[SP/MP] BeCTI

[jtareb1 0]

What is a good alternative ai for BECTI? I can use ASR but would like to use VCOM but it stops responding after taking the first objective. 

[jtareb1 0]

And has anyone used GAIA from MCC Sandbox as an alternative ai?

[TPM_Aus 137]

What is the most current BECTI or just BECTI style mission available?

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

There is not such a version that works as originally designed.

[jtareb1 0]

6 hours ago, TPM_Aus said:

What is the most current BECTI or just BECTI style mission available?

 

There are the ProjectBecti missions by Fisher and the OFPS missions and if you like CUP there are several by TheCapulet. There are others on Steam but watch the updates...most are not up to date.

 

ProjectBecti missions are available from Fisher off GitHub for you to tinker with. Just give him and Benny credit if you publish anything.

OFPS is private but apparently kept up to date very well.

 

The biggest problem(s) you run into are that many of the BECTI missions on steam have never been updated since their release and the slow pace that RHS is moving.

And that BECTI has been passed by other Game overhauls like ALive and MCC Sandbox. Still fun to play with though.

[TPM_Aus 137]

Thanks jtareb1.  I have been looking for a while and like you said, most are out of date.  I did find couple you have mentioned:

• ProjectBECTI Last updated July 2017
• Modification of BECTI made by zerty for the JMW Arma 3 server Updated about 2 weeks ago.

[kremator 1065]

All I want is a capable AI commander and recruitable AI and I wil be happy!

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

On 28.3.2018 at 6:37 PM, The Man Without Qualities said:

 

I am not aware that Benny was able to bring his AIcomm and AIsquad functionality back to service nor do I know that OFPS is willing at all to host missions with those old-school CTI features like AIcomm and AIsquadleader.

If such a mission would be up, I would co-finance hosting. ATM there is nothing worth hosting.

OFPS Mission is suffering due to those missing AI routines since hours long battles suddenly turn due to leaving players and unbalanced teams.

And yes: I am one of those hasty quitters when my wife is shouting that there is something more interesting to do.

Would be cool if an AI would take over as in old-school CTI.

 

Good that I can qoute myself :-)

 

So if anybody is stumbling over a CTI with following WORKING features:

 

- 3 factions

- full AI commanders for 2 sides

- AI squad leaders

- selectable amount of AI squads

- selectable amount of AI squads that can be played by humans

- AI routine "transport duty" for AI squads

- AI routine "take towns" for AI squads

- AI routine "S&D" for AI squads

- AI routine "Patrol (waypoints/area)" for AI squads

- AI routine "Guard (WP/unit)" for AI squads

- AI routine "rearm if xx% of any ammo type is reached if an asset marked as rearm capable is in xx m range" for AI

- AI routine "refuel if xx% of fuel is reached if an asset marked as refuel capable is in xx m range" for AI

- AI routine "heal if xx% of health is reached if an asset marked as heal point is in xx m range" for AI

- tons more....

 

...then PLEASE send me a PM!

 

THEN we would have the functional set of what we had WORKING in OFP - currently I am not aware of any CTI supporting at least this.

 

Would say crCTI was more or less the top of AI support we ever had.

 

OFPS is pretty mature, but devs are not so much behind getting independant AI routines back to work.

And there is the tendency of adding more features rather then getting existing bug-free.

[jtareb1 0]

On ‎6‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 4:34 PM, TPM_Aus said:

Thanks jtareb1.  I have been looking for a while and like you said, most are out of date.  I did find couple you have mentioned:

• ProjectBECTI Last updated July 2017
• Modification of BECTI made by zerty for the JMW Arma 3 server Updated about 2 weeks ago.

The nice thing about Project BECTI is that Fisher allows you to download the master off GitHub so you can mod it yourself....maps, factions etc. 

 

[jtareb1 0]

On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 11:38 AM, The Man Without Qualities said:

 

Good that I can qoute myself :-)

 

So if anybody is stumbling over a CTI with following WORKING features:

 

- 3 factions

- full AI commanders for 2 sides

- AI squad leaders

- selectable amount of AI squads

- selectable amount of AI squads that can be played by humans

- AI routine "transport duty" for AI squads

- AI routine "take towns" for AI squads

- AI routine "S&D" for AI squads

- AI routine "Patrol (waypoints/area)" for AI squads

- AI routine "Guard (WP/unit)" for AI squads

- AI routine "rearm if xx% of any ammo type is reached if an asset marked as rearm capable is in xx m range" for AI

- AI routine "refuel if xx% of fuel is reached if an asset marked as refuel capable is in xx m range" for AI

- AI routine "heal if xx% of health is reached if an asset marked as heal point is in xx m range" for AI

- tons more....

 

...then PLEASE send me a PM!

 

THEN we would have the functional set of what we had WORKING in OFP - currently I am not aware of any CTI supporting at least this.

 

Would say crCTI was more or less the top of AI support we ever had.

 

OFPS is pretty mature, but devs are not so much behind getting independant AI routines back to work.

And there is the tendency of adding more features rather then getting existing bug-free.

 

I have had good success with running Advanced AI Command and ASR AI with BECTI missions. AAC allows you to order AI squads around via the normal map and not the CTI commanders map. It also allows you to alter a AI squads stance which is very helpful in getting squads out of combat/danger mode when no enemies are around. 

 

ASR AI has a nice rearming ability...you can actually hear squads tell team members to rearm. Check it out here.

However I just played awhile and used Zeus editor to check out how the AI was doing and it was bonkers..units going all over the place....do not know if it was ASR or if that is typical. 

 

 

VCOMM has some conflicts with the CTI AI. Units stop responding after the first objective. I reported it and they are looking into it.

 

GAIA holds a lot of promise, I just have not had the time to dig into it. You can either download GAIA separately or just download the entire MCC sandbox where you can build a cti type mission in their environment.

 

All of these are assists/alternate AI routines that work over the existing cti ai. I do not know of anyone working on improving the original. 

 

ALive holds the most promise for building a cti style mission with an up to date AI IMO and it does not take long to get a feel on how to build missions. 

 

[kremator 1065]

Thanks @jtareb1, but we know about AI modifications.  What we are asking is for AI capable commanders that will do the attacking/defending/building etc.

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

11 hours ago, kremator said:

Thanks @jtareb1, but we know about AI modifications.  What we are asking is for AI capable commanders that will do the attacking/defending/building etc.

 

Could it be that the majority of the younger community is not aware that it ever existed before?

That you could watch AI commanded armies battling each other (and join at any time any side)?

So even here we have the evidence that mankind is loosing knowledge over time :-) .

[Freddo3000 74]

On 2018-06-16 at 5:38 PM, The Man Without Qualities said:

 

Good that I can qoute myself :-)

 

So if anybody is stumbling over a CTI with following WORKING features:

 

- 3 factions

- full AI commanders for 2 sides

- AI squad leaders

- selectable amount of AI squads

- selectable amount of AI squads that can be played by humans

- AI routine "transport duty" for AI squads

- AI routine "take towns" for AI squads

- AI routine "S&D" for AI squads

- AI routine "Patrol (waypoints/area)" for AI squads

- AI routine "Guard (WP/unit)" for AI squads

- AI routine "rearm if xx% of any ammo type is reached if an asset marked as rearm capable is in xx m range" for AI

- AI routine "refuel if xx% of fuel is reached if an asset marked as refuel capable is in xx m range" for AI

- AI routine "heal if xx% of health is reached if an asset marked as heal point is in xx m range" for AI

- tons more....

 

...then PLEASE send me a PM!

 

THEN we would have the functional set of what we had WORKING in OFP - currently I am not aware of any CTI supporting at least this.

 

Would say crCTI was more or less the top of AI support we ever had.

 

OFPS is pretty mature, but devs are not so much behind getting independant AI routines back to work.

And there is the tendency of adding more features rather then getting existing bug-free.

 

Have a look into these

https://forums.bohemia.net/showthread.php?181415-SP-HETMAN-War-Stories

 

 

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

6 hours ago, Freddo3000 said:

 

Have a look into these

https://forums.bohemia.net/showthread.php?181415-SP-HETMAN-War-Stories

 

 

 

Already from design it does not even come close.

[johansen_never 11]

After lotta hours playing BECTI i almost achieved  to have a half good ai commander behaviour (on the enemy side of course)

1. Map, its important to avoid mountains bettween the two bases, ai seems to do not recognize roads, most with tanks, i like Malden 2035 for example. 

2. AI size teams, i suggest around 20 units, that way at least half of them will reach the fight (set all slots and bettween 6 and 8 enemy teams).

Set 20 units for your side and get rid of ai units, most time they cant even reach a town.

3. Most important setting IMO is to set Divided Towns, money will flow to the Ai and probably they will make a decent fight.

4. I added better AA squads to make their base more hard to hit by planes.

 

All this just trying to revive OFP cti missions xD.

 

[froggyluv 2135]

16 minutes ago, johansen_never said:

Malden

 

 How did you get CTI on Malden? Did you just open up the Altis mission and move around the zillion or so markers? Any chance for an upload?

[johansen_never 11]

Sure, i ported it to Malden 2035 but didn't like the AI behaviour, tanks cant keep moving on roads without crashing with buildings, so just ported it to CUP -CWA Malden Map. Our custom missions are published by Lucas on the workshop.

Will test it tonight and if everything works good will try to publish.

 

PS. recently we published IFA3 AIO LITE version of BECTI WW2 on Sahrani map, you can test it with the Divided Towns and 20 AI units Size

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1480286531

[Varis 34]

Hi guys, new player to BECTI though I did play EUTW/CTI a little bit a year ago. What I gather from the BECTI scene, there's just a small handful of MP servers running, each with a separate developer community around it, plus some versions popping up every now and then with a focus of getting SP/AI feature y working on map/mod x. Or is private MP servers/events also an important part of the community? 

[The Man Without Qualities 110]

Ask AngryInsects if you seek for some cool CTI-MP experience. Or maybe OFPS guys. Just few servers up since it is hard to keep the mission logic itself functioning over time.

[bigshot 64]

On 6/16/2018 at 8:17 AM, kremator said:

All I want is a capable AI commander and recruitable AI and I wil be happy!

 

Heh, yea... such a shame that BIS left for dead the previous Warfare/CTI missions from their franchise. Those were the days <sigh>.

 

I still keep my DUWS coop mission up to date... and in fact these days it contains a bunch of new features including camps on the outskirts of enemy territories which can be captured and used as armories and respawn points (as long as the enemy AI doesn't capture them back :-)). Sort of how it used to be in the Warfare/CTI missions back in the day.

[Varis 34]

Zerty's Mod has been picking up steam lately and there's some exciting features on the roadmap. Could be a good foundation to build on since the code is available and everything.

 

FWIW I started a semi-independent experiment on BECTI/Zerty gameplay. The aspirations for now are:

A) Bring air units more strongly into the meta

B) More focused gameplay and intensive teamplay

C) More fast moving mission, eliminating uninteresting slack/downtime

 

[Varis 34]

The first version under the project label "BECTI-DYN" is provided in the hopes that curious souls can provide some early feedback on key concepts and approach. This is a development version of the code and actually running it is probably not much fun. Treat it as a prototype. There may be some bugs. You have been warned.

 

There have been some technical hurdles in the last few days and the planned playtesting sessions have not taken place, sorry for that guys. Code changes have been mushrooming and I notice the project should take a more rigorous software engineering approach from now on. I need to eliminate some technical debt and talk with various project stakeholders before I can press forward with the roadmap. 

 

While the long term aspiration of BECTI-DYN is to search for and to provide value to potential CTI enthusiasts, there are a lot of changes marked EXPERIMENTAL, which are either used to facilitate testing the software or are a form of taking experimental liberties, without the intention that anything similar would actually be pushed into production versions of the software.

 

Special note: The 10x price reduction on attack helicopters (kajman and blackfoot) is there to facilitate the adoption of these platforms for junior pilots and to focus testing on these units and their impact on the meta. Expect this to be changed into something more sensible in the near future.

 

Source download:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3aqpwxgfr6d0v31/pre5-breakage-okish-varis-becti-0.97.altis.7z?dl=0

Edited September 28, 2018 by Varis
Code update

[jus61 54]

what's different about your version? 

[Varis 34]

On ‎23‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 9:43 AM, jus61 said:

what's different about your version? 

 

Air research is worked into a 4-step branch instead of just 1 step. This allows rocket helicopters early into the game, also UAV comes more in the mid-game, while the heavier stuff requires more time and money than in the mainline version. I have a pretty solid vision WRT helicopters but jets and UAV will probably get reworked a bit. I initially thought level 2 would be "light jets + UAV" but we don't seem to have much in the way of light jets - most jets in the game are actually pretty powerful. With UAV the Zertymod community has seen quite a bit of breakage in the meta so they may require additional thought as well. As always this is a Work In Progress and isn't even implemented for OPFOR yet because it will change based on feedback etc. But this could be a straightforward improvement even in the Zertymod mainline as it allows low-tier air units into the game.

 

There is some work in air unit pricing but more essential in my mind are changes on the AA side. AA threats need to be reduced - one idea is that teams would need to maintain stratified Air Defense Networks (ie. various tiers of AA units active to counter various tiers of threats that are operational or coming with the enemy's next step of research) - so this would take more money and effort than currently. However I would like to provide a larger selection of AA units and technology - there would be a cannon-only AA tank and the AA nyx has been made available in the main heavy factory tree - its powerful AA missiles are required to counter UAV/jet threats in Zertymod. It's very difficult to add new vehicles without requiring players to install any mods.

 

More effective air can make the game balance volatile because the better team could leverage their economic advantage with aggressive use of air. Also I'd like a faster escalation into the mid game as it's where BECTI/Zertymod seems to shine. There are some tweaks currently - eg. a less dramatic effect from town occupation while denying income in enemy towns remains a possible strategy even in the late game - but some of the issues can probably be addressed by just changing the server parameters that are already available in the mainline code. A number of defaults and options are changed just to better facilitate testing (ATM want to get attack helicopters in the air quickly etc).

 

There is a new marker for the priority town/priority zone (also one for town activation zone). There is a +10% bonus on all rewards (kills and captures) when the player is in this zone. The mainline just implemented what they call dynamic tasks which could offer better functionality - I haven't yet had the time to check out what they do in practice. Also this functionality created much of the breakage I think, so I might remove the priority zone from my codebase but add the bonus mechanisms later if needed. 

 

In the current dev version some vehicles such as marid and qi-lin are added to the flag shops in towns. This allows more intense frontline action but could be also used to bring less used vehicles into the meta. Another idea is creating different player teams - ones with a high AI cap like currently and ones with a much lower cap (eg. 2 or 4 AI units) but which would have various bonuses. This would allow marketing the mode to players currently outside of the CTI playerbase as the gameplay would be slightly closer to what they have currently and the learning curve would be a bit reduced. Probably they are not so interested in AI commanding or the strategic aspect - but a BECTI environment provides plenty of accessible combined arms action as well, possibly more than any other mode I've seen in ARMA3. If the project gets really serious this could be a necessary approach since it allows creating of a new meaningful playerbase. However there are several different options in implementing this feature and probably we already have some CTI modes which have taken this approach?

 

There is a good bunch of other experimentation, in quality of life things, AI, documentation updates etc. These are fairly minor in the large picture and often just of a temporary nature. The ~full changelog is included in the files (and ingame), together with some of the main known bugs.

 

I'm currently reorganizing and it might take a couple of weeks before I have something sensible up in GitHub for curious souls to actually try out. Would be happy to read your thoughts in the meanwhile 

[Varis 34]

Updated the source code link above to a slightly more fixed version in case somebody actually wants to run it. Tested it for a short bit as blufor, fewer issues though the reward for town capture was broken so remember to set some extra funds All the interesting code is currently in Dropbox.

 

GitHub now has a source tree + Kanban board + project which may be informative down the road (obviously not everything will be recorded in issues). At the moment the sources in GitHub are just the baseline from Zerty's mod. Code from the master branch is always supposed to be semi-stable and if you don't have deep software engineering skills is probably what you want. Development work would happen in the three other branches.

 

https://github.com/VarisA3/BECTI-DYN