Crime City - RPG - WIP

[Acecool 0]

Ok I am cleaning up the first post to give everyone a quick view on the game-mode.

Key features for Arma 2

• Quests / Tasks - will be auto assigned by the game-mode on a per-faction base. Police receive police calls, while civilians get calls to arms, called to protests, etc. Terrorists receive missions to destroy, gather intel, capture towns.
  
• Licensing for driving, flying etc. - Just like in real life you have to pass a drivers test before receiving it. Same thing here, you will drive through a mini game near the start of the round, car license is free while aircraft is expensive.
  
• Skills -
  
• Own Real Estate - Buy, build and protect your buildings around the map! Earn money over time based on buildings/properties owned. Protect against squatters mini-mission possibily.
  
• Experience system - earn more money at work-zones based on your experience! - Workzones will pay per second 1 exp and a percentage of your exp in money! Pretty quickly paced earning system.
  
• Cars, trucks, motorcycles oh my!
  
• Drug smuggling!
  
• Tuning cars - Drop in a turbo and tune it. Tune it poorly and there is a chance can lose your car, or your life while driving it if you blow the motor and dont get out!!!
  
• 10 star criminal rating system - If you are caught with a rating above 3, you will spend 1 minute in jail per star. Stars can be paid off at an exponential rate increase the more stars you have. You can only be punished for up to 10, but you can have more, and the more you have the more reinforcements are sent after you. Helicopters, jets, squad cars to bust your previous known locations and call reinforcements if you are there. etc.. COPS WILL NOT LOOK FOR CRIMINALS IN TERRORIST OWNED TOWNS, Criminal Civilians are welcome in terrorist towns, while innocents are NOT!
  
• Jail which could be broken out of and you regain your infamy of time owed - time served is based on about of stars you have
  
• Fully functioning public transportation system - with buses running around the map and on a tight schedule. Miss your stop? No problem shout to the driver to stop and he will let you out :-) - Also aircraft to take you from each airport around the map. ALSO terrorists will be able to receive missions to hijack planes, buses, police cars, etc..
  
• Money system - Self explanatory - holds a double...
  
• Banking system with working credit card - Earn money, buy insurance for your health (dont drop money when you die), your bank (dont lose money when bank is robbed), credit card (Lets you spend your money while keeping it in the bank - must have over 50,000 to apply), earn an interest on money in bank.
  
• Pimping - Varying quality of whores. Smelly, std, clean, high roller etc - each of these women workers will pay you after a random time! Sometimes they are moled in on by local law enforcement and being payed can net you a criminal rating!!!
  
• Random weather - every 3 minutes weather will change - server based - finish creating function to make transitions more smooth.
  
• Quicker Time - Server based, time will advance a bit more quickly to give more variation instead of waiting for normal changes.
  
• AI Police - Civilians can join too! Police patrol cities, highways, hide in areas for speed traps, do quests.
  

And much much much more!!!

or the Arma 2 edition, I am going to change police behavior. There will be AI police, doctors, etc which will do the normal speed checks, patrol for wanted fugitives - but you can also join the police force too, done from civilian side if possible (Is it possible to change player model after they are connected?)

But for the new behavior instead of them chasing you right away with stars, they will be 1 minute or so behind you if they are actively looking for you (5 stars or more), under 5 and they will arrest you if they stop you for another reason such as speeding, etc.

9 or 10 stars and you will have choppers to worry about, meaning the police KNOW where you are, and are no longer 1 minute behind. Kill choppers to gain the lead!

Anyways, I used Skye as the island last time, I was looking at Ovaron this time but it looks HUGE!!! Anyone know a decent sized map with 2 airports (I want to add air travel)

What is the limit of groups in Arma 2? I had to limit by bus system in OFP because I could only have 64 groups (including civilians)

Can the player character/role/model be changed during gameplay?

Functions! Nice! Something I like in Arma 2 lol, should cut down on some bloat code!

Edit: This will be my running log of what I have working so far.

Change-log

[1.0.0] - Alpha - Working on 1.0 - below is what is coded.

• 100% -Server - vehicleTurbo - Allows turbo to be added onto cars so they go faster. Tune it correctly or blow your ride sky high!
  
• 100% - Server- weatherHandler - Server generates a random weather seed every 3 minutes and broadcasts it!
  
• 100% - Client - weatherListener - Listens for the change to be broadcast to clients and then calls changeWeather
  
• 0% - Server - questHandler - Server grabs a random quest
  
• 100% - Server - pointToNearestRoad - Causes _this to be pointed in the direction of the nearest road
  
• 100% - Server - nearestRoad - returns the nearest road within 150 units.
  
• 50% - Server - setupMap
  • 50% - ccSetupCar
  • 50% - ccSetupCarDealer
  • 0% - ccSetupFreeCar
  • 50% - ccSetupCar

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PLEASE READ LAST POST TO KEEP UP TO DATE ON PROGRESS AND CHANGES!!!

Hmm, I may just make everything I can into functions. I like that coding syntax a bit better!

Edited January 14, 2011 by Acecool

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

Check Lingor out. It might fit your needs.

One thing you might have trouble with is civilians joining the police force. If you want AI cops to go after criminals then they need to be different factions, such as Cops = Blufor/Independent and Civs = Civilian.

As far as I know there is no way to switch factions once in-game, so all the cops would have to start out as such.

[Acecool 0]

I remember in OFP you could change the hostility rating of 1 person which is how I got the cops to shoot civilians, and for chasing and pursuits - it was all scripted :-)

Cops would be hiding in a bush, see you fly by, pull out with lights and sirens and chase you down, as well as radio coordinates to choppers if you were that wanted, Oh when the choppers came, you were toast !! :-)

Ok, one more question, Is it possible to get the RPM of the car? Im going to re-write the turbo script so it will not top out, so we can set any speed. Right now there is a resistance on the cars. I can get the Golf to around 155ish on boost lol (This is a SMOOTH PASSIVE ADDON TO THE CAR, no highlighting controls and that crap. Just get in and DRIVE!)

[MaxRiga 0]

the only question I have is how different this mod will be from other Arma RPG's?

[ryguy 10]

the only question I have is how different this mod will be from other Arma RPG's?

Single player!

[Macadam Cow 1]

Looks very promising :)

About the map, maybe Emita (not released yet) ? It looks like a nice urban map but maybe hte size won't fit to your mod. Fallujah is another great urban map but same thing with the size. and I think both map only have one airport.

I was wondering about addons, do you plan to integrate some (like police cars, choppers,...) ?

I wish you the best for this project.

[SigintArmA 10]

Well, the maker/makers of Conspiracies found a way to change model/clothes in game. Might try getting in touch with them to see how they did it?

And this sounds like a good idea. Will it have little side missions and such? Set up like a Scenario/Campaign you can click and play and it be almost 'Endless'? ^^ Or is it MP since I read 'after they are connected?' as in MP. Either way it'll be nice ^^

[Acecool 0]

A few friends and I would play the version I made for OFP for hours on end. I think our record was 8 hours.

I forgot, you could build properties and get money from that too, different work zones which pay different amounts, oh so many features I forgot :-) The small things really do matter...

Ok I perfected the turbo script, maybe not perfect but meh. Its giving errors for comments though which is really weird??

The way it works is this, you have an X "psi" setup, you set the max top speed of your car without the turbo that it can accelerate to under most driving conditions or on a runway, that works well too because its about the average of road and up hill. 101 mph for the Golf or KMH not sure what units they are using.

Should I upload a video to youtube showing a test run of a non turbo, vs 7psi turbo, vs 18psi turbo setup? :-)

I want to play sounds too then I can add blow off, spooling, filter sounds lol...

Almost perfect ahahaha. When turboing a motorcycle. 3 pounds and 7 pounds both lead to very very quick. 240mph and 180 I think...

Going to re-implement the upper speed limiter to avoid this lol :-P

On the car it works perfect though because of the extra weight I guess..

Edit again: Well, I can just lower the boost for the motorcycles and have the same effect :-P - yeah its all good :-P

Hmm, one more question. Could the entire game-mode be a procedure, with functions for everything branching off and variables kept track of by the main procedure?

I am having so much fun with this turbo script :-) Its fun making cars meant to go like 101ish in the game go 160+ It makes it feel like a racer.

Hey, I need a really good cop car mod, I saw an awesome one for arma 1, but it didnt work for arma 2. The one I saw also had a radar unit inside with their speed, difference,and target speed which I thought was cool. I need a short siren sound so it can be shut off easily and it must be heard by ALL PLAYERS in a certain area.

Edited December 27, 2010 by Acecool

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

This sounds great. Good luck finding people who have computers that can handle it though. With that many scripts etc. I forsee major lag in your future.

Of course, if you manage to find a way around that, or if the new patch(es) have improved lag then your set. (I haven't had internet since September 1st or so which is why I can't be sure i f lag has improved)

Edited December 27, 2010 by Darkhorse 1-6

[vilas 473]

Single player!

yes, i want such thing in Single too ! :D

Acecool if you need help i can offer models of (i like such "City life" things):

- police officers (different style east to west),

- weapons for them

- vehicles for such civil life (ambulance, fire engine, police car)

i like such things, as "army life" is here present very wide (many mods, many addons, game content, DLCs , etc. about soldiers, tanks, APCs, helicopters, rifles etc. )

we have so much of "army" stuff , so if you plan and make "city" mod, i can help with things i have also there is guy who made addon of US police cars, contact him , cause he have some nice US style big cars

i am trying to make campaign (i just start to learn mission making) in "Polish location" with units as Police, Military Police, Border Guards, Prison guard, ambulance support , SWAT, etc.

maybe you would be interested in "central european location" ? (other style of cars, uniforms, more smg ) ?

i am not good coder nor missionmaker, but i try to make such "city, cop mod" too (but central european location)

Edited December 27, 2010 by vilas

[Acecool 0]

I am going to create a completely new quest system. There will be quests that the game-mode controller gives to certain factions (police, civilian, terrorist).

After the quest is given to a faction, the faction commander (ghost) looks at where people are on the map, picks a spawn location for that quest NEAR a player, or ai, and gives them the waypoint.

Quests could be:

Police: Respond to domestic violence, robbery in progress, shootout, car chase, etc!!!

Civilians: Take part in a protest with other civvies, where AI will also show up if they are close enough. Watch a lynching in your own neighborhood. etc

Terrorists: Blow up x building, kill x police, kill x civilians, destroy x vehicles, nuke a city, steal a military aircraft, steal a police car, and more.

I will use markers as locations for these events to take place, they will spawn, and the faction people that are near it, unless it is a world-wide event, will be given a waypoint to it. Everyone else will see it appear on their map as a marker as "news".

All of this is possible. I am recoding the turbo script as a function right now since I have everything working :-)

Does anyone know if I could use the init.sqs to call a procedure which runs the entire game-mode? That way I could have init load everything needed, the procedure would loop through like main would in a program, and I could have sub-procedures going on at the same time for everything else, and this main would monitor money, transactions, deaths, respawns, and so on...

Also, does anyone know how to spawn particles of smoke, small, maybe thick, trailing?

---------- Post added at 11:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 AM ----------

This is in my init.sqf

vehicleTurbo = compile PreProcessFile "Scripts\Functions\vehicleTurbo.sqf";

I have this in INIT in the unit, but I am not even seeing hints... :-(

[this,18,101,150] call vehicleTurbo;

Anyone know whats up?

[kage74 10]

If this is gonna be a multiplayer RPG mod , will there be a statsave system, so you can keep whatever you earned the next time you log in?

Also, will the exp and levels be gained by doing missions and tasks within the game?

[Acecool 0]

Double post, sorry.

---------- Post added at 07:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:19 PM ----------

Exp will affect money gained at work places! It will be quicker paced so saving won't be necessary, but I might add that feature in for people that DC - maybe give them 10 minutes to rejoin?

[Acecool 0]

Ok this is where I am at so far:

Turbo, using script 100% done - works amazingly and so much fun. 30 pounds of boost and driving at 240mph in the red golf around the twisties is so much fun :-)

You will be able to buy cars, and tune them with sliders. Boost vs gear ratio, turbo script handles it perfectly!!!

Random weather, with forcast in game! Built with server side to broadcast to clients, clients then receive messages every 60 seconds of what the weather will be. Weather changes every 3 minutes, will add a gradual changer function in later, but for now this is good.

Starting to get server side and client side scripts made for the game-mode. Gotta figure out how to change roles and then I only have to make "civilians" :-)

[Laqueesha 474]

Check Lingor out. It might fit your needs.

One thing you might have trouble with is civilians joining the police force. If you want AI cops to go after criminals then they need to be different factions, such as Cops = Blufor/Independent and Civs = Civilian.

As far as I know there is no way to switch factions once in-game, so all the cops would have to start out as such.

Ain't nothing that a few good scripts can't fix. ;)

[Acecool 0]

Turbo function is 100% complete - just need the cosmetic sounds, such as turbo spooling which gets louder as boost goes up, up to 100% volume, if the turbo starts boost spiking, a new sound will be played at 100% volume since we are already there, dont need to check again. Blow off noise volume is adjusted by how much pressure is going through. >= full boost = 100%

otherwise a % will be played like in real life with turbos.

Now that the most fun thing is in (driving tuned cars) at least the script/function versions, and weather is in and believe my foggy weather is no fun guys :-) ok it is.....

I will test a few commands to make sure AI police will work well. Civvies shooting civvies might be possible with ai, at least with setInfamy for whatever its called...

Found my old police AI scripts :-)

_perp addrating +25000

---------- Post added at 01:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 AM ----------

this addrating -25000 will cause people to shoot you, even if they are same faction.

So, I gave a civvie a gun, and gave me the rating, and ouchies!!!

Civvie cops are possible!! Ok, so I know its possible to change SKINS in game, and I can change a variable governing the player faction, and on respawn just re-apply that skin, remove it when they quit or give random civvie body hmmmmm....

[MaxRiga 0]

Hi

I like your idea about creating new RPG but I can predict that not so many people will play it. We have a good example of CityLife mod. They were making it for year and now noone plays it. The reason is -

1- they have downloadable content for the mod.

2- CityLife is the copy of Chernorus Life style mission and people prefer to play original games but not parodies.

Since people can play Chernorus Life easily on some servers they simply don't need to play any other mods!

Unfortunately your mod is going to have the same problems. I can predict it right now that people will not play it. Also, do not forget the fact that less and less people are playing arma2. Multiplayer gamers will be coming to the servers with many players and CityLife ( and your future mod ) is not this kind of places. I’m very sorry that all your work in making your mod will be for nothing.

I have another suggestion to you.

I was the one who was creating most of the logical things for Sahrani Life ( that was the first RPG mission. Chernorus Life is based on Sahrani Life ). It was my idea to create Mayors, voting system, trade ( not just sale ) and many more. Unfortunately, the developers of Chernorus Life were kids and all they wanted to do is "bam bam bam - you r dead cop", if you know what I mean. City Life mod has the same problem, it allows players just drive shitty cars around and kill other people for fun.It's simply boring to do anything else in City Life ( so and in Cherno Life ). The thing is that Arma2 IS NOT GRAND THIFT AUTO style game. There is no need to create another mod about cops and robbers and terrorists. Arma2 players have enough of it on arma servers as well as they can play the original games like GTA when they feel to play it.

My idea is to create completely new style of RPG. It's not gonna be based on "cops and robbers" style. I'm sure ot has to be for multiplayer only, it will not have downloadable content and it will be popular because no such type of mission exist in arma2 at all and different kind of players will find it fun.

The basic of my mission is - political life. Since arma2 players are mostly military style gamers we have to consider it too. So, I see it this way -

Chernorus is going to be split on two parts ( two countries ). One country is going to be pro-American and another pro-Russian. Every town will have it's own political score ( same as in Warfare small towns will have smaller score, bigger towns – bigger score ). Only rich people will be able to buy this political scores ( in this case there will be the reason to be rich ). Player who get most of political scores will become President of it's country. President can buy weapon and some resources ( from Russia or from USA ) and can attack cities of another country. Cities will not generate any resources but cities will be the place for market ( to sell trade goods ). The only way to create a rich country is the trade and taxes of its own citizens. That means that president must take care of his citizens and citizens have to do less crime to help its government. In this case the game will be logical and interesting. There is going to be political struggle inside of each country ( and rush for money ) while it might be military struggle between two countries.

In this kind of game everything is logical. There will be two big teams and they will trade each to another to be rich and it's going to be little combat missions for those who like "bam bam bam - you r dead!".

Pro-Russian and pro-American countries also can trade with Russia and USA for the special goods. For example, Russia can sell to pro-Russian country oil and it’s army ( Russian armor and choppers ), and America can sell to pro-American country some manufactory ( and American weapon ). If Chernorus countries are in peace businessman of two countries can trade goods between two countries.

Trade should be very easy. No any license needed ( this is most stupid idea ever to have different kind of license in rpg mission, since players are coming to have fun and we don’t have to restrict them. We also have to consider that players are limited in their gaming time and they must get full satisfaction playing our mission even if they have only 1 hour to play).

As I said cities are the place for market. And as more trade it has as richer the city is. So, if I just buy oil from Russia and transport it to pro-american city then I get $$$ and city is getting bigger $$$$ value. As richer city is as more profit I will get trading with it next time. Copturing trich cities might be the reason of local wars.

War shouldn't be for a long term. Not so many players coming to RPG for war. But some action can really stress up if players are too bored. War can be created only for 1 city/town per turn. If any nation get new town the war is automatically over for the next, let's say, 30 minutes. But once again, nations can live in peace and prosper in friendship. It’s all going to be up to presidents.

If you like my idea I can describe you the logical chain of this political life mission in many ways ( yes! even if it's RPG there should be logical chain of things. Otherwise it's just a chaos as it's on Chernorus Life or CityLife servers ).

[Acecool 0]

I saw City life, but I didn't feel like registering to play it and I saw another topic on the forum saying the admins that run it ban anyone that didnt register. Not for me.

Anyways guys, My progress list:

Server/Client side scripting setup for weather (10 different types so far), and for questing,

The quest handler will pull random quests out of hats, server side. After it has given us the go ahead, it will then pass that quest server-side to the QuestSpawner. The QuestSpawner will find people with a specific faction (remember everyone is civilian), and spawn the event at one of the spawns nearest to that person allowed.

The client side questhandler will determine which events have spawned, at which location, if it is relevant that a waypoint will be issued!

[Spartan 163 0]

City Life has it's issues due to people not following the rules to begin playing. It's not like Zagabad life were you jump in and just start off doing what you feel like. There are rules to follow and laws in place to avoid what happens in ALL the other Rpg type missions. Any way this is not about City Life this is Crime City topic.

My first bit of advice is do what you feel would be right. if you Listen to Maxie you will never get off the ground and done. Unless he gives you his Rpg mission oh wait he has not done anything creative in all his time here. Forgot about that sorry. But seriously I played Crime City back in OFP days and loved it. That's how I got into City Life. Plan out what you want to do and take the steps needed to get there. If it's gonna be single player it will be much more easy as you won't have to worry about a save system for every player. Which is what makes the multiplayer thing harder to do and is what everyone wants.

Or you can go the Maxie way and turn it into Arma Risk/Monoply. Don't let him turn you away from what you want to do. The same thing happened with Domination and CTI back in the days. You had the one know it all that said don't do this don't do that, it won't work that way unless you do it how I think it should be. As you see the know it all was wrong.

It's your mission/mod do what you want with it. If you need help with anything feel free to ask or send a PM.

Oh and just for the record City Life is not a copy of Chenarus life. It is it's own animal. Plus the cars are better than any of the cars you have made and have more functions. Dam forgot Maxie has not made anything, he just knows how others should.

[Acecool 0]

Thats awesome, yeah I am thinking of a few things :-)

With my quest handler I am going to add these worldwide events, which happen in major cities - theres one that will be a zombie invasion. About 100 zombies of all sorts per city that must be cleared out!

There will be enough to do in this mission to stop people wanting to rdm and all..

They will want to race each other to see who tuned their car better, doing quests as a civilian, cop, or terrorist. And these are auto generated quests that will be handed down to you. Which you can accept or deny, or cancel if you started it.

If you accept a mission to invade a military base (which spawns itself in marked locations) and you get there and see 2 random t80 tanks looking back, with a rating of -25000 if you get too close, you might want to cancel this one. Although it would be worth some major exp and cash if completed!!

---------- Post added at 06:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:35 AM ----------

Wait are you guys arguing to me or just in my thread lol?

[MaxRiga 0]

Wait are you guys arguing to me or just in my thread lol?

I never answer to crying kids this why I HAVE NEVER answered him and that means I do not argue with him :)

Considering my post above I've shared my vision on what kind of successful RPG might be for amra2 at this time. Wish you all good!

[Acecool 0]

I think with my quest handler, there will always be enough going on for even a lone person on the server to have fun! What with nukes being shot off, aircraft flybys or air-shows, lol :-)

I am going to use Ovaron with the 2 airports so I can have civilians flying between airports, and terrorists will have the option to hijack the plane, etc etc!

[vilas 473]

have you noticed my post ? do you want help for your mod (models of police, civil vehicles) etc ?

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/4896/244h.jpg

http://www.armaholic.eu/vilas/scr/citylife.jpg

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/6045/hdhdhdc.jpg

something like this (not exact this, cause those are exclusive on requests)

Edited December 28, 2010 by vilas

[Acecool 0]

Yes, I am interested!

I need a police cruiser that looks good, and has a siren that is heard by server, area around cruiser, not just the driver who activates. Working lights too, and when you say turn off it should turn off right away!!

Im trying to use as much as possible without addons. I have 3 so far, 2 I will probably use. 1 is civil cars pack that was freely allowed to be used, and the Ovaron island!

[vilas 473]

US police cruiser is made by one guy , not me, he made good US style big car

i have cars in european style (small) just like Skoda Octavia

check addon of this guy :

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=4661 (it is link Arma1, but guy for sure done Arma2)

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=109693&highlight=police or this

Edited December 28, 2010 by vilas