[SP Campaign] M.E.R.C.S. - mercenary expendable ruthless covert selfish

[jprice94 16]

I held his sons hostage and called him at work. Based on his movements in the tracker, he seems to derp all around the middle of the facility, and then go onto the road to the exit, go half way, stop.. wait for a minute, then double back and go all the way back around a sandbag wall and then walks into a wall in the corner of the compound and sits there indeffinately. I ended up just ramming a stolen hatchback through the gate, slaughtering the PMCs, grabbing the guy from his little corner and stuffing him in one of the trucks in the entrance and driving off into the sunset dodging marskmen fire and rockets. Worked surprisingly well..

Edited April 18, 2015 by JPrice94

[IndeedPete 1038]

Well, there's always a solution. ;)

It could be the "AI improvements" from the latest patches. AI seems to be super aware now and even breakes patrol patterns and movement orders when there's just a loud noise or similar: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?189736-Units-Are-In-Combat-Mode-On-Mission-Start-Since-1-40

Got the update staged so far. A few fixes and tweaks, added Marksmen gear to the shop and there's also a little surprise ahead. Watch this space, I hope I'll make the release tomorrow today on Sunday. ;)

[jprice94 16]

I figured the AI improvements was the reason. Anyway, not sure who to side with in the last mission... Citizenship in the EF sounds good.. or does it... SURPRISE you say?

[IndeedPete 1038]

Yeah, still doing some RL work right now. Got an important meeting with academia tomorrow. Hopefully dinner soon, and after I plan to get on M.E.R.C.S., doing a last fix or two and give at least the shop another test. BI changed some minor config stuff, need to make sure everything's still working.

Suprise - let's say more of a sneak peek, nothing big though, don't expect too much! :)

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

Suprise - let's say more of a sneak peek, nothing big though, don't expect too much! :)

An sneak peek of... lets say... CONTENTION ZONE???? (like a little blowout out of nowhere... or a first anomalies glance... just to warn of the dangerous times to come???) =D

cheers!

[IndeedPete 1038]

;2923751']An sneak peek of... lets say... CONTENTION ZONE???? (like a little blowout out of nowhere... or a first anomalies glance... just to warn of the dangerous times to come???) =D

cheers!

Hm, no. Try again! ;)

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

WOW! Mindblow!!!!

Did the "bad ending" on that mission where Saif tries to steal the CSAT devices triggers the Altis Contention Zone? I recall SAif dies and we can play as the hacker on a wastelanded Altis... is that it??? Saif activating the device caused Altis Contention Zone???? WOWWWWWWW =D

[Jona33 51]

;2923799']WOW! Mindblow!!!!

Did the "bad ending" on that mission where Saif tries to steal the CSAT devices triggers the Altis Contention Zone? I recall SAif dies and we can play as the hacker on a wastelanded Altis... is that it??? Saif activating the device caused Altis Contention Zone???? WOWWWWWWW =D

Oh shit! That's a cool theory.

(Word of warning, there's a reason the man used the spoiler quote----Don't click it unless you've done the endings, I've ruined too much stuff for myself by my inability not to read stuff in spoilers :D)

[IndeedPete 1038]

Nice story idea, but no! Hold your horses, chaps. Update incoming!

---------- Post added at 10:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:39 PM ----------

Update time! 1.02 brings some more mod support for CUP as well as the Marksmen content and fixes a few bugs introduced with Arma 3 1.42. Enjoy! :)

Changelog

1.02 - 19.04.2015

• FIXED: Some spelling errors.
  
• FIXED: Force Recon, mission would not finish due to AI bug.
  
• FIXED: Added re-chambered Rahim and Zafir magazines to the shop.
  
• CHANGED: Riot Control, changed win condition to "Negades seized by BLUFOR" instead of "all OPFOR killed".
  
• CHANGED: Protection Money, moved waypoints of the HVI a bit more outside of the camps to prevent AI from stucking there.
  
• ADDED: Helicopter insertion participants are now 10 seconds invincible after drop to prevent death from disembarking.
  
• ADDED: Shop support for Marksmen DLC gear.
  
• ADDED: Thanks to Bolo861's customised shop configs for CUP.
  

Credits & Thanks

• Bohemia Interactive Studios for this great game!
  
• aeroson for his get/set loadout and repetitive clean up scripts!
  
• cobra4v320 for his HALO/parachuting scripts!
  
• Kydoimos for cross-reading and improving some of the dialogues and texts!
  
• mrflay for his explosion detector!
  
• Shuko for his SHKPos script!
  
• Surfer for his help regarding the awesome M.E.R.C.S. logo and way too many textures and images!
  
• tpw for his ambient civilian script package!
  
• And all the great people on the BI-Forums who helped out with answers and feedback to so many questions!

Download

Addon Version

Dropbox v1.02

Steam Workshop v1.02

Campaign PBO Version

Dropbox v1.02

And, as already announced a teeny-tiny suprise. A sneak peek on five exclusive concept screenshots of the official M.E.R.C.S. successor! Keep in mind that due to concept stage what you see is most likely to change and not being released anytime soon. For now, I can only say that it's SP only, will be a full-blown campaign, rely on (as little as possible) third party content and has voice acting planned! Can you guess the setting? ;)

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

With those screenshots it is clear that the sneak peek... your next endeavour (besides contention zone) is a full blown campaign with yours EUROFORCE units... NICE! I imagine the scenario is going to be Thirsk island, finally a campaign set on an icy island (we had campaigns on green Bornhlm - Resurgence by PanicsFerd - and Takistan)

With this new update, I´ll replay MERCS and try new options on subplots =)

cheers!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Correct... mostly. I'm currently in the process of designing custom woodland / snow units for BLUFOR, OPFOR and INDFOR. Progress can be followed in this thread: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?187621-European-BLUFOR-Re-Texture-%28EUROFORCE%29

Once these are done I can begin to largely develop playable content, but Contention Zone takes priority release wise. Also, a release should not be expected before end of the year / beginning of 2016. Maybe a closed Alpha earlier to attract voice actors (from many different countries!).

Current concept brings in three new playable characters (obviously one from each faction) and continues the story from one of the endings. I haven't fully settled for a map yet, still unsure between two snow maps designed for A3 (which rules out Thirsk). Both offer amazingly cool places yet one lacks a bit of detail while the other keeps freezing in some areas (I mean the game freezes, which is not good). We'll see, I secretly hope for a snowy expansion. Otherwise it'll require AiA (or CUP Terrains if it's done by then) but I assume it's part of the standard setup for every passioned Arma player. :)

Oh, and I've also been working on a few weather effects since the stock weather obviously does not fit a proper snow setting, check the WIP video here:

I'll open a dedicated thread in a few months, when I have some more content and can make a proper announcement. Stay tuned and good luck with replaying M.E.R.C.S. Let me know if I missed a bug somewhere. ;)

[IndeedPete 1038]

I was asked via PM to share the snow script suite and I'm happy to comply. Keep in mind that:

• It's WIP.
  
• It's not MP ready.
  
• I won't do any official support nor regular updates.
  

All functions are commented and all available effects can be toggled by commenting stuff in/out in the init.sqf. Furthermore, some scripts are based on A2 scripts done by Ruebe, sounds by Surfer.

Dropbox Download

Enjoy!

[germ 10]

New campiagn will not rely on third party content, yeah not excited for it then. If I wanted to play vanilla Arma, I would play the stock campiagn.

[bolo861 166]

Thank You for the update. I ll check the new buil when I have time this weekend.

Regards.

[IndeedPete 1038]

@germ:

For now, I can only say that it's SP only, will be a full-blown campaign, rely on (as little as possible) third party content and has voice acting planned!

There is a difference between as little as possible and none. I want to keep dependencies short to make it accessible to a wide range of players. That does not mean I won't make third party content accessible via the shop or replacement systems known from M.E.R.C.S.

At the current stage of development required mods are my own mod suite I'm working on (consisting of full re-textures of BLUFOR, OPFOR and INDFOR), All In Arma Map Pack (for Chernarus and most likely Helvantis or Lost Island as snow map), HLC mods (only for the dependencies version of my guerillas, there will also be one without dependecies to HLC) and, depending on the state by then, Zealex' splendid F3MALE mod. Haven't decided for the last one yet, though there are at least two female characters playing a role in the outlined story so far.

Plus, as known from M.E.R.C.S. I'll try to enable support for numerous weapon packs as well as TPW. I find that's far from vanilla content and should add some diversity without having a whole A4 full of requirements. As said, as accessible as possible without affecting the setting or atmosphere.

@Bolo: Thanks, always happy for your contributions. Make sure though to replace uniforms and personnel etc. to prevent losing your own configs. I usually just add mod weapons, items and magazines.

[miller 49]

Thanks IndeedPete

ArmA3.de Mirror updated:

M.E.R.C.S. (Campaign PBO Version) v1.02 by IndeedPete

M.E.R.C.S. (Addon Version) v1.02 by IndeedPete

Kind regards

Miller

[IndeedPete 1038]

Thank you, Miller!

[baddazs 10]

Hey!

Pete, I have to say MAJOR congrats on this! I just got it on Armaholic and wow! This campaign is awesome! Tough, but not too hard, interesting without being hard to follow and I love the account system! It works so well!

So, I have a question. Once you are happy with this, do you think you would make a campaign around the European Federation? It would be so cool to dive into the lore you've created.

Again, awesome work!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Thank you for your kind words!

See posts starting from here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?177261-SP-Campaign-M-E-R-C-S-mercenary-expendable-ruthless-covert-selfish&p=2923803&viewfull=1#post2923803

Looks like your wishes might come true. (In a few months earliest, development just started.)

[baddazs 10]

OMG lol I ALMOST wish I hadn't even seen those teasers! Cannot wait!

[baddazs 10]

New campiagn will not rely on third party content, yeah not excited for it then. If I wanted to play vanilla Arma, I would play the stock campiagn.

Pete, this guy is an asshat. Ignore him

[IndeedPete 1038]

Ah, I love every opportunity to spam details about my work. :) Need to force myself to not do that so often, better for the marketing I believe. ;)

[Alex72 1]

Very nice campaign. You can see the work gone into this so thank you for sharing. :)

Sorry if i missed it somewhere, but is it possible to change the bright pink/white PP effect? On my PC its close to unplayable as i cant see certain things, and after a while the red tone gets tiresome for me personally.

Thanks again.

[Jona33 51]

Very nice campaign. You can see the work gone into this so thank you for sharing. :)

Sorry if i missed it somewhere, but is it possible to change the bright pink/white PP effect? On my PC its close to unplayable as i cant see certain things, and after a while the red tone gets tiresome for me personally.

Thanks again.

If you open the tacpad (0-8-1) there's a button on the right with PP enable/disable.

[Alex72 1]

If you open the tacpad (0-8-1) there's a button on the right with PP enable/disable.

Thanks a lot Jona33. ;)