UbiquitousUK

I started back with OFP in around 2002. For the longest time I managed to get by with typing stuff into the init or on activation fields in the editor. Every time I wanted to do something that I didn't know about, I would head over to the community wiki and look up the relevant commands. One day I decided that I wanted to make a mission in which a group of 8 randomly selected opfor units would spawn and then repeatedly patrol around the perimeter of a trigger. I realised this would be too much to practically put into the editor so I wrote a simple script that randomly selected the units, spawned them, and gave them a set of waypoints whose location was calculated based on the size and orientation of the trigger. Although this script was quite simple, it was a watershed moment for me because suddenly I realised that I could do anything! A small amount of tweaking and my simple little script would create an amphibious invasion in which 20 boats full of opfor hit the beach--all without having to place anything in the editor. If I were to come up with some advice, it would be to try a little project in which you forget about building a mission for just a second and focus purely on wrting a script to do something cool. Spawn a group that patrols some random waypoints, write a script that has a jet fly overhead at random intervals, write a script so that when one group of defenders dies it is automatically replaced by another. Once you've had the awesome feeling of watching a whole bunch of stuff happen according to your script, you'll want to script everything. One last point: note that all of the scripts above are general purpose. This is something really great about writing stand alone scripts rather than doing everything in the editor. Once I have written my patrol script I can use it in every mission just by copying the script into the mission's folder. Before long you will have a personal library of scripts that will help you to develop complicated missions much more quickly than would otherwise be possible.

Thanks both. I can indeed achieve (1) with a combination of disableCollisionWith, disableSimulation, and allowDamage. It seems like there are problems getting setObjectTexture to put a translucent texture onto a unit. I would be willing to give up on the opacity if I could turn the object in question (a rifleman in this case) into a completely white statue. However, when I do object setObjectTexture [0,'#(argb,8,8,3)color(1,1,1,1)']; the uniform turns white, but not the skin, helmet, vest, weapon, goggles, etc. Is there a way to make all of these things white? From what I read, this isn't possible because there is no hiddenselection entry for a rifleman's skin.

Thanks guys, BIS_fnc_advHint was what I was looking for.

I would go with Iceman's solution (because it keeps everything nice and tidy in the editor), but if you want a more visual way to do this then you can do the following: select the group tool [F2] and drag from the trigger to the unit in order to group them together. Then when you open the trigger properties the usual menu for selecting who must be present to fire the trigger has changed to have the options "leader of this group", "the whole group", "any member of this group", "this group's vehicle".

In previous ArmA games, tutorials were delivered via hints. This remains true in ArmA III, but the hints now seem a lot fancier: they have a title bar that is colour-coordinated with the GUI and they start collapsed with text along the lines of "press [H] to expand". I know that I can create a very simple hint via the scripting command hint "hint text"; but does anyone know how to implement one of these modern BIS style hints?

Is there a way via scripts to achieve any or all of the following things?: Disable collision for an object so that you can walk through it. Reduce the saturation of a single object so that it is rendered in grayscale (rest of the world still rendered at full saturation. Reduce the opacity of an object so that you can partly see through it. Essentially, this boils down to the question: is it possible to make a unit look like a ghost?

I remember reading several months ago that BIS were considering releasing an official tool to allow you to use this content in ArmA III. Has there been any further news on this?

Awesome work. I am transitioning from emacs to ST2 for my work and your syntax highlighting gives me a personal reason to enjoy the move.

I have the strategic map working properly. For anyone who comes here looking for this, here is how I did it: As suggested by Saetheer, start by placing a whiteboard with this addAction ["Open Strategic Map", "scripts\osm.sqf"]; in the init line. Then structure the osm.sqf as follows: start_mission01 = { [color="#FF0000"] <here put the code to be executed when the player selects the first mission>[/color] }; start_mission02 = { [color="#FF0000"] <here put the code to be executed when the player selects the first mission>[/color] }; _missionsData = [ [[color="#FF0000"]<Position (array) of mission 01>[/color],start_mission01,"[color="#FF0000"]<Text to Display>[/color]","[color="#FF0000"]<Description>[/color]","","[color="#FF0000"]<image>[/color]",1,[]], [[color="#FF0000"]<Position (array) of mission 02>[/color],start_mission02,"[color="#FF0000"]<Text to Display>[/color]","[color="#FF0000"]<Description>[/color]","","[color="#FF0000"]<image>[/color]",1,[]] ]; disableserialization; _parentDisplay = [] call bis_fnc_displayMission; _mapCenter = [color="#FF0000"]<position (array) to centre the strategic map on when first opened>[/color]; _ORBAT = []; _markers = []; _images = []; _overcast = overcast; _isNight = !((dayTime > 6) && (dayTime < 20)); _scale = 0.3; _simul = true; [ findDisplay 46, _mapCenter, _missionsData, _ORBAT, _markers, _images, _overcast, _isNight, _scale, _simul ] call Bis_fnc_strategicMapOpen; changing the red stuff to meet your needs. Here's a complete example from a recent mission of mine: startAAA = { cutText ["","BLACK FADED",0,True]; player enableSimulation false; "mrk_startAAA" setMarkerSize [1,1]; player setpos getmarkerpos "mrk_startAAA"; {_x setpos getmarkerpos "mrk_startAAA";_x enableAI "ANIM";_x switchMove ""} forEach [a2,a3,a4,a5]; a2 joinAsSilent [group player, 2]; a3 joinAsSilent [group player, 3]; a4 joinAsSilent [group player, 4]; a5 joinAsSilent [group player, 5]; group player setBehaviour "STEALTH"; player setdir 64; var_start = true; var_startAAA = true; player say ["start_AAA",500]; sleep 7; player enableSimulation true; cutText ["","BLACK IN",5,True]; sleep 9; savegame; }; startArty = { cutText ["","BLACK FADED",0,True]; player enableSimulation false; "mrk_startArty" setMarkerSize [1,1]; player setpos getmarkerpos "mrk_startArty"; {_x setpos getmarkerpos "mrk_startArty";_x enableAI "ANIM";_x switchMove ""} forEach [a2,a3,a4,a5]; a2 joinAsSilent [group player, 2]; a3 joinAsSilent [group player, 3]; a4 joinAsSilent [group player, 4]; a5 joinAsSilent [group player, 5]; group player setBehaviour "STEALTH"; player setdir 124; var_start = true; var_startArty = true; player say ["start_Arty",500]; sleep 7; player enableSimulation true; cutText ["","BLACK IN",5,True]; sleep 13; savegame; }; startHelo = { cutText ["","BLACK FADED",0,True]; player enableSimulation false; "mrk_startHelo" setMarkerSize [1,1]; player setpos getmarkerpos "mrk_startHelo"; {_x setpos getmarkerpos "mrk_startHelo";_x enableAI "ANIM";_x switchMove ""} forEach [a2,a3,a4,a5]; a2 joinAsSilent [group player, 2]; a3 joinAsSilent [group player, 3]; a4 joinAsSilent [group player, 4]; a5 joinAsSilent [group player, 5]; group player setBehaviour "STEALTH"; player setdir 57; var_start = true; var_startHelo = true; player say ["start_Helo",500]; sleep 5; player enableSimulation true; cutText ["","BLACK IN",5,True]; sleep 8; savegame; }; ////////////////////////////////////////// _missionsData = [ [getmarkerpos "mrk_AAA",startAAA,"AAA Position","Secondary Objective: This OPFOR AAA base must be eliminated before CAS can safely be tasked to the area.","","images\img_AAA.jpg",1,[]], [getmarkerpos "mrk_Arty",startArty,"Artillery Emplacement","The primary objective is the destruction of the Aktinarki artillery battery.","","images\img_Arty.jpg",1,[]], [getmarkerpos "mrk_Helo",startHelo,"Attack Helicopter","Secondary Objective: A CSAT attack helicopter operates out of this position and represents a threat to the mission.","","images\img_Helo.jpg",1,[]] ]; ////////////////////////////////////////// disableserialization; _parentDisplay = [] call bis_fnc_displayMission; _mapCenter = getmarkerpos "mrk_mapCentre"; _ORBAT = []; _markers = []; _images = []; _overcast = overcast; _isNight = !((dayTime > 6) && (dayTime < 20)); _scale = 0.3; _simul = true; [ findDisplay 46, _mapCenter, _missionsData, _ORBAT, _markers, _images, _overcast, _isNight, _scale, _simul ] call Bis_fnc_strategicMapOpen;

Yes, that's it. Thank you very much.

I read in the comments on one of the community wiki articles the code necessary to create a link within a briefing entry or task description that, when clicked, executes a script. Now I can't find the article in question. Does anyone know how to create such a link?

A quick way to change a bunch of units to Brits is to put the following into your init.sqf file. { private ["_vests","_uniforms","_mags","_y"]; _y = _x; _vests = ["V_PlateCarrierL_CTRG","V_PlateCarrierH_CTRG"]; _uniforms = ["U_B_CTRG_1","U_B_CTRG_2","U_B_CTRG_3"]; _mags = magazines _y; removeVest _y; removeUniform _y; _y addVest (_vests call BIS_fnc_selectRandom); _y addUniform (_uniforms call BIS_fnc_selectRandom); { _y addMagazine _x } forEach _mags; } forEach [[color="#FF0000"]unit1,unit2,unit3,etc.[/color]]; changing the red unit names to match those of the units you want to change to Brits. This code randomly selects a British vest uniforms to give to each unit in the list so you get some variety. The one quirk is that removing the unit's vest also seems to remove all of their ammo so it is necessary to temporarily store a list of their ammo in the variable "_mags" and then give them the ammo back once their vest is changed.

I think BIS have been selling themselves short by calling this the "crown jewel of Arma III"; Altis is the crown jewel of the entire gaming industry.

Will steam start fetching the update automatically, or is a steam restart required?

Well, I have been playing BI military simulations since picking up OFP in 2002, but I always shied away from the multiplayer scene because public servers seemed to offer little more than chaos. Then, by pure chance, I stumbled upon the Zeus community server. In the ~2 weeks that I have been frequenting the Zeus server I have discovered a whole new side to ArmA that is even more wonderful that that which I knew already. The Zeus guys have a truly great server/community going on, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to play this game the way it was intended. I, for one, am grateful for the work the admins put into keeping everything running along smoothly. Thanks folks!