dslyecxi

My tactical guide for Arma 3 is now out, available as part of the Deluxe Edition of the game, whee! You can read more details here. To say I'm excited with how it turned out is a bit of an understatement! I'm looking forward to hearing how people like this third edition of my TTP guides. ;)

7ThNyR_fY0M The Story The intent of this mission is to give MH-6 pilots an opportunity to build their skills via observation of techniques as well as practical application of the same techniques themselves, to include flying as a wingman in any training scenario. The intent is not to give a from-the-ground-up period of instruction in all things helicopter. You should have some basic helo skills to get the most out of this, though that's not to say that a novice pilot won't find something useful in it for them. Finally, note that this is primarily a skill-building mission - every "real" LZ has to be considered with a multitude of things in mind (see TTP2 for more details), while these have been chosen to show various concepts without the overhead of a fully established enemy presence etc. Note too that all LZs show an exfil as well, since landing at an LZ is only the first half of the dangerous task. Download Version 1.1 (public release) Please do not mirror this file/mission! Place it in your Arrowhead "missions" directory and access it from the Singleplayer -> Scenarios menu. Note that this was designed as a vanilla mission and does not require any other mods to work. You will see a slight amount of weirdness in ACE when changing tracks due to the immersive dismount feature, but it's nothing major. How-To Upon launching you will experience a longer-than-usual load time. This is due to processing a lot of scripts (helo paths) at the start. The interface for this mission is exclusively action-based, aka the mousewheel menu. The initial options you will have are: Training Mode: Ride-Along Show Selections Display Help Hint "Show Selections" will display the entire set of training courses. They are labeled either as S, M, or H - translating to simple, medium, and hard courses respectively. "Display Help Hint" will cause a constant hint to show your speed, the lead helo's speed (if different), and the difference between. This can be used to display the speed when in "Ride-Along" mode, or to compare your speed with the lead helo in "Fly With" mode. The "Training Mode" option toggles between "Ride-Along" and "Fly With" modes. "Ride-Along" puts you in the copilot seat, allowing you to get a perspective of a given flight path from that point of view. "Fly With" allows you to fly your own helo in wingman (or chase) mode alongside the flight-pathed helo - you will typically start on the right side of the lead helo, offset behind it somewhat and generally above it to permit you to build up some speed at the start. Once you have selected the training mode and whether you want to use the help hint, show the selections and pick a course. The descriptions of the current ones will follow later in this post. At this point you will be teleported to the starting area, followed by a quick countdown that ends with the path starting. When the course is complete, the lead helo will freeze in space for three seconds, then teleport safely away. At this point you will be returned to your own helo (if in ride-along mode) and given an opportunity to pick a new course. You can repeat this until a helo blows up, at which point you'll need to restart the mission. Notes This is untested on other systems. For me, the given scenes will play reliably for me whether at 1x or 4x replay speed. It is possible to have them glitch out and result in the lead helo exploding due to a collision with 'something'. If that's the case, restarting the mission generally will result in it working. This may happen more often on slower machines, but like I said, I haven't been able to test that. I intended to do more 'rabbit chase' scenarios, but these tend to explode more often than not, and after awhile I got tired of watching cool paths explode when being replayed. :( I have recorded some formation stuff that I'd like to make into a training scenario sometime. If you're interested, let me know and it'll bump higher on my priority list. You can see one example of this in my "Omen" video. 6HFfV0SWBjs Final words I could have filmed dozens upon dozens of paths for this, but due to various concerns I've limited it to 40 paths for now (with 14 of those being autorotate/tail rotor scenarios). I am more than happy to create additional demonstrations of anything anyone would like to see, so if you have an idea/suggestion, simply post it and I'll work something up sometime... hopefully, schedule permitting. Courses The current courses are as follows. Easy The easy scenarios are intended to show basic skills that all helo pilots should be proficient in. These are the building blocks from which you can execute more complex and demanding maneuvers. 'Low Level Flight' illustrates a simple route flown a few meters above ground. 'Low Alt 180' demonstrates the ability for a helo to do a near-instantaneous 180 degree turn even when flown only a few meters above the ground. 'High Speed Sideslip' shows how one can keep a helo in a sideways 'strafe' for a considerable distance. 'Straight LZ' is just that - a simple, straightforward LZ Medium Medium scenarios turn the difficulty up a bit. 'Roof Landing' is a quick-in, quick-out rooftop landing in a small town. The second one demonstrates a very steep flare to accomplish the same thing in a shorter span of time. 'Spiral Descent' shows how one can spiral into an LZ from a good altitude. 'Fast Slides' show that a helo can make a landing with high forward speed, so long as the vertical rate of descent is kept to a minimum. 'Drops' show how a pilot can drop from great altitude and land in a very short period of time. 'Hook Approach' is a descending, turning approach into a courtyard LZ. 'Hopper' demonstrates popping over an object to land on the other side of it quickly. 'Masked' is a low-alt masked approach on a village. Be mindful of your altitude when slowing down, tail rotor collision is an easy mistake to make! 'Oil Refinery' starts at altitude, then combines a few tricks to end up in an oil refinery LZ. 'Descending Urban Slope' requires good control of deceleration and 'speed bleed' in order to land on a sloped piece of ground in a town. Hard Hard scenarios take it a step further. 'Rabbit' scenarios involve chasing another helo as it twists and turns through a difficult, low-altitude flight path. 'Hard LZ' scenarios show particularly challenging approaches. 'Mosque Courtyard' is a straight approach with a quick turn over the Mosque before dropping into the courtyard for a single-helo LZ. Rotorloss RL scenarios are about rotor loss. There are ten examples, showing recovery at different initial speeds, altitudes, and environments. You can trigger your own rotor loss by 0-0-1 in the radio menu. You will have ~15 seconds of fuel after this, and will have enough damage to cause a heavy spin and require a gentle landing. See "Tips" for more on this. Autorotation AUTOROT scenarios deal with autorotation, brought on by total fuel starvation. There are four examples covering the basic possibilities - highspeed at low and high altitudes, and engine failure while going up and down hills. Note that this demonstrates the default vanilla Arrowhead method, and not the how-can-you-possibly-mess-this-up ACE2 hand-holding method. You can induce an engine failure by using the 0-0-2 radio option. Tips General When touching down for an LZ, the thrust-down key should be tapped, not held. Holding thrust-down is a good way to destroy the engine on impact. Slamming your tail is the most likely way to screw up. Many, many helo crashes or engine losses happen from lack of tail awareness. The warning siren that can happen on a hard touchdown does not always indicate total engine failure. Your upper-left "component" indicator is generally a better thing to go by, though it can be a bit misleading at times as well. Engine loss will cause a very obvious loss of lift and a spooling-down sound to play - rely on that above all else. Rotor Loss Tips Generally speaking, rotor loss that happens at mid to high speed, or high altitude, is very easy to recover from. Low-speed rotor loss that results in an immediate spin at low altitude is very hard to reocover from due to how much can go wrong before you get enough altitude or get the spin under control. This is what I focus on most in the examples, and as you can see, it can get very hairy and require some creative touchdown methods. This is an inexact science for me presently, but my general actions are as follows. If you find a more reliable method, feel free to post about it. The basic steps are: 1. GET ALTITUDE! 2. Get control 3. Get on the ground To go into more detail: Immediately press and hold gain alt. You will not know what you're spinning into until it's too late, so the higher you are, the better. 'Rock out' recovery can drop your altitude quickly without you realizing it, so the altitude helps greatly. Once you have achieved a decent altitude (80m+ is good to aim for).... Rock out of it. This is achieved by picking a direction (typically the general direction you're moving in) and rocking the aircraft in that direction during each spin rotation. ie, when your nose is pointed in the direction you want to go, nose down. As you spin away from that direction, nose up until your tail is pointed down in the direction you want to go when facing 180 degrees away from it. After a few spins you will end up flying in that direction. Note that the way to get out of a spin is to get enough momentum in one direction to negate the loss of the tail rotor. Unfortunately, this can happen in three ways - rearward flight, sideways flight, and forward flight. Only one of them is reliable (forward), while sideways flight can work in some situations, and rearward flight is generally bad news. However, if you can increase rearward speed, you're likely to see the helo flip 180 and begin forward flight - whether you will survive this process is questionable, however. Inducing another spin is a risky way to get out of these unwanted states, but it's pretty much your only option. Once you are in forward flight (or after losing your tail at higher speeds), bank slightly left and nose down to maintain speed. An MH-6 torques clockwise (right) without the tail rotor, and this will counteract that. Pick an LZ, head to it, and begin bleeding speed while maintaining a low altitude. Using a curving flight path can help to keep the torque minimized for as long as possible, preventing you from going into a spin. See the examples for how this can look. Making a running landing is oftentimes necessary. If landing on a slope, ensure you land facing up it or down it - sideways is likely to cause a roll. Engine Loss/Autorotation Tips This is dead simple in the vast majority of cases. Immediately bring your forward speed to a minimum (30kph or lower) while holding your thrust down key. When 20-30 meters above the ground, press and hold thrust up. You should touch down lightly, provided you chose a good LZ. See the "Going uphill" example for a good case of where quick-thinking is required to prevent a disastrous outcome.

I've just released the ShackTac Littlebird Enhancement Mod. Note that this is a beta release, so expect some potential issues. With that being said, it has been quite usable for those of us at ShackTac and I'm happy with how it has turned out. You can find details and download info here. Feature requests and bug reports can be handled there as well through the ticket system. The news/files sections will be updated as new versions are released. Here are some example videos showing off functionality: OGgLBBuQrIk rlN99dqNKy0 News sites, please do not mirror the files themselves. I'd like it to be accessible from DH exclusively. Also, since I know this will come up: No, I do not plan to make this for any other vehicles aside from the xH-6 platform. If you'd like to take on that challenge, feel free - I just do not personally have the time for it. Enjoy! :D

To help streamline things, ShackTac HUD, Group Indicators, Stamina, Name Tags, and various other UI-related mods have been condensed into a concept known as the "ShackTac User Interface", or STUI. Our v1.2.0 release came out Sep 5, 2016: https://youtu.be/inpqadPEVVs You can view STUI on the Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498740884 More details are kept in our wiki: https://gitlab.com/shacktac-public/general/wikis/home Issues can be posted on our tracker: https://gitlab.com/shacktac-public/general/issues

Introducing the ShackTac Fireteam HUD (STHUD), by zx64 Once upon a time, we had an idea to make something that would alleviate some of the issues in ArmA with regards to situational awareness. Our ShackTac Fireteam HUD is the solution we came up with, and while it is not completely finalized feature-wise, we think it's more than ready to be used by those who share similar views regarding gameplay's relationship with realism. Design Intent The ShackTac Fireteam HUD was designed to do the following: Provide situational awareness on where your fireteam members are and what their orientation is. This is intended to represent both peripheral vision, as well as the extended awareness one has in reality. You only see your fireteam members relative to you - no terrain, no other players/units. Give you an always-visible way of seeing who your team members are How it Works The current incarnation works as follows. As long as you are in a group, and not inside of a vehicle, you will see the Fireteam HUD displaying at the bottom-center of your screen. There are three circles - the first one indicates a range of 15m, next is 30m, last is 45m. We've tried a few different scaling sizes, and have settled on this one for the present time. The current group leader will display as a white icon. If you are not the group leader, you will display as a yellow icon. Other team members will show as green icons. Medics/Corpsmen and leaders will show with special icons. Note that the appearance of someone's marker, or their name, does not necessarily mean that they are alive - it works off of the same logic used in normal ArmA group handling, so if you have a dead team member, you will need to "know" about them (ie, right-click while looking at their body) to have them removed from the list. When you die, the HUD will automatically close. Note that this has been designed to work with a "Very Small" GUI size, so for best results, try it like that. The STHUD currently supports a max of twelve names displayed. Color-coded group member support. To use, simply use the in-game team assignment feature - the changes will be made to the HUD after a few moments. Download Please do not mirror this file. You're welcome to add it to community addonsync servers for the purpose of distributing it to your own communities, but we would ask that the only 'normal' download method be directly from DevHeaven. Thanks for your cooperation in this! :) You can download the ShackTac Fireteam HUD from DevHeaven here. Of course, comments and feedback are always welcome! Enjoy! :) Release History 3/18/2010 - Initial release 3/21/2010 - Updated 12-name version, see readme for other changes 4/25/2010 - Small release, adds Celle, Kellu, Aiaktalik support 7/15/2010 - OA release + TIR/freelook HUD change 12/13/2010 - Bugfixes and new islands, plus AT/AR icon support As of 5/28/2011, release info can be found on the DevHeaven STHUD Project Page.

Reporting issues in this thread is generally not helpful, as it's not monitored with any regularity. We have an issue tracker for those sorts of reports: https://gitlab.com/shacktac-public/general/issues

Can you put it in our tracker? https://gitlab.com/shacktac-public/general/issues

Yeah, can't say I understand the rationale behind this. It seems to ignore how markers are typically used in multiplayer. If you wanted to emphasize which markers are for which channel, you could do this in other ways that don't completely strip the other markers from view.

The 'rejection and closes' before were me explaining how it worked and asking you to provide a video to clarify any confusion that might exist. Now that you've done so, I've replied in detail on the tracker. You seem to have glossed over the content of my previous replies, so hopefully this most recent one can shed some light on things.

Not quite sure what you're describing, as it sounds like you're confusing "level of customization" with "using the whole pack or partial". If you want to do it piecemeal, there's nothing stopping you right now, you just take the addons you want and leave the ones you don't. If you mean you want a control panel to allow every little thing to be customized in-game, that hasn't been how it's worked (ever) and while we intend to offer some easier customization in the future, it's not here now and there's no ETA. You should still have the same in-game customization as always, like changing it to be HUD-only vs names vs off.

In the future issues/requests are better posted to the issue tracker mentioned in the root post. This evening there will be an update that should address occlusion whether or not you're running the group indicators.

New STUI release, updated the root post to reflect this. You can view STUI on the Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunit...s/?id=498740884 More details are kept in our wiki: https://gitlab.com/s...eral/wikis/home Issues can be posted on our tracker: https://gitlab.com/s.../general/issues

ShackTac Interact is a small addon I created awhile back for our in-house use, which has been asked for by other communities and is now being made public. ShackTac Interact requires ACE2 and CBA. Note that a server (or mission) must allow this addon for it to function. ShackTac Interact introduces two new features, as follows: Join Player Group This option becomes available when you walk up to a player and press your interact key. You will see a ST-orange 'ShackTac' menu item - click on this, and you will have a 'Join their group' option. When you select this, you immediately join that player's group. Note that this only works on players, not AI. Take command of current group Press your self interact key and you will see 'ShackTac Self' as an option - click it and you will have an option to take command of your current group. This can be used if you were wounded as an FTL or otherwise lost command for some reason. This can also be used in the event that the order of seniority gets out of whack and somebody out-of-order needs to assume group leadership. I've put together a short video demonstrating how to use the features: You can download st_interact from: https://dev-heaven.net/projects/shacktac/files Server admins: There are two ways you can set this up - either enabled or disabled by default for all missions on your server. To have st_interact DISABLED unless a mission specifically initializes it, do not put the "st_interact_enabler.pbo" on your server. If you do this, a mission will need to run the following code to turn it on: st_interact_group_enablerPBO = true; publicVariable "st_interact_group_enablerPBO"; If you want to have st_interact enabled for all missions by default, simply include the st_interact_enabler.pbo in your server's addons. Mission Designer Notes If you have a mission where you want to prevent a unit from being able to use this, simply do this command locally for that unit: st_interact_allow_group_interactions = false Final Notes I have tested this briefly to ensure that the st_interact_enabler.pbo addon works as desired, and it seems to function fine. If you run into any issues, let me know here or on the tracker. Note that ST plays without respawn, so I can't guarantee how this will work when respawn is being used. It handles our join-in-progress usage fine, though. We've been using this addon (minus the interact_enabler) for quite some time now successfully.

ShackTac Map Gestures (STMG) allows you to easily point on a map to those within a short range of you. You can read more about (and download) it here. A video demonstration can be seen here.

It must be on the server as well. All-or-nothing, meaning, all clients and server must have it.

Shouldn't be.

There's a link to where you can report issues. Simply saying that you "get an error" doesn't contribute to a solution though, you'll need to be more specific and do so in the correct place for it (the issue tracker).

What you see in that clip is something I did for myself/ST, along with some other tweaks to the MELBs to bring them more in line with the gameplay experience we're looking for. It's not representative of what might be officially added. edit: Also, it came up earlier in the thread, but re: having a TOW missile variant - I would love to see that, that'd be amazing!

Are you talking about the vanilla AH-9? As to A2 - there were mods to fix the default M134s, STLB being an example of that. It was one round fired per three ammo expended in vanilla, not "every 10th round". Emphatically "No". The exact same issue that was in A2 is reintroduced in A3 - the vanilla miniguns expend 3 units of ammo for every 1 shot actually fired. This is trivially easy to check even without scripting - fire a short burst (just tap the trigger) at water, count how many impact splashes you see, look at how many bullets were expended. They will not match - it will be a 1:3 of hits:ammo lost. The MELB helos do not have this issue any longer (though they did in the past). They are absolutely more capable than the vanilla ones ever were. Perhaps you're using an oudated version, or have a mod conflict? An example of your "15 targets" being knocked down easily with a MELB's miniguns: http://gfycat.com/HighlevelKnobbyAfricanharrierhawk The shot density and dispersion of the MELB M134: http://gfycat.com/UniqueForsakenAmericanalligator The shot density and dispersion of a vanilla AH-9: http://gfycat.com/MindlessOldAustraliankelpie

Congrats on the release! I've been really enjoying our time with ACRE2 lately.

Hell yes.

It's here! Over two years after the first TTP was published and juuuust in time for the Euro launch of A2, I bring you... TTP2! Whee! http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com Quoting Marek Španěl regarding this iteration of the guide, As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! Hope you guys enjoy it. Note that this actually ended up being almost precisely twice as big as the first guide in wordcount. :eek: Oh, and yes - there is a print version of it in development for those who are looking forward to that.:)

This is a very lightweight mod I created to give ShackTac the ability to control our voice volumes in adversarial gameplay using ACRE. This takes advantage of API functionality added to ACRE a few months ago. As of now let's just say that it requires ACRE 1.4.7 and TS 3.0.7 minimum. There should be no other requirements aside from that this must run on both the server and clients to work correctly. I've created a video overview of it, with the voiceover text included below for easy reading. I am sharing this due to being asked to do so by people who've seen us using it in our videos. Don't expect feature requests or anything to happen - this is a really simple mod and I don't want to bloat it. It is what it is, use it if you like it, don't if not. You can see examples of this being used to great effect in various recent videos by me, to include: You'll note that each of these includes situations that, had we not been using stacre_volume, would have resulted in comm compromise by the enemy players. Anyhow, enjoy! If you run into any issues, post them here or in our tracker. Download here

I've released it due to popular demand. You can read more about it on my site. This is the same dialog I featured in this video:

After much delay, I've finally found a chance to put this out. You can read more about it on my site. Thanks to Macolik for creating it!