[SP/COOP] Area Of Operations (Dynamic Mission Generator)

[Drongo69 117]

Area of Operations

by Drongo

version 32

AO is a dynamic mission generator for SP/COOP Arma 3. It dynamically generates enemy forces and a single mission for each playthrough. About 20 seconds after mission start, switch to map and check your "Tasks" tab for details on the current mission. When the players wish to end the mission, go to the flagpole in base and select the "End Mission" action (only group leaders can perform this function).

The mission is playable "out of the box", but for the best result players should edit the units and Preferences.sqf file (very easy to do). It is not provided as a pbo as I expect people will want to edit it to their own tastes.

This release contains a version on Altis with CSAT versus FIA, a version on Takistan with NATO versus insurgents, SAA versus FSA on Takistan and AAF versus FIA on Stratis. The Takistan version is more balanced for mission distances and enemy density. The Altis version should be tweaked to suit player tastes.

Features

• SP or COOP (2 to ? players)
  
• 6 mission types (Assault, Defence, Deliver, Patrol, Raid, Rescue)
  
• Excellent replayability
  
• Very easy to customize player-side and enemy units
  
• Easy to add units from mods
  
• Can be ported to any island (takes a bit of work, placing markers mostly)
  
• Enemy forces set up ambushes in reasonable locations along roads
  
• Enemy foot and vehicle patrols
  

OPTIONS

• Bangabob's Civilian Occupation System
  
• brians200's Randomly Generated Roadside IEDs
  
• code34's RealWeather
  
• Random start time for each mission
  

Mission Types

• Assault: Clear about 4 enemy squads out of a town.
  
• Defence: Defend your base from several waves of enemy squads.
  
• Deliver: Deliver a truck to a town.
  
• Patrol: Move to 2 points on the map and survey them on foot.
  
• Raid: Locate and destroy an enemy squad at a certain objective.
  
• Rescue: One squad is stranded near their crashed helo and surrounded by enemies. The other squad starts at base and must rescue them before they are overrun.
  

Enemy Squad Types

• Town Militia: Spawn in and patrol around a single town.
  
• Ambush: Spawn overlooking a road, often with a crew-served weapon. Sit in position waiting for a target of opportunity.
  
• POI: Spawn in and patrol around a single POI.
  
• Zone: Spawn somewhere in a zone and will move to other zones, towns or POIs.
  
• Vehicle: Spawn at road markers and will move to towns and POIs.
  

Future Plans

• Limited persistent information about an abstracted enemy strength to simulate a campaign.
  
• Possible incorporation of DAC or ALIVE for superior map population.
  

Credits

Design/scripting: Drongo

Testing: Chops

Testing: RootLocus (OFP version)

This mission uses Bangabob's Civilian Occupation System

This mission uses brians200's Randomly Generated IEDs

This mission uses code34's Real Weather

Download version 32 (392.85 KB)

Armaholic mirror

Required addons: None

Required for the Takistan variant: Arma 3 Map Pack

Required for the Syrian Arab Army variant: Middle East Conflict (and the mods it depends on)

Copy the folders to user missions. On my PC this can be found in Libraries>Documents>Arma 3 - Other Profiles>Drongo>missions.

Earlier versions of AO were for OFP and an unreleased Arma 3 version. I released something similar many moons ago.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Drongo69

[commanderx 17]

Anyone tested this mission? Looks promising!

Best regards

Kai

[ice_age0815 37]

not yet trying it out now

lagging a lot idea is good love it

ao/functions/listgroupvehicles.sqf not found

misc/functions/scattergroup.sqf not found

and i am not a fan of the weather script its ok but not my thing

Edited May 1, 2014 by ICE_AGE0815

[karmalauja 2]

hi drongo,

i'm on it.

first thank u for your work (tools and and now this mission).

fist difficulty is the fact that the base is very exposed to the attack (central position) i think it s good idea for reaching the mission but a little hard to concentrated myself.

i have disable the eos (civilian) because i used to play with tpw mod.

i'm looking for that kind of mission because i used to play in SP with MCC

I like the idea of a single play mission witch could be save , "customazable", with side missions ( are u working on new side missions ?). the sandbox for SP with the tension of the MP in maps with enemies patrols and town to take.

i will keep an eyes on your job

see you soon for another debriefing. i'm carry on that test

thanks

[Drongo69 117]

First post updated with version 31. Changes:

• Added an extra leg to the patrol mission (requires a new marker called "aoMission2" and a logic called aoMissionLogic2)
  
• Added an SAA versus FSA on Takistan version
  

@karmalauja

Feel free to reposition your base, just move all the base markers, units and objects to wherever suits you. You may need to move or resize the IED markers if you do so, but this is easy enough.

I may add new missions. I am also thinking of adding some special enemies like an elite squad hunting the players or an elite sniper. I might add camps too.

[1212PDMCDMPPM 200]

I just tried v31 on Takistan (the regular, not the SAA one). I created a pbo (no modification of your mission) and run it selfhosted as an MP mission, playing alone. I was assign a raid mission, died :) and respawned as a member of my team, died again, respawn again and, at this time, just realized the task assigned to me was gone.

Do you think you can fix this ?

Your mission has a great potential !! Thx for sharing !

[karmalauja 2]

thank u Drongo

:bounce3:

[Drongo69 117]

@1212PDMCDMPPM

I know my way around MP scripting, but as I came to Arma 3 direct from OFP I don't know much about tasks and locality. I'll look into it. Did you still have the marker to guide you?

[giorgygr 61]

@Drongo

We played the earliest version with my team.

As I have weak machine..it was pretty nice (performance wise).

I also liked the "simplicity" of the mission (not a ton of..other scripts)

We played about 2 missions so far 1 "Assault" type and 1 "Defend"

The "Assault" was awesome but in "Defend"..

i have some people complaining that *maybe enemy AI spawned just outside of our door in massive numbers.

To be honest the enemy numbers i saw made me suspect that something *might not working right

and enemy numbers was multiplied by the number of players (locality?!)

So..enemy AI belongs to server or client/s?

Thanks for this mission//

Keep up!

[Drongo69 117]

Glad you enjoyed the assault mission GiorgyGR. I just checked the code for the defence mission, it is spawning 8 squads D: Dunno what I was thinking... Anyway, you can adjust this easily. Look at AO\Spawn\PopulateEnemy.sqf. Look for the lines

if (aoMissionType == "Defence") exitWith {
aoEnemyGroupSize = [5,12];
_markers = aoDefenceMarkers;
_counter = 8;

Set _counter to however many squads you want (I'm changing it to 3 as the default for the next release). The AI is all server-side and is not adjusted by player count.

BTW, if anyone wants to stop a certain mission type from occurring, edit AO\Mission\GenerateMission.sqf. Find the array called _missionTypes and simply delete all references to that mission type from the array. You can also make it more likely for certain mission types to occur. So if you want a lot of raids but no patrols you could make the array look like so:

_missionTypes = ["Raid","Raid","Raid","Raid","Deliver","Assault","Defence","Rescue"];

Thanks for the feedback.

[Nevins 10]

Hey I really like what you have done here but I just personally prefer to play as NATO rather than CSAT. I can just replace all the spawning units with BLUFOR ones/their init lines as well as replacing the BLUFOR defenders in the south with REDFOR, but what else in the scripting would I have to tweak?

[Drongo69 117]

The first thing to do is edit AO\Preferences.sqf. Find the lines aoEnemySide = West; and aoPlayerSide = East; and change them accordingly:

aoEnemySide = East;
aoPlayerSide = West;

Then delete the existing CSAT player groups and place the NATO groups you want as players/friendly. In the init field of each group put:

nul = [this] execVM "AO\Misc\PlayerGroup.sqf";

If you want to play against FIA units, that is all you need to do. If you want to change the enemy unit types:

In the default mission, you will see various empty vehicles and infantry down near Cap Makrinos. To change the enemy units, change these units on the map. For example, for new infantry, you can simply delete the existing groups, place a new group of your desired type and put the following line in the init field of the group leader:

nul = [this] execVM "AO\Spawn\DefineEnemyMen.sqf";

Also, make a small group of units to be used as squad leaders and put the following line in the init field of the group leader:

nul = [this] execVM "AO\Spawn\DefineEnemyLeaders.sqf";

For crew-served weapons, place an empty one of the desired type and put this in the init field:

nul = [this] execVM "AO\Spawn\DefineEnemyCSW.sqf";

For enemy vehicles, do the same thing with:

nul = [this] execVM "AO\Spawn\DefineEnemyVehicle.sqf";

The readme has other stuff related to customizing the mission.

[Nevins 10]

Great thanks

[opendome 91]

Great layout! Thanks for adding this. I was wondering how I can switch the OPFOR faction to CAF Agressors Middle Eastern tribals? I deleted the old OPFOR group and replcaed them with the Tribals and put nul = [this] execVM "AO\Spawn\DefineEnemyMen.sqf"; in the init fields of the group leader and make a second group where I put nul = [this] execVM "AO\Spawn\DefineEnemyLeaders.sqf"; but it seems like it keeps spawning FIA resistance fighters with AKs. pkms, etc. I was also wondering how I can change the civilian faction to the middle eastern civilians from the CAF agressors mod?

EDIT: Nm I disabled the random resistance clothing and it works now :P I am still wondering how to change the civ faction though. Im also getting an error "open addscript_unit.sqf to apply pedestrain script" when trying to say hello to civilians, how do I fix that?

Thanks for your help!

Edited May 4, 2014 by Opendome

[ice_age0815 37]

is there a way you can make it a west mission to

[opendome 91]

I was also wondering if anyone's been able to get decent FPS? I usually get around 20 or so and was wondering if theres a way to boost it (ive already disabled civilians)

[Drongo69 117]

@Opendome

I'll look into how to adjust civilian types for the next release. I'll also look at the script error (I think that is from COS). I should probably turn random clothing off by default too.

As for frames, try adjusting the number of enemy groups and the group sizes in AO\Preferences.sqf. The ambush, militia and vehicle groups are the most important. You can change POI and Zone groups to zero without too much effect on gameplay. Also, I'll add some caching in a future release, and maybe replace some groups with DAC.

I find the Takistan version has better performance than Altis, and requires less enemy groups for a good game. An early version was on Stratis, I'll update that and include it in the next release.

@ICE_AGE0815

Look three posts above yours.

[ice_age0815 37]

i see that post but i cant get it to work dont no why no ai spawning at targets

got it to work but when i play on mission and go back to base nothing happens after that only thing i can do then is end mission

Edited May 5, 2014 by ICE_AGE0815

[opendome 91]

@Opendome

I'll look into how to adjust civilian types for the next release. I'll also look at the script error (I think that is from COS). I should probably turn random clothing off by default too.

As for frames, try adjusting the number of enemy groups and the group sizes in AO\Preferences.sqf. The ambush, militia and vehicle groups are the most important. You can change POI and Zone groups to zero without too much effect on gameplay. Also, I'll add some caching in a future release, and maybe replace some groups with DAC.

I find the Takistan version has better performance than Altis, and requires less enemy groups for a good game. An early version was on Stratis, I'll update that and include it in the next release.

@ICE_AGE0815

Look three posts above yours.

Thanks for your help bud! I put the POI and zone groups to 0 and it helped. A caching system or DAC would be great! or an integration of ALIVE. I was also thinking a hostage rescue mission (for blufor AI) would be awesome or a HVT to capture. Also one weird thing I notcied was during the rescue mission where one group of players spawns at the crash site, the OPFOR just stand where they spawn and don't really move in.

Thanks!

[Drongo69 117]

@Opendome

The AI script for the Rescue mission, is missing I'll fix it for the next release. I'll see if I can knock together a hostage rescue mission as well.

@ICE_AGE0815

That is how the system works. It generates a single mission every time you play, not a series of connected missions.

[ice_age0815 37]

@Opendome

The AI script for the Rescue mission, is missing I'll fix it for the next release. I'll see if I can knock together a hostage rescue mission as well.

@ICE_AGE0815

That is how the system works. It generates a single mission every time you play, not a series of connected missions.

ok thank you i was thinking it work like a domi when you get one mission done the next one pops up would be nice to have that build in

but in all nice mission

the system is nice to when you get the hang of it it is simple to edit

[neofit 65]

Do I put the "@AOv31.Altis" into Missions\ or "User Missions\" ? They work in neither.

[Drongo69 117]

User missions. On my PC this can be found in Libraries>Documents>Arma 3 - Other Profiles>Drongo>missions

[neofit 65]

User missions. On my PC this can be found in Libraries>Documents>Arma 3 - Other Profiles>Drongo>missions

Oops hehe, I even forgot about this third one.

When starting @AOv31.Altis, first it complains about "AO\Functions\ListGroupVehicles.sqf" missing. I made a file with zero length and it calmed it down.

Now, I changed this and only this in AO\Preferences.sqf:

// Side of the enemy

//aoEnemySide = West;

aoEnemySide = East;

//aoEnemySide = Resistance;

// Side of the player(s)

//aoPlayerSide = East;

aoPlayerSide = West;

I am still spawning as a CSAT.

[Drongo69 117]

Did you change the player group in the editor to a NATO group?