Group Link 4 Special FX Edition

[Njayjay 10]

SNKMAN: Is there any way to turn this off? IRL you would get ammo from your buddies if you ran out, instead of picking up the enemies' weapons.

[jasonnoguchi 11]

@SNKMAN, IRL, we DO pick up enemy weapons when out of ammo! Please don't change that, its an awesome feature. When the first bullet whiz pass your head, politics and rules go out of the window! We do ANYTHING to stay alive.

Those of you who don't like what your friendly AI is doing, just turn off friendly AI from the global settings. If you don't know where to find the global settings, then you probably shouldn't be playing mods. Draw friendly fire? geee, that's why i don't play with noobs. ;)

Edited January 24, 2010 by jasonnoguchi

[Banderas 0]

@Banderas

Coulde you please explain this more in detail?

OK so I noticed this while making a little M1A1 platoon rampant mission, when I hit infantry with the commander's M2 or the gunner's aux M240 then the infantry units were "sparkling" like you hit some armored vehicle with it. I tried with some other armored units, like LAV-25, and infantry were always sparking like this upon hit by vehicular machine guns.

Hitting them with handheld weapons didn't do it however.

[jasonnoguchi 11]

@BAnderas, were you also running WarFX?

[Njayjay 10]

Having half your squad carrying AK's is not realistic. They'd get more ammo from their buddies long before they'd pick up those weapons. Not only that but they are likely to draw friendly fire.

So I'd still like to know, is this an integral GL4 feature or can I turn it off somewherE?

[Banderas 0]

No, unluckily the latest WarFX drastically reduces my performance, so I don't use it right now. Major mods I'm using are ACE2 and CAA1/OAC core.

[snkman 351]

@mrcash2009

can that be scripted?

Yes of course. In the world of scripting nothing is impossible.

But like you already told it's a bit tricky to detect who fired a smoke grenade you could do some dirty stuff to let enemy A.I. know who has fired what but this isn't the best way.

Also i really don't think many ppl use to throw a smoke or any other kind of not killing object nearby enemy A.I. :)

@jasonnoguchi

allows the tactical possibility of DIVERSION.

Yes but just think about it twice.

You have one friendly A.I. in the north and your group in the south. Between thouse 2 groups a enemy A.I. group.

Now the friendly A.I. do fire bullets which the enemy A.I. hear and start advancing. After some time your group also fire some bullets and then the enemy A.I. starts advancing to the south.

So in some bad situations enemy A.I. may will advance between south and north every time they had detected gun fire.

@Njayjay

Is there any way to turn this off?

Sure.

GL4_Global.sqf:

    // Enemy A.I. Rearm:
   // Choose if enemy A.I. should be able to rearm if they are out of ammo/magazines and/or do only have a specific amount of ammo/magazines available.
   // True / False, default is True
     // GL4_Global set [33, False];

Well this setting is used by player and player units too. May i should add a setting to seperate the feature. ;)

@Banderas

The infantry units were "sparkling" like you hit some armored vehicle with it.

Yes that's part of the "Weapon Impact FX" feature.

So far there is no check where a bullet was impacted at.

All kinds of bullets do this randomly after they impacted.

I will include a "Man" check which will brake this feature if a bullet was impacted close to any "Man" classes.

Debri Fire FX:

This feature i'm working on currently will randomly create burning debris which lay nearby a destroyed vehicle after hitting the ground.

I was working on this since ArmA 1 and now i finally found a nice way to get it working in ArmA 2.

Still need some work here and there but so far it's working pretty good.

Well... Nothing groundbraking but a pretty nice FX in my eye's. :)

Edited January 24, 2010 by SNKMAN

[thales100 10]

Well... Nothing groundbraking but a pretty nice FX in my eye's. :)

Hehe looks excellent for me too :cool:

[mrcash2009 0]

Also i really don't think many ppl use to throw a smoke or any other kind of not killing object nearby enemy A.I.

Yes indeed very true, my example was an ambush though, firing smoke near AI for decoy/block and flank, so it does have a use, but anyway the point has been made and thats cool.

Also I have VFAI running (smoke throwing and rearming) Im guessing this is going to clash with your mod then, I didnt fully take into account rearm on the features.

[snkman 351]

Hehe well look's like i found a pretty good way to let enemy A.I. react to smoke grenades too.

The range will be limited to 50 - 100 meters, which means you must be closer then 100 meters to the enemy A.I. while throwing/shooting any kind of smoke.

I will make it part of the "Advancing" feature.

Currently the "Advancing" feature ignor all kinds of Put ( Mines ) and Throw ( Smoke Shell / Grenade ) weapons/ammo.

But by re-coding the "Advancing" feature to support "Throw" weapons/ammo in a range of 100 meters and by adding the for example: ammo class "SmokeShell" to the given ammo class array enemy A.I. do watch ( sometimes advance ) in the direction of where the smoke was thrown from.

So this behaviour will be covered in the next version too.

Thanks for the idea mrcash2009. :)

Edit: Just thought that enemy A.I. should react to flares too.

For example: If you fire a flare at night time then enemy A.I. within 100 meters may do react to it too. ;)

Just another thing which was not done so far.

Edited January 25, 2010 by SNKMAN

[Sam75 0]

could you add sparkles at impact for small weapons too ? Very realistic especially at night with nvg.

[Grizzle 0]

Anyone else having a problem with the burning effects being disabled but still working?

[snkman 351]

@Sam75

Could you add sparkles at impact for small weapons too?

Small weapons do already have impact sparks not that big and becouse of this not that visible, but i think they should stay like it is.

@Grizzle

Did you remove the "//" in "GL4_Local" to activate the setting?

Which "Burning FX" do you think still is working after disable it?

There are several features with use the "Burning FX" feature.

[kroky 1]

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=1184

Here is the info about the fsm editor made by crashdome. It is for ArmA 1. But still it can be useful. I will look a little into it, maybe its not that hard to edit fsm.

Maybe you will find it helpful too, SNKMAN.

[snkman 351]

Hey nice find. ;)

Did not recognize there was a editor for FSM.

Currently i'm defenetly not interested in looking into it.

I'm already way too busy with Group Link 4 and if i would start editing FSM then i would not stop till i found out how it works. :rolleyes:

So i better don't take my hands on it.

But somewhen in the future i defenetly will check it out.

Thanks for the link.

[kroky 1]

he, he

Then you are really ambitious...I know how it is, since I have got the same attitude. And this sometimes steals the time for other things..like sleeping i.e. :D

Ok to complete my findings about fsm editing:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6820

BIS released a tools for fsm editing for ArmA II.

So maybe you will find it useful in future.

Im curious too, if I can handle it.

[snkman 351]

Sleep? What's this? Never heard of it. :D

Yeah you are right i really need a day with 48 hours.

BIS released a tools for fsm editing for ArmA II.

Damn it... Stop telling me stuff like this... I really have to take a look. :p

[jasonnoguchi 11]

@SNKMAN, still plenty to be done for GL4. :) You are VERY close to the perfect AI enhancement mod, so don't get distracted now. :)

One more suggestion... is there anyway you get make it that friendly AIs in vehicles keep at least 2 vehicle lengths from all friendly AI on foot please? Sick and tired of friendly AI vehicles running over friendly infantry. :(

[kroky 1]

@SNKMAN, still plenty to be done for GL4. :) You are VERY close to the perfect AI enhancement mod, so don't get distracted now. :)

One more suggestion... is there anyway you get make it that friendly AIs in vehicles keep at least 2 vehicle lengths from all friendly AI on foot please? Sick and tired of friendly AI vehicles running over friendly infantry. :(

@Jasonnoguchi

Do you know what fsm files are for? They are for AI behaviour. So this is exactly the key to make better AI.

But I know what you mean, we first want to see an updated GL4 version :p

[jasonnoguchi 11]

hehehe, now I know! hahahah!!! OK, BRING ON FSM! :)

[dmarkwick 261]

Hey SNKMAN, are there any issues you can foresee with GL4 + DAC usage?

[snkman 351]

Silola already talked to me about making bouth modifications compatible to each other.

But in fact DAC and GL4 are already compatible to each other.

Bouth use their own way how to handle enemy A.I. and so there should be really no problems using bouth toghetter.

Group Link 4 Work In Progress Videos:

--------------------------------------------

- Smoke Shells and Smoke Grenade Detection:

OXRlFgVA8pc

Edited January 25, 2010 by SNKMAN

[dmarkwick 261]

Silola already talked to me about making bouth modifications compatible to each other.

But in fact DAC and GL4 are already compatible to each other.

Bouth use their own way how to handle enemy A.I. and so there should be really no problems using bouth toghetter.

Okaydokes :)

So what takes priority over inter-group comms, DAC or GL4? Is one discounted in favour of the other?

Oh, and nice job on the smoke 'nade AI logic :)

[Grizzle 0]

@Grizzle

Did you remove the "//" in "GL4_Local" to activate the setting?

Which "Burning FX" do you think still is working after disable it?

There are several features with use the "Burning FX" feature.

Yes I did. Both the master setting and individual settings, which is why I was confused when I saw a man light on fire (which I love by the way :) ) and the GL4 campfire effects.

I checked the settings afterwards and they were still disabled. Let me try a few things and get back to you to see if there is really a problem or if I was just confused (I play late into the night a lot so it's possible I was just really tired :D ).

---------- Post added at 08:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:31 PM ----------

- Smoke Shells and Smoke Grenade Detection:

Nice!!

Update: This may not be a clear indication of a problem and you may tell me this is normal but here goes:

screenshot of default ARMA2 campfire (no GL4 loaded)

http://img651.imageshack.us/i/defaultcampfire.jpg

and here's one with GL4 loaded using defaults (all true);

http://img85.imageshack.us/i/gl4campfire.jpg

Notice how much 'fuller' it is with GL4? It looks exactly the same no matter the value of these settings:

GL4_Local set [71, False];

GL4_Local set [72, False];

Now it may be that you've replaced the textures for the fire regardless of the effect settings, which would make sense, but I actually much prefer the look of the default ARMA campfire so I was trying to get that back with GL4 loaded. I can't seem to do that.

Edited January 25, 2010 by Grizzle

[snkman 351]

@DMarkwick

So what takes priority over inter-group comms, DAC or GL4?

Well DAC create groups dynamicall during the mission GL4 use only group which are already placed in the mission so groups created by DAC will use DAC features only groups initialized by GL4 will use the GL4 features only.

I already created a function which will re-initialize groups with GL4 which was created during the mission.

So far the re-initializing feature of GL4 could be the only problem but if Silola and me find a global way to may made by a setting value then there should be absolutly no problem. ;)

@Grizzle

Notice how much 'fuller' it is with GL4?

Yes the "Fire" value is config based and can not be disabled by a setting value.

It's placed in the "GL4_Burning_FX.pbo".

If you like to get back the default fire then you have to remove the "GL4_Burning_FX.pbo" but by doing this you will loose all "Burning FX" features.