Orienteering Mission

[Haviv 10]

Thanks, let me know how it goes. Seems at least one other had a crash issue but I'm not able to reproduce it at all.

There does seem to be some interest but not sure if all the people interested are monitoring the topic or not.

I am! I hope to use it soon. Posted the news to 7-75th, my unit

Edited December 5, 2011 by Haviv

[Haviv 10]

Did anyone find the first point? I'm sure I'm in the general area but still can't seem to find it. :(

[delta99 34]

I am! I hope to use it soon. Posted the news to 7-75th, my unit

Haviv, I've been meaning to drop by the 7-75th but haven't had a chance yet.

I know Serf/Sim and mentioned this to him I think.

---------- Post added at 02:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:06 PM ----------

Did anyone find the first point? I'm sure I'm in the general area but still can't seem to find it. :(

Give me the coordinates you think it is at or a screen shot pointing out where you think it is.

It shouldn't be that hard to find if you did your measurements correctly.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

@ Haviv

if you are in the right spot an ied should explode and blow your legs off - your next waypoint (which you will have to crawl to) will have a medic tent where you can get a heal.

i might try this mission tonite if i have time.

[delta99 34]

@ Haviv

if you are in the right spot an ied should explode and blow your legs off - your next waypoint (which you will have to crawl to) will have a medic tent where you can get a heal.

i might try this mission tonite if i have time.

Obviously Lightspeed is joking as nothing of the sort happens.

[Haviv 10]

Sent PM

Still can't find it

[delta99 34]

Sent PM

Still can't find it

Haviv, I will try and respond to your PM tonight.

[delta99 34]

I screwed up. The first control point is twice the distance as shown in the mission. Thanks to Haviv for getting lost!!!!

So, just to be clear the distance specified in the first control point instructions should be 1260m not 630m.

I'll see if I can get around to fixing that and updating the download.

---------- Post added at 09:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:38 PM ----------

Mission has been fixed with proper distance to the first control point.

Mission link and download updated in the first post.

[Haviv 10]

yay I found all 3.

[delta99 34]

yay I found all 3.

Good stuff.

What did you think?

Did you record your times in the spreadsheet?

[Haviv 10]

oh I didn't catch my time. This was really my first time applying some of the concepts I learned from sites such as landnavigation.org and the use of map tools.

[Trapper 0]

So finally I've found the time, installed ACE, viewed some map tool tutorial videos and decided to...

...have a slightly different approach to proof myself something about unnecessary addon requirements in missions. ;)

I've probably made beneficial use of the bigger compass with ACE but didn't touch the ACE map tool, nor did i draw ACE lines on the map.

I've used my model's world orientation to rotate the compass and/or placed it roughly on a map location to guess a bearing when needed. Then I lined up the side/ruler of the compass as needed and created a few regular arma2 map markers (double click; arrow keys to change symbol).

For distances I've expected a map grid to be about 100m.

I did one mistake and missed an intersection in my own route plot because of misidentifying landmarks in the forest area below CP3. When I looked around, I saw my expected location with the flag to be 200m to the east of me.

There would be a scripted way to make use of the tiny Arma2 compass: Onmapsingleclick or a radio command in combination with a small dialog to enter a degree value. Which will then rotate the player model instantly and the map compass accordingly.

It's important to attract more players with an addon free yet ACE compatible mission. Later on some pro will play it with ACE to use the better map tool, and others will follow but still the mission shouldn't have to require it in the first place.

PS: I see my results are asking for using the right tools :D That and my rookie navigation skills.

PPS: And shouldn't be there something like measured steps for precise movement? Or is this just something impractical that I was taught when moving planed distances precisely?

[delta99 34]

Thanks for the feedback trapper.

So finally I've found the time, installed ACE, viewed some map tool tutorial videos and decided to...

...have a slightly different approach to proof myself something about unnecessary addon requirements in missions. ;)

I've probably made beneficial use of the bigger compass with ACE but didn't touch the ACE map tool, nor did i draw ACE lines on the map.

I've used my model's world orientation to rotate the compass and/or placed it roughly on a map location to guess a bearing when needed. Then I lined up the side/ruler of the compass as needed and created a few regular arma2 map markers (double click; arrow keys to change symbol).

For distances I've expected a map grid to be about 100m.

Good wordk, except what you are doing is basically what you do with the map tools. So although you proved that you can "sort of" do this without the map tools doesn't mean that having the map tools is unnecessary. Your times probably would have been better if you used the map tools instead of trying to simulate them with the piss poor compass and additional work required.

Plus the entire project is about simulating real life orienteering as close as possible and one might as well just forget it without the map tools.

I did one mistake and missed an intersection in my own route plot because of misidentifying landmarks in the forest area below CP3. When I looked around, I saw my expected location with the flag to be 200m to the east of me.

I bet if you used the map tools this wouldn't have happened ;)

There would be a scripted way to make use of the tiny Arma2 compass: Onmapsingleclick or a radio command in combination with a small dialog to enter a degree value. Which will then rotate the player model instantly and the map compass accordingly.

Sounds more like a cheat to me and again doesn't follow the intent of this in trying to be realistic.

It's important to attract more players with an addon free yet ACE compatible mission. Later on some pro will play it with ACE to use the better map tool, and others will follow but still the mission shouldn't have to require it in the first place.

Agreed on addon free stuff in general but in this case without a decent compass to begin with and no map tools I wouldn't bother with this project.

PS: I see my results are asking for using the right tools :D That and my rookie navigation skills.

PPS: And shouldn't be there something like measured steps for precise movement? Or is this just something impractical that I was taught when moving planed distances precisely?

Yes on the measured steps and I did not include it in this version as this is still a work in progress. My thinking along these lines is that there would be a published chart given how far you can move at the various speeds in a certain amount of time. Of course the player would have to compensate for going uphill or downhill but not too different than real life.

[Trapper 0]

I see, without a story to be based on, the map tools have to be the only/primary focus.

Still there's good news in my eyes: The example mission like it is by now, will run without ACE mod. The only inconvenience are the missing map tools and an error message on start up. So there's no obstacle for guys like me who just want to get a taste without addons at first.

[delta99 34]

I see, without a story to be based on, the map tools have to be the only/primary focus.

Still there's good news in my eyes: The example mission like it is by now, will run without ACE mod. The only inconvenience are the missing map tools and an error message on start up. So there's no obstacle for guys like me who just want to get a taste without addons at first.

Good point. I didn't think it would run at all without the add-on so that at least is promising.

I think I took out some other stuff that was only found in ACE like some objects I was using. I changed those as far as I remember to use built-in objects.

[Tundra4PS 1]

I played the mission yesterday, no mods, just vanilla CO.

It took me 1741 seconds to complete it. The final flag is tricky without the maptools addons hehehe but I took advantage of Tropper's hints.

I'm very into this kind of mission having been reading several books about legendary SAS Selection and its navigation and tabbing courses.

Thanks a lot ;)

[delta99 34]

I played the mission yesterday, no mods, just vanilla CO.

It took me 1741 seconds to complete it. The final flag is tricky without the maptools addons hehehe but I took advantage of Tropper's hints.

I'm very into this kind of mission having been reading several books about legendary SAS Selection and its navigation and tabbing courses.

Thanks a lot ;)

Good work Tundra. There is a spreadsheet link to record your time in the first post if you desire. Your time is not bad.

Would be interesting to see you guys record a video of solving this without using the mapping tools.

[Tundra4PS 1]

do you want me to record a video struggling while trying not to draw a line in my LCD screen?? :D

[delta99 34]

do you want me to record a video struggling while trying not to draw a line in my LCD screen?? :D

Most definitely :)

[Ekku Zakku 10]

This thread is just a tad over 4 months old, sorry about that, but I think this is a great little mission, so why not show it some love?

With ACE and the stamina system causing me to take forever to get from point A to point B, I still managed a time of 1981 seconds, or ~33 minutes.

I've always just been good at orienteering, it's a very common sense thing for me to use a map and compass, I never needed to learn how to do it. I wish I could do some of this stuff IRL though XD

As for the map tools, didn't feel like looking up how to use them, so I used a bunch of map markers to make a line for CP3 lol

[delta99 34]

Ekku,

Thanks for trying it out. There hasn't been enough response with people trying it out and providing feedback for me to put more into it. I have a few ideas but they may not see the light if nobody is going to play these types of missions. There does seem to be quite a bit of excitement around the idea but not sure how much that translates into people actually playing.

I tried to play around with the Stamina system and I thought I actually disabled it at one point but not sure. It shouldn't be overly brutal in the setting I have it on as some settings made it almost unworkable. However, with some stamina it does make you choose your course a little in some situations. For instance you may not want to be heading directly uphill but move towards a CP using less sloped terrain.

You time is respectable so well done without using the map tools. You probably could have shaved off a few minutes if you used the map tools. It also depends on how accurate your mapping was without using straight lines and intersection. I'm guessing you had a general idea where the CP was but wondering how much looking around you did especially for CP3.

This thread is just a tad over 4 months old, sorry about that, but I think this is a great little mission, so why not show it some love?

With ACE and the stamina system causing me to take forever to get from point A to point B, I still managed a time of 1981 seconds, or ~33 minutes.

I've always just been good at orienteering, it's a very common sense thing for me to use a map and compass, I never needed to learn how to do it. I wish I could do some of this stuff IRL though XD

As for the map tools, didn't feel like looking up how to use them, so I used a bunch of map markers to make a line for CP3 lol

---------- Post added at 10:06 ---------- Previous post was at 10:01 ----------

I did think of a way to potentially make up for the fact that in-game you can hit your forward key and will basically stay on course without issue. Whereas in real life this is not easy to do.

By script I should be able to mess with the players direction every so often. Perhaps just randomly offsetting a couple of degrees plus or minus. This would simulate not being able to move exactly on a degree in-game. Perhaps some sort of random trigger can be done every x seconds.

Anyone have any feedback on this idea? Thoughts on how many +/- degrees would make sense over every x seconds? I suppose it might just require a bunch of experimentation. It would have to NOT appear obvious to the player as well so that it doesn't look jerky. It would have to only happen when moving as well but I think I know how to handle that since I'm doing that with the compass. You'll notice that in the current version you can't pull out your compass while moving.

[Ekku Zakku 10]

Actually I probably only lost a minute or two with triangulating the CPs, it really was a horrible time having to walk more than half the way XD it probably didn't help that I took out whatever ACE stamina script that you had for the player character. Since I didn't have the CACharacter_E thing or w/e it was, I replaced him entirely. But I really didn't lose much time on the map, and drawing a line with map markers instead of a line is still pretty accurate, not including the inaccuracy of plotting a dead perfect line with a compass as is though lol. I actually was on the north side of that last hill for CP3 since that's where my lines crossed, but I turned to my left and saw it, so it was pretty close.

I'd definitely play missions like these all the time as I really enjoy them, but replayability is certainly low for individual missions since you know where the CPs are after one go. Perhaps some kind of randomization would work well. I actually enjoy just finding a grid square, so throwing a few of those in would be easy if you add some randomness to it.

[delta99 34]

It wouldn't be too difficult to randomize the entire thing so I'm not to worried about that. Of course you then wouldn't be able to compare times with other's but the other hope would be that it would be multiplayer and everyone would start with the same randomized course.

Randomized courses may not work out as good as a human created one but still would be interesting I think.

But again, without more support from the community I don't think I'd continue with this all that much.

[Ekku Zakku 10]

Yeah I get you, and most clans and squads and whatnot that require navigation like that usually make their own for training, but there aren't many orienteering missions out there for individuals to download. It doesn't work too well when you make your own mission either since you already know where everything is. I found this thread when I searched for "Arma 2 Orienteering", because I wanted to do some of that in the game, so I know plenty more people will see this thread and download the mission themselves.

So, somebody's going to make mission for orienteering, be it you or somebody else. But either way, the people who are looking for orienteering missions are going to find them, and they might not always leave feedback like I did. So even if you don't see the community support you're looking for, I still think there's a bit of demand for it. It'd be much more fun as well to include more things in a mission than just orienteering, like stalking a targer or avoiding detection. Which reminds me, there's actually a really cool guy on YouTube that uploads videos of this airsoft sport called Hunteering, which is hunting and orienteering, and I would really love to see something like it in Arma. Here's a link to the main video, it's an hour and a half long film, but there are other much shorter videos as well if you just want a taste:

[Beavaroo 1]

Thank you for taking the time to create and share your mission.

I find applying land nav techniques in ArmA2 great fun and have spent hours (hundreds, truth be told) exploring Chernarus with nothing but a map and compass after randomly spawning a character on the map.

Hopefully will stand me in good stead if I ever manage to log on to a DayZ server!

Some observations and tips follow which I hope may be of help to others:

Pace Count Walking (count 1 pace each time right foot touches the ground) = 62paces per 100meters ~ 1.6meters per pace.

Travel Times and Distances in Seconds and Meters(sec, m) - Based on measured values of 60sec per 100m walking, and 90sec per 500m jogging.

Walking Time Required(sec) = Desired Travel Distance(m) x 0.6

Walked Distance(m) = Travel Time(sec) / 0.6

Jogging Time Required(sec) = Desired Travel Distance(m) x 0.18

Jogged Distance(m) = Travel Time(sec) / 0.18

I recommend not jogging for more than 500m (90sec) at a stretch as fatigue sets in quite quickly thereafter, reducing your speed and the accuracy of the above calculations.

Take a knee, check your six and catch your breath!

Map Plus V1.01 - Arma 2 addon by NouberNou. Provides compass rose (degrees and mils), scalable ruler, map symbols, and line drawing tool for use on Arma 2 maps.

Makes maps easier to read by removing "satellite" textures, lightening vegetation shading, and highlighting countour lines and elevation numbers.

I trust the above may be useful to others.

Keep up the good work!