Real arty support

[sgt_claymore]

This goes along with the awesome Nam Pack 2.

Situation - you're out in the jungle and you run into hostile forces.  You want to call in arty support.  The old way of doing it would be to have a script camcreate shells where you need them.  I suggest a new way.

If the RTO is alive, you have access to an NPC arty battery.  It would work like this - the map-maker puts a group of static 105's down somewhere in range of the player's AO.  Using some kind of formula (thinking along the lines of GetPosInator here) you can select a position to plaster with rounds.  This could be accessed through radio alpha - call fire mission - and then a console would drop down or something (doesn't need to be a console as long as it's clear that it's where you enter the numbers) so you could enter the range from your position, then bearing (yes, you'd need to know how to use the compass).  Then this mystery formula would get your position, make the appropriate calculations to their position (of course it will depend on how good your ranging is).

Then you select the ammo type and send the mission.  The static battery somehow targets this spot (maybe a logic is created there) and fires one round.  It lands, they prompt you for correction left/right and long/short, then you send those numbers and they fire for effect (depends on number of guns in the battery).  After the first salvo you can call in another salvo, another set of coordinates using the above system, or thank them and go on your merry way.  

As far as the actual guns are concerned, they need a realistic ammo load and a gunner.  They should be able to fire a long distance (cut it down a bit since realistically they could fire all the way across the map), and hit with relative accuracy on the spot the formula comes up with - it doesn't have to be perfect.  They should be non-playable, ideally, and they don't need to be eye candy, as long as they work.

Of course, they can be blown up themselves and if your RTO dies and you don't pick up the radio you can't contact them.

(sigh)

So that's my idea.  I know there are some sticky parts (indirect fire, position-getter) but I think that some genius (not me) could work it out.

What does everyone else think?

[Crassus]

Aaah, real arty. How we long for it.

AI muzzle monkeys, incl. mortarmen, will not target nor fire on something they cannot see, and sometimes even when you think they do see the enemy (as is the case with Upminder's 82mm mortarmen).

A few groups, inlcuding one with which I'm involved with http://www.main.thechainofcommand.net/ , have come up with a "target" that the gunner would target at an appropriate angle to bring steel on target. But it's been a bit unreliable, as the gunner--at least in my testing with it--will not consistently target the "target".

Everything else, radio chatter, getting the lingo correct, models are possible, just not getting the AI to target at distance.

Let's ask BIS to allow this in OFP 2. ;D

P.S. the 'Nam Pack could use a portable 60mm mortar (which really looks more like an 82mm mortar)....