Project Reality Forums

[R-CON]Curry wrote:Rabbit actually wants to introduce DLC's to PR. You want Sbene 2.0? Pay 5 bucks, download it and realize that no server has that DLC running...

Curry.

solidfire93 wrote:quick question :
are we going to see some of there maps in 1.4 ?

Rabbit wrote:No, this is an unofficial map pack.

W.Darwin wrote:BUT WHY?!?

W.Darwin wrote:I understand...

Actually, no not really haha
since 3 of 4 of the map you show are or have been in PR
Could'nt it be possible for the DEV to implement the updated version of the already existing map u made like

Nuijamaa

Sbeneh

Shikotan

And Masirah looks gorgeous man

'[R-DEV wrote:Rhino;2074329']Catapult

The CA (Combined Arms) CATOBAR Catapult code is to put it simply, a weapon fired by a player from a static position on the carrier, which when fired, fires off lots of little invisible rounds, one after the other, going down the length of the "catapult" from the start to end with a slightly delay between firing each one, and then they explode, or rather implode, one after the other down the line, have a negative force which pulls the jet towards the explosion, which quickly picks up speed with coming into contact with each implosion, resulting in it being thrown off the end of the carrier at high speed, high enough for its "wings" to generate its lift even if its engines aren't yet powered up (like in the above video, although you can't see engine throttle in it but the throttle only becomes engaged after launch). It is also worth noting that these implosions do no damage to anything and are only "force objects".

As a quick example to demonstrate this I've replaced the "catapult projectile" with m67 hand grenades so you can clearly see how this works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXEycamV_4M

(You may want to turn your sound down/off for this)

This all works fine in theory but the second biggest gameplay issue with the CA CATOBAR code, that really prevents it working well on a public server IMO, is the fact that it had to be operated from a separate station, which either required a player to sit in it for pretty much the entire game, or like in the video, for there to be a massive delay between firing it and the catapult throwing the aircraft to give the pilot time to get back to his aircraft after activating it himself, assuming no one stole his jet in the mean time and this process would slow take-offs considerably and if it required another player in order to launch your teams jets, could potentially cripple your team...


As such my idea is to take the same basic principle of lots of little implosions, one after the other placed down the length of the catapult BUT to have it triggered by a weapon on the jet itself, removing the requirement of either having another player needed to launch your jet, or having to hop in and out etc with a long delay etc...

Basically instead of a weapon that fires a bunch of projectiles, you instead have an destroyable object at the foot of the catapult, that can NOT be damaged by any weapon, except by the special "Catapult Launch" weapon that only CATOBAR jets have. It is worth noting that this destroyable object will look like the Catapult Shuttle, to give pilots a reference point of where to part their jet and if the catapult has been "reset" and is ready for use. It may also have a small col mesh on it so players can also "feel" when they are "attached to the shuttle" (or more ingame in the right spot to use their "Catapult Launch" weapon):

When this Destroyable Catapult Shuttle Object is destroyed by the "Catapult Launch" weapon, it will immediately set off a chain reaction of implosions down the length of the catapult with a similar result to CA's Catapult code. With it, it would also be good to have a destruction effect of the shuttle running down the length of the catapult, as well as lots of steam being produced, but that isn't a priority.

This destroyable catapult shuttle object will be placed as an Object Spawner in the maps GPO.con with a respawn time of something like 20secs (depending on gameplay ofc but it takes around that time to in r/l to rest a catapult from what I can tell) so the process can easily be repeated by the next jet that wants to use that catapult, and when its respawned you will visually see the shuttle at the start of the catapult again

This means that CATOBAR Jets can only use the catapult from the correct locations and will be able to control the entire process themselves just like any other jet in PR totally controls its take off. Of-course players can get involved in ATC still if they choose, which is something we should encourage as much as possible well IMO to help avoid crashes etc, but the team isn't reliant on it.


Now you may have noticed I didn't go into details on how the "chain reaction" of lots of little implosions going off one after the other will be done via a destroyable object being destroyed as this is one area I'm not 100% on how it is best to do yet. With it done as a weapon its pretty simple since you just have the weapon fire all these rounds at 900 rounds per min or w/e, using separate barrels for each round, which spaces them out and delays each implosion evenly, as you can see in my nade test video above. But you can't do it in the same way as an object exploding so we need to be a little bit creative. There are really two main ways I can think of to doing this:

Option 1: Exploding Particle Effects
I'm unsure if this is at all possible but basically the idea is when the initial dummy dest object is destroyed, is for it to spawn lots of little invisible dummy particle effects after it down the line of the catapult, each with a slightly different time to live setting which the further down the catapult they are, the longer TTL they have, and when their TTL reaches 0 they self destruct, and with them they have an imploding force in the same way the CA Catapult Projectile work, which results in throwing the jet off the end of the carrier. The only thing I'm not sure on is if Particle Effects can have an armour or detonation component, which would allow for a negative force to be applied to the jet when they explode and if they can't then this idea is a no go... Zwilling has said he managed to turn the particles into bundles and make them bleed HP on local but hasn't tried it on dedicated.

Option 2: Chain Explosions / The Domino Effect
The second option is to simply have the initial dummy destroyable object's explosion damage and destroy the next object in the chain, which in turn destroys the next one down the chain etc etc until its reached the end. Its worth noting that only the first dummy destroyable object would be the only one able to be damaged by the Jets "Catapult Launch" weapon and not any of the other destroyable objects down the line.
The problems with this idea is that it "may" have a significant impact on server performance while this chain reaction is going off. I say this because servers experienced some pretty big lag on one of our April Fools maps from ages ago where I stacked a whole load of dest barrels in a massive chain reaction, BUT there was a hell of a lot of these barrels AND the dest effect of these barrels was a dynamic object as well which had its own physics etc and that may have been the root cause of the server lag, rather than the explosions themselves. We would need to test this version to ensure there is no lag from it but its something we need to watch out for. It also has the least control since the time between each object exploding is dependant on when the server detects it was destroyed by the other object, which also could vary depending on server performance?

Option 3: Python Spawned Implosions
The third idea, but the more complex one which would require a python coder to help out, would be to have python monitor the state of the destroyable catapult dummy object, and when its destroyed, spawn in a bunch of dummy objects down the line, one after the other, with a short time to live of a second or less, which then explode and launch the jet off the end of the carrier. I'm not sure how well doing this by python would work but it should be doable.

One of these options at least should work at the very least but if anyone has any other ideas on ways to get this chain implosion effect going post below!



Arresting Cables

The CA (Combined Arms) CATOBAR Arresting code works pretty much the same way as the Catapult Launch code, which is that its a weapon fired by a player from a static position on the carrier, which when fired, fires off lots of little invisible projectiles, down the width of where the arresting cables are. But unlike the Catapult projectiles which blow themselves up after a few seconds, these instead sit there on the deck until a vehicle, travelling above the speed of "5", comes into proximity of them (in the same way how AA missiles work) and when that happens, they then explode, or rather implode, slowing the jet down to a stop, although in the CA code really too quickly etc and also because the speed setting is so low they keep on exploding when the jet is trying to get off of the cables, why you see the jet jolting about for a few seconds before its finally released.

Likt the Catapult Code this all works fine in theory but the single biggest gameplay issue with this code, that really prevents it working well on a public server IMO, is again the fact that it has to be operated from a separate station. But worse than the catapult code, which can be operated by the pilot jumping out of his jet and then running back to it after firing it, has to either be fired before taking off (like SD did in his video), or has to be done by another player before the jet can land. Also because its very likley that your going to have multiple jets in the air, having each jet set the catapult before taking off isn't going to work too well, especially when you have two, possibly 4 catapults to only 1 set of arresting wires... As a result this can cripple your team more than getting your jets in the air in the first place since without someone on the ground setting the traps, there is no way to get your jet back on the deck...


As such my idea is again take the same basic principle of lots of little implosions down the width of the arresting cables, BUT to have them spawned in automatically as an object spawner in pretty much the same way as I'm suggesting we do the Catapult and as such, there will always be arresting cables ready to receive the next jet soon after the other one has landed, depending on the spawn time (takes around 37secs in r/l to reset the Arresting Cables after the last jet landed, but we might want a bit of a shorter time than that ingame).

The main question is what type of object do we spawn and how:

Option 1: GPO Spawning Projectile
I'm unsure if this is even possible but if it is, the basic idea is to spawn invisible dummy projectiles with similar settings to the CA Arresting Projectile which is fired by a player, although have them only affect jets and not choppers (if possible) and have a higher "triggerVictimMinSpeed" so they allow jets to taxi over them without issue etc. But as I said, I don't think its possible to spawn in an actual Projectile via a GPO Object Spawner. If it is then this is probably the best option but if not, will need to look at alternatives.

Option 2: GPO Spawning Destroyable Object
This one is pretty simple enough, you spawn in a destroyable object which when it implodes, slows down the jet and re-spawns shortly after being destroyed. There are really three sub options to this option thou.
Option 2a: If its possible to give a Destroyable Object a "ObjectTemplate.detonation.triggerVictimMinSpeed", have it work in the same way a projectile would, but I don't think this is possible?
Option 2b: Having the object destroyed via coming into contact with the jets wheels, which results in its implosion. Should be easy enough to have a col mesh just above the surface of the runway and have a special material which only the jet wheels will damage. Problem is that taxiing over them may not be possible without setting them off, although only a small issue.
Option 2c: Having the dest object constantly exploding and respawning, via giving it both a short short decay time and respawn time, but this could result in some pretty funky stuff and may be impossible to get the jet out of it after its been "trapped".
Option 2d: Have the landing jet firing a projectile under it when it is on top of the arrest cables, destroys them and they implode, slowing the jet down to a stop. This can either be done by forcing the player to hold down the fire button as he lands, which constantly fires off the weapon under the jet like an MG, or have the player fire the weapon 30secs or so before landing, which then constantly fires it off for the next 30secs so he doesn't need to hold the fire button while landing.

Option 3: Python Spawning Projectile
If none of the above work, it may be possible to spawn in projectiles via python but I'm not sure if this is possible either since I think that python spawning in objects, still works on the same principle of normal ObjectSpawners which if so, and if option 1 doesn't work, this may not work either? But need to confirm with a python coder this isn't possible and is only a last resort.

Hopefully one of the above should work and if anyone has any other ideas on how to do this, post below!


Angled Deck

With the invention of the Steam Catapult also came Angled Deck Carriers. This is essentially to stop landing aircraft that miss the arresting cables, from running into the back of other parked or taking off aircraft on the deck, as they often did in WW2 (although they generally put a net up between the parked aircraft so if they did miss the cables they went into that instead, not to mention that WW2 aircraft had far lower landing speed than jet aircraft...) and also allows jets to easily get back up into the air if they miss the arresting cables.

This is a pretty critical feature for getting proper CATOBAR ingame, especially if we are going to have many jets operating from a carrier.

The problem with this is that the only carrier we have ingame is the USS Essex, which as well all know, doesn't have an angled deck since its a STOVL Carrier / LHD which prevents a bit of a problem gameplay wise if we try and launch and land CATOBAR aircraft from it, but something we could potentially live with.

FFG wrote:Rabbit, do you have any geographic lines for pilots to line up on for landings?