Saving in a multiplayer/online game?

[wazoo 0]

Is it possible to save a mission in progress in multiplayer? My cousin and I love to play SpecOps type of missions which can sometimes take 45 minutes just to get into one position.

Kind of a bummer when you then get killed and need to start over from the beginning....

Thanks!

Wazoo

[Harnu 0]

No it's not possible to save. If you love Spec Op missions you should be enjoying the 45 minutes

[marcusm 0]

Hi!

sorry for grabbin' out this REALLY old topic, but i have two

questions...

1)

In the FlashpointDir\Users\username\Saved\mpmissions\missionname.island - dir, some missions are placing a weapons.cfg.

Can I use that file for anything(maybe with "loadStatus") or is it only a temporary file created for a running game?

2)

In a test-MP-Mission, I used the 'savegame'-command and

OFP really created the expected autosave.fps in same dir as ment. above. Same question: Is there any way to work with or to convert that file so that we can use it...?

Thanks & Greetings !!

[Chris Death 0]

marcusm;

It looks to me like you tried the mp savegame in an

open-source mission (= not yet exported to pbo)

I know it works to start such an open source mission and

that other players can connect to your server and even play

these open source missions with you.

But;

While the mission on the server is located in FlashpointDir\Users\username\Saved\mpmissions\missionname.island,

the very same mission for the clients would already be found

(if i remember right) in the temp folder or in the mpmissions

cache (as a temporary pbo). Not sure about the where now,

as i'm at work and can't approve it.

Now if the server saves the game, only the savegame path

on the server would be correct, but not on client side.

And remember - this all belongs to an open source mission,

while the real multiplayer mission (final version) should be

a pbo file, where there will no longer be a save path like

the one you mentioned.

~S~ CD

[Sole 0]

Sinews of War has saving ability for multiplayer (tbh I never tried it out, but I guess it works )

[iNeo 0]

I remember a coop from before Resistance which you could save at some point.. IIRC it was a bit buggy (I could be mistaken though). I don't remember its name but you took a jeep on Malden and drove to the airport, and from there you took helis and flew to a small island north of Malden, while one of you took an A10 to blow up the AA sites first.

Remember the jeep bouncing on the ground like hell, even flipping over sometimes Good old times.

[crashdome 3]

Yes, SOW does "save" in MP, but not in the traditional sense.

It does not save user positions and locations/status of ALL mission units like SaveGame (which is what Wazoo is probably looking for). It saves an inventory database from mission to mission, but includes units in your group and your current health/score/etc..

Thanks for the plug though!

[Sole 0]

Yeah I knew it would only save inventory stuff etc and not player pos etc, just never tried it. Well, once with Fox2 he saved, but we never played since to try n load it, so I never ehm.. experienced it

[crashdome 3]

ah .. you must be one of the "beta testers"

[marcusm 0]

Hello,

first, thank you all for your answers!

@DV Chris Death:

yes, that's right. I rewrite some scipts of that mission

very often, so i directly placed it as a folder in my MPMissions

directory.(The final version, of course, will be a pbo )

@Crashdome:

Sines of War sounds very, very interesting, especially the save-function!

Is it possible that you tell us a little bit about the function or is it kept secretly?

Thank you

[crashdome 3]

No problem...

Here's a run down of how I do it:

I found that saveStatus and saveIdentity work in MP and designed a system that uses a game Logic unit and iterates through several variables. As each variable is called, the game logic unit accepts a value corresponding to a value in the skill or damage system. I save the game logics skill or damage and recall it at the beginning of every mission.

Example:

MyVariable = 1234

_tempLogic = "Logic" createUnit [0,0,0]

_tempLogic setskill (MyVariable/1000000)

"MyVariable" saveStatus _tempLogic

then in next mission everytime I call:

_tempLogic = "Logic" createUnit [0,0,0]

_tempLogic loadStatus "MyVariable"

MyVariable = (skill _tempLogic)*1000000

MyVariable will equal 1234

Note: There are numerous limitations! Example: skill and damage only hold values from 0.000000 to 1.000000 (truncates after 6th digit) so....

boolean = 0 or 1

unsigned integer = 0 to 999999

signed integer (using damage as sign) = -999999 to 999999

float = 0.000000 to 1.000000

no strings or chars

I use saveIdentity for saving of player units.

There!... the rest of SOW is comprised of two years worth of other work. You'll have access to it when it is released.

[marcusm 0]

great!

Thank you very, very much!  

Is it o.k. if i (try to) write a save-function for my mission

based on the information you provided? Of course, i would

credit you and SOW!

Greetings!

[crashdome 3]

that's what we are here for!

[Rune 0]

Great! I've been searching for a thread with this information for a long time...

And it exists(BIG SMILE)

If what CrashDome suggests above works, why have I never heard about anyone making dynamic coop campaigns yet?

[Rune 0]

I've done some experiments with the approach described above and have found a problem with it.

If you implement a savegame feature of some kind this way it won't work with super AI on, the reason is that 'skill _tempLogic'(or infact skill <any unit>) will always return 1 regardless of what you setSkill/createUnit it to before that.

I've tested the getDammage and setDammage equivalents and they do work with super AI on. So CrashDome if you are using skill and setSkill for SOW I'd suggest changing your code. Unless of course there is an even worse problem with using getDammage/setDammage...;)

[crashdome 3]

Thank you for the heads up. I never did try it with "Super AI". Can you confirm this also happens with Game Logics? I use Game Logics to save my values. Perhaps they do not become "Super"?

[Rune 0]

The testing I did was with gamelogics - then when it did not work i tried some regular units with the same result.

I tryed everything I could think of: Placed in editor, then setSkilled; createUnit'ed then setSkilled; created with skill variable passed to createUnit.

Finally I concluded that skill will always return 1 with super AI on.

...After finding out what super AI actually does I turned it off...Making it more difficult is no more fun, it will just take more tries to complete a mission, and why spread the fun thinner when you can fit it all at once.

[crashdome 3]

Yes, I agree.. I never used "Super AI" and know that I know this... SOW will not work with Super AI at all.

I must look into this further. Thank you for pointing this out to me.