Helicopters and civilian ops project

[kuschmu]

After tomorrow patch we plan to roll out new missions pool, after we check that everything is working. New set of missions will be a different weather randomly chosen from pool of preset missions which will run for limited time and restart with new one from pool.

 

We were thinking what would be best time limit? 4 hours? 6 hours? Propose here guys.

 

 

As for me, best time is and still will be 24h! This will keep the server a challange for pilots who can and want do more than only nice weather and daylight flying. Night flights, e.g. with the Mi-8, provide full feature operation including night vision and search lights. What for were these features implemented if not for night operation?

Have you ever flown under dawn conditions? It is so amazing when the sun begins its rise. What a beautiful scenery if the mountains around begin to glow in red! So far, these dawn times were at about noon (CET +1h), perfect for me (at the weekends). I would be happy enough with this. For the others, it would be daylight again in the afternoon and until late evening.

 

So, please, do not cut the best moments out of this gorgeous mission.

Or maybe, as an alternative, you could run a separate night mission in parallel for the night owls?

 

 

Thanks anyway for your great mission :thumbup:

[nibula]

Please go back to infantry units or whatever that is not from the carriers. These carrier units seem to always hold 90 to the surface they are on. Not good for spatial orientation awareness.

[Multiplayer team]

As for me, best time is and still will be 24h! This will keep the server a challange for pilots who can and want do more than only nice weather and daylight flying. Night flights, e.g. with the Mi-8, provide full feature operation including night vision and search lights. What for were these features implemented if not for night operation?

Have you ever flown under dawn conditions? It is so amazing when the sun begins its rise. What a beautiful scenery if the mountains around begin to glow in red! So far, these dawn times were at about noon (CET +1h), perfect for me (at the weekends). I would be happy enough with this. For the others, it would be daylight again in the afternoon and until late evening.

 

So, please, do not cut the best moments out of this gorgeous mission.

Or maybe, as an alternative, you could run a separate night mission in parallel for the night owls?

 

 

Thanks anyway for your great mission :thumbup:

 

We fly hardcore stuff ourselves , so I've put some missions on timer and last hour in mission usually in sunset. But this is sophisticated task to tackle, I guess only vote would decide at later time.

[Collander]

We fly hardcore stuff ourselves , so I've put some missions on timer and last hour in mission usually in sunset. But this is sophisticated task to tackle, I guess only vote would decide at later time.

 

I really appreciate you using a variety of weather, thank you!

 

Pre-dawn twilight is great for flying, as is the last light before it gets totally dark.

Nothing like making it back to a nice warm base with all the lights on :)

 

How about running the mission from 1 hour before sunrise; and then sunset happens one hour before the end of the mission? - loads of twilight, quite a bit of darkness.

For the daytime flyers, it makes a great incentive to get the mission finished before they have to try and land in total darkness :)

 

Could we have more lighting at pads and airports?

Could we have NDBs added at the pads, factories, hospitals?

 

Again, Thank you SO much for this great work!

:thumbup:

[beagleRampant]

Tried the latest version. Flew in bad weather which was a nice challenge.

 

Picked up a cargo load at the factory:

 

1. Did not show in the cargo status menu item. ie it said I had 0kg onboard

 

2. After I dropped it at Katusi West (in the zone) the supplies did not get added to the clinic’s totals

 

Also after I rescued some units, their icons stayed on the map like an overlay. It was very weird. If I moved the map, they stayed in the same position on screen. Not sure if a DCS bug or a problem with mission scripting.

 

Thank you for your continued work!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Quadg]

ghost units on the f10 map is an old dcs bug.

 

I too had fun flying in the snow, wind and poor visibility today.

 

rescued 9 from two huey crashes up in the mountains. in a dead end tree filled valley so had to use the winch.

was rather tired when i had finished. took me two trips because of the weight. also needed to refuel.

was flying a huey.

 

nice server.

[Multiplayer team]

Tried the latest version. Flew in bad weather which was a nice challenge.

 

Picked up a cargo load at the factory:

 

1. Did not show in the cargo status menu item. ie it said I had 0kg onboard

 

2. After I dropped it at Katusi West (in the zone) the supplies did not get added to the clinic’s totals

 

Also after I rescued some units, their icons stayed on the map like an overlay. It was very weird. If I moved the map, they stayed in the same position on screen. Not sure if a DCS bug or a problem with mission scripting.

 

Thank you for your continued work!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Hey Beagle!

Did you select internal cargo or sling load? I assume internal cargo, since the sling load does not show up in the status (maybe it should?). If you pick internal cargo and it shows 0 kg please try picking it again, sometimes the F10 menus are a bit glitchy and need a second try. If it is still not working please post here along with at which time it happened. This way we can check the serverlogs and pin down the chain of events that led to the malfunction, so we can fix it.

[Multiplayer team]

 

Picked up a cargo load at the factory:

 

1. Did not show in the cargo status menu item. ie it said I had 0kg onboard

 

2. After I dropped it at Katusi West (in the zone) the supplies did not get added to the clinic’s totals

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

It was internal cargo, not sling load? What was the weight? It happened only once or reproduceable?

[beagleRampant]

Hey Beagle!

Did you select internal cargo or sling load? I assume internal cargo, since the sling load does not show up in the status (maybe it should?). If you pick internal cargo and it shows 0 kg please try picking it again, sometimes the F10 menus are a bit glitchy and need a second try. If it is still not working please post here along with at which time it happened. This way we can check the serverlogs and pin down the chain of events that led to the malfunction, so we can fix it.

 

 

Ah, it was a sling load that I assumed would show up somewhere as being “on board” even though it is of course not inside the helo.

 

I didn’t realize I could load internal cargo. Perhaps I need to read the briefing more carefully.

 

However when I dropped my sling load at the clinic it didn’t add to the clinic’s supplies total.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Multiplayer team]

Ah, it was a sling load that I assumed would show up somewhere as being “on board” even though it is of course not inside the helo.

 

I didn’t realize I could load internal cargo. Perhaps I need to read the briefing more carefully.

 

However when I dropped my sling load at the clinic it didn’t add to the clinic’s supplies total.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

A little insight on how the sling loading works: the cargo load is just a regular static cargo object. The script checks the position of the cargo object every 5 seconds. If it has moved it assumes the cargo is on the hook, because that's really the only way to move them. It then checks if there's a heli above it within a ropes length and thus knows who is transporting the crate (there is no specific api for that in dcs). If the crate has stopped moving (no position change since the last check 5 seconds ago) the script checks if the crate is inside a zone, if it's inside a hospitals zone the hospital is supplied and the crate is destroyed (if nothign is supplied the crate is not destroyed). Unfortunately the crates destroy function is still a bit bugged, it will not disappear for the client, but you also wont be able to pick it up again. If you reconnect to the server the crate should be gone. If the crate has not been detected to be inside a hospital zone it wont be destroyed and you will be able to pick it up a gain.

 

So when you pick up the crate, maximum 5 seconds later you should receive a message that you have picked up a slingload crate. The crate remembers who you are. Once you have put the crate down again it can take up to 10 seconds until the crate detects it's on the ground (If you touch it down 0.01 seconds after the loop ran the last time the position after 5 seconds will detect movement so it takes another 5 seconds to make sure the crate does not move resulting in ~10 seconds total).

 

I know this is plenty of time for you to check if a supply has happened thus i thought it's best to explain how it works under the hood. There is no black magic, just a bit of working around a missing programming interface :smilewink:

[Grajo]

Thanks for the info! The cargo does not disappear from clients also, at least if placed inside farp, what I guess it is not the ideal thing to do but seems a precise spot to place them at least.

 

Could you guys add some tires in the ground or something to define the area to leave cargos in each hospital? That will be very useful and also add some better immersion to the task. :]

[Multiplayer team]

Thanks for the info! The cargo does not disappear from clients also, at least if placed inside farp, what I guess it is not the ideal thing to do but seems a precise spot to place them at least.

 

Could you guys add some tires in the ground or something to define the area to leave cargos in each hospital? That will be very useful and also add some better immersion to the task. :]

 

SO far you can find screenshots in briefing for each medical facility. You can see zone there. Place cargo anywhere in that zone.

[beagleRampant]

A little insight on how the sling loading works...

 

 

Thanks for the thorough reply!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[tomeye]

Very nice project and the recent changes with weather and additional features are very interesting!

Keep it up!

[kam]

Is the server down or do I need to update to latest openbeta?

[syff]

You always need the latest beta.

The unavailable message is mostly related to that...

[Grajo]

Is the server down or do I need to update to latest openbeta?

 

I have the latest Open Beta. Today and yesterday could not see the server on the list anymore :[.

[Multiplayer team]

Server up, had some DCS crash..

[-0303-]

Compass heading would be more useful than X o'clock. Both would be good.

[kam]

Compass heading would be more useful than X o'clock. Both would be good.

 

Yes I was just thinking the same. Heading is good for long legs, o'clock is good for picking up people.

Did a sling load mission, was a bit lost where exactly to place the cargo. I guess just in the boundary of the hospital?

Used "nearest bases" to make sure I was at the right place then waited until I got the wind check before placing the cargo. Worked fine.

[Grajo]

I agree about the heading, I did also "request" this some time ago.

 

To avoid "getting lost" the best, so far, is to use the ruler tool in F10 map, especially, before picking up cargo. Also if you are inside Mi-8 setting up Doppler System will really help.

 

For where to place the cargo, the Team answered already. You can see the "Area/Zone" in the pictures inside the briefing, any place inside should be "OK".

 

Did my first (successful) sling load op yesterday with rain and windy weather, what it was quite a challenge for me :]. The cargo was added successfully to the supplies in the Downtown Hospital.

 

I do not want to be a pain in the neck here..., but I would really like to see some "specific" cargo drop areas in the future, traffic can get dense in the hospital area and the deployment operation is already delicate enough by itself :music_whistling:.

 

Thanks again for the updates and looking forward to any future feature implementation :thumbup:

[Multiplayer team]

So far you can figure out exact heading by checking F10 map and using ruller tool on it. Until we can provide other options.

[Multiplayer team]

Did a sling load mission, was a bit lost where exactly to place the cargo. I guess just in the boundary of the hospital?

Used "nearest bases" to make sure I was at the right place then waited until I got the wind check before placing the cargo. Worked fine.

 

Was explained couple posts ago. In briefing pictures you can see zone of each medical facility. Cargo can be placed anywhere in that zone. Of course need to use a bit logic and creativity to not place it on landing zone :D

[kam]

Was explained couple posts ago. In briefing pictures you can see zone of each medical facility. Cargo can be placed anywhere in that zone. Of course need to use a bit logic and creativity to not place it on landing zone :D

 

Thanks, stuff like that gets lost in a 17 page thread.

[-0303-]

Yes I was just thinking the same. Heading is good for long legs, o'clock is good for picking up people.

Kept swiveling on ground until headed north to find out what direction X o'clock meant ...:music_whistling:

 

When it said "abandoned Mi-8" I expected an actual Mi-8 on F10 map. Finding none, got insecure about correct direction. Converted km to nm to compare with ruler distance.

 

I do think starting out from a hospital / Farp the direction given would not be X o'Clock, it would be a heading/distance or better a grid coordinate (*1). In real life maybe "river bend 1 km south of village X", but this would be really complicated AI to program.

~

 

*1) Come to think of it, not actually knowing, a grid coordinate seems something that might be how they do it in real life. For a helicopter with fixed stationing at least, coordinate maps would be prepared.

Edited June 17, 2020 by -0303-