JJ Cakes

Discord link is on front page of the forum, maybe not super obvious:

Version 1.0.3 is up, and once again I killed the previous mission on Steam so there's a new link in the first post. At least I know what causes it, it's if I press "Enter" 2X in the change log window in Steam. That's some good design. Object view distance is now set by the View DIstance parameter which seems to help with distance haze. All helos now have an explosive charge in inventory, RESPAWN doesn't work, if you want to use a new helo just blow up the current one and you'll be transported back to the airfield. ACE isn't supported, expect bugs if you have it loaded.

@Schubz I assume you're running ACE since you said you went unconscious? It's weird because you should be invincible but I'm not sure how ACE works with that, I didn't anticipate people running ACE. I think I just need to make sure there's a respawn point for BLUFOR and that the ammo truck works whether you have ACE running or not. I know the fuel truck works without ACE interact. And thanks for the feedback!

Very nice!

Ahh, now I understand what's going on. In the scenario your character is set as invincible and if you totally destroy a helicopter it should automatically respawn you and the helo back at base. Now there's issues with this like if you lose your main rotor to a tree on landing and you repair the helo but the tree keeps destroying the main rotor. I'll take a look and see if I can fix this, but the workaround is to just restart the mission if something goes sideways, it's not like you're losing any progress. And thanks for helping me test the scenario! I went through half a tank of gas on the Blackhawk and the AI behaved the entire time so hopefully that's fixed. If anyone is having problems running the updated mission since the Steam incident, locally host a new multiplayer mission on Altis and you should see the mission available in there. Thanks to @Damo3D for figuring that out, I'd just been looking in SP scenarios and not seeing it.

Just tested by uhmm... making the first unit to board the helicopter get real sleepy, and the mission still worked, so what I thought was a bug was not.

I think it's fixed, a hard landing gave me a clue what was happening: (Read somewhere in the docs that AI won't get in inoperative vehicles if ordered to do so) The squad was getting the Get In command after being ejected from the helicopter and it turned out a script "loadSquad.sqf" was getting called when it shouldn't. Found out a global state variable "ferrying" was getting stepped on. Did 4 or 5 trips and the AI behaved so fingers crossed that issue is put to bed.

Scenario update on Steam. I believe I have the bug fixed where soldiers would get back in the helicopter after you drop them off breaking the mission. They're no longer deleted on landing. After hopefully figuring this out I don't know how the scenario worked in the first place. Tested in MP and SP and so far so good. If @Bomer or @Schubz would be so kind to give it a try, much appreciated. The LZ Radius parameter in MP wasn't used, the radius was hard-coded and this is fixed. Fixes the bug where if a squad spawned close enough to the airfield at scenario start the LZ would get marked as completed and you'd lose the waypoint to go pick them up. @Damo3D has reported he can't get the latest version of the scenario and I have the problem where even though I'm subscribed I get the old one if I run it through the "Scenarios" menuitem in SP/MP and not from the editor. Since the original was deleted by Steam there's no unsubscribe so I need to figure out where the old scenario lives on HD (probably using the scenario ID which I don't know now) as to advise how to kill it with fire. On the list... Outstanding bugs: There's a bug where the scenario just stops working after awhile and I believe I know the cause, if I'm correct it happens when a soldier who has already boarded the helicopter gets killed before the rest of the team gets in. Will need some AW SQF Gods help with the SQF syntax to fix this.

I assume the new template requires the AhoyWorld mod?

Yeah, I updated the mission in the first post but for people who downloaded the first one something weird is going on because Steam deleted the first one so there's no way to unsubscribe from it. So now I have that to deal with. I think I might know what was wrong with the first iteration of the mission but it requires refactoring some code to fix it which I've started on. And thanks for the feedback Shubz!

There's a new version of the mission on Steam, I tried some suggestions by Whigital and Midnight to keep the cargo from getting back in the helicopter but no luck so they still get deleted on landing. Added a new parameter to MP "View Distance" so you can get rid of the limited view distance haze in MP.

OK, tried a bunch of fixes for the AI getting out of the helo to no avail, so they still get deleted. Added a new parameter "View Distance" so if you launch in MP you don't have to deal with the "Fog of war". Still issues (Damo thanks for your help) for people who subscribed to the previous mission and can't update (Steam bullshittery?) and am looking into it.

Oh, I didn't notice that somehow. That might be a clue as to what is borked with the original mission. Midnight sent me some crazy SQF debugging video by Dred Miller and I'm working on getting my setup working with that. You can connect Microsoft Code to a running instance of Arma using a couple Arma mods. Here's the link for anyone interested:

Important Read!!! I somehow messed up and created a new scenario and ended up deleting the previous one on Steam, so the new subscribe link is in the first post. You can unsubscribe from the old one and subscribe to the new version. I think the scenario is "fixed", I noticed that the AI were hopping back in the chopper shortly after insert which I think was screwing up the mission and this was happening in both single and multiplayer. I tried setting "allowGetIn" to false on all the AI but same thing. So now they get deleted on successful insertion. I didn't touch that code, but yeah, Arma. As per @Bomer I added an ammo truck at the main AO. If @Schubz would be so kind, would you give this latest iteration a try?

OK, if anyone better at scripting than me (everyone) cares to help, this is what I've found out: In Eden, if you double click on the pilot, you'll see that there's 103 LZ's in the call to initPlayer.sqf which ends up in _lzCount and that matches the count of all the LZ's I've put down. In createObj.sqf I was debugging using "hint" lzLoc, and when the scenario quits working, I get no debug for that variable. That's called from landingComplete.sqf and I don't see anywhere it would exit without calling createObj.sqf. I get the message "Landing Complete" from landingComplete.sqf, but I don't get the hint for lzLoc, it's like it's not getting called. I did this launching the scenario in multiplayer, and I turned off hot LZ's and AA threat and the scenario bugs out after 2 or 3 landings. Obviously you'll need to unpack the PBO if you want to help with this, and sorry for sucking at Arma SQF.

OK, I can totally recreate this, and I put some debug in the SQF file that spawns the new LZ and it's like it's not being called. I'm probably going to need to call in the scripting gods for help because nothing in the code looks weird.

I added more LZs and I wonder if I broke something. But it's not uncommon with the original mission where it will just stop creating new LZs but it usually takes more than 3 to 4 times before that happens. I'll take a look and see if I can figure it out. (Spoiler: I'm no Whigi)

Anyone watch Our Flag Means Death? Could almost be a documentary about this campaign. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11000902/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Sounds like you're already an accomplished pilot, but if you want some offline practice in all the transport helicopters available on EU#1/I&A3 plus pretty much everything we use in modded game nights I modded a scenario just for that purpose: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2761092427

Oh, if Core Staff has a problem with me associating this scenario with AhoyWorld let me know and I'll happily change the description on Steam.

Check the main post, the scenario has been hosted on Steam and those 6 vanilla choppers have been added to the scenario. Let me know if any of them are bugged. And by "bugged" I mean they can't be repaired using the scrollwheel option or they don't respawn if you crash them. (I didn't try and fix the bugs in the original scenario)

To-Do: I'm going to add in the rest of the vanilla helicopters available on I&A3 because why not? Here's what's missing, let me know if I missed anything: Mohawk Huron Taru (Assuming I can equip troop pod in editor) Hellcat Orca Kajman

Updated version available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y05RpQpgMDPIYJC0FfPg7DqVHgejj6M6/view?usp=sharing Change log: * Added Vanilla Blackfish and X'ian VTOLs. They're by the big runway so you have room to do rolling takeoffs/landings. * Fixed HT48 so it is repairable and respawns on destruction * Added around 30 new LZs. (Did this awhile ago, never released.) Reminder: If you start this as a multiplayer scenario there is a "PARAMETERS" option in the upper right corner where you can adjust things like time-of-day, chance of AA, chance of hot LZ, size of LZ and smoke/chemlights.

I'll add both those in!

If we end up going the route of players always needing to bring explosives to complete objectives that require blammo, I'd suggest default Prowler/Hunter load outs have 2 - 4 charges in them.