VariousArtist

Im craving for dynamic and replayable CTI-likes as Liberation, so out of my brain Mike Force (AI will definatly overrun you if you dont build FOBs) Vindicta Overthrow Antistasi Dynamic Bulwarks (hehe, to an extend) I gather such stuff in a collection for a few years so there might be a few more https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=313040297 If anybody else has some of those missions not yet mentioned let us know, please.

Quick and frank feedback on stuff that annoyed me after day 13, wip3 (please keep in mind that I really like your works) (default settings, nothing adjusted) - bug: Usually I can loot another building after I got the info that Im tired already. - The scenario needs an AI mod, pretty badly. The AI is so damn boring. I miss at least some competition. - - patrols are often mowed down before they can react (with a vermin in singlefire mode) - - defenders on the "hidden cache" missions dont move from there spot. They are spawned in houses, so I can take them out one by one. Boring. - - found the gang boss by accident. He was standing in a small hut, doing nothing, nobody else around. Quick shot to the head, dead. Boring. (my Ai difficulty setting is set to skill:1.0, precision:0.4) - too many silencers (they are everywhere, almost a cheat vs our marvelous Arma AIs..) - waaaaay too much Materials. At day 8 I was already swamped with over 1k materials. Build stuff and was down to 200. On day 10 I had a hidden cache, plus some firefights and back to over 1.2k materials. Build more stuff (now over 2.5k storage) and on day 13 Im over 1k again. Way too much. (Im not even producing any) - - Material drops from bandits are definatly too high. Main driver for overflooding with materials. - After 13 days scavenging, taking out bandits, searching for survivors I wish something would happen during scavenging. Anything! - Autoscavenging is annoying sometimes. Sometimes I dont want to loot this buidling, but i have to go in to shoot somebody. Sometimes I drive close by to a building and it autoscavenges. Sometimes my storage is full and it wastes the loot by autoscavenging. (Especially annoying with the hidden cache, when it overfloods your storage.) - The "find the survivor" part could be fleshed out, instead of being a "hunt the needle in the haystack". What I would like to see is some low level drama and moral dilemmas maybe? A bit like the other survivor groups in e.g. State of Decay have to be convinced to join you, or prever to stay alone. What about the Walking Dead dilemma - they dont want to join us? Maybe we should raid them for their stuff then? What if they hide away and maybe try to raid us later? Stuff like that could really spice up the day to day grind. Besides that - really love how far the mission has come. And holy F* - the anomalies are so...surprising. Glad I showed them to you. They are amazing in this mission.

Hey Rydygier, started a new run on wip3. Great stuff had happened since the last run! Kudos! A suggestion: Can you do the autosave at the beginning of a day instead of the end of the day? I think it would be more convenient, because e.g. newcommers, production etc, would be saved in case you have to reload. Feels better to me. When it comes to production upgrades and atmosphere and immersion I would rather like to read something like "Found hydroponcics tray. Food production +12%, or "Found plant light.." and "Found autolathe trim. Ammo production +10%" instead of the raw, crude values. Just an idea. 😃 Just QOL: I would like to see the current day number on top GUI. Also, your nighttime monologues are a fancy, moody addition! Keep up the great work.

Hm, something sounds strange about this. And in most of such cases, when money is involved it goes south rather fast..

Thanks for the reply, volume. If more accessibility is in the way of your creative vision then, sure, go for it. Makes us a bit sad pandas, but fortunately theres still the other mission (e.g. liberation, overthrow, antistasi) that offer better accessibility and choice of mods to use. Good luck with the development.

Aah, Cipher... that was good times, indeed! Thanks a lot for bringing this to A3! Coop and Malden soonish? =)

After our test session I would definately suggest to release a version with much less mod-dependencies. Currently the mission is pretty much locked away behind 20 Gigabytes of mods and it showed to us that it was a slog to convince 2 of our buddies to install those just to play the mission with us. It definately limits the possible reach of the mission by a significant margin, imo. You mentioned - among others - Overthrow as inspiration! It had (has) the same problem that it was locked to Tanoa-only behind Apex and being a mod itself. Took the dev almost 2 years to address that problem. Its your call, but I wouldnt want to go down that road myself..

Im sorry, if there was a misunderstanding, but I havent said that the progression might be too slow. From the perspective of the game mechanics my question is: What is the purpose of 8 different resources that are pretty much the same and make no difference in regards of game mechanics? For example, on an abstract level all 8 resources could be just replaced with money only (money from the loot boxes, money from logi missions) and it would make no difference for the gameplay overall. If there would be e.g. just one additional resource (besides money) needed for building it would give a different vector for balancing and adds some flavor to the mission. In regards of mechanics it still doesnt add something new, because you get money from missions and resources from logi missions (loot boxes are neglectable in this regard). I still dont see a purpose for 8 different resources, besides flavor and possible problems caused from dead-locking, because gaining them is random. If compared to a mission like Liberation - which uses 3 additional resources (ammo, fuel, supply) that are used mostly for vehicles and non-vehicles - we see that they have a purpose beyond flavor. They could also be summed up to a single resource, but this way you have to handle multiple, different factories to produce them.

Bug: Respawn with full gear We played with 4 guys on a dedicated server. Strangely only one of our guys always respawned with a full gear set. pic Lack of storage space (and expensive upgrades) had been a bit of a downer. Amount of different ressouces seems a bit useless. Overall it wouldnt really hurt to just have one "supply resource" instead of spreading them over 6 (8?). Theres really no gameplay value from those. Also it results that you later have lots of spare resources but that one that you really need it gate locking your progress.

Holy, after having played this mission a good while ago Ive just noticed that development continued on a fork! Mindblowing! Eagerly looking forward to that 2020 updates! Thanks a lot, @Vdauphin - keep it rolling!

Wow, looking forward to this! Love such complex stuff with high replayability where you can sink your teeth in! But can you please, please offer a version without dependency on RHS? Theres folks like me who are not keen on playing with RHS! Thanks for considering!

Most of what you said is probably true and sound, but Im playing solo, and with that you have a very different timing because you also have to handle the dreaded Arma AI. Means: You have to rush and gather some more fighters which usually dont fit into the pickup so you cant get all of them in time to the next target. Also with some mission layouts the enlist missions can be very unfortunate so you already have to spent at least 5-8 on a single one. By the time I have enlisted 1 or even 2 groups Opfor already starts to rush their territory claims. Way faster than its possible to cope with it. From there on (with "relaxed" settings) its an uphill battle vs. an enemy thats rolling downhill over me. Theres barely time to pick up stuff, like ATs, and/or at least outfit 1-2 soldiers with some better, looted armor. Even when I managed to solve 1-3 goals the base defend mission triggers at around ~30-35 mins. So far I havent seen a result that a base defend mission can be won so you can return to attack?! And hit and run? Sure, I know about that option, but again: Im playing solo with AIs... and those usually dont disengage witout being slaughtered. So its not really an option. Sneaking and stalking? I found out that its no option too, because of Opfors mad land rush speed. In general I think that the general timings of the enemies could need more room for solo runs. Btw, on Tanoa Vanilla I just encountered a Gorgon without having destroyed any vehicle. Gorgon vs. 6 footsoldiers? Hm...

On a fundamental base I would agree. However over the years digging into game development I changed my stance somewhat. Not regarding blunt respawns but about implement respawns more in the way of "knock-outs" that impact the pace of gameplay. There is a simple reason - reloads are no less immersion breakers than respawns are. Kind of the "same difference". But for example, the way how Shadow of Mordor progresses your enemies via the Nemesis system became a game changer for me. Food for thought. Instead of either respawn or reload we can also implement player death rather as a knock-out that progresses something in the gameworld. Was clearly a game changer when I started to develop with such concepts. And in my mind this is clearly the least immersion breaking approach recent game development came up with. Also, Arma Contact is out. I guess nobody cant deny that Warping Plague and the Contact stuff feels like natural siblings. Im curious - do you have you any news to share and brainstorm about (possible) Contact content/integration?

Sad Panda! =(

So, development on this is stopped?

Tried this mission 3 times so far. 2 times a Nyx rolled in after I cleared my first target. And before I could get my hand on anything AT it wiped out my whole team. Gave up on this. Cant see the fun in this. Sorry.

Insurgency places markers to find a weapon cache randomly in the area where a cache can be found. Each marker shows the distance to the cache. So with a couple of markers you can triangulate the probably location of a cache. Looks like this: Regarding the materials I propably have to test the balance a bit more - if they are now meant to be gained from the treasure houses. Not sure if you overhauled the weapon loot drops from houses? In my past playthrough (~4.5hrs) the looted weapons from houses had been horrible. Mostly pistols (haha, I already have a pistol...) and a single MP. Gladly I found a MX SW from a bandit attack, so it didnt matter. But this playthrough.. Im curious.. Let me guess? Treasure houses? Also, the usage of tier 5 armor by bandits seems to be super excessive. Barely seen anything than high-end armor on them. Do your own guards use Armor from the loot crate? (havent seen them wearing any armor, I think) Do your own guards actively engage enemies inside the town circle? (havent seen them doing much)

Oh dang, indeed. Its the scout range, lol. My fault. However, the triangulation system is a problem. Im on day 3 and havent gone for the tringulated vault and now my map is a mess of tringulation arcs. Cant see anything any longer. Couldnt we go with Insurgency-style triangulation instead? Its neat and definatly less obstructive, hehe. Also, I think food production is overdone. In my 2 playthroughts a single guy could feed the whole community for every. (Food production + scouts and then the production upgrades blow it finally out of the roof). I like the changes to the the house-looting system. Less grind, scouts suddenly have an impact, but I think the numbers for material gains are now off. Material producation values have not much impact in relation to what you need and with the changes to looting you get a lot less mats now.

I think theres a bug with fasttravel. I have Dourdan (east) and La Pessagne (west) unlocked. Everytime I try to fasttravel to La Pessagne I end up in Dourdan instead. FT to Houdan, no problem. Bug?

Im not sure if it was changed yet - at least it wasnt posted as changelog - but 40+ AIs with hovering markers over there head massively kill the FPS in town.

@Gemini I think you cannot do the village supply mission on Tanoa when the Target is on those islands that cant be reached via road vehicle. Some items need 12 cargo units but nothing that swims or flies can load over 10!? Also you cant slingload those resources. So, unsolvabel problem?

Fun, that I had Contact in mind too when I stumpled over the mission the first time. Regarding BIS' recent practices I doubt there will be much of that tools free without nag-screens, which would be a real downer for the mission. Im still totally open to see those anomalies implemented that Alias developement. I mean, just look all that amazing zhit: Smuggler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB5ZIax4lgg&list=PLod_PhpAOFQhpTRYpoVPwiikPN1aoboFs&index=9&t=0s Farty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSPe7YuDCXA&list=PLod_PhpAOFQhpTRYpoVPwiikPN1aoboFs&index=31&t=0s Burper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KiMeGF8EwM&list=PLod_PhpAOFQhpTRYpoVPwiikPN1aoboFs&index=28&t=0s Screamer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwFgQCvTchc&list=PLod_PhpAOFQhpTRYpoVPwiikPN1aoboFs&index=37&t=0s Sparky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQTsorn_Wog&list=PLod_PhpAOFQhpTRYpoVPwiikPN1aoboFs&index=39&t=0s As if they where made exactly for this mission. It screams for implementation. Loud and hard! 😃 Especially because I havent seen them implemented in any missions so far anyway. Sad panda.

Gave this mission a first run yesterday, but had to give up pretty soon. Sadly the performance is nowhere that I would consider the mission "playable". On a simple Intel-i5 listen server the mission was super laggy and unplayable. Throwing a dedicated server at it just to make a "more playable" shouldnt be a solution. I really like the concept, but this needs lots of performance improvements. Basicly the stuff that scripters developed over the past years since we had to accept that "unhinged whole island warfare" isnt working in Arma. Please dont try to dial the wheel back to pre-Arma2 times. 😉 I would like to see options for the size of the "playfield". Not using the whole island is a start, but I would also like to have options for smaller scales, too. Somehow I respawned twice exactly at the spot where I died in an enemy town. No idea how to reproduce that.

Thanks for the quick reply, Rydygier. If the creatures are intended to spawn "out of thin air" im ok with that. Even with them spawning close to you. Im most "usual arma missions" it is rather a flaw, but if properly implemented I see a good reason for this here. Maybe a way to give chance for "a call" to the player before spawns might happen? Something so he knows this might happen in a moment - a sound, a ghost-O-meter, a kind of geiger counter reading maybe? I dont think loot is a "shallow effect" to keep players invested. Granted its not either "investing gameplay" for sure, and with your background in Pilgrimage I think I understand where you come from. However the exploration/looting aspect needs more meat on the bones. For a starter less houses with upped gains should be good, so a players isnt forced (or "moticated") to "groundhog-day" 20+ houses every day. Its super repetive. Also, its not exactly needed that all houses are marked as lootable (hovering question mark). I think rather marking fewer as "promising ones" could also cut down on the repetition? And regarding meat to the bones of house exploration I would rather think about more stuff to happen (also in the kind of risk/reward gameplay balance). - Why not treat found survivors a tad more in the way State of Decay does? Maybe they are mental and attack you, or you actually have to build some trust before the join you. Or they try to blackmail you and/or call in the baddies? - I havent seen groups of the Fittest in towns - mostly just creatures. I would like to see a chance they could show up the longer you stay in a town. - more options to find intel about bigger caches of material? I like the chance of those "special loot houses" - make it more of a hunt for intel to locate them Anomalies So far it seems that the anomalies are mostly just sitting there in their region and do nothing. Make them mysterious. - chances that they somehow spawn in towns, making looting impossible. - add a way to find out how to repel them temorarily from towns? - more anomalies? Alias is doing a lot of anomaly scripting - this mission begs to implement them (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Di26PjojGI)

Nice foundations of a mission so far. Is there a way to get the quad fixed? Mine got shop up pretty decently... Are there other vehicles to find? Theres no way to take your fellow townsmen with you on an away mission? Any way to get medpacks? Why should I stop a raid mission and give them 100 materials when they bring me tons of materials when I just kill them? Makes no sense! 😃 Some random feedback: To me "looting houses" feels too shallow and a time waster. Theres a promise of loot, but instead you just open the door, dip in, next house. Started to get annoyed by it after day 4+. Too often enemies spawn a few 10s of meteres right behind my back and shot me in the same back. Not cool. We should get some useful feedback from our guards (e.g. when enemies enter the town and engage citizens) Big problem: When you start to get lots of citizens their overlays start to lag the game badly. We dont need those overlays anyway. Well, maybe for guards, but it would be enough to add markers for the guards on the map.