[SP/MP] Dynamic Whole Map ArmA3 Missions by SaOk

[Snow_Leopard 10]

I think you have enough +1s

Here's a cookie instead from me (>^.^)>#

[jamie1992 17]

Update 5.1

I was actually just about to post about a lack of ammunition crates in the main deployment base. Just stopped playing. Shall download this one and give it a blast now.

-EDIT-

As a sidenote are you aware of what causes some AI to freeze, and their bodies stay in the exact same position even after being shot and killed?

Edited March 13, 2013 by Jamie1992

[pawelkpl 29]

Thx for your work, How to disable fog ? After few hours of persistent battlefield landscape is very foggy.

[SaOk 112]

Version 0.51 was re-uploaded. Finally the crash seems to be gone and AI team with chopper land now before disemparking. Re-download if you downloaded the mission earlier today.

[tremanarch 6]

just startet COOP - is this wanted that there is such a low view distance?

[SaOk 112]

Thanks for the cookie. :D I disable simulation for distant unit the stucked dead units may be connected with that, I will see what I can do. The amount of fog should change every 10. minutes. I may add parameter for that so max fog could be choosen.

[arthurfree 1]

Can anyone tell me how can i ask for aerial support or a medic evac?

When i press '5' and select medic or ambulance, they keep answering me 'negative'.

I know it's possible 'cause i've seen some little birds coming and going over the field to engage enemy ifrits.

[cj 1]

Had this mission up on my server since you released it, albeit a slightly modified version (all credit is given to you SaOk, you're welcome to come and have a look). I honestly can say this mission is the best thing to happen to A3A since its release, it really showcases all of the great things that A3 as brought to the series. My server has been running WLS since its release and I now have a massive set of regulars who simply refuse to play any other mission except this now. Thanks from all of us SaOk :) If anyone would like to join us (open day/night UK time) the name is ArmA 3 Alpha CoOp CTI - WholeLottaStratis, we're quite the friendly bunch too !

SaOk - I've noticed a few people mentioning about the low view distance/fog in multiplayer - I had the same thing a few versions back but I've managed to get rid of the majority of it now, but I do occasionally see it after about 4/5 hours of the mission running, but it disappears after a while. If you need any help controlling it give me a PM :)

[bigshot 64]

is the coop version of this supposed to be PvP or what?...I started it up on LAN and took a look around in red areas but there were no enemy about (v.49).

...would be helpful if the readme explained how to play it through.

Edited March 14, 2013 by BigShot

[cj 1]

@BigShot - Neither version is PvP, its all PvE. I haven't play tested anything after .47 yet, but by the looks of things there was a few errors with .49 as there's been a couple updates since. Re-download the mission (latest version .51) and try again.

[bigshot 64]

yes, sorry actually i had this confused with a different mission...the enemy AI is fine...frame rates are pretty low but other than that its quite fun!...if you get the chance could you please add a param for enemy skill? would like to see numbered choices .10-1.0

Thanks for getting this one out to us!

[russbo 10]

AI and helicopters leave something to be desired.I kind of liked it when they couldn't drive... I found that once I flew a helicopter to a base, I could not get back into it for some strange reason. And once I told my team to get into it, they would never disembark, or move out of it. Telling them to then move somewhere, led them to fly the helicopter and crash it. Not sure if this is the game or an issue with the mission; just wanted to let you know about it. Might have something to do with the fact that I'm playing a version .5 save game on the .51 mission version.

I found the fog to be a bit annoying at first, but if you wait long enough, it does dissipate as the day goes on. Nice effect.

[upyonder999 1]

Precision in config file doesn't work since a patch in A2 OA. I read a lot of people keep doing this and it has no effect. Have tested it a lot.

If you want to reduce accuracy, you have to change the aimingaccuracy skill and/or other skills like aimingshake, etc on the units skill array.

For example:

{_x setSkill ["aimingaccuracy", 0.3];} forEach allUnits;

in init.sqf

I looked in the init.sqf file in this mission's folder and searched for aimingaccuracy, accuracy, aimingshake, aiming, skill, setSkill, and found none of these in the file. I found forEach and allUnits but there is nothing about setting accuracy.

Maybe skill can't be modified from Arma 3's defaults? SaOk do you know if it can?

Edited March 14, 2013 by UpYonder999

[down8 30]

I looked in the init.sqf file in this mission's folder and searched for aimingaccuracy, accuracy, aimingshake, aiming, skill, setSkill, and found none of these in the file. I found forEach and allUnits but there is nothing about setting accuracy.

Maybe skill can't be modified from Arma 3's defaults? SaOk do you know if it can?

The init.sqf is created by the mission maker, and is empty by default. Is on him to put commands to alter the unit skills on the file. You can edit the file for your use changing the skills at your own risk,because you can break the mission or making it working differently from the author intention.

[upyonder999 1]

The init.sqf is created by the mission maker, and is empty by default. Is on him to put commands to alter the unit skills on the file. You can edit the file for your use changing the skills at your own risk,because you can break the mission or making it working differently from the author intention.

Okay, I see what you mean. I might give it a try, if I get motivated enough to learn the code. If I screw it up I can always restore from a backup or redownload the mission.

[SaOk 112]

Finally the forum works again (I couldnt get here for almost a day). If it gets slow again, mission updates can be found also in OFPEC.

The support can be called by pressing 0-0-(and 3,4 or 5), if you are team-leader. Else the radio cant be used, even it shows the channels.

Thanks, CJ. Its totally okay for me - everyone may modify the mission freely. Some of the scripts can just affect on added objects in different way.

BigShot, the patrolling AI seem to leave the zones sometimes even when I have set very small radius for the BIS patrol script. In upcoming version, I have updated the zone detection. If there is no alive enemies inside 300m radius from the zone marker and any player is less than 100m away from the marker. The zone is marked captured.

The AI led teams, pick up their car/chopper by detecting nearby empty vehicle and locking it instantly. I try to add more detectors for that, to throw out other team units if they have managed to get in somehow.

I can add parameter for unit skills too, the code needs to be placed in various spawning scripts. There is no enemies on map, everything (except players, crates, some markers) is spawned during mission.

The fog and other weather goes randomly to worse and better. I will add parameter to choose max fog.

While I tested the 0.51 version, game crashed again after 0,5 hours (I was also capturing with fraps if that affected). It seems that there is something unstable with the vehicles perhaps. I try to tweak my scripts too, but it could be game bug. I have sent crash dumps to BIS (probably many others have too), so I have hopes the upcoming alpha builds will be more stable. If you want to make sure, the game dont crash. All teams should be led by player or AI´s to be disabled for that group.

Edit: I tried to test the mission with DEV version to see if the crashing is gone, but for some days the build have been too buggy to play (there is error messages flying already when game is starting).

Edited March 14, 2013 by SaOk

[tremanarch 6]

could you implement a cleanup script that the admin can trigger. sometimes I come back after an hour and my frames decreased from 30 to 15.

I would like to cleanup all dead bodies all objects etc...

Maybe also just delete all AI - they may respawn in their bases then

[SaOk 112]

There is loops to remove dead bodies, distant AI's and vehicles. The FPS drop seems to be from the game unless I have set something wrong (the scripts are mostly the same than in my ArmA2 mission Whole Lotta War). The amount of units and vehicles shouldnt be going higher after some 15minutes of playing (some of the areas can still have e.g. 15 more units). But I continue tweaking performance too.

Edit: I found one bug in unit removal that have kept dead bodies near respawn. Fixed in the next version.

Edited March 14, 2013 by SaOk

[cj 1]

I finally completed this mission today with a few mates, took the best part of 5 hours but we did it !

Even took a picture to prove it :P

[SaOk 112]

Congrats :D, good to know its possible. I will try to include more different tasks soon (something else than zone capturing), also add roadblocks, some custom defense lines and make zone capturing more difficult. Some of them could require holding the zone against enemy reinforcements, before marking it as captured.

[cj 1]

Sick, that sounds excellent. We actually did go around every Weapons Cache and blew them up with Explosive Charges, since we had everything we needed at base. We just pretended it was the enemy's stashes :P Thanks for letting me edit your mission SaOk, not that it really needed it ! Just to let you know, the fog did exactly as you said, it comes and goes with time so if anyone's has a problem with it, just wait 10/15 mins and it'll go. I started the mission at 50 FPS, and finished at 48 FPS (in a 5 hour time frame) so your clean-up scripts are working fine. DAMN it felt good to have the whole island to ourselves ! Haha. I'm loving the idea of updated zones, with boundaries for enemy/player. It will fix the only problem i've had with this mission - the zones won't capture sometimes (all it takes is to get ~250M away from the zone, and then return with the enemy respawned.) so I very much look forward to the next one. Night ops next :cool:

One last note about the vehicles - they seemed buggy for me too on V.47 (the version i'm currently using) so I literally removed all AI vehicles (Op+Blu) from the mission and increased infantry spawns to counterract this. The pro's that came out of this were unbelievable - +15-20fps, no freeze-stutter at all and extremely reduced CTD (I was crashing ~ once every 2 hours, and after removal like I said 5+ hours in and it was still running smooth!) but this may not be to everyone's taste - I play solely infantry, vehicles dont particularly interest me unless a team-mate is driving and ready to back my squad up !

[SaOk 112]

New gameplay video of the COOP version, played alone with AI.

Thanks for feedback CJ, those support my sightings. Cant wait to see how the upcoming alpha builds will change the game. So much potential in this already awesome game.

Edited March 14, 2013 by SaOk

[Masterjts 1]

How does the "-Difficulty level goes slowly higher during progress" work? Because after about 2-3 hours of play the AI becomes unplayable and we always have to restart the server. Is there a limit to what and how high that progress goes?

Is there any way to get a version where the difficulty does not ramp up over time? Because if we wanted eagle eye crack shots we would just set that on the server to begin with. Dont get me wrong I am fine with having some variation in the AI but it seems that the AI just keeps getting better and better until they start snap shooting you at 3000m with their pistol and then we have to restart the server.

[SaOk 112]

That isnt yet inluded, I had to set enemy reinforcements quite low and randomly max amount of patrols and other features go disabled or enable. Difficulty level is now quite random, but I will try to change it e.g. making the last zone more difficult to capture. There could be some random deadly events too with more survival feeling.

I dont know why the AI becomes more accurate in late game. The set skill levels are the same from mission start.

Edited March 14, 2013 by SaOk

[upyonder999 1]

While I tested the 0.51 version, game crashed again after 0,5 hours (I was also capturing with fraps if that affected). It seems that there is something unstable with the vehicles perhaps. I try to tweak my scripts too, but it could be game bug. I have sent crash dumps to BIS (probably many others have too), so I have hopes the upcoming alpha builds will be more stable. If you want to make sure, the game dont crash. All teams should be led by player or AI´s to be disabled for that group.

Edit: I tried to test the mission with DEV version to see if the crashing is gone, but for some days the build have been too buggy to play (there is error messages flying already when game is starting).

The mission crashed once for me last night. I called a chopper for air evacuation. I was supposed to drop smoke, but instead I threw an HE grenade. After that I did drop smoke, but the chopper just hovered in the air far above. It never landed to pick us up. After a while I was able to call another chopper. The first one was still in the air. When the second one came near the game crashed.

I was playing version .51 as a single player mission, so my team mates were all AI.

Restarted the game and I was able to do a helicopter evacuation. Pretty cool experience. I'm very impressed with your creativity and programming skills!