DMA CoIn Coop Engine

[pathetic_berserker 4]

But now, I've got another problem: the server finishes the purge much earlier than the client. Is it even possible ? In fact, he had to wait for me, as I was still on the "You and your squad grab some food and rest"...

Going to investigate a bit !

Have to double check this but I thought that the server did all the deleting and spawning but relayed a server code to the client to display [Purge complete,black in]

Some delay might be expected and it would depend also on the connection??

[Drongo69 117]

But now, I've got another problem: the server finishes the purge much earlier than the client. Is it even possible ? In fact, he had to wait for me, as I was still on the "You and your squad grab some food and rest"...

Going to investigate a bit !

Have to double check this but I thought that the server did all the deleting and spawning but relayed a server code to the client to display [Purge complete,black in]

Some delay might be expected and it would depend also on the connection??

That's correct. The server does all of the actual purging, the clients only display messages (purge complete, etc). The server code (92) is sent when the purge is complete. There may be a delay of 5 to 10 seconds.

[malick 0]

You're right, the server does it all and the client waits. In fact I touched the waiting time just after executing the purge script and this bugged. Came back to original value and all is fine... My bad.

The main concern I have right now is an ambiance killer: dumb AI pilot's skills... I added an extraction script, with dialogues, green smoke, everything improving immersion and ambiance. But the helo keeps on crashing on trees/hills/houses when told to land, at least once every other extraction, and this purely spoils the atmosphere. Except waiting for ArmA, what can I do ? This is killing me (and my play testing friend), even if it gives us good laughs late at night

[stegman 3]

By the way, does anyone have an idea for interesting missions to include ?

I'm planning an FIA single player campaign/mission.  I was planning it to be set against the 1985/RedHammer campaign, with tie-ins to them(starting with the Russian invasion, the US retreat, the 'capture' of Armstrong, etc.)  So yes I do have some ideas.  Here is how i want it to work:

You start off at the air field, the russians attack.  You will loose this fight (but have to stay alive due to no respawn points) and loose all your men.  You will then have to retreat to the Castle and gain your first save point.  Meanwhile Russian forces push south, force the US off the island and ultimatly take all towns.  Now you start the guerrilla war as so;

Each town will be ocupied by Russian troops. Due to your lack of weapons etc, you must perform attacks on the town in order to lower theyre 'moral'.  To do this you must lower the enemy 'supplies'  this will result in a supply convoy being sent to the town. Kill the covoy, gather weapons, vehicles. Keep this up untill 'moral' breaks and the enemy pulls out of town.

You are then free to enter the town and;

Aquire any weapons left behind.

Perform a 'recruitment drive'. (this will give you extra troops/squads)

You will also gain a save point.

The ultimate objective is to gain enough points to progres the plot, up to the US invasion ("Return to Eden")...and take back all towns from the Rusians.

What do 'ya think?

[malick 0]

That's a nice idea Stegman. Maybe you can switch from one status (retreat, guerilla, offensive) to another by comparing values (support, material etc..) with other sides' values, and then switch ai file (like guerilla.sqs). Each ai file describes the kind of missions the player is given, how much point they earn/lose etc..

Well, I like your idea, so far !

[stegman 3]

Thanks. I think it'll be fun...yet strangly dull at the same time (due to the length of time taken to clear one town let alone the whole island)

Have to do something like: when the player takes the base on the south half of island he/she gains a few T80s

Or a few invincable black Op US troops that instantly clear a town (<---I like that one. I'll try to include it!

Also....I have no idea how to do it yet!!! I'm currently reading through all the scripts in CCE and CTI and intend to come up with some kind of hybrid of the two....Watch this space

[malick 0]

Well, if you want, I'm currently working on a dynamic mission of my own, SP/MP compatible. It's written from scratch, even though I inspired from a lot of DMA's work and has a CTI feeling to it. It's VERY experimental so far

The idea is to spawn some groups, east and west, on the island, give them zones to control, a script to give them waypoints according to the zone controled and watch the movements on the map. It's a start, but it works fine. Anyone willing to try, PM me, I need some beta !

I plan to include much of my code into my version of CCE, so it's a bit of a test for my scripting abilities

Good luck with your mission.

[Cam51 0]

is there anyway to fix the CTD (crash to Desktop)? I tried the 0.3 fix but with no luck.

Also... my buddies are being stuck at the rest transistion screen, when it goes black... then they CTD.

[Drongo69 117]

is there anyway to fix the CTD (crash to Desktop)? I tried the 0.3 fix but with no luck.

Also... my buddies are being stuck at the rest transistion screen, when it goes black... then they CTD.

Pathetic_Berserker seems to have fixed the CTD with an updated purge script. As well as the ~0.3 changes, remember to change the wait just after "publicvariable purge" from ~1 to ~10. I imagine this allows enemy soldiers to be deleted before proceeding with the rest of the purge, cutting down on network traffic.

Pathetic_Beserker's code:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">OLD SCRIPT EXAMPLE; server/purge.sqs

purge = true

~0.1

publicvariable "purge"

~1

~0.1

deletevehicle armour_1

deletevehicle armour_2

...

MY SCRIPT EXAMPLE;

purge = true

~0.1

publicvariable "purge"

~10

deletevehicle armour_1

publicvariable "armour_1"

~0.3

...

And so forth. Haven't had any probs since.

Let me know if this works or not.

[hellfish6 7]

But now, I've got another problem: the server finishes the purge much earlier than the client. Is it even possible ? In fact, he had to wait for me, as I was still on the "You and your squad grab some food and rest"...

Going to investigate a bit !

Have to double check this but I thought that the server did all the deleting and spawning but relayed a server code to the client to display [Purge complete,black in]

Some delay might be expected and it would depend also on the connection??

That's correct. The server does all of the actual purging, the clients only display messages (purge complete, etc). The server code (92) is sent when the purge is complete. There may be a delay of 5 to 10 seconds.

I've recently run into this as well - I'm playing a COIN Co-op and the guy on the server is back in action usually 1-5 minutes before everyone else. It's kind of frustrating that it takes so long to purge the scenario. It seems as though when the guy on the server machine "aborts mission" while the rest of us are still on the "Rest" screen, the purge ends. I assume this is just coincidence, but maybe not?

What would affect the purge length? Number of units spawned that are still active? The size of the island (i.e. will it take longer to purge the same mission on Tonal vs. Everon?)? The number of bodies on the map? The number of support units on the map (CAS)?

Also, for future versions I recommend the CO deliver his orders in sidechat as opposed to title text, as sometimes the titles aren't distributed to all the clients. I've gone and done this for the mission I made and it seems to work well, though sometimes the hints still have problems.

[hellfish6 7]

Quote[/b] ]In this co-op one I get the mission but I don't see where the convoy starts. I get my team into humvees to drive next to it but I have no idea where they start from.

For convoy missions, you must drive the convoy trucks (usually spawned just outside the base) to the game logic called "TOWN".

Dumb question, but I was putzing in the editor and I had a convoy mission but never got a chance to check the scripts to confirm my question. Are the convoy vehicles empty? Do I tell my squad to drive the convoy vehicles?

All I saw was two empty vehicles - want to make sure that they're the ones I need to take (and that they don't come with their own drivers).

[pathetic_berserker 4]

I was wondering if anyone had tried the save/load function.

I don't know anything about the save commands yet and so far it delivers me a string of errors.

[Drongo69 117]

I'm playing a COIN Co-op and the guy on the server is back in action usually 1-5 minutes before everyone else. It's kind of frustrating that it takes so long to purge the scenario. It seems as though when the guy on the server machine "aborts mission" while the rest of us are still on the "Rest" screen, the purge ends. I assume this is just coincidence, but maybe not?

What would affect the purge length? Number of units spawned that are still active? The size of the island (i.e. will it take longer to purge the same mission on Tonal vs. Everon?)? The number of bodies on the map? The number of support units on the map (CAS)?

Also, for future versions I recommend the CO deliver his orders in sidechat as opposed to title text, as sometimes the titles aren't distributed to all the clients. I've gone and done this for the mission I made and it seems to work well, though sometimes the hints still have problems.

Anything over a minute for a purge seems way too long to be normal. I wonder if it is actually the "purge complete" message failing to send to clients. So the purge is actually complete, but the message that makes the black in appear is not sent.

All purging takes place on the server only. Nothing is executed on clients at this time, they are just waiting for the server to finish.

As a workaround, open up the "client\display_misc.sqs" file and go down to the section for #rest.<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">#rest

titletext ["You and your squad grab some food and rest","BLACK OUT",1]

~1

[] exec "client\client_weathertime.sqs"

goto "end

Change the titletext line to:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">titletext ["You and your squad grab some food and rest","PLAIN"]

The main reason for the blackout is so that noone does anything during the purge, removing it should not affect gameplay. You migh also want to change the #purge_off entry in the same file from black in to plain.

The actual length of the purge should be totally dependent on the wait values in the "server\purge.sqs" file. basically, purge resets some variables, deletes any units explicitly listed in the script and sets the PURGE globvar to true. Every enemy soldier has a looping script waiting for PURGE to become true. When it is true, it deletes that unit.

So different map sizes or numbers of enemies shouldn't affect the time taken to purge.

By the way, due to the recent increased interest in CCE, I have started working on an updated version with a new purge system and a few other bugfixes.

[hellfish6 7]

We also loaded a saved game last night, but the guy running the server had a whole lot of errors (I can probably get more info about specific errors if you want). We tried to play anyways, but when we got a new mission we all got errors at the top of the screen - the mission couldn't load enemy skill levels, etc. Any idea what could cause a saved mission to fail on load?

[.kju 3245]

(didnt read the whole text)

save and load worked for us (with 1-3 players at least).

[colligpip 0]

ive been wanting to play this but cant get save and load to work even using standard ofp so its not becuase im using a mod

any ideas anybody

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Quote[/b] ]Q Posted on Feb. 01 2006,16:59

save and load worked for us (with 1-3 players at least).

Did you make any changes that may have affected this?

[.kju 3245]

no. i was a bit unclear maybe. i did work at times. sometimes it crashed the server or ppl were disconnected, but in theory it works i think.

[stegman 3]

no. i was a bit unclear maybe. i did work at times. sometimes it crashed the server or ppl were disconnected, but in theory it works i think.  

...but in practice it doesnt?

[Drongo69 117]

With regards to save/load problems, it might be worth increasing the delays in "save\save.sqs" and "save\load.sqs". Also, would preprocessing the savevar and loadvar functions make any difference (currently there is no preprocessing)? I'm afraid I don't know much about functions...

[.kju 3245]

if anyone of you guys has some stable version in mp,

please send it to me (contact_q at web.de). - thanks

we like to make uptodate wargames conversion on various

addon islands

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Here is my first Public Beta

KNOWN BUG:  Save/Load function dosn't work. And will currently screw up the variables of any game in progress.

 Any assistance with this would be greatly appreciated.

If you find any other bugs or just something to say on the matter let me know

Watch this space for MP Resistance Campaign BetaV0.3

As with the original CCE it is set up as a template so you must export it to MPMissions from the editor

Extra features include

Rework of basic CCE engine to better handle online play.

Enemy vehicle spawn:

Small sqads in Jeeps,Tanks,  Mechanised infantry and even Helicopters.

Missions Old New and Reworked

*Patrol your Base.

And hunt down any enemy info gathers in the area

*Assault

Take the Cities and push the enemy out.

*Defend your Base.

Repel the enemy as it invades your base in strength

*Raid.

Huntdown and kill the enemy V.I.P

*Search and Destroy.

Weaken the enemies hold on the zone.

*Search and Rescue.

Find the downed pilot before the enemy does.

*Escort the Convoy.

Get the convoy to its destination in one piece.

*Hostage Rescue.

Save the freindly from imprisonment or worse at the hands    of the enemy.

*Acquire the Secret.

Steal the secret information.

*Capture the V.I.P.

Ambush the VIP's vehicle escort and bring the VIP in alive.

*Ambush the Convoy.

Ambush the Military Vehicles and destroy or steal as much as possible.

*Attack the Enemy Base

Take the fight to the enemy and do your worst to thier bases and depots.

And some extras such as new ai-movement patterns weapon plugins etc, some of wich is not yet complete but feel free to take a peek.

[.kju 3245]

excellent Pathetic_Berserker

doing a conversion now and and some play-testing later that day

again thanks !

[stegman 3]

...sounds a lot like the mission/campaign i was working on.

I'll check this out i think.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Don't forget to let me know how things go.

I just gave it another run with unfortunate results,

however the client was on a 56k line so I'm not sure if I was expecting too much. (though we have successfully tested before)

Same probs with syncronizing time, weather, and purge.

If any of you guys experience these ongoing probs please tell what kind of connection was used.

Sorry this prob is still a possibility though I hope it is at least reduced.

Tacrod I was just thinking. Trying to sort out the Save Game probs and I started looking into the 'Sinews Of War' stuff while tracking CrashDome. Do you think basing the Coin Coop around SOW would help with some of these probs?