A real noobish question on choppers

[PDOGG]

OK I'm workin on a Tonal campaign, and I want the BAS SOAR pilot and Crew guy in my BAS little bird. So I put them in. Then I wanted my 4 man Delta team in my little bird. So I put them in the cargo(Actually there are 2 little bird each with 4 Deltas and a SOAR crew guy and pilot).  Now, how the heck do I get them to fly to where I want them to, then land, then fly away when all my guys are off(the player is in Cargo on one of the little birds, he's the Delta commander)? I've done a few missions on my own(never submitted em to a site cuz they were so damn generic) but they never had choppers in em and were basically just run up with your squad and shoot some bad guys . Sorry If this seems to come up alot but I searched for it(I admit not completely thoroughly, but for abit), and I got nothing. I'd be quite grateful for any help and I know you guys here are a great bunch and will come through for me.

[j-man]

Give your Delta teams some waypoints. Their first waypoint should be a "GET OUT" one and it should located somewhere near were you want then you unload from the chopper. Then, give the littlebird that is carrying the delta some waypoints aswell. It should have a "TRANSPORT UNLOAD" waypoint exactly where you want it to drop off the delta's. And then just syncronize the delta's "GET OUT" waypoint with the littlebirds "TRANSPORT UNLOAD" waypoint. Then you can give the littlebird the rest of it's waypoints so that it flys away.

Hope that helps

[PDOGG]

I can't set a waypoint for the Little Birds(even though I set the SOAR guys to pilot it and that works). It won't lemme set waypoints for the Little Birds...... :'(

Also, do I need a trigger anywhere in this equation(I'm quite new to this as I'm sure you can tell by my questions). Also I'm havin a bit of trouble with the darn synchronization but I'll figure it out.

[sa8gecko]

First, you don't need any trigger (for now; if you want more complicate
things happen, then maybe)
Second, you can't add waypoint to empty vehicles.
Third, you should make the pilots and the soldiers aboard two
separate group; could be one, but it will be more complicated:
when the chopper gets to the landing point, you should use a script
to 'un-join' soldiers from pilots and make them disembark.

Assuming you have already placed the soldiers inside the littlebird
as mission starts, if you do like j-man said you should be OK.
The important thing is, as j-man said, to synchronize the "GETOUT"
waypoint of the soldiers and the "TRANSPORT UNLOAD" waypoint
of the chopper. Place these two waypoint near each other and
select 'Synchronize" from the editor menu.Then draw a line clicking
on the "TRANSPORT UNLOAD" and drag it to the "GETOUT" waypoint.
If you still can't get it to work, I'll make a very simple mission so
you can see the way it's done.

[PDOGG]

Ok hold on a sec, I just got even more confused, ya see I added: this moveinDriver(Cargo,gunner respectively) to my guys. All the Delta's(2, 4 man groups) are in Cargo(4 for each LB, each one is it's own squad), the SOAR crew guys are in gunner, and the SOAR pilots are in Driver(there is one gunner and one pilot for each little bird). When I start the mission it's exactly that and it works exactly as it was supposed to in that aspect, however in the editor it still says it's empty so I cannot give it a waypoint. So it's technically not empty but the editor reads it as that because.......... Eh now I'm even more confused.........so now I need to figure out how to give the Little Birds that waypoint...so how can I turn them into manned choppers in the editor(even though they are in-game)? Do i mess with the Little Bird's init field instead of the Delta's/Crew/pilots?

[h-]

 

You give the waypoint to the Little Birds pilot... (Thinking and testing is not banned...)

The bird is empty if you place it as empty... Why u even do this since there're the manned versions available...

[sa8gecko]

PODGG:
HateR_Kint is right. Use the manned version or give the waypoints
to the pilots.
As promised I post here a mission that should help you. It contains
some other little things like trigger-waypoint synchronizations.
Play it at 4x speed. You are the gunner of the blackhawk, but this
is done to make you understand all better. Unrar the file to your
'...\Operation Flashpoint\Users\"YOURNAME"\Missions folder.
(note that the mission.sqm file is already placed correcty in
the folder getout-test.eden, so be careful to preserve relative
path THIS TIME). "YOURNAME" is to be changed accordingly to your
OFP user name. The mission is in Everon > getout-test.
Have fun.

[PDOGG]

Hey thanks man that was pretty helpful, but I still can't get the choppers to unload the guys. I give the pilot of the second chopper(the one the player IS NOT in), the Transport Unload waypoint, I get it to land, the team leader has the getout waypoint (synchronized exactly how your little mini mission did), but instead of landing like usual(it lands when I don't have the getout waypoint), the chopper just hovers in the sky above the landing point and the guys just sit there in the chopper. Does this have something to do with the fact that I'm using the SOAR pilot and crew guy? I really want to use them instead of the MP5 and inferior BIS beretta carryin pilots that come with the manned LB, is there like another way I can switch them in to the manned craft or am I doin something wrong? :-\

[h-]

Hey thanks man that was pretty helpful, but I still can't get the choppers to unload the guys. I give the pilot of the second chopper(the one the player IS NOT in), the Transport Unload waypoint, I get it to land, the team leader has the getout waypoint (synchronized exactly how your little mini mission did), but instead of landing like usual(it lands when I don't have the getout waypoint), the chopper just hovers in the sky above the landing point and the guys just sit there in the chopper.

You might want to check that there's flat land for the chopper to land on. OFP aircraft AI is so crappy that it needs about 2000 square miles (well not that much actually, but...) of flat land before it is willing to land correctly...  

Does this have something to do with the fact that I'm using the SOAR pilot and crew guy?

Nope...

[Chris Death]

errm - sysncronising a GETOUT + TRANSPORT UNLOAD
may not give you the expected effect.

The chopper will just hover and wait until the GETOUT wp
has been completed.
The syncronisation of a GETOUT waypoint only makes sense,
in case you sync' it with a normal: UNLOAD waypoint.
Reason: imagine you have 2 seperate groups mounted onto
the same vehicle, you can use GETOUT + UNLOAD sync'ed
to unload a specific group of those two.  

I tell you what: a simple TRANSPORT UNLOAD without any
syncronisation should do what you want.

Best you place the wp onto an invisible helipad.

In case of a group, where the player is leader, you would
need to manually order your guys to leave the chopper,
or you could also setup the following trigger:

activation: none
condition: vehicle player == player
onActivation: "unassignvehicle _x" forEach units player; {_x action ["eject",vehicle _x]} forEach units player

:note - this trigger requires the player to be in the chopper
from the start of the misison

btw - maybe you should have a look onto my thread: waypoint
scripted + examples, where there's an even better way, to
do so.

I'll post you a link to it in a few mins (need to do a search for
it first)  

OK, as promised, here's the link to thread about wp scripted,
i mentioned above:

http://www.ofpec.com/yabbse/index.php?board=6;action=display;threadid=13884;start=0

It's post number two, i'm talking about - where it says:

chopper insertion

If you take yer a little time to read through this thread, you'll
might get very useful info about the strongest waypoint, OFP
offers. (still wondering why most ppl aren't using it though)  

~S~ CD

[sa8gecko]

Chris Death is right, but perhaps the main reason because it won't work
the way I showed you, PDOGG, is because you have 2 or more
choppers in the same group or a group of soldiers splitted among
the choppers. So, the easiest way is to split the
choppers into separate groups of one chopper each and give
them a serie of equal waypoint. Then, after disembarked, give the
first group of soldiers (the one containing the highest rank unit)
a 'JOIN AND LEAD' waypoint and the second group of soldier a 'JOIN'
waypoint and then synch them. From then on assign waypoints to
the leader's group only.
Anyway try before Chris Death's way. If you still can't make it work,
you could zip your mission and post it here, so we can give a look and
fix it. If so, please explain exactly what you want the choppers and
soldiers do (hope you don't put there the latest BAS units, as I still
have to download them !).

[PDOGG]

OK this is ALOT to take in at once...I'm a big noob to this unfortunately, I don't think I explained the situation thouroughly enough. it's quite simple. There's 2-4 man Delta teams, one team on each little bird,(i want them to stay that way, 2 teams), and 2 Little Birds(not in a group together). Each little bird is now manned(im using the manned versions now since the other ones appear to be screwing up my editor somehow, but If I can get the SOAR pilots working properly again i'll use them). I want each little bird to fly to a location, both locations near to each other. I know how to get them to fly to the location and land. But if I tell them to transport unload they just hover, Chris I'm gonna go try using an UNLOAD waypoint instead like you said. I'll let ya know if it works.

[Chris Death]

Well, in case of using an UNLOAD waypoint for the chopper,
don't forget to give the group the necessary GETOUT waypoint
and syncronise those two then.

If you want to make it look really Delta Force style, tell me,
and i'll post yer the waypoint SCRIPTED way with an example
mish, which you could just use by copy&paste for your own map.

~S~ CD

[PDOGG]

I'm intrigued Chris, I thought it kinda looked a little not-too-special forces-like in it's current form. If it's not alot of trouble I'd like to see this script(and know exactly what it does), thanks man

[Chris Death]

Well, here we go;

I've made two versions of a spec-ops insertion:

One without addons on desert island

and one addon version on tohnal island:

bas littlebirds
latest deltas (the ones from last week)
soar185
tohnal island

here's the addons reference in the mission.sqm:

Code: [Select]

"bas_deraJ",
"bas_mh6185",
"bas_weap",
"jam_magazines",
"bas_soar185",
"bis_resistance",
"bas_soarpilots"

OK, what it does;


First the situation:

2 empty choppers (flying)

2 * 2 pilots (pilot/gunner)

2 * 4 men (mounted in cargo of the choppers)


Now the technique:

the pilots are mounted onto the choppers by using:

this moveindriver choppername
this moveingunner choppername

the soldiers are mounted in cargo by using:

"_x moveincargo choppername" forEach units this

in their leaders init fields

:note - both groups and pilots are using the very same
technique and script, so i'll explain it only for one now


The pilots first waypoint is a move waypoint

waypoint 2 is a waypoint of type: scripted (just a few meters
further than the first waypoint).
Into the field: scripted (in the waypoint's menu) i've entered
the name of the script, to be executed by the waypoint:

brf_landing.sqs

The script will execute, once the pilot has reached the previous
waypoint from the waypoint type scripted - so at waypoint
1. The pilot will now listen to the script, and not to any waypoints,
until the script, executed by wp type scripted has finished.

The script tells the pilot to move to the position of the waypoint
type scripted.

After one second the script tells the chopper to fly in a height of 0.5 meters - this will look like the chopper lands (it will even
touch the ground now).

You can play around a little bit here by increasing the one
second delay, and by changing the two waypoints locations

To increase the delay, just look for the line where it says:

~1

You'll find it after the line: _pilot domove _pos

Once the flyingheight is below 1 meter, the script will order
everyone inside the chopper to eject and unassign them
from the vehicle, with a delay of 0.2 seconds - except the pilot and the gunner.

If you want to increase/decrease the delay of their unit's
ejections, just watch out for the line, where it says:

~0.2


Once all of them are out, the script will end, and the pilot
will now listen again to the waypoint orders.

Also, once the group has been ejected, they will be told
to get in combat mode behaviour (danger).


OK, that's all

If you want to know more about the variable setup of the
script itself, i would recommend you follow the link above
to my thread about waypoint type scripted, and start reading
through the description there, as it doesn't really make sense for me to type it over and over again  

btw - both examples have to be put into your user missions
folder, so that you can have a look yourself onto them, to
play around with them or copy paste into your own mish.

~S~ CD