Fat Cow

[H60MTI]

So, with the Hook being dropped now, any chance that ED will make the Fat Cow available to be used with the invisible FARP? Set up a random FARP in Syria, Sinai, or the Afghan map when that drops.

[corbu1]

Would be great…..the Fat Cow operation was asked already by the community.

[H60MTI]

It was? Nice. Definitely didn't look for it Lol Real world, a couple of Hooks with full robbie tanks will land. A couple more hooks with personnel and equipment. Set up a FARP. Then tear it down when empty. Crazy. Would not mind simulating that at all.

[Dangerzone]

FAT cow will indeed be epic - however just keep in mind that

1. This thing is Early Access, so may be limited in what it has available, and
    
2. Eeven after modules have been promoted out of early release, they still may not have all their features (aka - the FA18 that's now out of EA and doesn't have it's DTC yet).

ED seem to be holding the cards close to their chest as to what the CH-47 will be capable of during release. I really hope I'm wrong and this can be used to create dynamic FARPS on release.

[lee1hy]

I don't think the Fat Cow operation feature will appear on June 24th.

[Gunfreak]

2 minutes ago, lee1hy said:

I don't think the Fat Cow operation feature will appear on June 24th.

No but slightly obese sheep might.

[H60MTI]

LOL Slightly obese sheep...Love it! Our favorite terms were, only Army bird that could have a mid-air collision with itself and 2 palm trees f*ing in a dumpster. 

[Floyd1212]

For anyone not aware, Grimm released a script he originally developed for his RotorOps generator that includes Fat Cow functionality.  It will be nice when ED has native support for this, but this script will work on launch day to give us a functioning Fat Cow.  We use it all the time with a UH-60L as a stand-in for the Chinook for now.

 

[AirSenpai]

We need some this feature like the real thing, the buckets and the hoses, we need the m240 with the hand guard on the back and the .50s too !

Edited June 3, 2024 by AirSenpai

[slowmover]

There are a lot questions about FAT CAW. How it will work? You just land and that;s it? Or you should handle it as player? Will you be able to leave the helicopter and stay there or you should stay on it? I would love to see an update from ED soon.

[Floyd1212]

What I would like to see from ED, as an official solution, would be a special variant of the aircraft that is setup as a Fat Cow.  (Or make the proper equipment available as a "loadout" on the rearm dialog.)

A player can spawn into a Fat Cow Chinook (or arm it with the Fat Cow equipment) and take off to the front lines.  They land and "deploy" the FARP equipment and shut down the aircraft.  The FARP is now functional.  The player can reslot in another aircraft and go do something productive while the FARP remains functional.  Later, when it is time to relocate the FC, slot back in and start it up and fly to a new location and re-deploy the equipment in the new location.

I think it is asking too much for a player to sit in the aircraft on the ground for it to be functional for 2 hours while his buddies come and go to rearm/refuel.  Add in some warehousing aspects to limit the amount of fuel and ammo available and you can get two Chinooks in rotation to keep an area functional.

[Yurgon]

33 minutes ago, Floyd1212 said:

The player can reslot in another aircraft and go do something productive while the FARP remains functional.

That's a great idea!

More generally, a new slot system would be nice where aircraft actually exist before players slot into them. It would add to immersion, having a nice, full airfield and that would also prevent those dumb accidents where a player taxis/lands and another one just happens to spawn right into that position. Persisting aircraft after unslotting would also be really nice and would allow for such a Fat Cow to keep doing its thing without a player present.

I believe ED is working on something to that effect. Here's to hoping it'll come with the Fat Cow option.

[Dangerzone]

8 hours ago, Floyd1212 said:

What I would like to see from ED, as an official solution, would be a special variant of the aircraft that is setup as a Fat Cow.  (Or make the proper equipment available as a "loadout" on the rearm dialog.)

A player can spawn into a Fat Cow Chinook (or arm it with the Fat Cow equipment) and take off to the front lines.  They land and "deploy" the FARP equipment and shut down the aircraft.  The FARP is now functional.  The player can reslot in another aircraft and go do something productive while the FARP remains functional.  Later, when it is time to relocate the FC, slot back in and start it up and fly to a new location and re-deploy the equipment in the new location.

I think it is asking too much for a player to sit in the aircraft on the ground for it to be functional for 2 hours while his buddies come and go to rearm/refuel.  Add in some warehousing aspects to limit the amount of fuel and ammo available and you can get two Chinooks in rotation to keep an area functional.

I think this is a brilliant idea. However it would require ED to implement dynamic spawn points - and I have no idea where they're at with that - so I suspect it's very unlikely that we're going to see this anytime in the near future. 

It would require dynamic spawn points to be made in a way that more could be be added 'on the fly', and locked to only a particular player as well (so no one else 'steals' the cow).  (We certainly don't want any cattle rustlers in DCS) 

However maybe now is the time to suggest it as a feature request - before they get too far down the rabbit hole of dynamic spawning so they can design it in a way that would allow this functionality to fit in right from the start.

[Hobel]

Am 5.6.2024 um 17:19 schrieb Floyd1212:

They land and "deploy" the FARP equipment and shut down the aircraft.  The FARP is now functional. 

oh yes, that would be a fantastic idea!

[Grimm]

On 6/3/2024 at 5:13 AM, Floyd1212 said:

For anyone not aware, Grimm released a script he originally developed for his RotorOps generator that includes Fat Cow functionality.  It will be nice when ED has native support for this, but this script will work on launch day to give us a functioning Fat Cow.  We use it all the time with a UH-60L as a stand-in for the Chinook for now.

 

Thanks Floyd.  For anyone not aware, it works like this:

1) Fly the CH-47 or another refuel-capable aircraft

2) Land anywhere and select Player Fatcow FARP via F10 menu

3) White smoke marker and FARP assets appear (tent, ammo)

4) Friendly players can land at your FARP and refuel, rearm, and repair

5) Once you take off, the FARP is deconstructed (unlimited redeployments)

 

I fully agree with the points made about requiring the CH-47 pilot to remain on the ground as their buddies come and go.  If it's requested, it likely wouldn't be too hard to leave a static CH-47 in place when the pilot chooses another slot.

Right now the implementation is such that it is easy enough to setup your Fatcow FARP on request from friends, and there's perhaps not much reason to stay on the ground waiting for the next pilot to need you.

[Dangerzone]

7 hours ago, Grimm said:

I fully agree with the points made about requiring the CH-47 pilot to remain on the ground as their buddies come and go.  If it's requested, it likely wouldn't be too hard to leave a static CH-47 in place when the pilot chooses another slot.

That part wouldn't be too difficult to implement, but there'd be no option to re-spawn at that location and take off again. 

If the player has combined arms, I believe they can enter another player drivable vehicle and scoot around a little. (Such as a Hum-Vee, Tank, SA-9, SA-19, etc) whilst still maintaining the helicopter slot - so that may give a little flexibility, but obviously it'd be far nicer to actually jump into another aircraft. 

I guess we only have a few days to wait until we know what the CH-47 will bring to the table natively. 

[cfrag]

8 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

That part wouldn't be too difficult to implement, but there'd be no option to re-spawn at that location and take off again. 

From briefly looking at the code, that's not entirely true, and (perhaps @Grimm can chime in here) that Fat Cow FARP could be set up to allow players to slot in from there, since it's a FARP that's already set up in ME and then 'teleported' to the current position. The downside here is that a) you'd need some for of slot blocking when the FARP isn't ready yet (solvable) and b) the entire FARP teleporting mechanism is a hack: exceedingly cool, and still a hack that will undoubtedly break in any upcoming DCS release. 

It's a great idea, and I hope that ED take a cue and allow for a 'ground refueling' tasks for AI CH-47. And a a "Refuel" main task for player Helos (and the upcoming Herc?) so if they are configured correctly they can serve as tankers (C130) and Fat Cows on the ground (like the required FARP vehicles to provide refuelling services)

DCS is developing into exciting new possibilities, and I'm hoping that the base game can keep pace with its potential.  

[Floyd1212]

Currently, player slots have to be placed on the map within the ME.  It isn't like they follow that FARP when it gets teleported around around the map.

With the next patch (tomorrow), we may see the dynamic player slots, which may provide a way to handle this better.  Still unknown how all that is going to work..

Edited July 2, 2024 by Floyd1212

[cfrag]

3 hours ago, Floyd1212 said:

Currently, player slots have to be placed on the map within the ME.  It isn't like they follow that FARP when it gets teleported around around the map.

It seems that recently, we have some exceptions to that, in a very hacky but interesting proof of concept that I'll have to look at in more detail:

https://github.com/brihernandez/DCSBuildableFARPs

It seems that in this demo, the player-controlled Harriers teleport with the FARP to the new location. Building off this idea, some interesting new effects could be put into missions.

[Floyd1212]

Interesting...

 

[Grimm]

Hmm that's cool.  I didn't even think to try putting slots on the FARPs we use for the PERKS script.  If it's that easy, we're most of the way there and just need to figure out the slot blocking so the slot is reserved for the player that set up the FARP.  

In this way it could also work for our AI fatcow.  Mark a point on the map, call the AI Chinook, and provide support on the way.  Once landed and setup you could spawn there.  

[Dangerzone]

4 hours ago, cfrag said:

It seems that recently, we have some exceptions to that, in a very hacky but interesting proof of concept that I'll have to look at in more detail:

https://github.com/brihernandez/DCSBuildableFARPs

It seems that in this demo, the player-controlled Harriers teleport with the FARP to the new location. Building off this idea, some interesting new effects could be put into missions.

Thank you so much! I have been trying for years unsuccessfully to find a solution to this. I did manage to relocate farps in the past, but it didn't take the slots with it.  I've been hoping the new dynamic slots would allow for this with the upcoming patch, but there's been no information as to whether or not this will be a thing with said upcoming patch. But I'm very keen on seeing this mod/script in action. Thank you for posting!

[ST0RM]

A couple of weeks ago, we had a pair of CH-47Fs doing Fat Cow ops with a 5-ship of AH-64Es out in East Tennessee. Quite the show for a tiny muni airport.