Field of war [CTI] [SP/MP]

[gc8 977]

49 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Please also try to fix the issue that the player is in "slot 2" when commanding troops, instead of the usual "slot 1" position. Silverchase mentioned that earlier in his posts too. Maybe both issues are related somehow.

 

definitely will try to fix these bugs. I did some tests today but wasn't able to reproduce the bug that causes you to lose command. If you would have steps to reproduce it that would help greatly

 

49 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Yes, it's my opinion too that this is just some misbehavior of the game engine. But the option to cancel the support request and therefore despawn the heli would become handy if the system is broken again. Maybe you could add that if it ain't too hard

 

I added 5 minute timer that cancels the lift if nothing has happened by then... not yet released this though

[gc8 977]

Update:

 

full Altis map (Can be loggled on/off from params)
surrendering enemies
fixed player was #2 in group
other bug fixes / tweaks
 

[gc8 977]

Release a patch that fixes missing startup towns

And other fixes / tweaks

 

If you still find any bugs just please let me know, thx!

[VariousArtist 19]

Gave this mission a first run yesterday, but had to give up pretty soon. Sadly the performance is nowhere that I would consider the mission "playable". On a simple Intel-i5 listen server the mission was super laggy and unplayable. Throwing a dedicated server at it just to make a "more playable" shouldnt be a solution.

I really like the concept, but this needs lots of performance improvements. Basicly the stuff that scripters developed over the past years since we had to accept that "unhinged whole island warfare" isnt working in Arma. Please dont try to dial the wheel back to pre-Arma2 times. 😉

 

I would like to see options for the size of the "playfield". Not using the whole island is a start, but I would also like to have options for smaller scales, too.

 

Somehow I respawned twice exactly at the spot where I died in an enemy town. No idea how to reproduce that.

[gc8 977]

2 hours ago, VariousArtist said:

Sadly the performance is nowhere that I would consider the mission "playable". On a simple Intel-i5 listen server the mission was super laggy and unplayable. Throwing a dedicated server at it just to make a "more playable" shouldnt be a solution.

 

It is what it is right now I'm afraid. When I run dedicated on my PC the game play is really smooth. I visioned if people would run public servers, people could join them to play so they don't have to run private dedi.

 

2 hours ago, VariousArtist said:

Basicly the stuff that scripters developed over the past years since we had to accept that "unhinged whole island warfare" isnt working in Arma. Please dont try to dial the wheel back to pre-Arma2 times.

 

Sorry kinda lost here what you mean by this. Personally I played first CTI in arma2 times

 

2 hours ago, VariousArtist said:

I would like to see options for the size of the "playfield". Not using the whole island is a start, but I would also like to have options for smaller scales, too.

 

Altis island supports part/full island

[gc8 977]

Good news everyone, I was able to optimize the mission so that it runs much better. You should now be able to play it without dedicated server. But still dedicated server allows the best game play performance.

Also there is parameter to further tweak the script execution time.

 

enjoy 🙂

 

[hottehotte 2]

Hey, gave your mission another go today. Seems like the previous issues are gone, at least I now stayed group leader when I died, and also my player was in slot 1 instead of slot 2.

But unfortunately there was some new major issue. The Gear menu wasn't working correctly. The only thing I was able to buy was backpacks. All other Gear lists were completely empty. Also, the RPT file got spammed with "Server: Object 2:1302 not found (message Type_92)" and "Server: Object 2:1673 not found (message Type_120)" messages.

I tried both the Altis and Tanoa version, and the problem with the Gear selection happened in both. I also unloaded almost all my mods, except for "cba", "no stamina" and "no weapon sway" to make sure it's no issue on my side.

Buying vehicles and soldiers was working good, even though I once got a short error message pop up about some price not being set for some vehicle, but I don't remember which one it was.

 

Can you look into this and hopefully fix it?  

[gc8 977]

@hottehotte Thanks for reporting! Fixed now 🙂

 

What's new:

 

Added: Option to play with only two sides
Fixes: bugs in some of the startup parameters
Fixed: gear buying
Other fixes

 

[hottehotte 2]

Hi! It's me again.

 

Gave your newest update a go today, and after about an hour of gameplay I have to report some findings. I ran your mission (Altis) on my dedicated server (Intel I7, 6 Cores, dedicated 6 of the 12 Threads to the Server, 16GB RAM) without any mods, just the regular DLC, and didn't alter the performance parameter while configuring the mission launch.

Sadly, the Server RPT was spammed with some sort of "Object not found" errors. You can use the following link to download the RPT and check it if you like:  https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ahke1hY3s19TgbgIMGypQqGMWewDeA?e=zyIPma . After an hour it was already about 9MB in size.

Also Server performance degraded rapidly. Not sure if that's a result of the errors in the RPT or the general performance issues this game has. There were many groups active on my side alone, not counting the enemy side, and several battles were happening at once, as the AI was advancing on multiple towns simultaneously. In the end, when I shut down the Server, the Server FPS were about 15-18, which resulted in the usual syncing problems one can notice while playing.

 

Other than that the mission ran fine, and besides the performance issues I had fun. I would suggest to add an option to abandon AI under your command, as often times groups can get split up, and then you want to get rid of any AI still in your group but are maybe many miles away.

Would it be possible to automatically place markers on the map for each HQ and Factory that get's build? When my vehicle get's destroyed or I just want to buy something new, I never know where to find the nearest base to do so. If I respawn I get at least a list of spawning locations, but just from the regular map I don't know where I'll find the nearest base to suit my needs.

 

[gc8 977]

13 hours ago, hottehotte said:

Sadly, the Server RPT was spammed with some sort of "Object not found" errors. You can use the following link to download the RPT and check it if you like:  https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ahke1hY3s19TgbgIMGypQqGMWewDeA?e=zyIPma . After an hour it was already about 9MB in size.

 

I'm not able to download the file. But I if "Object not found" is exactly what the error says then it's not from my mission code directly. maybe something that my mission does causes the error but I'm not directly loggin that string

 

13 hours ago, hottehotte said:

Also Server performance degraded rapidly. Not sure if that's a result of the errors in the RPT or the general performance issues this game has. There were many groups active on my side alone, not counting the enemy side, and several battles were happening at once, as the AI was advancing on multiple towns simultaneously. In the end, when I shut down the Server, the Server FPS were about 15-18, which resulted in the usual syncing problems one can notice while playing.

 

You can try using the "maximum army size" parameter to get better performance

 

13 hours ago, hottehotte said:

I would suggest to add an option to abandon AI under your command, as often times groups can get split up, and then you want to get rid of any AI still in your group but are maybe many miles away.

 

Interesting idea, I'll think about it 🙂

 

13 hours ago, hottehotte said:

Would it be possible to automatically place markers on the map for each HQ and Factory that get's build? When my vehicle get's destroyed or I just want to buy something new, I never know where to find the nearest base to do so. If I respawn I get at least a list of spawning locations, but just from the regular map I don't know where I'll find the nearest base to suit my needs.

 

This mission doesn't use factories. The FOBs are marked with large flag marker (larger than town markers) and the HQs are currently marked only with the unit marker that looks like a flag. You can see what I mean from this list, it's the HQ: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/File:Arma2_markers3.jpg

Also the stuff you can buy from HQ is limited, you can buy everything from FOB

you can also buy civilian vehicles from town

 

Thx for your help and if you have ideas for this mission keep them coming I love to have some new stuff to work with and make this mission easier for players to play.

 

 

 

Edit: I'm also curious which I7 to be exact do you have?

 

 

[hottehotte 2]

13 hours ago, gc8 said:

 

I'm not able to download the file. But I if "Object not found" is exactly what the error says then it's not from my mission code directly. maybe something that my mission does causes the error but I'm not directly loggin that string

 

Strange, for me the Link is working. But if you say the problem isn't related directly to your mission, then I'll have to believe you. Don't know what else could cause it, as I was playing completely without any 3rd party addons, just the official DLC's.

 

13 hours ago, gc8 said:

 

You can try using the "maximum army size" parameter to get better performance

 

I'll give it a go. What kind of performance to you get when you play? And what settings do you use?

 

13 hours ago, gc8 said:

 

Interesting idea, I'll think about it 🙂

 

 

This mission doesn't use factories. The FOBs are marked with large flag marker (larger than town markers) and the HQs are currently marked only with the unit marker that looks like a flag. You can see what I mean from this list, it's the HQ: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/File:Arma2_markers3.jpg

Also the stuff you can buy from HQ is limited, you can buy everything from FOB

you can also buy civilian vehicles from town

 

Can't remember to have spotted those Flags, but I'll keep an eye out next time I play

13 hours ago, gc8 said:

Edit: I'm also curious which I7 to be exact do you have?

 

It's an 8700K which I've overclocked slightly to 4.8 Ghz. It could handle more, but I don't want to stress the CPU. And nowadays CPU power isn't that important anymore, GPU power often times is the limit. Arma is an exception to this though.

As I run the game and the server on the same machine, I manually assign the cores / threads 50/50 between the game and the server.

 

[gc8 977]

9 hours ago, hottehotte said:

I'll give it a go. What kind of performance to you get when you play? And what settings do you use?

 

Default settings. I must admit I haven't run long games lately. Most of the time I just do quick test plays as I'm working on the mission. 

 

9 hours ago, hottehotte said:

It's an 8700K which I've overclocked slightly to 4.8 Ghz. It could handle more, but I don't want to stress the CPU. And nowadays CPU power isn't that important anymore, GPU power often times is the limit. Arma is an exception to this though.

 

that's pretty good CPU, the cpu chart gives it 15 points. mines at 20 so we got pretty much equal CPUs

 

9 hours ago, hottehotte said:

As I run the game and the server on the same machine, I manually assign the cores / threads 50/50 between the game and the server.

 

I don't know if arma is good utilizing threads but I'd say 80% of the load is on the server. The client doesn't have to do too much work

 

Oh and pastebin is good place to post logs, then just post the link here

 

thx! 🙂

[hottehotte 2]

On 6/28/2019 at 9:33 AM, gc8 said:

 

Default settings. I must admit I haven't run long games lately. Most of the time I just do quick test plays as I'm working on the mission. 

 

Changed the performance option from "average" one notch down, and also turned off the automated Supply Trucks. Server performance was a little better today, between 15-22 FPS.

But still the RPT file is full of those errors, so I'm still unsure if the general performance is at least a little influenced by the server not running smoothly.

 

On 6/28/2019 at 9:33 AM, gc8 said:

Oh and pastebin is good place to post logs, then just post the link here

 

Okay, I've uploaded a portion of the RPT to Pastebin. As a free user I'm limited to 512 kb, but the RPT file was 16 MB after my session I played today. But the sample size should suffice 🙂

 

https://pastebin.com/6ybcxs0Z

 

Just have a look at it and let me know what you think.

 

Another thought on the mission itself: Can you add the ability to buy troops or vehicles while you're not in the base, besides the already existing options to buy stuff in towns or request reinforcements by menu?

 

Is there a cleanup script at work which handles broken, destroyed or abandoned vehicles? I lost 2 Prowlers when attacking the first town, or to be more precise I lost the crew manning those vehicles. The vehicles then stood around for more than an hour, one with a broken engine, but he 2nd one was still drivable. Both vehicles remained accessible and weren't removed from the mission although they were empty for more than an hour.

 

[gc8 977]

15 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Changed the performance option from "average" one notch down, and also turned off the automated Supply Trucks. Server performance was a little better today, between 15-22 FPS.

But still the RPT file is full of those errors, so I'm still unsure if the general performance is at least a little influenced by the server not running smoothly.

 

Good, I'm actually working on some improvements on the max units in game per side so you can get more performance out of it. Because the fact I believe is when one side buys more and more AI units the FPS will go down. So I have to limit the buying

 

16 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Okay, I've uploaded a portion of the RPT to Pastebin. As a free user I'm limited to 512 kb, but the RPT file was 16 MB after my session I played today. But the sample size should suffice 🙂

 

 

Thx for the paste! I don't know what is causing the Object not found messages. Maybe I'll ask forums about it if some one knows

 

 

17 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Another thought on the mission itself: Can you add the ability to buy troops or vehicles while you're not in the base, besides the already existing options to buy stuff in towns or request reinforcements by menu?

 

 

I already added buy infantry everywhere (towns) param but I can see if it's possible to add buy military vehicles in town param. Would that be good?

 

20 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Is there a cleanup script at work which handles broken, destroyed or abandoned vehicles?

 

There should be. I'm using the vanilla arma cleanup thing but maybe it's not working so perfectly? Maybe it only deletes completely destroyed vehicles

[hottehotte 2]

15 hours ago, gc8 said:

I already added buy infantry everywhere (towns) param but I can see if it's possible to add buy military vehicles in town param. Would that be good?

 

Personally, I would prefer it to have an option to buy troops or vehicles remotely from the nearest base. Buying those things directly at friendly towns makes progress too easy in my opinion. I don't have a problem to wait for my reinforcements to arrive. So if I'm far from home and would order some tanks as backup, it's fine with me that I'll have to wait for some time till they make the journey from Base to my location.

 

Does the commander build artillery at some point? I never was able to use this combat support option as no artillery pieces were available. Maybe it was still too early in game and they weren't researched yet.

 

Please add some kind of "unflip" option to the action menu. Without certain mods, AI is terrible at driving and I've lost so many vehicles because they flipped over at some obstacle. It's very frustrating to loose your transport due to this kind of issue.

 

Do you think you could expand the respawn options by adding the abillity to respawn as a different soldier within your group? This would keep one longer in the fight, at least as long as you've some AI left to command.

[gc8 977]

2 hours ago, hottehotte said:

Personally, I would prefer it to have an option to buy troops or vehicles remotely from the nearest base. Buying those things directly at friendly towns makes progress too easy in my opinion. I don't have a problem to wait for my reinforcements to arrive. So if I'm far from home and would order some tanks as backup, it's fine with me that I'll have to wait for some time till they make the journey from Base to my location.

 

I think that's a good idea, I'll put it in my todo list. thx 🙂

 

2 hours ago, hottehotte said:

Does the commander build artillery at some point? I never was able to use this combat support option as no artillery pieces were available. Maybe it was still too early in game and they weren't researched yet.

 

 

The com should build arty but it's pretty random so sometimes artillery just wont be available... The vehicle level only effects player buying, the com should be able to buy the arty.

 

2 hours ago, hottehotte said:

Please add some kind of "unflip" option to the action menu. Without certain mods, AI is terrible at driving and I've lost so many vehicles because they flipped over at some obstacle. It's very frustrating to loose your transport due to this kind of issue.

 

Sure putting it in todo

 

2 hours ago, hottehotte said:

Do you think you could expand the respawn options by adding the abillity to respawn as a different soldier within your group? This would keep one longer in the fight, at least as long as you've some AI left to command.

 

I'm sorry but I can't do that because this mission was designed to be the way it is - that you must not die too soon 🙂

 

That's why there are ambulances and HQ moving on with the attack so you wont have to respawn so far

 

Making this would probably mean lot of extra work. So I won't make any promises but maybe I'll look into how difficult adding such option would be some time later

 

thx for your ideas 🙂

 

[gc8 977]

Big update!

 

What's new:

 

 

Groups now replenish their units when not in combat
Improved state handling for immobile groups
Improved retreating groups
New maximum attackers per side (To reduce lag)
Other changes/fixes
 

 

There are two parameters available now to reduce/increase the amount groups AI commander can use to attack/defend. Lowering this percentage can help to reduce lag

If you get lot of object not found errors you can try running the server with -noLogs parameter

[gc8 977]

New release!

 

What's new:

 

New menu for player actions!
You can now buy units remotely (Must be toggled on from params)
You can delete your units
 

And almost forgot: vehicle unflip!

 

[hottehotte 2]

Sounds great, will definitely test this during this weekend

[kremator 1065]

Grabbing to try now.

 

EDIT..... you sure that the new version is on GoogleDrive?  File size is identical to the one a couple of days ago

 

 

[gc8 977]

5 minutes ago, kremator said:

you sure that the new version is on GoogleDrive?

 

No it's not. I'll update it now

[gc8 977]

@kremator Ok new version now available as file

[hottehotte 2]

Okay, just wanted to give a quick Sitrep:

 

Played for about 1,5 hours, and Server performance did greatly improve. Still getting a ton of those "Object not found" errors in the RPT, so I'll use that -noLogs parameter from now on.

But aside from that the mission itself did run much more smoothly. I didn't touch any of the new parameters, so the attacking and defending forces were at 100%. But I noticed that the commander did send out more "full" groups, meaning vehicles with up to 8 or 11 men inside instead of more vehicles with less soldiers.

This seemed to help running the mission more efficiently, as it also limited the number of towns he was attacking at once. Most times there were only about 2 towns under attack at once, and during that time Server FPS were about 40 - 45. Only at the end of my current session FPS went down to 30 - 35, but at that time 

the commander was attacking at four separate points simultaneously. 

 

How does changing the percentage of attacking / defending forces translate to actual units / groups? Can you tell me how many units or groups will attack or defend towns on a 100% setting? This way I could make my own estimates what lowering or raising the percentage would result in.

Are those two parameters related to another? Meaning, would lowering the "defenders" free up more troops for attacks, or are those not sharing the same resource pool?

You've already provided a good amount of options to affect the server performance. Maybe, as a last thing, could you add a parameter which limits the maximum number of towns the commander can attack at the same time? For me, the sweet spot seemed to be around 2 or 3 towns.

 

Adding the option to buy vehicles remotely has been very much appreciated! Also the option to disband units. I made good use of both of them today.

Also tried the "unflip" feature, with mixed results, but I'm sure that's not your fault. I unflipped a Hunter APC without problems, but later tried the same on a tank, which made the vehicle disappear. The crew was still alive and well, but the tank was gone, even though it was still shown on the map as one of my owned vehicles.

Speaking of vehicles, their clean up still seems to be an issue. The preferred vehicle of the resistance seems to be the lightly armed Jeep, and I have those standing around in various damaged states in all towns. The same goes for damaged vehicles of my own side. I assume those will degrade server performance over time

if the quantity rises.

 

Is "ordnance drop" the only option to resupply in the field? I'm asking because I ran out of ammo and the transport which I requested to drop some supplies got shot down twice in a row 🙂

 

[gc8 977]

45 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

But I noticed that the commander did send out more "full" groups, meaning vehicles with up to 8 or 11 men inside instead of more vehicles with less soldiers.

 

It's random what the com sends, sometimes com just buys a tank and sends that, sometimes com buys couple infantry units with the same money and sends those

 

46 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

How does changing the percentage of attacking / defending forces translate to actual units / groups? Can you tell me how many units or groups will attack or defend towns on a 100% setting?

 

At 100% the com will send max 6 units. The defender calculation is bit more complex as the com assigns different number of "strength" to defend places

 

46 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Are those two parameters related to another? Meaning, would lowering the "defenders" free up more troops for attacks, or are those not sharing the same resource pool?

 

The values are not related. 

 

46 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Maybe, as a last thing, could you add a parameter which limits the maximum number of towns the commander can attack at the same time? For me, the sweet spot seemed to be around 2 or 3 towns.

 

Good idea!

 

47 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

I unflipped a Hunter APC without problems, but later tried the same on a tank, which made the vehicle disappear.

 

I will look into that

 

47 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Speaking of vehicles, their clean up still seems to be an issue. The preferred vehicle of the resistance seems to be the lightly armed Jeep, and I have those standing around in various damaged states in all towns.

 

Sounds like that needs work too

 

47 minutes ago, hottehotte said:

Is "ordnance drop" the only option to resupply in the field? I'm asking because I ran out of ammo and the transport which I requested to drop some supplies got shot down twice in a row 🙂

 

 

Yes. But you can buy gear from FOB or HQ as well

 

[gc8 977]

Update:

 

New: max towns attack at once parameter (100% = 3 towns)
New: Vehicle cleanup
Fixed: Vehicle unfliping

 

The new vehicle cleanup works so that empty vehicles are deleted after 10 minutes and player's empty vehicles after 20 minutes

wrecks are deleted after 5 minutes