[SP] Lost v 4.0 - Like a mash-up of 'Dogs of War' and 'Manhattan' (without the bugs)!

[markb50k 1]

xxbbcc, If the experience you talk about happened to me all the time, I'd be frustrated as well. Realize that everyones game is completely different than the other. Every position, every soldier, is randomly redone every time to start. Your starting point, your friendly rallypoint. Just randomness shouldnt allow that many enemy reacting as quickly as you AND being so close to begin with. They should be spread across the map.

Heklos is characterizing my playing style exactly, and the one i intended for this. Another strategy is to find an empty road between two towns with good lines of sight. Wait for a lightly armored car to come by, one of the UAZ etc. snipe the gunner. snipe the passenger. then spray the driver. Rinse and repeat. If a brdm or bmp shows up, stay in the treeline until it leaves. IT WILL LEAVE eventually.

Anyway, like i said, i'm putting some tweaks in that should eliminate the immediate spot-on detection of you in a town. Remember, once a house is searched it doesnt report your position anymore. So that should bring up some ideas for strategy as well.

Also, will be adding support for Lingor units and Emita Island. Should be out tomorrow.

[JunkyardDog 1]

I've been playing the 4.96 version for two solid days. I love it. I love being forced into guerrilla warfare, being outnumbered, having to plan hard and fast strikes against targets of opportunity, sometimes even stalking the forests for enemy squads and an opportune time to take them down. I also very much enjoy the concept of no respawning or 'building' as in Warfare, but to be completely honest, AI is not always reliable, and tends to get itself killed easily. I seem to run out of troops very quickly, even when I manage to save the friendly forces. Recruiting partisans, again very unreliable, and when you do recruit one, he might spawn at the most inopportune time and get himself shot as he tries to assume formation. Or maybe I'm just a terrible commander.

But like most said, the low visibility due to fog, and insanely good AI shooting skill, means that when my AI squad goes toe to toe with the enemy AI squad, it's all over within minutes, and most of the time I myself am nothing more than a bullet pincushion. Unless I hold back with a sniper rifle, and even then the enemy riflemen score headshots on my prone self in mere seconds as I open fire.

@markb50k I'm glad that the AI is getting a slight decrease in skill, but as for fog, would it be possible to implement dynamic weather into the mod? You have the ability to more time forward by an hour, why not let the player skip days, if needed, for the right weather conditions, before making a move?

Last but not least, how much effort would it take to implement the ability to play as OPFOR Russians/Takis as the ones who lost the war?

[The_Fowlcon 1]

Hi Mark

let me start by saying quite new to arma II,Playing the standalone OA with only your addon running.everthing running fine no lag etc only the game crashes when resuming or reverting have tried saving from menu and from the communication/mission option but the result is the same.Any ideas?

Strangely and i dont know if its important but the message i get when its crashed is"Arma II reinforcements has stopped working".full crash log follows

Problem Event Name: APPCRASH

Application Name: ArmA2OA.exe

Application Version: 1.60.87.580

Application Timestamp: 4ef2c80b

Fault Module Name: ArmA2OA.exe

Fault Module Version: 1.60.87.580

Fault Module Timestamp: 4ef2c80b

Exception Code: c0000005

Exception Offset: 002e1255

OS Version: 6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3

Locale ID: 1033

Additional Information 1: fd00

Additional Information 2: ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160

Additional Information 3: fd00

Additional Information 4: ea6f5fe8924aaa756324d57f87834160

[xxbbcc 6]

Hi Mark

let me start by saying quite new to arma II,Playing the standalone OA with only your addon running.everthing running fine no lag etc only the game crashes when resuming or reverting have tried saving from menu and from the communication/mission option but the result is the same.Any ideas?

Strangely and i dont know if its important but the message i get when its crashed is"Arma II reinforcements has stopped working".

As the first post says, you need Combined Ops to play this mission. Is that what you're playing or only plain OA? If just plain OA, that could be the reason for your crash - when I played this mission, I had no problems with it, even when I maxed out all mission parameters.

I'm glad that the AI is getting a slight decrease in skill, but as for fog, would it be possible to implement dynamic weather into the mod? You have the ability to more time forward by an hour, why not let the player skip days, if needed, for the right weather conditions, before making a move?

Dynamic weather would be nice, indeed, especially if time skip is tied into it as you describe.

[markb50k 1]

I can look at dynamic weather after this next update

As for friendly AI getting themselves killed not sure there is much I can do about that. I don't do anything special in regards to AI intelligence so maybe you could run like zeus's AI or something to improve it

[kremator 1065]

Just started playing this last night .... I like it !

What would also be good is to implement a food/drink/bandage system ala DayZ .... but put this idea on the backburner as what you have is very good already mate! Grats!

[markb50k 1]

Features:

Version 4.97

- island : Emita

- faction : Lingor Gov't, Lingor Police, Lingor Mercs (ally)

- faction : ARL Rebels, Drug Gangs (enemy)

- tweak : new system for being sighted in towns. Removed the 'reveal' command and now the location is just added to a rolling list of locations that nearby enemy groups investigate. Gives the same repurcussions for hanging around in unfriendly villages but not a god-like penalty.

- tweak : generally lowers AI skill levels to show greater variance between Privates and Colonels. This will only affect newly spawned soldiers. Any soldiers currently alive in your scenario will be running under their current skill level.

Upcoming:

- investigate adding in RUBE's dynamic weather (looks doable)

- Namalsk (some conversion problems but i am trying!)

- Moschnyi

- CSLA (Czech Army mod)

---------- Post added at 11:54 ---------- Previous post was at 11:53 ----------

Just started playing this last night .... I like it !

Thanks man, appreciate the feedback! Implementing some survival stuff sounds good. I'll check it out.

[kiberkiller 10]

A new version, great! I'm off to check it out.

---------- Post added at 12:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 PM ----------

I love the new start menu but I don't really understand why you split factions into vehicles and infantry. How does it work?

If I pick RU infantry and TK Vehicles will Russians roll around in TK cars?

What If I pick only a Vehicle group as my enemy and no infantry, or vice versa?

---------- Post added at 12:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 PM ----------

Hmm,

When I start the game this error appears:

and when I start the missions and chose the factions, mission gets stuck on the intro.

I tried disabling all mods except for your Lost addons but it makes no difference.

[markb50k 1]

A new version, great! I'm off to check it out.

---------- Post added at 12:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 PM ----------

I love the new start menu but I don't really understand why you split factions into vehicles and infantry. How does it work?

If I pick RU infantry and TK Vehicles will Russians roll around in TK cars?

What If I pick only a Vehicle group as my enemy and no infantry, or vice versa?

---------- Post added at 12:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 PM ----------

Hmm,

When I start the game this error appears:

http://i.imgur.com/Yj1NY.jpg

and when I start the missions and chose the factions, mission gets stuck on the intro.

I tried disabling all mods except for your Lost addons but it makes no difference.

if you look on the first post, you only use the Config addons IF you have the mod they mod. I'm guessing you arent running Staglers Chechen Rebels, right? If so, dont put the chechen config in your addons directory.

Same for the Iran config if you arent running Iranian Forces mod. Either way, the error wont effect anything other than an annoyance, since the mission wont try to use my addon troops if the underlying mod is not there.

As for your other questions:

How does it work? Every faction you set to 1 or greater will be included in the mission, at the ratio of weights. I explain the weighting a page or two ago in the thread.

If I pick RU infantry and TK Vehicles will Russians roll around in TK cars? YES

What If I pick only a Vehicle group as my enemy and no infantry, or vice versa? No worries, If you leave out something important like that, the mission has some defaults for the other stuff. In desert environments it will use BIS US Army and BIS TK, in woodland BIS USMC and BIS RU.

and when I start the missions and chose the factions, mission gets stuck on the intro Sometimes there is a longer wait to finish setting up the mission. Sometimes 30 seconds or so. Please confirm that it doesnt ever start.

---------- Post added at 14:23 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------

oops, you're right.. will put a fix up asap

---------- Post added at 14:32 ---------- Previous post was at 14:23 ----------

FIXED: new version on 1st page

Version 4.98

- fix : mission hangs on restart after faction selection

Edited May 15, 2012 by markb50k

[kiberkiller 10]

Yeah, I don't have those mods and I didn't read the first post this time, thanks for pointing that out for me. :)

I removed Config files and now ARMA starts up without any errors.

But there's still a problem. If I pick any enemy or friendly faction the mission seems to get stuck on loading. I tried waiting 5 minutes, nothing happens.

If I pick a civilian faction and leave all friendly and enemy factions on 0 then the mission load fine instantly, though.

---------- Post added at 02:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:40 PM ----------

One more thing, I noticed that there are some cars that look to be fully functional but that I cannot enter. No options appear in the scroll menu no matter where I stand and where I look.

Is it something intentional, like those are supposed to be locked enemy cars, or is it a bug?

[kremator 1065]

One more thing, I noticed that there are some cars that look to be fully functional but that I cannot enter. No options appear in the scroll menu no matter where I stand and where I look.

Is it something intentional, like those are supposed to be locked enemy cars, or is it a bug?

Yup they would be locked.

[markb50k 1]

Yeah, I don't have those mods and I didn't read the first post this time, thanks for pointing that out for me. :)

I removed Config files and now ARMA starts up without any errors.

But there's still a problem. If I pick any enemy or friendly faction the mission seems to get stuck on loading. I tried waiting 5 minutes, nothing happens.

If I pick a civilian faction and leave all friendly and enemy factions on 0 then the mission load fine instantly, though.

mission not loading: yes that was a bug that i fixed in 4.98 a new fix version that i just released. please get that one.

cars : yes, alot of missions randomly lock parked cars. Try shooting out the glass, that will usually unlock it.

[kiberkiller 10]

mission not loading: yes that was a bug that i fixed in 4.98 a new fix version that i just released. please get that one.

cars : yes, alot of missions randomly lock parked cars. Try shooting out the glass, that will usually unlock it.

Yeh, I just downloaded the new version.

I didn't know that shooting out the glass works, thanks for the tip.

[heklos 0]

Features:

Version 4.97

- island : Emita

- faction : Lingor Gov't, Lingor Police, Lingor Mercs (ally)

- faction : ARL Rebels, Drug Gangs (enemy)

- tweak : new system for being sighted in towns. Removed the 'reveal' command and now the location is just added to a rolling list of locations that nearby enemy groups investigate. Gives the same repurcussions for hanging around in unfriendly villages but not a god-like penalty.

- tweak : generally lowers AI skill levels to show greater variance between Privates and Colonels. This will only affect newly spawned soldiers. Any soldiers currently alive in your scenario will be running under their current skill level.

Upcoming:

- investigate adding in RUBE's dynamic weather (looks doable)

- Namalsk (some conversion problems but i am trying!)

- Moschnyi

- CSLA (Czech Army mod)

Yes!!!!

[markb50k 1]

Features:

Version 5.0

- faction : CSLA mod's AFMC (ally)

- faction : CSLA mod's FIA (ally)

- faction : CSLA Czech army (enemy)

- new : implements RUBE's dynamic weather engine

- new : current weather conditions and weather forecast available in COMMS-> General menu (0- 8 - 6)

- new : Skip 1 hour function adjusts weather as well

Upcoming:

- none at this time. working on new "Apocalypse" mission framework - large scale strategic battle

[kremator 1065]

Cool! Excellent work markb50k! I am enjoying playing it. It's just hard enough to be a challenge but not impossible to be a turn off.

Keep up the good work.

[tourist 617]

Hi folks,

I already stated I absolutely love this masterpiece. Regarding the "fairness" of the game or lack thereoff that some in this thread were complaining about, I strongly suggest using an AI mod like the ASR AI I have (with ACE and some COSLX parts) in all my SP missions, not just LOST. Combined with playing on "Veteran" (but keeping unlimited saves on for those missions that have no proprietary autosave like LOST) and these following A2CO difficulty settings

skillFriendly=1;

skillEnemy=0.79809004;

precisionFriendly=0.80000001;

precisionEnemy=0.5;

I am time and again very satisfied with the fairness of the games. These settings, which I forgot to change prior to beginning LOST, are meant to represent a Western Forces vs. Taliban fighting, where the westerners have better equipment and training, hence more accuracy, but the opponent still has some decent tactical skill, albeit not on par with the western soldiers.

Of course, in LOST I could also say that my forces aren't supposed to be better trained than the enemy and modify the above settings. But I'll start another game with 5.0 and see how the new detection method works with the AI skills that the creator of ASR AI suggested for "Veteran", which are like that (aah, lez see them all to play around and find out which suits best your feeling of fairness)

recruit:

Code:

skillFriendly=1;

skillEnemy=0.55;

precisionFriendly=1;

precisionEnemy=0.3;

regular: (recommended)

Code:

skillFriendly=1;

skillEnemy=0.7;

precisionFriendly=1;

precisionEnemy=0.5;

veteran: (recommended if regular feels too easy)

Code:

skillFriendly=1;

skillEnemy=0.9;

precisionFriendly=1;

precisionEnemy=0.75;

expert:

Code:

skillFriendly=1;

skillEnemy=1;

precisionFriendly=1;

precisionEnemy=1;

Still, in MY game with my modified "Veteran" settings posted here, I am a crack shot compared to ALL AI be they on my side or enemy, especially at night. For this, I have the ASR AI night spotting variable turned ON in ASR config which penalizes AI at night if the lack NVG. To counter that, I use GDT HDR mod which allows you to make the nights very dark, but even on it's brightest settings, it makes A2 at 03:00 in the morning dark as a cows arse, and if you don't have NVG, you will stumble around just like AI. If you have NVG, bright lights are blinding and you have to adjust your NVG with GDT mods mouse wheel function or with ACE keys for NVG brightness. So, if AI has a technical with headlights on or you lurk around in a town with street lights, YOU get punished since you lose time to adjust NVG while they fire at you.

Hell, since my gaming rig is rather weak (Win XP, 3 Gbyte RAM, Geforce 8800 GT and AMD Phenom II X 4@3.0, oced to 3.6) i have really low FPS ( like 15 when a lot is going on) in LOST, which generally impairs a fast, CS- or COD-like "yeaah, I'm headshotting stupid AI suxxors lolz rofl jerkoff"-playstyle.

But in this Milsim game, that style shouln't bring you victory anyways. Instead, plan more carefully, and there is still room for movie-like adventures like my "Beware the Wrath of the Vodnik" and my current project:

"UAZ the Rabbit and the four little recon mice of Team B 1-2-I with a backpack of medicine escape from the big, bad Mi-24 Eagle to bring help for the poor wounded guerilla children"

I am so happy with my difficult, but exciting games in A2, especially within LOST, that I don't mind my bad FPS. The immersion is still great, and the firefights feel ok. Just driving at top speed in vehicles lags obviously in a way you feel it. But hey, my gaming hardware is old, so that's that.

Have fun,

touristo

[markb50k 1]

Great post. Thanks!

[JunkyardDog 1]

So many new features in such a short amount of time, amazing job markb50k. Going to give this new version a try today.

[xxbbcc 6]

markb50k, can you please upload v5.0 to Armaholic or some other host as well? Looks like the Mediafire host is down.

[markb50k 1]

Are you sure? I just went to the link and the file is available for download.

[xxbbcc 6]

You're right, it is now. Thank you.

[heklos 0]

markb50k,

What do you think about a way to collect explosives and create a scripted IED devices (like abandoned armies if you remember) so you can setup a defensive perimeter or cover a retreat. I play a bunch on the urban maps and always find myself wishing I could setup some trip lines or something when I am trying to bug out of an area, or ambush a armored vehicle since RPG's and such don't always show up. Not sure if there is a mod already that could fill that role?? maybe if there is I want to take a look at it and see how it could integrate with the mission.

yay or nay?

Checked out Armaholic and found this on a search Dapman traps I'll check it out maybe it will suffice for scratching that itch :)

nope.. i guess running ACE2 and adding the mines/tripwire stuff will be the only way to get it addon wise.

Edited May 18, 2012 by heklos

[markb50k 1]

if you'd like to research it, i would be willing to add it in. It would be a great idea. Yeah, but try to keep it ACE free. dont want any required addons.

[markb50k 1]

Version 5.1

- bug fix : weather module color filter was losing reference to handle

- bug fix : script error when transferring gear automatically from corpses

- tweak : performance tweak for transfer gear script