[SP] HETMAN: War Stories

[Rydygier 1302]

"Dev branch" updated to 1.04 beta2:

- fixed issue with always "busy" artillery - arty support is now performed.

[Rydygier 1302]

"Dev branch" branch updated to 1.04 beta3:

- battle conditions calibration (balanced attacker/defender groups amount ratio, forces a bit more spaced apart statistically, Leaders moved more at the rear);

- disabled dynamic change of stance for Leaders (to avoid defense vs defense situations);

- various fixes and improvements.

[virtualvikingx 19]

Nice work, Ryd!

[tawah 13]

Hi Rydygier, great mission you are developping. It is the kind I like : a little as Flashpoint:Chernarus by ThomsonB on Arma 2 when, every time you launch the mission, you are in the middle of a new situation, hopeless or not but very immersive. :D

By the way, I would like to bring to you the fact that the naming of the pbo for the beta version 3 is not correct : it leads to an error message when you launch the mission. Players have to rename it "HWS_1_04_beta3.Altis.pbo" instead of "HWS_1.04_beta3.Altis.pbo"

[Rydygier 1302]

Oh. The dot is causing error? Weird. Not to me... I'll change that anyway, but strange...

[teoleo 2]

but don't save feature?

[Rydygier 1302]

What do you mean? You can save normal way, as in any usual A3 scenario... Unless this is know issue with ALiVE. If you have ALiVE enabled - disable it. No use in HWS, and somehow blocks saving from the menu. And enable unlimited saves in the game configuration (difficulty).

Edited August 10, 2014 by Rydygier

[teoleo 2]

i have disinstallated alive and now can save.....

But in my firts mission, after my tank is destroyed, the team leader in loop ask at the team to go up the tank.... i have killed him and the mission :O))

---------- Post added at 18:20 ---------- Previous post was at 18:03 ----------

in the second mission, my team, after 10 min, with non enemy encounter, surrender....

[Rydygier 1302]

So far not sure, what is causing occuring sometimes looped orders, maybe some Hetman activity triggers such game issue in certain situation, it was reported and is on my "to investigate" list. Surrendering is implemented and possible if morale of given side goes really low, just strange, so it was happened so fast. Possibly battle was set such way, so hostiles immediatelly killed so many units? Not sure.

[teoleo 2]

So far not sure, what is causing occuring sometimes looped orders, maybe some Hetman activity triggers such game issue in certain situation, it was reported and is on my "to investigate" list. Surrendering is implemented and possible if morale of given side goes really low, just strange, so it was happened so fast. Possibly battle was set such way, so hostiles immediatelly killed so many units? Not sure.

maybe my team is far to the main battle and the hostile kill the other team---

[tawah 13]

Oh. The dot is causing error? Weird. Not to me... I'll change that anyway, but strange...

Here is the error message, just after the CTD :

Using win7 64 but not sure if it is helpful.

[Rydygier 1302]

Same OS here, no such problem. I have dots inside name of another mission too - works without any errors. Hmm. BTW, why it's said "mpmissions"? It should be in the "missions" folder, it is single player scenario, not MP.

maybe my team is far to the main battle and the hostile kill the other team---

Yes, in battles controlled by Hetman impact on the morale has condition of the whole army. Is assumed, each group is informed how battle goes, thus simulated by Hetman morale of each group is dropping if army sustains losses. If morale is low enough, for each group appears a risk of panic (stops following orders, temporary) or even surrender reaction (permanent). The more groups surrendered, the bigger chances, so the others will do same. But again, it's not very likely to happen so fast unless for some reason army was decimated rapidly. From the other hand - it isn't completely impossible. Just very rare.

[stlassen 16]

Here is the error message, just after the CTD :

http://i57.tinypic.com/vg3k93.jpg

Using win7 64 but not sure if it is helpful.

Mine works perfect as well with the dots.

[ashencross 10]

Ooohhhhh .... This sounds very interesting! Gonna give this a try. :)

[jcae2798 132]

Hey, just a bug report hopefully you can recreate....after ever mission completion i click continue and game crashes. Not sure why. I dont track LOGs so i can share it.

Thanks

Also is there a way to choose enemy ratio? Since i like to use the CAF addon, would be cool if i can choose more enemy then friendly or vice versa if possible for future releases

[Rydygier 1302]

Setting forces ratio multiplier is planned.

Crashing the game in any circumstancies, especially at mission complete, may be possible to recreate, but most probably not possible to fix from scripts level. In fact, any game crashing except overloading eg with spawned units is problem/issue of the whole game stability and should be adressed by devs. Mission maker/scripter may only try to avoid circumstancies, when it is happening, but it's not always possible - how to avoid completion of the mission? Of course, also recreation of this must be time consuming by the nature of the event - I must actually complete the mission, lot of time wasted as for single test, but perhaps I find shortcut without loosing causes of the issue.

EDIT: tried to reproduce this by setting end of the mission after 15 seconds from the start. No such problem observed. So it's not so easy to reproduce. If more peole will have same problem, I can try replace A3's fancy mission ending with older way.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Rydygier

[silentghoust 132]

I have this problem as well, but it mostly is a overloading issues based on what mission. For example a giant tank battle in the city is most likely to result in a crash after the end. I don't think its a huge deal, since it happens only maybe 1 out of 10 battles.

I do have some suggestions though.

The FIA need some sort of night equipment, not necessary night vision goggles. But at least some flashlights, and flares, they literally get eaten alive at night. Also having the AI try to use AT on helicopters might help as well.

It would also be nice to see a lower percentage chance if not none at all to be a subordinate in a generic non-armed motorized groups. I almost instant quite these missions simply because the Team Leader will not order a dismount tell the vehicle acutely has been shot at...which usually is a RPG or tank round so yea..

Also I noticed a combat engineer planting explosives by my Strider when we parked it off to the side. Is that a Vanilla behavior or is that something you did with your mod?

[Rydygier 1302]

FIA is then not prepared to fight at night by default. Question is, should I really re-balance vanilla faction characteristics in any way to make them more equal (so less unique and less different)? Perhaps is better to choose for night battles NATO instead of FIA or accept, so FIA will be eaten alive because night equipment is out of reach for poor partisans? Do flashlights really help AI at night? For me - not. Just compromise my position and point it as easy target. Whatever users want here, I can do though.

Also having the AI try to use AT on helicopters might help as well.

I'm intentionally not touching such low-level AI behaviors to keep Hetman as far as possible from things altered by AI mods to avoid interferences and improve compatibility. Hetman is not telling to each AI, what it should do with its weaponry. He issues orders on group level mainly via waypoints.

It would also be nice to see a lower percentage chance if not none at all to be a subordinate in a generic non-armed motorized groups. I almost instant quite these missions simply because the Team Leader will not order a dismount tell the vehicle acutely has been shot at...which usually is a RPG or tank round so yea..

I think, I'll make all units of A side except Ledaer switchable after all... Or maybe rather 0-8 option to re-randomize player unit?

Is that a Vanilla behavior or is that something you did with your mod?

Vanilla or some AI mod. Hetman doesn't messing with that level of AI with several exceptions (AI sniping mission, smoke and flares deployment, artillery control, cargo transportation flow control, garrisoning...). BTW didn't knew, engineers may do that autonomously on vanilla.

---------- Post added at 13:20 ---------- Previous post was at 12:27 ----------

Do we want MARTA military symbols on the map? It's nice to me, not sure, how about rest of you. Anyway, I'm testing player unit switching. Re-randomization works without problems (I set those markers to be visible for all units of that side), but in the same time I made all units of A side switchable, so player also can choose any unit he want by usual Team Switch. And in this second case after switch MARTA icons are gone forever. Seems like a glitch hard to repair. But perhaps I should remove these markers at all?

[ashencross 10]

Finally got to try this scenario. I'm a big fan of Pilgrimage and this is a fantastic change of pace. Loving the fact that battles are not player-centric. Not thrilled about being able to team-switch, its like a flaw in the immersion bubble, but I guess at times you could end up drawing the really short end of the stick and get a really bad unit assignment? Haha, I read that someone got spawned as a sentry gun? Totally crazy XD

I ran the scenario 3 times, and this is what I observed.

1. Spawned as the gunner in an IFV, part of an armored group. This was very exciting as I always wanted more vehicle action in vanilla A3. There were a few shenanigans involving our group running over patrolling friendlies and units getting stuck on trees, but that seemed like vanilla driving AI being ... well, normal. I quit the mission when my own driver ran into a tree on a slope and got stuck there forever. (I guess team or unit switching would be handy in a situation like this? It's like shoving the driver aside and maneuvering the tank out of the ridiculous situation, before getting back to my seat? :D Just thought of it.)

2. Spawned as a rifleman under the command of crappy squad leader that did not order us to pull out/hide/run away from incoming enemy GMG-packing light armor vehicles. Ended up running away by myself and left my buddies to die :( Sad times. But the interesting thing was this. The scenario involved NATO (player side) defending Thronos from an attacking CSAT group that came from the east. However, the way our commander deployed troops was a bit odd. All groups were spread out toward the west of Thronos, forming half a circle, facing west (while the enemy was coming from the east). Maybe it was a super clever strategy that I could not envision, but that left the leader group exposed in the middle of Thronos. CSAT pushed through the middle, taking the castle, then spreading out to hunt the remaining groups, including mine. It would have made more sense to create a defensive perimeter to the east instead of the west, yeah? Or maybe we got faulty intel! XD

3. This scenario was generally amazing. Spawned as the team leader in a fireteam. Got assigned to a non-combat recon mission, north of the target town we were meant to assault. I really felt part of a larger battle this time, even though it was a non-combat/recon only role. Artillery hits could be heard across the hills to the south. Eventually we were re-tasked to support the assaulting force, chasing down CSAT infantry groups that were running away. After a while, though a couple of team members were wounded, and after the target town was taken, my team was told to "move to regroup/re-arm/heal" in an area close to the starting position. So far so good, it all felt part of a grand plan. My team made it's way to the re-group point, but this is when it gets funky. Our commander starting giving us a different "regroup" waypoint every time we reached another. So instead of "resting" our boss had us running around and around and around ... Haha, we could only curse our fate and follow orders.

Anyway, in general, I love this concept, keep up the solid work Rydy, it's much appreciated. I also have a couple of questions.

I saw a Hummingbird air asset flying around delivering and picking up teams in the field (my team did not get such VIP treatment, but oh well). Is there a chance of getting assigned a pilot role for air support missions?

Second question. When artillery is called by other teams on the radio, they don't seem to tell you what grid they are targeting. I nearly ran into mortar fire accidentally once, and then panicked each time artillery was called. I'm not part of any military, so I don't know what the protocol is. Are friendly units not forewarned of where death is raining? :D

And last question, (and statement) I quite like the MARTA icons to give you a sense of the bigger picture. If anything, I kinda wished I knew which teams the other icons represented. Or is that too meta-gamey? Figured the "player character" would have knowledge of who-is-who in the field. That way if Bravo 2-1 said on the radio that they ran into enemies, I could glance at the map and actually know which grid they are talking about. Or maybe there is actually a way to tell and I just don't know it :O Which is also a possibility.

Thank you again, thumbs up!

[Rydygier 1302]

Ad 2 Hetman often (not always) sets defensive positions on the reverse slope (except recon units). This way defending group may surprise attacking enemy from close range and from the flank, when hostiles are passing by, instead of being static&under fire, including arty, long time from long distancies. It's not always good idea though. If this wasn't newest beta, then indeed, Leader may be left exposed. In the beta however Leader should be located farther from the front line.

Ad 3. Maybe this was active recreation? :) Repeating regroup orders means something is not working, as supposed. Thanks for reporting.

Is there a chance of getting assigned a pilot role for air support missions?

Yes, there is equal chance to incarnate any unit of side A except the Leader.

so I don't know what the protocol is

Whatever the protocol is, here is just silently assumed. In general own arty should avoid targeting places, where allies are present, but you know - mistakes, dispersion... I can increase safe radius, but that will mean rare arty support. Unless that was opposite arty, maybe even targeting you. It's possible to do same thing, as in Pilgrimage and reveal arty markers on the map.

Probably I'll also enable implemented in Hetman temporary markers showing on the map source of each radio chatter message (I would preffer that way of marking, where was said what). There is also some kind of markers possible to turn on showing actual positions of each TL of chosen side(s). This may be used also, and I could expand it with group names. So, there is quite a few possibilities to choose from (almost) ready-to-use.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Rydygier

[ashencross 10]

Ad 2 Hetman often (not always) sets defensive positions on the reverse slope (except recon units). This way defending group may surprise attacking enemy from close range and from the flank, when hostiles are passing by, instead of being static&under fire, including arty, long time from long distancies

^ Nice!

Yes, there is equal chance to incarnate any unit of side A except the Leader.

^ Really cool!

Whatever the protocol is, here is just silently assumed. In general own arty should avoid targeting places, where allies are present, but you know - mistakes, dispersion... I can increase safe radius, but that will mean rare arty support. Unless that was opposite arty, maybe even targeting you. It's possible to do same thing, as in Pilgrimage and reveal arty markers on the map.

^ Ah, then it's alright, I wouldn't change the "safe radius" really. It's good to know there is one. Temp friendly arty markers on map could be handy though.

Probably I'll also enable implemented in Hetman temporary markers showing on the map source of each radio chatter message (I would preffer that way of marking, where was said what).

^ This sounds like a good idea too.

Good stuff!

[ebarstad 18]

Whatever the protocol is, here is just silently assumed. In general own arty should avoid targeting places, where allies are present, but you know - mistakes, dispersion... I can increase safe radius, but that will mean rare arty support. Unless that was opposite arty, maybe even targeting you. It's possible to do same thing, as in Pilgrimage and reveal arty markers on the map.

TPW's Skirmish mod puts the grid reference in the sidechat and a marker on the map, which is pretty handy (especially the markers, which are easier to pick out at a glance and show up on GPS if you have one equipped).

[silentghoust 132]

FIA is then not prepared to fight at night by default. Question is, should I really re-balance vanilla faction characteristics in any way to make them more equal (so less unique and less different)? Perhaps is better to choose for night battles NATO instead of FIA or accept, so FIA will be eaten alive because night equipment is out of reach for poor partisans? Do flashlights really help AI at night? For me - not. Just compromise my position and point it as easy target. Whatever users want here, I can do though.

In the story, the FIA are made up of former pre-civil war AAF soldiers, as well as the regular citizen. Which is the reasoning behind there more military like nature, with a clear command structure, team call signs, ect. During the campaign Adapt, you always have a selection of flares, or flashlights to use. With night vision being something you need to salvage. I consider them the "hard mode" of your mission, which I enjoy playing as. I wouldn't think flares would make them less unique, as flares are considered "primitive" in terms of what the other factions have for night vision.

Vanilla or some AI mod. Hetman doesn't messing with that level of AI with several exceptions (AI sniping mission, smoke and flares deployment, artillery control, cargo transportation flow control, garrisoning...). BTW didn't knew, engineers may do that autonomously on vanilla.

Interesting, this was my first time witnessing it as well. It was a funny sitution as well, I was scouting ahead with my team in a strider, and happen to run into 3+ IFV's. I quickly drove the strider into a parking area and ordered my men to stay prone in a building. Then all the sudden we heard "beeping". They knew we were int he building, so I was kinda freaking out thinking they were just going to blow the building. I went around at back and sure enough a engineer was planting charges. My Strider was right at that area as well, so maybe he was just trying to blow that up. But it left me with a lot of questions since I killed him before he could do anything.

Was he blowing up are building?

Did he do it on his own?

Did he require a order to do it?

Was he blowing up our Strider?

Was he simply trying to plant mines instead, with the AI just grabbing the explosives as a general pool of classes rather then those specificly?

I guess I got a nice day of experimenting to do >.<

[jcae2798 132]

As for the markers, cant it be optional either by selecting it through the start up UI or maybe through a call menu X-X-X. This way people who want to see it can, and those who do not dont have to :)

Me personally, i agree with the others about giving a sense of the whole picture/battle.

[Rydygier 1302]

In the story, the FIA are made up of former pre-civil war AAF soldiers, as well as the regular citizen. Which is the reasoning behind there more military like nature, with a clear command structure, team call signs, ect. During the campaign Adapt, you always have a selection of flares, or flashlights to use. With night vision being something you need to salvage. I consider them the "hard mode" of your mission, which I enjoy playing as. I wouldn't think flares would make them less unique, as flares are considered "primitive" in terms of what the other factions have for night vision.

OK then, however can't guarantee if vanilla AI will use such things properly. Flare grenades also need proper weapon to be shot. I'll try to apply some light sources for FIA anyway, at least flashlights should be easy to add and used by AI properly (giving the enemies nice opportunity for some night "shooting the lights" practice :P ). In fact, I can also add randomly for some TLs even NVGoggles, let's assume, taken as trophies. IMO only those can noticeably raise survival chances for FIA.

As for the markers, cant it be optional either by selecting it through the start up UI or maybe through a call menu X-X-X.

Probably can. 0-8 menu may also serve as reset if MARTA icons are gone due to Team Switch. I'll test that.

---------- Post added at 09:01 ---------- Previous post was at 08:00 ----------

Our commander starting giving us a different "regroup" waypoint every time we reached another. So instead of "resting" our boss had us running around and around and around

Incarnated fire team TL and dropped all my ammo to provoke Rest order (successfully). But all was OK, after reaching the waypoint position, I had no new rest orders. So, as usual, not so easy to hunt the bug down. It must be dependent on some particular circumstancies. Oh, well. That's third of that kind. I can only leave some diag_log "snares" in the bushes at expected paths of this bug and hope, it will trigger them some day leaving a trace in my RPT...