December 17th - C-130 Hercules

Hercules C.5 (C-130J)

The C-130 is perhaps one of the oldest addon on our project list. Its jumped up and down the priority list so many times its hard enough for us to keep track of it ourselves.

Its also possibly the most demanded addon on our list. And when i say "demanded", I really do mean demanded. We've had begging emails, abusive emails, accusations of plagiarism and of course threats.

"Release your f***ing model now you teesin c**t or i'll hack your website off the net!"

"Give your model to the community now! Dontbe a selfich f**k well take you and youre site down iv u dont"

You name it, we've had it. I've even had a guy demand i send him my model so he can make sure its not his. I mean how stupid do some people think we are? It always made me laugh when i've got these sorts of emails. You just know its some sad kid sat in a dark room that doesn't get enough attention sending them - which is a bit sad - but its funny that people send threats of violence from the other side of the world expecting it to intimidate someone.

Anyway I started making the Hercules for an OFP project that got more and more drawn out, eventually stalling and coming to a grinding halt. Later I remade the model entirely in 3DS Max for a commercial job, a "company video" for a UK aerospace manufacturer. Not long after that I ported the new model into ArmA. Which meant reducing the poly count and - sadly - removing a lot of detail. Not so much that it changed the basic shape, but deleting features that gave the model a lot more character.

After that we put it on hold several times for various reasons . Priorities for one. We had a list of addons that were 'needed' for other projects and required less scripting etc. So it didn't make sense to devote so much of our time on a single project when we could complete 3 other projects at the same 'cost'. A decision that has proved to be the right one over time. We've learnt so much about the arma engine, scripting and model creation from the other projects that we've got to a point we're finally happy - ok maybe 'happier' is more accurate - with what we are making. But the biggest reason for a pause in development was practicality. I mean, without the cargo system the C-130s were really pretty useless. Set dressing only, or for use as a parachute jump platform. Given the size of the average ArmA Clan/Squad and the size of Sahrani it hardly seemed worth the effort making a plane that can drop 70 people when only 8-10 would ever use it. So we decided to shelve it until we had the scripts to make it a viable addon.

Cargo System and its effects...

If you've seen the Cargo system video you'll have some idea of what i mean. The logistics aspect in ArmA has always been a case of dropping some mags and weapons in a vehicle or helicopter and driving off on a mission somewhere. You could never move any real volume nor move other vehicles around the map. For games like Evo or Warfare it was never really good enough. Addons like the C-130 are all about logistics and that's why the Cargo system has such an effect on our production priority. Until recently we've not been able to acheive the full functionality we wanted which is why the C-130, A400M or IL-76 haven't progressed much. If you've seen the cargo system video you'll know weve finally begun to achieve the sort of functionality we wanted. With this in mind, in the new year the C-130 is going to get a higher priority.

AC-130 - "Addon of Doom"

Or should that be "Doomed addon"? Every time this subject comes up i groan.

"Is it possible?"
"How do I do it?"
"When are you going to do it?"

I've been told several different stories of what i've supposedly said to people. Well here's the truth of the matter. RKSL have dropped the AC-130 off our list. it was on there because a (now former) team member really wanted to make one. Personally I've never been that interested in it. I mean think about it. Imagine an EVO or Warfare game. One guy gets himself an AC-130 what would happen? The potential for mischief is huge. Not to mention the affect on game play;

"Ok next town is... Corazol."
"Give me two minutes and its done" says the AC-130 Pilot. One hundred and twenty seconds later corazol is a smoldering mass of rubble and everyone else is still just wandering around trying to find transport.

In a map the size of Sharani the AC-130 is massive overkill. In any mission i've played SP, MP, Evo or CoOp i've never sat there and said we need an AC-130 in this game. Infact having one that can inflict as much damage as the real ones would - in my opinion - ruin the game for anyone else on the ground. In the real and ugly world of today AC-130s are used to 'pacify' areas so that coalition soldier don't have to be put at risk. Who want to play a FPS where all you do is watch a Spectre decimated towns and you walk in?

Technical Aspects...

OK rant over, onto the technical issues. Planes in ArmA can't have turrets. The engine doesn't support it. The feature was planned but it caused so many problems that it was "disabled". You can put turrets on planes but they don't work properly. IE the weapon can only be fired along the axis of the plane, which really means its not much of a turret is it. So we started looking for other solutions. We came up with "Turrets on planes", which seems like the perfect solution. Put it has some serious flaws when it comes to fast moving multiplayer aircraft. You see there are locality issues, lag and 'warping' problems when you use these scripts. It doesn't affect slow moving UAV's anywhere near as badly but the faster you fly the more work the scripts have to do to keep up and over the net on PC's of varying capability this causes problems. That's why - right - now its not a solution that solves the AC-130s problems. Maybe in future with more development we can find a workable solution but right now the system we have is best used for UAVs and slow scout planes.

So given all this, will we make an AC-130 anytime soon? Erm...no.