Warfare v1.0

[whisper 0]

I'm creating this topic to discuss the new MP Mission Warfare v1.0, since it may be bound to generate quite a lot of report

First impression : greatly done, first time I enjoy playing a CTI-like mission.

Nice job on this one, BI.

[Pirin 0]

In a quick try this morning I was playing around with the Waypoint code. I added three waypoints for myself and got a scripting error upon reaching the first waypoint.

I'll try to reproduce it when I get home, maybe it was because of an add-on or something.

[(FPC) Bacon 0]

Yes just hosted on my own machine me and another (FPC) Member ran great no lag or anythink like that played for over an hour and enjoyed it.

Why did it take BIS so long to get a map up and running like this?

[SWAT_CDN 0]

A few of us played for several hours last night and we all agreed that this is a great addition.

A couple suggestions if somebody is reading this and  potential changes might be available in the future,

-Ability to choose location when giving command "Protect Base". Then the AI will not only protect the occupied town but take it back if it is lost to enemy wtihout having to re-issue order "Take Town" from "Patrol".

-This might be too much but it would be nice if commands could be given to individual AI in a Human controlled group.

Say you have 8 AI under your wing and you just took a town, you could tell your AI to protect town while you go out and scout or try and take another town.

All in all nice addition.

PS: After all these years of playing all of the "Capture the Island" type missions. (MFCTI, CRCTI, RTS... etc.)

I wish to take this opportunity to say a BIG "THANK YOU" to all the people who over the years developed, enhanced and presented this idea to this community.      

[Commando84 0]

Warefare is like the best large ass base respawn coop i played since evo! Great thanks to all involved making this official.

Its a mission i think i can show new arma players the game without getting to advanced into ranking systems and stuff.

And still keep it cti

[berowe 0]

Is there a way to get rid of your squadmates? The idiots always get stuck in buildings and then you can't buy any more once you hit your unit cap. By the end of a SP game you're often running around finishing off your own AI so that you can buy tanks/choppers.

[L!nk07 0]

WOW. warfare is great!

Played it last night and was quite impressed. This should be the basic for Warfare. Now we have to add features and variety.

To bad for all the other developers making their own CTI (thats me) bacause BIS nailed it. I guess there is no use going on with my CTI... (check signature link)

L!nk out...

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

Just played on EAST side...Didnt get ANY money at all...

[[asa]oden 0]

..

To bad for all the other developers making their own CTI (thats me) bacause BIS nailed it. I guess there is no use going on with my CTI... (check signature link)

L!nk out...

Though Mike Melvin and his MFCTI and now "Warfare" is state of the art, other style CTI's are always a good change once in a while so please don't scrap whatever built - might come in handy one day.

[Rommel 2]

BUG REPORT:

After repeated use of "Packing/Unpacking" MHQ (or even once) the game will end(lose) to the team who just moved/packed/unpacked their MHQ.

Really annoying after a four hour game with 32 players and the battle was really developed. Happened to us four more times within the first 10minutes of game because the supply trucks were not pathfinding, so we constantly moved the MHQ...

Great Otherwise. But you have to have the MHQ as more like a ... "HQ".

[Frank-O 0]

There's always room for more "versions" of CTI. I'd say give MM two weeks well deserved holiday then hit him up for some addition features.

*whispering*...

1--Countermeasure Flares...

2--Airlift upgrade... everything except MHQ and MBT's

3--New structure: Base flag, max 3 deployed. Deployed by MHQ or Command APC.

4--Victory condition change from destruction of MHQ and surrounding factories 300m to capturing any one of the enemy Base Flag. No more artillery wins. Must hold for 30 seconds countdown.

*****5--JIP correctly identifies status of camps and Town Supply depots.

6--Paradrop/HALO upgrade (DC-3 shows up in airspace over marked map location deploying your troops using Fast Travel script)

7--Medical upgrade: Medical vehicles builds large Mash and medics.

*****8--Support upgrade; Support APC from light fact to unflip vehicle. Option to hitch damaged vehicle and move via towing.

9-Aircraft Ammo upgrade (AT (default 1.25km range), +250m AT range(max 2.5km), LGB, Cluster (+50% area LGB), thermobaric (+50% dmg LGB), Nuke.)

10-Airstrike upgrade (precision AT strike, Cluster bomb vs Armor, Napalm, bomblet minefield vs personel only. Need radio as equipment)

11-AA upgrade (AA Stryker/BRDM, default 1.25km range on ALL AA, +250m range, max 2.5km range, AA tanks unlockable by AT lock on missiles)

12-Artillery upgrade (chemical, nuclear, thermobaric +50% damage radius, GPS +1km range, bunker-buster +25 damage per round, smoke+illumination)

13-Nuke upgrade (allows artillery and aircraft ammo upgrade. MHQ and spawn flag immune)

14-Radar upgrade (enemy aircraft, artillery detection map grid coord. Eg "enemy artillery detected @ E6". Levels I-V)

15-New structure: Radar tower. Avail after radar upgrade. builds ECM HUMMV/UAZ and Recon trucks. Range 1km. Commander buys troops and veh for human players here. AI units must be able to Fast Travel to the town supply depot closest to your position.

16-ECM upgrade (level I gets you ECM HUMMV/UAZ; levels 1-5, 100m radius. 100% per level difference in radius. eg Level 2 radar vs level 1 ECM = 50m radius. 300m max. works on satchel detonators)

17-Boat dock (CRRC's, upgrade to RHIB, Fast travel option. Must be next to water)

*****18-Minimum build distance from MHQ to town supply depot 500m

19-Minimum supply truck reload time for supplies; 2 min.

*****20-Decrease kill reward by 90%. eg $45 for killing a M113, not $450.

21-Maximum 5 total of Barracks and Light veh Fact. (build strategy here)

22-Maximum 3 total of Heavy veh and Air Fact.

23-Maximum 3 total of Radar towers, Helipad, Command bunker.

24-Vote on commander default 0 ai, 0 player: default lowest ping player = 1

25-Vote on viewdistance; default 1250m, lower setting wins on tie. Average setting used from all votes. Increments of 250m. max 2.5km.

26-Vote on max ai controlled by human: each human player max set by commander; default 12 per player. total# on each side compared. Side with lower total gets funds equal to difference x100 per 2 min.

27-Each player can order ai through the town supply depot or command APC. Units must fast travel to the player's town position or command APC. Simpler system would be to allow non-truck vehicles to have radio access to AI production.

28-Commander build macro for defensive structures; 2-4 defensive structures built simultaneously. Eg. 2xAA mount and GL, 2xAT + MG nest... 4 MG nests facing NSEW...

29-Commander build macro for AA and Armor; @ 150% cost, 3 shilkas show up; 2 MBT and BMP/Stryker show up.

30-Command APC, not MHQ. Allows fast travel at $500 from nearest town. Allows Gear option. Allows troops only via fast travel. Deploys mortars, not cannons.

31-Remove lock-on land veh for AA missiles (abused in earlier CTI's)

32-New Structure; Helipad and large tent - to rearm and refuel (fast rate, costs money, losing tent = loosing resupply ability). Acts like town supply depot.

33-New Structures; Command Bunker - acts like town supply depot for land vehicles (fast rate, closed roof to avoid abuse, costs money, no wpns).

34-Option to convert ammo truck to ammo crate that contains; small arms, or missile launcher+ammo, fuel truck to fuel cans. Limited supply vs command bunker.

35-Ammo truck, Fuel truck, Repair truck. Time counter when in use (slow rate, money charge when meter on, like $4 a gallon for 50 bullets/1xTOW... : P ). Option to convert to structure of equal function (flag for repair, fuel drums for fuel, ammo crate for vehicle wpn ammo).

36-Camo netting covered sandbag defense, person size (observation post)

37-Camo netting covered sandbag defense, veh size (front view only)

38-New vehicle, Light Fact; 4x4 Civillian with build option for cammo netting only (SAS/SF observation post)

39-U shaped dirt wall defense, veh size (tank bunker)

40-Tree shaped watchtower/large rock duckblind/telephone pole platform for AA spotters and snipers on artificially higher ground.

41-Bush shaped "duck blind" for snipers.

42-Commander only can build attack helos (Cobra/Kamov/Hind/Apache). 4 limit per side.

43-Upon death, option to respawn at nearest town camp, MHQ, or Command APC.

44-Upon death respawn time is 10 sec + fast travel to player selected town camp, MHQ, or Command APC. Minimum 20 seconds.

45-Medical M113/BMP builds MASH tents. Upgrade allows Medics to build large MASH tents with healing radius (for veh), and order up AI medics @$2000, which parachutes in.

46-Fast transport costs money, $100 per town per 10 supply point value. prevents supply truck abuse. eg. FT to a 60 supply point town = $600.

47-New "defense" structure 81mm mortar. 3x less accurate than cannons. Decoys for Radar detection.

48-Switching sides will result in screen blanking. lack of map access. banana room penalty box. Teleported to corner of map. no action menu access. no "T" option.

49-Mortar range 1km. Cannon range 2km.

50-Repair trucks, Command APC, commander/MHQ can deploy mortars.

*****51-Triple the cannon cost, and increase the reload time 4 times. Both artillery types fire a volley of 3 (mortars reload time 90 sec. Cannons reload time 6 min)

52-Commander only one able to build cannons. 5 cannon limit.

53-Mortar shells each cost $10. Cannon shells each cost $50.

54-Cannon and mortar ammo purchased in Blocks of 30 round salvos.

55-Ammo blocks must be delivered from base or town supply depot by supply truck.

56-Ammo Block drops from supply truck when delivered. Ammo block disappears when ammo used up.

57-AirFact new options: Buy airborne. A-10/Su-34. starts at altitude 600 and is manned by ai. Fly off edge of map to rearm/refuel/resupply. Buy as pilot. You spawn with aircraft at 600m altitude.

*****58-Release ai units from your control.

59-New vehicle: Light factory. tractor or M113/BMP. Bulldoze your own factory and construction structures. No effect on civillian structures and enemy factories. Can affect enemy defensive structures. Retrieve 25% original cost of friendly or enemy structures.

60-New equipment: Recon truck that deploys and controls UAV for players and commanders.

61-Factory construction completed message identifying customer, and ordered vehicle is locked until buyer unlocks. Lo-jack option to disable vehicle remotely and eject all aboard.

62-New equipment; Transport truck with hitch, transport troops, static defenses, artillery around map.

63-Role Missions (assigned by commander);

......SUPPLY - 10 towns or 10 mortar/artillery ammo crates,(fast travel resets counter. minimum distance 500m)

......REPAIR -15 vehicles

......SALVAGE - 20 vehicles

......ANTI-TANK - 12 armor

......SNIPER - 30 soldiers

......ARMOR - kill 15 tanks

......ARTILLERY - 48 points

......ANTI-AIRCRAFT - 6 confirmed kills

......RECON - spot 36 points for arty/airstrikes, find the enemy base

......SPECIAL FORCES - demo/mine kill 20 points

......PILOT - 120 points kills

......COASTAL NAVY - 15 points kills from RHIB

......MEDIC - heal 12 soldiers. para option to medical M113 with medical upgrade.

......TRANSPORT - move 60 soldiers, 20 static defenses, 12 artillery pieces, minimum distance 1km (Fast travel resets counter).

--Complete any role mission assigned by commander and receive reward of 500 supply and $2000 cash.

64-Income update. A toggle "request balance" in the "T" menu to get your cash balance if you're not getting income, and re-cook the script so you get your paycheque. (possible splitting of funds like in Sahrani Life to separate cash on hand vs Banked funds+possible Vault base structure)

65-Commander designated Mission/Battle. Normal income very low, and when commander designates a town as the current objective, enemy killed or destroyed income is doubled or tripled until town captured. Say $10 normally reward for enemy soldier killed, vs $30-$50 per soldier killed when the town is the Commander's objective.

66-Vehicle option to see who is the owner. Owner has keys to lock/unlock vehicle.

67-If you lose an AI under your command, or lose a vehicle you're driving/flying, your bank balance is reduced also a %. (ouch)

68-Gear option at town camps not available until town is supplied by a friendly supply truck.

69-Introduce minimum range to AA missiles at 600m. Max range at 4Km

70-Increase AA tank range to 2Km.

71-Introduce 20 sec delay to Vikhr lock-on.

72-Salvage truck; option to salvage abandoned, damaged, stuck vehicles, not just destroyed hulks. Will help clean up stuck supply/salvage truck traffic jams.

73-New structure; Payroll Vault/Bank. Pay is issued to the bank, and you must withdraw from the Bank to cash on hand to purchase units. Damage to the structure means monetary loss to your account. A friendly town supply depot can deposit only your cash on hand, but you cannot withdraw money from it. Cash on hand needed for Supply depot menu (rearm/refuel/repair/jeep/motorcycle), fast travel costs, AI fast travel costs. When you die/respawn, you lose your cash on hand.

***please note. These are no longer my ideas, but gathered from the collected readings of this subject, and subjectively edited. Not all suggestions are included in this list***

***** addressed in 1.1 update.

[mattxr 9]

Yeah i really hope Mike Melvin Keeps on working on the CTI would be great.

[SG_Smokintodd 0]

Is there any way to form a squad or team of human players?

[Frank-O 0]

Good question. I liked that feature in Evo too, but in Warfare, you're demoting yourself to squad level when you're really a small platoon commander or multi squad leader. Apples and Oranges. You're really hurting the team in Warfare if you don't buy AI to help with defenses, supply, salvage...etc.

[D.murphy man 0]

I must say warfare is an excellent addition to Arma, i havnt really played Arma in a while especially on MP, but now this came out i thought id give it a whirl and now im addicted! I love building arty batteries manning them with AI, then go off scouting for targets and bringing down sheer hell on the enemy!

Its a perfect balance of fun, gameplay, and all out war.

[dr_eyeball 16]

It's the best BIS-released PvP mission so far, but it:

- has quite a few bugs

- breaks some critical PvP design rules for good game-play and longevity

- has quite a few oversights for ease of use in user interface design and common sense

- a lot of missing essential functionality which is already present is the other existing versions

End game MHQ bug:

On fairly full servers (20+ players), after several times when you move the MHQ, it ends the game showing the scores screen. Some suggest it happens after moving it 3 times.

(Might be unrelated, but this wasn't happening in earlier 8v8 matches, but was always happening later on for the 16v16 matches.) So we set up a rule that you could not move it after you've unpacked it.

JIP markers bug:

Upon JIP, the captured town markers are not updated.

Poor arty design: (PvP design rule broken)

Players are now utilising the money point-farming exploit, by setting up several arty pieces per squad, then activating their arty 20 seconds apart from the other squads. The squads then pay the commander to build more arty.

I realise you can turn off arty at MP setup, but currently it's the default, making it usually on for most servers.

It's ridiculous allowing arty in a game-mode every 1 minute or so. It's even worse to allow arty by all squads even more often. Ideally it should be restricted to 5-10 minutes apart. Plus there being no cost per shell to use and the huge amount of money you get from several bombardments means the $1500 original cost is more than covered. Also there's often no indicator (sounds/effects) that you are killed by arty when spawning. There are also suicide drivers/pilots simply looking for the enemy base quickly at the start, at which point the arty starts. I have no interest in playing a SPAM mission.

Vehicle costs: (PvP design rule broken)

The vehicle costs need to be adjusted. When I can buy 5 AH-1Z's in a row, then something's wrong. We trippled the costs of attack choppers and jets to get the right balance in earlier CTI's. Anything with auto lock-on or radar benefited should be considered.

Rearm:

Rearm at town bunkers doesn't rearm tank commander guns.

My arma.rpt file is full of this error and I get it a lot:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">Error in expression <t["AI Team %1 (%2)",_teamSlot,MISLABELS Select _teamCommand]]>

Error position: <Select _teamCommand]]>

Error Zero divisor

These are just the main issues so far. I won't worry about the design issues for now.

[whisper 0]

Pretty much agree with the above.

Arty is too devastating, a slightly longer delay might be needed (10 mns way too much though)

I've been able to get 4 Ka-50 in a row too, ofc for great results, meaning more money, meaning more Ka50, etc...

maybe related to relative ineffectiveness of AA defenses. Maybe stronger AA would mean possibility to allow more aircrafts.

[Frank-O 0]

was on a 31 player server last night. Red chain. 6 peeps waiting to load in. Ran by 2 tanks and 3 racs soldiers to sit in the main capture complex. Don't know if there's a fix for this. maybe an admin/server set limit on addon folder content size limit of 300MB? 150MB? I know some peeps out there, myself included, run with more than 1GP mods. I've since removed all but ECS.

[chops 111]

Might be a dumb question, but how do you re-arm once you've landed a plane? Didn't last long enough in the choppers to find out, but I guess you can do that at a base?

[Frank-O 0]

Supply Depot at towns. The main capture bunker has a menu option to rearm.

Hence my request to have a helo pad and "ammo" tent previously

[monty67t 0]

Has anyone had or heard of problems running this one a dedicated server. We are having problems like server crashes or it will just jump back to the mission selection screen when you try to load the mission.

[ModaFlanker 0]

First off, I would like to THANK whoever created this mission!! The closest I've had to this game experience in ArmA are the RTS-4 maps by Karrillion, which unfortunately didn't get played too often.

Warfare is a LOT of fun, and definitely a gem! As it is 1.0, it definitely needs some polishing to bring out the best light it has to offer.

There is an ArmA bug that plagues some missions [ie: I've seen this happen too much with Sahrani Life].

This bug has to do when people are joining the server; if for some reason the join is very slow or lagged, the entire game lags for everyone until the person successfully connects, then everything starts to catch up again.

Sahrani Life was able to adjust a bit in successive versions to compensate for this problem, this map may need to tweak itself too? The join lag can be devastating to some servers. Only the fastest have been able to keep this lag to hiccup level.

Issues/Bugs:

1] People who join after a game has started do not see the main bunkers in cities owned by their own side as actually theirs. [it shows up as a blue bunker, not green as it should]. As a consequence they also do not earn revenue for the player from the supply trucks going to those towns. This problem only resolves itself when the enemy actually takes over the town, allowing you to take it back and have it correctly register as that you own the main bunker. For towns deep in your rear that never get fought over, you get nothing at all.

2] Once had a problem where I was not getting any money for killing any soldiers (this was a game I joined late via JIP). Strange as I've had JIP work fine before in paying me for that.

3] Not sure if its an ArmA bug or mission bug but I and another person experienced a point in which we were frozen-- mouse didnt work, keyboard supposedly didnt work as ESC didnt work but we could open chat to talk with the / key, and the only way to fix it was to Alt-F4 the game (which worked). If I remember anything about when it happened to me, I was trying to talk and may have died while my chat was open.

4] Voting recycles too quickly; it can be hard to get an organized vote because if the vote you cast did not get the person elected, your vote gets switched back to the current commander. Sometimes we get stuck with 1/5 of the team voting one cycle, then another 1/5 the next cycle, and so on with people thinking they already voted. This is devastating especially when HQ is being shelled by artillery as AI does not change HQ to mobile and get it out of harms way.

5] Shelling HQ can be a strategic part of the game when there are competent commanders who know how to hightail the HQ to another location when it begins, but without them it can be a complete gamewrecker. You die at HQ, and then just as you respawn you die again at HQ. You wait, respawn and die yet again. This is an area of the game that definitely needs attention, to minimize the gamewrecking portion and to encourage strategic usage.

6] For the reason listed above, maybe there should be a timer for rebuilding a new HQ in a new location [away from the shelling] sometime after it is destroyed, if the enemy doesn't seem able to finish the remaining factories in a reasonable time? A team without a HQ is a lame duck, and if the enemy is constantly shelling the HQ trying to find and blow up the last factories [and failing] the team being blown up repeatedly can be so disgusted they leave the server. I was voted in commander once to resolve the artillery problem but since HQ was already blown I found myself utterly unable to do anything about the situation. Everyone was just milling about, waiting for it to just end.

7] Artillery pieces say they run out of ammo, but they do NOT. They continue to fire even when they report being out. Fix this bug. It encourages constant spamming of artillery rounds instead of careful judicious usage.

8] [edit] I thought there were strange capture spots in the city, but Whisper is right. Someone else was capping the supply depot when I saw these messages. NOT A BUG.

Ideas/Suggestions for game:

1] Add a helicopter hitching script for Mi-17 and UH-60? Its usually added depth to any game... allowing rear enemy insertions that can suddenly turn the tables. They can carry any vehicle except the heavy tanks (m1a1 and t72).

2] Add options for us to fix a head bug, to change terrain detail, and change view distance. If there is a reason for keeping view distance short to cut down on spotters seeing the entire island from a single mountaintop, at least allow it to be further than the default 800 if that is possible.

3] The fact that Paraiso has one Jet hangar is starting to encourage maps in which BOTH sides drive their HQ up closer there in order to control it. Maybe another Jet hangar next to a flat road in the southern side of the island [for takeoff/landing] could compensate and encourage HQ's to gravitate to opposite ends of the island again? I like it when HQ's are at opposite ends of the island and waging big battles in the cities between them, instead of being perpetually locked into a struggle over the Paraiso airport.

[gnear 0]

I've also encountered more than once, resistance full squads missing weapons? do they get reinforced at some point? it seems to happen when they take back a town? I dunno. but it makes for easy money but is a bit silly.

[whisper 0]

@ModaFlanker, point 8, are you sure another unit was not taking the town at the same time? It makes the "Capturing ..." bar appears on your screen even though you are not in range for actual capture.

Nice game last night, btw, (ended up at 2:00AM ), though much spammed by arty at the end. I made a bit of reckon for our artillery-man, leading to your HQ destruction.

Also tested Ka-50, this thing is a beast. The Vikhr hitting aircraft is deadly!

[Krasny 0]

This has rehabilited BI somewhat in my eyes.

I actually reinstalled the game just to play this mission.

Which is something I thought I would never do.