Group Link 4 Special FX Edition

[Opticalsnare 12]

Hayppy new year

[nuggetz 0]

Happy new year SNKMAN, thanks for your hard work.

[domiS 10]

I got cba - ace2 - acex - gl4 - zeus_ace (in this order) - and alot other mods such as vfai/landtex/hifi air-vehical ectect, and not sure if the ai enhance of the gl4 are working properly.

I used the editor to check if i saw any difference in movement and such between GL4 enabled and disabled. The "mission" was setup with 2 groups setup close to eachother with 1 or 2 buildings in between for cover, and me watching it all from my civilian chopper.

The result was rather confusing cause i saw little to none of what ppl have explained the mod should do (like splitting up in fireteams, peeking around corners and such).

I've read the readme, and from what ive understood you dont have to use the modules and syncronisation in the editor to enable the AI enhance.

Hope ive done a mistake on the road ;)

Happy new year, and great work SNK :)

[jumpinghubert 49]

Happy new year. Great work. Only one small bug: radio chatter isn´t loud enough in a tank for example.

[teilx 4]

happy new year thanks for your amazing work.

[kremator 1065]

@ domiS the order of your commandline needs changing. It should be GL4 Zeus AceX ACE CBA.

That will help.

[jasonnoguchi 11]

@ domiS the order of your commandline needs changing. It should be GL4 Zeus AceX ACE CBA.

That will help.

Does the order really matter? I had it the way he has and it works fine. :)

[kremator 1065]

AFAIK the order is very important.

[Bavator 8]

It is very important.

cba - ace2 - acex - gl4 - zeus_ace

In this example zeus overides gl4 settings (if they change the same things)

cba - ace2 - acex - zeus_ace - gl4

gl4 overides parts of zeus.

Generally, the last mod in your command line will be the "active" one.

[jasonnoguchi 11]

This is exactly how I do it cba - ace2 - acex - gl4 - zeus_ace

[kremator 1065]

but remember in the commandline the LAST thing you place gets priority.

-mod=@GL4;@Zeus;@ACEX;@ACE;@CBA is how it should be.

[domiS 10]

Interesting, i'll try that out at once!

[froggyluv 2136]

I'm probably being thick headed here, but how would one go about imposing their settings into a GL4 based mission?

Meaning, I want my mission to have most of the GL4 features working by default so I have the System module placed, but want to ensure that 'Reinforcements' are disabled, as not to break the mission.

[domiS 10]

froggyluv - If im not wrong you can disable it in the GL4 cfg's. Manually disabled it in other words.

Kremator - wait a minute, as u showed the GL4 is first in chain, that means zeus will overide GL4. Something else i dont find logical - I use the ARMA launcher II v1.0 (which is great! props to spiritedmachine), and i can manually put the mod order. If i use the increase priority arrow, the selected mod will go towards -mod= which is first in line. That is the oposite of what you guys are saying :confused: :)

[froggyluv 2136]

froggyluv - If im not wrong you can disable it in the GL4 cfg's. Manually disabled it in other words.

:)

Hi, what I meant was if I released a mission, how would I be able to disable certain aspects of GL4 for someone else, short of asking everyone to go into their config's

[kremator 1065]

Yeah you want Zeus to override some of the AI behaviour of GL4. Its all contained within the Zeus thread I think. You will need to disable some of the AI features of GL4 for it. Since I have been using it the AI is FIERCE and cunning !

For the Arma Launcher II make sure the CBA is at the top and the rest of the order follows downwards. Commandline is just the 'old skool' way of doing it :)

[Franklin 0]

Im no expert, but i believe your running your mods incorrectly Kremator.

You are correct, that the mods towards the end of the command line will override those before it, however in order for CBA required mods to work properly CBA must first be ran. The mods are basically read by the game from left to right, and any new info overwrites older info.

example you gave:

-mod=@GL4;@Zeus;@ACEX;@ACE;@CBA

group link 4 is ran first, then zeus AI, this is the correct way to run the two, since group link is ran first, and then zeus will override some features of group link (this is good). however, for group link 4 and Zeus Ai to initialize properly, they both need CBA running, ace, acex, acex_sm, and acex_pla all need CBA as well. with CBA running last, it would overwrite any info it needed to, but as far as i know it doesnt need to, since all mods depend on CBA, and there wouldn't really be anything to be overwritten. the main issue though, is that since CBA isnt ran first, and initialized, the mods that depend on it to be there, wont work right, or maybe just not as well. also, with you running GL4 and zeus before the ace mod, any AI changes made in the @ACE mod folder would overwrite both the GL4 and the Zeus changes.

the way i run it, based off the way ive always understood it, and seen it explained elsewhere ( http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions_about_ACE2 scroll down to "what mod order should i use for ACE) the proper way to run the mods would be

-mod=@CBA;@ACE;@ACEX;@GL4;@Zeus

this way cba is ran first, making all CBA enabled mods run smoother, then you run ACE and all your other ACE related mods, and finally at the end, GL4 which will overwrite any AI changes in ACE that it needs to, and will also auto initialize because CBA is running already, and lastly run Zeus, which will further overwrite ACE ai changes, as well as GL4 Ai changes.

if im wrong, slap me around and call me stupid... but as far as ive ever known this way is more correct.

Edited January 1, 2010 by franklin

[kremator 1065]

This has REALLY thrown things on its head ! I though priority was always the LAST mod to be loaded.

Will have to look into this more. Perhaps I AM talking out my proverbial but this is the way I was taught to run Arma.

[AndresCL 10]

Thanks for the addon, is amazing. Mission editing are way easier now, and combats last longer while being more intense!

[pumpkinman 10]

Hello SNKMAN!

A little question for my comprehension of the use of the modules "static" and "custom" (and about your example mission "GL4_v-1-0_Custom_and_Static"). Some explanations in your docs sown confusion in my mind.

you write in the "readme.pdf" :

Group Link 4 Enemy A.I. Enhancement Custom Groups:

By default the Enemy A.I. Enhancement do initialize all enemy A.I. groups/unit of a mission.

Sometimes the mission designer do only need to initialize specific groups/units of a mission with the Enemy A.I.

Enhancement.

In this case the mission designer have to identify the groups/units which should be initialized by the Enemy A.I.

Enhancement with the "Group Link 4: Custom" module or manually.

So, if I don't want all the soldiers acted according to the "A.I. Enhancement", I synchronize only the soldiers which must be controlled by "A.I. Enhancement" with the "Custom" module.

But you write too :

Q: Which Enemy A.I. Enhancement features are used if i choose to work with Custom Groups:

Group Link 4 do initialize all available features with each group/unit and vehicle.

The "Custom Groups" do only set which groups are initialized with the Reinforcement Request feature.

The "Custom Groups" do not lock/disable features of groups/units which was not initialized by the Group Link 4

A.I. Enhancement.

This means each group/unit will use each Group Link 4 A.I. Enhancement feature like: Advancing, Suppressed Fire,

Body Detect even if the group/unit was not initialized as "Custom Group".

Consider two groups, A and B. If I synchronise group A with the "System" module and the group B with the "Custom" module, what's happen ?

1. both groups are controled by "A.I. Enhancement" but only group B can call reinforcement

2. group A remains "normal" (= like in a game without GL4) and only group B is controlled by "A.I. Enhancement"

3. "Sorry dude, you didn't understand at all"

Which answer is the good one ?:confused:

Another thing : I'm french (sorry "neighbour", nobody's perfect :) ) and I want to do is translate your addon in french (for my poor congeners who don't understand one word of english). Sadly you haven't localized your texts in a stringtable.csv file. Is it your intention to localized all your texts in a future version ?

I could localized your scripts by myself but, in this case, all my work will be fit for the trashcan as soon as you release an update... A international version isn't very difficult to do in fact : the english version is ready, you're german so no problem for the german version, I could translate the french version (more, I understand a little bit german... we are really "neighbour", 250km max), and I'm pretty sure that other translators will be happy to translate the texts in their own language and next send you the result. Not very difficult but it's a tedious and boring work...So... well... the decision is yours !

(By the way, some of friends of the T.G.V. team started to translate your two pdf docs in french, if you want it...)

Anyway, I was really impress with your addon, first by the very big and very good change of the gameplay, that significantly boosts the interest of missions; second by the flexibility that you have given to setting up your addon. So... sincere and huge Congratulations for this wonderful work !!

Tschüß !

[bushlurker 46]

Franklin has it exactly right!

all you do with mods is sequentially overwrite in memory - so if say, 2 mods in a row change the default tracer effect, the second mod to load is the tracer effect you get - when changing the same thing, last loaded takes precedence...

If one mod modifies the tracer effect, and the second mod actually adds a whole new tracer effect (maybe by using extended eventhandlers), then you'll get both tracer effects - unless mod #2 is clever enough to disable the default effect - or you do - in mod#1's userconfig - if it has one...

CBA is a special case - it contains the previously mentioned XEH, amongst other things useful if your mod adds completely new stuff, so modmakers make it a requirement, use stuff from it and - presume that it is available when their mod loads - thats why its best to have it always load first, subsequent mods may expect it to be there already...

B

Edited January 1, 2010 by Bushlurker

[domiS 10]

Thanks for the good answers gentlemen!

Sorry for the confusion, but maybe we get something good out of this whoever have the right formula :)

[kremator 1065]

Thanks Bushlurker .... that really has sorted it for me !

I now have my setup correct ! Back to killing with GL4 :)

[Franklin 0]

basically look at it this way, CBA (community BASE addons) is the foundation that all (compatible) mods use to operate. Its also built to create a standard in the community that addon makers go by, in order to make their addons function properly.

the best analogy that i can come up with is that CBA is basically a surge protector...(just go with it, its dumb but just listen).

CBA plugs directly into ArmA, which would be the wall socket/power sorce.

then each mod that requires CBA to run, first hooks into it in order to make all its fucntions (for example, being able to deploy your weapon on a sandbag wall in ace... thats a function) work properly, and not interfere with other functions.

so each of your mods, would be plugging into each of the available sockets on the CBA surge protector. hope that helped at least one person here...

anyway, moving on.

Arma loads mods from LEFT TO RIGHT, however the last mod to load has precedence like Bushlurker said.

to clarify the previous examples.

-mod=@GL4;@Zeus;@ACEX;@ACE;@CBA

GL4 loads first, then zeus, acex, ace, and lastly CBA.

as far as CBA goes, this is bad, since its on the far right, it is loaded by arma last. ACE NEEDS CBA in order to function correctly... since it hasnt loaded BEFORE ace, theres gonna be issues of some kind.

the second reason why this is bad, besides the fact that some pieces of each mod may not work right... is that GL4, changes AI right... no prob. Zeus then overwites GL4, because its loaded after GL4. then acex comes in, and i dont believe it has any AI changes, but it MAY need info thats in ACE in order to work properly. since ACE is loaded AFTER ACEX, this could cause problems. also, since ace is loaded after GL4 and Zeus, any changes to the ACE AI are now going to be defunkt, because ACE just overwrote them since it was loaded after them.

with this method:

-mod=@CBA;@ACE;@ACEX;@GL4;@Zeus

CBA loads first, ensuring all later mods will work together, ACE loads, ACE x then loads, and it will work at fucl functionality because CBA is already running, and the ACE core is running. then GL4 comes in and overwrites a few things in ACE, and it will auto initialize because CBA is already running, and thats how SNKMAN designed his addon to work. then lastly, Zeus AI loads, and overwrites some pieces of ACE that GL4 didnt, and also further overwrites pieces of GL4 itself, in order to give Zeus AI its full functionality in how it was designed.

further example:

-mod=@CBA;@ACE;@ACEX;@Zeus;@GL4

this is the same as above exept the Zeus and GL4 are flipped.

in this case if you preferred some of the functions of GL4 over Zeus, this is how you would run it. Zeus would do its thing and in some places overwrite ACE AI bits. then GL4 would come in and overwrite ACE and Zeus where it needed to in order for it to have full functionality.

[Inkompetent 0]

Need to straighten you people out on how mod parameters work. The order they are written in is only used if load priority cannot be sorted through the requiredAddons[] paramter. ACE is dependant on CBA, so regardless of where in the order CBA is written it WILL load before all components in ACE that require CBA are loaded (which I believe is designed so that it means all of them).

In the above case the only important thing is to load Zeus and GL4 after ACE in the order one wants them. Could be fourteen more addons after ACE, and then CBA, and CBA would still get loaded before every single addon that requires it. :)