Jump to content

dwringer

Member
  • Content Count

    368
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Medals

Posts posted by dwringer


  1. I'm not sure if it's just not obvious or what, but MSFS WAS actually marketed as a flight simulator; it's just that they didn't really bother marketing it at all as MS canned the entire team before they even finished implementing the expansion pack.

    But if you look at what MSFS stands for ... uh, well I'm not gonna spoon feed that part ;p

    The problem we have here is that everyone expects every product to include every innovation from every preceding product in a lineage arbitrarily decided by the customer's fickle desires at that given time.

    I still think TKOH is a good simulator. Is it a technical helicopter operation simulator? Hell no.


  2. Sorry, after a somewhat more advanced search I found the answer to my problem. Downloaded Wilbur, opened heightmap and resaved it, works perfectly now. This post can be deleted.

    EDIT: Whoops! "ratio", not "ration" :p

    Hello all.

    I have been playing around with creating terrains, and actually was successful last night in following along with the tutorial, and then I made a small map of my own using DEM/satellite images I downloaded from the USGS. This part was actually successful... I exported the heightmap as a grayscale .tif, opened that in the gimp, cropped it, fixed levels, and input the low/high/cell size info into my terrain.pbl file. This imported into visitor, everything was fine.

    Today I attempted to do the same thing. Now I'm running into the same problem I remember having months ago, and I never found a solution. When I import my heightmap grayscale .png into visitor, it fills half the area of the map and is compressed horizontally. here's a picture:

    visitor.jpg

    And here's the config:

    class cfg
    {
    PNGfilename="terrain.png";
    squareSize=8;
    originX=0;
    originY=0;
    minHeight=-26.0;
    maxHeight=191.0;
    };
    

    The png opens fine in every other program I have, and shows the dimensions as 512x512, which they are.

    Is there something really obvious that I'm missing? Or am I fundamentally misunderstanding some of the parameters I've chosen? I really don't know where to begin. I've been troubleshooting for 3 hours and gotten nowhere, which is frustrating since I got it to work last night with a smaller set of data.

    Any help is extraordinarily appreciated!


  3. Hello everyone,

    I decided to release this follow up to my last mission, which finds the player in a slightly different role. It is still short, with no dialog, and there are a lot of glitches that will show up from time to time (for instance, after insertion, if your sniper team members decide to try and use the ladder they will glitch for a few moments until they or the engine figure out their attempts at leaving the rooftop are futile). I have cleaned up the mission.sqf, however, and this one no longer requires the HUD addon. (The next time I do a release of the last one, I will have cleaned up the mission.sqm there as well, but I don't plan on removing the HUD dependency from it. :P)

    It should be completely playable, however, and it provides several opportunities for sharpening skills used all over the place elsewhere in the game, starting from the instant the mission begins.

    Abu Wajnam:

    One Minute After

    Version 0.1a

    by dwringer

    http://dwringer.net/a2m/dwr_oneminuteafter_0_1a.rar

    wajnam1.jpg

    Includes Additional scripts by:

    -----------------------------

    Silola (DAC used for patrols)

    rübe (script to calculate sunrise/sunset for a given date)

    Mission Outline:

    ----------------

    Abu Wajnam airfield has just been siezed by American forces;

    you, the pilot of Razor team's insertion helicopter, have

    just finished the task of commandeering a refueling truck

    and readying your helicopter for the next assignment. Con-

    sidering you and your men have been under fire the entire

    time, this assignment is not altogether unwelcome.

    Features:

    ---------

    -Random date and time

    Anywhere from January 1, 1985 to December 31, 2020.

    * Most missions take place during the day; about 80%

    of the time when night would have been randomly

    selected, the time will instead be set to either

    sunrise or sunset. There is still, consequently,

    about a 10% chance of getting a mission in extreme

    darkness.

    -Random weather pattern (sans extremes)

    Requirements:

    -------------

    Fayshkhabur by =KCT=BlackMamba

    from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?134624-Fayshkhabur-V1-0-Released

    Arma 2: Combined Operations

    Take on Helicopters: Rearmed

    w/ Take on Hinds


  4. I know Arma 2 support just 4 cores\threads no matter the command line, that's why I asked the question actually, hoping that in two years they could have implemented a batter CPU\cores usage support.

    Thanks anyway for your reply.

    You may want to brush up on your knowledge. Arma 2 can use more than 4 cores/threads, as can TOH. I have personally seen threads running on at least 6 logical cores, and since this is a 6-core processor that is fine with me.

    It's actually the OS's responsibility to spread the threading across the cores. It is Arma's responsibility to spread the processing into multiple threads.

    If you want to complain about something, neither of these areas has seen much progress relative to the capability advancements in processors. You and I are as much to blame as anyone else, unless you have personally invested a lot of time in progressing the field of software engineering?

    Anyway, I will agree that it'd be nice to see MORE parallelization in the engine. I'm pretty sure BIS agrees, which is why it's something they've continually worked on over the years.


  5. Lol, I guess that guy made it and set a bunch of records. And good idea on the steam sale, I too have bought two copies of Arma 2 in order to have one through steam (while other people refuse to use the service, haha)

    Anyway, I found some serious issues with my time/date randomization script which I have fixed, and I also improved the targeting behavior of the anti-tank teams in destroying the Shilka. The link is above in the original post.


  6. Hrm, sorry about that... perhaps you can use A2Free combined with the full version of Operation Arrowhead together integrated with TOH.

    It might also be possible to remove the standard A2 assets, provided you still have Operation Arrowhead, but honestly I'm not sure which ones are which. If anybody wants an un-pbo'd copy of the mission to mess with, I'd be glad to give one to you provided you don't make further releases without my personal authorization.

    I can confirm that the end condition at least appears to be reachable, but I've never succeeded the mission well enough to know if it actually fires. Basically, once Razor team lands and gets out of their insertion helicopter, they are supposed to go into the control tower and begin a Seek and Destroy waypoint for at least 45 seconds. Whether or not this will trigger victory is still unknown to me, and there's no debriefing anyway.

    Thanks everyone for the support, I hope you are all able to get things working.

    That said, I have made an update-

    (linked above)

    Changelog:

    ----------

    0.1b

    -Added more invisible helipads for Razor team insertion

    -Size increased and enemy count made more restrictive on

    Razor team insertion trigger

    -A10 now only has about a 60% chance to appear

    -Tweaked AT team position/composition for reliability

    -Halved Razor team insertion helicopter health regen

    rate (until damaged 58% or more, regenerates 5% life

    every 2 seconds - was 10%)


  7. Hey everybody,

    This is my second release of a mission (the first one being pretty experimental and uneventful); no big storyline or complexity here but I tried to make it interesting and replayable; and, above all, challenging.

    Here's a link:

    http://dwringer.net/a2m/dwr_wajnam_0_2a.rar

    Just extract this PBO to your Take On Helicopters/missions/ directory and it should show up in your Single Player Challenges list.

    (You will need two addons in addition to Take On Rearmed w/A2:Combined Operations. These are:

    Fayshkhabur v1.1, and

    AH6 HUD for TOH

    - links and more information are provided below and in the readme.)

    Wajnam Style

    Version 0.2a

    by dwringer

    41174568.jpg

    Mission Outline:

    ----------------

    You are placed in a Helicopter (Light) [Military], re-

    presenting an AH-6J, about 4km from Abu Wajnam Airstrip.

    Follow the mission plan, survive, and you should be suc-

    cessful.

    Changelog:

    ----------

    0.2a

    -Reworked DAC OPFOR patrol zones

    -Slight chance of seeing some armor just outside the AO

    -Further adjustment to AT targeting behavior

    -Razor team insertion trigger adjustment

    -End condition adjustment, should happen sooner now

    0.12b

    -Made C130 insertion speed more realistic (although extreme)

    0.11b

    -Fixed issue with date/time script selecting 0th day of month

    -Improved Anti-Tank team targeting behavior

    0.1b

    -Added more invisible helipads for Razor team insertion

    -Size increased and enemy count made more restrictive on

    Razor team insertion trigger

    -A10 now only has about a 60% chance to appear

    -Tweaked AT team position/composition for reliability

    -Halved Razor team insertion helicopter health regen

    rate (until damaged 58% or more, regenerates 5% life

    every 2 seconds - was 10%)

    70376679.jpg

    Features:

    ---------

    -Random date and time

    Anywhere from January 1, 1985 to December 31, 2020.

    * Most missions take place during the day; about 80%

    of the time when night would have been randomly

    selected, the time will instead be set to either

    sunrise or sunset. There is still, consequently,

    about a 10% chance of getting a mission in extreme

    darkness.

    -Random weather pattern (sans extremes)

    -Randomly selected weapon loadout

    * See the "Spoiler:" tag at the end of this post for the readme, which details all the loadouts available

    78368676.jpg

    Requirements:

    -------------

    AH-6 Heads-Up Display by AnimalMother92

    TOH port by Rahonavis

    from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?139600-Littlebird-HUD

    Fayshkhabur by =KCT=BlackMamba

    from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?134624-Fayshkhabur-V1-0-Released

    Arma 2: Combined Operations

    Take on Helicopters: Rearmed

    47260601.jpg

    Includes Additional scripts by:

    -----------------------------

    Silola (DAC used for patrols in/around the town)

    rübe (script to calculate sunrise/sunset for a given date)

    Wajnam Style
    Version 0.2a
    by dwringer
    
    Includes Additional scripts by:
    -----------------------------
    Silola (DAC used for patrols in/around the town)
    rübe (script to calculate sunrise/sunset for a given date)
    
    
    Changelog:
    ----------
    0.2a
    -Reworked DAC OPFOR patrol zones
    -Slight chance of seeing some armor just outside the AO
    -Further adjustment to AT targeting behavior
    -Razor team insertion trigger adjustment
    -End condition adjustment, should happen sooner now
    0.12b
    -Made C130 insertion speed more realistic (although extreme)
    0.11b
    -Fixed issue with date/time script selecting 0th day of month
    -Improved Anti-Tank team targeting behavior
    0.1b
    -Added more invisible helipads for Razor team insertion
    -Size increased and enemy count made more restrictive on
     Razor team insertion trigger
    -A10 now only has about a 60% chance to appear
    -Tweaked AT team position/composition for reliability
    -Halved Razor team insertion helicopter health regen
     rate (until damaged 58% or more, regenerates 5% life
     every 2 seconds - was 10%)
    
    
    Mission Outline:
    ----------------
    
    You are placed in a Helicopter (Light) [Military], re-
    presenting an AH-6J, about 4km from Abu Wajnam Airstrip.
    Follow the mission plan, survive, and you should be suc-
    cessful.
    
    
    Features:
    ---------
    
    -Random date and time
    Anywhere from January 1, 1985 to December 31, 2020.
    
    * Most missions take place during the day; about 80% 
      of the time when night would have been randomly
      selected, the time will instead be set to either 
      sunrise or sunset. There is still, consequently,
      about a 10% chance of getting a mission in extreme
      darkness.
    
    -Random weather pattern (sans extremes)
    
    -Randomly selected weapon loadout
      The choices are:
      Variant 1:
    	* 2x12 FFAR Launcher*
      	  2x600 7.62x51 M240
    	  2x125 .50 M3P
    
      Variant 2:
    	  2x7 FFAR Launcher
    	  48x 40mm MK19
    	  2x Sidewinder
    
      Variant 3:
    	* 2x Hellfire
    	  2x Stinger
    	* 2x150 30mm M230 Cannon		  
    
      Variant 4:
    	* 4x Hellfire
    	  48x 40mm MK19
    	  2x125 .50 M3P
    
      Variant 5:
    	  2x Sidewinder
    	* 4x Stinger
    	  2x1000 7.62x51 Minigun
    
      Variant 6 (Std):
    	  2x2000 7.62x51 Minigun
    	  2x7 FFAR Launcher
    
    --------------------
    *Known Issue: Rearming will cause your ammo counts 
      on these items to go higher than intended, due
      to the way in which these loadouts are imple-
      mented.
    
    
    Requirements:
    -------------
    
    AH-6 Heads-Up Display by AnimalMother92
    	TOH port by Rahvonais
    	from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?139600-Littlebird-HUD
    
    Fayshkhabur by =KCT=BlackMamba
    	from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?134624-Fayshkhabur-V1-0-Released
    
    Arma 2: Combined Operations
    
    Take on Helicopters: Rearmed
    

    EDIT: Title says OA but it should really be CO, sorry about that.


  8. Well no insult was taken. I just think people tend to get into camps around certain sims and become very hostile toward any alternatives. I will certainly concede to your experience with other products.

    However, you will find that solving an equation on any computer and simulating the real-time applications of the equations in a system controlled by a player - a chaotic force - are two very different things, and it becomes a whole lot more complicated than finding the instantaneous forces with a standard equation. The processing needs can differ wildly based on what the helicopter is doing, and in some situations compromises must be made. Imagine if you put down 100 helicopters, each in their own groups, and scripted them all with some control inputs you recorded from doing aerobatics.

    The game has to be able to handle that by design.

    EDIT: And sure, they all do, and many will agree that others do it better than TOH. I will argue, however, that the simulation capabilities outside of specific parts of the flight model are second to none. You can certainly recreate scenarios that are impossible with any one other product.


  9. Instead of basing one's opinion of the flight model's authenticity on the opinions of others, something I try not to do, I am forced to compare this game to other things I've tried such as FSX. No, the flight model in FSX doesn't accurately represent a real helicopter. That said, one can still learn to fly with it, and a lot of people - pros included - do.

    X-Plane from my understanding is more of a modeling simulator. Thus it will make the mathematicians happy, but it is in no way guaranteed to be more accurate than FSX, or TOH, or anything else when it comes to representing actual characteristics of flying.

    Keep in mind that a flight model can be perfect for 95% of the things you do; it's the 5% of crazy maneuvers that will put it to the test and yield strange results.

    TOH gives me strange results sometimes when I come in to a hover from a strange angle low to the ground. AFAIK every simulator does, and real helicopters do as well. Modeling a chaotic system is not exactly simple computationally, so the best solution short of investing in a server cluster to run your enhanced flight models is to fit simplified curves to available data.

    Any sim worth its salt does this, TOH included.

    That said, I have no issues with the TOH flight model now that I've been playing for a couple or three weeks. Of course not being a real helicopter pilot I can't tell you how it compares. Not being a real helicopter pilot who happens to be a fanboy of a specific sim, I can't give you that kind of biased opinion either. Nevertheless, the game matches the vast majority of my expectations from the way I understand physics and helicopter flight dynamics. Maybe not all, especially regarding the deflection of air currents and stuff like that. But if I wanted that, I'd fly a real helicopter.

    And to the guy who insulted the flight model comparing it to RC helicopters... :confused:


  10. Ah sorry, I suppose it is in a sense, haha. Anyway I was just more frustrated than anything, I personally don't care where anybody posts anything for the most part ;)

    My issue just involves a crash around a certain area of the South Asia map when I zoom in on a particular region from a particular distance. I think it's a terrain LOD issue or something, but I haven't actually done a complete delete->reinstallation of the game (though I did with all the south_asia specific pbo's I could find) to see if that fixes it. Sorry to get in the way of your own thread, although if you do find time to load up that map and place an infantry unit down at one of the coordinates in here and it crashes I'd be interested in finding out so I know it's a legitimate bug and not something on my end.


  11. Is this the proper forum for bug reports of this nature? I asked about one in the regular Troubleshooting forum weeks ago and have as yet gotten NO response.

    I am tempted to repost the whole thing here, as I want to know if anyone else can confirm. However, I am not really thinking this is where they belong; this is only for issues related to tools (like visitor, etc).

    Can anybody clarify?


  12. Here are some pics I snapped in a relative hurry; for some reason Steam stopped being able to take screenshots from within the game after the Rearmed patch but Fraps still works. These link images are all under 100k, the images at the pages they point to may not be so forgive me if I've misunderstood and consequently broken a rule.

    92519550.jpg

    72389733.jpg

    64149083.jpg

    31171923.jpg

    80195140.jpg

    65643186.jpg

    60653584.jpg

    48639343.jpg

    takeonh2012100619512957.jpg

    takeonh2012100617425914.jpg

    Uploaded with ImageShack.us


  13. I know people may frown on such a non-substantive post as this but...

    In the "US" 'vets' means either veterans or veterinarians. I've never seen anyone neglect one usage in favor of the other; then again googling "vets" gives me tons of veterans links unless i throw in "uk", in which case I get only links to veterinarians.

    Very odd indeed ;p

    With regards to your issue, all I can do is agree with the above post . . . sometimes you have to stand in a very weird place for the 'sweet spot' to show up. I like to stand back holding 'alt' to see the interaction points and slowly move towards them until I get the option.

    Standing too close will frequently put you past the point where you can see it.

    If that doesn't fix your problem my first guesses would be either an addon/mod conflict, or a corrupt save file, or even corrupt data file.


  14. Actually I think the intention may be to always go back and select "Heliport" from the career mission select screen, then use the heliport menu (Esc > Heliport) or manually use the file cabinets in order to replay missions. I'm in a hurry atm and can't test it out; also, I'm not sure if this applies after beating the campaign or if you can restore your progress.

    It's a sim, though, do this missions over and over until you've aced them anyhow ;p

    EDIT: Sorry, reread your post and I'm afraid perhaps I misinterpreted how your problem manifests itself. I'll let you know what happens when I beat the career mode myself, at least :P


  15. Well I can't say anything specifically on this, but to add to the mystery:

    If you are on the leaflet-distributing south asia mission and decide to skip it, at least in my case, this puts "Heliport: South Asia" in the list of career missions where I would expect the mission itself to appear. Selecting this and trying to revert to that point in the campaign simply gives me a black screen and kicks me right back out to the mission select screen. I can, however, go to the Seattle heliport and use the headset in order to trigger the memory and replay the mission.

    Also, I have noticed several times the options to "Resume" a mission even when I have never actually played it, and once or twice the game has crashed when I select "Resume".

    Not sure what's going on in here but something doesn't seem quite right.


  16. The only problem is that most of the credit goes to Arma 2.. :confused:

    I would like so much to see more player on TOH.. But as it's not called Arma2.5 it'll not happend.. So sad :(

    Absolutely agree, although I believe people may start to figure it out as time goes on. The only problem is a lot of the active interest in Arma 2 is only in passing for Day Z, the rest of the fans have probably taken a step or two back waiting for Arma 3. If Day Z were fully transitioned into TOH, then sure, but as the maps weren't given a real road infrastructure and aren't fully debugged for infantry or ground actions this is somewhat of a distant dream, and there's no real reason to move to the engine other than prettier skies and a greater view distance as far as that mod is concerned, afaik.

    That video, I might add, is really impressive. Some of the shots in the opening look photorealistic in the small browser-window video :)


  17. There is a small fire fighting mission I downloaded from this site. I was wondering if it was possible to edit the mission so I can change helicopter and location. The post mentioned you can open the mission in the editor but not sure how you do that. Here is the mission I am referring to http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?128319-SP-put-the-fire-out

    Cheers

    Rhys

    Just download the files from the second page of the thread you mention (links on the first page are dead). Place "watermisc.pbo" into a modfolder of your choice, i used [toh directory]\@FF\AddOns. Then put the "watered.United_States_H" file in your [users\my documents]\Take On Helicopters\missions folder.

    You will have to either add @FF to the -mod parameter of your startup line; or, if you don't want to/don't need to, simply enable @FF from the ingame list of Expansions (assuming you don't have a custom startup line)

    Now you should simply be able to open the Seattle map in your editor and load "watered" as one of the missions. From what I read on the other thread, though, changing the helicopter can mess with some of the configs - but moving locations should be no problem at all.


  18. PvPscene, that makes no sense; i'm referring to the duplicate entries in the .rpt more than any particular bug. However; the specific error message he is getting upon loading the game is the same one I got as well; I was simply explaining what I did to fix it.

    I'm sorry, after thinking about it and especially after seeing the issue resolved, I must admit I went through a lot of stages in troubleshooting my own installation; I suppose I was probably mistaken on this. However, I still contend the following is true:

    If one isn't sure what all directories to put in there, don't use a modline at all. Just enable the expansions through the ingame menu.

    That is BY FAR the simplest solution; if you get it to work THEN consider adding complexity to the system.


  19. This happened to me (the entries in your .rpt being like that) because i had directory junctions for my Arma2\Addons and Arma2\Dta folder inside my Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead folder.

    Thus TOH loads them when it loads Arma2, and again when it loads Arma2 OA.

    I recommend a thorough pruning of your data files so they're all in one place, get rid of any symbolic links except to mods you want Take On Helicopters to be able to see, and launch any/all expansions solely by going through the ingame menu (leave your startup shortcut with no parameters)


  20. Hi,

    if you have reinstalled Take On: Helicopters with no effect, try right clicking on it in your steam library, going to Properties > Local Files > Verify Integrity of Game Cache

    after this finishes, if there are still issues, I believe you should do the same thing with Arma 2, and/or Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead. The latest patch automatically combines these products. If you have non steam versions of these products try reinstalling them.


  21. As far as I'm aware, you cannot integrate a2free without manually putting the shortcut into your modline. However; you might be able to take your Dta and Addons folders and either copy them or symlink/junction them into your TOH directory, then activate Arma2 Free as an expansion through the ingame menu. Thing is, I'm not sure if A2Free is equipped to show up automatically even that way. I THINK it will.

×