[SP] Pilgrimage

[Rydygier 1317]

I am being offered to buy info about enemy positions. I am in the extreme NW of the island, and the enemy position is in the opposite corner. Question: is the position fixed in time, or will they move in an hour or so, so I should reload the game in these occasions?

This info is about enemy presence at given time (someone at certain hour saw some soldiers there and is selling that info). So it will be not updated. In most cases however this isn't important anyway, as most enemy groups not going far from designated patrol area. There are few exceptions though.

to get rid of a haze, wait till the rain stops, wait for night time or morning etc. Maybe a "wait 1 hour" option with a skiptime in the radio menu?

Haze should be gone in the first 0.5 hour. If this is too long - well. That mission needs much more patience than for half of hour. :) And it is only at the ground, is enough to go higher to get rid of it. Chance for rain will drop in this time too to the minimal value, however this minimal chance is kept all the time. All this off course if you not use weather mods, like some of TPW features. As for rest - I decided to not add such "artificial" waiting. Hideout rest IMO is enough and is better also because is needed some effort to obtain a hideout with all features it gives. Enabling this by default will be against my "policy" to motivate player to actions by certain rewards. If you have something for free, you do not respect nor appreciate this as much, while obtaining own hideout gives more satisfaction. To find a camp best is search most "wild" areas covered by forests, as there is easiest to actually hide something. Much easier, when you play with Blastcore, as this mod adds visible from far smoke to the fireplaces. Player will be also from time to time notified like "you sense smell of the smoke from the south" or similar way about near enemies. Also depends on your starting point. Best chance to find hidden camp fast is obviously in NW part of the map. There should be 24 hidden camps on Altis. Usually about half of this number is in NW part of Altis. Each you can make your hideout.

I am very upset but the stock Arma3 vehicle capacities.

I am too. The only way to change that you named - find, make or request addon that will enhance trunk capacity for every vehicle bigger than small civilian car. Such addon may be time consuming, as there are many classes to update, but rather not very complex and I think, many addon makers around are capable to create it. I'm capable too probably, but as said - it may be time consuming, and I'm busy with scripting new goodies. It is about plain altering of certain config entries, I believe. Otherwise we can only wait until BIS deems appropriate to take care of that.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Rydygier

[Alpha-Kilo 36]

Rudygier,

I have to say again that I like this mission and I don't really mind many fresh starts after game updates or new versions of the mission even if it means to sacrifice the progress made up to this point. (But I do understand the frustration of those who have just a few more places to visit when they have to start over.)

I wonder if you have considered something like controlled randomness for your mission. Could you spawn loot in logigal, believable places (usable cars near petrol stations, food in private homes and shops, military equipment in the many outposts, boats in the harbours or near buildings close to the sea, etc.? This would enable the player to think about where to go to look for something he wants instead of inspecting each and every box simply because it is there. A few completely randomized loot spots would be good to represent the element of sheer luck and it would keep the curious players interested.

Intel could also be distributed in a somewhat believable way: So soldiers who are far from the place where the brother died might never have heard about the incident and thus have not much substantial intel about it - apart from a few rumours, maybe. If the player is coming closer, the info would become more useful, more precise. But if he thinks that the area is not right because he just cannot find anything helpful, he could try to move elsewhere. You could place a few "jokers" - soldiers or officers who witnessed or even helped in capturing and killing the brother. They would know the exact spot. This is very similar to the idea of the loot distribution: In order to find intel you have to try and track the enemies down, but you may decide to move to other areas of the map and you always have a chance of finding the "jackpot" if you happen to meet the right person.

Normally dead people are not very talkative and would they carry written notes? I wonder if you could allow the player to catch intel-bearers alive. Soldiers could give up when they are out of ammo or when they are injured. They might even join the player as captives and guide him somewhere. You might also place civilians who "know" something. And you could place objects such as newspapers and laptops which hold some info. This may help players who want a stealthier game or just shoot in self-defense.

On a personal note: I would like to find more vehicles. Running around at high speed is always possible and I have done it but obviously it isn't "right". I have found vehicles occasionally so I know there are some but as I said I'd prefer some more. I am glad you allow the player to use the boat to cover some distance - this really helps.

Please read all this as ideas not as requests. I know that the question is not just what can be done but also how it would affect the stability of the mission, the style of gameplay you have in mind for the mission and obviously the time and effort if would take.

[neofit 65]

Haze should be gone in the first 0.5 hour. If this is too long - well. That mission needs much more patience than for half of hour. :)

It was 1.5 hours later. Sure enough when I checked I figured I had fog enabled in TPW_MODS, so this might explain that (and /facepalm). And apparently disabling it mid-mission won't remove it either, so I suppose I should restart. Any in any case, I found out that I started the scenario without VTS_Weaponresting, and it won't initialize if the save it starts from doesn't have it, so another reason to restart.

As for rest - I decided to not add such "artificial" waiting. Hideout rest IMO is enough and is better also because is needed some effort to obtain a hideout with all features it gives. Enabling this by default will be against my "policy" to motivate player to actions by certain rewards. If you have something for free, you do not respect nor appreciate this as much, while obtaining own hideout gives more satisfaction.

No no, I am not asking for any in-game advantage for free. I don't want to rest or have any kind of benefit. I was talking about just passing time. It's too hot outside, too wet, too foggy, I get inside a house and stay there for an hour as I would have done IRL, just a regular "skiptime 1". I don't want to heal or anything. The world is beautiful, I don't want to play at night, or I like the sunset lighting better, etc. 0-8-1 or something to pass the clock is still better than putting the game on 4x accelerated time and going away for 15 minutes or an hour. Just a suggestion in case you are doing requests.

---------- Post added at 18:45 ---------- Previous post was at 18:39 ----------

On a personal note: I would like to find more vehicles.

Try the TPW MODS mod. It adds a variety of ambient life. Like animals, traffic, a few civilians, and you can parameter each module. It adds a bit of civilian traffic, and when you approach a car you get the option to "commandeer" it in pure GTA style :). So you'll never have to run too far before you find a ride.

[Rydygier 1317]

Sure, in fact most of added after release features and changes are due to requests. Hmm. Adding skiptime to eg radio channel is trivial and seems harmless as for immersion, so why not? Or maybe better choosing daytime as init option (dawn/noon/dusk/night)? But there is many init option already, I do not want "for a good start" to push in front of the player's eyes a huge table full of switches.

[neofit 65]

After a restart with fog disabled in TPW_MODS I did not have that fog anymore, and just as you said it is now a very low haze that is nice and is not getting in the way, I like that. Also, I found and liberated this:

The box gives me the "Inventory" option, and the only one at the fireplace is "Put off fire". So am I doing something wrong, or not every camp is a hideout? Can I use the box as permanent storage or some cleanup script will run as soon as I get far or after some time?

[Rydygier 1317]

Box gives permanent storage and optional opportunity to sell loot (be careful, if you have chosen at init this selling loot from hideouts feature, as with one missed click on wrong action you may accidentally sell all precious content stored inside - box stays however). At fireplace should appear action to establish a hideout when code detect, it is safe (you don't know about any enemy, enemy don't know about you). This shouldn't take more than minute from end of the fight, unless indeed there is some other enemy near.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Rydygier

[khugan 24]

I like very much where you are taking your mission Rydygier. I've been enjoying it very much. I figured out how to get bcombat to work with it and oh man is it fun in towns.

To those having frustrations about restarting, I felt your pain too. I decided to copy the Steam missions to a new folder in my main Arma mission folder (you can make subfolders there) so that I can play it even after an update. Steam puts them in a hidden folder some where under appdata. I currently have 1.41 through 1.61.

@neofit I had the same problem with the 'way to thick fog' when playing with TPW. In the vanilla mission he has the fog and ambiance just right, but TPW takes it a bit far. Fortunately we can turn it off in TPW.

[stevendeamon 10]

Call me crazy but enemies have crap aim in foggy weather. At night with the fog from TPW they can't hit me if their lives depended on it (which it does). The same goes for myself to some extent (I actually had to use thermal scopes sometimes). After following Rydygier's advice and playing with crossroad checkpoints to 100% I must now sneak around like crazy, I just can't kill them all, I'm running out of ammo and med packs long before they are all dead. I believe this is how this mission was intended to be played, not rambo style, more like a survival experience. Also, Doc is useless and I always feel bad when he dies (5 to 10 minutes into the game that is).

[doc. caliban 34]

Also, Doc is useless and I always feel bad when he dies (5 to 10 minutes into the game that is).

No wonder I have to restart so often!

-Doc

---------- Post added at 06:38 ---------- Previous post was at 05:45 ----------

Saw this while walking to the grocery store. :-)

http://imgur.com/UVykgnh

[Alpha-Kilo 36]

Neofit,

thanks for the reply. TPW MODS has not been on my personal radar but I'll give it a try.

[Rydygier 1317]

I wonder if you have considered something like controlled randomness for your mission. Could you spawn loot in logigal, believable places (usable cars near petrol stations, food in private homes and shops, military equipment in the many outposts, boats in the harbours or near buildings close to the sea, etc.? This would enable the player to think about where to go to look for something he wants instead of inspecting each and every box simply because it is there. A few completely randomized loot spots would be good to represent the element of sheer luck and it would keep the curious players interested.

Not bad idea at first look, but not so easy too. Currently loot is randomized from whole content of config. If I would try to categorize each item manually... Weeks of work on this alone. I do not want to do that. And this will not cover any content from custom addons. Also, if I do such thing, there will be mostly nothing to find, as above 90% of loot places are civilian houses. There is no food at all nor use for it, so nothing to put in such places except clothes, that are in most part useless. It is assumed, that every house, where is no loot, is full of useless junk, you could expect in ordinary home. Play with loot set as 10% and with this assumption you'll get roughly, what you want. After all, one thing, I could do, was better chance for better weaponry in military buildings.

Boats aren't spawned at all too. Could be, but kinda redundant, as player has useable boat with him, so why load CPU more with random boats?

As for vehicles, these are military, so finding them mostly at petrol stations would be odd at least. This applies even to civil cars too. Why at petrol stations should be more cars than eg. at some parking place? it is fantasy of course, but at least you'll find abandoned vehicles near roads, which I consider sufficient. Anyway, If you play with TPW's parked cars, you'll get something like that.

Intel could also be distributed in a somewhat believable way: So soldiers who are far from the place where the brother died might never have heard about the incident and thus have not much substantial intel about it - apart from a few rumours, maybe. If the player is coming closer, the info would become more useful, more precise. But if he thinks that the area is not right because he just cannot find anything helpful, he could try to move elsewhere. You could place a few "jokers" - soldiers or officers who witnessed or even helped in capturing and killing the brother. They would know the exact spot. This is very similar to the idea of the loot distribution: In order to find intel you have to try and track the enemies down, but you may decide to move to other areas of the map and you always have a chance of finding the "jackpot" if you happen to meet the right person.

Another nice idea. I'll consider that, but:

1. To exclude some place not necessarily TL had to know something about incident with brother. It is enough, if he had reports, so in given places nothing unusual happened lately.

2. If he knows something about the brother, then rather his intel should allow to narrow area of search to certain places than exclude some areas. Too easy that way if all would have such data. Maybe officers on big bases would have such kind of info. And very few others - "jokers". Not red markers at excluded churches, but rather big circle with body somewhere within. Yes, that would be good.

3. Brother wasn't killed by soldiers, but by "the thing", he tried to find.

Normally dead people are not very talkative and would they carry written notes? I wonder if you could allow the player to catch intel-bearers alive. Soldiers could give up when they are out of ammo or when they are injured. They might even join the player as captives and guide him somewhere. You might also place civilians who "know" something. And you could place objects such as newspapers and laptops which hold some info. This may help players who want a stealthier game or just shoot in self-defense.

Worthy of consideration, although one of the purposes of intel at dead body is motivate to fight. So there is actual reason to kill some hostiles instead of avoiding, which isn't difficult. I would assume rather, than in near future TLs would be equipped with kind of PDAs or other kind of data organizers, holding reports, orders and such, than actual "papers with notes". I think, TLs may have (note, not all have) recent reports from their areas of responsibility. If such reports sound routine means, given areas may be excluded. Guides are to complicated, I think. Guide may be useful only, if he actually know, where to guide. Captives as potential source of info are better, if chance is small. Still, this may sounds cruel, but dead body IMO uses less CPU than captive left alive... :) Perhaps interrogated captive will wait, until player go away, then deleted? Deleted AI uses less CPU than dead body. :D From the other hand - good for immersion, so I'll consider this one. If only there will be chance to implement this without burdening CPU too much. I would like to avoid more event handlers... We'll see. Same for items with data. I could add small chance, so instead of regular loot box, there will be spawned such thing, like laptop, acting same way as officers' bodies. After all - people are using computers and such and communicate, so someone may knew something. Civilian that knows something are nice too, but means more to handle for CPU, or too few to make real difference. I'll think, but I'm not sure.

On a personal note: I would like to find more vehicles. Running around at high speed is always possible and I have done it but obviously it isn't "right". I have found vehicles occasionally so I know there are some but as I said I'd prefer some more. I am glad you allow the player to use the boat to cover some distance - this really helps.

I feel, CPU is loaded enough already. If you want, play with TPW's cars. Or invest in intel about abandoned vehicles.

So, thanks a lot for very useful feedback, I think, some of your ideas are great and I'll try to implement them.

---------- Post added at 10:46 ---------- Previous post was at 09:31 ----------

I,ll try to do one thing more to fix infamous issue with all script stop working experienced by some. In normal situation this shouldn't affect anything, but theoretically it is a spot, where code may stop working by permanent loop exit - there is a place in the main loop, that makes this loop end, if player is not alive or is null. I'll make that loop infinite just in case. In SP effect is same anyway.

One topic more - one of possible AI group stance is "garrisoning". That means, most group members, except TL will be relocated into random house positions, where they should stay as nasty surprise. TL meanwhile will patrol many building positions in loop. Currently it is that way, until group find out, player (enemy) is near. Then all scattered soldiers will try to rejoin group formation. Could be expected, and "nice" if that time player is in the town already - AIs suddenly crawling around, but especially if player has own vehicle, group will be awared about his presence far to early, so when player arrives, all group is already back in formation, patrolling along with TL, which makes garrisoning kinda futile. Same trick is used for soldiers at sandbags at checkpoint. While I would preffer to leave it as is for checkpoints, I think, I'll "glue" soldiers of town garrisons at their in-building positions by forcing 0 speed. So the'll stay on place always.

Any concerns about that?

Edited March 23, 2014 by Rydygier

[tortuosit 486]

No concerns yet...

Enjoying the mission. Oohh, the mortars are scary as hell, it was a good addition.

Another observation: First I thought it was bcombat, but then I found out, the h-s caching mode has a horrible performance impact here (feels like <10fps)... No problem, I can use the default caching mode.

[Rydygier 1317]

And this I like in all this mortar business... :)

I would guess, horrible impact on performance has H-S + bCombat. bCombat spawns one loop per unit. In H-S all units are present on map all the time, only hidden and "frozen", thus thousand loops. D-R despawns distant units except TLs with their vehicles and crews, that are treated same way, as in old caching, thus amount of bCombat loops are limited only to units actually decached (near) and TLs - huge difference. Without bCombat difference between default and old caching is about 10-15 fps in my case (30 - 45).

Edited March 23, 2014 by Rydygier

[tortuosit 486]

Haha, Mortars are more than scary, saving often helps ;)

Rydy, what is their mortar soldiers intelligence based on, is that internal ArmA mechanism, or did you add code? Because what happened is, I killed 2 soldiers in a town. A minute later I got shot by mortars in town, but survived. That's alright. I decided to escape to 7 o'clock direction from the mortar and flank him from 10 o clock. On half way, maybe 500m away, he killed me, but in the picture you can see in what area I was. The mortar was somewhere to the top right of the picture... Nobody should have seen me... It's probably ArmA AI's legendary xray spotting abilities :(

Edited March 23, 2014 by tortuosit

[fabrizio_t 58]

And this I like in all this mortar business... :)

I would guess, horrible impact on performance has H-S + bCombat. bCombat spawns one loop per unit. In H-S all units are present on map all the time, only hidden and "frozen", thus thousand loops. D-R despawns distant units except TLs with their vehicles and crews, that are treated same way, as in old caching, thus amount of bCombat loops are limited only to units actually decached (near) and TLs - huge difference. Without bCombat difference between default and old caching is about 10-15 fps in my case (30 - 45).

Sorry, but that's not true anymore, as of bCombat v0.16RC2.

There's one single loop running on all units, except for run-on-demand fsms and CQB routines (these are triggered at low distance) .

Also bCombat's most intensive tasks are paused when some unit is roughly farther than 1500 meters from player, or when enableSimulation is set to false.

[Rydygier 1317]

@tortuosit

It is based on knowledge factor, so yes, kind of x-ray possible sometimes. Basing it on actual LOS test would be way to heavy for CPU. Knowledge degrades in time, if AI not see you, but it may take some minutes... Something like - hey, he went behind that hill, so I suppose, he'll be about... here! But too accurate. I think, I'll do some testing with getHideFrom command. Mortar itself of course may act like own FO too. Just in case I'll investigate, if all is working there as supposed (checked - seems OK). When avoiding shells remember, artillery piece will follow your movement about 20 seconds and basing on that will calculate your general moving vector to cover with fire area, where according to such vector you should be at impact time. Good way to deceive it is to zigzag with direction change interval about 20 seconds.

---------- Post added at 12:24 ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 ----------

Sorry, but that's not true anymore, as of bCombat v0.16RC2.

Why sorry? It is great news. I'm mistaken gladly. :) Thanks for that.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Rydygier

[tortuosit 486]

I cannot explicitely test bCombat/H+S/D+R, but I'm sure Rydy is at least right the combination bCombat/H+S is the cause for unplayable FPS.

bCombat+DR works for me, I enjoy using this now... bCombat+HS doesn't, my thought was that H+S is the cause, but I remember I have see H+S working fine, and that probably was without bCombat.

Glad to see Fabricio reading here.

Edited March 23, 2014 by tortuosit
Typo

[fabrizio_t 58]

I cannot explicitely test bCombat/H+S/D+R, but I'm sure Rydy is at least right the combination bCombat/H+S is the cause for unplayable FPS.

bCombat+DR works for me, I enjoy using this now... bCombat+HS doesn't, my thought was that H+S is the cause, but I remember I have see H+S working fine, and that probably was without bCombat.

Glad to see Fabricio reading here.

Good to know bCombat+DR is working fine.

So it's something with just "H+S".

---------- Post added at 12:49 ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 ----------

@tortuosit

It is based on knowledge factor, so yes, kind of x-ray possible sometimes. Basing it on actual LOS test would be way to heavy for CPU. Knowledge degrades in time, if AI not see you, but it may take some minutes... Something like - hey, he went behind that hill, so I suppose, he'll be about... here! But too accurate. I think, I'll do some testing with getHideFrom command. Mortar itself of course may act like own FO too. Just in case I'll investigate, if all is working there as supposed (checked - seems OK). When avoiding shells remember, artillery piece will follow your movement about 20 seconds and basing on that will calculate your general moving vector to cover with fire area, where according to such vector you should be at impact time. Good way to deceive it is to zigzag with direction change interval about 20 seconds.

---------- Post added at 12:24 ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 ----------

Why sorry? It is great news. I'm mistaken gladly. :) Thanks for that.

About enemy perceived vs. real position, hence precision of perception, i use this tiny function within bCombat:

bcombat_fnc_knprec = {

private ["_enemy"];

_enemy = _this select 1;

((_this select 0) getHideFrom _enemy) distance _enemy
};

So:

[_unit, _enemy] call bcombat_fnc_knprec;

returns distance in meters between perceived enemy position and real position.

I usually factor distance and use a threshold in order to dampen this information.

Edited March 23, 2014 by fabrizio_T

[Rydygier 1317]

Thanks a lot, fabrizio_T. You just saved me some testings of this command.

[neofit 65]

Neofit,

thanks for the reply. TPW MODS has not been on my personal radar but I'll give it a try.

Beware though, I think that not all TPW-spawned cars are equal. It spawns some cars near house, as if inhabitants parked there. These don't seem to be persistent. I took one of those to cruise around with, came upon a large enemy group, left it the flank them. I went about 500+ meters away and when I came back the car had vanished, with all its equipment. This doesn't seem to happen with the cars you commandeer on the road.

---------- Post added at 14:35 ---------- Previous post was at 12:53 ----------

bCombat+DR works for me, I enjoy using this now... bCombat+HS doesn't, my thought was that H+S is the cause, but I remember I have see H+S working fine, and that probably was without bCombat.

Glad to see Fabricio reading here.

You are talking about the type of caching that we choose at the start of the scenario? Is there any way to change it without restarting?

[Rydygier 1317]

You are talking about the type of caching that we choose at the start of the scenario? Is there any way to change it without restarting?

Yes (it is about caching) and no (can't be changed during gameplay, same for all init settings). I recommend default caching, and only if malfunctioning or not working well with some used mods - next play switch to old system.

[neofit 65]

I have found a repair Kamaz with a blue name and it is working fine. But I also have found two blue name Ammo trucks, a Kamaz and a HEMMT. These don't seem to be able to resupply my Hunter GMG. Just to make sure that the latest Arma 3 patch hadn't broken anything I dropped a GMG and an ammo truck into the editor, parked alongside and it resupplied my Hunter GMG with no problems. Is this scenario spawning empty ammo trucks, or I missed something from the readme again and doing something wrong, or am I just very unlucky? I don't get the supply icon nor the "Supply at vehicle" menu option. I don't mind that I found this Hunter with only 5 out of 96 grenades left, fair enough, that's what you get when you steal second-hand military hardware, but I expected the ammo trucks to be a bit less empty than 0% ;).

Edit: found a 3rd blue named ammo truck, a hemmt. This one is working fine, got two full ammo loads out of it.

Edited March 24, 2014 by neofit

[Rydygier 1317]

In fact, after spawn, I do not touch supply level of support vehicles. For all spawned empty vehicles are removed all items stored in the trunk, sometimes also is adjusted level of ammo for mounted weaponry (as you noted), vehicle's own fuel and damage level. That's all.

[neofit 65]

The large church on the Eastern side of Telos won't let me open its doors and no trigger is firing, and I've been in the area for a few minutes already. No body to be found anywhere in the area.

Not sure if it's a bug or if I found the place, the body should be right next to the church, inside or in an area like 500m around it?

Edit: a few pages back I found the a discussion of the "no loot/church markers anymore" issue. Apparently I have it. Never mind, it's the journey that's fun, not the destination, I was thinking about restarting with all AI at max, still very fun, thank you. I was playing with all scenario settings to default, and -mod=@CBA_A3;@Bullet_Hits;@VTS_Weaponresting;@bCombat-master;@TPW_MODS;@Blastcore-A3

Edited March 24, 2014 by neofit

[Rydygier 1317]

Either, you found right place and body should be near or bug indeed. If bug - no more loot, should be no more other churches marking. If right place, and you are closer than 50 meters from the body while LOS isn't obstructed, green mark instead of red should appear on map.

I had feedback from player on Steam, that had this issue, but reinstalled whole Arma and after that was able to finish mission without this bug. Perhaps reinstallation helped him, or he was just "lucky" this time.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Rydygier