SP Missions by SaOk

[SaOk 112]

I could try to make a coop version, but I have no good experience on MP-mission creating. I know the basic stuff, but some parts of the mission could be complex to work in MP. But I begin to plan it and hopefully to have a first beta version released soon. I am also working on campaign so things could take some time.

Edit: And yes, there is unit spawning usually when the next task is created. I believe the spawning would be currently multiplied with count of players in server. I will change the spawning scripts happen only in server machine and also tweak the ambient scripts.

Edited February 27, 2011 by SaOk

[Tonci87 163]

You are working on a Campaign? This will be awesome!

Like I said a Coop Version of this Mission would be really cool. The whole design of the Missions seems ideal for Coop

[SaOk 112]

The Battle Of Zargabad COOP (for 1-7 players) is released.

Mission Description:

Fighting between the Takistan Army and UN peacekeepers have broken out in Zargabad. US/GB reinforcements are facing heavy resistance before reaching the city from the south. Only Echo13 arrives in time.

Features:

-Played as British Infantry Squad

-Overview/Briefing/Gear Choose

-Full voice-acting/custom battleshouting/ambient sounds (total over 300 voicefiles)

-Cutscenes

-Basic infantry action on streets of heavily destroyed Zargabad (offensive, defensive tasks)

-Friendly AI groups fighting with players

-Many sides involved (US, British, Czech, German, UN, Takistan Army, Takistan Militian, PMC, Criminals)

-Indoor fighting (some)

-Ambient Life/Effects

-Perfomance Friendly Methods

Special Thanks:

-Bardosy, Dale0404, Nettrucker, Poacher & SavedByGrace for voice-acting

-Nettrucker for translations

-SavedByGrace for other ambient voices/sounds and english corrections

-Norrin for Revive system

-Tslava for czech language support

-DarkXess for Israeli Air Raid Siren sound

-Tonci87 for Insertion Flight

-Zipper5 for loading screen template

-Big Dawg KS (Building Patrol Script v2.0 was base for altered building patrol script used in this mission)

-Also for all testers

Requirements: ArmA2 Combined Operations (1.57) + BAF/PMC DLC

Note:

This is my first attempt to make a COOP version of this single player mission. It worked fine when I tested it alone in the server, but expect massive flaws when played with multiple players. Report freely bugs in this mission thread or at OFPEC:

http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=35551.0

Changes from SP:

-Minefield creating system removed

-Player group have battlecrying disabled

-Medicpacks removed

-Re-spawning from moving marker added

-Mines added to ammotruck and ammocrate at hill

-More AT-weapons at the hill

-Intro/Outro dosent work in MP mode (still mission starts with a cutscene)

Future plans (if mission gets in playable state):

-More enemies (longer battles)

Known bugs:

-Radiochat isnt displayed as text when I first time tried (on second try worked fine)

-Task status changes doesnt always display in middle of the screen (worked fine also in second try)

-Spawning was made for SP, I expect clients seeing some spawning from nowhere (I will improve it)

-Not sure if clients can see flies/crows

Change Log:

Beta 2:

-Heavy changes in scripts/triggers

-Should be one step more compatible with dedicated servers

Beta 3:

-Heavy changes in scripts/triggers

-Intro should be played now only for player that were in server from start

-Clients that come late to server, should receive now correct task data

-Much other changes for clients

-Other tweaks/changes

Beta4:

-Intro issues fixed

-Custom voices now working

-Ambient life fixed

-Crows&Flies now appear for clients

-Many other fixes and tweaks

1.0:

-Added revive system by Norrin

-Added czech language support by Tslava

-Added custom british battleshouting for players by Poacher (a chooseable parameter)

-Chooseable time of day (via parameters)

-POW task fixes

-Ammocrates fixed/tweaked

-Increased difficulty

-Many other changes/tweaks/fixes

1.1:

-Fixed Briefing/Tasks for JIP-players

-Ammotruck gear cargo fixed

-Intro tweaks

-AT-soldier added to airfied

Download 1.1 from ArmaHolic

Download 1.1 from Gamefront

Be free to suggest new features and report bugs. Let me know if you find any flaws/bugs.

Edited March 18, 2011 by SaOk

[Tonci87 163]

Great News. We will test this as soon as we get some People together

[SaOk 112]

Beta 2 is available. I made heavy changes in scripts/triggers and tried to follow some new info, I found about mp-scripting. See the post 203 for download link. Any test reports would be very valuable. I couldnt test this version almost at all even alone since I broke my right hand (humerus) two days ago. I hope its still much better than beta 1.

Edit: K, after short visit in some random server I saw some new flaws (client joining after start can have dated objective info and unneeded intro cutscene...), but I think I should be able to fix those. I try to have beta3 ready in few days.

Edited March 2, 2011 by SaOk

[Tonci87 163]

Godd, we sheduled testing of your Mission for the end of the next week (so damn many events going on right now....)

[SaOk 112]

Nice, but no hurry. :) I need to add new "join in progress"-script to make things look good for all players. I will also rework the tasks more to make the clients follow scripts that are launched with publicvariables (and only once in mission progress). I try to have beta3 ready later today or tommorrow.

[SaOk 112]

Beta 3 is available (see post 203). I expect it to work much better now for clients and even for players that enter the server during the play.

[MissionCreep 12]

Great mission SaOK, however I thought it was too easy in vanilla mode (not a criticism, btw). Would be nice if the enemies had more smarts and attacked from the flanks and the rear too (nobody is covering the rear position of the the airfield). Enemy attack helicopters, more enemy heavy weapons (eg vehicle mounted AA, a la scenes from Libya on the news), attempted enemy encirclement and more enemy armour (maybe from the rear?) would have made life more interesting. Spent a lot of time picking off human waves. Was more like a skirmish, I thought, than a battle. Static offense and defensive positions felt more like a Napoleonic or American Civil War skirmish line. Maybe I should run it with an AI mod? OK, if I was really that smart, I'd suggest how to make all those enhancements, but unfortunately I'm not that clever. Just some ideas to throw around, but thanks again for the great mission.

Edited March 3, 2011 by MissionCreep

[SaOk 112]

Thanks for good thoughts, I agree that the mission is sometimes very easy if the AI friendlies and especially the chopper stay alive. I will add more challenge to the mission for both Sp/Coop versions (Sp version could have a separate difficulty selection). But those may delay few weeks until my hand is working again. Before that I try to get the Coop working better. I managed to create a dedicaded server and noticed that the sounds didnt work and player could stuck to black screen in intro. I will try to make a hotfix to be released today with also fixed crows and flies for clients. Those seem to be local effects, so they need to be runned on each client separately. Also the battlecrying needs fixing for clients.

I will see if I could also tweak the battles to be less Napoleonic. :)

[SaOk 112]

Beta 4 is released. This time I managed to test things properly with dediserver. There is much changes and tweaks included. See post 203 for details. I hope this is the last version for sometime (at least week if there is no showstoppers). Let me know all your thoughts.

Edited March 4, 2011 by SaOk

[Alex72 1]

Well done mate! Havent tested this version yet, but should be fun. :)

[SaOk 112]

Thanks :). I will try to improve it to be more challenging and random. Multiplayer scripting seems to be quite fun. I could also try to make the upcoming campaign coop compatible.

[Tonci87 163]

A COOP Campaign? Now this would be awesome^^

[Tonci87 163]

My Squad tested your Mission yesterday.

Here are the first results.

-On the Map screen you have the ability to choose Weapons but regardless of what you choose, you end up with your standard Equipment after disembarking from the chopper

-The Weapons Storage at the Airport doesn´t really work. Most of the Stuff in the crates could not be picked up by anybody.

-It would be nice to have some ACE Stuff like Earplugs

-It would be nice to have Binos in the crates

-A Revive System would be good. One of our men died during the Firefight at the UN Building at was out really dead without the chance of returning to the game.

-The Mission Where you have to kill the AA Gunner is way to easy. He opened up fire on one of my squad Mates that was on the roof of the UN Building, so he killed him. Because of that we didn´t see much of the Tank attack.

-The Mission was generally to easy to that Point.

My Internet connection gave up after this so I can´t tell you how it went on. I will post the feedback of the other guys once I recive it

[SaOk 112]

Thanks for testing and feedback, I will try to fix those all. There should be 15sec respawn, but I will add some revive system too. The weapon choose problems sound weird, but I see if there is similar bug posted somewhere with a solution. And I should be able to add easily those ACE stuff.

If the start with chopper ride dosent allow weapon choose, I will remove gear from briefing and add them to crates in airfield.

[turin turambar 0]

I am playing for first time The Battle of Zargabad (sp) and i don't know what to do to complete the second task, to capture the UN offices and clean the zone. I already killed all the enemies for that red area, i am sure of it (revised it three times) but the game doesn't mark it as finished.

[SaOk 112]

After some about 3-5min timeout, there should be a dynamic black marker blinking over random enemies in the task area until task is done. The task is completed with clearing the area. Have you killed the guard on second floor in UN house? Also sometime there is one enemy soldier in construction site building stucked in north-stairway on first floor with his legs going trough cement.

I will take a look of that task bug if there is some clear rare reason for that.

If you still somehow got the next task, then you can just move to that.

[turin turambar 0]

Let's be specific: the task is clear the first red circle areas, isn't it?

And wth does "there should be a dynamic black marker blinking over random enemies in the task area until task is done" mean? Black marker... on the map?

There was a hint saying that i recieve non-accurate enemy positions at random (good idea for simulating radio reports of contacts).

I will check out stairs and things like that again.

edit: Heh, i dit it, now it worked. I put the last beta but that made me restart the mission because it was saying the save wasn't compatible. And now this second time worked without problems.

Edited March 11, 2011 by Turin Turambar

[SaOk 112]

Yes, and a moving black marker area should be created 20 seconds after that hint message. It then changes it´s position every 20th second showing a non-accurate position of random enemy unit in that red marker area. After the triggers notice that there is no enemies left inside the red area, the black marker should be deleted, the red one should change colour to green and there should be new task given with radiochatting.

If you no longer see a black marker area near the UN building and you have no new tasks given, then there is something bugged and you probably need to load an earlier save. A savegame from just before completing the first task should be enough. I will try to find how that have happened, but that should be a very rare bug.

Edit: Okay, good to hear it works now :)

Edited March 11, 2011 by SaOk

[turin turambar 0]

Finished, good mission!

[SaOk 112]

Thanks. :)

[vivadiga 10]

battle of zargabad coop is phenomenal i tested it on our clan server,not sure if is a bug but at the end after the enemy counter attack seemed we had another task like search something but mission ended immediatly,i hope this can help you anyway thx to share it ;)

[SaOk 112]

Thanks, that final task was changed to a cutscene in single player version. I could try to make it playable again in coop. I also managed to play finally this through on dediserver, the mission is working quite good, but the end battle is ultra easy. Some game patches before the air support usually died after tank task, but now it almost clears the whole town and stop the counterattack for players. With other heavy changes, I am going to add more AA soldiers for enemy, but maybe with a small possibility that players could shot those down in time with good teamwork and some luck.

[SaOk 112]

Version 1.0 of "The Battle Of Zargabad"-COOPmission is released. See first post or 203.

I tryed to add all things that were wanted, but not yet the extra task after hill assault. Norrin Revive system with it´s features is added, Tslava translated the mission to czech language for czech users, player group use now custom battleshouting (a chooseable parameter), there is much difficulty tweaks (still I suggest play with 0.8-1.0 enemy skills), ammocrates are fixed with very few added ACE gear (if mod is detected). There was also much bugs in POW task that are now fixed. You can also choose now the time of day.

Edit: For me the gear choose from briefing worked before too, but now with Norrin revive system the weapons are not reseted after dying.

Edited March 14, 2011 by SaOk