SP: Tankistan Control / work in progress

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Would you want to see all of the vehicles and weapons creates at the random start position?

If you decide to change the start position to dynamic I request vehicles, ammo, AI patrols, the whole bit to go with it.

[smacker909 3]

well.. that was the reason I was asking, cause I would need to make sure the random spot has enough open space for it. I'm just not sure if it would really add much. But if enough folks think so, I'll definitely see what I can do ;)

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Quite frankly I don't care if the starting position is dynamic or not. I am plenty happy how it is set up now. I believe refining existing features is more important than adding new ones.

Edited August 8, 2012 by JuggernautOfWar

[smacker909 3]

Cool, just let me know what refinements you are interested in. I have a few in mind but would like input from others. The IED script integration was a bit rushed, so I'm sure there are some things there that can be revised.

[deltafiveone 11]

Cool, just let me know what refinements you are interested in. I have a few in mind but would like input from others. The IED script integration was a bit rushed, so I'm sure there are some things there that can be revised.

-The reason I asked if only the civi being detained pulls out a handgun (so glad you added this btw, thank you much) or if somebody in the crowd can do so as well was because I thought the idea of the player professionally having to keep a tight perimeter and keep crowd control in this type of environment would be something special and unique. Forces the player to use the top of buildings/elevated positions to keep tabs on the crowd at all times because shit can pop off at anytime with the civis as well! ANYBODY can become agitated and want to take out those questioning their townspeople, happens here all the time in L.A. They start throwing bottles and even take potshots at any who they feel are harassers that are going around questioning and loitering their neighborhoods. They even go as far as having designated lookouts/scouts but I digress. That would be absolutely something if you could integrate it where anybody (non-detainees as well) in the crowd can choose to go hostile at any moment with handguns. Even run up to the squad and suicide bomb/sap them but I mean that could be pretty difficult to implement and keep balance as we would already have to watch out for absolutely anyone in the crowd being a shooter, also the fact that civis take a mind of their own and can start running for random reasons around town as is. Also, with only five guys in the squad that could be a problem having to worry about IEDs too. The possibilities are really limitless in this situation you've created Smacker909, again great job. You've taken a combat mission simulator and made it into a field detective story, very much like how professional soldiers must operate out in the field with an insurgency type scenario. Insurgents/unruly civis can be VERY hidden among the populace (someone very close to me was a LRRP/Ranger in Vietnam, same exact duties and protocol when within village territories).

-With the IED intel, that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't sure if intel was to immediately pop up on the map.

-As for dynamic starting positions, I just would like to be able to visit different towns at changing ranges upon the start. I know there's nothing stopping me from visiting a town far from the airfield such as Landay, but I think the different starting positions could require the player to "see all the sights" that Takistan offers hehe. Also changes driving distances and possible encounters along the way! Takistan does have an odd propensity to only spawn civis at certain towns, this I know well but bringing along the essentials such as ammo, vehicles, and patrols with the starting position would definitely be great. I promise not to ask for anything more lol, I know how much work these missions are...loving this work so far. :cool:

[smacker909 3]

It's all good Delta. :) Glad you are liken the mission! With the Civs, I've used the detain script , which all ALICE civs spawn with, to give chance of being armed so in order to have random civs turning hostile would require a new method.. at the least, just spawn some randomly would probably do the trick. The problem is your units will shot them down pretty quick since they always determine them to be hostile before you do. I'll see what I can come up with on that on. Also on the random start positions.. I'll give it some thought too. Thanks for playing/testing and giving feed back !

Edited August 8, 2012 by smacker909

[smacker909 3]

mission updated - Hey Delta, now when you interrogate, there's a chance to cause random civ to get hostile and whip out his pistol. So be alert when interrogating! I agree this is better. I only briefly tested.. so let me know ;)

Edited August 9, 2012 by smacker909

[deltafiveone 11]

Haha that's awesome, thank you so much. I'll give it a try and let you know what's up!

---------- Post added at 08:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:23 PM ----------

So far so good, everything's working great. I am however getting the standing dead bug from the civis who turn hostile a lot of the time, is that more of an ArmA bug (afaik)? Also, every so often I come across a male civilian gesturing as though he's holding an invisible rifle and follows my team and I with it (seen that animation a lot in the original Insurgency mission). He's not declared as hostile as my team doesn't bother shooting him. That could also be from one of my mods possibly (@ASR_AI), I have userconfig'd that no civis should attempt to pick up gear however so not sure what that could be. Really have to watch your back while interrogating now though, very nice.

Edited August 9, 2012 by DeltaFiveOne
Updated findings

[smacker909 3]

Delta, I have seen that also. Could be something can be done, but so far I haven't found anything on it. For the ALICE civs, I only assign them to an EAST group and give them the gun.. for the random armed civs, I create them on fly (in EAST group) during interrogation, then give them a gun. Maybe they can't decide if they really want to go through with it drawing the pistol hahaha.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

I've never had the civvies show a any sort of red target reticule before. I really do like the new system. It adds quite a bit of tension when you are in a populated area interrogating civvies out in the open. This system teaches you real quick you should do interrogations inside buildings when possible. It's quite unnerving hearing spontaneous gunshots through the streets just after an interrogation. It's often difficult to pinpoint where it's coming from, forcing you to hunker down and assess the situation.

I love this new mission! I still haven't even finished it yet due to a problem I'm having with the game crashing after ~30 minutes of play. Trying to narrow down if it's @JTD or @JSRS causing it.

[smacker909 3]

Hi Juggernaut, Glad you are liking the mission so far. I think there are still some issues with here and there, but seems to be playable for the most part. Sorry to hear about the crashing issue. I don't use JTD, but do use JSRS and haven't notice any crashes. I agree that arming and making hostiles out of random civs works better and is much more interesting than just doing it for the ones you detain. Thanks Delta for that suggestion :) Also, in case you didn't know, you can shoot those guys without getting penalized ;)

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Haha good, because I've been unloading into those a**holes. What are some of the features and changes you are brainstorming?

I think @JTD is the cause of my crashes. I uninstalled that mod while installing Blastcore and Blastcore tracers with no problems after playing for a while. Too bad, I really do love his mod. Ever since ArmA1 I couldn't get enough of his smoke & fire. It's a shame he doesn't want to spend much time developing mods anymore, he made gems.

[smacker909 3]

lol.. yea, me too! At this point probably just tweaking and fixing issues (please report any you find).. unless you have new features in mind. Let me know :)

[deltafiveone 11]

Juggernaut - Hello, yeah my original post from a couple of days ago was changed because I realized that the red brackets popped up as a result from my own personal settings under veteran difficulty "Extended HUD Info" was enabled so after I turned that off the problem was gone. Also about @JTD, I actually had the same problem as you a while back during other missions as well with CTDs and after a while even script lag that would bog down menu actions. I was forced to abandon the mod as well and everything went back to normal. Great work/effects but it happens.

Smacker909 - No problem at all my man, thank you for creating this mission! If I hadn't forgotten how to script from years back (should've, would've, could've, blah blah lol), I would be attempting to (keyword 'attempting' haha) create similar missions myself! I will also dig around for a solution to the standing dead problem. As for the civilians equipping invisible rifles, I know that's a common ArmA bug. Would see it all the time in MP missions where civis were included. I'm still praying for you to add in random starting positions though.. I just get tired of being next to Rasman all the time when I restart lol (no big deal of course)... Takistan is really awkward with its civilian spawning though unfortunately. Who wants to spawn next to a town that should be inhabited but is not, ya know? If only there was a way to completely fix ALICE in that regard, pertaining to Takistan anyway.

[smacker909 3]

Yea, the empty towns is bothersome. I have done some research on ALICE but haven't found a good solution yet.

[deltafiveone 11]

A couple of quick questions:

1) Do the IEDs ever trigger on their own? I've been able to drive over them, walk over them, dance around them etc. and no boom.

2) Would you ever implement Fockers Suicide Bomber script (when it's released) or any similar script set? Wonder if that would work well with ALICE..

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

I'm getting a very strange problem only in this mission. When I go around town my texture quality drops so bad it looks like I'm playing a Nintendo64 game. I can go into any other mission or the editor and not receive this bizarre problem. Could it possibly be something implemented to save performance? If this is the case I should be able to disable it because my performance is fine anyway.

There should probably be a medical tent/ambulance at base. As it stands now if your one medic gets sniped you're pretty much screwed unless you have the points to call in reinforcements. It may be a good idea to replace the extraction helicopter with the medevac variant.

Do vehicles ever respawn?

A couple of quick questions:

1) Do the IEDs ever trigger on their own? I've been able to drive over them, walk over them, dance around them etc. and no boom.

2) Would you ever implement Fockers Suicide Bomber script (when it's released) or any similar script set? Wonder if that would work well with ALICE..

I'd love to see this added as well. Maybe have a 10% chance that hostile civvies will not draw a pistol, but instead have a bomb strapped to them. I don't know, that might be overkill. I haven't yet found any IEDs so I can't comment on that.

[smacker909 3]

Delta -

- I only implemented Fockers IED script pretty much as is and tied in the scoring system.. so I will do some testing to see if I can figure out what is going on with them.

- I have the required info from Focker to implement his suicide bomber script, but haven't found the time yet ;)

Juggernaught -

- I can't explain how texture quality dropping could be related to this mission. I don't think I effect any settings regarding textures.

- So far a medic is available with transport, reinfocements and with the medic MEV chopper, but I can add a hospital tent to the base, no problem.

- Vehicles don't respawn, but you do have a repair support option ;)

-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-==-

Just noticed this in Focker's thread;

"they are on a time delay - within a certain amount of time they will go off - so if you drive past them they may go off at close rang or when you have driven past, and then the vehicle behind gets it. They were designed so that you had time to disarm them if you saw them from a distance - i did not add any other means of removal i.e shooting or blowing up remotely due to the IED factory script"

Edited August 10, 2012 by smacker909

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

It's really strange. I only get the low quality texture problem in Insurgency and this mission. Any other mission is fine. My friend and I both suffer from this.

[smacker909 3]

Hmm.. can't really say. I'm not making any video setting changes in any of the scripts. I know the mission can run a little sluggish for the first 20 seconds or so while scripts setting up H.Q. , IED stuff, and first convoy run.. but nothing related to texture quality. If you go into editor and plunk down on the north air base in Takistan, you don't' see the same problem?

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Nope. Definitely only in Insurgency and this mission. I can play Patrol Ops or anything else and it's fine. Strange I know.

In these pictures you can see the editor is fine, then in the mission the textures go to crap. Note this does not happen at all times, but mostly in cities. Even then the textures will fade in and out at will, creating an inconsistent quality throughout the game. It's been much worse than shown in the pictures. I just wanted to get these taken to give you guys a rough idea what I'm talking about.

Public Steam images link.

Edited August 10, 2012 by JuggernautOfWar

[smacker909 3]

Have you played other missions since the 1.62 patch? There are discussions about the video settings effected with the update buried in this thread

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Yeah I've played Patrol Operations 2 and a number of other single player missions. I've made my own as well. Again the only times I get this is in Insurgency and this mission.

[KBK 10]

Wow man this mission has potential to be something great! I told myself to only give it a 10 minute trial before going to sleep but an hour later I was knee deep in sheeaat! Really immersive and awesome!

@JuggernautOfWar:

I've been having the same problem with textures flickering between good and horrible quality, objects looking like they are taken out of Minecraft and stuff for the last couple of days. I played around some with the settings and I think the video memory was f*cked because when I changed that to Low and then back to Default it fixed the problem all in all. Just to make sure I changed all the other settings before maxing them out again and I havn't seen issues since. If you havn't already, give it a shot.

I figured I'd do this yankee-doodle style and just cowboy my way through. Picked a medium size town on the map, Bastam, and figured it'd have some religious nuts to interrogate and sure enough the town was crawling with em. I pretty much rounded up half the town in the center street and began my mass interrogation. Woop-tee-doo I won't do that mistake again! In the corner of my eye I say a couple guys run off, they obviously knew what was going on. The gunner in my HMMV reported a spotter eyeing us from a hill and seconds later all hell broke loose. A couple civvies opened up on us with handguns but luckily their shooting was as tacky as their english and we just mowed em down much to the displeasure of their family and friends standing next to us on the street. As the gunfire faded we heard vehicles. Out of nowhere a couple of technicals armed with dshk'as rolled in from the east side of town and from the west two BTR-40s and a truck. That was a hell of an ambush they had in store for us. It's a miracle we made it out alive. Well, those of us that did. The new guy, the Pvt carrying the CG took a couple 50cals to the chest and was blown in half but the rest of us made it out in one piece. Poor guy was on his first mission first deployment. Should've paid some attention and not acted like he thought he was Arnold and maybe his parents wouldn't have had him delivered on their doorstep in a f*cking box.

Anyway we managed to get some intel off of one of the women. Saddest poker face I've ever seen. She couldn't have lied about the colour of her panties even though she wore one of them burkas or dish dashs or whatever they're called. Bet she was a hottie under there. I know you're not supposed to talk to their women but f*ck that I'm here to do a job and it's not my fault this piece of worthless dirt in the middle of nowhere is all effed up. If I didn't know better I'd think she was coming on to me. Yeah, she totally was. Whatever. She told us she knew this guy who was some mid level commander, she even showed us where he lived, some piece of sh*t place called Huz... Huzurbsomething... Habadabaville. Sh*t, come to think of it if she knew that guy she was probably a f*ckin insurgent herself. She could've had a bomb vest under that derkaderk and blown us to hell and we would've been none the wiser. F*cking c***. If I ever go there again I'll detain that b*tch and let the MPs have some fun with her.

It's a f*cking miracle we got there without hitting a hundred IEDs or getting ambushed. Hell, that trip took way too long 'cause of all the suspected IEDs and me having to crawl out and check em. But we finally got there. Set up the HMMV on a hill to provide overwatch with the 50 as the rest of us went to find the guy. We found him hiding in a hedge behind the houses like a little b*tch. Someone obviously saw us coming and warned him but instead of running he tried to hide. I gotta give it to him, I mean most people try to run and then die tired. But this guy, he just sat there as I introduced the business end of my 249 to his face. Called it in and like two minutes later those SF guys rolled in with their million dollar blackhawk. Dudes must've already been on their way. Creeps me out how they know all that sh*t before anyone even called it in. Bro I'd like to tap into their moneyvein though, the gear those guys are rocking is all f*ckin Gucci. Sh*t must cost a fortune. And then there was this guy in all his f*ckin bling space suit carrying an M14 like he's a cowboy. Bet he's an *sshole. Anyway the SF crew took the guy and split. We took a lap through town to try and find the guy who ratted us. Could be anyone. To be honest, it was probably the entire town.

As we were talking to this guy saying he didn't know sh*t and wanted us to leave his little sh*thole town alone a f*cking RPG whizzed right passed us and hit I sh*t you not no more than 30m behind me. Those ragheads don't mess around and apperently don't give a sh*t if they blow their own guys up. I have no idea if anyone got hit in the blast by that one but everyone was screaming and running around knocking sh*t over. My 50 opened up on something, who knows what, and the rest of us tried to find cover and find out where the RPG came from. A second RPG flew right into the town and hit a woman in the legs or whatever she used to have under that dishkaderk. She landed in the middle of the street. That's the first time I've seen what a Taki woman looks like under the robe. I hope they look better Pre-RPGd because that sh*t was nasty. We opened up in the general direction where the RPGs came from. I must've emptied like three cans of 556. Whatever was in there sure was dead now, there's no way you could've lived through that. My gunner in the 50 told me we had incoming from the north so we repositioned and waited for them to come in range. I swear when we lit those f*ckers up it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The second burst I fired zipped right across two guys in a car, hit one of them in the head and it blew up like when you shoot a water melon, it was awesome. The guys in the other car got out and tried to make a run for it. F*ckers thought they could outrun a 50. I f*cking love tracers. It's like lazers ripping holes in people like some crazy space sh*t from old movies. F*cking ace!

Anyway that's all for now. I'm gonna catch some shut-eye. Hope I don't get RPGd in my sleep.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

@JuggernautOfWar:

I've been having the same problem with textures flickering between good and horrible quality, objects looking like they are taken out of Minecraft and stuff for the last couple of days. I played around some with the settings and I think the video memory was f*cked because when I changed that to Low and then back to Default it fixed the problem all in all. Just to make sure I changed all the other settings before maxing them out again and I havn't seen issues since. If you havn't already, give it a shot.

Hmm that seems to have worked, at least temporarily. Very strange indeed.

I have a suggestion for the mission. Please create the player HQ starting area as a safe zone or something. It seems every time I play I cannot continue because vital base assets are taken out by a hostile patrol. Just a few minutes ago I was playing and got my first piece of intel from the civvies. I went back to base only to see it smoldering and smoke billowing into the sky. I got out of the HMMWV and I was immediately shot by something. I don't know what killed me (as is common in ArmA2) or why it was in our base. Needless to say it's quite frustrating consistently having your base of operations blown up.