[MP] Capture The Flag

[Connor. 204]

I made this large scale (120 slot) CTF mission at the end of last year but haven't done anything with it since so I thought I'd release it.

My main intention is for it to be reading material for other developers however setup instructions are included so you're free to host it if you wish.

I wouldn't look through this for quality scripting practices and optimization tips because even I'm a bit triggered by some of the stuff I saw while preparing for public release, but the concepts and general structure of the main systems could be helpful for some.

The full story is on the repository so be sure to give that a read, and hopefully someone finds some use from it.

 

Repository: https://github.com/ConnorAU/Capture-The-Flag

Discord: https://discord.gg/DMkxetD

[fn_Quiksilver 1633]

wow lot of work went into this, why didnt finish it off?

[Connor. 204]

22 minutes ago, fn_Quiksilver said:

wow lot of work went into this, why didnt finish it off?

As far as the mission goes it is "finished", just not a perfect game mode. I hosted it for a month or so during which a few hundred people played it but the gameplay issues described on the repository made it boring at times. I had plans to try domination and tdm but they both would have ended up being discount KOTHs. The point of the mission was to see if other classic game modes with similar features as KOTH could be as enjoyable, but I think KOTH is simply the best game mode for how arma plays. Also I had to split my time between this which was getting less than 30 players and another server which at the time was hitting over 130 players a night and it needed more attention :P

[.kju 3240]

first of thanks a lot for sharing your work, source and with decent readme 

 

can you give a rough estimate how much effort it is to port to 1) another terrain and to 2) a mod (WW2)

in other words is it mainly object placement, some triggers, or more complex?

in regards to assets did you set up a nice class definition file or how much is it spread over the different files

 

thanks!

[Flash-Ranger 195]

Hello,

 

CTF has been played for 17 years in the Arma Series. But sadly, due to A3 being launched with 15% of the game broken functions, CTF was malfunctioning until I made BIS fix it in 1.48 update (2 years after the release).

 

I have since been the only fool to create CTF. With the help of esportsmasters.org, we have organised several tournaments that have met success.

 

I will look into your work with great interest as, unlike you, my skills in development are very basic. I have never the less managed to create a very nice and simple CTF template we have now been using for 2 years.

 

Happy greetings to you fellow CTF Dev ! Glad I am not alone anymore !

 

Flash-Ranger.

[Connor. 204]

10 minutes ago, .kju said:

can you give a rough estimate how much effort it is to port to 1) another terrain and to 2) a mod (WW2)

in other words is it mainly object placement, some triggers, or more complex?

 

It's all pretty straight forward, just need to make sure you're using the right variable names for important objects and markers.

You can copy the units, respawn marker and init from the mission.sqm to a new terrain sqm and it will work fine.

 

The maps on that terrain will take a bit of time to put together because thats where the variable names come in.

You will need to add your terrain and maps to this config like Altis.

Next you need to navigate to this folder. Add your new terrain to the the config file, then for every map you make on that terrain you add it to the config with spawn counts and the map sqm.

With the map sqms there is limited support for modules because I only added the ones I used, but you can add more in the switch if you need to.

 

These are the variables you need to use:

 

CTF_AO_MARKER - The playable area on the map (Marker)

 

OBJECTIVE_FLAG_POLE - Neutral flag pole (Object)

OBJECTIVE_FLAG_BASE - Neutral flag home base (Object)

 

BLUFOR_UNIT_SPAWN - Where blufor units spawn (Game Logic)

BLUFOR_LAND_SPAWN_1 - Where blufor land vehicles spawn (Game Logic). Starting number is 1, can go as high as you need.

BLUFOR_AIR_SPAWN_1 - Where blufor air vehicles spawn (Game Logic). Starting number is 1, can go as high as you need.

 

BLUFOR_ZONE - Blufor safezone (Marker)

BLUFOR_ZONE_VEH_RAR - Blufor repair and rearm zone (Marker)

 

BLUFOR_FLAG_POLE - Blufor capture point flag pole (Object)

BLUFOR_FLAG_BASE - Blufor capture point base (Object)

 

BLUFOR_REARM_NPC - Blufor unit rearm npc (Object)

BLUFOR_SKILLS_NPC - Blufor skills npc (Object)

BLUFOR_WEAPONS_NPC - Blufor weapons npc (Object)

BLUFOR_VEHICLE_NPC - Blufor vehicles npc (Object)

BLUFOR_CLOTHING_NPC - Blufor clothing npc (Object)

 

All the BLUFOR_ variables have an OPFOR_ counterpart. You will see a few more variables on objects but they were just so I could tell them apart.

 

If you load one of the maps into editor you can see how I've used them.

 

 

11 minutes ago, .kju said:

in regards to assets did you set up a nice class definition file or how much is it spread over the different files

 

I'm not sure what you mean, if its the way the shops load items then yea it's all contained in one file for each in this folder, although some vehicles have weird bounding boxes which need to be corrected for the repair action distance in this file.

[Noblezim711 11]

Wow, your right when you say that some are way over complicated. You defiantly put a lot of work into this project. You got some skills, I can say that, and I looks like you have done a lot of ARMA life development. Can I ask why you don't host this anymore? It looks like it works just fine, I get that you don't like the gameplay, but what did the players think? I would like to talk to you if your free sometime. Anyway, thanks for helping the ARMA community.

[Connor. 204]

5 hours ago, noblezim711 said:

Can I ask why you don't host this anymore? It looks like it works just fine, I get that you don't like the gameplay, but what did the players think? I would like to talk to you if your free sometime.

 

I usually measure success through numbers. The server with the most players is more successful. Given that i was at the time working on this (large scale 120 slot server, ~25 players a night) and a long pre-existing altis life server (~130 players a night at the time), it was pretty clear where i was needed most. life server players are annoyingly needy and I had let the work pile up while building this mission. After a little while the ctf player numbers died down so i put a different mission on the server.

 

Players weren't terribly fussed about the game play flaws that bugged me. They acknowledged them but still played pretty happily. After doing this I have pretty much concluded CTF just isn't meant to be played on such a large scale with so many players. The point of focus is too specific where as KOTH is within a reasonably sized zone so players can choose their own objective inside the zone. It may well have just been the way i made the mission play but yea, the whole point of me making the mission was to see if it could be even slightly as good as KOTH and after seeing the results it didn't seem logical to continue working on what i am pretty sure doesn't work on such a large scale.

 

I have considered coming back to it a few times to make a smaller scale version but it doesn't interest me as much as it did. I still want to be making public work for others to use, though it seems i am fresh out of ideas. I have pretty much wasted my 3 years developing privately for life servers, recently I "freed" myself from all that but now I don't really know what to do with myself

 

I think I've got you on steam now so ping me when you want to talk