El Vert
-
Posts
11 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by El Vert
-
-
I wanted to resurrect this slightly old thread on the relative uselessness of the AI door gunners of late - something I and others posted on above - to note that something seems to have changed for the better.
My post is not about whether miniguns can penetrate armor or should be able to - I have no opinion on that - but rather is summed up by Zaphod's comment above:
"The thing is, they don't shoot at soft targets much either."
Yeah. I have a variety of missions we use in multiplayer which used to be balanced, but at some point the AI gunners became shy about firing on even soft targets like enemy infantry. The result was that enemy soldiers well within range were firing on our Hueys, but our AI gunners were ignoring the threat (and dying at times). Our gunners apparently saw the targets and tracked them, but as often as not they refused to fire.
We had stopped flying some of these missions because they no longer worked, and I was planning on redesigning them to try and reduce enemy troops or something so as to make them work again, but . . . we tried one of those missions again a few nights ago, and the AI gunners seemed to be greatly improved. We tried another, harder mission which relied upon the gunners suppressing enemy troops while the wounded were evacuated - a disaster the last time we tried it - and it too worked very well. At least as well as it did when it was first designed.
I don't really follow the update threads all that much and didn't see anything about it so maybe I'm the last to hear of it, but I think that whatever the problem was with the gunners not firing at legitimate targets (again, this is not about firing on or killing armor), that problem may have been fixed by an update. Maybe try it again and see if you agree, and if this is not just my imagination or random chance, thanks to the DCS programmers for a fix on this!
El Vert
-
sirrah,
Very, very nice, thanks for sharing it! I've done a couple of templates which are similar, but much less detailed than this one, and so I can only guess at the many hours it took to line things up, get it just right, etc. I think this one is beyond my current talent and/or patience, but I'm glad you did it and that I can just glom onto it. I might even learn a few things from it!
FWIW, I agree with you about omitting mods, at least for scenarios designed for multiplayer. Yes, mods are plentiful, easy to get and load, and many are very nice indeed. But as soon as DCS changes something, as you note they can end up not working until the authors update them; and by the time that happens, DCS may have changed something else. I'm not complaining about frequent changes; it's actually one of the things I like best about DCS - they are constantly improving it. But when running scenarios for multiple players, some of whom you may not even know, it seems like a big ask to require that everyone else get one or more mods in order for them to fly. Thus, I too eschew them in my MP scenarios.
El Vert
-
If Huey miniguns couldn't kill BMPs and such, then fine, they shouldn't in DCS, and mission designers can take that into account when creating a Huey mission, or modify existing missions that have the Huey up against armor that it shouldn't be able to kill (e.g., change the enemy unit to something softer, add in some AI bombers, whatever).
But I am wondering whether the change they made to the AI earlier - where as I recall they said that the gunners will no longer try to fire though buildings and such - may be slightly overdone when it comes to troops in forest cover.
I fly several MP scenarios where the enemy is just troops, but we've found that since that change, if the enemy troops are in a forested area, the gunners hold fire. And, they hold fire even though the enemy is well within range, and is firing on the helicopter (and sometimes killing crew members).
The gunners apparently see the enemy because you can watch them aim their guns and move that aim as you fly by the target - but they don't fire as they did before. I'm wondering whether it's due to them thinking a tree is in the way and they consider that tree the same as a concrete wall.
The gunners seem to work as before when the target is out in the open.
I can believe that gunners would hope for a better shot than having to blast shells through trees, but didn't they also fire for suppression effect? Especially when the ground troops in the trees are firing on the helicopter?
I note that if you take control of the guns from the AI, you can still kill enemy troops in forested areas, but the AI gunners don't seem to agree.
El Vert
-
Spiceman,
If there is a trick, I'm unaware of it. Maybe someone else knows more, but what I've found is that an infantry unit spawned on one island will misbehave if you embark them on one island and disembark them on another island. They will not go to their next waypoint on the other island, and instead they either mill around aimlessly, or sometimes seem to want to return to their original spawn island. I haven't tested in a while, but in some cases, they walk into the ocean toward the original spawn island until their heads are just below water, at which point they stop. Not sure if they drown or not. :)
The only way I've gotten around that in my missions (ME only, no MIST, MOOSE, etc.) is that I set commands, zones, and triggers that (1) make the disembarked troops despawn upon disembarking, and (2) simultaneously, new "replacement" troops spawn on the new island to continue what I wanted the original troops to do. Since the replacement troops spawn on the same island that I want them to do things on, they work as you would expect.
By "island" I mean a piece of land which is completely cut off by water from the original spawning island. In my testing (some months ago now), if there is any land connection between two pieces of land - even if that connection is miles and miles away from where you disembark them - the original troops will work as intended when you disembark them. It is an issue only if the place they disembark cannot be accessed by land from the ground on which they spawned.
El Vert
-
steelrfan85,
I'm not the expert here nor am I sure this does exactly what you want, but . . . when I want ground units to make smoke temporarily, I create a static zone into which the units move or are already within, make the Condition PART OF GROUP IN ZONE, and then make the Action either SMOKE MARKER (smoke emanates from the center of the zone) or SMOKE MARKER ON UNIT (smoke emanates from a unit itself), set with an altitude of 1 and whatever of 5 colors you want. Once triggered, the smoke goes for 5 minutes and then cuts off. Note that in both cases, the smoke stays where it was originally triggered, so it doesn't follow moving units.
If you want constant smoke instead, you can make the Action EFFECT - SMOKE, which won't time out. This action has more options for density, etc., but none for color. It will also stay only where it's triggered - the middle of the zone - and won't follow along with moving units.
Lastly, if you want a more subtle effect and you're dealing with moving armor, trucks, etc., in the open field, in the Weather dialog you can click on DUST SMOKE ENABLE, set whatever parameters you want, and that will cause all vehicles to leave visible, moving dust trails behind them, one trail per vehicle. That trail will not show up for infantry nor for vehicles while on roads or other paved surfaces such as runways.
El Vert
-
A101Wayz,
Good point! I hadn't thought about that as I've only used the above to detect a landing on a stationary object.
But I just tested it, and you're right, the speed of the carrier the unit is landing on does affect the unit's speed for purposes of the UNIT SPEED LOWER THAN parameter. I didn't try it with a moving zone, but I bet that won't change anything.
So, in the example above, assuming the carrier is moving, you'll need to change the "lower than" speed to something just above the carrier's speed, whatever you've set that to be.
Thanks for noting that! I've edited my original post accordingly.
El Vert
-
"I´m not expert in the Mission Editor"
Yeah, me neither! But I think that one way to do this would be to create a moving zone on the carrier, then have a ONCE trigger with three conditions:
(1) UNIT INSIDE MOVING ZONE set to the moving zone you just created, and the unit you want to disappear;
(2) UNIT'S SPEED LOWER THAN 1, again set to the unit you want to disappear; and (EDIT: if your carrier is moving, I think you'll need to set this speed to just above the carrier's speed)
(3) unit's AGL ALTITUDE LOWER THAN 70 feet. I think 70 feet is just over the altitude of a carrier - it might be different for different carriers, the one I looked at was the Stennis.
Then, the action for these conditions would be UNIT AI OFF linked to the unit you want to disappear upon landing.
Once the above conditions are met, the unit should disappear.
Those three conditions should imitate a landing on the carrier, or close enough (e.g., if the unit hovered over the carrier with a zero speed, not touching down but being below 70 feet AGL, it would disappear before it actually got down on the carrier; however, it probably won't be below 1 mph until it actually comes to rest, so . . . it should still look OK.)
El Vert
-
While I'm not the expert on this, in my experience the answer is no, you don't have to include the .ogg file when you send missions to others.
When you save your mission with a functioning sound event, the sound is part of the .miz file, so anyone running that file will hear the sound. You will notice that the size of the .miz file increases noticeably when you save it with a sound event.
And if you're the host for the multiplayer event, you don't have to send anyone anything - they will hear the sound event as programmed by your .miz file.
P.S. You can set the sound to be heard by one coalition or the other, or by everyone, or (I think) by individual units. I've always used the option to send it to everyone, so I've never tested the other options.
El Vert
-
Thanks for the quick replies and suggestions - some additional thoughts:
I am positive that the other player is connected to the server and actually flying when the radio messages are first sent - most of them take place 30 minutes or more after the scenario starts. So I think whatever I'm doing wrong is not related to whether the other player is in the scenario.
I also wanted to ask more about this response from Johnny Rico:
"manual loop will work (but not loop inside radio command)"
I think that's how I'm trying to do it, a loop inside the radio command. When the unit gets to the waypoint where it is supposed to send the message, it first sets the frequency using the Set Frequency dialog, and then at the same waypoint sends the broadcast via the Transmit Message dialog by using the .ogg sound file, which is set as a continuous loop in that dialog. I don't know what is meant by a "manual loop"; any further suggestions?
To FeeFi:
I have seen old (several years old) posts from people having the same problem where it was suggested that doing this using flags and varying True/False settings would work. As near as I can tell that means that every second there is a new trigger command running, right? Just to keep the trigger overhead down, I was hoping to avoid that and was thinking that maybe this had been fixed so that it works the same for other players as it does me as the server host; but maybe not - so thanks for the suggestion!
El Vert
-
Can anyone tell me what steps are necessary to have the other player(s) in a multiplayer scenario be able to see/hear broadcast FM channels? This is in reference to the Huey, but probably pertains to any other aircraft.
I have a scenario with downed pilots who activate and broadcast on an FM channel, and the idea is that the Hueys use that broadcast as a homing beacon to go find and rescue them.
It works flawlessly for me as the server host, but the other player does not get any of those broadcasts, no matter what I do.
I've done it several different ways to try and make it work, mostly by having the broadcast sent multiple times to make sure the other player is in the scenario when a broadcast is sent, but no joy. The way I'm doing it is to insert a Perform Command at a waypoint (or two, or three) for the broadcasting unit to first Set Frequency, and at the same waypoint, another Perform Command right after that to Transmit Message, with a continually looping .ogg sound file.
Whether they do it once, twice, or three times, I'm the only one who can hear/see the broadcast and the other player gets nothing.
I've tried upping the power of the broadcast (the default 10, then 100, 1000, and finally 10000), but that doesn't seem to change anything. I've tested it by flying each of the other Hueys, both on and offline, and I can hear/see all broadcasts no matter which aircraft I use, so the problem seems to be tied to the fact that I'm the server host.
P.S. I am not a programmer, I don't know anything about LUA, and I am not (yet) using any of the 3rd party tools (MIST, CTTL, etc.) I've read about. Hoping to be able to do this with just the DCS mission editor. Oh yeah, if it matters, my DCS is the Steam version.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
El Vert
A rudder tip for Huey drivers
in DCS: UH-1H
Posted
While I don't mean to derail whatever this thread has become, in response to the suggestion in msalama's original post, I wanted to say this:
While it seemed counter-intuitive to me to increase sensitivity for an aircraft which seemed to be balanced on a razor's edge already, I adjusted the "curvature" in my rudder axis in the Huey to -20 just to see. There's a bit of subjectivity to this, but the aircraft seems to me to be much more stable than before.
If it matters, I use CH pedals, and while I now need to use them throughout the flight to keep the ball centered (before, with no curvature adjustment, once I got to a decent speed I usually just got off the pedals as the ball was mostly centered so long as my speed remained the same), landings and takeoffs in particular seem more stable and easier to control than before. One of the guys I fly with in MP uses a "twisty-stick" instead of pedals; I told him about this and he made the same adjustment, and seemed to like it as well.
So, thanks for the post msalama! The Huey remains my first, and so far my favorite aircraft in DCS, and I'm always on the lookout for tips on flying it better and more realistically.
El Vert