need help for a TRUE strategy mode in ArmA

[dznemesis 0]

ok, the idea is simple:

i really like slow paced strategy games where not individual units are controlled but whole armies. i think it wouldnt be very difficult to port such gameplay to modern combat armed assault.

CURRENT VERSION:

Strategymode v0.48

(updated 08.07.2007,16h10)

to change the points available for buying troops, search in the \Dialogs\Buydialog.sqf for: currentpoints

= 11000 and change this value to your likings

to use in SP: copy the .pbo files to missions directory

to use in MP: copy the .pbo files to mpmissions directory

Multiplayer mode has the possibility to have a Commander and 8 squadleaders which get their troops assigned, additionally the weather and daytime can be chosen

Demomissions:

are included in download above:

- AS_Alcazar: conduct an assault on the enemy

- Defend01: defend a village from incoming enemy operation

Pictures:

some action...

Mission successful!

easy to implement into your own missions

Everything needed

gameplay is structured into 3 phases(details below):

1. army(=squad) selection

2. army deployment

3. combat

everyone who knows warhammer:dark omen/mark of chaos or the total war games (rome, medieval, shogun) should be familiar with these phases

key ingredients:

- a commander(maybe vehicle?) has control over multiple (not too many) squads

- view is maybe fixed above his head (20ft?) or maybe can switched to squadleaders

- the commander can select squads via a simple interface

- if a squad is selected, it can be sent to places by clicking on ground (dont know if this is possible, otherwise it has to be done via map)

- also, various actions can be implemented: behaviour,stance,firemode,special (easy, just buttons in interface)

- special actions include: plant mines (script that plants mines in random places within a small radius), board nearest vehicle, patrol area, regroup+heal+rearm etc...

- strategymode is primarily designed for human vs. human, but training vs. cpu is easy to implement too

- there are no resources! at beginning of map, either troops may be chosen (obeying a "value" limit) or the scenario has predefined armies

- objectives depend on scenario, but mainly "assault: one side defends other attacks" or just "side vs. side". its not very important to have many different types since the gameplay is very enjoyable itself.

- there have to be area of operations restrictions to prevent abuse (hiding somewhere on sahrani)

- at start of mission after selecting("buying") armies, for each side there is an area where armies can be deployed, if both sides have finished, the game starts.

- deploying is done with dummies (so that units dont engage in phase of deployment)

- no air units planned atm (balance, gameplay restrictions)

- maybe deployment areas will be randomly selected on sahrani or predefined points

- not too much fiddling with weapon loadouts etc., this is just overkill. keep it simple with standard infantry, anti tank team, specop, light transport, IFV, MAYBE tanks

- simple upgrades for infantry at buyout phase: skill(expensive),sniper,machinegunner,grenades

- commander can not fight, alternatively only in his command element, but can not switch into squadleaders

I myself am an intermediate mission creator with scripting knowledge etc.

primarily i would need help with the camera setup (can i let camera rotate by pressing keys??)

[Commando84 0]

this might work but only thing is when there will be combat it wont be so slow paced cause the a.i hits so well.

[dznemesis 0]

jeah the AI, the AI

i am sure BIS will apply some tweaks in the future as no one seems to be satisfied with the current accuracy at range.

anyways, all ai will start out with skill 0, except the upgraded ones(=expensive)

also, firefights might be quick, but overall infantry movement is quite slow once an enemy is spotted or if one proceeds more carefully. think how long troops need to get from one town to another when there are enemies around.

i think it also reproduces the effects seen in rome/warhammer quite nicely:

1. if an army is engaged in combat, it cant just run away or it will be shot down easily

2. infantryfights can take quite some while because soldiers tend to spread out and lie down and crawl around

3. if a squad is attacked from the side, it is very likely to suffer heavy losses

4. ambushes can be worked out; despite the overview of the commander it is still very difficult to spot enemies which are not moving/shooting and are some 100m away

[froggyluv 2136]

Nice idea. I've always loved the idea of an OFP/ Tabletop strategy game.

Is is possible to mod the commander view so that enemies are not seen if not in you or your men's LOS?

[dznemesis 0]

no this is impossible in ofp/arma.

but if you take a look at the second picture again, try to imagine if you would spot the "inf1" squad if there would be no marker (the picture is small and jpeg compression adds to concealment too, so take them a little bit further).

you still cant see units which are not in your line-of-sight, except if they are really close and you zoom out to look over an obstacle.

a little bit harder to implement would be a feature, that also draws a marker above enemy squads' heads, but only if your troops/you have eye contact to them. maybe somehow whith "knowsabout", then put a marker at the position but dont let it move with the enemy. if the enemy leaves a specific circle around the marker, then it vanishes and the enemy has to be spotted anew.

all in all, the features i suggested should not be too hard to build by a good mapper.

[NeilReed101 0]

this sounds alot like CoC

http://www.thechainofcommand.net/downloa....ons.wmv

[dznemesis 0]

thanks NeilReed101, didnt know that CoC had similar functionality

maybe i can extract some useful features like markers and unit orders

[colligpip 0]

I would love to have arma like the total war games, but i think you should keep the ability to zoom into any of the soliders so you could get into the thick of the battle if you felt like it.

Perhaps as well when there are loads of islands made there could be some sort of strategy map like in total war thats made up of the different islands and could somehow link into the game - so you could move armies . this way you could have vast battles that spanned whole continents as in total war. anyway just ideas bye

[dznemesis 0]

hehe jeah, sort of a "campagin mode"

but this would be very difficult, bc there would need to be a mechanism how units get "experience". atm, i cannot think of reliable code that would determine how much units a given squad has killed and which units...maybe its possible but tricky.

for example, if a unit attacks a vehicle with an m134, the vehicle isnt always destroyed immediately, but after short while it explodes. then the unit still wouldnt get the points even though it technically killed it.

also, this gamemode is much more fun in player vs. player, so there can even be a commander and the squads/individual soldiers are players.

my first proof of concept already works, there are 2 squads which i can send around the island using mapclicks

[dznemesis 0]

ok so a very rudimentary realization is now available:

Strategymode alpha 0.2

info is in the rar, have fun  

PS: new pics:

[colligpip 0]

I had a quick go with this and it really has a lot of potential keep up the good work.

Its kinda likea simplified chain of command which is good.

so can i add as many units as i want to each squad in the editor?

i guess ill try it.

Oh I couldnt get out of my apc I would like to be able to and use binos -is this normal?

and i dont think that having the commander view is even unrealistc these days what with small uavs etc.

[dznemesis 0]

jeah the simplified ascpect is quite important, so the commander can focus on tactics on a larger scale and doesnt have to fiddle with the details

you may add as much soldiers as i allowed per squad (12 total) by the engine, you can also delete soldiers as long as there is a W1_ldr ... W8_ldr (my first attempt to scan for non-existing groups failed, i used "isnull groupname")

the restriction to the apc is a feature i was glad that it is so easy to contrain the player in the vehicle. I too would like to have binoculars, but still within the vehicle, so i will try to make a cameramode with binocular-resource and a zoom.

The meaning of the lock-in is to make the commander more vulnerable/slow, so he has to stay back hidden somewhere and not leave the vehicle, grab some kickass gear (or even another vehicle) and join the fight. It might get changed into a humvee/support truck later.

current status: working on buy menus, coded a visual cue for the deployment area (also seen when map is off)

[dznemesis 0]

i am currently adapting to Dr_Eyballs Dialog Templates which are cleaner and prettier

status:

everything in this picture is already working as expected, except mapclicks in the interfacemap which i dont know how to capture.

[colligpip 0]

That looks really nice. Its a shame you cant get mapclicks to work on it perhaps somebody can help or could you make it you can select squads from within the map view? It gets a bit tricky selcting squads then going to map etc but its all good anyway.

I unlocked the apc in the editor i can see what you are trying to do but i really do need to get out and use the binos :-)

Anychance of changing the cloud that hangs over them to something more military marker looking and a switch to turn it off if need be.

I was playing this with the modwar sound mod and the new tracers and added loads more AI to it it was fantastic.

Imagine if somebody makes old fash units like they had in ofp we could recreat total war in arma :-) spec ops against a roman legion???

[dznemesis 0]

-mapclicks do work now

-also added markers to designate the position a squad shall move to

-unlocked comvehicle temporary

-updated first post

or download from here:

Strategymode alpha v0.27

[R0adki11 3949]

looking very impressive, it look quite simple aswell to control the ai, though although the commander is in a weak apc this is quite true i n real warfare as the commanders will behind there troops a great distance away

[dznemesis 0]

ok i have now finished the buy dialog, everything working good!!

starting now with the deployment (already did some trigonometry work for deployment area )

here a picture:

[NeilReed101 0]

WOW! this looks fantastic, great work mate keep it up .

[dznemesis 0]

deployment is almost ready, just have a little problem with the map clicks

in my "interface"-dialog, i use

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

class LOC3_Map: RscMapControl

{

idc = LOC3_IDC_Map;

colorBackground[] = {0.95, 0.95, 0.95, 1.00};

x = 0.01;

y = 0.40;

w = 0.98;

h = 0.5;

onMapSingleClick = "w_com sidechat ""testInterface""";

};

and in my "deploy" dialog there is

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">

class LOC5_Map: RscMapControl

{

idc = LOC5_IDC_Map;

colorBackground[] = {0.95, 0.95, 0.95, 1.00};

x = 0.27;

y = 0.04;

w = 0.72;

h = 0.90;

onMapSingleClick = "w_com sidechat ""testDialog""";

};

the strange thing: the first one works, the second one doesnt?!?!!?

i copied the entry in the interface.hpp directly to the deploy.hpp, only changed the LOC3 into LOC5.

the map is displayed correctly, i can click on it but nothing happens

if someone has a hint, please share

[dr_eyeball 16]

I don't think onMapSingleClick is a valid RscMapControl property.

See User_Interface_Event_Handlers for a full list of available handlers.

The only 2 potentially useful map mouse properties are probably:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">onMouseButtonClick = "";

onMouseButtonDblClick = ""; but they probably don't return useful map position information.

The reason you got it working in your last 0.27 demo, is because you added a call in MyTestDialog.sqf to call

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">onMapSingleClick "[_pos]call LOC3_MapClick";

It seems to me, that onMapSingleClick is picking up the map clicks for all and any map control used.

You may need to convert LOC3_MapClick into a global function/script.

[dznemesis 0]

thx VERY much...i was so focused on the fact that its working in loc3, that i wouldnt think about my sparse eventhandler knowledge.

i just tried it, and the call to loc5_bla was handled correctly, so the work continues

edit3:

found the problem...it really was as you said, i had to include the onmapsingleclick in the .sqf file, dont know why i cut it out anyway  

edit4:

next release version is ready (something in between alpha and beta) and will be posted as soon as i have the readme updated (but im off now for 1-2 hours so this may take till mid afternoon)

features:

-still only singleplayer

+buying->deploying->commanding all working (i hope )

+everything arranged nicely, so it is VERY easy to create an own template (for singleplayer), just copy scriptfiles into mission folder and markers

[colligpip 0]

really looking foward to this....

if we can work out some way of having a strategy map to go with arma then it will be fantastic

[dznemesis 0]

what do you mean by this? a map made of paper to plan your moves?

also id like to give the player the option wether he wants the boring map with lines or switch to textured map (but dont know if/how this is possible)

[colligpip 0]

I had a quick go on this and it really is like total war - I think you should perhaps put this in user missions as its not really a mod is it. YOu may get more notice there for what could become something really big. If this works multiplayer i could imgine 4 v 4 human players with massive amounts of men each would be a huge battle.

And by strategy map i mean like the map in total war where you move armies about the map of europe and then have battles but i think you know i mean that perhaps.

[dznemesis 0]

jeah i thought so too about moving, but it has to do a moderator...and i would also change the title ^^

so if a mod reads this: plz move to "user mission" or somewhere else appropriate and rename it to "StratMode - be a General"

and regarding the campaign map...this is true, now i know it can be done, didnt think about the possibilities introduced by BIS with arma. i dont know if there can be done more than just mission selection though (as seen in the arma campaign). it would be funny to be able to buy a camp or some reinforcements on the campaign screen