Ravage

[Donnie_Plays 435]

7 hours ago, Gunter Severloh said:

Is this the video your referring too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6xVdT96o_I

I looked at your tags and everything and your not getting more views because you dont rank at all, you cant just post a video,

put in tags of what you think works and expect views, it dont work like that.

While I appreciate your in depth analysis of why a three year old video didn't gain steam on youtube, you're assuming I only used "tags" as a form of promotion. I sent that video to 150 people on my steam friends list who play Arma (a lot of which were people who I gamed with all the time)... I posted on reddit and it got immediately voted down and the dislikes came within a few minutes of posting on reddit with not even enough time for someone to have watched the full video. I had someone on my steam friends list send me a message saying "I saw you posted that video on reddit. You shouldn't have done that. The Arma reddit is the most toxic place on the planet".

I also streamed every single night on Twitch (no less than three hours for each session, some sessions ran as long as 8-10 hours) during that time and mostly played either Ravage or Breaking Point while running direct links to my youtube channel in the chat and on my channel. For a while I was running a link to the Ravage mod page. I also created a ton of Ravage sandbox scenarios for steam workshop, which brought in as many as 10,000 subs. Most of the scenarios existed with the goal of making it as easy as possible for people to play. Every one of those scenarios linked to either my youtube or twitch channel if anyone wanted more info about the scenarios. To sum... people knew about the videos. It's my own fault for not making them better. Just because I worked hard on something it doesn't mean the finished product turned out great. People overwhelmingly came around for the workshop content, not the youtube stuff. I took this information and tried to learn from it.

Perhaps I didn't use as many "tags" as possible for youtube (which has a limit) but it's virtually impossible for someone to do more promoting of Arma and mods for the game than I did between 2015 and 2017. When I was doing those Ravage videos... no one knew what Ravage was. There were very few scenarios on workshop. No one on my steam friends list knew what it was until I started promoting the mod. There was a time where I was hosting random games on different maps almost every day and getting new people into playing. A lot of people came to my Twitch page asking what Ravage was, etc.

[kodabar 607]

I agree with both Donnie and Gunther. To get the views, you really have to stay on top of how YouTube works. And for some subjects, you're never going to get big views, because the skittish ephemeral Zeitgeist (ooh, check out my vocabulary) has moved on to something else. Personally, I can't be arsed trying to keep up and just make the videos I feel like, when I feel like it (I'll go months without making a single one or do four in a week) and not doing anything to promote them. Donnie and Gunther have different approaches and are both right. Both expose new people to Ravage as well as keeping existing players engaged.

 

Short of an organised, dedicated media team, I don't think there's much more that can be done. Oh yeah and the ArmA subreddit is frigging awful unless you're one of the 'approved' guys or doing pure milsim (there's a post on there today about 'coming out' for liking Altis Life), then they're just going to dismiss you out of hand.

Anyway, back to Ravage. Blimey, I haven't played the ghosts mission or jumped into the Club page that George set up (sorry George!). 

[haleks 8204]

The problem with Reddit is that "downvote" button : anyone can click it without consequence.

Remove it, and people who actually disagree with you will have to grab their keyboard and tell why, and I'm pretty sure at least half the downvoters wouldn't bother or find an actual, good reason to.

[EO 11225]

A couple of curios... 

 

Just noticed the Ravage oxygen rebreather has no ballistic protection or explosive resistance.....by design?

 

The Radioactive Zone Placement module...Once placed, is there any way it could be deleted mid mission via a trigger?...I have one placed over an object, the object being the source that emits the radiation, I want to destroy this object and in doing so stop the radioactivity. Is this possible?

[haleks 8204]

40 minutes ago, EO said:

A couple of curios... 

 

Just noticed the Ravage oxygen rebreather has no ballistic protection or explosive resistance.....by design?

 

The Radioactive Zone Placement module...Once placed, is there any way it could be deleted mid mission via a trigger?...I have one placed over an object, the object being the source that emits the radiation, I want to destroy this object and in doing so stop the radioactivity. Is this possible?

 

O² Tanks inherits most of their config from vanilla rebreathers - I never realized those didn't have protection. 😕

I'll tweak that later - given how they look, they should provide some protection (although, taking a hit in an O² tank probably is a bad thing).

 

As for removing a rad zone, I never considered that, but it is possible. The module spawns a trigger on its location once initialized; sadly the trigger has a local variable name so it's impossible to retrieve it directly.

But you can look for the nearest trigger to the object you're using as a source and delete it :

deleteVehicle (myObject nearestObject "EmptyDetector");

I should warn you : I don't know what's gonna happen if the trigger is deleted while there's a player inside - it might cause an error. Or not.

 

EDIT : in case it does cause an error :

_trg = myObject nearestObject "EmptyDetector";
_radius = selectMax [(triggerArea _trg) # 0, (triggerArea _trg) # 1];
_safepos = [getposASL _trg, _radius*2, _radius*3, 0, 0, 180, 0] call BIS_fnc_findSafePos;
_trg setpos _safepos;
deleteVehicle _trg;

 

[UnDeaD. 81]

Is there a way to delay the vehicle spawning module and maybe give it a limit? For example, not to spawn vehicles when overall vehicle number is over 100 or so? I would like to use grad persistence, but at every server restart more and more vehicles are saved into the database.

[haleks 8204]

2 minutes ago, UnDeaD. said:

Is there a way to delay the vehicle spawning module and maybe give it a limit? For example, not to spawn vehicles when overall vehicle number is over 100 or so? I would like to use grad persistence, but at every server restart more and more vehicles are saved into the database.

 

I don't think there is (lemme check the code and come back to you later), but a number limit would be a good option to add to the module. I'll see what I can do.

[EO 11225]

Thanks again haleks, with all these questions you can surely tell i'm working on a wee mission....man, it's been a while since I played around in Eden, I'd forgotten how much fun it is!!

[haleks 8204]

Just now, EO said:

Thanks again haleks, with all these questions you can surely tell i'm working on a wee mission....man, it's been a while since I played around in Eden, I'd forgotten how much fun it is!!

 

Haha yeah, I guessed as much; I'm quite curious to see what you're preparing for us! 😉

[haleks 8204]

Shit I just realized BIS_fnc_findSafePos doesn't actually return a ready-to-use position array...

 

Here's the correct way to use it :

_trg = myObject nearestObject "EmptyDetector";
_radius = selectMax [(triggerArea _trg) # 0, (triggerArea _trg) # 1];
_safepos = [getposASL _trg, _radius*2, _radius*3, 0, 0, 180, 0] call BIS_fnc_findSafePos;
_trg setpos [_safepos # 0, _safepos # 1, 0];
deleteVehicle _trg;

 

[EO 11225]

1 hour ago, haleks said:

Haha yeah, I guessed as much; I'm quite curious to see what you're preparing for us! 😉

 

Linear survival horror influenced by Silent Hill powered by Ravage, mission progression is tied to loot acquisition. Boss zeds, once conquered, will give up certain loot items that are key to players survival and progression to next task, there's also that overriding Silent Hill kicker. So far, no outside scripts or mods required, just Ravage! (and CBA of course)

Spoiler

  

[GEORGE FLOROS GR 4206]

10 minutes ago, EO said:

Linear survival horror influenced by Silent Hill powered by Ravage,

 

This is really getting interesting ! 

[tourist 617]

2 hours ago, EO said:

Linear survival horror influenced by Silent Hill powered by Ravage, mission progression is tied to loot acquisition. Boss zeds, once conquered, will give up certain loot items that are key to players survival and progression to next task, there's also that overriding Silent Hill kicker. So far, no outside scripts or mods required, just Ravage! (and CBA of course)

 

Sounds good, mate!   

[Donnie_Plays 435]

8 hours ago, haleks said:

The problem with Reddit is that "downvote" button : anyone can click it without consequence.

Remove it, and people who actually disagree with you will have to grab their keyboard and tell why, and I'm pretty sure at least half the downvoters wouldn't bother or find an actual, good reason to.

I never use reddit, for the most part. There have been times when I research something and find the answer on reddit, but I really do not participate. Any system where majority votes can push you up or down... I couldn't have less interest in. Systems like this are fundamentally flawed and wide open for exploitation. All it takes is some kid who created 20 accounts of his own to basically push and dominate whatever agenda he or she desires in any one area. I also wouldn't care about downvotes if legit feedback was given as well. If someone does not like something... tell me why. Usually... the Arma community never shuts up about what could be better or different. That's one thing virtually everyone who attempts to create something encounters.

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

25 minutes ago, Donnie_Plays said:

Usually... the Arma community never shuts up about what could be better or different.

You can say that again... I never get tired of hearing the: “WeLl wHy CAn’T i bUiLd A bAsE iN yOuR sCeNaRiO?” 

 

Just kidding... I get extremely tired of it.

 

[Donnie_Plays 435]

3 hours ago, MuRaZorWitchKING said:

You can say that again... I never get tired of hearing the: “WeLl wHy CAn’T i bUiLd A bAsE iN yOuR sCeNaRiO?” 

I had a kid tell me exact same thing over the weekend. He didn't own Arma. Was only playing for the free weekend. He started making a list of demands of things that he wanted for our server. We already had every single thing he suggested on the server, minus basebuilding, which is virtually pointless on a 2k by 2k map.

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

I mean, I don’t mind questions at all, but when people ask the same ones each time about something that they want implemented then it’s like come on man...

 

I also like how people will downvote or negative rate your work just cause it’s “missing” features... But It’s what it is  

[haleks 8204]

22 hours ago, UnDeaD. said:

Is there a way to delay the vehicle spawning module and maybe give it a limit? For example, not to spawn vehicles when overall vehicle number is over 100 or so? I would like to use grad persistence, but at every server restart more and more vehicles are saved into the database.

 

Okay, I took a deeper look into this : I see 2 problems with it. The first one is that I need to make the built-in caching system behave with grad persistence, even after a server restart - and I can't see no easy way to do that.

The second, even if I manage to solve the first issue, is that vehicles are spawned by triggers. That means we would need to inject another condition check to detect if G.P has already saved vehicles in a specific area.

 

In other words, the vehicle spawn system would have to be written to be used with G.P specifically. 😕

Quick question : is it possible to exclude certain entity types from that persistence system?

 

EDIT : I took a look at their github : setting the "saveVehicles" and "saveStatics" attributes to 1 (editor-placed objects only) in CfgGradPersistence should solve your issue?

[UnDeaD. 81]

2 hours ago, haleks said:

Quick question : is it possible to exclude certain entity types from that persistence system?

Yes, like in this example:

if (isServer) then {
    _group setVariable ['grad_persistence_isExcluded',true];
    _unit setVariable ['grad_persistence_isExcluded',true];
    _object setVariable ['grad_persistence_isExcluded',true];
    _playerUnit setVariable ['grad_persistence_isExcluded',true];
};

I use it to exclude smoke effect on crashsites (which are spawned with createVehicle).

 

2 hours ago, haleks said:

EDIT : I took a look at their github : setting the "saveVehicles" and "saveStatics" attributes to 1 (editor-placed objects only) in CfgGradPersistence should solve your issue?

If i set it like that, it will save only pre-placed vehicles.

 

2 hours ago, haleks said:

Okay, I took a deeper look into this : I see 2 problems with it. The first one is that I need to make the built-in caching system behave with grad persistence, even after a server restart - and I can't see no easy way to do that.

The second, even if I manage to solve the first issue, is that vehicles are spawned by triggers. That means we would need to inject another condition check to detect if G.P has already saved vehicles in a specific area.

Nevermind, if it would take too much time and editing then don't mess with it. 🙂 

 

I also have a question: is it possible to somehow call the effect of the module by a code? That way i could set up a script and give it a limit, so when a given number of vehicles are on the map, the spawn script would not run.

[EO 11225]

Regarding deleting a Radiation Zone mid-mission, I've went for a different approach that fits perfectly for my needs...

Spoiler

I place the trigger directly over my source object, when said object is destroyed I can delete the trigger with...

deletevehicle rad1;

With a Geiger Muller counter activated the radiation level starts to fall and simply dissipates away. 

 

[haleks 8204]

1 hour ago, UnDeaD. said:

I also have a question: is it possible to somehow call the effect of the module by a code? That way i could set up a script and give it a limit, so when a given number of vehicles are on the map, the spawn script would not run.

 

Calling the module function via script is possible, but in that case, it won't help much. The various scripts spawned by the module simply aren't flexible enough for that (and they're all linked together wich makes them more problematic to manipulate).

I'll keep digging for a proper solution, but for the time being, and if you really need persistency for each wreck and vehicle, I would say don't use the vehicles module...

 

Or use it only to spawn static wrecks with disabled persistency for static objects - and manually place driveable vehicles (or generate them at mission start via script). I reckon the best compromise is to handle vehicles you want to be persistent outside of Ravage, while letting Ravage spawn non-persistent, random static wrecks. But like I said, I'll see what imrovements I can make to the vehicles module : there're a few things I wanted to improve with the caching system anyway.

[Vandeanson 1676]

On 2/19/2019 at 7:02 PM, EO said:

Thanks again haleks, with all these questions you can surely tell i'm working on a wee mission....man, it's been a while since I played around in Eden, I'd forgotten how much fun it is!!

And BOOM! its 6 am in the morning;) 

[haleks 8204]

In other news : I made some changes on subscription tiers on Patreon.

The initial benefit for Tier 1/Core Supporters didn't make any sense as I already provide regular updates and teases on this forum.

 

The first item for Tier 2 supporters will be up early next month : if you want an early sneak peek into the MyST project, you have about one month to subscribe (Items will be updated monthly) : https://www.patreon.com/haleks

I haven't set any earning goal at the moment, so tier benefits will be delivered no matter what, as long as the patreon page is up. Remember you can pledge any amount you want, and modify or cancel it later - no strings attached.

[UnDeaD. 81]

@haleks one more thing i know about grad persistence is, that if you place a vehicle in the editor and you give it a name, then that vehicle won't duplicate on the next start, because the persistency system detects that it was already saved in the database, and it will delete the one on the original position and spawn the saved one on the saved position.

And an idea came in my mind: what if you name all the vehicles as they spawn (only the vehicles, not the wrecks, i don't know if its possible), for example name the first one "veh1", second "veh2" and so on (so the first spawned vehicle should always have the same name) This way the GP will remember those names, and the next time the vehicle spawning module kicks in, it will delete the newly spawned vehicles and spawn the ones that were saved. This way if a vehicle would be destroyed, on the next server restart a new vehicle would spawn instead of the one that was destroyed.

I hope you understand what i wanted to say. 😃

 

Edit:

If i had a good vehicle spawner script that would give vehicles randomised damage just like yours have, i would experiment on that, but i cant find a proper one.

Edited February 20, 2019 by UnDeaD.

[MuRaZorWitchKING 725]

1 hour ago, haleks said:

Remember you can pledge any amount you want, and modify or cancel it later - no strings attached.

If I’m lucky and get this new job within the next couple of months I can surely support your work even more, so by then my amount will go up. I just realized that I haven’t even played Arma 3 WITHOUT the Ravage mod loaded up... Even before you released it in the workshop. The same with Arma 2, all I ever played was “2018” (still love that mission by the way) but yes, your work is why I even play this game. After I first viewed a video about Ravage on YouTube I instantly jumped in. I wish for years to come with success on your work, and I hope you continue it. 🙂