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Vehicle Towing
Description Discussions0 Comments61 Change Notes
   
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Data Type: Mod
Mod Type: Boat, Mechanics, Tracked, Wheeled
File Size
Posted
Updated
37.719 KB
28 Mar, 2022 @ 4:08am
2 Apr, 2022 @ 11:08am
6 Change Notes ( view )
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Vehicle Towing

Description
VEHICLE TOWING

This modification (or a mod) allows vehicles to tow other vehicles. Towing is enabled and disabled via the user action menu.

Vehicle towing can be used in various combinations. This mod allows creation of tow chains. Land, air and water vehicles can be used with this mod.

Be advised that vehicle towing should be used accurately and very carefully. If the vehicle does not move, it appears to be too heavy to be towed. Do not use much force if the vehicle is stuck as it may break the tow rope.

When towing is enabled, towed vehicle is emptied, locked and its parking brakes are disabled. Switching towing off unlocks the vehicle and enables its parking brakes. Note that this mod is super simple, it does not use sophisticated menus, dialog windows or numerous actions. Towing is both enabled and disabled with the same player menu action.

There is one feature in this mod that is important to notice. If the tow rope breaks during the process of towing, the towed vehicle will be stuck locked. In this case one can simply use the towing menu action on the locked vehicle and it will get unlocked.

This mod is a replacement for the Advanced Towing mod which now seems to be unsupported for long.

REQUIREMENTS

Parking brakes disabling has appeared in Arma 3 v2.08 update. So, this mod requires Arma 3 game version to be at least 2.08.

USAGE

To start towing vehicle B with vehicle A go to vehicle A and select the towing action from player menu. Vehicle A now becomes a tow vehicle, a tractor, and vehicle B becomes a towed vehicle, a "cargo".

To stop towing vehicle B with vehicle A go to vehicle A and select the towing action from player menu. When done, rope between vehicle A and vehicle B will be removed and towing will be disabled.

If you want to create a tow chain of three vehicles, A - B - C, you should first enable towing with vehicle A, then enable towing with vehicle B.

There is a limitation. For towing to work, distance between vehicles must be less than 25 meters. Note, however, that Arma game engine may calculate distance between objects as a distance between object centers. So, actual limitation may be a little bit more strict than 25 meters in real game.

SOURCE CODE

The source code is located at GitHub:
https://github.com/neverwinter-nights/Vehicle-Towing

VERSION

0.5.

RELEASE NOTES

[Version 0.1]
  • Initial release as a separate script for public testing.

[Version 0.2]
  • Scripts are put into a separate folder.
  • A detailed usage instruction has been added.
  • A protection against abandoned locked vehicles has been introduced.

[Version 0.3]
  • Release as a mod.

[Version 0.4]
  • Bug fix. Player menu action is now recreated after player respawn.
  • Vehicle search distance has been increased up to 25 meters.

[Version 0.5]
  • A rope is now more static than dynamic.
61 Comments
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⚛◉⚛  [author] 26 Oct, 2023 @ 6:15pm 
Nicoman, this is Arma :-)
I hope they fix towing in Arma 4.
Nicoman 23 Oct, 2023 @ 10:21am 
LOLOL. Thanks for the laughter. Don't be angry. I really mean it. Just played around 5 minutes in the editor, most time I laughed. Because the towed vehicle constantly tried to kill me. When I outsmarted the killer vehicle by steering, it found a new method: It drove in front of me and I was unable to avoid collision. I was a bit like a cat with an attached sticker to the hind leg :))).
Seriously. It feels nicer then Duda's version, where the vehicle is constantly replaced by another one. But I fear that Arma's engine reaches it's limits here.
I think that physics necessary to correctly tow a vehicle is.... complicated. A bit out of scope of the engine. This is why the rope comports like a rubber band. And why the towed vehicle overtakes the tow vehicle.
⚛◉⚛  [author] 12 Oct, 2023 @ 6:03pm 
@Ranman, I have not looked into the source code of that mod, so I can not tell. Theoretically it could be done with an infinite loop of periodical checks, which IMHO reduces performance and adds micro freezes into an already slow game engine. It could also be an action attached to a player which was visible only when there are vehicles nearby. But doing so, would also use periodical checks for vehicles in vicinity and could lead to micro freezes. I can not say for sure.
Ranman 7 Oct, 2023 @ 10:25am 
@Pikachu I see. Out of curiosity, if this were to be the case, would you happen to know why this isn't the case for the Older Towing mod from 2016 that you linked this mod on works just from vehicle interaction?

Not trying to be rude or anything, just genuinely curious why that same functionality can't be replicated the way that mod works.
⚛◉⚛  [author] 28 Sep, 2023 @ 2:22pm 
Ranman, this is a feature of the mod. It is possible to make the action attached to the vehicle, but doing so will require mission makers to add this action to each vehicle in the game, including those vehicles which are created by scripts. This would make mission creation much more complicated and the support for this mod would depend on the mission makers. So, the decision was to attach the action not to all existing and future vehicles in the mission, but instead to attach the action to a player. Doing so enables support for all vehicles in the mission independently of the mission scripts.
Ranman 27 Sep, 2023 @ 2:40pm 
I love this mod, the only thing/things I wish was different is if the "Towing Toggle (On/Off)" action only showed up when looking at a vehicle, instead of always being there when you scroll, even if you aren't near vehicles.
d.omeron 16 Aug, 2023 @ 10:03pm 
Thanks for your honest and enlighting answer! :-)
I guess it's time to send a suggestion to Arma Reforger team, maybe they'll take all the recovery and maintenance seriously this time... but untill this will come - I still have a very nice and useful towing mod!
Cheers!
Corona2172 15 Aug, 2023 @ 9:32pm 
@Pikachu: Gotcha, thank you! Enjoying the mod!
⚛◉⚛  [author] 15 Aug, 2023 @ 3:11pm 
Corona2172,
this mod ("Vehicle Towing") is a separate mod. It uses a new function which was added by BIS into game engine. The "Advanced Towing" uses some tricks to simulate towing and it does not use the new function because the function did not exists at the time of creation of the mod.
⚛◉⚛  [author] 15 Aug, 2023 @ 3:10pm 
// Sorry, some kind of error has occurred: Comments must be less than 1000 characters in length.
// So ... I have to divide my text into parts ))
// And I have found a bug in Steam. My text is visible as "[]" instead of real text. OMG... )) So, do not pay attention to strange symbols.

[_PART_1_]

d.omeron,
I understand what you mean, I saw both triangles and bars, so no explainations are needed, thanks. The thing is that this mod was intended to be very simple, "one click" usage, so to say. To add new "rope" types it would take a lot of efforts to remake all the mod and create a GUI for "rope" selection. This would spoil the simplisity and the "single click" philosophy. But this is not the most serious part (surprisingly).