Warfare BE: ACE Edition

[djczing 10]

umm... couldnt tell how to upload RPT to the ticket - figured I had to be registered. Did that, and it still wont let me log in.

[sickboy 13]

umm... couldnt tell how to upload RPT to the ticket - figured I had to be registered. Did that, and it still wont let me log in.

You didn't activate your account yet. Did now for you.

[djczing 10]

RPTs from CBA 144 vanilla failure footprint are up.

Ill grab your latest update and start another test mission so you can compare.

By the way: Alll my testing is being done on Chernarus. The desert is just too easy ;-)

[sickboy 13]

Latest ACE and CBA is up btw; http://ace.dev-heaven.net/wagn/ACE_1_7_RC2

[joehunk 10]

Not sure what exactly is making the difference, but with the latest ACE (now on my AddonSync) and 1.57 (came out yesterday), JIP is mega fast. It used to slow down notably to ~a minute after the first town was capped, and now it's more like 5-10 sec. This is using the same setup I always have (Windows dedicated server, Takistan, latest version of my mission).

I also joined some random server that was running the Warfare ACE port that came before mine (and whose code I started from). In the past, this mission would give me the town init error pretty much any time I tried to JIP no matter what. But last night with the latest ACE and 1.57, this server also JIPed super fast.

DJ I am interested to see how this matches up with what you are seeing. I am going to try to leave my server even if I have to AFK in it so you can test it too.

[sickboy 13]

It seems Warfare initialization is sensitive to timing.

I have made great progress in XEH, which leaves a lot more scripting power available to warfare at the mission start (and later on as well).

This has done the trick.

Initialization behaviour in SP and MP differs, but more importantly for JIP people it differs, additionally some bugs sit in the way... it's a bit of a minefield, requiring to make sacrifices here and there, but it seems I've hit the right balance now.

If the game bugs get fixed we might see even more improved init.

Edited December 23, 2010 by Sickboy

[djczing 10]

Joe - it matches up exactly with what im seeing.

Init still takes a bit after the mssion has been running a long time, but inits properly every time, and I get no towns init debug msgs anymore.

Of course ive been running beta 1.57, but the general 1.57 release appears to be much the same as the beta, so I wouldnt expect any difference there.

The null object issue is one for BIS and/or Benny - and Benny has indicated that he has addressed some of it in 2.066.

In the meantime, Sickboys addition of some error checking, keeping XEH from trying to parse through null data structures, or trying to index null object IDs (yeah I dont know the extent to which XEH interacts with BE) is the golden egg - and a great Christmas present !

Im on vacation from work now (where I do some debugging of driver and user-level code among other things), and it appears our work here is also done - its time to PLAY !

Thanks again Joe and Sickboy for all your good work. I understand and respect what you do, and would be happy to help out in any way I can to make it successful - after all, its for a great cause !

You guys have a great holiday - Ill be around (and Ill keep an eye out for your server Joe).

[sickboy 13]

Great news :-)

Something to toy around with then for the holidays; http://dev-heaven.net/issues/15578

Merry x-mas ;-)

[sickboy 13]

Would you like us to add the mission at current version to the ACE Mod included missions, or would you rather wait until later versions?

[joehunk 10]

Sickboy, I am going to try to get the gear buying UI to look more like the ACE gear UI, and support stuff like weapon-on-back and ACE-style rucks. At the same time, I'll enable ACE wounds and make sure all the in-game stuff like medics and MASHes are working properly. At that point, I think it'll be ready to include with ACE. With luck, the time frame on that should be a couple weeks.

Thanks for the offer! How should I contact you when I think the mission is ready for inclusion with ACE?

[sickboy 13]

Thanks for the offer! How should I contact you when I think the mission is ready for inclusion with ACE?

Okidoki :)

I've added you to contact list, so PM is possible, otherwise we're on Wave;

http://ace.dev-heaven.net/wagn/Wave

[anessen 10]

Hey,

I'm trying to run this mission without many players on the server, so we use AI squads to fill out the numbers.

They don't seem to want to buy units with auto AI enabled even though they have a lot of money. Like I have one squad that is set to buy heavy armour and the team leader just wanders off on his own even though he has access to a heavy factory and 100,000 in the bank. I can't see a way to manually buy or transfer units to the AI either. One of the three infantry squads has bought a full set but the other two haven't bothered. They are all set to auto AI and I am the commander. Am I doing something wrong?

Cheers

[joehunk 10]

Yeah AI behavior is pretty inconsistent. I have not messed with the AI code at all; it's all the same as base Warfare BE 2.066. All I can say is that AI works a lot better than it did in 2.065.

I have not experimented to see what turning on/off Auto-AI does, and in fact it's not even obvious to me which is on vs. off (like, when "Auto-AI: Disable" is grayed out and "Auto-AI: Enable" is not grayed, does that mean it's enabled? Or does that mean press the un-grayed enable button to enable it?) Again I have not touched this stuff from base Warfare BE, so I have inherited whatever issues it has.

Anyway I definitely do see the AIs start to buy the vehicles I tell them to buy when I use "Set Buy Types". This is accessible via Options -> Commanding -> Team Orders. They may not do it immediately, and if I order all of them to buy the same thing they tend to spam them and then hang out in a huge cluster by the base for several minutes before moving out gradually, but it does work eventually.

[ZeeSquared 10]

At the same time, I'll enable ACE wounds and make sure all the in-game stuff like medics and MASHes are working properly.

Great work, Joehunk!

I was wondering ... on our edit we're having a problem where the medic mashes don't allow the usual "Heal at Field Hospital / Mash" option when injured. Is this intended with ACE? We have ACE wounds enabled via the game logic in the mission.

I notice that even with a combat medic, morphine, and epinephrine, we'll still get the occasional groan and moan when healed to 100%. This leads us to believe that we're still a bit injured and should heal at the field hospital / mash, but sadly we don't get the option to do so and still get the groans / moans.

... tad bit off topic. But thanks in advance!

(We look forward to running your Warfare version soon!)

:D

[joehunk 10]

I have not touched any of the wound/medic logic from base WarfareBE, so any manner of craziness is possible :) When I add ACE wounds, I will make sure to test all that stuff.

[joehunk 10]

As an update, I hope to have 1.0 ready this weekend, which will include ACE wounds and an ACE gear purchase interface supporting:

- Weapon on back

- ACE rucksacks

- Display of loadout weight before purchase

- First aid kit

[djczing 10]

Sounds good Joe - thanks for your work.

Wondering if you got some of the gear-buying issues taken care of ?

(cant buy HuntIR rounds, and a few other things)

[syphonix 10]

Hello Joehunk.

Any plans on adding ACE2 gas masks to purchasable equipment?

Also, I've seen AC-130 Hercules being used as a gunship by just using scripts. Do you think you could add this gunship variation?

Thanks for porting benny's warfare to ACE2 nonetheless.

Edited January 10, 2011 by Syphonix

[inf25th 10]

On our server when we select a Warefare ACE mission the screen goes black then defaults back to the Mission Selection screen on our server. We have no problem running other ACE missions. Any suggestions?

We are running the latest version of ACE (12-7-11)

[megagoth1702 252]

Waiting for update... :) <3

[djczing 10]

unf25th: Thats normally an indication of a mod mismatch somewhere - either client-side or server-side.

You should see the error in the server RPT and/or client RPT files, or if its a linux server, in the log file specified on the command line.

Normally you would also see a 'cannot play this mission - it is dependent on downloadable content that has been deleted -- <content-name> on your screen as soon as it rejects you too.

Bottom line is, whatever the case, your RPT files or logs should tell the tale.

The ace server config ($ARMA2DIR/userconfig/ace) should have a clientside config and a serverside config file. The serverside config is where you set the version checking for ACE.

Good luck.

[Greez 10]

On our server when we select a Warefare ACE mission the screen goes black then defaults back to the Mission Selection screen on our server. We have no problem running other ACE missions. Any suggestions?

We are running the latest version of ACE (12-7-11)

same here.

ACE build 452

all other ACE mission on server is running without problems

[joehunk 10]

As far as the people haven troubles launching, try what dj suggests an let me know if that does not work. Also make sure you are running the game in combined operations mode, not OA mode (details in the OP). The mission will not run in OA mode. Both the client and server must be in combined ops mode.

I ran into a snag with the update that may delay it until next weekend. A couple issues with crew served weapons. I want to switch from the OA CSW to the ACE versions which is not so bad by itself, but it also looks like in ACE 1.7 that they changed all static weapons to use ammo like CSW do. That's a great feature but it kinda hoses warfare balance since it now mean you have to keep all your defenses supplied with ammo. I am either going to write a script to keep defenses you build at base or with the repair truck topped off all the time, or possibly make that an option...and of course in either case I will have to add CSW ammo to the game.

Also Dj, the HuntIR fix is in the update. I am currently not aware of any other issues with buying things. If you find any, please list the specific items here.

Edited January 11, 2011 by Joehunk

[djczing 10]

Joe - YESSSS !!

Thanks man.

Oh - and yes, I am running with CO -- if you guys having problems arent, then that would be the problem. Again, the RPT files would tell the tale.

[joehunk 10]

Update!

7b is out, with the new ACE gear purchase interface, and ACE wounds enabled. See OP for details. This is more new code than I have ever released at once by a long shot, so report bugs when/if you find them. Thanks and enjoy!