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So there will be an actual deployment phase? Excellent. I don't know whether you have ever played Combat Missions, but what you are proposing bears an uncanny resemblence to CM's gameplay. And that is a good thing! Furthermore, I would be more than glad to play the role of administrator for the other side. However, as no game roster has been published yet, I cannot say whether I will be available for all games. The enthousiasm is there, mind you Regards, X.

Hey Dmakatra, Is telepathy possible? I've just posted a thread in this very same forum about my vision, or game concept if you will, that is practically identical to yours. Especially the idea of using no to very little scripts and the heavy emphasis on out-of-game planning are similar. The difference is, my concept is just that, a concept You are actually putting things in motion! What you have described sounds very cool indeed. I'm certainly interested in joining up. One thing I'm wondering about though: wouldn't keeping track of ammo spent etc. require resource-heavy scripting, just the thing you are trying to avoid? Regards, X.

Hey all, good to see all the responses. I was wondering whether such a concept would appeal to anyone, given that most MP missions being played are CTF's, CS-like shoebox DMs or simple Player vs AI coops. I am glad my assumptions were proven wrong! @General Barron: I agree that given the players only one life stimulates cautiousness, at least in theory. But it would be impractical, I think. First, if you are playing such a specific kind of game, I believe it is safe to assume that your fellow players are people who appreciate this kind of gameplay and aren't Hexen Kessel rambo's. Second, if the player is killed (and one doesn't act gung-ho to get killed in OFP), the whole squad is taken out of action as there is no-one to lead it. That isn't very realistic - in RL, the second in rank would take command. I think a certain level of abstraction would be acceptable in this kind of mission. I also agree with Mr. Cheese: the commander's extra resources are his ability to command a whole platoon, full stop. Adding artillery would of course be very interesting, although I do not know how this can or should be incorporated. It seems however that Zeus have already accomplished that. @Jinef: What you have described is exactly what I had in mind. I am glad to see that 6 v 6 players can run a decent platoon vs platoon game. Your 12 v 12 idea looks very interesting, but I think one has to bear in mind the limitations of OFP's MP code... I can't recall many online games involving so many players that weren't distraught by players getting disconnected etc. But perhaps things have changed, I don't know: it's been a while since I played OFP online. Also, I wonder: how is the commander incorporated in the Zeus coops? Is he stashed away someplace safe, or does he advance with his troops? Regards, X.

Hi Lwlooz, it's good to hear that this concept appeals to someone besides me Incidentally, I've been monitoring the Zeus PvP thread for some time, and it was (amongst other things) your game style that inspired me to give this thing some thought. As to the players abusing their superiority to AI - in my experience, human players can behave as absurdly as the AI in multiplayer Besides, an AI squad led by a human is less idiotic in it's behaviour than a pure AI squad. Certainly, one human with a sniper rifle can easily eliminate whole squads, but it would be up to the mission maker to make such weapons not available to players (squad leaders with sniper rifles are not very realistic to boot). Besides, the mission maker could opt for addons which use weapons which are less accurate than stock BIS weapons (say JAM HD, or FFUR). In 'vanilla' OFP, a well-hidden soldier armed with an MP5 could easily eliminate a whole squad. In FFUR, this is nigh-impossible. This encourages the player to rely much more on his squadmates (at least in my case ). Such conditions put a nice stop to any rambo-behaviour human squad leaders might show.

Hi Berg, though I left SWAF quite some time ago, I kept track of the forums and the site. I saw the Combined Arms missions and the concept seemed quite nice. Still, Player vs AI is a somewhat limited type of game. The AI is not good at (or even able to) making strategic decisions. It's the Player vs Player variant that truly interests me.

Hey there, I've noticed another bug. I was playing the standard BIS mission where you have to destroy the convoy travelling in the north of Kolgujev using your Apache (or in this case, the Longbow). At one point, an Mi17 shows up. I blew it out of the sky, and it came crashing down right on top of the convoy (which was quite fun ). It blew up into a number of little pieces, which then showed up on my radar as enemy vehicles! This made destorying the rest of the convoy extremely difficult... You can imagine my frustration: "TARGET Debris, 06". AARGH! Regards, X. PS: It started snowing here... I think I'll install FFUR winter pack to get in the mood

Hey TB, I have finally had the chance to try the FFUR Euro pack, and I must say it's great! Even though I haven't played it a lot yet, I have come across a few features/bugs that warrant a comment. The new lighting effect looks great, at least from the sky. In combination with NIM's clouds this effect makes flying an airplane enjoyable again. On the ground however, the lighting effect looks plain funky. The ground textures are supposed to create the idea of e.g. a grassy field. The lighting effect makes it look like a sheet of ice... Which is kind of a shame. Would it be possible to make the lighting effect optional for ground troops? On to the next topic: the flashbangs. They sure do work in some mysterious ways... At one point, I threw a flashbang and hid behind a wall. After a few seconds, the flashbang exploded. When I emerged from my hiding spot, a few smoke clouds marked the place where the flashbang had erupted. When I walked into them, the effects kicked in, as if had been standing right beside it when it went off! To top things off, I got an error message stating that the ringing sound could not be found. Kinda strange! Apart from these small gripes, the mod looks awesome. I love the GUI and the Ode To Joy brought a tear to my eye Thanks for this great pack! Regards, X.

Well TB, can't wait for the release! Screw the christmas spirit... Kindness to fellow men my ass! Molesting my keyboard more likely... Welp, my family will just have to forgive me You have really listened to your audience, heard their remarks and complaints and most importantly, incorporated the appropriate changes. Even though the packs remain to be released, I can safely say: my hat off to you, sir. Even though the discussion may have been ended, I would like to make a last statement about the copyright issue. I can hardly call myself an expert on the matter, but I completely understand TB's stance on things. Creating a total unit conversion involves dozens of addons. If the creators were to wait for the permission of all the addon makers, FFUR 6.0 would most probably be released at the same time as ArmA. Besides, TB hasn't broken any rules, seeing as nothing has been released yet. It is nothing short of practical to start working on the addons while waiting for the authors to authorise their use. All TB has done right now, was post screenshots of units he is planning on using. In other words, if TB is breaking any rules right now, so are the people posting screenshots in the Combat Photography thread. Claiming that TB is disrespecting addon makers is simply ridiculous. If anything, he is doing them a favour: he is making sure that people actually use the addons. Everyday we see beautiful addons being released, but no missions to actually enjoy them. For example: HYK's American troops may be beautiful, but I certainly can't be arsed to make a mission which uses them. TB's replacement pack allows us to enjoy both the original missions and the excellent addons the community has produced! The best of both worlds? I certainly think so. Now get uploading TB!

Although this thread probably would feel more at home in the Discussion section, I'll bump it with the standard question: how is the mod progressing? Any ideas on when it will be released?

Isn't it quite clear? The BMP will be replaced by the BTR in the 2005 pack but not the 1985 one, for reasons of historical accuracy. However, if testing shows that replacing the BMP with the BTR destroys the balance of existing missions, they will stick with the BMP in all packs.

Agains, sounds great! Any exact release dates you could give us?

The video looks excellent. The last version of the PLA MOD was very nice already, but the new features promise to make it even better!

Haha, although this may be slightly off-topic I have a funny story to tell. To really appreciate it, one should remind oneself what the sub-title of this thread is I was watching the news this morning, and the newsreader reported the apprehension of several people under suspicion of planning a terrorist attack. The digital background however was mismatched, and it referred to the next news item. As it happens, the next item was about Ikea being voted the best store of 2005... So there I was, sipping my morning coffee, watching a report on possible terrorists with a great big IKEA logo in the background. All I could think was "It's true!!"

The police are assuming it was an industrial accident.

That suppressing fire... Amazing! It hasn't been released yet, has it? I'm wondering whether the unit's experience is factored in, i.e. whether green units will be easier to suppress than veteran ones. The commander would then really have a function!

Hi TB, I have a suggestion to make. Bear in mind that I have only played with the 1985 Woodland Pack, so if the feature I am about to suggest has already been implemented, just disregard this post. We all know that OFP's AI behaves in an unrealistic manner in built-up areas. Soldiers drop on the ground in the middle of the street where they're a sitting duck, soldiers spread out too thin, etc. etc. The PLA VME mod features special CQB units with enhanced AI. They use team stacking, don't go prone just anywhere, and actually enter buildings as they are supposed to. The best part perhaps is that when they enter 'Danger' mode, they don't fall flat on their faces. In other words, if a soldier who is inside the house spots an enemy, he stays in an upright position, enabling him to actually engage the enemy, instead of dropping on the floor and shooting at the furniture. These AI enhancements are very nice but they require you to put specific CQB units in a mission. Furthermore, if you move out of the urban area into a rural one, the AI behaviour becomes weird. Now, I may be a total noob when it comes to game editing, but I am assuming that these AI enhancements are run by scripts. I am also assuming that you can extract these scripts and run them at any desired time. Wouldn't it thus be possible to add the option to execute these scripts to the radio menu if you are the leader of a squad? Something like "prepare for CQB". This would enable you, as the leader of a squad, to change the AI behaviour when in a built-up area, similar to how you change it with the "Danger", "Aware" and other commands. I admit I have no idea whether this is even possible, or whether VME would be willing to donate their scripts, but it's just a thought that was buzzing through my head last night. And they say insomnia is counterproductive! Anyway, let me know what you think. Regards, X.

What about Guba then? I doubt CM would be too happy about one of their head honcho's face being used for the bad guy, especially if they are no longer affiliated with ArmA.

Well, I will have to get C&C: Generals first to play it, but it sure looks nice. Especially the German general looks menacing

Very, very good. This is the kind of detail I truly appreciate.

Hehe, indeed... The WGL mod caused quite a commotion at the SWAF headquarters. Still, can't accuse me of not supporting my claims, can you?

Hi Thunderbird84, Regarding the new features. I read within this thread that you were planning on incorporating WGL weapon values. Now, it has been over a year and a half since I participated in the War Games League so perhaps things have changed, but the weapon values introduced by the WGL team were widely disputed back then. It took a good number of 5.56 rounds to the torso to disable a soldier. The assumption was that the 5.56 NATO round was developed to wound, not kill, because a wounded soldier was more cumbersome and demoralising to the enemy than a dead one. This assumption however was based on anecdotal evidence and hearsay. When the round was developed, the American government claimed it was a more 'humane' bullet because it was less lethal, but research and soldiers' testimonies proved the opposite. Nevertheless, the myth stuck around in the Army. A few sources: http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm http://www.bobtuley.com/terminal.htm Besides the fact that the fundemental assumption of the WGL weapon values is simply untrue, it breaks the balance of gameplay. To compensate for the soldier's increased life expectancy, the WGL team introduced various scripts, such as blackout scripts, bleeding scripts, heartbeat drowning out sounds etc. All of them simulating the impaired fighting ability of the wounded soldier. The problem is, they do not work on the AI, seeing as the WGL mod was meant for MP. The player is thus at a disadvantage. Should one remove these scripts, then the game becomes very arcadey, stimulating rambo-like behaviour. Again, I must note that this was the case 1.5 years ago. Perhaps the WGL mod has changed since then. However, back then the creators were quite adamant about their fundamental assumption being correct, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Regards, X.

What can I say: great stuff! Excellent sounds and effects. I have only tried the 1985 pack so far, but it was enough to revitalise my interest in OFP. Much less lag than with ECP... The only thing I miss is the AI chatter; would it be possible to incorporate that in the next release? While the whole pack is amazing, I found one feature to be particularly thrilling: the Russian voicecomms. They are so much better than the "Abrahms, One Chundred!" Red Hammer comms. However, there are a few flaws. 1. Compared to the US comms, the Russian comms are a bit too soft and somewhat unintelligeble. 2. A number of commands are missing, for example "unknown", and "Team Red, Blue etc.". Other than that, great work! Keep it coming

Alright... ok... but why would I not really want to do it if it isn't a bad thing?

How... how do you mean? AAArgh the paranoia!!

Before I proceed: HERE BE SPOILERS! Bah, I had to restart the whole mission due to a rather unfortunate accident: I saved the game just as a Vulcan decided to tear my team a new one... Well, at least it's my own fault. Anyway, I have a question THobson. As I said, I had to start over. After Tatjana got shot, I went to the mountain lodge. The house where the Corporal and the civilians (whom you have to retrieve later on) were hiding was on my route. I decided to go to them before heading for the mountain lodge. However, whenever I get within 100 m of the house I mysteriously get shot. I say mysteriously, because OFP normally shows the person who killed you, but in this case the camera merely hovered above my dead body. So what's this then? Instantaneous death script? Oh yeah, one more strange thing happened. I managed to get a jeep with machine gun off the enemy. As I was driving back to base, A Cobra flew right over my head and suddenly... stopped. It was just hovering there. I thought it would be worth a try, so I ordered my gunner to attack it. He spent almost hundred rounds on the damn thing and eventually brought it down. In the meantime, the Cobra hadn't even moved an inch. A bit odd, but at least it's one less bird in the sky Great mission, and a great story!