lethal

i thought about adding both the condensation trails and the "fog" that appears at high aoa. problem right now is determining a method of measuring the angle of attack of the airplane as there is no such function in arma by default (at least not to my knowledge). i guess it'll have to be something along the line of firse getting the velocity vector and then the vector along the aircrafts nose... gonna think about that for a while. feel free to chime in if you have any ideas

k - you know how to change the key? i'm also looking for for peoples opinions on the balancing. AB too powerful? not using enough fuel? using too much? play with it a bit and then tell me what you think. i haven't spent any time on that yet but i guess now it's time to get the numbers right.

here's how i did it: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">finddisplay(46) displayseteventhandler ["Keydown","if ((_this select 1) == 16) then {ABon = true}"]; i figured it out thanks to mr.Fleas post here

new version -now activated by keystroke (q for the moment but that can be changed - let me know which keys you prefer) -boosts speed -burns fuel i don't think it's multiplayer-compatible yet. i think i'll need some help in that department. if anybody has any suggestions and/or advice please let me know

have you tried playing around with synchronizeWaypoint?

no not teasing at all. i really think there are quite a few issues with it but see for yourself... preview version. no hotkey (i haven't figured out how to do that yet) but instead the effect gets activated by acceleration... to use the script put <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">this execVM "SU34Effects\SU34Effects.sqf" inside the init field of one of your su34s. you can execute it from anywhere though - you just have to replace "this" with the name of the unit

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">_pilot = _group01 createUnit ["SoldierWPilot", position player, [], 0, "NONE"] _plane = createVehicle ["AV8B", position player, [], 0, "FLY"] _pilot moveincargo _plane i get a CTD every time. anybody else? and is there a way to generate that plane with a pilot inside already? I'm gonna try creating the plane on the ground (with the special param set to "NONE") and moving in the pilot there... edit: of course i have created that group, first, too update: works with that param set to "NONE". unfortunately i'll ave to set the position and velocity manually again

no hotkey or anything like that yet but i do plan on it giving a boost to the acceleration when the AB is activated is an idea i also had before and i'll see hw i'm gonna implement it. right now i'm just finishing up the visuals. i have the "fog" set to appear from 800-805 km/h but that is really easy to change if anybody likes it differently.

still working on it. here's one more shot for ya: still not completely happy with the afterburner yet, though. might just be an engine limitation but it seems at high speed there's still a bit of streching sometimes resulting in a slightly weird looking trail when looked at from the side... i get a picture of that situation later on, and let you decide if it's acceptable. working on something myself i sometimes become too fixated on 'small' issues and need a new perspective problem1 at very low speed (standing still, rolling slowly) the particles don't blend into one another but overlap creating this effect: this is the stretching i was talking about earlier. seems to be related to speed and general engine (the gfx engine, not the aircrafts ) workload: as a comparison here's what it *should* look like:

I've recently experimented a bit with the skill settings inside the *.armaprofile file. still have a few questions regarding it and thought that someone here might be able to clear them up for me: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">skillFriendly skillEnemy i'm not completely sure about what the actual effects of this are since it's hard to get reliable results in testing. i *think* i noticed the detection ability of ai units increase when i increased this setting but i can't say for sure. also is it possible that units "behave" more realistically (ie.: advancing more carefully etc.) or is this just me seeing things? <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">precisionFriendly precisionFriendly i've noticed the ai spends a lot more ammo when i lower this setting. they don't go sniping around with mg's anmore but actually use them on auto at times it seems. BIG improvement in my book. the downside of this is that they also seem to be less accurate, espectially with other weapons like AT launchers (which are way to accurate imo anyway...) etc. any other effects besides this anybody knows about? now to the reason i've placed the thead in the mission editing subforum: 1: how does the "skill" slider inside the mission editor work - especially in conjunction with the skill setting mentioned above? simple multiplicator? percentage of setting in the profile? Does is modify both skill AND precision settings? 2: is there some way to make these kind of skill adjustments to units inside the mission without going to the armaprofile file? the settings mentioned above can make quite a bit of difference in how a mission plays out and can sometimes even break a mission if the mission itself was designed around other values.

i created a test missions a few days ago which had a group of brdms and infantry start in the sea, drive to shore, and then drive to a 'hold' waypoint successfully. no scripting involved - the infantry simply was set to incargo and thats where they started and stayed until enemy contact on the way to the hold waypoint. works only if they're in the same group as the vehicle that's transporting them and no enemy contact occurs prior to the landing of course.

wow - you're giving up easy! i don't know your complete script but from what i see in that error msg, i'd try to remove that lonely at the beginning of the script in

thanks for the encouragement i've playerd around with the idea of adding other particle effects to the same script. contrails at high altitude for example, a high aoa condensation effect and that puff one can see when an aircraft breaches the sound barrier... (dunno what its called) what do you think? it *sould* be possible with the tools given and I imagine now that i figured out how to compensate for high speed it wouldn't be that much trouble anymore. Reference pictures of those effects would also be much appreciated

i added some instructions for my smokemarkes here.

next update: as you can see it no longer becomes streched at high speed i have also adjusted it so that length and size of the trail is now influenced by aircraft speed. i would have preferred it to be influenced by throttle settings though. anybody know if that is possible? anyway - all that's left now is tweaking the colors, shape and size a bit then making it fully functional, via hotkey or something.

yes, no problem at all. i can even throw in a few flames if you like. just give me some time and i can make a few effects for ya

Issues with pitch/roll of the plane are irelevant since Arma. See setvectorUp and setVectorDir and associated commands. actually it's not completely irrelevant. since the particles are not simply dropped but emitted in a certain direction i had to adjust the script a little. otherwise the afterburner trail would have always pointed in the same direction i solved that problem now by simply running a loop that updates the particle emitters vector as the plane rotates. i also had to update the emitters position that way since is seems to stop once the plane had a certain distance to it. this is all solved now but unfortunately i've run into another problem: i need to adjust the speed of the particles according to the plane's speed in order to prevent the particles from becoming too spread out at high speed. i had this working before i made the last few adjustments but something must have broken it. mayby i'll find the culprit tomorrow those are the numbers that need to be adjusted to correct the issue above. they determine the vector at which particles are emiited from the source: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">_exhaustdir_x = -(vectorDir _aircraft select 0)*30; _exhaustdir_y = -(vectorDir _aircraft select 1)*30; _exhaustdir_z = -(vectorDir _aircraft select 2)*30;

I've been trying to create a few basic particle effects using scripts but so far i have only been partially successful: Basically I have have been using the 'drop' command outlined here with an infinite loop. However when I look at this biki entry I get the impression there is a way to set up an object as a (permanent) particle emitter. I can't find any other sommands associated with it. Anybody know more about this? Also, when looking through the default effects inside the config.ccp in ca.pbo, it seems that the drop command is limited in functionality and options it gives you and there are a few more properties inside the ccp that you can't define using it. One other thing i'm confused about are the first two parameters of that command, "ShapeName" and "AnimationName". I haven't seen even one instance of the second one even being used in the config and the description of the first one found on the biki seems to be wrong/incomplete: Take a look at "\Ca\data\ParticleEffects\SCRIPTS\SmokeTrail1.sqf" to get an example of what i mean; instead of a simple string an array is used here with the filename as the first parameter and 3 numbers attached. I guess those are for selecting which frames of the animation are used but for some reason they only work for "billboard"-type particles and not "SpaceObject" ones. When using the same parameters on a "SpaceObject" particle you get all the frames at once instead of only the ones you want which, needless to say, looks rather ugly.

i've been going nuts with the particle effects lately i wanted to share one more:

no modified file - just a script that runs on the vehicle of your choice. it will look weird on anything but a su34 though also it's purely cosmetical as of now. i haven't created an on/off switch yet, it doesn't activate above a certain speed etc. might do that as i find the time.

I can also send it to you if you want. basically the script creates a few particlesources at a position of your choosing. you can also be run as a function in which case it return an array with the particlesources as elements. input parameters are position, color (in the form of [r,g,b], and timeout, which when set to less than 1, makes the smoke run indefinitely (you need that if you run it as a function as you can disable the smoke manually then). also this isn't properly tested yet to keep an eye out for bugs/oversights etc. feel free to copy and paste any part you need to build your own script of course edit: i removed the code from the post. tell me where i can upload it - just noticed the forum broke a few lines and made the script unreadable.

still needs a bit of work but its possible:

i've been playing around with the particle effects, too. i made this markersmoke a few days ago; if you're interested i can give you the code. i set it up in a way that you can choose the base color freely by setting the RGB value. edit: used smaller image

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">{_x disableAI "move"} forEach units(group this)works for me. i think you missed the 's' in units edit: i put "this" in there so it needs to be in the init field of one of the units of the group. otherwise substitute "this" with the name. also i put the brackets in just for clarity - it works without them, too.

ok, if anybody else would like to test these settings, i created a function that should make it a bit easier to assign skills based on the "setskill array" command: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">private ["_units","_aimingAccuracy","_aimingShake","_aimingSpeed","_endurance","_spotDistance","_spotTime","_courage","_reloadSpeed","_commanding","_general"]; _units = _this select 0; _aimingAccuracy = _this select 1; _aimingShake = _this select 2; _aimingSpeed = _this select 3; _endurance = _this select 4; _spotDistance = _this select 5; _spotTime = _this select 6; _courage = _this select 7; _reloadSpeed = _this select 8; _commanding = _this select 9; _general = _this select 10; { if (not isnil ("_aimingAccuracy")) then { if (_aimingAccuracy > -1) then {_x setSkill ["aimingAccuracy",_aimingAccuracy]}; if (not isnil ("_aimingShake")) then { if (_aimingShake > -1) then {_x setSkill ["aimingShake",_aimingShake]}; if (not isnil ("_aimingSpeed")) then { if (_aimingSpeed > -1) then {_x setSkill ["aimingSpeed",_aimingSpeed]}; if (not isnil ("_endurance")) then { if (_endurance > -1) then {_x setSkill ["endurance",_endurance]}; if (not isnil ("_spotDistance")) then { if (_spotDistance > -1) then {_x setSkill ["spotDistance",_spotDistance]}; if (not isnil ("_spotTime")) then { if (_spotTime > -1) then {_x setSkill ["spotTime",_spotTime]}; if (not isnil ("_courage")) then { if (_courage > -1) then {_x setSkill ["courage",_courage]}; if (not isnil ("_reloadSpeed")) then { if (_reloadSpeed > -1) then {_x setSkill ["reloadSpeed",_reloadSpeed]}; if (not isnil ("_commanding")) then { if (_commanding > -1) then {_x setSkill ["commanding",_commanding]}; if (not isnil ("_general")) then { if (_general > -1) then {_x setSkill ["general",_general]}; }; }; }; }; }; }; }; }; }; }; sleep (random 0.1); } forEach _units example of use: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">_setskill = [[unit1,unit2,unit3],0.1,0.2,0.9,0.5,0.5,0.9,0.5,0.5,0.9,0.9] execVM "setskillarray.sqf"