How to add droppable objects

[Ripcord]

Are there specific aircraft that can drop flour bombs or can any aircraft drop them? If so, how to configure aircraft to drop objects like flour bombs?

I used Jim Keir's FSX ME and I added 10 flour bombs to my aircraft, but I am not dropping anything in the sim.

regards,

Ripcord

[Horst18519]

You can attach the droppable payload to any aircraft. Just take a look at for example the flour bomb mission sample to learn how to do it.

[Ripcord]

Thorsten, thanks. I got it, I just failed to attach my "add droppable objects" node to the timer.

Trying to drop flour bombs into a baseball stadium, just as a test mission.

Ripcord

[Horst18519]

STRIKE!

[Ripcord]

Exactly -- swing and a miss!

For some reason, I am not getting a successful 'hit' to register. I have set up a 400 x 400 meter rectangle area and set lat/long right where the park is. Should be plenty large enough. That didn't work for whatever reason. Then I tried attaching that to an AI ground object, such as an orange bus place right in the stadium, and that didn't work either. I am pouring those flour sacks in there, but no luck.

I really thought the lat/long position would be the best way to accomplish this, but no luck. How does that rectangle area position itself in relation to the lat/long coordinates? Is that lat/long point the center of the rectangle, or is it one of the corners?

Ripcord

[Horst18519]

I'm sure the area is just fine, but the trigger isn't. You need to specify reference to which object is triggering it (see SDK). By default this is the player, but you want the bombs to trigger it obviously.

[Ripcord]

Actually I think I got that part right -- I copied it over from the Flour Bomb sample mission in the SDK. It should be triggered when the Flour Bomb enters the rectangle.

But that is OK, I will test it again in another area, free of other objects (like stadiums) and see if that makes a difference.

Ripcord

EDIT -- maybe I need to activate the rectangle area as a point of interest?

[Horst18519]

No, just place the area and don't forget to use a proximity trigger that stays activated.

[Ripcord]

Originally Posted by Horst18519

No, just place the area and don't forget to use a proximity trigger that stays activated.

By staying activated, I guess you mean the proximity trigger should be set for ONE SHOT = FALSE right, and ACTIVATED = TRUE ? Should be right, I copied it over from the Flour Bomb mission.

Ripcord

[Horst18519]

Exactly. And don't forget to add a dialog action (with acptioning activated) so you can immediately see if the trigger fired.

[Ripcord]

I cannot get this to work. I attach a 400 x 400 meter rectangle area to a CG cutter in the ocean now, and fly right over that ship, drop all 10 flour bombs and nothing. How can you not hit a 400 x 400 meter area at 1000 feet? Copied the nodes right out of the Flour Power mission, everything set the same. Quite maddening really.

Ripcord

[Horst18519]

Make sure you're above the area. If you drop it and are already within the area the trigger might not fire.

[Ripcord]

Yes, I also considered that, and so I reset the altitude of the area to 10 meters.

EDIT: I found some other threads that suggest that I give the area a little bit of altitude, at least a few feet, so that ground objects do not interfere. I did that, but that is not really my problem -- nothing is triggering this. So I agree something is wrong with my trigger, but I can't find what it might be.

Activated = True
Latched = False
One Shot = False
Object Filter = Anything
OnEnter Filter = 0 refs
OnExit Filter = 0 refs
OnEnter Condition ---> [Title] = Flour_bomb
OnExit Condition = blank
OnExit Actions = 0 refs
Areas = Area_Target_01 (attached)

I really am feeling stupid here, because this cannot be that hard.

Ripcord



UPDATE : It worked finally.

1. I changed Latched to TRUE, but not sure what this does or if it had any effect.
2. Opened OPT and found that my trigger area was in China (I was in San Diego), so the E-W settings for area clearly have some nuances and need to be checked.
3. Reattached the trigger area to the CG ship again, and somehow it worked. Also noticed that my 500 x 500 meter area looked quite a lot smaller than I anticipated.

OK, now it is time for a cold beer to celebrate this achievement. Maybe next weekend we'll learn to drop something other than flour bombs.