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

[wiper 0]

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?

If the radio is missing, you probably team switched to a different unit/slot before saving. I noticed this for myself, even without reloading, that some units seem to have no radio on the map when taken over their role. You may however always use the radio via the UI menu or simply typing (default) <backspace> 0-1-<channel#> iirc

As for the performance issues: how big are your save files ? For what I have seen they thend to be around 30 and 40 MB after a while, but aint not too bad in loading time, taking about 30 seconds or so (10-15 seconds reading, similar time for "receiving").

I've never noticed save game dependant stutters though. Sounds annoying but unfortunatly I cant tell from experience and just might conjecture on this.

Are you sure you dont have similar symptoms with other missions after frequent save/loads ?

[thasundancekid 10]

Im back with another fantastic video! I was very close to get the bag this time!

You have to love this mission :-)

Edited November 10, 2009 by ThaSundancekid

[Greg 0]

Im back with another fantastic video! I was very close to get the bag this time!

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_annotate?v=R386AwS5hYM

You have to love this mission :-)

That link requires login. Try this one:

Edit: By the way, what resolution and detail settings were you using?

Edited November 10, 2009 by Greg

[irR4tiOn4L 10]

If the radio is missing, you probably team switched to a different unit/slot before saving. I noticed this for myself, even without reloading, that some units seem to have no radio on the map when taken over their role. You may however always use the radio via the UI menu or simply typing (default) <backspace> 0-1-<channel#> iirc

As for the performance issues: how big are your save files ? For what I have seen they thend to be around 30 and 40 MB after a while, but aint not too bad in loading time, taking about 30 seconds or so (10-15 seconds reading, similar time for "receiving").

I've never noticed save game dependant stutters though. Sounds annoying but unfortunatly I cant tell from experience and just might conjecture on this.

Are you sure you dont have similar symptoms with other missions after frequent save/loads ?

The missing radio seems to occur whenever i reload the game. Basically if i load at all i lose the radio and 'save game' radio option. No idea why, but thanks for the tip.

My savegames reach MUCH larger size than 30-40mb. I see 60mb or more after a while. I see similar savegame SIZE issues with other missions (for example BIS campaign) and possibly elongated load times and stuttering - but these are minor in those missions, whereas with yours the stuttering becomes unbearably bad and loadtimes unbearably long, for some odd reason. I will have to do more testing but i have no idea why.

IF noone else is noticing these issues i dont think its something you can pursue. I will simply have to try and play through your mission whole, rather than saving and continuing. IT is a very good mission!

[thasundancekid 10]

That link requires login. Try this one:

Edit: By the way, what resolution and detail settings were you using?

Thanks :o

I will try to get a more decent video with better firefights, stay tuned ;)

1920*1200, view distance 5k, all very high ex terrain detail at high.

(this was not possible before i tried the beta patch with no mods at all)

Sys spec C2D@3.33ghz,4gb-Ram,4870x2,hdd@raid-0.

[HyperU2 11]

I was trying to make a vid of a mission yesterday but it turned out to be a cakewalk. Sometimes things can go too smoothly. :)

[thasundancekid 10]

I was trying to make a vid of a mission yesterday but it turned out to be a cakewalk. Sometimes things can go too smoothly. :)

haha, and i have played this for 3 weeks nonstop without getting the suitcase a singel time! :o

I have seen it once thru my scope, but got flanked and slaughterd... :p

And for Wiper, it would be awesome if a transport chopper was added on the rusian side that will try deploy troops near you if you reveal your position...

Edited November 10, 2009 by ThaSundancekid

[HyperU2 11]

Never quit. ;)

[irR4tiOn4L 10]

Ive got the suitcase fairly easily with 10 men, the trick is to thoroughly sweep the surrounding area and then have your men sneak into great fire locations while holding fire - before opening up at long range. Thats during the day - night missions are even easier

But as a lone spec op ive never passed the mission - i can maneouver to within a few hundred meters easily enough, but cant seem to get to the suitcase itself without either being ambushed at short range by an unexpected patrol (=DEATH) or, as happened in one case, having to open fire on the general and immediate guards, which immediately draws the ire of damn near everything in the target area - while youre in the middle of it

So far ive tried this 3 times at night, and have always died approaching the inner defended area. I guess thats to be expected, considering the extreme defences in the area and the implausibly difficult task of a lone soldier sneaking in and out of the area against NVG patrols

I reckon im going to be an elite Arma 2 special operative by the time i manage this..

[markushaze 10]

Wiper buddy, i hate to brake it to ya....

I found a bug!

Remember we were talking about the fact, that in MP the selected vehicles wont spawn ? ( all except the bikes, thy are always there )

That means, when playing with my friend(s) in coop, there is no truck, no HUMVE, no nothing xcept those bikes, USMC Motorbikes.

The rest of the mission works well, however:

Since this latest version 1.41, when starting, i can briefly see the yellow circle (position of suitcase) in the map view (loading for the other player in coop after the lobby), before the insertion.

The Resupply position, should also be closer to the red circle, there is a lot of ground to cover, just to resupply.

Just a little feedback from a fan :-)

Edited November 17, 2009 by markushaze

[Greg 0]

Just played 1.41. The extraction chopper never lifted off. It just hovered at the spot it landed. The mission did end though, still showing the chopper hovering slightly above the ground.

Probably just ARMA. I saw all sorts of buggy things during that mission... Jerky animations for distance AIs, a enemy car crashed and burned, a civ truck drove through fences. I had to 'fence climb' into the objective building as the door step was too high to just walk in.

[brrupsz 10]

I registered here only to post a comment on this mission. Its great actually. We (my friend and I) were playing this thing almost 35 times already. Usually on 75-100% of difficulty, but with saves (I think its called Cadet in english arma2, not sure).

There is a bug with extraction helicopter, sometimes it just leaves without us ;/. I think it is good idea to make an additional extraction point in case of chopper failure. Cars are easy to find so there would be no problem with transport. It would be nice if you could add some patrols on way to extraction point.

We tried the SLX mod with this mission, but tanks and other enemy vechicles were shooting from 2,5+km, even trough trees(!), which was kind of frustrating, so we threw the SLX away.

Also there is a visibility bug. I set max view in the mission and the game, unfortunately it's around 800 meters realistically.

I changed file with weapons, added some for our private game, hope you dont mind ;).

Besides those flaws it is a great mission, kudos for you Wiper!

[wiper 0]

Thanks for your comments folks !

version 1.41b is uploaded and considered as final :)

v1.41b

• fixed: JIP broken in SpecOp mode
  
• tweaked: extraction chopper spawns closer to the players team/ leader
  

markushaze:

SpecOp mode doesnt support all vehicle options, just 2 (for a green bike or mountain bike). SpecOp mode was originally intended to be a solo 'iron man' mode, therefore in MP each player has its "own" vehicle as soon as he connects.

As for the yellow marker it should never show up when reveal is disabled and can be seen the earlier the lower the difficulty is set, if reveal is enabled.

Greg:

Yes, that extraction chopper behaviour you reported sounds rather bizarre and, because the end sequence was triggered correctly, I also tend to assume a game/AI at this point.

The other issues you reported definitley are, and I think we have to live with them, as we did since OF :). I think in a heavily randomized and dynamic mission like Cipher those peculiarities seem to be even more obvious because the AI is much more "stressed" than in deteministic scenarios which often can be tailored (more easily) quite around certain issues.

brrupz:

Welcome on board, and thanks for the kudos ! :)

Could it be that you (or another player in the team) called the extraction chopper twice or more ? It tries to relocate in such cases and if you're close to enemy armored units the new LZ might be calculated far off a previous one.

The extraction routine should be rather robust now and should be working very reliable.. which doesn't mean it can't break in any case of course :o

SLX mods/changes some key functions for the AI afaik.

Cipher changes loads of AI parameters by itself and controls most of AI movements and "communication".

So merging *any* (heavily) AI modding AddOn with Cipher will most certainly break major aspects of both, the mission AND AddOn functionalities.

Cipher doesnt touch any view settings in SP mode !

In MP however you can set viewdistance and terrain features in the MP-parameters on the server or using the server control feature of the actual public beta.

[Greg 0]

This has probably been requested under a different label...

I love how in MP games, if your player character dies, you inhabit the next AI until the whole squad is used up. Can this be emulated for SP games?

[brrupsz 10]

Thanks for the reply Wiper !

brrupz:

Welcome on board, and thanks for the kudos ! :)

Could it be that you (or another player in the team) called the extraction chopper twice or more ? It tries to relocate in such cases and if you're close to enemy armored units the new LZ might be calculated far off a previous one.

The extraction routine should be rather robust now and should be working very reliable.. which doesn't mean it can't break in any case of course :o

Called once. The problem is sometimes chopper just doesn't wait for us. It's not like he has to, we are on the LZ before him. Just toching the ground and flies away. Also the LZ is relocated when AA is in the area, right? But damn, he relocates the LZ and still is flying through danger zone :).

Except those the algorithm is alright.

SLX mods/changes some key functions for the AI afaik.

Cipher changes loads of AI parameters by itself and controls most of AI movements and "communication".

So merging *any* (heavily) AI modding AddOn with Cipher will most certainly break major aspects of both, the mission AND AddOn functionalities.

Yeah, we somehow figured it out. AI was aiming through walls, woods from sick distances. It was like playing Counter-strike 1.2 with PODBot on Hard. "You can't see me!" -AI"OH YES I CAN!" DADADADA :D

Cipher doesnt touch any view settings in SP mode !

In MP however you can set viewdistance and terrain features in the MP-parameters on the server or using the server control feature of the actual public beta.

Good to know that is not Cipher's fault. Probably Arma2 feature... :o

[icebreakr 3157]

Wiper: will you find time to adopt your great work to Panthera v2.31 (also final)?

[fabrizio_t 58]

Just played 1.41. The extraction chopper never lifted off. It just hovered at the spot it landed. The mission did end though, still showing the chopper hovering slightly above the ground.

Probably just ARMA. I saw all sorts of buggy things during that mission... Jerky animations for distance AIs, a enemy car crashed and burned, a civ truck drove through fences. I had to 'fence climb' into the objective building as the door step was too high to just walk in.

To me it sounds somewhat related to this:

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/3919

[galzohar 31]

This has probably been requested under a different label...

I love how in MP games, if your player character dies, you inhabit the next AI until the whole squad is used up. Can this be emulated for SP games?

You click on "team switch" when you die. As far as I can tell it actually works in the current patch.

[H3NRY 10]

hey wiper.. loving the JIP, it is actualy kinda working, only thing i see wrong is the markers are not in the right place most the time ( other than the actual place to attack which is right where its supposed to be) and it makes it a bit hard to get to the secondary ammo cache without a team mate placing you a marker on the map where it is :)

[maturin 12]

Finally beat SpecOps solo, but with 50% difficulty and less enemies at 2 am.

It's almost impossible to pick off loners with a silencer when their vehicles respond so fast.

You may want to look at your AI settings, however. While approaching Kababino a BMP followed me around for half an hour pointing its turret at me, but wouldn't fire even if I ran up to it. It knew I was there because it would relocate whenever I planted a satchel under it.

[Greg 0]

...You may want to look at your AI settings, however. While approaching Kababino a BMP followed me around for half an hour pointing its turret at me, but wouldn't fire even if I ran up to it. It knew I was there because it would relocate whenever I planted a satchel under it.

I think that is an ARMA2 bug. I had a Shilka follow me around once, pointing at me but not firing until I placed a land mine on it.

[teacup 2]

Hey Wiper,

Just dropped in to say we (Hungarian ArmA community) dig your mission. The randomness, the roaming civilians & patrols, and the tough AI make it a lot of fun. I'd also like to report a possible bug in 1.41. It happens to us all the time, we get a script error when finding the suitcase, and can't call extraction properly. This is what the RPT entry looks like:

Error in expression <dio"];



if(Cipher_Mode<2 or( isPlayer NR or isPlayer Miles or isPLayer Corps3)>
 Error position: <NR or isPlayer Miles or isPLayer Corps3)>
 Error Undefined variable in expression: nr
File mpmissions\__CUR_MP.chernarus\briefing_upd_SuitCase.sqf, line 13

Sure, we're probably screwing things up at some point, but the way we see it it's the mission maker's job to protect his scripts from being broken by idiots who can't be bothered to read the briefing all the way, or play the mission the way it's supposed to be played :colgate:

Thanks for your work, and if there's anything we can help with, more detailed bug report, testing, just holler.

[galzohar 31]

Wiper, is there even anything named "NR" in the editor? If not is there an "NR" variable defined? If yes, is it possible for it to not exist if the AI slot of that unit is disabled? One of those is usually what causes such errors.

[wiper 0]

Hi folks, yes NR is the third team leader in the lobby.

Should be easy to fix and I'll do that asap but I'm too busy with different things atm (besides transferring teras of registered stuff on a fresh system).

In the meantime a possible workaround of this error could be to NOT disable the last 3 unit slots in the lobby for team size reduction.

hope it helps,

need to reinstall Arma2 within the next days :o

[maturin 12]

When moving towards the extraction point after activating the Zelenogorsk suitcase, I saw a USMC pilot standing in the air some 100 m off the ground.

I shot and killed him because I assumed he was OPFOR and nothing came of it.