[SP] Pilgrimage

[Rydygier 1302]

This works as follows: until "age" of the body is below 30 minutes, you can go as far, as you wish, and body will be still there, when you come back. But once body become "older" than 30 minutes, code checks, how far from the body player is. If is farther, than 2500 meters from the body older than 30 minutes - then the body is removed.

So go as far, as you wish within first 30 minutes from the kill, but do not go farther, than 2500 meters from the body older, than 30 minutes.

[Alex72 1]

Rydygier: Do you still have version 1.75 or so? Would love to have it if you do. To me its too much enemies now and i feel the soul of the mission is lost a bit (imo of course). Techincally the mission is amazing, but atm i see enemies every direction i look and im shot at constantly. I can barely move without being attacked. As a result the performance is going down a lot as well and that removes some of the joy also.

I always saw this something like that NATO and CSAT were at war at some point and NATO lost. Your brother was killed and now CSAT is patrolling the island after they won, but the war is over so there isnt as much enemy presence except in some villages, roadblocks (checkpoints) and some patrolling. You sneak in to find your brother to bring him home and its a lot of down town and solitude between the fights. And the combat were more that you attacked to get loot or sometimes attacked when startled by patrols. That felt great and different from other missions.

Now it feels more like an invasion mission and im totally outnumbered in every turn. :D Its your mission mate so im not gonna tell you how to make it, but i loved it just a few patches back and would love if you had any of those left on your HD. :)

[Rydygier 1302]

Rydygier: Do you still have version 1.75 or so? Would love to have it if you do. To me its too much enemies now and i feel the soul of the mission is lost a bit (imo of course). Techincally the mission is amazing, but atm i see enemies every direction i look and im shot at constantly. I can barely move without being attacked. As a result the performance is going down a lot as well and that removes some of the joy also.

Yes, I have. But I didn't touched amount of enemies since 1.5 or so. Well, in fact in 1.76 I reduced intensity of ambient combat for each setting. You must understand, it is semi-randomized. That means, each play this may look differently, but also may look similar. You could have a perfect gameplay under 1.75 and now you think, so every 1.75 gameplays will look same. But no. Each is unique and due to randomization may vary very seriously. Once you could find good armament in the first box, a hideout after 10 minutes and a tank after next few minutes and didn't see a single enemy through whole hour, but next play you may be whole hour stuck without a hideout, any good weapon nor vehicle, hemmed and hounded. Both cases are extreme and rare, but possible. Average is something fluctuating inbetween. You may find the body at first chapel or at the last one. Airfield may be close to your start position, so you'll see a chopper over you often, or may be located this time on the second end of the island and you'll not see SAD air patrol even once. Etc. etc. All in the same version. What you experienced during given gameplay is not step by step manually designed by me, it is generated by randomized circumstancies in which you was randomly thrown. All is dynamic, fluid and changeable are only statistical chances for something. Thus I have no control over your exact experience during given gameplay.

Now, when above, I hope, is clear: since 1.5, mission is customizable. Overall settings of gameplay are in your hands, not mine. I obviously couldn't fit taste of every player willing to play this mission, so I made many things optional. That's why we have init settings - to fit the mission to own taste. Don't hesitate to use this tool. Disable ambient combat, set some percentages lower (read tooltip description to know, what exactly you are changing and how this will affect the result) and voila - lesser amount of enemies, no "invasion", no constant overwhelming war around, sneaking is back etc. Statistically of course (see above). This way you can have even empty map excluding these four guarded areas and UGV if only you wish or some crazy war chaos all the time, if you preffer, or anything in the middle. What you described as your recent experience is IMO classical example of too high (relative to the taste and PC possibilities) init settings. So, mission in fact is yours, and is up to you, what kind of gameplay you'll get.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Rydygier

[law-giver 189]

I always saw this something like that NATO and CSAT were at war at some point and NATO lost. Your brother was killed and now CSAT is patrolling the island after they won, but the war is over so there isnt as much enemy presence except in some villages, roadblocks (checkpoints) and some patrolling. You sneak in to find your brother to bring him home and its a lot of down town and solitude between the fights. And the combat were more that you attacked to get loot or sometimes attacked when startled by patrols. That felt great and different from other missions.

Me personally, I love it this way. I was in a building out in the open countryside caught in the middle of warring factions and absolutely loved it. Trying to get out of there was a nightmare, but I made it after several attempts. And with ASR_Ai thrown in made it even harder. But I guess it's down to personal choice and as Rydygier pointed out, the settings are there to play it how you want, which makes this so much fun. ;)

[Kommiekat 11]

Rydygier: Do you still have version 1.75 or so? Would love to have it if you do. To me its too much enemies now and i feel the soul of the mission is lost a bit (imo of course). Techincally the mission is amazing, but atm i see enemies every direction i look and im shot at constantly. I can barely move without being attacked. As a result the performance is going down a lot as well and that removes some of the joy also.

You did go with the option of using a partner?

I know that baby sitting him is a pain in the butt, but it does help out a lot.

The rule in SCUBA is always dive with a buddy.

I assume same goes for this kind of situation.

I mean would YOU do this alone if it were you, in real life?

[VariousArtist 19]

Awesome mission. First playthrough took 2:40hrs. Was a bit too straight forward but ok.

Overall it would add a lot to the mission to enhance the hunt for the body. Different clues, helping others to buddy up with up to 3 others in your quest, etc.

1.77 bug: Couldnt heal myself

Somehow I was shown as hurt (i was hit, so that must be correct) but couldnt heal myself. Healing animation played but no first aid packs have been used from my backpacks. No other mods installed.

Keep up the great work!

[Rydygier 1302]

There are several kinds of clues, including false (excluding churches, pointing directions, circles limiting area of search...), some bounded with mini-quests and you can join up to two characters if you free and pay them (+ one optional from the beginning). Gameplay, as I just said above, looks differently each play, also depending on your settings, so next time may be more difficult (2 hours 40 minutes is below average, means you got randomized easier gameplay, than usual). I never was able to heal myself. IMO it is due to fact, Alex isn't a medic and can't do it effectively. Establish own hideout to gain ability of self-healing at firepalce or play with optional medic character or free another medic character from captivity. Mission's code doesn't touch vanilla healing ability.

[king homer 1]

This mission is still fantastic but am I doing something wrong, reading it took people less than 3 hours to find the brother? I mean I've been playing at least 10 hours now and just checked about half the island. I did not find any prisoners yet neither one of the obvious sidequests. My personal car is a MBT 52 Kuma, straight from some armor convoy (they didn't saw that coming). Is the body of the brother placed randomly or at least in a certain part of the island?

Regarding the civis: Most of them pointed me to go north or north east (at least 20+) but now there's nothing left in that direction. I don't think it makes any sense all of the people I asked pointed in a false direction? This percentage is a way to high in my eyes!

[Greenfist 1863]

This mission is still fantastic but am I doing something wrong, reading it took people less than 3 hours to find the brother? I mean I've been playing at least 10 hours now and just checked about half the island. I did not find any prisoners yet neither one of the obvious sidequests. My personal car is a MBT 52 Kuma, straight from some armor convoy (they didn't saw that coming). Is the body of the brother placed randomly or at least in a certain part of the island?

Regarding the civis: Most of them pointed me to go north or north east (at least 20+) but now there's nothing left in that direction. I don't think it makes any sense all of the people I asked pointed in a false direction? This percentage is a way to high in my eyes!

I'm about 5 hours in and still have almost whole west side of Altis uncovered.

So far I've had (only!) 3 direction intel but none of them quite overlap. They were all given roughly in the center of the map; one in the north pointed me north, the western to south-east and eastern to north-west. One of them must be completely false but two others did leave a possible sector which I've already covered.

Is the accuracy random in a way that it's either accurate or totally random? Or can even the accurate intel be a bit off?

Anyway, I'm still enjoying this mission a lot, more than any other SP mission. Thanks again, Ryddie! :D

[Rydygier 1302]

This mission is still fantastic but am I doing something wrong, reading it took people less than 3 hours to find the brother?

Nope. You just longer enjoy the mission. :) Body position is randomized, as other things, so time needed to finish this scenario may be very different each play. IMO the longer, the better for you. :)

Is the body of the brother placed randomly

Randomly. Body may be at any of above 200 holy places except those closer than 1000 meters from your starting position to avoid premature confrontation with haunted by mad AI UGV.

I don't think it makes any sense all of the people I asked pointed in a false direction?

Very unlikely. Cosmically unlikely in fact. Most probable you just missed something? Note, direction is relative to the civilian (or player's) position during given conversation and is only approximate.

---------- Post added at 17:27 ---------- Previous post was at 17:20 ----------

Is the accuracy random in a way that it's either accurate or totally random? Or can even the accurate intel be a bit off?

Each of eight possible direction names cover 45 degree wide sector, that contains exact direction chosen by code to point. That direction is chosen with only +/- 20 degree accuracy (another 40 degrees of spread) and there is 10% chance for pure random direction. Not very reliable kind of intel unless many such answers are similar.

---------- Post added at 17:31 ---------- Previous post was at 17:27 ----------

For example, let's say, proper exact direction is 70 degrees (East sector). But due to the spread given value may be from 50 to 90. So, if intel isn't false, you may get as answer NE (22.5-67.5) or E (67.5-112.5). Total spread of not false intel is 90 degrees in this case. Quite large. But the more answers will be same, the more probably you can narrow spread to 45 degrees, what is somehow useful. If answers are numerous enough you could even analyze proportions - how much of which answer, and by this guess, which part of sector is closer to the truth. Eg. If you got five times "E" and only twice "NE", it could be somewhere between 67-90 (rather East, but closer to the North, than South).

But again - pointed direction is always relative to the current position ("go in that direction from here").

Edited April 23, 2014 by Rydygier

[Greenfist 1863]

Ok, that's how I thought it works. So I went back to the sector of those two likely correct directions thinking 2 out of 3 can't be false with a 10% chance. And guess what? He was in the first church I checked there!

A little over 8 hours, without a single hitchhike. I guess I'll start over tomorrow. ;)

Pro tip: Remember where you left the boat, you might need it later.

[doc. caliban 34]

Is there a definitive list of what Hardcore Mode includes? I don't want to start the game over to see the tool tips. :-)

-Doc

[Rydygier 1302]

- no map markers that could point player's or boat's location (personally excluded chapels, hideouts, boat marker, artillery markers);

- no shift+click feature;

- no hitchhiking;

- no personal items at init (map, compass, GPS, radio, watch).

Point is, player must find out on his own, where he is, and obtain needed for navigation items. Meant to be played without player marker on the map.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Rydygier

[Kommiekat 11]

Congratulations.

You are not at 60 pages!!

[Rydygier 1302]

:)

Dev branch upgraded to 1.78 beta:

- addtional modes for both caching systems, that will remove bodies and wrecks only for Ambient Combat (other bodies still may be removed via manual removal - 0-0-1). Gear of fallen AIs is still deleted for all;

- increased LONG range for aerial SAD patrols to 7500 and added VERY LONG - 12000;

- enhanced some tooltips of init settings for better explanation.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Rydygier

[doc. caliban 34]

- no map markers that could point player's or boat's location (personally excluded chapels, hideouts, boat marker, artillery markers);

- no shift+click feature;

- no hitchhiking;

- no personal items at init (map, compass, GPS, radio, watch).

Point is, player must find out on his own, where he is, and obtain needed for navigation items. Meant to be played without player marker on the map.

Thanks!

I just realized something ... if I get rid of my radio, will I stop receiving black market intel offers about vehicles and hostile activity? I've decided to ignore all of those and rely only on what I can find myself and would love to disable those messages. Would dumping the radio do that?

Also, I had to admit that I don't know what the "shift-click" feature is. :-)

- Doc

[Rydygier 1302]

I didn't knew that too until they start to asked me, why it isn't in my mission. :) By shit+click on map you'll add map and 3D waypoint marker(s).

Radio is needed only for radio commands (waiting an hour and manual body deletion), as this way it was easiest to implement these two. In fact, I could make, as you propose, and disable any ADM communication if no radio. If there will be not any opposite opinions on that, so let's wait some time, we'll see, if anybody has anything against.

[law-giver 189]

Radio is needed only for radio commands (waiting an hour and manual body deletion), as this way it was easiest to implement these two. In fact, I could make, as you propose, and disable any ADM communication if no radio. If there will be not any opposite opinions on that, so let's wait some time, we'll see, if anybody has anything against.

I was just thinking about the radio thing as i started on hardcore without any radio etc so yeah i'm up for disabling the ADM comms if no radio. Testing 1.78 so far so good! ;)

[doc. caliban 34]

Ah, I see. I've been ctrl+shift clicking for those. I figure if you have a GPS, it makes sense to be able to do that. (But not if you only have a paper map, or nothing at all.)

As for the ADM Comms; if the radio itself is only used as an interface for executing mission functions, maybe they could be treated similarly to phone calls instead ... for instance, that drop-down option could have the options:

- Phone calls and ADM

- Phone calls only

- ADM only

- None

That is to say, since the radio isn't actually used for communications, then it wouldn't make sense to lose the mission functionality by having to remove the radio in order to eliminate the ADM messages.

Just a thought. Thanks!

-Doc

Edited April 24, 2014 by Doc. Caliban

[Alex72 1]

Rydygier, would it be hard to implement an option for eAI patrols? Like garrison and checkpoint settings we already have it would be awesome with maybe LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH eAI patrols.

Really love the latest version except that theres so much enemies. :)

[Rydygier 1302]

That is to say, since the radio isn't actually used for communications, then it wouldn't make sense to lose the mission functionality by having to remove the radio in order to eliminate the ADM messages.

I think, perfect solution would be to make mission functionalities (waiting, body cleaning) independent on radio channels. And then make ADM and maybe also phone calls dependent on radio item. But I must find some nice and easy replacer for radio channels, not another actions for sure. Separately, sure, I could add to the "phone calls" init settings also ability to selective choosing to disable ADM messages. Also, regarding to the message, player see on the screen when is trying to open a map, when not have it, it is not simple paper map, but some another gadget with satellite comm link. IMO ADM has any sense only, if player also have a map, so this dependency I would add too.

Any ideas or suggestions?

No, sorry no idea, what is the source of yours problems. If your problem description is exact and full (no any other odd things to mention), then this looks like initial code is not executing. Do you get initial GUI with settings? How long mission is loading comparing to 1.74 on the same settings? Are there any error messages or unusual lags? If you could provide me your RPT from such gameplay, this could perhaps explain something. Or not, but for now for sure there is not enough specifics to say anything. For now we can only guess, if for both of you 1.74 works, and 11.75 do not, problem is related with one of features introduced in 1.75:

visible parts of gear now are removed at unit spawn, not at death, so no more suddenly disappearing helmets or NVGs;

improved spawning and caching of motorized groups;

init settings to customize ambient civilians and "green circle" intel occurence;

brother's body marked in 3D when noticed by Alex;

own code for ambient civilians on foot;

second recruitable character is now an engineer;

player can now take direct control over any subordinate;

AIs, that surrendered, are now 3D-marked - useful for finding individuals to interrogate and gather their loot, when defeated group was scattered;

improved clean up function for ambient combat: now weaponholders near each body are removed as well;

old and far bodies apart from ambient combat, along with their weaponholders, will be now deleted too;

on Alpha radio channel (0-0-1) now forced clean up: manual immediate removal of all dead bodies with near weaponholders, wrecks and empty groups;

various code tweaks.

But nothing of above is a problem itself, if rest of us have no such issues. It could be rather some combination of one of above with something, you have/did differently, than the rest. No idea, what this could be, sorry again. If you wish, give me your RPT file content from exemplary mission run (and be sure, you are NOT using -noLogs startup parameter).

Rydygier, would it be hard to implement an option for eAI patrols?

As soon, as you'll explain me what are "eAI patrols", I would be able to tell, if possible.. :) As there is no more room for more AI groups it is anyway doubtful however.

Really love the latest version except that theres so much enemies.

Yeah, but you have read my answer to your earlier concerns in this matter, right?

Edited April 25, 2014 by Rydygier

[law-giver 189]

As soon, as you'll explain me what are "eAI patrols", I would be able to tell, if possible.. :)

If i'm correct i think it just means enemy ai patrols! ;)

[Rydygier 1302]

Ah, :) well then, as said - there will be no more groups, but in fact any motorized group currently performs a constant patrol (unless cached of course, when >4000 from the player), and even will act like rapid response force in this radius investigating areas, where player was spotted and help when player is "tracked". Also, it is one of two things, Ambient Combat does: one is making east and resistance enemies to each other, second - is spawning some groups of both sides widely around the player, performing looped patrols.

Meanwhile updated 1.78 beta:

- waitng 1 hour and manual bodies removing moved from radio channel to the supports (0-8-1,0-8-2), thus both no longer dependent on radio item; (there is optional on-screen notification provided by BIS about each newly added "support", I disabled it, if you, guys, want opposite - tell me. IMO is better for immersion without such "jingles");

- changed "phone calls" init setting - now user can set there presence of both: phone calls and/or ADM Intel offers (loot selling not affected);

- radio item is now required for phone calls, radio AND map items are required for ADM Intel offers.

Required items should be in the proper item slots. Having them in the inventory is not enough.

[law-giver 189]

Meanwhile updated 1.78 beta:

- waitng 1 hour and manual bodies removing moved from radio channel to the supports (0-8-1,0-8-2), thus both no longer dependent on radio item; (there is optional on-screen notification provided by BIS about each newly added "support", I disabled it, if you, guys, want opposite - tell me. IMO is better for immersion without such "jingles");

- changed "phone calls" init setting - now user can set there presence of both: phone calls and/or ADM Intel offers (loot selling not affected);

- radio item is now required for phone calls, radio AND map items are required for ADM Intel offers.

Required items should be in the proper item slots. Having them in the inventory is not enough.

Trying now mate! ;)

[doc. caliban 34]

Ah, :) well then, as said - there will be no more groups, but in fact any motorized group currently performs a constant patrol (unless cached of course, when >4000 from the player), and even will act like rapid response force in this radius investigating areas, where player was spotted and help when player is "tracked". Also, it is one of two things, Ambient Combat does: one is making east and resistance enemies to each other, second - is spawning some groups of both sides widely around the player, performing looped patrols.

Meanwhile updated 1.78 beta:

- waitng 1 hour and manual bodies removing moved from radio channel to the supports (0-8-1,0-8-2), thus both no longer dependent on radio item; (there is optional on-screen notification provided by BIS about each newly added "support", I disabled it, if you, guys, want opposite - tell me. IMO is better for immersion without such "jingles");

- changed "phone calls" init setting - now user can set there presence of both: phone calls and/or ADM Intel offers (loot selling not affected);

- radio item is now required for phone calls, radio AND map items are required for ADM Intel offers.

Required items should be in the proper item slots. Having them in the inventory is not enough.

I just finished a go with 1.76 and I very much enjoyed the vehicle patrols and their coming to look for me ... very exciting aspect! Thank you for considering and trying out the option of disabling ADM communications ... I'm looking forward to trying that out. I will probably wait a few days before starting another mission but will keep an eye on the thread.

Thanks for all your work.

- Doc