Stuck On Everon [Wip]

[Guest]

Stuck On Everon - Work In Progress Mission -

(concept description. Refined description for mission release remains to be done)

Nato forces have been forced off of Everon by the enemy. Your team of special forces operatives are being deployed via helo insertion at the southern tip of the island in order to meet with Resistance forces whom are based nearby the Dz. Primary directive is to assist the Resistance movement in executing successfull strategic attacks against the Russian forces on Everon until Nato is able to make an effective counter attack.

Okay, so there is something of a decent description for now :P

First off, this mission will require the player to have CWR installed for Arma 1. I know it's a huge download, and from what I see, it's also a whole new game, and one worth putting some effort into a good mission. Although the mission content does rely on content from CWR Arma 1, it does not, I repeat not, modify nor touch any of it in any way. I have a great respect for the many people that worked on the Mod, and this mission only makes use of the content, and does not alter any of it in any way.

The TownHide script system that was initially built for Kolgujev Conflict Arma has been sitting on my HD collecting dust for years ever since the project died, it has just been installed into the Everon map for the mission :) The TownHide function allows for nearly an infinite number of units to be placed in the editor, and temporarily hides all of those exept those within a certain range of the player and his/her group units.

Spent about 5 hours today, got the system installed into the mission on Everon. The mission itself is just started barely, but the biggest thing is that the primary work to get the TownHide system working in the mission is done, and it is now setup to support hiding up to 200 units. 1 town is nearly done, although most of the work done was simply in getting used to the AI behaviour again, getting re-aquainted with the Town Hide system, and getting it installed.

I don't want to post spoilers, but expect the unexpected in this mission. Your not put in a mission to take down enemies in a few towns before it's over, your put on an island that is fully occupied by hundreds and hundreds of enemies, from towns held by the enemy to a full scale main enemy base... from dealing with tank patrols to taking out enemy supply convoys... from running out of ammo to making use of avaliable enemy weapons and vehicles (including tanks)... from taking enemy held positions to defending them... from finding a 'safe zone' to finding yourself being hunted.

Hey, see what happens, after getting things setup, I'm quite curious what can be done from here on :)

Cheers, and thanks for reading :)

P.S. - I had to change my name from Special Ed to Special_Ed and make a new account due to the fact I could not dig up my old password, gave up and just made this account.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Guest

[-Snafu- 78]

Sounds great. I remember your project when it started back in the good old OFP days.

P.S. - I had to change my name from Special Ed to Special_Ed and make a new account due to the fact I could not dig up my old password, gave up and just made this account.

If you contact a moderator they'll be able to fix that by merging your accounts.

[Guest]

Hey thanks for the response Snafu

The project did actually end up getting ported over into Arma, and then went from there to turning slowly into an epic nightmare of thousands of code lines before I just had to give up on it. It took way too long to realize it was the kind of project that really required a team, and probably a paycheck too lol... Learned a ton about scripting and some C++ stuff along the way tho.

This mission is about 1/100 the scope and scale, yet still the entire map can be fully populated, which is pretty cool considering how well Arma looks now in CWR mode. Maybe a few weeks or something, it's something I think a lot of people will enjoy just because of the fact that the island will be fully populated and be a very mch alive and immersive atmosphere, which is something only doable because of the Town Hide scripts.

Got 2 towns fully populated now, one of significant size. MapFacts Real Lights are put in, town looks great with good lighting at night. Similar detail in the larger towns is being applied just like in Kolgujev Conflict, they more resemble enemy bases, properly using a large variety of various items for visual appearance.

Can't complain, this is actually fun. It took a week or two to do a town in Kolgujev Conflict due to the mass complexeties involved, now it takes a few hours.

Gotcha on the name change/account thing there, I appreciate it. I'll have to contact an admin in regards to that :)

Get enough towns done up and will certainly post some screenies here.

Cheers!

[jeza 5416]

Also rang an ofp bell while reading this though i was having deja vu.

Sounds fantastic, on the mission im guessing you'll go for the ofp (cwr) ninja black op guys for the starting incursion? I do enjoy the idea of being in many locations taking on a variation of objective, & the scavenging. Also are you planning any interactions with the environment i.e the populated towns?

Regards Jeza

[Guest]

Hey

Honestly, the Commando (same as the day spec ops) unit type has been selected. The mission is going to primarily be 'day' based, wether or not the accelerated time can be put in is dependant on lag induced by it in the end, so it could end up being both day and night.

I too really enjoy missions out there that provide a variety of objectives and allow enough freedom for you to just kinda 'go do your own thing' as well :) They don't happen very often, but they are fun.

Really have to keep things very much limited to the concept of just the island being fully populated and alive with enemy activity, a main (big) objective along with a few cut scenes and a few 'unexpected' events. Honestly, there is no desire to turn this into some epic scaled mission with tons of detailed content, which would turn it from being a few weeks to completion to a few months/or just never being finished. I just can't afford to go that route again, Rl stuff and what not. It should be a unique and fun mission though, heck I was having some fun last night just engaging and taking over the two towns myself lol..

[Guest]

The SE portion of the map is done, here's some pics :

Pic 1

Pic 2

Pic 3

Pic 4

Pic 5

Pic 6

Pic 7

Pic 8

Pic 9

Pic 10

Pic 11

Pic 12

Pic 13

Since the pics were taken a few days ago, Levie and Laruns are done too. Defenitely coming along pretty quickly, especially considering the fact that once the map is fully populated, there is not a whole lot more to do before release at that point. On the last pic there of the map, the nasty cluster of objects/etc just NW of Durras in the woods is only a temp group used to copy and paste from (it contains all of the Static Mg/bunker combos, various towers with spotlights, pre-named group units and pre named markers). The tons of map markers shown are not actually seen in game, they are used by the Town Hide script system and are set to 'empty' status, and the rest of the objects do not show on the player map as well. For testing the player unit is temporarily set to east side... just in case anyone wondered why he's being ignored by the enemy :)

There is one town that is already picked to be the 'main enemy base' so to speak, which will have walls around it, and a good effort will be put in to create a pretty epic scaled base which should be both a challenge and be fun to assault. Two major towns have been done so far, and there's something like a total of 8 of them or around that number anyhow, and they take a bit longer than the rest due to attention to detail and whatnot in being populated.

Edited March 3, 2012 by Guest

[Guest]

The enemy forces are advancing across the map :p

Map view

Two of the major towns recently done do have walls, one of them ended up becoming a pretty epic enemy base (not the main base either), so much for a couple hours per town haha.. but what the heck, if it's going to be done, it should be done right. The level of detail and whatnot put into some of the towns now has at least reached if not surpassed the level of detail put into the towns in the old Kolgujev Conflict mission. More screens to come later, just havent had the time to get into another round of screenshot uploading.

The walls, the thing about enemy base/town areas having walls in Arma is really purely dependant on wether or not the location has basically totally flat ground. Unlike Ofp, Arma does not have a system added that automatically aligns walls and corrects the angle changes due to terrain differences. Basically putting walls down on uneven terrain can turn into hours and hours of work trying to fix the sections, so its something that is still going to be on a limited scale, depending on the terrain allowing it to be done.

Been doing some mild searching for a few weapon addons for Arma that both provide a high quality model and also provide stunning visual muzzle flash effects along with awesome sound effects for a few 'unique' weapons avaliable to the player. The Delta Scars weapons had come to mind, major drawback is that they really are too futuristic for the time of the mission, and that they are all skinned in only desert style. So, it is a tough thing, as the weapons have to fit the 1980's time frame, if nothing comes up it's no biggie, the weapons that are used by default in Cwr are great. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Edited March 8, 2012 by Guest

[jeza 5416]

Nice job pall

Defiantly got the island being alive feeling you mentioned can defiantly feel it.

As for the weapons, cant really go wrong with anything CWR, as your doing 1980's fits like a glove as well, that's my 2 cents anyways, Good stuff!

[Guest]

hey thanks

Populating the towns/bases on Everon is so much easier (and funner) than dealing with Sahrani, good grief the towns are so rediculously big on that map. Gotcha on the weapons, I didnt think there would be much out there in seperate addons that would fit the time apart from what comes with Cwr, at least I wasn't able to dig up anything on Armaholic weapon addons that would fit.

Le Moule is done now, hoping to get enough time off tommorow to at least get Lamentin and Montignac done, but of course, as usual if you shoot for something in a certain time frame when modding, it usually means not quite making it that far lol.

[Guest]

Lamentin and Montignac are done now. Just need to add lights to Montignac for night ops, but another time for that, Montignac took way more time than expected lol... but things are looking very good overall. It was hoped that I could get away with populating the entire map before getting into actually executing the town hide script system on the towns, but it seems the unit count has gotten to the point where the town hide system really needs to be activated, as the lag has gotten to the point now where it's getting ugly.

The northern tip of the island is basically all that's left to be populated, and then primary stuff is done, but first things first. Not sure how much time it's going to take to get all the towns running in the town hide system, but it has to be done now, fps has dropped now to about 15 lol. Hopefully things go ok getting the town hide system working, and then nearly all lag induced by distant towns/bases should be removed. Do still plan on getting some new pics up, just havent had the time lately.

[Guest]

Quick update, the Town Hide system is working, and Fps has been significantly increased. Running a Nvidia Gt 8800 here, getting about 40 to 50 fps in the 'boonies' now, and between 25 to 35 fps in relatively heavily populated areas. Good news on this, things can carry on to completing the final northern area on the map.

[Guest]

Here's some random pics taken from various towns across the map :

Entrance to large town held by the enemy

Looking down the wall

Inside the town

Barracks

Enemy within a graveyard

Up close

Tank patrolling the ruins

Enemy forces in Le Moule

Checkpoint at another large town entrance

Inside the town

Near the parking area

Looking down the fence (different town)

Campfire

Small town entrance at night

Large town entrance at night

Again, just the northern tip of the island remains to be finished for the primary stuff to be completed in the mission, been real busy lately with work.

Cheers!

Edited March 17, 2012 by Guest

[Guest]

Due to recent time constaints due to work, and Rl stuff, things are going to be toned down a bit in mission content detail. This has become an option to just abandoning the mission. The map is populated, and the convoys are added and working properly (including units disembarking from transport vehicles when an enemy is detected). An intro and outro are left to be done, and then it is release time. Things have been very busy lately with work, and I may also be shipping out for x months in the near future (non military). So, I thought it would be nice to actually put it out there before it's too late, regardless of imperfections and lack of previously projected mission content. This could also be a modders resource to build upon, although I am aware of the fact Arma 1 is a pretty dead game in light of Arma 2 being out for some time now.

The time acceleration script was tried, and it really is not worth the fps hit, apart from the fast moving clouds which only add to the negative value of the addition to provide a less than realistic environment. Mission time to start will be around 4:30 A.M., which will both provide night time atmosphere during the mission start and will also allow for day time operations as the player and his/her group advances into enemy territory.

[Guest]

Due to real life stuff and whatnot, I have decided to scrap this mission project. I really didnt expect it to take as long as it has, nor be as much trouble as it has been.. guess I forgot how much work mission making can be.

Anyhow, I'll contact a moderator to have the topic locked, unless ofc a moderator sees this before then they are welcome to lock this.