Warfare Questions

[KaRRiLLioN 0]

I'm tenatively poking my foot back into ArmA after about a year away.  I've tried Warfare a couple of times, namely Matt's latest version on my server.

I find the concept interesting, but a bit clunky in some regards so want to gauge opinions on the matter.

Camps:  You take one and can respawn right back at it after death.  Doesn't this seem to take away from realism?  I played last night with a few humans vs AI and simply respawned over and over at a town, buying ammo/weapons until I wiped out all the Resistance/Tanks guarding it.

Do you all like the idea of camps like that?

Point of purchase at factories:  I discovered you must be right at the base to order any tanks/aircraft.  In RTSIV I implemented "wireless" vehicle/unit production so you could be anywhere and still order factory builds remotely and have crewed tanks, etc. drive from the base to your location or wherever you sent them.

Am I missing something or are you required to be next to a factory to produce something?

Do you like this requirement, or does it seem more realistic to allow ordering via radio?

Artillery:  Okay, I like the *idea* of arty, but in practice it tends to be overpowered, especially when it's raining down on your base.  OTOH, apparently the arty is stationary (unless I'm missing a towing ability here).

Would a hard cap on arty units be a good thing?

AI Supply:  This seems to be a throwback to the BIS CTI idea, but it seems to be extraneous and buggy, especially when you get more players on a server.

Wouldn't it be better to cut down on the AI overhead and simply assign a value to towns, then add in a random factor that would make you miss payments from towns on occasion instead of having AI drive trucks all over the place?

Resistance AI:  I think the coop aspect of AI is interesting especially if you don't have that many people on the teams.

Do most of you prefer having AI to fight in the towns initially?  Even if teams are full? It seems to me that ArmA became more of a coop game than PvP.

As an aside, I noticed some whacky thing when testing base structures.  If I make an independently crewed M1Abrams and an enemy structure, the Abrams will shoot it with its sabot and destroy it.  If I have an Abrams in my group, it'll shoot at the structure with its MG.  Very odd.

AA Pods will not engage fixed wing aircraft, but they'll shoot down choppers in a heartbeat.  WTF?

[Axek/Axyl 2]

I'll put my two cents in here, though I don't expect neither Karr nor everyone else to agree with my point of view.

Quote[/b] ]Camps:  You take one and can respawn right back at it after death.  Doesn't this seem to take away from realism?  I played last night with a few humans vs AI and simply respawned over and over at a town, buying ammo/weapons until I wiped out all the Resistance/Tanks guarding it.

Do you all like the idea of camps like that?

I like the concept of camps to reduce the capping time.  I also like what BIS are trying to accomplish with the respawning possibilities.  If you haven't seen it already, take a read of their respawning ideas on the wiki page.

Quote[/b] ]Point of purchase at factories:  I discovered you must be right at the base to order any tanks/aircraft.  In RTSIV I implemented "wireless" vehicle/unit production so you could be anywhere and still order factory builds remotely and have crewed tanks, etc. drive from the base to your location or wherever you sent them.

Am I missing something or are you required to be next to a factory to produce something?

I like having to go back to base to requip.  Combined with the Fast Travel, it doesn't make it that much of a chore and it means that you're squad is moving around as a squad, not running willy nilly all over the map.

Quote[/b] ]

Artillery:  Okay, I like the *idea* of arty, but in practice it tends to be overpowered, especially when it's raining down on your base.  OTOH, apparently the arty is stationary (unless I'm missing a towing ability here).

Would a hard cap on arty units be a good thing?

I don't really think so.  I'd rather the cap being in how expensive it is.  For us, if you have arty raining down on your base, then it's either the end game or near to it.  You need to move your base or quickly find their base and destroy it.

Having said that, I only play on private servers, so our teams probably don't abuse arty in the way that a public server might.

Quote[/b] ]AI Supply:  This seems to be a throwback to the BIS CTI idea, but it seems to be extraneous and buggy, especially when you get more players on a server.

Wouldn't it be better to cut down on the AI overhead and simply assign a value to towns, then add in a random factor that would make you miss payments from towns on occasion instead of having AI drive trucks all over the place?

We've been playing the style where there's no visible supply trucks.  If the AI had less issues navigating, then we'd rather have the supply in and have it really mean something.

One idea we've been thinking of is actually losing supply and money, if you lose towns, otherwise people can sometimes ignore a capped town as they have enough cash etc.

(If you think of towns as factories/warehouses that store their own contribution of money/supply - and you lose that factory, then you've lost the outstanding money/supply that the factory has contributed.  You wouldn't go into the negative.)

Quote[/b] ]Resistance AI:  I think the coop aspect of AI is interesting especially if you don't have that many people on the teams.

For us, a frustrating thing has been trying to play a one sided COOP game.  The enemy team just doesn't appear to be that ambitious, let alone the Resistance AI.  Especially when compared to something like OGN CTI.

Axek.

[ModaFlanker 0]

Welcome back Karrillion!

I enjoyed your RTS-4 maps tremendously. I wished they had been played more often with full servers... maybe your mission needed a catchy name to draw in new users? [ie: Warfare, Berserk, Sahrani Life].

Quote[/b] ]Camps: You take one and can respawn right back at it after death. Doesn't this seem to take away from realism?

Its not so bad... it seems to make it more attractive to new users who like constant fast paced "get right back into the fight" action.

What I find positive about this is that it discourages lone defenders from disinfecting a town of enemy presence. The lone defender has to risk trying to recapture the camp [and having the entire city capped because the enemy went to the depot, thus losing the entire city] or defending the supply depot knowing that the enemy is able to keep coming back every time.

This forces teamwork in recapturing a city and getting rid of the enemy presence-- having someone cover the depot, having someone cover the exterior of the enemy camp, while yet another tries to cap the camp back before the respawning enemy can kill him.

If the last enemy camp is captured and the enemy that keeps respawning is then killed, then this enemy is forced to respawn back at HQ... and the defenders feel relieved as they have "disinfected" the town of an enemy presence.

Sometimes the respawning enemy decides NOT to prevent recapture of the camp, but instead runs away to hide somewhere in town... forcing the defenders to either root him out or make the mistake of leaving town, thinking it is all clear.

So many tactical options here, that it makes it quite useful in the gameplay category.

Quote[/b] ]Am I missing something or are you required to be next to a factory to produce something? Do you like this requirement, or does it seem more realistic to allow ordering via radio?

I too have wanted to order units remotely... I'm with you on this one. I loved that on your map you could order a helicopter/AI soldiers at base, crew it, and have it flown/paradropped over where you were fighting to back your attack up.

Quote[/b] ]Artillery: Okay, I like the *idea* of arty, but in practice it tends to be overpowered, especially when it's raining down on your base. OTOH, apparently the arty is stationary (unless I'm missing a towing ability here).

Would a hard cap on arty units be a good thing?

I *LOVE* arty, but I do NOT love shelling HQ with artillery, mainly because it becomes way too close to "spawn killing".

What I deeply desire is TACTICAL ONLY artillery-- the use of artillery on a mobile battlefield. What you are shelling might not still be there after you call the strike... so you are pressed to make accurate artillery calls. We should be able to strike anywhere on the map except for where friendly and enemy HQ's are [and sadly yes, griefers abuse artillery to shell friendly HQ, its qute the map ruiner].

There is no ArmA capability to tow artillery with trucks, which sucks. However, modded versions of Warfare have helicopter hitching ability like on your maps, and hitches are a way to move artillery pieces [although I'd personally say its a timewaster].

If arty is limited to tactical only shelling, then a hard cap on arty pieces is not necessary.

Quote[/b] ]AI Supply: This seems to be a throwback to the BIS CTI idea, but it seems to be extraneous and buggy, especially when you get more players on a server.

Wouldn't it be better to cut down on the AI overhead and simply assign a value to towns, then add in a random factor that would make you miss payments from towns on occasion instead of having AI drive trucks all over the place?

I totally agree-- the AI driving in ArmA is way too flawed for the proper usage of supply trucks, and so there MUST be a radical change in the way supply works in this game.

Quote[/b] ]Resistance AI: I think the coop aspect of AI is interesting especially if you don't have that many people on the teams.

Do most of you prefer having AI to fight in the towns initially? Even if teams are full? It seems to me that ArmA became more of a coop game than PvP.

I think Resistance AI has been positive in the game... they act as nice buffers to prevent those who would race ahead at the start of the game to cap faraway enemy towns right away [you have to clear out the town to capture and then hold it, which might help the enemy more if you cap their rearward town for them].

On some modded maps the Resistance AI skill has been bumped way up to extremely hard, and those can be quite a handful to deal with!

Those who do the most work in clearing out towns are also the ones who make the most money for doing so, and can then take the initial lead in buying a huge army or powerful heli/plane to affect the games outcome.

IMHO it has worked well within the Warfare game...

Quote[/b] ]If I make an independently crewed M1Abrams and an enemy structure, the Abrams will shoot it with its sabot and destroy it.

How do you create an ENEMY structure at your HQ? Isn't anything you build your own friendly structure? I'm not sure if I understand what you are saying here, so cannot comment properly.

Quote[/b] ]AA Pods will not engage fixed wing aircraft, but they'll shoot down choppers in a heartbeat. WTF?

Same thing happens on your maps. I've had to manually shoot down Jets on both Warfare and RTS-4.

From another thread, it appears that if a unit is moving too fast, AI will not shoot at it... so if a Jet flies slowly enough then AI may engage it.

It might be possible to tweak the game using this setting so that AI will shoot at anything NO MATTER how fast it is going? [Or at least allow them to engage Jets at all but the most maximum speeds, to give Jets an incentive to always stay at top speed].

[*KEEPER* 0]

A few things that I could suggest that would make a better Warfare mission. Assuming your working off of Matt R's 1.1.3f would be:

1) Increase the View distance! As it is right now on the ground you can only see up to 800m away and 1500 in the Air. He said it was 2000 but that is bogus. when telling you AI to move somewere in 1st person (with crosshair) it gives you the distance to that point from your current position, and if you look as far into the fog as you can the furthest you can see is around 740m. I think this is a result of the Fog Matt implemented to combat the instant Viewdistance that some people have been using, however, It is WAY too much for the mission.

2) A rearm/repair Helipad @ the airports, or someother method of rearming aircraft. Right now it is possible to rearm Choppers quickly by going into auto-hover and be close to a captured supply depot using the "REARM" option in the build menu. We need something that can quickly rearm planes aswell.

3) Order stuff when gone from base. Perhaps you could order an AI that was left at base using the action menu to use the "t" menu and give the commander the build screen as if he was at base himself. Dont know if this is possible.

4) SU-34s configured to carry GBU's, I know you were able to do this in RTS without a addon being required so hopefully you can do this for us. Right now East can buy Laser designators but dose not have a GBU aircraft. they need one!

5) G-36's for Both Sides!! not realistic but would be nice, also giving the javelin to East would be cool.

[whisper 0]

1) think PvP (yes ArmA is ALSO a PvP game and Warfare is also a great map for it ), and your issues with the camp concept will become good points.

2) Fast travel make it not so handicapping, and avoids letting the AI try to run to your current position (or any position you order them to go). We all know AI is not the most intelligent being playing the map

3) I agree on Arty.

4) Why not, no real opinion on it. In fact, the positive of the supply truck system( the ability to cut down ennemy ressources) is never used in game, so we could drop the whole system altogether without any impact.

5) I play this game for PvP, sorry. Not interested in chasing hordes, then lonies (when I got the hordes) of half clueless AI running around in a town for hours to be sure that the area is clean

[Tanaska 0]

*post removed*

[iceman77 18]

RTSIV was/is a great map...i modded it into several versions with diffrent addons...never really tried to put arty or anything into it...just diffrent addons..

As far as warfare is concerned some things Iam working on (besides Warfare Iraq) are integrating the mando bombing console into it,also mando missiles,flares chaffs for some choppers and being able to buy "upgrades" for your weapons ie.M203 and acog attachments...instead of actually buying "whole" weapons you would start witha specific gun type ie. M4A1 or an M16A4..then from their you could purchase the upgrades...I know having to purchase upgrades may seem "unrealistic" but hell...you already have to buy your weapons..and that is unrealistic for a soldier to have to purchase his/her firearms from the US or "soviet" goverment...

Regards,

Iceman

[BLSmith2112 0]

Wait wait wait....wait.....wait back up, thats not Karrillion coming back to Arma is it?  

I'll throw my 2 cents in (probably 4 cents now adjusted for inflation):

Point 1: Camps - I like the concept, but perhaps less camps & a longer respawn time would be nice. Keeps the realism, and centralizes the battle.

Point 2: Purchase & Factories: I liked RTS IV's system of wireless purchases.

Point 3: Artillery: I like the idea but hate it in practice. Too bad there isn't a projectile that could be created like in RTS 3.

---------------Artillery: I wish you could rearm these units with a menu instead of a truck. It gets quite annoying.

Point 4: AI Supply: There is a "Rommel" version of Warfare with no supply trucks. Matt R also edited this in one of his missions. You can find this mission on your server under the map "Southern Sahrani" and it is 1.14f Matt R [N+S] or something to that effect.

Point 5: Resistance AI - I too like the idea but there's something about it that (to me) makes it feel too "coopish".

Suggestions if you do take the plunge back into Armed Assault (hope you do!

1. The Heli-pads from RTS IV in this mission.

2. Want a huge emphasis on base defense. Warfare can't touch the whole base defense premise of RTS3. It seems like in Warfare no one is concerned about each others base, it seems as though the idea "lets attack their base" comes into play 2-3 hours into the game and therefore no emphasis on "defend the base! aiee!!!!" .

3. Perhaps if the AI were smarter and had a forward artillery & respawn tower that had to be destroyed.

----Perhaps I'm contradicting my idea of a FPS RTS, I like PVP 100x more than coop feel. Some AI sure but jeeze, this is like evolution without rank and with bases.

4. I liked research... but thats just me.

[colligpip 0]

I would like it if karrilion made arma a bit more like RTS4 so we can have the best of both worlds. Wireless command etc

I also like arty but i think it needs an arty detection system so if you fire your giving away you position. Be good if we had some mobile arty units.

[BLSmith2112 0]

Any more thoughts Karr?

[169th_Ice 0]

Hi Karrillion, nice to have you make back mate! If you could work out a way to have the su34B's rearm the GBU's at the Main Forts, I'd really appreciate it. here is the mission: Warfare_32-V112-ICED-V10.Sara.rar

See here

[sas troop 0]

Stupid question: What to do to make artilerry fire? I ahve no Idea! I got a few M119 cannons but there is still nothing. What is needed to make it?

[CrazyAce 0]

Gotta love the instructions that came with the mod hu

It took me a while to figure that out and I even asked and got no reply. What ya have to do is make sure you have 2 people manning the gun (preferably AI’s) select target, adjust fire width and call for support. Now the AI can call Artillery with just one AI...

[sas troop 0]

Thanx man! Works now!

[CrazyAce 0]

Anyone know how to replace the RACS in this mod? I keep shooting my own guys from 400 - 500m away, thinking their RACS as they look nearly the same.

[169th_Ice 0]

In my version10 mission which you can download here. the following error sometimes comes up and I cant find out why. It wouldnt be such a probelem except it wont go away.

_lastSV = _lastSV | [|#]<Null-object>SupplyValue]

Error Invalid number in expression.

I have built my mission on Rommel's version of warfare which has a nice feature where it shows the towns current supply value againt its potential supply value. Example Obregan "SV: 45/60"

Ive also modified the base supply value higher so not as much work is required. So instead of Obregan starting at say SV: 10, its starts at SV: 40.  Maybe this is where the problem occurs? Anyway if someone could find out or tell me why, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[CrazyAce 0]

I think it has to do with towns that are no longer on the map (and for good reasons), take a look on the North island as an example Carmen was linked to Tlalor which would cuase this error.

In the init boxes of the depots look for towns that are not capturable.

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

[this,"Carmen",[Bagango,Eponia],["SmallTown","SmallTown","SmallTown"]] Exec "Server\Config\Config_Town.sqs"

This code is from Carmen, it did have Tlalor in its list of next towns, so I got rid of it. This code is essential for supply trucks to go from town to town.

See if that helps.

[169th_Ice 0]

Thanks Crazy, I reviewed the town configs in mission.sqm and sure enough there was a couple that werent supposed to be there. We ran the mission twice last night, both long sessions and no errors.

[ArMoGaDoN 0]

I've witnessed many dedicated server crashes when player numbers go above 40 when running Warfare map.

Is this common to other servers?

Could it be due, perhaps, to the warfare addons scripts somewhere when player numbers are high?

Or, if other servers aren't getting problems, possible conflict with AI addons? (truerangeai or durg's veggies), extended event handlers? MAP_Air+Misc?