TPW EBS: engine based suppression

[Masharra 10]

Ah that I can work around. Many thanks. Ill put it in a script and sleep it until after EBS has initialised. ~5-10seconds. No one will be in range to see them suddenly turn on anyways :P

Almost forgot. Many thanks for wrapping your brain around this.

Edited August 16, 2013 by Masharra

[tpw 2315]

Ah that I can work around. Many thanks. Ill put it in a script and sleep it until after EBS has initialised. ~5-10seconds. No one will be in range to see them suddenly turn on anyways :P

Almost forgot. Many thanks for wrapping your brain around this.

No worries, glad we sorted it out. I will have to see if there is a way I can detect if a given unit has a light on, and if so switch it off before attaching the suppression shell. I'm just happy that there wasn't a deeper issue of the shell occluding lights.

---------- Post added at 20:14 ---------- Previous post was at 20:10 ----------

Do you mind if when you release it, I look at your code and learn a few things? :)

By all means! You'll probably learn how Arma scripting shouldn't be done...

I will include the script version in the next release.

[tpw 2315]

TPW EBS v1.02: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/481663/TPW_EBS_102.zip

Changes:

• Simple find cover implemented for suppressed units.
  
• Miscellaneous code improvements.
  

I've included the script version for people who want to have a look.

[Takoda 10]

Thanks for your continuous improvement of this mod tpw, I cant play arma without it anymore.

[gammadust 12]

(...), AI won't move at all to the position found.

during my tests whenever a leader has given some "attack" order to a unit, the latter is unresponsive to script do*/command* commands. For these tests i always {_group enableAttack false}. Even then your commands may be accepted but soon overuled by other lower ai behaviour directions (mostly if in combat). In the first case because of "priority" the second because of "expiration".

tpw and mrflay, many thanks for this mod. I should pm you guys soon.

[ebarstad 18]

Hey tpw,

I think I found a bug, but I don't know how to reproduce it. I'm playing the Stable branch, using ASR AI and the latest of your EBS, LOS, and FALL mods. In one of my test missions, I noticed that that one of the units kept his red cone even though he was no longer being suppressed and even though there were no enemy units left on the field. This meant he ended up crawling to his waypoint while his other squadmates were running. I've run this AI test several times with these mods, but it's the first time I've seen this happen.

[skulldragon 1]

I'll just start by saying: Great Work!

I was wondering whether this mod could be made to have different levels of severity based on the unit being suppressed. I know that all the units in game so far are regular troops, but it seems reasonable to me that guerillas/militia/untrained soldiers would suffer more under suppression and could possibly break down altogether (this could also happen for trained soldiers under enough stress). I feel that this would really help to make fighting regular and irregular troops quite different experiences.

[tpw 2315]

during my tests whenever a leader has given some "attack" order to a unit, the latter is unresponsive to script do*/command* commands. For these tests i always {_group enableAttack false}. Even then your commands may be accepted but soon overuled by other lower ai behaviour directions (mostly if in combat). In the first case because of "priority" the second because of "expiration".

tpw and mrflay, many thanks for this mod. I should pm you guys soon.

Thanks for the input. You are exactly right, it's especially hard to get AI to do what you want under combat situations. I must try enableattack false in addition to the other commands I put in.

---------- Post added at 07:17 ---------- Previous post was at 06:59 ----------

Hey tpw,

I think I found a bug, but I don't know how to reproduce it. I'm playing the Stable branch, using ASR AI and the latest of your EBS, LOS, and FALL mods. In one of my test missions, I noticed that that one of the units kept his red cone even though he was no longer being suppressed and even though there were no enemy units left on the field. This meant he ended up crawling to his waypoint while his other squadmates were running. I've run this AI test several times with these mods, but it's the first time I've seen this happen.

Thanks for that. I can guarantee it's something to do with the interaction between FALL and EBS. I tried to write some checks in so that suppression/unsuppression won't affect FALLing units. Basically there is a tpw_fallstate variable for eaqch unit, which is >0 when falling or lying on the ground after a bullet hit, and which goes back to 0 afterwards. EBS won't suppress or unsuppress a unit with tpw_fallstate>0. Under very occasional circumstances it seems that a suppressed unit gets shot, but gets stuck with tpw_fallstate = 10. This means they never unsuppress. I thought I had tracked this down, but apparently not. I will look some more.

---------- Post added at 07:21 ---------- Previous post was at 07:17 ----------

I'll just start by saying: Great Work!

I was wondering whether this mod could be made to have different levels of severity based on the unit being suppressed. I know that all the units in game so far are regular troops, but it seems reasonable to me that guerillas/militia/untrained soldiers would suffer more under suppression and could possibly break down altogether (this could also happen for trained soldiers under enough stress). I feel that this would really help to make fighting regular and irregular troops quite different experiences.

Cheers skulldragon!

I already have a system such that civilians lose their shit as soon as a single bullet flies by, so can easily extend the concept based on skill level. TPWCAS has pretty much what you are describing.

[petek 62]

Hi TPW

Been having an ARMA break and good to see still working on this great addon.

Noticed a couple of things - was getting the player remaining suppressed long after engagement had ended (guessing it is in conjunction with FALL).

The grenade damage approximation seems "light". With EBS enabled no fatalities, without got a couple in the same situation (grouping, unit type etc..). Can it be "tweaked" further? Anyone else notice this?

cheers

[tpw 2315]

Hi TPW

Been having an ARMA break and good to see still working on this great addon.

Noticed a couple of things - was getting the player remaining suppressed long after engagement had ended (guessing it is in conjunction with FALL).

The grenade damage approximation seems "light". With EBS enabled no fatalities, without got a couple in the same situation (grouping, unit type etc..). Can it be "tweaked" further? Anyone else notice this?

cheers

Hi petek. If I'd written the bloody mod properly in the 1st place I wouldn't have to keep working on it...

There are deinitely still some interactions between FALL/EBS to iron out. I will check into extended player suppression ASAP.

Re grenades: in my experience they are actually slightly more damaging than vanilla. I did add a line of sight condition to them though, to prevent them working through walls and cover. I still haven't found a way to make the suppression shell admit explosion damage unfortunately.

[petek 62]

The mod is excellent! Please don't lose heart 'cos there's things to iron out - all efforts most gratefully respected. My half-arsed test was in the open - blufor rifle squad,wedge, player as individual unit at mid point of axis. toss grenade at leader.

TBH I can live with reduced splash damage for all the advantages this brings;-)

Keep on keeping on

[Guest]

New version frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

TPW Engine Based Suppression [bETA] v1.02



Community Base addons A3

===================================================

We have also "connected" these pages to your account on Armaholic.

This means in the future you will be able to maintain these pages yourself if you wish to do so. Once this new feature is ready we will contact you about it and explain how things work and what options you have.

When you have any questions already feel free to PM or email me!

Edited August 22, 2013 by Guest

[madrussian 347]

Regarding the lights going out (mentioned a couple pages back):

I tried putting suppressed units into stealth mode too, to see if that would force them into cover, but I'm not sure that was terribly successful.

There's nothing in the code that should be forcing the lights off, but it might be that the invisible shell is not letting the light out.

Something I've noticed playing a night mission in vanilla ArmA3. When I order my units into stealth mode, they turn off their lights. Thus if you put units into stealth mode via command, I imagine they would likewise turn off their lights. Could this be / have been the problem?

Also, something I'm wondering: How often do you have units taking cover? Every time they are shot at? Curious, how does this algorithm work?

Btw- Great mod! :)

[foffy 58]

I have a question, and I would like to formally apologize if it's been asked or it's too dumb. At present, is TPW EBS similar to the core experience one could sort of get with TPW CAS? Offline, of course. What are the main differences?

[grillob3 11]

Just played with it and is really nice!!!Thanks!

Will you make a MP version?

[MatzeOGH 10]

I really like the way this mod handles suppression but there are still a couple of bugs.

First of all setting tpw_ebs_playersup = 1 isn't working because you are checking for the wrong variable in init.sqf line: 9

Secondly if you are activating playersup you are not disabling the collider for "Air";

Another bug is that engaging enemies with rockets or any other form of explosives is pretty useless at least with the little bird.

If all of these shortcomings are solved this could really be something greate

[tpw 2315]

Regarding the lights going out (mentioned a couple pages back):

Something I've noticed playing a night mission in vanilla ArmA3. When I order my units into stealth mode, they turn off their lights. Thus if you put units into stealth mode via command, I imagine they would likewise turn off their lights. Could this be / have been the problem?

Also, something I'm wondering: How often do you have units taking cover? Every time they are shot at? Curious, how does this algorithm work?

Btw- Great mod! :)

Thanks MadRussian. I've checked the stealth mode thing, doesn't seem to be the cause, but thanks for the heads up. Units take cover if they are suppressed by enemy fire. Basically, if a unit is suppressed he will seek cover, but there are flags set so that the cover seeking is only invoked the once. You can look at the script version to see how it works, but basically the unit checks all objects within a 50m radius, and moves towards the nearest one that is more than 1m high.

I have a question, and I would like to formally apologize if it's been asked or it's too dumb. At present, is TPW EBS similar to the core experience one could sort of get with TPW CAS? Offline, of course. What are the main differences?

TPW EBS and TPWCAS both try to do pretty much the same thing, which is make units react to passing gunfire. The main differences are:

1 - TPWCAS is bullet centric, and scans for any units within 10m of every fired projectile. TPW EBS is AI centric, and detects bellets passing by every unit.

2 - TPWCAS uses some very very clever scripting as part of its bullet detection framework. TPW EBS uses the game engine's built in bullet collision routine, so might be a bit lighter.

3 - TPWCAS works in SP/MP/Dedi/A2/A3. TPW EBS is A3 SP only.

4 - TPWCAS is maintained by a coding genius (Ollem), TPW EBS is maintained by someone who can barely code their way out of a wet paper bag (me)

5 - TPWCAS is more mature and fully featured with regards to how AI react to suppression.

Just played with it and is really nice!!!Thanks!

Will you make a MP version?

See above. At present, TPW EBS relies on a hitpart evenhandler so that the invisible shell around each unit can register bullets. Unfortunately it only works for bullets local to the unit (A2/A3 bug). If that behaviour changes, then I can think about MP.

I really like the way this mod handles suppression but there are still a couple of bugs.

First of all setting tpw_ebs_playersup = 1 isn't working because you are checking for the wrong variable in init.sqf line: 9

Secondly if you are activating playersup you are not disabling the collider for "Air";

Another bug is that engaging enemies with rockets or any other form of explosives is pretty useless at least with the little bird.

If all of these shortcomings are solved this could really be something greate

Wow, thanks for the bug tracking! Sometimes when you stare at something for too long you start to miss obvious stuff.

As explained, the explosion handling is a bit of a workaround because the suppression shell is actually not admitting explosive damage, and I have to fudge it. I will look into the littlebird issues.

Edited August 22, 2013 by tpw

[giorgygr 61]

Hey tpw..

Is there a way the famous geo-lod you talking about to not appear as "Target" on a units valid target list?

Navigating on my subordinates "target" menu ..i see odd references.

If you are not aware of the issue -i will provide you with the "exact" reference.

(sorry i stopped gaming for today..) :/

[tpw 2315]

Hey tpw..

Is there a way the famous geo-lod you talking about to not appear as "Target" on a units valid target list?

Navigating on my subordinates "target" menu ..i see odd references.

If you are not aware of the issue -i will provide you with the "exact" reference.

(sorry i stopped gaming for today..) :/

Thanks for the heads up on that! I'm not in front of my Arma box so can't investigate. The "famous" geo-lod object is a "static" class object, maybe this needs to be changed.

EDIT: Yep, fixed it by getting the shell to inherit from the helper class. I will update with this and other changes very shortly.

Edited August 22, 2013 by tpw

[tpw 2315]

TPW EBS v1.03: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/481663/TPW_EBS_103.zip

Changes:

• Changed class of suppression shell so that "firegeom" objects no longer appear as potential targets.
  
• Fixed some config errors, and added additional config settings to toggle AI suppression and AI finding cover.
  
• Only player's suppression shell is disabled near helicopters, AI shell does not interfere.
  
• Misc code improvements.
  

Please note, you will need to update your tpw_ebs.hpp

Apart from bug fixes, the main change to this version is that you may now disable AI and player suppression effects entirely, and merely use TPW EBS to return variables so that you can write your own suppression routines. If you want units to do handstands when fired at, well now's your chance.

Work goes on to make the shell transparent to explosions.

Thanks to you all for your input, suggestions and bug tracking.

[Guest]

New version frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

TPW Engine Based Suppression [bETA] v1.03



Community Base addons A3

===================================================

We have also "connected" these pages to your account on Armaholic.

This means in the future you will be able to maintain these pages yourself if you wish to do so. Once this new feature is ready we will contact you about it and explain how things work and what options you have.

When you have any questions already feel free to PM or email me!

[petek 62]

Thanks again tpw.

As I said earlier I love this so much I can definitely live with reduced explosion damage til you come up with something.

cheers

[Takoda 10]

Thanks for continuing to improve your mod tpw, after much testing with this and other AI mods I am now using this AI mod exclusively.

[tortuosit 485]

Hi, when I shoot at someone, a green pyramid appears for a few seconds above him. Is it the tpw addon?

EDIT: Nevermind, it was because of "tpw_ebs_debug = 1", tpw pls don't forget to turn that off before distribution :D It's set to 1 in v1.03

[Javi_KT 10]

Hi TPW. Mines doesn't work with your mod. If you shoot at them yes, but if you step over them, they doesn't explode. Well done anyway. Another thing is how compatible is this mod with Zooloo's mod, fire-fight improvement system? Thanks a lot.

EDIT: They explode but doesn't hurt you. Sorry.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Javi_KT