EricJ

ADuke Kiowa Warrior Alpha AC13 - Control sticks now animate - Pylons are adjusted, looks more realistic

Sounds interesting, I just hope it comes out due to the effort of the people making this.

One the Kiowa Warrior front, Quiggs from the ADF Re-Cut mod has decided that when I help him out, he'll help me with the Kiowa, as they have an interest in the helo as well. I don't know too much right now about it in ADF service, but some work will be done, and we're just getting the preliminaries sorted out so we can begin work. So with ADuke working on the AO map, and so on, we can get to the point of making the Kiowa happen, and get the thing "finished". Also I would eventually recolor the aircraft, for the current scheme and the one used while it was in US Army service. Right now there's not much to be said, so once things get moving forward I can give you a status update on that. Right now I'm doing some Strike Fighters 2 skins that needed to be done for a project, so I'll take a break from Arma 3 right now, and see if I can't get those done for that stuff. But there isn't much planned for the helis right now, kinda at a point where I can take a break, though I may do 19-round rocket launchers for the MH-60/92 DAPs. I want to get some missions worked on as allen.l.huber gave me permission to fix the "Pilot XX" missions because they are so fun to do, so any mission makers who want to look and fix the missions since the 2.18 patch broke them, I'm listening and looking for that kind of help, at least a scripter who can fix the scripts (which I think is the issue) given the new patch. Anyway not much else being worked on, and curious to see if any issues have come up with the new ACE3 release. I hear it's annoying to say the least with communities, so if there's an ACE3 issue with my helos, please let me know and I can try and fix them for the new version.

EricJ Helicopter Pack RC106 - Requires game version 2.18 - After some thought (I know I said I wouldn't touch it), but the practicality of having open doors outweighed the player need to have working doors. Since the doors don't work, I felt it was better to leave them open and allow the players to hang out, rather than 50% of the players not being able to fire. So the MH-60L will be in an open-door configuration. If however, the doors are working for some reason, I may revisit the closed/open door system. - Updated the Hellfires with the new ACE3 Missile Guidance Framework from the latest update to the mod. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-bHXElRiuhWHZCoqJU-vFRy40QB2GqZC/view?usp=sharing

Aduke Kiowa Warrior Alpha AC11 - Added the new ACE3 Missile Guidance Framework for the Hellfires AH-1Z RC17 - Updated the Hellfires with the new ACE3 Missile Guidance Framework, should be right.

With the breaking of some of my missions in 2.18 I'll have to look at them and see what to fix. For the other mods, nothing seems outright affected so that's a good thing. Maybe the Samples will be updated and I'll have to add more stuff as it did mention some things added to the vanilla helis, so when that comes out I'll check it out and go from there, or catch snippets of conversations (or one of you will chime in) to make the changes to make the helis I do have compliant, or add the new feature to my stuff. I thought about doing the pylon system with the UH-1Y, but the way the game handles the system with what the configuration of the helicopter it's not going to happen. I think somebody requested a DAGR version, and I may do that as a variant alongside the DARs, but it can't be done, not without some issues that I don't want to go through again. Anyway I know I said in the last update notes for the EricJ Helicopter Pack that I wasn't going to touch the MH-60L, but then I realized that the new MH-60M stuff was transferred to the L, and so I made them open doors. The reason I had operable doors before was to allow some sort of "cover" (with fiberglass doors), and the open doors allowing the FFV positions to work, so there's some flexibility to options for players in those slots. With the patch that borked the doors so they only opened halfway, it didn't make sense to keep those versions around anymore, hence the change of opinion and so on of reducing models available and so on, and less workload on me in a sense, since I don't have to update things all of the time, and makes it easier on me. Right now the next update the game will require game version 2.18 and the L change. Unless you all have requests and the like of course.

EricJ Helicopter Pack RC105 - Removed the closed door MH-60/92s and replaced them with the Open Door versions. The aircraft will still be named (Insertion), but the doors will be open, per standard operating procedures with the 160th SOAR. The MH-60L will not be affected for the foreseeable future. - Thanks to Reticent Echo from the MELB project, I managed to config some more ammunition types for the M260 rocket launcher. The M255A1 Flechette is modeled, as well as The M229 Warhead, and the M261 MPSM munition. All are available for use with the M260 rocket pod. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=667709746 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-WuAatB6IZtehOC7LRFvOOTHmqA7MLdw/view?usp=sharing

For those that use my EricJ Helicopter Pack, I'll be removing a couple of models next update. The (Insertion Open Doors) will become standard as I found out on the Project Hatchet Discord. So that means I'll be removing two models, the original closed door MH-60M and MH-92. The open doors will be called (Insertion) anyway, but for those who use it just giving you a heads up for now. it won't affect much I hope. but the classnames will be removed from the configs and model.cfg anyway, which has been done right now. I just have to remove some scroll menu options and they'll be set. I'm thinking also of expanding the warhead capability of the Hydra rockets that I used to replace the DAR rockets that I was using at the beginning, giving some more options, and will have to borrow from a config or two (I'll ask permission, don't worry), and see how that goes.

EricJ Helicopter Pack RC104 - MH-60/92 DAPs can use the M260 rocket pod - "M260" in the Pylon Settings menu changed to "M260 HE" - Renamed the "DAR" weapon to "M260" to get away from the BIS ammo. - MH-60L has the appropriate length refueling probe. - Updated the Fire and View Geometries for the SOAR MH-60s - Made numerous fixes to the TF562 units - Added a Desert version of the HK416th for TF562 units https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-QpqPycOVU3zd0eUHZUGNiXeI7gcqkOK/view?usp=sharing

ADuke Kiowa Warrior Alpha AC10 - Adjusted Hardpoint size on the 3D model - Weapons now visible from cockpit (depending on view)

Fair enough

Ahh I see where you're going with it. Maybe, but I doubt that they would be able to carry weapons. I mean we are talking about a PMC with air-to-air ordnance. And while I'm sure they'd get the approval, that to me at least seems a bit far fetched. They'd probably have to retrofit the birds first though.

Plausible, but I doubt they'd be in UkrAF colors though.

As per your What If picture, Ukraine has them deployed already. The camo isn't the same, it uses the old USAF color scheme, but as far as I know Ukraine has them fighting right now.

ADuke Kiowa Warrior Alpha AC9 - Added M260 rocket pods. Current munition available is the M151 HE Warhead

You'd need the graphics engine code and whatnot to improve it.

EricJ Helicopter Pack RC103 - Added a right-side firing M230 for the MH-60/92s and a right side firing M197 for the USN 2-pylon heli. - AH-96 can now use the 20mm gun pod from the A-143 Buzzard on the outboard wing pylons - The AH-6J has been upgraded with the pylon system, and can only use an M151 Rocket Pod and 2-round Hellfires. No other weapon compatibility is planned for the future. The miniguns aren't removable and remain fixed. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-PcTWH6vwWjsQybLRf8rn8NktiaqUKy1/view?usp=sharing

Future Plans: As I wait for the Stable version of the game to update, I came up with a plan for the AH-6J. Given that back then they had Hellfires on the bird I'm looking to make the system a pylon system. Personally, I think I can get away with a normal rocket pod, and not have to make every tube for it. I asked around and one person on Discord replied, but none of the experts, so when I can pack the files and not cause a crash due to formatting I'll look into it. If I can do it then I'll go with that, but not looking to make the pylons universal (unless there's a desire to) so it uses BIS weapons. I want to actually limit the weaponry for once, and that's the best way to do it, once I get the rockets configged and model setup so it can work with the game. I'm looking to limit it to Hellfires and rockets. While the MELB featured removable miniguns, I see no reason to do that either, so it'll be just Hellfires and the rocket pods. The minis will stay there as they are now, and be done with it. I'm not looking to expand it and not looking to make an M version, because you can't beat the MELB anyway, so there's that. Other plans isn't really much, given that there's not much to do as of yet. I am thinking of allowing the gun pod from the BIS Buzzard on the AH-96, but that's again on hold until things are good with the Tools (I use the Dev version) and the new patched Stable game. I only do it this way because the Dev Tools work fine and I like the latest updates. I keep the Stable version of the game in case I actually go on a server and play. Otherwise, I'd use the Dev version of the game, and have one, but I prefer Stable. Anyway, that's my musings for now. Of course anything I may have missed let me know and I'll see if I can't do it.

Update: Currently have the guns available for use on both sides, both the USN and DAPs, after some double-checking and so on to make sure that they had them. Anyway they're modeled and configged, and ready until the next patch comes, which seems imminent, just don't know how long it'll be ready, as I can't verify the stuff until the game is updated so I can take a peek. I use the Dev version of the tools, so any major update and I have to wait until they update the stable game ( don't do dev as I like to go on servers every once in a while) so I can release the next update, as right now I have an older build so I can play missions with my helos without crashing. And if I release it now I'll get 33,000+ people screaming at me, so I'll hold off until things are updated for the Helicopter Pack, as well as any other mods requiring my attention.

I was going to be sarcastic and say "he doesn't do shit around here." But thought better of it really, as he does make sure a great site runs smooth.

Yeah I got the same thing, @Erik needs to do some site stuff apparently.

EricJ Helicopter Pack RC102 -Removed the "MH-60S (M197/pylon)" due to the pylon system and gun pods. The M197 is now a gun pod, so now I can remove that helo from the list. The MH-60S 2-pylon has the new M197 gun pod. - Removed the M230 armed helos (MH-60/92), and now the M230 is a pod for the appropriate pylon. While I'm sure the 160th has a dual-configured gun pod, I chose to stick with the pylon that had the gun before, to keep with appearances, and allow a wider variety of options for configurations and the like. Simply select the weapon in the Pylon Settings field of the aircraft. - The MQ-17 now has small 1000-round miniguns added to it's list of weapons it can employ. - Increased Armor for the MH-80. - Created an MQ-17 in SOAR camo. It has some enhancements such as a datalink system. - MQ-17s now have a shadow LOD. - Adjusted the MH-80 datalink system - MH-67 now has limited datalink capability. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-M_sUyyaoZAQuFSisMtj3Rrut_cCtuHT/view?usp=sharing

Well it's been a busy afternoon for me. I finally got the M197 and M230 armed helos gone away now permanently. I managed to figure out how to do a "gun pod" for the USN M197 and M230 armed helos. I managed to remove four models, config entries, and model.cfg entries today. That means you don't need to have a specific gun armed helo in order to do things. The good thing is that the co-pilot can now fire the gun, so if you don't have a pilot you can fire it. Note that the 240 and M134 guns are still slaved to the pilot, so you have something to work with. Other than that I'm sure I'll find something else to do with the Helicopter Pack. I may work on the Kiowa for a bit, but for now I'll deploy the update for the EricJ Helicopter tomorrow, just don't want to ruin missions that use my helos and cause issues with groups that depend on my mod. I don't think most people use my mod play on Sunday, and may move it to Monday, which was my original plan. The weapons are selectable in the appropriate slots where the gun used to be prior to the change, so there's no confusion. I'm not sure if the US Army has dual M230s, but I stuck with one gun on that specific pylon just to keep it somewhat real and should be accurate somewhat. This also helped me understand what to do with the Kiowa, as I had to eventually do the .50 cal machine gun that is mounted on the left side. Given how the model works and with the Helicopter Pack, I should be able to model everything at least reasonably. Again if anybody is interested in helping with the Kiowa let me know and we can see what we can do, but looks like modeling and whatnot.