jureidinim

Another update made to the patch. The changes listed are nice - but no mention of any more AI improvements (carrier AI nor walrus pathfinding nor Manta engagements). This line: - Strategy Game now ends after capturing all islands and destroying enemy carrier ... still doesn't really address the issue of a player rush-killing the enemy carrier and then leisurely cleaning up islands. Without the enemy carrier around, why bother spend the time to clear all the islands - you know you will eventually do it and there is no longer any possibility of you losing (no carrier to take your islands). They say they hope this is the last update before official release of this patch - i hope other patches will follow addressing the AI/meta-game more directly. I am happy to see some work being done, but just wondering if any of the dev team can confirm if more patches are coming? Are the mod tools still going to be released?

I'll keep a light on for Santa :-) Happy to hear this. I know you guys are busy espescially with Arma 3 on the horizon - but you have a great game here - it's just a bit rough around the edges. Looking forward to future notices on other patches and the mod tools :-)

The slider implementation would be the best way - heck i would be happy for a toggle switch (hardcoded respawn time when on).... anything to make the overall game experience challenging... lol Who knows - it may be moddable right now in its current state to do this - but sadly i lack those skills We may still get a christmas present from the devs in the form of an updated patch :-)

Yes - the startegy game - its too easy at the present. I too have stopped playing it now because of the carrier AI (weak) and i think some tweaks are needed for the overall meta game. Unless the enemy carrier AI gets awesomely good, the game will always be a bit anticlimatic once you beat him because the islands are now free for the taking. Putting in some sort of tech tree (making those research labs viable) would also make the game "longer" as you would not start with everything available at once (this may even make islands that are not deadly still a challenge) If they cannot fix the carrier AI right away, I would think an easier fix (keeping the current carrier AI level), would be to make it respawn at its stockpile island after defeated when a certain time (example 10-20 minutes) has passed. At least that way you always have someone attacking your islands. Here's hoping for some greatness from the next patch update. :-)

Just curious as to what specific changes were done for the enemy carrier in this new BETA. In my current game, i have taken three neutral islands, stopped at my stockpile island for resupplies and taken one island from the enemy. Up to this point, i have not heard any reports that the enemy carrier has attacked any of my islands. Now it may be that he is off taking the two neutrals on his side of the map which is ok. I just found it ... different .. as all previous games i usually get an alert by my third island takeover, that he is harrassing my islands. Not saying its a bad thing - its actually nice to be planning a bit more and doing more island takeovers without the distress calls of the enemy carrier attacking.

Just played a game wit hthe newer BETA patch - 1.03.0006. Did a supply run with the supply barque and it went as expected. The second run i did, the barque stopped 7 mins out from my carrier and would not move. I had to move my carrier to the Barque to get the supplies. I did a third supply run and the same thing happened. The supply barque sets out, but when it was 7 mins out, it stopped. I did notice that on the third one, the waypoint setting for the barque was pointing to an earlier position of my carrier. I was in the middle of taking over an enemy island with scramblers, and so had to be repositioning my carrier around the island to keep my units in telemetry range. It seems the barque got confused and just stopped moving while my carrier was moving around. This was not a problem in the vanilla game or even the first Beta patch - the barque could follow my carrier around - but now it just stops.

Happened in the Strategy game. I have made an entry on the bug tracker. No save game though. Normally i play an "ironman" style so i have no save games until i'm quitting (which i usually overwrite the previous). However, I will start making savepoints to see if i can capture this (or any other bug) again.

Well - if he is going for my stockpile he is in for a shock as I had that island changed to another one :) If he is stocking up on supplies and better armaments for his units before committing to taking my islands, then thats fine too. Anything to make it a good challenge is fine. To what Savant1974 says - yes that seems to be its current behaviour which I hope will eventually be addressed. It seems the enemy carrier is aggressive and "smart" only up to when it gets badly hurt. It doesn't seem to repair and resupply and continue fighting - it just finds the nearest friendly island and sits there waiting to be sunk.

There is improvement in the general movement of walruses - but it does still get stuck, and bridges still give Walruses major problems. As BullsEyeForAForehead stated, they do not CLOSE range to attack, which messes up your attack plans as you give the order, switch to somewhere else, come back and find they are sitting there out of range with their guns pointed at the target. You have to manually move them into range for them to engage. Carrier AI has improved -I engaged him as he was trying to take over one of my islands. He stayed until i started firing on him. He turned and engaged, launching drones and two Mantas. We damaged each other pretty badly - he limped away while i was still repairing engines. I was close to my stockpile island so i went there, rearmed and repaired and went after his nearest island - which is exactly where he ran to. He turned again to face me but had no vehicles deployed this time. Long sequence of firing at him until he sunk. Mantas need to: a) Be smarter at getting line of sight on a target - they hover in one spot just looking at the enemy and many times i have to jump in to move around a hill or climb a little higher to see over a wall at the walrus its targeting, or something to get them to engage b) Rotate and move faster if you tell them to Move or Dock while they are under fire. As there is no direct "GET OUT OF ENEMY RANGE" command, i think the AI should assume any move/dock command given to it while its under fire is a signal to bug out quick or die. Side Note - trading islands and then having an early two part encounter with the carrier seems to be the way this game plays (he attacks islands in your backline, you move to engage, damage him, follow him and kill him.. game pretty much over). Once you beat the carrier, even if you set the game to end after capturing all islands - its just a chore to move around and mop them up. If possible I would love to see some other options (as others had mentioned) - like maybe give the enemy 3 carriers per game. Spawn one at a time. When one dies, after some time has passed, spawn the next. Or even spawn indefinately if the end game goal chosen is to capture all islands - at least you will have a constant threat on you while you island hop and capture. Or give the option to set how many islands are in a game so we can set smaller fights. Just something different. Anyways - glad to see progress on the patch. Looking forward to future updates

Looks great - will try it later at home.. question though - does the walrus handle exactly the same way on all terrain? I understand it's bad as it is now in pathfinding and this may be our quick fix until the official patch, but am hoping this mod will keep the "feel" of driving over different terrain.

Same thing happened to me - a new game seems to fix it. I did see him still run on one occasion, but more often than not, with this change, he will stay and fight.

The one by electroCarrier? Its on this forum. Its a small one line change to the code using the mod tools (CarrierTools to unpack the files) also on this forums.

Hi all, Been enjoying the game as best as possible given the current issues with pathfinding and cowardly Carrier AI (although the Carrier AI issue has been mitigated a bit by the simple change to the script discovered by ElectricCarrier). Really looking forward to the upcoming patches to get things better. Anyways - I was wondering - and maybe players of the original game can help me out here - what kind of strategy do you employ in controlling the islands? I mean, right now you can get into this "chasing your tail" scenario where the enemy AI carrier takes one of your islands, you take one of his... you retake one he took.. he takes another one... How do you solidify a "lead" in the island taking? Is there a way to up the defenses on an island? Some have weak defenses and others pretty strong which i know can deter the enemy carrier. Is there a way to bolster the defenses on a "weak" island? Also - destroying ports breaks the supply from that island ( i think?) . Do these ports get rebuilt over time? Can you force a rebuild of a port? For that matter - what about rebuilding a destroyed Radar or Walrus garage/Manta Helipad on the island if you destroyed them? Is that even possible? Is it done automatically over time? Side question - does the enemy carrier follow the same supply rules you do? Meaning it will have to wait on replacement walruses/Mantas/fuel/ammo, etc from its stronghold island as well?

Other things to make it more useful could be: 1. Gives equipped vehicle a slightly larger scan range to pick up contacts further out. Makes a good scout. 2. Built in ECCM - maybe a scanner equipped vehicle will have better telemetry range - even offsetting scramblers a bit (not totally - but better telemetry range than normal scrambling effect)

That point of the defense island boosting the others - cool. Thats something i can do then. Shame about the enemy carrier not replacing its losses (or not seeming to right now) - i guess that's another hope for a future patch/mod.

At this point - no i don't think there is an easier way to do this. It has to be done by unpacking the files using the CarrierTool program and manually changing that one line (i believe its the smallest .cc file that has the AI scripts - not at home now to confirm). It doesn't improve the carrier's strategy play - but at least it makes it worrisome when you run into him.

So it has to be a manual pickup? No way to do it remotely from the "commander's chair"? Darn.. wish i had read this - i left a walrus stranded that somehow fell off a path behind some rocks and got stuck.. lol.. i couldnt get it clear even when driving manually. And couldn't figure out the hook to pick it up.. so i left it... oh well..

@ElectroCarrier - Is that the same change you mentioned in the scripting forum? http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?141067-Mod-Script-Findings/page5 I tried that change and he still runs away. I unpacked using the CarrierTools; made the change as you listed, repacked and put the new file back in place of the old one (just renamed the old one). Did i miss a step? I will try it on a new game.. i was using an old save game - dunno if that makes a difference. ---------- Post added 10-17-2012 at 12:31 AM ---------- Previous post was 10-16-2012 at 10:35 PM ---------- Nevermind.. I confirmed it - It needed a new game to take effect. Awesome!! I had my first real battle with the enemy carrier using this change you made. I chased after reports of the enemy carrier attacking my stockpile island and then another - i never caught up.. he was always gone by the time i reached. That was until the third report came in. Timewarp activated to chase... and then timewarp interrupted... and holding my breath to see if the enemy carrier will run as normal... Not this time.. he turned and engaged!! Enemy carrier strafed me then turned to chase opening up with his deck guns. Then it launched its drones and mantas at me. Big aerial battle with my mantas.... Anti air guns blazing. At the end, my carrier is dead in the water with everything damaged but slowly repairing. Enemy Carrier docked his remaining mantas and sailed off with some damage too. I am hoping that the damage and mantas he lost will not magically be fixed but will actually stall him for awhile. But still - what a difference this small change makes to the game. Thanks ElectroCarrier - definately improved game with one small change. Looking forward to what else can be done as the modding grows.

Hmm.. there is my worry. I have ARMA 2 from STEAM. So I would probably get OA from STEAM as well. I know its only $10.00 more for the Combined Ops - but seems like a bit of waste to be getting ARMA 2 a second time.

Not to hijack this thread - but i was wondering - I have ARMA2 and would like OA. If I buy OA, is the process to merge the two reliable (i see some horror stories of merging), or should i get the combined ops (which would be buying ARMA2 a second time)?

Hi all, Hoping for a little help here. I *thought* i understood triggers and had them working well, but in a mission i am now doing, i'm having trouble and just cannot figure it out. Basically the mission is a POW rescue. 2 POW's (POW1 and POW2). Once rescued, team makes there way to an escape boat and leave. I have a trigger to mark the end of the misson and this is what is killing me. I have tw o global triggers that check if POW1 is alive and if POW2 is alive. Set to repeatedly. Sets a variable POW1ALIVE and POW2ALIVE to TRUE respectively. There are 2 other globals which check if they are dead and sets those same variables to FALSE. At the final destination of the boat (over 500 metres away from the start location of boat), is a trigger with an area of 50 x 50. This is grouped with the boat, so it checks for the VEHICLE to BE PRESENT for activation. The condition is that POW1ALIVE AND POW2ALIVE are TRUE. If so, it playes music and shows congratulatory text that you were succesful. However... this is what happens. Game starts... Congratulatory text comes up. Mission over.. lol I understand that both flags would be true at mission start, but why is that trigger activating when the boat hasn't moved to the area??? Driving me nuts... please help.

Thanks! I'll give it a try tonight. :)

Thanks for the reply. You are right - the mission would end by just going to the boat - never thought of that.. lol The POW's wont go by themselves tho - they are set as captives and the only movement they do is to join your team when you eliminate their captors and are standing close to them. I'll try the "thislist" method - i never knew of that. Question - you say "vehicle" .. is that literal, or do i put the vehicle name (i called the boat "EscapeBoat")

Played it once since the patch and i had the same problem. If i remember though, once they go "stupid" and ignored my rejoin commands, I could still individually tell them to move to locations. They just would not rejoin a formation with me. A pain really espescially if you have a large team - hopefully will be fixed soon. I like the suggestion mentioned of giving an override command option. Just make it a toggle so when the bullets start flying you can switch them back to their cautious state.

do the beta patches go out to steam users or is it only when it becomes a "full" release that steam will get it?