KaRRiLLioN

I put some detailed instructions in the first post of this thread that might help you. Basically when you start the mission, you need to build your base with the truck, aka the Mobile Construction Unit or MCU. Click the "MCU Menu" item in your action menu, and then select the building you want to create, then click the Deploy button. Also, the mission is meant for Player v Player, so you might not have much fun by yourself. I have decided to include coop/single player at some point in the future, but only if I can overcome a few limitations, namely idiot AI. @Dwarden: 1) I've never seen that happen...must be an ArmA netcode issue 2) I'm trying to figure out a better way to control the creation of vehicles, especially with large numbers of people. In the latest versions, I have AI made at barracks/vcl factory move out to a random perimeter position so they don't block up the area. I may try to randomize the spawn locations for vehicles a little so they're not all bunched up in one area. In addition, I might add a script to remove certain vehicles if they're not used at all within a certain period of time--i.e. they were built, but a driver never got in--then it'd remove it in ten minutes or something. 3) That is not a result of crashing. When you build a new vehicle, it sends out a public variable so all clients on the server will add the actions for Paradrop and Hitch. Sometimes, another vehicle is created at the same time, and the public variables collide and screw things up. In RTS-3 I added a button to the main menu that allowed players to "login" to nearest vehicles. I may add a button so you can stand next to the vehicle and click "Login" and it will add the actions to it as a backup in case the publicvariable gets messed up. This will also help those who JIP to add the actions to all the vehicles that were created before they joined. I'm also getting close to being done with the new Weapons loadout menu. I hope to get it done this week--it's been a PITA to lay out.

I haven't had a chance to work on part 2 because I've been busy working on RTS-IV. Hopefully I'll get back on track with the series soon.

That's perfectly fine with me. You can actually delete the unused flags--just make sure to remove the EXEC statement for those flags in the rts-territoryInit.sqs script. That's where all territory names and monitoring scripts are exec'd. Just make sure to edit the vehicle values in the rts-build-unitarrays.sqs script--that's where all plug-n-play info is kept for the units themselves. With only six flags, you'll have to lower costs for some units or else you can't build them. TBH, Infantry have played a huge role so far, espeically guarding territories. With the Custom Squad menu, you can create up to 4 different customs squads by team color for different duties. I usually make a mix of MG'ers and AT'ers for my refinery defense. Then you deploy the entire squad and create a perimeter. They eat tanks for lunch. Also, they're great with the Paradrop script, because you can fly a chopper-full and drop them behind enemy lines. Works wonders. I hope to make control of all those units easier at some point, because ArmA unfortunately doesn't keep the group list well organized.

No, I'm not familiar with that mission.

If an AI activated it, the dialog would pop up for the player and then he could load them with a custom loadout or select the weapons ad hoc.

Thanks for the input. The new weapons loadout menu I'm working on will feature customizeable loadouts that will be saved, so each time you come to an ammo crate you'll be able to pick weapons a la carte, or simply select a custom loadout and load up with the click of a button. It'll operate very similarly to the menu I had for RTS-3, except I hope to fix up some of the clunky scripting I had in it since we can now get all the weapon info directly from the config files instead of having to store it all in arrays. @Opticalsnare: The AA is a braindead AI issue, not an RTS-4 issue. The problem lies with the ArmA AI. I plan on implementing a new independent squad feature that Mr. Zig is working on, because it seems that AI controlled by the server seem to do a lot better at engaging. I hope that BIS will fix this issue for the next version though, because these Shilkas/Vulcans are deadly in coops when the server controls them. Main thing I want to avoid is having a trillion independent AI deployed because the server will start to croak, I'm sure.

ATM, I'm working on a new ammo loadout menu so players don't have to use the typical menu on the ammo crates. Â What I'm wondering is how I should handle ammo crate deployments--or if at all. I've recently put a 30-second delay between when you deploy a crate and when you can deploy another one to cut down on the actrocious crate-spamming I've seen. Â I might get rid of the crates altogether and simply attach the menu to an ammo truck or other support vehicles. Got any thoughts on that? Also, I'm looking at an entire island and a north-island version, but the terrain in the north certainly presents some challenges. Â Anyone have ideas for ideal territory placement? Â Note that there needs to be some space around the flag for the repair helo pad and for the refinery/forward base.

D'oh I figured it out. I found out that this has actually been going on a while because I forgot about one publicvar in the JIP script. Will be fixed for the next release. Thanks!

M16 error is because I forgot the underscore in "M16A4_GL" in the loadout script. It'll be fixed next version. BMP ambulance has been that way since the start...just keep forgetting to find the correct class name. Barracks should auto repair so long as you have enough energy. At 1 energy it'll repair very slowly, so it might not appear to be repairing. I didn't touch anything with regards to the base units, so that's probably what it was--or some random glitch.

It's already on my server (see my sig) and I'm sure some people will be playing it. I've seen afternoon crowds (eastern time U.S.) playing on it regularly.

BTW - just posted RTS-IV Beta 02E for download. See the first post in this thread for a link and for the changelog.

@Turkmenbashi - what do you mean, a ground war version? No aircraft of any sort? @Helltoupee - I get your point about static bases becoming camp zones. If I allowed a mobile spawn point, it'd only be for respawning players--not for creating AI infantry. Still, I'm not sure it'd mesh very well with the way I want things to work. @Victor - I'll be making a North version, and also an entire island version which uses most of the towns. I might call that one RTS-IV Infinity, because that's how long it'll take to play it. First, I'll be revamping a couple of things. First, I'm going to create a multiplier that will adjust the costs of different items depending on the number of flags. That way, I can add in more or less flags and the costs will adjust for the vehicles so things don't get entirely out of whack. Second, I need to get the ranking system in place so it'll remember player's scores when they leave and come back. Don't know when I'll get to doing that, but it'll be soon.

@stickler - a lot of what you're suggesting sounds very similar to what already exists in RWS - Real War Simulator. Â That's a mission I made for OFP and ported over to Arma, but I haven't messed with it for a while. Â Basically your team starts off with a supply truck (the only way to cap territories), and you must cap territories in order. Â Each territory gives you certain assets, i.e. vehicle factory, etc. The commander can assign roles to teammates, i.e. Pilot, tanker, infantry and whether or not they can deploy vehicles, etc. Â You only have a limited inventory, and once you're out, you're out. That mission takes almost too much teamwork, so it's really hardcore. @Dwarden - 1) I'll look into modding Keg's script more once I have time, but I'm not certain I'll make it that detailed. 2) - might be possible with a looping script on AI. Â But I don't really want to have a script looping for every AI. 3) - Hmm, not sure. Â I'll be working on an improved ammo loadout menu, etc. and a better way to distribute ammo as well. 4) - Most wandering AI are probably in someone else's squad already. 5) - Might be possible, but I won't get to looking at it for a while. 6) - not sure I can make that happen with reliability. Â AI tend to turn their engines on and off themselves. 7) - I'd prefer there be no resources to "cache". Â Instead I want effects of losing a territory to be immediate. 8) - You can already build custom squads now and send them to guard any bases - as of Beta 2C. Â I've improved upon that for Beta 2D. Whew. Well, I've added some more stuff for Beta 2D, but I'll probably hold off on release until I add a few more things. Â Basically, I color-coded the custom squads, so when you deploy them, they deploy to team red, blue, green or yellow for easier control. There still needs to be an easier way to select only one team than with the command button. I also added "Flyinheight" option over the group list so you can have any AI flying aircraft fly in at a specific height. I put a paradrop option on the transport helo's so you could have an AI pilot take over a squad, fly at a certain height, and then paradrop the crew in an orderly manner without you ever having to leave the base. My main two goals next are to finish modding Kegetys's spectate script to filter out units not in your group and to make a new ammo loadout script. Â I may make it so you can only get ammo from support vehicles and take away the option of building ammo crates since that just leads to clutter. @Helltoupe - I don't really want to add spawning in chutes--I'd prefer to keep spawning limited to the base and forward bases. @Iceshade and pirate2 - I'll look into that. The MCU is supposed to be locked and only the commander has the key, but apparently it doesn't work right ATM. I can't just move the commander into the truck since he has to deploy first--and if I mess with that, I might screw up some timing on the JIP stuff. Okay, my fingers are tired of typing for now, so that's it 'til later. Â Thanks for all the suggestions and keep 'em coming!

UPDATE: RTS-IV Beta02C is now available. New in this version is the Custom Squad configuration menu. Now you can customize up to 4 squads and deploy an entire squad at a time from the Barracks or a Forward Base. See the pic in a previous post for a screenshot of the new menu. Look in the first post of this thread for the download link.

Ammo Trucks have a single value called ammoCargo which can rearm any weapon for any vehicle UNLESS you have completely used all the ammo for that weapon. Then it will not rearm you. That's an ArmA bug. BUT, if you land on the white repair pads at the towns you control, you can repair/refuel/rearm even if you have 0 ammo.

I think I may come up with a ranking system. I'll start everyone at a rank of Seargant or something, and as they do team-oriented things, they'll earn better ranks. As you earn better ranks, your ability to deploy more AI in a squad will go up, you'll be able to use squads, and you'll have access to better vehicles. I'll have to think through exactly what sort of tasks will be available, but it'll be something like that. If I do that, I'll try to make it so if a player disconnects, it'll save their stats for a reconnect.

The problem is, the Civs will never see west as an enemy. You'd essentially have to join them to a friendly squad. I thought about making Infantry dependent on another resoure: Manpower that you got from Civ's by taking territories, but I think the overhead might be a bit much, and it also might be confusing. Still, it's an interesting idea. I just have only so much time to implement some things.

Well this is what I have so far--I'm still working out a couple things, but you would go to this menu and customize up to 4 squads any way you like, up to 20 units. Â You can add/remove or clear a squad list. Â Then you can deploy any squad from the Barracks or a Forward Base. Â They'd still take the same amount of time to create as if you were clicking the button for each one, but this works better. I looked at deploying them already in the cargo of a vehicle, but decided that would add some unecessary complications. Â First, it's only one more button click to deploy an empty vehicle, and then another to tell your group to get in. Here's a look at the menu:

Basically what I'm thinking is that you could select a vehicle, i.e. Truck or UH60, etc. and instead of clicking "Deploy Manned" you'd have an option to deploy it manned with the cargo full of AI. What I may do is create a squad menu whereby you can customize a squad to your exact liking up to a certain limit, i.e. 20 units per squad. So you'd enter the Customize Squad menu and select how many Riflemen, AT, AA, MG, Grenadiers, etc. you want in the squad and then save it to one of 2-4 custom slots. Then when you're deploying from barracks or whatever, you'd have the option to deploy one of your custom squads and have them board a vehicle of your choice. When you create the squad, it would still take as long as usual if you were deploying them one at a time, but it would be automatic. If you wanted them to paradrop to your location, then you could build a UH60 and have it fly over then make them eject, or have the pilot disembark. I'm also going to port my HALO script from OFP at some point so you can have AI HALO into territories in an orderly fashion. It's something I've been toying around with for a while, but I've had a lot of other junk on my plate. The other top item on my list is to fix up my old Weapons Loadout dialog so we don't have to worry about popping out ammo crates all over the place. Keep the ideas coming!

Sukhoi, this is why your team must constantly attack the enemy territories and resources. In RTS-3 and CTI where you earn money, halfway through the game, you normally have enough to build an army all your own. Â In RTS-4 you can cripple the enemy supply lines by destroying their refineries, and the results are instant--they cannot build certain units anymore. Think about it in terms of capcity. Â In RTS-3 and CTI you continually earn money so even if you lose some territories, you'll still have plenty of money to keep going. In RTS-4 you must concentrat all your offense on the enemy territories--not their base, at least not until you've beaten them down to 3 or less territories. Anyway, this mission is far more strategic than RTS-3 ever was, simply because it relies on a supply model. Â No longer can you run freely in a fast motorcycle or chopper to capture territories--instead you must do it with supply convoys. Â I think the depth works much better there. That said, yes, I agree the heavy jets and choppers should take longer to make. Â At the same time, human players can easily defend against them with 2 people and AA launchers in a strategic position. @Helltoupe - The forward bases do exactly what you want but better. I'll soon be adding in the ability to create a full squad + transportation so you can take them wherever you want. That would be virtually the same as what you're thinking because a forward base already spawns you deeper into enemy territory and you can build AI immediately after making one--in Beta02 at least.

Just because you strike out to take territories, etc. on your own doesn't mean you're a Rambo--I'm talking about someone who constantly builds choppers and tries to destroy the enemy base, etc without support but doesn't do a thing to help keep the team's territories. Some of it is hard to quantify anyway. RTS-3 had a system called XP - experience points that you earned for capping territories and other tasks to keep the war engine going, but I never implemented the rewards for it because I got burned out by version 1.52.

Yes, I'd like to come up with a sort of ranking system to display things like that at the outro. Player whose squad (including AI) captured most town, got the most kills, etc. Only problem is, I'm not sure if kills by AI are tracked without attaching killed EH's to everything. It could get too messy to track some of that stuff though. I would like to use something like that, however, to determine which players gain access to other features during the game. For example, your squad captures X number of towns, then you have the option to create independent squads like we spoke of above, or you gain ability to spawn an entire group in a short period of time, etc. Sort of to reward players who contribute to the team effort more than others. And the Rambos would get rewarded with more expensive vehicles and inability to build anything. ;P

Dwarden, it would be very difficult to keep the AI with their original orders since the moment a player disconnects, the new AI leader will usually begin to hand out orders immediately. The reason the unit markers go away is because that script is executed when each unit is made. I'm afraid I don't have a good method for solving that without changing the script to exec differently. I have considered a command system whereby a team commander can create AI, give them some patrol waypoints and then release them on their own. I'm afraid if I make that available to all team leaders then the server will be flooded with tons of independent AI and make the thing unplayable. Problem is, I have a lot of other stuff to edit not to mention real life to attend to, so it may suffer a wait on some of that.

D'oh. I forgot to put the "b" in the link. Link is now pointing to beta 2B.

I scripted RTS to allow for a third side to be plugged in later, but haven't made a decision if/when I'll implement it yet. There was a 3-way RTS-3 that MrZig and Korax patched together which worked fairly well. Â If a side lost their base, they became rogues without a base and spawned at random locations. Â It was interesting... BTW a 4-sided wouldn't work well since civilians are viewed as neutral to AI, and if you join them to another side, i.e. Resistance, then they would be friendly to that team. Also, you'll achieve rogue status from killing them. So Civ's just don't work well. BTW I updated RTS-4 to Beta02B along with several fixes/additions. Â You can see those and the new download link in the first post.