In-depth ALiVE Tutorial for Asymmetrical Warfare

[grubes 10]

I'm currently working on re-creating an old asymmetric warfare mission that I built for the Black Sh33p, this time using ALiVE to make it much larger and more dynamic. The mission is called Uprising, and you can follow its development in my github repo. In parallel with actually building the mission, I'm writing an in-depth tutorial on learning and mastering ALiVE. You can find all the details here: https://medium.com/the-creation-of-alive-uprising.

I've created the initial Alpha release, available in the GitHub repo.

The tutorial is broken up into multiple posts, each covering a different section of the building process. So far I've written:

• an overview of the vision for Uprising
  
• a familiarization page that points out some great ALiVE documentation and the order in which I recommend reading things
  
• a quick article about the base mission I always use when creating any ALiVE mission (this post will evolve over time as I add more commonalities)
  
• a tutorial on adding an Occupational force that seeks to secure and defend high-value objectives
  
• a tutorial on incorporating a dynamic civilian population
  
• a tutorial on adding an Asymmetrical force that conducts ambushes and recruits civilians
  
• a tutorial on adding an Invading force that looks to overrun as many objectives as it can as quickly as possible
  
• a tutorial on incorporating some of ALiVE's great multiplayer aspects like helicopter insertions
  
• a tutorial specifically on the debugging information ALiVE provides on your map
  

In the future, I'll be adding:

• a tutorial about performance tweaking for ALiVE
  

Stay tuned over the next week or two for the rest of the pieces.

Fair warning - the pages are lengthy and detailed, and there is no TL;DR, nor will I make one.

Edited July 5, 2015 by grubes
Added link for the Troubleshooting post

[echoj7 11]

I've been hoping someone would produce something like this!

[froggyluv 2136]

^^^Me too^^^ !!

[killaway 10]

Great read! I would like to know more on the asymmetric warefare as im about to set one up. Looking forward to reading about that. Thanks for all your time writing this up!

[spyderblack723 407]

Hey grubes, thanks for creating this. Saves me a lot of time as I was going to do something similiar myself, I'll refer people to your tutorials if they have related questions. If you wish to share it a bit more I'm sure some folks over at http://alivemod.com/forum/ would enjoy it.

Edited May 27, 2015 by SpyderBlack723

[Berntsen 19]

Just what I was looking for! Thank you for taking the time to write this! :)

[major_barnes1987 33]

Thanks mate,just downloaded ALIVE recently and have no idea what to do with it lol.I needed this tutorial.

[TFAltdanthomas 10]

Ive been creating an EOD mission using ALIVE that is giving me some problems regarding the isserver command. wondering if anyone could help a brother out?

Here is the issue. I have a mine placed through the editor and named it ied_1. The goal is to have the team deactivate the mine and to get a message using a trigger with the next 6 digit grid for the next mine to show. heres where i have my issue. the trigger is set up like this.

activation is for Bluefor

Once

condition- !mineActive eod1

On activation hint "IED has been deactivated, move to grid 027033 for next IED mission";deletevehicle EOD1;

and I will get that message no problem when i am hosting the game but it will not show up for anyone else, nor is it allowing anyone else with a toolkit to deactivate it. So i thought that i might need the isServer command in the condition field but to no avail. so i put isserver;!mineActive eod1; in the condition and get an error message. I am not a script guy by any means and ive spent hours trying to fix this issue.

So if anyone could help me out please let me know. you can comment here or contact me on steam though the name LTdanthomas or LTgunnerkitty its one of the two.

thanks for any help.

~lt

Edited May 27, 2015 by TFAltdanthomas
forgot something

[SavageCDN 231]

Great work grubes!! We've been wrestling with something like this ourselves. If you have any questions or need clarity on something don't hesitate to PM me or post in the ALiVE thread.

Would you be OK with us linking your tutorial on the ALiVE wiki/website?

[grubes 10]

Would you be OK with us linking your tutorial on the ALiVE wiki/website?

Link away! I appreciate it; I wrote it so I could share it! I've already added the Civilian Population article this week. I'll be writing up the Asymmetric Warfare side this weekend for those of you interested (SPOILER ALERT: it's actually extremely simple, but you have to be really patient to see it in action).

Appreciate any feedback you've got; let me know how I can improve the work. I've also decided to add a section specifically about what the Debug switch does for each of the modules involved so other mission makers get familiar with how to read all of the symbols.

---------- Post added at 06:28 ---------- Previous post was at 05:56 ----------

isserver;!mineActive eod1;

The right syntax for what you are trying would be

isServer && !mineActive eod1;

but I don't think that is actually the fix you want. That will make it only run on the server. I'm extremely rusty on my multiplayer scripting, but I'll see if I can work something up if no one else gets you an answer soon. Edited May 29, 2015 by grubes
added link to civilian article

[killaway 10]

Might seem abit off topic but do you need it to be persistant for the asymmetric warefare module to work? I really struggle setting persistance up. Maybe you could write about that too lol

[SavageCDN 231]

No persistence required for asym (or any other type in ALiVE). This is offtopic though so maybe post in the ALiVE thread. Persistence is easy just need a War Room account and the Data module (with persistence turned on in your other modules).

[TFAltdanthomas 10]

The right syntax for what you are trying would be but I don't think that is actually the fix you want. That will make it only run on the server. I'm extremely rusty on my multiplayer scripting, but I'll see if I can work something up if no one else gets you an answer soon.

Thank you very much man Ill give this a shot, been racking my brain trying to figure this one out.

Edited May 29, 2015 by TFAltdanthomas

[killaway 10]

Thanks. Its just putting the stuff on the server that i dont fully understand. Ive got war room etc but just wont work. Nevermind ive posted on alive thread. Thanks anyway

[grubes 10]

I've added the Asymmetrical portion of the tutorial: https://medium.com/the-creation-of-alive-uprising/alive-uprising-creating-an-asymmetrical-force-71a8ba606c2e

There are the most unknowns here as I didn't get things to work as they are documented, but still I was able to get a really fun scenario brewing. Can't wait to add in some nice touches for the playable units.

[katipo66 94]

Thanks for your clear instruction and explanations and not talking over a noobs head, I reinstalled arma and tried Alive again for the first time since it's initial release because of all this asymmetrical carry on, and glad I did, it's come a very long way since I first tried it, it's mind boggling what it brings to the table, I only wonder now how it didn't 'win', anyway great stuff and look forward to more tutorials!

[grubes 10]

I've also started a Github repo where you can follow the development and download the latest versions of Uprising. Note that there are no complete official releases yet, I am still building it as I'm writing the articles.

[grubes 10]

Added the Attacking force tutorial. Super short and simple.

[grubes 10]

Added the Playable Forces tutorial: https://medium.com/the-creation-of-alive-uprising/alive-uprising-playable-forces-6dcd14b54b61

[SavageCDN 231]

Linked on ALiVE forum:

http://alivemod.com/forum/1148-grube-s-excellent-tutorial

[grubes 10]

Sorry this thread has been quiet for awhile. I've been stopped up at work a bit. I plan on finishing the Troubleshooting section this weekend. This will include screenshots and explanations of what each module's Debug setting does, among other things.

Also to make it easier for readers to figure out where they are and what's next in the tutorial, every post now contains a Table of Contents section that has a link to every other article in the series as well as an indication of where you currently are. Enjoy!

Edited July 3, 2015 by grubes
Added table of contents info

[grubes 10]

Just added the latest installment of the series: Troubleshooting

Enjoy!

[thefinn 3]

This is good stuff, keep it coming.

[altis 12]

Thanks again Grubes, I really appreciate this effort and detail, I've found many things I could improve on even at base level :D

[grubes 10]

Thanks again Grubes, I really appreciate this effort and detail, I've found many things I could improve on even at base level :D

Glad it's helping! I've only got the one more topic (performance/optimization) at the moment, so I'd be interested in hearing what you guys would like to read about next.