Trapper

#4 Other There could be a relative realistic approach, which requires much thought of the creator the longer the campaign is and the more detailed characters are involved. But it would create a subtle way of punishment for bad player performance. if !alive characterX then {remove characterX from outro} if !alive characterX for the first time and alive characterY then {characterY comment on characterX's death after main outro} if !alive characterX for the first time and !alive characterY then {player comment on characterX's death after main outro} if regular army and connected supply lines then {reinforce characterX by anonymous new guy which won't do much of talking anymore or just say anonymous trivial lines every now and then} if impossible to reinforce then {don't} if !alive more and more of story comrades then {their required cut scene lines will be told in a sad kind of diary monologues by the growing lonely player; more trivial lines just vanish with them} Overall the story script could easily become the real heart of the campaign project. You would have to use the real campaign structure to assist you, not a big single mission. Passing character status variables from mission to mission. It would offer Y-links to mission versions a) or b) adapting to character's death if you like. That would even allow you to let the player run into a campaign dead end when e.g. his only pilot died three missions before because the player could change history by reverting the campaign to the mission to keep his pilot alive this time.

Hi, I'm playing V1.6 and there's a show stopper when arriving at Jaegorov's house. Kosta gets off to ring the bell and Yuri and Pavel run to the hillside, after 50m they'll all run back to the place of the last conversation. Then nothing happens. Tried it a second time without additional addons, still not working.

You can change all things like that in the difficulty settings.

I don't want ArmA to be Steam exclusive. Has anybody who's talking about "owning" over hundred Steam games ever read the EULA? We pay up to retail prices for just subscriptions.

Does that mean you're using a BIS mission template? It's probably featuring a HOLD waypoint, which forces an ai group to behave like you say.There's really that second script/macro stage of ai, which shows how much tactical thought went into a mission. All those randomly generated missions of any kind will more or less lack in this point of mission design. Why don't you give the mission editor a try yourself? ;)

If they run out of money before the game is polished they should release a official lite beta test for download on Sprocket this time. Some Desert Island and units with new functions would do for testing them. I guess there are customers for 5 bucks. And those could do bug reports for a more polished release later.

You're able to download more than once from your Sprocket account. The two DLCs require an online activation after installation, which is also possible more than once.

Sprocket won't let you manage your games like the steam client. Downloading, installing and activating is done by yourself. Afterwards you've got an installation like from a disc. And you can backup the installer and cd key for later. How it works: http://www.sprocketidea.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19&Itemid=43 Overall patching ArmA2 without being a Steam customer should be more sound. You won't have to rely on steam to update Arma2 with some time delay after a patch release. You'll just go here pick the latest patch file for your installation and run it. (And by now it's always the latest patch you'll need, not all the previous ones together.)

As you are very concerned about prices Carlos, I would like to discourage you from buying the game/any game on Steam. When you read their license agreement carefully, you'll see that you won't ever own any of the games you pay for. And you'll agree that Steam is free e.g. to charge a fee for accessing your game library should they ever want to do that in future. When it comes to downloading Arma2, Sprocket is definitely the better idea. And buying it on discs is perfect.

That would be for COOP then I think. While the realism would be higher, there's something else you could become sick of: ArmA multiplayer is practically based on custom missions (beside the original COOP campaings) with a bias to COOP. PvP is a little less common. If you want to play serious and not just on public servers you could already look for a squad of your favour: http://forums.bistudio.com/forumdisplay.php?f=90

I can't really tell you if the Steam offline mode would work with ArmA2. PS: Oh but if you don't own Arma2 in Steam you won't be able to create a "CombinedOperations" installation AFAIK. But you can also buy&download on http://www.sprocketidea.com/joomla/ without using Steam at all. Or just buy the games on disc? For sure ArmA2 is not a game requiring Steam, it became just another store to publish it after a while.

Man you're right. Looks like BIS is about to do the next faux pas in publishing this great game by releasing every kind of stand-alone packs where even veteran players can't tell how they'll will be compatible to each other. Your selection would be the latest DLCs combined to a stand alone ArmA2 Version. This would probably leave you missing most of the community releases and mp as they are made by veteran players and will often rely on the "base" game islands/units. So in contrary to any suggestions let me tell you the title history to my knowledge: ArmA2 ArmA2 Operation Arrowhead Stand-Alone (Engine improvements, Campaign, Islands, Units for desert warfare. Can be mixed up with an existing installation of ArmA2 to ArmA2 Combined Operations) DLC British Armed Forces for Arrowhead (Small Campaign, small island, BAF Units) DLC Private Military Contractors for Arrowhead (Small Campaign, small hi-def island, PMC Units) Both DLCs are not required for multiplayer or user missions, as they are patched for free into the game with the low quality textures you already know from Arma2 free.

I see, without a story to be based on, the map tools have to be the only/primary focus. Still there's good news in my eyes: The example mission like it is by now, will run without ACE mod. The only inconvenience are the missing map tools and an error message on start up. So there's no obstacle for guys like me who just want to get a taste without addons at first.

Yes, "engage at will" order is persistent until you order disengage. Most of the time I avoid giving this order. It's the opposite of controlled fire and unit movement in formation. Your units will abandon formation one by one to hunt down enemies on their own as soon as they become aware of any. Relying on their AI wits :P Cartier, what you're missing are other communications with your AI sniper: Reveal at least the desired target to them by either just keeping your binoculars/cross hair on it for a while or by combining that with holding RMB (depends on difficulty settings). A proper reveal is acknowledged by your own character calling out the target over radio. Only after somebody of your squad named an enemy, all your AIs are aware of it. And that would be the moment your sniper will fire at the target if your squad formation is in the engagement range, programmed for his weapon. "Fire at will" is just the opposite of "Hold Fire" and always set when your squad members are not crossed out in red. You could have a look at the Biki for all those AI commands.

So finally I've found the time, installed ACE, viewed some map tool tutorial videos and decided to... ...have a slightly different approach to proof myself something about unnecessary addon requirements in missions. ;) I've probably made beneficial use of the bigger compass with ACE but didn't touch the ACE map tool, nor did i draw ACE lines on the map. I've used my model's world orientation to rotate the compass and/or placed it roughly on a map location to guess a bearing when needed. Then I lined up the side/ruler of the compass as needed and created a few regular arma2 map markers (double click; arrow keys to change symbol). For distances I've expected a map grid to be about 100m. I did one mistake and missed an intersection in my own route plot because of misidentifying landmarks in the forest area below CP3. When I looked around, I saw my expected location with the flag to be 200m to the east of me. There would be a scripted way to make use of the tiny Arma2 compass: Onmapsingleclick or a radio command in combination with a small dialog to enter a degree value. Which will then rotate the player model instantly and the map compass accordingly. It's important to attract more players with an addon free yet ACE compatible mission. Later on some pro will play it with ACE to use the better map tool, and others will follow but still the mission shouldn't have to require it in the first place. PS: I see my results are asking for using the right tools :D That and my rookie navigation skills. PPS: And shouldn't be there something like measured steps for precise movement? Or is this just something impractical that I was taught when moving planed distances precisely?

Don't give up on it. It's just now that you've discovered how important regular backups of your personal files are. A simple DVD-R or USB-stick will be fine.

Also "safe" isn't "careless" which is editor only. It will change to "combat" automatically whenever the ai expects enemy contact by itself. Though of course the ai isn't as prepared but it was walking what you were asking for.

You should update your first post with the download link to your latest mission version and status updates for more publicity. Also ofpec.com could be a good place for testing an innovative mission and editing questions. (e.g. if there could be a way to achieve your goal without addon requirements) Didn't have a chance to test your mission myself by now.

Did I know about this robot because of a previous post by walker? I can't remember :) Sooner or later the most important task for this machine will be to mobilize itself and insist on it's autonomy. :)

The group manager didn't work correctly for me. I've headed to the 2nd guerrilla camp first, made them team red (radio command 9) and fought with them at the airport, harbor, electrical sub station and radio tower. Two or three of them were killed. When I returned to the main base, I couldn't disband anyone of them in the group manager. It only worked like supposed with No 2 and 3, the Russian soldiers. Re adding the guerrillas to team white didn't do the trick.

The mission was a lot of fun but now I've run into the same black screen bug as reported by the others. Like you wrote, it was at dusk. It's probably more likely to occur when using unlimited savegames in regular difficulty every few minutes. EDIT: You can overcome the black screen bug by not saving your game at dusk between 1700h and 1730h mission time on the first evening. Afterwards it's ok again. Until more bugged 30 minutes at the following dawns and dusks?

The "third" option in the mission editor was actually the only skill setting in OFP. There were no sliders in the options for players, only SuperAI appeared later on. SuperAI did and should still do override skill settings of all units in the mission to just 1.0/max. So the two later skill sliders in options have to be doing something else. I suppose they are relatively altering all skill settings inside the mission. mission-skill * options-skill, both with a range from 0 to 1 Which would imply that the unit skill set in the mission file is the max possible value, and could be toned down by the users likings. But use hint format ["%1",(skill myunit)] to compare the skill setting of a unit while playing under different option settings.

In addition to Celery: That is another important thing to know about the serie's history - Years ago Publisher Codemasters split with Bohemia Interactive after that first part. OFP Dragon Rising and Red River are just what CM was able to create on their own, under the OFP brand which BIS is now no longer allowed to use for their games. Many players here think CM are far behind the continuing, original BIS efforts. Especially for offering a sandbox game.

To sum up the answers: Server difficulty settings always override your client settings. The host sets the rules. And every single part of the difficulty options can be changed by the host. So when you read regular/veteran ect. it doesn't have to be the default set up.

Some of your questions you'll have to try out yourself (e.g. will the unit markers appear on the early/briefing map? are they called out by anyone?) One scenario coming to my mind which is maybe worth info-age, would be a mission start, taking place in a big base attack/defense, where one or both sides will already know about the enemy positions. The AI engagement ranges and movements should differ. Also info-age could be used instead of a scripted reveal command, in a situation where the mission maker wants to create a non scripted, realistic ambush. Same goes for an AI air raid in which the pilots are meant to be briefed about the enemy AA positions. Info-age is one of the ways to "talk" to your AI actors. It's present since the OFP editor and maybe was supposed to be WYSIWYG, like some other editor parts, in a time when no one thought scripting would become that detailed and important.