Dynamic Medevac Script

[ESAc_matador]

Does it work for Multiplayer Human pilots???

 

REgards

[DarkFire]

Great work! Is it possible to use this script to control AI helicopters? I'm thinking that it would really add some immersion in SP missions that include medevac flights coming to and from the 'front lines' so to speak.

[shagrat]

In theory yes, though I never tested that.

Put the Unit(!) name and into the Medevacs unit list and have the Helicopter land near the casualties... The problem would be the issue with message to coalition cluttering and blocking mission messages and of course if you don't have a function/script to make the AI helicopter know where the casualties have spawned.

If the casualties are in a "static" place you can have the Helicopter land at a predefined waypoint and start the script with a trigger...

I'm not convinced it will be easy. You may have to change the script a bit...

[shagrat]

Does it work for Multiplayer Human pilots???

 

REgards

It was made for multiplayer by RagnarDa.

Yes, just take care to load it at mission start, but after other scripts, as it takes a few seconds to initiate. You may see a little stutter at mission start, when initiating multiple scripts.

[DarkFire]

In theory yes, though I never tested that.

Put the Unit(!) name and into the Medevacs unit list and have the Helicopter land near the casualties... The problem would be the issue with message to coalition cluttering and blocking mission messages and of course if you don't have a function/script to make the AI helicopter know where the casualties have spawned.

If the casualties are in a "static" place you can have the Helicopter land at a predefined waypoint and start the script with a trigger...

I'm not convinced it will be easy. You may have to change the script a bit...

 

Ah OK, I think I understand. Unfortunately that level of Lua scripting is way beyond my beginner-level abilities. I'll probably look at this possibility again at some point when my scripting abilities go beyond "hello world" :smilewink:

[Pikey]

Would there be a fairly simple way of filtering by distance? Ie only triggering calls within a range of say 10 miles?

 

I'm getting calls for non related battlegrounds across the continent that I would like to exclude.

[nickexists]

Is it possible to use this script only for pilot rescue and disable the ground unit rescue feature?

[shagrat]

I guess, yes. Need to look into the loop where it determines the hit unit (spawn crew or a pilot).

Not at the PC currently.

Will check later.

[shagrat]

Seems to be much easier.

 

Simply set both factions crew members to survive to none!

 

medevac.bluecrewsurvivepercent = 0

medevac.redcrewsurvivepercent = 0

[nickexists]

Wow, that was easy. thanks.

[nickexists]

Easily fixable bug report: Addmenuitems function only runs once at the beginning of the mission. By adding two arguments to the function E.G.: (arg,time) and changing the line that says 'return 5' to 'return time+5' this can be fixed.

[shagrat]

Easily fixable bug report: Addmenuitems function only runs once at the beginning of the mission. By adding two arguments to the function E.G.: (arg,time) and changing the line that says 'return 5' to 'return time+5' this can be fixed.

Any chance you add that to the script and comment the changes with " -- changed by nickexists" and upload it here?

RagnarDa is no longer maintaining this script, so we try to keep it going as "open source". Any contribution is highly appreciated.

There is one particular issue I came across and never found the root cause.

Clients in a multiplayer session that spawn late, or die and rejoin the mission cannot pick up survivors. My guess is the respawned Clients unitID is different.

Odd thing is, if the respawned client calls the F10 menu and asks for "Active Medevacs" it still lists all "open" survivor groups, but if you get near them you don't trigger anything in the actual pick up part of the script... :(

[nickexists]

should I upload it here or would it be better to do it over github?

[shagrat]

Here should be easier to reach the community, though if you prefer github it should be OK.

[nickexists]

Here it is. I also changed line 722 so that setting the survival percentages to 0 will actually work. Before there was a slight chance that ground crews would still be spawned.

Medevac_SAR_modified.lua

[shagrat]

:) You're the man! Thanks... Never noticed that.

[Ciribob]

I've re-written the script as I kept getting crashes and odd errors but tried to keep it's behaviour and configuration options compatible with the original versions.

 

If anyone could help test it that would be very helpful!

 

The major functionality difference is troops won't move to a point between you and the helicopter, they stick to where they spawned but if you land within 500m they'll move to you but otherwise it should be the same.

 

Hope this was OK to do... Thanks to RagnarDa, DragonShadow and Shagrat for the original script and great work!

 

Download is on github: https://github.com/ciribob/DCS-Medevac

[shagrat]

Cool, I'll test it this week as soon as I have some spare time in the evening.

[RagnarDa]

Good work!

[joker62]

Thank You very much. +1

antonio.

[shagrat]

OK, tested and it works very nicely. Tweaked some values to get a better padding when it comes to bleed time, if you pick up wounded near to a MASH it's always minimum bleed time.

I have one question, though.

It is reasonable to assume two medics in the back, plus a possible 4-6 "wounded', so it would be OK to pick up two crews, if the wounds of the first group are not that severe.

I like the idea of a limit, though, so can we make it a maximum of two groups?

I'm currently working on optimizing the bleed timer messages so they don't block any other messages... I'm slowly getting there.

When it works more or less reliable you might want to integrate it. Alas, my lua skills are very basic.

That recoding is a really brilliant work. Thanks for that, I could never have done that. :notworthy:

[Ciribob]

OK, tested and it works very nicely. Tweaked some values to get a better padding when it comes to bleed time, if you pick up wounded near to a MASH it's always minimum bleed time.

I have one question, though.

It is reasonable to assume two medics in the back, plus a possible 4-6 "wounded', so it would be OK to pick up two crews, if the wounds of the first group are not that severe.

I like the idea of a limit, though, so can we make it a maximum of two groups?

I'm currently working on optimizing the bleed timer messages so they don't block any other messages... I'm slowly getting there.

When it works more or less reliable you might want to integrate it. Alas, my lua skills are very basic.

That recoding is a really brilliant work. Thanks for that, I could never have done that. :notworthy:

 

Thanks for testing shagrat, let me know what changes you make and I'll happily integrate them!

 

Being able to pickup up to two groups is a good idea, but I think it would be quite a lot to change but i'll look into it.

 

If you want I make make the changes to the bleed message quite easily?

 

It's much easier to rewrite someone else's work then write it from scratch but I hope you find the rewrite easier to follow :)

[Ciribob]

OK, tested and it works very nicely. Tweaked some values to get a better padding when it comes to bleed time, if you pick up wounded near to a MASH it's always minimum bleed time.

I have one question, though.

It is reasonable to assume two medics in the back, plus a possible 4-6 "wounded', so it would be OK to pick up two crews, if the wounds of the first group are not that severe.

I like the idea of a limit, though, so can we make it a maximum of two groups?

I'm currently working on optimizing the bleed timer messages so they don't block any other messages... I'm slowly getting there.

When it works more or less reliable you might want to integrate it. Alas, my lua skills are very basic.

That recoding is a really brilliant work. Thanks for that, I could never have done that. :notworthy:

 

Actually just checked and it was a really easy change for the radio messages not to hide other messages if the countdown timer isn't used so i've made the change. Hope it works OK for you now! :)

 

Code is updated on github. https://github.com/ciribob/DCS-Medevac

[shagrat]

Actually just checked and it was a really easy change for the radio messages not to hide other messages if the countdown timer isn't used so i've made the change. Hope it works OK for you now! :)

 

Code is updated on github. https://github.com/ciribob/DCS-Medevac

 

Brilliant! Simple and effectiv. I tried some way more complex stuff and it didn't work, yet.

 

About that group limit thing.

 

I thought about the if medevac.inTransitGroups[_heliUnit:getName()] ~= nil to check for a boarded group.

Is it possible to count the groups assigned to the Medevac unit instead?

Something like _countinTransitGroups for HeliName > 1 then deny boarding respectively don't move the survivor group?

Edited April 29, 2015 by shagrat

[shagrat]

Current Version I use

 

Hi so here is my current version, basically your script with some minor tweaks (search for 'shagrat' and you can identify the tweaks.

 

In addition, I reworked some of the messages, not that there was anything "wrong" or "bad", just my personal preference and idea of "military talk" and to better fit into the mission scenario.

 

I commented on some points with ideas, if you like them feel free to implment them. I'll sure try myself, but as I said, I'm not a LUA native speaker. ;)

 

The major change I've done to the bleedtime limitation. In standard it pretty much gets "challenging" everytime, especially when close to a MASH.

 

So I set more relaxed parameters in the options from scratch and added a padding to the minimum bleed time, so you always should have enough time to pick up a second group of survivors in anticipation of the tweak with the two groups... and to make it feel more real. Why would a survivor near to a hospital always have the most severe wounds? That was something I already tweaked in the old version. :music_whistling:

 

If you like some of that stuff feel free to integrate it, just check for the Medevac names, No. of MASHs, survivor settings etc. it's already adapted to my mission.

Again many thanks for the recoding of that script and the nice documentation. :bounce:

 

Medevac_CSARv6_recode.lua

Edited April 29, 2015 by shagrat