spawner [Release] Vandeanson's Apocalypse - the Mod:

[Vandeanson 1677]

Vandeanson's Apocalypse, the mod has been released;)

Please subscribe and help me improve it!

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1655727065

 

Cheers

VD

 

[EO 11275]

Nice work man, no mean feat turning your script pack into a mod. It's Evolution Baby!

[Vandeanson 1677]

6 hours ago, EO said:

Nice work man, no mean feat turning your script pack into a mod. It's Evolution Baby!

Thanks! It was a pain in the ass to get the basic setup, and testing was even worse. But seeing my own logo in armas main screen next to ravage is pretty awesome! 

Luckily, adding new features will now be much easier... 

[johnnyboy 3793]

Good on ya VD.  Can someone suggest a Ravage mission I can run this mod with?

[CrazyCorky 463]

Would these work on a multiplayer server running Exile with Ravage? I haven't delved to far in to it!

[Vandeanson 1677]

45 minutes ago, CrazyCorky said:

Would these work on a multiplayer server running Exile with Ravage? I haven't delved to far in to it!

 

Hola! I am not familiar with exile, but i wouldnt know why exile would interfere with it, if you get around to test it, please let me know

[johnnyboy 3793]

Ok, I'm running the Acopalypse mod with the A Man and his Dog Ravage mission.  Its been real fun so far.  Since I am not very familiar with Ravage, I am not sure what features are Apocalypse and what are Ravage.

 

But I did come across a burning truck wreck, and multiple bandit patrols.  And one problematic plane wreck.  I heard an explosion and went to the smoke and there were 4 planes (2 burning wrecks, and 2 non-burning cessnas) and a ship wreck in the middle of an Altis Malden town.  I was grateful for all the medical supplies at the crash site, but I think its likely a bug and you did not intend for 4 planes and a ship to be there.  This is SP, so it should not be a locality issue causing multiple objects to spawn.

 

I haven't found a bandit camp yet or seen wild dogs, so I am still looking forward to that.  

 

Questions:

• How would I know if a bandit patrol is Ravage or Apocalypse?  Just curious.
• I heard some cool chatter from the bandit patrols like "There are f***ing snakes everywhere".  Is that a Ravage or Apocalypse feature?
• How likely am I to run into a bandit camp on Malden?  Haven't found one yet.

[Vandeanson 1677]

@johnnyboy

 

Sweet, thanks for checking it out.

 

for testing purposes, place the game master / zeus module and set your player as owner. This way you can see all objects/units that spawn in, it is the easiest way to see how the mod works.

depending on the terrain, it might take the position finders of the mod longer to find a suitable position. e.g. for the Bandit camps it requires a flat and empty area of about 30-50 meters diagonal. On some maps this might be an issue.

Hence it is sometimes needed to play ranges, distances, site count and so on that you can adjust under CBA settings. All options with the VDA tag are from my mod.

 

AI Bandits:

- probably not easy to differentiate, my script only spawns OPFOR units tho, and the chatter is from ravage. by default only 2 teams of patrol AI are up from my mod, they have 100-300 seconds respawn time by default after they die. All adjustable however.

 

I have not tested the Malden terrain much, but there should be no case where not all of the sites spawn. Sometimes it just takes a little longer.

 

Yeah the error you describe is something I am looking into:

 

1: the planes spawned like this because by default you would need to place 4 markers, as per VDA plane spawner settings in CBA3 settings, I should explain that better. IF there are no markers placed, the planes will spawn at the default debug zone of the map, where you found them.

2: with regards to medical supplies, good input thanks, some of the loot spawners of one or two sites seem to have issues to place the loot i spawn, hence it ends up in the debug zone. I should be able to fix that tonight.

3: The shipwreck is a bit of a puzzle tho, I actually have a function in that spawner, that should keep deleting wrecks that spawn in the debug zone, will look into it.

It is also possible, that a lot of loot spawned in the debug zone, because I have 2 CUP heli wrecks in the random wreck array. If you do not have CUP terrain core active, it will not create the wreck, and the wreck as a reference point for loot spawn is not available in the crashsite spawner. Hence stuff spawns in the debug zone.

 

So my to do:

- either remove CUP dependency by changing the spawner or make CUP mandatory (probably going to do the first thing)

- tune down the loot spawns from Bandit camps, medical sites and crashsites, to ensure that the placement works 

- with regards to the shipwreck, i will stare at the code angrily for 30 mins, and hope that I find the issue=)

 

With some luck, I ll have an update ready tonight.

cheers

vd

 

[johnnyboy 3793]

18 minutes ago, Vandeanson said:

With some luck, I ll have an update ready tonight.

Thanks man.  No hurry on my account though.  I soldiered on, and had a pack of wild dogs attack me at night.  That got my blood pumping.  Almost shot my own dog Boomer while fighting them off!

[EO 11275]

30 minutes ago, Vandeanson said:

i will stare at the code angrily for 30 mins, and hope that I find the issue=)  

 

[Vandeanson 1677]

alright, 

 

v1.1 has been published with some bugfixes and new features:

 

Vandeanson's Apocalypse

 

The mess in the debug zone should be history - i had a serious word with the Shipwreck spawner - it should behave now;)

The Medical site spawner should cause less trouble now as well.

 

Generally, if something spawns in the debug zone due to  placement issues, it will be deleted and the sitespawn restarts.

 

I added options to respawn randomly (needs the setting respawn at position of death enables). You can set the max range from your position of death, that you may respawn.

AI and player can now be spawned with the ravage equipper, based on your ravage gear settings.

The No Rest! spawner is active now (if you slack around, a hunter AI might come after you) 

CUP Terrain - Core is needed to spawn the sites in full glory, but the scripts work without it too, the site just spawn with less features.

For now I will not add it as a dependency.

 

I added some installation guidance as well.

 

enjoy;)

cheers

vd

[johnnyboy 3793]

Nice work.  Here's another minor odd thing.  When any AI is killed a small white antibiotics box is spawned near the dead AI.  It can't be picked up.  This doesn't change game play at all, but is a very minor distraction and immersion breaker.

 

Also if playing an existing mission with this mod (one where mod wasn't included while editing mission, so default mod parameters are used), original uniform and loadout of player is changed by the mod.  Maybe default should not change uniform and load out.  I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but I was surprised while trying my Property of Mabunga mission with this mod, and I was given a ghillie suit and a .45 only, when I was supposed to be leader of a CSAT team.

[gaverio 100]

46 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

When any AI is killed a small white antibiotics box is spawned near the dead AI.  It can't be picked up.

 

It can....the box is just picky...............get it?  I had to switch to 1st person and dance around it, but eventually the option appeared.

On that note: even when the infection option is ticked off the AI still dropping antibiotics.

[Vandeanson 1677]

1 hour ago, johnnyboy said:

Nice work.  Here's another minor odd thing.  When any AI is killed a small white antibiotics box is spawned near the dead AI.  It can't be picked up.  This doesn't change game play at all, but is a very minor distraction and immersion breaker.

 

Also if playing an existing mission with this mod (one where mod wasn't included while editing mission, so default mod parameters are used), original uniform and loadout of player is changed by the mod.  Maybe default should not change uniform and load out.  I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but I was surprised while trying my Property of Mabunga mission with this mod, and I was given a ghillie suit and a .45 only, when I was supposed to be leader of a CSAT team.

 

Yeah you need to be in first person, i dont know why the addaction is not popping up in 3rd person=( i assume its an arma thing..

Good point, I spoke about that issue yday with @MuRaZorWitchKING - its a good idea to set the default so it would work best with any mission that can not be edited.

 

thanks for the feedback;)

[Vandeanson 1677]

 

1 hour ago, gaverio said:

 

It can....the box is just picky...............get it?  I had to switch to 1st person and dance around it, but eventually the option appeared.

On that note: even when the infection option is ticked off the AI still dropping antibiotics.

 

yep, you need to also lower the drop chance to 0.

But i should combine this, you are right! Thanks;)

1 hour ago, gaverio said:

picky...............get it

haha;)

[Vandeanson 1677]

The mod is now signed fyi

[Vandeanson 1677]

Small settings update: i added a main cba setting category so it should be easier to browse the cba settings now. 

I am also currently adding tooltip text to each setting, trying to explain what each setting does. Will take a while until i am through all of em tho. 

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1660170651

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1660170862

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1660170756

 

Cheers

Vd

[Vandeanson 1677]

Also: 200+ subscribers in steam:))  yay! 

If you have not yet, consider liking the mod in steam, currently there are not enough likes for the mod to get an overall (those stars) rating in the workshop. And that would be a nice thing wouldnt it;) 

[Weapon-Fetish 26]

You have my like a pear hours after release ! 😂👍

 

[sentinel329 12]

Hello sir,

 

I just subscribed to your mod today on Steam, but I haven't had a chance to playtest yet as I seem to have come across a minor bug. For some reason, if I have both Vandeanson's Apocalypse (VDA) and Enhanced Movement (EM) loaded, whenever I try to go into the Virtual Arsenal my game freezes. I did some methodical troubleshooting with my mod list, so I'm fairly confident there's some sort of conflict between the two, but I have no idea why that would be. I don't think it's game-breaking by any means, but I definitely wanted to make you aware of it in case it manifests itself in some other way in the future. 

 

On a more positive note, I had an idea for a suggestion regarding the blacklist markers for spawning sites. Would it be possible to just implement a whitelist marker for the part of the map where you do want sites spawning? That would save a bit of work when editing missions, and make the overall VDA process a bit more user-friendly. I suppose the next logical step from that would be to create an index for each map's playable area, and then you could just select it from a drop-down menu, but since I'm not a scripter I don't know if that would be more trouble than it's worth. 

 

Thank you for sharing your work with us, I really enjoy seeing how it has developed. 

 

Cheers

[Vandeanson 1677]

 

 

Hi @sentinel329

 

Thanks for sharing this. I have never experienced that issue and will try to reproduce it with both mods.

Honestly, if it causes an issue, I have no clue what would be the cause of it. Did you open the VA in Editor or during the mission?

Also, does the game freeze forever or just for a while?

 

If opening VA during the mission start, while all the sites are spawning in, then the issue might be that too much stuff is loading, e.g. some memory issue. Other than that, I am at loss of ideas for now - will look into it.

 

With regards to your suggestion. It is a good idea, but one key element that made me decide against such thing:

The default position finder for all land spawned sites will always find a safe spot on land, including some criteria, e.g. the hideouts will spawn in forests and so on.

Now keep in mind that the idea of VDA is to have as much of the features fully automated as possible, the player should need to set up as little as possible.

 

Now with my current variant, in most cases no markers are needed, unless you play on a non island map such as chernarus, with empty landmasses to blacklist, or inland lakes to blacklist from shipwreck and boat spawns.

However, in many cases such marker placement is not needed (e.g. Tanoa or other island maps) so in that case, by default the spawners always work, just in the exception of such terrain, additional marker placement is needed.

The other way around, marker placement, hence editing of your mission, would ALWAYS be needed. This I want to avoid.

 

Also, you will still be able to have only your desired areas populated by my mod. Same as a whitelist marker, it would require you to place a marker, just a blacklist version in the areas where NO spawns are needed. Therefore the editing effort would be the same as with your suggestion.

 

I hope I make sense;)

Looking forward to hear about your experience with the mod, once it works!

 

@all 

 

1 week of bloody holiday incoming - trust I ll be able to get some stuff done! 

 

Cheers

VD

[sentinel329 12]

Hello again, VD

 

When I first encountered the problem, I was in the mission editor creating a Ravage mission with both VA and EM loaded, and everything seemed to be working fine. When I went to look up some classnames in Virtual Arsenal, that's when I first ran into the bug. From what I can tell, it seems the game freezes up for good. 

 

Based on your theory about it being a memory issue, I did some more testing this morning, and discovered something quite by accident. I wanted to monitor the memory usage of Arma 3, so I first brought up Task Manager (TM), then launched A3 with only CBA, EM, and VA mods loaded.  As soon as I clicked on Virtual Arsenal, I alt-tabbed out to take a look at what was going on in TM.  When I went back into Arma 3, I discovered that VA had actually loaded up and was working normally. Thinking it must have been just a one-time fluke, I tried the same steps several more times and discovered to the contrary, it's definitely a repeatable process. However, I again have no clue as to WHY it's behaving this way. 

 

Out of curiosity, I decided to try the same test on the Virtual Reality "map" in the editor. Interestingly enough, I found similar behavior whenever I tried to play the map from within the editor (VA+EM causes freeze; alt-tab circumvents/prevents freeze). So, based on this, I would hypothesize that there is something about the VR map that is inducing this bug.  I did not encounter this bug when I tried using an actual terrain (Tanoa) in the editor. One thing I haven't done is tried to export the VR editor mission as a single-player scenario, to see if it manifests there as well. 

 

Thank you for the clarification on the blacklist marker matter. I initially didn't comprehend that it was only necessary for non-island terrains, so your reasoning makes total sense to me now. 

[johnnyboy 3793]

Congrats on 4 Stars and 64 ratings in Steam.  That's really good for only 6 days.   5 stars is on the way mate! 

[Vandeanson 1677]

@sentinel329

 

Oh man, first, thanks for the extensive testing! So i take away that this only happens on the VR map with minimal mods cba, va and em. But it does not happen on actual terrain. 

Will try to reproduce it and will let you know if i have the same issue. 

If i do, i could try to disable all features and try VA with each feature enabled. Although I wouldnt know how this would affect arma/the editor, there is cba stuff that is loaded pre init in the editor, in order to make cba settings available in the editor. But this is very basic cba config, so i cant imagine that this causes an issue. Still I will see if i can isolate he code that is causing problems. 

 

2 hours ago, sentinel329 said:

I initially didn't comprehend that it was only necessary for non-island terrains

 

Will check my feature overview or installation guide , maybe i can explain it better. I hope that i can start a video guide series next week about installation and all the features, but cant promise:) 

 

If you find out any more, let me know! 

 

Cheers

VD

[Vandeanson 1677]

5 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

Congrats on 4 Stars and 64 ratings in Steam.  That's really good for only 6 days.   5 stars is on the way mate! 

 

Thanks man:) made it to the arma workshop front screen today, that was rather cool to see!