Playing the game differently: A2 Tabletop Edition

[instagoat 133]

I´ve had an Idea, which looks as follows:

I´m writing an Army list for the armies available in A2Free. The lists consist of Units available under F2 (Groups tab), and they cost a specific amount of points. There are unit slots, for example Heavy Units, Support Units, Air Units and so on. The players select and modify units as per the army list until either all slots are full, or their points are exhausted.

They agree on a map and mission. The mission defines an objective, deployment zones and may modify the slots, add random factors like civilians or guerillias, but is generally kept very spartan.

The Players then take the armies they assembled, and without knowing the enemies plan, place the Units in the Editor and assign them waypoints, so that they may maneuver to take the objective. Players may test against enemy Units they placed themselves, rehearsing the scenario until they win.

Once both players have assembled their plans, the two missions are merged and executed without any player taking an active part: the AI completely takes over, and the winner is decided when the AI achieves a previously agreed upon objective. The winner is decided by a best two out of three scheme.

I´ve got the Army list for the USMC done, and the Russians halfway written. I will upload the document and plug it here as a .pdf, if and when I get it done. I´ll first make it for A2Free/A2 only.

Another variant may be to use High Command, in an actual PVP mode, with active player participation on the battlefield.

What does the community think about this Idea?

Cheers

Insta

[purepassion 22]

Reminds me of the good old Rainbow Six mission set up mode. i would like to get that feeling back in arma!

[Nicholas 5]

Basically an RTS game mode?

[LorenLuke 11]

How will you be sure to keep the AI from being a dunce?

-Thanx,

Luke

[instagoat 133]

How will you be sure to keep the AI from being a dunce?

-Thanx,

Luke

You don´t. That´s the thing with this... try to build a meticulously engineered plan, and then have the AI smash it against the wall at high speed.

Everything after building your own units operation is up to the AI, and for better or for worse, you´ll be dependent on it. The AI in Arma isn´t bad, and I´m sure some interesting scenes will play out with this.

[mr burns 132]

Sounds like a Frozen Synapse ripoff tbh :D

Other than that, there´s the part where players would need extensive knowledge about waypoints & behaviours (+ their respective restrictions) - things like that can jeopardize even the tightest concept, i.e. mission plan.

[LorenLuke 11]

How will you be sure to keep the AI from being a dunce?

You don´t. That´s the thing with this... try to build a meticulously engineered plan, and then have the AI smash it against the wall at high speed.

Everything after building your own units operation is up to the AI, and for better or for worse, you´ll be dependent on it. The AI in Arma isn´t bad, and I´m sure some interesting scenes will play out with this.

To me this brings the morbid mixture of emotions I feel when I imagine someone getting squished underneath an industrial elevator: 'glad that's not me', 'jeez that has got to hurt', and 'Good GOD! Yeesh.. >P'

How will people create if-then scenarios, or will they use triggers? Which if they do (and know what they're doing: 'If side thisgroup = east, {kill _x} foreach thisgroup') can get rather overpowered, or be a legitimate defense of when the enemy gets near 'X'.

-Thanx,

Luke

[Muahaha 10]

I thought all the players need to put is "search and destroy" waypoints... Kill em all right?

[instagoat 133]

To me this brings the morbid mixture of emotions I feel when I imagine someone getting squished underneath an industrial elevator: 'glad that's not me', 'jeez that has got to hurt', and 'Good GOD! Yeesh.. >P'

How will people create if-then scenarios, or will they use triggers? Which if they do (and know what they're doing: 'If side thisgroup = east, {kill _x} foreach thisgroup') can get rather overpowered, or be a legitimate defense of when the enemy gets near 'X'.

-Thanx,

Luke

I am debating wether to allow for this or not in the rules, but I think it doesn´t matter, because I don´t understand how these kind of things work, and none of my friends know anything about them at all. Scripting specifically, calling .sqs and .sqf I´ve disallowed.

For example, the string you´ve presented there I don´t understand at all.

In the end, I think, it´s up to the people. If both agree not to use godmods, and both players know how to build scripts, I guess they can be used too.

As for the wether or not both just need to place search and destroy waypoints, I don´t know yet. Possibly that´s enough, possibly the player with carefully placed and spaced movement waypoints wins because of less friendly fire incidents, more evenly space firepower and better positioning of his units.

This really is an experiment, so I don´t have answers to a lot of questions yet. But finding out new things is where the fun comes from, right?

[LorenLuke 11]

This really is an experiment, so I don´t have answers to a lot of questions yet. But finding out new things is where the fun comes from, right?

Absolutely!!!

As for the script example, it's an example that you can have a trigger kill any say... East side units (should be '_x setdammage 1' not 'kill') and so it's difficult to restrict the commands except by list, disable it entirely, or to have it based on the honor system...

Also I would recommend allowing the player to play on their side as a unit, to show them who is the better tactician, strategist, commander, designer, and soldier all in one, plus it allows them to actually see the action. Possibly to have them respawn as a seagull cam when and if they die.

Have you plans to have it work in vanilla only, or with addons as well?

-Thanx,

Luke

[instagoat 133]

Absolutely!!!

As for the script example, it's an example that you can have a trigger kill any say... East side units (should be '_x setdammage 1' not 'kill') and so it's difficult to restrict the commands except by list, disable it entirely, or to have it based on the honor system...

Also I would recommend allowing the player to play on their side as a unit, to show them who is the better tactician, strategist, commander, designer, and soldier all in one, plus it allows them to actually see the action. Possibly to have them respawn as a seagull cam when and if they die.

Have you plans to have it work in vanilla only, or with addons as well?

-Thanx,

Luke

I actually thought that the game could allow for both players using High Command for their armies, if they want more control. Otherwise, I wanted to have both placed as civilians with binocs and teleportation command to move around the map and observe the action.

And thanks for explaining the init command. I´m actually thinking about restricting these kind of commands completely, except maybe for map boundaries (so retreating units or units that leave the mission area are removed from the game, to speed the battle up a bit.) External scripting right now is completely disallowed, though in the end, if both players know how to script things, and they want to try it out with advanced scripting, why not?

I´m just writing these rules up as a suggestion and pointer. In the end, players can themselves decide how they want to try this "game mode".

For now, I´ll only write up stuff for Vanilla, though if I care enough and people are interested in this, I´ll write up more lists for especially well liked Addons.

[walker 0]

Hi all

The concept of using the Real Virtuality Engine for RTS has been around since OFP days.

Suggest you read:

OFP

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=22900

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=278419&postcount=2

ArmA

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=62327

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=62517

Kind Regards walker

Edited July 28, 2011 by walker