PlannedAssault web based mission builder

[pachira 1]

Not sure if you got my email, didn't get a response (or I accidentally deleted it)

Thank you very much for your compliments. Credit me as Pachira and if you want you can put down my email too. I think I'll probably work on Chedaki next, that way I can have Harvest Red scenarios :D. Also by tab do you mean the tab key? So use spaces instead of tabs? Also sorry about the humvee ambulance, missed that one hehe.

[_William 0]

Since I'm squeezed for time and prefer adding 'real-world' military forces over fictitious ones, adding Arma2's Chernarnus Defence Forces never got priority. The CDF however were a priority for Pachira. He stepped in and quickly figured out the details of the unit definition files I'm using to feed the unit database. Pachira's help saved me considerable time, and hopefully becomes the start of more additions to the unit database.

The Chernarus defence forces come with scripts to put up camo nets (defenders) if you have HcPookie's camo script installed.

The other addition is the Dutch Armed Forces, a compilation of many vehicles from other add-ons and some quality touches. Being Dutch myself, I've tried hard to get the unit compositions right.

Regards,

William

@Pachira: you were already on PlannedAssault's front-page (without your email, to save you some spam).

@Sakowksi: I'm continuously working on adding or updating add-ons, but need to balance time between adding add-ons, adding new terrains and improving the planner. I'm aware my preferences don't always match yours (or anybody else's) - in particular, I favor mechanized large (old) units more than small SF units or "terrorists".

A stand-alone .exe is technically very possible, but would require a local UI and would require effort and skills from the end-user to adding units and terrain (that's now being done for you "in the cloud"). I've prototyped this successfully for VBS2 with a 3rd party, but don't intend to offer and support for this for Arma.

[R0adki11 3949]

@_William how easy is it to add a mod, as I'm interested in my Nogovan Mod to be added.

Thanks

[pachira 1]

@Pachira: you were already on PlannedAssault's front-page (without your email, to save you some spam).

Nah I knew that, I just need answers to these questions

Also by tab do you mean the tab key? So use spaces instead of tabs?

Not sure if you meant tabs as in the tab key or tabs as in those bracket things notepad ++ does.

Oh also, can you email me your marines files? I found some desert marines based on the default arma 2 ones and I want to see if I can get them in Planned Assault.

[_William 0]

@R0adki11: I'll write out some instructions tomorrow (also based on feedback from Pachira), then send you some samples. We'll find out how easy it is to add the Nogovan forces.

@Pachira: USMC examples are in the mail. Yes, YAML is white space sensitive, so please use space instead of tabs. Notepad++ can convert tabs to spaces if necessary.

[pachira 1]

Thanks for the USMC files, just finished the desert usmc. I wanna do the ChDKZ next, can you send me the Chechen examples? Also, I removed all the vehicles for the desert USMC since it is just infantry addon, but kept the dismount guys, is that okay? I'll upload the desert usmc chaps once I finish the Chedaki.

[Juankar 1]

Hi _William,

Just discovered Planned Assault and I'm deeply impressed. Thank you!

I've created several missions but I have a problem. When starting to play a mission the first task is "Form up and wait for attack to start" and "Form up at the designed location, keep low and wait for the signal to start the attack." When all units are in the right place time passes and passes but I get no signal to start the attack. It's an error, I'm overlooking something? What should I do?

Thanks again. :)

Edited October 15, 2012 by Juankar

[pachira 1]

Hi _William,

Just discovered Planned Assault and I'm deeply impressed. Thank you!

I've created several missions but I have a problem. When starting to play a mission the first task is "Form up and wait for attack to start" and "Form up at the designed location, keep low and wait for the signal to start the attack." When all units are in the right place time passes and passes but I get no signal to start the attack. It's an error, I'm overlooking something? What should I do?

Thanks again. :)

The other ai teams have to get to their positions too, which may take a while depending on how you placed the units.

[Juankar 1]

The other ai teams have to get to their positions too, which may take a while depending on how you placed the units.

Checking the map I see the rest of AI units deploying to starting attack positions and wait too...

[delta99 34]

Checking the map I see the rest of AI units deploying to starting attack positions and wait too...

I have seen this before but not in a while. I think as well that if you wait long enough (5 mins??) even with all groups seemingly waiting to attack they eventually will.

[pachira 1]

Alright, I finished the Chedaki and the Desert USMC. Sent you the files in email.

[pachira 1]

Dangit, seems like fast roping will never ever work for me, no matter what helicopter or map or mission I make. I'll just have to use regular landings I guess. The problem only seems to be with Planned Assault missions too, the two test maps for fast roping work fine.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Pachira

[blackmamb 2]

Do you play with ACE? Cause ACE will disable the built-in fastroping capability on the aDuke's Helo Pack.

[Sakowski 1]

@Sakowksi: I'm continuously working on adding or updating add-ons, but need to balance time between adding add-ons, adding new terrains and improving the planner. I'm aware my preferences don't always match yours (or anybody else's) - in particular, I favor mechanized large (old) units more than small SF units or "terrorists".

A stand-alone .exe is technically very possible, but would require a local UI and would require effort and skills from the end-user to adding units and terrain (that's now being done for you "in the cloud"). I've prototyped this successfully for VBS2 with a 3rd party, but don't intend to offer and support for this for Arma.

How comes there wont be support for that? I mean it would of really make it popular and very useful for people, specially when like you want to do a mission in PlannedAssault but perhaps your mod is not in :P

Still nice work after all, splendid lets say.

[pachira 1]

Do you play with ACE? Cause ACE will disable the built-in fastroping capability on the aDuke's Helo Pack.

I don't use aDuke's Helo pack nor ACE.

[blackmamb 2]

Well, that's ruled out.

Sorry buddy.

[Juankar 1]

I have seen this before but not in a while. I think as well that if you wait long enough (5 mins??) even with all groups seemingly waiting to attack they eventually will.

Waited for 30 minutes but anything happens...

Thanks for response.

[pachira 1]

Waited for 30 minutes but anything happens...

Thanks for response.

Did you put in any air support elements? The game waits until the air support starts its attack before the infantry can, try to move the air support elements a bit a way from the edge of the map if you put them there.

[_William 0]

Just discovered Planned Assault and I'm deeply impressed. Thank you!

I've created several missions but I have a problem. When starting to play a mission the first task is "Form up and wait for attack to start" and "Form up at the designed location, keep low and wait for the signal to start the attack." When all units are in the right place time passes and passes but I get no signal to start the attack. It's an error, I'm overlooking something? What should I do?

Thanks again. :)

I occasionally run into this problem myself. Since I typically run missions with GCam or TroopMon active (these are camera tools, enabling you to view other units), I'm able to see what's happening. In the majority of cases, the attack is delayed by one or more units not arriving at the form-up position because (1) one or more vehicles gets stuck along the way, (2) mechanized infantry are hit by vehicles they are about to mount, resulting in one or more infantry crawling all the way, (3) vehicles being engaged and fleeing prior to form-up. In some cases, the group's don't trigger the form-up waypoint.

Having to wait for indefinite time isn't that unrealistic for military movements. But it isn't fun when playing a game. I'll give it some more thoughts. In the meanwhile, try to whip up a mission on simple (flat) terrain such as Chernarus' Vybor, and try again. If that doesn't work, let me know your user name and the name of the mission, and I can take a look.

Dangit, seems like fast roping will never ever work for me, no matter what helicopter or map or mission I make. I'll just have to use regular landings I guess. The problem only seems to be with Planned Assault missions too, the two test maps for fast roping work fine.

When I tried your mission, I was able to fast-rope successfully when switching to another team and another heli. I forgot whether your mission made me a group leader or just a soldier; that's something that is relevant as well (please try both).

PlannedAssault missions use Norrin's (and ADuke's) scripts in a slightly different way than their example missions.

If you're up for a few more tries, try editing the fastrope_unload_vehicle.sqf script in planned_assault/scripts/mods/norrndbofastrope and set _debug to 1. The script will then write more info into the arma2oa.rpt file, which you can mail me together with the mission.

William

[Juankar 1]

I occasionally run into this problem myself. Since I typically run missions with GCam or TroopMon active (these are camera tools, enabling you to view other units), I'm able to see what's happening. In the majority of cases, the attack is delayed by one or more units not arriving at the form-up position because (1) one or more vehicles gets stuck along the way, (2) mechanized infantry are hit by vehicles they are about to mount, resulting in one or more infantry crawling all the way, (3) vehicles being engaged and fleeing prior to form-up. In some cases, the group's don't trigger the form-up waypoint.

Having to wait for indefinite time isn't that unrealistic for military movements. But it isn't fun when playing a game. I'll give it some more thoughts. In the meanwhile, try to whip up a mission on simple (flat) terrain such as Chernarus' Vybor, and try again. If that doesn't work, let me know your user name and the name of the mission, and I can take a look.

William

Yes, I'm thinking on something like that. All BLUFOR groups are playabe but I haven't seen anything wrong switching them. In fact the mission is done on Chernarus Vybor map.

My username is "Juankar", as here. And the name of the mission is "US big battle".

Thank you for taking care of this issue.

[_William 0]

Yes, I'm thinking on something like that. All BLUFOR groups are playabe but I haven't seen anything wrong switching them. In fact the mission is done on Chernarus Vybor map.

My username is "Juankar", as here. And the name of the mission is "US big battle".

Thank you for taking care of this issue.

I've downloaded and played the mission. The problem is with the task info telling you to wait while expecting you to move another 50m forward to the forward position in the assembly area (another waypoint). For the moment, you can work around it by telling your group to move to the next waypoint (backspace, ~, 1, 9) when the first task update appears telling you to wait.

Alternatively, don't play as a squad leader.

I'll look into simplifying the form-up.

William

btw: for a 'cold war atmosphere', trying changing your mission's date to January or December.

[Juankar 1]

I've downloaded and played the mission. The problem is with the task info telling you to wait while expecting you to move another 50m forward to the forward position in the assembly area (another waypoint). For the moment, you can work around it by telling your group to move to the next waypoint (backspace, ~, 1, 9) when the first task update appears telling you to wait.

Alternatively, don't play as a squad leader.

Tried again three times. Following your advices, moved to the waypoint 50m ahead and nothing happens. Thank you anyway, I'll try if I have more luck making other missions. Planned Assault has a lot of potential. :)

btw: for a 'cold war atmosphere', trying changing your mission's date to January or December.

Done. Indeed, looks better now.

Just a suggestion: Would be awesome adding to Planned Assault the Bush War Conflict mod having the chance to play the SADF on that insteresting conflict.

[_William 0]

Another unit database update thanks to Pachira: the ChDKZ (Chernarussian Movement of the Red Star) communist revolutionary army, and a desert MARPAT reskin of the Arma2 USMC.

I've also been experimenting with IFVs and their dismounts advancing together, but the 'follow' script command seems to be close to useless, even when when putting the IFV in the infantry's squad group.

William

[pachira 1]

Got two suggestions for ya, could you potentially make it so you can set who the independents are sided with in the mission making and also could you perhaps make a second version of the osprey that lands and its contents disembarks instead of being a paradrop vehicle only?

Also, how might I make certain units be in certain helicopters?

Edited October 25, 2012 by Pachira

[_William 0]

Got two suggestions for ya, could you potentially make it so you can set who the independents are sided with in the mission making and also could you perhaps make a second version of the osprey that lands and its contents disembarks instead of being a paradrop vehicle only?

Also, how might I make certain units be in certain helicopters?

@choosing on which side independents (or any unit) fight: that's a significant change to how PlannedAssaults currently lets users pick add-ons and units. To get there, I first want to redesign the 'select add-ons' screen so it presents all available add-ons in a better way (Arma2CO currently lists 100+ add-ons). Perhaps backed with a search capability (so you can search an add-on that offers a ZSU vehicle, for example. My aim would be to enable everybody to put any unit against any other unit (USMC against US Army, British Army against British Army, etc.).

One short-term work-around would be to add independents twice, both to BLUFOR and OPFOR.

@Osprey not landing: I originally had that, and invested a full day to make it work, complete with opening ramp. However, the Arma2 AI is unable to hover and vertically land the Osprey. Same problem with fast-roping. See also this blog entry. Hence the restriction.

@Controlling which unit ends up in which heli group: see this blog entry. In short, a heli with a given call sign attempts to load any cargo with call signs preceding it. Given cargo units A,B, D, and F, and helis C, E, G, then C would transport A,B, heli E would transport D, and heli G would transport F. Unless, of course, any of these combinations exceeds the cargo capacity of the corresponding heli. In that case, PlannedAssault starts a bin-packing algorithm to find another solution.

William