Sinews of War - The New Resistance Campaign

[Sp00nez 0]

Eh, a warning probaly isn't that nesscecary, maybee a quick additon to the Notes Page to avoid having to do any serious work on it. I was just trying whatever I could possibly think of to get the vehicle inv. dump to work, the reason i thought there was a mass dump of vehicle iventory is that the dialogue with the resitance fighter (forgot the name) by the flag pole in the starting base for mission 3 lead me to believe thats the way it was done. but taking things out of the vehicles manually is fine too, theres always going to be "lame" logistical jobs in any conflict anyways.

I should probaly have read the readme or something. opps.

[crashdome 3]

New updated incorporating many fixes from KillSwitch/bn880

Could not get chance to fully test all fixes, so please advise.

I wanted to do more, but I have been interrupted during my work and I did not have go further.

What I wanted to do:

Find syntax bug as reported by bn880

Add killed eventhandler to non-spawned AI

Alter convoy objective on mission 4 to be more dynamic

Enjoy!

Hopefully I can get back on this soon

CrashDome

[crashdome 3]

New Update:

[August 1st, 2005]<ul>[*]Fixed problem when removing equipment from a unit and it did not exist in Inventory Database (the syntax bug)

[*]Added killed eventhandler to Civilians for FIFO body removal system

Anybody get to test the July 29th fixes at all?

[General Barron 0]

Woah! I GOTTA check this baby out. Too bad I don't have anyone to play with... any servers hosting this yet?

[.kju 3245]

well we didnt specifically test things, just played some  

there had been one issue in mission one. after having arrived at the camp on nogova (near lipany), i tried to talk to the guy there.

accidently i did click on the 2nd answer (...) and then the dialog switch to the one from the first guy on the island  

yet again - awesome work CrashDome and nubbin !  

[killswitch 19]

Woah! I GOTTA check this baby out. Too bad I don't have anyone to play with... any servers hosting this yet?

Yep. The Zeus Resistance server has the missions (Latest Aug 1:s). Adress? zeus.gotf.net:2302. Runs ECP too, for extra fun

[zayfod 1]

Sounds absolutely magnificent!

I love the fact that you dont need scores of extra addons to play it, just RES and editor update! IMO a good mission/campaign has little to do with third party addons. RES supplies enough for the job, that Russian Retaliation campaign was a perfect example for this. And if you are dead set on using the latest models then use a unit replacement mod, simple, yes?

I'll see if I can talk the lads at OGN server and IPGN server to give it a bash. They would love this sort of thing, both running ECP btw.

Cant wait!

[crashdome 3]

Glad to hear the continued interest!!

...and don't forget to tell us your thoughts on it!

Your feedback has really boosted our morale. Thank you!

[.kju 3245]

we had the chance to play some more ...

again thanks for your hard work on this - its just totally awesome !      

first of all a question: (hopefully its not it the manual ^^)

whats difference between the 2nd parameters in detail - 'better ai', 'more enemies' ?

then some suggestions:

as this is much about gathering weapons, it might be a good idea to implement a more advanced tranportation system to avoid the ammo bug.

simple solution is to add ammo creates to certain vehicles (could give you an example mission)

there is also a very advanced transportation system out there made by Softegg (http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=7;t=36768;hl=softegg;st=0)

second one:

your script to put the weapons in the inventory is just perfect ! is there by any chance a way to add this to vehicles, that you dont have to drop each piece of equipment one by one (weapons/launcher/nades etc) into vehicles - in combination with the one above this might be doable more easily

third:

hm we just somehow dont like that you can buy anything(?) from the start. it would be better to have them become available piece by piece between missions - also a sort of hardcore version might be interesting where you arent able to buy things at all (just recruit and train) !

fourth:

well this might be controversial too, yet at this point its mostly for me about bugusing to capture vehicles (tanks). you always try to get their tracks disable in order to overtake them. well it would be much better in my opinion only to steal vehciles which arent manned at all - well we just have played mission 1-3 and 5 - yet it would a good idea to place certain vehicles empty with crew just nearby to enter them with incoming danger on the map by default.

so far its about disabling tanks, partially selling them and you have almost unlimited money for all except new vehicles to buy.

personally for us it would be most fun if you had to work really hard to get this. maybe a script destroying tanks automatically units the crew bails out/tracks are damaged to a certain degree would be an idea.

fifth:

i dont get why you do have already like 20+ mercs available - to have them recruit first like in mission three its just awesome.

sixth:

your life is just too cheap  

well personally it would disable respawn at corpse completely, yet at least make respawning at the group and start more expensive - i would prefere raedor's respawn & cam script even more - have a look  MAP respawn v2.0

thats all for now  

[crashdome 3]

Thanks for the comments!

Regarding #1 & #2: We tried to brainstorm ways to get around the ammo issue and loading into inventory. What we have is all that we could come up with (save Rune's script to have AI do manual loading/unloading). However, looking at SoftEgg's stuff is making me think that it might be worth revisiting.

I am not sure how you unloaded vehicles, but we would pull the truck up to the 'shed' and simply load up while continuosly hitting "Remove to inventory" action. It would actually go quite fast. It also makes getting back to base safely a bit of a priority and concern.

Having to manually load the trucks while picking out only the more 'valuable' items before the next squad of baddies returns/drops in can be somewhat of an experience and a bit more realistic. I, myself, do get bored after doing that over and over so perhaps I should add atleast the option to use something such as SoftEgg's scripts.

#3:

It is certainly possible. SOW is modular and all you need to do is modify a script to not enable the Buy/Sell buttons. We also include a version of the main menu that prevents buying/selling and training altogether (the blue main menu buttons) so that only the three green buttons are available.

#4:

I'll leave this up to the mission designer (or mission modders). It is also possible (and fun) to bring along a purchased repair truck and hide it in a forest and ambush vehicles. You then pull it out and repair them before another patrol comes along. It is quite fun and makes tactics something you need to think about!

#5:

By modifying the personnel inventory file, we can adjust the number of starting mercs (including their starting skills).

#6:

The cost for respawning is also modifiable (on a per mission basis for those really difficult missions!

Alot of these are not in the manual and will probably be added to the Mission Designer docs. Hopefully I can an updated Mission Designer manual out soon with the SOW source code (since it seems that SOW works good - just the missions need a bit more work). Then people can start making their own missions!

Glad to hear everyone is having a good time with it so far. I've been working on SOW v2 since about 2001-2002 I think. When I think about that, I am reminded of the constant bugs I would get and the rollercoaster ride of developing for it and giving up... getting back on the horse.. only to stop again. Rune and bn880 saved SOW's butt by providing motivation and CoC_NS updates

I am so glad to hear how 'awesome' it is to play by other people than the handful of us SOW vets. Hopefully, we can get the 'official' 7-missions and more SOW goodies out to you guys soon.

[nubbin77 0]

Quote[/b] ]first of all a question: (hopefully its not it the manual ^^)

whats difference between the 2nd parameters in detail - 'better ai', 'more enemies' ?

Better AI sets the skill level of the enemy AI higher or lower (obviously no impact if you are using super AI). I don't remeber exactly what the descriptions and #'s were but the skill levels were something like this:

Super AI set the skill of all AI to 1

Veterans was like random skills between 1 and 0.5

Moron set the skill around .2 for everyone. I haven't looked in a while but that's the general idea.

Less AI on the other hand removed some units from each of the enemy groups (how many and from what groups depends on the mission). So that option removes bad guys from the playing field.

These skill options were added because when you play in smaller groups, its easy to get your ass handed to you.

[.kju 3245]

well and what about more enemies

[crashdome 3]

well and what about more enemies    

Masochist!  

Try going in with just pistols...  

Or better yet! find a group and fire a few shots.. then go and hide to wait for the BMPs to show up... when they get there, knock on the back of em while taunting, "Hey! anybody in there got any toilet paper? You might need some after my RPG guy hits ya."

[Baphomet 0]

Quote[/b] ]I love the fact that you dont need scores of extra addons to play it, just RES and editor update! IMO a good mission/campaign has little to do with third party addons

Yes. This should be paid attention to by other mission makers. Forcing many/varied addons = suck.

I've always had an interest in SOW, Looks like I have a pretty good excuse to try it out on a LAN sometime soon if I can. I have always thought the SOW technology had potential for many different genres of missions. Especially the more unconventional types.

I'd like to see a truly dynamic and almost never ending campaign in which random encounters were spawned and there was an overall objective that could be triggered by doing a thread of missions, but wasn't totally necessary.

I think SOW would greatly complement something like that.

[crashdome 3]

You just expressed most of our hopes and dreams over at SOW. However, had I known the tech that is available to OFP now way back then... I probably would have developed SOW more towards that idea originally. Instead, I went for simple inventory control a'la Resistance Campaign.

We are re-evaluating the SOW goals for ArmA and OFP2 and hopefully we can acheive better down the line. For right now, we've pretty much ceased any *new* features and are trying to pump out converted missions and such to maximize exposure before ArmA release. I know Rune and nubbin have talked about converting existing coop missions and I am trying to work with TacRod and get an SOW/CCE combo dynamic mission out.

We'll see what comes out in the future...

[.kju 3245]

one little biggy - mm1 takes 10 ammo slots (and not 4).

also a setting would be great to (one addition to the first parameter)

~ have only one person access to the menus  

would it be possible to save custom loadouts along with the other data ... would be very useful too

[crashdome 3]

I will fix that ASAP.

If you would like to address that on your end, it is very simple.

If you've dePBO'd the missions, you can find the file that lists the ammo under <mission folder>\SOW_2\Inventory\Ammo.sqf

Open it up and change the number of slots to 10 for the MM1.

You must do this for each mission.

-----------------------------------------

Regarding the allowing only one player access to menus:

I will not make it a permanent feature, but you can find the line which adds the action to the flagpole in the mission on the actual flagpole. If you instead move that 'addAction' line to the init.sqs and do a check for whichever unit you wish to give it to.. you can successfully add the action for only that player (I believe) becuase it is local to the client that adds it.

example:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">? (player == Officer1) : flagpole addaction ["blah..blah.."]

[Rune 0]

Quote[/b] ]would it be possible to save custom loadouts along with the other data ... would be very useful too

We gave it some thought a while back because we also think that would be nice, but in the end we decided not to do it for the near future since it could get quite complicated in various ways...it can be quite tedious to equip yourself and your team with individual items, but that is how it works for now and we don't want to make any new plans about anything until after we get to play around with Armed Assault.

[crashdome 3]

In addition to what Rune said, you can create "Templates" that appear in the Equipment Screen. Those are found in <mission folder>\SOW_2\Inventory\Templates.sqf

Also, your current loadout is saved so when you start another mission, it loads what you were carrying. It will not solve any 'rearmimg' needs, but at least you can start fully equiped by simply loading yourself up at the end of every mission. (Note: This requires the next mission to use the same add-ons to see weapons you load up that are add-ons - otherwise it will load as an empty slot)

[.kju 3245]

ok i had a look at it - pretty easy (with some basic knowledge) and its even documentated there

[Baphomet 0]

Quote[/b] ]We are re-evaluating the SOW goals for ArmA and OFP2 and hopefully we can acheive better down the line. For right now, we've pretty much ceased any *new* features and are trying to pump out converted missions and such to maximize exposure before ArmA release. I know Rune and nubbin have talked about converting existing coop missions and I am trying to work with TacRod and get an SOW/CCE combo dynamic mission out.

Keep with it. Hopefully BIS was paying attention to what the community is doing mission/script wise and hopefully they'll make things easier for you to realize those goals with ArmA and Game2.

[.pablo. 0]

IT.Q (Q on these forums) has converted the SOW NRC to Wargames 5.0! you can find it here.

[crashdome 3]

Great!

How's that working out? Any problems?

I should get on the ball and start uploading some of these to the SOW site. I do know nubbin is trying to finish the elusive mission #7 (his computer was sick for awhile). We should be seeing it soon though.

[.pablo. 0]

it's a lot of fun! we encountered some bugs relating to the transfer to WG's weapons/units, but IT.Q is doing a great job of fixing them (you can find an AAR with screenshots for mission 2 here).

[crashdome 3]

Wow.. nice report on the mission! I've played mission #2 many, many, many, many, times and I think I've only had a successful mission 1 or 2 times.

In regards to some things mentioned:

"Ammo Error" is due to an incomplete or incorrect inventory list prepared with the model names. I've spoken w/ Q on that and it sounds like some models were either mistakenly left out or unintended to be included during the conversion. Seems like he's working on it though.

The spawning is most certainly AIoD. Since I cannot comment on the workings of it, perhaps either nubbin or bn880 himself can give more insight.

Glad everyone enjoyed it!