Add On Compilation for more Realism and Immersion

[the.d 0]

mrcash2009: dunno, in my humble opinion I don't think it's necessary but it's for the moderators to decide anyway - I don't mind :-)

acadiancrusader: I seemed to have missed out on that pack entirely! Thanks! I'll start testing it asap.

Betsalel: Oh you again! ;-) But seriously.. hm.. I don't know, does anybody else have this problem as well? There might well be an error in my list!

I am running the 1.12b server with its @Server modfolder and it seems to be working well (as far as "well" does mean anything in Armed Assault; it's a euphemism on most occasions).

My server is loading the following files:

Quote[/b] ]- DMSmokeEffects.pbo

- Extended_Eventhandlers.pbo

- NWD_Ballistics.pbo

- NWD_RealDispersion.pbo

- NWD_RocketBallistics.pbo

- NWD_TankBallistics.pbo

- NWD_TankLoadout.pbo

- plants.pbo

- PROPER_Gameplay_No_AT_Use_Vs_Men_By_AI.pbo

- Q11_RealROF.pbo

- S63_GrenadierPack_Cfg.pbo (still testing)

- SIX_Misc.pbo (not sure if this is needed)

- SIX_Repl_AIAccuracy.pbo

- SIX_Repl_AIRange.pbo

- SIX_Repl_Reloadtime.pbo

- SIX_Repl_WeaponSway.pbo

- slx_veh.pbo

- slx_veh_c.pbo

- VFAI_Equipment.pbo

- VFAI_Smokeshell.pbo

What does your ArmA_Server.rpt say? Thanks for the feedback, hope this can be solved!

[PTV-Jobo 820]

LOL, yeah its the hemorrhoid again!

Yeah I mean I'm on the verge of killing someone or just uninstalling the damn game here, hehehe. I guess this is the price you pay when you get your first game server, gotta deal with all the noob bugs and mistakes till you get it all figured out.

I'm stumped ATM, but will check the file and get back with the info. In the meantime, I'm wondering if it is 1.09. With the problems, I'mm too nervous to patch up just yet, but if it's the only way...I guess I'll have no choice.

[dmarkwick 261]

LOL, yeah its the hemorrhoid again!

Yeah I mean I'm on the verge of killing someone or just uninstalling the damn game here, hehehe. I guess this is the price you pay when you get your first game server, gotta deal with all the noob bugs and mistakes till you get it all figured out.

I'm stumped ATM, but will check the file and get back with the info. In the meantime, I'm wondering if it is 1.09. With the problems, I'mm too nervous to patch up just yet, but if it's the only way...I guess I'll have no choice.

Don't be nervous about the patch - it runs as a mod so you can still have your existing install.

[the.d 0]

It's a shame this game is so very very ambivalent. It has some of the greatest moments of gaming since OFP and Thief/System Shock, but very often if almost kills its players with sheer frustration.

A lot of its great potential is lost to bugs and general missing features, that is a fact.

If ArmA is not working as it should it is as perfectly normal - and inexplicable! - as gravity.

I highly recommend you either use the latest beta patch (i.e. 1.12) or roll back to 1.08 - don't stick with 1.09b!

Sorry I can't help you out here, I'm probably even more clueless regarding the whole server/client deal. Good luck!

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Thanks guys for the advice. Hate bugging people with my stupid problems and all, heheh.

I'm going to dive head first and patch up and give it a whirl. Hopefully some good will come of it and some of these frustrations will be relieved. I guess ArmA is in a love-hate relationship with me, lol. Maybe a nice romantic candle-light dinner and a bottle of bubbly will get it to loosen up a bit.....or put me into the Nut House.

[Steel_WOF 0]

with dedicated server, when i throw a smoke grenade i get "you can not play/edit this mission due to downloadable content that has been deleted. dmsmokeeffects". clicking o.k. seems to let the mission continue, but i am not sure if things are working properly or not.

one some missions one of our guys gets "You cannot play/edit this mission; it is dependent on downloadable content that has been deleted.nwd_tankballistics" and gets booted back to the lobby. any idea?

[Yeb 0]

A realistic little add-on to add to the list: Flare countermeasures, kudos to Franze and William1!

I hope we'll get as soon as possible some vehicles smokes.

Edit: Dwarden has included an interesting vehicle smoke addon in his server side addon list. I have tested it so far and It's quite good: all you need is to dl his list and put Veh_Smokeshell.pbo and DMSmokeGrenadeVB.pbo into your addon folder, and dw_vehsmoke.hpp into your dta folder.

Every time your tank gets hit by any threat, It'll automatically (would be nice to add a manual command) launch view block smokes.

[PTV-Jobo 820]

I get the saaaaaaame damn thing. And I uploaded both to the server as well, so there should be no reason for it not being able to find it since both the server has it as well as I do. But I think with nWD's tank thing, I don't believe it was really MP-ready for some reason or other. But even if that explains that error, then why does DM' s throw an error. I'm just having an issue with the tank ballistics.

It might be like I said, I think it was more meant to be client-side? But don't quote me.

[Steel_WOF 0]

i tried it both client side only and client and server. same deal. and it is not just one of our folks - everyone gets the error message and booted to the lobby when there are vehicles that use the NWD stuff in the mission.

if it helps, we are using 1.12 beta... i will try 1.09 if i get a chance.

[the.d 0]

@ Steel_WOF: Got the same issue here! Really bothersome in some missions. Didn't find the time to check it out yet.

@ Betsalel: Same with NWD, yeah, but that error has occurred ever since these add ons were released.

I have no idea how to fix these errors - any help is appreciated, post in the corresponding threads for this. I'm sure capacities like VF and NWD might have a much better approach. It's not a mod conflict with any of the files here, as far as I could find out. :-/

@ Yeb: Looks good*! Just got back and will now take a closer look at it. I'll test it and add it to the list as soon as I can! Thanks! :)

*The flares are new, I mean. Vehicle smoke has already been tested by us and we found it to be impractical and sometimes simply annoying. Especially when two or three enemy BMPs are coming for your position you can't see *anything*, or worse, in combination with ECS, soldiers would *always* waste their RPGs/AT4s on enemy infantry, instead of the smoking (pwetty, pwetty colourful, too) tanks.

I'm sure some missions are a lot better with it but the majority of coops we played was rather worse off.

[PTV-Jobo 820]

Ok here's the deal. NWD's tank stuff via server? Ditch it if its there. You'll still get the error, but when you click ok, the mission loading continues. AND, when you are in a tank, NWD's tank addon still works for you client side. At least that's what I did. But it worked for only the vanilla missions, haven't tried a custom-made mission that's using NWD's stuff yet. Hard to when my ArmA keeps CTD'ing on me for some odd reason. I wonder if its the latest patch or something, never use to happen. Anyway...

I don't think there will be a way to get rid of the message unless we straddle NWD's leg really hard and force him to make a fully MP compatible version. ....I'll go get my thong, you guys bring a trombone and a midget!

[william1 0]

thanks The.D , if you are going to include the flares addon , be sure you add the latest version 1.2 released today , regards

[the.d 0]

Saw it, thanks :)

Good work there, man! Keep it up! :tup:

Edit: Added a couple of new things, most importantly Mark XIII's Hifi Sound FX sound modification. Great stuff there, thanks a lot for this high quality realism enhancement! Makes for an exciting combat flair in the game!

[Moezilla 0]

First of all I would like to say thank you for sharing this guide with the community and also for keeping it up to date.

Two queries have cropped up while working through your guide to enhance a newly installed 1.08 gold edition:

1) The 6thSense.eu pack 1 v0.4 does not seem to have a \dta\SIX_Misc.hpp file yet your guide states that SIX_Misc.pbo relies on it. Is the file missing or is the guide incorrect on this point?

2) The sky replacement in section 2.6 is dated 13th March 2008 however there is a sky replacement included in the Infantry weapon replacement pack which is dated the 27th March 2008. Is the newer file the correct one?

Thanks again.

[the.d 0]

Thanks for the feedback, Moezilla!

You are right about SIX pack 1 - it doesn't need a "SIX_Misc.hpp" file. Must have been a left-over from some older SIX version on my machine! I removed it now :)

The sky replacement from 13/03/08 is the same as the 27/03/08 one. We decided to include both of our replacements (sky&weapons) in one pack and add signed keys to them.

Unfortunately I am running out of space for the first post so I had to delete some of the thread update notes in the "postscriptum" which also included this little hint...

- I might have to remove the whole section for the sake of new add ons altogether soon. :-/

Hopefully I can find some time over the weekend to make a proper .html version of the guide and upload it someplace.

[malick 0]

I just reinstalled ArmA with a new computer and used most of your recommendations. Everything works nicely, except slightly decreased performance with 1.12b...

Thank you !

Malick

[the.d 0]

Cheers

Performance seems to be an 1.12b issue - same here, even with the vanilla version. Let's hope it will be taken care of soon.

[Moezilla 0]

Thanks for the feedback, Moezilla!

...

Thanks for the clarifications The.D.

Good idea about a html version, it would give you more room, more control over layout and navigation plus you could go nuts and add before and after screenshots for each addon.

[acadiancrusader 0]

dowload Bas f. read the manual, but pay close attention to the shacktac section. the shacktac markers is probably the greatest addon that nobody has heard about.

[acadiancrusader 0]

have you ever considered compiling all the addons into three seperate downloads (server, general, replacement)? it would make it easy and handy to get people up and running. not every arma player is a hardcore info nut like most of us who frequent the BI forums. some people would rather be told what to do (as in downloading this or that). some people want to simply just jump in and play. the tedious task of downloading seperate addons and placing them in the proper folders and making a proper load sequence via the arma shortcut turns off many players.

[the.d 0]

Going to have to check out "Bas.f" (what is it?) and this soon.

acadiancrusader, we had the discussion about a pre-packed compilation before. In theory it's a great comfort ... but it would require contacting all of the authors (some of whom seem to be inactive by now) to gain their permission and it would be quite impossible to keep the compilation on the latest level, as many add ons will be updated and some new files would be on the to-add list by the time I made a ~1.5 GB upload (with someone crazy enough to host it)

I think a list with direct links to the add on's discussion thread - and thus the very latest development status - is more effective and, let's face it: someone who lacks the intellectual capacity of reading might be better off with CounterStrike :-P (btw, join a German public CS server if you want to really hate this universe and the human race it spawned, heehee)

I'll need some sleep now, but will definitely tend to the thread and its "off forum" version tomorrow (shame I don't know squat about .html *blush*)!

G'night!

[acadiancrusader 0]

Click me for more info on 'Bas f'

i still recommend downloading it as the manual has far more info (text and images) then the link above.

BI discussion post on 'Bas f'

[the.d 0]

Hm, these markers are definitely neat idea. Although I don't think it should be used as a general add on but only for certain user-specified custom missions the BAS framework as a whole is brilliant. I'll at least add a note for mission makers to consider implementing the scripts / marker system etc.

In other news I had to remove the update notes from the first post and will post them here instead. As one of the moderators was kind enough to make this a sticky (thank you very much) I won't risk "bumping" this thread unnecessarily.

I'll try to work out an .html version (or something of the like) of the whole list now - but I have to start from zero (I don't like WYSIWYG programs as they create messy code, and I don't have a clue about proper coding so it might take a while)

Here is the update history:

* update news and postscriptum: see current latest post

[Mark XIII (DayZ) 18]

Hey there D.

Just what to congratulate you on THE most comprehensive list of addons available! I love a good idea well done

(Thanks for putting my meager offering up there too!

Regards

Mark XIII

[the.d 0]

Wow, getting a lot of positive feedback and offers for help here -

very special thanks to Steel_WOF, who offered to host the pages and even take care of the off-forums version himself, to thunderbird84 for his sticky-pm and Moezilla who offered his help with an XHTML version of the compilation. I'm moved :-)

I took the day off today and spent quite a bit of time working with .html/CSS styles.

The compilation list is slowly forming up. I do not want to throw any more work on you guys.

I'll try to finish what I made so far (I used templates from selfhtml.org and modified them - great site!) so everybody can just take a look at it and use/modify it as he pleases. It won't be a finished list, just the basic design concept.

I'll be busy tomorrow and then it's off to lab with me - but I should probably have a crude completed list ready by next week.

Thank you very much for all the support!

Edit: Here we are: First, very crude design template for the guide.

I guess a normal web coder does this within a couple of minutes - it took me half the day.

Let me know what you think - the code is a little messy, yes - I'm absolutely new to this. ;-)

Second Edit: Just a small update:

The new list is slowly taking shape and it's looking good (for the little knowledge I have, at least) - Right now I am implementing chapter 1 and 2. With any luck, it should be complete "soon".