[SP] Pilgrimage

[stevendeamon 10]

@neofit In my first playthrough I found the body and the green marker appeard and all went well. In my second complete playthrough I also encountered this bug, but when it did (there was no marker at the church) the body was also there, I found it by luck. The mission went well after that, transported the body with a reinforced vehicle, evacuated him game over. So the body must be there in your case I guess.

[tortuosit 486]

Today I was in Pyrgos, travelled to its church... with a car that I found on my way. Then I heard the iranians first talking, then shooting - they attacked my car (a pickup)! I shot 2 of the guys, the others noticed and attacked me, I hid behind the church - and again, they started to attack the empty car - wut? ArmA AI going crazy.

[Rydygier 1309]

Yeah, that mission already proven to be effective exposer of game bugs. Some I found during scripting, more was found during gameplay. Nothing strange, Pilgrimage is quite demanding in several ways for A3's engine, I believe, so gives numerous opportunities for bugs appearance.

[Rascal 10]

Yeah, that mission already proven to be effective exposer of game bugs. Some I found during scripting, more was found during gameplay. Nothing strange, Pilgrimage is quite demanding in several ways for A3's engine, I believe, so gives numerous opportunities for bugs appearance.

Hmm, well I love this mission. However, seems like I encounter bugs often and from the start. There were loot, icons, the game was saving when I enter churches. However after 10 minutes of playing they all go away. Reading the previous posts, seems like it shouldn't happen this often but for me it does. Should I reinstall Arma 3? I should also note that, I never could get options at the fire places, even when the icons, loot, and saves were working...

[Rydygier 1309]

In the next version I'll try one more thing to fix or at least find place, where this problem spoils my code, most probably by unexpecting exit of main loop. You may consider to wait to try it (several days probably) before any radical actions with your game.

[Rydygier 1309]

I think, tommorow will be day for final tests of 1.7. If all will be fine, as I hope, new version should be released day after tommorow. Some new exciting stuff is coming, mostly thanks to users' ideas and suggestions. :)

[khugan 24]

Looking forward to it!

[stevendeamon 10]

NEED MOAR PILGRIMAGE! sry for caps :P Dude you should sell this mission as a standalone campaign, like standalone DayZ did with their game :)

[Rydygier 1309]

Mission upgraded to 1.7.

Changelog:

- two additional heavily guarded "strongholds", each placed randomly at one of 10 predefined locations, where better intel and someone to hire can be found;

- two of present on map airfields will be randomly picked and populated with heavy guards and a chopper. Good intel may be found there;

- enemy group may sometimes call air support from one of such airfields. The closer to airfield, the bigger chance;

- disabled automatic church mark in "Hardcore" mode;

- additional A3's music for the jukebox;

- there is small chance, so enemy group that sustained heavy losses will surrender leaving armament on the ground;

- additional sources of possible intel may be found: special items (10% percent of loot), captives, some civilians (rare, and by default there is no civilians, only may occur, if is used mod like TPW's, that will add civilians);

- small chance (but 100% at body of stronghold or airfield commander) for better intel - pointing wide area, within which body is located instead of exclusion of single places;

- additional intel possible - revealed some enemy presence areas on map;

- various code changes and improvements.

Also I have a request for those, who experienced well known "no more anything new" issue in previous version - if you wish to help me, play without -noLogs game startup parameter, and if issue will occur, please, send me your RPT file. I did one change that hopefully will fix that problem, but if not, I also added some special log to determine possible cause better. That's why I have to check RPT of gameplay, where issue occured.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Rydygier

[FF666 10]

Damn, I just found this mod via a comment on eurogamer review of the game. This sounds like EXACTLY the kind of thing I am looking for! Nice exploration of the map some suspense, some action and survival. I subscribed to the mod, but as I read here it might be better to use donwload version because of auto-updates.

Gonna try this tonight! You just have another pilgrim added to Altis!

Also gonna try the TPW mods for added immersion. I also have bCombat and JSRS mod. I will report about stability / performance.

God I love the modding community :D

[Rydygier 1309]

Strongholds and airfields - some info added to the diary, in general you can expect there both foot and armored hostile presence, also static weaponry and minefields near (so you can use Alex's demo expert abilities - toolbox and mine detector are useful for something now). At each base there is really bad ass (maxed skills) officer unit. At his body you can find good intel. As locations to randomly choose from was selected 10 military and industrial areas in previous versions excluded from common garrisoning and all airfields.

Additional AIs to hire - there is two such units, held as captives, one per "stronghold", but not at airfields. If they survive fights, may be hired as mercs by action menu if you have 10000 ff as honorarium.

Asking civilians about brother - possible, if you are using a mod, that will add them (10% will get blue mark similar to loot mark over the head. Such person may or may not have useful informations - ask by action menu). Why this way only? Because placing them manually means very rare to meet them or too many of them on map. Alternative is dynamic popultaing around player, and that's what TPW mod can do, so no need to duplicate this code.

Intel from loot - 10% of boxes are now relaced with intel sources, that may or may not hold useful data: laptops, phones, hand cameras, notebooks. Statistically this means average only 10 such sources in Kavala city if loot is set on 100%, so it is rare.

Surrendering enemies - enemy groups, that sustained at least 50% losses may surrewnder, if player is not further than 300 meters from them. Such units will place their weaponry, mags and backpacks on the ground, will stay prone with hands on the head. Captives may be interrogated for intel. Will be deleted, if player go further than 2000 meters from them.

Skipping time - apart from rest at hideout's fireplace, now Alex can simply wait an hour at a time by using Juliet radio channel (0-0-0, thus radio is required in the inventory, what is important for Hardcore mode players).

Hi, FFF66. I hope, you'll like it. :)

Edited March 27, 2014 by Rydygier

[neofit 65]

Thank for the new version.

Is it normal to have this displayed permanently:

It's a bit distracting and spoilery. Any way to remove it? If it's a dev thing that you forgot to comment out before release, it'd be nice to have an option to toggle it on and off from the game.

---------- Post added at 17:21 ---------- Previous post was at 17:18 ----------

And I have these too:

I think I know what they mean. Now that is 100% spoilery ;). I don't ever want a toggle for that, EVER, I'm weak.

Edit: I figured it out. bCombat is giving this to me. I haven't changed anything since the last time I used it, I don't see a way to disable it in its userconfig, I will remove bCombat and try with ASR_AI3.

Edited March 27, 2014 by neofit

[ebarstad 18]

Thank for the new version.

Is it normal to have this displayed permanently:

http://s8.postimg.org/lxm8iubed/aaa.jpg

It's a bit distracting and spoilery. Any way to remove it? If it's a dev thing that you forgot to comment out before release, it'd be nice to have an option to toggle it on and off from the game.

That's from bCombat.

[neofit 65]

Nice touch with the surrendering. But the helicopter is ruining it for me. OK, now it caught me early, when I only have a Katiba, and I'm sure if I wait long enough inside the house it will leave. But BIS in its infinite wisdom didn't even give us enough vehicle inventory space for the bare essentials, I can't see me carrying an AA launcher + 1 rocket, that would be 2 weapon slots wasted. I don't feel like playing with this nuisance in the air, it should be togglable like artillery.

[Rydygier 1309]

Personally I'm not considering it as too hard to avoid detection by a chopper. In my tests, as long, as you are on foot, is most unlikely, so chopper will spot you unless you shoot at it, so unless you are in a vehicle, when it circulates, or extremely careless, it is more ornamental than anything more. And air SAD patrol over area lasts at most few minutes. Still - if people want to make it togglable - it will be. Easy to do. Thanks for feedback. Despite all tests, often I need to know from the others, if something is not balanced as should be to tweak it.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Rydygier

[tortuosit 486]

Edit: I figured it out. bCombat is giving this to me. I haven't changed anything since the last time I used it, I don't see a way to disable it in its userconfig, I will remove bCombat and try with ASR_AI3.

Yeah somewhat unsual, bCombat has a configuration file in its Addon folder, there you probably want to turn debug options off. Give it a try again, you can nicely play with bCombat, if you don't change the caching option at mission startup.

[doc. caliban 34]

Keeping an eye out for 1.71 and then I'll give it a spin!

Now we need a coop version. :-)

-Doc

[Rydygier 1309]

Well, I have four requests already to implement, all rather quick to do, so 1.71 should come soon. Now I'm waiting just for some reported bugs to fix them by the way. :)

[doc. caliban 34]

Well, I have four requests already to implement, all rather quick to do, so 1.71 should come soon. Now I'm waiting just for some reported bugs to fix them by the way. :)

I have not seen the 'nothing new" bug since playing X2, but I will keep my log files on while playing 1.7x and let you know if anything happens. Thank you!

-Doc

EDIT: BTW, my first goal is going to be to damage that chopper on the ground enough to get the crew to abandon it. Then it's mine. (If it's playable the way captured enemy vehicles have been.)

[neofit 65]

Give it a try again, you can nicely play with bCombat, if you don't change the caching option at mission startup.

Wait, IIRC the default is H+S and one has to choose D+R to have good performance with bCombat, no?

---------- Post added at 22:16 ---------- Previous post was at 21:56 ----------

Personally I'm not considering it as too hard to avoid detection by a chopper. In my tests, as long, as you are on foot, is most unlikely, so chopper will spot you unless you shoot at it, so unless you are in a vehicle, when it circulates, or extremely careless, it is more ornamental than anything more.

Sorry, I probably had a rather violent reaction. It reminded me of the elite choppers I had to hide from in the DayZ+Epoch mod. Rather relentless if you made yourself detected, but 10 mins in a house and they're gone. But in that mod I was also driving around in a vehicle with 20-50 guns slots and 200-500 item slots, not the 9x (gun+rocket) slots that we have in Arma3, and they could be brought down with an HMG. If I can defend myself I don't mind the risk of being surprised. But since I cannot (and carrying an AA gun will take away too much from the resy of the game), I'd rather not even have the risk.

It's like the mortar in the "Whole Lotta Stratis" scenario. Sometimes stuff randomly falls from the sky, you die, you reload. Sometimes you get sightings of "enemy mortar <here or there>", but they are never there. So that's just stuff that randomly interrupts your mission and you can't do anything about it, like a crash to the desktop and just as fun. I assumed the arty in Pilgrimage was doing something like that so I never turned it on. And now the helicopter reminded me of that random shelling.

[Rydygier 1309]

As for choppers - there are two of them on the map and if someone manage to capture one by damaging it or sniping pilots inside, should be usable IMO, not tested though.

Any group, that detect you, have a single chance to call air support. The closer to airfield with chopper, the bigger that chance is. If called and free (and no more than one mission per 10 minutes, unless in self defence), chopper will arrive, will do SAD sweep (few minutes) and will go back. Tested only on foot and never was spotted by this thing. What I want to do for init options, will be setting of air support radius around airfield. On minimal setting chopper will react only, if player will be detected really close to the airfield, like 2000 or so. So it will be easy to avoid them by avoiding airfields areas, thus player will choose moment of confrontation with them.

Both, arty and choppers, primary purpose is to add more intense feeling of beeing hunted and threatened for people desiring more adrenaline and to add something more challenging for well equipped players. Secondary - you can try to capture it. IMO it is nothing like unavoidable sudden death from time to time, that only frustrates. You can do something about. If you are careful enough, acting wisely, and making good choices, you should be able to handle both threats. Trunks in A3's vehicles are a bad joke, true, strange, so no one made an addon to correct that yet, should be simple, perhaps only time consuming, still I usually consider as good thing to keep in the trunk AT launcher just in case. Same way I would do with AA launcher knowing about aerial assets somewhere. After all - we have also boxes at hideouts and possibility to sell redundant equipment. Trunk is small, but in fact enough as long you do not try to collect too much weaponry.

Most "problematic" situation is having a vehicle, but not any AA-capable weaponry. If chopper would surprise me in such circumstance I would try in the first place leave the vehicle, hide and wait these few minutes, but in the first place I would make decisions, that allow to avoid such surprise.

[khugan 24]

I LOVE the chopper response!! This is hands down, the best mission I have ever played. Seriously, you have something really special here Rydygier. The only bug report I have after 4 hours of play is that about 1 in 10 loot spawns is unreachable. God this is incredible!

[stevendeamon 10]

Woke up Friday morning and the first thing I saw was version 1.7! Thanks a lot man, can't wait to get back home from work and play Pilgrimage the whole weekend! :)

[ebarstad 18]

This is a great mission -- I'm having a lot of fun with it (especially once I started remembering to save more often). I'd say TPW, JSRS, and BlastCore are all highly recommended: TPW for the ambience and added vehicles; JSRS so that I can hear vehicles from a little further away; and BlastCore so that I can actually spot the campfires and smoke.

I have a couple questions for those of you who have played more of the mission: Are all the AI groups hostile to the player (aside from civvies) and is there any chance to see AI groups fighting each other? The latter question is what interests me the most because I love games (or missions, in this case) where stuff is happening beyond the player's own actions. It would be great to hear gunfire in the distance and be able find a battle in progress or the aftermath (and all the delicious loot).

Anyway - great job Rydygier! Thanks for sharing this with us.

[stevendeamon 10]

No enemies don't fight eachother (except for one little special "bugger" that shoots at everything that moves).