Cipher: Valleys of the Takiban

[AlecDelorean 10]

...for all the Arma2:50%-gamers, cipher: VOTT now is 100% Operation Arrowhead standalone compatible. :cool:

if you find a bug, please make a proper bugreport (with listed RPT scripterrors).

Edited July 23, 2010 by AlecDelorean

[AntalopeAUT 10]

Oh Boys, Alec is spoiling us furthermore^^

Big thanks (even if i dont have to use stand-alone ;) from me and supposedly and hopefully from ALL the stand-alone users .

We´ll see or hear us Alec!

Radfahrer´s outta here.

[AlecDelorean 10]

:) yeah, next version i will downgrade to Arma1.

:yay:

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Awww I liked having weapons from both games in one mission. Impossible to please everyone I suppose.

[AlecDelorean 10]

yep, miss my beloved SMAW... :(

[palanoid 0]

ive found a bug but not sure how to extract the RPT script errors as there wasnt any messages popping up when i had the bug.

it appears that some enemy infantry are invincible,literally dont take damage at all.

when i use SA-58 ACOG to engage an enemy who was using lee-enfield,which i believe the class is bonesetter,after like 4 clips of ammo he was still alive and kept shooting my squad members.

i'll have another go at the mission to see if it happens to another rifles

[Sunrayn 10]

Not sure if this is still being updated but,

I have been playing the hell out of this mission. Ok, this is the only mission I have been playing the last couple of weeks.

I, for one, love the secops addition. 90% of the time, I never finish the main task due to doing the side stuff but, it doesnt bother me.

A few things I have noticed though:

Choppers and jets dominate the map. It is not unusual to shoot down 3 enemy choppers within 2 or 3 minutes and still see 4 or more enemy in the air. and an equal number of friendlies. Destroy convoy missions end up finished long before I can set an ambush. In most cases, two or three choppers converge on the convoy and blow it to hell as soon as it spawns.

Conversely, armored mechanized are non-existent. I can go for the entire mission and not see a single off-road, bmp, truck, except for civilian.

Task Force:

I was surprised to not see an option for anything but a 10 man force.

Getting my AI squad to do anything was impossible until yesterday. They wouldnt change formation, wouldnt shoot, were strung out for 300 metres behind me until, I sent them one by one to rearm at the supply truck. I know they come equipped with weapons and ammo but, they dont seem to use it until the player opens their gear after which, they were more than happy to change formation and shoot everything that wasnt friendly or civilian.

[AlecDelorean 10]

are you using a beta patch?

i remember one of the beta patches had a problem with not responding AI units.

for less than 10 squad members, simply block the slots in server settings.

when i tested ambient combat, i always had ground and air patrols with all kinds of brdm, bmp, inf patrols etc. ...

[VariousArtist 19]

Thanks for porting this mission to Takistan. But I suggest to remove Ambient Combat and SecOps, cos it does not fit into the mission. Especially the spawns by Ambient Combat right into your face or far away from any frontline or anything that makes it plausible break immersion of this great mission. Felt much better after it was removed.

Keep up the good work!

cheers

[BelgarionNL 10]

well yea ambient combat is hard to controll but keep secops

hoping to see a next release soon!

[Alwarren 2765]

Awww I liked having weapons from both games in one mission. Impossible to please everyone I suppose.

It's possible to "query" whether a certain weapon is available. One can e.g. test whether the SMAW is present and then add weapons from from ArmA 2 into the ammo crates.. Not into the briefing though, there are functions to add weapons into the briefing weapon pool, but AFAIK they only work in a campaign and only for the following mission.

[ladlon 10]

I've been playing Cipher on Arma2 for quite a while, and really like it (...it's pretty much all I play now with Arma2).

I recently got Operation Arrowhead, and now installed Cipher for it.

Found a few things while playing my first mission, I'm not sure if they are all as a result of errors in Cipher (or if it's OA):

1) Friendly AI sometimes seems completely braindead. I had two enemy guys pull up in a car whle we were all standing on the road, but the supply crate and vehicles after the dropoff, stand 10 feet (or less) from us, and start shooting, and our entire team just stood there (...they had acknowledged the enemies presence with a report). Three of my guys died as a result. I had the difficulty at 25%, so it took a while for the enemy to actually hit their targets... giving my guys plenty of time to do SOMETHING... but they didn't. They improved a bit in other parts of the mission, though.

2) Team members sometimes just stand there (as if stuck) when you give them a move order. They confirm, yet don't move. Some refused to move (despite acknowledging) for the rest of the mission. I had to switch over to them, move them, and then switch back to the leader, just to have them continue with the mission. Didn't seem to be stuck in geometry.. just refused to move.

3) I found the suitcase, uploaded the data, and the usual messages came through (about the extraction).... yet the 'Find Suitcase' checkbox stayed empty, despite me even trying to revisit the case.

4) After that happened, I called for extraction (...the extraction point didn't appear automatically, as it normally does). The blue circle appeared, and we started heading for it... but suddenly a Extraction Failed message appeared. I tried reloading the last save, and doing it again... Same thing. Shortly after calling for the copter, the fail message appears.. but THIS time, I was treated to a 'cut scene' of the helicopter pilot running through the hills! On all tries, the copter was NW of us, coming our way... No idea what the deal was with the pilot running through the hills, though.

Definitely seems like a lot of bugs in my Takistan version of Cipher.... but I'm also finding that OA overall seems quite buggy compared to Arma2.

Sorry I can't really give you any more info, but I figured I'd at least mention my findings.

BTW, one thing I was always wondering, but never got a reply from in the original Cipher thread.... If you choose a smaller team, are the numbers of enemies adjusted, or does a smaller team actually mean a more difficult game (since the number of enemies doesn't change)?

---------- Post added at 09:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 PM ----------

BTW, is there ANY way to get it so that you can name save files so that you actually know what each one contains? Consider that a request, if it's possible.

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

well yea ambient combat is hard to controll but keep secops

hoping to see a next release soon!

Same here. I'd love if singleplayer had SecOps with or without Ambient Combat Module. I know it can be done either way, so please make this a feature. Pahweeeze! :p

[ladlon 10]

Is there any way to hard code the gear that my squad starts with in some sort of config file? I know I can change my gear at the supply crate near the dropoff, but I'm wondering if there's a way I can set it up so it always has certain gear carried by my crew at the start each game so I don't have to do that every time.

If so, can you give me detailed instructions on how to do that. I'm very new at the whole config file thing.

[ladlon 10]

Not sure if this is an Operation Arrowhead thing or a Cipher (Takistan version) thing, but I've played a few Cipher missions where some of the enemies are totally invincible. I shoot several rounds into them (getting blood hits on them, signifying a hit), yet they don't die at all. I had one enemy running up to me, about 10 feet away, and I unloaded about 10 shots into him, yet nothing.

Other enemies in the same area died with one hit, as normal.

Using Arma2 (fully patched), Operation Arrowhead (fully patched) and Cipher (latest version, as far as I can see).

No idea what the trigger of this issue is. Just tonight, I continued a saved session... Shot one guy (killing him), and after that, the other two guys in the general area were invincible.

Wish I could give you more clues on that, but I figured I'd throw that in... Maybe someone else had a similar situation, or knows what the deal is here.

[ladlon 10]

Okay, something definitely broken in Cipher:VOTT....

On several missions now, when I call for an extraction, I get a message that I failed to extract within a few seconds. Seems like what is happening is the copter pilot has left his copter, and is running somewhere, so I guess the mod considers that me failing.

Kind of a drag, as you can't complete the mission then.

I just 'assume I would have made it to the copter', and consider it a win... but it would be great if this was fixed.... assuming someone is still working on this, as it seems kind of dead here.

That would be a shame, as I play Cipher pretty much exclusively.

[zuff 10]

I was wondering if there is any way to convert this mission to have ACE weapons and gear available in the ammo box when you land. I'd love to access that equipment.

I tried to unpack the PBO and then edit the mission but it wouldn't show up in my editor for some reason. :(

[Tonci87 163]

Cipher is great mission. I would love too se the conversion finished...

[HyperU2 11]

Took me a while to buy OA but I'm glad to see Cipher made the leap. Thanks for the mission it works perfectly for me.

[ladlon 10]

I'm still having the problem of not being able to finish missions in Cipher (Takistan version) due to a bug (or so it seems).

After uploading and destroying the briefcase data, HQ messages me about the extraction point, but it goes into 'fail mode'... sometimes I am treated to a 'vid' of the extraction copter pilot running (having left his copter)... sometimes I just get a black screen, and eventually end up in the menu screen, where all the tasks are checked except 'extract from area'.

I had no problem with the original Cipher, and I'm assuming nothing has changed as far as the procedure of extraction. I think I managed to extract on SOME missions... so I'm not really sure what's going on (or if I'm doing something wrong).

Just checking... Do I have to get out of the hot zone before calling for extraction? I didn't have to before (the extraction point just appeared after the data was received). Did they change that in the Takistan version?

[HyperU2 11]

I've had it fail that way once because the extraction helo got shot down by a vehicle that was nowhere near the objective. I just happened to witness it from a distance. Bad luck I guess.

[ladlon 10]

Also, why does there appear to be a large pile of at least 20 sachel charges laid out around the area where my vehical and weapons box are parked at the start?

UPDATE: It disappeared when I installed the OA 1.57 patch... so, all's good again... well, except for my previous issues/requests, etc. ;)

Edited January 28, 2011 by ladlon

[ladlon 10]

Something new that is happening (although I don't know if it's exclusive to Cipher:Takistan)...

When I play a mission, all the enemy(?) locations are being marked on the map, updated in real time with blue diamonds with Xs in them, and labels like 1-1-G. I've never seen something like that before. They are not the usual filled circle type icons of discovered enemies. These appear immediately. The map is filled with them.

They don't seem to be the high command icons, and I haven't clicked on anything to bring them up, whatever they are.

Is this some new feature or something? It may have been brought on by either a patch update, or one of the mods, but I'm really not clear on what.

It's like it's a cheat/debug routine running... showing all the enemy locations in real time, for the whole game.

As much as I like 'a bit of help' (I have things like enemy labels on, while I'm still getting good at Arma2), this is a bit much! hehe

Anyone run into this, or have any theories on what it might be? I can't imagine this is some 'easy difficulty' thing... as it's showing where everyone is at all times, which is a bit too much of a cheat... plus, it's never been there before.

I'm running a few of the standard mods, like Zeus AI... but nothing out of the ordinary. Most recent mods installed were JSRS sound, SLX and the Lingor map (and it's support files). I've recently upgraded A2 and OA to their current version patches.

Edited January 30, 2011 by ladlon

[tawah 13]

Ladlon, it looks like a ACE2 feature that you can disable via userconfig but you may not be running this mod, may you ?

[ladlon 10]

Hi, Tawah. No, I'm not running ACE2 (yet!), but some other users figured out that it is actually the GL4 plugin. I took it away, and sure enough, they were right.

I'm still not sure WHY anyone would want the enemy positions always shown... not much fun in that! ...unless you just want to slaughter the enemy! ;)

Anyway, ya, it's GL4 doing that...