[MP][CTI-COOP] Liberation (beta)

[Syk3 0]

 

v0.919 is out

 

Changelog:

• New option to set a minimum amount of FPS that the game should try to keep at all times, by reducing the view distance if needed. It will help with severe fps issues in large towns. If you leave this option at 0 (default) it won't do anything.
• Player score has been added to the savegame. To avoid saving values for every player that joins the server, only scores above 20 points will be tracked.
• New notification warning about the next place that will be attacked by incoming hostile forces.
• Classnames file has been refactored. If you had your own version, it's likely you'll have to do your changes all over again, however on the plus side OPFOR infantry will be much quicker to setup in this new version. And it will also affect secondary objectives as expected.
• New gameplay constant for HALO drop altitude, if you want to tweak that.
• Various tweaks and fixes.

 

Hey small issue with the latest update, whenever we pickup / capture an enemy with our vehicles they take over the vehicle, cant seem to figure it out, have had to revert to killing them instead. 

 

Apart from that everyone on my server loves it.

[T.Fork 19]

Basically, in CTI both teams have a main base (which includes a mobile HQ vehicle for the commander and a number of large factory buildings where you purchase units, vehicles, weapons, etc). These 2 main bases spawn far apart from each other at each mission restart so you're always starting at a different point on the map.

 

The goal is to find and destroy your enemy's main base HQ and all it's factories. Along the way you capture towns (owned and defended by guerrilla's typically) to earn the money which upgrades your factories and available spending cash so that you can purchase bigger and better weaponry to help defeat the enemy. Surrounding each town are small camp placements which you can use as re-spawn and rearming locations if you capture/own them. The more camps you capture, the less time it takes to capture the town itself. Capturing camps and towns are accomplished as they are in the Battlefield games where if your team has enough of a presence within range you must wait for a  progress bar to empty before the town/camp belongs to you now.

 

Some CTI missions are developed mainly for PvP, and some are developed mainly for PvE/Coop where you can choose to use the AI as commander (who buys squads and sends them out to help you capture towns/camps, hunt the main base etc).

 

CTI started back in 2001 with Flashpoint and basically ended with Arma2. There are really no completed & supported versions that exist for Arma3 unfortunately. A few folks have tried hacking away at Benny's old Arma2 version so they could play in Arma3...but it doesn't run correctly as there are scripting errors and issues. Benny has apparently stopped supporting the series a couple years ago.

 

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense why servers are changing it.

[regiregi22 32]

zbug,

You've got some PM regarding the spanish translation.

 

Best regards

[zbug 160]

Hey zbug , I found out what was causing that problem with that constant explosion in the town of Gravia because it happen again tonight.  Someone shot down one of the civilian helicopter / Little Bird.

it kept blowing up on the ground. Restarted game & everything was good to go.  Can you set these with no damage ?

 

I will just remove them, I didn't think that would cause such an issue. Welp

 

Do I need to edit the 6000 in do_halo.SQF file to lower the HALO altitude?

Or am I not looking correctly in the admin parameters?

 

It's in gameplay_constants.sqf, currently set at 4000

 

Out of curiosity, what is true CTI, I've never tried it? Zbug was asking if he should change the description a while ago as a lot of servers were doing it themselves.

 

It's not really "a lot", it's maybe 1 or 2 servers out of the 60 to 80 that usually run the mission according to http://arma3.swec.se/server/list

I've asked here but most people answered they feel it's more CTI than coop. Of course it's both, but you can only put one tag on the mission, and I've chosen CTI in the first place because when I played MFCTI back when OFP was still a thing, I felt it was more about conquering sectors all over the map and building your own bases than the anticlimatic crushing of a small base built by the AI. And MFCTI had some good AI opposition contrary to most other CTI scenarios that came out since. Of course that might have been a different feeling in pvp but I didn't get broadband internet until after Arma 1 came out so I never tried that

 

Hey small issue with the latest update, whenever we pickup / capture an enemy with our vehicles they take over the vehicle, cant seem to figure it out, have had to revert to killing them instead. 

 

Apart from that everyone on my server loves it.

 

Yep it will be corrected in the next version

[bigshot 64]

Well, truth be told...there are LOTS of missions where you have to run around clearing red zones, but that doesn't mean they play like a CTI or even feel like one. IMO, CTI is more about earning enough money (and upgrading each factory) so that you can find and destroy the enemy base (which is the most difficult part of the mission to destroy it). It's not so much about building as it is managing everything.

 

Liberation is certainly Coop, but it's alot more about the physical logistics it seems. Just doesn't feel or play at all like CTI to be honest, and that's coming from someone who's played CTI's as their main goto mission since around 2002. It's the only thing that has kept me in the series for so many years, heh.

 

Hoping to have some fun with this just the same as it looks very nice, if I can get enough players in place. Thanks for putting it together!

[extaz93 30]

Hey there,

 

When i try to launch the mission i've got an error message "file is missing or has been removed.3den".

 

Do you have any idea ?

 

I tried with different versions of liberation (0.917 - 0.918 - 0.919) and still the same problem.

I also tried to put in in the sp mission folder to test and got the same problem.

 

Thanks

[zbug 160]

Do you have the latest update of Arma 3 ? (v1.54)

[Solex_Online 1]

Thank you for the info!

[extaz93 30]

Do you have the latest update of Arma 3 ? (v1.54)

Yes.

I also tried to reinstall arma 3 but still the same problem.

I don't even understand what kind of file .3den could be...Never saw that in arma's directories.

[Lagussi 9]

Yes.

I also tried to reinstall arma 3 but still the same problem.

I don't even understand what kind of file .3den could be...Never saw that in arma's directories.

Could be something to do with this: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/186301-154-breaking-missions-with-rpt-error-missing-addon-3den-how-to-fix/ and some traces there are leading to Zeus....are you using Zeus somehow?

[Hannibal_ESP 0]

Hi Zbug

I just get in touch with you to inquire about one issue that we don't solve. We've read the link in which you informed about the file used to save the progress, well, every time we restart the mission the progress is up to date, it works fine, but unfortunately it is not the same case when the dedicated server crashes, even if we restore the file the progress has gone.  We make constant backups of that file and any other similar (*.vars.arma3profile), we've seen in the server but with no success. Sadly, if the server cashes we are doom….

Our server is a dedicated linux one (with Wine installed) and, just in case, let me add a couple of suspicious things we've detected:

1.- All the files in the server of that kind (*.vars.arma3profile) are not weighting more than 80k… while our personal “*.vars.arma3profile†files are way more heavy.

2.- It says that the modification date of the file is the date we’ve started the server, there is “an access†to the file today but there is no modification according to the “properties†data.

So, as long as the progress is been saved, we do think the script is working fine, but we really don’t get where the progress is saved considering that the file “*.vars.arma3profile†is not modified or “updated†for moths… 

Do you have any clue? Can you help us?

Many thanks in advance

[zbug 160]

 

Hi Zbug

I just get in touch with you to inquire about one issue that we don't solve. We've read the link in which you informed about the file used to save the progress, well, every time we restart the mission the progress is up to date, it works fine, but unfortunately it is not the same case when the dedicated server crashes, even if we restore the file the progress has gone.  We make constant backups of that file and any other similar (*.vars.arma3profile), we've seen in the server but with no success. Sadly, if the server cashes we are doom….

Our server is a dedicated linux one (with Wine installed) and, just in case, let me add a couple of suspicious things we've detected:

1.- All the files in the server of that kind (*.vars.arma3profile) are not weighting more than 80k… while our personal “*.vars.arma3profile†files are way more heavy.

2.- It says that the modification date of the file is the date we’ve started the server, there is “an access†to the file today but there is no modification according to the “properties†data.

So, as long as the progress is been saved, we do think the script is working fine, but we really don’t get where the progress is saved considering that the file “*.vars.arma3profile†is not modified or “updated†for moths… 

Do you have any clue? Can you help us?

Many thanks in advance

 

 

1- That's because Arma clients store a lot of info in their profile which the server does not, such as arsenal loadouts. I'm really not the only one using the profile as a way to save things, BIS started doing it first ;)

2- On our windows server we can see the profile file being modified every single minute of the game running (game is saved every 20 seconds now), which also works in case of a server crash or admin shutdown, we never lose progress further than the last 20 seconds. I don't know why it doesn't work the same on your end or if it's just a linux server issue, at least you might want to check whether your server has full read/write permissions on its own profile. The profile data should always be different as the playtime is being saved (i.e generating a hash of the file should always give a different result)

[zbug 160]

I've been wondering a lot about the resources system lately, and I'd like to know what you think about it.

 

The main advantage of the current system is to force people to play as a team. Since there's no personal resources, everything someone pulls has a cost for everyone. While the point of it was to promote teamplay (and on closed servers it works as intended), on servers open to the public it only encourages admins to lock people out of the build system entirely so they can't spend the team's precious resources (and especially ammo). I'll be honest, I've been doing that on my own server too :P

 

End result, people can't pull their own vehicles at all, and if admins don't keep a free pool of vehicles that pubs can use to move around, pubs are stuck to foot soldiering forever. 

 

(Now maybe my analysis is wrong and you like it the way it is, if that's so then just tell me.)

 

The proposal would be to switch to personaly owned resources, while keeping the three different kinds.

 

• All 3 resources would be actual amounts and not upkeep capacities, like ammunition already works.
• Players would earn resources only through active gameplay like capturing sectors or destroying hostile forces or doing secondary missions or reviving people or ferrying people around, etc. The amounts earned would be determined by how many sectors of each type the team already controls, making purchases easier (and advanced vehicles more accessible) as the campaign progresses. There would be no tick-based rewards that only encourage idling around for a long time.
• Each resource gain for a player action would also send (part of) the gain into the "team pool", to be used by the commander to buy AI vehicles and structures and such. Or shiny stuff for himself if he's a selfish commander (same as the good old Warfare and so on).
• Structures would finally have a cost (manpower most likely).
• Players would be able to transfer resources to other players (or towards/from the team pool).
• Resources would be saved for each and every player during the whole campaign.
• I'd like ammoboxes to stay, so retrieving an ammobox would send a bonus to everyone and discourage stupid competitions between slingloading helicopters (although that would be fun).
• To avoid the stupid spam of cheap vehicles, I'd put a vehicle ownership system that allows players to be the owner of only one vehicle at a time. Spawning a new vehicle would make the last vehicle owner-less. Owner-less vehicles would depop in mere minutes, but they'd also switch ownership to the first vehicle-less players who gets in. An extension of that would be the usual lock/unlock commands for vehicle owners. An exception to that would be AI operated vehicles so the commander can still do their stuff.
• Permissions would be reworked accordingly, allowing admins & commanders to restrict the build AND use of vehicles per category. The current "building" permission would be used for structures, static weapons and supports.

 

That's my thoughts at the moment, what are yours? It's not coming next week so we have a lot of time to discuss this, but I think it's important to come up with a fair vehicle use system before version 1.0

[bravom5 2]

That sounds like a great idea to me zbug, in my opinion having personal resources provides more motivation and security in knowing that you are the only one that can build a certain vehicle and use it for yourself. It's also more rewarding buying a vehicle with your own resources and gives the players a sense of achievement. While I don't play on a server with many people I can still certainly see the benefit of this sort of feature. I say go for it, you have my approval.

 

By the way very nice job on this mission! All of the regulars on our server love this mission and so do I. :)

[zbug 160]

http://i.imgur.com/odp2Zv6.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ITfG8Wo.jpg

[bravom5 2]

http://i.imgur.com/odp2Zv6.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ITfG8Wo.jpg

Nice! That's a good looking convoy, will it be randomized on the map or used for something like reinforcements for towns and bases?

[zbug 160]

It's a new secondary objective, it's randomized in many ways and comes along with some funny AI routines ;)

Tests are looking good anyways

[Syk3 0]

Having an issue with my server, we restarted the box today to add some more hardware and when we started back up all the progress was wiped, not sure if its a bug or not, we are running Linux CentOS 7, cannot find a save file anywhere, could it be possible that this is a bug somewhere with the linux side of things? 

 

We were pretty far into finishing most of altis off too, only had the south east and west areas to take but now have to start fresh, but im now worried that if i restart the dedicated box again in the future for another hardware upgrade we will loose the progress again. 

[zbug 160]

The save is located in the server profile file which is named <serverUser>.vars.Arma3Profile, it's a good practice to backup this file before doing any change on the server so you can overwrite the new (empty) save with the old one if anything goes wrong. Maybe you can still find the old file on your server somewhere

[TeckHybrid 6]

For our group, I don't like the idea of personally owned resources. If it were a mission parameter, then by all means! It seems like it makes sense on a public server with a lot of people on it. For us though, we play with about 5 people and the discussions we have over "should we buy this, or buy that" is a big part of the game for us right now. I worry that a personally owned resource system would start to make it feel more PMC rather than standard military as well.

[extaz93 30]

Could be something to do with this: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/186301-154-breaking-missions-with-rpt-error-missing-addon-3den-how-to-fix/ and some traces there are leading to Zeus....are you using Zeus somehow?

 

Thanks, it worked well for me.

So for people whose get the "missing file .3den" message when trying to launch Liberation, follow the link above and everything will be fine :)

[zbug 160]

v0.920 is out

 

Changelog:

- Added a new secondary objective: convoy hijack.

- Added the spanish translation made by regiregi22.

- Tweaked the behaviour of prisoners, you may want to watch them more closely now. Also fixed the bug when getting into a vehicle would make prisoners stuck.

- FOB buildings have been told to stop moving on their own between server restarts.

- Tweaked the AI routines of CSAT battlegroups so they should behave better with very low server fps.

[Syk3 0]

Thanks for the update Zbug. 

 

One question though, what do you mean by "- Tweaked the behaviour of prisoners, you may want to watch them more closely now."

 

also i fixed my save bug, just missed a step after restarting in my haste to get everything running i forgot to login as the user, all is working agian now and our save is back to what it was thanks. 

 

[TeckHybrid 6]

Your new update hit just in time for our group to try it out this week. Awesome!

 

We had two new experiences that were a ton of fun. For the first time, the enemy assaulted one of our FOBs. We weren't expecting it at all. Had just finished clearing a town when the alert popped. Everyone just got on their mics at once with "Uh...what?" Followed by "Shit. MOVE MOVE MOVE!" and a run back to the chopper. Got back and was able to clear the FOB. Then we spent some time better fortifying it and mining a key intersection between us and the enemy. Nice change of pace to the gameplay.

 

Secondly, we tried the Convoy Hijack. It was another frantic moment as we tried our best to guess which road the convoy would take. It was a path that was certain to be full in enemy territory, and we had no FOB anywhere close. Loaded up into the heli, figure it out on the fly, landed and deployed. The first vehicle we destroyed was the one carrying the ammo. It seems like that was all it took to "finish the objective" even with troops and other vehicles around. Not sure if that's intended, but we still had to clear the area anyways.

 

Anyways, thanks for the big updates zbug. We love the side objectives to spice things up between capping towns and bases, really looking forward to whichever ones you cook up next.

[danius 13]

Thanks for featuring our community (Fighting 13th) on your page!! We really enjoy your mod, and have been playing it a lot. Our guys have built some really, really impressive FOBs as well (which seem to be causing some resource hogging.)

 

Might have to get you some better video of our guys on your mission. The footage you found seems a bit sloppy  :P

 

Keep up the good work man! There aren't enough of these large scale co-op modes in development anymore unfortunately.