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SaOk

[SP/MP] Dynamic Whole Map Missions by SaOk

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I used quite much extra vehicles and infantry in that. I will tweak it too. For start, I will lower the ambient life during that (which I also did already for final tasks with quite good FPS rise), also I hope to find other ways. Quite challening to find the good performance even for new CPU´s like my i7 2600K. There is the usual bigger FPS hit after the unit amount reaches about 100.

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Here is the excelent orginal intro cinema (by SavedByGrace) for the mission that was made as outro for CGR campaign:

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Discussed and now uploaded. :) Truly one of the greatest cutscenes ever made for A2/OA/A2:CO. Love the idea and appreciate all the time that had to be sacrificed to make it a virtuality.

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Here is clip of new AI function I have been working on. Got the idea from thief serie games (also partly from DayZ) where the guards and civilians react on noises. Tryed to do similar stuff for my mission. There is no named units, animals or waypoints. The script picks those automatically and works everywhere. Dosent show everything and there is some placeholder stuff still:

Edited by SaOk

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Looking good SaOk - actually would be quite good for luring guards into the open.

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Yeah, that happens actually often. :) Also friendlies can come to sound source. I will add some randomness that everytime things dosent go in same way. There is also random voices for civs and animals. Some sounds could reach bigger distance, some less. The screams could happen maybe only when in bad relationship with civilians (maybe also in early game, when the player is new face on Chernarus)

Edited by SaOk

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If this mod works as I think it does (allows AI aware of audio cues triggered by player), then this is a HUGE step forward.

It would be SO significant that, I'd beg SaOK to release this script as a pbo so that it could be used in other missions.

Would that be possible?

Finally, it would be even MORE amazing if this mod could interface with ACRE mod, i.e. if a player yells across his voice comms and there are AI within earshot, then the AI would react to the player's voice...

Again, what do you think?

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I could do that if I learn how the pbo´s work. Only problem is that the mission designer will need to blacklist the civilians that he dosent want to scream randomly. Also set the sides that can be suspicious or blacklist areas where the function is disabled (e.g. friendly bases). There could also be some various problems with waypoints (function dosent work with editor placed waypoints since there is a bug in game. Also the current spawned waypoint are removed - but I could add some custom settings for that too). Its need to be quite integrated in the mission, but I see what can I do. Its already working quite bug free in Zub. I also added dead body detector in the function - first time when found nearby guards are alarmed.

That ACRE mod could be included if there is a way to check if player is using his voice comms in it. If not, maybe in ArmA3.

But I continue working on this function. I hope to improve it more and add new things.

Edited by SaOk

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SOAK .. do you think that this "detection" feature could be confined & packaged to some kind of single addon release for mission makers and users? Maybe external config of unit lists to blacklist other wise default for all.

Its a great feature to have for things like stealth missions and setting traps, more tension and planning approach having these things to consider as well. If its already available in that form elsewhere, do you have a link at all?

I also added dead body detector in the function - first time when found nearby guards are alarmed.

The types of things were starting to be introduced with GL4 but sadly its not to be updated and is a little outdated to use, so these types of things, plus detection of smoke thrown was another one (as in AI oblivious that enemy has popped some smoke and patrol as normal only until fired upon) would be great to see as a small AI detection addon.

Edited by mrcash2009

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I will think the later addon release, it quite a messy feature currently (but working good). Dont expect too much yet. Its only for units that havent detected player, and only for close range (up to 100m) to make sure performance is good. E.g. for players playing sniper from long range, the function is not effective for the distant kills (I wish there would be eventhandler that give the unit that player have shot instead of needing to add the "killed" or "hit" handler for every unit. Would make many things very simple).

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Another demo with new voice-overs (more to come), body detection and enemy/friendly encounter because of the function:

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Love your mission a lot Saok. After version 1.5, I notice russian soldiers always attack me however I try to avoid them. Maybe because during a firefight my team get too close to them??? How can I prevent that? Also, sometimes some napa soldiers will start attack me too. But the funny thing is after he killed my teammate I can then ask him to join me?!!

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Thanks bugatti, :)

I will improve that russian status script, the gunners in vehicles shoot now player in peacetime too. Also I will try to make it so that player can avoid the possible conflict inside the radius by hiding. Else you (only player) need to keep 20m distance to them or there is 10% change of conflict after every 20 seconds. I also check if there is some bug happening for the russian soldiers.

NAPA soldiers attacked once me too during the dark. I may have shot accidentally one of them, but I see if there is something else. :S

I have no idea why they shoot at your teammates, sounds definitely funny. :D I hope there isnt some new bug in the game, do you use the betas?

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Thanks for your quick reply. I don't think the Napa soldiers shooting my teammates, maybe because the stray bullets he shooting at me killed my teammates (he's a machinegunner)! Anyway, if it happen, can I kill him without affect my relationship with Napa?

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Ah, okay. Thats good to hear, sounded like serious issue before. :) You cant kill any friendlies yourself without loosing value that makes you hostile to all at the end (usually after second friendly kill). Thats a game feature. Instead if you want the rid of some member(s), there is a custom function I made for that. Via radio 0-0-(I dont remember the last nurmber. There is a guide in briefing/map), you can delete team-members that you dont want. Select them and use the radio function. They then move away from your team. There is also similar command for rare but possible stucked team-members that make the selected unit(s) teleport very short range.

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No what I mean is to kill that NAPA soldiers shooting at me, not my teammates:). I know about the radio feature. But that only apply to my team member, does it? Oh, a small request in your next version. Could you make that russian soldiers appear on my map too once I spotted them (yellow color or something). Currently they are not shown on map so that kind of hard to plan a detour around them

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Shooting the crazy NAPA soldiers may also make you hostile. I can add the marker for russians after spotting.

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Then I guess I need to reload earlier save game :). And thanks for adding the russian marker in next version. Keep up your good work. I always like your campaign/mission :rthumb:

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Hi SaOk.

I've been playing your mission a bit during the last days and so far I had a lot of fun. The ambient life everywhere is really impressive. I've never before seen that much traffic in Chernarus. Every time I hear a car coming down the road I hit the dirt, just to find out it's just another skoda. It's quite funny to come along places I know from Zero and finding a completely different situation than I am used to. Speaking of bad habits: I'm still so used to scavenging, that in the beginning I searched every single dead body for anything useful. :D

However, there have also been some rather frustrating parts and, I don't know, either I'm doing it wrong or there are quite some strange things going on in your mission.

My first try I started just below Klen Mountain south of Krasnostav. I went to the top of the hill hoping to find Manhatten base, but all I found were some cows. I wasn't sure if I should go to Krasnostav or Khelm when I noticed a soldier walking my way. It turned out to be a lonely NAPA AT soldier. I thought: Hey, I found NAPA! That was easy. Unfortunately the guy completely ignored me and continued his path. As he was coming from the east I decided to go in that direction. While in the forest I heard a few distant gunshots. Further down the hill I spotted a sniper patrolling a field. As he was wearing a ghillie suit I couldn't determine which faction he belonged, so I continued observing the area. There was a dead insurgent sniper on top of a tower and a russian AT guy at the other end of the field. Probably I should have left the area, but as there was lots of fire and smoke in the village, I was curious what had happened there. I carefully moved around the field avoiding all russian soldiers. Just outside the village a civilian came my way. Hoping that he wouldn't ignore me too I walked up to him. In that moment another russian soldier came around the corner of a house and instantly spotted me. I tried hiding behind a haystack but it was already too late. HQ was quite upset and suddenly NAPA contacted me over radio too. I was still busy reading the radio message when I got shot in the back...

Second try. This time I found myself in the middle of nowhere all the way in the southwest. On my way to the next village I came across a NAPA hunter. He seemed to be in quite a hurry and paid no attention to me nor the burning helicopter wreck in the forest. I followed him into the village where he kindly took out a insurgent machinegunner I had missed. Finally I managed to talk to a civilian who pointed me towards the doctor and other NAPA guys. They told me about the NAPA HQ on the black mountain. I can't remember if it was one of the NAPA guys or my character who said "it isn't far"... well, it was nearly 10 kilometers away all the way at the other end of Chernarus. If it would have been any further away, it would have been on a different map. :p

Back at the crash site the doctor had healed my men and he told me about a truck nearby. Seeing the long walk ahead I was very grateful. Soon I learned that moving along the roads is a bad idea. It was only a matter of time until I encountered the first enemy patrol. Before I even managed to stop the truck and get out, all my men siting in the back were already killed. I reverted to my last save and decided to avoid all roads and drive through the forest as much as possible. I made my way to Vyshnoye where some fighting was going on between insurgents in the village and several NAPAs in the forests around it. I joined the fighting and managed to clear the village of all enemies. At one point however I was injured and my men brought me into safety. That was a really cool feature. But it had one major downside: The AIs desire to fight every known enemy. Once I figured what had just happened and where I am, my men were already moving back to Vyshnoye at full pace, ignoring all my "fall back" and "move to that tree" commands. My medic even refused to heal his teammates. (He did however heal himself, selfish bastard :rolleyes:) Of course it happened what had to happen: One after the other my men ran into an insurgent patrol and one after the other was killed...

After I had managed to clear Vyshnoye, I moved on towards Stary Sobor. Soon I cam across a fortified position held by CDF fighting some more insurgents in a treeline up ahead. My plan was to join CDF and let them help me clear the path. I didn't count how often I tried, but the longer I was fighting, the more enemies appeared, including artillery strikes and even a russian vodnik. While it killed half of my men I wasn't able to order my AT guy to target it. At some point I decided to drop my plan, leave the truck behind (meanwhile it were only 7 kilometers to NAPA HQ left) and continue on foot. Trying to stick to the forest as much as possible I came across a lot of NAPA and CDF camps. But neither did the soldiers react to my presence nor was there anything useful to find, so at some point I quit inspecting the camps and continued my journey. I had the feeling that I could outrun the war when I just kept moving into one direction. Only once in a while some insurgents showed up in my flanks or behind me. On my way though the Black Forest I found a huge CDF camp. Probably their main base. But once again, noone cared for us.

While approaching Gorka I encountered an insurgent truck and two soldiers in a field up ahead about 800m from my position. I was just about to take them out when they all of a sudden disappeared. A second later a UAZ spawned out of thin air just to disappear again a few seconds later. Then I noticed two groups of three or four men standing idle in the field. (Not sure if they've been there before) As they did not disappear again, I took them out. I was just about to move on, when suddenly a US helicopter showed up. Should that be reinforcements? But how did they find me? I didn't have much time to think about it, as the chopper was hit by two AA missiles and went down. A bunch of insurgents jumped out just before the helo hit the ground, only a few meters away from my position killing almost all of my men... :(

The rest of my journey was mostly uneventful until nearly one kilometer away from NAPA base. There where several NAPA and insurgent camps scattered across the forest, all inside an area of maybe 300m. For some strange reason both NAPA and insurgents just stood there looking at each other. So it was up to me to kill the insurgents. Soon I noticed yellow fog close to my position and NAPA informed me about enemy artillery incoming. There was also another MH60 flying around above us. As I just wanted to get away, someone started shooting at me. My men were hit but I couldn't spot any more enemies. Then I noticed that the NAPA guys were shooting at me. Even though my men were hit, they didn't shoot back as the NAPAs still appeared as friendlies. I managed to take two of them out but the third one killed me. After reloading my last savegame, everything worked just fine. On my way up the hill to the castle, the MH60 seemed to follow me. The NAPA guys at the castle started firing, unfortunately exactly in my direction. I accidentally killed a chicken which for a second looked like a insurgent soldier lying under a bush. :D Finally, after about 7 hours of playing, I reached the camp.

During the cutscene the NAPA leader was constantly looking at the chopper which was still patrolling the area. The long subtitles were way too fast and I could only read about half of the text. However, the briefing was quite detailed telling me what to do. While I was busy making a plan, Arma decided to CTD. :mad:

So far this has been an awesome mission and I'm looking forward to playing it a bit more. Apart from the issues I mentioned there were no real bugs or showstoppers. The only part that was a bit disappointing was the missing possibility to interact with the NAPA and CDF guys. Well, probably it was just bad luck where my starting position and the NAPA camp were located and it isn't intended that I cross the complete country before the real action starts. I don't know what exactly I expected. Maybe just some information about friendly or enemy positions, similar to the interactions with the civilians or something. Just to give me the feel of actually being part of the world. Also in the beginning: I am supposed to contact NAPA, but the first guy I see just walks by. Instead I have to find a civilian and talk to him who then again points me towards NAPA.

Other than that I had lots of fun playing your mission and I'll keep you updated while I make progress.

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Hello Clayman, cool story and great to hear you mostly liked it. :) There is definitely still work to do, conversation system with NAPA and CDF members would be good feature. I will see if I can create something for them. I will check that deleting spawning issue, there seems to be some bug in the scripts. Shouldnt be hard to fix. I will also improve that UH60 event finally.

The NAPA units shooting player is worrying me, that shouldnt happen. It also happened once for me with some of the latest betas. I was even standing next to the NAPA soldier when it suddently shot me (dont know if I had accidentally shot one of them). There shouldnt be any scripts from me that affect that. I removed all the dotarget commands from my scripts earlier after in one task NAPA soldier with that command sometimes shot player if joining his group.

But I keep my eyes open for possible script bug.

Edited by SaOk

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Hello Clayman, cool story and great to hear you mostly liked it. :) There is definitely still work to do, conversation system with NAPA and CDF members

I was also going to suggest having that first conversation with the villagers about needing a doctor with NAPA and CDF. Seems at times the player will come across them first as well as villagers.

In the story line, NAPA does know that "...he is the one the Commander is looking for..." so, they already know something about him, therefore, player should be able to ask them for help with a doctor IMHO.

Also, there was a case that I reached the CDF headquarters first before NAPA. It seems that I need to see NAPA first.

Not sure how, but if player makes it to CDF forces, maybe a cut-scene or some conversation could take place, telling the player to go to NAPA HQ first....??

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Can you reduce the enemies spawn at the start its kinda strange to be suddenly surrended by groups and vehicles after you supported resistant fighters? Walking back to meeting point the wounded soldier is still lying on the ground. Would be nice to see less animals/traffic at early/late hours and an increase towards 0600-0700 am and 1800-2000 pm. What about making the player knock on doors instead of waiting that someone goes out for a walk at early hour (0400 am)? Imo you could try limit the start area so it wont happen that the start/crash location and NAPA HQ is in Russian controlled area / close to Krasnostav. In some camps soldiers appear half-below surface, sometimes static guns are in tents and sometimes the enemy camp is just ~50m away from friendly... Its an enjoyable mission concept and please stick to it and don't make it too open and filled with just random action/battles here and there. :)

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The soldiers inside ground is some game bug, I have them set with height 0 always, but sometimes they spawn into ground. I can try to make the them fall 0.1 meters if that fixes it (edit: wait now I see why it bugs, fixed in next version). I check that static gun spawning, sometimes the trees may throw them away from their spawning radius and mix up with other camp objects. I can also add the distance check between friendly/enemy camps, requires just some extra loops, but there isnt that much camps at the same time, so it shouldnt be very performance demanding as I first thought.

I will add that extra CDF cutscene. Also maybe that door knocking. There will be also other tweaks, but this mission may stay more experimental project at the end with some more flaws. I will start new project with Iron Front when it comes and make some things in better way from start. The open houses offer much new possibilityes. I can use again many scripts from CGR campaign for the houses (I hope they still have house positions in those houses).

EDIT: I found now, why the NAPA soldiers were shooting player. I had new NAPA soldier team patrols added in 1.5, but I had set the side EAST. Sorry. Fixed in next version.

Edited by SaOk

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So you fixed the NAPA shooting at player problem :yay:! Can't wait for your next version.....:)

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It will be much improved :) The russians are also now working better in peacetime. I added the CDF cutscene and player may talk to friendly soldiers in that first task. Also fixed the generated camp issues (trees may still cause some).

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