madbilly

I couldn't find the comref in the Personal Tools 2.5.1 download at http://www.armedassault.info/index.php?cat=news&id=5181&game=1. You wouldn't have a copy lying around would you mikero? ... Oops, belay that, found it. Cheers, Madbilly

Hi everyone, I would like to announce a new tool called the SEOW Dynamic Mapping Tool (DMT), now in beta, that seeks to make it easy to incorporate Iron Front actions into the SEOW persistent campaign engine for IL-2 1946. You can learn a little more about DMT at the meta-SEOW Forum. For those who don't know, SEOW is a long-standing combined operations (air, sea, ground) strategic campaign add-on for IL-2 that provides support for detailed orders of battle, logistics and a range of other sim-focused campaign functions. SEOW produces a sequence of coop missions (played without player re-spawn) that allows players to simulate combat with consequences. Here is a sample intelligence map overview of a recent campaign (Korosten 1943) http://seowhq.net/4Simages/IF/SEOWMP.jpg (276 kB) Until now, SEOW missions were all played (and all combat resolved) using IL-2 at IL-2 map scale (which is large, hundreds of km across, as befitting a flight sim). There was no first-person ground action available. This was a problem for us die-hards that wanted ever-increasing campaign fidelity in the air, at sea and on the ground. With the new DMT tool, coupled with Visitor3 and mikero's tools, we can rapidly extract small windows out of the SEOW battle map and build them as ARMA/IF islands suitable for direct combat operations on the ground with Iron Front. We do this by extracting topographic and cadastral information from the IL-2 maps and using this information to construct ARMA layers and objects sufficient to build new island pbos. As an example, a 5 km square island can be extracted from IL-2 and compiled in less than 5 minutes. The results are not absolutely perfect, but they are easily good enough to support MP operations in Iron Front. You can see sample images and example islands here. Here is one such image: http://seowhq.net/4Simages/IF/Dabryn_ambush.jpg (381 kB) With these new maps constructed, we can then place the relevant combat units from the SEOW OOB on the maps, thereby creating .sqm missions that relate to the much larger SEOW campaign. The DMT tool is still in beta, but we are now play-testing this at SEOW HQ and it works well. We think this is exciting for SEOW, essentially transforming SEOW into a meta-game combining IL-2 and Iron Front as combat resolvers, but it is also exciting for ARMA and Iron Front since it raises the prospect of a large variety of new maps becoming available essentially for zero extra effort. Since DMT is PHP-scripted, it is portable and extensible and, at the very least, provides a useful starting point for map and mission editing artists seeking to broaden the scope of their offerings. Cheers, MB / 4S PS: I must acknowledge the friendly assistance of kju and others, who have helped me learn more about ARMA island building. My learning is not over yet ...

Updated youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iDcQ3cUjZuo

This SEOW-based system (for IFA2) has just been updated. Automatic Iron Front terrain generator has been improved to add explicit water features (ponds, rivers, lakes, coasts), short-range surface relief (because IL2 maps can be unduly smooth), better road mapping, airfield runway placement, bridges. Automatic Iron Front mission generator has been improved to track the health/damage/ammo/status/location details of every individual solder, gun and vehicle from mission to mission, plus generate bridges with correct damage state, aircraft movements This will be the last revision for the IFA2 platform. It is intended that future revisions will support the IFA3 platform. Just to recap: this SEOW system supports multiplayer online action, but its focus is on detail and realism within a strategic and evolving campaign environment. Missions are played once only, then the results feed back into the campaign for the next set of missions. Every action matters, every choice matters. Cheers, Madbilly

Hi everyone, Based on recent successful proof of concept with the first version of my campaign system in the Korosten/Zhitomir campaign, I am moving ahead with v2 of the system for IF (enhancing terrain generation, individual soldier tracking, supply/morale etc). This is all in the context of historical/realistic MP coop action, dead is dead, no respawns/replays, no force balancing etc (i.e. completely different to the most common MP styles these days). This context provides an opportunity where I think the Arma MP system could be improved. Ideally, for my purposes, I need to have an MP Player Lobby that hides the opposition force strength from the player's view. That is, each connecting player would need to be authenticated into a particular side BEFORE they enter the lobby. When they enter the lobby after authentication they would only be able to see friendly units/slots/dispositions. Slot selection then takes place and the mission is run as usual. The benefit here is secrecy and fog of war - players should not automatically get perfect intel on the enemy OOB at the start of each mission. My question is this: does anyone know of such a mod for A2 or A3? Alternatively, is anyone aware of a way to script the game (A2 or A3) that may allow such a mod to be developed? Cheers, Madbilly

Thanks again. I have poked around a little and found this as an example of RscDisplayMultiplayerSetup scripting. But I can't see where in the game files the RscDisplayMultiplayerSetup function would be called/used. I must be missing something obvious!

Thanks .kju. How would that be done? Is there a particular diag resource for the MP lobby that could be edited?

OK, fixed and working. The problem was that I had used a z-elevation that was too low! :rolleyes: The terrain config.cpp file contains: class cfgVehicles { class house; class Land_ponton_bridge: House { armor = 150; model = "\lib\ponton\ponton_bridge"; destrType = "DestructDefault"; scope = 1; }; class Land_ponton_apparel1: House { armor = 150; model = "\lib\ponton\ponton_apparel1"; destrType = "DestructDefault"; scope = 1; }; }; This builds fine using Visitor3 and pboProject. Then I generate the bridges in a mission file using the following code in init.sqf: if (isNil "oneTime") then { oneTime = true; // fnc_bridgeA2 // parameters: [startingPosition, direction, objectClass, repeats, offsetX, offsetY, offsetZ] fnc_bridgeA2 = { private ["_start","_obj"]; _start = createVehicle [ _this select 2, _this select 0, [], 0, "CAN_COLLIDE" ]; _start setVectorUp [0,0,1]; _start setDir (_this select 1); _start setPosATL (_this select 0); for "_i" from 1 to (_this select 3) do { _obj = createVehicle [ _this select 2, _this select 0, [], 0, "CAN_COLLIDE" ]; _obj attachTo [_start, [ _i*(_this select 4), _i*(_this select 5), _i*(_this select 6) ]]; }; }; // a big Arma2 concrete bridge on pylons, with metal railings [ [4156,3636,-1.7], 2, "Land_nav_pier_m_2", 3, 40, 0, 0 ] call fnc_bridgeA2; // an Iron Front pontoon bridge [ [4156,3600,1.2], 92, "Land_ponton_bridge", 3, 0, 38.45, 0 ] call fnc_bridgeA2; }; And here is the screenshot evidence that they work fine in my scripted terrain (with a Kubelwagen driven onto the pontoons): Many thanks to Killzone_Kid's bridge script and to .kju's gentle nudges in the right direction on configuring a class for the pontoons. Cheers, Madbilly

Here is what I put in my terrain config.cpp: class cfgVehicles { class house; class Land_lib_ponton_bridge: House { armor = 150; model = "\lib\ponton\ponton_bridge"; destrType = "DestructDefault"; scope = 1; }; class Land_lib_ponton_apparel: House { armor = 150; model = "\lib\ponton\ponton_apparel1"; destrType = "DestructDefault"; scope = 1; }; }; I built the terrain with no problems. But when I try to place "Land_lib_ponton_bridge" on the map in a mission init.sqf it doesn't appear. By contrast, "Land_nav_pier_m_2" works just fine in the same init.sqf file. Stumped for now, I will sleep on it. Cheers, Madbilly

Aha! Thanks kju, I will do some reading on what the config should have. Just for background, I am using KillZoneKid's bridge script to place bridges in missions, and having the pontoons available would add good variety. Cheers, Madbilly / 4S

Yes, me too. I am trying to find out the class name of the pontoon bridge object "\LIB\ponton\ponton_bridge.p3d" for use in SQF scripting for IFA2. I have tried to guess but have had no luck so far. Any suggestions? Cheers, Madbilly PS: I tried the DH link but it timed out.

Works beautifully!

Well, I think kju meant to recommend that you should not buy IF right now solely on the basis that IFA3 is not yet in final form. So if you are only buying IF to run IFA3, then follow kju's advice. But if you do buy IF now, you can still play it stand-alone (a neat game), and you can still mod it to IFA2 and play that way. Nevertheless, kju and others are working hard to make IFA3 the standard (it does/will supersede IFA2 in many ways) so we are all waiting for IFA3 to be finished. Cheers, Madbilly

Thanks, I will monitor this. I am interested in improvements in realism, AI behaviour, etc.

Thanks, I might actually use this to auto-generate and keep track of serial numbers on tanks. Cheers, madbilly

So why is the first argument for setObjectTexture 4,5,6 for heavies, 0,1,2 for mediums and 1,2,3 for halftracks? Is that what you managed to find out by trial and error, or is there some other meaning? Cheers, madbilly

Good find. Can you please explain what these three sets of commands achieve exactly?

Hi everyone, If you have IFA2 and you would like to experience an SEOW campaign set in the Zhitomir district with the First Ukrainian Front opposed by 4PzAOK, then read on. We are looking for commanders and participants who are interested in realistic, historically based combat operations within a detailed and evolving strategic framework. If you are seeking an MP server respawning fragfest, this campaign is not for you. If you want to know more, check out http://seowhq.net/seowhqforum/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=3286 or PM me. If you don't know how SEOW works with Iron Front, have a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZKv0Sv91Sg Cheers, Madbilly

Maybe for you Beagle, but not for some others.

And, to round off this new campaign feature, here is a youtube video I just made. The video demonstrates how Iron Front (Arma 2 mod) can be used inside a much larger and persistent campaign engine (SEOW) to resolve small scale actions and to feed detailed statistics back into the larger campaign seamlessly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iDcQ3cUjZuo (updated) Campaign Feature Summary Iron Front terrains produced quickly and easily from IL-2 Sturmovik maps, in 2km, 5km or 10km sizes. Yes - an effectively unlimited number of IF terrains can be generated from the huge IL-2 maps! Automatic support for Arma-style units and groups Hills and plains, roads, buildings, coasts, forests and crop lands, refugees, wildlife Automatic HighCommand,TeamSwitch and other modules Full integration with SEOW campaign system, including map definitions, orders of battle, weather conditions, movement waypoints, barrages, supplies and after-action reports Iron Front missions generated from an encompassing, persistent and evolving campaign: missions are intended to be played in a "dead is dead" manner (no base re-spawns etc) Full command security models for SEOW mission planning, so sides can campaign against each other across vast landscapes with proper fog of war and hidden intentions All software released under GPL, written in PHP, Javascript, MySQL and VB.NET Now playing at SEOW HQ More information SEOW Official Forum: http://seowhq.net/seowforum SEOW Wiki: http://seowhq.net/seowwiki-en/index.php?title=Main_Page SEOW HQ: http://seowhq.net/ Enjoy!

If you are interested to see some of the IFA2 related documentation in SEOW, have a look at the SEOW Wiki at http://seowhq.net/seowwiki-en/ . The documentation (still in progress) is found in the links inside the "meta-SEOW" coloured box halfway down the page. The idea is that SEOW helps players construct a sequence of Iron Front missions in a persistent battlefield, where the detailed outcomes of one mission are used as starting conditions for the next. All missions are intended to be played as "dead is dead", so there is no re-spawning. SEOW provides a strategic map overview that can be used between missions to resupply units, bring reinforcements into play, issue movement orders, arrange artillery barrages etc. This makes each Iron Front mission self-contained, but part of a broader, persistent and immersive campaign that runs outside Iron Front. SEOW is a campaign engine, whereas Iron Front is used to play each mission in the larger campaign. Cheers, 4S

For those who are curious about how to extract terrain information from an IL-2 map and use it to build a brand new Iron Front terrain, have a look at http://seowhq.net/MP4public/DMT/ Once the BI and Mikero tools are set up, it is all just about completely automated. Just a little bit of Visitor3 import/export to be done by hand for each new IF map. Cheers, 4S

And, in case you thought I had been abducted, I have now completed the release version of Iron Front support in SEOW, complete with scripted map generation, automated mission generation (with wildlife, refugees, off-map artillery barrages, weather, supplies, High Command module), and a custom dialog interface to write the mission results to a logfile for subsequent parsing and updating the out-of-game battlemap. More information coming soon. Cheers 4S (aka MadBilly)

http://seowhq.net/seowforum/viewforum.php?f=9&sid=3f0b79bb0b0a34c53d978ab142ee20fb

http://killzonekid.com/arma-2-arma-3-scripting-commands-list/ http://www.kylania.com/ex/?page_id=72 https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Scripting