Creating drones for Drone 2.1 Framework Guide

How to make drones and set up drones, UAVs and UGVs for the framework.

Installation

This guide assumes you know how to first set up the Ravenfield Workshop mod tools, if you do not know, the guide is here:

http://ravenfieldgame.com/modding.html

And the version Requirements:

-Unity 2020.3.38f(Steelraven's current Unity version)
-Blender 3.2 for the arms in the weapon examples supplied(or the latest but not a requirement if making models and animation from scratch or using the default animations)

To begin, if you test your mods while not connected to steam (THIS IS THE MOST CONVENIENT), go to the section : Testing without steam open.

When that is done, download the drone templates here(this uses models made in blender 2.9+):
[DRONES (SMALL PROTIBLE)]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f6xMqF6wUpJF_winJuDZ4NlMLQOQi3bu/view?usp=sharing
[UGV/LOYAL WINGMAN UAVs]
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KxJwqCWNRjbt0nDI3kV8_tOez9z9AnZY/view?usp=sharing


and move the file from your downloads folder to your Ravenfield projects folder.

Once that is done. Open unity project and Right Click here:


then in the menu go to "Import Package" -> "Custom package..." and this should show up:

Now select the package and import.

You are now ready to make your own drone.

Making a drone: Introduction

(Update 2.1)

In this update arriving or has arrived to the workshop you have three types of drones you can make (These can be ground or air):

• RCDrone - this is portible and pilotible from anyware. Requires Remote. Bots can't use these.
  
  
• HopinDrone - this is portible and pilotible from anyware. No distance Enter. No remote required. Bots can't use these.
  
  
• LoyalWingman - pre spawned by vehicle spawners and pilotable by bots, can only be accessed where the selected vehicle spawns are. Name based on the actual Military program(s) mainly the Australian Boeing Ghost bat's program name. (You can just use this name/variable for UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle)
  

Drones can be made form vehicle prefabs. planes, helecopters and cars as well as boats can be used to make a Drone or any RC objects, As such, Vehicles can also be given these tags in their name the Data Container and used as driverless vehicles. (Update 2.1): The Three differnt types will do as above.

Making a drone: RC Drone/HopinDrone (the portible drone)

To make it acessible like an RC Drone, add this to the main Drone Object (The prefab where the vehicle script is):

SET UP
INPUT "RCDrone" into DroneType so it could only be accesible via remote (so the Player using it has the remote object model when in use) or input "HopinDrone" to disregard checking if the player has a remote object (Just straight up use it like a normal vehicle, remote will default to Drone 2 Remote model)

Symbols like "- " , "_ " , or "# " in the names of both the remote and drones make then un-detectible to the framework. I do not know why this is the case but its how it is.
OUTDATED. NAME IS NOT USED IN SCRIPT DETECTION IN UPDATE 2.1.
Name the drone as you wish.


The remote object weapon should have the words: "Drone Remote" "UAV Remote" "UGV Remote" included in the weapon name as well and can be copied from the supplied drone template. the current model is however not fit for use. "Reaper Drone Remote" SHOULD work unless I missed something.

I suggest you make your drone remote animations from scratch using the ak or ar fbx files as the armeture for the supplied basic remote does not work well with mesh replacement. the only fix for this atm is to turn mesh replacement off.

Seats are to have the collision dimention set to zero is your Drone has the DroneType value to "RCDrone" to prevent errors:


Drone Spawner Weapon
This is the tool with the relevent script to show you where the drone would be placed and where to place it.
"dts" is the actual drone to spawn. Put the Drone prefab here.
"av" : indicator to show that the drone can be placed
"anot" : indicator to display to player that drone can't be placed down
"tg" : the overall indictor parent. This is to face the model in the correct direction and at the place of deployment
"id" is unused or for sprinting. That can be coded in do other stuff.

Making a drone: The Loyal Wingman (Military, Large, UAV & UGV)

The Loyal wingman type is easlier to make, Conversions can be quickly done but has more variables to assign into the data container:

VARIABLES DEFINITION:

INTEGERS
• DroneGenFollow: A inter-operability variable, makes the drone escort spawn for any Jets with a Gen of 5 or more. set it 4 or 3 and the Framework will itentify it to dones at the level like the Reaper or Globe Hawk, no escort functionality.
  
• DroneDistEnt: The distance from the Command/Remote Control station to be able to enter Drone.
  STRINGS
  
• DroneType: Put in "LoyalWingman" to dictate if the drone prefab will be spawned to help a manned vehicle. (i.e. Gen 5 Fighter Jets like the F-35 and gen 6 + fighters (NGAD) will get some Ghost Bats, Valkyries or Stringray UAVs to spawn in to escort it (see the Ghost Bat mod I made). you can also use this variable also to identify the drone for use in other scripted mutators or vehicles. This probably works for UGVs too just using DroneType = "LoyalWingman" & making it only Vehicle Spawner only.
  
• DroneEscortFac: A inter-operability variable, Drones IRL equivelent of what platform it can communicate with (Escort), e.g. The Valkerie being made by the US could communicate with the F-35, in Ravenfield, the Valkerie if loaded or set as a DataContainer Object escort variable in the F-35 Fighter Jet mod(s) would spawn as escorts to each F-35 occupied. If there are other "US" DroneEscortFac drones then they may spawn alongside the Valkerie... like the Australian LW Ghost Bat.
  
• ComCent: The Command Center/ Remote Control Station Object, you set the remote control center object here to spawn with the drone. NOTE: the bottom center of the object should be where the pivot point is as this is where the Framework will spawn the object on the ground.
  
• ComCentDest: The exploding projectile which will spawn when the spawn point attached to the CMD/RCS is captured, playing a explosion effect, spawn debris and damaging near by actors... or not.

*matchname: Not even used in this Framework, its used by a different script.

SEAT
Unlike the RC Drones this needs the seat to be "weirdly" accessable as possible so above the seat there should be 8-10 rectangle Coliders on the seat objects. to cover the up and left/right/frount/back direction the player would look at. All these rectangles are registered by the game's seat script apparently. Theres a example rfc file with part of how this remote control thing works on it some where.


COMMAND STATION/REMOTE CONTROL STATION
Pic to help you set up the Drone and the Drone Control Station.

Adding Support to vehicle for drone/UAV/UGV escorts

Simply add the data container to the vehicle prefab/gameobject looking something this:

VALUES:

• DroneEscortGen Starts with Gen 5 as in the real world this is where we see drone-jet fighter communication. Means you can reuse this value in other scripts where if you want a lock on weapon to ignore chaff of an older gen fighter for example. Here its used to see if you have the right time period appropriate escort or if it could be integrated with newer ones (So Drones for 5th gen fighters can work with 6th gen fighters). Can be used for ground vehicles
  
• DroneEscortFac Used to find the right drones (that are spawned) to base a escort drone on for the vehicle.
  
• EscortDrone If you have made a drone using this framework, you can drag the game object here so that the framework will, if it hasn't found any suitable Unmanned Vehicles, will use this.

Testing without Steam open (Optional but convenient)

As the drones made from this guide are reliant on the framework mod, you are going to have to create a copy of the framework mod in the testing mods folder to find it, it is in your Steam Libraries/ Steam Program folder, navigate to here and search for "Drone2Mutator". this is the file to copy.

Navigate to here after copying the file:


And paste. This would also the the time to create a link to launch Ravenfield directly bypassing launching Steam, however this will trigger any other mods by other modders which have scripted content as some may have Anti piracy features resulting, so don't worry if your landscape is filled with Jake coins, you are only making a drone and wouldn't have copied a mod that does this.

If you don't want a remote object and using DroneType = "RCDrone" as a value (gods knows why) you can remove the template remote object from the export file and make Drones V2 or RSH-2H mod a requirement, They have the Framework Pre-Packaged and a remote too.

Upload: Conclusion

Assuming you know how to upload to the Steam Workshop this is a reminder to remember to add the Drone 2(now 2.1) Frameworks as a requirement. This is needed to avoid redundancy and for functionality!



And also: the link to the framework so you don't have to scourge the workshop for the mod again : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2850613697

Thank you for using the framework!

Sincerely. Aths.

[usaMi]

also the discord link was removed :(

[usaMi]

the first link was removed, can you reupload a new one? thx

[青 見希]

cool

[Yeseo]

💯

[Atherline]

still being worked on. the updated file will be out some time soon

[青 見希]

Thanks for creating this framework
It helps a lot!