Randomised AAA fire

[Stalintc]

Hi all,

 

I just wanted to tease out if anyone knows a way of creating randomised non-targetted AAA fire?

 

Basically during night mission scenarios, I would like to be able to place optically aimed AAA units that fire up into random points of the sky at intervals. Much like what was seen over Iraq during the Gulf War(s) to fill the sky with lead hoping to hit something....

 

I dont really mean this to be anything else that an atmospheric effect, but obviously could have some bite getting in the way of one stream of rounds!

 

While we do have a fire at point command built into the mission editor, which is great for getting ground units to create gunfire to other points on the ground. This doesnt apply to shootng upwards. So is there a way that this can perhaps be scripted? As part of the units "Mission Task" script perhaps?

 

What would be even better is if I could tie this to an "In Area" trigger so it only occurs when there are aircraft of a certain side are around.

 

The problem is I am struggling to think of a way to do this in DCS using lua. (To be honest I still need to get my head round lua, but that shouldnt take long...)

 

I did achieve this effect in ARMA scripting by placing invisible objects in the sky that changed their location randomly and got certain AAA units to fire at them in bursts. Which looked pretty awesome :)

 

Many thanks in advance! Any input is appreciated!

[Grimes]

The scripting engine is capable of many things. However your request is not one of them.

 

The nearest possible way I can think of to accomplish this is do have an AI helicopter or aircraft fly over the area and be set to "invincible." However all other air defenses in teh area will also shoot at it.

[Stalintc]

Thanks for such a swift response :)

 

I had thought that might have been the case, but its always worth an ask!

 

Now the idea of an invincible helicopter has got me thinking how ever. Could potentially said invincible helicopter(s) be set as "Late Activation" but a "Attack Unit" command assigned to the AAA unit for that object?

 

It just got me thinking because I know (Or have read) that Late Activation ground units will be driven around on the ground if it is in the way of active units which are moving. I which case could they potentially be targeted using a command?

[Grimes]

Late activated units will stay wherever they are set to spawn at and are considered "alive" but invisible and incapable of action when in this state.

[mjeh]

I would probably use drones instead of helicopters, since they're smaller and harder to spot.

 

What would be even better is if I could tie this to an "In Area" trigger so it only occurs when there are aircraft of a certain side are around.

 

Yes, you can turn the AAA units' AI on/ off with triggers, with condition whether or not the aircraft/ group/ coalition you want to create disco show for is in/ out of a certain zone

[Stalintc]

Thanks fellas, it was worth a shot :)