oktyabr

Thanks cameroon! I'll be giving it a thorough look over tonight, to see what I can figure out on my own... but expect a PM in the next day or two just in case ;)

Ahhh! I'm pretty sure you were the one that gave me that idea :D

Hmmm... I got things working the way I want (same rank still salutes) but I've got this curious problem. The AI that I use for the addaction has this in it's init: this setUnitPos ""AUTO""; this disableAI ""MOVE""; this disableAI ""TARGET""; this disableAI ""AUTOTARGET""; this allowdamage false; for obvious reasons... BUT this AI will salute, which is fine, but gets stuck in that position (saluting). Now I'd like to find a way so they either A) salute and then put their hand back down, B) salute and wait for the player to salute back and THEN put their hand down, or C) find a way of preventing these AI from saluting at all, if they are going to get stuck that way. Any ideas, anyone? EDIT --- Looks like I can disable "ANIM" or "FSM" too but then they won't salute. Would be cool if they would salute and put their hand down though, if anyone has an idea of what's going on here... https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/disableAI

Thanks cameroon! My "campsite" idea would get used over again, just in a different location. I thought I would use EOS for the opfor since it caches them when players aren't around and there is no messing with waypoints (for a simple "patrol this area" type of setup). The items in the camp really don't have to be precise, just ambiance really. It might be nice to have a campfire in the center of the marker and maybe use shk_pos to randomly place a handful of other goodies using the center of the marker as the point of origin. A couple of tents, some ammo crates, maybe some camo netting... Nothing too spectacular, just something to make the area look like a campsite. I want to do other variations including the classic "helicopter crash", an IED factory in a randomly chosen building, etc. too. Since I'm using Raven's LIFTER script I thought I might throw in a "recover the wreck" type of side mission as well... "An MRAP suffered badly in a recent IED attack and the wreckage is now blocking the road (randomly select area of road). Take that Chinook, clear the road, and bring the wreck back to base for further analysis (task complete)." Anyway, getting off the thread topic. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with an EOS call in a dynamically spawned task, whenever you get the time to share such a thing. Thanks again! :) ---------- Post added at 02:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:25 PM ---------- 1) I have around 40 EOS zones in my mission, most of them are between 1 and 2km on the longest side. No problems here! :) 2) I think so, which is where you can run into trouble unless it's being hosted on a super computer or something. 40 heavily populated zones and 40 players all wandering the map by themselves is going to equal a whole bunch of AI "spawned" into the game at the same time... tough on FPS no matter how you place the AI. EOS isn't the weak part of that equation though. Some careful mission/group planning and/or limiting your maximum player count will go a long ways to solving that. This is why big coop missions like Domination only spawn one AO at a time ;)

Thanks for including the source files for these pbos too. Makes for some very interesting reading :) But please excuse any ignorance on my behalf with this, but would it be possible to just copy the cfg lines into a mission description.ext and have them work? Merging stringtables where necessary of course. I only ask because the mission I am working on is already very addon intensive. Just curious if there is a way to get the benefits without asking the players to download extra addons. Thanks in advance!

When in doubt do what I do... fire up the map, place a player unit, the profile module then place an MP with debugging turned ON. You can set it to "objectives only" if you like. Save and preview it. Open up the map and take a screenshot so you know where all (if any) "strategic" locations are on that particular map. Go back to the editor and do the same thing with an MCP to find the civilian locations. Last but not least you can do this with the CQB module too. Turn the probability up all the way (50%) to see all the potential CQB locations. No opcoms, no syncing anything, just a player and those modules. Using GIMP or any other decent image editor you can set those screenshots as layers and tweak transparency or simply click their visibility on and off as needed. Handy reference for designing more complex missions.

Thanks for the tip and the fixes! Have you given any thought to what I guess would be some sort of event handler to check unit status or environmental conditions to prevent salutes (and civ gestures) during a fire fight? I love the elegant simplicity (again, something BIS should have built into the game from day ONE!) but the beta tester in me is always exploring the boundaries of what's possible. Hence my attempts at making rank affect skill and recruitment efforts as well ;) ---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:06 PM ---------- I'm still experimenting with the right distance (I can tweak the location of my spawn markers too). As for the multiple greetings I imagine I could either lower the recruitment ranks in my script, so you never recruit anyone of the same rank as player, or get rid of my greeting line entirely and figure out how to adjust your script so recruits of the same rank as player still say something, even without the salute, i.e., "Reporting for duty." The first solution is obviously the easiest but it means any player who finds himself demoted to private will never be able to recruit even another private to help him complete tasks (start the mission over... all players start as either sergeants or lieutenants, depending on slot) or they should seriously think about just joining an existing group (not scripted yet)... just thinking "out loud" here ;) Or maybe, change the line in your script if ((side _x == side _higherranking) && (rankId _x < rankId _higherranking) && !(_x in _alreadysaluted)) then { to if ((side _x == side _higherranking) && (rankId _x <= rankId _higherranking) && !(_x in _alreadysaluted)) then { so units of the same rank also salute? My question is, since I've never had the privilege of serving IRL myself, I'm not sure how often officers of the same rank might salute each other? Would it look unrealistic to "recruit" a unit of the same rank and they salute player?

Thanks cameroon! Would you have an example you could share? To give me something to refer to? This is a pseudo script example of what I'm looking for: Check time/event. != new task exit -pick random location -create 100x100 marker called "marker1" -place marker at location (would like to find a script to destroy/hide any map objects like trees, etc. too before placing) -place objects in marker (tents, ammo crates, burning fire pit, etc.) -spawn EOS units on marker and have them patrol -notify players of new task to "find and destroy insurgent camp in the vicinity of <getpos "marker1">" ---once task "complete" destroy marker and contents I'm also looking at using Shuko's Taskmaster 2 or FHQ TaskTracker to streamline the system, if that helps, but haven't finished my research into which one yet (opinions are welcome). Thanks in advance. :)

I almost feel like I asked this before but I can't find the post where I did it! :D Has anyone experimented with the dynamic creation of an EOS zone, during mission run time? I'd like to have, for example, a task to find and destroy an insurgent camp that is randomly placed on the map during the mission. This would require the generation of a new marker/zone and I wonder how difficult it would be (or even if it's possible at all) to have it be populated by EOS; i.e. creating a new EOS zone in the middle of a mission? If this isn't possible has anyone found any good work around for it? Thanks in advance!

Every once in awhile I get "null" in place of _message. I don't understand the mathematics of _message = _messagearray select random count _messagearray; well enough to know why this might be? Should there be a "floor" or "round" in there somewhere? Lastly, where did you find the details on BIS_fnc_rankParams? I've googled and checked the wiki but can find no entry on it. Am I missing some secret repository of BIS_fnc_ knowledge somewhere? :P

Thanks! That works like a treat! I'm still learning scripting and I have a long ways to go. Here is one of my spawn addaction scripts, if you care to take a look: A couple of questions? In the above script the unit is created on the marker "rifspawn" which I have cleverly hidden inside a barracks. As it is now they spawn onto the marker, take a few steps towards the player, salute, and then finally take the last steps out of the barracks. I would like to find a way to reverse those last two... a way to delay the salute for just a second or two more would have them outside the barracks and in front of the player before saluting. Ideas? My rank test allows the player to recruit units up to and equal with the player's rank. Spawned units of the same rank as the player do not salute and then, of course, do not use your excellent "reporting for duty" line either. When they are of a lower rank I get both lines, the one from my script and the one from yours. Any ideas on how to clean this up a bit? Last but not least I'm *trying* to make this mission for COOP with JIP. What's the best way to make sure all the players get this script ran on them? Thanks in advance!

Hmmm... I took a quick look at your mission and can find nothing wrong. The only other thing I'm doing differently is the call in my init.sqf is still the default: 0 = execVM "IgiLoad\IgiLoadInit.sqf"; And not the _igiload = execVM "IgiLoad\IgiLoadInit.sqf"; I know it shouldn't make a difference... in fact your method is probably considered the "safer" of the two but when all else fails I say put things back *exactly* the way the author intended and see what happens? If it still doesn't work then my guess would be an incompatibility elsewhere, probably between igiload and btc logistics (I don't run any btc scripts). I can tell it works on mine as soon as I spawn a HEMTT with VVS (tweaked as I've described). Spawn a HEMTT, jump in the driver's seat and I immediately get the "Disable cargo loading from back" or whatever that addaction is. Doesn't even need a cargo behind it to see that.

VERY cool! Something that BIS should have built into the vanilla game from the very start IMO. I've got some AI spawns in my mission to help a single player build a group with (group player) createUnit calls. It also uses _soldier groupChat format ["%2 %1 reporting for duty.", recname, recrank]; to greet the player when they join the group. I would love to have this salute action work as well but not sure how to include the call so it will work since you said "not in the units group will salute"... so I need to find a way to create the unit, then call the salute script, then join the player's group? While I'm here any idea on how to randomly assign a rank to a createUnit between Private and the player's rank?

Yes, that is correct. In my mission I have an AI soldier placed behind a desk. Near him I have a marker I name "CAR_SPAWN". I add this to his init box in the editor: this disableAI "MOVE"; this disableAI "TARGET"; this disableAI "AUTOTARGET"; this allowdamage false; removeAllWeapons this; this addAction["Requisition a vehicle",VVS_fnc_openVVS,["CAR_SPAWN","Car"]]; The first half of that line keeps him from moving, shooting or being able to take damage. I could have used a box instead of a soldier too. The last bit adds the addAction to him. Get close, select the action, pick your vehicle, *POOF!* One appears in the marker area behind him. I have a similar line on a different editor placed unit for helicopters. :) IgiLoad doesn't work even with the transport HEMTT?

IgiLoad still needs work to work with the A2 choppers. Post on his thread like I did and maybe he'll get around to adding them :) VVS works fine with the A2 choppers. The work around I used was custom vehicle pools. I posted how I did it on the page before this one. Set up the custom pools, spawn a transport HEMTT, jump in it, you should have the cargo option. I do. If you don't make *sure* that the *only* call to IgiLoad is that single line in the init.sqf. If it is called anywhere else in the mission it will *not* work.

Thanks for the snow tweak! Makes me wonder what it would require to see a visible cloud of steam when breathing? :D

Very nice! I usually play with zero HUD but this might be just the right balance between usefulness and unobtrusiveness :)

That is correct IF you are still using the old version of IgiLoad. The new version of IgiLoad no longer requires this and in fact the author highly recommends against doing so. Only an initialization in the init.sqf is now required.

Yes, please! :) The mission I'm currently working on already requires almost 20 addons. I much prefer scripts where possible.

LJ, did you tweak thunder sounds too?

Whooops!!!! MY BAD! It's not your script I had that problem with... it was another weather script. :o Sorry about that. I'll be giving your new version a run this weekend for sure! Any possibility of having snow only at night at above a certain elevation? I'm mission building on Clafghan and some snow high up in the mountains would be very atmospheric :)

Yeah you did. You created that "empty slot" :) That's the bread and butter of "JIP", having empty "slots" players can fill. On a tangent here is a thread that might help you: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?114773-How-to-prevent-JIP

Thanks! I'll try that.

Hey Ohally, A couple questions for you kind sir, at your convenience ;) I'm not seeing any in this latest release. Did they just not make it or am I not looking long enough? I'd like to not only have a chance of Strela for your middle east tribal fighters but I also wonder if there is a variable in these regards that could be called from a script? One of the tasks I have is find and destroy a shipment of Strela and it would be VERY cool if, should the players fail in this task, that the occurance of them could be then increased, mid mission? Thanks in advance!

Ohally just released a new version of CAF Aggressors. Any chance we could get you to look at how to get massi's weapons working with this new version too? Thanks! http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?172069-Arma3-AGGRESSORS