WEP page revisited

This is old old code. So old the font turned brown. The old WEP page had to be scrapped as it didn't use any of the new vector font or button functions. Here's what it used to look like before...

Old WEP page

New WEP page in progress

Our Helicopter class contains more weapon information, ammo, pylon usage, burst settings in the Stores object member. Stores class data is available across all Apaches on the client so I decided to also use it for special mode information e,g, is the cannon is 'fixed' forward for on-axis engagement, or turreted for off-axis engagement?

Then there are the acquisition modes, someone tried to explain this to me in layman's terms. If I understand this correctly, the helicopter are multiple sensors, different ways to acquire targets and acquisition modes allow one system to tell another about targets. For example, using your helmet (in mouse look mode or using TrackIR) to look in the direction of a threat, then request the FCR radar system or TADS to seek that location on the ground. I might be totally wrong and frankly it's hard to justify putting in details like this which are probably incorrect. It's not an important game-play detail.

We're going to go over the old code, give it a polish, add new values from the Stores class and get our weapon page working again. Looking for a quick implementation so breaking it down...

Buttons

Like the FLT page earlier we start with the button labels around the bezel. The only pages we're really interested in are the ASE which is the magic eye sensor to detect incoming threats. Longbow 2 fans will remember this thing auto-displaying, usually populated with flashing diamonds and a tone when that Mig29 which spawned on flying over 250 ft appeared and popped a missile on your direction. Also it was something you'd glue yourself to when in the presence of 2SUs and SA-10s. Ahhh those were the days of creeping forward and seeing of anything lit you up.

The CODE page will be relating to laser codes. As we're not implementing the Hellfire system at this time we'll just leave this as a place-holder. Also I'll have to make this one up as I can't find any public sources and it's probably just a list of numbers anyway. I think we had a notion to have ground troops lase targets and you'd enter the code for the missile but that was way back before we had to actually program all this stuff.

CHAN is..........Jackie? My favourite martial arts dude. Channels I'm guessing. I recall the Apache 64A used laser channels, HI/LO settings. Such a long time ago. Again something that will act as place-holder. Maybe we can get a picture of Jackie in there.

COORDs are co-ordinates of course. I think this is a list of positions of mission targets, or a list of acquired targets. Again, we'll pass on this as we're just interested in the cannon and rocket system.

UTIL is the same old UTILITY page for turning things on and off. I'm sure we'll be able to throw in some functions to make this useful.


Along the bottom we have weapon selection and manual range input which we had working before. These are:

• GUN 30mm Bushmaster Cannon
• MSL Hellfire missile system (which we're not implementing currently)
• RKT FFAR rocket system, lots of variations here, including flares.

Along the left side of the page we have currently actioned weapon specific controls.

• For cannon, this sets the MAX number of rounds fired when you pull of the trigger, the same system that allowed me to shoot myself on the helipad.
• Rockets selects the zone (we can load 3 different kinds of rockets into each pod)
• MSL will select LOAL and LOBL modes or some trajectory selection (again parked for now)
• AIM we don't have plans for at this time.

Then we have the aircraft glyph in the middle showing stores and count.

After a couple of hours tinkering we have built from scratch....

...the all new WEP page, trimmed and re-shaped. I had to hand tweak all the verts on that aircraft shape. All vector based. Currently only the gun is operational, the fixed/normal turret mode and burst selection are working.


Apron lights

As a follow up to the ground crew lighting issue, AD built some solar lights.

These could really use that material switcher that applies one of two 'glow' textures on texture channel 3 according to the vertex colour.

gl_FragData[3] = texture2D(texture2,texcoord)*fragcolor.x + texture2D(texture3,texcoord)*(1.0-fragcolor.x);