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

[Zenophon 110]

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this release brings a new mission to the pack, Co-4 Silence. I have also optimized Checkpoint and Sweep by removing debug checking from them, since they seem to be free of bugs.

Changelog

5/28/15

• New Mission: Co-4 Silence
  
• Checkpoint
  
  1. Improved: Optimized
     

  [*] Sweep

  1. Improved: Optimized
     

[sergej011 10]

The pack ver.6. isn`t available for download.

I can download only previous version of amazing Zenpack (ver.5)

Please, fix it !

Thanks

[Zenophon 110]

V6 is up on Google Drive; I even tried it with another browser. Armaholic has the right number and changelog, but I'm getting V5 from their download. It might just be a database error. Try google drive; the date on the mission should be 5/28.

[Zenophon 110]

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, release 7 brings a new mission to the pack, Co-5 Lockdown.

Changelog

6/11/15

• New Mission: Co-5 Lockdown
  

[Zenophon 110]

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this release brings a new mission to the pack, Co-4 Blackout. Also, Lockdown should now correctly fail the main objective if the POWs die, but allow the FIA players to continue the mission. The mission descriptions and 'Coming Soon' sections of the main post have been updated.

Changelog

6/25/15

• New Mission: Co-4 Blackout
  
• Lockdown
  
  1. Improved: Rescue POW task now fails on POW death
     

  [*] Silence

  1. Improved: Optimized
     

[cyprus 16]

This is a nice little mission pack. I've been playing these with my friends and have been having a lot of fun with them. It's nice to see missions designed for small groups of players that run well and aren't bugged to all hell. Seriously, my friends and I have played so many buggy ones it's ridiculous.

Our favorite one currently is Sweep, but there's a couple things I would like to see changed on that mission. The assault team really needs some more gear, with the most important one being ARCOs or MRCOs. You're often dropped pretty far from the city, and it's difficult to engage the enemy with just holo sights. I would also like to see the entire squad or at least the squad leader given a rangefinder. It would really help us plan our attack better. I think adding a few more first aid packs would be useful too. You only spawn with one IIRC, and the helicopter only has a couple. More smoke grenades would also be very useful.

I also think that the sniper should only spawn with the M320. The Mk18 isn't even a sniper rifle and it is very difficult to kill enemies at very long ranges with.

I'm also not sure how much control over this you have, but sometimes the helicopter flies right over the city, causing it to get shot down very quickly. It seems to happen most frequently on coastal cities.

Another thing I'd really like to see on the mission pack in general is an inclusion of a medic. The lack of respawns or a revive makes the missions very difficult, and while that isn't a bad thing, not having a medic either means you can never heal a teammate to full health.

[Zenophon 110]

This is a nice little mission pack. I've been playing these with my friends and have been having a lot of fun with them. It's nice to see missions designed for small groups of players that run well and aren't bugged to all hell. Seriously, my friends and I have played so many buggy ones it's ridiculous.

Our favorite one currently is Sweep, but there's a couple things I would like to see changed on that mission. The assault team really needs some more gear, with the most important one being ARCOs or MRCOs. You're often dropped pretty far from the city, and it's difficult to engage the enemy with just holo sights. I would also like to see the entire squad or at least the squad leader given a rangefinder. It would really help us plan our attack better. I think adding a few more first aid packs would be useful too. You only spawn with one IIRC, and the helicopter only has a couple. More smoke grenades would also be very useful.

I also think that the sniper should only spawn with the M320. The Mk18 isn't even a sniper rifle and it is very difficult to kill enemies at very long ranges with.

I'm also not sure how much control over this you have, but sometimes the helicopter flies right over the city, causing it to get shot down very quickly. It seems to happen most frequently on coastal cities.

Another thing I'd really like to see on the mission pack in general is an inclusion of a medic. The lack of respawns or a revive makes the missions very difficult, and while that isn't a bad thing, not having a medic either means you can never heal a teammate to full health.

I can add better optics for the assault team with a 50%, 30%, etc. chance of getting a magnified optic. A different loadout for the squad leader also makes sense with a rangefinder and smoke. I can also put things in the helicopter for players to choose from.

The Mk18 (and M14 and others, if the sniper has Marksman DLC), are there for variety and to let the sniper use slightly different tactics. For example, using semi-auto fire from 500m at 4 Opfor lined up in a street is very effective. IRL the Mk14 is effective to about 700-800m (against a stationary, exposed target). I'm aware that ArmA's lack of realistic scope adjustments can be an issue, but the sniper can still stay out of range of the Opfor using this rifle. It also depends upon the terrain and layout of the town; some will force closer range shots from certain angles.

I'm encouraging the sniper to use the strengths of his weapon. If you really can't stand this rifle, you can un-pbo the mission and replace the 'Sniper' loadout in CustomLoadouts.sqf with:

0 = [[["uniform", "U_B_GhillieSuit"],
   ["vest", ["V_TacVest_khk", "V_TacVest_brn", "V_TacVest_oli", "V_TacVest_blk", "V_TacVest_camo", "V_Chestrig_khk", "V_Chestrig_rgr", "V_Chestrig_blk", "V_Chestrig_oli"]],
   ["assignedItems",["ItemMap","ItemCompass","ItemWatch","ItemRadio","ItemGPS"]],
   ["weapons",[["srifle_LRR_F", "srifle_LRR_camo_F"], "hgun_Pistol_heavy_01_F", "Rangefinder"]],
   ["magazines",[[["7Rnd_408_Mag", 9], ["7Rnd_408_Mag", 9]], ["11Rnd_45ACP_Mag", 3]]],
   ["primaryAttachments",[["optic_SOS", "optic_LRPS", "optic_DMS"], "bipod_01_F_blk"]]
], "Sniper"] call Zen_CreateLoadout;

I have complete control over the insertion direction. I'll add some code to make sure the helicopter doesn't cross the town on approach.

A medic is good idea for some of the other missions as well. I just dislike the arcade medical system in vanilla ArmA; it feels more realistic to me to have no system at all than that one. If it was entirely up to me, I'd remove the first aid kits too. However, I'm aware that most players wouldn't find that very fun. The difference is only between 80% and 100% health after heal, so I'll add a medic slot and equipment next release.

[cyprus 16]

Very nice. I hope to see those changes soon. Although I just got an idea: why not have the sniper choose from two loadouts? One with the Mk18 and one with the M320?

One more thing I forgot to mention in my last post was that I think the team should also have one of the carrier gl or carrier special chest pieces instead of the tactical vests. The mission is very combat heavy and it makes sense that we would go in with some heavier armor.

Also another thing you might want to consider adding is a spotter for the sniper. I've played other sniper missions and adding a sniper really adds to the atmosphere and is a lot of fun. Maybe give the spotter a laser designator too to help the assault team take out the MRAPS?

And I can see what you mean about the medical system, yeah, but considering Arma's already a very tough game, I think sometimes it's necessary to make some compromises to avoid the mission from becoming a complete death fest. To be honest when I play with my friends most missions end in failure anyways haha. However, I'm sure one could always just play the mission with ACE and that would do the trick for fixing the medical system wouldn't it?

Edited July 6, 2015 by Cyprus

[Zenophon 110]

Very nice. I hope to see those changes soon. Although I just got an idea: why not have the sniper choose from two loadouts? One with the Mk18 and one with the M320?

One more thing I forgot to mention in my last post was that I think the team should also have one of the carrier gl or carrier special chest pieces instead of the tactical vests. The mission is very combat heavy and it makes sense that we would go in with some heavier armor.

Also another thing you might want to consider adding is a spotter for the sniper. I've played other sniper missions and adding a sniper really adds to the atmosphere and is a lot of fun. Maybe give the spotter a laser designator too to help the assault team take out the MRAPS?

And I can see what you mean about the medical system, yeah, but considering Arma's already a very tough game, I think sometimes it's necessary to make some compromises to avoid the mission from becoming a complete death fest. To be honest when I play with my friends most missions end in failure anyways haha. However, I'm sure one could always just play the mission with ACE and that would do the trick for fixing the medical system wouldn't it?

I could just have the sniper pick between loadouts; same for the assault team. I can also put in some heavier vests with a different chance of appearing for certain loadouts.

I didn't include a spotter because a lot of what they do IRL isn't applicable to a game. They calculate the scope adjustments for every shot based upon range, elevation, temperature, humidity, etc.; ArmA doesn't even have wind deflection. Even the role of providing extra firepower to protect the sniper (as in Vendetta) is reduced because the assault team is there. It just seems to me that the spotter would bored because an experienced ArmA player can be a sniper alone. I'll think about it though; if I can give the spotter something interesting to do (call in fire support, mark enemies on the map), the added element of teamwork will make this mission more fun.

I hesitate to commit to a medical system and say the mission requires it; it seems like that would reduce the potential player base. A script-based solution is limited because it cannot add new objects like an addon can (bandages, tourniquets, morphine, etc.). I'll look at the different medical system mods that are available and see if the mission works with them. Supporting both vanilla and a realism mod like ACE with the same mission would be ideal.

[cyprus 16]

Very cool. About the medical system though, I don't use ACE myself (not yet anyways), but I was under the impression that if everyone was using ACE the mission would adapt for it automatically without any need to edit the mission itself. I'm guessing ACE doesn't work like that?

Also I've been playing Sweep some more and I think the biggest thing to consider changing is completely removing the AI from all the buildings. Arma 3 just really doesn't handle CQB AI. They simply sit there and stare at the walls, and it isn't fun to clear out a building full of AI, that are just staring at the wall. I'm not sure if you could script a solution, for example forcing the AI in the buildings to look out the windows more or leave the building when they don't see anything. The AI in your Specter mission are better at CQB, is there a way you can apply some of their behavior to the Sweep mission?

One thing I noticed about the sweep mission is that every 30 seconds or so when I look at the map all of the enemies are revealed. Is this intentional? I don't this feature mentioned anywhere. If you do want to keep that feature I think a much cooler way to keep it is by replacing the functionality with a spotter equipped with a portable UAV. I think that would be very fun and immersive for the mission. It's a great way to promote teamwork and communication. It would also help with the difficulty of having enemies all around you.

In addition the spotter having a UAV, allowing him to call in artillery support or maybe a guided missile would be very cool. I would keep it very restricted, for example only one artillery strike available, to prevent the team from just leveling the town with explosives. To tie in with this, maybe have a limit of how many civilians can be killed before the mission fails, so the team has to use the fire support wisely. If you put the civilian kill limit in the mission, please put it in the briefing so we know how careful we need to be.

About the civilians though, one time when we were playing, we saw the task fail without any of us firing a shot, so I assume the AI killed them somehow. Is there a way to make it so the task only fails if BLUFOR kills them? Another thing about the civilians I noticed was that the civilians seem to be a part of the BLUFOR faction, and are being identified as friendly soldiers, like rifleman, when we look at them. Are they BLUFOR and not civilians?

Oh and a minor tweak for sweep would be to make the helicopter use the landing type where it hovers just above the ground and keeps it's engines on for faster insertion. I'm guessing the script now is using the "LAND" command and not the "GET OUT" command now correct?

We've played a few of the other missions too, and some are good and others are only ok in my opinion. I haven't really said anything about them because they work well and I can't think of any changes for them at the moment. One thing I can think of is in Blackout, I don't see why it's two teams of two instead of one team of four. I can see wanting to prevent them from seeing each other's icons, but you can always just set that in the server difficulty settings. The mission was also surprisingly easy for us even after being detected pretty early on. The AI aren't really a threat because they can hardly see us. Adding NVGs for them would probably make the mission too difficult, but maybe adding more lights would help? The area had very few lights, so it was very easy to stay in the dark. Do any of the Arma helicopters have searchlights that could look for players? If so that would be an awesome way to make being detected more difficult.

I'm also curious about a couple of the features that you advertise in one of your missions. You mentioned, "Increased weapon lethality; 1-2 shot kills are now the norm." Did you actually adjust enemy hp values, or did you just not give them fewer vests. I can't recall how many of them had vests but I didn't see them have too many.

The other one you mentioned was, "Fix for ridiculous AI accuracy on dedicated servers; their skill will be the same as in SP or local MP." What exactly does that mean? Is that issue endemic to playing on dedicated servers, or does it have to do with certain scripts? I've been getting more into mission making, and I've only used the 2D editor, with minor scripting in the init lines of certain units and triggers, and I haven't run into super accuracy when playing on my dedicated server (my client and server are on the same computer). Does it have anything to do with the skill slider for units? I saw your post about it in the thread for your evade and survive mission, but it's been almost a year so I'm not sure if anything's changed.

To tie into this, the wiki shows the old server profile settings with skillfriendly, precisionfriendly, etc, but according to this those are replaced by the command aiLevelPreset. From what I understand with your post, I shouldn't be able to adjust the AI's difficulty on a dedicated server. I'll try boosting the AI level preset to see if it makes a difference.

I might just start a thread about how the AI settings in Arma 3 and how they work and all that. I'm so confused on the AI difficulty settings and this really needs to be sorted out.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Cyprus

[Zenophon 110]

Very cool. About the medical system though, I don't use ACE myself (not yet anyways), but I was under the impression that if everyone was using ACE the mission would adapt for it automatically without any need to edit the mission itself. I'm guessing ACE doesn't work like that?

Also I've been playing Sweep some more and I think the biggest thing to consider changing is completely removing the AI from all the buildings. Arma 3 just really doesn't handle CQB AI. They simply sit there and stare at the walls, and it isn't fun to clear out a building full of AI, that are just staring at the wall. I'm not sure if you could script a solution, for example forcing the AI in the buildings to look out the windows more or leave the building when they don't see anything. The AI in your Specter mission are better at CQB, is there a way you can apply some of their behavior to the Sweep mission?

One thing I noticed about the sweep mission is that every 30 seconds or so when I look at the map all of the enemies are revealed. Is this intentional? I don't this feature mentioned anywhere. If you do want to keep that feature I think a much cooler way to keep it is by replacing the functionality with a spotter equipped with a portable UAV. I think that would be very fun and immersive for the mission. It's a great way to promote teamwork and communication. It would also help with the difficulty of having enemies all around you.

In addition the spotter having a UAV, allowing him to call in artillery support or maybe a guided missile would be very cool. I would keep it very restricted, for example only one artillery strike available, to prevent the team from just leveling the town with explosives. To tie in with this, maybe have a limit of how many civilians can be killed before the mission fails, so the team has to use the fire support wisely. If you put the civilian kill limit in the mission, please put it in the briefing so we know how careful we need to be.

About the civilians though, one time when we were playing, we saw the task fail without any of us firing a shot, so I assume the AI killed them somehow. Is there a way to make it so the task only fails if BLUFOR kills them? Another thing about the civilians I noticed was that the civilians seem to be a part of the BLUFOR faction, and are being identified as friendly soldiers, like rifleman, when we look at them. Are they BLUFOR and not civilians?

Oh and a minor tweak for sweep would be to make the helicopter use the landing type where it hovers just above the ground and keeps it's engines on for faster insertion. I'm guessing the script now is using the "LAND" command and not the "GET OUT" command now correct?

We've played a few of the other missions too, and some are good and others are only ok in my opinion. I haven't really said anything about them because they work well and I can't think of any changes for them at the moment. One thing I can think of is in Blackout, I don't see why it's two teams of two instead of one team of four. I can see wanting to prevent them from seeing each other's icons, but you can always just set that in the server difficulty settings. The mission was also surprisingly easy for us even after being detected pretty early on. The AI aren't really a threat because they can hardly see us. Adding NVGs for them would probably make the mission too difficult, but maybe adding more lights would help? The area had very few lights, so it was very easy to stay in the dark. Do any of the Arma helicopters have searchlights that could look for players? If so that would be an awesome way to make being detected more difficult.

I'm also curious about a couple of the features that you advertise in one of your missions. You mentioned, "Increased weapon lethality; 1-2 shot kills are now the norm." Did you actually adjust enemy hp values, or did you just not give them fewer vests. I can't recall how many of them had vests but I didn't see them have too many.

The other one you mentioned was, "Fix for ridiculous AI accuracy on dedicated servers; their skill will be the same as in SP or local MP." What exactly does that mean? Is that issue endemic to playing on dedicated servers, or does it have to do with certain scripts? I've been getting more into mission making, and I've only used the 2D editor, with minor scripting in the init lines of certain units and triggers, and I haven't run into super accuracy when playing on my dedicated server (my client and server are on the same computer). Does it have anything to do with the skill slider for units? I saw your post about it in the thread for your evade and survive mission, but it's been almost a year so I'm not sure if anything's changed.

To tie into this, the wiki shows the old server profile settings with skillfriendly, precisionfriendly, etc, but according to this those are replaced by the command aiLevelPreset. From what I understand with your post, I shouldn't be able to adjust the AI's difficulty on a dedicated server. I'll try boosting the AI level preset to see if it makes a difference.

I might just start a thread about how the AI settings in Arma 3 and how they work and all that. I'm so confused on the AI difficulty settings and this really needs to be sorted out.

That's why I have to test ACE and maybe even look at its source code. For example, does it add medical equipment automatically (what if I overwrite a loadout), is there a conflict between the code, etc.

The AI in buildings is to prevent the sniper from completing the mission alone. I could make them patrol the buildings or use my occupy house script to put them at windows; that might make things more interesting.

Removing the fake UAV in favor of a spotter with a real UAV seems like the best solution. The fake UAV is just to give the players some help, since they're outnumbered 5 to 1 in an urban area.

I can make it so civilian kills only count against the players (or their fire support) did it. The Opfor probably do kill some civilians with their vehicles, grenades, etc.

I've been trying to fix the helicopter landing for a long time, by getting them to touch down and keep the engines on. There's always a chance that they'll move while players (especially if the player commands an AI group) get out. I'd rather have them take 30 seconds longer than have insertions fail some the time.

In Blackout, constant randomly placed flares after detection is a great idea. The two teams are to encourage the players to do the objectives simultaneously, rather than just crowd one. I intend for the two-man teams to just work with their partners.

Increased weapon damage is done by a handle damage eventhandler. It works well, but reduces compatibilty with medical/revive addons (they use same EH). The other solution to this is making an addon to adjust ammo config damage values, but that won't work with ammo from other addons. That last option is to include those config changes within the mission itself, which would only be an issue in Abduction (addon weapons can be chosen in VA).

The dedicated server accuracy is an issue because missions depend upon a certain AI skill and precision level (in profile) for balance. If the mission make is playing at e.g. 0.5 AI precision, but the server is at 0.8, the AI are now much more accurate. My server and user profiles have:

aiLevelPreset=3;
skillAI=1;
precisionAI=0.5;

The best values are AI skill 1 and AI precision 0.5; those give the true values the mission maker set. Anything else will apply an equation to scale the true skill (skillFinal). I don't know if BIS has changed the current defaults or preset value since the date of the post you linked.

[cyprus 16]

Yeah maybe do both ideas for the AI in houses. Maybe have them patrol until they know an enemy is nearby, and then they'll mount the windows or exit the building? I hope to see you implement some of those changes soon.

One thing I asked about, but I guess you missed was the fact that civilians are being identified as friendly units (such as rifleman) on my hud? Why is that? Is that intentional or is that a bug?

About the increased weapon damage, I would say that personally I don't think the increased weapon damage is really necessary. I think the better way to do it would be to simply remove armored vests from soldiers if it's really that much of an issue. I've never really had a problem with Armas soldiers taking too many hits. They take no more than 4 or 5 with a 5.56 when wearing full body armor, and accounting for improvements in body armor I think that's reasonable.

I'm also wondering how you got your missions to be able to have a 12000 meter overall view distance and 4000 meter object view distance. Every other mission I've ever played on is capped at 1600 meter overall and object, or uses something like the TAW view distance script.

Edited July 10, 2015 by Cyprus

[Zenophon 110]

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, a new mission, Co-6 Shootout, enters the pack this week. It's aimed at providing some fun and relaxation with a simple fire-fight. Due to some great user feedback (thanks to Cyprus), Sweep has gotten some major improvements, including a spotter who has access to a UAV and an airstrike. The loadouts have been tweaked and Opfor in buildings should act a little less dumb.

Abduction, Specter, and Sweep also received a medic role. Be aware, if the medic picks a different loadout, they won't have any medical equipment. This is especially important for Abduction; the other missions will provide the correct loadout as the default to the medic. Blackout should be more challenging once the players are detected; unfortantely, the flares are currently very wimpy. I'm going to try to find some better flares for next release.

Changelog

7/10/15

• New Mission: Co-6 Shootout
  
• Abduction
  
  1. Improved: One player role changed to medic
     

  [*] Blackout

  1. Improved: Opfor now use flares if the players are detected
     

  [*] Specter

  1. Added: Medic loadout
     
  2. Improved: One player role changed to medic
     

  [*] Sweep

  1. Fixed: Increased damage did not apply to all units
     
  2. Added: Spotter playable role
     
  3. Added: Team leader and medic loadouts
     
  4. Improved: Civilians killed by the Opfor do not count against players
     
  5. Improved: Insertion helicopter will avoid flying over the town
     
  6. Improved: One player role changed to medic
     
  7. Improved: Opfor in houses now patrol their building and the street outside
     
  8. Removed: Enemy markers
     
  9. Tweaked: Insertion helicopter cargo
     
  10. Tweaked: Loadout equipment
      

Feedback

Yeah maybe do both ideas for the AI in houses. Maybe have them patrol until they know an enemy is nearby, and then they'll mount the windows or exit the building? I hope to see you implement some of those changes soon.

One thing I asked about, but I guess you missed was the fact that civilians are being identified as friendly units (such as rifleman) on my hud? Why is that? Is that intentional or is that a bug?

About the increased weapon damage, I would say that personally I don't think the increased weapon damage is really necessary. I think the better way to do it would be to simply remove armored vests from soldiers if it's really that much of an issue. I've never really had a problem with Armas soldiers taking too many hits. They take no more than 4 or 5 with a 5.56 when wearing full body armor, and accounting for improvements in body armor I think that's reasonable.

I'm also wondering how you got your missions to be able to have a 12000 meter overall view distance and 4000 meter object view distance. Every other mission I've ever played on is capped at 1600 meter overall and object, or uses something like the TAW view distance script.

Civilians are actually on the resistance side; otherwise they run away and just lie on the ground. I want them to ignore the combat and walk around like nothing is happening; it makes it more of a challenge not to kill them (you can't just shoot anything that moves).

ArmA does not come anywhere close to simulating real body armor. IRL a level IV vest will stop dozens of 5.56/6.5/7.62 FMJ rounds (so long as the steel plate is hit); the soldier will experience minor bruising, discomfort, etc. but will remain combat-effective. In ArmA, it just decreases the overall damage done to the unit, so it takes 5-6 shots to kill them instead of 2-3. IRL casualties are caused mostly by rounds not hitting the armor, IEDs, grenades, etc.

Also, taking e.g. 50% damage doesn't reduce combat effectiveness in a meaningful way (especially for AI); they can take multiple rounds and return fire instantly. You could say that adrenaline plays a large part (which it does, especially in CQB), but soldiers caught off-guard can't just spin around and return accurate fire (IRL anyone would sprint to cover even if they weren't hit). It's a combination of unrealistic AI and poor wounding simulation.

I prefer the old-school tactical shooter (original Ghost Recon, old Rainbow Six, etc.) 1-2 shot kills (even to the arm or leg). Simulating being unable to move and shoot as being dead in-game is fine; it's much more realistic than letting that soldier operate at 90% effectiveness.

The maximum view distance is just controlled by some SQF commands, setViewDistance, setObjectViewDistance, and setShadowDistance. I use my function, Zen_SetViewDistance, to set that to the same value on all clients. All the missions in this pack are at 4000 view and object distance; you can set it lower than that in the options menu (higher values have no effect).

Edited July 10, 2015 by Zenophon

[cyprus 16]

I just gave Sweep a quick test to look through loadouts and stuff, and there's a few things I noticed immediately.

1. In the character selection screen, both the sniper and the spotter are called "sniper".

2. It looks like the better scopes have a pretty low chance of spawning. I personally think the best way to change it is to give everyone an RCO by default, and add extra scopes, such as more powerful ones and holo sights in the helicopter if someone wants something different.

3. If the team leader is the AI, it immediately orders everyone to disembark and the helicopter lands. I personally would also like to see the sniper team given a few more mags, but the amount they have now is not terrible.

4. There's no way to cancel the airstrike once you click it in the action menu. Seeing as it's easy to hit something in the action menu by mistake, I hope you can find a way to allow us to cancel it the artillery strike before left clicking on the map

5. This happened sometimes in the old mission, but sometimes the AI in the helicopter spawn with no gear.

Other than that, it looks great. The heavier vests are nice, the having a medic is a great addition, and I can't wait to put the spotter to good use once I can get a full team. I'll add more feedback once I test some more, but I wanted to just present this feedback immediately.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Cyprus

[Variable 322]

Zenophon, I highly recommend to avoid making the RCO, or any other medium-long range optic a very common item in your missions. no long range or medium range scopes encourage close range engagements, planning and a generally more thrilling gameplay. Of course, a sniper centered mission is a different case, I refer mostly to the assault type missions.

[cyprus 16]

Yeah for the other missions the holo sight is fine. It's just for Sweep you really need the extra range the RCO offers.

[Zenophon 110]

I just gave Sweep a quick test to look through loadouts and stuff, and there's a few things I noticed immediately.

1. In the character selection screen, both the sniper and the spotter are called "sniper".

2. It looks like the better scopes have a pretty low chance of spawning. I personally think the best way to change it is to give everyone an RCO by default, and add extra scopes, such as more powerful ones and holo sights in the helicopter if someone wants something different.

3. If the team leader is the AI, it immediately orders everyone to disembark and the helicopter lands. I personally would also like to see the sniper team given a few more mags, but the amount they have now is not terrible.

4. There's no way to cancel the airstrike once you click it in the action menu. Seeing as it's easy to hit something in the action menu by mistake, I hope you can find a way to allow us to cancel it the artillery strike before left clicking on the map

5. This happened sometimes in the old mission, but sometimes the AI in the helicopter spawn with no gear.

Other than that, it looks great. The heavier vests are nice, the having a medic is a great addition, and I can't wait to put the spotter to good use once I can get a full team. I'll add more feedback once I test some more, but I wanted to just present this feedback immediately.

1. I see how that could be confusing...I'll fix that typo.

2. They should appear 50% of the time (2 possible types of each scope). Since the mission has an approach part and an urban part, having some close ranges sights makes sense. The sniper should be the one providing long-range fire. I prefer to makes some things random rather than let players choose because it makes the mission harder and forces players to adapt.

3. This is a known bug and there's nothing I can do about it. The AI isn't correctly affected by vehicle seat assignments as they used to be. I'm waiting for BIS to fix the 'assignAs*' commands. I also cannot prevent the helicopter from landing once the group leader gives the order.

4. I know the action menu can be annoying; I used to use the communication menu for the supports. Unfortunately, that menu has some technical issues with locality and AI units that make the action menu a better choice from the scripting side. A cancel action is possible, I'll work on adding that in the future.

5. No gear as in naked or the default loadout for their role? If they're in the helicopter, the loadout code is running for them. I'll try to reproduce this.

Zenophon, I highly recommend to avoid making the RCO, or any other medium-long range optic a very common item in your missions. no long range or medium range scopes encourage close range engagements, planning and a generally more thrilling gameplay. Of course, a sniper centered mission is a different case, I refer mostly to the assault type missions.

I strongly agree with this and except for a few marksman and sniper roles (and with VAS in Abduction), the missions give non-magnifying scopes. I also like to give SMGs or even just pistols to encourage tactics and good positioning over just shooting everything. Good scopes really give players a big advantage in range, accuracy, and spotting ability over the AI. It makes the AI look stupid if they can't hit something at 500m like the players can, but IRL that would be an amazingly good shot in combat (5.56 NATO maximum effective point shooting range is 500m).

In Sweep, as I said above, there's a 50% chance of a scope appearing for the assault loadouts (except the automatic rifleman). Since the mission already has a sniper, I don't think it hurts the balance too much. The urban area, Opfor vehicles, etc. offset the advantage against infantry.

[cyprus 16]

The AI in the helicopter spawn with only their uniforms, vests, and helmets. No weapons or backpacks. It's not consistent.

I can see your point about the better scopes, and while I still prefer my option, it's not gamebreaking and I can change it myself. I also hope to see some of those fixes too.

I haven't given the mission a thorough test after the changes, but I just got an idea for the civilians to make them more interesting. I understand that you want to make avoiding civilians difficult, but right now it's really weird to see civilians walking around with bullets flying over their heads like nothing unusual is going on. If possible I think one way to change it is to make civilians try to run into buildings and hide when combat starts. That is a much more realistic and immersive behavior, and also adds challenge because you can't just clear buildings by throwing grenades in it or firing rockets at it without risking severe civilian casualties.

[Zenophon 110]

The AI in the helicopter spawn with only their uniforms, vests, and helmets. No weapons or backpacks. It's not consistent.

I can see your point about the better scopes, and while I still prefer my option, it's not gamebreaking and I can change it myself. I also hope to see some of those fixes too.

I haven't given the mission a thorough test after the changes, but I just got an idea for the civilians to make them more interesting. I understand that you want to make avoiding civilians difficult, but right now it's really weird to see civilians walking around with bullets flying over their heads like nothing unusual is going on. If possible I think one way to change it is to make civilians try to run into buildings and hide when combat starts. That is a much more realistic and immersive behavior, and also adds challenge because you can't just clear buildings by throwing grenades in it or firing rockets at it without risking severe civilian casualties.

Yes, IRL civilians are a concern right when a firefight starts (if they don't know it's going to happen) and when enemy combatants start taking over houses with civilians in them. I can put civilians in the same houses as the Opfor are occupying as well as have wandering civilians get to the nearest building once someone near them is firing. This way, you'll have to use realistic tactics and caution when entering a building, and the sniper will still have to watch out for civilians that haven't hidden yet.

[Zenophon 110]

Overview

Greetings fellow Armaholics, this release brings a new mission, Co-6 Pursuit, to the pack. It's a combined arms mission in open country; it might be a little too difficult, so I'd like some feedback on that from people who've played it with 4-5 other players. As always, a description has been added to the main post along with the next mission's tentative description, and the download links are updated.

Sweep has receive several more changes, which should include all the user feedback and various things I've thought of. Civilians have been improved significantly. There are now civilians in houses with the Opfor, civilians running to hide in their houses, and civilians running away from the town. Garrisoned Opfor also either stand watch at random windows or patrol the building and street.

The flares in Blackout are improved, but they're still not exactly what I wanted (i.e. very bright and floating with little parachutes). Shootout now has a briefing, which only contributes to the light-hearted fun of the mission.

Changelog

7/24/15

• New Mission: Co-6 Pursuit
  
• Blackout
  
  1. Improved: Flares are now stronger
     

  [*] Shootout

  1. Fixed: Added briefing text
     

  [*] Sweep

  1. Fixed: Too few houses were garrisoned in some random cases
     
  2. Fixed: Spotter now has the correct name on the role selection screen
     
  3. Fixed: Spotter now has the correct group name in side chat
     
  4. Fixed: Briefing text now includes the spotter
     
  5. Added: A random chance for civilians to be in the same houses as Opfor
     
  6. Improved: Some Opfor are stationed at windows in their houses, others still patrol the building
     
  7. Improved: Some civilians seek cover in a nearby building if they're close to the combat, others run for their lives
     

[unnamedger 0]

was a nice quick mission

[Alwarren 2765]

Just played "Blackout". Very cool mission, had some really breath-holding moments.

 

A few extra observations:

- The choppers behaved weirdly. One kept on hovering for a while, the other just flew in circles and eventually dumped troops in mid-air - no parachutes :)

- The AI was a bit too blind. While it really created a lot of tension, once the cover was blown they still didn't really see anyone.

- No explosion! Me want explosion :D

 

Other than that, great mission, looking forward to playing the others :)

[Alwarren 2765]

Aaand immediately played and finished "Silence". Cool mission, good amount of enemies, not totally over the top like a lot of other missions. Very nice! You surely love your night missions, eh? ;)

[Variable 322]

Played Blackout, Specter and Silence, all nicely done missions that we enjoyed. Good job!I Suggestion:

Having to actually reach an extraction SDV in Silence would have made the awesome extraction complete, switching back to wetsuits got us expecting but then the mission was ended.

[Zenophon 110]

Just played "Blackout". Very cool mission, had some really breath-holding moments.

A few extra observations:
- The choppers behaved weirdly. One kept on hovering for a while, the other just flew in circles and eventually dumped troops in mid-air - no parachutes :)
- The AI was a bit too blind. While it really created a lot of tension, once the cover was blown they still didn't really see anyone.
- No explosion! Me want explosion :D

Other than that, great mission, looking forward to playing the others :)

Enemy troops are supposed to fast-rope, to avoid having to find good landing zones.  The fastrope animations and process is a little clunky, but as long as they reach the ground unharmed, it's working as intended.

The flares don't really do their job; I don't know if they help the AI at all.  I'd hate to just cheat and give them NVG's when the alarm goes off; maybe I'll try tweaking their spotting skill.

Ok, I'll add an explosion after all the players are a few hundred meters away.  I can't guarantee that the buildings will be destroyed realistically; they are fixed map objects.  The explosion will look good though.

Aaand immediately played and finished "Silence". Cool mission, good amount of enemies, not totally over the top like a lot of other missions. Very nice! You surely love your night missions, eh? ;)

I like night and SF missions; I think that it makes sense to cast players in a SF role due to their skill advantage over the AI.  Making the players guerrilla fighters and having them kill dozens of enemies just doesn't feel as immersive (I usually handicap them with inferior weapons and less ammo to mitigate this).

I think fewer enemies gives a more realistic feel to the missions.  Knowing that a mission will always boil down to a big fire-fight can get boring (of course, I provide a few of those missions as well).  The ability to maneuver without running into an enemy every 50 meters encourages tactics in addition to just shooting skill.

Played Blackout, Specter and Silence, all nicely done missions that we enjoyed. Good job!I Suggestion:
Having to actually reach an extraction SDV in Silence would have made the awesome extraction complete, switching back to wetsuits got us expecting but then the mission was ended.

I guessed that most players would not want to hold 'W' and wait while they swim a few hundred meters; I try to minimize the time in which players are just moving without any challenge (Vendetta is a bit guilty of this though).  If it's an infiltration with possible enemy contact, even if unlikely, I make the players go a decent distance to build tension.

However, I can compromise and do something like a 50-100m swim to the SDV.  That's not too long but provides a good wind-down to the mission.