Evolution - Single Player

[kronzky 5]

One problem with having the Rank Select on Radio now rather than at the start of the mission:

I guess it does an addrating *Whatever* when you type in the correct password, so If you use it when you're higher than 0 then it'll add towards your current rank.

I unlocked Captain and typed in the Password to see if it did anything and ended up as a Colonel.

Good catch. I'll fix it right away.

[azdood 0]

I dunno if maybe im doing something wrong but I cannot capture the officer.

I remember playing the MP version and usually you do the option to capture him and he joins your group, or follows you.

But in this one my AI try to kill him or no option appears...

Any help would be cool.

[PaveQ 0]

There seems to be problem with vehicle respawn, it worked for while, but at some point stopped working. Vehicles just don't respawn to base anymore.

I think town depopulation should be deplayed about 15 mins from last visit in the town area, because every time they populate, units will be in different places. Of course I leave one AI to some corner, but sometimes he might die, and anyways this is not pretty solution. I had ambush mission where I set up ambush near town border, and it populated/depopulated few times I think. Somehow when I ambushed the convoy, the general just walked there. Maybe because the town was empty?

Also, I got this error constantly, I think I got it when paraiso repopulated. Also I found two empty T72's there, is that normal? I have saved the game there, in case you want that save game where this bug and non-respawning vehicles problem are present.

Minor cosmetic thing, the fireplace near mission building is not present in your version, but is in MP evolution. I don't care, just pointed out. Btw, if you try side mission and fail, you can't no longer try it. Is this supposed to happen even if you fail?

Also, A-10, the spy plane is useless if you play with veteran level... maybe add normal markers there, instead of only revealing the units?

One hint for paraiso, go with AI guys and sniper rifle to south of paraiso, up on the hill near the factory. There you probably can see infantry group or two, and get it quite easily. Sometimes you even can see the radio tower there, and shoot the guards.

Anyways, thanks for the great mission.

[froggyluv 2136]

Wow I can't believe you got that save-game bug fixed

Had some real scared for your life moments with half of Parasio chasing me while I'm crawling back to my base, canon shells all around

Great Job!

[Armalite666 0]

I dunno if maybe im doing something wrong but I cannot capture the officer.

I remember playing the MP version and usually you do the option to capture him and he joins your group, or follows you.

But in this one my AI try to kill him or no option appears...

Any help would be cool.

I'm having the same problem.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Loading a saved game after restarting ArmA works now.

Off for a few hours testing.

[kronzky 5]

I dunno if maybe im doing something wrong but I cannot capture the officer.

I remember playing the MP version and usually you do the option to capture him and he joins your group, or follows you.

But in this one my AI try to kill him or no option appears...

Any help would be cool.

I think you can only capture the officer once the town is cleared. He will not surrender as long as there's still fighting going on.

[azdood 0]

Aight, Well after playing for a very long time a noticed some small problems.

What PaveQ said the A10 is useless when in veteran mode, plus it circled the same area for an hour, no where near me. Im not sure if it was intended to do that but just thought you should know.

I have also found that several of the enemy group leaders stand around doing nothing. Seemed weird that they were easy sniping kills. 

Plus several vehicles and men are inside buildings. Like, inside of buildings they shouldnt be inside of and you cant kill them without destroying the building, (FYI Takes 1 satchel and 2 rockets to destroy most buildings.)

Then another very interesting bug happened.

After I cleared out Parasio, everyone came back...

I destroyed the radio tower rather early since i captured a T72. (BTW are those suppose to be empty?) Then I began clearing out the town. All I had left was to capture the officer and destroy some buildings (Men and vehicles stuck inside)  Well I went back to the base and came back to the town with a helicopter to find the Entire Town Reinforced!!!!

It wasnt that big of a deal, my rank was higher and I enjoyed running through the town again with my tank.

BUT!!! It happened again!!! AND This time I was in the town the ENTIRE TIME....

Sooooo.... Those were just some things I noticed.

Excellent convert though, I usually never play MP due to crappy internet on my part so I'm enjoying this mission.

Im also curious how most of you play this. Do you guys save at random times and load if ya die. Or do you have a respawn?

Cause I just load.

But the reason Im asking for is also the reason why im done playing for a while is I was really far, almost finished with the first isle. I saved, but it turned out that the next second a sniper had me in his view and shoots me. So it really sucked cause there was no way of avoiding that... Which meant game over.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Good to know, that the town must be cleared before the officer can be captured.

It would have been better, if i have known that before.

I sneaked into the outskirts of town, killed some infantry and one T72 from an rooftop, but around the officer where too much infantry.

It seems to be, that the infantry spawned around the officer without end.

I managed to escape after get injured, but i think i should not get into the town alone.

btw. Is it normal that the A10`s don`t react when i lase targets?

In my self made missions it works fine, without any scripting.

[jasono 0]

I dunno if maybe im doing something wrong but I cannot capture the officer.

I remember playing the MP version and usually you do the option to capture him and he joins your group, or follows you.

But in this one my AI try to kill him or no option appears...

Any help would be cool.

I think you can only capture the officer once the town is cleared. He will not surrender as long as there's still fighting going on.

But then the AI can easily kill him if he isn't setcaptive or whatever and controlling the AI to indivdual targets isn't easy.

I haven't seen this happen, but if he gets killed by AI easily then it's not a good idea to have him as a capture objective.

[kronzky 5]

Quote[/b] ]There seems to be problem with vehicle respawn, it worked for while, but at some point stopped working. Vehicles just don't respawn to base anymore.

Some of the non-strategic vehicles (like Hummers) will respawn at the base once they're destroyed.

Other vehicles (like trucks, tanks & aircrafts) have to be repaired at the crash site.

NO vehicles (except for the bike at the shuttle landing spot) respawns by itself if it is just abandoned. It will stay at that location until you pick it up again.

There does seem to be a problem with the "vehicle needs repair" message, which is never cleared (and which I will work on soon), but I have not been able to reproduce any respawning bug.

Quote[/b] ]I think town depopulation should be deplayed about 15 mins from last visit in the town area, because every time they populate, units will be in different places.

I don't really see that as a problem, that units move while you're gone. Why shouldn't they?

Quote[/b] ]Plus several vehicles and men are inside buildings. Like, inside of buildings they shouldnt be inside of and you cant kill them without destroying the building.

I'm using the original placement routines of Evolution, but I'll see if I can force them outside of buildings. Bad placement may also explain the occasional empty vehicle (it was probably abandoned by its crew).

Quote[/b] ] Well I went back to the base and came back to the town with a helicopter to find the Entire Town Reinforced!!!!

When you re-enter the town it should have roughly the same number of units as when you left. It is NOT repopulated to the initial strength, but any group that has more than 4 members left if reset to its original size, and groups with less than 4 members are eliminated. So there's some shuffling around going on, but the end result should be pretty close to what was present when you left the town.

Quote[/b] ]Also, A-10, the spy plane is useless if you play with veteran level... maybe add normal markers there, instead of only revealing the units?

The spy plane will now briefly indicate any vehicles via a marker in Veteran mode.

Quote[/b] ]What PaveQ said the A10 is useless when in veteran mode, plus it circled the same area for an hour, no where near me. Im not sure if it was intended to do that but just thought you should know.

That's an ArmA issue with units sometimes getting stuck. I've added a timeout to the plane (to give it a new target if the initial one takes too long), and also reduced its fuel load (so that it might crash earlier if it still gets stuck.

Quote[/b] ]I have also found that several of the enemy group leaders stand around doing nothing. Seemed weird that they were easy sniping kills.

That's how the original Evolution mission is designed. A lot of units will not move until they spot the first enemy. So you get a "free" kill or two. But after that you better watch out... ;)

Quote[/b] ]btw. Is it normal that the A10`s don`t react when i lase targets?

If you're referring to the spyplane, then yes, that's the intended behaviour. The plane doesn't carry any ammunition. It's just there to cruise around.

If you put an AI into one of the A10s at the base they should react to laser markers though.

Quote[/b] ]But then the AI can easily kill him (the officer) if he isn't setcaptive or whatever and controlling the AI to indivdual targets isn't easy.

The officer is now always set to captive and to combat mode "blue" (never attack), so he or your team AI shouldn't get into fights anymore.

A new version that has been uploaded, with all the mentioned fixes (as well as a few more).

[_spitfire 0]

I'm getting the same error as PaveQ (the moveincommander.... Error Zero Divisor)

It seems to start when I'm halfway through my second town. As a result, all my subsequent towns have little to no AI, but there is a huge number of Shilkas - all empty and on top of one another or in very tight packs. I can take out about ten shilkas with one rocket and my rank goes straight up.

I noticed that when the spy plane crashed the errors stopped for a while and then restarted when the spy plane came back and was over the neighboring town.

I'm thinking that after the spy plane respawns the first time he is triggering the towns to generate soldiers. Maybe if the pilot was a resistance dude this wouldn't happen.

Although it's very strange that only PaveQ and myself have experienced this error.

Cheers.

[kronzky 5]

I'm getting the same error as PaveQ (the moveincommander.... Error Zero Divisor)

It seems to start when I'm halfway through my second town. As a result, all my subsequent towns have little to no AI, but there is a huge number of Shilkas - all empty and on top of one another or in very tight packs. I can take out about ten shilkas with one rocket and my rank goes straight up.

I noticed that when the spy plane crashed the errors stopped for a while and then restarted when the spy plane came back and was over the neighboring town.

I'm thinking that after the spy plane respawns the first time he is triggering the towns to generate soldiers. Maybe if the pilot was a resistance dude this wouldn't happen.

Although it's very strange that only PaveQ and myself have experienced this error.

Cheers.

Good observation!

That'll help me quite a bit in troubleshooting it!

Update: Actually, it looks like whenever the Shilka's initial random position is that unfortunate that it gets destroyed right away it keeps getting respawned, and that's why you might end up with a whole bunch of them. (That's also why this error is rather rare.) Should now be fixed with version 0.8.1

[Tako_Kichi 0]

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>GOOD NEWS!!!</span>

It looks like I was finally able to fix the game save issue!!!

Do you know if it is possible to add a save game option to the MP version too?

Myself and a couple of friends like to play the MP version but we can never get more than one town cleared before we have to quit and that means starting again from the beginning. It would be really nice if we could save our progress and restart with the same settings.

Failing that can the SP actually be played with 2-3 people?

I will download the SP version now and give it a run .

[murkz 0]

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>GOOD NEWS!!!</span>

It looks like I was finally able to fix the game save issue!!!

Do you know if it is possible to add a save game option to the MP version too?

Myself and a couple of friends like to play the MP version but we can never get more than one town cleared before we have to quit and that means starting again from the beginning. It would be really nice if we could save our progress and restart with the same settings.

Failing that can the SP actually be played with 2-3 people?

I will download the SP version now and give it a run .

I was going to ask the exact same question.

I would also like to thank you Kronzky for the excellent job you are doing.

[PaveQ 0]

<span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>GOOD NEWS!!!</span>

It looks like I was finally able to fix the game save issue!!!

Do you know if it is possible to add a save game option to the MP version too?

Myself and a couple of friends like to play the MP version but we can never get more than one town cleared before we have to quit and that means starting again from the beginning. It would be really nice if we could save our progress and restart with the same settings.

Failing that can the SP actually be played with 2-3 people?

I will download the SP version now and give it a run .

You can't actually save mp games. What you can do is to run arma dedicated server, and keep it running in permanent mode. When you quit playing, just keep dedicated server running.

EDIT: A question for kronzky, how did you fix the save game issue? Did you just store vars in arrays, or did you somehow fix that by other means?

[kronzky 5]

A question for kronzky, how did you fix the save game issue? Did you just store vars in arrays, or did you somehow fix that by other means?

I reduced the number of global variables, so that there are less than 240 (which is the current maximum ArmA can handle).

Either by putting them into arrays, by using local variables, or other methods altogether.

Before I had over 300 variables. After some serious optimization I was well under 200, and then the save issue disappeared.

I found the Laza Viewer to be the best tool to view the Save file, and to quickly see which (and how many) vars there are.

[Kamikaze666 0]

Can i still use my savegame after an update?

[_spitfire 0]

I started v0.81 from scratch, cleared the first two closest towns without any errors, then.....

As I approached Cayo, I watched the spy plane pass directly over the town without issue and no enemy units were detected on the map. So I was obviously wrong about that. However as I entered, the same error popped up again.

I restored my save point outside the town and sent my men in without me. Same error.

I restored again and went back to base and shot the crew type prisoners I had captured (I got extra points for this too, by the way) then went back and entered the Cayo area again. I saved again before I entered just to keep the wasted time as a possible sollution. Same error.

Then I restored and drove back into the two towns I had cleared to check if all enemy vehicles were gone. They were.

I drove back to my holding point, saved, and went back in to Cayo. Same error on approach.

I kept going in to Cayo this time and before I got there, I was told that the town was "cleared.... Good Job, etc..."

There were no men in the town except the Officer but there was a single lone shilka (crewed) just on the outskirts.

-----------------------------------------

I'm quite a fan of the code for rank setup, would it be possible to implement the same thing for towns cleared??? This would at least make the testing a little more fun. I don't know how many more times I can clear Paraiso and keep my sanity.

Cheers for all your work and fast updates though. It IS much appreciated.

[kronzky 5]

I'm quite a fan of the code for rank setup, would it be possible to implement the same thing for towns cleared??? This would at least make the testing a little more fun. I don't know how many more times I can clear Paraiso and keep my sanity.

That's a great idea!

I will definitely implement that!

(As I doubt ArmA would survive a restore from a different version.)

And I'll see if I can reproduce your problem with Cayo...

[Snake Man 407]

I have similar experience, Cayo was freed without a single enemy to fight. I flew UH60 FFAR into the city so dunno if that counts. Then I flew AH6 into the uhm northern most city and it was cleared same way after the radio tower was shot to pieces. I kind of lost interest of playing after that.

I started with v0.hmm dunno? I think two versions before 0.81 at least. I resumed from savegame, does the mission fixes reflect still after using Resume and not Restart or does ArmA load whole old mission data from the savegame?

Also so far in the three cities that had enemy aircover... none of them worked. The shilkas were stacked (in Cayo) and didn't shoot land vehicles in first city (didn't try aircraft) and in the two other cities they didn't shoot aircrafts (didn't try landvehicle). Not much of an aircover heh.

And I do get the same error (on top of the screen) every once in a while after attacking the second city.

[Mr_Tea 0]

I had to restart the mission to make everything work.

Passwords for cleared towns would be great, but i`m very glad that i could restore my rank when i restarted the mission.

[madmark 0]

Is there any way you could have an option to turn on  respawn at base with a limited save only when a town or side mission is complete.

I find that this game often puts me in situations where I am surrounded and out of ammo with no escape so my options are limited to picking off the enemy from outside town rather than penetrating deep into towns armed with a heavy machine gun.

And there is also the danger of making the mistake if you are not carefull of saving as a bullet from a sniper is on its way taking days of playing away.

On a side note I have cleared 3 towns and last night while playing my radio stopped working and the ability to call for collection to base has gone so I will find it very hard to continue.

[kronzky 5]

Now with city passcodes : V 0.10

(If you've already done a lot of testing, and are sick and tired of the first towns, PM me for the relevant codes, so you don't have to clear them yet another time.)

[Cigol 0]

Much appreciated. Incidentally, using your mission statement I got the hang of getting some points on the table. It's amazing what can happen with a little point in the right direction! :O