Mission Making

Mission Making

What to put in a mission so a crew can use CARP, and the handful of things worth knowing before you build around it.

Drop zones

The panel's DZ list is built from map markers whose name starts with DZ_. The marker's text is used as the label, so DZ_alpha with the text "DZ ALPHA" reads properly in the list. Anything else in the mission is ignored.

Crews can always skip the list: SET ON MAP lets them click any point.

The CARP Computer

Players need the item TLB_CARP_Computer to open CARP and to share the crew's drop:

• In a loadout: add TLB_CARP_Computer to the unit's items, or leave it in an Arsenal.
• On the ground: place TLB_CARP_Item_Computer from Eden or Zeus under Equipment → Inventory Items.
• Or drop the requirement: turn off Require CARP Computer in Settings → Access, and anyone aboard can use CARP.

On a server

• Load the mod on the server as well as the clients. On a dedicated server the cargo is usually owned by the server, and that is the machine that performs the release and flies guided canopies. Without it, drops quietly do nothing.
• Install the key. Every release is signed. Copy keys/tlb_carp.bikey out of the mod folder into the server's own Keys/ folder and verifySignatures = 2 works as normal. It is one persistent key, so you install it once and not per release.
• Force the settings you care about in cba_settings.sqf — see Settings.

Aircraft

Any aircraft can fly a drop. Only the USAF C-17 and C-130J are calibrated; everything else uses the C-17's numbers.

That solves normally — there is no warning tier and auto drop is not gated. What does not transfer is the accuracy claim: the measured figures were measured on the calibrated airframes. See Accuracy → Other aircraft.

Two escape hatches for unusual airframes:

// Where a load leaves the aircraft from, in model coordinates.
aircraft setVariable ["TLB_CARP_dropPos", [0, -30, -5], true];

// Where a loaded vehicle rides inside the hold.
aircraft setVariable ["TLB_CARP_loadPos", [0, -8, -2], true];

Without them CARP derives the hold and the release point from the aircraft's bounding box, which is good enough for carriage but is not a calibration.

Cargo

CARP recognises loads from four sources: its own load action, the USAF cargo system, ACE cargo (real objects, not ACE's virtual entries), and vehicle-in-vehicle. A vehicle that Zeus has merely placed inside a fuselage is carried by nothing and cannot be dropped — load it with one of the four.

Loads stack forward from the ramp and leave back to front, which is also the order guided loads are spaced along the run-in.

Unloading is refused above 3 m, deliberately. See Cargo.

Zeus

• Zeus can place the CARP Computer as an item, and can place or spawn loads — but a spawned vehicle still has to be loaded to be droppable.
• Zeus teleporting a crew member between aircraft is handled: they adopt whatever CARP state that airframe holds within a second.

What CARP never does to your mission

• No global markers. The DZ, release point, canopy and touchdown markers are local to each client, so two aircraft running CARP never write over each other's map.
• No shared state between aircraft. The crew's drop is stored on the airframe itself.
• No changes to anybody's cargo system. USAF and ACE loads are read where they are; CARP's own release reproduces the same sequence.

Talking to CARP from a script

Most missions need none of this, but it exists:

Variable	On	Meaning
TLB_CARP_dropPos	aircraft	Release offset override, model coordinates
TLB_CARP_loadPos	aircraft	Cargo hold position override
TLB_CARP_carpRecord	aircraft	The crew's shared drop record. Read it; do not write it — the server owns it

Checking a mission before you ship it

1. Get in the aircraft with a CARP Computer and confirm TLB CARP is on the interaction menu.
2. Confirm your DZ_* markers appear in the list.
3. Load a vehicle, fly a pass with AUTO DROP armed, and watch it leave.
4. Confirm the load arrives — the HUD should reach ARRIVED.

Then do all four again on a dedicated server, with a second player aboard, before a mission depends on CARP in a live operation. Both panels should show the same CREW revision.

A listen server hides the one thing most likely to break: on a dedicated server the cargo usually belongs to the server, and that is the machine that performs the release.