DMA LIBYA

[xawery 0]

Hello,

I seem to be only posting about problems in the DMA threads... Sorry in advance:)

I've just downloaded the mission, as well as the required addons pack, including the troops & vehicles packs. However, I can't get the mission to start. I get the following error message:

Strangely enough, all these addons are present in my DMA LIBYA modfolder, but they are spelled differently, ie. JAM_Magazines.pbo instead of jam_magazines.pbo etc. I tried renaming the pbo's but to no avail. I haven't seen anyone else having a similar problem, soooo... anyone have a clue as to what's going on??

Regards,

X.

[ag_smith 0]

Hello folks,

I had my first chance to try out this map for the first time and it become a love at the first sight... Very well done, honcho... the best African desert map ever released.

I'm especially satisfied about the fact it's been created with mission making oportunities in mind. I had a really great time ferociously fighting insurgents in the town's bazaars. Reminds why I like OFP so much... and hey... it comes with dynamic missions. Didn't have time to try them out yet, but I'm sure you'll have me stuck in front of my monitor for a longer while.

PS. If you ever consider updating the map for whatever reason (not that it needs to be - haven't noticed any flaws), let me know.

[akd 0]

Honcho, I don't know if you have the Swedish Forces mod, but check out the "groupboat" and "zodiac" included. Both excellent quality and might suit your purposes quite well, if they can be used.

[ThudBlunderQ8 0]

Xawery,

I had something similar once when I hastily put-together a mod folder. What I forgot to do was put the addons into an "Addon" sub-folder within that mod folder. Is this what's happened here?

[MeltedAd 0]

Please could you tell me what street light where used on the island. And where can I get them. The lighting is great and really adds to the night missions

Thanks

Ad

[Ironsight 1]

Please could you tell me what street light where used on the island. And where can I get them. The lighting is great and really adds to the night missions

Thanks

Ad

I think the streetlights are from the 3WX Object pack. I used them too

[xawery 0]

Xawery,

I had something similar once when I hastily put-together a mod folder. What I forgot to do was put the addons into an "Addon" sub-folder within that mod folder. Is this what's happened here?

Hey ThudBlunder,

As I've had that happen to me so often, it was the first thing I checked. Everything seems to be in order... but still no go. Sigh, I think I'll try reinstalling OFP altogether. Unless someone has other ideas as to how to solve this conundrum?

regards,

X.

Edit: I've solved the mystery. The zipped addonpacks automatically create a mod folder called DMA LIBYA. I'm using OFP Watch for managing my modfolders, and apparently it doesn't like modfolder names with spaces in them. I renamed the folder to 'Libya', et voila! Everything works. Just played the downed chopper mission, great fun:) The British troops are really excellent!

[ThudBlunderQ8 0]

Xawery,

Perseverance pays, eh?! Good on yer - I have to agree about the quality here too. What with this and SFP4, it's just as well the family's back home in the UK as I'm spending FAR too much time on this right now...

[honchoblack 2]

Please could you tell me what street light where used on the island. And where can I get them. The lighting is great and really adds to the night missions

The lights are the JF_Lamp3.p3d found in the Mapfact Baracken 1.5 addon.

Quote[/b] ]Honcho, I don't know if you have the Swedish Forces mod, but check out the "groupboat" and "zodiac" included. Both excellent quality and might suit your purposes quite well, if they can be used.

I cant expect users to download 160 mb for a boat, I will rather use a single boat addon. My preffered choice is the one from the Flashpoint 1982 team.

Quote[/b] ]small issue: each time I rearm my squad, I lose my binoculars and have to grab them from the crate.

Will be addressed in the next update.

Quote[/b] ]Along with the annoying aspect of loosing any enemy weaponry you've picked up from the previous mission.

If I would include the enemy weapons the rearm script would get longer, I like it the short it is now, but might reconsider.

PS. If you ever consider updating the map for whatever reason (not that it needs to be - haven't noticed any flaws), let me know.

Thank you for your comments, I am glad you like the map

I will update the map, its still work in progress, it will be ported to ARMAS once its out.

[akd 0]

Quote[/b] ]Honcho, I don't know if you have the Swedish Forces mod, but check out the "groupboat" and "zodiac" included. Both excellent quality and might suit your purposes quite well, if they can be used.

I cant expect users to download 160 mb for a boat, I will rather use a single boat addon.  My preffered choice is the one from the Flashpoint 1982 team.

Maybe the Swedes would share just the boat.

But the Rigid Raider is certainly most authentic choice. Here's a pick to inspire you:

http://media.militaryphotos.net/photos....145.jpg

[honchoblack 2]

Nice picture, certainly the right choice for the boat

and looks like it can carry 8 persons, that would spare me another insertion boat, for the automated insertion (2 optional boats for the players own insertion)

[akd 0]

Honcho, please take this as constructive criticism and tell me if I'm totally off base here. Although missions are assigned dynamically, after playing every mission type, it seems they are all basically the same.

Each seems to consist of a radius trigger or specific location trigger that when tripped spawns a group of enemies who run en masse directly towards your position. Occasionally there is the added element of an area objective (pilots, hostages, leader), but the enemy opposition mostly behaves the same. Unfortunately, this makes each mission very predictable, as you always know where the enemy is coming from, what their behavior will be and when to expect them.

Consequently, most missions become the simple task of triggering the enemy group, forming your squad into a line and then firing furiously in a simple battle of attrition as the enemy runs towards you, where it all comes down to luck and there is very little opportunity for tactics or approaching the mission objectives in different, creative ways (alternate means of insertion, stealth, splitting team, etc.).

I understand that DMA Libya in its current form may be a template you intend to build on, and would love to contribute some ideas to make the missions themselves more dynamic, if that is in fact your goal. It is a truly beautiful map and a very graceful system.

S!

[honchoblack 2]

Point taken, I know that much of the system is not in the final state, its still a raw diamond that needs polishing, to reach its true beauty.

I hope that Silolas DAC will help to create more unpredicable battlefields, adding more variety to each assignments. You can find out about Silolas DAC here, the potential of that project is quite large, but look for yourself:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=47852

[xawery 0]

Xawery,

Perseverance pays, eh?!

It certainly does! I've just given "Bleed for Oil" a go, and it's a blast. The island is truly beautiful, and it's great to see the mapfact baracks being put to good use. The UK Military Base looks marvellous. It's great that you actually have to walk up to a bloke to request insertion, instead of justing using the radio menu (like in Dynamic Afghanistan).

On another note: I have to agree with what Akd said. Don't get me wrong: I still enjoy the Dynamic Missions immensly, but after a few hours of playing the pattern becomes quite clear. It would be nice if, for example, not all the AI would feel the urge to rush your positions in the open desert. All you have to do then is lie down, and let the AI do the work. No need to fire a single shot yourself... That's a bit of a pity. If some of the AI would choose to hang back at the location you are trying to assault/raid/whatever, you could get some nice urban fights

Furthermore, I also get the idea that the enemy AI only spawns at/near the mission objective. Could you confirm whether that is true, Honchoblack? If it is, it's a bit of a shame. It would be fun to see AI spawn not only at the mission objective, but also at random, albeit logical locations (e.g. cities).

Let me give you an example of what I mean:

On Dynamic Afghanistan, I received a Patrol Mission. I got tired of using the chopper for transportation, so I decided to pack my squad into two BMP's. We soon left for the mission objective (incidentally, it would be nice if the Patrol objective was more than just a round area; perhaps a strech of road or something similar). At this point I had to face a dillema: should I try to get there off-road, or should I just use the roads, which are much faster? The problem was, the roads ran through two small cities/villages. At that point I didn't know what to expect there. Was I going to get shot at? Will I get an rpg up my arse? Despite the perceived risks I decided to take the roads. I have to tell you, the moment I hit those badly-lit (it was night) village streets, the tension rose fivefold. Nothing happened, of course, but the excitement was there

Any chance of more randomness in the dynamic missions?..

Regards,

X.

[seminara 4]

I'm all for the suggestions made by Xawery here.  The idea of having an enemy that kept it's head down and entrenched itself would be a total win.  I would really like to see AI that fought from within buildings (second floor as well as ground floor).  That would add an extra level of reality to the game play.  Is this possible?

[akd 0]

Point taken, I know that much of the system is not in the final state, its still a raw diamond that needs polishing, to reach its true beauty.

I hope that Silolas DAC will help to create more unpredicable battlefields, adding more variety to each assignments.  You can find out about Silolas DAC here, the potential of that project is quite large, but look for yourself:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=47852

Very interesting. So would the idea be to fold the Silolas DAC into the DMA system? As DMA is really more a dynamic campaign mission-generator in a semi-persistent world, I could see the two used together as a really powerful system.

Dynamic missions = good

Dynamic campaigns = good

Dynamic campaign with dynamic missions = nirvana

[hellfish6 7]

I've played around with my version of Dynamic Libya a little bit and I actually made it a tiny bit less dynamic. I added some permanant enemy units on the map. Just small little groups of 3-4 men or a ZU-23-2 and SA7 team here and there, with random placements and far-ranging, large radius waypoints to make the journey to and from the mission area a little bit more exciting.

I think it vastly increases the realism of the missions when you have to conciously plan them. If you just jump into a helicopter and get dropped off, then you're missing half of the fight. It's like the difference between a traveller and a tourist - getting there is half the fun.

So now your first mission might come under fire from a ZU-23 on a hilltop along the way. For the next mission do you ignore the ZU-23 or decide to hop in a land rover to take out that AA position and make it easier for your missions in the future?

It also greatly helps when you do a recon of your mission area now - you might have a wayward non-dynamic patrol in the area that sneaks up behind you. Or you might find an AA position that you missed.

Helps keep you on your toes.

One thing that kind of bugs me about DMA Libya is that you're always parachuting out of the helicopter. That isn't so bad, it's just that the helicopter climbs straight vertically when it drops you off, so you are on the ground and your last guy may be at something like 500m still drifting down. It takes a long, long time to assemble your team that way. Airborne assaults are designed to put a lot of men into an area very quickly, currently this insertion method works the opposite way. I've waited many a pregnant minute waiting for my last couple of guys to do their PLFs so we could move on.

But it's a small inconvenience, I suppose.

[khewett 0]

Nice idea, the getting there should be part of the fun!

Hope they incoperate this idea on any updates on the missions, would add a lot of tension!

[akd 0]

I'm all for the suggestions made by Xawery here.  The idea of having an enemy that kept it's head down and entrenched itself would be a total win.  I would really like to see AI that fought from within buildings (second floor as well as ground floor).  That would add an extra level of reality to the game play.  Is this possible?

Having the enemy in defensive positions at times, particularly in urban areas, would also really up the tension in regards to collateral damage and civilian casualties (if civilians could also be randomly placed in structures). Do I use an AT4 against that building that commands my objective and risk the chance there might be civilians inside, or do I risk my men to approach the building and clear it? But this is OFP...

[sanctuary 19]

One thing that kind of bugs me about DMA Libya is that you're always parachuting out of the helicopter. That isn't so bad, it's just that the helicopter climbs straight vertically when it drops you off, so you are on the ground and your last guy may be at something like 500m still drifting down. It takes a long, long time to assemble your team that way. Airborne assaults are designed to put a lot of men into an area very quickly, currently this insertion method works the opposite way. I've waited many a pregnant minute waiting for my last couple of guys to do their PLFs so we could move on.

But it's a small inconvenience, I suppose.

Actually, the parachuting is more an example than a definitive "only" way to do insertions.

We prefer to leave the choice on how to implement their own insertion to mission makers interested , so for your own mission ideas you can prefer insertion by transport vehicle, by rappel, by normal landing etc..., it's all up to mission makers.

For "the chopper climb straight very high" during the paradrop, that is actually a trick to make every soldier of the ejecting squad -alive-.

As during the template tests and scripts improvements, we noticed that whatever more orthodox method of paradroping we tried , we always ended in some deaths during the fall (sometime lucky with everyone alive, but sometime with 2/3 deads not exactly something interesting for the player) .

The trick of making the chopper going up during ejection totally solved this annoying problem despite making the landing of the whole squad longer, but you can get rid of this trick if you think those potential dead jumpers is not a big problem.

Quote[/b] ]Having the enemy in defensive positions at times, particularly in urban areas, would also really up the tension in regards to collateral damage and civilian casualties (if civilians could also be randomly placed in structures). Do I use an AT4 against that building that commands my objective and risk the chance there might be civilians inside, or do I risk my men to approach the building and clear it? But this is OFP..

Good idea, some future -in early work- projects should give you satisfaction on that point

[honchoblack 2]

I've played around with my version of Dynamic Libya a little bit and I actually made it a tiny bit less dynamic. I added some permanant enemy units on the map. Just small little groups of 3-4 men or a ZU-23-2 and SA7 team here and there, with random placements and far-ranging, large radius waypoints to make the journey to and from the mission area a little bit more exciting.

I think it vastly increases the realism of the missions when you have to conciously plan them. If you just jump into a helicopter and get dropped off, then you're missing half of the fight. It's like the difference between a traveller and a tourist - getting there is half the fun.

So now your first mission might come under fire from a ZU-23 on a hilltop along the way. For the next mission do you ignore the ZU-23 or decide to hop in a land rover to take out that AA position and make it easier for your missions in the future?

It also greatly helps when you do a recon of your mission area now - you might have a wayward non-dynamic patrol in the area that sneaks up behind you. Or you might find an AA position that you missed.

Helps keep you on your toes.

One thing that kind of bugs me about DMA Libya is that you're always parachuting out of the helicopter. That isn't so bad, it's just that the helicopter climbs straight vertically when it drops you off, so you are on the ground and your last guy may be at something like 500m still drifting down. It takes a long, long time to assemble your team that way. Airborne assaults are designed to put a lot of men into an area very quickly, currently this insertion method works the opposite way. I've waited many a pregnant minute waiting for my last couple of guys to do their PLFs so we could move on.

But it's a small inconvenience, I suppose.

I got the feeling that this idea is exemplary for what is still missing in the dynamic mission, a dynamic sourounding, which gives the player optional goals to accomplish, to make his life easier on the battlefield.

Now that the templates are out, the DMA team is discussing on where to head with the principle, too make it more interesting for the player. The ideas layed out here will have influence on our future work, since we got the feeling too, that changes are needed.

Tacrod layed out an excellent plan, that will influence our future works, and I think that he hit the nerve of the community with it. But these plans will be revealed once they are out of the drawing board stage. I will try to incoorperate these new plans in updates, but I got the feeling that a completly new mission is needed to match those goals. I am sorry for speaking in riddles, but I guess I just wanted to let you all know that the DMA is well aware of the limitations of the COIN mission principle and is working on a complete overhaul of the principle.

Regarding the helicopter, its true, the time untill all the squadmembers need to reach the ground is quite long, and worse most of the time those dropped at a high altitude tend to drift away (into the sea ). So I will address the parajump in the next update, trying to get them to the ground alive and as a team.

[akd 0]

One thing that kind of bugs me about DMA Libya is that you're always parachuting out of the helicopter. That isn't so bad, it's just that the helicopter climbs straight vertically when it drops you off, so you are on the ground and your last guy may be at something like 500m still drifting down. It takes a long, long time to assemble your team that way. Airborne assaults are designed to put a lot of men into an area very quickly, currently this insertion method works the opposite way. I've waited many a pregnant minute waiting for my last couple of guys to do their PLFs so we could move on.

But it's a small inconvenience, I suppose.

Actually, the parachuting is more an example than a definitive "only" way to do insertions.

We prefer to leave the choice on how to implement their own insertion to mission makers interested , so for your own mission ideas you can prefer insertion by transport vehicle, by rappel, by normal landing etc..., it's all up to mission makers.

For "the chopper climb straight very high" during the paradrop, that is actually a trick to make every soldier of the ejecting squad -alive-.

As during the template tests and scripts improvements, we noticed that whatever more orthodox method of paradroping we tried , we always ended in some deaths during the fall (sometime lucky with everyone alive, but sometime with 2/3 deads not exactly something interesting for the player) .

The trick of making the chopper going up during ejection totally solved this annoying problem despite making the landing of the whole squad longer, but you can get rid of this trick if you think those potential dead jumpers is not a big problem.

I think I mentioned this earlier, but what would actually be ideal, over and above the freedom of choice, would be consequences to those decisions. Right now, if there is a choice between a conventional insertion and a paradrop, the player liking parachuting is the only motivating factor to choose it. If that choice had positives and negatives to accomplishing the mission, then that would give it much more impact. If parachuting at night had an effect on my chances of being detected, then I might have a real reason to choose that over some other, noisier means.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Having the enemy in defensive positions at times, particularly in urban areas, would also really up the tension in regards to collateral damage and civilian casualties (if civilians could also be randomly placed in structures). Do I use an AT4 against that building that commands my objective and risk the chance there might be civilians inside, or do I risk my men to approach the building and clear it? But this is OFP..

Good idea, some future -in early work- projects should give you satisfaction on that point

Sweet.

[hellfish6 7]

Quote[/b] ]

One thing that kind of bugs me about DMA Libya is that you're always parachuting out of the helicopter. That isn't so bad, it's just that the helicopter climbs straight vertically when it drops you off, so you are on the ground and your last guy may be at something like 500m still drifting down. It takes a long, long time to assemble your team that way. Airborne assaults are designed to put a lot of men into an area very quickly, currently this insertion method works the opposite way. I've waited many a pregnant minute waiting for my last couple of guys to do their PLFs so we could move on.

But it's a small inconvenience, I suppose.

Actually, the parachuting is more an example than a definitive "only" way to do insertions.

Oh, I know the reasons for it and the rationale behind it - I'm just saying I preferred the air assault method in the DMA Afghan mission, where the helicopter landed and disgorged the squad. As I understand it, though, some people had problems with the helo.

Edit: Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure the helo gives away my position when it climbs that high. IIRC, I've rarely caught the enemy with their pants down, they're usually alerted to my presense because they saw that big Merlin in the sky long before they actually saw me.

One other thing I'd like to suggest is that when fighting in the city, it might be more fun if you had to find the enemy. Every mission I've played where I've had to fight near a city, the enemy always came to me. I'd usually land outside the town and get in a good defensive position and the enemy would then come streaming out of their relative safety to come get me. I'd just simply shoot them down in the open.

I could probably edit the scripts a bit, I bet there's something in there that sets the bad guys to "guard" or "s&d" when they spawn.

[honchoblack 2]

Quote[/b] ]I could probably edit the scripts a bit, I bet there's something in there that sets the bad guys to "guard" or "s&d" when they spawn.

Guard is used very often, so that the AI units will interact when other squads are under attack. Sometime waypoints are set at the players location, to have the enemy storm his position. But it seems that the "AI-storm" is too easy to handle, so letting the player search for the bad guys seems to be quite a good idea for cities and villages.

Also the patroling squads around the objective, that have been mentioned in the thread will add to more immersion in the mission.

[akd 0]

Quote[/b] ]

One thing that kind of bugs me about DMA Libya is that you're always parachuting out of the helicopter. That isn't so bad, it's just that the helicopter climbs straight vertically when it drops you off, so you are on the ground and your last guy may be at something like 500m still drifting down. It takes a long, long time to assemble your team that way. Airborne assaults are designed to put a lot of men into an area very quickly, currently this insertion method works the opposite way. I've waited many a pregnant minute waiting for my last couple of guys to do their PLFs so we could move on.

But it's a small inconvenience, I suppose.

Actually, the parachuting is more an example than a definitive "only" way to do insertions.

Edit: Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure the helo gives away my position when it climbs that high. IIRC, I've rarely caught the enemy with their pants down, they're usually alerted to my presense because they saw that big Merlin in the sky long before they actually saw me.

The helicopter does not give away your position. That's just how the enemy groups work currently. See above discussion.