[SP] Apocalypse - Invade. Control. Conquer

[markb50k 1]

Version 2.0

- fix : way loot is found in house search

- fix : air transports not being deleted properly

[Joseph Troska 0]

Thanks for the fix markb50k!! Can't wait to try it out!!

was wondering... which addons are people actually using? how about islands? Just thought that if you are having a good experience with some particular units or islands, post em here. Could give the mod maker a good feeling knowing that people are using their work..

I am just using CWR2 islands. Mainly Malden. I thought your mission would be a great way and excuse to get back to my favorite maps.

[b0x0x 10]

I've run it on a few now. It's a great mission! Some small issues I encountered with a couple of maps were

* Panthera - I found enemy helicopters would do their drop run in, then on completion, seemingly hover forever just at the north edge of the north airfield, in range of Stinger missiles.

* Nicosia - many (4) midair collisions of friendly transport planes on the first run in, plus many injuries to troops from being blown into trees on the way down. I believe all of the collisions were from 130Js.

Couple other things to do with the mission -

Is it possible to set say a "75% strength" option? I find 50% is very fast but a bit empty, and 100% is a bit crowded and a bit slow. Is it possible to also mention how many active squads those percentages will result in? At the moment, are those percentages scaled to map size, number of military camps on the island, or anything?

Is it possible to request supply drops of static objects, such as AA launchers, artillery, etc? I've been using Kron's support module for this but it requires a lot of discipline not to cheat with it :)

[markb50k 1]

I've run it on a few now. It's a great mission! Some small issues I encountered with a couple of maps were

* Panthera - I found enemy helicopters would do their drop run in, then on completion, seemingly hover forever just at the north edge of the north airfield, in range of Stinger missiles.

* Nicosia - many (4) midair collisions of friendly transport planes on the first run in, plus many injuries to troops from being blown into trees on the way down. I believe all of the collisions were from 130Js.

Couple other things to do with the mission -

Is it possible to set say a "75% strength" option? I find 50% is very fast but a bit empty, and 100% is a bit crowded and a bit slow. Is it possible to also mention how many active squads those percentages will result in? At the moment, are those percentages scaled to map size, number of military camps on the island, or anything?

Is it possible to request supply drops of static objects, such as AA launchers, artillery, etc? I've been using Kron's support module for this but it requires a lot of discipline not to cheat with it :)

The latest version takes care of the first issue. They are supposed to be deleted after they drop off troops. They weren't because of a code issue. Fixed now.

Mid air collisions are probably nothing I can prevent completely especially on smaller islands. I guess you just gotta hope the enemies having the same problem lol

A 75% option is simple to put in. Will have it at the next update. And yes the total is affected by the % you choose AND the map size. And you have it the other way around about camps. The total camps is driven by the map size as well.

I think 200 groups is the base as are approx 140 camps.

A display that shows the total number of groups yet to be spawned is also something I can look at.

Requesting static equipment is also a possibility although it may be standard bis stuff since it will be an exercise to identify all the possible addon specific static weaponry

[b0x0x 10]

Just some thoughts about the mission after a lot of playing. I have no idea about doing a mod as deep as this for Arma 2 so if I've just mentioned something unfixable/stupid then just bear with me. I just want to point out first that I do really love playing it :)

1. It would be neat if there was more emphasis put on holding controlled territory somehow. At the moment it feels a little like capping camps is the only goal for the AI - and this means that at times you end up with this kind of revolving disconnected groups chasing each others tails, capping camps rather than fighting each other. I know you don't really like the Warfare model, but I think there might be a place for some kind of spawning of the odd defender or defensive mounts placed around camps.

2. It might be nice if there was some greater communication between groups and the reinforcement queue. To give one example - it seems like any good anti-infantry vehicle (eg. 256, tanks) can roll around the map pretty much slaughtering everything unhindered and anti-armour (helos, other tanks) are never really sent in to deal with it in a coordinated way. If there was some kind of casualty tracking (eg. "we just lost 39 troops to a vehicle in class:armour" / "we just lost 3 vehicles in class:jet from class:manpad") that could then boost the priority of a CAS/armour sortie to the largest recent concentration of red ! marks on the map, it might feel a lot more like there was a coordinated war happening.

3. Similar to this it can feel a little strange not knowing exactly what the friendly AI brain wants to do. I see the blue X marks move around the map ... in aid of what, I'm not always sure. Is there some way to set up a marker (like a box/circle marker as we see in the editor) to prioritise AI movement to a certain zone for a certain limited time period?

4. It might also be nice to see the enemy AI try something sneaky once in a while, like dropping troops away from it's main spawn and onto a new, random, unclaimed military camp. Again anything to break up this kind of tail-chase behaviour would be nice and it might allow some kind of impromptu pincer-like manoeuvring. It feels like it might be something that's ideally a separate spawn mechanic from the main one - could they HALO drop in ? Could it be 4 SF guys in a UH-1 disembarking on the ground or a roof of a building?

5. Civilians feel a little un-fleshed out at the moment and I'm not really sure why they're there other than for eye candy. I'm not sure what could be done - could they plant IEDs if you piss them off? Could they be enlisted if they're happy with you, or press ganged if they're not? Could you win them over and set up a new cache in their town?

6. Is there anything that could be done to make the overall strategic goal more obviously influenced by the player other than territory control? Could you delay re-inforcements by taking out transports? Could you enable new "support" support requests like, I dunno, ECCM to protect friendly aircraft and prevent missile locks on them, radio jamming to prevent enemy groups radioing each other, ship/air artillery strikes to wipe a location off the map (which would have the downside of really pissing off civilians), aerial drop minefields, etc? Having all of the action on territory control and troop deaths makes it kind of feel like a WW1 style meat grinder rather than a more modern war.

Anyhow just some ideas, I have no idea how practical any of this is and I doubt I would be much actual use at implementing any of it! Thanks so much for the mission all the same :)

Edited July 10, 2012 by b0x0x

[tryteyker 28]

Is there some sort of average number I should stay in, in terms of overall factions? As soon as I dropout from the plane the lag starts. I don't have any additional troop mods installed (but AI mods, jsrs and stmovement) , so how many should I maximum choose from? Decent PC, so no comprimises!

The first time I played I had about ~5 Units per Troops (vec were the same) but that seemed to be way too much which only got me 20fps max.

[b0x0x 10]

I found ASR AI caused pretty unbearable lag and eventual failure of Arma2 to run at all with Apocalypse and Lost, so if that's one of the AI mods you're using, yeah you might have problems. I'm running it with the CBA set and JSRS and performance is pretty good. The mod already alters AI skill levels somewhat but I don't believe there are any other fundamental changes to movement/rearming/etc as you might find in dedicated AI mods.

[markb50k 1]

Plenty of good ideas. Some doable some not

Some infantry groups elect randomly to go into camp patrol mode currently which has them travel a small area around a camp. This is the equivalent of group defending an area. Seems its too low of a chance for your liking. Perhaps the chance they do so could be a setting that is configurable.

I like the idea of the situation dictating prioritizing a specific type of reinforcement. Will think on this.

The blue circles are your sides priority objectives. It's shown so you know where your forces are going to next. Each group periodically finishes a waypoint and chooses to go to one of the priority objectives. Some ideas you had make me think....

You actually already have the ability to tell your army where to go. You can choose a support location by map click. It's an option in the support menu. Then any support requests will head there. It costs support points to request multiple groups to converge on the location but it is possible.

I put in code that will randomly select a deep location as an objective. Perhaps add that as a configurable Agression setting since you aren't noticing it happening.

I'm already looking at arty support

Yes civilians are just eye candy at this point. I don't have any current plans to add in any new interactions.

I actually had code in there that delayed reinforcement when you shoot down air drop planes unfortunately the AI crashes itself often enough that the delays piled up. I can relook at this

Overall I am very receptive to this kind of feedback so thanks a bunch! A new version with some new features will probably be out tomorrow

[tryteyker 28]

I found ASR AI caused pretty unbearable lag and eventual failure of Arma2 to run at all with Apocalypse and Lost, so if that's one of the AI mods you're using, yeah you might have problems. I'm running it with the CBA set and JSRS and performance is pretty good. The mod already alters AI skill levels somewhat but I don't believe there are any other fundamental changes to movement/rearming/etc as you might find in dedicated AI mods.

I tested it just now on Chernarus with and without ASR_AI but no difference in FPS. Maybe it is just because Chernarus is so freaking huge?!

[b0x0x 10]

Possibly. I found Panthera and Zargabad to be about the best case for size-and-interestingness of map vs performance with the mod. You might try running Cherno with 25% master force strength just as a test to see if it's the number of troops + map causing larger issues.

[tryteyker 28]

I tested on Zargabad with max 2 factions with every troop as well as 50% difficulty and still hovers at around 15fps.

EDIT: I deactivated all my mods and seems like one or two mods are really dropping frames. It still is at only 25, 30fps but atleast I found one part of the problem.

Edited July 10, 2012 by tryteyker

[markb50k 1]

Version 2.1:

- fix : when corpses are auto-deleted, error when transferring their weps/ammo to nearest ammobox

- fix : some helicopter transports meander around instead of leave the battlefield. Now a timer will delete the group after 180 seconds upon being ordered to withdraw

- new : reinforcement queue now shows TOTAL RESERVES by unit type so you know the total number and type of groups in your side's army

- tweak : partisan groups will now more likely be spawned in enemy territory

- tweak : mounted patrols immediately find a new area to move to. Sometimes they were getting stuck at their waypoint

- tweak : recruiting nearby soldiers now costs more support points

- tweak : finding weapons/ammo in house search a little more difficult since you get more weps/ammo now given last update

- tweak : casualty report now mentions if killed soldier was onboard a vehicle

- tweak : support points given back to player when you release your troops back to AI control. about 2/3 the points it took to recruit them. Use this to reorganize AI groups, give AI foot patrols a vehicle you find stranded, rearm friendlies you see with no weapons, without a high support point cost.

- tweak : lessened time to 5 minutes, at which a group that hasnt reached its waypoint is 'nudged' back into activity.

[b0x0x 10]

Oh excellent :)

Thanks for the 75% strength option!

I played a game on zargabad and it seemed a lot faster in general than before. Also noticed what seemed like a lot more static defences (including camps with 2 .50's, grenade launchers, tow launchers etc?) though maybe I just didn't notice them before.

I think I finally actually understand what's happening with high command groups and splitting/reassigning/pulling troops into your own group. Nice.

Would love to try it on some new maps :)

[markb50k 1]

Oh excellent :)

Thanks for the 75% strength option!

I played a game on zargabad and it seemed a lot faster in general than before. Also noticed what seemed like a lot more static defences (including camps with 2 .50's, grenade launchers, tow launchers etc?) though maybe I just didn't notice them before.

I think I finally actually understand what's happening with high command groups and splitting/reassigning/pulling troops into your own group. Nice.

Would love to try it on some new maps :)

Yeah, i used to remove 50% of all static defenses. Took that part out now.

What other maps would you like it on? I know i've received some requests but they've kinda slipped my mind: Ovaron, and McNool's island i believe. McNool's are pretty small and very mountainous, not sure how well they will translate to this game mode.

[ht-57 0]

Map idea, Huertgenwald?

[b0x0x 10]

Aliabad

Hazarkot

Namalsk

Cicada

?

(ed) I have another question - when 'air transport' shows up in the reinforcement queue - what exactly does that mean is spawning?

Also, is it possible to reduce a side's "air" component to 0? Attempts to make a resistance force seem a bit weird when they can have the odd Su-25 spawning in from .. somewhere. Is there any way that options to make sides more asymmetrical somehow, either in their available vehicles, soldier skills, ai behaviours (eg. don't cap camps, if camp is lost, reinforce other held camps stronger), spawn positions (one side FOBS, one side only from cities, one side only at airfields/heliports, one side only from ships, one side only helos, one side only airplane parachutes) etc, could be added to the setup menu?

Edited July 11, 2012 by b0x0x

[markb50k 1]

Aliabad

Hazarkot

Namalsk

Cicada

?

(ed) I have another question - when 'air transport' shows up in the reinforcement queue - what exactly does that mean is spawning?

Also, is it possible to reduce a side's "air" component to 0? Attempts to make a resistance force seem a bit weird when they can have the odd Su-25 spawning in from .. somewhere. Is there any way that options to make sides more asymmetrical somehow, either in their available vehicles, soldier skills, ai behaviours (eg. don't cap camps, if camp is lost, reinforce other held camps stronger), spawn positions (one side FOBS, one side only from cities, one side only at airfields/heliports, one side only from ships, one side only helos, one side only airplane parachutes) etc, could be added to the setup menu?

I probably won't be able to do namalsk. There are some issues with that island and the houses....

In the reinforcement queue "helo transport" means a troop transport helicopter will arrive drop off a squad of troops and then loiter to provide airlift support to the player. It will hang around off the coast and you can request a pickup and drop off for a cost of support points

To set a sides air component to zero I would set the other sides to 10 in AIR while the other side to 1. Mathwise that will probably give the lower side around one sortie of each kind of air mission. Spread out during the battle you may hardly ever see air from that side. I guess I could give a 0 option for air and vehicle. Infantry would have to be at least 1. And even at 0 in that case you'd still see the occasional cargo plane dropping off troops but they'd leave the battlefield immediately thereafter

As for your other requests those seam quite open ended and near impossible to code but some could be partially doable like more defensive posture so I'll give them some thought

[b0x0x 10]

Cool thanks.

I was wondering if you could tell us how the paradrop locations are set? I've had a few in the game I'm playing now (everon) where it seems almost like, immediately upon taking a camp, a helo or plane is sortied to drop troops almost immediately on top of the camp they just lost. Perhaps it was meant to go there before they lost it and we just took it faster than it thought we could. It doesn't tend to end that well because they're dropping into a point where we now have quite a lot of captured hardware. So I'm just wondering if that's a response to that section being under threat, if it just randomly picks a camp it owns already, etc.

[Arrak 1]

I'm having a bit of a problem with this mission and that is that I'm stuck at "Initializing Camps..." for nearly 10 minutes before it finally starts. Is this common? My options are on 5vs5vs5. I use v2.1 and only JSRS (but even with no additional mods it's not faster).

edit: I also deleted all config files from the addon since they really slow down load time. Do I need to have them?

Edited July 12, 2012 by Arrak

[markb50k 1]

Cool thanks.

I was wondering if you could tell us how the paradrop locations are set? I've had a few in the game I'm playing now (everon) where it seems almost like, immediately upon taking a camp, a helo or plane is sortied to drop troops almost immediately on top of the camp they just lost. Perhaps it was meant to go there before they lost it and we just took it faster than it thought we could. It doesn't tend to end that well because they're dropping into a point where we now have quite a lot of captured hardware. So I'm just wondering if that's a response to that section being under threat, if it just randomly picks a camp it owns already, etc.

Generally each side will target camps nearby their own camps. For a side with no camps in the beginning it picks a random camp that is in its slice of the island. From that point once it captures a camp it radiates outward from that camp. This is what gives the army is movement. In your case most likely there is a nearby enemy camp and since the enemy will generally try to target up to 3 camps that are nearby their camps that they don't own as soon as you take a camp near theirs your camp has a good chance of being targeted.

If you choose for the other factions to have initial defenders they will Likely have several camps spread over the island and the behavior of immediately targeting your taken camp will be less likely since the enemy will have many more possible camps to choose from.

---------- Post added at 03:26 ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 ----------

I'm having a bit of a problem with this mission and that is that I'm stuck at "Initializing Camps..." for nearly 10 minutes before it finally starts. Is this common? My options are on 5vs5vs5. I use v2.1 and only JSRS (but even with no additional mods it's not faster).

edit: I also deleted all config files from the addon since they really slow down load time. Do I need to have them?

10 minutes in my experience is not common. After you choose your mods that you want to include all it's doing is determining what portion of the island is in each sides area, and choosing a starting objective.

Which island? Perhaps it's churning through all the houses on the island. Each island has its own characteristics and that may be contributing to the longer wait time.

[Arrak 1]

10 minutes in my experience is not common. After you choose your mods that you want to include all it's doing is determining what portion of the island is in each sides area, and choosing a starting objective.

Which island? Perhaps it's churning through all the houses on the island. Each island has its own characteristics and that may be contributing to the longer wait time.

Chernarus. I did 1vs1vs1 - Same time. Then Zargabad with 10vs10vs10: loaded in half a minute! (But unfortunately really laggy, thought my i7 could handle more)

[markb50k 1]

well definitely zargabad would be faster. just so i completely understand (what does 1vs1vs1 or 10vs10vs10 mean?). I am thinking you may not realize that that number doesnt affect army size any..

to get "less forces" use the Overall Strength option on the front screen, use 50% or something like that.

[Arrak 1]

Oh, a ratio? Ok, got it. Do I have to put each army to "1" if I want it to spawn as a faction in-game?

I thought that with each number I spawn an x amount of soldiers in the game. Stupid me.

[markb50k 1]

Version 2.2:

- fix : map indicator for your personal cache was not updating correctly.

- fix : troops released from your command could not be re-recruited. will need to restart to fix any troops currently suffering from this bug. if you havent noticed the bug, no need to restart

- new : RUSH REINFORCEMENTS. It will cost you some support points, but you can now request a RUSH of all current reinforcements in the queue. For each the wait time will be halved

- new : AI CAN REINFORCE BY NEED : When ordering new reinforcements, the AI will now periodically request by need. i.e. if there are alot of enemy combat vehicles and you dont have any CAS assets, a CAS sortie could be ordered

- new : For sides where you specify they have defenders already on ground, all AA, support, and SF groups will be spawned at a camp, similar to how combat vehicles and infantry already were. Could make for some dicey paradrops if the defenders already have a ZSU at the drop zone

- new : REQUEST SPECIFIC SUPPORT VEHICLE. currently you can request a support group, and it will randomly drop medical, refuel, rearm, or repair assets. Now you can specify which time you want in the reinforcement menu

- new : SHOW MEDIC/ENGINEERS. Now, like the option to show the country of origin of group icons, you can elect to show which units have medic or engineer/repair assets. This is not which groups have ambulances or repair trucks. Thats shown by unit type icon. This is if the soldiers have those abilities. Will put a (+) next the icon for medics, a (x) next to the icon for repairmen

- new : AI MAY CHOOSE DEEP TARGET. Now, when an AI side chooses new objectives to take, there is a chance they will choose a target not nearby to their camps, i.e. it could be camp deep in enemy lines. So now you have to be worried about paradrops or assault in your rear areas

- new : AIR TRANSPORT LOSSES WILL DELAY REINFORCEMENTS. For each airlift plane/helo destroyed by enemy fire, all reinforcements added after that will have a small delay added. The more transports killed, the larger the delay. The delay will max out at 4 hours, and will slowly decrement over time as well

- tweak : increased chance foot patrols will transition from travelling patrol to location-based camp patrol

- tweak : cleaned up COMMS menu a bit

- tweak : combined reinforcement queue, current forces, and reserves pool into 1 display. Lessens clicking you have to do.

[Treelor 0]

Any chance we can get the cache to be unloaded more precisely? I'd love to stick the thing inside a camp where there's cover, but it always spawns 25-50m away from the rear end of the truck.

This is a fantastic mission, by the way. I really like setting the odds 3:1 in favor of the enemy and playing a hard resistance game!