AI helicopter movement using Editor

[RazorbackNL]

Hi all,

 

I want to spice up my airbase a little bit by letting some AI helicopters take off, fly around a bit and than land. Something like an airshow.

 

With "Add helicopter group" I place a helicopter somewhere on the airbase, giving it the "Takeoff From Ramp" order.

The helicopter starts up really nice, flies around and lands, totally shutting down and opening its doors. But that is it. It doesn't take off anymore.

 

How can I make it do the same action over and over again?

I fiddled with the Begin Loop and End Loop commands, but than the helicopter starts mid air.

 

Hope someone can help me out. Thanks.

[DarkFire]

Make the first waypoint "take off from ramp". Make the next waypoint "start loop", make the 3rd waypoint "end loop" and make the last waypoint "land". That way the helicopters will take off and will fly between the 'loop' waypoint until they hit bingo fuel, at which point they will land.

 

You'll just have to carefuly place the 'loop' waypoints so that the helicopter group doesn't get in the way of other aircraft taking off & landing.

 

Edited to add: I'm not sure if you can add "fly over point" waypoints between the "begin loop" and "end loop" waypoints to control exactly what route the helicopters fly along on their loop. I'll have to try this...

[RazorbackNL]

Thanks for the reply DarkFire.

 

Is it possible to make the helicopter take off again at the same point where it landed? The idea is to let helicopter randomly take off and land around the airbase.

[DarkFire]

It's not possible to make it land and then take off again, but you can make it look like it does by using triggers, conditions and a second helicopter group. I'm at work at the moment so I'll post a proper description of how you can do this on Wednesday.

[RazorbackNL]

Thanks, looking forward to it.

[DarkFire]

OK, this is what you need to do.

 

1. Set up the first group of helicopters like I described, with the "begin loop" and "end loop" waypoints between the "take off from ramp" and "landing" waypoint.

 

2. Check in the game to see where on the airfield the helicopters actually land.

 

3. In the mission editor, create a very small trigger zone (no bigger than 200m. diameter) on the point where the helicopters land. Call it whatever you like, but I generally call trigger zones something that will tell me a bit about what they do if I forget and look at them again later. You could call this "helicopter group landing zone" or something like that.

 

4. Set up a new trigger named something like "helicopter group 1 lands." The type of trigger will be "once." The trigger will have the conditions "time more than" - set this to something like 400 seconds. The next condition will be "Unit inside zone" - the unit will be helicopter 1 of your first group. The next condition will be "unit altitude lower than" - the unit will again be the 1st helicopter of your first group and set the altitude to be ~10m above the ground level at the point where the helicopters land. Set the first effect of this trigger as "deactivate group" with the group being the first helicopter group, and set the second effect as "set flag". Use any spare flag number. What these conditions will do is to deactivate the 1st group of helicopters when they come in to land (altitude less than 10m and time set to more than ~4 minutes so that the trigger doesn't activate right at the start of the mission when the helicopters are taking off) and also sets the designated flag number to be true.

 

5. Create a new helicopter group on top of where the first group lands. Remember to set the delay time for the 2nd group to 23 hours so that it obeys triggers rather than just appearing as soon as the mission starts. Give them waypoints to take off, fly around and then land etc.

 

6. Create a new trigger. You could call it "activate helicopter group 2" or something like that. The type of trigger will be "once". The conditions will be "time since flag" - set this to whatever you want, this will be the amount of time that the helicopter is 'on the ground' before taking off again. Set the flag number to the same flag number that was made "true" in step no. 4. The effect of this trigger will be "activate group" - the group to be activated will be helicopter group 2.

 

7. This is personal preference, but I usually hide all the units and groups I create as 'realism' groups rather than groups that actually take part in a mission. This makes the mission map a bit easier to read. Does that all make sense? Hope this helps...

Edited January 15, 2011 by DarkFire

[RazorbackNL]

Thank you very much Darkfire.

 

I will work with it end let you know how it goes.

[CaptED69]

Thanks For the AI setup INFO

 

A Big Thanks to "DarkFire"

 

As a newbie I was looking for this specific info so Thank You...

 

I am assuming I can follow the AI's around the Points...

 

Ed

[Jona33]

A Big Thanks to "DarkFire"

 

As a newbie I was looking for this specific info so Thank You...

 

I am assuming I can follow the AI's around the Points...

 

Ed

 

Epic thread resurrection. This isn't needed anymore as there is a "land" advanced waypoint action where they will touch down, leave the engines running and after the set delay take off again.

[BackboneOne]

Epic thread resurrection. This isn't needed anymore as there is a "land" advanced waypoint action where they will touch down, leave the engines running and after the set delay take off again.

 

but what about refueling? can helo be refueled during its landing on FARP? i mean if its not your wingman (in a separate group from you)