Dynamic War

[xxbbcc 6]

I'm not sure if this is a bug, but it looks like one, so I decided to report it. Here is a screenshot:

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4906/dwbugfx5.jpg

that was taken after a base attack mission - this is inside one of the bunkers at the main airport base. The mission was already successfully finished (I was between missions), but it seems that none of the enemy soldiers have been removed from the map (neither dead nor alive.) The same is true for vehicle wrecks. As the screenshot shows, here is a big bunch of unarmed enemy soldiers that supposedly appeared inside the bunker during the mission.

I've seen this same behavior (problem) with several mission types where there are lots of enemy soldiers, the most notable one being the defend civilians, where (on several occasions now) the enemy soldiers appeared not far from civilians and they got slaughtered by the civs without even firing back.

Somehow the mission should create enemy soldiers farther away and have them move to the target location instead of making them appear very close to their target. It seems that in these two mission types (at least), a lot of enemies appear in bunches and they never move away from their spawning points.

Edit 1: it seems that this is definitely a bug - looks like that after enemy soldiers are not removed from the map, when a new mission is created, no enemy soldier is spawned. I got the terrorist base mission (at Mercalillo) and as the second screenshot shows, all vehicles were spawned empty. (There were 4-5 more UAZs, they just didn't fit on the screen.)

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/5687/dwbug2al2.jpg

Edit 2: I'm not exactly sure what happened. After I took the 2nd screenshot, I got in the BMP, put a bit of distance between myself and the UAZs and blew them up. I got the message from the base that the mission is accomplished and I was about to get out when a bunch (40+) enemy soldiers appeared charging. I'm not sure if this was an enemy ambush or if they really belonged to the just-finished terrorist base. I suspect it might have been an ambush since they all had weapons which are normally removed upon mission completion.

Also, most of the leftover soldiers and wrecks (mentioned in edit 1) have been removed by the time I got back to the base, but not all of them. (~10 was left behind, 1 alive.)

Another minor issue (more of an observation): sometimes the helo fails to land when getting back to base - it seems to hover ~1m above the ground and nothing happens for an extended period of time. If I give an "All, disembark" order, the helo then touches down and everything is fine. As I said, this is more of an observation if someone else runs into this.

[xxbbcc 6]

Here are a few suggestions:

1.

Can you please add an ammo truck to the airport base (and maybe the other bases, too)? At the airport base I had several base attacks (which I think the most fun ) and I used up almost all ammo in the two trucks and the Humvee, and I couldn't find a way to rearm them. Going to the ammo crate doesn't seem to work and I didn't find anything else.

2.

Add a bit more organization to the enemy. In many missions, they just appear as a horde of soldiers but there doesn't seem to be any order among them. For example, in the terrorist base missions or in patrol missions, there are never soldiers on guard or snipers placed on top of towers/buildings.

I know it might be very complicated, but it'd be nice to have a few special locations for every mission where there are patrols, snipers, guards in certain places. (There could be a few for each mission type/location combination so these preset locations wouldn't always be the same.) For example, if the terrorist base can be near Bagango, there could be 3-4 preset places where an enemy sniper would be placed. There would also be 5-6 possible locations for standing guards and a few different patrol routes. In a given instance of the terrorist base then, when the location gets set to Bagango by the mission, only a subset of each would be selected (one sniper, 3 guards, one patrol route), but in a different terrorist base instance (but still around Bagango), a different set would come up. This way a bit of order would appear in the missions yet they wouldn't appear hardcoded.

3.

More mission types:

3.1: Enemy establishes a base near a city. Enemy tents, machine gun nests and armor, along with several squads of enemy soldiers would be generated outside a city and the player has to take over these bases.

3.2: Free prisoners. Around some cities an enemy camp would be generated with a fenced holding pen that holds several civilians. The player has to find a way to free them. (Simply open the fence and let them go.) The mission is finished when all civvies leave the holding pen.

3.3: Escape. The player and the squad gets sent on a mission to some locations where the player and a few others from the squad get captured by the enemy. (The remaining squad members are able to flee and are placed back at the airport base.) The player has to find a way to get weapons and break free, get a radio and call for extraction. (Or simply get back to the airport.) This might require a fair amount of hardcoding so that a believable enemy base with patrols is generated.

3.4: Clear out a civilian drug/criminal ring that supports enemy forces. A civilian enemy force would be generated around a city (with trucks, weapons and a few tents, oil barrels, etc.), along with an enemy support squad. The player has to attack this civilian/enemy base.

3.5: Get the snipers. A few (random number) enemy snipers arrive to a city full of civilians and start shooting them. The snipers hide on top of buildings, towers, etc. The player has to go there and save as many civilians as possible by eliminating the snipers. (Similar to the other save the civvies mission.)

3.6: Extract civilians from city. A city is surrounded by enemy forces. There are civilians in the city and the player has to find a truck and extract as many of them to a safe location as possible. The civilians wander around and may get shot by enemies, but when the player is nearby, (s)he can give orders to the civvies to board a truck.

That's all for now. I realize that some of these might be very complex even for a standalone mission, but these are just ideas anyway.

[Trapper 0]

I didn't get far into the mission, but restarted a few times and played some of the early patrol missions.

Up to four times I've found a pile of dead enemies at the patrol locations. One time a wounded enemy was crawling around it.

Also the chopper insertions tend to pile up the player's squad when ejecting them all too fast.

You should consider that every soldier model needs some space for it's own in ArmA, and take precautions like you would for multiple vehicles.

Don't eject them too fast and when spawning groups, use a random dispersion script so they won't spawn all on exact the same location.

[xxbbcc 6]

With the insertion, I normally start running away from the chopper right away, so that others follow. Before calling the chopper, I always tell everyone to stand up and to get back into formation. This seems to work 99% of the time, I didn't have any casualties since MrN reworked the landing script.

[mrn 0]

@xxbbc

I may have found the cause of the loons not getting deleted but I need to test some more to establish. Thanks for all the suggestions, some of them are do-able, some not.

BTW- there are trucks in the hangars I think but I've changed it now.

Re: the units not spawning, how many missions were you in?

Re: Edit 2: The weapons only get removed on the defend and ambush missions. Chances are they got spawned too far away, heard the explosion and came running.

@Trapper

Quote[/b] ]Up to four times I've found a pile of dead enemies at the patrol locations.

Yep, I recently experienced this. Something is going wrong somewhere, I have a feeling that the friendly air units are calling artillery on the location that the east units are being spawned at. I'll look into it.

Quote[/b] ]Also the chopper insertions tend to pile up the player's squad when ejecting them all too fast.

I'd rather get them all out quickly just in case the chopper's under fire. It's not perfect by any means and in the next version there will be a manual transportation option allowing the player to control a helo.

* * *

I'm still busy at this, current changelog:

Quote[/b] ]0.92H Unreleased

Added a couple of weapons to ammocrates and changed the order you get them

After the enemy base mission that location becomes a west base. Some support will then spawn from those positions.

Added a new mission where the enemy will try and take these bases back.

Support option changed slightly. Support now improves the better the rating. M113 and Hummers to start, >100 vulcan and 2 Hummers>200 m1 >350 another m1, hummers and strikers

NOw keeping track of a few more stats, total deaths, E and W kills, player kills and player shots fired.

Added timeout message to difficulty dialogue @ start

Added Intel action at one of the huts, has to be earned though

Monitoring key units and vehicles at the base and will now respawn them at mission end

Removed mission over if Officer dies.

Rewrite of some of the persistant units

Added markers indicating friendly bases

Added accuracy bonus. If you're good enough you can earn 100 extra points per mission.

Added abort mission option back at base for the Raid mission.

Added Transport Helo. Using the dialogue this can be used as an alternative to the traditional helos.

Cheers

[Trapper 0]

Could you only disembark the player normaly to get this "clackclack" sound in blackscreen and then teleport/setpos-unassignvehicle the squad at once in dispersion around the chopper?

Speeding up the normal ejection time BIS thought of is a bad idea, as it gives ArmA a hiccup. The collision detection is very likely to make the whole bunch of models get stuck under the chopper and in themselves.

EDIT: Which is even worse when a hard landing damaged the chopper so much that the crew ejects and doesn't take off afterwards.

[stegman 3]

WOO-HOO!  

After a temporary glitch, I'm back and able to post!!    

Ok, first of all i lost my radio!

I loaded up a saved game, I had a radio on my back and pressing 0-0-1 would work.  But when I opened the map the radio was missing.  I dropped the radio, checked again and picked it up and checked again, but the radio was missing from the map screen  

I restarted and all was sorted, so if it happens to you…just restart.

Next I’d like to mention the “Defend the city, save the civilians†mission.

Twice I’ve failed and been overwhelmed whilst racing to the town of Iguana while a long line of SLA troops, tanks and UAZs come pouring out of Dolores/Parato.  There is no way I can win!  I call for the APCs and Tanks, but they struggle with the bridges and fall into the sea, or meet the OpFor enroute and get smashed!  The cobras all get shot down by the T72s and the Infantry support get annihilated!  I’m too inaccurate with artillery, air strikes and missiles, plus there are too many OpFor anyhow!  Its impossible.  I love it!!

I don’t know if this is meant to happen, but the civilians all spawn out side the town, and huddle around some bushes to the northeast of town.  They exchange a few shots now and then, but nothing much.  I haven’t seen this mission at any other town, so can’t compare it against another.

Just letting you know my experiences.

By no means am I complaining! I love this mission!

[Chip360 0]

Hey, um.. I just downloaded your mission and I was totally excited! I talk to the officer and he gives me my first mission "patrol"

I whirl out my map ready to embark on my first mission and:

That couldnt possibly be the mission area right? Is that just the legend? Cus when I clicked the link to the location it took me here... wtf?

Also, I have like debug error messages the enitre time at the top left of the screen... dont know if thats normal or not  

Knowing my luck, the errors are caused by sum stupid anomaly and the bug above is just a result of my n00byness (as in the mission is somewhere else and thats just a key)

~?~?~?!

EDIT: This problem may be caused by this?

[mrn 0]

Quote[/b] ]That couldnt possibly be the mission area right? Is that just the legend? Cus when I clicked the link to the location it took me here... wtf?

Correct. That isn't right, there is always a collection of markers up there-that's where I dump them after use.

Quote[/b] ]Also, I have like debug error messages the enitre time at the top left of the screen... dont know if thats normal or not

Nope, what does the message say?

These type of errors are normally caused by a sandbag addon. Check if you have one of those hanging around.

Cheers

[MehMan 0]

why don't you rather set them to empty?

[mrn 0]

Quote[/b] ]why don't you rather set them to empty?

2 reasons:

1)It wouldn't help, the marker would still go to the top right

2) I can't be arsed!

Seriously though I do plan on deleting and creating the markers at some point but there's only so many hours in the day and it would be quite a time-consuming process re-doing all the markers in all the scripts.

[Chip360 0]

Okay, I figured out the problem the whole time was for the past 2 months I thought I was using the 1.09 beta patch when IN FACT it was never starting up correctly due to an issue with TrueMods, once I removed the addon from my list everything started up (into 1.09 this time) and worked fine

Thanks a Ton for this! Loads of enjoyment

[xxbbcc 6]

Seriously though I do plan on deleting and creating the markers at some point but there's only so many hours in the day and it would be quite a time-consuming process re-doing all the markers in all the scripts.

I don't think you need to worry about that. Just put a note in the readme that explains what they are - I'm sure most people would be fine with those.

(Of course, if you want to fix it, that's fine, but I think the mission is quite good and I rather have more stuff in the mission than having this small thing fixed. )

[stegman 3]

Im still loving this mission, and to be honest the map markers have never bothered me.

if they are bothering you that much, unpack the mission, load it up in the editor and drag the markers off screen (but don't delete them).

The scripts should still move them to the correct location, but they wont show up in the sea.

@Mr.N

I was thinking, you know how youv gien the player two cars and a truck, why not give him/her a uh60 too?

When finishing a mission, you could also have the vehicles respawn back at base...although i like the fact that it encourages you to look after your resources..

what do you think?

[mrn 0]

@xxbbcc

Quote[/b] ]I rather have more stuff in the mission than having this small thing fixed

Thanks. Me too

@Chip360

Quote[/b] ]Okay, I figured out the problem the whole time was for the past 2 months I thought I was using the 1.09 beta patch when IN FACT it was never starting up correctly due to an issue with TrueMods, once I removed the addon from my list everything started up (into 1.09 this time) and worked fine

DOH! Good to hear you got it working.

@stegman

Quote[/b] ]why not give him/her a uh60 too?

Done

UPDATE

Normal

United Sahrani

Quote[/b] ]0.92H

Added a couple of weapons to ammocrates and changed the order you get them

After the enemy base mission that location becomes a west base. Some support will then spawn from those positions.

Added a new mission where the enemy will try and take these bases back.

Support option changed slightly. Support now improves the better the rating. M113 and Hummers to start, >100 vulcan and 2 Hummers>200 m1 >350 another m1, hummers and strikers

Infantry spawns from bases like the tracked and wheeled units

NOw keeping track of a few more stats, total deaths, E and W kills, player kills and player shots fired.

Added timeout message to difficulty dialogue @ start

Added Intel action at one of the huts, has to be earned though

Monitoring key units and vehicles at the base and will now respawn them at mission end

Removed mission over if Officer dies.

Rewrite of some of the persistant units

Added markers indicating friendly bases

Added accuracy bonus. If you're good enough you can earn 100 extra points per mission. This is received by rearming once a mission is over.

Added abort mission option back at base for the Raid mission.

Added Transport Helo. Using the dialogue this can be used as an alternative to the traditional helos.<---Removed for Anger Management issues

Fixed the spawning unit problem on the patrol mission

Fixed the move spawned unit script, should be more variation for the spawned units

Hopefully fixed the unit and vehicle not deleting problem

Changed most of the in game music

More tweaking of the evac/insert scripts

0.92I

Sorted the jumpout script

Added mission specific music and tidied other music

Tweaked the rating settings

Fixed the Player EH broken in last version

FIxed the missions played counter broken in last version

0.92J

Added differential in mission choice script for whether it's at main base

Added dialog at created bases for transport back to the main base, getting new recruits and transport for missions

Fixed enemies spawning at captured bases

Added ability to evac back to other bases

I've added a lot recently so probably added some new and interesting bugs too.

Cheers

[stegman 3]

@stegman

Quote[/b] ]why not give him/her a uh60 too?

Done

Outstanding!

[EDIT]  Good work again.  Funny thing happened to me; I inserted via Black Hawk (noticed the “set acctime 0†or what ever it is, nice touch).  As soon as the chopper landed, I fell out..dead!  All my guys jumped out, but were fine.  I wasn’t shot.  I don’t know what happened. Never happed since..odd ‘eh?

I love the troop command demo you've included.  Some time ago you showed me how to move two teams with a radio command and the “onmapclick†feature.  This new, more in-depth system is great!  I know there is that other, overly complex command system, but yours is very nice.  Does all I’ll ever need.

[xxbbcc 6]

Hmm, I somehow missed that last update...

Anyway, I just finished 0.92i - 704 confirmed kills. I just had to brag. (Although I did lose about 30 people. )

[mrn 0]

@stegman

Quote[/b] ]Never happed since..odd ‘eh?

Yup.

Good to hear the command dialog is ok, I hate doing dialogs so I kept it simple.

@xxbbcc

Quote[/b] ]704 confirmed kills.

*deep voice* GODLIKE!

Nice to hear the mission ends ok too.

How many missions did it take?

I haven't played more than 12-13 missions in recently so I'm curious to know what the bases are like and whether they're too busy.

Cheers

[xxbbcc 6]

It took 9 or 10 missions. (I didn't know it can go longer - the mission always ended for me after 10, so I thought it was hard coded.)

I haven't yet used the other bases yet - I was so busy in the last two weeks that I even missed the fact that there was a new version.

All in all, the mission play good: the enemy AI is quite formidable and on some missions (for me, the search & destroy) is a challange. The friendly AI is mostly useless - they're ok if they're used at a distance, but in close encounters they simply die away. (I know this is not the mission's fault.)

And I did reload quite a few times, so "godlike" is probably not the right phrase to use. But I did enjoy the mission immensely and I just started on 0.92j. I like the different landing zones idea, but haven't seen much else yet.

[Makake 0]

I am still often stuck in missions that request a certain person to be killed (most of the time disappeared). So I have to restart it all over which is frustrating. I miss a feature to abandon a mission (or didn't I find it and it is there?)

[OrLoK 20]

hello

Been playing 0.91G QG,

Amazed at all the changes, terrific stuff.

I have to play with the OFP trees mod as my poor rig (Dell 520 DualCoreDUo, 1gig ram, 7950GT KO, 500gig hdd) just cant handle arma with many AI on screen, which brings me to the problem Im still finding, which is slowdown at base.

Once i'm away frame rates get better.

Oh chopper Ai gets often confused by mountains and just hovers rather than gaining altitude.

Minor issues I know, Other than that excellent stuff.

And basically just to let you know im back on the scene!

Keep it up Mr N.

rgds

LoK

[liljb15 0]

For the first time ever while playing this mission, instead of going to my CO to get another mission I decided to explore around the island and I was amazed with what I saw. This whole time I thought friendly and enemy units ONLY spawned when I do a mission.

I expected to take my squad out and explore an empty island but boy was I wrong.I was surprised to see soldiers patrolling the roads and planes/helicopters flying in the air. Then I crossed the border into North sahrani and I was even more surprised to see SLA patrolling in north sahrani and SLA aircraft flying around. So since I discovered all these new features that I never knew about I decided to ask some questions to see what else this mission has that I didn't know about.

*By your estimation how many soldiers do you think populate the island at any one given time

*Are there any chances that I could see random firefights between US soldiers and SLA soldiers while just exploring and not on a mission

*Will I ever see soldiers actually "stationed" in cities

*Are there any boats patrolling the waters

*Will I see any aircraft doing bombing raids

*How in the hell do you have so much activity on the island with little to no lag

Thanks in advance for answering my questions

[mrn 0]

@xxbbcc

Quote[/b] ]It took 9 or 10 missions. (I didn't know it can go longer - the mission always ended for me after 10, so I thought it was hard coded.)

Nope, it is around 10 missions on Cadet but I haven't set a limit. Try Veteran for a longer and more challenging game.

Quote[/b] ]The friendly AI is mostly useless - they're ok if they're used at a distance, but in close encounters they simply die away. (I know this is not the mission's fault.)

I know, they do provide a useful distraction though.

@Makake

Quote[/b] ]I am still often stuck in missions that request a certain person to be killed (most of the time disappeared). So I have to restart it all over which is frustrating. I miss a feature to abandon a mission (or didn't I find it and it is there?)

The officer should pretty much be where the marker is, he shouldn't wander off too far. If you want to cancel the mission go back in the CO's tent and an abort mission option will appear.

@orlok

Good to see you back.

You may want to try the later version-0.92j, I think I was a bit liberal with some of the spawned units at the base in the version you're playing and toned it down a bit in J.

Quote[/b] ]Amazed at all the changes, terrific stuff.

Thanks. Quite quite different from the early versions eh?

Quote[/b] ]Oh chopper Ai gets often confused by mountains and just hovers rather than gaining altitude.

Can't say I've experienced this...my choppers just sometimes bash into the side of the mountain.

Quote[/b] ]And basically just to let you know im back on the scene!

If you're back on the scene I'll let you know when the beta's are about again if you're up for it?

@liljb15

Each time you finish a mission a new and random set of OFPOR and BLUFOR are spawned so the player will never really know what faces him when travelling across the island. It's very difficult to estimate how many units are spawned because there are many random elements that will decide who what and where is being spawned.

To give you a rough idea:

In the later versions each enemy base that is conquered becomes a west base where some tanks, apc's and an infantry group will be spawned.

The higher the rating of the player the more west troops are created.

The spawn enemy script runs 7 times and will generate 4 vehicle groups, an air group and a couple of infantry groups at randomly selected enemy bases.

The spawn friendly script runs 6 times and will generate an air group, 2 wheeled groups and 3 infantry groups.

On Cadet DAC will generate about 18 east infantry groups, 6 vehicle groups and a couple of armoured groups. Also, 12 West inf groups, 4 vehicle groups and an armoured group.

On Veteran DAC will generate about 10 east infantry groups, 2 vehicle groups and a couple of armoured groups. Also, 5 West inf groups, 2 vehicle groups and an armoured group.

Either difficulty setting DAC will generate 5 civilian groups and 4 vehicle groups.

So... I have no idea how many units exactly are spawned but what it does mean is that every game you play hopefully you'll get a different game.

Quote[/b] ]Are there any chances that I could see random firefights between US soldiers and SLA soldiers while just exploring and not on a mission

Yup. The chances of this increase if you get a few friendly bases on the Northern part of the island.

Quote[/b] ]Will I ever see soldiers actually "stationed" in cities

Not of my doing. But you never quite know with DAC.

Quote[/b] ]Are there any boats patrolling the waters

No, I've considered it but most of the action takes place away from water so my feeling is that there's no point wasting resources on something that would be never seen. Also, I have to give the hellicopters some chance of getting back to base!

Quote[/b] ]Will I see any aircraft doing bombing raids

Not bombing raids as such but the air groups will go to the same patrol locations you may get so if they see bad guys they do generally attack. One thing I haven't implemented is respawning IN mission so once the air units are shot down they won't reappear until you get back to base and end a mission.

Quote[/b] ]How in the hell do you have so much activity on the island with little to no lag

*Shrugs* Dunno.

DAC has helped immensely in building up a living island and also having been working on this mission for over a year has given me plenty of time to tweak stuff.

Quote[/b] ]I expected to take my squad out and explore an empty island but boy was I wrong.

That was the idea. Time and motivation permitting I also want to do a new mission called Headhunter where the player has to go into enemy territory and pick their own objective and targets.

Cheers

[manzilla 1]

MrN,

Gotta say bud, as a long time fan of this mission I am floored by it's evolution. I loved this mission from the beginning even when I couldn't get through a mission with out CTD. These new versions(since v1.09beta & DAC) are remarkable. You've truly got a masterpiece on your hands.

Thanks for all the work and countless hours you've poured into this beast. With out a doubt, my favorite mission by far.

[OrLoK 20]

hello there,

dunno why i was so blind and missed the fact I was on a really old version?

Old age I guess! But thanks for letting me know.

I'll PM you with what I think and the usual nonsence.

IMHO its still "The SP Experience".

Oh, and does anyone have any mods that they use to enhance this map? ie XAM etc?

rgds

LoK