[PvP 03-16] Manhunt

[revendel 13]

 

 

Manhunt

 

An asymmetric PvP scenario perfect for small to mid sized groups. The players are split into two separate teams: 

 

NATO troops (up to 12 players) armed with light helicopters, vehicles and drones. Their task is to find and neutralise all CSAT operatives deployed onto Stratis. Playing as BLUFOR requires the whole team to cooperate and coordinate their search & chase efforts. 

 

CSAT (up to 4 players) who are lightly armed and dropped on Stratis with the goal of evading detection and collecting intelligence. CSAT players can choose their playstyle, whether they want to stick together, or operate as lone wolves. Game ends once all CSAT players are dead or they extract with required amount of intel. 

 

The gameplay switches between two phases - first a slow paced hunt, in which NATO troops are trying to cover as much ground as possible while CSAT is trying to move quickly, and at the same time avoid detection. Once they are found, however, the game turns into a frantic chase until the operatives have been eliminated, or until they have managed to blend back into the wilderness. 

 

Since this mission depends on NATO having enough players the following team splits are recommended: 

2-4 NATO, 1 CSAT 

4-6 NATO, 2 CSAT 

6-8 NATO, 3 CSAT 

8-12 NATO, 4 CSAT 

 

Also, this is a heavily stealth based mission, it is best to disable 3rd person entirely! 

 

Available over at Steam workshop

Latest PBO can be downloaded here (Version 5), archived releases will also be appearing on the Github page

Source code

 

Let me know below if you find any issues or if you've got any feedback!

 

Gameplay

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhCr1J3QqeE

 

 

Changelog

 

Version 5 (31/10/2016)

- Changed mission headline info to include proper information 

- Added info about respawns for OpFor 

- Ghillie loadout now carries Mk20 instead of an SMG 

- Flashlights added to all loadouts wherever the attachment is available 

- Changed the mission date to allow for better night brightness 

- Possibly fixed one case of the mission never ending despite all OpFor being dead 

- Drone markers will now try to place their center over ground if possible (unless the target is at sea) 

- Rebalanced slightly the timing of the drones and marker size to buff OpFor

 

Version 4 (28/10/2016)

- Initial drone delay is now a parameter, decreased from 5 minutes to 4 minutes 

- Readjusted speedboats position to avoid collisions

- Removed speedboats thermal vision

- Added information about repair action

- Repair is now only available when something's actually damaged

 

Version 3 (27/10/2016)

- Increased extraction time from 4 minutes to 5 minutes 

- Changed the warning time before the chopper leaves from 30 seconds before extraction to 60 seconds 

- BlueFor units in the selection menu have been reordered to Pilots->Air Station Mike->Airfield paratroopers 

- Restructured the in-game guide for BluFor and OpFor

 

Version 2 (26/10/2016)

- Removed a custom spectator mode in favour of BI's 

- Blufor respawn time now 105s, can be changed in parameters 

- Updated briefing to reflect some recent changes 

- Fixed wrongly displayed minimum player count

[KevsNoTrev 44]

looks good, i'll try to get some guys together on Saturday night give this a go.... I'll post feedback after then.

[revendel 13]

looks good, i'll try to get some guys together on Saturday night give this a go.... I'll post feedback after then.

 

Looking forward to that! I should have an update with some minor changes before then as well, mostly to restructure some of the briefing info. :)

[KevsNoTrev 44]

Ok feedback time, stability it runs fine. No errors I can see in reports.

I am not sure if it was designed for dedicated or hosted server but ran well on dedicated.

 

I played a all times as CSAT and managed to gather all intel but not ever make it to the extract:

• NVG is not working for CSAT - not sure if by design but with no moon it is damn hard to see and we don't even have access to a flashlight for rifle.
• It was unknown that CSAT have no respawn, I died then went into the spectator cam without warning.
• One time had to restart missin as it did not end - I was only CSAT player and had spectator cam, but no end mission failed message displayed.
•  
• I believe BLU have markers to indicate where CSAT might be, this may be happening too frequently as I gather intel and it seems immediately (maybe cos I run so slow up hill) the BLU were on my last location with Heli's tracking me.
• I did not get in a vehicle too often but the one time I did I managed to take them all out with a satchel as they were stupid enough to fall for my trap! Yay!.

 

The range of weapons is limited by design, but the guy who has a Ghillie suit has an smg which is hardly going to penetrate against the soft armour of even a hunter and never going to go through anytthing on a Strider. I managed to get a pilot in a hummingbird but then got run over when trying to get in and fly away! Likely with my mates they would have crashed into my newly found chopper...

 

It was fun and frustrating at the same time. Even later when we played 2v2 it was interesting as the BLU guys went for my teammate until he died, but since using vehicles seems to alert them straight away I chose to leg it.....I gathered intel then was met with a swarm of helo's once my teammate took one for the team.

 

thanks for posting this it was good fun to play something so obviously one sided.

 

I played the latest release that was on workshop.

[revendel 13]

Ok feedback time, stability it runs fine. No errors I can see in reports.

I am not sure if it was designed for dedicated or hosted server but ran well on dedicated.

 

That's actually a relief. I was a bit stressed out about any potential game-breaking bugs or important scripts not working for some reason. And yeah, we ran it on listen & dedicated to make sure it works fine on both.

 

 

 

NVG is not working for CSAT - not sure if by design but with no moon it is damn hard to see and we don't even have access to a flashlight for rifle.

 

I'll look into it - I tried to limit the times and such to see if I can force the moon to always be around, it seems it's still not working as intended. I'll add in flashlights, generally I want to avoid NVGs from the start for CSAT to make it a bit more difficult, but I want to also make sure you actually know where you're going. ;)

 

 

 

It was unknown that CSAT have no respawn, I died then went into the spectator cam without warning.

 

Oops! Yeah, that seems like the kind of info I should've made obvious. Will fix.

 

 

One time had to restart missin as it did not end - I was only CSAT player and had spectator cam, but no end mission failed message displayed.

 

Will get that fixed, might be some of the scripts messing up.

 

 

I believe BLU have markers to indicate where CSAT might be, this may be happening too frequently as I gather intel and it seems immediately (maybe cos I run so slow up hill) the BLU were on my last location with Heli's tracking me.

 

They do, they generally give you an approximate area and happen at a fairly regular interval, they get smaller if you stick around the same between the checks though. I'll try to balance it out or revamp the system to make sure it gives BluFor the general idea of where you might be, while at the same time not making it too obvious. There are already a lot of parameters you can tweak in the settings as well, just because I imagine every group is different, so I might add some more or whole presets to choose form.

 

 

I did not get in a vehicle too often but the one time I did I managed to take them all out with a satchel as they were stupid enough to fall for my trap! Yay!.

 

I'll have to let my team know that someone did manage to use the satchels successfully, they never got around to trying them out. ;)

 

The range of weapons is limited by design, but the guy who has a Ghillie suit has an smg which is hardly going to penetrate against the soft armour of even a hunter and never going to go through anytthing on a Strider. I managed to get a pilot in a hummingbird but then got run over when trying to get in and fly away! Likely with my mates they would have crashed into my newly found chopper...

 

The ghillie was a late-time addition to let at least one player use the less-forested areas more effectively, I figured back then I'd rather nerf that loadout than make it too good. I'll see about adding some different weapon, I forgot about the armour of the vehicles completely.

 

It was fun and frustrating at the same time. Even later when we played 2v2 it was interesting as the BLU guys went for my teammate until he died, but since using vehicles seems to alert them straight away I chose to leg it.....I gathered intel then was met with a swarm of helo's once my teammate took one for the team.

 

thanks for posting this it was good fun to play something so obviously one sided.

 

I played the latest release that was on workshop.

 

Very happy to hear you enjoyed it! :) Yes, the design is very one sided, it was done mainly to compensate for the various experience levels we have in our own group - this way we sometimes even run 4v1 games if the BluFor team consists of inexperienced players. Speaking of frustratoin, apart from the NVGs and other issues you mentioned, which were the frustrating parts? I imagine some of it boils down to the design and is just a matter of preference, but I'm keen to tweak any other annoying parts.

 

Thanks for all the feedback, I'll get around to fixing it all and will release a new version probably after the weekend.

[KevsNoTrev 44]

[...Note about markers...]

They do, they generally give you an approximate area and happen at a fairly regular interval, they get smaller if you stick around the same between the checks though. I'll try to balance it out or revamp the system to make sure it gives BluFor the general idea of where you might be, while at the same time not making it too obvious. There are already a lot of parameters you can tweak in the settings as well, just because I imagine every group is different, so I might add some more or whole presets to choose form.

 

I think the BLU guys knew that OPfor was in the centre of the marker, it might pay to 'move' it off centre a little to make it harder to know where Opfor are. How does this work for each player or is it random?

//give something like this a go where _mkr is the name of the marker for identifiying the OPfor location.
_mkr semarkerpos ((getmarkerpos _mkr _select 0) +(random 30) - (random 30)),(getmarkerpos _mkr _select 1) +(random 30) - (random 30))

 

Very happy to hear you enjoyed it! :) Yes, the design is very one sided, it was done mainly to compensate for the various experience levels we have in our own group - this way we sometimes even run 4v1 games if the BluFor team consists of inexperienced players. Speaking of frustratoin, apart from the NVGs and other issues you mentioned, which were the frustrating parts? I imagine some of it boils down to the design and is just a matter of preference, but I'm keen to tweak any other annoying parts.

 

Thanks for all the feedback, I'll get around to fixing it all and will release a new version probably after the weekend.

 

Most of the frustration was not being able to see at night and in the day the BLU guys just being so overpowered they could find me easy. The low calivre ammo was also a factor as previously mentioned.

 

i think instead of an automated drone system having the player needing to fly them into location woul be a better balance. Then Opfor could operate vehicles a little more, but BLUfor vehicles should be locked to the side. "getin" eventhandler could work here, if BLU nothing happens if Opfor they get kicked out as no keys to drive it.... something like that.

 

Stratis is very small and good for this kind of mission, I would love to see it eventually ported so Diyala or the like, something with open spaces and some buildings to hide in.

 

I haven't acutally opened up the file to look at the scripts so it was all new to me. i'll take a look to see whats going on under the hood so to speak.

A very good mission you have here.

 

thanks.

[revendel 13]

I think the BLU guys knew that OPfor was in the centre of the marker, it might pay to 'move' it off centre a little to make it harder to know where Opfor are. How does this work for each player or is it random?

//give something like this a go where _mkr is the name of the marker for identifiying the OPfor location.
_mkr semarkerpos ((getmarkerpos _mkr _select 0) +(random 30) - (random 30)),(getmarkerpos _mkr _select 1) +(random 30) - (random 30))

 

There's a system like that in place at the moment, first it picks a random number between -radius and +radius to offset the y axis by, and then it picks the maximum by which it can offset the x axis (based on what had been picked for y) to make sure the player still remains in the circle and, again, offsets randomly by a a number between -max_x_offset and +max_x_offset. There are a couple of issues though that might've caused this:

 

1) You were following the coast, and then if the offset happens towards the sea it's quite obvious where you are. I'll have to think of some way to fix that and keep the circles within the mainland to make it at least slightly better. 

2) They got very lucky with the RNG (I'll have to check whether the randomness is truly random though)

3) Your movement speed & drone refresh rate made it possible for them to use some clever math to triangulate your position. This is possible, but would require some specific circumstances. I did it once in our game as BluFor, but it was only because the OpFor guys stuck around in one area too much.

 

The funny thing, my team would always complain how the drones never work for them effectively. :) 

 

 

Most of the frustration was not being able to see at night and in the day the BLU guys just being so overpowered they could find me easy. The low calivre ammo was also a factor as previously mentioned.

 

i think instead of an automated drone system having the player needing to fly them into location woul be a better balance. Then Opfor could operate vehicles a little more, but BLUfor vehicles should be locked to the side. "getin" eventhandler could work here, if BLU nothing happens if Opfor they get kicked out as no keys to drive it.... something like that.

 

Yeah, as I mentioned I'll get around to fixing all of that. If I remember correctly you can get the list of best dates for moon phases, so I'll try to find the right hours & date.

 

The only issue is that from the design standpoint I'm hoping for some automated, hands-off solution just to make sure the action stays within the right areas and such. I don't want to put too much in the hands of BluFor to control with the drone system, ideally it's mostly supposed to keep the gameplay contained in the right area of the island. I might be able to replace it with something better, I'll see for now if I can tweak the values, radius of the circle and such to make sure it's not easy enough. In the end a lot of it boils down to BluFor's effectiveness at using the data they get from drones, you mentioned BluFor won a 2v2 round, while we've had OpFor winning 4v1s!

 

 

Stratis is very small and good for this kind of mission, I would love to see it eventually ported so Diyala or the like, something with open spaces and some buildings to hide in.

 

Had a quick look, the only issue I've seen is that it's a bit too flat. I love the rivers though, I can see some cool gameplay opportunities there with boats! I'll try to clean up the code and make a port template, I was hoping a while ago to do a Namalsk + RHS port as well. I could try getting both up if I can lock down the code first and clean it up to allow for easy merging between the different versions. In an ideal world it'd also let people port the mission to maps of their choice.

 

I haven't acutally opened up the file to look at the scripts so it was all new to me. i'll take a look to see whats going on under the hood so to speak.

 

Just don't be scared of some of the mess, that was actually my first serious Arma mission and SQF sometimes caused serious . ;) I'll be hoping to clean at least some of the scripts up, I just wish there was a way to do unit tests and such, I'm not a fan of manually testing the mission after refactoring part of it. You can check the github link above for the source code by the way, I generate the mission straight from there.

 

A very good mission you have here.

 

Thank you!

[revendel 13]

Pushed out a major update to address the issues and try to rebalance the drones a bit. At the moment there's a brute force solution to force the markers to never move the centre off the mainland, which should balance coastal approaches to avoid dead giveaways when the drone circle is almost fully out in the sea. I tweaked some parameters a bit as well, but I didn't want to overdo it since this coast change might already help with balance a lot. Once there's a stable enough version I'll push it to Armaholic as well.

 

Changelog updated above with:

 

Version 5 (31/10/2016)

- Changed mission headline info to include proper information 

- Added info about respawns for OpFor 

- Ghillie loadout now carries Mk20 instead of an SMG 

- Flashlights added to all loadouts wherever the attachment is available 

- Changed the mission date to allow for better night brightness 

- Possibly fixed one case of the mission never ending despite all OpFor being dead 

- Drone markers will now try to place their center over ground if possible (unless the target is at sea) 

- Rebalanced slightly the timing of the drones and marker size to buff OpFor