[COOP] Zenophon's Mini Co-op Missions Pack

[Zenophon 110]

Update
Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this release adds a new mission, Co-4 Raid, to the pack. It places the players in armed FIA trucks on patrol in a large area of AAF activity. There are many objectives of opportunity to be found. Due to the very random procedural generation of the mission, it will take about 60 seconds of time in-game before all playable content has been created.

Thanks to some user feedback, Blackout now has a reasonably large explosion for the players to see as they escape. Due to the rather weak flares, the AI now receive a spotting skill bonus once the alarm has been triggered. That should help them put up a better fight instead of just running around randomly. Also, if the mission is played in SP, the player now has command over all the AI.

The insertion and extraction in Silence have been tweaked. All the players are now required to actually get in the boat to complete the mission. I said something about an SDV earlier, but using the boat makes more sense (I could switch to an SDV for insertion, but it's just aesthetics). The point where the boat stops to drop off and pick up the players has been moved closer to the shore. This should result in less time wasted swimming as well as provide a more realistic ending.

Changelog

8/8/15

• New Mission: Co-4 Raid
• Blackout
  • Fixed: All friendly AI are added to the player's group in SP
  • Added: Explosion for planted bombs once the players are far enough away
  • Tweaked: AI now receives better spotting skill after the alarm has been triggered
• Silence
  • Improved: Players must now swim to the boat for extraction
  • Tweaked: Distance to swim to and from the boat decreased

[Laid3acK 79]

Play it as a single player, always a pleasure, many thanks.

 

Regards. :)  

[cyprus 16]

I'll have to give the new missions a try, but I've been playing Sweep lately, and the AI in the windows is a really nice touch, and something we've been having to watch out for.  However, I think one big thing that really needs to be changed is the mission end trigger.  Right now, it's almost impossible to find every single enemy in a reasonable amount of time, especially if the mission starts in a larger town.  Finding the last 5 enemies or so often takes twice as long as killing the first 40.  I think one way to combat this would be to either end the mission when around 90% of the enemies are killed or have the last few enemies have waypoints show on them. 

 

Another thing that would be nice is if the mortars were changed from just appearing to actually being setup and launched by real AI from in the city.  Right now the mortars are very aggressive and even shell the sniper team when they're inside the city, which feels wrong to me.  There should be AI mortar teams placed in and around the city patrolling that setup and start firing once they spot the snipers.  That would be really cool, as it adds another interesting objective, and makes the mortars feel less random.

[Zenophon 110]

I'll have to give the new missions a try, but I've been playing Sweep lately, and the AI in the windows is a really nice touch, and something we've been having to watch out for. However, I think one big thing that really needs to be changed is the mission end trigger. Right now, it's almost impossible to find every single enemy in a reasonable amount of time, especially if the mission starts in a larger town. Finding the last 5 enemies or so often takes twice as long as killing the first 40. I think one way to combat this would be to either end the mission when around 90% of the enemies are killed or have the last few enemies have waypoints show on them.

Another thing that would be nice is if the mortars were changed from just appearing to actually being setup and launched by real AI from in the city. Right now the mortars are very aggressive and even shell the sniper team when they're inside the city, which feels wrong to me. There should be AI mortar teams placed in and around the city patrolling that setup and start firing once they spot the snipers. That would be really cool, as it adds another interesting objective, and makes the mortars feel less random.

I can add a condition that about 90% of the Opfor are dead will complete the mission, in addition to clearing the town. Thus, if the Opfor leave the town, but you haven't killed 90% of them, the mission will still complete.

The mortars are intentionally annoying, but I can give them a realism overhaul. Adding a spotter or the mortars themselves to the town (and thus a way to stop them), more time between firing, more random inaccuracy of where they think the sniper is, limited ammunition, more realistic detection of the sniper (based upon distance, kills, etc.), and no detection/firing when the sniper is in the town.

I'll test what all that does for the sniper, and maybe add something else to hinder him, as well as apply the detection logic to the spotter. If they split up, they'll each have a chance of being fired on or hunted down if they're detected.

[zonker3210 1]

(fyi...I also posted this same comment at Armaholic since I was having problems logging in here at the BI forums...)

 

It'd be nice if you enabled saving in SP mode. I know that they're technically co-op missions but otherwise they seem to work well enough in SP.

I played the mission Silence in SP mode and when I got back to the crate at the beach prior to extraction, only my uniform changed to the scuba gear. The gear change worked for the whole team at insertion so I'm not sure why it didn't work for the whole team at extraction. Also, the automatic gear change is a pain when it's triggered while under fire...suddenly my gun changes to the SDAR...etc. It'd be nice if you added an action to the crate after the exfil task is assigned. Only the fact that the rest of my team's loadouts did *not* change allowed us to continue to engage nearby opfor.

The main issue I have with the mission is that the boat and driver were under water at time of exfil. Not sure if the driver was killed or what happened but I do recall hearing gunfire while moving from the crate (during the initial insertion) toward the SUV with the weapons. Couldn't finish the mission as a result of this.

Played a few other missions in the pack and I enjoyed them although I'm generally not a big fan of the gear assignments. Often seems like basic gear like binoculars are left out...or they're given during night missions despite not being NVG-capable. Also, noticed that it seems like you may have loaded the wrong .45 mags in Specter mission (has 11-round pistol mags rather than the 30-round SMG mags).

Please take the above comments as they're intended - honest feedback. These missions are a lot of fun and you've obviously put a lot of time & effort into crafting quality missions. I appreciate you sharing these with the community! Thanks!

[zonker3210 1]

One other odd quirk I noticed during the Specter mission...the helo's inventory is constantly full. So if you take a piece of equipment by mistake and try to put it back...no luck. You're stuck with it at least until you disembark and can drop it on the ground. Might be a game bug but I've never noticed it before, as far as I can recall.

[Zenophon 110]

(fyi...I also posted this same comment at Armaholic since I was having problems logging in here at the BI forums...)

It'd be nice if you enabled saving in SP mode. I know that they're technically co-op missions but otherwise they seem to work well enough in SP.

I played the mission Silence in SP mode and when I got back to the crate at the beach prior to extraction, only my uniform changed to the scuba gear. The gear change worked for the whole team at insertion so I'm not sure why it didn't work for the whole team at extraction. Also, the automatic gear change is a pain when it's triggered while under fire...suddenly my gun changes to the SDAR...etc. It'd be nice if you added an action to the crate after the exfil task is assigned. Only the fact that the rest of my team's loadouts did *not* change allowed us to continue to engage nearby opfor.

The main issue I have with the mission is that the boat and driver were under water at time of exfil. Not sure if the driver was killed or what happened but I do recall hearing gunfire while moving from the crate (during the initial insertion) toward the SUV with the weapons. Couldn't finish the mission as a result of this.

Played a few other missions in the pack and I enjoyed them although I'm generally not a big fan of the gear assignments. Often seems like basic gear like binoculars are left out...or they're given during night missions despite not being NVG-capable. Also, noticed that it seems like you may have loaded the wrong .45 mags in Specter mission (has 11-round pistol mags rather than the 30-round SMG mags).

Please take the above comments as they're intended - honest feedback. These missions are a lot of fun and you've obviously put a lot of time & effort into crafting quality missions. I appreciate you sharing these with the community! Thanks!

One other odd quirk I noticed during the Specter mission...the helo's inventory is constantly full. So if you take a piece of equipment by mistake and try to put it back...no luck. You're stuck with it at least until you disembark and can drop it on the ground. Might be a game bug but I've never noticed it before, as far as I can recall.

Thanks for your appreciation; I always value feedback. Feel free to be as critical as you want; I like as many details and suggestions as possible so I can fix/improve things.

I just realized that the debug console shows up in SP, so I can't really play the realism card about saving (there's also teamswitching). I always say that saving can break running SQF scripts, which is only true for unserialized scripts (by default they're serialized) that do GUI stuff. I'll enable it in SP and if it breaks anything, hopefully players will report it. They can always run a local LAN to get a MP environment.

The gear box in Silence is a sort of checkpoint to keep players organized. However, now that you mention it, there not really necessary to force players into the exact plan I had in mind (which is based on a real SF mission just with a different main objective). With actions, those decisions are now optional, so if users want to play the whole mission with the SDAR, swim to extraction without a wetsuit, etc., that won't break the mission (obviously following the plan would be easier, but not forced). I'll also make the extraction boat and driver captive/invulnerable to make sure he's there.

The lack of binoculars, scopes, etc. are meant to make the missions harder. With only eyes and ironsights/1x optic, spotting requires patience and sniping the AI at 500m with a 4x scope isn't an option. A few loadouts might give binoculars at night, if I didn't do detailed, custom loadouts for the mission (I have a lot of presets I use for standard infantry).  The night missions are meant to be even slower paced and cautious.

In Specter, the loadout gives the correct 30 round 0.45 magazine, but the wrong 11 round magazine is loaded into in the helicopter. I'll tweak the extra stuff in the helicopter as well, I guess the game thinks it can't hold very much.

[zonker3210 1]

I'm very grateful that the debug console shows up in SP...that's what allowed me to enable saving without unpacking the mission PBOs and making a change that way. ;)

 

I understand the gear selections are often semi-randomized / template-based and I am fine with a challenge. It's just that sometimes the result is some rather weird loadouts. Also, it's frustrating to be going against militia forces who have better sights (and other gear) than anyone in my team.

 

You're correct about Specter...the unit loadout has the correct 30-round mags but the helo has the 11-round mags by mistake. Also, the really weird thing about the chopper loadout is that usually when you remove items from a gearbox, more room is freed up in that gearbox. That is not the case with the helo. I team-switched my way through all four units and topped off everyone's loadouts...the helo's inventory was still showing up as completely full and I couldn't move any items into it. Very odd. Again, though...this might be a game bug. I guess you could always free up space by dumping all of the parachutes from the inventory.

 

Again...really fun mission pack! Thanks for sharing!

[Zenophon 110]

I'm very grateful that the debug console shows up in SP...that's what allowed me to enable saving without unpacking the mission PBOs and making a change that way. ;)

I understand the gear selections are often semi-randomized / template-based and I am fine with a challenge. It's just that sometimes the result is some rather weird loadouts. Also, it's frustrating to be going against militia forces who have better sights (and other gear) than anyone in my team.

You're correct about Specter...the unit loadout has the correct 30-round mags but the helo has the 11-round mags by mistake. Also, the really weird thing about the chopper loadout is that usually when you remove items from a gearbox, more room is freed up in that gearbox. That is not the case with the helo. I team-switched my way through all four units and topped off everyone's loadouts...the helo's inventory was still showing up as completely full and I couldn't move any items into it. Very odd. Again, though...this might be a game bug. I guess you could always free up space by dumping all of the parachutes from the inventory.

Again...really fun mission pack! Thanks for sharing!

Which mission has militia with scopes? Only about 1 out of 20 of them should have that; they're all using presets with almost only CCO's. Their skill varies with the number of players; I don't designate one enemy group as militia, one as SF, etc. It's done overall for the mission.

I just tested the MH-9; each parachute is taking up about 1/6 of the space. A rifle is about 1/10, and magazines and grenades about 1/100. I'll clear the parachutes and anything else useless from the inventory; that should leave enough room.

[Zenophon 110]

Update
Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this release adds a new mission, Co-6 Convoy, to the pack. It gives players a convoy of vehicles to drive to a destination. As I cannot control which route players will take, all possible roads will be covered by some threat. The number of threats and convoy size will scale with the number of players.

Thanks to some user feedback, Silence puts more responsibility on the players to follow the mission plan correctly. Thus, you can now play the entire mission with your scuba gear if you'd like, but it will be easier if you follow the plan. The mission no longer waits for everyone to be ready, so use teamwork instead of running ahead or leaving people behind.

Sweep has received a mortar overhaul; I've tried to make them less psychic and annoying and more of a realistic challenge. The mortars themselves fire less frequently and can run out of ammunition, and their detection of the sniper/spotter has been improved. Every shot decreases the AI's uncertainty of the shooter's position, but if the sniper/spotter has moved significantly, the AI are once again unsure. The mortars will not fire on the town itself, to prevent possible friendly fire. Finally, a random Opfor soldier has been designated the radioman; killing him will stop the mortars. However, you don't know who he is or if you've killed him or not.

Specter's insertion helicopter cargo has been tweaked; those parachutes were useless anyway. Lockdown now allows hand to hand kills by the POWs on the guards patrolling outside; it's a great way to get free and grab a gun if you can do without being shot.

Changelog

8/21/15

• New Mission: Co-6 Convoy
• Added: Saving in SP
• Lockdown
  • Added: Hand to hand kill for POWs on nearby guards
• Silence
  • Fixed: Extraction vehicle can no longer be destroyed
  • Improved: Mission only waits for one player at each staging point
  • Improved: Gear changes are now voluntary actions
• Specter
  • Fixed: Wrong .45 magazine in insertion helicopter
  • Fixed: Insertion helicopter cargo was over-filled
• Sweep
  • Fixed: Mortars can now track the spotter
  • Added: Random Opfor radio operator in the town, killing him will disable mortars
  • Improved: Mission complete when 90% of Opfor are killed
  • Improved: Mortars now have limit ammunition and increased firing down-time
  • Improved: Detection of the sniper and spotter more is more realistic
  • Improved: Mortar placement is more random and based upon Opfor knowledge of the sniper/spotter
  • Improved: Mortars no longer fire on the town

Roadmap

Well folks, I've run out of ideas for mini missions; I don't want to do missions that just repeat the same thing with slight variations of location or objectives. Thus, I'm going to stop releasing new missions for now. I'll put it as 'Season 1' is over and I've got 14 'episodes' done, and I really want to do a 'Season 2' at some point.

If anyone has some good ideas for an interesting new mini mission, I'd like to hear them and include them in the next round of mini missions. Of course, I'll still support the current missions in the pack with bugfixes and improvements. For now, I've got mission ideas that require more than 4-6 players, and I'd like to do some interesting missions for larger groups of players.

[sig 10]

Still cant save mission in SP?

[Zenophon 110]

It won't save even once; no 'Save and Exit' button either? Just put this in the debug console and click local exec.

enableSaving [true, true];

Maybe I turned on auto saving instead of manual saving...I was sure I saw 'Save' appear in the editor.

[sig 10]

So you'll bring out a v13 with all the saves implemented? Be great if you would do a Chenaurus version as well.

[Zenophon 110]

After testing and having it work in SP, I realized I didn't recompile all the missions for this release. The V12 everyone downloaded is V11 missions with the added Convoy mission; I didn't include the updated .pbo's for the other missions. I've uploaded the true V12 to Google Drive, and it should be on Armaholic soon. The compile dates on all the .pbo's should now be 8/24 (today) not 8/8. Sorry about that.

As for a Chernarus or any other map version, some of the missions could be converted fairly quickly and others would take some time. Abduction, Convoy, Pursuit, Raid, Sweep, and Vendetta could be ported fairly quickly. Others (Ambush, Checkpoint, Silence) where things are selected from presets require placing those markers in good places. Then some are fairly map dependent; Blackout, Cleaner, and Specter won't work if a map doesn't have an similar area. Finally, porting Shootout is pointless as it's generating it's own playable area.

What I would would like to do is use a single, inclusive map pack as a requirement, then port them to whatever maps make sense (most for e.g. Abduction, but fewer for Blackout). So, if Cleaner doesn't work on e.g Chernarus, maybe it could be ported to Takistan, etc. Thus, I think it's between these two:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=23863
http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=26682

I've never tested if those are interchangeable (e.g. mission compiled with AiA map works with A3MP); I'll test that. Obviously, if they're not, I want to pick the one with the most active users and least bugs, to make it easier for people. If anyone has reasons why one is preferable to the other, let me know. If there's another map that's supported by those (Fallujah, etc.) but not included directly, people can request a mission be ported to that map.

[luckylegs 19]

I've never tested if those are interchangeable (e.g. mission compiled with AiA map works with A3MP); I'll test that. Obviously, if they're not, I want to pick the one with the most active users and least bugs, to make it easier for people. If anyone has reasons why one is preferable to the other, let me know. If there's another map that's supported by those (Fallujah, etc.) but not included directly, people can request a mission be ported to that map.

 

Last I checked, active work has stopped on both map packs, though I believe AiA was supported for longer and is more up to Arma 3 standards. I'm pretty sure they have always been interchangeable - i.e. you could create a mission on A3MP's Takistan and safely play it on AiATP's Takistan. The latter seems to be the more widely used pack, in my experience.

 

There's also CUP, who're currently developing their own terrain pack which is set to improve on the All In Arma Terrain Pack.

 

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/179990-community-upgrade-project-cup-terrains/

[Zenophon 110]

Thanks, since they're interchangeable, I won't worry which map pack addon I compile with. I'll probably be done with some of the faster ports to several maps in about a week.

[Zenophon 110]

Update

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this release adds ports 3 missions, Abduction, Pursuit, and Raid, to Chernarus and Takistan. Slight modifications have been made to accommodate these maps, mostly involving their smaller size and not being surrounded by water. The objectives, patrols, etc. are exactly the same.  They also benefit from all changes included in my latest framework release. I'm going to continue porting missions to different maps, mostly Chernarus and Takistan, but possibly Zargabad for some missions as well.

Changelog

9/4/15

• Abduction
  • Added: Chernarus version
  • Added: Takistan version
• Pursuit
  • Added: Chernarus version
  • Added: Takistan version
  • Improved: Optimized
• Raid
  • Added: Chernarus version
  • Added: Takistan version
  • Improved: Optimized

[sig 10]

Thanks for these missions! Hope you make more.

[Zenophon 110]

Update

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this much belated release updates every existing mission to my current framework and includes various tweaks and fixes to almost every mission. I also plan to port more missions using the very well made CUP Terrains.

Changelog

3/12/16

• Abduction
  • Improved: Added ambient FOB objects to Takistan version
• Ambush
  • Fixed: Extraction marker was placed wrong
  • Fixed: The convoy did not drive through the designated path in some cases
  • Improved: Added more explosives to box
• Checkpoint
  • Fixed: AI were counted as players in SP, making the mission much more difficult
• Cleaner
  • Added: UAV equipment to sniper equipment box
• Convoy
  • Improved: Drastically reduced the number of threats spawned for higher numbers of players
  • Improved: The number of convoy vehicles spawned and mission difficulty tweaked in SP
  • Improved: Starting position now avoids houses
• Lockdown
  • Fixed: Rescuing the POWs in SP caused the task to fail
• Pursuit
  • Fixed: Mission provided the wrong vehicles when there were either no infantry or no pilots
  • Improved: Artillery vehicle no longer starts in the center of the search area
  • Tweaked: Objective area size on Takistan and Chernarus
• Raid
  • Fixed: Some opportunity objectives were not placed as intended
  • Added: A small number of hostile vehicles
  • Added: Civilian cars in nearby towns
  • Improved: Increased the number of random ambient objects
  • Improved: Slightly increased the number of opportunity objectives
• Shootout
  • Tweaked: Slightly increased the scaling of Opfor with player count
• Silence
  • Fixed: Insertion/Extraction boat does not move while players are not on board
  • Improved: Players must now call for and guide the airstrike manually
• Silence
  • Fixed: Insertion/Extraction boat does not move while players are not on board
  • Improved: Players must now call for and guide the airstrike manually
• Specter
  • Added: Ambient clutter around optional objective
• Sweep
  • Fixed: Removed some debug printing
  • Improved: Added markers for the insertion point of the infantry and sniper team
  • Improved: Visual quality of the town marker displayed on the map
  • Tweaked: Area patrolled by Opfor for some towns
• Vendetta
  • Fixed: Enabled increased damage for all weapons
  • Fixed: Timer until helicopter take off was much too short

[Laid3acK 79]

Hi Zenophon and thanks for your missions' updates.

 

I have a problem with the ZMCM v14.7z, Windows Defender don't like it, i can't download it.

 

[Edit] Seems to be ok now, sorry.

 

 

[delta99 34]

Good to see this back in action and CUPS would be great.

[cyprus 16]

NIce to see that you're still working on these.  I haven't played any of them in a while, so I'll give them a shot soon.  One thing I'm wondering is if there's been any changes to the damage eventHandler that you use because the Nexus update greatly improved weapon lethality.  Unarmored enemies seem to die from one shot to the chest even with a 9mm pistol, and also one shot to the chest from a rifle at very long range.  I think it might not even be necessary anymore.  It would also allow for better compatibility with ACE, and other medical addons.

[Zenophon 110]

NIce to see that you're still working on these. I haven't played any of them in a while, so I'll give them a shot soon. One thing I'm wondering is if there's been any changes to the damage eventHandler that you use because the Nexus update greatly improved weapon lethality. Unarmored enemies seem to die from one shot to the chest even with a 9mm pistol, and also one shot to the chest from a rifle at very long range. I think it might not even be necessary anymore. It would also allow for better compatibility with ACE, and other medical addons.

You're right that the EH will conflict greatly with ACE and it's damaging/medical system. The easiest solution is to make applying it a mission parameter and disable it by default, then suggest that those wishing to play the missions in SP with it enabled just host a LAN server in order to change the option. Otherwise, it's not clear when to add/remove the EH using the debug console during the mission (some spawn reinforcements during the mission to which the EH must be added/removed).

I'll add that for the next release, along with a few ports to small maps (Utes, etc.) and minor tweaks. I'm aiming to release that in about a week. I probably won't do any new missions until a lot of the ports are done. I'm going to port the missions map-by-map going through CUP and beyond at about 1-3 weeks per map (if anyone prefers one map over the others, let me know and I'll prioritize them according to popular demand). Some of the missions will have a very different feel (e.g. urban setting instead of rural), while other will play about the same. Some won't be ported to many maps due to some map-specific need (e.g. Cleaner).

[Zenophon 110]

Update

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this release brings 4 new ports to a few smaller maps as well as some minor improvements. The increased damage feature is now a mission parameter and is disabled by default; if you wish to play the missions in SP with increased damage enabled, just host a LAN server and change the parameter. Also note that additional map versions require only CUP terrains, not the CUP weapons, vehicles, or units packages.

Changelog

3/24/16

• All Missions
  • Fixed: Missions display their map name in the description of the SP scenario menu
  • Improved: Made the increased damage EH a mission parameter
• Abduction
  • Added: Utes version
• Ambush
  • Added: Proving Grounds version
• Checkpoint
  • Fixed: AI mortar no longer fires at the players when they get close
  • Added: Proving Grounds version
  • Improved: Added player role descriptions
  • Improved: Gave more time before first vehicle
• Lockdown
  • Improved: Optimized
• Pursuit
  • Fixed: Add briefing text about MRAP
• Shootout
  • Added: VR version

[cyprus 16]

Hey I just gave sweep a test and selecting loadouts seems to be nonfunctional.  That and ordering AI out of the helicopter doesn't work.  Lastly the server RPT is getting spammed with a message that says "Update of nonlocal object 2:38" around 20-30 times a second.  It happened for over 2 minutes.