GandalfTheCray
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Posts posted by GandalfTheCray
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For those of you interested in learning how to fly in the advanced flight model, I've written some notes below and made a short demonstration video to show you some of the stuff I'm talking about. It's a steep learning curve but it's also incredibly rewarding. Arma 3's advanced flight model offers probably the best simulation I've found so far of actual rotor-wing flight, and while it isn't quite the real thing, it gets stuff right that other simulators don't.
For those of you that are completely new to the advanced flight model, the key difference is that the main rotor now generates torque. The torque of the main rotor causes the helicopter to spin in the same direction, and if you want to fly in a straight line, you have to cancel out the induced rotation (hence why the tail rotor is called the "anti-torque" rotor).
To avoid confusion below, I will refer to "throttle" and "power" as "collective". But collective and throttle aren't actually the same thing -
- Collective is a flight control that adjusts the angle of the main rotor to generate lift, also increasing aerodynamic drag and therefore reducing rotor speed, or RPM.
- Throttle is the main engine power and affects rotor RPM.
In old helicopters, you'd have to carefully adjust the throttle to match the collective's setting so that the rotor RPM didn't reach dangerously low or high levels. However, in modern helicopters (and in Arma helicopters), you don't control the throttle. You control the collective and a governor automatically adjusts the throttle to maintain an appropriate rotor RPM.
Before venturing into the advanced flight model any deeper, I would suggest you get yourself a set of flight controls - some sort of analogue throttle control, a joystick and generic rudder pedals. It is possible to fly in the AFM with mouse & keyboard but the learning curve is much steeper, your movements will be sloppy and you'll find that building muscle memory takes weeks and months rather than days.
Your first challenges are going to be maintaining a hover, navigating taxiways and flying straight and level. All of these rely on building muscle memory with your feet, allowing you to correct the helicopter's axial rotation with an appropriate level of sensitivity in the anti-torque rotor. Note that, if you increase collective, the torque generated by the main rotor increases - so you have to apply more corrective pedal at a high collective than you would at a lower collective. In the video at the end of this post, look at how much the helicopter banks when flying straight and level, and compare that to how much the helicopter banks when taking off with full collective. The banking in this case is the amount of correction needed to counter the main rotor's torque.
Don't worry about landing until you've mastered the more basic flight controls. If you learn the basics first then landing will become much easier.
When conducting a landing in the AFM, it's much the same as in the standard flight model - drop collective, nose up, bleed off speed, gently touch the ground. But there's some further complications...
- Ground Effect. This occurs when you're very low to the ground - the main rotor creates a bouncy cushion of air between the ground and the main rotor, as the air being thrust into the ground doesn't have anywhere to go. Ground Effect is actually your friend most of the time, it allows you to take off with less throttle and slightly cushions your landing at the critical point just before you touch down. But if you don't remember to take it into account, it'll be your worst enemy.
- Vortex Ring State (VRS). VRS occurs when you descend in a straight line without any lateral speed. The rotors descend into their own turbulent air and struggle to generate lift. The worst part of VRS is that the instinctive reaction is to increase collective, but this actually makes the situation worse (exact results depending on power-weight ratio). A helicopter in VRS will experience pronounced wobbling (like a magnitude 6 earthquake) and will move very unpredictably. To get out of VRS, you need to drop collective and nose forward to get out of the turbulent air. You'd better hope you're more than 30ft above the ground if this happens!
And here's the video - some demonstrations and some useful knowledge to have.
Video Bookmarks:
- Rotor RPM - 0:26
- Vortex Ring State - 2:12. VRS looks different in vanilla Arma, ACE must be doing something here.
- Autorotation - 4:12
- Ground Effect - 5:31
- Traffic Pattern - 6:49
- Free Flight - 12:15
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Version: Gauntlet 53_114
Mission: Kerama Islands
Bug: AI take over after player disconnects / re-slots
Description: Instead of the player dying and the body despawning, AI takes control of the player after the player returns to the lobby. Happened on three occasions at base when people from Alpha returned to lobby.
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Hey Eagle - I can't answer for sure - but the authentication cookie contains a session ID that changes per login. See screenshots attached.
I'm assuming that the second session ID is invalidated or (at least) subjected to more stringent inactivity checks once you log in on a new device.
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On 05/06/2017 at 4:40 PM, Lindi said:
You are now officially my hero, I will install this as soon as I get home!
I cannot count the times when I've missed with various types of launchers and you have been there to save my bacon!EDIT: Is there any way to maybe spawn a live enemy vehicle via the crate? Static targets and ranging is all good and quite helpfull. But it does not simulate the stress of ranging and firing when in live contact.
I'll add this via the scroll menu in a new version, along with a few other things. I can make the player character invincible with effects like suppression & weapon sway still being a factor?
Thinking something like a new area where an enemy vehicle of your choice is patrolling around a town and you have to hit it (either from a nearby hill or CQB)?
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Third person because, well, first person would give you an epileptic fit
What happened before I started recording:
1) A guy ejected from the heli and landed on top of a guy who was in the middle of fast roping
2) I get the red screen effect (like when you're in a jet being upside down for too long)
3) The red screen effect dissipates and we launch into an unstable low earth orbit
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Got the pilot's perspective of this - will upload here tonight when I'm done with work
i wasnt recording at the start but managed to catch what was happening before control was regained
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1 minute ago, McKillen said:
air burst
Yes, will definitely add this at some point! Some hovering helis, some helis that follow a set patrol path, and some UAZs/GAZs that are behind cover but you can airburst from the side or above
Could make them Opfor helis, as long as I make sure they have no ammunition and set combat state to careless?
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Hi all
Recently on AWE there's been a few people saying things along the lines of "damn, I need practice with the AT4".
Attached to this post is a mission file containing five AT firing ranges:
- One on flat ground in the salt flats,
- One on top of a hill shooting down,
- One at the bottom of a hill shooting up,
- An airburst range, and finally...
- A live-fire range where you can choose from a set of limited equipment and engage targets that WILL fire back at you. There will be infantry scattered throughout a town and the surrounding area, and the town will contain IFVs, APCs and an MBT.
You can teleport to each of the ranges using the scroll wheel menu, and there's a few resupply crates at each. Practice your skills with the AT4, M72, RPG-7, RPG-26, SMAW and MAAWS at distances ranging from 100m to 1.2km and at varying angles of elevation.
The file is unbinarized so you can easily tweak the .sqf to your heart's content.
Step-by-step instructions (if you don't know how to run the mission file):
1) Download and unzip the file below.
2) Copy the unzipped version into your Arma 3 "missions" directory for your character's profile. For me, this is in Documents\Arma 3 - Other Profiles\GandalfTheCray\missions.
3) Boot up Arma with the AWE modset and launch into the Eden Editor (any map).
4) Click "Open", select "Missions" from the left-hand box and you should find "ATRange".
5) Open ATRange and launch in singleplayer using the button in the bottom right of the editor!
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I did a thing.
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Hi again Theronas
43 minutes ago, Theronas said:So my question here is:
First i need to get a range, which doesnt always show or work.
I then have to get out the range card to see what i need to set on the scope.
I then need to adjust the scope.
How can all this be done the moment the team comes under attack, or a target needs to be taken out asap?
An experienced marksman will be able to estimate ranges and zero accordingly - the answer here is that you'll pick it up with practice. As a tip, if you're running around with your squad, zero to 300 or 400 metres. That's the range at which most engagements seem to take place. If you come under fire, shoot at an enemy and observe the bullet's impact with the ground - for example, if it lands slightly below, press page up a couple of times.
After a while, you'll become more familiar with what corrections you need to make at what time; just bear in mind that the actual settings you apply to your scope depend on the weapon and also the temperature.
52 minutes ago, Theronas said:So i go out on a mission again with a team, and look there, few hours later, i come back to base, with 0 actual hits on targets
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I wouldn't have been able to hit anything either, there was an 18 km/h crosswind
53 minutes ago, Theronas said:I would love to also try the vortex role, but before I take a vortex slot on AWE and become fudder, is there anything I need to know (compared to the normal public servers) when flying? Is there any difference? Any surprises or extra knowledge needed? I don't wanna jump in blind and get my team killed in mid air)...
You need to be communicating with your command element over long-range radio, and if flying CAS, you need to stick to your rules of engagement. Suggest you jump into a co-pilot slot when there's an experienced and willing volunteer in the pilot slot
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- BloodInTheSand and fir_nev
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- BenjaminHL, GhostDragon and Lindi
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Another great guide Blood.
Curiosity question - did you try shooting at the top-side of tanks? Often, AI tanks expose super squishy roof armour by climbing up hills in front of you.
I cooked a T-34/85 with a MAAWS HE into the top-side of the engine block at the rear.
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9 hours ago, Lost Bullet said:
I have to confess that I'm making this comment at the moment you started to patch yourself after the first mortar, and I'm doing that just to comment:
TOURNIQUETS! Always apply Tourniquets to limbs and than start patching, as a Medic you should know that
Now back to the rest of the movie...I plead guilty - I figured that out 20 seconds later when I realised there was 2 other heavy casualties (as you will have seen)
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Pvt. @BloodInTheSand survives three (3!) 82mm mortar strikes, cooks off a BTR with a frag grenade, and gets run over by a BMP. He made it out alive.
Featuring @IOnceWasATeddy, @Arkod, @hobnob11 et al.
Lots of explosions and girly screaming.
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Don't worry about it Cebi - I could improve my graphics settings for Invade and Annex servers but then I would have to tone them down again for anything else (PvP servers for example - having 60 frames per second is a huge advantage when most people have 20-30)
Object draw distance is set to 1625 with shadows turned off & standard particle / terrain quality. And yes I'm running 64-bit with 32GB of RAM
Edit: I don't run Arma from my SSD, it's too full of other stuff
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Today, I expose the resident of Altis that is responsible for 50% of all helicopter pilot deaths throughout the island - the monster which has become known as the CSAT Ninja Tree.
As powerful as Bruce Lee, and more stealthy than a viper.....
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5 minutes ago, fir_nev said:
Superb setup there. How much for those flight controls?
Got them off Amazon a few days ago, £165 / ~$205 for the package (more expensive if you buy them individually).
They're pretty solid, lots of action buttons - a slightly cheaper alternative to the high-end Saitek stuff.
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Just got my hands on these puppies... (rudder / anti-torque pedals under the desk)
You'll catch me on EU1 or EU2, in one of two states:
- Flying like a sensible person in the advanced flight model; or
- Flying like an epileptic bat in the standard flight model
Apologies to anybody with OCD for the cables.
PC specs:
- CPU - AMD FX4350 [email protected], [email protected] (had to get watercooling for this :P)
- Mobo - old piece of crap (updating this soon, for one with an Intel socket)
- RAM - 32GB DDR4 HyperX Fury
- GPU - GTX 1070 6GB (with core & memory OC'ed via aftermarket software)
- A 250GB SSD, 3TB main HDD and of course all the Razer fanboy accessories...
- fir_nev and SkullCollector
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Advanced Flight Model with Uncle Gandalf
in Enhanced Server Information And Discussion
Posted
@joaopedrocastella I'm using the Thrustmaster Flight Control System (set of three), although I prefer the Saitek gear if you can afford to spend a little more. They function pretty much the same but they feel more like the part.