nominesine

How do you activate the stop action? From a script?? Via a Radio Trigger???

1) I start with a rough story line and a general objective. (What nations will be involved? What is EAST's goal? What's WEST's goal?? etc???). At this stage I might end up with a note saying something like: "American mechanized infantry patrols through 3 villages. No hostile contacts are reported in the area but insurgency is possible in all three villages." 2) I decide about an island and do some trecking on the map. I never scout the area with helicopters (unless it's a helo mission), I walk and drive around in 1st person mode until I find a setting that fits my story. The reason is I want to see the terrain as it will be seen by the players. What happens if I chose this path? What view will I get of the area if my team decides to cross that ridge, etc. To continue the example above: I chose Tonal islands and decided that a US vehicle patrol must drive through three towns east of the main airport to complete the mission. It takes aprox 30 minutes to complete the full tour without any resistance - just driving. 3) I decide about the units and place the player group on the map. Usually I avoid addons at this stage. I place event triggers and end triggers that fits my general story line and play the mission without any resistance. When the basic structure is working I save a back up copy of the raw mission. Example: A 12 man patrol riding in three hummers. When the units/triggers are in position I complete the full tour to make sure everything works as I intended. 4) I start to place oposing forces on the map and try different locations. Then I play the mission again and again and again, gradually raising the oposition as I go along. When I'm satisfied i update my backup. Example: I place a mix of civvie and militia units (they look almost the same) in the towns and gives them a randomized set of waypoints, that makes their wherabouts unpredictable. Some towns will be inhabitetd by peaceful civies, but there might also be a rockthrowing mob waiting, should I leave my patrol car, or a hidden insurgent on a rooftop with an RPG. 5) I change the default units to addon units, play the mission again, and again, and again to make sure everything works. New backup. Example: BIS soldiers is HYK desert soldiers, BIS Hummer is replaced by a desert Hummer, armed with MG. 6) I add some secondary objectives to the main one, makes a rough draft for the briefing and make sure every objective can be ticked off as it should. Example: during the patrol the vehicle patrol must look for a sniper in Town A, check a certain house in Town B, the patrol may only target armed civilians, etc. Then some more triggers that fires if a civvie is killed, if the patrol gets lost, etc 7) I build all cutscenes, record sounds, make intro/outro last. Usually I do this in a separate mission and imports all scripts/triggers/units into the main mission afterwards, with normal cut-and-paste. 8) I add some scripts to randomize the mission (unit placement, enemy movement). Just simple code, using the random-command - nothing fancy. 9) I BETA test my mission.

I think this was what General Barron refered to in his post at Ofpec. The command leader seems to be returning the name of the original leader of the group, even though he is dead or forced to leave the group with grpNull commands  I have no MP testing oportunities until next weekend, unfortunately.

Well, I have mornings like that too... But it opens a possibility I've never thought of. I suppose this means that showMap is also a local setting, thus it would be possible to make individual players "drop" their map in a MP game, right? EDIT: Does showRadio also remove the radio commands that you run with the numerical keyboard, or only the radio icon in the map section???

Well, apart from the fact that it's enableRadio, wich we already discussed in another thread, there is a small problem with the leader command: It takes a while (sometimes it feels like forever) after one unit dies, but before the rest of the group registers him as dead. Maybe that's the problem? I recall that General Barron once stated that the leader command didn't work very well in MP for these reasons. But since Ofpec is down I cannot find the thread about MP scripting commands.

I agree it's simpler. But I have never tested it in MP. Are you sure enableRadio can be run localy on each machine? EDIT: and it will also remove the intercom orders between soldiers in the group. But if that´s ok...

No, don´t follow Mr. Peanuts advice (because it doesn´t work). Do it this way: Lets say you have two radiotriggers (Alpha and Bravo) and wants the first one to be availiable only for west and the second one for east. In init.sqs you write: ?(side player == west): 2 setRadioMsg "NULL" ?(side player == east): 1 setRadioMsg "NULL" Now west can only see and use Radio Alpha, East can only see and use Radio Bravo. If it´s a coop MP game, and all your group leaders are on the same side you do it this way... ?(player != leader group1): 1 setRadioMSG "NULL" Thus, the Alpha Chanel will only be availiable for the player who is team leader of the group named group1 EDIT: The command RadioEnable does not exist, all you do with Peanuts example is to create a global variable named radioEnable and set it to true, but it doesn´t do anything. There is, however, a variable named enableRadio that´s toggled with true or false, but that will disable the radio for everyone.

It's not that bad. It's a very good addon IMO. Only way to find out: Try it!

Thank's. I was afraid I would have to spend hours correcting my mistake.

I'm converting a SP mission to MP, to be played in a LAN-game. How will the following TRIGGER behave in a MP game: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> CONDITION: count units civMob1 <5 ACTIVATION: nomin_count = nomin_count +1; publicVariable "nomin_count" It's supposed to add the value one (+1) to the VARIABLE nomin_count (defined by me as 0 in the init.sqs) when the GROUP civMob1 loses too many members, and works good in SP. I suspect, however, that in a MP game it will add +1 for each player in the network, hence if there are three players it will add +3 rather than +1. Am I correct? I have no MP-testing oportunities at the moment. If so, can I solve the problem by changing the TRIGGER this way??? <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> CONDITION: local server AND count units civMob1 <5 ACTIVATION: nomin_count = nomin_count +1; publicVariable "nomin_count" I would prefer to use simple corrections like these, because the mission is already made and working in SP. Changing the basic structure will increase the workload for yours truly too much.

Technical question... What is it that make the AI decide to "abandon ship" when the tank reaches a certain damage level. I'm no addon maker, but i assume it's defined in the config, right? Thus I wonder, is it possible to stop this from happening with a script? It seems that they jump out when the tracks are destroyed i.e, when <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> ?!(canmove tankName) returns true. Is there a better way to check this. What happens (in game engine terms) when the crew abandons the tank? Is this tank different from other tanks?

I'm proofreading a script but have no testing oportunities. Can somebody check the syntax in this line for me: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> {_x addEventHandler ["fired",{nomin_count=nomin_count+1; publicVariable “nomin_countâ€}]} forEach units teamOne It's supposed to add an eventhandler to every unit in a GROUP designated as TEAMONE and add the value +1 to a counter named nomin_count whenever a team member fires his weapon, thus counting how many rounds TEAMONE has fired during the mission. Life ain't easy when Ofpec is off line

Hmmm... nickname and password goes pretty well together.

The quoted method is the only solution I know of, that works. I usually make them watch a spot 1000 meters in front of the loons

And that makes it worth doing it. Thank's for the feed back. Judging from your battlereport you solved the challenges in the campaign pretty much as i did myself when I first made/played them (the missions were originally designed as MP-missions for my LAN-group). An updated copy of Blue Skies II (Cry Havoc) rests on my HDD right now. Just waiting for Ofpec to come back online again, so I can host it somewhere. Pink Floyd is replaced by Leonard Cohen in the second part. Apart from that the mood is pretty much the same.

After three years and five days I've decided to give up... I finished the original campaign a couple of months before this thread was started by Maruk. Since then, I usually spend a couple of minutes after work now and then, trying to figure out the username/password combination to access the hidden part behind the brief case man. So far no success. Yesterday I cracked the CWC campaign open, converted all the .ogg's to my mp3-player and tried to figure the name out. It didn't help either. My russian is way too rusty to understand the conversation between Guba and Angelina without subtitles. Can somebody please PM the information to an old dimwit like me?

Thank's for the help. I apreciate the effort you put into the reply. * pastes and copies *

Did I understand you correct? Lot's of Fire power for those who can edit their own missions. A nice all-round-tank for everyday use for everybody else? A good solution IMO. Looking forward to the update.

Suggestion: Make them dry canals. The point of a canal is, after all, that you can regulate it and since there's a war going on (I suppose) it doesn't seem so strange if the canals are dried out. From a mapmaker's point of view this gives you an advantage. You can model the canal with the mapeditor and cover it's sides with "concrete looking" textures. The sharp edges wont look so strange then. Combine it with a bridge addon or two, and you will (hopefully) have something resembling the storm drains in Los Angeles (on a smaller scale, presumably). These fake canals must of course be elevated a bit (above or almost above the tide level), but that should just make things easier. If you manage to place them on the correct altitude you might even be able to have the water splash over their floor (like on regular OFP beaches) when the surf's up.

I played around with this steel beast during the weekend, and I am... amazed It's a fantastic experience to drive one of these monsters over the Tonali desert. The sound of the engine, the flash from the main gun, the loader shouting. Hell, I could almost smell the exhaust fumes. But I must confess I'm a little suprised that so much of the discussion here concerns theories about how strong a real m1a2 is. To me it's like discussing wether Batman could beat Dracula, or if Supermman is stronger than the Hulk. I haven't done much battle testing yet. Therefore I don't have an opinion wether this tank is overpowered or not. However, problems like these exists with virtually all OFP-units. As a mission maker I believe the challenge is to find a use for the tank, overpowered or not. Hence the problem shouldn't be "The tank is too strong" in my opinion, rather "what can we put up against it, to create an interesting mission." I see numerous ways this tank can be used, even if it does produce some lag on weak PC's, and even if it is indeed overpowered. Let me give you an example of one mission idea where this tank would be just great: * A US tank crew gets separated from the main force during the night. When morning comes, they are alone (with their huge tank), in hostile territory. Now they have to take the steel beast back to safety. * The m1a2 can actually be a weakness in this kind of mission. It becomes a fragile piece of equipment that need protection, instead of being an invulnerable machine of mass destruction. The crew will have to scout the area on foot, before the tank can enter bridges/open areas/valleys. * The tank is easily spotted by enemy. For the troops it would be more benficial to sneak baclk to safety on foot. * By placing strong enemy forces with AT capacity, backed up by armor and minefields, the only way to succed will be to play hide-and-seek. Now, try that with an Abrahams Since the crew consists of four people, it makes for a good MP Coop mission, as well as a SP mission. It's a single tank, so there will not be any lag from the m1a2. I'm already working on this idea myself, but I'm rather slow and the idea is free for anyone who wants it (even the ORCS-people can use it). Seeing the m1a2 put to good use in a MP or SP mission is, in my opinion, the most constructive way of critisizing and showing gratitude to the addon maker at the same time. Sorry for the long, and possibly off-topic, post. But I was really inspired by this addon. My hat goes off to Inquisitor, Fischkopp, T_D and King Homer.

I like the textures, as already mentioned by everyone else. But above all I like how this plane flies and manuevers. Truly a great job. Student Pilot, are you resonsible for the flight model/weight distributing in this addon? It's a marvelous job. The sea landing option works perfectly.

I believe I said something similar while I was a member of the Ofpec-staff. What i said was simply... No music publisher in their right mind will ever take legal action against teenagers using music to spice up their gaming sessions. There is no profit to make from it. Technically it is illegal (in most countries anyway) to use music without permission in an OFP-mission. The most severe effect that could follow a breach of the copyright law would be that the legal owner asked your internethost to remove the file containing their music music. But that risk is theoretical, IMO. I'm not in the music business. I work for a Swedish newspaper IRL (publisher of written text and photographic images) but the copyright laws are the same for all publishers.

Thanks Thobson. That's what I needed.

Lets say I want to check if any groupmember in my group named heroes is carrying an m16. The individual soldiers in the group are named h1,h2,h3... et cetera. Do I need to make the check fo each individual soldier, or can I somehow pass an array of soldier names to be checked. How would the syntax read?

Good point. Only four things seems to be carved in stone in this interview: *Recommended configuration for ArmA will be Pentium 4, graphic card with 256MB memory. *ArmA engine is made with DirectX 9. *ArmA will have it's own, built in, voice chat. *Scripting language remains the same. Nothing is removed, but new commands and possibly functions are added.