_William

The Foliage Camouflage System (FolCamS) is a 'logic' module that attaches foliage to tanks, cars and artillery to camouflage them. This add-on recreates in Arma 2 the practice of camouflaging vehicles with twigs and leaves, as practiced by WWII Wehrmacht and Cold War NATO forces. Foliage camouflage works in SP and MP. FolCamS comes with a database of vehicle dimensions, which enables it to camouflage over 180 vehicles from popular WWII and NATO forces out of the box. And for vehicle classes not yet supported, mission creators can simply add or change vehicle data at mission start, so their mission's vehicles will be camouflaged as well. See the 13 page manual (included) for detailed instructions. FolCamS can attach foliage to the hull and to the turret (memory points). It spawns a per-vehicle script to align the turret-attached foliage with the rotating turret. For now, only conifer camouflage is being available, but FolCamS is capable using other vegetation when made available. I've uploaded a movie so you can see the camouflage in motion (in P85 / CWR2:BAF / I44 and BAOR vehicles). The code to update the vehicle database has been changed slightly, so be sure to check the manual included in the add-on for details. 5XHeGIJqNQI Downloads: - 1.0.0 at dev.withsix.com/projects/folcams (1.6MB) Example vehicle dimensions (from the FolCamS vehicle database): For those interested in (improving) the implementation, you'll find the source code at dev.withsix.com/projects/folcams/repository (requires dev.withsix.com account to see the source code). William

PlannedAssault, a web based mission generator for Arma2: Combined Operations, Arma 2 and Arma Don't know how to create single player missions with air assaults, multi-pronged armored attacks, or defense supported by artillery fire and CAS? Why not try the PlannedAssault mission generator? PlannedAssault allows you to pick terrain and units in your browser, then plans a large scale combined arms battle, turns this into a single player mission, and offers this as a mission for you to download and play. PlannedAssault lets you: + pick pre-configured squads and platoons from the ArmA / Arma II game and mods + place platoons and objectives on the map + define the situation and story + wait a bit for the mission to be generated... + download your mission, and finally + experience large scale combined arms maneuvers from both friendly and hostile troops, including air assaults, flanking maneuvers, counter attacks, air support and artillery missions Behind the screens, PlannedAssaults takes care the Arma mission creation technicalities (waypoints, triggers, mission end conditions, synchronization, briefing, tasks, modules, team switching). It also comes up with plans for all units, so there's no need for you to command friendly troops or tell enemy troops what to do. When applicable, PlannedAssault will coordinate air landings, artillery, close air support, armor, AA and infantry into combined arms attack or defense. If you like large scale battles involving your favorite units, and want to test your skills as tank gunner, a forward observer, a gunship pilot, register a free account at plannedassault.com and give it a go. These three Youtube videos show mission editing in your web browser and the resulting mission in the game. The videos cover mission creation, troop transport and air assaults respectively. qVo39PaQQuU B1He16_CGQg ybTYkQuT4So In April 2011, PlannedAssault has been running for more than one year non-stop, generated over 5000 unique missions. It now supports units and maps from over 180 add-ons (Arma2:CO + Arma2:OA + Arma2 + Arma combined). During that time (and during the earlier beta), PlannedAssault has been updated with features, additional units and maps, tweaks and fixes on a bi-weekly schedule. The technicalities of the PlannedAssault's mission planner have been presented at the Paris Game AI conference 2009 and at a dutch defense research institute late 2010). William

Thanks for letting us know! William

Sadly, you cannot do this, as the Iron Front game doesn't accept add-ons by design. Otherwise I would have added support for Iron Front a long time ago. William

I've just uploaded version 1.0.0 of FolCams, which now includes support for Iron Front: Liberation 1944 (as Arma2 mod). Also added data so the P85 DDR vehicles (by Vilas, and also Marseille's re-textures) and the CWR2 FV101/FV107 are supported out of the box. You'll find the download here: https://dev.withsix.com/attachments/download/21718/folcams_1_0_0.7z Left to right: IF44 PaK40, IF44 Panther, IF44 StuG IIIg, P85 re-text DDR BMP1, P85 re-text SPW-40P2. In IF44, camo definitions are provided for all large Wehrmacht vehicles, the Pak40, and the Red Army ZiS-3 field gun. William

When you're defending (Hold objective), the AI will fire into pre-designated zones just in front of the defensive sectors. These zones are implemented as triggers; you might be able to recognize them in the map editor. IIRC, as a player you can call in artillery fire as well, using the radio.

Great questions. And it sounds you had some good fun as well. Yes you can. Each team's units are placed on top of each other in the editor (try selecting and move away the top one). A 9 man team consists of 9 units. You can add extra men. Just be aware than the plan has been made with 9 man units, so if you add units and the assigned transport doesn't have extra capacity, some of your extras may have to walk (and slow down the mission). DAPMAN first-aid and CWR2 are fully supported. AI mods in general are not, but if it works for you, great. (AI mods may interfere with the scripts triggered to make the groups execute part of the plan). You can adjust this on the Briefing tab while creating the mission. It doesn't. Hetman's AI commander generates somewhat random orders on the fly, depending on the situation, whereas PlannedAssault uses a static, tightly coordinated plan. The two don't go together. For some types of missions, Hetman will be a better fit. However, for tightly coordinated activities such as paradrops, mechanized assault, heli insertions, CAS, occupying defensive sectors I expect PlannedAssault to do a better job. Don't know. Artillery needs to be between minimum range and maximum range from the objective where it offers support. The unit icon and error messages tell you the range, but typically mortars have a 100m-3.7km range, 105mm howitzers a 2.4-5.8km range and large guns need to be even more distant from the objective. In general, put your mortars close to the objective to defend / attack, and put your howitzers far away. Pre-planned firing schedule for attacks (coordinated with close-air support, so shells aren't flying when helicopters / fixed wing move forward). Triggered firing for defense, based on spotting hostiles. Spotting is implicit, with a delay. William

Off-topic: which map is this? Is this one of IceBreaker's maps?

The number of units involved has the biggest impact on the time necessary to create a plan (generate a mission). For example, if I have a defensive position consisting of 6 sectors, and I have to assign 8 defender units to occupy these sectors, I need to pick a good combination out of 0.19 million combinations. For 10 units, the number of combinations goes up to 16.4 million. For more than 10 units, the situation gets even more challenging. In addition, the UI doesn't have much space to add more units. In short, the limit won't change soon. If you want to have large numbers of men and vehicles in your mission, I recommend choosing large units. That's what I did for the "100+ men paradrop" mission here, picking "double squads" and really large aircraft. William

Yes, I can. Cannot give a deadline - I have some other things to wrap up first. If you're in a hurry, the .pdf document included in the download explains how to tackle "missing" vehicles. IIRC, the Wehrmacht tanks all have memory points on their turrets (for track links and skirts (PzIV)), which enables foliage on the turret sides. You'd need to dig into the config file and damage script. William

Fantastic! Because I noticed custom tank names on the cannon's barrel: will you also include/support tank vehicle numbers on the hull? As in: or (recommended site): http://military-database.de/2002-cannonball-run-teil-1/ Thanks, William

Hi Marseille. Cool to see these 1950's German armies come alive in Arma2. Do you happen to have good sources describing the organization of small units (Zug, Gruppe, Truppe)? I'm able to read German language material. If the NVA was organized similar to the Soviet army, that would suffice for the NVA. William

One cool advantage of automatic mission generation is that it allows you easily try "large" missions and approach the limits of what Arma can do. Here is what I found out and improved when trying to generate some interesting para-drops for movie recording. The PlannedAssault UI had space for 7 air cargo units, so I upped the amount of cargo groups per aircraft groups to 7. That allowed me to load 108 (7 x 12) men into a group of two Il-76 Candids, for a single para-drop with close air support from two groups of 2 Su-25 Frogfoots (so there's something to watch while descending by parachute). In large paradrops, it is annoying to be spread out as a group, so I change the jump order to be per group. Finally, I've figured out a key parameter in making the aircraft flying (almost) straight across a hostile drop-zone: the pilot's skill needs to be as high as possible (1.0) otherwise, he is more likely to avoid threats. With a few newly released tactical shooter games being proud about 64-player multi-player games, it is nice to see our Arma2 happily giving us 100+ men para-drops in a single-player mission that involves 190 NPC and myself in total... William

Increasing spread isn't a good idea from a game design perspective, since (even if it were realistic) it increases the probability of the AI accidentally killing the player. Just witness this discussion thread to see how sensitive people are to being killed by the AI without being spotted by the AI, and without receiving warning shots (near misses) first. There is plenty of know-how published on how to do plausible suppression fire (for example, GDC 2005: Killzone's AI ...(slides 26-34)), where being killed is more acceptable. Keep in mind that (perceived) AI behavior is like food/wine: there is no accounting for taste. William

I expect this mod to use the Arma2 artillery module, not the Arma2OA artillery computer (which is really troublesome to use by AI groups). The SCUD, AFAIK, has no ballistics data for the Arma2 artillery module. Recent releases of Vilas' P85 howitzers come with ballistics data for the Arma2 artillery module and should work fine.

Mechanized Attacks: In terms of how missions play, this is one of the bigger changes this year at PlannedAssault! Attacking teams now prefer to keep their infantry mounted during the advance, if they have sufficient armor (APCs, IFVs) to carry all infantry. The infantry is dismounted (ideally) at the objective, or (more spectacularly) earlier when close threats are observed. If the infantry is dismounted early, this is done behind a smoke screen, either from the APCs or from smoke grenades. When dismounted, infantry attempts to move ahead of the armor, to screen it from infantry ATGMs. The nett effect is a faster attack (with APCs moving quicker towards the objective), and a more confusing fight due to the smoke. The increased speed makes it harder to defend against; however, a first kill on the APCs/IFVs still loaded with infantry will dent the attack significantly. It probably better resembles real world tactics. See the pictures below, or generate a mission yourself (right-most screen shot is from Arma3): I've got mechanized attacks working in Arma2*, Iron Front and Arma3, with Arma3 still being hampered by vehicles getting stuck. Next on the list is a new "how-to" Youtube video, showcasing many of the tactical things (paradrops, fast ropes, air assaults, mechanized assaults, defense deployments, crew served weapons, camouflaging, bridge attacks behind a smoke screen) PlannedAssault can put in a mission for you. Practically, this has as a side-effect lots of tweaks, since I'll record and review lots of game footage, and want to fix / tune anything I don't like. William

If you haven't tried the BWMod fix add-on, give it a try. I don't know whether it will solve your problem, but it is an easy thing to try (and will get you some benefits with other units). See: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?133548-BWMod-Fix William

I've filed issue #15028, including a trivial repro mission which gave me a 100% stuck probability for an armored platoon moving across the flat part of Altis. The problem is bound to break any mission relying on vehicle movement. Right now Arma3 is a nice infantry + helicopter simulator... The problem of vehicles getting stuck is not new (A2 had it) but it has gotten worse than in A2, probably due to the higher resolution terrain and increased number of obstacles. I'm wondering what the campaign is going to do with vehicles (other than avoid using them). William

In the past weeks, I've been busy keeping PlannedAssault's unit database up to date with a bunch of great new mods, so you can create missions around them. In the pictures below, from left to right: - CWR2 additions, such as the 1982 UK Paras, Chinook and Scorpion/Scimitar, shown on new ADO Vostok and Winter Vostok terrain by Old Bear - Franze & NodUnit's superb AH-64D, which is also easier to fly for the AI than the stock one, and thus recommended for missions - Delta Hawk's US Military Mod (80s, 90s), which fully outfitted and badged units for 1983 (Grenada) Rangers, 82nd Abn and Navy SEALs, 1985's 2nd Armored Cav and 101 Abn, 1989 (Panama) 82nd Abn and Marines, 1991 (Desert Storm) 82nd Abn and Marines, 1993 (Mogadishu) Rangers, 2003 (Iraq) 1st Cavalry, and 2004 (Iraq) 101Abn. - F/A-18E&F (not shown), F-14 I'm keeping track of Arma3 and improving support step-by-step. The biggest annoyance (and obstacle) is Arma3's poor AI driving, causing vehicles to get and remain stuck and missions to stall (and not be fun for the player). Even in trivial missions on simple terrain, vehicles get stuck. Until Arma3 improves the AI driving to at least Arma2 level, Arma3 isn't a good game for combined arms maneuvers. And not for PlannedAssault missions. The exciting thing I'm currently finalizing is a mounted/mechanized way of performing assaults: in these assaults, infantry is carried in IFV / APCs from the form-up to the objective, and (dynamically) dismounted when the vehicles detect close threats. Once dismounted the infantry moves forward of the armored vehicles. Dismounting is done under a smoke screen created by the IFV / APCS (preferably) or, alternatively, created by smoke grenades thrown by the first soldiers to dismount the vehicle. Attacks become faster, combat becomes more confusing... I've got this working in Arma2, Arma3 and Iron Front: Liberation 1944. It just needs a bit more testing, and the briefing / task info needs to reflect the new actions. William

The problem is caused by a change in position interpolation in Arma2. Whereas getPosASL and getPosATL didn't exhibit stuttering before, they do since the interpolation change. The smooth positions are now available as visiblePositionASL and visiblePosition respectively. If Gigan were to perform this (trivial) replacement, his great tool would work fine with the latest Arma2 versions and almost fine Arma3. William

Thanks Marseille77, Foxhound, Vilas for looking into this. Vilas, these skins by Marseille add a lot. If there is anything I can do to help you release sooner, please let me know. (One thing I could do is get the smoke launchers working on all vehicles equipped with them - about 10 lines per vehicles that change, touching the commander turret weapons, - magazines and his ability to fire). Marseille77: great update - I got to see them after downloading Vilas' beta files, although there is still a CTD for the M88 recovery tank (icons absent). Especially your NVA skins are impressive. Please note that your 1.1 update reports a problem with one of the factions/vehicles classes "Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgVehicleClasses.kpfs_p85_wehra_armored_vehicles'.", and shows a blank line when selecting vehicles. Regards, William

Thanks. I love to try this, but it crashes to desktop. Problem is that your add-on refers to vehicles (Golf Mk2, M88 tank recovery vehicle, ...) which are not yet in the Project 85 releases available from Armaholic. Either Vilas needs to officially release a new set of P85 vehicles + config, or you need to prune a few vehicles for the time being. Again, I love these cold war vehicles, and if you can fix this one way or the other, that would be great. William

I'll look into Arma3 integration as soon as I've completed Arma3 support in PlannedAssault (mission generation). Supporting IronFront44 isn't possible because the game doesn't accept any add-ons except those signed by the developers/publishers. Since the developer and publisher have gone separate ways, don't except any update or increase in mod support for that game. William

Thanks for your response. I appreciate your earlier posts and examples in this thread. If you could be more specific as to what is wrong, I'll fix it. But first, let me explain what I've done. I'm using a single script per group to handle customization of the (hidden) textures, based on hints such as "Iraq 91", "USMC", "Mechanized", based on which uniforms, helmet textures / boonie hats, goggles, gloves and backpacks are selected or added. For example: nul = [group this, ["Navy","Grenada 83","SEALs", "face camo"]] execVM "planned_assault\mods\us8090\apply_group_kit.sqf"; See below for the script code. Having everything (except for 80's or 90's model selection) defined in a single script makes it easier for me to handle updates from Delta Hawk to unit badges, headgear, etc, and corrections from others. In short, I've chosen the following (and might be mistaken here): Uniform - Grenada83, Germany85, Panama89: woodland (BDU) uniform, as is Iraq03 (MOPP placeholder) - Iraq91: 6color desert uniform - Mogadishu93, Iraq04: 3color desert (DCU) Helmet & goggles - Grenada83, Germany85, Panama89: woodland (BDU) cover - Iraq91, Mogadishu93: 6color desert cover, with black goggles - Iraq03, Iraq04: DCU cover with black goggles SEALs wear boonie hats, no goggles. Crew1 wear CVCs. Mechanized forces, crew and Mogadishu 93 forces don't wear backpacks. Gas mask are carried for Grenada 83, Iraq 91, Iraq 03 (with Germany 85 missing here). Tan gloves are worn for Mogadish 93 (Rangers rappelling from black hawks). OD gloves are worn for Iraq 93 ("MOPP"), and by SEALs. William

NodUnit, Franze, Superb add-on, also when flown by the AI. It seems the Apache is a bit more nimble than the stock one. I've added to my PlannedAssault single player mission generator support for your AH-64 Apaches in 'anti-armor', 'cover' and 'escort' configurations (and long-range variations thereof, with a fuel tank). In generated missions, I also use a script (for any gunship) to keep the AI from flying headlong onto their target. Instead, the script tries to keep the gunship circling around the point it first detects their targets until it runs out of targets (or luck). The screen shots below show AI pilots and gunners in "action": Thanks, William