L63_HeliAI

This mod adds AI helicopter flights that fly multi-stop routes you define with map markers, ordered from the squad command wheel's Air Support entries. A Transport flight is one AI-piloted transport, optionally escorted by a pair of AI gunships that hold formation on it, fly nose-to-tail with it through terrain, break to overwatch orbits while it works a stop, and escort it home. A Strike flight is a gunship section that attacks the points you mark. Players ride as passengers and are inserted at the points you mark.

Quick setup
1. Place the flight dispatcher at your base (transport + escorts + strike gunships + crews, launch-ready), or spawn a single crewed helicopter with the included test-spawner prefab. A bare airframe won't fly — it needs an AI pilot. (Door gunners fill themselves; the pilot does not.)
2. Board if you want to ride along.

Build the route
The marker label is the command: a package letter, then the number sets the order and the letters set the action. Labels aren't case-sensitive.
- T marks are the Transport route (T1-WP, T2-LZ ...), S marks the Strike route (S1-WP, S2-CAS ...). Both can be drawn together. A label with no letter (1-WP) is flown by a flight that finds no marks of its own letter.
- n-WP — waypoint (flight path)
- n-LZ — landing zone: lands, unloads, departs on its hold timer or the "Go / Next Stop" command. Use open, flat ground — an unlandable spot is skipped.
- n-RP — fast-rope point: holds a precise low hover and deploys ropes; passengers insert with the "Board F.R.I.E.S" action, and the helicopter waits for everyone on the rope (including later waves). Works onto rooftops, and through forest canopy to the ground. Transport only.
- n-HC — helocast: a low, slow run over water from this mark to the next; swimmers drop in. Transport only.
- n-CAS — close air support: the gunships run in low, pop up and attack the marked area (rockets and door guns), then station over it. Strike only. The loiter time after the pass is a dispatcher setting.
- T0 / S0 / 0 (optional) — origin: an authored start/return point. Without it, the spawn point is home.

Append -<metres> for a leg's altitude, e.g. T2-WP-90m. A CAS mark takes no altitude. A flight reads the marks drawn by the squad that tasked it; a private marker never reaches a dedicated server, so place route marks for your side.

Fly it
Open the squad command wheel: Air Support > Transport or Strike (the icons carry your dispatcher's faction), or use the action inside the helicopter.
- Transport: Launch Sortie, Go / Next Stop, Fly To > Stop 1-8, Abort & RTB.
- Strike: Launch Sortie, Re-Attack, Abort & RTB.
The flight reports readiness by radio (Transport is Raccoon, Strike is Bushranger), spools its rotors to speed, launches in formation, flies the stops in order, then returns home: escorts stay on station to final approach, and every airframe lands on its own pad, in sequence, facing the way it took off. Back home the flight is repaired, re-armed, refuelled and re-crewed — order it again and it starts its engines and goes. Mission makers choose the end-of-sortie behaviour on the dispatcher: stay on station, return and park, or return and despawn.

"Go / Next Stop" sends a stopped helicopter on early, "Fly To" jumps to a numbered stop, "Abort & RTB" brings the flight home. A passenger who rides back to the origin is returned to their last spawn point.

AI door gunners man the guns with improved target priority (a shooter endangering the aircraft outranks a parked vehicle). Can be toggled off.

How it flies
- Terrain masking flight: transport legs of 2 km or more are planned through the terrain that hides them and flown low along that route, 15 m over the ground; LZ and rope-point approaches mask too, with a straight final. Legs where masking gains nothing are flown straight. On by default, per flight.
- Escort trail: on a masking leg the gunships leave their abeam stations and fly nose-to-tail, the port gunship leading ~105 m ahead on the transport's route, the starboard gunship following ~105 m behind on its track, banking through the bends with it. They fan back out before a straight leg and break to overwatch before a stop.
- Strike runs fly low to the target with one late pop-up, so the section is seen for about a third less of the run.
- The flying is built to read like a real helicopter: measured rotor spool-up before takeoff, banking that follows the actual flight path, smooth climbs and prompt descents over crests, speed-carrying approaches, descent held inside the vortex-ring-state envelope, and a brake-to-hover before every vertical touchdown.

Credits: Forked from AeroPilotAI by TheReaperCat. Map-marker parsing adapted from EE_Heli_Enhanced_Frame by Dekot3LT and EE_Helicopter AI Transport by EverElizaldeGaming (both APL). Fast-roping powered by BFS-F.R.I.E.S Reforged and Physics Rope, both by WhoaItsLouie. With thanks to all four authors.