Black Rain Project [SP experience]

[lev 21]

Hey Zapat,

Awesome job with this mod/missions. I'm loving the interface so much that I wish you could just port the getTactical mode so that it can be used in any mission. It's almost getting hard for me to play other missions because I feel like I'm not in control of my team anymore. I'm listing some feedback below:

Bugs:

-Throwing grenades in getTactical messes up first person grenade throws: if you throw a grenade in getTactical successfully, for some reason even when you leave getTactical your unit throws the grenade that way. To reproduce this do like a weird high toss via getTactical in a slightly different direction than your facing and then try to toss a grenade in first person and you'll notice it takes the previous path.

-Sometimes getting killed/KO-ed in first person will lock up the interface completely: I've experienced this several times but can't reliably reproduce it where playing in first person and then getting killed results me being thrown back into the getTactical interface but all the controls are locked. I can't get out of the interface and switch units and nothing on the interface works. I can only alt+f4 to shut down Arma and start it again. Doesn't happen too often but enough that its quite annoying.

Improvements:

-Inventory capacity improvement: right now its kind of hard to tell how much capacity an article of clothing has, maybe if it read like [10/50]. This makes it a bit easier to determine which article of clothing you might want to loot off of enemies.

-Switching units via inventory: right now I can only switch to a different unit if I go open the inventory and click the unit I want to control in first person. That was not too intuitive and adds a few extra clicks here and there. I think it would be better if you could switch units via the getTactical interface by which ever unit you have selected when you switch out of the getTactical interface. Or even possibly bring back that "T" interface Bohemia has for switching units.

-Grenade throws in getTactical locked to unit facing: this is more of a usability issue than a real bug because you can kind of correct this but it takes a lot of manual positioning. Basically the grenade throw in getTactical can only operate in a field of view in which the unit is facing. I think a better behavior would be if the unit just automatically faced the direction you order the throw in so you can just give a general position and then throw a grenade instead of requiring very precise positioning which can be a pain to do sometimes.

-Color coding groups: would be easier to identify units if when you group them (click them to follow another team member i.e. OZ [LARKIN]) and they were automatically placed in a color coded team (i.e. OZ and LARKIN are team blue now).

-Formations menu in getTactical: I think for a starter it might be cool to allow the user to select a formation for a group in the getTactical view. It would be super awesome if you also had a formation editor that allows the user to either modify or create a new formation for the group to walk around in.

-Time freeze in quick command mode: maybe this is just me but I can't quite use quick command mode because in the heat of battle it is a bit too slow to do everything real time when locked in the above unit head view. I do like the concept but maybe if we executed it in more of a Mass Effect like manner where the time is frozen as well then it would be really powerful so that I can respond easily to the situation while maintaining first person play. Another piece of feedback for quick command is maybe change the control slightly so that holding caps lock opens it up but you don't have to keep it held to stay in the mode, pressing caps lock a second time then quits quick command mode.

-Controls improvement in getTactical: I would really love it if it was possible to use keyboard commands to control things in getTactical. The mouse stuff is great but I think the keyboard is a bit underused right now. It would be cool if you could select units and set stances via the keyboard (i.e. F1-F10 selects units, Z,X,C set stance for the movement, new on the fly speed control for movement via Q,W,E, using A to pause or continue movement, allowing I to open the getTactical inventory instead of popping out of getTactical, F for switching between real time and frozen time, DEL to delete a waypoint, etc)

[sttosin 67]

Hey Zapat,

Awesome job with this mod/missions. I'm loving the interface so much that I wish you could just port the getTactical mode so that it can be used in any mission. It's almost getting hard for me to play other missions because I feel like I'm not in control of my team anymore. I'm listing some feedback below:

Bugs:

-Throwing grenades in getTactical messes up first person grenade throws: if you throw a grenade in getTactical successfully, for some reason even when you leave getTactical your unit throws the grenade that way. To reproduce this do like a weird high toss via getTactical in a slightly different direction than your facing and then try to toss a grenade in first person and you'll notice it takes the previous path.

-Sometimes getting killed/KO-ed in first person will lock up the interface completely: I've experienced this several times but can't reliably reproduce it where playing in first person and then getting killed results me being thrown back into the getTactical interface but all the controls are locked. I can't get out of the interface and switch units and nothing on the interface works. I can only alt+f4 to shut down Arma and start it again. Doesn't happen too often but enough that its quite annoying.

Improvements:

-Inventory capacity improvement: right now its kind of hard to tell how much capacity an article of clothing has, maybe if it read like [10/50]. This makes it a bit easier to determine which article of clothing you might want to loot off of enemies.

-Switching units via inventory: right now I can only switch to a different unit if I go open the inventory and click the unit I want to control in first person. That was not too intuitive and adds a few extra clicks here and there. I think it would be better if you could switch units via the getTactical interface by which ever unit you have selected when you switch out of the getTactical interface. Or even possibly bring back that "T" interface Bohemia has for switching units.

-Grenade throws in getTactical locked to unit facing: this is more of a usability issue than a real bug because you can kind of correct this but it takes a lot of manual positioning. Basically the grenade throw in getTactical can only operate in a field of view in which the unit is facing. I think a better behavior would be if the unit just automatically faced the direction you order the throw in so you can just give a general position and then throw a grenade instead of requiring very precise positioning which can be a pain to do sometimes.

-Color coding groups: would be easier to identify units if when you group them (click them to follow another team member i.e. OZ [LARKIN]) and they were automatically placed in a color coded team (i.e. OZ and LARKIN are team blue now).

-Formations menu in getTactical: I think for a starter it might be cool to allow the user to select a formation for a group in the getTactical view. It would be super awesome if you also had a formation editor that allows the user to either modify or create a new formation for the group to walk around in.

-Time freeze in quick command mode: maybe this is just me but I can't quite use quick command mode because in the heat of battle it is a bit too slow to do everything real time when locked in the above unit head view. I do like the concept but maybe if we executed it in more of a Mass Effect like manner where the time is frozen as well then it would be really powerful so that I can respond easily to the situation while maintaining first person play. Another piece of feedback for quick command is maybe change the control slightly so that holding caps lock opens it up but you don't have to keep it held to stay in the mode, pressing caps lock a second time then quits quick command mode.

-Controls improvement in getTactical: I would really love it if it was possible to use keyboard commands to control things in getTactical. The mouse stuff is great but I think the keyboard is a bit underused right now. It would be cool if you could select units and set stances via the keyboard (i.e. F1-F10 selects units, Z,X,C set stance for the movement, new on the fly speed control for movement via Q,W,E, using A to pause or continue movement, allowing I to open the getTactical inventory instead of popping out of getTactical, F for switching between real time and frozen time, DEL to delete a waypoint, etc)

Lev,

Join the party :

'> http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=2761848

[zapat 55]

Thanks lev!

-Throwing grenades in getTactical messes up first person grenade throws.

I'll look into it. GTI uses a fired eventhandler, which is deleted right after the grenade was thrown. Maybe iT stays on....

Is it always the case for you? I cannot reproduce it.

-Sometimes getting killed/KO-ed in first person will lock up the interface completely:

Ok, this is the disableinput. Solved. There was a lot easier soultion for what I used this anyways. I just haven't been in these parts of the scripts for quite a long time. :)

-Inventory capacity improvement: right now its kind of hard to tell how much capacity an article of clothing has, maybe if it read like

Solved

-Switching units via inventory:

You can switch unit by SHIFT+Doubleclick in top down modes, and simple double-click in Quick command: that's what I use the most for this: very easy to get used to it. Both the 3d unit and the card works.

-Grenade throws in getTactical locked to unit facing

I agree. Solved.

-Color coding groups: would be easier to identify units if when you group them

Would be easier to use, harder to do. Sooner or later it all will be sorted out (this is on the list). I have many improvement ideas for groups. In October.

-Formations menu in getTactical.

Sure. On the list. Custom formations would be great. Probably in November.

-Time freeze in quick command mode

I kinda hear you, but I created the quick command mode for that: quick commands. Switching between real time and frozen is not that simple, and quick command uses a different approach than quick command. So it would be a bit hard to do. So I'd skip this one. You can always use Plan mode, and it's one click away from QC.

-Controls improvement in getTactical

Some of it is on the list, this would be cool to do it all though. On the list.

There are some solveds: these will be available only in the upcoming campaign version.

And you should stop playing this crap mission which you can get hold of right now, the campaign will be a lot more about what I wanted to do originally. This is only a tech-demo sorta thing so that one can try it quick. If you need data on the holder capacity: you must be playing too much with it ( this is a good info nonetheless).

Even I don't find this single mission particularly interesting, so Patience, brother. :D

Edited September 12, 2014 by zapat

[lev 21]

Haha thanks Zapat. It was just too fun messing around with the getTactical mode so I've probably played that mission like 20-30 times this past weekend.

I'm looking forward to all the new changes!

Oh also thanks for letting me know about the mod sttosin, this totally changes A3 SP for me.

[zapat 55]

Survival part has been a bit trimmed, but it will still give you some hard decisions:

Units' exhaustion is affected by many things (Black Rain is one of them): once a unit is tired, he becomes kind of useless.

When you rest you need to decide who will sleep and who will be on watch: the more units you have on watch or the better their position the sooner they will spot the enemy and alert the others.

Have only one unit on watch with the building covering half of his view area and your team will easily be sneaked upon...

Edited September 24, 2014 by zapat

[tortuosit 485]

-Sometimes getting killed/KO-ed in first person will lock up the interface completely:

Ok, this is the disableinput. Solved. There was a lot easier soultion for what I used this anyways. I just haven't been in these parts of the scripts for quite a long time. :)

Is this in 0.9? Because it just happened to me, had to kill arma via task manager.

---------- Post added at 15:28 ---------- Previous post was at 15:11 ----------

About the camera... The use of the middle mouse button to turn the camera isn't easy on my mouse as it is a wheel, that can be pushed and therefore works, but isn't the easiest thing to do. May I suggest that, besides using the middle mouse button, you add the use of the keyboard? When I was playing around with it, I kept wanting to hit the Q and E keys to turn the camera, so I think those may be good additions. :)

Same here, MMB sucks on many mice, too hard to press. MS Wireless 5000. Also a problem: It does not rotate on MMB/drag. I've set MMB to "Middle mouse button" in mouse and keyboard centre, as default is "Flip". But both ways, no rotate.

[zapat 55]

Is this in 0.9? Because it just happened to me, had to kill arma via task manager.

Same here, MMB sucks on many mice, too hard to press. MS Wireless 5000. Also a problem: It does not rotate on MMB/drag. I've set MMB to "Middle mouse button" in mouse and keyboard centre, as default is "Flip". But both ways, no rotate.

Nope, these fixes are not released yet: these will be included in the full version, arriving within 2 weeks.

Sorry about this, but I released the addon version sooner than I planned, and now I have a deadline to meet: so I am working on the full Black Rain 247.

ALT rotate is included in the later verions of Addon version, I haven't updated this mission however, since this is more a tech demo than the Black Rain mission itself. (just see the newer infos on the prev page)

[Drumheller 19]

Oh man I haven't used this since the first video I made and I just used it today and the updates are AMAZING!

I did notice one thing, however - Once you leave GT mode, the AI will no longer self-adjust stance, I have to manually order them which stance to go into(which I do with voice commands). But then once I go back into GT mode, unless they're in "copy my stance" stance, they won't adjust stance in GT mode.

[zapat 55]

Thanks MacScottie. :)

It is already fixed for the full version, which is coming in like a week. Due to RL projects this final month has been turned into a marathon run, so I haven't had time to release any fixes neitehr for the mission nor for the addon.

[zapat 55]

After 3 years and around 2000 hours of work (the last 100 was like this week), resulting in a code the length of which is equivalent to 500 nomal book pages, Black Rain Project Epic Campaign is about to be released.

The deadline of MANW is holding my balls in a vice-grip, so first, the Beta Version, with some of the systems still disabled.

However I'd need beta testers: yes, for 3 days, lol.

Expect new releases often, or rare. Expect bugs, error messages, anything.

There is one thing I know: it has to be finished by Monday. :)

Sadly, it's only at 80%, many of my idaes are still waiting to be made.

Edited October 25, 2014 by zapat

[zapat 55]

cancelled (I left some serious stuff in it. NEVER finalize anything after 1AM.)

Edited October 25, 2014 by zapat

[kremator 1064]

Thanks zapat for all your hard work mate .... truly amazing !

[zapat 55]

Well, I hope you'll be able to tell this about the mission itself too.

After having played it I realized many things are not as visible as the complexity of the system governing it . (eg. in Fast travel, or Rest mode time is not ticking as slow as it does, because I want you to wait. Those are all 100% CPU calculations. May be I could have opted for random events rather than totally simulated ones. :) )

Edited October 25, 2014 by zapat

[froggyluv 2130]

I think we need a little more handholding in the mission's beginning.

I've only tried the beginning a few times and admittedly I was short on time but after meeting Link, he leads me to a couple of dead soldiers with no weapons but a only a few mags. Maybe this is to introduce the GTI which I used to start sneaking Link into the nearest town but we didn't encounter anyone after much dartingh from cover to cover. Not really sure what it is we are supposed to be doing, maybe a few radio hints or something would help nudge us in the beginning.

[zapat 55]

No weapons you say? That's strange, there should be some. At least I have weapons for all 3 dead units.

You pick up the weapon, you will have another quick intro mission, and then you are on your own to find the two trucks....

I may add some more tutorial hints.

It may be too little handholding, I admit. However if you read your notebook in the PDA, and watch the intro, you'll have an idea what to do.

It is only for the brave now, as it is full of game breaking bugs. I am ironing 16 hours a day, maybe I'll finish till tuesday noon. :)

[froggyluv 2130]

Hmm, thats strange, I just restarted and this time one of the dead guys had a gun. Last time I saw another Blufor near the dead guys and perhaps because Im using ASR mod, he rearmed at him before I got there.

Edit:

Interesting, this time I chose to not use Intro and not only did I find gun, but met up with Conrad right off the bat where as before he did not interact. Again, maybe other mods are interfering. Sorry if i'm making more confusing

Edited October 25, 2014 by froggyluv

[zapat 55]

The trigger to start Conrad is PrimaryWeapon Larkin != ""; From that point on he will find you anywhere thanks to one of the clever FSMs. :)

And yes, please don't use mods. Right now it's all to MANW, and they don't use mods. After that we can talk about it. :)

[froggyluv 2130]

The trigger to start Conrad is PrimaryWeapon Larkin != ""; From that point on he will find you anywhere thanks to one of the clever FSMs. :)

Ahh, I see now. Yes, the mission did take right off after that.

And yes, please don't use mods.

Thats like asking a porn star to "hold back", but yeah ok, it's for the greater good I guess.

*sneaks JRSR thru back door...*

---------- Post added at 11:24 ---------- Previous post was at 10:47 ----------

I can now confirm with zero mod certainty that if you watch the intro, the dead bodies have no weapons thereby halting the mission.

Also, the first AAF soldiers you meet don't help out and generally act blasse when we are under attack. There also seems to be an issue with using the stance modifiers in GTI upon returning to normal view. Units tend not to return to Auto but will adjust if under fire seemingly

Edited October 25, 2014 by froggyluv

[zapat 55]

Thanks Froggyluv!

The curse of the deadlines: this mission would have needed like another month or two at least to make it a lot more bug free. It is just too big with too many systems. Anyaways if I got this far, I try my best.

Sorry for the hectic experience. :)

About the greens: they shouldn't help out. They turned to Red, so they are considered enemies. However some of them will help Larkin. But as long as it's safe. So don't be surprised if they join Red in a battle. Don't trust them. But they can provide safe rest, which will be rare and needed.

[froggyluv 2130]

Ok on the Greens. Don't know if possible but would be more convincing if they at least reacted to a firefight so close to them rather then strutting around in the Mantastic walk ;)

Maybe just take up positions or something.

[zapat 55]

They should.

I took the downloads down until more bugs are fixed.

FroggyLuv: the weapons are there but are not seen by the PDA, since they are not on the ground. And I have no idea why. I guess the ragdoll hadn't activated for some reason...

Edited October 25, 2014 by zapat

[zapat 55]

After 14 hours of non stop bug fixing, here is version 1.12 (frontpage). Believe me, I've been working. Result is a LOT less errors and two numb legs.

[sttosin 67]

Good luck zapat. Haven't been able to play arma lately.

[zapat 55]

Let's see a serious advance:

-Many game breaking bugs were fixed

-SKIRMISH mode is re-enabled with a brand new mission

-Explosive barrels added

-Intro a bit more organized and PROFESSIONALLY VOICE ACTED! Thanks Schizophrenic. Its really A+ Hollywood category.

-New systems introduced

STILL MISSING:

-loot system (affecting the setup of Skirmish units as well)

-the side mission system is remade, but not yet connected to the side missions.

And a WARNING!

This is a non-handholder mission, so don't expect help on what to do. Read the notes, watch the intro.

Use your APPS and find those trucks. Or die trying.

---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:25 PM ----------

Only to introduce a new bug...

---------- Post added at 07:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:20 PM ----------

DOWNLOAD

Fixed. Now you can finish the mission. :)

Fixed again. Now the settings load properly at the welcome screen. WTF is today?

Edited October 27, 2014 by zapat

[lazerath 10]

This looks awesome.

I have a question for you (sorry if its been asked or if you already answered this in the opening post but my brain is really not working right now (only 5-7 hours sleep in the last 72 hours)).

Is this add on available to use with the Single Player Campaign and Single Player Missions (Scenarios)? or is this just for the mission/missions you have created?

The reason why I ask, I've been looking for something like this for a VERY .... VERY... VERY... Long time to make controlling the AI in the BIS Single Player Campaign as well as All downloaded Single Player, Coop and Multiplayer games that include AI!

BTW This looks freaking fantastic!

Awesome work! Definitely should be a TOP Contender for the MANW challenge!

Cheers!