[SP] Apocalypse - Invade. Control. Conquer

[markb50k 1]

my only advice would be to see which of RUBE's weather models is most rainy. then change the missions init_island file to use that model.

[Fenrisulven 1]

The points aren't used up. It's just that once the initial groups are attrited there's waits between the new reinforcements. I can look at speeding up reinforcements when a sides forces are low

Sounds like a good idea to speed up reinforcements. About 60 minutes into my last test at Zargabad, I was driving around for half an hour and I did not hear a single gunshot. No reports of kills or casualties. Then as I was capturing the last enemy camp, I run into a single soldier. Turned out he was a captain and the intel retrieved didn't reveal a single enemy or enemy camp on the map. Its like I just killed the last one of them :biggrin: My previous mission ended in a similar manner. At this point I pretty much quit or restart the mission. Either that or simply drive around capturing the last remaining camps. The first hour or so is pretty fun however. I think this mission have a lot of potential.

EDIT #1

One more thing. When you select factions clicking + you can click it several times increasing the number. Does that have any impact? You can do that for civilians as well. Sorry if it's been covered already.

EDIT #2

Turns out the scripts stop working for me. All factions stop getting reinforcements after less then one hour of game time. I fast forwarded another half an hour without anything happening. Tried using the "speed up reinforcements" for a price, but nothing happened. I got the "Attention all forces. Reinforcement have been moved up by command" message. Menu 0 8 5 1 showed 1 camp patrol and two long range, only inf but they where all moving around the same places making new wp around already captured camps. Reinforcements Unit and Arrival information is empty. Enemy was down to one unit of a few inf, also not moving. Needless to say, there was no more action :bored: Maybe it's because I use 1.62 beta (Release Candidate #3) build 95248.

Edited July 28, 2012 by Fenrisulven

[markb50k 1]

Yes it sounds like you are definitely having some issues.

If it doesn't show anything inbound that is an issue. Fsm processes run the reinforcements and it sounds like your Fsm is stopping for some reason. I've never seen this and I don't have the new build either so maybe that's it.

What does it say about reserves which is the second part of the order of battle?

Also that would explain why your troops are not moving around. Another Fsm sets objectives.

Do you know how to run the game with the -showscripterrors option. I'm almost positive you are getting an error that is either preventing the fsms from being called in the code or something.

Edited July 29, 2012 by markb50k

[kiberkiller 10]

The thing with reinforcement times is that they also need to be adjusted for each island separately. Because on smaller maps units will be able to engage each other faster and thus need faster reinforcements.

I also end up killing everyone on the enemy team(s) withing 30min of play on Utes for example, probably because of all the killed choppers.

Since 1.62 is the latest official version, I think you should upgrade to it, just in case it causes any problems.

There's a bug with MHQ upgrades by the way.

I ordered a Stationary AA but it never appear next to my MHQ. I lost my 750 points, so I did actually order it but no matter how many time I packed and unpacked, it never appeared.

I also have some concerns about one of the core mechanics. Camps.

Is there any point of capturing them at all right now? Does Player or AI actually get any advantage from capturing a Camp besides it being a requirement to win the game?

In other missions, like Warfare, those camps would probably be use as respawn points, thus captures camps will form a front line to operate along, but in Apocalypse it's not the case, since everything is dropped in choppers.

This creates a situation where any effective strategy actually doesn't Camps, at all.

I can't really think of any simple solution to that right now, except for making Camps into respawn points for AI and the Player but I know you won't like this suggestion since it's not what you're going for.

---------- Post added at 09:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 AM ----------

I also want to thank you for listening to your community, Markb50k. If only more developers were like you.

[Fenrisulven 1]

Yes it sounds like you are definitely having some issues.

If it doesn't show anything inbound that is an issue. Fsm processes run the reinforcements and it sounds like your Fsm is stopping for some reason. I've never seen this and I don't have the new build either so maybe that's it.

What does it say about reserves which is the second part of the order of battle?

Also that would explain why your troops are not moving around. Another Fsm sets objectives.

Do you know how to run the game with the -showscripterrors option. I'm almost positive you are getting an error that is either preventing the fsms from being called in the code or something.

Guess what. I had another go at it leaving everything at default xpt for starting with the HQ. Played for one hour and 40 minutes on Zarga and the reinforcements kept coming this time and the reserve pool was not empty. I also tested it with "-showscripterrors" and no errors popped up. I did have some AI problems however. Some enemy AI didn't see me. I took out a whole squad from 10 meters, not even from cover and not until I walk straight up to the last guy, he fired back. Very strange. Probably not mission related however.

When the scripts failed I had force strength set to 50% for performance and I played other factions such as PMC, CZ and TK GUE. I wonder if this could cause the script to fail?

I hope you update to latest version and keep working on this mission. Its really good, maybe one of the best conquest style missions I played (when it works). If I had to change anything it would be to make reinforcements cheaper, alternatively make capturing camps more rewarding, say 100 points? That would boost action a lot and you could afford vehicles and bigger teams.

[markb50k 1]

Faction choice wouldn't have much to do with it but the 50% forces might. Combined with a small map like zagrabad which also lowers total army size you may have lowered it so much that you ran through the reinforcements. Will check it out. Also will look at a xp multiplier on how much you earn to lower difficulty or raise it

---------- Post added at 15:13 ---------- Previous post was at 14:45 ----------

There's a bug with MHQ upgrades by the way.

I ordered a Stationary AA but it never appear next to my MHQ. I lost my 750 points, so I did actually order it but no matter how many time I packed and unpacked, it never appeared.

need to know what side is your friendly side, and what factions you chose to be your friendly factions. Sounds like there may be a problem with one of my entries for the AA static type.

[markb50k 1]

found the issue with selecting 50% strength. It was setting your total forces to 0, which was why you werent getting any more reinforcements.

found issue with the HQ not spawning static weapons. only issue was when you skipped to start location.

will be fixed in next update

[kiberkiller 10]

need to know what side is your friendly side, and what factions you chose to be your friendly factions. Sounds like there may be a problem with one of my entries for the AA static type.

I might not be remembering it 100% correctly but I think it was two games, one with PMC + RU Veh and another one with PMC + NAPA + CDF. The bug was present in both.

---------- Post added at 07:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:31 PM ----------

found the issue with selecting 50% strength. It was setting your total forces to 0, which was why you werent getting any more reinforcements.

found issue with the HQ not spawning static weapons. only issue was when you skipped to start location.

will be fixed in next update

Amazing, thanks. Can we expect reinforcement speed option next update as well?

[markb50k 1]

Yes and XP multiplier as well, plus some support for a couple of larger well-known mods

[Fenrisulven 1]

found the issue with selecting 50% strength. It was setting your total forces to 0, which was why you werent getting any more reinforcements.

found issue with the HQ not spawning static weapons. only issue was when you skipped to start location.

will be fixed in next update

That's great news! Nice work man :)

EDIT

Also I did skip to start location, so that was the problem.

[markb50k 1]

EDIT #1

One more thing. When you select factions clicking + you can click it several times increasing the number. Does that have any impact? You can do that for civilians as well. Sorry if it's been covered already.

increasing the number increases the chance a particular faction is chosen randomly when a group of that side is spawned. i explain it earlier in this thread and in the LOST thread.

[Fenrisulven 1]

increasing the number increases the chance a particular faction is chosen randomly when a group of that side is spawned. i explain it earlier in this thread and in the LOST thread.

Thx .. but I think I just broke my install of A2. I can't start your mission anymore, regardless of map. I only get a black screen and "Initializing Camps..." and birds singing in the background.

I tried reinstalling your mission files and replaced the MARKB50K_Apocalypse.pbo. I also deleted all temporary files in users and appdata / local / temp and restarted my comp, but to no avail.

It's smoked :Oo:

[GOKITTY199 10]

that seems pretty cool similar to dayz. id try it out

[markb50k 1]

Version 2.7:

- new addon: DDAM (Danish Defense Army Module)

- new config : NON-ACE for DDAM - use this if you want to run DDAM without ACE (plus you'll have to remove 2 pbos from DDAM : ddam_info_ace and ddam_m1045a2_ace)

- new addon : SFP - Swedish Forces Project

- new config : NON-ACRE Config - use this if you want to run without ACRE (plus you'll have to remove 2 pbos from SFP : sfp_ra145 and sfp_ra180)

- new : ability to set the speed of reinforcements (option on SETUP screen)

- new : ability to set the amount of support points awarded during the mission (option on SETUP screen)

- tweak : better messages when requesting HQ upgrades

- fix : selecting less than 100% overall army strength caused a error where no forces were in reserve

- fix : when skipping to start point, HQ vehicle could not spawn static defenses properly

- fix : when recruiting nearby soldiers, you could in error recruit yourself.

---------- Post added at 23:33 ---------- Previous post was at 23:30 ----------

Thx .. but I think I just broke my install of A2. I can't start your mission anymore, regardless of map. I only get a black screen and "Initializing Camps..." and birds singing in the background.

I tried reinstalling your mission files and replaced the MARKB50K_Apocalypse.pbo. I also deleted all temporary files in users and appdata / local / temp and restarted my comp, but to no avail.

It's smoked :Oo:

well theres a new version out. try that one. Also, depending on how quickly you run through the initial screens, it may take a while to initialize camps. you may want to wait a bit.

[DogonCrook 1]

How do you realease your squad? I got it to work in lost at some point but now i can't figure it out.

I like the idea of the mission so far, and I have only got 45 mins or so into a mission but on lingor, im not ever able to get any action. My ai just runs around killing everything in tanks and there is nothing to do but search houses. Im i doing something wrong? I reduce it to 75% for performance but thats about it. Is there anyway to make reinforcements unlimited? Or would that just rain troops till my computer lags to a halt?

[markb50k 1]

You mention many different questions in your post so I'm trying to understand what it is you really want. I give a ton of options at mission start that should allow you to construct the mission you want wit some experimentation.

For instance You can lower your sides strength in comparison to the others and that will make it more reliant on you to do the dirty work

You want unlimited reinforcements? Do you mean how fast they show up. How many total show up? But yes I limit things a bit because too many troops on all sides will bog down the game.

I have no idea what you mean by release your squad. Are you trying to recruit soldiers or are you trying to give them back to the AI? You can recruit nearby soldiers using the COMMS menu. You can release your troops to but you have to separate them out into another squad first then you can release them through the menu as well. Think the path is 08196

I could keep explaining different things but really with all the options I give you I would like some clear understanding of what you want

[DogonCrook 1]

I meant realease to ai so i gotcha on that. As for unlimted reinforcements essentially i meant a never ending mission. Ie when you wipe them all out they keep coming as long as all the bases aren't all taken. I will try messing with the setup, but i would like to be able to push them to a small area and have them come at me wave after wave. I understand thats not really the intention with this mission but im interested in the feasability of it. Reason being my computer cant handle a shitstorm of troops over a large island, so if i bottle up the action could i make it more intense? The way i understand it if i push them into a corner by that time the reserves are more or less depleted. I realize i could just play it on utes, but i just tried lingor and im digging the terrain. Its huge so the battles just are not that intense. At any rate sorry for the confusion and ill keep playing with the settings, but id like to see if i could make the battle more or less endless, without overloading the cpu. If its not possible no worries, just curious.

[kiberkiller 10]

Version 2.7:

- new : ability to set the amount of support points awarded during the mission (option on SETUP screen)

Does this affect the amount of reinforcements enemy/friendly AI gets or is it just something to give the player extra advantage?

---------- Post added at 06:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:42 AM ----------

By the way, I wonder if it's possible to make enemy/friendly AI group markers smaller depending on the distance from the player (preferably calculated with the maximum view distance as well)?

I really like the idea of getting visual updates on enemy position intel directly on the screen but I often misjudge the distance between me and different groups because all markers are the same size, and end up either checking the map all the time or running straight into an enemy group that I thought was far away.

---------- Post added at 07:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:45 AM ----------

There's a serious bug in this version (I think it was there before too). When I play on Utes, upon respawning at my MHQ my characters starts swimming underground and I can't make him walk again.

It looks quite funny but it makes the game unplayable. I haven't tried playing on other maps yet.

---------- Post added at 07:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:30 AM ----------

One more thing, would it be possible to add a '0' value to Relative Air Strength? I can't stand attack choppers ruining my day. Setting Infantry to 10, Armor to 3 and Air to 1, as I usually do, still makes enemy get around 3 choppers at once.

[markb50k 1]

I meant realease to ai so i gotcha on that. As for unlimted reinforcements essentially i meant a never ending mission. Ie when you wipe them all out they keep coming as long as all the bases aren't all taken. I will try messing with the setup, but i would like to be able to push them to a small area and have them come at me wave after wave. I understand thats not really the intention with this mission but im interested in the feasability of it. Reason being my computer cant handle a shitstorm of troops over a large island, so if i bottle up the action could i make it more intense? The way i understand it if i push them into a corner by that time the reserves are more or less depleted. I realize i could just play it on utes, but i just tried lingor and im digging the terrain. Its huge so the battles just are not that intense. At any rate sorry for the confusion and ill keep playing with the settings, but id like to see if i could make the battle more or less endless, without overloading the cpu. If its not possible no worries, just curious.

well if you set overall strength to 200% the enemy will have more reinforcements, but theyll still have the same pace of reinforcement so the war will just last longer. I'm sure that will be plenty of reinforcements and should give you the situation you are looking for.

---------- Post added at 10:37 ---------- Previous post was at 10:29 ----------

Does this affect the amount of reinforcements enemy/friendly AI gets or is it just something to give the player extra advantage?

---------- Post added at 06:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:42 AM ----------

By the way, I wonder if it's possible to make enemy/friendly AI group markers smaller depending on the distance from the player (preferably calculated with the maximum view distance as well)?

I really like the idea of getting visual updates on enemy position intel directly on the screen but I often misjudge the distance between me and different groups because all markers are the same size, and end up either checking the map all the time or running straight into an enemy group that I thought was far away.

---------- Post added at 07:30 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:45 AM ----------

There's a serious bug in this version (I think it was there before too). When I play on Utes, upon respawning at my MHQ my characters starts swimming underground and I can't make him walk again.

It looks quite funny but it makes the game unplayable. I haven't tried playing on other maps yet.

---------- Post added at 07:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:30 AM ----------

One more thing, would it be possible to add a '0' value to Relative Air Strength? I can't stand attack choppers ruining my day. Setting Infantry to 10, Armor to 3 and Air to 1, as I usually do, still makes enemy get around 3 choppers at once.

- no, it doesnt affect support points or reinforcements AI gets. support points are only for you. its just to make your life easier or harder.

- the marta module is controlling sizes of group markers so that kind of control of bigger or smaller icons based on distance is out of my hands

- i get the swimming guy sometimes. when you respawn i put you to the map origin [0,0,0] which sometimes is in the water, depending on the map. even if it does happen, the player usually realizes its on land after at most a minute. try entering a building or boarding a vehicle. will look to see if there is some way of fixing that

- try setting air to 1 for only the sides you wish to have little air cover. if all sides AIR are set to 1, you really arent affecting anything, no matter what you set INFANTRY and ARMOR. (infantry vs armor vs air doesnt affect each other directly, its side vs side vs side that is the controller of the effect.)

[kiberkiller 10]

Damn! I played 2.7 for the first time, PMC vs BAF on Utes with x5 reinforcement speed and I can see a clear change in how the mission player. It's much more dynamic and lots of stuff happening all the time.

My team managed to conquer 2/3 of the map but enemy team was constantly buying Apache's and my team didn't buy any AA and even though enemy team didn't have any ground forces anymore we got raped so hard by those damn choppers.

---------- Post added at 10:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:39 AM ----------

- try setting air to 1 for only the sides you wish to have little air cover. if all sides AIR are set to 1, you really arent affecting anything, no matter what you set INFANTRY and ARMOR. (infantry vs armor vs air doesnt affect each other directly, its side vs side vs side that is the controller of the effect.)

I see. What if I set Friendly and Enemy Air to 1 and Third Side Air to 10 but don't actually include any third side in the mission?

Because if I don't want either side to have any air, preferably. Attack choppers are incredibly powerful are not fun to fight against.

[markb50k 1]

Damn! I played 2.7 for the first time, PMC vs BAF on Utes with x5 reinforcement speed and I can see a clear change in how the mission player. It's much more dynamic and lots of stuff happening all the time.

My team managed to conquer 2/3 of the map but enemy team was constantly buying Apache's and my team didn't buy any AA and even though enemy team didn't have any ground forces anymore we got raped so hard by those damn choppers.

---------- Post added at 10:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:39 AM ----------

I see. What if I set Friendly and Enemy Air to 1 and Third Side Air to 10 but don't actually include any third side in the mission?

Because if I don't want either side to have any air, preferably. Attack choppers are incredibly powerful are not fun to fight against.

just looked at code, the ratios you set for an unused side aren't taken into account. i'll look at being able to set air to 0 in the next update.

[kiberkiller 10]

just looked at code, the ratios you set for an unused side aren't taken into account. i'll look at being able to set air to 0 in the next update.

Thanks.

---------- Post added at 11:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 AM ----------

Maybe change relative strength into a simple multiplier? Like 0x, 0.5x, 1x, 2x, etc.

It would make it possible to tune the balance better into how you want it and it also would be much more intuitive than the current system which , as I have noticed readin this thread, confuses many players.

[Fenrisulven 1]

Version 2.7:

- new addon: DDAM (Danish Defense Army Module)

- new config : NON-ACE for DDAM - use this if you want to run DDAM without ACE (plus you'll have to remove 2 pbos from DDAM : ddam_info_ace and ddam_m1045a2_ace)

- new addon : SFP - Swedish Forces Project

- new config : NON-ACRE Config - use this if you want to run without ACRE (plus you'll have to remove 2 pbos from SFP : sfp_ra145 and sfp_ra180)

- new : ability to set the speed of reinforcements (option on SETUP screen)

- new : ability to set the amount of support points awarded during the mission (option on SETUP screen)

- tweak : better messages when requesting HQ upgrades

- fix : selecting less than 100% overall army strength caused a error where no forces were in reserve

- fix : when skipping to start point, HQ vehicle could not spawn static defenses properly

- fix : when recruiting nearby soldiers, you could in error recruit yourself.

---------- Post added at 23:33 ---------- Previous post was at 23:30 ----------

well theres a new version out. try that one. Also, depending on how quickly you run through the initial screens, it may take a while to initialize camps. you may want to wait a bit.

Yes I actually left the room for a while and the screen was still black when I got back. Last successful launch was on Chernarus with 100% forces and that didn't take very long.

Sounds good can't wait to try it out

[markb50k 1]

Thanks.

---------- Post added at 11:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 AM ----------

Maybe change relative strength into a simple multiplier? Like 0x, 0.5x, 1x, 2x, etc.

It would make it possible to tune the balance better into how you want it and it also would be much more intuitive than the current system which , as I have noticed readin this thread, confuses many players.

maybe. will consider it.

[Fenrisulven 1]

Stuck at work so I took a few minutes and made you a new loading screen for the mission :) I noticed yours was a bit lowres. Use if you like markb50k. No pressure :cool:

http://imageshack.us/f/696/aplogo.jpg/

EDIT:

It also makes for a good desktop background *hint hint* :biggrin_o: just make sure you save the file in it's original resolution 3200x1800.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Fenrisulven