madrussian

Well done, very nice update. ^ This one in particular much needed / appreciated.

Awesome, how about I start with muting the actual sounds only, and go from there.

@Dedmen Good detective work! I do know my dad has onboard sound (not USB sound). Not at his place currently, but I'll check khz next time I'm over there. About unplugging/plugging in audio while playing... Are you saying this can sometimes cause immediate crash? Or rather set the stage for a subsequent crash? Also based on your analysis, do you suspect my dad's audio pipeline crashes in this case were related to the "IFA3 US tank sounds crashing" people are reporting? Let's pursue this! If you make a special version "to be able to see which magazine/ammo caused the crash" like you did for him, I'll run it and we can be sure. In the mean time I have two new crashes, these both in SP: Machine A in SP, running arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02 (renamed as arma3_x64.exe), launched from Launcher with BattleEye, running IFA3_LITE -> Crashed Machine A in SP, running arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02 (renamed as arma3_x64.exe), launched from Launcher with BattleEye, running mod of IFA3_LITE where I kept all IFA3 PBOs except a single PBO "ww2_core_f_rds_system_boltaction_f.pbo" (to see if this affected crashing on reload, per your description). -> No dice, still Crashed! ^ @Dedmen Can you check these latest two crashes and let us know if they are magazine reload related too? I'll PM you the link. I simply play my mission with certain IFA3 factions selected, and it virtually always crashes with 0xC0000005 STATUS ACCESS VIOLATION. Sometimes the sound freaks out just prior to crashing (like kju mentioned). Sometimes sound goes out completely 1st, then play like that for a while, then it crashes. Sometimes it simply crashes out of the blue without any noticeable interruption to sound. My crashing always involves IFA3. When I play with CUP, RHS, Unsung, OPTRE, vanilla, etc, I don't get the crash. (For the record my mission does require CBA, so that's always running in my tests.) Heavens yes! Happens virtually every time I play (with those IFA3 factions). My mission seems to be the key and a great asset for reproducing this. Seems like if we think outside the box enough, we should be able to solve it. I wish I could pin it down to a single command or similar, or otherwise simplify the procedure. Anyone can probably make it crash, by simply playing my mission with IFA3 and selecting the factions mentioned in 1st post. The tough part is they have to survive long enough for game to crash. Mission can be a bit difficult (or so I hear). I'm starting to wonder if the sound freakout is the crash actually happening or simply a symptom of the actual underlying crash mechanism. Again, repro approach is pretty simply. Play my mission with those IFA3 factions selected, survive long enough, and whammo it crashes (almost every time). In a way this is very good news, as we (finally?) have a way to reliably reproduce this crash. The bad news is my mission has many diverse systems and subsystems and uses hundreds and hundreds of unique commands. Here are the most promising things I think we should try next: Analyze latest two crashes and see if the are mag reload related as well. We may well be onto something there! If latest crashes are mag reload related, run special build which will reveal the crashing mag type, to see if it matches @Asmodeuz's mag type. I'm guessing "LIB_5Rnd_792x57" is the ammo for Germans' K98s, correct? (That's the only IFA3 5 round ammo I can think of.) Create a test addon that mutes all US tank weapon sounds and try running my mission with that addon (see if this eliminates crashing). [Recall that nickjoonyeonkim claimed that muting the tank cannon sounds completely resolved his crashing.] Create a test addon that mutes all US tank non-weapon sounds (engine, etc) and try running my mission with that addon (see if this eliminates crashing). @.kju Can you advise on which PBOs to look inside to mute these tank weapons & tanks themselves?

@VariousArtist Welcome back, good to see you gave it another go. 🙂 Sounds like maybe you like the concept, but are still finding things far too challenging. Based on everything you're saying, maybe set up your difficulty settings like this: Overall Enemy Power: Classic Enemy Soldier Deployment: Extra Relaxed Enemy Attack Vehicle Deployment: Extra Relaxed Enemy Minimum Power Timer: Extra Relaxed (70 min) Allow Enemy Armed Transports: Off Extra Lives Awarded: 2 Enlist Fighters Awarded: 1 scaling upward to 2 Allow Player Targeted Bombing: On ^ In the next update I plan on adding relaxed setting(s) for "Overall Enemy Power" too. ^ Please note, the "Allow Enemy Armed Transports" option is a bit bugged currently. Picking "Off" should turn armed transports off completely but currently only delays them by 15 minutes. Sorry for that! I fixed this in the upcoming update. Also added options to delay armed transports by up to 40 minutes (up from 15). Trust me, play with CUP or better yet RHS units first. I developed this mostly using CUP, RHS, and IFA3. I hardly ever play vanilla, mostly just because I like playing with these mods. But I'm keenly aware of just how much more difficult playing this mission with vanilla is. And again trust me, vanilla is far tougher! Like night and day tougher. Plus this may also be exacerbated by "Allow Enemy Armed Transports" OFF option being bugged currently (see above) (as it probably disproportionately affects vanilla vehicles). Vanilla vehicles are particularly super vicious, and unfortunately I didn't really balance the mission difficulty with vanilla vehicles in mind. I recommend only taking the men you can fit in your given vehicle. Release the other guys into their own group and order them via map control from there. <- This is actually a great strategy, as it keeps you super mobile (and eliminates distraction from those extra guys yelling "where are you?" as you drive off, etc). More importantly, if your squad gets wiped out you've got some fall-back guys. Old hints about this (previously inside a spoiler): ^ And yes, you will have to hustle no matter what. 🙃 To win, most of the time you will have to complete at least 4 of the 5 Major Objectives, simply because you'll need that much man-power to succeed. Sometimes if I'm playing like a mad banshee, I can win only completing 2 or 3, but that's usually pretty tough. The good news is, you have direct control over when the base defense will trigger. As long as your side controls at least one flag, your base will remain hidden. A good strategy is to alternate between completing Major Objectives and taking back flags. This will keep the enemy off balance as they traipse back across the map towards the flags you just took. Meanwhile you have moved on and wiped a bunch of them out somewhere else & taken another flag. Make sure you order your Green groups into key positions as soon as you get them. <- Not doing this will put you way way behind! Quite often, I order the Green guys to advance on more than one enemy controlled flag (in sequence), so they help tie up the enemy and again hopefully put enemy off balance by taking a flag or two. At the end of their WP sequence (after the flags they are suppose to take) I make their last WP somewhere safe (as opposed to guarding a flag), so they will be ready for more orders should they survive. Only leave them guarding a flag if it's surrounded with buildings or similar. Is this mission hard? You bet! Anyhow, think of this as the ultimate squad control trainer, and use the provided MRU Squad commands. Keep at it and you will become a cool calculating squad controlling enemy killing machine.

Many thanks Dedmen for the analysis so far. 🙂 We played one more session tonight with a similar setup, and both clients crashed (first my main PC, then my dad's perhaps 8-10 minutes later). Mind checking these too? Again had 3 machines running. Two Clients, one DS. Ran the clients from launcher and used BatteEye this time to try to make crash happen faster, and seems it did. Details: Machine A = Client, running arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02 (renamed as arma3_x64.exe), launched from Launcher with BattleEye Machine B = Client, running arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02 (renamed as arma3_x64.exe), launched from Launcher with BattleEye Machine C = DS, running arma3server_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02.exe (renamed as arma3server_x64.exe), launched from bat file (no launcher) with BattleEye turned on (via BattlEye = 1; in server.cfg) OK, I uploaded both new sets of crash files. I'll send you the new crash link info via PM again. Hoping we can get to the bottom of this!

OK, it took a bit but got a good crash for you on arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02. Was having a bit of trouble getting it to crash in SP, so my dad and I fired up MP game and it crashed fairly quickly. Here's specifically what I did (so hopefully there won't be any confusion): Had 3 machines running. Two Clients, one DS: Machine A = Client, running arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02 (renamed as arma3_x64.exe), launched from bat file (no launcher) & no BattleEye Machine B = Client, running arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02 (renamed as arma3_x64.exe), launched from bat file (no launcher) & no BattleEye Machine C = DS, running arma3server_x64_profiling_194_145986_v02.exe (renamed as arma3server_x64.exe), launched from bat file (no launcher) & no BattleEye We played a couple times and lost, then on 3rd run Machine B (in this case my dad's PC) crashed with 0xC0000005 STATUS ACCESS VIOLATION (per status quo). (Note- I noticed that when game crashes after being launched from bat file, you don't get the windows pop-up error upon crash saying "0xC0000005 STATUS ACCESS VIOLATION". I had to look inside the rpt to verify the type of crash, which was indeed "C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION". Also note time of the 3 crash files matched the time of the crash.) @Dedmen, I uploaded the latest crash file set (per description above). Please check PM for link, hope you find something & please let us know what you uncover! @Dwarden, I hope to produce this crash on arma3client_x64_profiling_194_145999_v03 in the next few days. Please stay tuned. Thanks for looking into this guys. 🙂 Also noticed a few things while testing this: When launching from batch file, crash still happens but seems like you get to play for a lot longer before it does. (Hence I was having trouble getting it to crash quickly in SP.) When playing without BattleEye, everything seems way smoother & more responsive. Never tried this until very recently. I really like playing this way! Once it crashes, simply restarting A3 and playing again seems to result in fairly quick additional crashes on that particular PC. Only reboot of PC that crashed seems to reset the quick(er) crashing.

Good deal, all that makes sense. Ok I'm willing to swap out exes or whatever is necessary. But before I try that (which I've never done before)... quick question: Assuming I'm looking to make it crash again in SP (which should be pretty easy at this point, as repeatable as this crash is)... I just changed back to the "profiling - Performance Profiling Build" option, and noticed for the first time a file called "arma3profiling_x64.exe" in my Arma 3 dir. It is dated with today's date and time, indicating it was just downloaded. Is this the latest "profiling" exe and can I simply run from here? -OR- Do I really need the exe from dropbox instead? [If so will need a bit of help knowing which file to choose from dropbox and which file to (temporarily) replace & run in Arma 3 dir, so we can avoid another disconnect.] Thanks again.

OK let's get it sorted out. So I ran this on Aug 7, 2019. "RemoteDS" tells me I was running a DS game on two different machines. In this case, one machine was the client and the other was the server. (I have a number of other crash file sets I marked "LocalDS". In those cases, one machine ran both client and server.) For this particular crash (080719_1_RemoteDS_ServerCrash, the one you have before you): To get to profiling branch, on both client and server machines, I did this: Opened Steam, right clicked on Arma 3, selected Properties. In resulting "Arma 3 Properties" window, opened BETAs tab, and entered beta access code "CautionSpecialProfilingAndTestingBranchArma3" (which I got on here on Arma 3 "Steam Branches" page). This resulted in new "profiling - Performance Profiling Build" option, which I selected. Watched Steam do it's downloading of new Arma 3 version. Waited until the downloading was complete. Left BETAS tab, then checked BETAS tab again and verified "profiling - Performance Profiling Build" was selected. To launch Arma 3 on Server machine, I did this: (Note I have several copies of Arma 3 on several different Steam accounts.) Opened Arma 3 Launcher. On Launcher's Parameters tab, selected "Server" option. Pressed the Play button. On Server Window (the small DS window), verified game version (in window's title bar). It appeared to match what Dwarden had asked for. To launch Arma 3 on Client machine (a separate machine & Steam account), I did this: Opened Arma 3 Launcher. On Launcher's Parameters tab, deselected "Server" option. Pressed the Play button. On main game screen, verified game version (in lower right-hand corner). It appeared to match what Dwarden had asked for. ^ This is always how I run my DS (again possible b/c I have multiple copies of the game). Then on client machine, I joined server machine's game, played my mission, and got the crash. This time the Server crashed. Then on server machine, I collected the crash files and zipped them up for you. Hoping that explains things. Do you have a usable "profiling" set of crash files? Anything else I can do to help? Again, I would genuinely like to solve this (and not just for my own sake, as others are affected as well). Thanks again @Dedmen and company for your help. 🙂 Edit: Also if it will help to simplify things, I can easily just run the "profiling - Performance Profiling Build" in SP, get the crash, and submit those crash files.

Good deal, very curious what you find. 🙏 I added the Profiling Branch crash files to the same folder at the link I provided originally (back when Dwarden requested). Look for "Crashes_Machine_2_Profiling_1.94.145986.7z". OK, sending you the link via PM again just in case. If you guys need any more sets of crash files, they are very easy to whip up. Just ask and you shall receive. 🙂

Thanks for the reports of this crash. It's encouraging to hear people are experiencing IFA3 tank sound related crashes, though I feel for you guys. I'm familiar with JSRS, but I've not tried it personally. My mission however does use radioChannelCreate and customChat (both on a regular basis) to mimic sideChat and groupChat, so that IFA3 units can receive these messages too (IFA3 units being radio-less).

Hi all, still getting this crash and I've tried everything I can think of. At this point I've generated probably over 100-150 crashes trying different things. Good deal. Yes, I've come to this conclusion as well. The crash only happens when playing with IFA3 vehicles. Thankfully, it's super repeatable when playing my mission though. We should be able to get to the bottom of this! For me, it happens on all 4 PCs I have access to (my 3 PCs plus my dad's), and all these PCs have updated drivers (inc video, sound, chipset, etc). (Even re-installed Windows, Steam, and A3 on one of these machines and crash still happens. And btw - All these PCs have unique hardware, as I built each one years apart.) Game crashes virtually every time, whether I'm playing in SP, HS, or DS. In MP games, sometimes it's a client (or more than one clients crashing closely together), and sometimes it's the server. Often the sound freaks out (1980s modem-style) or goes out completely shortly before the crash. Only crashes when I have IFA3 US armored vehicles selected. <- 99% sure of this aspect. This includes variants of these US vehicles, including the Shermans found on the Russian side. Good find, ok here's the claim from that thread: I would like to test this in two ways: 1. Create a test mission with a bunch of US tanks. Without moving any tanks, fire the main cannons a bunch and see if it crashes. I'll try this and report back. 2. Create an addon that replaces these cannon sounds with vanilla sounds. Play my mission and see if it crashes. @.kju Would you kindly point me to which addon I should look in to modify/eliminate these sounds? Btw - Kju has been super helpful via PM and IFA3 discord trying to help sort this out. Many thanks! @Dedmen and @Dwarden Thanks for looking into this. @Dwarden Per your PM request, I made it crash using the Profiling Branch (1.94.145986) and uploaded those crash files too, and sent you the link (some time ago). Curious what you guys found? I'm 100% sure there is a bug to be found/fixed here. Really hoping we can solve it (because it's greatly affecting my game experience atm, starting to moderately sap my A3 creativity, etc), thanks! 🙂

So I wrote an AI bombing script, using bombers to hit moving ground targets. The bombers' waypoints are updated dynamically. Most of the time the AI responds well enough flies the planes to their waypoints and drop their bombs at the right times, hit their targets, etc and everything looks great. However, often enough the AI does not keep up with the waypoint's position updating, and these AI fail to turn their planes in time (for whatever reason). Sometimes the AI is actually way behind, and don't really turn / fly towards their waypoints, which results in the planes being out of position and the bombs appearing to be "flung" towards their targets (which doesn't look good). So I started using the addTorque command to torque the planes a bit (to simulate the AI turning correctly). This completely fixes the issue, makes everything look perfect, and I'm very happy with the result! The bad news is that the addTorque command does not work on planes from mods. Specifically, every CUP plane I tried and every IFA3 plane I tried. (Just tried a handful from each.) I was curious if this issue had something to do with mass (or lack thereof). So I checked mass via getMass command. Turns out vanilla planes do have mass but mod planes do NOT have mass (getMass returns zero). I figured I'd simply give mod planes mass via setMass and try addTorque again. So now the mod planes have mass but still do not respond at all to addTorque. Also checked and the mod planes don't respond to addForce either (where as the vanilla planes do respond to addForce). Anyone know what's going on with addTorque and addForce on mod planes (why they have no effect)? Any idea how to get these two commands working with mod planes? (Btw- I welcome any and all help, even simply things I may have missed, thanks!)

Roger that, I uploaded a whopping 36 sets of crash files to my Google Drive (all caused by this same issue as far as I can tell). Sent you the link via PM. (Btw - I don't see where to create report in Arma Launcher, but regardless some of my crash files were from before I reinstalled Windows and A3, so I uploaded all of them.) Thanks, hope you guys can fix it. 🙂

Wow, good thing it was your hand and not your skull. Even playing on computer has gotta be tough too, which also sucks. Anyhow, I wish you a speedy recover & well deserved break.

Oh man that sucks! How'd you injure it?

@.kju Good deal, I will disable those and give it a go. Only thing is... I took a quick look though and I don't have "ww2_core_c_eventhandlers.pbo", either in @IFA3_AIO_LITE\addons or @IFA3_LITE\addons. In both those folders, the files present skip from "ww2_core_c_ca_cutsceneanimations_c.pbo" to "ww2_core_c_i44_animation_c.pbo". In fact, did a search within File Explorer (in both dirs) on "eventhandler" and it comes back with "No items match your search". Should that file be in there?

I hope you can get out of your A3 drought (you mentioned on PM), if hasn't happened already. I get the exact same feeling sometimes and leave for a while, but just like you were saying something clicks and I always come back and everything is fresh again! Maybe Contact release is just the ticket. 👽 Good deal, for A3 board game idea I bet you in particular have some great ideas when the time comes. 🙂 Once I solve this crazy 0xC0000005 Status Access Violation I'm getting, ready to dive back into finishing our conquest of building interior mapping! Hopefully we can get that working like a well-oiled dream-worthy A4 prototype. Then onto my crazy meta map idea. Wish I could clone myself about 15 times. Btw - Curious, anyone playing with high resolutions (higher than 1920x1080) getting that error while playing this mission with certain IFA3 factions? Awesome, thanks for playing. Nice to be mentioned in the company of such well crafted missions. OK just to clarify, there are two Civ-related objectives: "Save Captives": The civs should be safe until you or your friendly forces approach their enemy captors. There are a handful of things that get the captors shooting the civs and a handful of things that get the civs running. This was a careful balancing act, and the result is it's usually best for players to try and complete this obj themselves, rather than simply order friendly AI in via map. Unless you have lots of friendly AI to order in, and in that case try and order them so they all arrive at the same time. "Assist the Colonists": Usually a pretty easy objective, provided you get there in time (and importantly after enlisting, release them from your group, and order them to head to home base). But be advised, currently these civs are 100% vulnerable from the very beginning. So based on where the colonists are located, players should weigh priority of this obj as compared to the other Major Objs. If the colonists are near the enemies spawn area or potentially along one of the enemies main routes, you'll probably want to go rescue them sooner. ^ Regarding "Assist the Colonists", currently seems there are perhaps edge cases where there is simply no possibility for players to rescue the colonists (in which case even if players hop in vehicle immediately and make a B-line, etc, they still won't get there in time). Ok, I have added to my ToDo list making colonist safe for perhaps 5-10 minutes, so players always have an opportunity to save em.

Way to go guys, well done! 👻 Now try racketing things (settings) up a peg or two and give it another go. (Also for added fun try in different eras, like with Unsung or OPTRE.) Now that you've got the hang of it, I bet you can start winning again and again. Good deal! Yeah, think of like a squad control trainer. The more you play, the better you'll get at commanding those AI. Especially if you make use of the voiced "MRU Squad Command" quick-keys (which I really should make into a stand-alone system). Yes the enemy "raising up" the flags is intentional. I do this to maximize mission dynamics. Notice how player's perception of the battlefield shifts every time a new flag pops up on the map. Things would be quite static & dull if all the flags were marked/capture-able from the get-go. Quick tip on taking back flags - Get close enough to an enemy flag (while hidden if possible) to see if infantry or vehic is guarding. Then if you have appropriate strike supports, use them to quickly eliminate those enemy, so hopefully you don't even have to fight them. Sometimes, you can take back two or more flags in a row this way, as taking back each flag gives you a new support! Also sometimes you may want to release an AI or two from your group to guard the newly taken flag, as you move on to do more conquering. I completely agree. It's pretty sad, but I still have high hopes for ArmA 4. (And yeah I've been duped a time or two before, haha.) At a absolute minimum, I hope BIS will address the AI by opening up the AI mechanics completely to the mod community. Here, think of armored vehicles as something to avoid / run away from, especially early on. You can often win without even fighting them, just by hustling! A few more quick tips regarding enemy armor (not just for you froggy, as you've played a bunch and likely know most of this already): Let go of any completionist feelings that you have to destroy every enemy asset here. Your mission is simply to smash the enemy until they retreat. There are effective and ineffective ways of doing this. In general, detect and avoid those armored vehicles. Keep your vehicle in good condition, and keep it well hidden when you park to get out, so you can always move fluidly from point to point. Importantly always mark your vehicle on the map when you get out, so you can find it again. Whenever you're driving and think you hear enemy armor, you can instantly be sure by simply cutting your engine briefly. Focus on the Major Objectives early on because that's what will get your army marching (and as these objs are not guarded by enemy vehicles) and move with haste. Also once your army is on the move, all those friendly AI troops out there will often slow down the enemy armor, sometimes even panicking the enemy armor (even if your boys ultimately get cut down by it). Keep your base hidden and keep the enemy off balance by taking back flags as you go, using your gained strike supports to quickly wipe out the enemy forces guarding those flags. In this mission, your speed will ultimately save your own life and the lives of your men. Here, you have to fight quickly and fight hard. You have plenty of time, provided you keep hitting them, winning small victories here and there. But in the end time is not on your side, and if you wait too long the enemy will come crashing down on your doorstep. Finally once you get the hang of it and everything clicks, you will be a well-oiled squad control machine, and you should be able to string together a series of stunning victories! Btw- My long term vision for this mission is something with a Meta-Map and Turn-Based component as well, like in the Total War series. Here's my prototype: ^ Picture a bunch of Troop and Vehicle Icons that you order around (and Factory icons), like in Axis and Allies. This results in a handful of Battle Icons that pop up, and you resolve those battles in Real-Time (each battle somewhat similar to the current mission). So mission alternates between Turn-Based and Real-Time. Capture Territory to gain Resources, which keep your Factories humming along, building you more war assets. Order Strategic Bombing Raids on enemy Factories, attempting to cripple their economy. Protect your own Factories by building AAs defenses, etc. Control so many Victory Cities and you achieve Total Victory. (You definitely don't have to take over the whole map, which would be tedious.) Of course the enemy AI side(s) (possibly optionally controlled by other players) can capture Territory and Victory Cities too, and defeat you!

Awesome, good to hear you guys are having fun & nice reports. 🙂 OK, for those curious here's the basic formula I'm using to dispense new enemy troops + attack vehicles to the battlefield: First, all enemy attack vehicle assets are divided into 3 categories: Armed Cars and MRAPs APCs and IFVs Tanks and AAs Enemy gets 5-6 vehicles in each category and the whole mix is shuffled. These vehicles go into the enemy's Reserve (not yet present on the battlefield). Enemy starts with one troop transport (truck) filled with men, and zero attack vehicles (of any kind). That truck is already headed somewhere to a random destination to unload its troops. Then on a cycle (based on your "Enemy Soldier Deployment") setting, more troop transports enter the Area of Operations (AO). Here are the main cycle delays: Classic = 425 seconds + (random 200) Relaxed = 445 seconds + (random 200) Extra Relaxed = 465 seconds + (random 200) So on "Classic", every 8 minutes and 45 seconds (on average), enemy dispenses another truckload of men. On "Extra Relaxed", every 9 minutes and 25 seconds (on average), enemy dispenses another truckload of men. <- That's the Main Cycle part. Enemy Attack Vehicles are dispensed in conjunction with the Main Cycle, as follows. Enemy has a Vehicle Progress value that starts at 0, and at each Main Cycle, enemy adds to its Vehicle Progress like this (based on your "Enemy Vehicle Deployment" setting): Classic = 0.73 + (random 0.24) Relaxed = 0.65 + (random 0.22) Extra Relaxed = 0.58 + (random 0.2) Every time enemy's Vehicle Progress passes 1.0, a random enemy attack vehicle is unleashed (along with that Main Cycle's regular truck / truckload of men). So if you are playing "Classic", the enemy will send an attack vehicle in conjunction with ~ 8 of 10 Main Cycles. If you are playing "Relaxed", the enemy will send an attack vehicle in conjunction with ~ 7 of 10 Main Cycles. If you are playing "Extra Relaxed", the enemy will send an attack vehicle in conjunction with ~ 6 of 10 Main Cycles. Thus, note that technically enemy attack vehicle deployment rate is affected by both "Enemy Soldier Deployment" and "Enemy Vehicle Deployment" settings. Whereas enemy troop transport deployment rate is affected only by "Enemy Soldier Deployment" setting. I do appreciate your comments about "too much enemy armor", etc. If we do the math here, I must say it seems highly unlikely though to meet up with two T72s in the first 15 minutes. Recall (from above), the enemy starts with 0 attack vehicles, after avg 8 minutes and 45 seconds enemy gets 1st attack vehicle, and after another avg 8 minutes and 45 seconds enemy gets 2nd attack vehicle. And as only 1/6 enemy attack vehicles should be tanks (or 1/3 enemy attack vehicles should be tanks if enemy has no access to AAs). Then those attack vehicles have to travel to their destination which may or may not be where you are or are headed to. I believe you, just struggling to understand / explain it! Anyhow, maybe put both enemy deployment rate settings on "Extra Relaxed" and see how it goes? OK, the colored portion indicates enemies actual presence on the battlefield (aka spawned live enemies). This can go up as the enemy deploys more forces to the battlefield, and down as you slaughter enemy and destroy / knock out their vehicles. The numbered portion is their Overall Power, both on and off the battlefield. This number only goes down, never up. Regarding how the Overall Power went down by 20 points all at once (due to your helicopters wiping out tanks) but "MIGHY" not going lower. My guess is you were entering the "end game" portion of the mission, which kicks in on a cos curve near the end of 60, 65, or 70 minutes (based on your "Enemy Minimum Power Timer" setting). This mechanic basically ensures players get an exhilarating end game, by establishing a minimum power the enemy will have fielded (again which increases the longer you've been playing). So your helicopters were killing them, and new enemy guys & vehics were showing up as reinforcements (on a truncated cycle) to replace them. If your helicopter strike happened earlier in the mission, that "MIGHY" would have gone down and stayed down for a while. @Godis_1 You are the first I've heard from (outside my immediate family) to beat this mission. Well done!

Hi, glad you guys like it. 🙂 I agree, base is pretty basic looking at first, but keep playing and watch what happens: Every time you complete a Major Objective, more and more Home Guard (AI) will move in to defend it. Bring the Colonists home, and they will build a small camp. Get the enemy supply truck home, and the supplies will automatically be off-loaded and accessible (“made available” by the Home Guard). Of course you have to defend your base from the enemy. Once the enemy finds your home base, the Home Guard will release a 2nd set of supplies, appearing in those same supply crates (provided you stole them from enemy and brought them home). On my ToDo list, is having the Home Guard automatically build some ad-hoc defenses, kind of like the camp the Colonists build. Good to hear you are finding my squad command system useful. For me it streamlines vanilla squad command by ~300%, and when it’s gone I miss it dearly. It uses CBA’s keybinding capability, and to make it show up outside the mission, would need to make as a stand-alone addon. If there is enough interest, sure I’d like to release this system separately. There are two different ways: Hover over the WP you want to delete, then hold “ctrl” key and right click. Set up “Add Waypoint”, “Delete Waypoint”, and “Clear All Waypoints” keystrokes. Then hover on the WP you want to delete and press the “Delete Waypoint” key. Turns out, the enemy enter the Area of Operations and advance, independent of you completing (or failing to complete) any objectives. Your only impact on them is (hopefully) to stop them! Very rarely, depending on how your base, the enemy spawn area, and all the flags in the AO are located, the enemy can come through your base while it is hidden. This will not impact your base's “hidden” status. The only way the enemy can “find” your base is by raising up and holding 5 flags. If you manage to hold at least one of these (non-base) flags, your base will remain hidden indefinitely, safe from takeover. ^ Considering how these mechanics work: I recommend trying to complete your Major Objectives quickly to get your friendly force numbers up, ordering your Green groups and Armors into key positions the moment you get them, and taking back flags as you go. This will keep the enemy off balance, and also earn you extra Supports (which will help tremendously in taking back those flags). Based on the "limited lives" and limited number of enlistable fighters out there, mission becomes far more difficult with >4 players. I hope to eventually include a Death Cam (Spectator) and Return to Play option, which will make larger number of players more feasible. Would work something like this: If player dies with no lives remaining (or no unit to take over as), he enters death cam and can spectate (watch the living players). Then if a living player enlists some new AI fighters, the dead spectating player has the option to take over as one of the new AI fighters (aka "return to play"). OK, so for now how about we make a deal. Win it with 4 players, then we’ll talk about increasing to 6 or more. In reality, if anyone really wants to increase player number beyond 4 (prior to addition of death cam / spectator): Quick Tip of the Day #2: Save big time, by sending the Colonists and Enemy Supply Truck home in their own groups. Don't escort the Colonists back to base personally, or drive the supply truck home yourself. Let the AI walk and drive themselves! To do this, use the "Release" commands to create Teal groups which you then control via the map. For the Supply Truck, first order your a squad AI guy in as driver (just him). When sending units home, use "Release (Hold Fire)". Released Colonists groups will be labeled "Colonists", and released Supply Truck groups will be labelled "Supply Truck", to help you keep it all straight. (Note - Only drive the supply truck yourself when you absolutely have to, like when your base is the middle of the woods.)

Update (July 2019) Based on feedback, added a bunch of difficulty options (now on their own page). You can now slow the enemy advance significantly, delay or disable the enemy's armed transports, give yourself more Extra Lives per Enlist Fighters objs completed, give yourself more Enlistable Fighters per Major Objective completed, and more! ^ Thanks [GS] Danny for helping me brainstorm these options! Hopefully everyone can make events out on the battlefield super manageable & fun now, no matter your skill level. Please let me know if all these new options go far enough. I am definitely listening and open to ideas for improvement. 🙂 Quick hints for those who still chance upon an enemy armored vehicle before they are equipped to handle it, which can happen (but should be much less likely with the new "Relaxed" and "Extra Relaxed" settings): In other news, based on positive MP feedback: I enabled 4 players on all terrains! When playing with 3 or more players, I strongly recommend increasing your "Extra Lives Awarded" and "Enlist Fighters Awarded" settings (as shown above). I also enabled Debug Console for Hosts (and logged-in Admins), to provide more flexibility while playing. That's it for now. Have fun playing if you have any ideas for improvement, your feedback is most welcome.

Wanted to bring a serious issue I'm experiencing to your attention. When playing my dynamic mission with IFA3 factions selected (with only IFA3 loaded), I've been plagued with 0xC0000005 STATUS ACCESS VIOLATION (which crashes the game on the server) for a few weeks now. I have this issue on all my PCs (my 3 PCs + my dad's PC), so it's not PC/installation specific. Today, I finally pinned down the source of the problem! When "LIB_US_M3_Halftrack" is among the vehicles the enemy has access to, the game will virtually always crash (~85% of the time) at one point or another during the playthrough. When this vehicle type is NOT present, the game won't crash and mission will run to completion. Here'e the interesting bit. If I use "LIB_US_M3_Halftrack_w" (the winter version) instead of "LIB_US_M3_Halftrack", the game will not crash. Curious why the crash (and what's different about these two vehicle types, other than the texture)? Btw - I've got the crash files (rpt, bidmp, & mdmp) for my most recent 3 crashes, if you guys want to see em.

Hey thanks for the feedback. I made it for myself and I kinda figured it wouldn't be for everyone. Quick advise. Sounds like you maybe just had a couple of unlucky runs (wrong place at the wrong time). First off: At some point, you will encounter enemy attack vehicles, and some of them will be armored. The enemy starts out with 0 and can build up to a max of 6, but it takes them quite a long time to do it. You won't always have AT weapons, but there are plenty of ways to counter armor. First off, when you complete Major Objectives, you'll get supports including lots of Bombers which can be targeted to hit enemy vehicles. You can also gain supports by taking back flags. Remember you are a resistance force, so you'll need to adopt "hit and run" tactics. I regularly avoid enemy vehicles and hit the enemy somewhere else, unless I've got something to take them out. Btw- None of the Major Objectives are guarded by anything other than foot soldiers. Also, there should be plenty of AT weapons to take off dead enemy soldiers, as I upped the ratio of AT enemy soldiers to non AT enemy soldiers (to help give you a fighting chance against armor). One more thing to think about. The enemy transports are normally unarmed trucks, but about 25% of the time these unarmed trucks get replaced with whatever armed transports are available. If the Nyx is a troop carrier, that might help explain things on your (unlucky?) runs. Anyhow, I could always make the "armed transports" bit optional if people want. Anyhow, my 8 year old nephew (and 73 year old dad) and I can beat it in co-op regularly, so it's not impossible or anything! And sometimes they can win it without me. Btw- We get our asses shot off plenty too, but we always have a good time!

@johnnyboy Back from a bit of (unplugged) Florida mini-vacation. Of course by Rouge-Like I mean perma-death survival games rooted in those classic ASCII dungeon-crawlers like Nethack and Rogue, or in modern times the huge explosion of such semi-random perma-death games spanning many genres like Spelunky, Neo Scavenger, Nuclear Throne, etc.

@Godis_1 Thanks for the kind words. 🙂 Yes, saving is disabled by design (currently), but I think I should be able to re-enable it again. Let me run some tests and get back with you. (I'm using numerous instances of disableSerialization, so I don't want to break anything by re-enabling saving without checking everything thoroughly first.) As mentioned, play time is usually less than 50 min (so hopefully not too big a deal for now). Btw – Curious, what terrain/factions are you playing with and how are you and your men faring? (That question is for everyone playing!) Also if anyone has questions about anything (and doesn't want to read my giant wall of text right off the bat etc), please ask away. I'll do my best to answer.