RTS - Farm Wars

[TiGGa 0]

Internal project name: Farm Wars

Official public name: FArmA

Players: 10 CDF vs 10 INS

Game mode: RTS

Description:

This is the technical sequel to the *cough* award-winning */cough* RTS mod "Wine Wars" for ArmA 1. :D

As a young entrepreneur of start-up cow meat factory (CDF), you are thrown into the cold water of the chernarussian cow meat market. There has been a monopoly on cow meat for years, established by a local company (guerrillas). It is time to break the iron grip and bestow the population with a free market! It won't be easy, as there will be weapons involved. The locals will defend their monopoly with hardened steel and the newspaper are already announcing a new competitor (INS).

Features:

-Both sides will be only able to build crappy security guards and vehicles

-High tech import from oversea. You have to sign an import contract and choose a limited number of high tech unit types. Those will be available for import later. Your unit choice will determine your strategy!

-Ability to breed cows in the cow shed at the base or on the pastures (faster growth and better meat quality but at a high risk)

-A cow factory to meatgrind the cows

-A supermarket in the base to sell the meat at a constant low price. This is a safe income source

-Supermarkets in town with higher, volatile prices, depending on supply and demand. Selling a lot of meat at the same town will make the price per meat unit drop.

-You can manually transport the cows and the meat or tell the AI to do that.

-Stealing enemy cows (cow napping) possible

-Only one base can be build, but you may have a rebuyable MHQ, which can be used as a mobile respawn.

-Sophisticated commader interface

-Own units (in the player's group) can be selected and ordered by mouse, just like in a regular RTS game.

-Camera in RTS mode will be bound around the HQ and the MHQ. After an expensive upgrade, you will be able to put the camera everywhere.

-Victory conditions: Money victory (earn $x before your competitor does), destruction (destroy the enemy base)

Screenshots:

Videos (double click for HD):

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Download:

Note this is still an early beta. If you are joining in progress and you don't respawn properly, then go to the priest in the southeast corner of the map. He will grant you eternal life and you may spawn properly again.

Mission: Farm Wars 0.4c

Addons: Farm Wars Addons for 0.4

Serverkey for the addon: Bikey File

Official discussion forum: http://farma.eutf.org/

Changelog

0.2f

-Fix: MHQ couldn't be bought after building support BMPs

-Fix: Resistance using west vehicles when selecting Coop West AI Module

-Fix: Resistance spawning endless number of base defender doing nothing once a static gun has been destroyed and repaired by them again

-Feature: Hovering mouse over a unit's picture card will show the health, fuel, magazine count and the shots left in the current magazine

-Feature: Support BMP can attach vehicles just like the support chopper

-Feature: Added tank shelter template

-Feature: Added viewdistance settings

-Feature: Unit selections can now be saved to the keys 1,2,3 and 4

-Game Balance Tweak: New cows start with 0 meat. At a certain amount of cows, it was better to meatgrind a newborn cow instead of letting it grow

-Game Balance Tweak: Lowered prices for aircrafts

-Workaround: To prevent the "Where are you" sound loop bug with JIP, all units of the disconnected player will be killed. Vehicles will be teleported to the vehicle factory.

0.2d

-Reverted the tractor "fix" of 0.2c

-Fix: Tractors tend to sell in one town only in certain situations

-Fix: Improved automatic meat selling algorithm. They should sell the meat in more than one town simultaneously now.

-Fix: Cows and crates are vanishing when playing with high latency

-Feature: Glow balld above the units will indicate wther unit has no fuel or no ammo left

-Feature: R key will refuel the selected unit (singular) if there is a fuel truck nearby

-Feature: Backspace will stop a moving unit

-Feature: Added towns: Pusta and Vyshnoye

0.2c:

-Fix: Not possible to properly grab the best cow at the southern pasture

-Fix: Tractors stopped moving without any reason. Hopefully fixed. :D

-Fix: AT tower rotating by itself on steep slopes

-Fix: Impossible to fix destroyed static guns

-Feature: Added MG nest with preplaced DSHKM

-Feature: Added MG bunker with three preplaced DSHKMs

Edited September 3, 2009 by TiGGa

[This is Bosnia 10]

WOW i cant wait for this release !!

Tigga Outstanding Work!!!

[kremator 1065]

Brilliant idea. Go with the FArmA name :)

Can't wait to play it.

[TiGGa 0]

FarmA was my favorite, but already occupied: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73570&highlight=farma

Anyway, check the first post regularly, as I will add more videos during development.

[-DirTyDeeDs--Ziggy- 0]

I dont care whats its called! I got to have me some of this! :459:

;) me -> impressive work. I'm interested in seeing the DL link for this mission =). I like the detail of the doors on the factory opening and closing when the land vehicles are finished in the build que. simple yet satisfying effect. well done so far.

[.kju 3244]

Very nice project!

Looking forward to see it evolve. :)

[TiGGa 0]

I hope to finish the mission in the next 2 months. The tech demo is still internal stuff. I don't want the public to see all the ugly bugs, which I haven't seen so far, but might be there. lol. :) Oh well, there was one bug in the video. I tried to make the chopper land, but because the move order was issued twice, the chopper instantly took off again. Just fixed that. ^^ To make a chopper land, you need to hold down the alt key when right clicking a spot. Same applies to the airplanes. They will land at the nearest airport (nearest to the mousecursor).

Currently working on the script for the meat processing and the meat selling that the supermarket in base. I will show you another video about the cows soon.

Edited June 30, 2009 by TiGGa

[TiGGa 0]

I have tweaked the RTS control system a bit by removing the audio feedbacks of the soldiers. I swear those feedbacks will get really annoying after some time. The positive effect: Improved reaction time upon giving orders. I have added a visual feedback instead when you right click something. Depending on the order, the color of the "crosshair" will change. Green is a regular move order, light blue a embark/disembark order, dark blue and land order and red a "target this soldier" order.

Additionally to that, I have dropped the "use-keyboard-to-scroll-around" function and replaced it with screen edge scrolling. Needs some fine tuning though.

Anyways, this video will show you the basic income generation. At the beginning of the game, you will start with 2 cows. Cows are a necessity for meat and meat is what you need to sell for money. Of course, two cows aren't enough to win the game. You have to breed and multiply them. This is done by putting them in the cow shed or one of the four pastures (the places where cows eat grass) on the map. For this video I have selected a starting point near the eastern pasture. This wouldn't be advisable for the full game, as those pastures will be guarded by the local cow company (resistance).

For each cow pair, you will have a 25% chance of a newborn each cycle. The more cow pairs you have, the faster they will reproduce. So, what's the difference between cow sheds and pastures? The cow shed has the advantage of being safely in base. It can hold up to 20 cows. Each cow can "grow" 1000 meat units. No, meat units aren't some kind of weight units. Imagine them as a try to quantify the meat quality.

Pastures on the other hand will only hold 10 cows each. The cows will grow up to 10000 meat units though. Additionally the cycles are faster and as is the meat growth per cycle. The commander/CEO has to make a decision where to put the cows in. Having them on the pastures holds a higher risk, because the enemy can ambush the cow transports.

After breeding some cows, you need to turn them into meat. This is done in the cow factory in the base. The video shows you how to do that in manual mode. You can either walk to a cow and grab it or you walk to the flag and select the "Grab best cow" button, which will attach the finest cow to your avatar. You can drop the cow anywhere, for example to hand it iver to a teammate. You can also bring it to another pasture by walking to the flag and pressing "Register cow". But in order to turn the cow into meat, you have to meatgrind them at the factory, as the video is showing. Each cow is taking 30 seconds for processing which is visually indicated by the smoke comming out of the chimney. After you have some meat, you may put it in a crate for transportation. Each crate will hold up to 5000 meat units.

Now we are comming to another point, where the commander has to decide. He can sell the meat to the base supermarket like in the video. This supermarket will provide you with a constant cow price ($2 / meatunit) and you don't have to worry about ambushes. But for the big profitssss, you have to sell the meat in the town supermarkets. Each town will have min. price and a max price. Depending on the supply and demand, the prices will change. Selling in bulk will not benefit the buyers but the sellers in this game (due to gameplay balance reasons). For example: You can sell two times 100 meat units to a town. The first 100 meat units can be sold for $10 each. Because you have delivered 100 units, the price will drop. The next 100 meat units can only be sold for $5 each then for example.

But, if you sell 200 meat units at once for a price of $10, you will make far more profits. Selling in bulk is the way to go, which should make the game interesting. It is an incentive for the opponent to actually try to steal the valuable crates during an ambush.

You see, this game will put a bit more responsibility in the commanders's hands. The decision where to build the base is also important. Depending on the distance between town and base, there will be a small multiplier bonus on the meat prices. And because you can't sell to the same town again and again, you need to step into fresh markets (other towns). Having a portfolio of conquered towns will ensure constant high meat prices. You can sell in one town while you wait for the prices to recover in the other town. Depending on the town size, the price will drop more or less rapidly after meat delivery. Bigger towns are more hungry for meat. :D

Hope you are staying tuned for more updates.

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[limbless 10]

That looks really impressive! Looking forward to it. :D

One (very small) thing, though - in the HUD at the top, "Aircrafts" only has to say "Aircraft". I know, it's tiny, but it's just one of those things, y'know?

And since I'm suggesting things... Maybe up the scroll speed a bit? Seems to kind of drag along as it is.

Anyway, it's looking good so far, and sorry if my comments were at all out-of-place.

[TiGGa 0]

I will take that into consideration. Note that scrolling speed is also dependent on cpu load. Fraps didn'T help much there. Yet I will up the scroll speed a tiny bit... just for you. :)

[bhaz 0]

I actually lol'd when I first read this, but at 2nd glance I'm thinkin' this is something I might actually play, rts/fps is full of win. :D

[limbless 10]

I will take that into consideration. Note that scrolling speed is also dependent on cpu load. Fraps didn'T help much there. Yet I will up the scroll speed a tiny bit... just for you. :)

Aww, you're too kind. ^_^

[TiGGa 0]

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Another video. This time with some enemies in the towns. :D

[SASrecon 0]

Ooh an idea, how about if enemies surrender, they become your slaves/workers and you earn more money/grind cows quicker etc??

[gunzz 10]

Ooh an idea, how about if enemies surrender, they become your slaves/workers and you earn more money/grind cows quicker etc??

or how about u can exchange them for cows etc with the other side, and if they refuse u can just cap them in the head.

[TiGGa 0]

I wouldn't want to hard code that, but I could code in a hefty penalty for player's death. Like losing all of the players money (except when commander dies). This COULD encourage taking prisoners or something like that. Rather forcing a way of playing, I'd rather go with "just" encouraging certain behaviors.

Btw, todays new feature (which can be seen in the videos): You start with an empty gun rack at the HQ. Every new item/weapon/magazine you have on your body can be registered to it. After that, the gun rack will be filled with those items. Should be funny finding those super rare weapons like the M8 and the fitting magazines. ^^ Additionally, you will respawn with your previous weapon loadout only, if those weapons are already registered to the gun rack. :)

[Spetz 0]

you should add mad cow disease, if you go try to feed some of your cows to other cows, you can get a cow worth more but also a chance of the cow just exploding :D

[kremator 1065]

LOL like the mad cow idea ! Perhaps there can be chemical warfare in that you spray an enemy cow and it has a small chance to infect another if in close proximity !

[TiGGa 0]

You have seen the manual way of income generation in the 2nd video. Today, you will see the enhancement of it. First of all, a tractor, with which you can transport cows and crates swiftly. Secondly, a semi-automatic cow transport. The transport will be done by the AI but you still have to tell them their destination and when to pick up the cow. There will also be a full-automatic mode, where you just set some parameters (e.g. minimum selling price) and the AI will automatically find the appropriate destination.

Take a look at the new admin/statistic screen, which will show you all the vital information you need as a CEO. ^^ The money transfer list will show you the money of all the team mates. You can transfer the money to them by a click of a button. Below that, you will see the cow list, displaying all your cows and their meat values. This should give you an idea where to send your next tractor to.

The town list will show you the current amount of meat each town has in its stock and the prices. The bonus is a distance bonus between cow factory and town market.

At the right side of the screen, you will see the building queues. By clicking on the X button, you may remove the selected item except the first one (which is being built).

At the bottom of the screen, you will find the settings for the semi automatic mode (and the ones for the full-automatic mode) next to the possibility to buy AI tractors or empty tractors.

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[AT Soldier 0]

Impressive and very creative work. Not my cup of tea but still , VERY impressive.

(is that guy carrying that cow :P ?)

//Niklas

[Schwab 0]

Heyho TiGGa!

I like the semi-automaitc mode already very much, it already looks like we get very close to a playable demo!

Some smaller things i noticed:

-AI should take a break when mounting cows or dismounting.

-The meat should be in packages like the cows are delivered to the factory

-there should be a setting for the scroll speed, its defenitely too slow for me

-maybe u can add some predefined base-layouts for easier building ? i like the one in your last demo

-is the option available that you can drop units out of your group when mounted in static guns and they are still alive?

-mark static guns when empty with a (blue?) dot

-limit the tractors - looking very powerful

-add useful missions for the other players who are not the commander

....

things from our chat just that they dont get lost:

-a nice intro would be that a plane is cruising with the team onboard and waits for the commander to mapclick - then flys to the mapclick and drops all team

-more efficient ai when conquering towns ?

-special side missions to get some nice cows, weapons or money

-transport animation for cow (make player slower)

Defenitely a very creative mission , looking forward to it !

[Lpmike 10]

Any cow tipping?

[Schwab 0]

cow tipping is a myth ^^

its time for mythbusters :)

but cow stealing will be an interesting part of the game...

you just need the possibility to steal more then 1 cow at a time, maybe free all of the enemy cows with opening the fence ?

[TiGGa 0]

Had spent the past weeks with a lot of testing on the dedicated server. Some features had to be toned down because behaviour was unexpected on the dedicated. For example: I had to remove the "tank-shooting-out-of-factory" effect because most of the time it got stuck inside the building or landed on the roof on the dedicated server. I have added other features though like being able to create new AI groups on the fly to use them with the BIS high command module. You can also order planes and chopper to fly at certain heights, which is especially useful for the support Mi17 (repair chopper). In the video you can see me ordering the chopper to pick up a T34 and drop it outside of the base. Flying above 200 m will activate the parachute for the tank for a safe drop. Below that, you either have to fly near the ground or expect injured drivers when the car is falling 100m to the ground. :D

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[S!fkaIaC 10]

WOW!

I was looking for a command GUI like in C&C Red alert and you MADE IT!

I am addicted to crCTI, but since the code got f*****ed up over the time and the amount of conversions it seems that there is a new kind of CTI at the market!!

The cow-thingy as logistics-sim is brilliant!

Anything against to make a classic CTI version of your master piece?

Any chance to touch the mission?

Edited July 17, 2009 by S!fkaIaC