The Living Dead

[Eddie Haskel 0]

Edited:

Here are some pics from my first ever mission.

Storyline:

The quiet Island of Sarugao has been devastated by a hurricane, that has not completely left the area. A Ham Radio Operator was able to get out a garbled international distress call before his radio went dead (we assume the antennae was damaged in the storm), and we were able to understand they need "rescue", there are lots of "dead running about (he most suredly meant lying about), and something about contamination. Therefore, an NBC team from the 323rd Special Operations Wing is being sent in to assess the extent of damage from the hurricane. They will conduct a survey to cover the following:

1) Restore communications through repairs on the Islands Ham Radio Antennae. It is located in the mountains to the South, but local transportation can be used to access it.

2) Contamination due to decaying bodies. A followup team from Graves Registration at Dover AFB will conduct a survey of the needs to identify and bury the dead.

3) Status and condition of the Sarugao Air National Guard Base, which we intend to use for relief operations.

4) Secure several locations (coordinates to be given at a later time) for Red Cross Shelters.

5) Assess criminal activity stemming from hurricane. Looting and major crimes will be a priority target. Soliders from the Wisconsin National Guard are preparing for deployment. Expected arrival in 4 days.

The first 3 pics are your arrival to the Island of Sarugao.

The C130 has been hit by lightning prior to arriving over target. The NBC unit will be scattered over the Southern Island, and must first gather at Rally Point before being able to conduct operations.

http://members.fortunecity.de/eddiehaskel

Saving more pics for later, but I wanna spend more time editing! This should turn out to be a 6 to 8 mission campaign. I'm just starting to get into the Editing stuff, so it'S slowgo and ALOT of searching. I will be using addons and such from others (with permission of course), but will try to keep it as small as possible. In the end I wanna take the missions/campaign, with addons, and put them in zip. Total team members 9, not many vehicles or aircraft will be available, but if you live long enough reinforcements will be seen. If anyone has any thoughts or ideas, let em rip. I have an open mind, so I'm up to anything. If this works out, I'll have enough knowledge to remake the "Dead series" from Romero (That's my end goal).

Eddie

[gandalf the white 0]

Niiiice

I think Saint Rémy would make a nice island to make a mission like that (or an rpg ) on. I hope you pull it off!

Will the combies be scipted? or pre-made?

[D.murphy man 0]

sounds cool, pictures dont work though, keep getting a fortuncity logo

[Eddie Haskel 0]

will look into the pics. With the zombies It's a wait and see. I've been digging for days on anything related, and have to sort through everything first. I've seen some nice scripts though! I think alot will be possible. I'm looking forward to the challenge though!

Eddie

[Trapper 0]

Looks like something caused an ofp zombie revival...

About the Zombies, there are only 2 usefull Addons around, and you better grab them before the downloadlinks are vanished one day.

- MrBeans moaning Zombies, the latest release.

You won't have to script moaning yourself. But they are based on an older Unified Zombies release (the originals), as far as I know and come without a detailed readme about the AI.

- Unified Zombies Beta 3, an older release.

Without automatic moaning, but with the last/best zombie AI and a detailed readme about it.

[Eddie Haskel 0]

got em, and alot of other things. Problem I have now is some things are popping up with a Scottt_Resistance_zombie addon missing, although I have it. I think maybe a version problem between 2 of the files.

[Trapper 0]

Try to load the zombies without the vampire addon.

[Eddie Haskel 0]

Did a little trial and error. Took ALL the zombie stuff out, put em back in in groups of 3 until the error popped up again. Lo and behold, no errors!! (Bet you're wondering why?)

So I did the same process again, this time loading a different map into the editor. Bang, on Nogova map, upon leaving the editor I get a "missing addon: fml_civilians" error. I doublechecked this by loading other maps. I ONLY get the error when I leave the editor from the Nogova map.

Wierd, huh? Getting the new 1.21 map of Nogova with the 1.22 upgrade, and will try again.

The scottt_resistance_zombies is now gone, as I had replaced fml_civilians, editorupdate102 and EditorUpgrade 102 back and forth between old versions and new until the error stopped showing up.

Eddie

Edit: Did the Nogova upates to 1.22, still getting fml_civilians addon missing. Guess I won't be using THAT map!

[ZFGokuSSJ1 0]

Looks awesome!

[Zombie_Mod 0]

I really wish I'd updated the zombie AI... I had loads of ideas that even now no other game has implemented

Still... look on the bright side guys, I'll be back to write more zombie stuff when AA comes out (unless AA is shite ) - hopefully BIS will make developing 3D objects and testing scripts easier this time....

[Eddie Haskel 0]

I'm having trouble at the beginning with my NBC paratroopers. I give the order to HALO, we jump, and ALWAYS 1 dudes parachute fails to open! And not always the same guy. Anyone have a similar problem? I could assign them easch a chute, but then they're parachuting right at the beginning of the mission. I've got a sequence later with an exploding car that's turned out nice. will put up pics tomorrow.

Eddie

[Eddie Haskel 0]

I have to drop the C130 airdrop at the beginning. Everytime you drop, there's one or two soldiers that forget to take their Parachute with them"

I have a backup though; CH53 Sea Stallion insert. Working it now, mostly just a matter of replacing one unit for the other. I REALLY want the airdrop sequence, as below the paratroopers vehicles can be seen driving erratically all over the place. (Oops, shouldn't give anything away!

[Ferretmeister 0]

but maybe that would add to the disorientation att eh beginning of the mission having some guys die. I mean it would in real life disorient a squad- well thats what i think

[Eddie Haskel 0]

Not a bad idea about just letting it be, and those who die coould respawn at the rally point. I found that using the HALO option, this error occurs. Using the jumpline though, doesn't. hmmm....

Edit:

I spoke too soon. Immediately after writing this, I ran through it again, using the static line to show a friend how it's coming along. 1 man died! ARGH!!!

I've looked at other scripts, but haven't gotten one to work yet. I think one is messing the other up. I would have to remove all the menu lionks to the orginal sqs files, and add new menu items with the new script. But then I'm REALLY changing someone's addon, so I'll have to ask first if it's ok.

Eddie

[Johan_D 0]

Just add another man then, he who died is one less to use for the player, and may add to the mayhem he faces..

[Pathy 0]

Thinking out loud here, so hang on, your hit by lightening, all hell breaks loose, everyone bundles out of the plane before it crashes type of thing? Why not just scatter them all to the 4 winds, make it starting out as a large group, maybe a platoon (30-40 men, depending on type of unit and thier countrys system....), you get scattered after the lightening strike. You dont group them with you so you never notice who dies and lives, as far as you'd be concerned, it wouldnt matter, it'd be part of the chaos.

You could then make a part of the mission, at least optional, to find the rest of the unit. Of course, lets say you wait at the rally point and meet up with 5 or 6 of your squad, then decide to move off and hope they catch up with you later. You could then expand on this later with signals left by them, you get the picture. Would work very well and would mean it didnt really matter if a few guys died leaving the aircraft.

You'd need to scatter them suitably though

[Eddie Haskel 0]

Ahh, group them AFTER the insertion? Then add a INIT line to "joingroup Player1"? Thought about that too, and it would work for the most part. The main problerm is, the C-130 is made ONLY for using with REAL paratroopers, not NBC soldiers with parachutes (there IS a difference!. The game throws them all out in such haste, that it "forgets" sometimes to attach a parachute to a soldier. I've seen a soldier splat on the ground, followed a minute later by an empty chute!

Adding my own script doesn't solve the problem, as one script interfers with the other. Like a timed script (soldier 1 eject, then 2 seconds later soldier 2, etc.) would solve it, but I have to tear apart apex_predators C130 addon. Need to clear it with him first.

The next problem is the zombie script slows down the gameplay as soon as you add your first 5 zombies (I've run it without zombies, and then added a group, noticeable difference). Adding 30 parachuting soldiers to it would slow down the game for ALOT of our less fortunate players). But with all the smart people in editing and scripting, I'm sure a solution will pop up. I'm bypassing that part of the mission and moving on, rather than letting it hang me up. I can always go back and add a script later.

Eddie

[Eddie Haskel 0]

Added the Overview to my webseite.

http://members.fortunecity.de/eddiehaskel/Overview.html

It's in official OPORDER (Operations Order) format for all the military freaks. I've got alot of things in place, the drop seems to work ok, (still have the random death from jumping without chute, but the last 4 starts they all lived

Having trouble controlling my zombies though. Respawning and the like. I want them to first show up after a certain location is secured, and in a random number and location (more replay value). I also want the NBC team members to respawn as zombies if they are killed (read about a method for that, but CAN'T find it again for the life of me!

Later I would have a trigger that stops those triggers once a certain objective is reached (as we would be nearing mission end).

Learning alot about timing, hidden markers, triggers creating units (will be using that ALOT), radio triggers and commands. Replacements for lost team members will be thru TIMED scripts, which means if you mess up early on, you might have to wait on new members to join your team, making you take better care of your men, knowing that they won't automatically respawn anyway. They'll be airlifted in only under certain conditions also.

I'm pretty sure I can even get certain civilians to run away when they see the team members (panic and shock).

So, that's it in a nutshell (a BIG nutshell). If anyone has any pointers, lemme know.

This isn't open-ended. It will be a series of missions, with objectives (not like some of the great MODS out there. That's over my head).

People will be named pretty basic (in case someone has a script they will be able to explain better knowing what my units are named)

Team members: P1 thru P10

Civilians: beginning with C1

Zombies: beginning with Z1

Resistance: R1

East: E1

(There's a reason for East and Resistance later in the game, but don't wanna give to much away, and I'm not that far anyway. That's for Mission 4).

Oh, and the beginning is COOL! C-130, flying LOW, swaying left and right to avoid the mountains. Done on purpose so the player can do a "visual recon enroute". And there WILL be things to watch for.....

Another problem:

I threw some zombies on the dropzone, just to make sure my INITS and scripts were working. As soon as I started the mission, radio reports started coming in from the zombies that I was seen. How can I get them not to report? The player doesn't need to see those messages. I think I can drop the distance down for visual ID, but maybe there's a better solution?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Eddie

[Eddie Haskel 0]

The work is continuing. I've even got zombie dogs (the hellhounds, but I took out the flames), thanks to General Barron, that chase the soldiers at various times, burning vehicles that look REALLY good (nice fire script from vfsacc) crashes, etc. etc.

Still working on a way to more "randomize" encounters. I hate to have triggers all over the place if I can avoid it. I can set a trigger to go off X% of the time, but that's sucky if you keep passing over that trigger. And when you set off a trigger, the game lags as it creates the zombie units. Saw a workaround for that somewhere, but haven't seen it since I have decided to start making missions. Will make a short film with fraps and put on my website so ppl can see how its coming.

Eddie

[NeMeSiS 11]

And when you set off a trigger, the game lags as it creates the zombie units.

have the units that are being spawned in the mission before you spawn them

[Eddie Haskel 0]

And when you set off a trigger, the game lags as it creates the zombie units.

have the units that are being spawned in the mission before you spawn them

Ok, I kow YOU know what u mean, but that sentence threw me around several corners! I've been mission editing as long as the date on my nick, so I'm a NOOB here!

If I have the units already spawned (on a seperate "Gilligans Island " somewhere), then all I would need to do is a SetPos change when the player crosses a trigger, teleporting them nearer to the player. But, what about respawning, changing, the spawn location, etc., like when GroupAlpha (zombies) gets wiped out, I could have a trigger somewhere else the player runs over that recreates them. Doesn't that need CPU time at start of mission though? Here's what I have, as a setup for creating zombies, and PLEASE, if anyone has any tips, I'm open:

step1: create single unit on small island out of "playfield". Name: Z1, in INIT: Zulu=Group This;

step 2: create a game logic, named: Zombie, to be placed on the map where u want the zombies to appear.

step 3: create a trigger, activated by West (in my mission you are on side West), in the On Activation I have: this exec "ZRE.sqs";

the ZRE.sqs (ZRE " ZombieResurrection!:

; My first attempt at creating a scripting, so anything is possible.

; BIS, Codemasters and myself are NOT responsible is your computer does an

; this setdammage 1 on you!

"z_priest1" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Zulu,"Z3=this"]

~0.2

[Z3] join grpnull

Kilo = group Z3

Kilo setgroupid ["Charlie","Groupcolor0"]

~0.3

"basezman" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z4=this"]

~0.4

"z_Girl" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z5=this"]

~0.2

"z_executive" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z6=this"]

~0.3

"z_worker" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z7=this"]

~0.4

"z_Farmer" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z8=this"]

~0.2

"z_Security" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z9=this"]

~0.3

"z_worker" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z10=this"]

~0.4

"z_Farmer" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z11=this"]

~0.2

"z_newman" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z12=this"]

~0.3

"GENB_Hound" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z13=this"]

~0.4

"GENB_Hound" createUnit [getPos ENFORCE, Kilo,"Z14=this"]

~0.2

[Z3, Z4, Z5, Z6, Z7, Z8, Z9, Z10, Z11, Z12, Z13, Z14] join grpNull

Exit

As I said earlier, any tips,pointers, would be appreciated.

The above way, works, just the lag when it creates the units, and that it creates them at logic Zombie. I would like more randomness. Like, at start of game, every so often it pops out a zombie group within 600m of player. random intervals, and maybe random number of zombies. As Objectives are accomplished, the intervals widen (or shorten! hehehe). Taht would be easy, just have the new script/logic/whatever replace the one that had been running until that time. Maybe I'll figure it out. If I can be satisified with how the zombies pop up, then my FIRST mission will be done within a day or two after. Working on some dialog stuff now, where the player talks to a priest in town. Dialogin is HARD!

Eddie

[NeMeSiS 11]

Quote[/b] ] I've been mission editing as long as the date on my nick, so I'm a NOOB here!

well you have found out how scripts work 10 times faster then me (and i still suck at mission editing)  

anyways what i ment was: if you spawn a unit, that units should be already present in the mission, so if you spawn a "z_Farmer" , put another one of him somewhere on an island where he wont be killed. If a unit is not preloaded (placed in the mission editor before the mission starts), OFP has to load that unit while you are playing, wich gives a little "hang" while OFP is loading that unit. Hope that explains it.  

EDIT: and random spawn script created by Duck of death:

(note: he made this script when i asked the same question, because i had the excact same problem once )

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">_player = _this select 0

_rdx = _this select 1

_rdy = _this select 2

_rx1 = random _rdx

_rx2 = random _rdx

_ry1 = random _rdy

_ry2 = random _rdy

_rx = 50 + (_rx1 - _rx2)

_ry = 50 + (_ry1 - _ry2)

_position = [(getpos _player select 0) + _rx, (getpos _player select 1) + _ry, (getpos _player select 2)]

"SoldierWB" Createunit [_position, group UNIT, "newSold=this", 0.5, "PRIVATE"]

Started with:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[player, x radius, y radius] exec "script.sqs"

EDIT: fixed small typo in the script

EDITnumber2216714552213521somthing: i dont know if this posts still makes sence after so many edits

[Eddie Haskel 0]

think I got it. Will give it a shot tomorrow (1:20am here). Thnx for the help!

Eddie

[Eddie Haskel 0]

Edit: Had my first cup of java and took another look at this. It gave me an idea.

If I'm reading this right, I could have a random spawn of units, and with a little homework could randomly move the trigger (in the OnActivation line by giving it a name and then having this name execute this random move script (slightly modded to only affect the trigger).

But, that's a hard trial and error deal, as how do you proof if the trigger actually moved?!?!? Anyone know?

Thnx again for the info ofpforum, and as far as finding out about scripts faster, I came in later in the game so I have more resources to check is all. I am by NO means a scripter, or whatever you call them. Just a little lucky in finding and/or figuring out stuff.

[Trapper 0]

But, that's a hard trial and error deal, as how do you proof if the trigger actually moved?!?!? Anyone know?

Too proof, test and debug anything in missions, the command hint is very usefull:

Put hint "I'm activated" in the trigger, and he will give you this hint everytime he is triggered.

More advanced is hint together with format, you can use it to display the value of a variable:

hint format ["%1 is the value",thevariable] will display a hint where %1 is replaced with the value of the variable.

You're not limited to one variable, just use %2 %3 %4 and so on and add more variables.

EDIT:

hint format ["%1",getpos mytrigger]

This one will display the world coordinates of mytrigger.