Ravage

[cosmic10r 2331]

Nice one Gunter 

 

:m:

[haleks 8212]

Haleks you can add the channel to the first post now ;)

 

Done!

Thanks for your support Gunter, Ravage getting its own Warmod is tremendous news. ;)

Did you know that I discovered the WarMod on Arma2 when I was making SP missions out of the DayZ mod? ^^

 

Just poke me once you have the intro video, I'll add it to the OP.

 

EDIT : It was the COWarMod. Oh boy the fun it was!

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Thanks fellas, really looking forward to more Ravage vids to come out so I can add them to the channel,

imo i think the channel needs some tweaks in terms of how the videos are laid out as i find it limited by utube's features/functions, i dont like the idea of having to open stuff to view things,

I'd rather have everything in one place in their own order and category.

 

Thanks Haleks for adding the channel to the first post, i hope that my work will help bring more attention and interest to the mod.

Did you know that I discovered the WarMod on Arma2 when I was making SP missions out of the DayZ mod? ^^

 

I thought you said that somewhere but no I didn't, was it the A2WarMod or my COWarMod?

 

Just poke me once you have the intro video, I'll add it to the OP.

 

Will do still going over how I am going to do and have a good idea.

 

Just a insight on my research done today for the new WarMod, I have 37 total addons/Mods I have compiled, yet to download most of them, but most of them I already

have permissions for as they are in my other most recent mod IFA3WarMod aside a bunch of things, I would say theres about a handful of mods i need to get permissions for but

i need to put everything together and start testing, before that I'm going to be working on a banner/loading screen for it, im trying to somehow capture the Ravage atmosphere

in it so we'll see, once thats done I will get a WIP thread going as I'd rather not clutter up your thread here with my own work.

======

An idea for Ravage in general, i was wondering if it were possible to actually have more buildings in ruins, like where they are destroyed but you can still enter them,

then more abandoned, debree, garbage, just old objects ect,. idk it may effect performance some but just looking to somehow add to the atmosphere.

Haleks ever see this mod--> http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=31161

Surely you've run into it or seen it, but was there anything from this we could use that isn't currently in Ravage?

[zuzul 81]

First MP mission yesterday for me as Zeus with 7 players.

First, I want to say that they really enjoyed the mood, the music and the felling. Ravage is definitely an astounding mod!

By using Acre, we found that having the effects at 30% and the music at 20% or less volume is the most suitable way to keep the overall sounds great. 

 

I did a major mistake on the number of zombies to be spawned : 100/player and a gap of 400. The server went to 6 FPS very quickly. I will not do the same mistake again.

 

The only main issue I got was the lone raiders, who are not spawned per side but as object, so not editable in Zeus (cannot be deleted by example) and can be a real pain in the ass for the players when I'm focusing them on something completely different. Currently I disabled them, but having them editable can be helpful.

The players also got the message "you lost your backpack", which is not really an issue but quite surprising. 

 

Questions:

The zombie blacklist: if I do a huge blacklist zone, covering the entire island of Altis by example, shall it means there will be not zombies on the island at all? Is this assumption correct?

About the radiations: it there a way to explain to the players the values displayed by the Geiger counter? By example I can say that a "+109" is more harmful than a "+19", but if I want to be more precise, how can I understand the values?

Since I want to spawn vehicle on the fly with Zeus, I disable the cleaner system (making vehicles disappearing when spawned empty) and the wreck system. What are the consequences on disabling the cleaning system on the zombies? I use the garbage collector from Arma directly for the dead, but for the remaining zombies "alive" and the loot, does the cleaning system have influence on it?

 

Again, Ravage in MP with Zeus is really good. Wonderful mod.

 

Zul.

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Update - Ravage Utube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjXp9bLRLx8g-7BHGCD9xgA

 

Hello Ravage fans!

 

Made several adjustments, changes and additions to the channel:

• Changed Gameplay Preview to its own playlist so previews are 20-25min+ clips
• Created a new playlist from the above called Gameplay clips, these are vids that are 15min and under
• Changed Full Playthroughs & Episodes to just Full playthroughs
• Created a new playlist titled Full Episodes, these are vids with 2 or more parts to them
• Added several new vids to all the playlists except the How to playlist
• Lastly we currently have 5 subscribers as of yesterday, + 4 more today (Sept 5th)!

All for now.

[haleks 8212]

First MP mission yesterday for me as Zeus with 7 players.

First, I want to say that they really enjoyed the mood, the music and the felling. Ravage is definitely an astounding mod!

By using Acre, we found that having the effects at 30% and the music at 20% or less volume is the most suitable way to keep the overall sounds great. 

 

I did a major mistake on the number of zombies to be spawned : 100/player and a gap of 400. The server went to 6 FPS very quickly. I will not do the same mistake again.

 

The only main issue I got was the lone raiders, who are not spawned per side but as object, so not editable in Zeus (cannot be deleted by example) and can be a real pain in the ass for the players when I'm focusing them on something completely different. Currently I disabled them, but having them editable can be helpful.

The players also got the message "you lost your backpack", which is not really an issue but quite surprising. 

 

Questions:

The zombie blacklist: if I do a huge blacklist zone, covering the entire island of Altis by example, shall it means there will be not zombies on the island at all? Is this assumption correct?

About the radiations: it there a way to explain to the players the values displayed by the Geiger counter? By example I can say that a "+109" is more harmful than a "+19", but if I want to be more precise, how can I understand the values?

Since I want to spawn vehicle on the fly with Zeus, I disable the cleaner system (making vehicles disappearing when spawned empty) and the wreck system. What are the consequences on disabling the cleaning system on the zombies? I use the garbage collector from Arma directly for the dead, but for the remaining zombies "alive" and the loot, does the cleaning system have influence on it?

 

Again, Ravage in MP with Zeus is really good. Wonderful mod.

 

Zul.

 

Hi Zuzul, thanks for the feedback with Zeus!

 

Zombies can easily kill FPS indeed, although you will rarely need such high numbers (especially if players are grouped together). That being said I think I will, at some point, add more parameters to the zombies modules regarding network distribution.

It will be possible to experiment with dedicated + headless clients and see wich configuration offers the best performance (currently zombies are distributed across all computers but do not use headless clients).

 

Your problem with renegades most likely come from their unorthodox config - it's something I'll look at before updating. As for the lost backpacks, it's something that can happen when players are hit from behind by zombies. ;)

 

You assume correctly about the blacklist module : it's also an easy way to limit the zed spawns to nights only with the Blacklist Time option.

 

Also, it should be totally safe to disable the clean-up system for your MP sessions : it is there mostly to deal with everything that isn't controlled already by Ravage. The zeds, loot spawns and bandits all have their own clean up routine.

 

On a side note, if anyone has any Zeus footage with Ravage, I'm really curious to see that!

[zuzul 81]

Thanks a lot Haleks!

I will set the zombies to a min value for the next mission, something lile 10/players and a max of 50. If someone has a better MP onfig to propose, I'm glad to hear about.

Thanks for the renegades, despite it is not a major point. It may wait if you have better priorities, but thanks!

Noted for the cleanup system.

For a footage, I'm planning to do one, but it will be in French...

[haleks 8212]

Auncun problème pour moi. ;)

[R0adki11 3949]

Great idea on the YouTube channel, the How to Section is very helpful. I found a video on how to setup a Ravage Mission, i didn't realise how simple it was to create with the Modules. I will certainly have a go at creating one, a cold war era one on Nogova will be a good starting point :)

[haleks 8212]

An idea for Ravage in general, i was wondering if it were possible to actually have more buildings in ruins, like where they are destroyed but you can still enter them,

then more abandoned, debree, garbage, just old objects ect,. idk it may effect performance some but just looking to somehow add to the atmosphere.

Haleks ever see this mod--> http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=31161

Surely you've run into it or seen it, but was there anything from this we could use that isn't currently in Ravage?

 

Yes , more ruins would certainly look cool, but it's all based on config replacements so I have to be carefull with what models I choose to replace. I will try a few things. ;)

 

As for more garbage objects, it's something I was unable to do - until now, actually...

As I said earlier, I've been working on a virtualization system for ambiant wrecks, since the sheer number of them can cause stability issues eventually. It's giving pretty solid results on the current dev build and will be easy to expand for other stuff.

I'm confident it will allow a random garbage generator (on the roads in and near towns, for instance) : one that doesn't hit performances. ^^

 

I did stumble upon Heros Survive, wich has interesting features - but never got around testing it myself sadly.

It seems to be modular though, so yes, there is a good chance some of its features can be used in Ravage without conflicts. I'll try to check it out soon.

[neofit 65]

The vehicle caching system will still be available as an option for hand-placed vehicles or stuff spawned by other means.

Hopefully, everything will be ready when 1.64 hits stable.

Does this, in any way, affect the "feature" where no loot would spawn around a vehicle, even in SP? (crossing fingers so hard they hurt :) )

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Great idea on the YouTube channel, the How to Section is very helpful. I found a video on how to setup a Ravage Mission, i didn't realise how simple it was to create with the Modules.

 

Thanks! I felt the need to bring more attention to this mod, by gathering and organizing all the videos and content into one place.

I plan on recording a tutorial video for the mod to that would shed more light on some aspects of the modules soon.

What i love about this mod is it gives you the limitless ability to create any scenario whether contained within a town or using a whole map, the mod gives you some serious replay value,

this is another reason why I dont venture out of Arma that much as just about anything any other game can do i can create in my own scenarios provided i know how.

 

As for more garbage objects, it's something I was unable to do - until now, actually...

 

Oh interesting, maybe you can create another module that can determine how much "stuff" is lying around, and im thinking in reference to location, so for example the scale of objects,

debris, broken down, burnt out, destroyed, and other misc objects and garbage lying around would vary in scale based on the location, realistically the most stuff will be in the cities,

and it would dwindled to the country where their is very little.

 

Debris, objects, garbage, ruins, vehicles, nature, and, human remains

1. Debris can be misc things like lumber, dirt, rubble, mixed in with building material
2. Objects can be anything related to what humans used that is small like tools, food containers, tires, furniture, have the abandoned feel like the people left things as they were so you have furniture tables, dishes, etc,.
3. Garbage can vary from piles or mounds of garbage basically what we have
4. Ruins can be misc things-  buildings, vehicles like civilian cars, trucks, service vehicles, semi trucks (if thats even possible), ships washed up a shore, small boats, military vehicles even destroyed tanks, wrecks, downed planes, have telephone polls bent on an angle, burnt buildings
5. Nature would be overgrowth, vines, bushes, grass, water flooding an area, things growing in places where people were once before, growing in houses, on cars, dead trees
6. Human remains - find more skulls, skeletons, dead bodies, dead hanging from trees, and lamp posts, or telephone polls

Example pics

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/92/f6/ef/92f6ef5b2c50363d89ddcab0cb4b9898.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/WVhJoow.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/6aWS57H.jpg?1 (Dayz abandoned street)

http://static.messynessychic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/20121029-173714.jpg;)

http://www.bt-images.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Gary-India.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rwuM1TjV3QY/maxresdefault.jpg

 

Bandits, Raiders, Survivors, and Military

Like in Stalker games you have various factions, each faction has their own type of gear, and clothing even vehicles

• Survivors randomly can have a pistol or rifle of some sort preferably a shotgun, these guys will only attack in defense or run if no weapons
• Bandits, and raiders have better gear but are basically advanced survivors, as they have everything a survivor needs, these guys basically scavenge, steal, and kill anyone/thing
• Military have their own agenda, they are out to eliminate the the zeds and will kill bandits if they come apon them, their gear and weapons are much better then bandits, but they have access to military vehicles with limited ammo/fuel

Ideas for bandits,raiders, and survivors and this can apply sparingly to the military

have the bandits and raiders wear more gas masks, and hoods heres a few pics from arma2 (Post Apocalypse Units by Icewindo)

http://www.armedassault.info/ftp/pics/addons/ice_apo2.jpg

http://www.armedassault.info/ftp/pics/addons/ice_apo1.jpg

http://www.armedassault.info/ftp/pics/addons/ice_apo3.jpg

other ideas for character loadout, clothes, gear for all factions-

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/e4/9c/7c/e49c7cfb339785ddd0baa9c59175af7b.jpg

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/m__/images/0/04/2106200770.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120831094735&path-prefix=metro%2Fru

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/84/5f/a2/845fa269f89e41c27d807b8036cd0bbe.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/67/74/d6/6774d696d6619d0a16bdb8df35b4e404.jpg

http://www.chrissyx.com/images/stalker2/stalker2-19-1323433344003.jpg

 

Addon idea for Post-apocalyptic unit, and gear:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=20274

Zombie variant

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=29812

 

Is it possible for us to create custom units for the mod for the post apocalyptic atmosphere?

 

 

I did stumble upon Heros Survive, wich has interesting features - but never got around testing it myself sadly.

It seems to be modular though, so yes, there is a good chance some of its features can be used in Ravage without conflicts

 

 

Awesome! More features for survival would be cool!

[R0adki11 3949]

I noticed when playing testing on Nogova that loot wouldn't appear in any of the building, i suspect this is due to the buildings on the Cold War islands not allowing it to happen as they aren't Arma2 or Arma3 building types. Will these be added in the update?

[haleks 8212]

Those old buildings haven't been added yet, no. I think I have a list, somewhere...

I might have time to add them for the update.

[haleks 8212]

Hi guys, here's the updated changelog for now!
 

139
Tweaked :
Improved AI awareness when detected by zombies.
Increased delay between dynamic sand gusts.
Players now have to remove their gasmask or special helmet before eating or drinking.
Distance check before caching empty vehicles and wrecks reduced by half.
Breathfog simulation is now synchronized with respiration rate for players and AI.
Slightly lowered gasmask SFX.
Only supplies traders can spawn dynamically (weapons traders have to be placed manually).
Increased Rating malus when killing traders or their bodyguards.
Removed a few car patrols from the Altis scenario.
Disabled dynamic sand gusts during heavy rain.
The "rvg_owned" variable can be used to exclude corpses from the clean-up system.
The "rvg_owned" variable can be used to exclude vehicles from damages applied by the Vehicles Module.
Added more infected faces to renegades when zombies are enabled.
the rvg_fnc_zed_spawn function now returns the zeds it has created.
Ravage no longer uses removeAllActions : only actions created by the mod will be removed.
Removed the "enable Survival system" option from the survival module (placing the module activates it).
Disabled a couple intro scenes for Altis.
Contact reports are completely disabled (until BIS fixes the related difficulty option).
Autonomous Machines are available as secondary Force as well (Ambiant AI module).
Removed vanilla AKM from civilian loot lists.
Number of wrecks on the Altis showcase has been increased.
[singleplayer] Bandits are no longer equipped with Apex items if the player doesn't own the DLC.
They still use Apex weapons unless one of the mods supported by the mission is detected.
Fixed :
Some buildings were listed twice when using multiple building lists from the loot system.
Loot spawn issues when driving vehicles.
"Holster" action would disappear after a respawn.
Bandits and wrecks sometimes spawning too close to players.
Some distance checks before spawning zombies weren't working.
RPT error when fixing a vehicle with a vanilla toolkit.
Missing Apex military buildings from Loot system.
Fixed Geiger activation sound timing.
Hordes should react properly to nearby targets when "Horde Behaviour" is enabled.
The rvg_garbage_collector variable was unnecessarily broadcasted across clients.
Minor fixes to the Altis showcase.
Spawned Drones weren't deleted after they'd been destroyed.
Fix for infected faces not showing for everyone in MP.
Config conflict for B_Pilot_F & B_Helipilot_F infantry class.
Tanoa fuel stations are now disabled if rvg_Apex is loaded.
Fixed Renegades configs.
New :
The following gamelogics can be used as artificial locations for the Ambiant AI spawns :
village, town, city (found under "logic entitites >> locations" in Eden).
Arma1 buildings are now supported by the Loot module.
All Ravage items are available in Virtual Arsenal under the magazines panel.
All vehicles and wrecks spawned by Ravage are virtualized (cargo isn't persistent at the moment!).
Optional Vehicles caching system enabled from the settings module : it will cache vehicles that are not spawned by Ravage.
Added spawn distances parameter to Ambiant AI module.
Added intact versions for Land_LampHalogen_F and Land_LampAirport_F to Eden.
Added new ambiant tracks from Arma3.
The Vehicles module offers different settings for wrecks presence (none, low, medium, high).
It is now possible to set a percentage of burning wrecks from the Vehicles module.
Gasmasks from following mods are supported : FFAA, EPSM Exomod, KA Specially Equipped Pack.
Added new Oxygen Rebreather Vest.
Ravage *should* be linux-friendly.

 
 
Hey, Gunter, thanks for the suggestions mate!
It gives me a lot of stuff to think and work on. ;)
 

Debris, objects, garbage, ruins, vehicles, nature, and, human remains

-    Nature would be overgrowth, vines, bushes, grass, water flooding an area, things growing in places where people were once before, growing in houses, on cars, dead trees


[...]

Is it possible for us to create custom units for the mod for the post apocalyptic atmosphere?

Overgrown vegetation is something I've been playing with for quite some time; not so long ago I wrote a script for that : it detects what kind of vegetation is around nearby roads, and recreate some of them on concrete surfaces as simpleObjects. Problem is, even with the simpleObjects trick, it eats way too many frames per second, as you need to spawn a lot of vegetation for the effect to be convincing. I guess the only viable way to achieve that is to build another terrain based on Altis - but I don't know zip about map-making. :/

 

By "creating custom units", you mean units to be used by the spawning system? I'm afraid it's not possible at the moment (the module wasn't really designed for that), but I'll try some things once I've finished this update.

[neofit 65]

Fixed :

[skipped]

Loot spawn issues when driving vehicles.

YESSS! :D

 

All vehicles and wrecks spawned by Ravage are virtualized (cargo isn't persistent at the moment!).

I'd like to make sure:

I find and repair a rusty car (=spawned by Ravage?), put some ammo, a jerrycan and food into its trunk. I leave it at a port while I take a boat to visit some islands a few kilometers away. When I come back the cargo will be empty, right? How about the 20 liters of fuel I had put in its tank (not as a jerrycan in its cargo)?

[haleks 8212]

YESSS! :D

 

I'd like to make sure:

I find and repair a rusty car (=spawned by Ravage?), put some ammo, a jerrycan and food into its trunk. I leave it at a port while I take a boat to visit some islands a few kilometers away. When I come back the cargo will be empty, right? How about the 20 liters of fuel I had put in its tank (not as a jerrycan in its cargo)?

 

The cargo will be empty yes, but everything else will be saved : fuel amount, textures, damages etc. One thing worth noting : vehicles are virtualized only if they are empty. So if you can leave an AI on the seat while going away, cargo won't disappear.

[zuzul 81]

This new version sounds really great!

Question for a further release: could it be possible to separate the values of exhaustion (Food, water, etc.) in the survival module to adapt them to the environment? By example, in a Desert Map I would have a quicker ratio for the water than the food.

[haleks 8212]

This new version sounds really great!

Question for a further release: could it be possible to separate the values of exhaustion (Food, water, etc.) in the survival module to adapt them to the environment? By example, in a Desert Map I would have a quicker ratio for the water than the food.

 

Thirst is already quicker to increase than food, but why not.

 

By the way, I've just finished tweaking & fixing some Zeus related stuff :

- Zombies will be available under "Civilians >> Zombies" (Bandits won't be available at the moment).

- Zeus will be able to take over and control any unit spawned by Ravage, including Zombies.

- The Ambiant Zombies module will be totally optionnal : placing down zombies from the entities menu initiates all required functions.

[neofit 65]

The cargo will be empty yes, but everything else will be saved : fuel amount, textures, damages etc. One thing worth noting : vehicles are virtualized only if they are empty. So if you can leave an AI on the seat while going away, cargo won't disappear.

Good to know. I'm used to moving large amount of cargo between vehicles anyway (thanks to Ryd's Big Trunk addon), loot spawning near vehicles more than makes up for that.

 

Now, how far away from a car can I go before its cargo disappears? Sometimes one can do some creative flanking maneuvers that take him a few hundreds of meters away from the car, I sometimes lose TPW spawned cars with precious cargo this way.

 

Also, some stern warning that cargo loss is now possible should be given to players somehow, we are not used to this kind of thing happening in most scenarios/mods, this line of info in a changelog may not be noticed by most people.

[haleks 8212]

Good point about the warning - maybe a new tutorial hint would do.

The safe distance is 750m for now, so you should have space for your manoeuvres. ;)

(I may increase it or make it configurable from the module)

[zuzul 81]

Thirst is already quicker to increase than food, but why not.

 

By the way, I've just finished tweaking & fixing some Zeus related stuff :

- Zombies will be available under "Civilians >> Zombies" (Bandits won't be available at the moment).

- Zeus will be able to take over and control any unit spawned by Ravage, including Zombies.

- The Ambiant Zombies module will be totally optionnal : placing down zombies from the entities menu initiates all required functions.

this is absolutly amazing.

I'll try to take a footage of the coming session this week and upload it if it is good enough, for you to see what is possible with ravage and zeus combined.

[haleks 8212]

this is absolutly amazing.

I'll try to take a footage of the coming session this week and upload it if it is good enough, for you to see what is possible with ravage and zeus combined.

 

I'm testing Zeus + Ravage DEV in Editor right now. Boy, the fun it is to spawn zombies on the fly and see how long an AI squad can survive. :devil:

Pro-tip : assuming control of the "leader" of a horde (any group of zombies) is an excellent way to guide them through sneaky paths, since grouped zombies will follow their leader as long as they haven't spotted any target. Of course you can also use the MOVE waypoints, but playing an infected is way more fun. ;)

[zuzul 81]

My may idea is to play as close as possible from a tabletop RPG by impersonating the different kind of NPCs the players can run into. The current mission is based on a simple "survive & escape" but the coming scenarios will have more plots.

Playing as the zombie can really be fun and open a complete new way of making my missions. This is really cool.

[Gunter Severloh 4054]

Hey, Gunter, thanks for the suggestions mate!

It gives me a lot of stuff to think and work on

 

Welcome, was an inspired brainstorm I had when viewing a ton of pics of abandoned places, houses, ect,.

 

 

Overgrown vegetation is something I've been playing with for quite some time; not so long ago I wrote a script for that : it detects what kind of vegetation is around nearby roads,

and recreate some of them on concrete surfaces as simpleObjects. Problem is, even with the simpleObjects trick, it eats way too many frames per second, as you need to spawn

a lot of vegetation for the effect to be convincing. I guess the only viable way to achieve that is to build another terrain based on Altis - but I don't know zip about map-making. :/

 

Hmm i see, ya we dont want to lose performance, maybe have the overgrowth spawn and cache, so lets say you are approaching a city, or small town, even a village,

or maybe a small farm, you could have it where that area would spawn randomly vegetation and then despawn in at a certain distance after the player leaves the area,

idk if there is some command or something where the mod can detect the player approaching an area then spawn in the vegetation, a trigger maybe.

You could do little stuff like this---> http://i.imgur.com/6aWS57H.jpg?1%C2%A0 (from Dayz)

 

As for like overgrowth on sides of building, like vines, maybe a texture can spawn randomly on sides of buildings in certain areas, idk just a thought.

 

Ever consider random graffiti, that would add to the atmosphere of building that the place was abandoned like this for example:

http://www.bt-images.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Gary-India.jpg

 

 

By "creating custom units", you mean units to be used by the spawning system? I'm afraid it's not possible at the moment

(the module wasn't really designed for that), but I'll try some things once I've finished this update.

 

I meant customizing the ones that already spawn.