Building Land Classes

Destroyed Buildings that used the DestructEngine type will vaporise (dissappear) unless a rubble model is associated with them.

In OFP we had a rather nice rendition of the bulding after destruction, that, in itself, was useful, visual, and usable for some missions (The Award winning Abandoned Armies eg).

In Arma, we have an un-asked for, but rather clever piece of rubble at best, or nothing at all, at worst.

To further confuse matters BIS choose to call this class stuff 'ruins'. Rubble would be more appropriate, since there are also genuine ruins in the game. (Helfenburks eg). But one thing you can count on is that bis have never cared about compatibilty with anything previous. The code below avoids the use of the word ruin where possible.

Worse, a building that is replaced by rubble comes alive again. It's damage is no longer one. Making target scripting moot.

To further complicate the issue, any building that needs a ruin replacement (what doesn't?) must be called a Land_xyz class. Why this should be can only depend on what you're smoking at the time.

Even worse, building animations did not work in arma one without a Land class. Mercifully, this seems to have been fixed (probably by sheer oversight)

And so...:

standard building declaration that no longer works (if you want to see anything after destruction)

class CfgVehicles
{
 class House;
 class MyHouse:House {...........};

Shiny new idiocy

class CfgVehicles
{
 class Ruins; // required for the ruin model
 class NonStrategic;
 class House: NonStrategic {class DestructionEffects; }; // ie a completely stupid re-declaration of what should not have to be known.
                                                         // the extern declarations were supposed to remove this sillyness but BIS as usual broke their own rules
                                                         // then changed the rules to suit, and finally forgot what they were.
 class Land_MyRuinedHouseModel:Ruins
 {
   scope=protected;                                      // yes folks, even tho this model might only be local in scope
                                                         // the engine can't find it
   displayname=Rubble;                                   // at least call it something sensible when it shows
   model = \some\rubble\MyRuinedHouseModel[.p3d];
 };
 class Land_MyHouse: House
 {
     ... usual stuff followed by ...
  class DestructionEffects: DestructionEffects
  {
     class Ruin1
     {
       simulation = "ruin";                                      // bis broke most of their simulations. but this one works
       type= \some\rubble\MyRuinedHouseModel[.p3d];            // don't even try and work out how the engine prepends land_
                                                                 // to get at the class. But, you can start crying in frustration
                                                                 // about now and go back and play ofp. It remains a superior game.
       position = "";
       intensity = 1;
       interval = 1;
       lifeTime = 1;
     };
   };
 };