31st Normandy mod -WW2

[rip31st 98]

Well have you talked to enigma lately?

[canis lupus 20]

yeah I think he would like me to make some

[ShrubMiK 0]

Very promising...I'll be looking forward to this

[rip31st 98]

We did some testing on a host server last night. Will post results later this morning. Very tired, gotta get some rest. Lots to talk about.

[da_aNimal 0]

simply awesome to hear you are playing already.hows the gameplay fun or tedios.looking forward to this.

[archsceptic 21]

Will the King Tiger (Tiger 2) be also present?

Well two companies of Tiger II's from the 503rd were in Normandy, late arrivals.   They will be a factor, so yes.

I'm not sure when a model will crop up just yet.  I'm not going to be modeling this weekend.  I'm going to be mission writing to get our beta testing underway by next week.

Well, there must have been some King Tiger's in Normandy at least on the 18th July because that is when the event in the link below occured.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=126970

Also, there was Michael Wittmann's (Tiger I's) unsporting behaviour on the 13th on June when he attacked the 4th County of London Yeomanry - which had stopped for a cup of tea at Villers-Bocage and received a brew up of a different kind.

[rip31st 98]

Well were off to a good start, after the first initial session of testing we ran into a bunch of issues. The overall impression that was left with players commenting that the map is "HUGE!". People also commented it's got some serious potential for many different types of gameplay ranging from CTI to small missions. The map will provide great terrain for tank battles. On to the good stuff.

The test sessions included four (one) hour capture the flag scenario between two towns 7,000 m apart. The towns were given equal amounts of equipment: two transport aircraft, three tanks, several infantry and equipment, along with several defensive positions. Here's the rundown on the first battle:

The initial assault came from the 101st airborne dropping into the german controlled town from a C47. The first wave of assaulting 101st airborne dropped into a german meat grinder. Several para's were taken out by ground fire. Those that remained were rounded up and eliminated within 15 minutes. Shortly thereafter german fallschirmjaeger were beggining boarding a JU52 for counter attack when they came under fire from a platoon of Sherman tanks. Panzer 4's & anti-tank weapons were deployed. Causualties on the German side were high. Two Panzer 4's were lost along with a JU52. Two sherman tanks could be seen burning in the open fields surrounding the German town after the conflict. Fallschirmjaeger finally got off the ground and headed towards target. At the same time a convoy of German troops left on truck towards the American held town. Fallschirmjaeger made their jump 1500 m from target instead of directly overhead to avoid heavy causualties. Fallschirmjaeger called for armored backup when they detected more American armor and several US defensive positions. Fallschirmajaeger were detected by American forces. For several minutes they exchanged fire. The skirmish ended 500m short of target. A couple US trucks loaded with infantry were spotted departing shortly before the end of the last german forces in the area around the US base. In the forested area south of the American base the two truck based German and American convoys clashed when they abruptly ran into each other on a remote highway. German forces gained the upper hand using anti-tank weapons and heavy machinegun fire. American forces were eliminated in the forested area. German troops on truck continued on. Meanwhile a tank engagement between a Panzer 4 and Sherman was fought in the open fields to the southeast of the American controlled town. The Panzer 4 was able to seek cover behind some trees and fire on the Sherman tank that was manuevering in the open fields disabling it and killing their crew. One German was lost from the panzer 4 crew when the Panzer 4 suffered from damage. The panzer 4 although damaged continued on towards target. Meanwhile Fallschirmjaeger were able to organize a second air assault and lift off the ground near the German controlled town. The German trucks tried assaulting the US controlled base from the west. They came under heavy fire. The panzer 4 engaged defensive emplacements from the southeast and fired several rounds onto the US base before it thier main turret was disabled by american anti-tank units. The panzer 4 crew abandoned their tank and sought shelter from fire in a US defensive position near the base of the hill leading up to the US controlled post. It wasn't very long before they came under heavy US fire and became casualties. Nearly at the same time the remaining truck bound German forces were eliminted by heavy machine gun fire on the west side of the base compound. Moments later Fallschirmjaeger could be seen falling from the skies directly over the base. Roughly 50% were slaughtered before they hit the ground. 10 or so fallschirmjaeger successfully entered the US base where they breifly captured the US flag. They did not make it out of the base alive.

This was how the first scenario played out. Sorry I was long winded in explaining it.

[rip31st 98]

Here's a rundown on what players found and commented that we will be working on:

Some comments & Answers;

MAP ISSUES:

-Some beach areas were a bit on the large size (satellite image and texture's need to be readjusted.)

-Map needs tall grass, corn and wheat fields modeled in 3D with GEO level of detail to provide cover from AI detection ( dont know if this is possible, but we will experiment)

-Map needs famous landmark's modeled such as the Eiffel tower and london bridge ( LOL I guess some people were taking countryside tours while we were fighting it out - Yes eventually those objects will be modeled)

-AI had a difficult time manuevering out of base ( base will be adjusted and roads to pathfind will be added)

-AI were seen walking through some walls (I think this might be a arma engine issue, or model issue related to the wall itself, but we will check out the walls in question and try to resolve it)

-Ladders and doors inoperable ( Map isn't binarized yet, this will resolve later after the map is adjusted)

-Vast open areas between some towns( Well there was in real life in Normandy, however more foilage and terrain variation can be added for gameplay purposes)

EQUIPMENT ISSUES:

-pz4h Side skirt panels appeared untextured at far distance (pz4h needs layered 3D vertices for side skirting to make visible at distances)

-pz4h took a lot of damage before it was destroyed ( yes we noticed!  Damage model will be adjusted)

-Sherman's were destroyed too easily ( We will look into that to see whats up)

-C47 controls were slughish ( They are using a basic set of flight dynamics at the moment, which will be adjusted)

-C47 & JU52 missing cockpits and interior cabin (Those will get added later)

-C47 looks great at 200m plus, but when you're up close there's no definition to the textures ( A digital artist is currently working on retexturing this aircraft.  Several other people have volunteered their time to work on other equipment & aircraft)

-C47 has no flaps!  ( You're right, we haven't added that yet or retractable landing gear - these will come later )

INFANTRY ISSUES:

-US airborne looked like they are wearing mechanic's overalls. ( LOL yes they kind of do, I agree.  We have a group of guys working on various infantry models including retexturing those.  There are several infantry units in work at the moment.)

So in a nutshell there was some good action.  The overall goal was to test out a good chunk of the equipment and find the bugs and problems with them and the map.  

Question - Can people participate in testing?  Yes!  There is a server with all the equipment and map available for download.  This equipment is not final and will be subject to changes.

Question - Who do I contact to be able to download this stuff? Well me of course, you can send me a private message to get the details.

Question - Are there more upcoming test sessions? Yes, they will be thrown together in the evenings around 6pm to 2am U.S. pacific daylight time.

Question - Will more models and epuipment be added and tested later?  Yes there will be.  At the moment a BF109E1 and Hawker Hurricane along with two landing craft are slated to be tested soon.

[Blackhawk 0]

Sounds amazing.

PM sent.

[ck-claw 1]

Well Done PM sent!

[rip31st 98]

The next test mission is being built as we speak, it involves Omaha beach and some landing craft. The mission will be ready for the test tonight.

As soon as I have the mission ready to go, the landing craft will be uploaded to the server and the server will be up and running. I will then PM information on the test to those that PM'd me.

We will probably have a Teamspeak server available for use

[rip31st 98]

Make sure your mic works when you log on to our TS server. From there you'll receive the instructions on the download and server info.

Testing is underway this evening. Were bouncing back and forth between Omaha beach landings and battling airborne assaults between Cherbourg & Valognes.

[rip31st 98]

2nd day of testing current equipment yeilded the following results as found by the testers:

Several people got to try out the equipment at various times throughout the day.  Here's what they reported:

OMAHA BEACH LANDING AREA MISSION:

- There is a possibility there are too many mission placed obstacles on the beach for AI to pathfind inland properly OR the geographic contours of the land lead AI away from where they need to go ( Experimentation will find out whats going on there.  We will try to remove some obstacles to see if AI can pathfind, or we will adjust the terrain to see what they do )

-AI that weren't player controlled stayed mounted on the landing craft ( This was a mission issue, there was no disembark waypoint command added at the beach- this will be resolved )

-After respawn players obtained M16 and AK47's ( A simple mission scripting issue - removeallweapons needs to be added to the player before respawn )

-Ramp on LCM(3) landing craft inoperable ( YUP - we know it doesnt work, and that will be fixed when vehicle fixes get implemented)

-AI and players onboard landing craft are invincible ( LOL, yeah we knew about that too-  AI & player positions will be added to the fire geometry to fix this issue.  PaulD died many times via .50 cal from the LCM(3)'s    - we apologize)

-Vilas AI sniper scopes sight model for the crosshairs is thick and partially obstructs view of target ( We will work on a fix for this at some point )

-After initial first death and respawn, players were unable to throw grenades ( I'm not sure on this one.  I will investigate.  I think it might have something to do with the removeallweapons scripting - it was mission related)

Recap of the Omaha mission: Equipment (Infantry & LCM(3) landing craft)  Skies - overcast, light occasional rain, some fog and visibility issues.   In the first couple rounds, there was heavy fire fights ongoing directly on the beach.  German machine guns made a meatgrinder out of the sector where the landing craft were from the bluff above.  Some AI and players eventually found there way onto the bluffs overlooking the beach were it was a back-in-forth battle between Vierville-sur-mer for a while.  German snipers took up positions within the rubble and destroyed buidlings and took out several players that thought they could take the easy route to town.  Others encountered machine gun nests within the hedgerows.  The Germans gained the upper hand twice during testing breifly capturing the American flag down on the beach.  The Americans didn't even come close to town.

All in all a fun mission for testing.  Players that were new today also reported they were in awe of the size of the map.  Most problems today were mission related and with refinement, those can be fixed.  The vehicle fixes will come later after another set of equipment is available for testing in the coming weeks.

We also ran about three 30 minute test sessions on the first test mission we used that tests the ju52,c47,sherman & pz4h.  

Will there be testing tomorrow night? (8/20) YUP, there sure will be.  We will be doing a tank battle.  There are some issues with the tanks we want to work the kinks out of.

Is there a dedicated server running this stuff, or is it just some guys machine? Yes! There is a 100mbit dedicated server hosting this in Reno,NV.  People in the UK were able to download all the equipment and maps in under 7 minutes.

Is this stuff easy to install and get up and running? Yes, it is, however it takes someone that is computer savy OR someone that has a little patience.  We can walk you through it.

Will the package eventually be put into a carefree auto-installer that does everything for you? Most likely after all testing is done, all equipment are complete, after the map is finished and missions are created.  Then I will start an official thread in the addons & mods complete forum where it will be available for download.

*small sidenote: FIX: Map is binarized now, ladders and doors work, buildings suffer damage, etc.

[rip31st 98]

There will be a tank battle on the server tonight in the Paris area.

[sparks50 0]

Feel free to reply to my message if you need one more tester

[rip31st 98]

Message sent sparks!

[rip31st 98]

We messed around with some tanks today and found some issues we will resolve in the future:

PZ4H:

-Commander MG doesn't translate up/down (vehicle cfg fix will resolve this)

-Gunner reticle is to the left of cannon, as a result, all shots aimed with reticle are off to the right (adjusting gunner's sight in memory level of detail will fix this)

-Currently no chassis MG - could be a crewed position in Arma (to be added later)

-Turning out as gunner results in viewpoint inside the tank, no external view (currently no operable hatch and viewpoint in memory level of detail - to be added later)

-Turning in as gunner or commander may cause crash game on some machines(again viewpoint issues with memory level of detail - this will be resolved before the next test)

SHERMAN:

-Gunner reticle is to the left of cannon, as a result, all shots aimed with reticle are off to the right ( same deal with the PZ4H- a quick fix later down the road)

We did get around to some adjustments on one of the aircraft.

FIXES:

-C47 now has map icon

-C47 now has picture icon

-c47 props rotate properly

-C47 Lowered pitch of engine, sounds better

-C47 Removed Weapons (FFAR,vickers)

Future fixes for the C47:

-add cockpit

-add interior cargo cabin

-add new exterior textures

-add flaps

-adjust flight dynamics ( flys okay now, but we want it to fly better)

[AEA 0]

one word: AWSOME!

And I mean it!

Greetings from Germany and Austria.

[rowdied 44]

Feel free to reply to my message if you need one more tester

Me too please

[rip31st 98]

Additonal Infantry are currently being added to the mix. I will let everyone know in this thread when they are available. Those that PM me will get access to them for testing. The test server will be online with them. Probably late tonight.

[rip31st 98]

A big thanks to Agamoth!  Great work! Here are some infantry in work, they aren't done yet.  They will be put up on the test server soon:

101st near Fecamp:

2nd ID:

[rip31st 98]

Okay as promised, 101st and 2nd inf along with the updated C47 are now available for testing on the server. IF you need access, please PM.

[rip31st 98]

Six loaded C47's dropped their load of new 101st and 2nd inf on Canterbury,UK during a multiplayer mission during late night testing:

[FriketMonkey 0]

It would be nice if you changed the parachutes to. Like the once from operation flashpoint. They look a lot older, because these look kinda new for ww2. Great work anyhow.

[rip31st 98]

-Changing the chutes isn't the highest priority right now. BUT it will happen. It's been on the list of things to do.