I cannot respawn in Arma2 (any DLC)

[t22ndsas 10]

Hello all. It's a simple problem, in that it's not advanced driver problems or other computer-related issues. It's as the title says (unsurprisingly.)

I start a custom game for myself, and when I say custom, I mean I am not playing the campaign - I go to Multiplayer and start a LAN server where I'm the only human player.

I've got the latest Steam version of Arma2 and lots of DLC, particularly playing the British Armed Forces one.

Whenever I die, or press ESC --> RESPAWN, I get the out-of-body-experience bit of zooming out skyward, looking down at my dead body.... but then NOTHING happens. No map appears asking for a respawn location.

I'm playing a pre-set mission, so I've not messed with any scripts or settings at all. I've changed nothing except video settings.

This didn't used to happen (I last played some months ago), I would get a map and a "where do you want to respawn". Now nothing.

I thought maybe some new rule meant you could only respawn at captured points? So, off I ran and captured a point, then suicided, and nope... I can stare at my dead body indefinitely... great game... not...

I also noticed that if I suicide at base, without having moved, I see a NEW ME appear.... standing there, waiting for me to take control... and I can't, because I'm too busy floating as a ghost.

I've mashed the keyboard, I've tried combinations of function keys, I've tried everything I can think of.

Yes, I also did a full "Delete local content" from Steam to uninstall everything and then spent the happy 3 hours downloading it all again... and it's absolutely and exactly the same.

Could anyone please help with this because it makes the game pointless. All the AIs respawn (tested), and, as I said, my guy respawns, but I am not in his body and cannot take control at all, I have no option to choose a respawn location either. What the smeg?

Many thanks if anyone can rescue this game, and, therefore, my £30 worth of cash paid!

---------- Post added at 20:33 ---------- Previous post was at 20:17 ----------

I have an update to this problem!

I must hold my hands up entirely and say that I made a mistake!

If I run the basic "Arma 2", without "British Armed Forces", then respawning still exists.

Something must have happened to just that DLC. I've played British Armed Forces, the same exact mission before, though, and respawning happened properly.

Can there be a settings folder somewhere which I have somehow messed with? No server parameters or options that I can change in game say anything about respawning options, so I don't see how I CAN have messed with it, but I'm open to finding out how to delete ALL hard drive content related to British Armed Forces DLC so that I can reinstall just that (that's not a MASSIVE download, after all.)

Many pre-thanks for hopefully incoming solutions!

[Gunter Severloh 4064]

Hi welcome to BIS forums,

You need a description.ext in your mission folder to respawn, you cant simply just press respawn and you respawn.

Theres all sorts of respawn types, I can give you a basic respawn at base if you want.

Heres what you do.

1. Create a new text document with notepad

2. add the following codes:

respawn = base;

respawndelay = 5;

3. in the editor place a marker named respawn_west (if your blufor, for opfor its respawn_east, for independent its guerrilla)

4. save the text document as description.ext make sure it says description.ext, and not .ext.txt at the end for the extension.

5. put the description.ext in the mission folder

6. go to mp, setup a new server and then kill yourself, or hit respawn and you should spawn at that marker you placed in step 3

let us know it works for you.

Edited July 9, 2014 by Günter Severloh

[t22ndsas 10]

I'll have a look for it in case I've somehow gotten something changed in that file.

Where would I find it for a specific mission?

Thanks.

[Gunter Severloh 4064]

Description.ext will be in the mission folder itself, goes for any mission.

The mission you are playing or trying to play and spawn in, is it one you built, or an existing mission?

[t22ndsas 10]

As I wrote in the OP:

"I start a custom game for myself, and when I say custom, I mean I am not playing the campaign - I go to Multiplayer and start a LAN server where I'm the only human player."

and

"I'm playing a pre-set mission, so I've not messed with any scripts or settings at all. I've changed nothing except video settings."

I've never edited scripts or missions at all as I've no idea how to do it and am fine with the out-of-the-box missions.

I've searched every folder that makes sense, and even my entire hard drive, and no files called "description.ext" exist.

I've no idea where I should create one, either, as the C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\ folders are a labyrinth of files which I dare not touch. Nothing seems to have a name related to the mission I was playing (which was Crimson Lance CTI 16), so I've no idea where I ought to put any such file.

Does anyone know if this change to respawn or anything was in a recent update? It never used to do this, and other, non-British-Armed-Forces missions still allow me to respawn as normal. Very weird behaviour indeed.

Also, how would I go about annihilating EVERY single saved setting / registry entry etc. for Arma2 so that I can have a truly FRESH install, rather than trying to delete / add specific files like "description.ext"?

I know that Steam's "Delete local content" isn't doing the job because Arma2 remembered my video settings and controls preferences.

Thanks.

[Gunter Severloh 4064]

Its just a mission, all those things you described have nothing to do with the mission, you wont find the description.ext anywhere but inside the physical folder of the mission itself.

The mission you named from what I understand is an official mission that comes with the BAF DLC which i dont have, all I know is the mission is a capture the island type of mission,

which should have respawn if I remember correctly.

If i knew what mission you were playing ahead of time then I wouldn't have given you instructions on how to create a description.ext, not

trying to blame you or anything, but that is why I asked. Apparently your very new to the game and how things work about it, np, its understandable,

but as for your issue for not respawning, I have no idea why you cannot respawn.

My assumption according to your description was that you had built the mission and were trying to respawn.

Maybe someone who has played that mission knows if it has respawn, and why it may not be working for you.

Sorry I cant help, also sorry for confusing you if I have, if there are any questions pertaining to the game in terms of how missions are setup,

the editor, respawn, building your own missions, ect,. stuff with the game in general then

send me a pm and i can maybe help you better learn more about the game in those areas, i hope you get your issue sorted.

[t22ndsas 10]

No worries.

So how do I go about destroying every trace of my Arma2 + DLC installs, bearing in mind I've got the Steam versions?

This way, I can at least remove any possibility of it being something stupid that I've unknowingly done. :)

Thanks.

[Gunter Severloh 4064]

I wouldn't worry about that, its not the issue, its the mission's thats the problem, if I were you i would find out more about the mission and see if it does actually

have a respawn, because if it dont then your putting alot of effort into something that doesn't have anything to begin with, not saying it dont have a respawn

but there could be something else to it.

Find the threads that discuss that particular mission, search the exact name and then post a replay asking if the mission has respawn,

if so explain your issue in the mission of what happened, and see if anyone else can give you some info about the mission and what it takes to respawn.

Suggest looking in the arma2OA Official mission section and do the search there.

Or better yet play another mission, im sure theres missions on armaholic that utilize the BAF dlc, and have respawn, if you need help searching I will.

[lappihuan 178]

What about deleting your profile under "documents" and create a new ingame.

Because you say with Arma 2 Vanilla there is no problem with the same mission, i think its a problem with your profile.

But just a guess.

[t22ndsas 10]

Yeah, I tried nuking absolutely everything attached to Arma2, or with that in the filename, including Documents, including Steam folders, the lot.

It did indeed now forget all my settings (despite Steam pretending to do a proper uninstall...) and the problem remains. No idea why, because this mission used to be a favourite of my buddies and mine, and we definitely respawned.

Playing the older missions in vanilla Arma 2 allows respawn, so something must have changed in an update, which is really effing annoying.

I cannot find where to put a "description.ext" file either. Assuming that I'm trying to do this for "Crimson Lance CTI 16", where would I do that, does anyone know?

Thanks.

[Gunter Severloh 4064]

I cannot find where to put a "description.ext" file either. Assuming that I'm trying to do this for "Crimson Lance CTI 16", where would I do that, does anyone know?

Did i not explain how to do it in an earlier post?

Once you have a description.ext then you need to locate the mission's folder, the mission being mp as stated before in my other post will most likely

already have a description.ext in it, but theres something wrong with it thats prevent it from allowing you to spawn ingame which to me could be a bad copy of the mission Idk.

So what is it that you want to do?, make the mission Crimson Lance functional again where you can respawn?

Like i said in my previous post theres other missions out there on armaholic that use the baf dlc that have respawn, if you want I can locate a bunch for you to play,

Crimison lance is just an official mission for the dlc, but theres other missions out there made by the community that could possibly be better.

But if you want to try to get this Crimson lance mission working then follow my steps below:

First thing is first, dont worry about the description.ext right now, it wont do you any good to have it if you cant find the mission.

2nd you will need to locate the mission itself, for me if I had BAF I could tell you where its at, but I cant, however normally with official dlcs,

you should have a folder with the name of the dlc in your Arma2 directory which should be here for you--> C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 2

Look and see if it is.

if you know where the directory is then do below:

3rd If it is then look for a folder that says BAF or baf however its titled, then inside that folder there should be a folder named addons.

4th Go into the addons folder and look for files (they will have an extension at the end of them which will be-->.pbo) if you have files that have the name

missions in them then let me know what you have and their names.

List them from there I will tell you what to do next.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Günter Severloh

[revolverocelotkjb 13]

This is not a Description.ext issue.

Respawn does not work as intended with the Warfare module after the 1.63 patch update with Combined Operations. The player's unit respawns however the actual player does not respawn with control of the unit and are stuck in a perpetual limbo view as if waiting for respawn. This is the case for player made warfare module missions as well as the warfare module missions provided with the actual game that was made by Bohemia Interactive (the ones that I have tested that is). As stated in the original post of this thread the warfare module missions that comes with Bohemia Interactive's game are not working as intended with Combined Operations as his problem did not involve a custom warfare module mission. The original post was updated to state that this problem does not exist with ARMA 2 and I tried the "When Diplomacy Fails" warfare module mission on ARMA 2 and respawn did indeed work as intended. However, playing "When Diplomacy Fails" on Combined Operations the respawn feature does not work as intended.

Can we get a Dev's response on the respawn feature for the warfare module after the 1.63 patch as this feature worked as intended before this update?

In addition I am still noticing that the AI are not engaging units through glass and other penetrable surfaces despite the 1.63 patch notes saying otherwise:

[83759] Fixed: AI not engaging through glass and other penetrable surfaces (http://dev-heaven.net/issues/4438).

Thank you

[opusfmspol 282]

Not a developer, but just wanted to point out that I addressed this same issue in this thread:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?180603-respawn

A custom Init Client can fix it for editor missions, but not the package missions.

EDIT: I posted a how-to for the custom Init Client here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?180972-How-to-Fix-Respawn-Failure-in-Warfare2-Editor-Missions

Edited July 26, 2014 by OpusFmSPol
Added the how-to link