[CooP] War Sandbox (Dynamic War Sandbox revamp)

[zorrobyte 30]

Greetings!

Many of you have played in Dynamic War Sandbox; at one time it filled a gap by providing Arma 3 with its first 32-64 CooP mission. I spent around a thousand hours in dev time with 27 iterations of the mission. I tried new things, I hopped around between frameworks and most importantly I learned how to code. It was always a learning project for me and surprisingly, people played it. It became more popular than I would of ever imagined. It never got quite to where I wanted it to be and between mission breaking updates and classname changes, I got rather burnt out (ALPHA/BETA after all). The last update of DWS was a day before a major patch. On the day the update was featured on Armaholic, DWS didn't work. I threw up my hands and stepped away from Arma for awhile.

I still feel there is a place in CooP for the gameplay style of DWS.

The BIG goals:

Playercount (difficulty) and server FPS sensitive (performance) enemypopulator:

AOs scale in difficulty based upon player count and adjusts based upon server FPS; to provide a challenge suited per number of players and to run smoothly on any hardware. <-THIS has been the main objective of DWS from the start. Even if I release and no one plays I hope my methods educate others in FPS sensitive script execution.

Townmanager automatic AO detection:

Scan the map for objectives and automatically assign AOs; Save the generated arrays for known maps like Altis and Stratis so you don't spend 5 minutes at the loadscreen. DWS should work regardless of MOD or map.

DONE

Config file scanning for unit types/assets:

Scan configs for enemy unit/vehicle types so AOs can be populated with enemies from any MOD and no classname changes needed between Arma patches.

Multiple FOBs/starting locations:

Oh Altis, such a massive beast. Instead of one GIANT base for everyone to grief, why not have multiple FOBs scattered about Altis? Provide the legendary TURDIS for teleportation between FOBs and allow players to respawn at any FOB they wish.

Handled by BIS stock respawn

Sane and easy file/folder structure, GOOD code commenting/documentation:

Since I release all my work under creative commons with the intention of others modifying and redistributing, layout the mission like a framework so others can easily build upon my work.

MSO style folders laid out

Parametrize EVERYTHING:

Allow server admins and users an easy method of mixing up the mission so they can play how THEY want to.

In process, constant development work

Proper mission end and reset:

DWS never really had mission end conditions, server admins would have to babysit the server and restart when all AOs were clear; it should be simple enough to restart once players nab all the bad guys.

Looking @ how F3 mission framework syncs between clients for mission end

Sidemissions:

Go to AO, blow stuff up, repeat should be mixed up with other interesting sidemissions.

May pull from Patrolops 2 repository (since I ported PO2 to A3 for private use)

Use FSMs instead of scripts were appropriate:

FSMs are very efficient for garbage collection and vehicle respawn among other tasks like ambient vehicle generation

WIP

The BIG dreams (things that may never work, will never be done or even appropriate for THIS gamemode):

Seamless client/headless client handoff of AI processing:

Expand setowner to save and transfer AI state and script execution between ALL connected clients including seamless headless client detection and handoff based upon EACH client's local FPS.

Higher level AI to send reinforcements/support to AOs in trouble with reconquering:

HETMAN/HAL comes into mind here as a higher level AI framework.

Server persistence:

The ability to stop and restart a server with all progress saved.

PvP, two teams with a common enemy:

EAST vs WEST with Independent common enemy. I feel such things would also need some sort of currency system/resources but we already have Warfare type gamemodes.

Planetside style server clustering, MMO for Arma(this may never ever work (past proof on concept) and would need a TEAM of devs with BIS involvement):

If everything is persistent then why not link together servers so a community could run a 3 server/map campaign so EAST can fight WEST across 3 maps/servers? EAST server 1, WEST server 3 and neutral server 2. Players could defeat and build up their "homeworld" then go onto PvP/PvE on server 2 with the winner being whichever team conquerors all 3 servers. This is and always has been my ultimate goal and what drives me to learn coding for Arma; one can dream I suppose.

WIP

War Sandbox is in the planning stages. I have a Jira/Confluence/Bitbucket to set up and I plan to release only when WS is ready (no more frequent and confusing versions released every 3 days for my and your own sanity).

Edited November 19, 2013 by zorrobyte

[Furret 0]

Glad to see you're back, looking forward to your work.

What's your opinion of the 'Alive' framework?

[lkincheloe 12]

I wondered where you ran off to...

[zorrobyte 30]

I have made much progress in War Sandbox development with several experimental features in the works.

Currently I have Group Link 4 working as a module (script, no addon required) in A3 in harmony with my heavily edited EOS (USPS, SHK, UPS patrol options). I'm still fine tuning GL4 and EOS, stripping out unneeded functionality but so far the AI react very intelligently; AI call mortar strikes, airstrikes, search houses, call reinforcements, etc which I believe will be a cornerstone of WS.

I have tweaked and fixed VVS for WS, added VAS etc.

PM me for repo URL or if you are interested in becoming a WS dev.

In the meantime, check out Kinch's Resistance mission; some WS tweaks have made it in.

Edited November 19, 2013 by zorrobyte

[kremator 1065]

Ahhh good old GL4 ... wonderful news mate ! Possibility of releasing it as a standalone mod ?

[tonic-_- 53]

I've been waiting for this ;)

[quatsch 10]

Wow a thousand hours!! Man you crazy! What as most of that time doing? Can we expect some crazy scripting :cool:

I noticed in your original thread you were mso developer, you working on alive? is alive in this mission, when will be release?

Can you PM me url to mission, im no good at scripting but can help be tester if you need.

[zorrobyte 30]

War Sandbox is not dead, just being worked on as I have time. Release when I feel it is ready to rock and roll with the big leagues.

In the olden days, MSO was a framework in which to build other missions. I'm not sure when that changed but I didn't get the memo as I released DWS on MSO framework, I credited MSO dev team, provided links, etc per Apache licence of MSO then ported back improvements to MSO repo. At some point there was a massive miscommunication that led to threats and belligerence. I get it now, years of work in MSO and yet some noob dev comes along, "throws some scripts on top" and it becomes a relative hit. I may of been upset as well if it was my project. I however refute the dismissal of the time I invested into DWS, it has a good amount of my own sweat into it; chalk it up to my then inexperience with scripting if you must.

Edited March 26, 2014 by zorrobyte