fact an ammocrate itself, we have no means of getting the contents back on respawn (the commands needed have been missing and wanted since OFP). Meaning you have to restock it manually. Not that much of a problem, especially in Domination where you tend to get unlimited amounts of nearly everything. This problem, however, wasn't even mentioned originally.

ACE will come along eventually and add new possibilities, but personally I'm against some of these "unlimited approaches". The vanilla implementation (no backpack for medic and those who can't carry a tube if they have a heavy weapon), forces people to prioritize what they need and think more. In vanilla, a medic seems to be a better team player since he (unlike ACE) can't do everything himself. People who does want the action, stay away from the medic class, and this class can be used by someone who is interested in helping others rather than healing himself when he plays the SMAW/Medic combo.

This tendency is especially a problem on the public (ACE) gameplay, on closed communities they can use addons to add "attendant" (medic capability) to any class they want, so this is not a problem there.

This backpack being a "container" approach (ammocrate), prevents the exploit of magazines that refill themselves giving you unlimited ammo. This is the case in all the scripted backpack implementation I have tested. So tell me, how is unlimited ammo exploits a good thing in a realism based game?

If you want unlimited ammo in a mission, that is easily scripted. But trying to prevent it if the possibility exist and you want to make a realistic mission, is a bitch, if not utterly impossible.

big WIN

[Delta 51 10]

Disregarding ACE and DOM as this is meant to be for a generic how to utilize the issue.

Alternate question to the scripters out there, If they cannot be placed into an ammo box, my new aim is to have each available bag for carrying equipment on the ground at the start of a mission.

If you walk up to one and pick it up, a new bag of the same type will spawn where the last one left. If any other bags are dropped in that area (to avoid clutter) they would be deleted.

Possible script/function with them?

[Evil_Echo 11]

If you want to make it possible - script it.

Choose a suitably large object ( like a shipping container - always thought ACE's ruck boxes were too small ).

Use setVariable/getVariable to maintain a list of rucks, preferably public for MP. Then add actions to interact with your storage container.

Sounds simple, but the devil is in the details.

Could I do it? Probably. Will I? No.

[Rommel 2]

Sigh, I had hoped I didn't have to come to that to store (empty!) backpacks... faillll :P

transportMaxBackpacks is really low for most crates, we need a way to store backpacks without needing mods; and I'm not referring to commands, but actual storage capacity.

Edited December 12, 2010 by Rommel

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I think there are some other problems about the backpack implementation you should be aware of. The only way (that I know of) to get synchronized contents in a backpack, is to use the global versions of the commands. Like addMagazineCargoGlobal. But if you place this backpack in a vehicle and take it out again, it is for me filled up with default contents again :(

If I add a name to a backpack, and put it in a vehicle, I can track it's position to being somewhere off map. So what's in the vehicle? Seems to me only it's type is referenced, not the actual object. I should mention that we had two equal backpacks in the vehicle at the time (two players), with different contents. So in my view, it's not 100% operational still.