sakura_chan

Ok folks, this is something I started today, and I'm going to release it as an open test to the community because of the great success I've had with it. Vehicles should now have much improved path finding skills, especially in a situation where they have to turn around in a narrow street or within a forest road. Basically I tweaked the AI driving variables to the point that vehicles are able to turn more accurately, with fewer back and forth motions. The bigger trucks had a ridiculous and unrealistic turn radius making them hit everything. This has been corrected. I was able to get AI to drive for what could be called a boring amount of time, without crashing or getting stuck on fences and streetlamps. Officially this has only been tested on the HMMVV and the MTVR, but the principles are the same for most vehicles. There MAY be some bad effects on the civilian cars, as I have not tweaked their variables completely. If you would like to help, if you find that the AI driving breaks when using this mod, shoot me a copy of the mission so I can further study the situation. Here is the link http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=a54b8a5cbcab5132e7c82ed4b8f0c380e04e75f6e8ebb871 (sakudriver.zip) mirrors are ok, I plan on releasing a more complete version later on.

In case anyone looks this thread up again, I thought I would post this. The stuff above does not change the color in A3. It will change the 'reflection' color of the shallow water near the shore, but the main deep water will be largely unaffected. It does have some effect, mostly when you are looking straight down at it, but even then it doesn't affect the hue or brightness of the water. The real trick is in the island's weather class: class Overcast : Overcast { class Weather1 : Weather1 { sky = "A3\Map_Stratis\Data\sky_veryclear_sky.paa"; skyR = "A3\Map_Stratis\Data\sky_veryclear_lco.paa"; horizon = "A3\Map_Stratis\Data\sky_veryclear_horizont_sky.paa"; }; }; there are 7 levels of weather, and each uses it's own texture for the ocean, namely the SkyR texture. It is a reflection map of sorts that is used to determine the color of the ocean. These get blended as the weather changes, and it allows the ocean to change color when the weather changes. For some reason the game does not use the "veryclear" weather set. To change the color of the ocean, just edit the textures to your liking.

Here are a few pics of the C-130 exterior, the original textures are alright for detail, but due to the size of the thing getting up really close resulted in a bland appearance. I am trying out some tiled, colored detail maps to help give it a little more detail up close. The model itself is relatively low poly, but it gets the job done I think. The model itself is about 8000 points * 13000 polys. pics too big to img link: http://sakumods.armaholic.com/Arma3/c130mv22/c13001.png http://sakumods.armaholic.com/Arma3/c130mv22/c13002.png http://sakumods.armaholic.com/Arma3/c130mv22/c13003.png left and right sides are different colors due to WIP repainting, and I haven't keyed the markings out of the reflection maps just yet, but I will.

yeah they will be open source with available mlod models and blank unmarked layered textures for easy reskins. One little bug I found with the c-130 and Alive is that the hurc gets spawned inside of the aircraft hangers, so the wingtips are sticking out 15ft on each side lol. I'll post that in the alive thread.

Congrats on release! I see you have trouble with the slammer. From what I can see it can only be damaged using the armorStructural variable. Increasing it makes the thing unstoppable. Perhaps the slammer has incorrect armor because even the heaviest piercing rounds dont damage the hull, and they should according to the armor values. I noticed that tanks also dont have the hitfuel class, so there is no chance of an internal explosion. The only way to really destroy it is to blow up the hull. I'll work on it a bit and see what I can find.

The AI can be tweaked for much better pathfinding, I've done it for every ArmA game. However, you really need to 'tune' it based on the performance of the vehicle, so you can't just adjust the pathfinding and then change the handling of a vehicle. BTW, I found a grip value of 6 to be about right. It really does make a 100% night and day difference. Also, I noticed a severe reduction in stuttering while turning, I guess it was caused by the tank sideslipping. Now that it doesn't slide it is graphically smoother. I'm playing with the turnCoef right now, checking to see if it makes a difference. *edit* Tanks don't use turnCoef from what I've seen. 0.15 -> 15 makes no difference

Well I think I may have fixed my main problem with the handling! The problem was that tanks couldn't maneuver in towns without 'spinning out' at high speeds. The solution seems to be the frictionVsSlipGraph variable. I tried changing the grip on each wheel, but it didn't help and it caused huge problems with traction. Then it occurred to me : in frictionVsSlipGraph, you can use variables GREATER THAN 1. I used frictionVsSlipGraph[] = {{0, 5}, {0.5, 5}, {1, 5}} for each wheel, and bumped the tankTurnForce up by 150-160%, and the result is a decently maneuverable tank! probably not related, but my mod also pushed the torque curve to come on a lot earlier. I can now follow roads, and I can make 90 degree turns without having it oversteer. Its a pretty simple solution, the tank was loosing grip so I just gave it more grip. I didn't change anything else to do with the wheels. Confirm?

lol I can sense the loathsome hatred that comes with editing A3 vehicles...change one value, save, pack to pbo, start A3, wait wait wait, load editor, load mission, wait wait wait, test...everything is messed up, alt-f4, repeat. I wish more than anything that A3 had the old "mergeconfig" command back, in the A2 days you could change or even create new vehicles in-game. I wish bis would just use the old "tank" class until they had a working "tankx" class :(

The fuck's a hive?

Mr RedPhoenix sir, I have a few questions. I've been playing with the Slammer a bit, and I would like you to confirm a few things if ya can. 1. Tanks don't use 'brakes' at all? Only changing the engine power/torque will change the deceleration rate. 2. Changing the MOI on wheels can dramatically change the acceleration and maneuverability of the tank. Maybe adjusting this on individual wheels could improve handling (sort of like making it rwd or fwd?) 3. It's impossible to make a tank rotate well when stationary, turn well enough to follow tight urban roads at low speed (under 30kph) and NOT spin out at high speed? 4. Tanks use the frictionVsSlip graph, but the simulation class only ever sees friction as 0, afaik. This means you can at least set the grip for each wheel but it won't change depending on speed. Maybe reducing or increasing traction on certain wheels would help handling? I found that with frictionVsSlipGraph[] = {{0,0.2}, {0.5, 1}, {1, 1}} on all wheels the tank was finally able to turn AND accelerate at low speed. You need to severely reduce the tankTurnForce though, the slammer was at 1,100,000 but I had to drop it down to 400,000 Thoughts?

I have been doing a lot of play testing with this. There are a bunch of fixes lined up for the next version. The priority of the explosive actions needed a little tweeking because sometimes you would accidentally start the timer on a bomb instead of placing a new one if there was a charge nearby.

yeah changing the animperiod doesn't work. You have to change the angle, just make sure it is set to "loop" instead of "clamp". Another source worth using would be "clockhour", i believe "time" takes about a second to rotate, so with "hour" it would be easier to sync the rotation of a planet because it would take half a day to rotate once. From that you could easily adjust its rotation based on earth's size.

Uh just wait a few weeks I'm sure someone will release them. BTW don't offer to pay for this shit, its just weird.

I saw this too, didn't think much of it at the time. Perhaps it is only for helicopter class? The F-35 only opens the doors to fire and then closes them, so it wouldn't be like a helicopter where it opens the hatches when the weapon is selected. I think that what you are looking for is more like the 'gatling' animation that moves when a weapon is fired. Scar's F-22 uses that technique. Could still be useful for planes though, like bomb bay doors on larger aircraft. edit*** maybe change the blackfoot to airplane or airplaneX simulation and see if the hatches still open? edit***again I tried it, I replaced the buzzard model with the blackfoot and switched weapons, the bays did not open. Guess that it really is a helicopterX class only feature.

Hey Olds, did you tweak the minimalHit value on the slammer? On my apc I set it to 0.2 instead of 0.02 and it ignores even non-penetrating 30mm anti-personel rounds. Something is definitely wrong with the A3 MBTs because you can easily destroy them with the 30mm.

Okay now that this has all been put into perspective, I believe I have found a nice solution! there is one armor value, called "armorStructural". The wiki defines it as, "the higher value the lower structural damage. Number divides each hit that is passed to total damage". It does just that, it takes every hit, divides it by the armorstructural number and applies it to total damage regardless of penetration or minimalHit! The apc I was using used a value of 12, so I bumped it up to 1200 and now I can shoot at turrets all day without damaging the total damage, and the AI is unaffected by it! As far as I can tell this solves the problems I was having. *edit I suppose this applies to man class as well, perhaps this could eliminate the "kill a soldier by shooting him in the foot" stuff?

i was going to post a similar thread about armour, might as well post what I found here. My experiments were with wheeled APCs. I modified the wheels so you couldn't take them out with small arms fire, but I learned a few things about the armour system that are not so good. First of all, the passthrough variable in the hit class either does not work, or there is some other damage calculation going on. For example, on the AAF wheeled APC (Gorgon?), there is a high mounted commander's turret/rangefinder. You can set up it's armour values nicely so it takes realistic damage, but no matter what values you set, it will still pass damage to the total vehicle damage EVEN IF YOU MAKE THAT PART INVINCIBLE. To put it in perspective, if you fire armour piercing 30mm (from the same apc type) at the little turret, which is about the size of a basketball and protrudes a foot above the turret, the tank will still take 1% total damage with each shot. Shooting anti-personnel rounds at the tires won't destroy the wheels, but the total damage still takes 1% damage for every 2 shots. You should be able to empty any number of rounds into the (visible) turret or wheels without affecting the vehicle's overall structure. Secondly, the hitfuel entry seems to have strange effects on the total damage. It may be realistic actually, I'm not really sure. Basically if the fuel system (hitfuel) is fully damaged it will destroy the whole vehicle. I noticed that you could blow up the apc even when its total damage was at 15%. From what I can tell the fuel system is actually used as more of a simulation of volatile internals like ammo or shells. Shoot the 30mm armour piercing into the front or rear of the apc from a side aspect and it drops the total damage 3% per shot. The total damage goes up to 100% before the apc explodes. Aim directly under the turret and you can destroy it at around 18-30% total damage (at least 6 shots). In conclusion, anytime you shoot an armoured vehicle, it affects the total damage. The different parts of the vehicle should be able to independently be destroyed without affecting anything else. It should work like this: Hit a turret (ei the visible part, not the mechanism) -> disable the turret's rotation (currently works) -> shouldn't affect total damage (currently does affect total damage) Hit a turret's barrel -> disable the gun's elevation (currently works) -> shouldn't affect total damage (currently does affect total damage) Hit the engine -> disable the drive system without explosion/destruction (currently works), maybe reduce performance below 50% Hit the hull/body -> shouldn't be considered. The hull itself is irrelevant, it is just there to protect the internals. You can blow up a tank by shooting a fender. Hit fuel -> maybe the current system is okay, I'm sure it represents things that would explode and destroy the tank if damaged. Hit a wheel -> current system is okay but again it shouldn't affect total damage or make the tank explode ever. The main feature that's missing is crew penetration. currently the crew seems to take the same % damage as the total vehicle damage. I believe this has to do with the forcehidegunner/commander/driver commands because you can kill the crew with penetration hits when they are turned out. Anyways, that's my assessment of the hitpoint system, as the OP said it should be fixable and is almost usable.

Any chance a future version would include some better markings and insignia? I would also love to have this plane with external hardpoints because stealth in ArmA doesn't work anyways and it would be useful to have a true multirole platform.

The Great Cycle continues. If I spin it fast enough something usually flies out.

They have entered The Great Cycle. Basically I have 30 or so mods I work on, so if I get bored or tired of one I work on something else for a while. When I feel inspired again I return to them. I'm working on my oldest project from The Great Cycle right now, its been in there since ArmA 1 lol. Its hard to finish some things, you know. Its fun changing stuff like the handling and lighting on the Osprey, but when you spend a few hours trying to get an mfd screen to glow in the daylight without messing up the night visibility it just turns into factory labour. Rest assured it will be released in a timely manner.

I thought it would be simple, place an empty plane, assign and moveindriver an enemy pilot. It works, the enemy opfor plane engages me, and the planes on my side (independent) engage them as well. Huge problem though: when you shoot down one of the enemy planes, it is counted as a negative to your score, so you move to sideEnemy and everyone targets you! Is there some way around this?

Another problem is that until you get right up on them, your radar/ir locking system sees them as friendly. This means that you can't lock at an advantageous distance :(

Can anyone confirm that the default "killed" eh doesn't work on choppers? Crash a chopper without CBA and it leaves the scripted dirt trail. Activate CBA and it disappears. I edited functions_f directly to confirm, I added hints to the fn_effectKilled.sqf file, and it works for planes, tanks, cars etc. but not helicopters.

The large and small radar/weather radar domes cannot be entered as well. Any large buildings like apartments, the big hospital etc only have the 'common' areas accessible, you can't enter any of the upper floors. Another big problem with most large buildings is that they cannot be destroyed, even though they would be prime targets in a war.

You can also easily change where each individual cargo seat entrance is, so thats not a problem. I think there is something wrong with the getout animation, ive seen ejected cargo soldiers using the blank "t" pos, like no animation was found. They also rarely make it to the halo animation, they are usually stuck in a combat ready stance. I remember making a parajump script in ofp that worked 100x smoother.