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rip31st

ArmA fixed wing "plane" class and turrets...

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I know the engine doesn't allow for it but is there some code or a way around it?

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Not yet, but maybe one day some scripters do something like MCAR in OFP for this problem... smile_o.gif

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Guest RKSL-Rock
Not yet, but maybe one day some scripters do something like MCAR in OFP for this problem... smile_o.gif

Not exactly true...

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Well you have to be fair Rock. It is not yet released, is it?

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IT looks like it uses two vehicles or instances correct? One player aims at the target with the laser and other other player fires. I see the laser pointer works good on the drone. Its there a way to make it fire though? And can you add multiple instances of the same turret on one aircraft?

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Guest RKSL-Rock
IT looks like it uses two vehicles or instances correct? One player aims at the target with the laser and other other player fires. I see the laser pointer works good on the drone. Its there a way to make it fire though? And can you add multiple instances of the same turret on one aircraft?

PM UNN, its best to ask him to explain properly.

From previous discussion with UNN a lot will depend on the actual functionality you want to apply. If you just want 50cal turrets on a B-17 then its easier/simpler to implement than a fully FLIR turret with laser tracking as shown in the video.

We're just coming to the end of a few projects in RKSL and pretty soon we're hoping to pick up the Turret system again so we should have working examples soon. If not a more detailed explanation.

@Q - he didnt ask for a released script just if there was a way around the turret issue.

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I've created a FLIR laser turret, as have a few others. Its actually quite possible but its heavy with scripting and MP functionality is problematic.

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@Q - he didnt ask for a released script just if there was a way around the turret issue.

Now you are unfair once more...

Redor told him the sollution might exist in future, but not yet.

Then you told Redor he is wrong because you have a sollution. You adressed what Redor said.

Then Q corrects you and say you're not done yet.

Q asked you to be fair with Redor IMO. Missunderstanding was yours.

PS. I think Redors answer was competent and full. I don't see a reason anyone posted anything afterwards, starting with you. This is not a chatroom. I have impression many threads grow really big this way...

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Well no need to make an issue out of it.

Everyone would be happy to see this problem solved.

So we will hope it will be one day.

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Yeah, actually we could have just ignored his post and there would be no issue. No need to argue, even if some people like it.

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Guest RKSL-Rock
I've created a FLIR laser turret, as have a few others.  Its actually quite possible but its heavy with scripting and MP functionality is problematic.

We've had some lag and JIP issues but so far we've really only done basic MP testing.  But compared to one other turret system ive tried UNN's solution seems to be a good prospect.

@ Sep. 20 2008,13:11)]Yeah, actually we could have just ignored his post and there would be no issue. No need to argue, even if some people like it.

I have to ask what exactly is your problem?

Not yet, but maybe one day some scripters do something like MCAR in OFP for this problem... smile_o.gif

Not exactly true...

Reador said no one had made one yet.  I pointed out that we had.

You are the one posting pointless opinions of someone else’s post.  You add nothing and then post high handed comments.  If anyone is wrong here its you.

Grow up and stop reading stuff into topics that just arent there.

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I am wondering why this important project is not made public

to let other top scripters help out?

While I can understand that time is limited and priorities shift,

I really find it hard to understand why people try not to cooperate

more. Almost all big and important projects are made in private

and try to do the big leap in one go.

I don't think it is a good way to go, yet maybe that's just me.

.. well after all it took software industry a long time to understand

the pros and cons too.

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Guest RKSL-Rock
I am wondering why this important project is not made public

to let other top scripters help out?

Partly because it’s heavily embedded in our own specific models right now.  But mostly due to the fact it’s not at a stage where UNN or I feel happy releasing it publically since in its current state and we don't want to get flamed to death for releasing buggy and unfinished work.

Once we have a decent fully working concept all the information will be made available.  But please don't imply we are with holding "important" stuff when we are not.

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Just a thought could it be done by proxies, like turrets were done on some of the old OFP ships?

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Quote[/b] ]I know the engine doesn't allow for it but is there some code or a way around it?

Creating proxy turrets has been around since OFP, as a second best work around for certain vehicle classes. MCar was more about adding additional weapon classes to wheeled vehicles, that already have working turrets. The method we adopted for the UAV is based on the proxy turrets I did for CSJ's Armoured Troop Carriers in OFP.

It does require multiple objects and scripting, but nothing so demanding that you can't use it to a reasonable extent. MP is the only really issue, if the server starts to desynch then your going to hit problems. But that can be said about any MP mission that starts to desynch, with or without scripted addons.

Quote[/b] ]I am wondering why this important project is not made public to let other top scripters help out?

Is it that important? Rip31st is the first person I've seen who appears to be serious about pursuing the concept, rather than just making a casual wish for it. But anyway, the results from the MP tests (they were just scripts to test the concept) we did with the UAV, were better than expected. But there are a few things to take into consideration:

- There was no real load on the server. Just two of us testing the addon.

- The UAV flies at relatively slow speeds.

- It's just a two man vehicle, one pilot and one gunner.

- The UAV turret does not fire visible\physical projectiles.

The possibility is there, but the limitations are so far unknown. We along with lots of other addon makers, no doubt, have a long list of ideas and projects waiting to be started. Rock already suggest Rip31st PM us regarding these scripts. While it's nice to be able to release addons that are 100% ours, and take whatever credit we deserve. It's not the be all and end all. If someone is genuinely interested in making addons and can benefit from the stuff we are working on. They only have to ask.

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But mostly due to the fact it’s not at a stage where UNN or I feel happy releasing it publically since in its current state and we don't want to get flamed to death for releasing buggy and unfinished work.

Well 2 points:

1) You've just said it is the best script out there, didn't you? Why would it get flamed? Are you taking back that statement?

2) Mandobe first released beta and then worked on rafining it with rest of community.

The first SLX vehicles had various MP problems.

They got some serious stuff done that way. Don't remeber SLX being flamed.

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@Panda[PL]

As fascinating as your dictates are, regarding Addon making. I thought this thread was about proxy turrets rather than your personnel vendettas?

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Guest RKSL-Rock
@ Sep. 20 2008,17:11)]
But mostly due to the fact it’s not at a stage where UNN or I feel happy releasing it publically since in its current state and we don't want to get flamed to death for releasing buggy and unfinished work.

Well 2 points:

1) You've just said it is the best script out there, didn't you? Why would it get flamed? Are you taking back that statement?

2) Mandobe first released beta and then worked on rafining it with rest of community.

The first SLX vehicles had various MP problems.

They got some serious stuff done that way. Don't remeber SLX being flamed.

1) I said it was the best solution that i have seen. To be precise I said it seemed like a good prospect not the "best".

Quote[/b] ]But compared to one other turret system ive tried UNN's solution seems to be a good prospect.

2) Yes but not before having a pretty good working solution first.  We havent reached that stage because we've been focused on making other things and helping other people.

Panda rather than continue to attack me on the public boards why not PM me and tell me what your problem with me is. You seem intent of dragging this thread into a flame war.  Lets sort it out. If not, stop trying to stir up trouble without reason and get on with your life.

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To clarify to me it just sad to see that great projects like

ACE, P85, RKSL, even SLX are being developed in private for such

a long time rather than to get things out earlier to let others

inspect, help improve, give ideas.

Well there are several good examples that it can work different.

At the end of the day its everyone personal decision, yet always

blaming flamers is too cheap response for me.

There was this guy (Mike?) working on the C130 gunship for ages.

He was only waiting for a working turret implementation for planes.

Now a year later we still have none. confused_o.gif

Quality is a good thing. Yet there are different ways to achieve that.

For modding I believe an open development and working

together is the best way.

Anyway so we continue to wait. Patience is not problem here,

still being sad you do allow me, eh wink_o.gif

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Quote[/b] ]There was this guy (Mike?) working on the C130 gunship for ages.

Can you post a link to his thread? Or even better, ask him to PM us if he wants to use our scripts. I for one, do not want to ram my own approach to modding, down someone else’s throat.

Quote[/b] ]Quality is a good thing. Yet there are different ways to achieve that.

Putting quality aside for one minute. There has been more than one occasion when we thought our initial plans would be thwarted by an idiosyncrasy of the Arma engine. This was still cropping up 10 months into developing the Cargo system. It's difficult to explain the trepidation when such things happen, after such an amount of personnel and to a certain degree, public investment crazy_o.gif So it's not always a question of, is it the best it can be. But more, will it do what we originally said it would.

Quote[/b] ]Anyway so we continue to wait. Patience is not problem here, still being sad you do allow me, eh

Not sure what you mean by this. But again, if you have a genuine application for anything we are working on, then just PM us? For the record, what I don't class as genuine is, someone who cares more about their own forum image, being the first to do XYZ or just being curious.

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Guest RKSL-Rock
To clarify to me it just sad to see that great projects like

ACE, P85, RKSL, even SLX are being developed in private for such

a long time rather than to get things out earlier to let others

inspect, help improve, give ideas.

It always looks like that to outsiders.  

From extensive personal experience and by that I mean both in my professional life and 6+ years of modding, having a totally open source project just doesn’t not work.  I agree at various key points its good to get feedback and fresh ideas but while you are developing set projects it becomes very hard to retain any reasonable level of quality and coherence when anyone can jump in and change code and models. Projects need to be controlled and managed properly which is where some people always fail. New ideas do crop up and change directions, that’s to be expected.  But even in huge open source projects like Linux, small groups and teams split off to follow their own goals and work in their own ways.  Not every open source project is “open†or even transparent.  We all work in our own ways.

RKSL has taken time for several reasons. Manpower, free time and because we wanted to make something special, unique and useful.  We’re now reaching the point where we think we can deliver that.  It’s taken 2 years to get to the point where we believe we know the engine well enough and the models and scripts we are producing are good enough to release.

I can’t speak to P85 or SLX but as for ACE; I see part of the problem there as being too much of an open door policy and too little direction and control.  There are too many people involved with little practical management and the scope of ACE just seems to get bigger and bigger every time I read the internal board. Sickboy and the others are trying very hard to get something out but it’s just too much for too few active members to work on effectively.

Well there are several good examples that it can work different.

At the end of the day its everyone personal decision, yet always

blaming flamers is too cheap response for me.

Who is blaming flamers in this thread?

There was this guy (Mike?) working on the C130 gunship for ages.

He was only waiting for a working turret implementation for planes.

Now a year later we still have none.  confused_o.gif

And how is that relevant?  Are you suggesting that he been waiting solely for us?

Quality is a good thing. Yet there are different ways to achieve that.

Different ways to achieve quality?  Different levels of quality certainly.  And of course different people have different ideas of what quality again I’m not sure how relevant that is to this discussion though.

For modding I believe an open development and working

together is the best way.

Frankly I don’t really share that belief 100%.  I believe that small dedicated teams exchanging ideas and plans is the only truly practical way to go.

Anyway so we continue to wait. Patience is not problem here,

still being sad you do allow me, eh  wink_o.gif

You are sad we are making you wait?

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Sorry, I tend to agree with Q .... thats certainly how it seems anyway (and I'm not targeting RKSL).

But im not suggesting there is no support for the community, UNN and guys like him provide great support direct to the forums.

By the same token it can seem 1 sided. I've provided to others chunks of code and demonstration models, and seen little come from it.

But hey, thats not always true ...... the "afterburner bug" seems to be catching on wink_o.gif

And yes, the AB code is not origianlly mine, its just the way I applied it that makes a bit of difference ................ and thats the point.

Share-Learn-Build-Expand.

EDIT: We should simply apply the weight of this Thread and throw it at BI ..... they created the bloody turret inconsitency biggrin_o.gif

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Yay! A BIS Forums flamefest and whine-a-thon! In before the lock!

To those who don't think that the world revolves around themselves, please consider the actual realities of most community projects listed here. We have here quite a pestilent infestation of projects headed by 'experienced managers' actively soliciting designers and artists and [euphemism redacted]'ers. While it is true that much of the vaunted open-source lemming buffet, er I mean free-love-and-coding environment provides read access to large swathes of the unwashed masses, to actually contribute requires vetting by the Dear Leader. The intartubes are a virtual tyranny, and blessings are bestowed by the benevolence of the Dear Leader's at their whim and pleasure.

In many cases, designers may have resources to develop new and wonderful things for the thankless masses, but have not the time, patience, or other resources to hold back the barbarian hordes intent on trampling their works. For that cause, many successful mod teams tend to heed closely to the lessons learned the hard way by older teams such as BAS and go underground. Those who have not heeded the lessons of past history have had their works and reputations dragged through the zombie infested morass of addon hell where incompatible derivative versions forked along each stage of the evolutionary ladder by well-intentioned but impatient third-parties essentially drag the original developer's work to a halt.

Socially, the enthusiasm of the horde is ironically counter to the expressed desires of the same horde. From a technical standpoint, I suppose that much of RKSL and UNN's proposed system may in fact still be open for interpretation and redesign. So if the core is not locked in, could anyone possibly explain how it would be a good idea to create derivative works from an un-set foundation? We'd get a lot more results if they could focus on innovation, instead of maintenance of legacy-mode code.

At the end of the day, ArmA modding is gaming a game. It's just that, nothing more. The most effective mod teams judged by the ability to churn out comprehensive batches of content are those that run like a business and keep things close to avoid nuisance interference. That environment however isn't 'fun' for a lot of other people, so they decline to play that game. Fair enough, but you not liking it doesn't make it any less real.

I have yet to see any evidence of RKSL etc screwing over the community. True, there are insinuations that he has friendly connections to unsavory types such as DeadmeatXM2 and Messiah, both known war criminals and child abusers, but then again the complaints have typically been made by juveniles posting while under the influence of huffed paint that had been stolen from their daddy's garage.

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ShinRaiden: all true, but problem dissapears if you sign your addon.

Allow me to quote Offtime on quality controll of derivative works:"so what, they will end up releasing a shitty addon"(loose translation).

I am an optimist and belive the servers will allow the best addon and dissallow the conflicting derivatives of lower quality.

And if they don't - what do you loose? Someone else is playing with a shitty addon.

Since the mod I use is developed by and for an existing community I doubt they would allow derivative works into server if they were poor and if they were good they would end up in mod, to the enjoyment of people.

So we used to have an opened beta and it didn't hurt anyone.

An open beta/alpha is a great tool for recruiting modders. They can take a look inside WITHOUT ASKING and decide if they want to join the team, or maybe just contribute. They can also produce derivative addons and these might be included if the team decides so without previous approval.

Scubaman3D is a good example.

This is opposed to the "premission" philosophy, where someone has to be a known addonmaker allready to be treated seriously.

I am aswell waiting for ACE public. And I disagree with statement that it is "too wide", it's a total conversion mod, not a minimod centered around aviation or special forces.

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Guest RKSL-Rock

Its interesting how the topic of this debate now switched to “Open source†issues based on Q’s implication that we are withholding something.  There are a few people here that seem to be under the delusion that we’re not willing to share what we know.  Q has already implied exactly that.  That really isn’t the case and I don’t understand where he or Panda has got this idea from.

I have yet to see any evidence of RKSL etc screwing over the community. True, there are insinuations that he has friendly connections to unsavory types such as DeadmeatXM2 and Messiah, both known war criminals and child abusers, but then again the complaints have typically been made by juveniles posting while under the influence of huffed paint that had been stolen from their daddy's garage.

It would appear RKSL is at the core of a “supersecretuberbabyeatingcriminal†conspiracy to rob the community of knowledge.  Seriously someone point to a single post where we say we won’t help anyone.  Or find someone, with the exception of Thunderbird who we (in this case I) have refused to help.  99% of requests for help we have dropped our own projects to help others.  We’ve even spent a large number of hours to give other people samples of things so they can create their own work simply because they asked.  And the 1% we declined was usually because our solution while promising, didn’t work properly or the person asking was a complete tosser and demanded something rather than asked.  

As shinRaiden already pointed out, and I've repeatedly asked why should we release something to the community to "fix" when it isn’t finished?  Q seems to like the idea of the "free-love-and-coding environment" but seems to forget the practicalities.

@ Gnat, I’m all for sharing of ideas and solutions the community couldn't exist without it.  We’ve all been able to learn because of it and I am grateful to those that contribute and I try to return the favour as often as I can.  But why should I drop a part finished project out into the “open source†world before I think it’s ready?  In this community it a way to get abused pretty damn quickly.  Would you release something that you weren’t happy with?

Gnat @ Sep. 21 2008,01:47)]Share-Learn-Build-Expand

Share knowledge – Learn what you can – Build as much as you can – Expand the capabilities.

That’s exactly what we do.  People only need to ask us to help and we do, if we are able. We always have.

@ Panda we aren’t interested in recruiting anyone.  We’re interested in releasing addons that actually work 1st time.  Anything after that we want to work with the community to improve it.  Part of the fun in modding for me at least is seeing how much I can do for myself.  Just because you see something one way doesn’t make “my way of working†any less valid.

@ Panda is this because I corrected something you posted on the JSF thread?

As for ACE.  I’ve sat and watched ACE evolve on the internal forums and Skype chats.  Offered advice where I could and help when asked.  Frankly I don’t have the time to get as fully involved as I’d like but if asked I always help.  But I always questioned the “Feature creep†that seems to grow with each revision.  From what I read yesterday I know Sickboy is fully aware of the problem himself.

@ Sep. 21 2008,11:21)]This is opposed to the "premission" philosophy, where someone has to be a known addonmaker allready to be treated seriously.

Is this how you have been treated then?  You weren’t treated seriously?  

To be frank, I’ve never found that to be the case.  With the exception of a few unpleasant individuals I’ve never been refused help when I asked nor have I refused to help others help when asked properly.

Again being frank (I suspect I maybe Bob or George tomorrow) I'm tired of this "debate" its pointless.  It stems from Q's misunderstanding and assumptions about what i was saying.  And a further assumption about things that really didnt happen or exist.  It's time someone locked this thread.

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