TPW MODS: enhanced realism and immersion for Arma 3 SP.

[ebarstad 18]

It may be my imagination, but the new EBS feels like it works much better than the previous version in terms of AI behaviour and the effectiveness of suppression. I'm using EBS and FALL (plus the ambient stuff) with the latest ASR AI on the stable branch and it's incredible. The Infantry and Combined Arms scenarios feel a lot different now - the way AI advance, take cover, react to suppressive fire... Thanks so much for taking the time to redo EBS.

[tpw 2315]

No TPW, please don't :) maybe just set initial weather, but don't waste your time on weather changes: because it sucks and because you would waste a lot of valuable time...

Yeah I've been following that one, think I'll give it a miss!

Just to chime in as well as Mr_Centipede stated, I also recommend that script wins over addon in order to preserve mission maker intentions. This is the way that I have made my electrical grids simulation work in the past. There are some tricks to getting it to work correctly though such as trying to make sure the script version runs first so if a second instance is detected (the addon version) then the second is aborted. Not the only way to do it, but the easiest in my opinion. Let me know if you decide to pursue and I can share some sample code.

I might take you up on that one. I tried redoing the addon init.sqf so that each addon script was launched with a handle. The idea being that a script version could terminate the handle. For some reason the handle always returns a nul-script.

I really like this mod but I have Promlems with the Ambient sounds it brings: They seem to override any music played. So if you want to have some soundtrack for advanced athmosphere and enter a vehicle, the music will stop. Could this be fixed somehow? Or is this caused by a limitation of the game itself?

BTW: Are there options do deactivate sound-related parts of the mod? (sry for asking if this is described anywhere, but I was posting anyway^^)

It is because the car radio commands use playmusic, and playmusic only allows one music track at once. So it will override existing music. The trouble is that there is no way to attach sound to a moving vehicle. If it irks you too badly, just disable TPW_RADIO in the config.

It may be my imagination, but the new EBS feels like it works much better than the previous version in terms of AI behaviour and the effectiveness of suppression. I'm using EBS and FALL (plus the ambient stuff) with the latest ASR AI on the stable branch and it's incredible. The Infantry and Combined Arms scenarios feel a lot different now - the way AI advance, take cover, react to suppressive fire... Thanks so much for taking the time to redo EBS.

Thanks. The new EBS should be functionally identical to the old one, the only difference being how the nearby bullets are registered. That said, given all the other problems that $%^&ing shell caused, it might have also affected AI in some way. I'm glad it's been a change for the better.

[Predator.v2 10]

Are you 100% sure that all script versions work? I just used all scripts and tpw animals/cars wont work. I created gamelogics and initialized with the line from the script headers. Most scripts work, except animals and cars. I havent tested boats but i didn't hear any air vehicle neither. Civis on the way are getting spawned. I just start the "test mission" locally via the editor.

[snowingjimbob 34]

This mod is fantastic! It totally brings Altis to life. Everything works very well but I'm having trouble turning off specific mods... I go into the the userconfig folder and set the values of several mods (eg breath, boats, etc.) to "0", and then I save it and go back into the game and they're still active... I can't figure out how to disable certain ones...

Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this thus far--it really is a must have mod for Arma.

[ebarstad 18]

This mod is fantastic! It totally brings Altis to life. Everything works very well but I'm having trouble turning off specific mods... I go into the the userconfig folder and set the values of several mods (eg breath, boats, etc.) to "0", and then I save it and go back into the game and they're still active... I can't figure out how to disable certain ones...

Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this thus far--it really is a must have mod for Arma.

Did you completely exit the game or just alt+tab out? I don't think userconfig changes register unless you completely restart the game.

[tpw 2315]

Are you 100% sure that all script versions work? I just used all scripts and tpw animals/cars wont work. I created gamelogics and initialized with the line from the script headers. Most scripts work, except animals and cars. I havent tested boats but i didn't hear any air vehicle neither. Civis on the way are getting spawned. I just start the "test mission" locally via the editor.

I'm 100% sure, I do all my development and testing with the script versions, then pack them up into an addon to release. The only issue I see is that the instructions in the TPW_CARS header are missing the nocombatspawn variable:

2 - Call it with 0 = [5,1000,15,2,1] execvm "tpw_cars.sqf"; where 5 = start delay, 1000 = radius, 15 = number of waypoints, 2 = max cars, 1 = no cars spawned during combat (0 = cars spawned during combat)

I personally have all my tpw_mods scripts sitting in a scripts\tpw_mods directory in my main A3 directory, and call them all from an init.sqf in my mission directory thusly:

//TPW MODS

0 = [10,300,2] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_air.sqf";

0 = [10,15,250,75,30] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_animals.sqf";

0 = [5,0.4,0.6,0.8] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_bleedout.sqf";

0 = [5,1000,15,4] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_boats.sqf";

0 = [5,1000,15,2,1] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_cars.sqf";

0 = [5,150,15,5,4,50,0,20,15,1] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_civs.sqf";

0 = [5,10,0,500,1,1,1] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_ebs.sqf";

0 = [100,500,10,1,30] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_fall.sqf";

0 = [250,5] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_fog.sqf";

0 = [60] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_hint.sqf";

0 = [10] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_houselights.sqf";

//0 = [0,100,25,2] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_los.sqf";

0 = [60] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_radio.sqf";

0 = [] execvm "\scripts\tpw_mods\tpw_rainfx.sqf";

Edited October 7, 2013 by tpw

[snowingjimbob 34]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[neodammerung 8]

Thanks for your hard work, yet one of my favorite mod for ArmA3

May I ask if it could be possible to add a line in the userconfig file to disable heat haze since I'm getting these at night and it's quite hard to deal with shooting prone at night with no nvg and heat haze.

Otherwise I can still disable the whole FOG feature

[tpw 2315]

Thanks for your hard work, yet one of my favorite mod for ArmA3

May I ask if it could be possible to add a line in the userconfig file to disable heat haze since I'm getting these at night and it's quite hard to deal with shooting prone at night with no nvg and heat haze.

Otherwise I can still disable the whole FOG feature

No worries, I can do that. Currently it's set to show haze when the temperature is greater than 25degC. Since it can stay this hot at night, I will additionally add a condition so that you only get the haze during daytime.

[GShock 10]

Found

, which is 2 weeks old but pretty explanatory of what you get with this mod.

As a sidenote, if you play it with ww_AICover it's a complete bundle that brings the game up to a whole new level of challenge and realism.

I've tried many scenarios now and I can tell some of them are truly impossible if your AI teammates play stupid. IMO TPW+WWAICOVER is the way the game is intended to be played, especially at Elite level. WW has stuck in his progress but I see the DEV changelog has daily improvements. I'm sure he'll find a way, I think he needs to ask the devs for a new function. :)

A major difference is in the hits. In Vanilla you can hit an enemy multiple times without killing it and it looks like it shrugs off the bullets and kills you with 1 shot alone. If you play and replay the same scenario over and over (because you keep getting killed and there's seemingly no way to make 100% of right moves), you'll see the AI with these 2 mods never plays the same.

The consistent hit on FPS has got to have something to do with the CPU and not the video card. I've noticed the textures actually load slower so you see the bush ahead of you getting textured after you've reached it. Given my survival times, it could be that once all scripts are loaded this "lag" will disappear but I've taken the decision to overclock my I7 2600 (3.4ghz) to 4.2 ghz which is quite possible and safe according to many forum sources AND

link.

(EDIT: damn, P8h67-m LE doesn't seem to be overclockable! :( )

CIVs and Animals are a hell of a problem to me. Neither of them should get into a firefight... they should really run away as fast as possible from the sound source... sheep are not supposed to eat grass and wander happily while everything around them explodes and then even dogs, birds and every sound but the wind and sea waves (didn't notice that sound in the showcase mission!) should cease.

Alas, a white car with a civ on top AGAIN ran over one of my men... perhaps if the civs can't drive off (on some roads it's simply impossible) they could just get out of the car and run off on foot?

Just popped to encourage you, TPW... carry on and be patient with the guys. :)

Edited October 8, 2013 by GShock
2nd edit: Mobo overclocking

[gliptal 25]

As I already said: generally speaking, with these Mods active when I get killed I feel like it was my fault or sheer lack of luck. Without these mods, most of the times I feel like I was cheated by the enemy AI or burdened by the friendly AI.

Yay!

[tpw 2315]

TPW MODS v20131008: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/481663/TPW_MODS_20131008.zip

Changes:

[FOG 1.06] Heat haze only when not overcast, not raining, and during daylight hours.

[PARK 1.00] Ambient cars parked on the side of the road outside habitable buildings.

[CIVS 1.20] Fixed sporadic waypoint error.

Please update your tpw_mods.hpp to allow for the new TPW PARK variables

tpw_park_active = 1; // 0 = inactive

tpw_park_perc = 25; // percentage of houses with parked cars. 0 = no cars

tpw_park_createdist = 300; // cars created within this distance, completely removed past it.

tpw_park_hidedist = 150; // cars closer than this are shown, further than this are hidden

tpw_park_simdist = 20; // cars closer than this have simulation enabled

tpw_park_max = 15; // maximum cars to spawn regardless (not irregardless).

OK guys here's another significant update which I won't frontpage until it's been tested further. I've added a whole new mod to allow for parked cars. Believe me when I say this seemingly simple concept was non-trivial. Please test it out, but read the new readme before complaining too hard.

Readme:

TPW PARK - Ambient parked cars for Arma 3

Author: tpw

Requires: Community Base Addons A3

Description

-----------

This mod adds parked cars to roads near habitable houses, in a dynamic and CPU friendly way.

- Spawns parked cars within a defined radius of player.

- Cars are spawned near a defined percentage of habitable houses, up to a specified maximum.

- Cars spawn onto the side of the road, facing the correct direction.

- Cars are hidden/removed if beyond a specified distance from player.

- Cars are set enablesimulation false to minimise FPS hit. In this state they have no physics, cannot be destroyed, driven etc.

- Cars are set enablesimulation true only if player is nearby or any member of player's squad is a driver.

- Cars are spawned with random fuel.

Known issues

------------

By default vehicles chew up a lot of CPU due to their high poly count and more importantly the demands of PhysX and other aspects of their simulation. Even when not being driven, an editor placed car is hitting the CPU. Don't believe me? Place 20 empty cars in the editor and watch your FPS take a dive. TPW PARK gets around this in several ways: by only spawning cars near the player; by hiding those beyond a certain distance; and most importantly by disabling the simulation for each car unless the player or squad is actually driving it. While this approach allows for cars without a terrible FPS hit, it does have some limitations

- Vehicles will pop in occasionally. Particularly if you are driving. And of course if you teleport to a location (in which case I'm not interested in complaints about lack of realism).

- Vehicles will occasionally spawn onto a structure and explode, despite my best efforts. All spawned vehicles are monitored and removed within 0.1 sec if they register any damage.

- The default values should spawn a handful of cars around the player in a decent sized village/town. Resist the urge to dial up all the values for dense parked cars as far as the eye can see. The CPU will not thank you.

- Simulation disabled cars cannot be damaged. You can flatten a town and the cars are still shiny.

[Kommiekat 11]

Hi tpw!

Firstly, thanks for your help in this thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?165646-Radio&p=2518580#post2518580

I was wondering if you'd consider getting your Sound Mod to work with AssaultBoats/SpeedBoats, for military sounds.

I know this will be simple enough for Bluefor, but my personal interest is Opfor.

Perhaps some code that mission maker can substitute a line with an .ogg file of Persian or Chinese?

Lastly, with your code you provided in the thread up above, do you think I would be able to...say....attach a radio to a SpeedBoat, and then have some sound file going for it?

Reason I ask is now, I am working on a new mission that Player is Driver of a patrol boat (Opfor PLA unit) and the boat seems a bit unreal without Radio Talk/sound/music of sorts............

Cheers,

KK

[hajimoto 10]

@TPW - First and foremost, thank you for making such a awesome set of mods. These mods/scripts bring Altis alive.

Question:

The new release v20131008 is causing me to receive "TPW CIVS incorrect/no config, exiting." hints when loading into my previously functional mission.

I am loading the script version of CIV which is on a trigger (See Image) http://i.imgur.com/aZv7KsY.jpg (114 kB) .

Out of desperation I added the new userconfig/TPW_MODS/TPW_MODS.hpp and still receive the error.

What am I over looking?

UPDATE: Found my error, I never had the "SPAWN DURING COMBAT" variable set. Sorry for the noobness :)

I do have a new error that I am tracking through my RPT. The repeated error entry is:

Error Undefined variable in expression: tpw_ebs_active

File C:\Users\Hajimoto\Documents\Arma 3\missions\ECWC_DOMINIFICATION_V4_0V9.Altis\scripts\tpw_civs.sqf, line 426

Error in expression <_civarray,count tpw_civ_houses]};

Any help with this one TPW?

Edited October 8, 2013 by Hajimoto
Noobness realized

[Predator.v2 10]

By the way, a lot of your scripts even work on dedicated servers. Fall, Bleedout, Civs, Cars, Boats, Air, Houselights and Animals. Radio and RainFX are causing strange bugs and i can't get EBS or Fog to work.

Animal sounds don't work at the script version. Not even on single player, do you know why? Have you excluded the sound files?

[ebarstad 18]

I took a 15 minute drive around Altis to check out the new parked cars, and they seem to work great. Unlike with the previous Civilian Sites module, I didn't see any exploding cars - other than the ones the civvies themselves destroyed, of course.

Driving through Kevala, I did see a couple of the cars spawn and I did see one parked in a T-intersection (I'm pretty sure it was a parked car, not one that had been driven and abandoned), but other than that, I didn't see any bugs/glitches.

Does the parked car mod check to see if an editor placed object (man, vehicle, etc.) is in the spot where it wants to spawn?

[iceman77 18]

By the way, a lot of your scripts even work on dedicated servers. Fall, Bleedout, Civs, Cars, Boats, Air, Houselights and Animals. Radio and RainFX are causing strange bugs and i can't get EBS or Fog to work.

On that note, I was just about to ask: Will there ever be a MP version? Would it be hard for tpw to tie up possible looses ends for MP?

[kklownboy 43]

On that note, I was just about to ask: Will there ever be a MP version? Would it be hard for tpw to tie up possible looses ends for MP?

*Snarky on* Guess they dont have many books in AK, or your reading habit would be better...*snarky off*

Issues

" TPW MODS is in constant development, and you are encouraged to regularly check for updates.

As stated in the title, these are single player mods. They might or might not work in MP client, and will definitely not work on a server.

As always I welcome feedback. My mods only improve due to your input. However, input which consists of asking me why there is no proper MP or dedicated server version, without offering help in this department, improves nothing, especially my temper.

For the record: I only play SP, have little interest in playing MP, little skill in coding MP, and no ability to test it. If you desperately want a fully functioning MP version of any of my mods, and can't wait for me to make it happen, then you are welcome to grab the code and knock yourself out (see disclaimer below though)."

Too many words?

Your post is spam, like is it done yet...

[tmp95 16]

Trying to keep up with all this great modders continuous updates - I am using EBS (mainly of all these TPW mods). Has there been much change to EBS in last few updates? It is hard to keep up!

Side topic - Does it seem BIS is looking to replicate much of what EBS thankfully does and therefore EBS won't be needed in future?

[GShock 10]

Be advised of the new tweaks on road networks, TPW, it's in the dev branch changelog for today. :)

Meanwhile... I'm splitting my head on Hope for Frini mission... testing the settings with and without mod. It appears I found a good compromise which is much needed since this mobo can't allow overclocking. This mission is what I always thought real combat would be. At elite level with no cues or helps you are totally left to your own judgement and even though I almost made it... I still haven't completed it. I must have died 300 times so far. :)

What I noticed with TPW+AICOVER is that the Civs seem relatively few compared to the size of Frini (which is mostly rubble technically) but I can tweak that (I suppose) to my liking. The parked cars never spawned on a building or exploded (I didn't try to shoot them yet) but some of the places they are parked are just wrong. In the middle of the road? eheheh we may assume the CIV driver just fled when he heard the shooting.

I know I already said that, but Civs and animals should run away at the first sound of battle. Spawn in player radius but flee out of it and then disappear. The problem seems to be AI pathfinding nothing you can do about that. Civ cars sometimes seen driving in orchards just to get the hell out of battle but it's rare. Animals in the middle of a firefight is a constant instead. Hope you can do something about that.

The most notable feature when you fight so many and die in so many different situations is the fact soldiers fall down when you hit them... it's a whole lotta better than vanilla where they shrug off your bullets and boom headshot you... Yet at about 20 meters I hit one with half a clip, he fell down on a side and started shooting back immediately upon touching the ground!

When compared to the reaction times of a human... the AI seems too keen, extremely... too much, completely UBER. The mod has surely allowed an improvement because when you hit the AI you have time to hit it again when it's falling but even a hit on a limb has shock and pain effects, not just the fall and I think AI and player should be incapacitated for 5 seconds, then heavily "suppressed" for 10 more seconds and then just the damage modifiers apply. I got really pissed off when this particular soldier killed me from the ground after hitting so many times and from so close. Don't forget there's no save game for me at elite level. :)

Another thing that could help against the AI is the fact that once it sees you it doesn't need to focus. I can shoot what I see and I can't see through bushes, leaves, walls... the AI seems to do that and its aim is unforgiving. When compared to a human who can barely see anything in that foliage, let alone without zooming in. The AI seems to turn around, see, put the sights on, zoom and hit you TOO FAST at any distance. It can hit you easy at a distance you barely see it even when zooming.

The problem of multiple hits on the AI allowing it to shoot back immediately + extremely fast aiming times is a killer and I would love to see a change here to "humanize" this elite AI.

I've arrived to the point of fearing the camper AIs A LOT MORE than the reactive AI. There's nothing you can do against a camper AI if you take it head on. Even if you shoot it first, it will immediately shoot you back so the only hope is to kill it from flank or rear. They even survive close grenade blasts...

I am naturally not talking about the AI reaction times to sound/getting shot/suppressed. Just the time it takes to aim, focus and shoot so precisely is instantaneous at times and when they are wounded because you just shot them it really sucks.

... especially without game saves. :)

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

[PARK 1.00] Ambient cars parked on the side of the road outside habitable buildings.

I can't wait to try this out. Sounds PERFECT. Even the config params are as I envisioned them.

[tpw 2315]

Hi tpw!

Firstly, thanks for your help in this thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?165646-Radio&p=2518580#post2518580

I was wondering if you'd consider getting your Sound Mod to work with AssaultBoats/SpeedBoats, for military sounds.

I know this will be simple enough for Bluefor, but my personal interest is Opfor.

Perhaps some code that mission maker can substitute a line with an .ogg file of Persian or Chinese?

Lastly, with your code you provided in the thread up above, do you think I would be able to...say....attach a radio to a SpeedBoat, and then have some sound file going for it?

Reason I ask is now, I am working on a new mission that Player is Driver of a patrol boat (Opfor PLA unit) and the boat seems a bit unreal without Radio Talk/sound/music of sorts............

Cheers,

KK

Hi KK. I can easily extend the radio to cover boats as well. Actually you've got me thinking about the concept of switching radio language depending on side of the player.

[jblack9 10]

It may be my imagination, but the new EBS feels like it works much better than the previous version in terms of AI behaviour and the effectiveness of suppression. I'm using EBS and FALL (plus the ambient stuff) with the latest ASR AI on the stable branch and it's incredible. The Infantry and Combined Arms scenarios feel a lot different now - the way AI advance, take cover, react to suppressive fire... Thanks so much for taking the time to redo EBS.

Where did u download the ASR AI mod? is that from Arma 2? Is there a new version? Can u provide a Link

TPW - Yours and WW AI Mods, have completely evolved this game, please keep up the good work!

[tpw 2315]

I do have a new error that I am tracking through my RPT. The repeated error entry is:

Error Undefined variable in expression: tpw_ebs_active

File C:\Users\Hajimoto\Documents\Arma 3\missions\ECWC_DOMINIFICATION_V4_0V9.Altis\scripts\tpw_civs.sqf, line 426

Error in expression <_civarray,count tpw_civ_houses]};

Any help with this one TPW?

Thank you! I love bug reports like this. I have eliminated that error, which happened when CIVS was querying EBS before EBS had initialised.

I took a 15 minute drive around Altis to check out the new parked cars, and they seem to work great. Unlike with the previous Civilian Sites module, I didn't see any exploding cars - other than the ones the civvies themselves destroyed, of course.

Driving through Kevala, I did see a couple of the cars spawn and I did see one parked in a T-intersection (I'm pretty sure it was a parked car, not one that had been driven and abandoned), but other than that, I didn't see any bugs/glitches.

Does the parked car mod check to see if an editor placed object (man, vehicle, etc.) is in the spot where it wants to spawn?

Basically cars are spawned in the middle of a given road segment, then moved 4 m to the right to put them on the side of the road. It a road segment has another segment joined to its middle (ie a T intersection), then the spawned car will appear to be in the middle of the intersection. I'll work on this.

You will very occasionally see an exploding car. I mean very occasionally. Usually if they spawn onto something inappropriate then they are despawned immediately. The script checks if there are any other cars within 20m of the spawn position, to prevent cars spawning onto each other and exploding.

Trying to keep up with all this great modders continuous updates - I am using EBS (mainly of all these TPW mods). Has there been much change to EBS in last few updates? It is hard to keep up!

Side topic - Does it seem BIS is looking to replicate much of what EBS thankfully does and therefore EBS won't be needed in future?

Hmm. Only a complete rewrite :) EBS now uses a simplified bullet-centric detection routine instead of the increasingly faulty invisible shell around each player. I'd love for BIS to implement a suppression eventhandler, don't see it happening any time soon. OTOH, they have made other changes recently that have completely mimicked another mod of mine (LOS) and rendered it obsolete.

[ebarstad 18]

Where did u download the ASR AI mod? is that from Arma 2? Is there a new version? Can u provide a Link

You can only get the latest version via PlayWithSix or SixUpdater since Robalo hasn't uploaded a standalone version since Aug 25. Go here: http://arma-sr.bzbit.com/ Towards the top of the page, there are links to SixUpdater preset – ASR Development and PlayWithSix preset – ASR Development. You can get the latest version from one of those. I've been using an old version of PwS, which downloads ASR AI3 to a folder called servermods in the main Arma 3 folder. I just copy the @ASR_AI3 folder into the main folder with all my other mods so I can use it for SP.