co26 Domino OA [2.54]

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Hi

Releasing this as a "test release". Our server is currently hopeless to test with, and the guys have been extremely lazy for a while, making testing pretty much impossible. A major show stopper has been found, and hopefully dealt with (looks that way in SP at least), and was caused by cleared targets not cleaning up complex compositions.

Please let me know if the second main target is unplayable compared to a good first (server fps).

What is Domino? First of all, it's probably not for everyone, as it is filled with limitations. It will appear very similar to Domination in structure, but with many new (some never seen before) features and more importantly - restrictions. Although there will be some armor, you are restricted by your class so most likely AT4's will be the only thing you'll see (and get ammo for). I've currently left it with non variable respawn time at 20 seconds, as you'll quickly learn to park far away, making it cumbersome enough.

At this point (probably forever), it only supports west, non ACE, and non revive, no TT - pretty much only one mode. Some new parameters are there, but many old are deleted to prevent bringing a nuke to a chess match. It's hopefully more of a mission rather than a showcase if everything. 2.54 reflects the base build of Domination.

What is Domino not? It's certainly not a free-for-all-get-everything-you-want kinda deal. Don't expect all the conveniences you may be used to from other spinoffs (and original). It's not about choosing a medic slot and having endless play as a sniper. Don't expect TWS and the best scopes. It's not about heavy use of air support against units who doesn't have a clue. Don't expect endless supply of ammo - well, it's endless but not as convenient as you might think. It doesn't have recaptures of targets, as it would be too annoying without air support and only one MRV (MHQ). It's not about having aid from AI - this is us against them - player versus AI.

Some of the features:

* Aggressive AI, who will use artillery and mortars like there was no tomorrow, and keep you suppressed to make the rounds count. Hide behind a rock? ZU-23's will shred that rock while mortars home in. Hint - just run for it and don't stop - vehicles will be on the hunt too. Staying at a distance to stay safe? Forget it - get up close and personal and you may be suppressed but they won't use HE against you (hopefully). You get the choice of staying or running, neither one being particularly good options.

* IMPORTANT: Visit the crates near your start position. These crates contains the only weapons and utilities (including map) you'll get apart from enemy weapons. They won't even respawn if something goes wrong. Store your weapon in the vehicle and it blows up - you won't get it back. Swap weapon with a fallen enemy and he is removed - you won't get it back. Improvise. Was only feasible way I could think of to prevent weapons multiplying on the battlefield. It doesn't cover everything of course, but better than nothing.

* Mission status can only be found on the deployed base HQ vehicle and inside vehicles. Settings dialog now contains information about current and forecast weather conditions, as well as current artillery ammunition stockpile. Use the nightfilter switch to put some red/black markers over the map for better usability at night.

* Some focus on team play. A lone sniper will be very weak without his spotter, due to lack of ammo. A lone AT specialist (MAAWS) will be very weak without his assistant/ammo bearer, due to lack of ammo.

* A great deal of ambiance added by adding sounds throughout the island (and a few lights). Get into a vehicle while it rains and you can hear rain vary in intensity (rather than volume) as it pounds the vehicle.

* Enemy AI will use flares at night, both GL, mortar, and artillery based. Some AI also have slightly randomized loadouts to utilize gear which is otherwise rarely seen (such as OG-7 ammo, goshawk and night scopes).

* Enemy AI may have a working artillery radar, alerting them to incoming rounds. With this up, it may be hard getting in hits from artillery.

* 3rd person only for vehicle drivers. If used will force off dust goggles and night vision goggles.

* Spacebar blocking disabled. Makes sniping and artillery usage a lot more realistic.

* Automatic dynamic post processing colors, from bluer nights to yellower noon, via paler fog and overcasts. There is also added blur if you look into the wind during a duststorm without your goggles on (not shown as object, only screen overlay).

* More impact from weather, with dust storms creating a visibility issue. Put on dust goggles to prevent the added blur. Rain should also be synchronized over clients.

* Weapon shakes added to mounted vehicle weapons where appropriate.

* Limited artillery rounds. Makes you think twice about using HE or WP against certain targets. More rounds are earned by doing missions.

* Randomized side mission enemy artillery base placement.

* More places main targets can appear at, such as crossroads and forests.

* Main targets no longer fully random all over the place, but in manageable distance from the last target. Driving should be fully possible.

* Less powerful rewards. HMMWV based for side missions, and Stryker/M2/M6/UH60/AH6 based for main targets.

* Random number of mortar bases within a (now bigger) main target area. Take out the gunners or guns in all these camps to prevent being shelled by mortars. Every AI spots for these and is not affected by the radio tower for long range transmissions.

* Artillery (RESCUE1) and Mortar (Spotter, the only one who gets accesss to TWS weapons) share the same dialog for external fire, but you now have to type in the coordinates rather than point & click interface. Whoever has the range finder may choose to interface with the artillery computer to provide target area in polar mode, but now have to type in your own location instead.

* Artillery and mortar have "no fire zones" shown on the map (see the legend on the right on the map for added symbology) regarding destructive rounds. Smoke, flares, and precision rounds are still legal to use. This is enforcing some kind of ROE, which sadly doesn't exist on public servers at all.

* Enemy vehicles and statics are locked by default. Statics can only be obtained in the base by the three man strong CSW/SF team. They do however, get mortar and artillery computer, so there is an extra source of destruction.

* CSW/SF team are also the only ones that can do HALO jumps, and here the H means something ;) The rest are limited to low altitude Combat Jumps using a line release and no steering. HALO jumps are performed from two green markers and you have to fly the rest. Combat Jumps are performed outside the two red area markers around main target and side mission (C130 is not a captive and will get shot down if flying too close).

* Enemy vehicles will get fuel once the first player logs on, so hopefully you won't find vehicles doing the eternal start anymore. Similarly, the battlefield is cleaned up five minutes after the last player leaves, removing thrown weapons and backpacks.

* There is no teleporting going on. If you join you either have to wait for transport, grab a motorcycle from the base HQ, or perform a jump into the zone (this takes time, and not to be considered a quick get out there).

* All player classes have unique abilities and features that should make every slot interesting to play, while at the same time not making anything too powerful. Whatever you choose, you'll always find yourself saying "I wish I took something else".

* The default start is early in the morning, while it is still fairly dark. Take advantage of this darkness to get the most important obstacle out of the way when you don't have any powerful vehicles yet.

* Easier access to intel. Now there should always be a commander in the main target area who you can search for valuable intel.

* A lot more verbal communications from our own friendly AI. Order artillery and hear the request, complete with callsigns and grid (6/8 digit) readouts. Listen as the (virtual) mortar team shifts to the next main target, and observe yellow range markers. Artillery is in fixed position all the time, but also suffers minimum and maximum ranges.

* There is one MRV (Mobile Respawn Vehicle) and one MTV (Mobile Terminal Vehicle). Only the MRV can carry an ammo crate and bicycles, while the MTV can access satellite view and spawn an UAV.

* Many of the vehicles are restricted to the team they are intended to. Sniper team (observers) get an AH-6X for quickly getting out there, while most others get various vehicles.

* Very basic information sharing among AI, in addition to added reveals from shooting - expect yourself to get heard much more easily now.

* Additional backup items are stowed into many vehicles, ammo truck obviously carrying the most (but not filled to the spill limit). If you play solo, be sure to stash up additional weaponry in the base from these vehicles (like Stingers, Satchels, and AT-4s), and park the MRV far from the action to prevent it from being blown to kingdom come from mortar shells (it's only a HMMWV ambulance). Ideally, if you play solo, you shouldn't even attempt main targets as all the suppression goes on you (I can't control what they suppress).

* Custom compositions, although only two, was just experimenting with it and it kinda stuck :p

Known bugs:

* UAV still manages to get screwed up from time to time.

* Moving cloud cover in satellite view kinda messed up.

* Sometimes trigger based sounds fail to restart after respawn.

* A bunch of smaller issues that I know of, but I would never get this done if I bothered.

* Currently pretty much everything goes into suppression mode. Fog is done also on server, but AI will see right through fog for suppression aiming purposes (which is weird - how can they aim at what they can't see for direct fire weapons?). It may be too much, not sure what is a good way to restrict it at this point.

Unknown bugs:

* More than likely!

Limitations:

* This is a mission tuned to own desires. Unlike Xeno, I don't have resources to please anyone else but myself, and any edits are therefore yours alone to make. Feel free to make a spinoff from it, or upgrade it to newer Domination standards. The changes from v2.57 are too deep and extensive for me to even bother with it anymore.

* I have absolutely no idea how many players it can support, as we're only like 5 guys with 2 kinda active. If it's unplayable, it would be nice to know :p

Credits:

* Mainly to Xeno, for the incredible amount of time spent not on this mission, but mission system.

* Everyone who contributed to the original.

* Too many to do names, but everyone who have contributed in so many ways.

* And of course BIS for making this platform.

* And lastly, and certainly least, Codemasters, for so swiftly guiding me back on the right track :rolleyes:

Download link (updated 19 jul 2011). Read the readme for details.

Armaholic mirror:

- Domino - OA Co-26 (not updated yet)

Edited July 16, 2011 by CarlGustaffa

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Wow, not a single response, lol. Anyway, a friend of mine grabbed a couple of videos:

MorningAttackFull: Initiating an attack against a full enemy force.

-CjdYnHZIrs

NightAttackThinned: Enemy already thinned out, causing a lot less severe suppression.

KP9_ggiM4Us

[Spartan 163 0]

Lol saw this at work but got too busy to post. Great work Carl! Will test this fully this weekend and will post feed back. Good idea on weapon and equipment limits. I hate it when you start at base and have like five of everything and the air strip looks like a parking lot. I also hate it when your in an AO and there is pilot with a smaw and m109 next to me and people asking on vent or ts and ingame chat for someone to fly them to the action.

[1nsider 10]

got too busy to post

Same with me.

Wanted to dedicate some proper time to research these customizations in detail.

Actually, I was moving in the same direction - limiting features & resources in Dom in order to make it a bit more edgy.

Though I'm not sure if limiting certain vehicles to certain classes only is a good idea. If players are cooperative -

they probably will not steal & use vehicels inappropriately, while not being able to use vehicles in certain conditions (to help your own teammates for example) could ruin the experience.

[Quart 10]

This is a great mission and I hope you release more versions of it like with revive and AI. I might add AI using Bon's AI Recruitment script but I want to know if you are planning to release something like this soon?

[CarlGustaffa 4]

@Quart:

No, there will be no AI as it kills teamplay. If anything, it would be separate AI groups but not controlled by the players, just to help out (or spoil) the players plan. But no, still not a priority by far.

@1nsider:

I agree it may not be the best way when players are cooperative. But so far I have not seen that happen in public play. For clan folks, who most likely have someone who can edit a mission, it should be pretty easy to remove these vehicle restrictions. But only the "high value transports" are locked like this; the sniper teams AH-6X/ATV, weapon teams MH-6J/HMMWV, and CSW/SF teams HMMWV.

@PROTOTYPE 001:

Yeah I know where you're coming from. Unfortunately that will happen in any mission that doesn't force some kind of role play. Pretty much all of the more serious missions does this, and many times you don't even have any choices regarding your gear.

[Quart 10]

I think the AI in A&S ProMode (Advance And Secure) Game Mode by PvPscene would work great

[1nsider 10]

@Quart:

No, there will be no AI as it kills teamplay

Cannot agree, mate.

ArmA's AI is a great addition to any large-scale COOP session

if players know how to use them (and those who don't usually don't bother at all).

[Murklor 10]

Cannot agree, mate.

ArmA's AI is a great addition to any large-scale COOP session

if players know how to use them (and those who don't usually don't bother at all).

Problem is that the player is often WAY more powerfull than your average retarded AI soldier. With your own retarded AI, fighting retarded AI become unbalanced.

However, the ideal way would be to simply scale friendly AI with the amount of players online. Such as these random numbers:

1-5 players - 6 man AI squads

6-15 players - 4 man AI squads

16-25 players - 2 man AI squads

26+ - No AI

[CarlGustaffa 4]

For me it's more that it doesn't fit the design. Note that the original makes a completely different game once it's AI feature is enables, which breaks some of the main ideas in this one:

"Find your leader and stay close". This mission doesn't have TeamStatusDialog (to prevent weird mixing), player map markers, but tries to force a certain team build which completely goes away when you split up the team (everyone becomes squad leader), and of course everyone can do everything - the complete opposite of what I'm going for.

There are missions that are designed around AI use. This one ain't one of them :p It's like trying to design a one wheeled bicycle, then someone have a bright idea of adding a second wheel. Sure, but it doesn't fit the original design criteria...

@Murklor: I wouldn't worry so much about them being retarded. It's not so much about small arms gunfights as it is about AI being more than happy about using bigger guns against you (read: artillery, mortar, and heavy use of suppression). Scout the (bigger) area for mortar camps and take them out. Artillery (limited ammo), mortar (unlimited ammo but more inaccurate), and the CSW guys on a mortar station (limited ammo) or a AT gunner w/assistant w/plenty of HEDP is pretty much a requirement of getting that job done (plus someone or something to scout the area for their location). Having a good plan and execution is pretty much a requirement to avoid too much frustration. Even if I know "how stuff works", rest assured I have had my own war cries :)

[1nsider 10]

For me it's more that it doesn't fit the design.

Point taken.

[Quart 10]

It works both ways because other people can add AI to the mission if they want...

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Update: http://www.mediafire.com/?6p0c9vf4gftk3aj

First post updated. Won't be editing this anymore due to personal events (nothing to do with Arma).

[Landmine 10]

Hey there CarlGustaffa! I'm just letting you know that this mission you made is absolutely fantastic, and a great change against the dying, boring repeating "features" of Domination (no offense to the creator). Myself and the group I play with are extremely happy with your work.

Thank you!

[virtualvikingx 19]

Saw you link to this in the "but-hurt" thread. This looks amazing. Will try and convince the guys to try i out! Thank you!

[Vixente 10]

I've tried this alone in my server and found it very interesting, i've told my folks about it and sure we'll play it anytime soon.

Good job :)

[avibird 1 154]

hey CarlGustaffa I would like to talk to you more about this mission. It's good I think this is the way domination should be played:o PM so we can talk more I have a few questions about your mission. thanks

[Chaostika7-17th 10]

good job dude and thx 4 your work and time with this domi. good ideas in it and will give it try these days.

[Li0n 10]

Hi Carl, I`m very like your Domino mission concept. I tried to port it to another units/side and got some troubles, can you help me? Here they are:

Only in this mission I can`t change fire modes on a weapon ( eg. between Single and Automatic ).

Unneccecary shooting detection no longer work for me, after I changed units and side (though I `ve changed all _OWN_SIDE__WEST_ to east ).

Arty shells doesnt appear.

Changing viewdistance doen`t work

Thanks!

Edited August 6, 2011 by Li0n

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Sorry, but changing to east is not supported. There are lots of hardcoded stuff to west, compared to regular Domination which has none. The amount of preprocessor commands needed to do it, completely confuses the error reporting (shifts line numbers), making it a mess to debug. Sorry.

@Landmine: I don't know if I would say that Domination is repeating dying :) I find that it's much easier to die here due to artillery and mortar usage combined with suppression. I never get the scores in Domino (typically 10:1 K:D ratio) that I get in Domination (up to 100:1 K:D ratio).

@AVIBIRD 1: Sorry, need to say it here ;) I'm not working on it anymore.

Edited August 6, 2011 by CarlGustaffa

[Li0n 10]

CarlGustaffa, is there unit/vehicle/weapon class dependance or there is only side dependance?

Still got the bug with changing fire-modes, on unchanged version.

Edited August 6, 2011 by Li0n

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Probably a bit of everything ;) Sorry, can't really remember what goes where. For arty, I guess numerous things, even kbTell system. Can't change fire modes? On normal rifles? I've never heard of it, but will try soon with the latest beta. What role did you experience this on? I only use the normal way of activating fire modes, and have never experienced any bugs with this in none of my missions using it, or normal Domination (where I learned it from). What's the key you use to change fire mode? Afaik I only prevent spacebar scanning, and have some key overrides when using the UAV (altitude changes, placing UAV markers, and changing image type). Can't imagine any of this interfering with the normal f key.

[Li0n 10]

Can't imagine any of this interfering with the normal f key.

I`m using spacebar to switch fire modes since OFP :)

I've never heard of it, but will try soon with the latest beta.

thx, but it is not needed anymore, as it not supports side change.

Edited August 7, 2011 by Li0n

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Okay, I see. You could try disabling "Block spacebar scanning" which is by default enabled. It's a normal mission parameter you can set when starting up the mission. I didn't hardcode it (like much other options) just for this rare event (we have one that uses space to move forward, and he won't listen to "reason" :p, but he's inactive so if he turns up we could disable the block). Not sure how to address this, as without blocking spacebar (magic distance readout), much of the intended challenge is gone.

Anyone know the DefaultKeyMapping name the spacebar normally uses?