So I saw this mission in the Arma 3 Steam Workshop the other day and was intrigued. I spent most of last night playing around with it and it is fairly entertaining, although not without problems. With a bit more fleshing out it could really be a great time killer though...
Steam Workshop LINKThe premise, as you've already probably gathered, is that you are flying a rescue helicopter. It isn't clear exactly WHY we are flying a rescue helo in a combat zone, but since the dangerous melding of the military industrial complex with private industry is pretty much a done deal, why not? (I'm offering up advertising on the side of my rescue chopper - call me Pizza Hut!)
You can change out your shorts and flip flops for some Tacti-Cool gear. I grabbed a pistol, a rifle, and some NVGs from the outfitting room...
My bird awaits...
I get in and crank up. No Take On Helicopters flight model here unfortunately, but I keep reading that some developments are coming for Arma 3 that will introduce some more advanced helicopter dynamics apparently...
Nestled behind our "Green Zone" is our heliport, a hospital with a helipad, and a repair/refueling type FARP nestled in curiously tight quarters... Beyond the Red Line of the front is..what??
Once you get in your helo, a message comes through giving you your mission. It could be a search and rescue, it could be a transport, med-evac, or doctor insertion for example. From what I could tell from the dozen missions I flew or so, they are all basically: fly here, pick up or drop off, and fly back.
Here we are getting ready to cross the line. A couple units exchange fire and lines of tracers chase aircraft across the sky. It looks ominous enough and I'm wondering what is going to happen when I poke my nose in there...
I cross the line and head for my first mission zone, a search and rescue for a downed aircrew. I soon spot the wreckage and, being a bit rusty in my ARMA flying skills, I accidentally clip a power line on the approach into the landing zone. My helo comes crashing down but the impact isn't hard enough to kill me. I'm able to hop out before the helicopter explodes in flames. Hmm..now that's not good.
Crashing activates an automatic search and rescue mission to extract you and soon a friendly helo comes buzzing into view and sets down a hundred meters away... Oh, so that's how it's done!
I climb aboard and the helo fires up and shuttles me back to the Green Zone...
The helo drops me off at the repair FARP and it is a bit of a walk back over to my helicopter base. So I borrow a car and make the short drive...
Fortunately there is another helicopter and I'm asked to get back to work...
The next mission is another SAR a good distance across the map...
ARMA 3 (and ARMA 2) have great atmospherics and lighting that make low level helicopter flying really fun...
This landing is much better and the downed crew climbs aboard our rescue helo for the trip back to the hospital...
On the approach to the rooftop helipad...
Unfortunately, there is some bug in the dropping off process that causes most of the rescued personnel to fall off the roof. It is a little disturbing.
The next mission comes in to extract a wounded friendly from a point across the map...
Another beautiful and scenic flight...
The victim is mobile but it looks like some of the other members of his team are down. So far I haven't come under fire and haven't really seen any close contact between the enemy and the teams I'm sent out to rescue...
Dropping the evacuee off at the hospital helipad...
Another rescue of a downed helicopter crew...
Fuel is starting to dip a bit low, so I take a short break from missions to go land at the refueling FARP...
The FARP shows the damage repairs and refueling status as they happen...
And then it's back to work...
On the next extraction something goes wrong with the helo. When I slow to land the anti-torque rotor becomes ineffective and the helo yaws out of control. After a few dozen rotations I figure out the formula is to dump the collective to reduce torque, push the nose over and once you have some forward momentum you have control..but you can't slow to a hover to land. Normally you'd make a run on landing at an airbase, but we don't have one in the Green Zone...
Instead I head for the heliport and manage to set up a rotating landing on the pads..actually a fairly miraculous landing if I do say so myself..!
Then I run into a stumbling block. I have a damaged helo..but the only place I think you can repair is at the FARP..which is way too tight to get into with a damaged tail rotor. I try a truck at my helipad, but it just refuels the helo and doesn't repair it. So I think this is where ARMA logic shines. I grab a vehicle and head for the FARP to grab a repair truck.
This big vehicle looks like it should be able to repair something. There are Engineers clustered around it, but I can't control them or order them to do anything. So I borrow the truck..
I park it close to the helo, but that still doesn't repair it. I'm stumped. I look online and someone mentions that there is a repair kit ON the helo, but without a backpack I guess you can't pick it up (?) so I can't repair my own helo (or something)...
Meanwhile, these doctors are waiting to be ferried out to a location to do some work..but I don't have a working helo...
I get on my ATV and try to go find a backpack. This shows one of the other shortcomings of this dynamic mission as it is designed - apparently the enemy doesn't see you as an enemy, so they don't shoot at you. This is the border checkpoint and that is an enemy tank. You can drive right up to it, get out, walk around in front of enemy soldiers and they don't try to shoot you. I don't know why, but it sorta takes the edge off the tension level when the enemy isn't trying to get you...
So I elect to stop the mission at that point since I don't have a way to repair the helicopter. I do take a quick night flight and the FLIR imagery is awesome..
I still don't know if the front lines move, if there are more battles, or if enemy units will shoot at you in the helicopter. Overall the mod is extremely fun though and shows the potential of ARMA 3 as a sandbox SAR type replacement. They could sell a whole game based on that scenario if it were a bit cleaned up and made a bit more complex.
BeachAV8R