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

[IndeedPete 1038]

Thanks man, will do! I hope you enjoy it!

[Kydoimos 916]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=274530081

MERCS the movie billboard!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Ha, cool, thanks man, I love it!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good evening!

I've been working on the second hub and just want to show some of the (WIP) camp enhancements. Players will be able to purchase these enhancements via shop system. Each enhancement offers some advantage. Most of them will increase the defensive capabilities and staff strength of the hub but there will be also a vehicle "garage" with cars, a helipad and a boat which will offer new means of insertion / support during missions. Below a few before/after shots:

Camp:

Checkpoint:

Helipad:

Overview Position:

Sea Defences:

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good evening!

Happy to present another dev report. Programming and editing of the second hub is completed for now. Maybe some details here and there and it should be fine. That's one big step towards Beta, but the real work begins now: Creating new playable content. I'm going back into my development cave and leave you with two new shots:

[barakokula31 10]

Good evening!

Happy to present another dev report. Programming and editing of the second hub is completed for now. Maybe some details here and there and it should be fine. That's one big step towards Beta, but the real work begins now: Creating new playable content. I'm going back into my development cave and leave you with two new shots:

http://abload.de/thumb/hub02_load_sourceznksp.jpg http://abload.de/thumb/hub02_overview_sourcejsj48.jpg

Are you planning to upload the campaign to the workshop soon? And the custom officer (?) clothing looks great :)

[IndeedPete 1038]

Yes, once I've figured out how to upload addons (I've read it's possible now) I'll do that. Didn't find the button yet. If anybody knows, please enlighten my limited mind! :)

Those guys are "British Knights", a new faction coming with the Beta. It's basically just a worker overall with camouflage and some insignias. I'm not happy with the shoulders yet, need to adjust some more files to make it look more plastic. Below some WIP shots I still had on my harddrive:

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good morning!

Happy to announce that I've just finished the latest mission "Cleanup". Time is the key in this mission if you don't want to get hammered by the AAF airforce. I won't say more and leave you with the two obligatory development shots:

Oh, and I'm trying to get the steam roll-out for M.E.R.C.S. working but it seems like the devbranch publisher tool still has some issues. I'll get back to that once it's fixed, then you will be able to retrieve this project via Steam which should simplify the distribution of updates. Stay tuned!

[jevuner 11]

How to turn off this effect? Just can't play because of it, everything is shiny and almost covered white in <Brawe new world> and <Home Sweer Home> may be it is dependent on time day.. but anyway it looks too shitty to mess with. Have this issue only in M.E.R.C.S. Tried different video sttings, no effect.

Possibly bug of corporate ppEffect? Do I have to show screens? I think this effect should be optional.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Jevuner

[IndeedPete 1038]

The effect is still subject of change, thanks for your feedback. It might be a little extreme some time on some screens. For now you can hit Esc, paste and execute in the debug console:

"colorCorrections" ppEffectEnable false;
"colorCorrections" ppEffectCommit 0;

I might turn it down a little or make place some button to turn it off. (Or put sunglasses to actual use. ;)) I'm sorry for the inconenience it caused for you!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Custom rank insignias implemented! I only wish it would be able to apply them on the right / both sides of a uniform.

In other news, Kydoimos published a free-to-use poster for the Health-Care-In-Danger-Award which I gladly put up in M.E.R.C.S. Good work, mate!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good evening!

I'm happy to present you the latest dev report as I've finished work on one of the major story missions. I don't want to spoil too much ahead but "Force Recon" puts you under the command of Raif's good friend Ian McMillian. The duo has the task to scout out one of the research facilities. Enough said, two more shots:

In other news I've planned to release the steam version of M.E.R.C.S. with the Arma 3 update 1.24. Addon support for the publisher is working, however the game is not able of handling the campaign tag yet causing the campaign to not show up in the menu. I could do a workaround by making a proper addon from it but I've decided to be patient and wait for the fix which has been announced (more or less) by one of the devs here.

Lastly, Surfer has been as supportive as always and helped me big time with his rework of the awesome Deep Space Engineering (DSE) logo:

Again, all my appreciation and thanks for this great work! I hope to continue work with my "chief graphic designer" in exchange for providing him with my limited editing & scripting knowledge.

Stay tuned, guys!;)

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good night!

I'd like to introduce you to the Dutch EUROFORCE fighter pilot "Captain Adriaan 'Bliksem' de Groot", callsign "Badass One" and his custom (WIP) A-164 WIPEOUT:

In the mission I'm currently working on I'd like to add some diversity to the rather infantry-based M.E.R.C.S. mission design by putting the player into a pilot seat (optional) while good old Raif is down on the ground lasing targets and providing BDA. I'm testing if the concept prooves to be both fun and challenging. So far, I've made the experience that I'm shitty at flying a plane hence I'd love to see a good tutorial for that... :D

Stay tuned for more intel!

P.S. Thanks again to Surfer for helping with the textures and providing creative support!

[Wiki 1558]

Hi Pete.

Dunno if you're interested, but you may wanna check my plane mission 'steel rain' to see how I made it.

Cheers

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hey Wiki, thanks for the heads-up, I'll look into it when I have time. ;)

[Outlawz7 1]

Very Important Pickup: Performance might suffer under many ambient AI units.

I found that setting your view distance lower for that mission helps (ie. setviewdistance 500 in the console).

Also some guards in the airport in that mission have no uniforms.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Thanks, I know, some slipped my net when I was fixing the missing uniform bug caused by engine changes in patch 1.22. I think we can live with a handfull of guards in underwear for a while. ;) The simulation manager also helped increasing the performance but viewidstance might be an option for some players.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good news!

I've just finished my CAS mission "Badass One" and must say I'm positively surprised that it works and is fun to play both as pilot and as spotter. As usual the latest shots:

Furthermore, I've started to rework the weather / ppEffects because some players found the "Glow" was too strong. For now, I've limited this really bright effect to appear only when the weather is sunny. Below is a comparison of the same situation and time but with three different weather templates "Sunny", "Light Fog", "Rainstorm":

Lastly, because I really start to enjoy bombing the shit out of those poor Greenbacks a few additional shot of Flying Dutchman's "Badass One" in action:

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hi there!

Latest dev report: I've recently finished work on "Close Quarters Battle" which throws Raif right into an urban warzone. The task is to extract a covert CSAT operative from Kavala while FIA supported by EUROFORCE is moving into the city from the north and AAF forces trying a counterattack from the south, leaving only a small window of opportunity for the player if he doesn't want to get annihilated between the fronts.

Stay tuned!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Glad to annoy you with another dev report as I've recently finished the next story mission! In "Surfin' R.o.A" (Republic of Altis) I'm utilising Surfer's Scrapyard, a great place for CQB and stealth action. And what's even better than stealth action? Right, blowing up huge trawlers! Good that there's a dock not too far away from the scrapyard. But take care of the QRF near-by! ;)

Edited August 5, 2014 by IndeedPete

[IndeedPete 1038]

What makes an AAF defence line, a cease-fire agreement and a bunch of stolen EUROFORCE tanks under ION's control? Right, the perfect example of a "diplomatic incident"! And precisely that is the name of the contract mission I've just finished. Expanding the concept of vehicle combat in M.E.R.C.S. more Raif and his allies will get their dirty little hands on said tanks to kick some Greenback ass. Why? Find out yourself on Beta release!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hey again!

Just finished another story mission, introducing a new character. <username> is a brilliant, yet slightly paranoid IT-Security specialist and causes some troubles finding him. A simple pick-up mission turns into what we Germans call a "Schnitzeljagd", following cryptic hints and a tiny bit of math included. ;) Stay tuned!

[IndeedPete 1038]

Hey there!

It's been a while since the last dev report but I was on the road for a few days. Anyway, I'm glad to report that I've finished another story mission (that makes eight more missions in total right now).

Ever joined an army undercover just to get close to their leader? No? Well, you can still do so in M.E.R.C.S. Follow Raif's first days on an undercover mission in a Greenback bootcamp and always remember Uncle Kostas: "I want you to join the AAF and butcher your own people!"

Cheers! ;)

[IndeedPete 1038]

Good evening!

I'm taking major steps towards Beta and hope to release something within the next 30 days. There's still a lot to do but I'm making excellent progress so far! In other news I've finished the next mission.

Have you ever considered to abduct a leading scientist surrounded by heavily armed guards? And how would you do that? Intercept him on his way home? Or break into his house at night? Or maybe take his sons as hostages to force him out in the open... - your choice in "Enforced Cooperation".

And just because I love these awesome bootcamp animations a few more shots from the scene:

Stay tuned!

[IndeedPete 1038]

My last dev report is not long ago but I just wanted to throw in two new pics from "Meet and Greet":

Also, I am now entering the editing process of the three staged ending sequence (depending on how you play maybe only two-staged) which should offer around six (+- 1) ways to finish the campaign (in addition to the already existing two). I hope to get this done ASAP so I can finally rollout the Beta. Other than that I've finally figured out how to configure a campaign as addon (thanks Zipper) so I should be able to upload on steam shortly. However, I think I'll postpone the steam release until Beta as the current Alpha faces some minor issues due to game changes (wrong faces and stuff).

See you!