Evolution V1.0 Large scale respawn coop

[frederf 0]

I do like Evolution so far. I'll reread the whole thread some time when I have time.

Suggestions:

1. Forward Edge of Battle Area: FEBA should progress as towns are cleared, maybe 1-2km behind the last cleared town. Then any damaged vehicle that's been there more than an hour should be auto collected? The littered trail of equipment across the landscape is just plain dumb. I know it's the fault of the players but you can't fix stupid.

2. Can boats be tasked with reclaiming aircraft lost at sea?

3. More encouragement to be in a squad?

4. Some kind of spawn forward system like if your squad leader is in a Stryker in Cayo you could spawn off that and not at the airbase.

5. Separate the aircraft and the base. Every two-bit mission maker since time began has been putting the "main base" at Paraiso airfield. Even just in that walled in area to the south by 100-200m would mean a LOT less helo-whoring and a lot less shenanigans.

6. Respawn FARPs? FARPs are very vulnerable.

7. Can you have repaired vehicles have a tiny amount of gas? Getting 3 AI to drive 10km and repair something without them doing SOMETHING stupid is near impossible.

8. Some kind of combined ammo/fuel/repair truck?

9. A service script that adds magazines to HMMWV_Mk19 and M113_M2? The aircraft version works nice.

Question: Do the convoys move in the side missions? I've never seen them.

[Apo-TTCC 0]

...

Question: Do the convoys move in the side missions? I've never seen them.

Maybe you experienced the same like i did with the waterpatrol missions. When i accepted it the first time there was no waypoint given and i was cruising around with no luck to find an enemy boat. Another day i had the same and then aborted the mission, asked for it again and there was the missing waypoint that leaded me right to the target.

[frederf 0]

I find the enemy mission vehicles just fine, just the convoy you want to ambush seems to be static.

Also I would have no idea where the convoy is traveling so I don't know where to setup an ambush?

[Dwarden 1125]

well i noticed sometimes convoys are stuck in 1.5a ...

they simply not move just camp at some village ...

[Taxidriver 0]

Evolution (other missions don't have this problem) still seems to trigger ArmA to cut off my internet connection once I pass the mission loading screen (no TS, no internet nada). The only way to get my internet connection back is by restarting ArmA or by restarting my computer.

Anyone else experiences this, anyone got a clue what might cause this?

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Yeah, i got the same problem exactly.

After the loading screen i'm supposed to see the green 'sending data' screen, but instead nothing happens exept i'm teleported underwater(in the background).

Those infamous 'didn't receive a message in x seconds' pop up, my router gets pinged massively from the internet and i get kicked out (maybe some DDos feature built in to safe me, dunno).

Switching router/PC on and off DOES NOT help at all, i had the same problem 10 times in a row.

I had some good results lately with the following:

- return to the MP screen by pressing ESC

- keep clicking 'refresh' to get info from MP servers (your router will be reconnected after some minutes)

- connect to the same server directly from the server screen

- wait & cross fingers

Helped for me, but i dunno if it was a random result or not...

The mission is my fav drug atm, i can't get away from it - nice work indeed.

[KilJoy -SFG- 0]

I am trying very hard to decrese the amount of traffic connecting players get. Seems like for now the only soloution is to activate the enemy in one city at a time. As in you can not take somato untill pariso is clear . and you can not take cayo untill somato is clear. this would have the effect of keeping people together for more team play and not having units spawned all over the palce lagging late connectors as they are told of there exsistance. As i cant delete units safely without people getting client crashes it seems like the best short term soloution. Seems there is a problem with convoy waypoints. I willl look into this. Expect an update before next weekend.

[shiner 0]

@ April 30 2007,10:15)]I am trying very hard to decrese the amount of traffic connecting players get. Seems like for now the only soloution is to activate the enemy in one city at a time. As in you can not take somato untill pariso is clear . and you can not take cayo untill somato is clear. this would have the effect of keeping people together for more team play and not having units spawned all over the palce lagging late connectors as they are told of there exsistance. As i cant delete units safely without people getting client crashes it seems like the best short term soloution. Seems there is a problem with convoy waypoints. I willl look into this. Expect an update before next weekend.

I don't have a problem with this, but it does make it repetitive. Could you make city clearing a "mission" that is created for everyone on the server? IE someone selects the current city to clear and it gets locked in. Can't take another city clearing mission until that one is complete.

If you did go totally dynamic with the city clearing (all script driven) it does open the possibility for a perpetual mode.. ie the server can run all week allowing those users that play less often to achieve ranks.

I'm still cross my fingers on a repair/refuel chopper

[CaptainMurphy 0]

What if you just reduced it to on island at a time? Set an out of bounds limit or something until one island is clear.

I llike the idea of the recollection of equipment after one island is clear. Maybe set a 1 hr flag or something. Maybe an idea is to only have equiment spawn if there is a player of that rank in the game.

Oh yeah, I love the KA's actually doing something for once. makes you pay attention to the air and adds another dimension to the game.

Once thing I would like to see is a little more dynamic enemy. So if you capture a town and the next town over has a certain percentage of resources, they actually try to recapture the location. I know it would probably be a scripting nightmare, but would add some action to it. Maybe set it so the enemy that is advancing gets marked as such so the players know they are coming and can reinforce. With a play style like that you could make one island take upwards of 4-6 hours alone if the enemy is actually fighting back instead of merely defending. Maybe allow the town to repawn enemy if the town is recaptured.

I almost have the "LB Taxi" script ready to try out if you are interested. All it does is check for air covereage in the area and if there is none is starts flying to the FARP in the area. I also placed a respawnable HMMWV near it so players could get a quick ride. I had an idea about keeping vehicles from moving until there is more than one person aboard it. Something of a carpool script of sorts.

As usual, keep upt he great work.

[-BR--Dawnrazor 0]

What we need is a Tank Transport (on a rope on a Heli)

is there a possibility?

[KilJoy -SFG- 0]

It seems to me most times city objectives are taken in order anyway. Its just easier to move land units that way. It would make it more liner as in you cant take dolores instead of somato for example, but the pay off would be enormous in terms of lack of dysnc, generally better pings much better client and server cpu usage. On top of that some skilled player who gets colonel by the second city cant proceeded to annihilate every piece of armour on the map before the ground guys even get to cayo. Another thing that is great is you could have three times as much enemy in each city then you currently do or more.

In the case of a perpetual version it might be better that the server opens up a random city to be completed every time the current one is completed.

@])rStrangelove & Taxidriver I have no idea how I could terminate your net connection through using a script command. Have you made a post about this in the support fourm? If not please do.

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

I like the idea of somehow retreiving vehicles..

How about a menuoption for reptruck to "Retreive"?

Then it would recuire a mission to collect..

And when repared and retreived it must be

transported to base. Maby a holdingpin for

3 vehicles.

I´d love to see some BIG transporttrucks/Lorrys

for Tanks and bigger vehics.

One more thing i wonderd abaot.

Why is the ammo for Stinger and Javelin

in the ammocrate but not the weapons?

Thats nonsens.

Sure, i can understand if you mean as for

ammocarry. One highrank got the gun

and one stinger, and the mate got one

stinger packed. But i havent seen

the option to drop matrls or put it

to vehicle.

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

<!--QuoteBegin--

-Dawnrazor+April 30 2007,18:21--><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Quote (

-Dawnrazor @ April 30 2007,18:21)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">What we need is a Tank Transport (on a rope on a Heli)

is there a possibility?

You mean like to TOW vehicles or Hitch...

That would be nice...Id like that to,

infact i would love to see the ability to

Hitch/Tow airvehics too...

EDIT:

How abot one of these...

[satexas69 0]

@ May 01 2007,01:31)]It seems to me most times city objectives are taken in order anyway. Its just easier to move land units that way. It would make it more liner as in you cant take dolores instead of somato for example, but the pay off would be enormous in terms of lack of dysnc, generally better pings much better client and server cpu usage. On top of that some skilled player who gets colonel by the second city cant proceeded to annihilate every piece of armour on the map before the ground guys even get to cayo. Another thing that is great is you could have three times as much enemy in each city then you currently do or more.

In the case of a perpetual version it might be better that the server opens up a random city to be completed every time the current one is completed.

@])rStrangelove & Taxidriver I have no idea how I could terminate your net connection through using a script command. Have you made a post about this in the support fourm? If not please do.

KilJoy,

I agree that forcing one city to be done before others can be attacked/spawned, would solve the issue I debated with you about the AH1's. And yes, it would be a bonus to "bulk up" the cities more.

I don't have a problem with the lag - but I bet if you removed the SU's (Planes) which are useless lag generators AND fixed your KA pilot issue, you'd remove a LOT of lag. After all, all those KA pilots running around MUST be causing SOME kind of lag.

If your going to do cities by order, Paraiso must be first, then the city below it.. then the bridge city of Corazel MUST be third, as it's an army cache and strategically placed.

I think everyone whining about vehicle retrieval is both lazy  and don't know how to drive AI. I suggest to everyone that finds it a pain to learn how to 'baby step' AI where you want them to go, exactly, including how to manage them over bridges and such. While it's time consuming, I have AI doing ALL my retrieval work, and it's easy. I used to want forward respawns, until I played the mission alot and became better at ArmA. All I ask for, and got, was the ability to have respawning MH's.

Think about it this way - most people want auto-cleaning for playing on public servers with crappy people. But that screws the rest of us that play on good dedicated servers with very coordinated and friendly co-op - which is what this mission is made for, yes? So I stay stick with intented integrity the mission was meant for.

[CraigT1976 0]

Wicked mission

Only one suggestion from me :-)

when you die, add an option to spawn in one of the towns that have already been cleared as it gets a bit annoying when you only have a few towns left to clear and you have to drive ages to get to them only to get killed and some noob has killed all the choppers

[CaptainMurphy 0]

We have taken a two fold approach to keeping people from littering the battlefield with vehicles.

1. Class restricted the aircraft and armor to be drivable by their permissable class of soldier

2. Password protected the server, and/or set it as non published so others that don't know it is there can't see it.

I personally like the idea of only one location at a time being able to be attacked and won. The only concern I have is people waiting at the next towns location for the last one to be destroyed so that they are in the thick of it right a the start. Not that it is a bad thing, but I can imagine people would rather wait at the next town lazily sitting there instead of hunting that last group of troops in the current town.

As it is now some players go from town to town and only attack the secondary objectives and get all the AI to spawn there. It doesn't take but a couple cities to get the lag going.

Just an idea, is there a way to incorporate a sleep type of script into each city similar to Paraiso? For example, if a player is not in the city limits for X minutes the AI cuts back to just the officers again? Then when someone gets back into the city the AI spawn up. Only ownside I could see to that is if someone picked off all the officers and it would remove the soldiers when they left the town.

[KilJoy -SFG- 0]

CaptainMurphy that is how it used to work, groups would be deleted back to one unit, but it causes client crashes if you delete enemy men type units in any number. Some sort of arma bug. I don't think people will hang around in the next city cause then they will miss out on the 10 point bonus. If they did it would probably be suicide anyway finding yourself totally surrounded in seconds. I think in general people go to city's to attack city's. they don't just pass thru on the way to missions they usualy go around city's. unless forced to like in corozal and your traveling in a tank or car.

[CaptainMurphy 0]

KilJoy,

Gotcha, I thought it might have been a method like that before, but I never delved into the code too much until v1.3.

Would it work to only remove one person per unit instead of removing more than one? Something of a gradual decline rather than a full on decrease. It seems to be able to handle it when players remove them one by one.

We have had a lot of people just go after the secondary objectives to get the quick 10 points rather than actually take the objective. It would almost be good to place the secondary in the middle of the city to make it a bit more difficult. Once someone has snuck around and activated the AI it gets a bit slow after that.

Sadly as it goes now some palyers just stand around inside a town that is being taken and just wait for the points. Not the most efficient way to get them, but lazyness rules the day sometimes.

How feasible would it be to add an option in the radio portion to "lock" a vehicle to a player. On several occassions I was playing transport pilot and was wounded landing in a hot LZ. Upon getting back to base I hopped out to get medical attention and another player snatched the bird and flew away. Could there be some way to stop them for X minutes if the bird is registered as "locked"? Not a critical component, and one I may look into in the near future, but it appears you are a much more efficient coder so I figured I would run it past you.

[OneManShow 0]

Wait for 1.6 patch, it seems time to connect to servers will be improved. Wait & see

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I really like the idea of 'forcing' ppl to clear just ONE city at a time. You should def do that, hopefully for the next update.

The 'vehicle retrieval' part is something that let to some really interesting 'side-missions' on the 6th sense servers lately, we had large groups of players going after valuable things like crashed choppers or stranded armored vehicles. Usually you need a repair truck, a fuel truck and a AAir vehicle for an effective 'retrieval convoy' and the journey lead us deep into enemy territory. Really cool experience and it wasn't forced or planned, it just happened because those choppers were needed.

There were discussions about what could've happened if those crashed UH60 FFAR would've exploded and therefore lost forever. How about offering a special mission in the mission HQ building to get a new one? Maybe just some 'fly UH60 through enemy lines back home' or soemthing more complicated like 'seize remote airfield and retrieve stolen UH60 chopper'. Would be cool if ppl need to work to get vehicles back that were wrecked during the battle.

Another thing (dunno if it was mentioned yet):

I made several attack runs in an AH6, but the landing pad in the western part of the airbase stoppped rearming me after some time. Can you enhance that time period, or better - have that landing pad offering unlimited supplies?  

[CaptainMurphy 0]

Maybe leave invincible units in each city until it is the next one on the capture list. That would keep people from wandering through empty cities or flying over them.

One thing to give people the "forward spawn" they want would be to add an air drop script in. They choose their drop zone and get transported into the air above the location.

[KilJoy -SFG- 0]

Air drop method spilts up players. Also I think its just to easy, fast and cheepens the value of life. There may have to be somthing in other citys alright.

[satexas69 0]

More bugs in 1.5a:

1. If you blow up a secondary target with rockets, you get the points. Then you can go back with a satchel, blow it up again (the empty space) and re-get more points.

2. If I have some AI, I can put them in a chopper with me, fly them anywhere, have them get out, and give me points. Then have them get back in, and keep hop hop hoping around the map doing that more and more until I have as many points as I want.

[Kenbow 0]

KilJoy,

First and foremost, Great Mission you made and we appreciate the work you put into it each day to make it better and better.

After playing Evolution constantly, I thought I would add my comments to possible improvement ideas based on comments expressed on this board and my own personal frustrations in-game...

1) I like the previous idea of having to capture towns in order because a) you stated the server would run will less lag, etc, but also b) In a real war like enviroment, an Army will usually take over land in an ordered fashion. For example, an Army wouldn't start taking objectives on the north side of the island, when enemies still hold entire cities on the southern part, which could interrupt supply lines. Also, if going town to town would drasticlly reduce desyncs and lag, and as you said, "you could triple the enemy presence" in each town, would that also mean you could add civilians in each town also while only doubling the enemy presence? More civilians in town would add more atmosphere to the mission... with a -1 penalty for killing a civilian.

2) Would you consider, upon a city being "cleared", giving the 10 points to everyone on the map (not just within city limits)? I really hate being in city from start, getting numerous kills, then at the end I die, spawn at base, and seconds later I get the "City Cleared" Message, yet I get no points for clearing it (other then kill points), but at the same time, some newbie who strolled into the city at the last minute without any kills gets the full 10 points? Also, I find when the town is close to being cleared, players start to "camp out" and hide in city until it is cleared so that they ensure they get the 10 points and aren't running back to city from a respawn when the points are handed out. Giving the 10 points to everyone on the team regardless of where they are on the map would re-enforce more of an overall co-op team support mechanism.

3) Adding another Blackhawk with machineguns at the base, for a total of 2 Blackhawks w/MG on the airfield.

4) Adding a total ticket system in game to record total player deaths. This would simulate an actual total number of "soldiers" on the base that are available to fight for that mission. For example, you could have a starting ticket number of 1,000, which would simulate an Army of 1,000 soldiers at the Main Base/Airfield. Each and every player death would subtract one ticket. Once the "soldiers"/tickets reached 0, that would mean that BLUFOR Army had been wiped out completely anf the mission is a failure. This would add a new level of challenge to the game and would make players even more cautious of dying. As it stands now, in every Evolution mission, the BLUFOR is always going to win, eventually, because of the infinite number of respawns players have and it becomes just a matter of "not if we will win, but when will we win?" Also, this system will make players less reckless.

5) I love the damaged vehicles script and no-respawn-at-base setup you have in place. If a vehicle gets destroyed/damaged out in the field, then the soldiers should have to make their way back out their to repair it. The only thing I "may" suggest is allowing a player to "force a respawn" of a selected vehicle back at base, which would in turn cost points to do so. For example, you could have a Supply & Support Command Building that upon entering, would give you a list of all the damaged/unfueled vehicles in the field. Then with points, you could had the selected vehicle respawn back at base. This would also give someone with rank of Colonel something to do with their extra points. Afterall, shouldn't the "Colonel" of an Army be able to get additional vehicles shipped to his Main Base as reinforcements?

6) Please keep player respawn limited to the Main Base. It makes one appreciate life and death, plus this isnt BF2.

7) Would you be willing to adjusting what weapons and vehicles are available at each rank? If so, I will give you my ideas.

8) Please don't get rid of the SU-27 and KAs flying over our heads. Even if they are alittle buggy on selecting targets, it really adds to the overall "war-like" atmosphere.

9) Add an artillery script to the mission, while using the artillery equipment already in game.

10) Increase total number of BLUFOR players to 50 or 60.

11) Is it possible to add about 3 or 5 slots to the enemy side (no rank system or anything like that), where a handful of players could play an enemy default soldier and add a human opponent element to the BLUFOR team mission. The only means of transportation for the enemy players would be Private level vehicles.

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

Heyy...

I must share my thoughts again.

KilJoy, a couple of nights ago i had this huge flashback.

I was sitting infront of my PC playing Evolution, as

always, in the middle of the night. Me and some other

players had to go and retreive some choppers couse

we ran out of Transportmeans. Serversettings were

on "HARD" so i didnt see any markers on the map.

Had to use GPS, Compas and Map. We had one Rep

truck and two fueltrucks. The time was i think around 11

at the evening. Dark as hell. We drove up towards Eponia

and there were some heavy rain and fog so it wasnt that

easy to drive. Took some time to get there. Well

we arrived and sort of got lost (i drove ) but we found

the first MH and repaired, got the fueltrucks in and refueld.

I chose to fly it back and after a few min i was back at the

airbase. A "mission" well done.....

Now, this was in a game but the feelings i got was soo real.

The expactations, nervs, fears. They were soo nice.

A really heavy flashback from my "Reallife Service"

Thank you for a superb mission....