[SP] Randomized Combat Patrol

[BatSpoggy 10]

I have created an instant-action type randomized mission for singleplayer use.

It is a straightfoward infantry patrol where you act as a line grunt in a two-squad advance to contact in a randomized location.

The idea is to have an instant-action mode available for those times when you just want to jump into a quick firefight without spending ages slogging over ground to get there.

The location is randomized each time and the enemy force composition is randomized as well, with a chance of larger or smaller numbers of enemy infantry as well as a chance to face enemy armor. A friendly tank has a random chance to assist as well.

The view distance is set low to ensure that the firefight begins in relatively close quarters (no further than 500m) and it takes place on Stratis, this will ensure it is able to run on even lower end machines.

It runs nicely with or without ACE3, and this version can use the RHS mod. It's a trivial matter for me to release versions with different units and on different terrains or with increased unit numbers and staggering if that was desired and I could probably work co-op in there as well if anybody wanted it.

Now listed on Armaholic:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=28715

Thanks to Big for that, he actually did all of it. I was just expecting a download link but he filled out everything and listed it in the news.

Edited May 20, 2015 by BatSpoggy

[JamesSaga 1]

Nice will have to try it out

[BatSpoggy 10]

I've made another version that works with the vanilla game, it's NATO vs CSAT. Anybody have any ideas where I can host it?

---------- Post added at 21:34 ---------- Previous post was at 21:26 ----------

I've put them on Dropbox for now.

NATO vs CSAT:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9dsn335hehmsugf/Random%20Patrol%20NATO%20vs%20CSAT.Stratis.pbo?dl=0

US vs RU (RHS):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kxz6v7r3vtwsa42/Random%20Patrol%20RHS%20US%20vs%20RU.Stratis.pbo?dl=0

Hope they're of use to somebody, if anybody can think of any good changes or additions then post here and I'll see what I can do. There's nowhere near enough small-scale randomized mission for ArmA.

[oktyabr 12]

Why not the Steam Workshop?

[cyrilfiggis 14]

You can host at armaholic, mega, steam workshop, etc... Looks cool, I'll have to check it out later, congrats on the release!

[neofit 65]

Nice mission. A few remarks:

1. What is the end-of-mission trigger? We have reached the red line (with me in command after casualties), went further a few hundred meters, nobody was shooting, but the mission wouldn't end. I thought that it was the 3rd T-100 crew member that got away, we tracked him yet it didn't end the mission. Probably someone else ran away, but that shouldn't prevent our side from winning: we reached the objective, left no effective enemy combat force in the area and blah blah blah.

2. The rearming period at the beginning is way too short. VAB is not the most user-friendly of interfaces, by the time I scroll through the millions of the dresses to find the ARCO, my group has already started moving :). IMO the start of the mission should be triggered by the player doing something, like talking to the team leader or moving 20m towards the objective or something like that, *after* he is satisfied by his kit. On the one hand it's not the place of a subordinate to tell the team leader that we can resume the war now that he ready. On the other, I haven't been scooped up naked from my bed right into the chopper, let's imagine that this acts as me equipping back at the base. Or maybe, if possible, add the VAB to the map we see on the initial brefing half way through the mission loading process. Or a "start mission" option on the radio or command/scroll wheel menu.

3. A team switch feature would be nice. Not the one we get upon death, but the one that would allow me to switch at any time to any subordinate to for instance have him get AT ammo without spending 5 minutes with the [censored] Arma 3 interface.

4. OPFOR versions would be a nice change: RU vs US (RHS), CSAT vs NATO, Turbanheads vs Jesus Rifles :)

Keep up the good work.

[BatSpoggy 10]

@neofit:

1) Mission is set to end when all enemies are killed. After this suggestion I will add a second trigger as a countdown on the objective if Blufor but not Opfor are present. Unless you can think of a better way to do it, of course? I didn't want just rushing to the objective to be a viable option.

2) I didn't do the "talk to team leader option" because of what you said, but thinking about it I could easily put it on a radio trigger to signal own readiness which would still be reasonably immersive. Or an actionmenu option on the crate. Will do that tomorrow.

VAS is pretty quick if you have loadouts pre-set though, you can save them and reload them at any VAS box. I have presets set for vanilla, ACE, RHS, RHS+ACE etc and they work across all missions and mods in my game regardless of which mission or mod they were saved in (obviously RHS and ACE change the default equipment so vanilla to ACE won't work and RHS to vanilla won't either).

3) I'm going to tweak it for co-op as well, so better teamswitch will be coming along with that. Currently only one man per squad is playable, but you should be able to switch between them at will with the teamswitch key. I'm going to make all units playable anyway, both for co-op and also because the idea behind this mission is "shoot bad men quickly in any manner you please" so more freedom to choose roles and such is something that it needs.

4) Yeah, I'll be getting to that very soon with various units. I abhor the CSAT faction to be honest as the uniforms look stupid to me, but I'm more than happy to accommodate those who want to play as them.

@Oktyabr:

I don't like the Steam Workshop. It places mods and missions in stupid places that fuck up my categorization of them into convenient groups based on mod dependency or type, etc.

[BatSpoggy 10]

I've updated with the changes Neofit suggested: The patrol now begins based on an option in the Action Menu accessed at the ammobox, so you have as long as you like to pick gear and weapons.

The missions will now end either when all enemies are killed or the phase line is designated as seized, so it's not possible to rush it but full control of the area results in a victory.

All units except the squad leaders are playable and can be switched with the teamswitch key. The squad leaders are not playable because switching to them and back to another causes the waypoints to break.

I've added a playable CSAT version as well as a co-op version which is currently only for NATO vs CSAT but it works nicely and I will update the others with the option as well.

Tomorrow I'll release a .zip with the SP versions and the one co-op one so far to see if anybody has any more ideas.

In the meantime I'm working on adding multiple enemy waves to co-op as it's a little easy at the moment with the player having the ability to respawn. I'm toying with the idea of making the respawns infinite and it being a fight to seize the phase line, but if anybody has a reason not to I'm all ears.

Armor frequency has been decreased as it was showing up far too often, it's supposed to be an occasional spanner in the works rather than a constant presence.

[BatSpoggy 10]

It's now listed on Armaholic at http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=28715

I've been trying to get it to work with respawning enemy waves for co-op but it's playing havoc with the marker movements, on one notable occasion it caused me to respawn a kilometer out to sea. I'll work on another method to do it over the next few days.

Anybody have any requests for anything specific? Units or terrains, or even a larger-scale edition with more groups spread over a wider area?

[neofit 65]

Good job!

All units except the squad leaders are playable and can be switched with the teamswitch key. The squad leaders are not playable because switching to them and back to another causes the waypoints to break.

The idea behind my idea was not exactly to change to another squad, but that sometimes after taking casualties, I become the actual actual. Then if for instance we lost our AT guy, instead of doing the usual Arma3 calisthenics to rearm a rifleman into an AT guy from a corpse, I just switch to that rifleman, run to the corpse, rearm, then switch back to being the leader. So switching to the leader should be allowed, unless by "leader" you mean the original Team Leader soldier that spawns at the beginning.

Anybody have any requests for anything specific? Units or terrains, or even a larger-scale edition with more groups spread over a wider area?

Larger scale? If you don't mind turning it into a SP Domination or Evolution, I am game :).

As for units, I personally am not too fond of Arma3's focus on sci-fi-ish equipment. RHS Escalation on the other hand is awesome. A version with playable RHS US then RHS RU factions would be great.

Or maybe even, if it's easier than doing n versions for each playable faction, a menu at the starting briefing where one chooses his and opposite factions? So for example you load "African Conflict" then choose a playthrough as a rebel then as a government soldier.

[BatSpoggy 10]

@neofit:

That's what I've put in now, all units except the group leader are playable, so you can switch between all the others if you want to rearm the AT guy or whatever. The only reason the group leaders aren't playable is that it can break the waypoints.

I don't have the know-how to make it a domination mission or anything that big, but I can work on making it a larger-scale battle so that there's more going on. Only issue that might pose is that some of the terrain is too hilly and vehicles can spawn effectively stuck. I'll start messing with it and see what I can come up with, I'm sure I can make it larger than it is, anyway.

The dialog menu wouldn't work with the current randomization method and I don't actually know how to do it, but if you know of a decent tutorial for in-game dialogs I can take a look at it and try to find a way. That is the way I'd prefer to do it, I'm just not sure how to go about it.

[BatSpoggy 10]

I've managed to roll all the singleplayer vanilla missions into one. You can now select between the three sides at mission start and use the Virtual Arsenal to pick your gear.

To start the missions you select the friendly and enemy sides via radio commands.

The same thing will work for RHS so once I've finished testing this version I can quickly roll out an RHS one as well.

It doesn't work in Co-Op though and I don't think I'll be able to make it work with the methods used, but it is more convenient for singleplayer. I'm going to knock out a few Co-Op versions using the original method as I've been able to properly test it with friends now.

I'm still tweaking the integrated one but I hope to have it releasable in a few days once all the kinks are worked out, I'll include a larger-scale version as well because this method actually makes it very easy to do that.