Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
dmarkwick

Novajev CTI + DAC

Recommended Posts

I've made a very nice CTI mission that uses the very excellent Novajev island, into which I've converted across an MFCTI mission, and also added some DAC scripting also. I must stress right off the bat here that I am not taking any credit AT ALL for any of the excellent scripting done by much more talented people than me, I am very much riding on the shoulders of giants here smile_o.gif

The Novajev island, although using a modified landmass from Nogova, has a totally redone town, road and vegetation layout and is in my opinion the best ever map for OFP. I use it almost exclusively now, it's that good. (I really hope to see it ported over to Armed Assault, that would be perfect smile_o.gif)

I've had to somewhat fiddle around with the conversion, there's more towns for example (from 28 in Nogova to 34 in Novajev) and the spawning positions, flags, triggers etc can only be tweaked as I see problems ingame. I think I've ironed out the vast majority of problems, and now I see a game that is at least as consistent as an official CTI mission.

I've also added some extra touches, at random farmsteads & buildings I've added ammo crates that only have a very small chance of existing (only western ammo though so far), I view them as found resistance caches, luck and observation will find them, they are by no means numerous. Also there's some cars to be found in towns, again randomised and not numerous.

The above gave us (I play in a small group) a very nice game indeed, speaking for myself it's now my favourite CTI mission (I would say that though wouldn't I? wink_o.gif) but I added more. One thing I found is that CTI missions tend to become races to the next town, lone wolves can run rampant, because apart from the towns there is no danger at all in moving about.

To combat this I added a DAC script which adds into the mix some random resistance patrols. At first it had several ground troop groups, several unarmoured groups and some armoured groups, but this proved slightly too laggy for the host's machine to cope with, so I rebalanced it to have less troops, more armour, and the performance seems to be OK. Ingame experience ranges from not seeing hardly any resistance patrols, to being inundated with armour backed up with reserves of more armour and ground troops. A very nice change, it's no longer safe to go blasting from town to town.

A nice touch of course is that the eastern side has the same problems, and distant running battles can often be heard.

The mission takes about 30 seconds to a minute to initialise, during which you'll get slowdown, slideshows and an error message about not naming units, just click continue it's of no consequence at this stage. Pretty soon the mission will have fully initialised and things should smooth out.

Get the CTI addon here:

http://mfcti.sourceforge.net/MFCTIDownloads.html

Get the Novajev map here:

http://www.ofpbase.com/newsitem.php?id=376

And get my Novajev CTI+DAC mission here:

http://freespace.virgin.net/david.markwick/DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC.rar

And as a special treat, for those who wish to have a somewhat more complete SINGLE PLAYER experience, get the extra busy CTI+DAC mission here:

http://freespace.virgin.net/david.markwick/DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC_Busy.rar

this one will be entirely too server-intensive for MP gaming, but by all means go ahead if you fancy it wink_o.gif it has lots of ground units, unarmoured units and armoured units.

Remember, these guys communicate between each other, so expect backup when engaging them smile_o.gif

Hope you enjoy, leave feedback smile_o.gif

*EDIT*

The current "official" public beta is now labelled v0.5 and contains many improvements.

DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC_advanced_v050.rar

New version. v0.51

DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC_advanced_v051

New version. v0.52

DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC_advanced_v052.rar

This final version has many minor improvements, including troop patrol vehicles that only travel between towns on roads, foot patrols that regularly inspect the most logical advance points for each town, and armoured units that stay inland on higher ground rather than uselessly patrolling shores.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
excellent post, albeit in the wrong place (methinks User Missions)

ill make sure to play this as im home with the flu

Ah, yeah I see the user missions forum now smile_o.gif Can a kind mod please move me?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Greetings,

I really like the concept (being big into both CTI and DAC)... and I intend to try this soon when time allows.  Plus I guess I've never used this particular island... anyhow sounds cool! tounge2.gif

Quick question for the moment:  Did you happen to include any measures so that you don't start out right on top of any enemy DAC units?

Also, this next is just my own related idea I've been tossing around, in case you are interested:

One thing that always bugged me about CTI was that in the beginning, all the towns are occupied (by resistance forces generated upon approach), which is good.  However, once the towns are taken over by your side (and then later the opposing side, etc), there are often more and more vacant towns.  This is because each side gradually gets spread out as they accumulate more towns... and of course once a town has been captured by either side, no more generated forces.

So, after the initial town grab, the game tends to devolve into a sort of whack a mole experience.  IMO, from here out, too much of the game is spent recapturing vacant towns.  confused_o.gif

DAC sure seems like the answer, and it certainly sounds as though you made good use of it in your mission, through the use of initially placed DAC resistance forces.

IMO, the next step could be to include, for lack of a better word, friendly "garrison" forces, that would spawn in towns that are taken over, perhaps once you vacate, thus eliminating all the vacant towns as the game progresses.  An even better idea might be to have an option to "garrison" your own forces if desired (and perhaps start over back at the base).

Over on the DAC thread, (in case you hadn't noticed already) Silola has whipped up a new "DAC_Insert_Group" script (per one of my requests), that might just make this sort of thing possible.  smile_o.gif

I'm sure these "garrisons" would add some degree of lag, but with the DAC's group reduction capability, eh, you never know.  Anyhow, I totally understand if all that's way past the scope of what you're doing.  Just thought I'd mention it, as you're the first (I've noticed anyways) to release a combined CTI + DAC, which like I said before, is way cool.

Can't wait to try out your mission!  biggrin_o.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi there MadRussian, I can recommend the "busy" version of the mission for SP play, if you've got a reasonable machine to play it on.

I'l try to answer each point:

Quote[/b] ]Quick question for the moment: Did you happen to include any measures so that you don't start out right on top of any enemy DAC units?

No. there's no measures for not starting out right next to a DAC patrol, and in fact the game is fine like that wink_o.gif the island is big enough to make that possibility quite rare, but it has happened to me. What happens is a desperate initial struggle for survival (my own experience had me spawn in a small forest with DAC armour attacking from outside immediately) compunded by the knowledge that they were radioing for backup. It's possible to survive, long enough to move the base HQ vehicle somewhere safer.

I'm of the opinion that sometimes you should NOT win, the real possibility of losing CTI is something that seems to fade away after playing it a while, and the odd desperate struggle is what makes it more tense. smile_o.gif

Quote[/b] ]So, after the initial town grab, the game tends to devolve into a sort of whack a mole experience. IMO, from here out, too much of the game is spent recapturing vacant towns.

Yep I know what you mean there. It would be nice for either:

CTI to spawn a resistance camp (or camps) that can spawn out small recapturing & holding groups or

Ability for east/west to garrison towns or

Uncaptured neighbouring towns to spawn & send across help or

You get the option to leave some forces behind like ECPs dismiss mode.

Or something, there's lots that can be done. smile_o.gif I suppose it's not outwith the bounds of man's wit to manually place DAC waypoints at flag positions to encourage regular town patrols.

Quote[/b] ]Over on the DAC thread, (in case you hadn't noticed already) Silola has whipped up a new "DAC_Insert_Group" script (per one of my requests), that might just make this sort of thing possible.

Sounds cool, I could definately make use of that biggrin_o.gif the increase of DAC "player spawns" would be balanced by the eventual decrease of the resistance DAC elements. The resistance do not spawn at the moment, I don't have plans to change that but it's still yet a possibility. Performance is something that needs to be constantly borne in mind.

Quote[/b] ]I'm sure these "garrisons" would add some degree of lag, but with the DAC's group reduction capability, eh, you never know. Anyhow, I totally understand if all that's way past the scope of what you're doing. Just thought I'd mention it, as you're the first (I've noticed anyways) to release a combined CTI + DAC, which like I said before, is way cool.

Yep, lag is the problem, especially for MP games. Bare in mind the host's machine needs to control reduction logic for each and every player, and that gets worse as the game expands as you might imagine.

All in all, I think DAC is the perfect complement to CTI, and I'm glad that I'm the first to implement it, and the first to think of it biggrin_o.gif (at least, I'm not aware of any other smile_o.gif)

*EDIT*

The "busy" version is updated. Reflects exactly the same starting positions & other recent tweaks as the MP version, which I had forgotten to update.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Does anybody have any thoughts on this? Feedback is what I require right now before I go further with it, how are people reacting generally to it?

If you did NOT try it out - what was the reason? The new map? Don't like either CTI or DAC? Think it won't perform well for you?

Simple indifference/apathy?

Have any good/bad experiences with it? Last night for example I had one of the best CTI games I ever had, me & three others were half an hour into the game before the first eastern attack on our base. We were inundated with wave after wave of trundling armour and came this close >< to being wiped out. We were forced into using teamwork (;) biggrin_o.gif) to turn the situation around, pulling a victory out of our asses.. Moment of the night was 3 shilkas trundling into a minefield we had set up after observing that there was a forest chokepoint with a narrow passthrough.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Using DAC is a great idea, but I prefer smaller islands when playing CTIs, because I use to play with very few friends (if it had some kind of save option then it would be perfect! ^_^)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

the Busy version is crazy  biggrin_o.gif

i started off at the airport SW (lucky me) and had was immediately attacked by a T80,a Shilka and a BMP,i dont know if they were FIA or URSS, as later on i could not salvage them...weird uh?

but after the base was started, i had a rough time getting my first town, it seems all FIA in the area took offense of loosing 3 armour the first 20 seconds of the game and attacked my troops big time. after a looong battle (15 mins or more), i finally took that wretched town and guess what, at that moment the russians arrived like tidal waves crazy_o.gif

Basically i had only AT infantry and a few stactic HE\AA defenses against dozens of tanks and a few Hinds, but...i made a fortune salvaging and finaly got some M1A1's out and taking advantage of the airport, i flew countless of attacks over the enemy armour (my AI were having problems taking off, so some used AH64's, but still they sucked at flying), eventually i spotted their base from the air, a mortar fire mission was set up and I knew it was on target when i got the message "the enemy commander has been killed" , so I directed my tanks there and did some CAS missions to clear the way.

Moral of the story: Never underestimate the power of Natural Stupidity over Artificial Intelligence  yay.gif

Thank you for these missions, i was dying of boredom while on voluntary flu quarentine  thumbs-up.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote[/b] ]the Busy version is crazy biggrin_o.gif

Yes it can be smile_o.gif I find that it's a different experince each time, which is what I was hoping for.

Quote[/b] ]i started off at the airport SW (lucky me) and had was immediately attacked by a T80,a Shilka and a BMP,i dont know if they were FIA or URSS, as later on i could not salvage them...weird uh?

The DAC abd the CTI are different game entities, and do not interact in any way other than indifference to each other. They are both Resistance of course but do not communicate targets or salvage or anything. I can probably arrange it easily enough (DAC is good like this) but it would make taking the first town a nightmare every time you play. The DAC entities probably are missing some vital naming convention or other property that allows it to be salvaged.

Quote[/b] ]but after the base was started, i had a rough time getting my first town, it seems all FIA in the area took offense of loosing 3 armour the first 20 seconds of the game and attacked my troops big time. after a looong battle (15 mins or more), i finally took that wretched town and guess what, at that moment the russians arrived like tidal waves

Heh, yeah the DAC can pull in some tough backup sometimes. And of course once the East base knows your location it's engage & destroy time smile_o.gif

Quote[/b] ]Basically i had only AT infantry and a few stactic HE\AA defenses against dozens of tanks and a few Hinds, but...i made a fortune salvaging and finaly got some M1A1's out and taking advantage of the airport, i flew countless of attacks over the enemy armour (my AI were having problems taking off, so some used AH64's, but still they sucked at flying), eventually i spotted their base from the air, a mortar fire mission was set up and I knew it was on target when i got the message "the enemy commander has been killed" , so I directed my tanks there and did some CAS missions to clear the way.

Sounds like you had exactly the sort of experience I was hoping people would have. Nice one.

Quote[/b] ]Thank you for these missions, i was dying of boredom while on voluntary flu quarentine

More than welcome. I'm very happy with them and hope to enhance them more.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm the last guy on the totem pole when it comes to CTI.      I didn't even know what it was until I tried your mission. Honestly I love it! And DAC enhances just about everything. I've had some of the craziest firefights with enemies coming in from all directions including above, then I've had in a long time.

Would it be possible to implement a GDCE style soldier upgrade as they gain experience? I'm a sentimental sap when it comes to my AI units and that only enhances it.

Also, how about using there save system(SOW's?) for single player? Is that possible?

Last CTI question: Can you move your mobile HQ so you can build fortifications all over the map or is that impossible?

Thanks for great mission biggrin_o.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Last CTI question: Can you move your mobile HQ so you can build fortifications all over the map or is that impossible?

You can do that with an Repair Truck, however there is a limit on the amount of MG, HE and AA guns (although it can be disabled via voting).

The MHQ isn't meant for moving around to build static defenses, it is the vital part of every team and so it should be one of your highest priorities to guard it and keep danger away from it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I'm the last guy on the totem pole when it comes to CTI. I didn't even know what it was until I tried your mission. Honestly I love it! And DAC enhances just about everything. I've had some of the craziest firefights with enemies coming in from all directions including above, then I've had in a long time.

Would it be possible to implement a GDCE style soldier upgrade as they gain experience? I'm a sentimental sap when it comes to my AI units and that only enhances it.

Also, how about using there save system(SOW's?) for single player? Is that possible?

Last CTI question: Can you move your mobile HQ so you can build fortifications all over the map or is that impossible?

Thanks for great mission biggrin_o.gif

Thanks for trying it out smile_o.gif

I am not involved in the gameplay scripting side of it (apart from shoehorning some areas to fit) that sounds like a question for the guy who wrote CTI. I thought that I would make a UK forces version at one stage but that involves two things:

Major script hunting & searching for all instances of soldier, weapon & ammo type and

Making the mission reliant on addons that most people won't have.

So I left it. Hopefully Mr CTI bloke (can't recall his online name as I type this sorry) can abstract the unit, weapon & ammo names (as well as vehicles etc) into one lookup script for easy conversion to whatever forces you like.

As for the savegame implentation - I think that's already in the works. It's outside my area of interest for CTI so it won't be me smile_o.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Last CTI question: Can you move your mobile HQ so you can build fortifications all over the map or is that impossible?

You can do that with an Repair Truck, however there is a limit on the amount of MG, HE and AA guns (although it can be disabled via voting).

The MHQ isn't meant for moving around to build static defenses, it is the vital part of every team and so it should be one of your highest priorities to guard it and keep danger away from it.

You can move the HQ about, and are encouraged to do so smile_o.gif there's no reason for you to accept the given location, if you're playing as commander you can move anywhere, build whatever you want wherever you want. Anything that is allowed is allowed wink_o.gif But yes, it's top priority as far as defence goes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for replies fellas

Moving HQ will make huge strategical difference!

In terms of updating soldiers i did'nt mean new units, I meant having your soldiers upgrade from rookie;novice;recruit;expert... the more kills they have and the longer they stay alive+ keeping a stat sheet on their kills.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

When this mission is closer to a finished state, could you please post a thread on OFPEC, at the beta board.

The OMBT (OFPEC MP Beta Team) will most likely hav a go at it, an give you any comments on what's needed in the mission. That is, once we sort out member issues.. check out the recruitment thread for that too if you wish to join wink_o.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Having problem ordering the correct squads via quick-click in WGL- they must have different format so 'foxtrot' isn't 'foxtrot'. Also ECP won't accept the quick-click much like CE2- although I have a command for ECP/CE2 that I put into the init file to make it work. Any suggestions so I can enjoy the better effects of WGL or ECP and still quickly move my squads?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Having problem ordering the correct squads via quick-click in WGL- they must have different format so 'foxtrot' isn't 'foxtrot'. Also ECP won't accept the quick-click much like CE2- although I have a command for ECP/CE2 that I put into the init file to make it work. Any suggestions so I can enjoy the better effects of WGL or ECP and still quickly move my squads?

That's a problem you might find in any CTI or DAC mission (whichever one is causing it) and not really anything I can do anything about. I don't want to make any fixes (even if I could) because it's simply not my place to, I didn't write it and I take no credit for the generally excellent work in both scripts.

Sorry, but I'm mostly concerned with this particular mission(s) than changing the way the addons work. My only advice would be to find out which one is causing your problems (I would suspect CTI, try out an official CTI mission and see if it still happens.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I rather enjoy CTIs and tend to host alot of a group of fellows, however when I attempt to select the mission out of my MP list I get this error.

'Preprocessor failed on file User\Wolf\mpmissions\DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC.Novajev\description.ext - error 1.'

I get that for both versions. Any thoughts on what's causing it?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I rather enjoy CTIs and tend to host alot of a group of fellows, however when I attempt to select the mission out of my MP list I get this error.

'Preprocessor failed on file User\Wolf\mpmissions\DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC.Novajev\description.ext - error 1.'

I get that for both versions. Any thoughts on what's causing it?

Hmm, I have no idea really smile_o.gif

If you are able to run official CTI missions then you should be able to also run this one, there is no coding differences at all, it's literally a straight port over to another island. Most differences are simply in-editor differences, dragging around triggers, starting positions etc.

So assuming you have both the map and the CTI addon file in your res/eddons folder then you should be good to go. I have tried it with ECP, FDF and vanilla GOTY games and they're all fine. Are you running a different mod? It shouldn't make any difference but any info is relevent when the reasons are not known.

It doesn't sound like a DAC problem because decription.ext is a CTI file. But just in case try out a DAC mission if you can find one. All I can tell you is that if you can run DAC missions and CTI missions (both of which need no addons other than the CTI one which you should already have if you've hosted/played CTI before) then this one should run OK, I have not changed any code other than to turn off DAC dynamic weather & other small changes. I haven't touched description.ext at all.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm an idiot, my bad. I did infact have the wrong CTI addon file running. The odd error it gave and the way it crached threw me off. Sorry bout that, runs now.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm working on DM_CTI_Novajev_DAC_advanced now, numbers are up like the busy, but there are some improvements in the patrol activities now. The unarmed patrols for example now patrol between all the town centers instead of random wandering. The armoured will be tending to keep to the slightly higher ground (after I noticed lots of beach patrols smile_o.gif) and the troops will be visiting lots of farmsteads & buildings as part of a random patrol.

I'm also toying with adding some dedicated zones around large towns, with their own smaller patrols around the area.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Finally beat this mission (busy) after 8 hours. Tough as hell but I loved it! Look forward to your update to play it again pistols.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

this is very nice. well done. one thing i'd love to see is wgl unit capability. not sure how its done, but wgl and this would be a match made in war time. smile_o.gif

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
this is very nice. well done. one thing i'd love to see is wgl unit capability. not sure how its done, but wgl and this would be a match made in war time. smile_o.gif

I don't know why WGL functionalty would not be available in CTI+DAC missions but I would suspect the CTI custom menu inserts have something to do with it. At the moment I'm going with CTI & DACs ethos of no addons or mods required (other than CTI addon) that the player is unlikely to have, however this might change in the future. I sure would like to see UKForces troops used instead of the default western ones in CTI smile_o.gif Easy enough to do in DAC but CTI would be too much knife & forking through who knows how many scripts, what with units, weapons, ammo & vehicles & their respective ammos etc. I'd like to see default units in CTI abstracted to a seperate lookup script to make conversions easier, similar to how DAC does it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×