Tom Norman

I can't speak for the American's combat effectiveness man for man against British or Dutch forces, but they sure get the job done en mass. Â I pray to God I never have to fight with them again though. Â They'll shoot at anything with armour and most things without. Â An American clearance patrol nearly killed one of our recce blokes just over the Iraqi border...case of mistaken identity, stuipid thing is, our recce party was attached to the clearance patrol so they should have been well aware that we were there. Â Later the next night a squadron (don't know whether that's the right term) of Cobras were waved off their attack run against the same recce party (although no longer affiliated with the Armerican patrol) at the last minute by the lads signalling with IR strobes. Â We had big orange tarpaulins on top of our wagons, CIPs (Combat Identification Panels - Thermal signature stuff), coalition TAC markings, Infra-red strobes and bloody Union Jacks flying...yet still they thought we were the enemy. Â It was a matter of seconds between just being 'a close call' and being a total disaster! Â They're gung-ho as you like, but they blow things up real good, so as long as you stand behind them when they're going at it, they're alright. Â We had two American sniper teams acting as observers for our first fire mission (BMP with dismounts digging in). Â Their callsigns were Grim 'Reaper 10' and 'Grim Reaper 20'! Â Hehehe, we were 'Wildcat 20'...following is a target report sent by one of the observers near the end of the mission: "He's runnin', he's runnin'...YEAH! Â You got the bastard!" Â Only a Yank could get away with that...a Brit would be crucified by the SMIS! Â

Now that's some brilliant stuff. Neural networks eh? I understand the three inputs and how they combine to produce the elevation, but what are the three hidden layers? What's going on in there? And what's this about 'learning'? Surely it's just plain maths. Does it piece together a pattern for the effects of drag for various ranges and muzzle velocities? By the way, I think you've been misinformed, high angle is not more precise. Low angle normally results in a greater error for range, mostly because of the lay of the land. But firing in high angle gives the unpredictable variables like pressure, crosswinds and the like more time to act on the shell. We only fire high angle when using carrier shells like illum, smoke and bomblet (although not so much with bomblet). The lower velocity of a falling shell reduces the chance that the parachute will be ripped off in the case of illum. While in the case of bomblet and smoke, the shell's velocity is not transferred to the carried sub-munitions. On that note, will you be offering bomblet, smoke and illum in the next version?

Excellant...you just said exactly what I wanted to hear. Â Greater accuracy in the next version, more ammunition natures/fuze settings and scope for British proceedures. Â Perfect. Â It'd be great to see copperhead make an appearance too, it'd be an excellant tool against enemy armour. Maths is flawless, but like you said, flashpoint buggers it all up. Â Shame really. Â I'm definately going to try out this zero bias and zero precision error thing you've mentioned. Â How did you get the shell to fly the way you wanted too? Â Do any scripts act on it during flight, or are it's ballistics all set up in the config to provide that kind of stability and consistancy? And one more point...SEAD mission, that's right! Â Suppression of Enemy Air Defence is what Ginge said that stood for...which confuses the hell outta me because we were engaging T-55's. Â I guess it's just about keeping their heads down while air power does it's stuff.

Relax, I was just talking about the VP and fire orders for British arty. Â I'm sure it's perfect as far as American proceedures go, but we do it a different way and it would be nice to represent that in a UKF addon. By 'easier to represent via scripting ' and 'more effective', I don't mean 'death by mouse click' at all. Â Your UA system can lob shells all the way accross the map if need be, but they're not very accurate when they get there, the distributions are dodgy as you like and adjustment leaves a lot to be desired. Â My script only spawns a shell a couple hundred metres away from the target and launches it at 350m per second at the calculated point of aim. Â The end result is a round that will land consistantly within about a metre of the same point of impact every time. Â This means I've got a greater degree of control over where the rounds fall and can adjust the simulated inconsistancies as I see fit. Now don't get me wrong, your script is genius in it's purest form, but it seems factors outside your control (ie. limitations of the OFP engine) are stopping you from getting the results you want...or if they are exactly what you were after, then I think the effects on the ground you have created are too large-scale for a small-scale game like Flashpoint (you know what I mean...it's a big playing field as far as games go...but real arty plays on a far grander scale). Â Also, artillery fire is actually quite a bit more accurate than I think you have represented in UA. Â In Iraq, we recieved only one or two adjustments for the duration of the war. Â Phoenix gave us most of our grids, but when the mission was sent by one of our OPs, he'd just go straight to fire for effect, and adjust that if need be (which hardly ever needed to happen). Â I co-ordinated a fire mission in support of two American sea harriers to engage 8 T-55's. Â I think they called it a CIAD mission...new one on us at the time, but they wanted us to plonk an illum round down in the middle of the enemy position (functioning at ground level). Â We put the first round right where they wanted it. Â Then they bombed the bjeezus out of them before we plastered the survivors with 80 rounds of bomblet. Â That should give you some idea of how accurate arty fire can be with decent met. Anyway...like I said, I'm sure it's spot on for American arty proceedures, but I do this stuff for a living and I can see it doesn't follow quite the same lines as the way we do it in the British army. And please...what does a bunny know about fire dicipline and data calculation? Â They're button pushers and breech creatures. Â The only reason God gave them heads is so they'd have some place to put their helmet, thus freeing up their arms to carry more heavy things. Â If you have any plans on representing British fire dicipline and proceedures in UA, then you'll want to get hold of a British CP Ack or the like.

Well cheers fellas, but there's more than enough British blokes on the team to fill that role. Â Some of them are current/ex-squaddies, with signals experience too, so we can handle any voice bits we need doing ourselves. Â I actually joined UKF to do that originally (arty signalling to be precise), but they had no use for a voice-over bloke (for the same reasons I just specified)...so I was recruited as their chief scripter instead. I'll be sure to pass on your requests for a mortar...turns out I was wrong, you all seem very keen to crew a mortar. Â Why don't you join the artillery? Â We do it better than any mortar platoon anyway. Â Sniper rifles are supposed to be a work in progress as far as I'm aware. Â I'm a little puzzled about this myself to be honest, I saw a (badly textured) sniper rifle amongst the early infantry...I think that might have been the BIB infantry at the time...dunno what happened after that. Â JONNO! The LSV is not planned as far as I know. Â We've got rovers and their sporty GPMG mounted brother so we're not really bothered about making that slightly bizarre vehicle. Â It's an airborne thing anyway. Â Next release should be the landies (which are ready to go as far as I can tell), after them is the Warrior (and probably OPV variant with built in fire mission options - as written by yours truly), then I expect work on the Chally 2 will resume (dessie version first for some reason, but I'm sure that will change). Â There's also an AS90 in the works. Â The model looks good but the textures are non-existant...personally I don't think it will ever get off the ground because arty is so much easier (and more effective) to represent with scripting. Â Plus, CoC just isn't very realistic...not for British arty anyway. Â As for setting the unit's direction to face the enemy, if you send me your email addy, I'll send you a script snippit I put together ages ago and now use quite commonly. Â It's a short trigonometry equasion which finds the angle from one point on the map ([X,Y,Z] grid) to another (just picture an imaginary right-angle triangle on the map). Â It's easily applied into your own scripts and I often reuse it instead of writing the whole thing out again using new variables (besides, you can just change all the variables in a oner using CTRL-H in notepad). Â I've got some others along the same lines if you like. Â Trig based script snippits that you otherwise might not be able to get your head around. Â Would they be useful to you?

A MILAN's supposed to be on the cards, dunno about the GPMG SF...how would you do that in flashpoint? What would you make different? And why would you want to? You'll never be in a firefight in flashpoint at a range of over 300m anyway. If you just mean you want a mounted version, then have no fear, the LandRover pack has every possible variety you could ever want. An 81mm mortar might be nice...but CoC have already provided us with one so it'd be pointless us making our own for use with UA...unless you want one that can be broken down and carried. Although I never really saw the point of that, it's a little too much for flashpoint...who'd want to haul around mortar componants for the duration of a mission and eventually just sit there manning it?

Poor design ergonomically? Well...like I said, I'm perfectly happy with mine and I've never found it to be uncomforable. Anyway, what do you mean by 'company level support weapons'? We already have LSW's, Minimis and GPMG's, but when you say 'company level' I assume you mean something bigger. Mortars? Milans? Vehicles even? Are you talking about the Warrior? Could you be a little more specific?

LOL! True story. But as long as it snaps in half inside them, I'm happy.

The A2's great. No problem with mine, and that was after 4 months in the desert. Besides, stoppages in-game would just be annoying.

Right, well you'll have to get ahold of Jonno for that. Throw rocks at him 'til you get his attention...or email him, whichever works best for you. Failing that, just use a regular UKF rifleman and use the Add/Remove Weapon/Magzine commands.

Bloody hell. Â Considering it took us so long to release and it's so full of bugs...you fellas sure are happy with what we've given you On behalf of the whole team, thanks a lot, glad you're not disappointed. Â And I think that's enough 'singing UKF's praises' for one lifetime. Â We'll be sure to let you know when we release 1.1 (or at least Jonno will because I won't be here). Â You'll probably be pleased to hear I've already corrected a couple bugs. Â One major issue (player freezing after a bayonet strike) has been solved by changing a delay time by 0.2 seconds. Â Simple as that...shame we didn't get it first time. Â But I still can't solve the problem of the action menu options duplicating when you exit a vehicle. Â

The configs? What do you want them for? I don't think there's anything special going on in them.

I think that perhaps I phrased that wrong I should have said he'd probably not give it out to just anyone (ie. not an individual, but perhaps an established mod team)...but when eventually we do release it to the other mod teams, we want it to work properly.  Besides, he's yet to give you a reply so would you at least let Jonno give you fellas an answer before writing him off? I wrote it, and it's got an awful lot of bugs, so I'll be pretty insulted and humiliated if we give it to somebody else now and they fix it first.

Who're you calling bitch, bitch? Â Huh? Â *Shoves Huey* Â Wanna go some do ya? Â Reckon you're 'ard? Â *Promptly gets thrown through a window*

As posted on the 'bayonet anim for a rifle' thread: Try entering the following line of code into a unit's init field: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[This] Exec "\ukf_ukweps\Scripts\FixBayonet\FixCommand.sqs" That should cause every soldier in that unit's group to attach his bayonet as soon as the game starts. If you want them fixed immediately from the start, just remove the soldier's 'UKF_SA80' and replace it with a 'UKF_SA80_B'. The script should automatically pick up the abnormality and take appropriate action. As for sharing the script...well I've had a really bad day and I'm not inclined to describe the way it works right now...but you can talk to Jonno about getting the script itself if you like. Problem is though, the way I see it, the bayonet script (although buggy) is one of the things that sets our infantry apart from other addons. It's our novelty bit. He'll probably not give it out to anyone who asks, perhaps the falklands mod, but not 'til the 1.1 release (he wants me to fix all these bugs first).

Oh for God's sake...some fella started this thread to announce the release of the infantry pack. Â Shortly thereafter Jonno posted an email address and asked people to report any bugs via that means. Neither of the subsequent two instances in which we asked you again to report bugs to the address given could possibly be interpreted as 'complaints'. If you review the thread, you'll find it consists of people doing one of three things: -Offering praise -Asking questions -Reporting bugs That's not our fault. Â The thread was started as an announcement, not even by a UKF team member! Â It didn't require any reply, but people did regardless. Â Now, I'm sure you're right, 'Addon discussion IS about bugs half the time', and we value your feedback but we've asked at least three times now for any bug reports to be sent to the email address. That's all we're going on about.

Good call, GoOB. I'm aware of this problem. It happened to me once in a blue moon and for ages I didn't know why...but just this moment I think I might have figured it out. I may just need to modify the animation switch delay. Stu's bayonet anim never finishes properly so the soldier is stuck in that pose...to over come this problem I made the unit switchmove to the 'combat' anim so he could move as normal again. I think what might be happening is the switchmove is trying to execute while the bayonet anim is still running, as such they are having some sort of conflict. I'll see what I can do in the next update. Guys, please remember, we'd appreciate it if bugs are reported to the following email addy: bugreports@project-ukf.com I just means we don't have to go chasing after your bug reports on all the various forums...if they're centralised we can address them easier.

If you mean cam-cream, type the following line in any unit's init box: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">{_X animate ["FacecamoState", 1]} ForEach Units Group This It'll make every soldier in the group instantly cam-up.

Damnit...goddamn mong-child. I gave you the wrong path. I think it's in 'ukf_ukweps' instead...it's hard to remember, and now the .pbos are encoded, it's not like I can get in them to find the right path either. Try this: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[This] Exec "\ukf_ukweps\Scripts\FixBayonet\FixCommand.sqs" I'll ask Jonno to link me to a decrypted version.

Well that's an interesting question...well let's see...try entering the following line of code into a unit's init field: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[This] Exec "\UKF_Infantry\Scripts\FixBayonet\FixCommand.sqs" That should cause every soldier in that unit's group to attach his bayonet as soon as the game starts. If you want them fixed immediately from the start, just remove the soldier's 'UKF_SA80' and replace it with a 'UKF_SA80_B'. The script should automatically pick up the abnormality and take appropriate action.

Actually, the JAM sounds are top-notch, they're very much like the real thing. Â The 5.56mm round is a small, high-velocity round, so it makes a sharp popping sound, more than a deep bassy 'boom'. Â We've tried to make the addon as accurate as possible without compromising on aesthetics. Â We even included the spotting rounds for the LAW originally, but it was causing a CTD with AI soldiers. Â

You mean when they run out of ammo? There's nothing built into the script to do that anymore. You'll have to tell them to fix bayonets. It was removed because it was causing problems (the JAM mags ammo count can't be queried properly) we figured the chances of an AI soldier expending all his ammunition in one mission was so remote, it wasn't worth worrying about.

Yeah the bayonets were added as a novelty item more than anything. They were requested in the UKF forums, so we set about making them. Bayonets have little place in modern warfare except in trench/room clearance...and there's not a great deal of that in flashpoint. It's mostly open battlefield stuff. But if you find yourself in the middle of an urban area and a Russian pops out in front of you, have a crack...especially if you've expended all rounds in your mag. They can also be used to silently kill an enemy...if any of you is planning to make a covert ops mission using standard DPM/Royal marine/Para soldiers that is. Anyway, have fun.

Yeah, when you fix your bayonet, the SA80 in your hands is removed and replaced with the SA80_B (bayonet version). Â As such, because the weapon you are using is removed for a split second, the game automatically switches down to your next available weapon (in this case hand grenades). Â If you have no grenades, then it appears blank. Â You can rectify this easily by just hitting your 'change weapon/fire mode' button to flick back to whatever fire mode you want. Â Sorry about that, but it's always been a problem in flashpoint. Â Using the bayonets, once fitted, is simple. Â Run into an enemy soldier. Â The script takes over when you get within range. Â There is no button you must press to 'stab', no weapon fire mode to select. Â Just get up off your belt buckle, scream something intimidating and have at it! Â

The idea was to make a system which needed minimal user input once the bayonet was fitted. Â Ie. no action menu commands, no weapon fire mode selection...you just have to run into the enemy and the script does all the work. Â We didn't want the user to have to select something specifically in order to stab with the bayonet, because we figured in the matter of seconds you have to react when presented with an enemy in close quarters and no rounds in your magazine, most players would just hit the reload button and hope it happened quick enough, rather than flicking through fire modes or scrolling down options to find the right one. Â Another problem with using a weapon and ammunition type is that you'd have another fire mode to flick through just to change to grenades...with the tiny amount you'll use your bayonet, it would be more of a hinderance to have it there in that format. Also, we wanted a version that could be used by the computer...a short range ammunition type wouldn't work, and would probably see computer controlled soldiers stabbing mindlessly at the air in front of them, when presented with enemy forces 50m to their front. Anyway, the addon has been released now, so why don't you head on over to the UKF website and pick it up? Â Then you can appraise the bayonets and eveything else yourself!