Ultimate Flashpoint Mod Previews and Videos

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

I am redesigning UFM to make OFP popular again hopefully. All islands will undergo huge changes as far as environment goes, and buildings will likely be redesigned as well with new, nice textures. I plan on incorporating some materials from ArmA 1, 2, and OA, mainly sounds.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

When I first started work on the new environment I had no lag impact whatsoever. Unfortunatley, having to render several hundred sections of grass as once is going to cause some slowdowns. I am seeing some performance hits but nothing too serious. You will have extreme lag if you place a ton of AI though.

A single core processor will run better than a dual or quad core if you do not use affinity properly. With all the demands on the PC, quad core systems are going to run pathetically slow. To counter this, you will need to use CPU 3 ONLY! I would not try to run this mod with a processor slower than 2.6 ghz. If you do you will really have to lower the view distance.

Another essential that you will need is lots of VRAM. All the new textures are very GPU intensive. I am currently running a GTX 260-Core 216 with 896MB of VRAM and it gets very hot and the fans go near full speed when it is rendering the new environment. The game also seems to use a ton of RAM, so be sure you have plenty of it as well.

ARMOR AND BALLISTICS

I am going to make some changes to the armor and ballistics system that is already in place. For example, units equipped with shotguns only fire within about 40 meters. Slugs have an effective range of 100 meters, although they will have a high dispersion rate. Buckshot has an effective range of 50 meters.

I am also going to make drastic changes to unit armor depending on what the unit is equipped with. For example, a US Army soldier typically is equipped with Interceptor body armor with level 3 NIJ capabilities. You can usually kill them with one rifle shot right now, but with the proper changes, they will be able to take two or three bullets to the vest before they die or are seriously injured. Units with no armor at all will receive no protection values, hence they can be killed easily.

ENVIRONMENT

Here is a video showing some changes to the environment. Note that the grass will not be placed all over due to performance issues but you can expect alot of it. Berghoff's trees and shrubs will be sprinkled all over as well, especially in towns, where grass placement is not very effective. Hiding in it is very effective. Some preliminary tests I have made in custom missions show that you can step on top of Russian soldiers before they know you are there. :)

Grass placement is not causing so much as a single frame loss per second from what I can tell. It will drop a couple of FPS if I use it heavily in one spot but other than that it plays very well. Grass will mainly be used for countrysides and around farms where corn and tomato fields will be present, which brings me to another subject. I will probably add some villages here and there and add quite a few farms through out the OFP islands, except for Kolgujev. The mountainous areas on that map are not suiteable for farm placement. There will be a good variety of things placed in them, such as grain silos, hay stacks, apple trees, corn and tomato fields, etc.

As far as trees and shrubs go, they will mainly be added to towns and cities to beautify them and give them a look like the towns are more alive. Grass placement in towns and citys does not work well in it's current state with UFM.

Cities will be expanded a little and have better textures for the buildings, and new buildings such as apartment blocks. The vanilla OFP building textures look horrible in their current state so they will be redone.

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AI

I plan to redesign and change the AI drastically. Field battles of 600 meters or more should be possible, but I want to make the enemy AI to where they are not so smart. They can still shoot you hiding partially behind a building with dozens of friendlies firing at the enemies.

So far, enemy and friendly AI's are using cover and moving carefully, but they still need much tweaking. You will be able to see this in the video.

The AI will start to utilize grenade launchers and AT weapons more effectively. Tanks won't be rolling around infantry without being blown to bits. Infantry and armor must work with air units to overcome enemy forces. As far as grenade launchers go, the OMOH and Vityaz units are the only ones that use them as they should. Resistance and West units need to be edited to fix this issue.

GROUPS

Groups of units will be largely available now. No more will you have to wade through a menu of placing units that aren't in a group. Convoy groups will be added. An example of a Russian convoy would be 1-2 BMP's, Fuel truck, Ammo truck, BMP ambulance, and repair truck.

VEHICLES AND INFANTRY

As of right now, there are about 100 or so different infantry types for each side, along with many aircraft and vehicle variants.

POLICE

Police are going to have a very large role in the mod. Current plans are to include the following:

SRT Units in ACU, MARPAT, Flora, as well as other camo variations.

Vehicles such as the BMP-1, BTR-80, HMMWV, and Ural.

Helicopters such as the UH-60, Mi-8, and the Mi-24.

Undercover units with a large variety of weapons.

Uniformed units with a large variety of weapons.

Here are some videos showing the new police units that are going to be included in the mod:

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Edited October 23, 2010 by ultimateflashpoint

[stgn 39]

Are you using scripts for the AI?

STGN

[R0adki11 3949]

I can see my Nogovan Light Infantry in that video, i hope if you intend to use them in your mod, you please ask permission first. Other than that it looks interesting.

Edited May 11, 2010 by R0adki11

[Bielow 10]

Looks Great!

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

@STGN

No, but I might. It will depend on how everything works out.

@Roadkill

Of course. =) Although, they were in a different video, not the one I showed here. This video features FFUR Russians, Nogova Police, and JAM Resistance.

[stgn 39]

Okay what changes have you made to make to make them use cover and move carefully? I am thinking on which config changes you have made, I myself is working on a mini mod myself and would like to know?

STGN

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

Okay what changes have you made to make to make them use cover and move carefully? I am thinking on which config changes you have made, I myself is working on a mini mod myself and would like to know?

STGN

To be honest, I am not really sure what all is involved, as I still have not located all the files that control AI behavior. I mainly have been working in the main config file right now. There are several mods like ECP, FFUR, SLX, and a couple others that probably have influenced this behavior.:)

[GRS 10]

Not an OTS fan but that looks great. Please finish it! :D

[rainbow 0]

Looks good ;)

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

The first post has been updated. :)

[rainbow 0]

Sorry for my curiosity but how huge FPS impact does grass have?

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

From what I am seeing, it does not cause any lag at all as long as it is used in moderation. :) I updated the first post again about grass if you want to know more.

[anguis 4]

Looking forward to seeing the final release!

[Macser_old 0]

I noticed some objects dissappearing in the background.That's probably related to the grass.It's possible it's using canocclude.

If so try setting it to 0.

BIS WIKI

canOcclude

Usage: Geometry LOD / View Geometry LOD.

Objects hidden behind view geometry are normally not rendered by engine. Unfortunatelly, some objects like trees, have many "holes" in their body, so if object will not be rendered behind tree, it will dissapear and it won't be visible.

Using CanOcclude = 0 property will prevent this undesired effect from happening.

[BronzeEagle 2]

lack of reticule is badass and more realistic, i appreciate you making it this way.

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

lack of reticule is badass and more realistic, i appreciate you making it this way.

Reticules in mil-sims are weak sauce and unrealistic.:D

I noticed some objects dissappearing in the background.That's probably related to the grass.It's possible it's using canocclude.

If so try setting it to 0.

I will take a look at this but I am not sure if I can use commands with wrpEdit, as that is the program I am using to place the grass.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Are you using scripts for the AI?

STGN

To be honest, I am not really sure what all is involved, as I still have not located all the files that control AI behavior. I mainly have been working in the main config file right now. There are several mods like ECP, FFUR, SLX, and a couple others that probably have influenced this behavior.:)

Well, if you use those mods you'll use a bunch of AI scripts, with some impact on the CPU load. Sanctuary did some changes in the AI behaviour in his WW4 mod only by modifying the main config with great results IMO, but it doesn't influence the way the AI uses cover. From my experience, vanilla AI uses cover by itself in OFP mainly when fleeing, which is far from being perfect, and in stealth mod when told not to fire, if i remember well.

Edited May 17, 2010 by ProfTournesol

[stgn 39]

About the reticule:

While I like no reticule, it makes you unrealisticly slow to move the gun on target, so my personal preference is to just remove the part that is linked to the muzzle and just retain the outer as a focus point.

About canocclude, that is defined in the model which you need to edit to alter.

STGN

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

I added a screen to the first post. =)

[rainbow 0]

I added a screen to the first post. =)

WoW, awesome. How about FPS? :D

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

I see no more lag with grass than without. I am uploading a video to show that on YouTube at the moment. :)

[rainbow 0]

I see no more lag with grass than without. I am uploading a video to show that on YouTube at the moment. :)

Sorry for my curiosity but how far is grass rendered?

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

Ask as many questions as you like. :) The grass is rendered for about 150-200 meters, but it is rendered slightly past that point.

From what I am seeing, people with high clocked processors will benefit greatly in terms of performance. I am running a 2.6 ghz quad core and I am suffering quite a bit of lag even with affinity. I plan to upgrade to a 3.4 ghz quad so things should improve quite a bit. :)

By the way, the new video is up now. You can see the grass in action now. :)

Edited June 18, 2010 by ultimateflashpoint

[RozekPoland 591]

I have just found this topic. The mod looks interesting. I have watched all uploaded videos and I would like to ask you a few questions:

- does grass block AI view?

- how about grass in forests?

- are you going to repleace default units on new ones?

[ultimateflashpoint 10]

I have just found this topic. The mod looks interesting. I have watched all uploaded videos and I would like to ask you a few questions:

- does grass block AI view?

- how about grass in forests?

- are you going to repleace default units on new ones?

Thank you for your interest in the mod and your questions.

As far as grass goes, it does appear to block AI view for both the enemy and friendlies, even in veteran difficulty. There have been instances where I have stepped on enemy soldiers hidden in the grass and they never knew I was coming up on them. I plan to make a video soon showing this in great detail, but it seems to work very well. In another test, I was in a ghillie suit shooting 50 meters from several enemies, again this is on veteran difficulty, and they were unable to locate me.

I do not plan to place very much grass in the forests as there is a lot of vegetation present, however it will still have enough to provide a lot of cover. In an instance of testing the cover of a forest, I was playing on Everon with a team of 12 men, with an enemy OMOH convoy of 30 men travelling about 200 meters away. When fired upon, they got out on foot and shot in our general direction, however they were not able to pinpoint most of our locations even though we used suppresive fire. Again I plan to make a video of this instance as well.

It is in these two examples I have given that rifle grenades come into play. When the AI is unable to locate and precisely attack the enemy, they will use rifle grenades to attempt to flush the enemy out. When under fire from these, the defending AI will sometimes crouch or stand up and sprint for better cover allowing the attackers to pinpoint their positions.

One new feature that I am trying to implement is "explosion shock." When an explosion goes off near you, you will fall to the ground and temporarily lose your hearing. However, it does not seem to be working very well, so that idea may get scrapped.

To answer your last question, I believe almost all vanilla units have been replaced. Any that haven't will likely be replaced later on. :)