[SP] Warping Plague

[Rydygier 1302]

I'll check that. Should be up to 4 at once possible (more gets messy), but if it says, there's new pointer, there should be new triangle, so unless new one covered exactly some other one, it's a bug.  But, tbh, for me they are shown each searched house up to fourth one, so I didn't experienced rare triangles issue. These should appear each house looted <=4.  

[RZNUNKWN 354]

2 hours ago, Rydygier said:

I'll check that. Should be up to 4 at once possible (more gets messy), but if it says, there's new pointer, there should be new triangle, so unless new one covered exactly some other one, it's a bug.  But, tbh, for me they are shown each searched house up to fourth one, so I didn't experienced rare triangles issue. These should appear each house looted <=4.  

My first run, I saw some triangles, I didn't know what they were at the beginning. I thought it was some bug. Second run didn't show triangles, that's when I discovered crash. Third run showed one triangle, but I was testing crashes, that's when I went to clean my save game folder. Now I'm on 4th run and no triangles. It really makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong. Is maybe ACE messing up? I know it does something with the map, but I fail to see how it could mess things up.

I mean, it's fine even without triangles. Challenge accepted. Just pls no crash. 😄

[Rydygier 1302]

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I know it does something with the map

 

Is the map modded? The command used to draw these triangles requires as parameter specific map control. If a mod replaces vanilla map control with another - command will not work, no triangles. 

 

Maybe just do some brief test with no mods to compare? Easy way to confirm/exclude mods as the reason. 

[RZNUNKWN 354]

Yes, Ace changes the Map a bit, it looks more topographic, but that's all I can say, its just "cosmetic" but I could be wrong. I will give it a test asap as the scenario is running good now, I got raided by bandits  on day two and got Noreen with silencer and long range scope, and on day 5 I raided bandits and got AK-107, so yeaahhhhh 😄

I still haven't ventured North, because I'm scared of crashes. I think I'll let the Zone come to me, which should be pretty fast. Also I'd like to mention some stuff you might look into:

- sometimes I'm missing the turret icon on the map (maybe coming from the same bug I don't see triangles, will test that asap)
- the usual warpers sometimes get stuck inside big rocks so they just stand there
- the encampments sometimes are missing bandits in order to clear them
- sometimes settlers are guarding the defensive spots without arms, despite arms being in the crate
- spartan turrets spawn locations, I just lost one due to clipping into the house and being wrecked

- the increasing % of any resource; it seems to be working only for food as of now I have 1 guy working and having /325 food per day, or maybe it is designed like that; food to have more % of increase than ammo/materials. It seems like one 1 could feed the entire settlement... 

[Rydygier 1302]

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sometimes settlers are guarding the defensive spots without arms, despite arms being in the crate

 

I noted, that bandits sometimes are running without any weapon, but in fact they have a handgun, that is for some reason "holstered", and it is drawn at combat. Probably same stuff with these guards (you can check, if some weapon was removed from the box after such guard was assigned, for guards it is based on native "takeWeapon" action).

 

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- sometimes I'm missing the turret icon on the map (maybe coming from the same bug I don't see triangles, will test that asap)

 

ACE map would explain lack of drawn triangles, but turret markers shouldn't be affected. Could be hard to spot, when turret is inactive (marker black) though. I'll check that anyway.

 

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 the usual warpers sometimes get stuck inside big rocks so they just stand there

 

By "warpers" you mean anomalies distorting the terrain? In their case it's OK, bah, it's even good considering their actual nature. In any other case - yes, big terrain features, like rocks, are done in a way, that fools "safe placement" type of code, both built into the game and scripted, so objects sometimes may land inside a rock for example. Hard to do anything about it. 

 

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- spartan turrets spawn locations, I just lost one due to clipping into the house and being wrecked

 

I did stuff to avoid that, apparently not enough. It seems a bit tricky to ensure both safe and close enough spawn position in the town. Thing is, search for close objects in given radius is made in reference to object's center point, not closest edge. So for big objects set radius may be still smaller, than their dimensions. From the other hand, if the radius is set big enough to ensure, spawned object will not collide even with the biggest building, this condition gets too restrictive and the turret may land far, outside the town even with plenty room in the town. I'll think about it, there are still some tricks to try. 

 

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- the increasing % of any resource; it seems to be working only for food as of now I have 1 guy working and having /325 food per day, or maybe it is designed like that; food to have more % of increase than ammo/materials. It seems like one 1 could feed the entire settlement... 

 

Incoming 1.1 will bring also serious rebalancing of whole resources aspect, to make it less generous. And each resource production is affected by boosters (like scouts influence) in various degree. Also, while actual production is afected by set in initial options production multiplier, seems, I forgot add this to values displayed on HUD, which may not reflect the fact, player have chosen, say, x2 resources production.

 

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- the encampments sometimes are missing bandits in order to clear them

 

Could you rephrase, please? I'm not sure, what it says... There may appear some kind of temporary bandit encampment with a loot box on the map (there's simple machanic behind this), and indeed there should be spawned some bandits around. It's about this? 

 

 

[RZNUNKWN 354]

6 hours ago, Rydygier said:

 

"warpers" 

 

Could you rephrase, please? I'm not sure, what it says... There may appear some kind of temporary bandit encampment with a loot box on the map (there's simple machanic behind this), and indeed there should be spawned some bandits around. It's about this? 

 

 

Well, I thought I'm fighting warpers, they're totally black (though it's a soldier in ghillie suit retextured in black, probably because I'm not using the alien mod), they are spawned near town, roaming around, they're shown in red circle with exact number in the group.

Yes, exactly this, lootbox with some bandits around. Sometimes after killing some of them there's no message saying 'encampment clear' and I can still see the orange marker on the map for the encampment. Maybe I just missed some of them lurking in buildings thus marker remained. (can they wander off or run away?) But also I had situations where it says 'encampment clear' after killing some bandits that are near it.

But anyway I had no crash so far, and the Zone is expanding (still haven't ventured North). I've halted the food production because it's growing fast.

[Rydygier 1302]

Well, it is IIRC nowhere clearly said, which stuff are actually warpers. Warpers are those pulsing anomalies with red center, that distort map objects. Black creatures (alien-like, if mod used), are called warper creatures. But that's just how Gregory calls them, nothing official, so who cares? 🙂

 

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Maybe I just missed some of them

 

That's likely reason. Currently player need to kill every unit spawned as part of encampment. They can be lurking around, but hopefully not too far. 

[RZNUNKWN 354]

On 11/28/2019 at 9:32 AM, Rydygier said:

there should be spawned some bandits around

Found the problem, sometimes when they're being equipped with single use flares (I think they come from RHS in the handgun section), poor bastards run away, hahahahha xD 

I don't really blame them xD I would too!

[RZNUNKWN 354]

I completed the scenario last night, no crashes, but I didn't scan the lightning shrub as I was scared of breaking the scenario since that crash happened when I was near it. No wild numbers about materials as I was careful not to go overboard with them. 100% data, I didn't manage to find the "thing" in the original starting Zone that helps you...  to stop the plague?

(but I have found it now, since I started playing again 😁 accidentally and trying to figure out what to do next, I'm playing now on Hard and there are a lot more spawns than usual).

ACE Map isn't causing the triangle bug, I've no idea what happened in the previous scenario but now I had 4.
 

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These are just some my wild ideas for the scenario (I'm leaning more towards scientific stuff)
- It would be cool to have CBRN gear giving you some % of protection against radiation when you venture into the Zone, I saw this was mentioned 
- Combine Food + WM for creating some anti-radiation consumables, pills or bottles 
- Colorless screen or some other color as you enter or go deeper into the Zone or stay too long in it, but not in that amount that impacts the gameplay (I was thinking about Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, when you're approaching the Scorcher antennae; the closer you get the more your screen goes orange, with audio going more and more blurry/mushy)
- As the weather goes from good to bad, maybe add rain (sometimes light, sometimes heavy) from time to time, along with thunders and lightning.

- Some anomalies can potentially choke you, so they require a gas mask, self-containing breathing apparatus or respiration unit (from Contact DLC)
- Occasional earthquake script? (without damage to buildings)
- Spectrum Device from Contact DLC for analyzing the anomalies (but this can be potentially hard for gameplay as you don't know when you're going to obtain it, or maybe receive early in the gameplay about potential locations of it (where one location has it 100%)

I love working with sound. If I get some free time, I wanna try to create some ominous constant loop sound when you enter the Zone, so it keeps you constantly on your toes and edges. Whispers, weird sounds, maybe distant shouts/screams, but all in low volume so it adds more to the WTF moments, because.... there's no such thing as enough WTF moments in this scenario. 😁

[Rydygier 1302]

Congratulations! If I may ask, how many days it took in total? 

 

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and trying to figure out what to do next

 

Just keep gathering the data, at certain data level some possibilites may be opened thanks to finding that (the key is to find it before you complete 100% of data IIRC). 

 

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I didn't scan the lightning shrub as I was scared of breaking the scenario since that crash happened when I was near it. 

 

Before 1.1 release, I plan at least to try figure out cause of these crashes. Although in previous tests this anomaly didn't caused CTD, I'll try some stress testing with it. Still I hope, the fix, if found, will not require removing some content. 

 

Thanks for ideas. 

 

General note about all referring to DLC content - It is my concious decision to not base any advantage-wise meaningful features on optional, paid content. That would differentiate the experience/difficulty for those, who bought DLC and those, that didn't. Exception is for randomized weaponry, as this gives no real mechanical advantage, just more visual variety, which seems fair. I thought, to use spectrum device myself, but as said. On the contrary in fact. That would give some advantage people without contact DLC - free hands that could grab any weaponry, while contact DLC owners will be disarmed during scanning. Also a bit hard to test, since I do not own this DLC, sadly, so equipping DLC stuff means increasingly annoying paywall reminders on screen.  

 

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- Combine Food + WM for creating some anti-radiation consumables, pills or bottles 

 

Interesting, I'll consider this, although not necessarily will do that, radiation dose should work here as kind of nemesis, hard to restrain and forcing careful planning. If such consumables should be possible to craft, they must be very expesive to avoid making radiation just some kind of not important distraction trivial to handle.

 

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- Colorless screen or some other color as you enter or go deeper into the Zone or stay too long in it, but not in that amount that impacts the gameplay (I was thinking about Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, when you're approaching the Scorcher antennae; the closer you get the more your screen goes orange, with audio going more and more blurry/mushy)
- As the weather goes from good to bad, maybe add rain (sometimes light, sometimes heavy) from time to time, along with thunders and lightning.

 

Can be nice, and since I'm already using post process effects with anomalies, I can apply something like that to Zone itself too, must not collide with anomalies effects though. In fact, tried to build such mood using weather, as you noticed, but weather is fractious when you try to change some aspects of it via script fast (mostly overcast). Requires dirty tricks sometimes. 

 

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- Occasional earthquake script? (without damage to buildings)

 

Hmm... I guess, one could explain some tremors caused by warpers activity/Zone expanding. Yep. I like that. 

 

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I love working with sound. If I get some free time, I wanna try to create some ominous constant loop sound when you enter the Zone, so it keeps you constantly on your toes and edges. Whispers, weird sounds, maybe distant shouts/screams, but all in low volume so it adds more to the WTF moments, because.... there's no such thing as enough WTF moments in this scenario. 

 

Wow, that would be great as optional immersion booster, if you would share the results. Only files size need to be minimized as much, as possible, I've annoying troubles with updating my Workshop entry already, with 22MB file. Or alternatively it could be done as separate, optional sound mod. Anyway, do, as you see fit, very cool idea.

[RZNUNKWN 354]

1 hour ago, Rydygier said:

Congratulations! If I may ask, how many days it took in total? 

 

Days survived: 28
Survivors: 42
Ended up with AS-50+optic, MXM+optic, HK417+optic, 2x Dragunov+optics, AKM and couple of good body vests with protection.

Around day 24 I realized I can analyze the Warper anomalies for the more data, not just by hunting usual guardians. So things picked up the pace. So having 100 days should be quite enough, but, I just don't like to being limited by time, it keeps me under the bad pressure so I rush everywhere. 

 

1 hour ago, Rydygier said:

It is my concious decision to not base any advantage-wise meaningful features on optional, paid content.

Totally understandable. I agree.

Once I get some free time from studies, I will try to create something. 😄

[Rydygier 1302]

Seems, I found a cause of the crashes (via gradual elimination of potential sources). If I'm right, that is burper anomaly, which for some reasons wasn't working same way, as in aliascartoon's demo. It could be caused by the fact, there was more, than one burper active on the map at once, not sure. I'll try to fix this somehow and if I fail - I'll remove burper anomaly. 

[RZNUNKWN 354]

On 12/4/2019 at 2:55 PM, Rydygier said:

burper anomaly

This explains my crashes, because when I was scanning the lightning shrub, near me was that anomaly and it was draining my FPS a lot, as if there were 5-10 burper anomalies in one place, too many dust, too many leaves flying around, massive fps clog - crash.

[Rydygier 1302]

Figured, I could use more test feedback - too serious changes to make an update just like that, so here's:

 

Warping Plague 1.1 wip1

 

I'll continue tests tommorow and perhaps next week while waiting for the feedback, then official 1.1 release is planned. 

 

Changes:

 

1. new way of finding survivors 

 

Now they are physical units to be found inside random buildings, there are some short range helpers (on screen message about signs of survivors presence sometimes, 3D icons with names visible < 25 meters), but player still has to be rather thourough and attentive to not omit any. Each has "Invite" mouse action. Chance for survivor deep in the Zone are close to none and there's no survivors in the town occupied by The Fittest. As for rarity, at first in La Trinite I'm usually getting 3-4 spawns. The more you invite, the less chance for another to be found. Spawned, but not invited survivor will be gone at the end of the day. Theoretically new survivor may appear in the same house, you checked earlier turn (but not same day). Let me know, how many you're usually finding during the gameplay/daily - may require rebalancing. 

 

2. Conscription

 

Towners without any job (idle) can be now "conscripted" as player's subordinate group members, also via mouse action conscripted can be sent back to the town. New 3D icon should be displayed, if any of them become seriously irradiated. Big enough radiation dose can cause death of the towner.

 

3. Re-balancing of town's resource production

 

Let me know, if it is OK now, or maybe too difficult or still too easy. 

 

4. Tremors

 

Warpers activity may cause tremors sometimes, the closer to the Zone center, the stronger. It's rare, and especially at the beginning there's nearly no chance to actually experience them, perhaps only close to the Zone center, but rare anyway. Still, the bigger Zone become, the more often and noticeable farther away they should be. BTW I would appreciate the feedback about Zone spreading rate - how fast it is and how far it gets before mission completion.

 

5. It may rain in the Zone now.

 

6. Zone exploration visual effects

 

Added post process visual effect during Zone exploration. It gets more and more prominent, the closer to the center player gets. It is... bold effect. Starts frugally, but deepers it gets weirder and weirder, close to the center it changes Zone look entirely, like a place from different world. Shouldn't hinder regular gameplay much, although just in case it is optional: can be disabled in initial settings. 

 

7. Bug fixing

 

Probably fixed CTDs during Zone exploration, also the issue with supposed "everything freezes for the moment every 5 sec", which I saw and determined, it is likely bound with manual wind changes (wind anims on the grass etc., also wind sounds).

 

8. Crafting GUI

 

Mouse action at the orange box in the town. Crafting GUI allows to construct turrets, ATVs or any weapon and vehicle, if you find a blueprint (should be very rare, weapon blueprint nearly impossible to find in other buildings, than military, similar for vehicles and industrial buildings). Not tested much yet. 

Crafted vehicles will be placed primarily on the main road, one per empty road segment to ensure safe spawns, turrets in the small area close to the Bluking kiosk. If player would craft more, than 8-10 turrets at once, or more than 30 vehicles at once, next may be placed elsewhere with risk of collision, also could be not easy to find. 

[Godis_1 63]

THis is great! The test release runs so smooth and solid with all the mods loaded, including ACE! No "every 5 secs stop" anymore, and so far it seems to be well balanced. Good work!

 

It's a great addition as well that we have now actual survivors in the houses. The scenario is growing into an overall great experience. Maybe after the main work has been done, some people could be found to do some voice acting, also maybe some little random chatter/dialogue with new survivors when found, and between them wlaking around the city. It would add some more nice atmosphere and immersion :)

 

EDIT: Well, there was one issue I just had. I shot two creatures, while the first one was killed, the second one just layed on the ground, still alive, no matter how many bullets I shot into his head. It might be related to ACE, so I tried to change some settings and reload the mission. It didn't help. I guess ACE could cause too many conflicts then...

 

Ok, AFter I've disabled the medical system in the CBA menu, I was able to kill him.

[Rydygier 1302]

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some people could be found to do some voice acting, also maybe some little random chatter/dialogue with new survivors when found, and between them wlaking around the city. It would add some more nice atmosphere and immersion

 

Any such valuable input would be appreciated and considered for implementation.

 

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 the second one just layed on the ground, still alive, no matter how many bullets I shot into his head. 

 

Don't know about ACE, but I recall, long time ago I saw a feature from TPW's mod doing similar thing - hits putting units on the ground alive. It must be something, that utilizes "HandleDamage" event handler to alter damage applied to the hit unit. I'm altering damage in such way for creatures guarding warper anomalies, those throwing whistling grenades, making them bullet sponge basically, still killable. But nothing like that in regard usual warper creatures. They just look... how they look. Also didn't touched them in 1.1, they're same, as in 1.03. 

[Godis_1 63]

35 minutes ago, Rydygier said:

Don't know about ACE, but I recall, long time ago I saw a feature from TPW's mod doing similar thing - hits putting units on the ground alive. It must be something, that utilizes "HandleDamage" event handler to alter damage applied to the hit unit. I'm altering damage in such way for creatures guarding warper anomalies, those throwing whistling grenades, making them bullet sponge basically, still killable. But nothing like that in regard usual warper creatures. They just look... how they look. Also didn't touched them in 1.1, they're same, as in 1.03. 

 

I didn't notice that before, because I didn't play with ACE. But I think I'm going to drop ACE medical entirely, because even if I can use it without issues (set to player only), the scenario lacks medical items, such as bandages, morphine injectors, etc. Because no enemy (humans from the fittest gang for example) even has any first-aid-kit with them, which ACE would convert into the proper items required for this feature, I'm not able to treat my wounds anyway. So I'll start over with ACE SP versions (no medical and some other tweaks)

 

EDIT: Ooooops! I just reloaded an older save an figured that my quadbike has several first-aid-kits onboard xD So simply disabled medical features for AI and everything works fine :)

[Rydygier 1302]

Also you may spend some food to heal yourself at the orange stash. And you're healed each new day (unless too irradiated: > 1000 mSv). 

[RZNUNKWN 354]

After finding AK74, ASP-1 Kir and Cyrus, both with scopes in the first three days I have to restart 😄

I was fiddling around with mortar, I thought how can I use it but I had no luck in getting it operated, so instead of placing it, I've added one from the CUP, because adding the vanilla mortar will have the triangle above it. It proved to be quite useful (but this requires ACE (or maybe some load script) in order to load it up in your vehicle), find some scope, or perhaps even some binocs and you can suppress (make pancakes of) enemy forces from a safe spot. So maybe if you can use the vanilla mortart on your own, pack the bags into a vehicle, then you'd have some more advantages over enemies.

And of course, I had to add some vehicle crate ammo to rearm the mortar. I never liked it, but I'm changing my opinion rapidly about it, it's really really useful and I'm loving it. 

Maybe later in game, with enough scouts, you can accurately fire at the warper creatures that are near your base, make your day a bit easier without worrying about attacks, same goes for the gang groups when they attack.

 

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I'm not sure I can call myself scientist anymore... 🤪

 

[Rydygier 1302]

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After finding AK74, ASP-1 Kir and Cyrus, both with scopes in the first three days I have to restart

 

Chances for that seemed low enough, but apparently I need to lower them more. Like 4 times lower or so. At least ammo for bigger guns is expensive, which somewhat saves the balance. 🙂

 

Vanilla mortar - the one, to be found in parts, is meant to be manned by AI guard - next hired after mortar assembly - and controlled by dedicated arty script (player can switch it on/off). Thought, player-controlled artillery will make things too easy, so that mortar should be not enterable for the player. I can make it optional though, add an alternative: instead of AI manning it could be left for player's use. Each shot anyway should cost ammo resource and be replenished. 

[Rydygier 1302]

Meanwhile found the reason, why vehicles are driving so wonky - and hopefully fixed this. Seems, the code responsible for warpers somewhat affecting vehicle mass was still assuming, player has only ATV to his disposal, so quad's mass value was used as default, normal mass, therefore every vehicle, that was driven by the player far from any warper, had mass set to quad mass, like 280 kg instead of 1600 etc. Observed bug was the result.  Paradoxically they possibly could drive better close to the warper anomalies, which increase near vehicle's mass... BTW noted, this mass increase need to be bigger. Seems, could be nice to have warpers affecting vehicle mass from quite afar, like red circle radius twice (but terrain and other obstacles provide some shielding, that weakens this influence). So if player would ask for such troubles and trying to get the vehicle right into the warper's vicinity or the warper itself, funny things start to happen with the vehicle, like uncontrolled sliding etc. I got Zamak truck at the warper with > 100 tonns of mass instead of default 11. At this point it becomes nearly 100% unresponsive, just sliding down the slope, so if the warper is in the locally lowest point, vehicle can be stuck there forever. I think, I like that. 🙂

 

 If anyone wishes, here's version to test after today's changes (some bug fixing, much less chance for rifles, new mortar control option, and changed warper's influence on the vehicle's mass. 

Warping Plague 1.1 wip2

[RZNUNKWN 354]

23 hours ago, Rydygier said:

I can make it optional though, add an alternative: instead of AI manning it could be left for player's use. Each shot anyway should cost ammo resource and be replenished. 

This is an excellent idea! I love it!

 

18 hours ago, Rydygier said:

 therefore every vehicle, that was driven by the player far from any warper, had mass set to quad mass, like 280 kg instead of 1600 etc.

Explains why my SUV goes 200 km/h 🤣. So no vehicles near the warper anomalies unless I want them glued to the ground thanks to extreme gravity. Love this one. 

I'm about to start 1.1wip2, so I'll try/test these things, especially mortar! Thank you!

[Rydygier 1302]

I found simple code error in wip2 file preventing any house looting messages, so reuploaded wip2 with the fix. 

[RZNUNKWN 354]

I'm having way too much fun 

 

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[Rydygier 1302]

Nice pics. 🙂 I wonder, when players will encounter and document every anomaly type out there. Some are really hard to spot and rare (I wouldn't recommend intentional searching for them, but it is possible simple stumbling upon them). There's 11 by aliascartoons, warper anomalies and 7 other types, I made (the one above amongst them, at least two hard to find).  

 

In the meantime I hopefully solved another mystery - vanishing blue arcs on the map narrowing valuable stash location. It's not related to ACE or any mod, it is about specificity of relationship between game saving and GUI controls. If player saved a game, then exited, then resumed - drawn arcs was gone forever. If a save was loaded from within the same gameplay, that save was made, they was on place. Now arcs should be kept even when loaded a mission in another whole Arma 3 run (wip2 file reuploaded once more).