Group Spawning

[rurounijones]

This issue is the master issue for getting group spawning working and will probably have more things added to it over time as we realise what needs to be done:

The API for spawning addGroup in lua is basically "Pass in a huge lua table and hope you get it right" which is not the most user-friendly experience. Therefore we should try and add validation to our gRPC API (still in lua) where possible to remove some of the uncertainty around calling it.

Ground Groups

• Group
• Units
• Waypoints
• Tasks
• Validation

Helicopter Groups

• Group
• Units
• Waypoints
• Tasks
• Fuel/Guns/countermeasures etc.
• Pylon setup
• Validation

Plane Groups

• Group
• Units
• Waypoints
• Tasks
• Fuel/Guns/countermeasures etc.
• Pylon setup
• Validation

Sea Groups

• Group
• Units
• Waypoints
• Tasks
• Validation

[rurounijones]

We can currently spawn a static SAM site (See #64 (comment) ) however I am not checking anything as complete in the ground group until I have had more time to do testing.

[rurounijones]

@Wizxrd Suggested that we pass in an abstraction for the waypoint type and then have the lua fill in the rest: i.e.

actions = {
  turningPoint      = { name=_('Turning point'),            type='Turning Point',     action='Turning Point' },
  flyOverPoint      = { name=_('Fly over point'),           type='Turning Point',     action='Fly Over Point' },
  finPoint          = { name=_('Fin point (N/A)'),          type='Fin Point',         action='Fin Point' },
  takeoffRunway  	= { name=_('Takeoff from runway')	  , type='TakeOff',           action='From Runway' },
  takeoffParking	= { name=_('Takeoff from parking')	  , type='TakeOffParking',    action='From Parking Area' },
  takeoffParkingHot = { name=_('Takeoff from parking hot'), type='TakeOffParkingHot', action='From Parking Area Hot' },
  LandingReFuAr 	= { name=_('LandingReFuAr')			  , type='LandingReFuAr',     action='LandingReFuAr' },
  
  takeoffGround	    = { name=_('Takeoff from ground')	   ,type='TakeOffGround',     action='From Ground Area' },
  takeoffGroundHot  = { name=_('Takeoff from ground hot'),  type='TakeOffGroundHot',  action='From Ground Area Hot' },
  
  landing 		    = { name=_('Landing'),                  type='Land',              action='Landing' },
  offRoad 		    = { name=_('Offroad'),                  type='Turning Point',     action='Off Road' },
  onRoad 		    = { name=_('On road'),                  type='Turning Point',     action='On Road' },
  rank 			    = { name=_('Rank'),                     type='Turning Point',     action='Rank' },
  cone 			    = { name=_('Cone'),                     type='Turning Point',     action='Cone' },
  vee 			    = { name=_('Vee'),                      type='Turning Point',     action='Vee' },
  diamond 		    = { name=_('Diamond'),                  type='Turning Point',     action='Diamond' },
  echelonL 		    = { name=_('Echelon Left'),             type='Turning Point',     action='EchelonL' },
  echelonR 		    = { name=_('Echelon Right'),            type='Turning Point',     action='EchelonR' },
  customForm 	    = { name=_('Custom'),                   type='Turning Point',     action='Custom' },
  onRailroads 	    = { name=_('On railroads'),             type='On Railroads',      action='On Railroads' },
}

Where we could use Protobuf enums for the actions key.

[rurounijones]

I have a branch that uses the above actions and am working on adding the ability to create routes but it will take a bit I think. This spawn API is hurting my brain.

[YoloWingPixie]

@rurounijones So I am not stepping on any toes, what is the state of this? Has there been any progress? I saw #77 open but obviously that is a quite a few years old itself.

I am comfortable spawning units via addGroup in lua, and do it for some of my squadron's internal scripting libs and would be happy to help here, but is there a requirements list or list of action items needed here to see this get to feature completion?

[rurounijones]

I am no longer involved in DCS related stuff and neither really is @rkusa (I think) so people will need to add features they want to see.

If people do take the time to add features then I am happy to hand out permissions so that they can merge and whatnot. Or people are free to create their own forks and work there

[Deadyplus1]

@YoloWingPixie I am looking to start working on this, one of my projects has come to a point where this is going to be useful. Just wanted to make sure you weren't actively working on this.

[YoloWingPixie]

@Deadyplus1 Feel free to take it on, happy to help out as well!