feet wet pilots

[vektorboson]

-Create a trigger (thanks again Vektor) and use that to detect any objects within a certain distance.

Well, as I said, the "EmptyDetector" is a trigger, but you see, it's called "EmptyDetector", so it means Empty Trigger. There is, I'm afraid, no way to set radius, condition and stuff to this trigger. Sorry, my bad.

[PsyWarrior]

@Vektorbosun - verdammt. Must remember to do my research before posting.

@sa8gecko - It's stupid having a nearestObject command that detects the unit calling it. However, it seems that your method would work. If you use a 10m radius, detecting anything that isn't the source unit (the liferaft) in all directions, it should be possible to detect any naval units in the area.

It would have to be extensively tested to ensure that it was reliable, but I think it could work.

I'll get to work...

-PsyWarrior
-PsyProductions

[Tuulos]

Would it be possible to pilot float with his life jacket and then airplane would fly over and drop a raft where the pilot could climb. Trenchfeet's desert camouflaged Ju52 use a nice script for dropping crates, so maybe it could be altered somehow?

Ps: Sa8 please post an image of your raft here, so that i can see what's it like. (i might have an idea...)  

[sa8gecko]

Ps: Sa8 please post an image of your raft here, so that i can see what's it like. (i might have an idea...)

Sorry, I can't post images (I don't know how to do and I
haven't a site). Will try to attach it to this post ...
Anyway it's crappy, I use it only for test purpose and in my own
missions.

[Tuulos]

I think it will do the trick I don't want the life raft to have a motor Could you post it to me? And can you make a simple sample ;D mission for me that doesn't require addons? Eg. only A-10, pilot and the script?
I would be very grateful, because i'm not too good with the scripting and stuff...

[sa8gecko]

Actually it has a motor. This was done because if I was the pilot, I
didn't want to be left stuck in water. Sure it' s slow. I'm sending
it anyway cause it's a small file. Be advised fire geometry isn't done,
so you can't shoot at the people in the raft.
If you want a proper one look for Colonel Klink's.
As for the mission, place it in your OPF\Users\"yourname"\missions
folder, and place raft.pbo in your addon directory.
The mission contains an early version of the script (look at date):
I'm lazy and I didn't replace with the version I posted in these pages.
Basically a pilot (who's in your group, BTW) ejects over sea,  you are
in the chopper and should go down to retrieve him: fly very low and
very slowly above him and he'll be transferred aboard the blackhawk.

[Tuulos]

What i meant was that it does not have a motor that can be seen It's more realistic that way, it's not too nice looking that a pilot would have Zodiac with him

[Colonel_Klink]

Dunno if this is good news or not as it is sort of related to the thread. I have managed to get out of a life jacket/ life ring and board a fishing boat. Have then abandoned ship and boarded again. Also managed to board a fishing boat from the police launch I am building, shoot the driver of the fishing boat and either take over the fishing boat or return to the launch. Still working on the scripting for this, but so far the tests have been pretty good.
This works only with the player so far.
Going to use a similar method to rescue a guy from the water with a chopper.

[sa8gecko]

Colonel_Klink: why these should be bad news ? I'm looking forward to
have them in my HD ! BTW: I haven't heard news of PsyWarrior since last
tuesday. Even on his site he posted last on the 19th. So I don't know
how his work is going on. I will probably need him for another cool project.

This works only with the player so far.

I think a lot of work should be done to make the AI do this too.
I mean if you want the AI react indipendently from the mission designer,
that is board the enemy vessels by its own rather than simply destroy
them, after having considered the goods and the bads (as always I
can't be to clear, I apologize)

Going to use a similar method to rescue a guy from the water with a chopper.

At least someone could release some good SAR mission, possibly
the player being the SAR pilot. Even if I think that anyway the majority would
prefer the chopper be spawned to save them from water ...

[PsyWarrior]

*BOOM*

*PsyWarrior bursts through wall of OFPEC with fireworks and other explosives*

I Have Returned.

I apologise for the delay.  

So, to buisiness...
How did you accomplish this Klinky? I've been using the cyling nearest object command from 4 directions (as suggested by sa8) but I'm still experimenting with it to achieve the maximum success rate with the minimum lag (a lot of optimisation required to get this working perfectly). Getting the unit out of the raft and into another boat is easy, but finding the nearest boat to the unit... isn't.

Using the 'Multiplexing object proximity detector' (as I have dubbed the nearestObject command method above), it is possible to 'lock on' to the objects captured by the 4 nearestObject cycles (hopefully this is making some sort of sense to someone...), assigning them to variables, and detecting which one is the closest to the raft. It has a fairly high success rate, although if there are more than 4 boats in the area, sometimes a few boats slip through the net.

We are working to resolve this.

Please share your insights with us Colonel - together we can produce a powerful, versitile and still easy to use bailout script.

I will work on implementing SAR elements later. Chopper spawning is an excellent idea, and to this end, another 3 optional variables will be added to the exec line (enable/ disable, type of chopper, place for chopper to take survivors). If they are left empty, this part of the script will not execute.

[pilot1, (...) enable, UH60MG, homebase]

All the optional parts of the script will be called at the end of the exec line, so the designer can simply leave those parts blank if s/he doesn't want them.

The reason my PsyProductions Forums thread has not been updated is due to administrative problems, which will be resolved in the near future.

-Supr. Cmdr. PsyWarrior
-Psychic Productions

P.S. - The Psychic Productions Forums thread -HERE- has now been updated. A full feature list can be found there.

[sa8gecko]

welcome back, PsyWarrior.

It has a fairly high success rate, although if there are more than 4 boats in the area, sometimes a few boats slip through the net.

You can use a wobbling-rotating detecting algorithm (even if I think that
4 boats on boarding range are, well, too many ...). I mean the four
direction are not fixed but rotate some degrees everytime a check is
done. And checking distance is varied too. If this is made asincronous
you should have an high probability of detecting every vessel in the range of 20 meters from the ship (depending on the wobbling distance).
Considering that boats are not fast movers this check could be done
once a second, to decrease lag (how fast is your PC, Psywarrior ?)

How long it's gonna take you to finish all this, PsyWarrior ?  I have
something else in mind. I will message you if you are interested.
(OK, I'm a moron, but if the bailout script seemed good to you, what
I will show you is much more interesting)

[PsyWarrior]

Greetings, sa8, glad to be here.

In fact, the MOPD system relies on a wobbling-rotating detecting algorithm similar to the one that you describe to ensure capture of all boats within range of the liferaft. However, by it's very nature, it's difficult to lock on to more than 4 boats at a time using the current version of MOPD(0.5). however, version 0.6 of the system will use an array to capture all vessels in range, and will then perform checks to determine which is the closest.

The real concern is not the speed of boats, but the movement when there are many boats in the area (I mean a lot, not about 5...)

My PC is 1.5+ GHz (+ because it's overclocked a little) with a GeForce 4 Ti4800 AGP 8x with 128MB Ram and VIVO. OFP runs pretty well on it, so lag is minimal. However, people running on a 700MHz with a GeForce 2 will not be amused if I haven't optimised the script properly.

Yeah, go ahead and IM me sa8, I look forward to your next challenge. It will take a little while longer to finish this one (balencing RL stuff with OFP), but Psychic Productions is always willing to help out in the community.

-PsyWarrior
-PsyProductions

P.S. - Ignore the dates on the PsyProductions forums. They are completely inaccurate. Also ignore the "last updated topic" stuff, as this doesn't seem to update properly. Hopefully, when PsyProductions Command has enough funding, we can upgrade the forum to something that works...  .

[Colonel_Klink]

Okay. I've had a lot of fun doing this (well as much fun as a post half centenarian can handle ).
Today i've managed to get the player (in a life jacket) to swim (if thats the right term) towards a fishing boat which is detected by the nearestobject command. When the life jacketed player is within 5 meters of the fishing boat he gets a menu command "Board Ship". Use that command and the guy is seated in the first empty cargo space (I haven't worked this out if there is no available space yet).

The key to getting the player to board a ship as cargo is simple: the join command must be used (God knows I tried everything without it)

e.g. [player] join _boat    (or whatever the boat/ship is called in the script)

The above allows the player to become part of the boat crew so's to speak, which isn't the same as having the player board the ship and then taking over it. In this case I omitted the join command and had the guy setpos'd on the boat. The boat has to have a  roadway lod of the walkable deck area, and the boat has to be dead in the water, otherwise the boat will move and the player will be shunted to the stern or side which inevitably leads to the player being dumped overboard.. and if he isn't wearing a life jacket he kinda dies

Getting back to the join command. This is fine for rescues but does have the problem of the player becoming part of the ships contingent as explained above.  I have a walk about deck command that allows players on board a boat to get out of the cargo/driver/gunner positions, but this leads to problems if the player isn't the driver. Once the player is free from the cargo position the driver moves the boat for some reason.. which inevitably leads to the before mentioned dumping overboard.

So i have a question: How does one unjoin the player from a group?

More on this as it progresses.
Klinkster out.

BTW sa8gecko  the bailout mission helped me with the idea to use the join method.

[sa8gecko]

Once the player is free from the cargo position the driver moves the boat for some reason.

Probably because he's trying to mantain formation.

So i have a question: How does one unjoin the player from a group?

Doesn't player join GRPNull work ? (sorry if I have missed the
exact meaning ...)

This all look so good on paper ... keep up the good work,
Colonel_Klink !

[Colonel_Klink]

Update:
Tested rescuing ai from the life jacket, life ring and dinghy when called from the init field of the Police launch, fishing boats, Falklands, BIS and BAS choppers, the Tiger gunboats, zodiacs and BIS PBR. At the moment the AI joins the player group.