Cant understand ALICE or ACM please help

[mentalmike 10]

I know there have been many many threads about this, and many people have put together a 'list' of links which should help other people understand this stuff...but i have not had any luck.

Call me dumb, i dont care. Iwas hoping to find a complete guide to ARMA2 mission editing, scripting, mpediting and modules however it appears there is not one released yet.

So i have 2 questions/problems which require help please.

1st. In mission editor i found out that you can only have a max of 144 units of a particular fraction. In this case it was civilians, is there a way of removing that limit.

2nd. How on earth do you get ALICE and the other ambient civ/vehicle, combat modules working. I have read wikia and other threads over and over again, its all a forign language to me. For starters these fomulae seem to be backwards when i look at them.

Please help. I would much rather have problem 1 resolved first. I dont mind adding 600 civs by hand, as long as it gets the towns populated with a high density...like a normal city.

Oh also ALICE really cant populate cities, you change the values in it, and it either causes a genisis of civs or makes them completely extinct (i.e. no civs spawn at all)

Any help would be greatly appreciated, also a link to a complete easy to follow guide for dumbies on Arma 2 editing, scripting and general mission editing would also be greatly appreciated.

I know all the basics from ARMA2 however alot of the features has been changed, like placing units in vehicles etc. Why i dont know, but its annoying.

Kind regards

Mentalmike

[luckyhendrix 10]

to make ALICE and silvie work just place it on map that's all. For ACM place it on map and sync-F5- it to the player

[mentalmike 10]

Ok done that, i have seen some things appear, like a few empty vehicles, and a few civs.

How about increasing the amount of spawned civs?

Does one ALICE icon on the map affect the entire map wherever the player is?

Also for multiplayer will you have to have ALICE for every player? e.g. 3 players, 3 ALICE (1 synced with each player)

Thanks for the helping, my aim is to develop a thread which is really informative for everyone else. So please keep helping, even if my questions are stupid, iam trying to cover every possible thing in this topic.

[mentalmike 10]

Ok now its really puzzling me. Everyone keeps linking the wiki page for ALICE and all other Modules...but those pages do not help at all...if you dont even understand how to use the module.

I still have two questions. 1. How do i change the values of ALICE so that i can get a sizable population of around 100 spawned in an around the player.

2. can i increase the population limit of the game? It is currently capped at 144.

[ajsarge 10]

ALICE is a global module, you place it, and it works, regardless of where the player(s) is located at. No need to sync at all, or any grouping. Just place and go. The ACM, though, only works within a certain radius of a synchronized unit (the sync will move to other units in the same group if the original unit dies. So you only need to sync it once per group).

There's a thread somewhere here where I found some init variables for the ACM. Things like spawn radius, skill level, spawnable factions, etc. I'm on on my laptop though, and don't have the lines on here, so I will have to reply when I get back to my main.

[mentalmike 10]

Thanks for the help. What about changing the amount of spawning civilians for the ambient civilian module. I would like to populate the city with at least 200-300 civilians (ive tested 432 units (144 civs, 144 blufor and 144 opfor) in one city, so performance is not a worry for me and the people this mission is intended for.

However i would like to achieve at least 200-300 civilians spawned by the ALICE module because that will delete any spawned civs when the player is away from the city.

Also i would like ALICE to spawn that many people because 1. i wont have to waypoint every single on, or at least place every single one.

2. there is a population cap 144 per fraction, so i wouldnt even be able to populate a city.

[nuxil 2]

I would like to populate the city with at least 200-300 civilians

i have not used any of the modules so i dont know how they work.. nor am i intrested in knowing how they work either.

howerver,

the limit is set to 144 groups per side. this does not mean max 144 units per side.

to add 200 units manualy you can make 1 group containing 10 units. then copy it 20 times. then you have 200 units on the map of one side.

(ive tested 432 units (144 civs, 144 blufor and 144 opfor)

did you test this in a city ?

if so where do you work? nasa or esa or some place like that. cos you need a hell of a pc running that smooth :p

Edited January 4, 2010 by nuxil

[mentalmike 10]

i have not used any of the modules so i dont know how they work.. nor am i intrested in knowing how they work either.

howerver,

the limit is set to 144 groups per side. this does not mean max 144 units per side.

to add 200 units manualy you can make 1 group containing 10 units. then copy it 20 times. then you have 200 units on the map of one side.

did you test this in a city ?

if so where do you work? nasa or esa or some place like that. cos you need a hell of a pc running that smooth :p

My PC is a 2x Quad core intel xeon 3ghz processor with Nvidia 8800 512mb and 6gb of ram. So far only game which has come close to hindering its performance was Crysis, even then it still succeeded at playing crysis.

Internet is also a lovely 8mb firber optic connection. So no problems with internet based games, only dependant on the opposite end. However this test was done offline. The city i tested in was the capital, Cherno...something.

I didnt know you could do 20 groups. That is good news, however that means i can not put induvidual waypoints on those civs and the formation feature will also play havok with the location of the civs. I have to do some messing around with their settings i suppose.

Thanks for the help.

Still looking for help with the modules, e.g. changing the parameters etc.

[Nickfury 10]

Do the modules function on ANY map? (including third party ie: Panthera, Quesh-Kibril, Aiaktalik, etc?

[nettrucker 142]

Do the modules function on ANY map? (including third party ie: Panthera, Quesh-Kibril, Aiaktalik, etc?

that is something I would like to figure out myself. I tried the alice module on Namalsk and it didn't seem to work or at least I was unable to get it to work. So for my part nope it don't work on Namalsk. I didn't test it on other user made Islands.

Regards

nettrucker

[Nickfury 10]

that is something I would like to figure out myself. I tried the alice module on Namalsk and it didn't seem to work or at least I was unable to get it to work. So for my part nope it don't work on Namalsk. I didn't test it on other user made Islands.

Regards

nettrucker

Same with Quesh-Kibril :( seems to work as far as I've tried, on the stock maps only (Utes/Chernaurus)

Although it's probably posted already, I tried the ACE Wound system module on Quesh-Kibril and it seemed to work if i just placed a Med crate and the units picked out there bandages, etc. Then I started assigning bandages/morphine/epi to individual units (addmagazine ACE_bandage, etc)and it seemed that they could use one ad-infinitum. (they never ran out).

Too bad, the wound effects on the player are very well done (except for a breif day glitch on the NVG view) ..I'm sure ACE will further refine it.

[mentalmike 10]

ALICE works for me...but it spawns so little civs, its making the capital look like a ghost town. Even the worlds smallest country (population of 68, Pitcairn Islands (yes i know its a colony of the uk, but its still a country)) has more people and that is really something.

So my aim is to make it so that ALICE can spawn a 100 or so civilians...and the question is how?

[Splicer 10]

the limit is set to 144 groups per side. this does not mean max 144 units per side.

Hi there,

Could you confirm that the limit is 144 groups regardless of the number of units per group?

Also, where did you get this info?

Thanks much in advance. Splicer.

[nettrucker 142]

Do the modules function on ANY map? (including third party ie: Panthera, Quesh-Kibril, Aiaktalik, etc?

IceBreakr got it to work on his new Duala island so in the next version of Duala we'll be able to use the module. don't know how the hell he did it.

Regards

nettrucker

---------- Post added at 01:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:21 PM ----------

Hi there,

Could you confirm that the limit is 144 groups regardless of the number of units per group?

Also, where did you get this info?

Thanks much in advance. Splicer.

Once you exceded the number of units per side the preview function will disappear and you won't be able to preview the mission anymore. That's a sign you exceded the allowed quantity per side on your map and you need to remove units until the preview appears once again. I never actually verified how many units or groups you can place. AFAIK 144 single units should be the max you can place per side but I haven't verified it myself. Just made a test I placed 144 groups per ten for a total of 1440 per side. I'll make a short movie.

Kind regards

nettrucker

---------- Post added at 02:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:14 PM ----------

Hi there,

Could you confirm that the limit is 144 groups regardless of the number of units per group?

Also, where did you get this info?

Thanks much in advance. Splicer.

Here's the vid I made

144 groups of civillians, each group of ten civis. Total 1440 units.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GCar7X_0ss&hl=it_IT&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GCar7X_0ss&hl=it_IT&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Lag was enourmous and the loading time was quite long.

My rig can't handle such amount of units.

kind regards

nettrucker

[rambler 6]

ALICE works for me...but it spawns so little civs, its making the capital look like a ghost town. Even the worlds smallest country (population of 68, Pitcairn Islands (yes i know its a colony of the uk, but its still a country)) has more people and that is really something.

So my aim is to make it so that ALICE can spawn a 100 or so civilians...and the question is how?

Here's the bis wiki entry on the civilians module: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Ambient_Civilians

If you look in the optional parameters, you'll see a civilianCount string that you use to modify the number of civilians spawned by ALICE. So, what you do is place the Civilians module in the editor and in the init line add this:

BIS_alice_mainscope setvariable ["civilianCount","round (2 * (sqrt %1))"];

Now, what do you change to get more civilians? In this case, you change the 2. The %1 is the number of doors where the civvies can spawn in a given town. If there were 100 doors, the string would take the square root of 100, which is 10, then multiply it by 2, which is 20. So for a town with a hundred spawnable doors, you'd only get 20 civilians. If you change the 2 to 20 in the same example, you would now get 200 civilians.

If you want tons of civilians, I just tested using the string with an exponential. I used this:

BIS_alice_mainscope setvariable ["civilianCount","round (%1^2)"];

This example squares the amount of spawnable doors to derive the number of civilians spawned. If there are 100 doors again, ALICE will now spawn 10000 civilians. Theoretically. I don't know if there's a cap or not.

A word of warning though. When lots of civilians are spawned, they tend to jam up the doors and congregate around them. They'll also start spawning in the air and on roofs, and tend to die when they fall causing all the civvies still alive to run around in a panic and scream.

Hope that helps!

Edited January 7, 2010 by Rambler

[kroky 1]

Is there a way to get ALICE and SILVIE to run by default?

I mean I would like to run it as an self initializing addon without having to place them on a map in the editor. The goal is to have the population in every mission.

Anybody has an idea?

[mentalmike 10]

Here's the bis wiki entry on the civilians module: http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Ambient_Civilians

If you look in the optional parameters, you'll see a civilianCount string that you use to modify the number of civilians spawned by ALICE. So, what you do is place the Civilians module in the editor and in the init line add this:

BIS_alice_mainscope setvariable ["civilianCount","round (2 * (sqrt %1))"];

Now, what do you change to get more civilians? In this case, you change the 2. The %1 is the number of doors where the civvies can spawn in a given town. If there were 100 doors, the string would take the square root of 100, which is 10, then multiply it by 2, which is 20. So for a town with a hundred spawnable doors, you'd only get 20 civilians. If you change the 2 to 20 in the same example, you would now get 200 civilians.

If you want tons of civilians, I just tested using the string with an exponential. I used this:

BIS_alice_mainscope setvariable ["civilianCount","round (%1^2)"];

This example squares the amount of spawnable doors to derive the number of civilians spawned. If there are 100 doors again, ALICE will now spawn 10000 civilians. Theoretically. I don't know if there's a cap or not.

A word of warning though. When lots of civilians are spawned, they tend to jam up the doors and congregate around them. They'll also start spawning in the air and on roofs, and tend to die when they fall causing all the civvies still alive to run around in a panic and scream.

Hope that helps!

Thank you very much, you have answered my questions with fantastic amount of detail. Again thank you very much and i hope this helps many more people who also did not fully understand the initialisation codes for ALICE.

[Nickfury 10]

ALICE works for me...but it spawns so little civs, its making the capital look like a ghost town. Even the worlds smallest country (population of 68, Pitcairn Islands (yes i know its a colony of the uk, but its still a country)) has more people and that is really something.

So my aim is to make it so that ALICE can spawn a 100 or so civilians...and the question is how?

OT: Fantastic part of the 'Bounty' trilogy for those inclined on reading Sea Adventures. :)