[SP] Pilgrimage

[major-stiffy 269]

Well looking through the thousands of lines of code you wrote boggles my mind. I'm 63 years old and have an engineering background. At my age all I want to do is play , time for deep thought is passing me by after all those years of doing it in my career. My only goal is to keep Pilgrimage COOP alive and play with my 2 friends.

 

May the force be with me.

[HeroesandvillainsOS 1504]

@Rydygier I don't know if you remember how floored I was with this mission a few years ago, but I wanted to hop back in and say that, still, with about 2000 more hours into the game since then, how remarkable and touching and just downright fantastic Pilgrimage still is.

 

Thanks for all the fond moments and memories, Rydygier! All these years later and it's still one of the very best Arma 3 experiences around.

[OMAC 254]

I just spent many hours this weekend playing Pilgrimage 1.95 beta, and had a great time!  I played Lingor, Chernarus, and Bornholm versions, all with no problems, and no previous experience with Pilgrimage.  I played on Veteran using Hard difficulty option (reduced map markers, no hitch-hiking, etc.) 

 

Only on my third playthrough (Bornholm) did I discover the "save every 20 minutes" option.  Very nice (!), but the mission is playable even without it, using only the one default manual save available on Veteran.

 

All three times I played with CUP enabled, which I highly recommend, as CUP vehicles, and possibly solders, constantly showed up in game.  Great!

 

I have not yet attempted to attack any strongpoints or airports to liberate prisoners.  Possible fun for future play.

 

If you get injured and are playing without medic companion, you will most likely have to play entire mission grunting in pain and discomfort, as civilian "doctors" (will treat you for ff) are very few and far between.  I saw one once, but didn't have enough ff to be treated, and when I went back to his location later, he was gone.  :-(  I would like it if such doctors were more common, and/or there were other places, such as hospitals or abandoned ambulances, where one could get treated.

 

Is there a way to transfer your brother's body from one vehicle to another?  I tried once, and it appeared that there was no such option.  That could be very useful if your primary vehicle gets damaged.

 

Thanks for this great mission. 

[pvt. partz 248]

@Herosandvillains

 

Quote

All these years later and it's still one of the very best Arma 3 experiences around.

 

 

We've never stopped ! LOL

[Rydygier 1302]

Quote

civilian "doctors" (will treat you for ff) are very few

 

Depends on your reputation, but with default, neutral reputation these are rare indeed (densier civilian population makes the chance better too). You can also treat yourself at your hideout, which you may posses by taking cleared hidden camp, special actions are at fireplace, but only, if it is safe (no enemy known, and no enemy knows about you). To heal at hideout's  fireplace you need FAK (will be consumed) or medikit (not consumed). 

 

Doctors should be rare, still, I may consider making doctors a bit more common. Being wounded should be a serious problem though, nothing too easy to fix. Personally I load previous save if I'm wounded and at the time no way to heal, just assuming, wound is disabling and not allows to continue, and Alex is as good as dead as for his mission. Works for me. 

 

Quote

Is there a way to transfer your brother's body from one vehicle to another?  I tried once, and it appeared that there was no such option.  That could be very useful if your primary vehicle gets damaged.

 

Damaged vehicles may be repaired with FF (on high difficulty levels repairing kit may be needed IIRC). If however vehicle carrying the body is destroyed - the body is lost too. 

 

Although there is an option to move the body from one vehicle to another, if no enemy is known, you have assigned some vehicle, you're close enough to it (6 meters) and this vehicle is not farther than 20 meters from actual body carrier. Then there should be available "Move body into your current vehicle" action.  

[OMAC 254]

5 hours ago, Rydygier said:

 

To heal at hideout's  fireplace you need FAK (will be consumed) or medikit (not consumed). 

 

Ah ha!  I was unfamiliar with all the hideout's functions.  So with a FAK, one would be completely healed if healing action at fireplace is selected?  Perhaps a brief hint that healing and other advanced functions are available at campfire would be a good idea the first time a hideout is created.

 

5 hours ago, Rydygier said:

 

Doctors should be rare, still, I may consider making doctors a bit more common. Being wounded should be a serious problem though, nothing too easy to fix. Personally I load previous save if I'm wounded and at the time no way to heal, just assuming, wound is disabling and not allows to continue, and Alex is as good as dead as for his mission. Works for me. 

 

Yes, doctors should be rare.  Having a few hospitals or doctor's offices in major towns marked on map (on all difficulty levels) could be good.  Reputation is impossible to monitor (I think), and its impact on things like doctor availability is unknowable.  I think that doctors for hire should be made more available in town/village centers (places with more civvys) when player is injured when he has default reputation.  Player still may not find them, so increasing there probability of presence a little wouldn't affect gameplay that much.  However, if complete healing* at a hideout is possible with a FAK, then changing doctor frequency may not be needed as much.  But finding a camp to turn into a hideout isn't by any means a sure thing, and may not happen for over an hour at mission start.

 

*healing enough to stop grunting and weapon shake at least.

 

5 hours ago, Rydygier said:

 

Damaged vehicles may be repaired with FF (on high difficulty levels repairing kit may be needed IIRC). If however vehicle carrying the body is destroyed - the body is lost too. 

 

Although there is an option to move the body from one vehicle to another, if no enemy is known, you have assigned some vehicle, you're close enough to it (6 meters) and this vehicle is not farther than 20 meters from actual body carrier. Then there should be available "Move body into your current vehicle" action.  

 

I must have missed the "Move body into your current vehicle" action.  I'll try again next time if necessary. 

 

In general, I found it quite hard and time-consuming to make enough ff to function.  It is quite easy to waste money by mistake, like by paying civvys for info (2000 ff), only to get no useful info beyond what you already know.  But with experience, you learn what NOT to spend money on.  Somewhere I read that AI can be hired for 10k ff (freed captives?).  I never had more than ~3200 ff in my 3 playthroughs.  I guess one must stay in the game for much, much, longer to get such huge amounts of ff.

 

Thanks for the helpful info.

[Rydygier 1302]

Quote

I never had more than ~3200 ff in my 3 playthroughs.  I guess one must stay in the game for much, much, longer to get such huge amounts of ff.

 

Not that much really. I often had more FF, than I was able to spent (thus added ability to place decoyas yet another way to utilize money). What I do is quite scrupulous looting houses and bodies. Depending on your game settings (eg. loot, enemy presence) and how often you fight (how many bodies to loot you find - Ambient Combat helps too), you may be rich soon or later. Clearing a half dozen of well armored AI bodies should give you, say, few to several thousands FF. 

 

Hint about healing possibility at hideout may be good idea considering, how often I had to inform peoplke about that possibility even, if this is described in the diary instructions (amount of text, Ii wouldn't probably read myself, I know). Sometimes some yellow actions may be not visible at fireplace for no good reason similar, as for really smal intel source items. Some kind of Arma quirk. 

 

Reputation you can monitor only by its consequences. Kind of civilians comments on your presence, how often helpful intel they provide, if there are any hostile civilians or allied spawned, if they tend to report your presence to the hostiles etc. Easier to monitor your actions, that affect reputation. Killing bad guys will raise it a bit (more for wheeled/armored/air hostiles), but will drop rapidly for each civilian kill. It's local though and calculated with some randomization per each civilian separately. Actions matter more in close, but the farther, the lower effect is, also gossip need time to travel, so time is another factor, where impact of the action will grow in time about 1 hour from occurence (IIRC) then will slowly decay - people forget - but not to 0.

[OMAC 254]

10 hours ago, Rydygier said:

 

 Kind of civilians comments on your presence, how often helpful intel they provide, if there are any hostile civilians or allied spawned, if they tend to report your presence to the hostiles etc.

 

Awesome.  Didn't know that.  Must be some complex scripting! 

 

Just playing again on Lingor, and noticed that AAF and CSAT are hostile to each other (given that I enabled ambient combat).  But I also was attacked by a roving band of what looked like Taki Army soldiers (from CUP)*.  I have also noticed roving bands of other strange-garbed enemies, and even what I think are CUP US soldiers.  Does Pilgrimage auto-generate roving bands of random hostile factions, or is there some story logic behind what factions are chosen?

 

*On Bornholm, near the end of the mission with brother's body in my HMMWV, I approached a town to look for a medic.  I got out to search a house for loot.  Suddenly, I heard a loud motor on the road, and my HMMWV exploded into flames, failing mission.  It was a roving Taki Army T-72!!!!!  Lots of surprises in Pilgrimage! 

[alky_lee 276]

44 minutes ago, OMAC said:

  Does Pilgrimage auto-generate roving bands of random hostile factions, or is there some story logic behind what factions are chosen?

 

Pilgrimage automatically takes groups from config of the appropriate sides to provide enemies  the same as it does with equipment. It makes it very easy to use mods/equipment/uniforms in the mission. For example, on Chernarus Winter you can use CSAT Snow Tigers, Foxhounds Siberian Guard, etc and there is a good chance they will show up somewhere. Unfortunately you also get Tanoans turning up in their T shirt and shorts. 

 

You could also have a look at the mission guide which explains a lot of the things that help to make the mission more interesting.  Pilgrimage Mission Guide

Edited June 6, 2017 by alky_lee
Additional Info

[OMAC 254]

Yeah, I saw CSAT Pacific (Chinese) factions roving around on Chernarus!  It would be cool if scripts could selectively choose roving factions most appropriate to an Armaverse terrain (if available), like Chedaki for Chernarus, possibly Chedaki or CDF for Bornholm, FIA for Altis, possibly Tanoan Syndikat guerillas for Lingor, etc.  Having weird factions roving around looks odd, but certainly makes things interesting and varied.

 

From Steam guide:
 

Quote

You also have the option to fully heal at the camp fire which takes 6 hours and uses one first aid kit if you don't have a medikit.

If you have an assigned vehicle close enough (within 50m) from an established hideout, you can use an action at the fireplace to pack the hideout into that vehicle, and unpack the hideout at a new location (if there is sufficient space nearby). Loot stored in the boxes should stay intact. Limitation - there may be only one packed camp in game at a time.

 

 

[Rydygier 1302]

Quote

It would be cool if scripts could selectively choose roving factions most appropriate to an Armaverse terrain (if available)

 

It would be most cool, if I could learn to do such thing reliably via procedure (a script, that is able to distinguish, what fits what in Armaverse, right... :) possible, but only, if devs/mod makers would always provide config entries telling such stuff about given models). Kept up to date manual white/blacklisting classes per mod per map doesn't thrill me a bit, not my cup of tea, I'll not do that. Also be awared, I would like to think, 1.95 is (finally) the last version, so I do not plan to add nor change more stuff*, I would like to close this chapter in my mind and go on. But anyway, first I need free time and mind to go back to this to actually close 1.95, not likely to happen soon. 

 

* Unless "BI implemented women!" level of coolness new Arma feature will appear.

[OMAC 254]

1.95 beta is working fine for me, which is awesome given all the Arma changes that have occurred since original release...  I'm here very late in the game, and it is great that you are even continuing to update/maintain the mission at all.  I tried playing Resist (1st place SP for MANW) for the first time a few months back, and it was essentially unplayable due to excruciatingly low (10 fps) performance in some battles, among other buggy things which largely ruined immersion.

 

Yes, roving bands of Amazon badasses would be most awesome.  Armed females were a very welcome addition to CWR2.

 

 

I was wondering if it would be possible to implement much more simple, limited, hardcoded logic, e.g.: if CUP and Chernarus are loaded, make roving opfor ChDKZ (or CDF); if Lingor and Apex are loaded, make roving opfor Syndikat.  A new setting (called something like "Armaverse") could be created that would implement such logic if desired, otherwise (default) opfor would be chosen randomly as they are now. 

[OMAC 254]

On Hard difficulty (reduced map markers, no hitchhiking, etc.), are markers for stronghold locations supposed to show on map at some point in mission?  I have never seen them, but perhaps such markers will only show after you get intel from warlord.  I have never encountered a stronghold (or warlord) so far...

 

At one point the player receives a phone call that provides locations of strongholds (and/or roadblocks/checkpoints?).  Should map markers appear on map after that call?  I have not seen them on Hard difficulty.  Also, the coords are in 4-digit format (e.g. XXXX,YYYY), so there is no apparent way to locate them on the map manually.  Without map markers, is there a way for player to use those provided coords?

[alky_lee 276]

21 minutes ago, OMAC said:

On Hard difficulty (reduced map markers, no hitchhiking, etc.), are markers for stronghold locations supposed to show on map at some point in mission?  I have never seen them, but perhaps such markers will only show after you get intel from warlord.  I have never encountered a stronghold (or warlord) so far...

 

At one point the player receives a phone call that provides locations of strongholds (and/or roadblocks/checkpoints?).  Should map markers appear on map after that call?  I have not seen them on Hard difficulty.  Also, the coords are in 4-digit format (e.g. XXXX,YYYY), so there is no apparent way to locate them on the map manually.  Without map markers, is there a way for player to use those provided coords?

The markers appear when you get Intel from a warlord, otherwise civilians may reveal the location of an individual stronghold/airfield when you ask them.

 

The co-ordinates in the phone call do not provide markers. They omit any 0s from the front of the grid ref which can be confusing. The first part is the easting and the second part is the northing as usual and it is possible to plot them on the map. They are only possible locations and are not absolutely accurate.

[Rydygier 1302]

What he said. To give an example, 4550,21492 point the church in Oreokastro if I'm not mistaken, which means about 4,5 kilometers from left edge of the map and 21,5 kilometers from the lower edge of the map. Also only 4 will point actual strongholds (2) and airfileds (2) - each play chosen by random. Rest points empty locations. 

[OMAC 254]

Great.  Thanks for the info, guys!

[major-stiffy 269]

For those interested in COOP  MP.

 

 

[OMAC 254]

Fast travel between hideouts isn't working for me on 1.95 beta Altis version.  I never see the "Return to hideout" action.  Can anyone else confirm this?  I'm using A3 1.70 Main branch.

[alky_lee 276]

14 minutes ago, OMAC said:

Fast travel between hideouts isn't working for me on 1.95 beta Altis version.  Can anyone else confirm this?  I'm using A3 1.70 Main branch.

The option for fast travel is only available when you are not in combat, there are no enemies nearby and when you haven't found the body.

[OMAC 254]

Ah ha.  I had already found the body before establishing any hideouts.  Thanks!

 

You may want to add that fast travel is impossible after finding body to your Steam article.

[alky_lee 276]

44 minutes ago, OMAC said:

Ah ha.  I had already found the body before establishing any hideouts.  Thanks!

 

You may want to add that fast travel is impossible after finding body to your Steam article.

 

I have updated the guide.

[OMAC 254]

50 minutes ago, alky_lee said:

 

I have updated the guide.

 

Excellent.  

 

[NikkeliFIN 0]

Hi,

 

I am new to ArmA and I was wondering how to make those COOP WIP versions work?

 

The single player scenarios are some kind of pbo- files and coop files (for example "1.95coop_wip") are just folders.

 

Do I need some kind of a tool to pack them into pbo files or what?

[Rydygier 1302]

Hi. No tool required. Common folder can and should be treated same way, as pbo file. Put it into MPMission located in the your Arma 3 directory. 

[OMAC 254]

After body has been found and loaded onto vehicle, will civilians still offer clues as to strongpoint locations?  In 5 playthroughs on hard difficulty, I still haven't encountered any strongpoints, and have never received any info about them from civvys.

 

It is interesting that fast travel is disabled for all vehicles after body has been found and loaded, even those that don't contain the body.  I have been trying to locate strongpoints after loading body into a truck, stashing it, and then taking off in another vehicle.  Unfortunately, I never received the message containing strongpoint/airport locations on Altis this time...