baddo

Nice topic! First a little praise... what has kept me playing OFP for so long is the exceptionality of the game, and the Finnish Defence Forces Mod (yup I'm Finnish, and patriotic for sure). Without the FDF Mod my interest in OFP would have dropped much earlier. Fortunately for the community and not just for Finnish players is that the people who made FDF Mod for OFP are clearly much better than average to design a Total Conversion Mod. I think I tried most of the bigger mods for OFP and FDF Mod is in my opinion the most well-balanced to the original content regarding visual quality, features and configuration values. Many other mods did not feel like they belonged to the game. I'm sorry if someone doesn't like this opinion but that is honestly how I think. Yeah...? You might ask. Well the point is that a mod of the quality of the FDF Mod is the kind of stuff this community needs, no matter the flag in the vehicles. If someone doesn't feel okay for playing Finnish units, then they can play Russians against Finnish units and see how that feels. I like to do that and I don't have any emotional problems while doing it, even though I said I'm a patriotic Finn. If playing Russians doesn't feel right... then, as I said, FDF Mod fits very well into the original content of OFP, you can play as CWC Soviets or Yankees, and also use the Finnish & Russian units in the same mission if you like, and the gameplay is still balanced, fair and fun. With many other addons a significant problem is that they are are so different that playing against the original units, or against addons made by some other group, is unfair or just doesn't feel "right" for whatever reason. The colours of the flags are important, but I think more important would be to have more effort from addon/mod makers to balance the configurations and visual quality so that the addons could be used in same missions without having that awkward feeling of unbalanced, "that thing looks and feels like it doesn't belong into the group", content. I am one of those people who would rather see something else than an American theme in a game every now and then. I don't have problems with playing American units but it is done so many times that it gets old doesn't it? Also there is a problem that always presenting the American side as the "good" side just can't be right... the World isn't black & white even though some people obviously try to make it look like it is. But this is more than likely governed by the fact that the Americans rule the Western entertainment business and companies don't like to take a risk by not putting in Americans as the good guys. It would be interesting to see what kind of reaction a "Gulf War" game would get if the player's side was Iraq. Would the Americans ban such a game from their markets. What mod of the scale of OFP's FDF Mod could get me very excited? British, of course. I enjoy lots of British things. Funny people aren't they. I mean just compare the TV shows... the British are in a class of their own when making TV comedy and quality documentaries. Yes that's a good justification for the ArmA Mod. French, well why not? I enjoy watching the French people on TV news, when they go on strike and block every road and harbour and burn a car here and there, and beat up a couple of Finnish people because they go round the road/harbour blocks, and they can even get away with that... police will give them no penalties because it's part of their culture or that's how it looks to me. Those kinds of people deserve a big mod of their own and I would play it too. Germany, well of course. I mean just look at how punctual and official people they are. Isn't quality and sophistication guaranteed if the Germans make addons? Czech Republic. Well why not? Think about all the possibilities. We could get to play with Marek and Ondrej more likely. Save BI Studio building from communist invasion. Go get weapons and ammo from the MoCap studio and make sure the programmers keep working. Et cetera. Yugoslavia (all parties) Well has the time past enough to re-create the Balkan War(s)? It can be sensitive I admit. Negotiations for the Kosovo independence are going right now, and there are a lot of heat in those negotiations. I am not sure if the time is right to introduce the events of the 1990's into a game, but it would certainly be interesting to play a game having that setting. Alright I'll stop here as this gets too long... The point is, make content which fits well alongside original content and plays well with other addons and you have a potential winner in your hands. I think it then doesn't matter so much what the colours of the flag are, people will play it anyways, as has been proven with FDF Mod.

I'll throw in a function which you can use to find the number of indexed positions in buildings. It is handy if you want to create a script to make AI's enter buildings. buildingPosCount.sqf, stored at http://www.ofpec.com/ Editors Depot and I also copy & paste it here: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"> // ****************************************************************************************** // buildingPosCount.sqf // Returns number of indexed positions in a building. // These positions can be used with the buildingPos function. // When using indexed positions from a script, // take in notice that 1st position has index number 0, // 2nd has index number 1 and so on. So if a building // has 8 positions, you can use them as 0...7 from a script // with the buildingPos function. // USAGE: // init: buildingPosCount = preprocessFile "buildingPosCount.sqf" // calling: <building> call buildingPosCount // returns: <integer> // example: _posses = nearestBuilding player call buildingPosCount // Baddo 2005 // You can contact me through www.ofpec.com // ****************************************************************************************** private "_i"; _i = 0; while { format ["%1", _this buildingPos _i] != "[0,0,0]" } do { _i = _i + 1; }; _i I've used it along with a script I made for OFP to make AI soldiers enter buildings into some indexed positions, or even into all of them. Looks nice when an AI group "storms" a building. Can get fun if they are your enemies and you are hiding upstairs with little ammo... I don't have that script at hand now, but if you would like to have something like that, then I assure you it isn't hard to write it. For now you can just ignore this and return to it later if you wish, placing waypoints in the mission editor should be enough to get started.

Maybe you wrote the paths to the mods wrong? As an example, I have this sub-directory structure in the ArmA game directory: @mods\SpectatingScript\Addons which contains the spect.pbo file. In ArmA Launcher I have this in the "Mod directory name" field: @mods\SpectatingScript and it works.

Are we talking about a "shrine" Like mecca for muslims, Jerusalem for Christians, BI Studio for OFP & ArmA players, et cetera. A box of chocolate and flowers are enough to melt their hearts I think. Isn't the address somewhere at the bistudio.com website...

Yup that's how I do it too Similar tool exists also for Operation Flashpoint, if you have it. Also made by kegetys.

Yes, you need to add them manually. Check all menu items in ArmA Launcher... it's quite simple program to configure and use. Edit: If you don't want to bother with adding servers into ArmA Launcher, then just select which mods to load and start the game as "singleplayer", and then select Multiplayer from ArmA. What mods to load for each server is harder to get right this way. The "Connect to server" feature in ArmA Launcher works as a shortcut to your favourite servers.

Use ArmA Launcher made by kegetys. Go to http://www.kegetys.net/arma/ and download it. You can arrange your mods like this: Into ArmA directory, create a directory structure like this: @mods   mod1     Addons   mod2     Addons   mod3     Addons Then you put your .pbo files into the Addons folders. Now add those mod1, mod2, mod3 directories into ArmA Launcher. You can then select to have them either on or off, depending on what you are going to play. ArmA Launcher also allows you to add servers and select what mod folders are loaded for each server.

Not funny.

I would say that in ArmA II you will mostly find equipment which is needed for the campaign in that game. Things like "every abrams to date" really makes very, very little sense. "All modern camo" hmm... this can't be a serious topic. I will abandon it now. Please don't waste our time again like this.

Isn't it xbox 360 ? Problem solved! Uh, I would wait until the game comes out before using a lot of money into new hardware for just that game... I refused to buy new hardware just for ArmA I, and it was the right decision for me I can say now!

People seem to do a lot of guessing... why don't we wait and see how ArmA2 turns out to be? Making wild guesses here about BIS/number of people working/Codemasters/pickwhateversubject won't make the game turn out any better I think. I'm actually more interested to see how ArmA2 turns out to be on a console, not on PC. If ArmA2 works badly on PC then I will not be surprised at all, but if it doesn't work on console then it's bad... then we could say BIS have serious problems. On PC platform problems come automatically. Anyway, I have a positive mind and I refuse to shoot a duck down until I know for sure it is a duck.

Well of course it would be nice to have all this and even that too, right now right here. But it is perfectly normal in development projects that plans get revised and scheduals get revised. Otherwise it wouldn't be development at all, as I see it. It's better to give up with non-practical solutions than to try to put them into the game no matter what it takes (multiplayer compatibility, arm, leg etc.) Some ideas for dynamic destruction I came up just a moment ago (when I was downstairs drinking tea and eating sandwiches, with cheese, cucumber and tomatoes, oh boy it's good): The number one problem in my eyes would have to be the creation of the 3D models and how to configure them. If I were a game developer, I would approach this problem so that I would try to minimize, or eliminate completely, the work I have to do to create a dynamically destructible 3D model. I mean, no one really wants to create a 3D model and configure it all year long, right? A solution to this problem could be to really drop all attempts to do manual work to make the 3D models become dynamically destructible. Easy solution: don't even try to do it! Stop right there! Let the computer have a regular 3D model and rip it to pieces, and don't care if the end-result doesn't always look like how it should look like in this life some of us call "real". Alright, so now we would have an algorithm (written by some very clever programmer) which would take any arbitrarily-shaped 3D model and it would rip it into multiple pieces. So what? This doesn't solve anything yet. How to make it work in the game? Well I was thinking that maybe, this "algorithm", would not be in the game at all! I mean, don't put it there! It belongs to the content creation "pipeline". Alright so now we have a development tool which takes a 3D model and rips it to pieces as the developer is drinking his tea and eating his sandwiches, with cheese, cucumber and tomatoes. The 3D model file format would have each piece separately written into it, in addition to the original model data. Alright so how would we use that model in the game? Well as someone already said about "animations", yup that would be it! It's what we have now, I think. And why not extend that idea? Let an algorithm generate some ten or so different destruction animations. At this point don't care if the animations don't always look like how they should look like in this life some of us call "real". In multiplayer it would then be up to the server to decide which building breaks down and in what way. An animation is selected from the set available, and a message to clients is sent. "Play this animation for that building." Alright, animations are what can be done today, and has been done, but maybe the point I'm trying to make in this post is that don't even try to create the dynamic destruction feature into your 3D models manually. If you are going to keep yourself sane, you will have to have an algorithm to do that work. Otherwise the burden is just too big for the people who are responsible for creating the content. And (for now) don't even try to have a physics engine handle the destruction. Do it with animations but increase the detail of the animations by creating a program to do that and let it handle it. Let it generate an animation set per building to choose from during the game. Add debris having dynamic physics (kinetic actors in physics engine?) on top of that and wouldn't it be enough for now?

I don't think it would be easy for BIS - they would have to do a lot of work. It would have to be financially profitable, otherwise it would not make sense. A company is not going to put months of work into something which doesn't give a profit. Yes you heard me right, I said months of work, and that is at least. There are not many addons around for OFP & ArmA which can come even close to the quality level of content created by BIS. I think people might be too optimistic when they praise community-made content. A fact is, most of community-created content are unusable for a commercial product without doing significant improvement work on them, and it will stay that way. An important question is how the community-created content fits into the game visually, but also functionally of course. Most addons I have seen look out-of-place when placed alongside the original content of the games. Sorry to be so negative but this had to be said. Consider a better topic title next time. It should have clues about what is inside.

It's not futuristic, it's old See walking forest harvester made by PlusTech / Timberjack Finland (nowadays part of John Deere Forestry). Youtube video: Development done in Finland by Finnish Engineers.

Yup yup Means yes I knew, both points. The functions I have placed into ofpec are meant to be as simple as possible by intention, prefereably only one task per function, like one function for "is group in vehicle" (well okay, it's "is group in this or in any vehicle") and another for "is group alive". For convenience an alive check can be placed into the groupInVehicle function but I would say that functionally (logically, semantically? heck pick your word, I don't know! ) it doesn't belong there. But it's a safety check which can be put there and it doesn't cause any harm. Actually, it could be good overall to have a killed event handler or a looping function/script to kick the dead units out of their groups as soon after death as possible. In OFP multiplayer I recall this can become very important (leader of group is dead but group doesn't get new leader if [leader group] join grpNull is not used manually). I don't know how ArmA is in this regard. The "tabs into spaces" conversion for code posted to forums... it is maybe something forum developers could think about. It's not problematic. If you use some tab width in your editor and forum uses another, then again the formatting is messed up. It seems HavocDemon got his problem solved. HavocDemon you should consider what actually takes more effort in the long run. Using a function call such as BDO_myGroup call BDO_groupInVehicle versus using ({ (not (_x in Humvee1)) and (alive _x) } count (units (group player))) == 0; An obvious problem is that when you need to do it many times in your code, it gets messy. And you write the same function over and over again, and everytime you need to remember how to write ({ (not (_x in Humvee1)) and (alive _x) } count (units (group player))) == 0; instead of having to remember how to write BDO_myGroup call BDO_groupInVehicle. Which one is easier to remember? Just something to consider for the future, for this particular problem of yours your solution is perfectly acceptable.

I'm in a hurry and I'll just point you to a function at http://www.ofpec.com/ groupInVehicle Edit: Heck, I'll also copy&paste the function here just in case OFPEC disappears: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">// ****************************************************************************************** // groupInVehicle.sqf // There are two possible ways how to use this function: // #1: You pass only group to the function. In this case, the function returns true if all // group members are in any vehicle, false if at least 1 member is not in any vehicle. // Â Â The vehicle isn't necessarily the same vehicle for all. // #2: You pass group and vehicle to the function. In this case, all group members // need to be in the vehicle passed to the function for true to be returned, // otherwise the function returns false. // USAGE: // init: groupInVehicle = preprocessFile "groupInVehicle.sqf" // calling #1: [<group>] call groupInVehicle // calling #2: [<group>, <vehicle>] call groupInVehicle // returns: <boolean> // example #1: // if ( [grpWest1] call groupInVehicle ) then { hint "All are in vehicles!" } // example #2: // if ( [grpWest1, truck] call groupInVehicle ) then { hint "All are in truck!" } // Credits: bardosy, bedges, THobson (inspired by their forum posts) // Baddo 2005 // You can contact me through www.ofpec.com // ****************************************************************************************** private "_grpInVehicle"; _grpInVehicle = true; if ( count _this > 1 ) then { if ( {vehicle _x != _this select 1} count units (_this select 0) > 0 Â ) then { _grpInVehicle = false; }; } else { if ( {_x == vehicle _x} count units (_this select 0) > 0 ) then { _grpInVehicle = false; }; }; _grpInVehicle The groupInVehicle function will tell you if all members of a group are in any vehicle, OR if they are in the same vehicle. Depends on the arguments you pass for the function. See comments in the function for instructions how to use it. I wrote it for OFP but I bet it works for ArmA too. Always check the OFPEC Editors Depot first when you have a question about scripting.

Hmmm... you know how many ArmA copies have been sold? Please tell us!

As the error message tells you, the join command expects an array: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[player] join grp You gave it a single object instead of an array, which doesn't work. Why it wants an array? Well it is handy because you can join many units at once: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[player, theotherguy, thegirl, themom] join grp Wonderful isn't it.

You are not supposed to put a condition to the On Activation field of a trigger. Also you seemed to use a local variable where you should have used a global variable (_Vul1--> Vul1 from the Vulcan's name field). Edit: Actually the second codeline of yours is not going to work in a trigger anyways. Put a condition to the Condition field. A suitable condition could be: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">(!canFire vulcan1 && !canMove vulcan1) && (!canFire vulcan2 && !canMove vulcan2) && (!canFire vulcan3 && !canMove vulcan3) then you put to the On Activation field whatever you want to happen... An example mission in which you are T-72 gunner and after you have destroyed three Vulcans, a hint "Victory!" is displayed: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">version=11; class Mission { addOns[]= { "catracked", "desert" }; addOnsAuto[]= { "catracked", "desert" }; randomSeed=11409923; class Intel { startWeather=0.100000; forecastWeather=0.300000; year=2007; month=6; day=7; hour=8; }; class Groups { items=4; class Item0 { side="GUER"; class Vehicles { items=1; class Item0 { position[]={2543.685303,13.860000,2639.254150}; azimut=225.000000; id=0; side="GUER"; vehicle="Vulcan_RACS"; leader=1; skill=0.600000; text="vulcan1"; }; }; }; class Item1 { side="GUER"; class Vehicles { items=1; class Item0 { position[]={2542.557861,13.860000,2689.427979}; azimut=225.000000; id=1; side="GUER"; vehicle="Vulcan_RACS"; leader=1; skill=0.600000; text="vulcan2"; }; }; }; class Item2 { side="GUER"; class Vehicles { items=1; class Item0 { position[]={2543.121582,13.860000,2734.527344}; azimut=225.000000; id=2; side="GUER"; vehicle="Vulcan_RACS"; leader=1; skill=0.600000; text="vulcan3"; }; }; }; class Item3 { side="EAST"; class Vehicles { items=1; class Item0 { position[]={2482.295898,13.860000,2538.853271}; azimut=30.000000; id=3; side="EAST"; vehicle="T72"; player="PLAYER GUNNER"; leader=1; skill=0.600000; }; }; }; }; class Sensors { items=1; class Item0 { position[]={2698.729980,16.524294,2537.381348}; a=0.000000; b=0.000000; interruptable=1; age="UNKNOWN"; expCond="(!canFire vulcan1 && !canMove vulcan1) && (!canFire vulcan2 && !canMove vulcan2) && (!canFire vulcan3 && !canMove vulcan3)"; expActiv="hint ""Victory!"""; class Effects { }; }; }; }; class Intro { addOns[]= { "desert" }; addOnsAuto[]= { "desert" }; randomSeed=1459203; class Intel { startWeather=0.100000; forecastWeather=0.300000; year=2007; month=6; day=7; hour=8; }; }; class OutroWin { addOns[]= { "desert" }; addOnsAuto[]= { "desert" }; randomSeed=8199171; class Intel { startWeather=0.100000; forecastWeather=0.300000; year=2007; month=6; day=7; hour=8; }; }; class OutroLoose { addOns[]= { "desert" }; addOnsAuto[]= { "desert" }; randomSeed=13598723; class Intel { startWeather=0.100000; forecastWeather=0.300000; year=2007; month=6; day=7; hour=8; }; }; Create & save a new mission on Rahmadi and replace the contents of its mission.sqm file (you can open it in notepad) with the code from above, save the file and reload the mission to test it.

When you people talk about what is legal or illegal, you will have to notice that it is the local legislation which applies. Do not expect legislation to be the same in every country.

I would rather use canFire && canMove I mean, when you have made sure that an enemy unit can't fire and can't move, then it's game over for that enemy unit isn't it? Using alive could create very annoying situations for players when they think that they have done enough but in fact the enemy unit is still alive, it just can't move and can't shoot but is still alive... and the mission never ends as the player can't figure out what is wrong...

I would say that a good rule of thumb for selecting between 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems today could be this: if you are not sure if you need a 64-bit operating system, then you do not need it. You should know a good technical reason why you would need a 64-bit operating system. Looking at the state the technology is in currently, it is better to stay out of it if you don't have that good technical reason. I even dare to say that most people who have more than 2 gigabytes of RAM on their home computers do not actually need that much. More of an emotional than technical decision. The need for more RAM probably goes up in the future for home users but wasting money today for it is... well... wasting money!

Do you have 32-bit or 64-bit operating system?

You should tell your system specifications.

Here in Finland OFP GOTY is sold in stores. In verkkokauppa.com 17.90 euros, available right away (seems like it's the only copy they got, though).