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IndeedPete

[SP/Coop 04] Contention Zone

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Hey IndeedPete, I´m playing on SP, how could I make the blowouts more sparce? (like a debug code or something?) Right now the 10-20 minutes interval is quite annoying cus the blowout makes my screen blacks out for more than 5 minutes after the blowout and I keep idling all this time with nothing to do (can´t even open the map and review the tasks or read the manual =P)

 

This is actually my only complaint, loving all the rest =D

 

cheers!

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Hm, unfortunately, the blowout parameters are hardcoded. Your only chance is dePBO the file, go into initServer.sqf and change line 73 as you please.

[[600, 1200]] spawn IP_fnc_blowoutController; // Parameter: _cycle - [300, 600], _radius - [250, 500]

But it's something that could be easily parameterised. I'm thinking about a menu that, in SP, pops up on mission start and lets you configure various aspects. Just like in Rydygier's Pilgrimage. What do you think?

 

Oh, and once it's dark you could just run this to at least get back visuals:

titleCut ["", "BLACK IN", 1];
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Thanks, Indeed, that code [titleCut ["", "BLACK IN", 1];] is enough (it takes off the black screen), I can live with a frequente blowout as long as it doesn´t takes out my vision too lol

 

But the list of parameters for SP is a nice adittion, as in MP the admin can adjust various settings (given the mission maker let them to be adjustables), but on SP we don´t have such luxury, except if the mission creator add this parameter window on mission start (Whole Lotta Altis has it too, just so you know lol), so I´m all for this implementation! =)

 

cheers! =D

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anppi8rft.jpg

 

Off for the weekend and I'm missing all the fun! ;-) 

 

First of all thanks again to all that participated! Hope you enjoy the Zone so far.

 

I would like to add a few comments as well:

- I recommend (at least for your first go) to walk the Zone without any mods active. You will never know if anomalies are technical problems or wanted this way.

- Refrain from cheating/teleporting all over the map or you will most likely miss the fun and atmosphere. Contention Zone is all about facing the toxic environment of a post apocalyptic Altis and finding out what led to the catastrophy. If I play it all from the beginning it will give me several hours of playtime and I KNOW where all the clues and items are.

- Contention guards have specialized weapons that require their DNA/fingerprints to be activated. That's why the weapons can't be looted. At the moment weapons aren't neccessary to survive in the Zone. It is not meant to be played as a shooter.

- I always had a love/hate relation with the bunker you start your game in. I love it for the atmosphere and the way you have to set up your light at home to make it playable. On the other hand I hate it for the technical limitations. So let's see if we can bare with the glitches or if we have to change it in the long term to make it more accessible.

- Also sorry for the nasty triggers of dialogs, especially for objects or persons on the ground. Some A3 clunkyness there. I hope that once you know how to trigger them (by looking down or away) you will get along. 

- And last but not least: If you have any scenery you would like to be implemented, PM me with the details! But remember: Everything has to be created with Vanilla Items only, so no Mods, no Itempacks, no A3MP etc.

- Ah and please share your favorite screenshots or videos (in spoiler tags or PM). Thanks!

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Thanks for the useful points, Surfer! I'll test the mission properly as soon as I've got some spare time. :)
 

Btw, what did you guys use for the object placement? Zeus + MCC? I'm sure it's been hell to make the mission design feel realistic in such a large env :)

 

Also, noticed some of the dialogues read quite unnatural. If you're looking for someone with a keen writing ability to help you smooth the lines, message me :) Over and out.

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The objects have been placed by hand, using an invisible grass cutter and attachto [with coordinates] to align them. Takes a while but once it's done, it is rock solid. Only things you can't attach are NPCs, which is why some of them might be a little glitched.

 

Anybody wanting to setup a Coop, give me a shout!

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btw i think guys you missed one of my questions.

I asked if lots of AI entities are constantly present on map (far from player i mean)

If this is the case i could multiply my frames placing a caching script (like ZBE caching) 

 

^^

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No, AI patrols are sporadically placed by Surfer, anything quest relevant is spawned and removed after the quests are finished. Possible sources of performance loss are the loot script and maybe parts of the zone functionality. Also, object collisions involving physX caused some troubles in an earlier Arma version.

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The Zone knows many stories. Every Freezoner has a few and if you ever stood by the campfire, talking to the lads, you probably heard one or two. This one here is about a legendary mercenary. They say he came as a refugee from the dark continent to the island of Altis and that he was forced into mercenary labour by a band of ruthless sellswords, which soon discovered his special talents. They also say that his actions changed the course of history dramatically and that he's still on the island, hiding somewhere. You know what? Don't believe everything you hear, I call bullshit on this legend. Though just a few weeks ago, these two lads showed up at the Scrapyard. The left one introduced himself as Raif, and his beaten up buddy on the right was from Germany or something. Ah shit, I forgot his name. Anyway, these two blokes checked in with the dealer and they dropped big paper on guns and equipment. One day later, it was early in the morning and still dark, they went off to the Zone.

 

cz_01y9aru.jpg

 

Carefully moving through the Zone for hours, evading anomalies and probably worse, the two Zoners in Arms arrived at the old Agrocon. Everyone knows it's held by Contention, don't go there, lads!

 

cz_0220x5y.jpg

 

These two daredevils were crazy, but not stupid. They proceeded to scout the area from a distance and decided to take their chances.

 

cz_03umaci.jpg

 

Raif managed to get on top of a building and put his Mk 18 ABR to good use...

 

cz_04dlyf8.jpg

 

...while his partner went for close combat. It was brutal, C-Mercs were falling like flies in his devastating 6.5mm fire. They say that silent German butchered over twenty that day. No one actually knows what they were looking for - might have been loot, or artifacts. In any case, these daredevils were succesful and decided to head back to the Scrapyard.

 

cz_05qrl73.jpg

 

They were just passing the old trafo station north-west of here when Raif sensed a noise. Not one second later, a bright flash appeared above their heads. Both knew immediately that whatever this was, it meant danger and certain death. So Raif and the German ran for their lives. Turns out they walked straight into a Freezer, nasty things. But there you go, two mega mercenary captains killing dozens of C-Mercs just to walk into one of the most dangerous anomalies ever. Christ, give me a break with these legendary people. Much to my disgrace, they made it out alive and returned to the Scrapyard.

 

cz_06l9yyr.jpg

 

Over a few shots of Surfer's finest and a decent amount of grilled zone wolf, the two lads shared their stories. Well, actually only this Raif guy was talking. That German just stood there and looked, well, German. You know, when Germans size you up with this cold, hard, hurmorless death stare? He stared like that all the time. Must have seen some shit. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. The next morning, both were gone. But you know, the Zoners say these mercenaries are still out there, somewhere in the Zone. Staring at you. With a humorless death stare. Take care, lads.

 

cz_07oxzge.jpg

 

Pictures available in full size in CZ's gallery: http://abload.de/gallery.php?key=s3L8R87r

Uniform and weapon textures by IndeedPete, custom face by Kydoimos, grilled zone wolf by Surfer. ;)

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Hello,

 

I played your mission and this is a really nice mission for an alpha already have some great content and atmosphere is amazing.

 

I encountered a few bugs and some personal suggestion to improve mission if you like them :

- Bunker start after the radio message give a lot of frame drop when the AI attacks 

- I could not return repair tool to the mechanic, no reward and the message keep looping (bug ?)

- I have a "find" quest where I have to find a body at surfer scrapyard but the grid is exactly around the freezone scrapyard house or I could just not find it not sure ( bug ?)

- Blowout are too frequent you should change it  (personal suggestion)

- Loot system I'm not sure about it but I keep searching in lot of town etc and I'm not sure if its my eyes or the mission but its hard to find anything (personal suggestion)

 

That all I have in my mind for now ^^. Thanks for this mission and waiting for beta ;)

 

sorry for my english

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Hi,

 

thanks for your feedback.

 

1. Yeah, there might be a short stutter as enemy AI is being spawned right in front of the Contention guards in order to create a decent fire fight. Maybe placing them further away will help. It could also be the framework in general. Quests are basically single, pre-compiled mission flow files containing script code. And when a player accepts a quest, the request to start this mission is sent to the server which then runs the mission flow server-side while delegating local stuff back to the clients. I've noticed short delays in MP at least while the request is being processed.

 

2. Weird, I could swear I fixed that bug. Twice by now actually. What a nasty little thing.^^

 

3. Sounds like the body to find has been randomly generated somewhere where it doesn't belong. Well, let's say the generic quest framework hasn't been touched for a while. I think it's celebrating its first birthday soon, I should probably look into that.

 

4. Already on my note pad.

 

5. I'm looking into other loot frameworks in the near future.

 

Thanks again!

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Serfer

Hi )
In this mission, there is a method of protection against poisonous fog?

 

Serfer and  IndeedPete
Thank you for this mission. )
 

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Hey,

 

yes, wear some facewear.(Balaclavas, facial bandanas, etc.)

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...

 

3. Sounds like the body to find has been randomly generated somewhere where it doesn't belong. Well, let's say the generic quest framework hasn't been touched for a while. I think it's celebrating its first birthday soon, I should probably look into that.

 

...

 

Think I also got a problem with this mission. 

 

I found the corpse of the guy in the trip-anomaly - I guess it's the place where he belongs to according to all the blood around. I lootet everything I could get and then returned to the trader - but nothing happens. Is there anything I have to do with the corpse? No options are shown when I am at it, but probably I'm just overseeing something... I only had CBA and Outlaws Mag Repack enabled. Tried it vanilla, no solution.

 

 

- Ah and please share your favorite screenshots or videos (in spoiler tags or PM). Thanks!

 

 

I'd love to!

 

FD9B0FD0DC1473B76F22C1420F4337DF7A79110B

 

Thanks for your work, Surfer and Pete!

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Think I also got a problem with this mission. 

 

I found the corpse of the guy in the trip-anomaly - I guess it's the place where he belongs to according to all the blood around. I lootet everything I could get and then returned to the trader - but nothing happens. Is there anything I have to do with the corpse? No options are shown when I am at it, but probably I'm just overseeing something... I only had CBA and Outlaws Mag Repack enabled. Tried it vanilla, no solution.

 

 
 

 

I'd love to!

 

FD9B0FD0DC1473B76F22C1420F4337DF7A79110B

 

Thanks for your work, Surfer and Pete!

 

Guy in a TRIP anomaly? Can you be more specific? What quest were you doing? Was is a generic one? (I.e. when you ask the dealer at the Scrapyard "Can I get a job?")

 

Thanks for the shot!

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Guy in a TRIP anomaly? Can you be more specific? What quest were you doing? Was is a generic one? (I.e. when you ask the dealer at the Scrapyard "Can I get a job?")

 

Thanks for the shot!

 

It's the one quest where you have to find the assistent of the trader in the scrapyard which got lost on the way to Stavros. I think thats the third quest you get. I found the corpse at the TRIP-anomaly at the coast S of the scrapyard and I thought it's the assistent. Or am I wrong with that? :mellow:

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Um no, you might just encountered a random corpse placed by Surfer. The assistant really is on the road leading from Stavros to the Scrapyard. Just go west, between the beach and the road, until you reach a small compound with a broken Offroad (it has lights on and can be seen from a distance).

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Oh. So one hour wasted. I already found the vehicle - and I was sure the trader mentioned something about a car in the briefing. Thank you!

 

Oh, and please do more fotostorys! Much better then the Bravo-magazine-ones. ;) Honestly, the fotostory is realy great!

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Lovely, isn't it? Next time I'll add speech bubbles. And plot twists involving cheating and parenthood. :D

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We just got this uploaded to the dedi... looking forward to trying this weekend :)

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We just got this uploaded to the dedi... looking forward to trying this weekend :)

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but dedicated servers are not supported. :/

 

Or at least not supported yet. Thinking about it, it could actually work on a dedi, but at least some scripts need to be adapted.

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Sorry to disappoint you, but dedicated servers are not supported. :/

 

Or at least not supported yet. Thinking about it, it could actually work on a dedi, but at least some scripts need to be adapted.

 

My friends and I found this out the hard way, we were PUMPED, had 4 of us left-over from our ops anyway.. and it did NOT work very well on the dedi lol.

 

If you ever get it adapted I will owe you hard cash lol 

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From what I read, dedis are quite bitchy. Since I'm not much on an MP player, I was never really interested in scripting for dedicated environments. Not to mention that I'm lacking a testbed, even though some of you offered to provide me with one. What bugs me the most about dedicated serves, or about MP in general, is that it strongly limits mission design in terms of atmosphere and ambient things. The best example is still BIS_fnc_ambientAnim. As you might have noticed in MP, the server player sees NPCs doing ambient stuff in the Scrapyard, while clients just see them as frozen. Similar problems for cutscenes, textures, events, mission flow etc. It is much simpler and more fun to script for SP only, and it also allows more storytelling approaches. Hence, when we started the project, I crossed out JIP and dedis as too much work for a story-driven, atmospheric mission. Possible COOP scenarios in the future around the zone could have different approaches, considering that the anomaly and weather framework are run client-side anyway. But JIP and dedis were too advanced for me back then. I think I have gathered a fair amount of scripting experience in SP through my previous projects, but MP is a whole lot more difficult.

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