609_Relentov

Am I reading the beta manual right in that in a clean configuration the AJS-37 carries no guns, countermeasures or ECM? So for example, if you carry 4xRB75 Mavericks on the fuselage and inner wing pylons you have no countermeasures. Do the gunpods have to be used in pairs? Would be nice if you could carry one gunpod and one countermeasures pod on the inner wing pylons, at least you could have some strafing ability and countermeasures along with the 2 air-to-ground weapons in the fuselage pylons.

+1 on AI aircraft interceptors. What's needed are AI helo interceptors. Whichever side has the Ka-50 can currently take out all air defenses at a FARP with one helo, and with an Mi-8/Uh-1H waiting nearby can easily capture said FARP. If an aggressor AI helo could take off when the FARP is threatened, it would make them a little more challenging to capture. And what's with Soganlug on the BF map? Seems bugged, always under attack and at full strength, even at the beginning of a round.

Regarding the current test phase - is there a problem with Soganlug airfield, currently under Red control? It's been in "under attack" status continually for a couple days now, and its state shows as fully green, even higher than other airbases that are not being attacked (they do not have the green progress bar graphic going all the way to the right edge). Looks like it's in a bugged state of some sort.

Hey Grimes - I tried your mission and the first time the resupply seemed to work via LAlt-\. After I let the two units spawn, I fired off all of the tows on the M1045 TOW, then drove a short distance away. When I tried LAlt-\ it said no ammo available, which was expected. Then I drove the M818 and parked it nearby and this time the resupply worked, so check. I reviewed my scripts and after scouring the route/points and unit properties, the main thing I noticed is that for my template I included in the group: route.points[1].task.params.tasks[1].action = "EPLRS", so I reset the route.points[1].task.params.tasks table to nil, removing it. However, it didn't change the result, same as before. Then I tried your mission again, and this time, I moved the spawned M1045 TOW a lot further away from the original 2 units that were put in the mission editor. After using up all of the ammo, I moved the spawned M818 near the spawned M1045 TOW, and this time, I saw the same thing I saw in my case - Unable to start ammo replenishment: ammunition is not available. Grimes, can you re-play your mission again and try what I did - i.e. move the spawned units far away from the pre-existing units from the mission editor (e.g. a mile), then try to re-supply? Thanks!

Thanks Grimes, I'll check it out.

Thanks for the response FlightControl. You bring up a good point. When I used the mission editor I'm pretty sure the group/unit only had the spawn point with no additional waypoints. When I spawn the group/unit they always have the spawn point plus one waypoint. I will look into that and experiment some more (didn't realize that would make a difference to the behavior of an M818 ). The groups/units I'm spawning are all coalition.country.USA (from memory,not at my PC). I've compared the structure of the units in the mission file to what my script has and all of the properties look the same, which is one of the reasons I was scratching my head. Thanks, Relent

Thanks Grimes - yes, I set the playerCanDrive property to true, but then again, the M818 units I added via the mission editor had that property set to true as well. Any other ideas please throw those out as well!

In a training mission I spawn a HMMWV/Tow via scripting, as well as an M818. However, when I attempt to reload the HMMWV with the M818, I see the message: Unable to start ammo replenishment: ammunition is not available as if there is no truck there. However, if I have an M818 vehicle placed in the mission via the Mission Editor, it will replenish. I'm wondering if there's something special I need to do with a spawned M818 such that it will be treated as a re-supply vehicle. Thanks, Relent

LOL Steggles, I guess great minds think alike :)... You had faster fingers than me EDIT - just to add, you probably want to display more than just the player name, so here's a slight expansion of the example above to display more text in the message (replace Player1 and Trigger1 with the actual values in your mission): Condition: UNIT INSIDE ZONE(Player1, Trigger1) Action: DO SCRIPT: trigger.action.outText(Unit.getByName("Player1"):getPlayerName() .. " entered trigger zone Trigger1", 20) The trigger.action.outText() method has two parameters, the text to be displayed, and the duration of the message. The ".." is used to concatenate multiple string values so that the combination of them is treated as one string (i.e. one parameter to the method). Not sure how much scripting you've done, so this may be too rudimentary, but I'm going on the assumption that you haven't done any scripting. Good luck!

Not sure about your context (i.e. only using the Mission Editor, or using a Lua script/file for everything). Unfortunately you need to have some scripting, as obtaining the player name is done through the Unit object's "getPlayerName()" method. Assuming you're trying to do everything in the mission editor with minimal scripting, you could do the following: For each human spawn-able aircraft create a separate trigger: Condition: UNIT INSIDE ZONE(<unit-name>, <zone-name>) Action: DO SCRIPT: trigger.action.outText(Unit.getByName(<unit-name>):getPlayerName(), 20) Of course it would be cleaner using a Lua script to check if any group is in the zone, then figure out what group/unit it is and displaying the player name. The above is just to keep it simple with respect to using the Mission Editor. Relent

Yeah, it works in multiplayer as we tested it with our training mission - but the server host needs to change those boolean variables mentioned to true.

Hey Bushmanni, Here's a post of mine from late last year (based on another thread I found via searching) that helps deal with the AI CA units seeing through blocks of trees (e.g. a chunk of forest) and structures/buildings: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2611464&postcount=5 Try this and it should help make CA more fun offline. As mentioned, remember to update these values again after each update as these boolean variables are reset to false again.

Thanks FlightControl - looks like quite a framework,nice work... at this point I'm just trying to learn the DCS API and Lua so it's sort of fun to dig and test as well :).

Thanks FlightControl - actually after doing some more digging and looking at the DCS.log I was able to determine one of the parameters in the table I was passing to the called function was in the wrong format. After fixing that the F10 command was calling the function correctly, so it was simply human error! :). I'm still interested in the bug you mentioned: I guess I'll find out when I try my mission with a squad mate. Any hints as to how to best get around this bug in MP (to save me some more digging :) )? Thanks. Relent

Thanks for the response FlightControl. My outText is near the top, but I tested (using witchcraft) calling the "to be called" function directly and it works fine - I get the outText text and it goes and does what it's supposed to do. The group that I'm sending the F10 menu commands via missionCommands.addCommandForGroup(...) does contain a Client (i.e. it's the only unit within the group), but I'm seeing the menu items OK whether I run the mission in single player mode (i.e. Mission) or in multiplayer (as the host). So I haven't seen this issue where group:getID() returns a nil (unless you mean for a client connecting to the server that is not the host? I haven't tested this yet). I'll keep plugging away, but in your case when you've called missionCommands.addCommandForGroup(...) you've been able to pass the called function more than one argument? Can you provide an example? Thanks! Relent

I'm having difficulty with the missionCommands.addCommandForGroup method. Not so much adding menus (which is working), but when a Client actually hits the F10 radio item, the function that's supposed to be called isn't being called. For example, ... local gid = group:getID() local menuID = missionCommands.addSubMenuForGroup(gid, "Level 2 Commands") missionCommands.addCommandForGroup(gid, "Command 1", menuID, ProcessCommand, {lu="L", un=pUnitName, n=6, t=S1}) missionCommands.addCommandForGroup(gid, "Command 2", menuID, ProcessCommand, {lu="U", un=pUnitName, n=6, t=S2}) ... In this case, the correct group (e.g. Client) is getting the added sub menu and the commands within it, so the missionCommands.addSubMenuForGroup call is working fine, and the first part of the missionCommands.addCommandForGroup is working fine. However, when as a client I use the F10 radio menu and traverse down to the commands above and hit the appropriate Fxx key, nothing happens. In the called function, I have some debug text via trigger.action.outText(....) but it never displays it. In all of the examples I've seen searching this forum, missionCommands.addCommandForGroup is called using one argument for the called function (i.e. the last parameter of the call to missionCommands.addCommandForGroup. In my case, I need 4 arguments, but it doesn't appear to be getting through to the called function. Also, given examples I've seen on this forum, if more than one argument to the called function is needed, a table format is used (i.e. "{....}"), so my assumption is that in this case the called function needs to have one parameter/argument: a table, that is then de-referenced to get at the individual fields. If anyone has successfully utilized missionCommands.addCommandForGroup to call a function with multiple parameters I'd love to see how you got it to work. Thanks! Relent

Sure, I posted it in this thread: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=152085#5 Relent

You may need to specify some more details as to what you want... - When talking about a player controlled aircraft, are you talking air start? Ground start? and if so, from a parking area, runway? - When you say swap, what would you want to happen? A player spawns in an A-10C and a nearby static A-10C unit disappears? Or a player lands and rolls off the runway and exits the cockpit and then a static A-10C spawns somewhere (where)? - What's the point of swapping? Is the desire that the static aircraft represent the actual inventory of the airfield? Such that if they are destroyed on the ground the airfield loses that aircraft slot for a player? I only ask as player spawned units that spawn in a parking area can only spawn in pre-designated spawn areas (I believe), each with a unique parking id and location (e.g. point.x,y,z). If you put a static A-10C in a parking spot and someone spawns in, they would explode unless you first destroyed the static A-10C unit. Sounds like a decent sized project, not just a simple script or two - there's potentially a lot going on here :).

Thanks Grimes - I'm still trying to wrap my head around vec2, vec3, point, position, etc, ... I'm reading and re-reading part 1 of the Hoggit SSE site... It will eventually sink in! :)

OK, thanks to Speed/Grimes' MIST I was able to figure it out in looking at mist.getAttitude()... I tested this in witchcraft and the heading value result matched what the unit heading was showing in F2 view: heading_in_degrees = math.deg(math.atan2(unit_object:getPosition().x.z, unit_object:getPosition().x.x)+2*math.pi) On to the next challenge! :)

I'm having difficulty figuring out the current heading of a group/unit. I've looked through all of the Unit methods, but nothing seems to supply the heading. When creating an object you need to supply the ["heading"] property, so it seems you should be able to retrieve it... Unit.getPoint() returns a vec3 table of the x,y,z (long/alt/latt) coordinates. Unit.getPosition() is similar (although I'm not sure what the "p" Vec3 is), but otherwise I don't see any methods that would return more about the unit's location/heading. I tried searching but after perusing a few dozen results, I figured I'd try asking :). Thanks!

Great, thanks nomdeplume! I figured I'd need to use some math - you've given me a great start so I'll do some more experimenting.

Thanks nomdeplume, it makes sense now, I think I just missed that in the prototype for timer.scheduleFunction it's expecting two parameters in the called function. I had thought the return value was supposed to reschedule the function, thus my confusion.

Interestingly (not sure if it's supposed to work this way), I found an example where it seemed they were using timer.scheduleFunction to repeatedly call a function (as opposed to just once) and all they had different was an extra unused parameter in the to-be-called function: local function testFunction([color="Red"]arg[/color], time) ... trigger.action.outText("sample text", 20) ... return time + 5 end do timer.scheduleFunction(testFunction, nil, timer.getTime() + 5) end When I added this extra parameter, the timer.scheduleFunction started repeatedly calling the function every 5 seconds (got the repeated outText messages) when I tested it offline (i.e. as a mission, not via multiplayer).

I have a question about coming up with coordinates within DCS. I'm trying to understand how to come up with coordinates for a newly spawned group/unit relatively close to a group/unit I'm controlling. Secondly, given the heading of my unit, I'd like to also assign a second waypoint for the spawned group/unit that is heading in the same direction as my unit. So, for example, lets say my location and heading is: x: -7562.647060363 z: 294083.01907702 (what's the unit of measure for the x,z (y) coordinates?) heading: 2.0943951023932 (what heading in degrees is this anyway? :) ) Now I want to spawn a group/unit going in the same direction but approximately 50 feet/~15 meters away, heading in the same direction, with a second waypoint approximately 5000 feet/~1500 meters away. I've been playing with witchcraft (great tool [FSF]Ian - thanks!), so I'm able to spawn a group/unit via Lua dynamically but figuring out the coordinates relative to a "baseline" unit (e.g. a unit I control) has me stumped so far. Thanks!