Gossamer's Warfare --- Variant of Warfare BE

[gossamersolid 155]

Just wondering as I don't see this listed for the upcoming 3.03 feature list: Any idea when it will be included, if at all?

I still think that the current cash flow is reaching ridiculous levels much too easily. Therefore I think it should be made more strictly dependent on individual achievements like contributing to missions, caps, kills, repairs, healings, respawns (for placing ambulances and FH's in good locations) etc.. and less on how many towns your side owns.

Furthermore, the reinforcement penalty should possibly also apply to any AI losses inflicted to your group and consist of some substantial, progressive percentage of your current balance. I think safety should play an increasingly important role as more sophisticated gear is used, just as in real life.

Maybe my view (or vision) of how this mission is to be played as to provide us players with the greatest possible immersion factor is not how the majority perceives things. But for those who share this view however, it should at least be made customizable using a set of reasonable parameters.

Btw, what I don't like in the new beta is the new feature of getting extra supply points for destroying enemy buildings. Why would such an artificial incentive be needed? Isn't the destruction of the building itself enough of an incentive (both in terms of defense and offense)?

Otherwise, keep up the brilliant work!

I forgot to write a ticket for the Income Levels, just did right now.

I have to strongly disagree with you. I played a match of 3.03 release about 2 weeks ago and we were running real low on money. Both teams held about half of Chernarus and we were constantly fighting.

I don't know if you guys are just hording money or something, but I run out of cash quickly.

As it has already been mentioned though, the income levels will be made as a parameter so server admins can choose which income levels they want.

The building destruction award will be set as a bounty that is on by default, so once again, server admins can disable it if they want.

I'm not going to implement money loss for squad AI as that would be rediculous I think.

[daikan 1]

I forgot to write a ticket for the Income Levels, just did right now.

Awesome, most appreciated :)

I have to strongly disagree with you. I played a match of 3.03 release about 2 weeks ago and we were running real low on money. Both teams held about half of Chernarus and we were constantly fighting.

I don't expect people to share my view of things regarding cash flow and the overall pace and style of gameplay. As I said, there may be different views about how this mission can/should be played out to give the most "bang for the buck" and my goal is not necessarily to have constant fighting going on all the time. Rather, fights should be the culmination of careful planning and preparation steps in most cases, just as it is in real life. As it is right now I just don't seem to ever get the feeling that the stakes are really high enough when engaging in a fight...

I say again, this is my personal view. Maybe my view of things is due to the fact that I'm not a player that drools over being finally able to use the most sophisticated toys my money can possibly buy. Rather, I'm in it mostly for the fun of drawn-out infantry fights and getting the most out with just about the basic equipment, where victory is achieved by superior strategy and teamwork rather than rambo-style trial-and-error-tactics and who owns the biggest guns...

Blowing stuff up all the time and buying replacements for my disposable units in a 10 minute rinse-and-repeat cycle is just not quite what I envision this mission to be.

Just my .2$

[gossamersolid 155]

I can look into making a parameter that has Reinforcement cost options:

- Player Deaths (DEFAULT SELECTION)

- Player & Squad AI Deaths

- AI Deaths

- No Costs

The AI Deaths will be something like 30% of the unit's cost, maybe (if somebody has a better value to suggest, I'll accept it).

EDIT:

I had another cool idea, but I'm not sure what people's views are on it.

I got this idea from Command & Conquer, mainly. The team can hold 5000 supplies as a base value, but the commander would need to buy silos (or Supply Caches in this case) to hold more supplies. Each Cache would hold 5000 supplies extra to a maximum of 50000. If a Cache dies, it loses the supplies that it is holding (so commanders would have to protect the supply caches, but it'd also add a whole new level of strategy into warfare). You could effectively cripple the enemy by destroying their supply caches.

Edited March 2, 2011 by GossamerSolid

[ginger mcale 11]

@Mando: Yeah actually there is plenty of help in it already Mando, maybe people are just not observant enough, i dont know.

@Gossamer, error report:

Just tried it out at a server, was an Tora Bora. Mando sqf hud files were missing for two hinds i tried, the one for 17k and the one for 25k.

@Gossamer, supply idea:

Nice one. It would also give the supply points a more important role. At the moment they are only used as rearm, refuel, repair stations through the support menu, but they are not even needed because you can do it also from every repair truck and depots from taken towns. I like the idea.

@Gossamer, mma quick help:

Awesome integration. Thank you :-)

@Gossamer, 3.03 general:

Like all the changes. Pretty good stuff. I could write which changes especially it are but then it would be almost the whole changelog lol. Looking forward to play this version with people online.

Edited March 3, 2011 by Ginger McAle

[Beagle 684]

Still the too much money and too fast technical advancment Problem. Just yesterday I joined a rather fresh game (1 hour running) on TV2. Some Players had already 800 Points and my slot had 130.000$ and was Major already. After another 30 minutes the sky was again full with Su-25 and the endgame began. Thats all going a bit to fast isnt it. In the chat I read things like "respan here, respawn there and i noticed that in soem cases you can reallly respaw miles away even in other towns, another player stated he repawns fpr more missiles as rearming takes too long ;(

Did you ever think about a spawn penalty weighting the price of your gear instead of a rank, because also a seargent can carry gear worth a 2000$

I also noticed that I fight Waves of A.I. now most of the time defendinf a town since more and more player adopt the tactic of overwatching a town and using Paratroopers and Artillery in masses to take it, while staying in a safe overwatch and doing soem sniping at best. Arty calls and paradrops are possible much to frequent.

Edited March 3, 2011 by Beagle

[daikan 1]

I can look into making a parameter that has Reinforcement cost options:

- Player Deaths (DEFAULT SELECTION)

- Player & Squad AI Deaths

- AI Deaths

- No Costs

The AI Deaths will be something like 30% of the unit's cost, maybe (if somebody has a better value to suggest, I'll accept it).

Needless to say, for me that would be another step into the right direction :ok:

As for the AI death reinforcement value I would suggest to make it configurable as there is most certainly no perfect value that fits all scenarios. 30% sounds like a reasonable default value however.

I had another cool idea, but I'm not sure what people's views are on it.

I got this idea from Command & Conquer, mainly. The team can hold 5000 supplies as a base value, but the commander would need to buy silos (or Supply Caches in this case) to hold more supplies. Each Cache would hold 5000 supplies extra to a maximum of 50000. If a Cache dies, it loses the supplies that it is holding (so commanders would have to protect the supply caches, but it'd also add a whole new level of strategy into warfare). You could effectively cripple the enemy by destroying their supply caches.

The idea sounds exciting to me although this would add even more management tasks to the already quite "paperwork heavy" commander role, which I think is not always welcome (let's face it: the commander role can be quite a boring one and it can be hard to find volunteers for it already).

In any case for this to work I think the entire economy should be based on supply points, including the purchase of individual units. In order to prevent players to deplete common supply points for no apparent reason I would keep unit pricing as it is but at the same time add supply costs counting towards either the common supply or the nearest supply cache balance for every unit purchased. That way supply points stay the basis of the economy without giving away too much control over it's total expenditure to individual players. Another way would be to have supply point expenditure limitation per regular player.

Of course this would introduce a whole new level of complexity to the game and I'm not sure about how well received it would be by the majority of players... Therefore: Presenting it as a configurable option for the server admins is always a good option.

[kotov12345 10]

For warfare coders special:

I got another idea.I used to play AGW AAS maps we need to cap zone here.Each zone start capping when one team have more units than other team inside the zone.Speed of taking zone depends on difference between quantity of units of each team.When zone take you need to touch flag to finish process and if you keep positive difference you completely take that zone.Really nice idea if we can implement that code and do new warfare map.

Other idea to remove spawn in camps.

May be option force players(engineers) to build spawn points for each town (may be need to be build in research area) and force other team looks for enemy spawn point.May be implement spawn point like big tent or house with players spawn inside of it.

Other idea can be taken from agw aas maps spawn in towns which belong to your team but if your death inside on town.

[daikan 1]

Did you ever think about a spawn penalty weighting the price of your gear instead of a rank, because also a seargent can carry gear worth a 2000$

I also noticed that I fight Waves of A.I. now most of the time defendinf a town since more and more player adopt the tactic of overwatching a town and using Paratroopers and Artillery in masses to take it, while staying in a safe overwatch and doing soem sniping at best. Arty calls and paradrops are possible much to frequent.

I pretty much share both of these observations.

I think a more severe spawn limitation is definitely something worth considering. Making it dependent on your carry-on gear value is certainly a good start (in this case multiple custom gear configurations to choose from would come in very handy).

And perhaps also limiting either the total number or rate of respawns in (contested) towns or from mobile spawns would be something worth thinking about as it would effectively disrupt unrealistic "spawn camping" tactics lasting over an extended period of time. In theory this could even be linked to the supply point system by counting respawns towards supply points and limiting supply rates for individual spawn locations... the possibilities for added depth (and therefore complexity) are almost endless...

[gossamersolid 155]

@Gossamer, error report:

Just tried it out at a server, was an Tora Bora. Mando sqf hud files were missing for two hinds i tried, the one for 17k and the one for 25k.

Thanks, I've made sure the HUD files are in there now. I'm going to go through mando before the next beta and try to make sure nothing else is missing.

Still the too much money and too fast technical advancment Problem. Just yesterday I joined a rather fresh game (1 hour running) on TV2. Some Players had already 800 Points and my slot had 130.000$ and was Major already. After another 30 minutes the sky was again full with Su-25 and the endgame began. Thats all going a bit to fast isnt it.

I'm not sure if people are exploiting or not, but there's absolutely no way that can happen in 1 hour. Should try to get in a match at the start and figure out what they are doing.

In the chat I read things like "respan here, respawn there and i noticed that in soem cases you can reallly respaw miles away even in other towns, another player stated he repawns fpr more missiles as rearming takes too long ;(

Did you ever think about a spawn penalty weighting the price of your gear instead of a rank, because also a seargent can carry gear worth a 2000$

I didn't implement it yet because this whole reinforcement penalty was just a test run to make sure people would actually put up with it. I don't penalize sergeants as they are the first class (when I did, it'd be impossible to take a town basically as we had no cash for missiles).

I'll look into doing the gear costs as well, but not sure when it'll happen

I also noticed that I fight Waves of A.I. now most of the time defendinf a town since more and more player adopt the tactic of overwatching a town and using Paratroopers and Artillery in masses to take it, while staying in a safe overwatch and doing soem sniping at best. Arty calls and paradrops are possible much to frequent.

I'll increase the cool down times for assets in general as I agree they are being used pretty fast. Also squad sizes are getting technically decreased as they will be a parameter soon with the default selection being a lower amount than they currently are.

For warfare coders special:

I got another idea.I used to play AGW AAS maps we need to cap zone here.Each zone start capping when one team have more units than other team inside the zone.Speed of taking zone depends on difference between quantity of units of each team.When zone take you need to touch flag to finish process and if you keep positive difference you completely take that zone.Really nice idea if we can implement that code and do new warfare map.

It kind of is already that way. You cannot capture a town unless you have more of your team near the depot than the other team. I don't think making the entire town the capture point would work too well though. In AAS it's easier because everybody is human, in warfare there are tons of AI running around which could make it very frustrating.

Other idea to remove spawn in camps.

May be option force players(engineers) to build spawn points for each town (may be need to be build in research area) and force other team looks for enemy spawn point.May be implement spawn point like big tent or house with players spawn inside of it.

Other idea can be taken from agw aas maps spawn in towns which belong to your team but if your death inside on town.

Medics can build Field Hospitals which act as spawn points.

I pretty much share both of these observations.

I think a more severe spawn limitation is definitely something worth considering. Making it dependent on your carry-on gear value is certainly a good start (in this case multiple custom gear configurations to choose from would come in very handy).

And perhaps also limiting either the total number or rate of respawns in (contested) towns or from mobile spawns would be something worth thinking about as it would effectively disrupt unrealistic "spawn camping" tactics lasting over an extended period of time. In theory this could even be linked to the supply point system by counting respawns towards supply points and limiting supply rates for individual spawn locations... the possibilities for added depth (and therefore complexity) are almost endless...

I'm looking into preventing spawning at a town's camps if the town is under attack.

[Beagle 684]

Match report:

Server: TV2 battle.no

Admin: ArmaDan

Mission: Gossamer's Warfare 3.02

Date 3-3-2001

End time 18:46 Zulu

total player count 12, even teams

Match start in game time 14:00

Match end in game time 16:34

First enemy air contact 16:10

At this time we (BLUFOR) held 9 towns and were far from having air assets.

It must be noted that we were against a bunch of players that can be labeled power players with daily online time of 5-8 hours...(as far as I can say)

Just as a example for a quite usual match.

Something like 4 hours would be nice but i've not seen such extended machtche for a long time

Currently is to easy to get air units (only planes are used usually due to the realism lack we all know)

Any ideas how to prevent such early and "out of the nothing" endings?

Edited March 3, 2011 by Beagle

[gossamersolid 155]

I have no ideas on how to prevent it except for trying to balance the match with skilled players on each side. I had a 3 1/2 hour match two weekends ago that we had to call because it was getting too late (or early in the morning) and we were tired lol.

Also 2 hours before air units show up isn't bad at all IMO.

[cri74 10]

@Beagle - We have been discussing the balancing of teams and we agree power players, as you call them, often end up on same team. Most of the time one team is present on teamspeak and the other is not so its allso easy to choose those on teamspeak as team-mates...at least i often do that. I can see how this is a problem for new players and how it becomes boring when the same players(or team) allways win. For future refence i hope more take the suggestion to join TS3 at ::speak.battle.no:: and work as a team, its more fun and a good way to get to know the players :) If there is good teamplay and experienced players, its often very easy get resources + capping cities. I agree that when the advanced air comes into play its often close to end time even though Gossamer put in the superb Anti Air system on both sides. Just for the record ive suggsted to the regulars to split up in two teams when playing public.

If you got suggestions for TV2 servers i would be happy to see you in the forums at www.battle.no

All feedback is good feedback :)

Edited March 3, 2011 by cri74

[Beagle 684]

I have no ideas on how to prevent it except for trying to balance the match with skilled players on each side. I had a 3 1/2 hour match two weekends ago that we had to call because it was getting too late (or early in the morning) and we were tired lol.

Also 2 hours before air units show up isn't bad at all IMO.

2 hours for advanced attack aircraft like Su-25 is a bit odd. And in high number due to ridiculous high money piles. It's not really that fascinating when you can't move on ground with any vehicle anymore after just 2 hours, especially if you join a bit later.

Just my opinion and you know what I wil say now: too much airquake and too much A.I. wave fighting and tool much retaliation mortar fire after you have just captured.

Another point that's not so nice is the spawnfight. It is close to impossible to take a camp when the enemy spawns in your back all 20 seconds with a HEDP round in the tube.

I would suggest to either shorten capture time or do it the Benny way to prohibit spawn at camps that are occupied by your enemy, players at least.

Just my proposals, you're the master ;)

[gossamersolid 155]

I'm not really the master :) I'm just another guy that plays arma and wanted to doing some dev work.

I kinda see what you are saying, but it can be the same with tanks. Too many tanks can be spammed easily, but all you have to do is counter them with AT. Same thing applies to Air, use the AA features to your advantage.

I was talking a while ago with BigMorgan and we were going to raise the supply cost for all air upgrades and the general cost of aircraft, so I'll try to work on that sometime.

I'll definetly be making it so that when a camp is contested, you can't spawn at it.

[ArmaDan 10]

@Beagle: With some tactics its not impossible to defend against aircrafts. You should have bought a Rapier AA vehicle, and if u didnt had cash enough, u should have asked ur team to put money together for a rapier. Tor and rapier are extremly effective against any air. Usually the first thing we do when we see enemy air and we dont got it, is to get a tor/rapier up as soon as possible.

Also building defence posistion in base i think is a bad idea, as it shows up on radar as grey dots, and in most cases where u find lots of grey dots together, u also find base buildings.

And yes with some skilled players that splitt up in pairs to take towns faster it is possible to take 8 towns to build AF in under 1 hour.

Edited March 3, 2011 by ArmaDan

[daikan 1]

Also building defence posistion in base i think is a bad idea, as it shows up on radar as grey dots, and in most cases where u find lots of grey dots together, u also find base buildings.

For me it's precisely this kind of crap that pretty much ruins immersion and realism as soon as attack aircraft enter the stage... How realistic are aircraft fitted with a 360° radar system capable of finding ground targets automagically as well as an all-knowing magic missile warning system and an infallible press-tab-to-auto-lock ground targets mechanism without proper LOS check (the only things I don't really like about Mando Missiles)...

IMHO flying and finding your targets should be WAY harder than it is right now... but I guess that's another story and not directly related to this mission so I better stop my rant here...

[gossamersolid 155]

I think I've fixed the AI Jacking off around the map on Takistan issue. I've sent an updated PBO to the TV2 Server for them to give it a test.

[ArmaDan 10]

For me it's precisely this kind of crap that pretty much ruins immersion and realism as soon as attack aircraft enter the stage... How realistic are aircraft fitted with a 360° radar system capable of finding ground targets automagically as well as an all-knowing magic missile warning system and an infallible press-tab-to-auto-lock ground targets mechanism without proper LOS check (the only things I don't really like about Mando Missiles)...

IMHO flying and finding your targets should be WAY harder than it is right now... but I guess that's another story and not directly related to this mission so I better stop my rant here...

Most modern combat aircrafts have both radar and incoming missile warning i think. But any skilled guy in bomber dont need to lock on to anything to take out targets, ccip hud in bomber is very good to manually bomb anything on the ground, and with some training also any moving vehicles.

and u cant lock on to buildings, only vehicles if u configure tab to joystick. buildings u have to visually find to take them out.

[kotov12345 10]

For me it's precisely this kind of crap that pretty much ruins immersion and realism as soon as attack aircraft enter the stage...

agree BIS planes and attack choppers is real joke :) - Flying chopper or plane lock tank driving in forest somewhere 3km from it and kill from 1st rocket :)

Edited March 3, 2011 by kotov12345

[gossamersolid 155]

Uploading 3.03 beta 3 right now. Thought I'd just post this here as it's very appropriate:

EDIT:

Download - http://thegamewardens.net/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile&id=25

You can get the download via the updater tool (as always)

Changelog (Includes previous beta's changes):

* Bug #16446: Killing friendly targets with Mando Missiles awards bounty
* Bug #17611: Attached Vehicles Catching Fire
* Bug #17707: Disband destroys the vehicle the unit is in
* Bug #17736: Town Defense AI Not guarding towns (Actually fixed :))
* Bug #17749: Disbanded units stay in the group
* Bug #17864: Major supply miscalculation
* Bug #18020: Various Mando HUD files missing
* Feature #17584: Add Missing M4 to Equipment Menu
* Feature #17971: MMA Quick Help Menu Action
* Feature #17978: New Playable Island: Tora Bora
* Feature #18032: When enemies are near a camp, you will not be able to spawn at it
* Support #17900: Dev Mode: Unlock all Upgrades fixed
* Task #16070: Update Mando Missile Mod to v2.4b97
* Task #17693: Raise prices of Militia Strike
* Task #17751: Ambulances are not affected by Empty Vehicle Timer anymore
* Task #17902: Support Menu: Don't allow SCUD to Rearm
* Task #17903: SCUD Launcher now fires Conventional Scuds
* Task #17972: Town Capture Cash Reward Raised
* Task #17974: Increase Camp Capture Distance
* Task #17977: Vehicles can now Capture Camps 
* Task #18018: Increase cool down times for all assets
* Task #18071: Equip players with Respawn Weapons during Respawn Menu
* Task #18078: Add seperate "reload flares" button to support menu

Edited March 6, 2011 by GossamerSolid

[Beagle 684]

* Feature #17584: Add Missing M4 to Equipment Menu

* Feature #18032: When enemies are near a camp, you will not be able to spawn at

* Task #18018: Increase cool down times for all assets

Thanks for this changes, should play out a bit more relaxed and "natural" now.

[gossamersolid 155]

* Feature #17584: Add Missing M4 to Equipment Menu

* Feature #18032: When enemies are near a camp, you will not be able to spawn at

* Task #18018: Increase cool down times for all assets

Thanks for this changes, should play out a bit more relaxed and "natural" now.

No problem. I'm very excited to try a match out with increased cool downs and the camp contesting. It'll make town warfare much more fair and fierce.

[Beagle 684]

No problem. I'm very excited to try a match out with increased cool downs and the camp contesting. It'll make town warfare much more fair and fierce.

Well, simply "much less annoying" is the right expression I think ;)

In the last version you had to hunt a single player a full hour all around the camps in "Starygrad" without any chance to stop him spawning.

[gossamersolid 155]

Well, simply "much less annoying" is the right expression I think ;)

In the last version you had to hunt a single player a full hour all around the camps in "Starygrad" without any chance to stop him spawning.

Yep, but now you can easily send AI/players to each of those camps and lock them out of the city. Makes it much more strategic and it's going to make Medic's Field Hospital ability a LOT more useful.

[Beagle 684]

Yep, but now you can easily send AI/players to each of those camps and lock them out of the city. Makes it much more strategic and it's going to make Medic's Field Hospital ability a LOT more useful.

Speaking of Player build structures, why is the ammo dump a barrack building? It's again a more cosmetic complaint, but would'nt one the huge "ammo dumps" used as vehicle ammo crate by default fit the purpose much better?

I also noticed that the camo netting build from US support truck do not have the desert colors in takistan but are green, same goes for the bunkers. Bunkers build from engineers build menu have the right color and are much cheaper.

Edited March 6, 2011 by Beagle