sentinel329

I have some questions regarding the furniture spawn script. I have done my best at due diligence by searching through this thread, but couldn't find the answers, so here goes. 1. Are we allowed to un-PBO the Ravage files in order to customize the furniture compositions? I understand that this is typically frowned upon, but this would be with the implicit understanding that it would be strictly for personal use, and never be uploaded or hosted anywhere. 2. If yes, which file(s) would be relevant that I would need to look at in order to grasp how it works? Thank you in advance for any guidance or advice you can provide.

I would wager this is a manifestation of the way the new audio detection works for zeds. Based on my experience, BLUFOR survivors (the solos and trader groups both) tend to be armed with better weapons such as assault rifles, and therefore engage zeds at greater ranges. I can't count the number of times I've heard distant gunfire, gone to check it out, and discovered a survivor blasting away at seemingly nothing. I'm guessing the survivor combat behavior may not have been adjusted yet to the new audio detection, they are still engaging at long ranges, and therefore are pretty much doomed to become instant zombie chow because of all the noise they make. This also applies to the vehicle patrols, who seem to have the added handicap of not being able to run over zeds because of the wonky AI driving, making them susceptible to being swarmed by zeds as they pass through a town. Renegades, on the other hand, tend to be more lightly armed and less inclined to engage zeds at range, the better to remain undetected and more likely to surprise the player. Again, these are just my observations/interpretations of what's going on "under the hood". I'm sure M. Haleks has more insightful (and accurate) commentary to add on this.

Hello again, VD When I first encountered the problem, I was in the mission editor creating a Ravage mission with both VA and EM loaded, and everything seemed to be working fine. When I went to look up some classnames in Virtual Arsenal, that's when I first ran into the bug. From what I can tell, it seems the game freezes up for good. Based on your theory about it being a memory issue, I did some more testing this morning, and discovered something quite by accident. I wanted to monitor the memory usage of Arma 3, so I first brought up Task Manager (TM), then launched A3 with only CBA, EM, and VA mods loaded. As soon as I clicked on Virtual Arsenal, I alt-tabbed out to take a look at what was going on in TM. When I went back into Arma 3, I discovered that VA had actually loaded up and was working normally. Thinking it must have been just a one-time fluke, I tried the same steps several more times and discovered to the contrary, it's definitely a repeatable process. However, I again have no clue as to WHY it's behaving this way. Out of curiosity, I decided to try the same test on the Virtual Reality "map" in the editor. Interestingly enough, I found similar behavior whenever I tried to play the map from within the editor (VA+EM causes freeze; alt-tab circumvents/prevents freeze). So, based on this, I would hypothesize that there is something about the VR map that is inducing this bug. I did not encounter this bug when I tried using an actual terrain (Tanoa) in the editor. One thing I haven't done is tried to export the VR editor mission as a single-player scenario, to see if it manifests there as well. Thank you for the clarification on the blacklist marker matter. I initially didn't comprehend that it was only necessary for non-island terrains, so your reasoning makes total sense to me now.

Hello sir, I just subscribed to your mod today on Steam, but I haven't had a chance to playtest yet as I seem to have come across a minor bug. For some reason, if I have both Vandeanson's Apocalypse (VDA) and Enhanced Movement (EM) loaded, whenever I try to go into the Virtual Arsenal my game freezes. I did some methodical troubleshooting with my mod list, so I'm fairly confident there's some sort of conflict between the two, but I have no idea why that would be. I don't think it's game-breaking by any means, but I definitely wanted to make you aware of it in case it manifests itself in some other way in the future. On a more positive note, I had an idea for a suggestion regarding the blacklist markers for spawning sites. Would it be possible to just implement a whitelist marker for the part of the map where you do want sites spawning? That would save a bit of work when editing missions, and make the overall VDA process a bit more user-friendly. I suppose the next logical step from that would be to create an index for each map's playable area, and then you could just select it from a drop-down menu, but since I'm not a scripter I don't know if that would be more trouble than it's worth. Thank you for sharing your work with us, I really enjoy seeing how it has developed. Cheers

There is a mod called Feint's Paddle Mod which lets you do a lot of additional things with boats, such as tow them with a rope. I've never tried it myself, but it is highly rated on Steam and looks pretty cool.

M. Haleks, I think it's a fascinating concept, and it kind of boggles my mind how you even came up with the idea, let alone worked out the code. I think most Ravage players might agree that the majority of the action takes place in cities/towns, so this would essentially eliminate the need for so much travelling around a pre-made terrain by "bringing the city to you". Here are just a couple initial thoughts/impressions: 1. How would a map like this effect performance? I have no knowledge in how to properly assess these sorts of things, but I'd be concerned that it might squash underpowered systems. 2. I'm sure you've already considered this, but the addition/inclusion of trash, wrecks, and rubble would add a lot to the immersion. I've been to ancient ruins that have been engulfed by desert sands, so the absence of streets isn't that far-fetched, especially if the setting is meant to be a few hundred years in the future. Having some remnants of human existence would just make things more interesting. 3. Would the entire map be city/urban? My own personal Ravage play-style sees me staying mobile until I've accumulated enough kit to establish a patrol base/laager in some quiet little corner of the map. If the entire map is built-up, the threat level would be much more elevated and constant, which might preclude this kind of play-style. Not that that would be a bad thing, necessarily; it can also be fun to have to learn and adapt. Just something that came to mind. Cheers, and thanks for all of your great work. I've enjoyed countless hours of entertainment from Ravage, and your time and effort are greatly appreciated.

Hello, You can still download the PDF object library for Arma 2 at Armaholic: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=5895. I just did a quick check and it looks like the CUP classnames are the same as in the original game, but it would probably be wise to double-check as you go along in case anything has changed.

Hello, all I know this is something of a troublesome issue, and I hate being "that guy" for asking about it, but has there been any progress on documentation for how the Equipment Pool module functions? I've been away from Arma and Ravage for some time, although I did just update to 1.60 now that I'm getting back into it. I'm not looking to customize loot just yet, I only want to refresh my memory on how the module functions normally. I haven't attempted searching the forum yet, because that's usually an exercise in madness, but if anyone knows roughly what page to start looking it would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, M. Haleks I think I may have discovered an unintended consequence of the new cleanup function in the Loot module. When removing tents, it doesn't seem to determine whether they are empty or contain items before removing them. I had a couple of tents full of gear vanish on me, and nearly had kittens until I realized what must have happened. Perhaps I'm mistaken and this is functioning as you intended? Related to this, is there a limit to the number of tents a player can have "active" at one time?

Hello all, I'm looking for some help with an issue I've been experiencing. Based on my experiences, for some reason loot seems to stop appearing at midnight on the first day (i.e. 12 a.m. of "Day 2"). I still get furniture objects spawning in buildings, but neither they nor the static loot objects contain any loot at all. I haven't been able to confirm this happens consistently in the default Altis scenario b/c I usually can't survive long enough, but it definitely happens in the user-made scenarios I create using the Ravage modules. This makes me think that there is something I'm not configuring properly. As @haleks has explained, the loot system uses a mechanism that has a 24-hr refresh timer on objects that have already been looted by the player, so this coupled with the distinct loot/no loot transition at 12 a.m. makes me wonder if I need to look more closely at the time/date settings of my scenario. Could changing the time factor in the Ravage Settings module be contributing to this problem? I often lower my setting from 4 to 2 for a longer day/night cycle, but even when I leave it at the default value I still experience this issue. I've been grappling with this dilemma for some time now, and have abandoned many, many play-throughs out of frustration because of it, so any help or advice you all might offer would be very much appreciated. Cheers

Hello Haleks, Really enjoying the new loot system; you guys have done a fantastic job, and it fundamentally changes the relative cost/benefit considerations of looting different structures. Just one small question: are the composition spawns affected in the same way by vehicles as the old loot system was? What I mean by that is, should you approach a structure on foot in order to get the best chances of finding loot? I ask because in my new play-through, once I acquired a vehicle I started having very little luck finding anything. I also wanted to offer up a couple ideas for your consideration for future updates: 1. Would it be possible to set the length of time needed to loot objects to different values? The thinking behind this was to maybe make it take longer to loot vehicle wrecks as opposed to building loot objects, just to add a bit more challenge/immersion. 2. I've noticed recently that sometimes when you run over zombies at low speed they fall down, but are still alive and get back up after a bit (maybe it has always been this way and I never noticed). I've also noticed the bastards can still hit you when they are knocked down if you get too close, which gave me an idea. Would it be possible to spawn zombies in this "knocked down" state, and have them stay that way (relatively motionless) until a player gets too close? The purpose would be to spawn them in buildings, near wrecks, etc., to add an additional layer of danger to the player. You would probably have to spawn in some combination of truly dead zombies along with the knocked down versions to keep the player guessing as to which ones might still be a threat. It would even be pretty neat if you were to just incorporate dead zombies and civilian corpses into future evolutions of the furniture compositions. Thanks so much for all the hard work you guys put in to making such an entertaining mod. Cheers.

@BB_Frost: TPW Mods has a 'Fall' module which might address this feature. In addition to making actors fall down from being shot, it can also cause the player to fall over when dropping from a certain height, and I think this might include forcing you into a crouch upon landing in some cases. The nice part is you can adjust the sensitivity parameters of this in the configuration file.

Yes, I believe the Ravage AI typically only carry weapons and equipment as defined in the Loot system module, and they are not fully kitted out by design (as opposed to DAC or TPW AI for example). Personally, I enjoy fighting the AI more than the zombies, but you have to find the right balance when you start increasing AI population, otherwise they wind up just getting mauled by the zeds. For me, this means reducing the ratio of bolter zeds, but increasing the AI hunting percentage to compensate for the reduced threat.

@R0adki11 Indeed, sir, but if this is the only real issue introduced into Ravage by Dev Branch, I'll gladly accept it in exchange for the increased stability it brings. Usually I just compensate for the missed loot opportunities by increasing the AI population.

It could be that the locations are not fully indexed; there is a similar issue with the Beketov terrain, but no fixes for it so far that I know of. I have also experienced the inaccessible loot box issue. I believe it affects the Medium_Plastic_Case and the Medium_ and Large_Metal_Case containers. Based on the limited troubleshooting I've attempted, it seems like it might be related to something with the 64-bit Dev Branch; 32-bit doesn't exhibit this bug for me. My theory is that dev branch subtly changed some parameters of those containers which prevents the Ravage loot tables from placing items within them, but I don't have the knowledge or skills to truly dig into this.