Run MP mission w/ Headless client as SP with respawn - possible?

[mausAU 10]

Hi all,

I like to run a domination mission (containing a headless client) for the AI and persistent warfare - it's a great idea - but I've been limited to hosting it as a LAN server and playing that way simply for the respawn ability. Running the same mission via preview gives me twice the frames per second, which is naturally what I'd like to have all the time.

A few questions I have about this idea:

- Is it possible to set up respawning when in a single player? Either via the existing functional MP menu or through some other form of trickery?

- Is it possible for a headless client to run when in single player?

- Is is possible to run a SP mission with the description.ext listing it as gameType = COOP, or if that will not work is there a SP equivalent I can replace it with?

- Preview mode = maxed fps, no respawn vs. LAN server = halved fps, fps loss over time, with respawn. So what changes between these two steps aside from the respawn? Surely the act of hosting locally can't be the cause of this insane performance loss? From my end if I could run preview mode and respawn I'd never bother with anything else, tbh.

Any help or suggestions you can offer me about this or possible workarounds/solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers :)

[SavageCDN 231]

1 - yes you can 'respawn' in SP either into another group or side member.. or there are respawn scripts out there that will work for SP (I think INS_Revive might be one of them but not sure)

2 - not possible - HC needs a slot to connect to the server which won't work in SP

3 - I don't see why not but it won't make any difference in SP

4 - to be honest that sounds strange that your FPS is halved when playing on LAN... something is not right there. I have not tried HC/LAN with Arma 3 yet but certainly in A2 it would be difficult for me to get anything lower than 45-50FPS as client.

edit: you could also try running your server on the same PC as your client then connect to it that way... perhaps a networking issue is causing your FPS drop

[mausAU 10]

Thank you for the reply, awesome stuff. I didn't realise the gameType didn't matter in SP, that's good to know.

I've got a lot of stupid questions where those came from :). So - if I understand correctly then..

1. Respawning in SP would be contingent on me having a farm of bodies I can have stashed away and jump into as I die? Something like a bunch of single units that are set as playable but with no other instruction and assigned to separate squads per man?

1a. So having respawn_base or respawn_west markers would be wrong for this? Is there a respawn_ that gives a list of units to possess or would _base choose a unit at random as long as they are within a certain area from it?

2. Ok, no headless client - that's just for speeding up AI processing speeds isn't it? Would side missions/random missions be affected by its removal, or does the HC client have a more important intrinsic relationship with the map's basic operation?

2a. Would simply deleting the HC unit in Editor stop the related stuff loading, or would it require finding what that unit runs off and removing that too in the map files?

3. I've tried running a server via TADST, but I've not been able to successfully connect to it. It disconnects me halfway through loading with a message saying it cannot load flag_plane_big.p3d. Couldn't get past that. The only thing I could see on Google was something about a server key issue - is there an obvious solution or checklist for that sort of thing that I'm not doing? I did think maybe I should copy the keys from inside all the @mod folders I use and put them into the Keys folder but I'm afraid of causing some sort of issue or losing track of which is what and where.

3a. The LAN performance is pretty atrocious, but I don't know what I can do to even find out whether there is a problem, let alone find out what could be causing it. Is there a tool or utility that you know of that can do that, or at least show me what is happening?

If you like those stupid questions I'm sure I can come up with some more :)

Thanks a lot for the info.

[SavageCDN 231]

1 - sort of yeah.. .in SP you can respawn into any team AI unit (press T).. so yeah having a farm of waiting 'clones' would work lol... there is probably a respawn script out there that does work in SP (ie: respawns you at the respawn_west marker)

1a - marker would only be needed in SP for a respawn script that supports SP respawn... otherwise you are 'taking over' existing units not actually respawning

2 - you are correct HC is usually only for handling large numbers of AI... the mission has to support this and removing the HC will not screw anything up unless the particular mission requires it. Some advanced missions will have an option to spawn AI on the server/client/HC (like ALiVE)

2a - hard to say that will depend on how the mission is set to work with the HC.. deleting the required unit will prevent the HC from even connecting to the server though (well.. it will connect to a playable slot instead but won't work)

3 - not sure I've never used TADST.. keys (.bikey) go into the keys folder and tell the server which mods are allowed (no key, no access). You also have to have verifySignatures = 2 in your server .cfg file. You can test if this is the problem by setting verifySignatures = 0; and then connect.. server will not do any key checks

3a - check the LAN server's FPS (when connected login as admin and type #monitor 3 in chat (3 is display interval in seconds). There is also the Arma Server Monitor (ASM) search forums to find more info

[jiltedjock 10]

Thank you for the reply, awesome stuff. I didn't realise the gameType didn't matter in SP, that's good to know.

I've got a lot of stupid questions where those came from :). So - if I understand correctly then..

1. Respawning in SP would be contingent on me having a farm of bodies I can have stashed away and jump into as I die? Something like a bunch of single units that are set as playable but with no other instruction and assigned to separate squads per man?

1a. So having respawn_base or respawn_west markers would be wrong for this? Is there a respawn_ that gives a list of units to possess or would _base choose a unit at random as long as they are within a certain area from it?

2. Ok, no headless client - that's just for speeding up AI processing speeds isn't it? Would side missions/random missions be affected by its removal, or does the HC client have a more important intrinsic relationship with the map's basic operation?

2a. Would simply deleting the HC unit in Editor stop the related stuff loading, or would it require finding what that unit runs off and removing that too in the map files?

3. I've tried running a server via TADST, but I've not been able to successfully connect to it. It disconnects me halfway through loading with a message saying it cannot load flag_plane_big.p3d. Couldn't get past that. The only thing I could see on Google was something about a server key issue - is there an obvious solution or checklist for that sort of thing that I'm not doing? I did think maybe I should copy the keys from inside all the @mod folders I use and put them into the Keys folder but I'm afraid of causing some sort of issue or losing track of which is what and where.

3a. The LAN performance is pretty atrocious, but I don't know what I can do to even find out whether there is a problem, let alone find out what could be causing it. Is there a tool or utility that you know of that can do that, or at least show me what is happening?

If you like those stupid questions I'm sure I can come up with some more :)

Thanks a lot for the info.

If you have a quad core or more, which I assume you have from other posts, then you would be best to host a dedicated server on it and run your client on it, so the AI will be offloaded to the server process. If you make a bunch of units playable in the mission (in a multiplayer sense) you will be able to spawn into them whenever you want.