F2 Mission Development Framework (BAS f for ArmA 2)

[squishall 10]

Hi Fer,

As you know I am trying to add other factions to the assignGear.sqf. Everything works except I keep getting this error in game:

_ErrorReport = format ["F2 Config Error: No rusksack available for %1 at this time. Attempted to add %2 of type %3. CONTACT Mission Maker.",_unit, _count, _magazine

I have not changed any of the set loadouts for the ST platoons just added specific loadouts for ONS, and USARMY. The error points to the std ST loadouts as well even though I have not changed them in any way.

EDIT: never mind. I had a brain fart. All is good.

Edited January 26, 2010 by squishall
Fixed Issue

[squishall 10]

What is the significance of the Name box on the edit unit screen? What does it do?

[fer 21]

New Release: v2-2-4 (inc. F2A2 for ACE2 and Norrin's)

About the new release

From the ReadMe.txt file:

2-2-4 | 30 JAN 2010

Updated F2A2 ShackTactical Platoons for ACE2 (added Echo squad to all platoons).

Updated F2A2 ShackTactical Group IDs for ACE2 (added support for Echo squad).

Updated F2A2 ShackTactical Group Markers for ACE2 (added support for Echo squad).

Fix for minor interface bug in spectator script and v1.05.

Updated manual: Various changes (EN and RU versions).

About F2

The F2 Mission Development Framework (F2) is the successor to the popular BAS f mission development framework for ArmA (discussed in this thread). The new framework contains many of the features you know from BAS f, updated to work with ArmA 2, plus some new components which take advantage of the new game's special features.

For downloads and to find out more please see our online manual:

• http://www.ferstaberinde.com/f2/en/ (English version)
  
• http://www.ferstaberinde.com/f2/ru/ (Russian version)

Huge thanks to all team members and contributors to F2 (and BAS f), as well as the testers from Shack Tactical.

[VirusLIVED 10]

Does anyone know why whenever I add briefing text, it doesn't show in game? I've done this about 4 or 5 times already, only replacing the text within the "*** Insert mission credits here. ***" blocks. I have respawns set to 1, spectator script enabled, and casualty caps enabled.

I am loving the F2 Template though, thanks very much for the framework!

Edited February 21, 2010 by VirusLIVED

[fer 21]

VirusLIVED, glad you are enjoying F2. Three quick things to check for in your use of the briefing file:

1. That you are editing the correct briefing file - remember there are 6 faction-specific briefing files in the folder f\common.

2. That your player(s) characters are from one of the 6 default ArmA2 factions; if you are using units from a community addon with a custom faction you will need to edit the file briefing.sqm to cope with the new faction.

3. That you have not included the character " in your briefing text; this can break the briefing file and prevent anything being displayed in the mission (although you will not get an error message by default).

Hope those pointers help.

[VirusLIVED 10]

VirusLIVED, glad you are enjoying F2. Three quick things to check for in your use of the briefing file:

1. That you are editing the correct briefing file - remember there are 6 faction-specific briefing files in the folder f\common.

2. That your player(s) characters are from one of the 6 default ArmA2 factions; if you are using units from a community addon with a custom faction you will need to edit the file briefing.sqm to cope with the new faction.

3. That you have not included the character " in your briefing text; this can break the briefing file and prevent anything being displayed in the mission (although you will not get an error message by default).

Hope those pointers help.

Thank you very much for the help! I had " characters within the briefing, I now know not to make that mistake again. :bounce3:

I have a few other questions I thought I would ask regarding F2 framework.

1. Does the framework check for all files? I was thinking about lightening the mission load by deleting files which are not being used (f2Ace2 files etc.)
   
2. I had to temporarily convert the stringtable.xml file into a .csv format because of a scripting modification I added (R3F's Artillery and Logistics script). Is there any harm in doing this? (You can download it here)
   (This is only temporary because there will soon be a compatable .xml to go along with it.)
   
3. I had one other question regarding a Team Last Man Standing mission I am putting together. Being that I have the spectator script enabled, I set the views for only the faction the player belongs too (so they cannot cheat and view the opposing team), but I noticed if you hit the "Esc" key, the camera goes into "butterfly mode" which you can fly anywhere on the map. Is there a way to disable this feature? The code looked pretty complex so I didn't want to mess with anything.
   

Once again thank you for all your hard work on the F2 mission development kit, I will be basing all of my missions on this framework.

- Chris "VirusLIVED"

Edited February 21, 2010 by VirusLIVED

[fer 21]

1. Does the framework check for all files? I was thinking about lightening the mission load by deleting files which are not being used (f2Ace2 files etc.)

Delete away! You only need to use the parts of F2 you want. The manual page for each component lists the relevant files.

• I had to temporarily convert the stringtable.xml file into a .csv format because of a scripting modification I added (R3F's Artillery and Logistics script). Is there any harm in doing this? (You can download it here)
  (This is only temporary because there will soon be a compatable .xml to go along with it.)

That should be fine. There isn't a requirement to use XML.

• I had one other question regarding a Team Last Man Standing mission I am putting together. Being that I have the spectator script enabled, I set the views for only the faction the player belongs too (so they cannot cheat and view the opposing team), but I noticed if you hit the "Esc" key, the camera goes into "butterfly mode" which you can fly anywhere on the map. Is there a way to disable this feature? The code looked pretty complex so I didn't want to mess with anything.
  

Afraid I don't know, but hopefully ViperMaul (who has been leading the work on our compatibility tweaks to the script) will be able to chime in here.

[VirusLIVED 10]

Thanks for the help Fer, its greatly appreciated!

Edited February 21, 2010 by VirusLIVED

[fer 21]

Some new (and hopefully useful) pages for the F2 manual:

Using F2 with other islands

http://www.ferstaberinde.com/f2/en/index.php?title=Using_F2_with_other_islands

Reducing PBO filesize

http://www.ferstaberinde.com/f2/en/index.php?title=Reducing_PBO_filesize

Happy mission making! :)

[phaeden 0]

Excellent work Fer!

[Monsada 10]

This looks awesome Fer, maybe you would like to take a look at UPSMON its purpuse is to improve AI giving them intelligence for using empty vehicles, like cars, truks and helis. They talk eachothers comunicating if enemys near and flanking enemy, fortify in zone taking position in nearest buildings, multiple reinforcement..

This and much more without doing nothing in editor, really simplifies mision creating.

Maybe u would use it.

See u

[gunterlund21 10]

Fer if I want to put in ACE desert marines where do I go. I tried to just change them out but the arming sqf didnt recognize them.

[fer 21]

Fer if I want to put in ACE desert marines where do I go. I tried to just change them out but the arming sqf didnt recognize them.

Gunterland, the AssignGear script works by detecting the unit's faction. If you look on line 120 you'll see the case "usmc"; if you don't plan on using any non-Desert Marines you can just change this value to match the faction used for Desert Marines (sorry that I don't know this value off the top of my head). Hope that helps.

---------- Post added at 01:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:09 AM ----------

This looks awesome Fer, maybe you would like to take a look at UPSMON its purpuse is to improve AI giving them intelligence for using empty vehicles, like cars, truks and helis. They talk eachothers comunicating if enemys near and flanking enemy, fortify in zone taking position in nearest buildings, multiple reinforcement..

Hi Monsada - I'll try and check this out. Do you know if it works well with F2 already, or do you think we would need to do some further integration work?

[phaeden 0]

This is great Fer. I am constantly impressed with the ease of completeness of it all. Thanks for helping me get missions up and ready much easier.

[gunterlund21 10]

Fer so the desert marines are ACE_USMC_....._D. For the Case statement I would change Case "usmc" to Case "ACE_usmc" ?

[Monsada 10]

Hi Monsada - I'll try and check this out. Do you know if it works well with F2 already, or do you think we would need to do some further integration work?

I'm not sure but I think u won't have any problem, with integration works i don't know what u mean, if u have any trouble or doubt mail me.

[BD1 0]

Fer so the desert marines are ACE_USMC_....._D. For the Case statement I would change Case "usmc" to Case "ACE_usmc" ?

Gunter I have the same problem to a degree... I cannot get the briefing to show for the ACE USMC Desert or ACE US Army Special Forces...

Where the briefing.sqf currently has:

if (_unitfaction == "USMC") exitwith {

If we want to use both types of units named above from ACE, what do we need to change the faction to? Really stumped on this...:confused:

Edited February 21, 2010 by BD1

[d3lta 10]

Please admin, remove my post.

Thanks!!!

Edited February 21, 2010 by D3lta

[fer 21]

If we want to use both types of units named above from ACE, what do we need to change the faction to? Really stumped on this...:confused:

You can certainly use the same briefing file for multiple factions. Once you have the names of each faction, change that line to:

if ((_unitfaction == "USMC") || (_unitfaction == "otherFactionName1") || (_unitfaction == "otherFactionName2")) exitwith { ... etc.

[BD1 0]

Cheers Fer...

Will give that a go..

[fer 21]

New Release: v2-2-5 (inc. F2A2 for ACE2 and Norrin's)

About the new release

From the ReadMe.txt file:

2-2-5 | 27 FEB 2010

Fixed F2A2 ShackTactical Group Markers for ACE2.

Fixes for various issues with the spectator script and v1.05/ACE2.

Added Group E&E Check component.

About F2

The F2 Mission Development Framework (F2) is the successor to the popular BAS f mission development framework for ArmA (discussed in this thread). The new framework contains many of the features you know from BAS f, updated to work with ArmA 2, plus some new components which take advantage of the new game's special features.

For downloads and to find out more please see our online manual:

• http://www.ferstaberinde.com/f2/en/ (English version)
  
• http://www.ferstaberinde.com/f2/ru/ (Russian version)

Huge thanks to all team members and contributors to F2 (and BAS f), as well as the testers from Shack Tactical.

[fer 21]

Where we have been ...

F2 has been available for over 6 months now, and I thought it might be interesting to share some statistics. The chart below shows the approximate number of downloads for each version from the official F2 site. Please note that these figures do not include any mirrors.

A proportion of those downloads will, I know, come from the vibrant mission making community within ShackTac. However, my guess is that there is a group of potentially up to 200 mission makers using F2 within the wider ArmA2 community.

Interestingly, in over 3 years of working on BAS f and F2, and despite healthy download rates for both projects, users rarely send in any feedback. It's nice for me - and other members of the team - to know how people are using F2. So if you're still an active F2 user, and have a moment to post, it would be great to hear about the missions you make and the groups you make them for.

... and where we might be going

Looking ahead to the rest of 2010, we're considering whether or not to develop an addon-based version of F2. At this stage I'm not certain every component would live in the addon (some, like the briefing files, certainly cannot). However, even for those components that did become part of an F2 addon, mission makers would have the option of using the script-based version instead. So, to give a practical example, you might choose to use an addon version of the specator script component, so that when it gets updated you don't have to recompile your mission PBOs.

I'd very much like to hear the thoughts of existing F2 users on this topic, so again, if you have time to post here that would be great.

Whatever happens with our plans for an addon, do please rest assured that there will always be a 100% scripts-based version of F2. It's always been important to me that new mission makers can easily understand and modify the framework's components - because that's how nearly all of us learned to script.

[galzohar 31]

The problem with addons is as always that the mission will require those addons, and thus if a mission maker actually wants people to play his mission he needs to keep addons to an the minimum possible as long as the mission still works as intended. Most people simply won't download an addon just because 1 mission that he wants to play uses it, especially when he doesn't even know whether or not that mission will be good, or when you have to also load the addon up on your community's dedicated server and tell everyone else to download it as well.

Options are always nice, but I doubt an addon version will get used much, at least as long as the script version is reasonably sized.

[fer 21]

Most people simply won't download an addon just because 1 mission that he wants to play uses it, especially when he doesn't even know whether or not that mission will be good, or when you have to also load the addon up on your community's dedicated server and tell everyone else to download it as well.

Six months ago I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly, but these days I don't think it's quite as black-and-white. Yoma's AddonSynch tool has changed radically the way in which we view addons within most playing communities. However, if a mission maker is writing for the general public (and not a specific community), I do agree that the non-addon route is ideal.

[Netwars4 10]

I don't know if this has been posted yet, but I think that there should be a 'no coding knowledge needed' version of this mod. Obviously, it would be a lot easier to just ignore them and only give it to those who know about coding.

However, I feel that the challenge should make it all the more attractive and all the more rewarding if you succeed.

For people like me who have no idea how to do any form of coding; the current F2 is a hair-puller. I'll copy and paste into the initialization, delete the extra underscores, and then attempt to hit 'OK' but instead get a barrage of error messages.

"Typed bool, expected nothing" is a particularly odd one for me.

All I'm suggesting is to include an extra explanatory version for those of us who are not enlightened in the ways of coding.