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Drongos Air Operations

This mod places AI aircraft, SAMs and radars under player control. It works in SP, local hosting and dedicated servers.

Discord for my mods[discord.gg]
My Artillery/Cruise Missile/Loitering Munition mod
My Active Protection System mod


Open the system with your H key (can be changed under Options>Controls>Configure Addons).

Optional supplemental mod to increase CAS damage:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?edit=true&id=1903788856

Features:
Player control over AI aircraft, radars and SAMs
Vastly improved CAS code (aircraft agressively use cannons, rockets, bombs and missiles against vehicles and infantry)
Assign CAP, CAS, SEAD, loiter, take off and land orders
Support for vanilla craft and most mods (tested with Firewill, RHS, CUP, USAF and Unsung)
Optional JTAC dialog
Bomb, gun and rocket runs
Gunship support (player control or AI targeting scripts)
Transport support (Vehicle in vehicle, helos insertions, paradrops, supply drops and slingloading)
Intuitive interface with ACE menu integration
Give orders with mapclicks or more realistic manual coordinate input
Units communicate (current orders, launching missiles, detecting enemies)
Radar-based information sharing (AI aircraft and SAMs are more dangerous)
Radar targets are shared with aircraft and SAMs
Markers for friendly assets and detected enemy assets
Terrain, altitude, range and radar cross section affect a radar's ability to detect aircraft
Control AI aircraft altitude, loiter area and engagement radius
Gun camera
Switch to gunner option
Control radar and datalink status for all units in the system
Control SAM and aircraft ROE
Land at any airfield
Upgraded gunship
Virtual Airfield Management: Send aircraft back to base to refit
(WIP) Carrier Ops: properly configured aircraft can operate from the USS Freedom

Notes:
Press H to open the menu (change under Options>Controls>Configure Addons; key is saved every time the DAO menu is opened)
Blacklist users by setting daoAvailable=false; on their client or using the built-in CBA server option
Set a player to JTAC mode by setting daoJTACmode=true; on their client
Force a player to use manual input (no mapclicks) by setting daoManualInput=true; on their client
Give altitude orders before move orders
Viewdistance can affect engagement range
Terrain blocks radar (place your radars and SAMs in elevated areas)
All groups using this system must contain only a single vehicle (eg. 2 planes in a group may cause errors)
Fixed wing craft that start on the ground in careless mode will go onto standby until given orders
Aircraft that start airborne with no waypoints will loiter in place until given orders
Groups, vehicles and vehicle classes can be excluded by adding them to the array daoIgnore=[];

Landing:
Aircraft that land will be despawned and added to Virtual Airfield Management (see below).

Supported Units:
The default BIS units supported. Firewill, RHS, USAF mod and CUP have also been tested.

Denying/Allowing Dialog Access:
To limit which users can access the system, use Rank and Role by YonV.

By default, the system is available to all players. This can be toggled in Options>Addon Options>Drongo's Air Operations>"Everyone can access dialog".

To whitelist a specific client, execute daoAvailable=true; on their machine.
To blacklist a specific client, execute daoAvailable=false; on their machine.

Virtual Airfield Management (VAM):
VAM is a solution to the problem of housing and refitting aircraft when they are not required in the air. Doing this in-engine is almost impossible given certain hard-coded behaviours. VAM handles this virtually, by deleting aircraft after they land and storing them virtually. Players can then access VAM via the "Airfields" button in the DAO dialog. This allows them to browse the virtual aircraft at each airfield, to select their loadout and spawn them on the runway.

In addition, to storing landed aircraft, it is possible to add virtual aircraft to any runway with this code:

[airfieldIndex(integer),side,[arrayOfClassnames]]call dao_fnc_AddToVAM;

For example:

[1,WEST,["B_Plane_Fighter_01_F","B_Plane_Fighter_01_F","B_Plane_CAS_01_dynamicLoadout_F"]]call dao_fnc_AddToVAM;

will add two Black Wasps and one Wipeout to the WEST side at airport 1. The index for each airfield is given on its marker.

The delay between being stored for refit and becoming available is 60 seconds by default. This can be changed by setting this variable:

daoVAMrefitTime=60;

Issuing orders by script:
Where _group is the group of the air asset, _targetPos is where you want the attack and _FAHpos is the final attack heading position:

[_group,_targetPos,_FAHpos]remoteExec["DAO_fnc_AIGunRun"];

You can also use:"DAO_fnc_AIBomb", "DAO_fnc_AIRockets", "DAO_fnc_AICAS", "DAO_fnc_AICAP" or "DAO_fnc_AISEAD".

License:
The rights of any 3rd party scripts used in this work belong with the owner. I do not and have never claimed ownership over the work of other people. All 3rd party scripts are used in good faith.

You must receive my permission to use any of the scripts, configs, expressions of concepts or designs of this addon in the development of other projects.
You may not reverse engineer this addon.
You may not use any part of this mod as the basis for a project.
You may not distribute altered versions of this addon.
You may not use this addon or any derivatives thereof in any way for monetary gain.
You may not use this addon or any derivatives thereof as part of any submission to any contest of any kind.
You may not port this addon to any other game (it may ONLY be used with Arma 3).
You may not use this addon with VBS, VBS2, VBS3 or any similar product.
You may not re-upload to Steam.
This addon may only be used for private recreational purposes.
This addon may not be used for any commercial or professional purpose.
This addon may not be used as a tool by any government department or military, law enforcement or security organisation.

If you need an exception, contact me.organisation.

If you need an exception, contact me.

Credits:
Drongo: Development and scripting.
Chops: Technical and general support.
James: Good advice.
CBA team: For expanding the possibility of modding and making things easier for modders.
sn0whusky: Dedicated server access, testing.
MadMonkey: Testing.

A huge thanks to my Patrons and supporters.

Discord for my mods[discord.gg]

THEFT OF MY WORK
My artillery mod was stolen, edited and re-released in violation of the license by BlackAlpha of tier1ops.eu. Here is a video showing my original work and his stolen edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe7G6WwxQVU

Please share this video and let the community know.

CHANGELOG
v0.394
Improved: CAP orders
Improved: AI aircraft can use guns for air combat