Scripted bird strike on AI plane

[feefifofum]

Hey guys.

Is it possible to script a bird strike to occur on an AI plane at a specific point on the map?

I see options for failure probability and explosion probability, but not anything that allows you to select a specific aircraft so I assume this only affects the player.

 

I'm scared of .LUA but it looks like it might be time to dive in.

[feefifofum]

Found a workaround...it seems A-10 pilots are sufficiently resistant to EXPLODE UNIT to survive a small radius explosion. Voila...instant "bird strike"

 

I had remembered that command as being an instant kill on the pilot with just varying degrees of damage to the aircraft, but I appear to have been mistaken, which is excellent news for me haha

Edited June 25, 2015 by feefifofum

[DarkFire]

Out of interest what explosion parameters are you using to avoid destroying the plane and killing the pilot? That trick could be useful for other things...

[feefifofum]

Radius one produced no visible damage.

Radius two produced no visible damage to model, but plane was trailing white smoke.

Radius three produced visible damage to tail section, blew out an engine, and caused AI to jettison weapons (winner!)

Radius four caused the plane to lose a significant portion of its tail section, right wingtip, and caused the AI to eject (winner number two)

 

I expect you'll see some minor variation to the visible damage on the model, but the results have been pretty consistent so far. Haven't tried it on anything besides an A-10C where I didn't want to kill the pilot, so some experimenting may be necessary for other aircraft.