Lowering and raising aerostats

[AcidBath]

I'm using a waypoint trigger to lower an aerostat and it works perfectly.  I'm trying to use another waypoint trigger to raise it back up to its original altitude and that does not work.  In both cases the waypoint's priority is high and airspeed is 5 kph, and I'm absolutely sure that I'm sending a trigger to enable the 'raise' waypoint.  Triple verified that all object links are correct as are the altitudes.  Any ideas on what it take to raise a waypoint lowered aerostat?  Thanks for your attention.

 

BTW, this is for a multiplayer mission which features a duel between fokker e3's and airco dh.2's.  I'm seeing a curious bug for AI aircraft of both those types, where once in a while the sim calls a kill, both as a player notification and a STE event, yet the affected aircraft is still flying along without issue.  Have yet to report this.

Edited January 28 by AcidBath

[Jaegermeister]

Here is a British balloon group with raising and lowering logic. You can either compare this to what you have, or post your balloon group and I will take a look at it to see what's up.

 

Brt Balloon.zip

[AcidBath]

Thanks for the quick reply, it is very appreciated.  I gave your group a good look over and it seems very close to what I'm doing, but didn't test it.  Attached is a group of what I'm doing that does not work.  I just can't figure out the "secret handshake" to make that raise waypoint move the aerostat back up (it just stays put after being lowered), any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance to taking a look.

Aerostat Control.zip

[Jaegermeister]

15 hours ago, AcidBath said:

Thanks for the quick reply, it is very appreciated.  I gave your group a good look over and it seems very close to what I'm doing, but didn't test it.  Attached is a group of what I'm doing that does not work.  I just can't figure out the "secret handshake" to make that raise waypoint move the aerostat back up (it just stays put after being lowered), any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance to taking a look.

Aerostat Control.zip 916 B · 2 downloads

 

OK, I did some testing with both of the groups posted above and neither one works correctly, so whoever is stalking this thread and downloaded them beware, LOL. Probably JollyJack. 

 

Yours is the easiest if you want to use waypoints. Just delete the circular Activate MCUs and it works fine. Also be aware that you cannot activate and reuse waypoint triggers. They only work once and then you have to use a new duplicate in the same place the second time. I posted the test mission and you can copy the group from there if you want.

 

My group activated with Check Zones was not working for the same reason. Trying to activate a previously triggered waypoint does not work. There is a revised group with that logic also in the test mission.

 

Balloon Test.zip

[JG4_Deciman]

Ok, after deep digging on my computer  I found something working, created more than 10 years ago..

 

Warning #1: This is Rise of Flight, NOT BoX!

Warning #2: I really do not know what I coded at that time, but it worked!

Warning #3: Importing that file to BoX will not work.

 

But maybe you own RoF
or maybe you can read what is done with a text editor...
What I know is, the balloons were spawned

and reacted to enemies within ranges.
And it worked!

 

Deci

 

balloon5.zip

[Jaegermeister]

2 hours ago, JG4_Deciman said:

Ok, after deep digging on my computer  I found something working, created more than 10 years ago..

 

Warning #1: This is Rise of Flight, NOT BoX!

Warning #2: I really do not know what I coded at that time, but it worked!

Warning #3: Importing that file to BoX will not work.

 

But maybe you own RoF
or maybe you can read what is done with a text editor...
What I know is, the balloons were spawned

and reacted to enemies within ranges.
And it worked!

 

Deci

 

balloon5.zip 264.79 kB · 0 downloads

 

Thanks, but we have a couple of working logic solutions above. The main issues were;

 

You don't need to activate a waypoint, just trigger it however you want with a check zone, waypoint, proximity, etc.

You can't reuse or reactivate a waypoint trigger. It only works once

Be careful to have some extra altitude on the down waypoint so the aerostat doesn't crash into the ground

The aerostat won't go back up any higher than 900 meters

 

It's pretty simple really. There is  not much to it.

[AcidBath]

Well, thanks to your help Jaegermeister, I found what the "secret handshake" was for getting my aerostat to raise!

 

Drumroll please..... --> set the altitude (y) for the raise waypoint to 1000 m.  I was using 900 m (silly me)

 

As an added benefit for all that come here after me, my solution given in the attached .grp file only needs 2 waypoints to raise and lower the balloon as many time as you want...fully tested.  The secret handshake for that sort of waypoint behavior is to never let them trigger.   Seems the aerostat lowers and raises straight up and down.   Making the waypoints' region 1 m and out of the aerostat's path keeps them untriggered, thus can be commanded over and over.  Might have to consider prevailing winds here?  Also, my Check Zone MCUs work repeatedly as shown (that is, once they are triggered).  Thanks again and enjoy!

Balloon Management.zip

Edited January 31 by AcidBath

[Jaegermeister]

Interesting discovery @AcidBath I'll take a look!

[AcidBath]

Found a potential big problem with the group I posted for controlling the balloon altitude.  Discovered it when I brought it into another mission.  Its fix is simple:  be sure that both the Check Zone MCUs have input triggers and their coalitions are appropriately set.  Once they are activated, i.e. triggered, all works great, and they need no further trigger input.  It's recommended that the "All clear" Check Zone gets it input triggered the first time that the "Defend airfield scan" Check Zone deactivates itself.  How you program that is left as an exercise for the reader. 😊

Edited February 20 by AcidBath