charon productions

WHO exactly is shooting and who exactly are "Army Men" ?

As soon as a town is clear it can and will be re-infected as long as there is humans in it and enough migrating zed groups around or if that`s not the case, infected towns will send out envoys to continue the spread. A little view of the migration scheme: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN2-bn_KdTw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN2-bn_KdTw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

civilian setFriend [west , 1]; civilian setFriend [resistance , 0];

You can use: NameOfCivilian setvariable ["CHN_UNDEAD_IS_HUMAN",true,true]; ( to override the module assigning the civilian uninfected variable value upon initialization) NameOfCivilian setVariable ["CHN_UNDEAD_INFECTED",true,true]; NameOfCivilian setVariable ["CHN_UNDEAD_BITTENTIME",time,true]; NameOfCivilian setVariable ["CHN_UNDEAD_INFTYPE","INFECTED",true];

It is true that zeds probably would not exhibit any strategy in their moves. Debugging the scripts, there is only one special case left, where a zed group would fall through the massive conditions-grid set-up to consider all cases where it would be unitready but still have a destination Since this always only happens deep into a mission, it will take some time to identify the factor for this. Managed to optimize some scripts for shorter run-time. Unnecessary double function calls etc. Interesting to observe that civilians who are flagged "fleeing" by the engine will run up to the nearest army guys and stay there and be unflagged "fleeing", without having to script that.(As long as you set the army guys to be friends with the civilian side) Can´t be disabled though hehe, except to disallow fleeing at all.

You got it.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1481563&postcount=171 I have checked the virtual town infection again with a radio trigger that kills all zeds in the area and the map marker disappears and all tested towns are marked clear. Without doing that, i noticed that sometimes it is near impossible to find the last zed, so impossible that i assumed it was an error in the script that determines the town cleared. So i will probably add a function that can be hooked to a radio trigger that the player can "by radio" declare a town clear and the function will delete the last one or two zeds, to prevent cheating it will only work if there is less than 3 zeds in the town. Or maybe they will be warped maximally away from the player,so he does not see them popping up from nowhere and reset them, so they can attack again, not sure what to do.

Sure they do, otherwise the dogs would have just been standing around on the spot, because the game as it is does not support the dog to move. It`s a download, i should write a set-up though just to make sure everyone reads the instructions and is aware of the issues, because there will be many who don`t understand the impossibility of the mod and will complain about minor issues like "I saw a zed being stuck in a fence" (what can happen with vanilla arma as well btw) etc. It is approx 400 MB size due to the countless textures. Hmm, you don`t have to install "scripts". The scripts are being executed once you place the module on the map, just like shown in the last video. Just familiarize yourself on how to install an addon. It can be as easy as "Dump the content of the mod into your Arma2 addons folder--> that`s it" Or use the -mod method. Who knows, my time is limited. I have to work on other projects. So i would say it`s unlikely. Until i have a proper MP testing environment i don`t consider it at all. I even doubt that it will work in MP the way it does in SP. To achieve the looks and functionality of it, the most bizarre things had to be invented (which don`t reveal themselves to the player) that go on unnoticed in the background, which are very prone to be buggy or not working in MP where glitching is a big issue. Many things only happen when the player is near, like the virtual town infection. So everything that happens in SP related to the player, has to be translated to playerS in MP. 6 people Co-op necessitates the same scipt modifications than 32 people full-server,because it is still MP. 5k Zombies? Ah you talk about Arma4 ? ;) (Which Bi o.c. will never make)

EDITED: Irrelevant to the mod. Game play experience is really unseen testing through the mission now. Never the same scenario, very exciting. One last bug that needs fixing is that deep in any mission the town infection status does not correctly reset anymore , once the town is cleared, hopefully i will be able to track down the exact cause for that.

In this mod careful attention was paid to all vehicle scenarios and have been considered to prevent exactly that. The crew of armored vehicles are safe (tanks etc.) Attackable/Infectable are: - chooper door gunners and the pilot (toggleable) - soft armored vehicle gunners (like Hummer gunners etc.) - Static weapon gunners (M2 etc.)

Okay this is how you would place a zed in the editor in the minimal case: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ1GbjX5vzE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ1GbjX5vzE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> @dialektiikka and bddizzle: Hmm, the thing is the migration is a very long process and to make a vid of it would take a lot of hard disk space that i am always short of and in like 10 minutes only it would be hard to see that. Maybe i can make just little time intervals to show the progress. I call them "Envoys" as that is what they are called in their variable space. They travel in most cases alone with the intent to keep the fight raging in a location while not completely limiting the infection to just that location. It makes it a lot more challenging. And in case anyone dares to use ALICE with it, the zeds would just stay in one town as this keeps spawning new units. But, if the mob kills a lot of civilians and that mob is full (12 members) then the newly spawned infected will occasionally join the nearest emptier group which would be the envoy group. It all depends on the scenario. I have seen envoy groups in my numerous tests that had like 5-6 members. A number of 3 envoy groups at a time is allowed, they all go to different locations and would know what locations are already advanced by other envoy or "mover" groups, so the spread is more broad. If you are a clever mission designer then no-one can keep you from reinforcing the envoy group with additional units by simply joining them to it. There is 2 types of migrating groups. One is the envoy groups (usually small), the other types are the "Mover"-groups, which are usually maxed out. And if the neighbour town is empty and your militia town is the next closest town containing humans , then they will all invade your town. Hmm, haven`t integrated that, because the module scripts could not tell what content would be in any possibly occuring weapon crates (an insufficiency of the scipting commands) And about the melee animations, it is basically just using what animations Arma2 offers, due to the lack of possibility to generate custom animations with professional tools

No, you can put zed units in the editor whereever you want. They will then autonomously search for humans and infect them. There is special variable settings that allow to send a zed group to a specific location still being able to attack humans while they are on their way. Using any other command on the zeds won`t work because the module will override those, so it is advised to adhere to the provided variable-based commands and for the mission-maker it is a good idea to familiarize himself with those variables to be able to understand the way the module works. They can also be set to staying in one town and not migrate, should that be needed. But actually all possible scenarios are covered by the module to make them do what "real" zeds would do.

This demonstrates some of the freshest features that were needed to add the right feel and avoid unnecessary wait times to kill infected when it is actually possible now to shot them before they resurrect. Sounds easy, but was quite a bit of coding, as well as those animations which are hard to work with in Arma. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpWpULUb5Jc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpWpULUb5Jc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

No it will turn around its axis as if the pilot stepped on the back rotor pedal and descend slowly to give the player enough time to bail out. How could they? The arma engine allows no movement inside of vehicles. They will exhibit spasms (animations), but they have to exit the vehicle to be able to attack anything, not perfect, but an engine limitation that can`t be overcome unfortunately. A new feature to this compared to older zed mod variants is also that you can prevent a human from returning as an undead by shooting him in the head selectively during the period between death and resurrection. I found it always annoying having to wait for killed civs until they resurrect to finally neutralize them as a threat. It is the little details like that that will make this stand out and add realism.

Well the engine is the limit, that i have to adhere to. For now it is well enough to have all those numerous features actually working bug-free hehe.

Pilots,drivers,gunners and cargo now can turn into an infected inside the vehicle. Pilots will effectively crash-land the controlled chopper. Gunners and cargo will attempt to get out of the vehicle when it is going slow enough and then attack the rest of the crew, since the engine does not support inside-vehicle movement. This really adds a lot of "realism" to the whole thing.

Well as i have said yesterday, around Christmas is anticipated. I am able to fix a dozen issues everyday. Most effectively since i moved to actually testing this within a long mission where all cases that can cause issues DO occur, like antidote handling, soldiers becoming zeds in a choppers,town infection status changes etc. It was clear from the beginning that this will never be perfect, it is as magic as walking on water to do a zed - mod with the arma engine and has some issues that can`t be overcome.

You can be 999% sure that the arma engine is not Madden ;) It`s a military simulation made for units firing at each other at distances of 10-500 meters with no support of any melee combat at all. It is already simulating tackling with a calculation that if you are surrounded by more than 3 zeds in a vicinity of 3-4 meters and one strokes you, you will fall to the ground for a second, because they would just push you to the ground. That way you have to make absolutely sure that you are not getting mobbed.

Something like that is not implemented. And what would be the point in a one stroke death? It takes about 3 strokes to kill. So when 3 zeds mob you, you are dead in a sec. (Lag delays the attacks oftentimes, so they dont score the way they should) The harder part is how to get rid of the infection the stroke causes once you have it ;)

You would almost certainly be more successful getting help, had you posted that in here

FOR IT TO WORK, you have to place the module. With WORK i mean the fact that the zeds actually attack anything, the infection spreads and the whole migration system and the sound effects. No one can keep you from placing the zed units without the module (they are scoped accordingly) , but they will just stand there, attack nothing and pose no threat, but there again, probably a couple of people look for a zero challenge situation. The module is doing everything a mission designer could possibly want a horde of zombies to do and that is run around and look for targets,infect them and migrate over the map, but it`s your choice.

Hmmm, the option to switch off anything really necessitates a lot of If (GLOBALVARIABLE) then {don`t do this and that}. So more code, more potential errors. I`ll do it (EDIT: Done) , but the main priority (without further exception) is to kill bugs now. People tend to focus on bugs more than on what is actually working, so it seems that that is what they care most about. Any last additional development effort that is consider, is the possibility (Toggle) to make the player immune to friendly fire. You`ll know why, once you have been close to a zed and your AI buddies just fire him in the back, hitting you. It is also advisable to rid the teammates of grenades for such cases :D EDIT: Friendly fire immunity implemented, tested, works

It`s simple, to have anything work in MP, the scripts need to be designed to run either on the host machine or the server, then the host machine needs to "listen" to variable changes and process potential consequences for the local player character. Since this mod is entirely variable space based, has particle effects and many sound effects, all these issues would need custom scripts that just run locally and kick in when only the player gets infected or gets cured with the antidote etc. We are talking about 3000+ lines of code to be completely rewritten for this in a z-mod of unseen complexity. That is one of the hardest, time-consuming, bug-rich jobs imaginable talking about 2-3 months additional development time of everyday`s many hour work. Not countless hehe, but about 400 hours for the Undead and 600 hours for the CZM mod ;) It is exhausting, so i am eager to finish this. If not one major error pops up again, i would say a release around christmas is possible. It will not be perfectly bug-free-guaranteed , something that complex is nearly impossible to get there, but i am looking into the most important features at least working. You can disable the town migration if you tag your spawned zeds with the variable : @Cyclone83: Since this is module based, you can simply put them on the map without putting down the module, then you can do whatever you might have in mind there with them.

Any kind of Multiplayer programming has not been considered (also Coop won`t work). It would necessitate basically rewriting all the scripts just for that. You can shoot zeds, but the infection won`t spread at all, so there is no real point in playing it.

Video of a team member whose infection timer is up becoming a zed: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5athBap_Wcg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5athBap_Wcg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Still working on a faster reaction time after the resurrection. It is going through many initializations before assessing what group to join etc. , so a prioritized kill has to be put in before group considerations. EDIT: Just fixed that, he gets up and instantly hurls at the next human.