[ALPHA WIP SP] I44 D-Day Single Player unofficial.

[gabe_ruckus 5]

Well, after a solid 14 hours of learning scripting, learning DAC, learning classnames, and applying what I've learned, I've got a playable beach invasion mission up and running in the I44 mod. It's based heavily on the stock multiplayer version, so I can't take much credit except for the scripting that runs the DAC, and the modifications to the DAC folder that DAC_Extern refers to. And some other minor scripts. I give 98% of the credit for this mission to Silola for DAC, the Invasion 1944 team, and PacUK for the mission itself.

It's not done, but the allies will spawn, take the beach, and take the objectives, all without any intervention from you, if you want to cower in a ditch for 3 or 4 hours. My eyes are burning from staring at config files and scripts for a whole day, and I don't usually have a whole day to work on stuff like this in Iraq, so here's the WIP mission to play, enjoy, learn from, and leave some feedback.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b0jqpkiupuh8uvu

FEATURES!!!

-Savegames for every objective (This thing is a marathon, you'll probably use them)

-Dynamic AI groups with respawn

-Runs on modest hardware (I created this on my laptop)

-Modified AI parameters for the defense. You'll get a lot more tracers flying around on the beach, and some nasty direct fire from a Pak-40, if you're not careful.

CAVEATS!!!

-The AI can be kind of slow to the objective. Chalk it up to the DAC's excellent scripting and control that makes them want to avoid dying a little more than usual.

-No medics? This mission will take hours, and I wanted to avoid the situations you sometimes find in the Arma games where you're crawling because you're shot in the legs, can't aim your weapon because of wounded arms, and the medic can't get to you because of [Medic's busy, Hedgerows borked pathfinding, Medic got shot, DAC didn't spawn a medic, etc...]. Instead, I've created a script that will regenerate your health over some seconds, so if you get knocked down by a near miss from a grenade blast, you're not stuck restarting from a save point. You're still quite vulnerable, and you will die as easily as you're used to, but if you stay out of harms way, your health will regenerate back up to full so you can drive on.

-Bangalores: I'm still learning scripting, in fact, I started today, so in place of AI placing and detonating bangalores to get through the seawall, there's a trigger that will createvehicle some explosive rounds under key points in the wire, activated when Blufor reaches the Seawall.

-Folder, not PBO? It's still WIP, and I'm still learning, so in case you too wanted to open it up in the editor to change anything, learn from the mission, or use the DAC scripts I've modified, they're easily accessible with no 3rd party tools.

[cyclone83 6]

First, thanks a lot! :) I'm sure I'm not the only one who waited for this one ^^

Did it already my self though, for sure I'll check out what you got here this evening ;)

Personally I recommend placing fixed AI units and groups, maybe give em individual or variabel behaviour under special circumstances. But when the player shoots a group of let's say 5 enemies and short time afterwards they're being spawned right back again and again, it can get really frustrating and seems everything but real. In those situations I always use to think by my self "God dammit, I just killed da whole group, what hole did these ones crawl out of again?!". Quite annoying :D

Edited November 9, 2010 by Cyclone83

[ProfTournesol 956]

First, that's exactly what i was looking for, so thanks a lot.

Secondly, i agree that constant spawning is very annoying in SP missions, and as ArmA2 allows a lot of units on the same map, it may not be necessary.

[gabe_ruckus 5]

No worries about infinite Germans, the Germans are still spawned out of sight in a finite manner when the US reaches the bluff, so you won't notice it happen. The US reinforcements aren't infinite either, but if you're moving on the objectives, the spawn points should be behind you, either at the landing craft or right past the seawall (To save time for the AI pathing through the wire). I need to go back in and script more ammo to the Germans on the bluff, I did notice that they sometimes run out before the Americans can kill them and take the bluff.

[cyclone83 6]

I would go for non spawning troops but instead placing reinforcement troops at the inland, who move up when their alpha troops got almost all killed. So there would be an accurately defined number of enemies which have to get eliminated. You still wouldn't know when or where they will welcome you, but you ain't got that nasty tiring endless story ;) Also the map's size can easily handle this amount of AI. Triggers and scripts brake down smooth framerates not less, you know ^^

[bwc153 10]

I like the re-spawning part of the MGs... it was annoying at first, but it did provide a nice feel after a while... You had to watch those bunkers, as the Germans may (realistically) 'reman' them.

Only gripes IMO is the allied squads are a bit too big, split them up into slightly smaller squads, and then one casualty won't cause 6-7 men to be hugging the dirt. (and instead 3-5 men). Also maybe add a few more places for bombs to go off in the wires (maybe the road next to the ruins?) as well as maybe require 2-3 soldiers to be there. As its a bit odd getting one guy up there, he dies, and then the wire just starts randomly exploding.

[Psilocybe 3]

Wow this sounds great, DAC and i44, two of my favorites! I'll Dow load this one tonight after work, quick question, has anybody toyed with using i44 and any ai mods, ala slx or zuess etc? The dismembered bodies in slx are great as well as reaction tofire, but I'd hate to wreck any fundamental features of i44 in the process.

[PacUK 1]

I'll give this a look when I get some time, sounds like a great replacement for my current SP version (or MP demo aka me lazily putting in an commander module) once its done and dusted though if you're interested in getting it in the official release (and maybe helping out with some other missions if you have time down the road).

[gabe_ruckus 5]

I'm going to be doing some more work on this today, I'd love to try and get a more polished version ready for an official release. Provided I can get this mission sorted out, I'd love to make some SP missions for official release.

[gabe_ruckus 5]

Status Update:

Work goes on, I've got AI engineers laying bangalores to breach the wire, made adjustments to the DAC scripts to tune difficulty, and kept the intro intact.

Still to do:

Create a mix of editor placed and DAC units for the landing force, for emergent AI behavior combined with tightly scripted behavior for more natural looking AI behavior on the beach.

Do the same after the beach is secured, tune difficulty in assaulting the bluffs (The Pak-40 on the left is rocking everything on that side, and the DAC AI has some serious issues getting through the wire and up the bluff in the same calendar month).

Find and implement some cool sounds for the engineers ("Bangalores!" "Fire in the hole!") while they go about their business blowing up the wire.

Figure out why the middle boat keeps sliding up the beach, and fix it. Or deletevehicle that mofo and sub in a new one all quick-like.

Adjust briefing, overview, Readme files.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Status Update:

Work goes on, I've got AI engineers laying bangalores to breach the wire, made adjustments to the DAC scripts to tune difficulty, and kept the intro intact.

Still to do:

Create a mix of editor placed and DAC units for the landing force, for emergent AI behavior combined with tightly scripted behavior for more natural looking AI behavior on the beach.

Do the same after the beach is secured, tune difficulty in assaulting the bluffs (The Pak-40 on the left is rocking everything on that side, and the DAC AI has some serious issues getting through the wire and up the bluff in the same calendar month).

Find and implement some cool sounds for the engineers ("Bangalores!" "Fire in the hole!") while they go about their business blowing up the wire.

Figure out why the middle boat keeps sliding up the beach, and fix it. Or deletevehicle that mofo and sub in a new one all quick-like.

Adjust briefing, overview, Readme files.

Thats sounds really nice, congrats :)

[bummer 10]

awesome work for a nice sp mission.

only suggestion i would make is after the boat ride in have a save point on the beach so you dont have to wait the 5 minutes to get to shore , not that long of course but after the 6th or 7th time it sure seems long!

[gabe_ruckus 5]

Another progress report:

-AI units take the beach, and breach the seawall. Some are scripted to keep them from going prone in the middle of the beach, and some are left to their own devices. The beach is pretty much good to go, at last...

Still to do:

- ...and then I watched the AI try to take the bluff, where the German tanks from the crossroads spawned in because the DAC zone activated their trigger, and they got called up to reinforce, and D-Day went all Market Garden on me. It was a slaughter.

Easy fix, I'm going to use the task triggers to activate the DAC zones, this will ensure the Germans don't send ALL their defenses up to the bluffs, which were already a hard fight.

- Swap out some editor units for more DAC units to maintain performance (The latest revision's not as performance friendly as the first version I released).

-Add some more Germans to defend inland, once the bluffs were captured it was pretty easy to let the AI steamroll the Germans all the way back to the crossroads.

-Add a save point after the cutscene (Can't believe I forgot this, I HATE cutscenes that don't save afterwards).

All in all, it's progressing well, and I was able to play through the whole mission in about an hour and a half, killing 46 Germans and taking out a Panzer IV. I'd say another day or two and it'll be good to go.

@PacUK: I'd like to offer this for the next release of the mod, but also release here, and maybe just add a couple more things to the bundled version.