[SOLVED] Multiple Helicopter Simultanious Insertions

[Dajan]

Two posts today.. I'm not addicted..
Or incompetant..

Scenario:
> 3 choppers inbound for a town
> each arrives at LZs spaced in a triangle surrounding said town
  > (proposed) using transport unload waypoint each lands at its designated LZ and deposits troops
  > (actual) despite each being sent to a seperate H (invisible) with commands for helicoptername land LZname one will land as directed, the other two will gain height, try to land at the LZ for the obedient chopper, crash/try for the next H (invisible) available or get blown out of the sky by aggravated ground troops.

Anyone any idea how/if this works properly?

TYIA

[bert]

Mando Heliroute may be helpful for what you are trying to achieve.

bert

[Dajan]

I'll give it a try, thanks 

[laggy]

A maybe quicker solution.

Have you placed the unload waypoints right ON the actual H objects?
The same way you place a waypoint on a building to access the building positions.

If not I would try that.

[Dajan]

@laggy:
yeah, tried both selecting them with WP and positioning on top of WP. Rather than use the one they're assigned they seem to want to cycle through LZs in order of which gets 'activated' first.

@bert:
Mandos script had me excited at first, but I couldn't work out how to adapt it to the mission. Esp as it's one I tinker with continually having to dip in and out to adjust it simply doesn't seem feasible.

Is there a way to assign LZs? I know you can assign cargo/driver /et al slotsfor vehicles - does Arma have a way to assign H spots?
or
Would using unload instead of transport unload make a difference?

[Ext3rmin4tor]

It doesn't work, "unload" works only if the units are in the same group of the cargo vehicle and doesn't need to be synchronized with another waypoint. In any case if you placed the invisible-H not too close (where not too close is at least 10 meters far from each other) it should work, I did it in a mission i made, there are 2 Uh-60 landing 2 marine fire teams and 1 Sniper team in 3 landing zones positioned like you described.

[Dajan]

Interesting. I think I'm going to have to go through my mod folder and see if anythinig alters AI behaviour then, because the 3 LZs are at least 100m apart.

Just a thought - HWM hueys are the choppers I'm using. Anyone know if they've unique AI instructions that might be causing my muck up?

[Ext3rmin4tor]

I don't use addons, but you can try and change the Hueys with BlackHawks and see if they land properly

[Wolfrug]

AFAIK HWM Hueys are no different from BIS ones - they do of course have their own flight model, which might in some cases behave differently for the AI. Although I think the AI cheats, they could fly those choppers even in ArmA 1.0, when mere humans had no chance 

Do try to switch with BIS vehicles and see if it goes away. Also experiment with where you're placing the invisible H - not all places are kosher according to whatever strange algorithms it is that calculates what constitutes a good landing spot.

Wolfrug out.

[Dajan]

Extensive testing done:-

> Even with BIS vehicles the AI refuses to cooperate.
> I was formerly using the truncated South Sahrani island - switching to full sahrani at first looked promising but no-go.
> Tried giving part-way waypoints to slow the helis' speeds (this had been an early thought as to why they overshot) but this simply made the problem worse.
> Tried setting flyinheights to put terrain between LZs. Nil result.
[edit]
> Modifying the LZ locations for more level/clement terrain worked for one LZ for about 2 attempts. Further editing would push the LZ so far away from the objective that troops might as well tab it instead!!

I've now lost a half dozen flights to ground fire as they hover in confusion. Is this fairly simple scenario just too complicated for ArmA ai to handle?

[Ext3rmin4tor]

Can you tell me where the mission location is so I can try to do the same here at home. Because this looks so weird.

Another thing which has come up into my mind: did you set the choppers combat mode to blue or they are allowed to open fire. Because maybe if they spot the enemy the pilot will move to a better location for the gunner to target the enemies and thus he can hit the other choppers.

[Dajan]

@ext3rmin4tor
Ah! Now that is a damn good point. I probably left them on green/yellow/default.
Location is Galardo (sp from memory) S/SE of the city on the isthmus between N and S Sahrani.

[EDIT]
setting the scene:~
Original: http://yfrog.com/09geraldolzsorigj
W/o opposing forces: http://yfrog.com/0qgeraldolzsj
Helo waypoint: http://yfrog.com/4sgeraldolzs1j
H under WP: http://yfrog.com/07geraldolzs2j

I just tries the scenario with SAFE and CARELESS modes, no change in result 

[Ext3rmin4tor]

Sorry but it's  a real mess of waypoints and it is hard to understand what you placed, can you please post the mission file instead of screenshots (I promise I won't steal your mission  )

[Dajan]

Sure, will do..
Just need to check it has no addon dependencies. Know any good free file-hosts?

[EDIT]
OK uploaded it to the first one google came up with, let me know if you can get it!
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?2k4nhc5kgzw

[Ext3rmin4tor]

I found your mistake. You placed a "TRANSPORT UNLOAD" waypoint for each chopper but you didn't place a synchronized "GET OUT" waypoint for the cargo team. You need to place a "GET OUT" waypoint for the team (place it near the "TRANSPORT UNLOAD" but not above or sometimes soldiers get stucked near the chopper or they crush on the rotors  ) and synchronize it with the "TRANSPORT UNLOAD" waypoint.

Chopper had that behaviour because they simply go to TRANPORT UNLOAD, then they found no GET OUT waypoint and they skipped to the next waypoint, but the cargo team had a SEARCH AND DESTROY waypoint to accomplish so the choppers landed as soon as they could to allow the team to complete their job and crashed because they likely found the same closest landing spot.