'Cipher' - full dynamic [SP & MP/Coop] with unlimited replayability

[zeep 3]

I'd love for your next mission to have random objectives;

- take and secure (anything from suitcase to small town to chopper, used for escape)

- capture and hold

- find and destroy (person / objective / air / ground / sea)

- combined with your legendary mission skills

Maybe a different island next time?

I really believe in the random aspects, that's what i like most about Cipher now, along with the -you never know where the enemy appears- factor. It's just great.

The other night i played 1.40 coop with a friend for the first time. I had some difficulties setting up the game at first, i was hosting and wanted us to play spec ops together. When we entered the game i would be spec op and my friend a crow. After some restarting of the game we finally managed to start. I rejoiced when i saw two bikes waiting at the start!!

[Nephris1 10]

Hi m8,

we played ya misison the first time these nights an i must say really a well done master piece!

But we got stuck at the point when we found the suitcase.

Before we got the radio message with the hint to the yellow marker, what we followed to.

We stormed the barn with severyl handgenades, so everyone was down, when we entered the scene.

The c ase lay down on the bottom.

So we actually thought to be able picking it up or sth like that,...but nothing.

Did we crash anything by our grenade attack or did we miss sth b4?

Can u plz give me a hint what went wrong, so that we ll be able to pass the mission up to its end.

Another point, would it be possible that u release your "AI module" as standalone script to the public, as i ´d love to use it!

Greetz

Neph!

[wiper 0]

I had some difficulties setting up the game at first, i was hosting and wanted us to play spec ops together. When we entered the game i would be spec op and my friend a crow. After some restarting of the game we finally managed to start. I rejoiced when i saw two bikes waiting at the start!!

Try disabling the intro in MP that should always provide for solid startups. There ARE some issues with it in MP, particularey when JIP.

That damn MP intro gives me lots of headache currently and I'm spending every spare hours i find (but havent enough) for that.

[zeep 3]

If i were you i'd leave bugfixing and go put that effort into something new. It'll clear your headaches and give you joy in working, with a fresh mind.

Next thing you know, while you're coding the next mission, you'll find a better way of solving problems you may be facing now.

1.40 is good enough for now. Small stuff you can patch up later. ;)

[wiper 0]

Hi m8,

we played ya misison the first time these nights an i must say really a well done master piece!

Hi m8, great you like it.

Thanks :)

So we actually thought to be able picking it up or sth like that,...but nothing.

Did we crash anything by our grenade attack or did we miss sth b4?

Can u plz give me a hint what went wrong, so that we ll be able to pass the mission up to its end.

You should have got a "task completion" message and a new task assginment as soon as one of your guys is close to the suitcase (~10m).

Also a action menu should've been available while near the case. This may take some seconds though and needs the player to focus the briefcase more or less exactly.

But thats it generally, its where&how the mission continues.

Another point, would it be possible that u release your "AI module" as standalone script to the public, as i ´d love to use it!

Yes hopefully I'll manage that at one point. Needs tons of encapsulating stuff though, read loads of work. Thats one type of time constraint for such a release. The other one are game issues still present in A2 which are partly worked around and partly are omitted features in Cipher and I'm waiting to get fixed (broken 'findcover' function, kamikaze choppers, convoy road driving mess). So lets face it...:o

Edited October 31, 2009 by Wiper

[tpw 2315]

Great great work Wiper. When I'm not in the editor, this is the SP mission I play.

[Batstat 10]

Played 1.4 SpecOp on deddy server today. Errors we did find:

1. Tried with Intro, 2 pc stuck in black screen. Chopper refuse to land. One die when parachuting. <- restarted mission without intro (Intro disabled).

2. We did choose to use truck (default) at insertion point. No trucks did apperar, we hijacked one civ truck :) Next time, the same did happen, this time we used the motorbikes.

The promised(?) truck was nowhere to be seen.

---------- Post added at 02:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 PM ----------

Extraction and ending trigger SpecOp don't work. As a leader I got the ingame cinema. The rest of the team did not. 50% of the team was on the extraction cite, the rest under way when mission ended, and only as failed for me.

Seems as there are some MP bugs here.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Batstat
Typos

[icebreakr 3159]

Wiper, any plans to make a Panthera edition? It reached the state v2.31 and there will be no layout changes in further updates.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Would be good to see a new "Ciper" variant! :)

Just some rough ideas:

as defender

- transport & protect the codeblock from area/place A via B or C to D

- building a camp and roadblocks to protect and track possible spys/saboteurs

as specop

- randomly add another suitcase with a fake code that will be revealed if the player is close to extraction point

- timelimit to steal + send the code - otherwise player(s) have to hide (safehouse or -place) and try it later again.

[the.d 0]

Salut! I have nothing constructive to contribute but I need to get this off my chest: Thank You!

What an amazing mission - especially with friends! I lack the profound knowledge to really appreciate the scripting you have come up with - but I can roughly imagine its complexity. Hats off to you, Wiper! Cheers!

[cole 0]

Salut! I have nothing constructive to contribute but I need to get this off my chest: Thank You!

What an amazing mission - especially with friends! I lack the profound knowledge to really appreciate the scripting you have come up with - but I can roughly imagine its complexity. Hats off to you, Wiper! Cheers!

+1.

It's great in SP, but in MP it's just a whole new epic level.

[colligpip 0]

I would love a version of this mission that was PVP. SAy OPFOR could be humans that are transported to the target area and have to stop the bluefor team doing the objective. Just a thought Love the mission.

[HyperU2 11]

Loving this mission, I wish Dom and Evo were more like it, or it was slightly more like them. :)

[wiper 0]

Thanks for all the kudos folks.

I'm really happy to see that the mission seems to please so much people and that it was obviously worth going public with it.

New version 1.41 is available on the first page. It contains some important fixes for the MP intro and a new option for the auto revealing function now that also allows to disable it too, which in fact is my favorite setting hence its set as per default :)

v1.41

• added: options for auto revealing the suitcase
  
• improved: revealing algorithm
  
• improved: intro implementation
  
• fixed: black screen sometimes not terminated on clients
  

As for the wishes I'm afraid 1.41 is the final version and if no new issues or bugs creep up this might be the one that also will be rated by the OFPEC team.

Particularly additional mission objectives or even PVP support are not only out of scope of the current mission design, they also would need to recode a plethora of already stable running code so that is definitely someting for a new mission concept.

Porting 'Cipher' for another island/map might be a bit simpler but also needs intense preparations as the mission is taylored very close around buildings, roads and terrain using loads of black and white lists that would have needed to rebuild from ground up or at least refreshed properly.

So lets see what future brings and if I may find more time to play 'Cipher' even myself again, some further inspiration may pour in for any future versions using the dynamic AI concept used in this mission.

In the meantime lets enjoy what we already have with 'Cipher' and look forward to further game engine tweaking as those most promising recent beta patches (build 59875) really push gameplay quality in a great direction.

Have fun.

[gulde 0]

This mission is perfect. Its really professionally designed, and can really be replayed again anytime. I would like to have more missions like this one.

[H3NRY 10]

loving it wiper, havent tested the recent 1.41 but have attempted to port it to another island ( panthera2) for some clan mates and my self and it works pretty well, only thing is the blacklists and white lists ( assuming those are for the landing and extraction points), as well as the vehicles being spawned on mountains and flipping lol

going to download 1.41 now adn let you know how it runs on a dedicated!

[Batstat 10]

Hi Wiper, you also need to fix the ending trigger in MP SpecOp. The mission end with fail for the officer if not all players are at the extraction zone, 60 sec or so after extraction radio trigger is pressed. For the rest the mission continue, and did not end, before the rest quit (need to say, we did not wait for a extented period of time to test this).

Generally speaking, a mission should end for all players, normaly at the same time.

[Alex72 1]

Woot new version!

Thanks Wiper for all the hard work.

[icebreakr 3159]

H3NRY: can you send the mission over based on v1.41?

[wiper 0]

Batstat:

Hi Wiper, you also need to fix the ending trigger in MP SpecOp. The mission end with fail for the officer if not all players are at the extraction zone, 60 sec or so after extraction radio trigger is pressed. For the rest the mission continue, and did not end, before the rest quit (need to say, we did not wait for a extented period of time to test this).

Generally speaking, a mission should end for all players, normaly at the same time.

Maybe something slipped through but I can't reproduce what you report here, maybe you can specify it a bit more ?

Theres no end trigger bound on to the extraction zone. The mission ends (read: should not end) until all men alive are on board the extraction chopper.

If not all men are on board the chopper and one guy calls the extraction chopper again (using radio alpha) the chopper with the men on board redeploys to the next suitable landing spot next the (first) group leader and lands again after a more or less intense calculation process (depending on how many enemy AFV's are still alive) for the LZ position has ended.

But again, the mission should not end (debrief) unless all men are once on board.

IceBreakr, H3NRY:

Porting the mission properly would first require to adopt all respective zone and road markers on the map and edit the UrbanPos.sqf accordingly.

While the road markers could be easily copied and readjusted (keeping their numbers, those are mandatory or need to be rediefined in one of the scripts) the primary location markers (UrbanPos) are used to show up the village names in briefing texts !

As for the black lists there are two types to be looked after:

1) The area blacklist "func\IsInPosBlackList.sqf". I think this one just needs just to be emptied as it defines "islands" to be igored by the placement calculations and there are no islands on panthera afaik.

2) Those 4

• ADPI_BL_VehicleSfcs= ["#CRForest1","#CRForest2"];
  
• ADPI_BL_RoadSfcs= ["#CRGrass1","#CRGrass2","#CRGrassW1"];
  
• ADPI_BL_CoverObjects= ["Mosquito","HouseFly","DragonFly","HoneyBee","ButterFly","SeaGull","SeaGull2","Crow","FxWindPollen1"];
  
• ADPI_BL_BuildingPos= ["Land_HouseV_1L2","Land_molo_drevo_bs","Land_Dam_Conc_20","Land_Dam_Barrier_40"];//+...... // see init_initial.sqf;
  

defined in the init_initial.

If Panthera uses no other than Chernarus objetcs all should run fine with those just unedited. If not we need to add new ones to the lists. Particularly buildings with buildingPos need to be treated carefully as they may screw up AI movement and possibly the whole mission (suitcase position)

Theres also one (or more?) bridge on Panthera. I have yet no experience of how the Arma2 AI deals with them. They only way they worked well in OF and A1 was to use carefully handpicked waypoints. They never worked well with dynamicly calculated waypoints, but maybe thats better in A2. However, another issue that needs to be watched and tested carefully :o

[horrgakx 1]

I like this :) Just played 3 times.

I found a couple of issues which you might like to know about;

1) The chopper just tried to land facing down a hill which meant that the tail rotor struck the ground. The chopper immediately lifted into the air again and stayed at around 20ft, the only option I had was to eject.

2) Say you get 5 mins into a game (without saving) and decide to revert back to the beginning, the start screen "So the transfer went off without a hitch" is displayed but the game is frozen - though I can look around, use night vision etc, just the chopper and everything is frozen.

Thanks!

[zeep 3]

1) The chopper just tried to land facing down a hill which meant that the tail rotor struck the ground. The chopper immediately lifted into the air again and stayed at around 20ft, the only option I had was to eject.

I've seen this more than once. I think it's just AI acting up, nothing the mission can fix. Once i issue a command to move in those situations, the heli always seems to listen and repositions itself for landing.

[HyperU2 11]

I like this :) Just played 3 times.

I found a couple of issues which you might like to know about;

1) The chopper just tried to land facing down a hill which meant that the tail rotor struck the ground. The chopper immediately lifted into the air again and stayed at around 20ft, the only option I had was to eject.

2) Say you get 5 mins into a game (without saving) and decide to revert back to the beginning, the start screen "So the transfer went off without a hitch" is displayed but the game is frozen - though I can look around, use night vision etc, just the chopper and everything is frozen.

Thanks!

I save as soon as I hit the ground, it's your best bet. I too had the extraction helo crash yesterday, before I got on board. I can't complain though because the pesky Hind crashed too. Just bad AI flying.

[irR4tiOn4L 10]

Great mission but i have some issues.

The mission is very long and particularly difficult when playing as a lone spec op at night, so at some point i inevitably save so i can continue later

However, when i reload the mission the little radio with 'save game' is missing, and after a few save/load routines (using other methods like renaming save files) the load times become EXTREMELY long!

I also get an awful and constant 'stutter' after a few save/loads

What can i do?

[H3NRY 10]

H3NRY: can you send the mission over based on v1.41?

i am curently making 1.41 work with it, should'nt take me longer than a week due to me actually doing it right now that i have the info ( below :] )

Batstat:

Maybe something slipped through but I can't reproduce what you report here, maybe you can specify it a bit more ?

Theres no end trigger bound on to the extraction zone. The mission ends (read: should not end) until all men alive are on board the extraction chopper.

If not all men are on board the chopper and one guy calls the extraction chopper again (using radio alpha) the chopper with the men on board redeploys to the next suitable landing spot next the (first) group leader and lands again after a more or less intense calculation process (depending on how many enemy AFV's are still alive) for the LZ position has ended.

But again, the mission should not end (debrief) unless all men are once on board.

IceBreakr, H3NRY:

Porting the mission properly would first require to adopt all respective zone and road markers on the map and edit the UrbanPos.sqf accordingly.

While the road markers could be easily copied and readjusted (keeping their numbers, those are mandatory or need to be rediefined in one of the scripts) the primary location markers (UrbanPos) are used to show up the village names in briefing texts !

As for the black lists there are two types to be looked after:

1) The area blacklist "func\IsInPosBlackList.sqf". I think this one just needs just to be emptied as it defines "islands" to be igored by the placement calculations and there are no islands on panthera afaik.

2) Those 4

• ADPI_BL_VehicleSfcs= ["#CRForest1","#CRForest2"];
  
• ADPI_BL_RoadSfcs= ["#CRGrass1","#CRGrass2","#CRGrassW1"];
  
• ADPI_BL_CoverObjects= ["Mosquito","HouseFly","DragonFly","HoneyBee","ButterFly","SeaGull","SeaGull2","Crow","FxWindPollen1"];
  
• ADPI_BL_BuildingPos= ["Land_HouseV_1L2","Land_molo_drevo_bs","Land_Dam_Conc_20","Land_Dam_Barrier_40"];//+...... // see init_initial.sqf;
  

defined in the init_initial.

If Panthera uses no other than Chernarus objetcs all should run fine with those just unedited. If not we need to add new ones to the lists. Particularly buildings with buildingPos need to be treated carefully as they may screw up AI movement and possibly the whole mission (suitcase position)

Theres also one (or more?) bridge on Panthera. I have yet no experience of how the Arma2 AI deals with them. They only way they worked well in OF and A1 was to use carefully handpicked waypoints. They never worked well with dynamicly calculated waypoints, but maybe thats better in A2. However, another issue that needs to be watched and tested carefully :o

thank you for the info :)

the bridges are kind of a pain in the butt, they do make spawned vehicles flip and spin ( funny to see)

the mountains in panthera make it so most of the enemy vehicles spawn and slide down the hills flipping BUT that just adds more enemy troupes that will surprise you from the hills when you least expect them so i cant say that there needs to be a fix lol

something about the AI chopper pilots is that they dont seem to see mountains tell they are within 100M of then and most of the time they are going 150-200 with their nose straight down and once they notice the hill they pull up but its WAY too late, BIS need to fix that.. or someone needs to find and fix it... wish i knew where to start lol.