[TvT/FFA/CO-40] Dynamic Zombie Sandbox

[vegeta897 13]

Seems like after awhile the zombies dont respawn if they are meant to, or very few do.

Had my server up for a few hours, 40 zombies per km and 25 min spawn radius.

After a hour or so after many of them had been killed, not many more showed up at all sometimes even for 20+ minutes.

I too have experienced this.

And also, time of day gets out of sync between the host and the clients.

[Nicholas 5]

And also, time of day gets out of sync between the host and the clients.

I do not believe this is related to the mission. It is a problem with ArmA.

[Craig_VG 20]

A little preview, think zombies on EPIC size. It will have some features from the full version but not many. It's just a simple version, but it works.

Dynamic Zombie Sandbox -- For Take on Helicopters, without helicopters, and with zombies.

For all those who loved: http://takeonthegame.com/zombies/

There now is:

http://www.moddb.com/mods/bobtoms-arma2-missions/images/dzs-take-on-helicopters

More to come...

[mawendt 1]

First, great updates.

Second, I've found I've been playing mostly TAW_Titon's modifications that add R3F Logistics,which I'd been playing around with myself. It's a hundred times better in multiplayer. He's also modded the number of zombies, and other stuff. I hope he's in touch with Craig about them.

Third, I'm working through these sidemission things, definitely needing improvement. Although its a struggle, I am attempting:

1. sidemission survivors to work the survivor AI into 'followers' for the first person that recruits them, allowing the player to add them to their group, and direct them to man a gun or patrol a 50m area. Also sets them to 'follow' as a patrol, and rearm on their own when they come to a box. Makes the survivors valuable - right now half the time a player kill them for their guns, and they don't shoot back. mission ends when all survivors are recruited or dead.

2. sidemission crash to change up the banits at the crash site to be rand 3 to 12 in groups of three scattered about the crash site, within 100m, and a couple of technicals. Just has a better feel to it. mission ends when all bandits are dead and ammoboxes have been discovered - and i'd like to see the ammo boxes spawned in the plane, and i'd like to see a transport helicopter (east or west) occaisionally take its place to mix it up. plus, i'd like to see a dead factionally correct pilot, copilot, and gunner. maybe instead of just spawning it as crashed, script it going down accross the sky so players can see it, and have it spawn within 500 meters of the marker, making players search for it.

3. trying to develop a zombie wave script, that when more than two players hang out in a location for more than three minutes, multiple waves of zombies spawn at the games configured preffered visual distance (set at start) from random directions, and charge those players. Particularly painful for those trying to maintain the overrun base side mission, as well as tryiing the strongpoint tactic anywher on the map.

3. sidemission of a redforce or blueforce armor/light vehicle column moving accross map pausing at random towns and fuel stations. They are headed 'home' after deserting their United Nations security mission that fell apart in a zombie over run. They attack everyone, are random 1 to 4 vehicles light armor (bmp, bmd, stryker) and light vehicle (truck, hummv w/weapon, technical) and infantry (up to 3 per vehicle) with capturable supplies if the vehicles don't get blown up. Mission ends when all members are killed or if column leave map. trying the convoy mission from Domination as a base.

4. Sidemission bandits take over a critical town. Rand 6 to 18 Bandits spawn at random map edge location, move to a random town, and set up guard/defensive posture, kill zombies and anyone else that passes by. Mission ends when all bandits killed.

5. trying to set a random spawn of searchlights, barrels, crates, misc items that can be used as ad hoc barriers or support using Craig's random vehicle script. Items can be dragged, carried, and stacked based on weight, and some can be loaded into vehicles for long distance to a strongpoint or camp. I've found if i jam a barrel or crate into a doorway, the zombies and anyone else can't enter until its moved. Alos, spawning an empty weapons rack and empty ammo crate that can be moved allows the option to create an indoor armory out of the way of competitive players.

6. fires. Random burning campfires and burning barrels are placed, Additionally, a player can find a 'wood token' and start a camp fire that lasts up to 1 game hour. Barrels burn until put out.

7. Scavenging from vehicles, get parts to make a searchlight but brings damage of car down 33%, may cause it to get destroyed. Might expand on this for advanced auto repair to scavange tires and generic parts that allow repairing other vehicles to get into the green when repaired.

8. Scavenge statics from vehicles with machine guns and automatic grenade launchers. Despawns the vehicle that has the gun, the spawns the static weapon and an unarmed version of the same vehicle next to eachother, takes rand 30 to 45 sec game time, respawned vehicle loses 25% health and may explode. Maybe also work the reverese allowing a weapon to be mounted - maybe requiring a scavenged acetalyne torch?

9. mission where dead body is found with notes on a out of the way location where a special vehicle is spawned in a random condition from destroyed to perfect with some or no fuel and some or no ammo. maybe a United Nations medical or security rally point (small bases with goodies and lots of zeds). maybe a note about a 'dustoff' helicopter pick up at a certain time rand 4 to 12 game hours away at a spawned pick up point, allowing players to either kill the pilots and security to take the transport chopper for themslves, or to get in the chopper and 'escape' for bonus points or special item. mission ends when pilots and security are dead, or player(s) leave map - but players respawn and continue the game. Or maybe the vehicle can be salvaged with special parts or fuel... stryker mortor, anyone?

10. trying to figure out how to spawn the weapon caches in a house. Each 'open' house has at least four ground floor locations.... maybe make a list of viable houses, and a random spawn to those points? Suddenly you have to start searching houses.

11. I've been experimenting with severely nerfing the ammo severely . 300 STANAGS in an ammo box? Really? Just delivered and forgotten before I found it in the midst of the apocolypse? Ammo restrictions would seem to increase the desparation of the scavange, and maybe cause players to band together a bit more. Trying to figure out if I can spawn an 'ammo reloading' bench with storage that when 3 scavenged items are found (generic metal, chemicals, casings) a player can make ammo of his choice (or maybe case restricted?)

12. i want to get the towing feature implemented from R3F Logistics

13. i'll be trying to improve the 'Horde' mission to be three groups of thirty zombies, for a real horde feeling, and have them spawn at maps edge close together and move to nearest town, hang out for rand 5 to 10 minutes, attack any players that enter town, destroy all vehicles and crates before they leave and maybe some houses, then move to a random next nearest town and do it again.

14. sidemission escort UN convoy accross map. convoy follows first non-attacking player that makes contact, random zombie hordes of 30 or so, bandit ambushes, and mines/ied's spawn as well as other players who may just want to seize the UN convoy vehicles and supplies. Mission ends when convoy reaches map exit point on other side of map.

15. remove ammo from gun vehicles, and store the ammo or rearm other gun vehicles of like munitions (east/west ammo)

16. get the shambling zeds, the 'walkers' implemented. they're just scary in the foogy dark. and scarier when i'm down to my last pistol clip.

17. implement 'shove off' (but stroke) when armed with a rifle or shotgun, 'pistol whip' when armed with a pistol, or 'fist strike' when having no weapon in hand. one hit knocks a zed back and pauses it for 3 sec and does random damage. theres already a but stroke script somewhere - but this would be a real bonus to this mod, particularly when surrounded or out of ammo, or not having enough time for a reload.

lotta work, wishful thinkings for a guy just figuring out how it all comes together. but i did get R3F Log working, and some novice spawning of items dynamically. anyone who knows how to do any of this, feel free to share.... whiskey

[Craig_VG 20]

For those of you that have Take on Helicopters:

Take On Helicopters version:

Dynamic Zombie Sandbox V.90 TOH

Just a quick port, very fun, you spawn in the middle of the city!

---------- Post added at 06:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------

First, great updates.

Second, I've found I've been playing mostly TAW_Titon's modifications that add R3F Logistics,which I'd been playing around with myself. It's a hundred times better in multiplayer. He's also modded the number of zombies, and other stuff. I hope he's in touch with Craig about them.

Third, I'm working through these sidemission things, definitely needing improvement. Although its a struggle, I am attempting:

1. sidemission survivors to work the survivor AI into 'followers' for the first person that recruits them, allowing the player to add them to their group, and direct them to man a gun or patrol a 50m area. Also sets them to 'follow' as a patrol, and rearm on their own when they come to a box. Makes the survivors valuable - right now half the time a player kill them for their guns, and they don't shoot back. mission ends when all survivors are recruited or dead.

2. sidemission crash to change up the banits at the crash site to be rand 3 to 12 in groups of three scattered about the crash site, within 100m, and a couple of technicals. Just has a better feel to it. mission ends when all bandits are dead and ammoboxes have been discovered - and i'd like to see the ammo boxes spawned in the plane, and i'd like to see a transport helicopter (east or west) occaisionally take its place to mix it up. plus, i'd like to see a dead factionally correct pilot, copilot, and gunner. maybe instead of just spawning it as crashed, script it going down accross the sky so players can see it, and have it spawn within 500 meters of the marker, making players search for it.

3. trying to develop a zombie wave script, that when more than two players hang out in a location for more than three minutes, multiple waves of zombies spawn at the games configured preffered visual distance (set at start) from random directions, and charge those players. Particularly painful for those trying to maintain the overrun base side mission, as well as tryiing the strongpoint tactic anywher on the map.

3. sidemission of a redforce or blueforce armor/light vehicle column moving accross map pausing at random towns and fuel stations. They are headed 'home' after deserting their United Nations security mission that fell apart in a zombie over run. They attack everyone, are random 1 to 4 vehicles light armor (bmp, bmd, stryker) and light vehicle (truck, hummv w/weapon, technical) and infantry (up to 3 per vehicle) with capturable supplies if the vehicles don't get blown up. Mission ends when all members are killed or if column leave map. trying the convoy mission from Domination as a base.

4. Sidemission bandits take over a critical town. Rand 6 to 18 Bandits spawn at random map edge location, move to a random town, and set up guard/defensive posture, kill zombies and anyone else that passes by. Mission ends when all bandits killed.

5. trying to set a random spawn of searchlights, barrels, crates, misc items that can be used as ad hoc barriers or support using Craig's random vehicle script. Items can be dragged, carried, and stacked based on weight, and some can be loaded into vehicles for long distance to a strongpoint or camp. I've found if i jam a barrel or crate into a doorway, the zombies and anyone else can't enter until its moved. Alos, spawning an empty weapons rack and empty ammo crate that can be moved allows the option to create an indoor armory out of the way of competitive players.

6. fires. Random burning campfires and burning barrels are placed, Additionally, a player can find a 'wood token' and start a camp fire that lasts up to 1 game hour. Barrels burn until put out.

7. Scavenging from vehicles, get parts to make a searchlight but brings damage of car down 33%, may cause it to get destroyed. Might expand on this for advanced auto repair to scavange tires and generic parts that allow repairing other vehicles to get into the green when repaired.

8. Scavenge statics from vehicles with machine guns and automatic grenade launchers. Despawns the vehicle that has the gun, the spawns the static weapon and an unarmed version of the same vehicle next to eachother, takes rand 30 to 45 sec game time, respawned vehicle loses 25% health and may explode. Maybe also work the reverese allowing a weapon to be mounted - maybe requiring a scavenged acetalyne torch?

9. mission where dead body is found with notes on a out of the way location where a special vehicle is spawned in a random condition from destroyed to perfect with some or no fuel and some or no ammo. maybe a United Nations medical or security rally point (small bases with goodies and lots of zeds). maybe a note about a 'dustoff' helicopter pick up at a certain time rand 4 to 12 game hours away at a spawned pick up point, allowing players to either kill the pilots and security to take the transport chopper for themslves, or to get in the chopper and 'escape' for bonus points or special item. mission ends when pilots and security are dead, or player(s) leave map - but players respawn and continue the game. Or maybe the vehicle can be salvaged with special parts or fuel... stryker mortor, anyone?

10. trying to figure out how to spawn the weapon caches in a house. Each 'open' house has at least four ground floor locations.... maybe make a list of viable houses, and a random spawn to those points? Suddenly you have to start searching houses.

11. I've been experimenting with severely nerfing the ammo severely . 300 STANAGS in an ammo box? Really? Just delivered and forgotten before I found it in the midst of the apocolypse? Ammo restrictions would seem to increase the desparation of the scavange, and maybe cause players to band together a bit more. Trying to figure out if I can spawn an 'ammo reloading' bench with storage that when 3 scavenged items are found (generic metal, chemicals, casings) a player can make ammo of his choice (or maybe case restricted?)

12. i want to get the towing feature implemented from R3F Logistics

13. i'll be trying to improve the 'Horde' mission to be three groups of thirty zombies, for a real horde feeling, and have them spawn at maps edge close together and move to nearest town, hang out for rand 5 to 10 minutes, attack any players that enter town, destroy all vehicles and crates before they leave and maybe some houses, then move to a random next nearest town and do it again.

14. sidemission escort UN convoy accross map. convoy follows first non-attacking player that makes contact, random zombie hordes of 30 or so, bandit ambushes, and mines/ied's spawn as well as other players who may just want to seize the UN convoy vehicles and supplies. Mission ends when convoy reaches map exit point on other side of map.

15. remove ammo from gun vehicles, and store the ammo or rearm other gun vehicles of like munitions (east/west ammo)

16. get the shambling zeds, the 'walkers' implemented. they're just scary in the foogy dark. and scarier when i'm down to my last pistol clip.

17. implement 'shove off' (but stroke) when armed with a rifle or shotgun, 'pistol whip' when armed with a pistol, or 'fist strike' when having no weapon in hand. one hit knocks a zed back and pauses it for 3 sec and does random damage. theres already a but stroke script somewhere - but this would be a real bonus to this mod, particularly when surrounded or out of ammo, or not having enough time for a reload.

lotta work, wishful thinkings for a guy just figuring out how it all comes together. but i did get R3F Log working, and some novice spawning of items dynamically. anyone who knows how to do any of this, feel free to share.... whiskey

Good work whiskey, Keep it up, the more the merrier. I'm going to do some fixes with A2 and CO versions and then get to work on adding new features again. ACE version is also in the works.

[tonic-_- 53]

Just popping in.. first off love the sandbox thing, been making quite a bit of modifications... But I have a question and it's really starting to eat away at me.. Do you know what is causing the side merge? (WEST,EAST,CIV) can all talk on side chat and group chat with each other and I would like to get the sandbox style a bit more TVT style or in this case (TVTVZ) heh. I'd tried removing the setFriend but the only thing I can find it is doing other then making west east and civ friendly to each other is making the zombies a bit well.. dumber..

It would be really nice to get rid of that so that sides can conspire against each other and discuss it over side chat without the other sides hearing it..

Thanks!

TAW_Tonic

[Gvozd 0]

I wonder if there's a possibility to make in-game zombies to look a little-bit reaslistic like zombies, i.e. add blood stains on them (stains like they appear upon bullet hit in Arma)?

It really would be great if zombies could have such "exterior"

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk190/Winimperial/arma22009-06-0623-51-01-68.jpg >100kb!

---------- Post added at 15:08 ---------- Previous post was at 14:57 ----------

I've found a The-Undead-Mod and zombies are looking GOOD there (including even dogs). I wish current zombie mod have zombies that are looking like that

Edited February 15, 2012 by Foxhound

[Craig_VG 20]

I wonder if there's a possibility to make in-game zombies to look a little-bit reaslistic like zombies, i.e. add blood stains on them (stains like they appear upon bullet hit in Arma)?

It really would be great if zombies could have such "exterior"

---------- Post added at 15:08 ---------- Previous post was at 14:57 ----------

[/color]I've found a The-Undead-Mod and zombies are looking GOOD there (including even dogs). I wish current zombie mod have zombies that are looking like that

Me too, but this mission needs to remain mod-free. I'll see what I can do, though.

[Gvozd 0]

I hope this might help a little bit

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Face_Wound_Textures

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/CfgFaces_Arma2

Regarding wound textures on soldier models. I'm just learning this myself, to me it looks like you have two sets of textures for wounds.

1) face + hands/feet (ie bare skin).

2) main body clothing (not including gear / accessories).

So for example in ca\characters\us_soldier_b.p3d has the following textures.

bare skin texture: ca\characters\hhl\hhl_02_co.paa

bare skin rvmat: ca\characters\data\us_rukavy_hhl.rvmat

and

body clothing texture: ca\characters\data\us_soldieracu_ohrnute_co.paa

body clothing rvmat: ca\characters\data\us_soldier_b_body.rvmat

Full wound texture config.cpp part:

CODE: SELECT ALL

class Wounds

{

tex[] = {};

mat[] =

{

"ca\characters\data\us_rukavy_hhl.rvmat",

"ca\characters\data\us_rukavy_hhl_wound1.rvmat",

"ca\characters\data\us_rukavy_hhl_wound2.rvmat",

"ca\characters\data\us_soldier_b_body.rvmat",

"ca\characters\data\us_soldier_b_body_wound1.rvmat",

"ca\characters\data\us_soldier_b_body_wound2.rvmat"

};

};

Seems like BIS is using individual textures for all soldiers which include the damage textures.

So in a nutshell, you need to check what texture are you using for your soldiers BARE SKIN and then for BODY CLOTHING. For these two textures you affiliate the rvmat into the class wounds config and hook up for the damage textures.

Damage textures as image, they seem to be same size as the normal textures and use alpha channel transparency to apply the blood / damage parts.

Hope this clears something up, it did for me

Edited February 8, 2012 by Gvozd

[mawendt 1]

Craig -

I've been giving some thought on making the scripts more effecient. Maybe someone on the thread here can comment.

The engine identifies eight sides (West, East, Civilian, Resistance, sideLogic, Friendly, Enemy, Unknown) with stock reactions/relationships among them.

My thought is if you assigned all the human players the 'Enemy' faction, then everything should attack them without any unique attack scripting. At that point, all zombies are given an invisible weapon (claw) with a range of 1m, and moving/attack animations accordingly,and no fear - and viola - simple zombie attacking with less scripting.

Additionally, if you were to script in any missions, the default for all factions would be to attack the players (end of the world, every man for himself apocolypse style); players would remain free to either coop or attack eachother; any future 'rescue' missions of survivors would be focused on just that survivor element being friendly to the players.... which would be less cpu drag than having some kind of loop for all zombies and enemies. Am I making sense, and understanding the realtionship assignments, here?

Alternatively, which I think you might already do (I'm still kicking through the code) is to create a faction (zombie/infected/whatever), and make that faction an enemy to all other factions - which would free up Resistance (which I think Zeds are defaulted to now).

Anyone know if thats how these things work? I'll be giving them a try this week.

Additionally, rather than spawn infected individually, how about spawning them as groups, which would increase the number of Zeds, and have them stick together on an attack? they'd wander around in maybe groups of three to twenty, and only spawn within 500 m of a player.... otherwise you can 'shrink' (depsawn) the group to a one zombie placeholder to reduce cpu logic demands, pathfinding, etc. I don't know how constant spawn/despawn may impact the game fluidity, looping so much.... but maybe have a timer that if a player stays within a 100m area longer than 10 seconds, or is moving at a Zed's speed or slower, the single placeholder zombies spawn out to their group size and start chasing him.

Last, I've been playing with the Survivor/Raider spawn script.... and although I haven't put it in game yet, maybe this script is more effecient:

*****

//new raider spawn script by whiskey

_raider_count = round(random 6) + round(random 6) + 3; \\spawns three to 15 raiders,

//assign potential raiders allowing to be selected at random - might be better to just spawn within a class?

//maybe add up to three technical armed vehicles to mix?

_raider = ["Ins_Commander", "Ins_Soldier_1", "Ins_Soldier_AR", "Ins_Soldier_CO",

"Ins_Soldier_MG", "Ins_Soldier_Medic", "Ins_Soldier_Sniper",

"Ins_Villager3", "Ins_Villager4", "Ins_Worker2",

"Ins_Woodlander1", "Ins_Woodlander2", "Ins_Woodlander3",];

[[getPos _townpos, _raider, _raider_count] call BIS_fnc_spawnGroup;] call BIS_fnc_taskDefend;

//maybe change side or assign enemy status here to engage zeds and players?

//maybe script in a random time pause 10 to 60 game minutes, then have them move to nearby town?

//maybe script in that they take the town as a base, start collecting weapons, ammo, food; start patrolling; get +1 Raiders per game hour; expand to next town as

//they grow to a certain size?

//mybe script in a random plant ieds or mines, empty out vehicles, eat a captive (food may be scarce?), set some tires on fire, set a roadblock, whatever

//end new raider script

****

Just some thoughts. whiskey

[Xtri 10]

Edit: Figured it out :)

Edited February 15, 2012 by Xtri

[tonic-_- 53]

Here is something i've been working on for it.. On Zargabad people raid all the cars & ammo caches a lot so... I decided why not add a gun shop and make the currency bandages?!

Still WIP but getting there...

Edited February 16, 2012 by Tonic-_-

[Xtri 10]

I use this map for my server but after a a few hours it almost never spawns zombies anymore.. :(

Edited February 17, 2012 by Xtri

[tonic-_- 53]

I use this map for my server but after a a few hours there almost never spawns zombies anymore.. :(

I also faced the same issue. I had to do some modifications to get it all working consistently. The only issue I face now is the zombies get basically stupid after a while.. they'll chase you sometimes but they take at least a few seconds before they 'claw' you.. I think after awhile the script seems to reach its max limit as far as execution or whatever. I've tried deleting all the zombies once this happens and let them regenerate but they never get 'aggressive' again. Becomes a bit of a bummer having to restart every hour or so.

I have two radio triggers to help debug when stuff gets funky..

Trigger one: Zombie counter

zombiecount = {!isPlayer _x} count allUnits; hint format["Zombies: %1",zombiecount];

Trigger two: Group counter

hint format["Groups: %1", count allGroups];

Also... I have made a video demo of the gun shop..

[Flat4ej20 10]

Has anyone tryed dynamic zombie sandbox A2 version .90 A2/A2F with arma2 patch 1.11 on Chernarus. I only see tasks. No zombies, vehicles, time of day, weather effects, etc. Seems like nothing is spawning on the map. I tryed launching only Arma2 & Arma2 CO. Also tryed using CBA. I enabled debug mode in parameters & there is nothing populating on the map.

NOTE:

I am not using any mods. I only try'd CBA to see if that would fix my issue.

Arma2 CO version .90CO dynamic zombie sandbox with arma2 CO patch 1.60 launching game as Arma2CO works fine.

[Xtri 10]

Tonic, how do I fix this issue, I'm not an expert when it comes to scripting :p

I also have another problem. The Dynamic Zombie CO version crashes from 10 to 60 minutes of being up. Does not happen with OA.

Edited February 19, 2012 by Xtri

[Craig_VG 20]

Hai it's me again,

I took a little break because RL got in the way for way for a while.

I'm back to work.

So, what do you guys think should be on the top of my priority list for .95?

Thanks,

Craig

(I'm making an I44 version too :D)

---------- Post added at 07:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 PM ----------

Another thing, I'm making the system flush itself out every 30 minutes or so to prevent the stopping of zombies from spawning.

---------- Post added at 08:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:59 PM ----------

Another Another thing,

I made the setup for the mission different, and more efficient. As said: https://twitter.com/#!/Craig_VG/status/173200542582050817

It also removes the freezing at mapscreen and makes the mission more compatible for ACE/CBA

[tyxo 12]

In the top of priorities, i think, not just add new things(no idea), but fix the old things, AND try to add some salvage scripts to gain funds to make a base and this stuff.

I like the idea of salvaging bodies and wrecks. Also add some custom ammo crates with one, or two weapons only and few ammo. Fix the respawn problem with CoIn, just resync the module to player "module synchronizeObjectsAdd [xxx];" in the init.sqf, i guess you already know. And try to organize a little more the missions files xD.

Thanks to the progress. You did a great job in this mission ;D

[Craig_VG 20]

Things lose their syncs after respawn? Didn't know that, thanks mate!!

I have reorganized them already, which is easier for me and for everyone else for sure.

Thanks

-Craig

[tonic-_- 53]

What really needs to be figured out and fixed is the performance it has on a server. It impacts the performance of a server so bad it makes it not playable. My server (A fairly good server) constantly runs between 5-12fps which is NOT good for ArmA missions. With that bottlenecking the server so badly the zombies will never properly react to other players and of course side missions tend to 'bug out' so yeah... If you ever need a server to use to help debug the mission, etc you can always use mine. I've tried to trace the problem but can't really seem to find it so i've actually gave up on editing the mission till it's resolved.

[Craig_VG 20]

I have a couple server options, but thanks for the offer!

5-12 is bad indeed. It affects script timing also, which is never good.

I'd say it has a lot to do with the sheer amount of vehicles and zombies on the map. And the server needs to keep track of all those zombies and vehicles. While the actual mission is running there isn't really anything running besides the zombie scripts. I just spawn the triggers and vehicles at the start and let the players go to town. All the respawning and weapon choosing is client side.

My theory is that a purging of all zombies and triggers on the map would help, resetting the mission to the server speeds at mission start. This would be pretty easy to do. I'll throw a beta out to get some servers to test it or something.

In other news:

The ArmA 2 version has been fixed zombie-wise, but I'm running into issues with the fact that there is no "addweaponcargoglobal" command for ArmA 2, which means I can't add weapons to vehicles globally dynamically unless I broadcast the command (either with multiplayer framework or some other method). But this seams to be pretty inefficient.

Anyone have any ideas on how this could be done?

Thanks

Craig

---------- Post added at 10:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 PM ----------

Craig -

I've been giving some thought on making the scripts more effecient. Maybe someone on the thread here can comment.

The engine identifies eight sides (West, East, Civilian, Resistance, sideLogic, Friendly, Enemy, Unknown) with stock reactions/relationships among them.

My thought is if you assigned all the human players the 'Enemy' faction, then everything should attack them without any unique attack scripting. At that point, all zombies are given an invisible weapon (claw) with a range of 1m, and moving/attack animations accordingly,and no fear - and viola - simple zombie attacking with less scripting.

Additionally, if you were to script in any missions, the default for all factions would be to attack the players (end of the world, every man for himself apocolypse style); players would remain free to either coop or attack eachother; any future 'rescue' missions of survivors would be focused on just that survivor element being friendly to the players.... which would be less cpu drag than having some kind of loop for all zombies and enemies. Am I making sense, and understanding the realtionship assignments, here?

Alternatively, which I think you might already do (I'm still kicking through the code) is to create a faction (zombie/infected/whatever), and make that faction an enemy to all other factions - which would free up Resistance (which I think Zeds are defaulted to now).

Anyone know if thats how these things work? I'll be giving them a try this week.

Additionally, rather than spawn infected individually, how about spawning them as groups, which would increase the number of Zeds, and have them stick together on an attack? they'd wander around in maybe groups of three to twenty, and only spawn within 500 m of a player.... otherwise you can 'shrink' (depsawn) the group to a one zombie placeholder to reduce cpu logic demands, pathfinding, etc. I don't know how constant spawn/despawn may impact the game fluidity, looping so much.... but maybe have a timer that if a player stays within a 100m area longer than 10 seconds, or is moving at a Zed's speed or slower, the single placeholder zombies spawn out to their group size and start chasing him.

Last, I've been playing with the Survivor/Raider spawn script.... and although I haven't put it in game yet, maybe this script is more effecient:

*****

//new raider spawn script by whiskey

_raider_count = round(random 6) + round(random 6) + 3; \\spawns three to 15 raiders,

//assign potential raiders allowing to be selected at random - might be better to just spawn within a class?

//maybe add up to three technical armed vehicles to mix?

_raider = ["Ins_Commander", "Ins_Soldier_1", "Ins_Soldier_AR", "Ins_Soldier_CO",

"Ins_Soldier_MG", "Ins_Soldier_Medic", "Ins_Soldier_Sniper",

"Ins_Villager3", "Ins_Villager4", "Ins_Worker2",

"Ins_Woodlander1", "Ins_Woodlander2", "Ins_Woodlander3",];

[[getPos _townpos, _raider, _raider_count] call BIS_fnc_spawnGroup;] call BIS_fnc_taskDefend;

//maybe change side or assign enemy status here to engage zeds and players?

//maybe script in a random time pause 10 to 60 game minutes, then have them move to nearby town?

//maybe script in that they take the town as a base, start collecting weapons, ammo, food; start patrolling; get +1 Raiders per game hour; expand to next town as

//they grow to a certain size?

//mybe script in a random plant ieds or mines, empty out vehicles, eat a captive (food may be scarce?), set some tires on fire, set a roadblock, whatever

//end new raider script

****

Just some thoughts. whiskey

The problem is that I can't create any new factions and I can't create a weapon for the zombies. It can't be done through scripting. and all the players need to be setcaptived so none of the other units fear them. If I was to set the players as enemy to the zombies they would be afraid of the people. Which is why Celery made his zombies the way he did. About the spawning in groups. Not sure why Celery did it that way, but I assume he had a good reason, and I don't want to go messing with his code (I mean BIS hired him for pete's sake :D).

Personally I have sorta/kinda given up with enemy's with guns in this mission. Sure they work at the plane, but it's completely scripted and they shoot you instantly.

[Craig_VG 20]

Okay, update on progress so far:

Added:

1. New method of mission startup. Before I was lazy and had multiple scripts with their own loading screens. Now it is all combined into one script (startup.sqf).

2. I am currently testing a script that basically refreshes the mission. It's like when you burn a marsh in the spring so the grass grows back better. Every few minutes (time in between hasn't been finalized yet) the mission deletes all the zombies. It clears the map, and then the zombies automatically spawn again around the players.

Changed:

1. Brand new zombie sounds. Makes it much scarier IMHO. There will also be a much larger variety.

Fixed:

1. The issues with the town horde and the infected base have been fixed.

[Silent Sniper 0]

Sounds good, hopefully the update will revive this mission.

A Inv44 version would be very interesting,

WW2 weapons are awesome.

[tyxo 12]

Sounds good, hopefully the update will revive this mission.

A Inv44 version would be very interesting,

WW2 weapons are awesome.

Nazi Zombies \o/

And, bobtom, did you fix those problems ?

Will you add savage scripts ?

[colosseum 34]

This looks great. My housemate just bought a new PC so we've been playing A2CO and I might have to give this a shot.

Does it still work on other islands just by changing the mapname in the folder link and recompiling?

Also, I've fooled around with some of my point-to-point travel zombie missions using Inv1944 weapons and it's pretty fun. Only problem is that it requires the (IMO) massive 1944 mod.

Edited March 5, 2012 by Colosseum