[SP] Close Air Support (A Random AH-6 Assault Mission)

[sxp2high]

Close Air Support
A Random AH-6 Assault Mission

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb367/truBTK/lbab.jpg

In this mission you are flying an AH-6 Little Bird equipped with M134 heavy machine gun and Hydra rockets. Your task is to defend a squad against the enemy forces approaching them.


The mission is different each time you start it, ensuring high replayability...


Random ...
... Location (34 positions available)
... Time of day
... Weather
... Wind
... Amount friendly units
... Amount enemy units
... Enemy vehicle types


Goals
Starting at the FOB, you have to fly to the target area and protect the squad against the enemies.

Mission fail: If all squad members die, you die or your helicopter gets immobilized.
Mission success: If all enemy forces are dead.

To finish the mission you have to return to the FOB, land, and shut down your engine.


Features
To repair, refuel and rearm you have to land on the Helipad inside the FOB and wait 15 seconds. You do not have to shut down your engine for that!


Installation
Copy the *.pbo file to your Take On Helicopters \ AddOns folder. (Or use a Mod Folder (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Modfolders))
Restart your game.
It will show up under Singleplayer > Challenges


Known issues
-


Changelog

v1.1
***********************************************************************
Various small fixes and optimizations not listed here
FIXED: Task position was sometimes on water
FIXED: Units, vehicles and objects sometimes spawned on water
CHANGED: Speeded up task setup
CHANGED: Enemies are now approaching a bit slower, more wave like
CHANGED: Reduced maximum task distance from FOB to 45km
CHANGED: Friendly vehicle types and amount are now random as well
CHANGED: Mission is now packed in Addon format (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mission_Export#Addon_Format)
CHANGED: Rain is now dynamic (based on rain value at mission start)
ADDED: Loading screen during task setup
ADDED: Note "Environment" (Showing overcast, rain and wind information)


Download
Here (http://arma2.co/files/index.php?dir=Take%20On%20Helicopters/Missions%20-%20Singleplayer/&file=btk_close_air_support.pbo) or Here (http://www.multiupload.com/50Q4LTPRA6)


Hope you enjoy it... I'm looking forward to your feedback and ideas to improve the mission! :thumbsup:

[[DirTyDeeDs]-Ziggy-]

Thanks for sharing!
I think task 70 or 80 km away is too far to call it CLOSE air support ;)

I get my ass kicked when I play it, so I will say no more until I beat it :cool:

[sxp2high]

Yea i guess :D

Please download again, i slightly changed it. It's now 46 positions instead of 61. I removed the ones that were really far away. Still about 60km in some cases. (Damn that map is huge!)

If you're not in the mood and think the task is too far away you can just restart the mission until it's located somewhere you like it. :thumbsup:

I also reduced the amount of enemy vehicles, to make it a bit more "easy". Got my ass kicked too. My flying skills are somewhat okay... but aiming, hiding and shooting is tough. + Pressure of the squad dying slowly but surely... :D

[Derbysieger]

Sounds like an awesome mission.
Downloading now.

Thanks

[Manzilla]

Sweet, a new mission! This looks great. I'll give it a go for sure.

Hooray for the community! The missions are coming folks. And begin........ :D

[VirtualVikingX]

Ooohhh. Thanks! Just tried out "Workhorse" for the first time last night. Excellent, will try this for sure.

[Jedra]

Yeah Workhorse is one of my favourite Arma SP missions (and absolutely gorgeously scripted - such neat work in that pbo!). I'll be trying this one later!

[Moricky]

- Overview.html doesn't work. (Not my fault)
Bug, gonna be fixed in next patch. Thanks for finding it ;)

Yet I recommend to avoid using obsolete mission format and pack mission as an addon instead. See Mission Export (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mission_Export) article on Biki.

Among other benefits are automatically structured overviews (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Content_Overview) and ability to sign (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Content_Authorship) your mission.

(Obsolete) Mission format:
http://temp.moricky.com/takeon/mission_overview_mission_t.jpg (http://temp.moricky.com/takeon/mission_overview_mission.jpg)
Addon format (including signature):
http://temp.moricky.com/takeon/mission_overview_addon_t.jpg (http://temp.moricky.com/takeon/mission_overview_addon.jpg)



- Sometimes it takes up to 30 seconds until the task is initialized and the marker, notes and tasks show up in the briefing. Just be patient.
Consider using startLoadingScreen (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/startLoadingScreen) and endLoadingScreen (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/endLoadingScreen) to prioritize scripted init.



- Sometimes the target location is on the water. Seems like surfaceIsWater doesn't work properly on the South Asia map (Units can walk on the water surface too :confused:). If you see the task location is on the water, simply restart the mission. (Problem occurs not very often)
Use also following code to check for water presence:

surfaceType _pos == "#SAWater"
surfaceIsWater not working on South Asia map is known issue and we're working on it at the moment.



I converted the mission into addon format and added loading screens, so you can see how is it done.
sxp2high_close_air_support.pbo (http://temp.moricky.com/takeon/sxp2high_close_air_support.pbo)

[Manzilla]

Gaia,

Great info there. Much appreciated!

[[DirTyDeeDs]-Ziggy-]

great info, thanks for updating the Biki!


Yet I recommend to avoid using obsolete mission format and pack mission as an addon instead. See Mission Export article on Biki.

Ingame download of mission http://community.bistudio.com/wikidata/images/thumb/f/f6/Ico_none.png/20px-Ico_none.png

does this mean they will no longer be saved to MPMissions cache?
that's a negative :j:

In the past I've acquired many missions when visiting dedicated servers. Will I be able to get them if servers are using addon format? Or is this primarily intended for client users only?

[sxp2high]

Thanks a lot Gaia for your very helpful reply. Great info! :thumbsup:

For SP missions it seems to be a good thing, packing as addon. I'll take a look at it and try to put it in action.


And thanks for the compliments on Workhorse - I'll maybe do something similar in the future for the South Asia map. Too bad we don't have a Chinook (yet) :D


I'm also thinking about splitting the CAS mission into two. North and South, both using just one half of the map - To reduce the long flights to the task location...

[.kju [PvPscene]]

@<hidden>
Addon missions don't work in MP (as long as there is no ingame addon download).

[[DirTyDeeDs]-Ziggy-]

a gameplay video will be uploaded over night :)

[sxp2high]

Cool :) Looking forward to it!


Update available
Thanks to Gaia, i was able to fix all known issues and packed the mission in Addon format.
Links updated in the first post (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=127235#1)!


Changelog

v1.1
***********************************************************************
Various small fixes and optimizations not listed here
FIXED: Task position was sometimes on water
FIXED: Units, vehicles and objects sometimes spawned on water
CHANGED: Speeded up task setup
CHANGED: Enemies are now approaching a bit slower, more wave like
CHANGED: Reduced maximum task distance from FOB to 45km
CHANGED: Friendly vehicle types and amount are now random as well
CHANGED: Mission is now packed in Addon format (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mission_Export#Addon_Format)
CHANGED: Rain is now dynamic (based on rain value at mission start)
ADDED: Loading screen during task setup
ADDED: Note "Environment" (Showing overcast, rain and wind information)

[[DirTyDeeDs]-Ziggy-]

:dozingoff: I'm posting this at 2:30am my time, I must have been hypnotized by the frog! :rolleyes: :D

Close Air Support - gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-vjILme00

[sxp2high]

Nice video! ...and nice flying, your skills are quite impressive! :butbut:


One thing though, the helicopter you destroyed was on your side - As of yet, there are no enemy air units. Just 55% chance that a friendly heli spawns in the area.

Maybe i should add a hostile heli as well? Looks like fun killing them :D

[[DirTyDeeDs]-Ziggy-]

LOL! really? I shot a friendly down? Imagine air being slowly let out of a balloon, the sound it makes... FPDR

thanks for the compliment :o

[Jedra]

Wow, this is hard! Great mission, but I think I had better learn to fly properly before I have to shoot as well!

EDIT ---> Just completed it - what a hoot! Great mission, my effort is currently chugging it's way up to Youtube!

[]NTRUDER]

-Ziggy-;2053802']:dozingoff: I'm posting this at 2:30am my time, I must have been hypnotized by the frog! :rolleyes: :D

Close Air Support - gameplay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-vjILme00

The best music :)
Nice flying too!

[sxp2high]

Wow, this is hard! Great mission, but I think I had better learn to fly properly before I have to shoot as well!
Thanks... and yeah, that's what i thought. But after a few rounds of playing it you get better at shooting and flying at the same time... :)



-Ziggy-;2054024']Imagine air being slowly let out of a balloon, the sound it makes... FPDR :D

Well it's a bit confusing that the units are not complaining about friendly fire like in ArmA ...


So, i wrote that myself using Event Handlers. Will be included in the next update:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb367/truBTK/checkfire.jpg

:thumbsup:

[Jedra]

Here's my effort...

W_LAgkrOBhU

Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_LAgkrOBhU) if the embed doesn't work!

[sxp2high]

Nice! :)

I see you guys are constantly moving, which is generally a good thing.

My style is a bit different though, i usually go into hover (preferably behind a hill or something) and observe the area. Once i spotted something i go for an attack run, then back to cover, hover and repeat. (Maybe i'll make a video too)

More easy to evaluate the situation and spot targets that way, especially infantry groups are hard to see while moving and focusing on the heli controls.

On the down side i'm an easy target while hovering and there is not always good cover present in the AO. (Like in your video - all flatland).


Just used to that style from countless hours of Apache/Viper/Cobra flying in ArmA... :D

[Jedra]

I tried the hover approach, but in the terrain I got it was suicide! The friendly helo didn't last very long - and it didn't succumb to friendly fire like some ;-)

EDIT ----> sxp2High, I keep meaning to ask what you use for recording radio communications. I have tried a few (admittedly free) voice to text apps and they don't sound as good as the ones that you produce even with editing in sounjd software.

[Orford]

video removed due to copyright, did you use some music? Any chance or a new upload.


edit: 20 seconds later it works. Ty.

[Jedra]

video removed due to copyright, did you use some music? Any chance or a new upload.


edit: 20 seconds later it works. Ty.

Yeah - I forgot my in game music would breach copyright somewhere. I got an email about it from youtube, but they seem to still be allowing it. Perhaps EMI think Meatloaf needs the publicity! They advertise the album on iTunes next to it so I guess that's fair!

[sxp2high]

what you use for recording radio communications

The sounds in CAS are from ArmA 2 OA. In the "dubbingradio_e" is a ton of radio sounds. ;)

I just merged them together and slightly edited them... I'm using Magix Video deluxe MX, which has an preset radio audio effect, to make voices sound more radio like.

Two other tts sites i now of:
http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php
http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php

Hope that helps a bit.

[Derbysieger]

Yeah - I forgot my in game music would breach copyright somewhere. I got an email about it from youtube, but they seem to still be allowing it. Perhaps EMI think Meatloaf needs the publicity! They advertise the album on iTunes next to it so I guess that's fair!

yeah here in germany almost every video including some music isn't available. No problem for me though - I just use a proxy^^

[Jedra]

The sounds in CAS are from ArmA 2 OA. In the "dubbingradio_e" is a ton of radio sounds. ;)

...

Hope that helps a bit.

Yeah that's great thanks. I'm using Logic Pro and Soundbooth so I now have all the tools needed without having to buy a licence for a 'good voice'. Cheers.

[4 IN 1]

Oh I hate Meatloaf! Deep Purple would be better choose IMO:p

[Jedra]

Oh I hate Meatloaf! Deep Purple would be better choose IMO:p

I'm not a big fan, I just thought that Bat out of Hell would be appropriate for my first helicopter attack mission!! It seemed to work as previous attempts ended in disaster! Perhaps something for the Army Air Corps to think about!

[Derbysieger]

First of: Very nice mission I enjoyed playing it!

But one thing is really bugging me:
With enemy AI on expert I have absolutely no chance to finisch that mission. When I don't manage to destroy a vehicle on the first run I'm almost certainly dead. And there are a lot of vehicles. In one attempt there were 2 or 3 BMP2s and 5 or 6 offroads. Way too many for 14 Hydra rockets. Especially because you can't fire one Hydra at a time. It's always two (BIS please don't do this in Arma 3 again!). The guns are too unreliable with the deadly accurate vehicle-AI.

On normal I have no problem at all, it's almost too easy that way.

[jibemorel]

You might want to adjust skillEnemy & precisionEnemy values (both set to 1 on expert) located in your C:\Users\username\Documents\TKoH\userprofile. For example I kept skillEnemy=1 but decreased precisionEnemy to 0.6. Otherwise for sure they will headshot you in the dark 1 kilometers away with an Ak74.

[Derbysieger]

I know that. It's just the way I use to play Arma 2. Not possible here. Probably because flying is much more difficult^^

[sxp2high]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm still trying to find the right balance, to make it challenging and somewhat possible to beat... I agree, it is a lot more difficult than flying assault missions in ArmA.

I was struggling myself at the beginning, but after quite some rounds of training i'm now able to beat the mission most of the time.


Please bear in mind that the mission will have a different difficult level each time, due to the randomness.


Let me explain that further:

1. The number of overall friendly and enemy units is different. Sometimes it's 20 vs 30, sometimes it's 20 vs 50. So, the distraction and support from the ground is not always the same.

2. 55% Chance, that a friendly heli is cycling the AO. If he's there, it is a great relief for you, since he is good at killing anything and drawing attention away from you.

3. The number of enemy vehicles is min. 4, and max. 8. The chance for a BMP spawning is ~60% lower than for spawning a Jeep.


So... if you have 2 or 3 BMPs driving around and 5 or 6 Jeeps, you almost reached the maximum difficult level the mission is able to provide to you. Unlucky! ;)

[Panther353]

I downloaded the mission. I created an AddOns folder in my Documents\Take On Helicopters folder. I fired up the game and went to Singleplayer Challenges and it is not showing. What did I miss?

[Derbysieger]

That's not how it works. You might want to use a mod folder in your installation directory or put it in the AddOns folder but I don't recommend the latter.
http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Mission_Export#Addon_Format

[OMAC]

Whew. After hours of frustration and seat-of-my-pants flying on Expert with kb/mouse:

http://thumbnails67.imagebam.com/16677/bec05a166766206.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/bec05a166766206)

Maintenance complete. AFTER I had completed desperate CAS task:

http://thumbnails27.imagebam.com/16677/9a20df166766213.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/9a20df166766213)

Here is how CAS task ended for me. Grand total of opfor NOT taken out by light heli armament: ~8.

http://thumbnails59.imagebam.com/16677/a16ea0166769062.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/a16ea0166769062)

Second time through, starting from autosave on same mission:

http://thumbnails42.imagebam.com/16678/631e4a166777770.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/631e4a166777770)

Second CAS ending the same; prone, m4a1s hot, opfor toast. Grand total of opfor NOT taken out by light heli armament: 2.

http://thumbnails64.imagebam.com/16678/1b3ebc166777807.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/1b3ebc166777807)

After firefight, remaining blufor g-2-g in up-armored HMMWV, happy indeed that we came to save their ass:

http://thumbnails67.imagebam.com/16678/fdd308166777797.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/fdd308166777797)

The mine site, safe once again:

http://thumbnails64.imagebam.com/16678/e32c46166777803.jpg (http://www.imagebam.com/image/e32c46166777803)

The 4 (to 8 ?? :mad:) vehicles can be handled, but use up most, if not all of your hydras. The issue for me is the ~50 ground troops who can barely be seen from above, cannot be targeted using TAB, cannot be distinguished from allied troops from the air when they are near the base, and invariably make you run out of ammo. Not fun. Killing often running, single men with a chopper minigun is a form of torture, especially on expert.

The cloudy weather resulted in very dark conditions that rendered the ground forces nearly invisible from the air unless my game brightness was increased almost to max.

And the FOB is too far away to rearm without the opfor wiping out the pinned-down troops, right? So once you run out of ammo, you are totally screwed, unless you land, get out, and take them on with your m16 or partially disabled hummers or technicals at the mine. Once, I ran out of ammo, landed and killed about 30 opfor with my m16 and they kept on coming. They sneak up on you from all directions. I eventually got wasted.

When I finally completed the CAS task, I had run out of all ammo, landed under fire, went prone, and took out about 7-8 opfor foot mobiles about 200m away with my m4a1. I ordered my copilot to disembark, and he finally helped me by taking out the last ofpor as I was reloading. :cool:

The key is to protect the blufor at the mine by wasting the incoming forces before they reach the mine. The more of them are preserved, the longer you have to kill all incoming opfor. One time I nailed the armor and technicals but not before they killed about 10-15 blufor at the mine. That meant that it was impossible to complete the CAS task, as the waves and waves and waves of incoming foot mobile opfor would eventually kill them and fail the task NO MATTER WHAT mayhem I created with my chopper minigun.

Some suggestions:

1) make autosave no more than 3km from mine to save time
2) reduce number of foot mobile opfor
3) make FOB no greater than 8-10 km from mine, as otherwise it is impossible to perform heli maintenance and return in time so save blufor troops. The way it is now, maintenance trips will never happen, so references to such maintenance procedures are misleading and a waste of time.
4) consider having a AI-flown, additional light heli fly in with you to take care of business (or make it an option - never seen anything like that before in an A2 mission :cool:)
5) As you mentioned earlier, add sorely needed Event Handlers for blue-on-blue fire.
6) to get a checkmark in Challenges List after successful completion, add a doneKeys statement to description.ext file, something like:
doneKeys[] = {"btk_close_air_support_key"};
In the mission folder add a line to the ___.sqf file for full mission completion before the line 'endmission "end1";' to activate the key:
activateKey "btk_close_air_support _key";
7) It's probably not possible, but thermal imaging goggles would be totally cool for this mission so you could more easily spot those foot mobiles!

The above lines are just approximations using A2-style editing. I am not familiar with the ToH editing templates (yet). Perhaps Gaia could provide you with exact syntax.

Needless to say, the mission is intense. Thank you, sxp2high. As the shots of my two completions show, running out of ammo with no real possibility of rearming is an issue (with that many foot mobiles), but is surmountable via good 'ol A2 CO-style ground combat!

[OMAC]

Here's my effort...



Jedra,

Nice gameplay! However, that is the worst music I have ever heard in my entire life. :eek: Jesus? Angels? Revelation? Over and over again? Holy mackerel, is that bad. Thank the stars for the mute button! I would suggest removing the music and just have the awesome in-game sounds! A2 = WAR. Jesus = peace. :)

[sxp2high]

Wow, what a post... Even though you seem to be a bit frustrated, that was fun to read...
Your report in one word would be FUBAR, i guess. :D

http://xbradtc.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/fubar3ql.jpg

Great suggestions there, and i feel your pain regarding the infantry spotting. I'll see if i can do anything to make that easier, because that's not just the case when it's cloudy.

You are referring to the "mine" but bear in mind that the mission is located at a different spot each time you start it.

But that doesn't mean that i cannot move the FOB closer to the AO, wherever that is. Great Idea.

You surely motivated me to make another update for the mission. Thanks!

[sxp2high]

I just taught the squad how to mark enemy positions with smoke grenades:

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb367/truBTK/smoke.jpg

:cool:

[OMAC]

Nice! Looks cool.

[sxp2high]

Thanks.

I had to create it as particle effect, since there are no smoke grenades in Take On. First time i really tried to create a particle effect, so I'm still tweaking it a bit.

But it looks good and improves the gameplay of the mission a lot - no more searching for barely visible men. At least it gives you a general idea where the last known position was. The smoke will be created randomly from time to time.

Also, the FOB is not static anymore, it will be created near the task, wherever that might be. Also a great improvement. I can now use the whole map, that's 63 possible positions instead of 34.

Thanks again for your input!


I'm also changing the mission to be MP (dedicated) compatible. It will be for 4 players (2 choppers).

Anyone tried "take control" as co pilot yet, in MP?

New update will be out in a few days. :thumbsup:

[nosecone]

For some reason I don't have and fire power. The right info screen tells me I have ammo but I can't seem the fire anything.The mouse scroll wheel doesn't seem to show any fire options?


Rhys