Support Call V2 (Universal mission customizer)

[kronzky 5]

As it seems like Arma missions are getting more and more restrictive (locked vehicles, "forbidden" map areas, tight time limits), I figured my "Support Call" module was needed more than ever before, so I gave it a major overhaul, and V2 of it is now available at my site: http://kronzky.info/addons/supportcall

After all, the thing we probably all loved about OFP & Arma was its unrestricted freedom — to do whatever you want in a mission, and to try as many different strategies as you could think of, without being shackled by artificial restrictions placed by the engine or mission designer.

This addon tries to give you back those freedoms.

See a vehicle on the map that you think could come in handy (but is, for whatever reason, locked)? Just walk up to it, and unlock it!

Are you being sent on an assassination mission, but your only gun in an M4? Request a proper sniper rifle!

Want to play the mission at night? In the rain? At your speed, without being rushed? As an undercover agent?

All that (and much more) you can do once this addon is installed, hopefully increasing the fun and replay value of missions you've already done many times in the "proper" way...

For those of you already familiar with the previous version, here's what's new and improved:

• Overhauled interface, to allow instant access to the different sections (for when every second counts).
  
• You can now switch into enemy uniforms, and play "undercover".
  
• Restricted zones (that drop bombs on you as soon as you enter) can be disabled.
  
• If you're alone in the mission, you can request one team-mate to be air-dropped.
  
• OPFOR skills can be adjusted (to make their shooting a bit less bot-like).
  

Here's the full list of features (overall there are about 50 functions to help you take back control):

• Air-drop vehicles, weapons, magazines
  
  • Any equipment available to your side can be air-dropped.
    
  • Drops can be done at your location, or at any place you specify.
    
  • Special equipment added by expansions or mods is available as well.
    

  [*]Switch Uniforms

  • Change to a different unit type (either keeping the current equipment, or using the new type's default loadout).
    
  • Switch to an enemy uniform for "undercover" missions.
    

  [*]Manage Units

  • Team members can be healed, independently from the player's equipment.
    
  • Player's group members can be totally immobilized, keeping them from moving or firing.
    
  • Player can leave (and re-join) his current group, or become its leader.
    
  • Recruit soldiers present in the mission, to join your own group.
    
  • Vehicles for AI group members can be locked/unlocked.
    
  • AI units stuck on obstacles can be freed.
    
  • AI radio communications can be disabled.
    
  • If alone on the map, one additional group member can be requested.
    

  [*]Request Intel

  • Receive information about troop location and strength.
    
  • The origin of incoming shots can be displayed on a grid.
    
  • Enemy AI skills can be adjusted.
    
  • Video feeds for existing UAVs can be viewed from anywhere on the map.
    
  • If no UAV exists yet, you can launch your own.
    

  [*]Environment

  • Mission time can be forwarded up to 12 hours, to your favorite time of day to tackle the mission at.
    
  • Weather settings can be set independently for overcast, fog, wind and rain.
    
  • Restricted zones (that kill the player upon entering) can be disabled.
    

  [*]Other assistance

  • If you or your vehicle are stuck in the terrain, this will pull (or push) you out of there.
    
  • Any vehicle in the mission can be unlocked, even the one the player might be locked into.
    
  • Vehicles that have flipped over on the terrain, can be put back on their wheels.
    
  • Even totally destroyed vehicles can be recovered.
    
  • If an AI medic isn't coming as he's supposed to, the player can heal himself.
    
  • Post-processing effects (e.g. blurriness, color filters) can be disabled.
    
  • Mission can be ended (and marked successful) at any point. This will allow continuing on to the next campaign mission, and will keep it successful status upon restarts.
    
  • Allows you to play for as long as you want, even if the mission has a deadline.
    
  • Create a game restore point at any time during the mission.
    
  • Opens debug console to execute script commands directly.
    

Some screenshots, showing the different sections available:

Vehicle drops:

Intel (OPFOR info):

Restricted zone removal:

[cub1 11]

Thank you Kronzky.

Was just playing with your old version of this mod combined with the Firefight Improvement System and was using the recruit nearest soldier option to keep my squad together when they all panic and leave the group.

Gonna try new version now....

[kronzky 5]

Here are two examples of what can be done to some of the missions of the official "Survive" campaign:

Patrol

Here you have a 15 minute time limit that allows you to barely get out of the immediate camp area. In addition there are restricted zones all over the map, that will kill you with magical air-strikes, as soon as you step into them.

The funny thing is, this mission has one of the most populated maps of the whole campaign — you just never see it...

There are over 200 OPFORs on the map, some single, some in groups, some in larger clusters. Some stationary, some moving. And some on foot, and others in vehicles. So it looks like quite a challenge. But with the time and area limitations you can barely scratch the surface.

So — once you remove both with the Support Call module, you should have quite a challenge at your hands, which will probably take you longer to finish than the whole campaign did before!

Radio Silence

Here's a very different approach, using many of the Support Call options, just as a demonstration of what's possible, when you want to get creative:

• Once you exist your shuttle vehicle, leave your group behind (Manage Group | Leave player group)
  
• Unlock the vehicle, and get in as driver (Other assistance | Unlock vehicle)
  
• Drive closer to the target area, until you're out of sight of either your or the opposite teams.
  
• Exit the vehicle, and change into an Independent's Engineer uniform.
  
• Walk up to the guard towers, and place some explosives.
  
• Unlock one of the OPFOR vehicles, and drive back to your team.
  
• Blow up the towers.
  
• Before getting too close to your group, change back into a BLUFOR uniform.
  
• Re-join the group, and continue.
  

Have fun, and get creative! ;)

[ratnl 27]

Could it be possible to have the request ammo options in a mp session?

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[kronzky 5]

All of these functions ONLY work in Single Player (for obvious reasons), so — the answer is No...

[ratnl 27]

Ok

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[Make Love Not War 10]

Kronzky, many thanks for this addon. Some very cool stuff. One important note, however, in your support script in the "assist" category you have:

case "savegame": {
   saveGame;
};

This doesn't work in missions - such as those found in the official campaign - that have executed:

enableSaving [false, false];

as that disables even the autosaves. After changing to:

case "savegame": {
   enableSaving true;
   saveGame;
};

your script works like a charm (much to the chagrin of zipper5, I'm sure).

[old_painless 182]

Godsent, Kronzky, cheers! Can I ask how you would remove the time and area limitations from Patrol (your example above) - this was not possible with the old version or ?

-OP

[bohicafool 12]

Great work! But can you change the soldier reinforcement option from one to as many as the player needs. This would really help a lot of my missions:)

[Alpha-Kilo 36]

I tried Supportcall with the infantry showcase mission. It was great to take command of the squad and change the course of the mission a bit. I also changed the time of the mission so that I had the sun in my back, and I tried some of the other features. It's good to be able to have control of missions and I like playing missions again with slightly changed conditions. Thank you very much for sharing it!

Some ideas/suggestions:

- Could you pause the mission when Supportcall is opened? This would make it easier to choose from the many available options and items.

- It seems that items which are sent to the player disappear from the list. Could you allow repeated requests for the same item if the player needs more of if he teamswitches into another character?

- In the infantry showcase mission I did not find any Opfor uniforms. Just a multitude of Blufor uniforms was available in Supportcall. Did I make a mistake or are enemy uniforms disabled in this mission for some reason?

[kronzky 5]

@Make Love Not War: Thanks for the tip. I'll definitely include that in the next build! In the meantime I guess you could execute the enableSaving command via the debug console.

@Old_Painless: If a mission has zone restrictions, an appropriate action will show up in the "Environment" section (with a map showing the locked area). If there are no restricted zones, then no action is visible.

To disable the time limit, select "Extend deadline" from the "Other Assistance" menu (the toolbox).

@bohicafool: It took me over a year, to actually implement ONE support unit. In order to convince me to add an infinite amount of support, you'd have to give me some better arguments than "This would really help"... ;)

@Alpha-Kilo: If you're under fire when opening the dialog, then it's probably too late already. So, yeah, that's on purpose that you can't just turn off the enemy when it becomes too much...

The reason why you can only select an item once, is so you use it with "care", and not just use up equipment like it's free... (It should also still be on the map somewhere, even if you switch teams, so I don't really know why that should be an issue.)

Keep in mind — the reason I wrote this addon was to allow you to experience different challenges — not to take them away altogether!

As far as not being able to select OPFOR uniforms — I suspect you probably have some team-members? In that case you cannot change sides. When I experimented with side switching things quickly got out of control if you had team-members (and no, just switching the whole group didn't solve the problems - that just created different ones), so I had to restrict side changes to ungrouped players.

Edited November 14, 2013 by Kronzky

[JustCallMeJacob 10]

Can't use this in my mission when I'm playing by myself. None of your directions worked (ie nul=createDialog "KRON_SupportCall_Dlg"). I am already using a ModFolder.... nothing is in my pause menu. Could you provide more user-friendly instructions? I'd love to use this on BangBob's insurgency mission for when I play alone.

Edited November 19, 2013 by JustCallMeJacob

[marqs 10]

Really love this!

Two questions:

A) Why can i use every vehicle just once? That doesn't make sense to me! Any way to change that? EDIT: Sorry just read your answers above. Okey i can live with that but i would like to be able to spawn a vehicle more then once..

B) In an older version the vehicle/weapon/etc instantly spawned near to me. No with the new version, first i hear a strange sound, then it takes a veeery long time until the parachute comes down. I also got killed once because of this. Any way to change that back to spawning just in front of me?

Edited November 19, 2013 by marqs

[old_painless 182]

marqs, there was a wait for the support to drop in A2 as well. I remember having to seek out a good safe place for the drop

But as for A) I think that constraint (one drop only) is new in the A3 version ? IIRC you could order a mortar several times during a mission

-OP

[marqs 10]

Never used it in A2. I can live with that but i don't understand why the support spawned directly in front of me the version before.

For me a vehicle (also mortar) disappears in the list if i spawned it once. Things like heal player can be used unlimited.

[gforce77 10]

I have 2 issues about the support call Is it just me or is there others who have the same problem

1- when I start the game the player always goes forward and i cant stop him unless I crouch or on prone position

2- some of the enemy soldiers cant be killed even if i hit them with 100 round please help

[Gary 10]

I can't get explosive charges?

[lovemotion 10]

The helicopter don't spawn.

And in my opinion its better to get the things near the player and not by parachute... so many times i have to search a long time to find it.

About to " experience different challenges — not to take them away altogether! ", you gives the tools ...its the player call.

Although it's a great mod! Waiting another update!

[setlec 2]

@Kronzky: in a previous version we could get items such as GPS, medpack and etc... the latest version doesn't offer those. Is there any way to reimplement those? also is it possible to add silencers, scope?

Cheers

Edited February 3, 2014 by Setlec

[Ekku Zakku 10]

I was playing the campaign and called in an NVG drop, and inside the crate was an item named NV Goggles, but it had no icon and went in the binoculars slot. Seems like the wrong item.

EDIT: found this thread, explains the problem: http://www.armaholic.com/forums.php?m=posts&q=20950

EDIT 2: unpacked the PBO and changed the dropit.sqf script:

case "cfgweapons": {
	_obj = createVehicle [(SUPPLYBOX select 0) select _side, _landPos, [], 1, "NONE"];
	clearMagazineCargo _obj; clearWeaponCargo _obj; clearItemCargo _obj;
	{
		_obj addWeaponCargo [_x,1];
		[i]_obj addItemCargo [_x,1];[/i] // <--------------- added this, I'm sure there are some ways to run this line instead of addWeaponCargo in the case of items.
	}forEach _itemclass;
	_magazines = [_itemclass] call _getMagazines;
	{			
		_obj addMagazineCargo[_x,6];
	}forEach _magazines;
};

That dropped the two different versions of the NVGs, one that doesn't work and the one that does. It doesn't seem to affect weapons, but I only tested one. It dropped two of the same weapon, and they both functioned normally.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Ekku Zakku

[taro8 806]

Hey Kron!

Im glad you ported your mod to A3. I would like to ask if you could add Paper doll script to other assistance. Also getting the option to paradrop some units would be cool it would allow you to make them join your group with group management tool. it would make Scouting segments of Adapt campaign less of a pain in the ass.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Taro8

[Brutal500 10]

Radio Silence

Here's a very different approach, using many of the Support Call options, just as a demonstration of what's possible, when you want to get creative:

Once you exist your shuttle vehicle, leave your group behind (Manage Group | Leave player group)

Unlock the vehicle, and get in as driver (Other assistance | Unlock vehicle)

Drive closer to the target area, until you're out of sight of either your or the opposite teams.

Exit the vehicle, and change into an Independent's Engineer uniform.

Walk up to the guard towers, and place some explosives.

Unlock one of the OPFOR vehicles, and drive back to your team.

Blow up the towers.

Before getting too close to your group, change back into a BLUFOR uniform.

Re-join the group, and continue.

Brilliant Kron !

Love this mod and wanted to ask if you have consider adding in or just open the vehicle part to all the vehicles currently for your faction, so i can spawn in vehicles from other mods ?

and also Any ETA on the next update ?

[pd3 25]

Is there any way to do outfit changes without breaking the mission itself?

[HeNeArKrXeRn 10]

Hi, I just found this mod and I love it, gives so much freedom and replayability to a bunch of missions! thanks!

However there is one thing that's bothering me. When playing as OPFOR, I cant use UAVs because they spawn as Bluefor. For example I paradrop or launch a quadcopter UAV, but as soon as it appears the AI squadmates shoot at it. Worse even, if it survives, there is no way I can access it via a the terminal since it's an ''enemy UAV''. Any way this could be fixed? Same thing for the plane drone, it spawns as Bluefor

[liamthom 10]

What would it take to make this work in local hosted servers?