[SP] Pilgrimage

[alky_lee 276]

The PC Gamer article seems to have generated quite a lot of interest in the mission. My first Pilgrimage video I put on Youtube has received around 150 views since yesterday. I was a bit worried, because that was about 4 months ago, when I was using 1.78. Luckily I did it as a gentle introduction to Pilgrimage and didn't go into too much detail, so it is quite generic, but I have quickly added a comment with some recommendations for mods to use in the mission and also about ambient combat. To go back to my settings for that first mission, without mods or ambient combat and everything in vanilla, would seem pretty boring now.

[pvt. partz 248]

..... I was in the process of taking out the three enemies guarding a hideout when a tank spotted me and came down out of the hills. It must have then alerted an ifrit which had four soldiers in it and it to started buzzing around and all I had was a few trees and a couple of bushes to hide in. The foot patrols were everywhere now and I only dared use my silenced 9mm while peaking out from my bush. After 20 minutes I took out the 7 enemy and had to wait about another 20 minutes before the tank got bored and slooooowly wandered down the road. The ifrit (with the 4 enemy in it) got hung up on a guardrail so that's why they all got out and came looking for me. Whew! So all in all I was finally able to establish that hideout and got a ifrit full of gear to boot, even if it was hung up and useless it's still only 100m from my hideout. I have got to start recording this stuff. It would have been an epic video!! LOL

[Rydygier 1302]

:) Sure, always nice to watch someone's "best moments" in Pilgrimage.

The PC Gamer article seems to have generated quite a lot of interest in the mission.

True, in the last few days I got more comments on Workshop, than through past few months. That means, about dozen. Also it's very clearly visible in the Workshop's Pilgrimage statistics graphs.

[rndmplyr 1]

I just started a new walkthrough with the newest version and quite a list of mods, and before I was in the first settlement, an UAV already flew over me, then in the settlement a Sochor was shot by some Blufor soldiers. Is that supposed to happen? I was aware that combat was possible with the ambient combat parameter (which I disabled), but is Blufor even supposed to be on the island?

[alky_lee 276]

Are you using TPW mods? If so you need to disable TPW Skirmish in his config

[Rydygier 1302]

Yes, no BLUFOR spawned in Pilgrimage except Alex, optional comrade and two hostages, if you free them and hire. I would guess, it might be TPW's skirmish component?

[rndmplyr 1]

It was getting rather absurd, now 2 Blackfoots were chasing the UAV...

Yes, I have the skirmish module enabled. It isn't even mentioned on the mod's armaholic page in the features list :confused:

Thanks!

[alky_lee 276]

I tried one of my missions with TPW skirmish. All the enemy, and their air support, were wiped out and I never fired a shot.

Once you have disabled it, you will probably have to start a new mission for the new setting to take effect.

[mikhail 10]

Are you using TPW mods? If so you need to disable TPW Skirmish in his config

I've disabled skirmish in the TPW config (by unchecking skirmish using the java tool) and this is breaking the mission AC option.

[Rydygier 1302]

I don't know why this happened (do not know skirmish code), also not sure, what exactly makes you think, AC is broken - what happened actually (details, always details), but anyway - did you restarted the game and scenario after disabling skirmish? Sounds, like you didn't.

[mikhail 10]

I don't know why this happened (do not know skirmish code), also not sure, what exactly makes you think, AC is broken - what happened actually (details, always details), but anyway - did you restarted the game and scenario after disabling skirmish? Sounds, like you didn't.

Sorry I'll provide some more details.

Yes of course I've started a new scenario. I set garrisons to off and set AC to high. I first tried this with TPW enabled and skimish disabled. I drove through several towns and did some looting of military bases. I found no AC at all.

Then I disabled TPW and left AC at high (along with all my other settings)(and again as always starting a new scenario) and then bam, the first town I went to there was AC.

I'm doing some more testing as I think I might have run into the random factor here. I just tried AC on high again without TPW and it did take a bit for AC to show up. I'm about to try again with TPW enabled w/skimish disabled and see what happens. I'll report back here in a few.

[Rydygier 1302]

OK, thanks. Yes, random factor is important here. Despite initial setting of AC, result may vary seriously each play. Just average intensity should be higher on higher settings. It is never certain, where groups will be spawned and where will go, just there will be statistically more of them and a bit closer to each other and to the player. Depends also, how far there is nearest city and how many cities around.

[alky_lee 276]

I've disabled skirmish in the TPW config (by unchecking skirmish using the java tool) and this is breaking the mission AC option.

I also turn off EBS & LOS as well. I don't know if they interfere with AC at all, but I thought that they might, so I disabled them.

[mikhail 10]

OK so after some more testing it does look like it was just a random factor here. (btw, I've also had EBS and LOS disabled the whole time)

When I first starting playing this I was using skirmish and ran into the same issues with the skirmish AI basically wiping out the mission AI. That's when I started looking in this thread and saw to disable skirmish. The difference between skirmish and the mission AC is quite dramatic and AC does take a bit to kick in it seems. Even on high I don't seem to find that much, but again that could just be the randomness of it. So my apologies for the false alarm here.

One question, are bluefor NATO? Is there a way to customize it? One thing I liked about skirmish was that you could customize the units in the config.

Also one thing I've noticed is that I'm getting some lag using AC that I wasn't using skirmish. I'm going to turn down the AC and see if that changes things.

Other than this little quirk I have been playing the hell out of this mission. So much damn fun. You really did an amazing job. Thanks for your hard work.

[Rydygier 1302]

First thing, main purpose of Ambient Combat is to provide, surprise, a combat in the ambience. :) So primarily it is for giving you an experience of the country under chaotic war (distant shooting and explosions, columns of smoke, bodies at the road... from time to time). Involving player into eye of the storm isn't the goal. Player may be involved "by the way" only. You have two hostile sides on Altis: East and Inependent. You are the only blufor around (+ optional team mate(s)). By default E and I are allied with each other. AC does two things:

1. Makes E and I hostile to each other;

2. Spawns additional, dynamic patrolling groups of both sides in wide range around the player, that will roam randomly and may meet (or not) each other or non-dynamic AIs sometimes, what results in firefights;

Third thing is clearing old/distant bodies/wrecks/weaponry on the ground to avoid increasing CPU load due to accumulating junk.

Didn't tried TPW's skirmish, but it's quite possible, so even on HIGH AC will be much less intensive. Nothing wrong here, it is carefully balanced for its purpose.

As for custom factions - if you play with addons introducing custom factions of E or I side, these will be randomly used together with vanilla factions to populate the island and for AC. No any manual config needed.

Lags - not sure, depends on PC, some small, short lags may occur at groups spawn or the most intense battles involving many explosions/rapid fire, but that's all. Unless you play with AI addons, like bCombat - then the more AI in fight, the bigger additional CPU load. No other causes of lags expected. It's, same, as all, sqf script, so by its scheduled nature simply can't by itself generate any lags directly.

Of course should be fully possible, if you prefer that way, to disable AC and use TPW skirmish, configured to your taste.

Edited September 17, 2014 by Rydygier

[mikhail 10]

OK. Thank you for the explanation. Makes much more sense now.

Thanks for your time. Keep up the great work!

[Rydygier 1302]

"Dev branch" updated to 1.86c beta 3:

- fix for artillery code;

- now all team members have access to the all Alex' action menu options (previously most action menu features could be used only by Alex and these was lost after Alex' death (and team switch to continue regardless) and in certain circumstancies that blocked finishing the main goal).

I think, official 1.86c release should occur around first week of October and, unless some bugs will ned hotfixing, that should be the final version for MANW edition.

Edited September 18, 2014 by Rydygier

[cub1 11]

I am using version 1.85c and have a problem with savegames. I know about the steam workshop not saving games so I downloaded from Armaholic. Played for about an hour and got shot, so reloaded my latest autosave from the menu. But instead of the save loading, I had the setup menu come up for the mission and had to start over.

Now, it may be my mod soup which is as follows :

@cba_a3

@TPW_Mods

@african_conflict

@asdg_attachments

@asr_ai3

@caf_ag

@ryd_incognito

@speedofsoundv2

@tort_dynamicweather

@tpwcas_a3

@unlocked_uniforms

and a few other smaller mods like @l_twitch etc

Has this happened to anyone else ? Thank you.

FIXED SAVEGAME see below...

Edited September 20, 2014 by cub1
Fixed.

[Rydygier 1302]

Never heard about such thing. Even seems unlikely to me, so game could ever autosave at GUI screen. I know most mods, you listed (except "few other smaller"), and none of them does such thing to me. Seems unlikely, so mod, or anything, would do such jokes though. Perhpas play with same set of the mods and try to duplicate the issue (save or wait ofr autosave, then load).

[cub1 11]

Never heard about such thing. Even seems unlikely to me, so game could ever autosave at GUI screen. I know most mods, you listed (except "few other smaller"), and none of them does such thing to me. Seems unlikely, so mod, or anything, would do such jokes though. Perhpas play with same set of the mods and try to duplicate the issue (save or wait ofr autosave, then load).

Rydygier... Sorted my save game problem. I had the @african_conflict mod enabled but not its dependency mod - @nato_russian_sf_weapons which gave me an error, but I couldn't see it as I had "No Logs" in launch parameters set.

All is now well, save games work.

Great mission btw... subscribed and voted !

[Rydygier 1302]

Great, thanks. :)

[Rydygier 1302]

Hmm. Today I wake up thinking, wouldn't be a good idea after all add some intro to the mission, eg to explain more clearly the plot. But must be really good or none - if you can't do something well, better don't. Anyway, for now no good, non-cliché idea, that wouldn't require resources, I haven't, like voice acting or custom graphics.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Maybe one from the brother's perspective. What he was doing on the island and how he got killed? Just a small cutscene, like a silent movie.

[Rydygier 1302]

Yeah, that could be not bad, if well done, but hard to show it not knowing yet, where his body will be located unless shown such a way, so location will be not recognizable. I'll think, thanks.

[IndeedPete 1038]

He could get killed at some location shown in the intro and then moved to a chapel "close by".