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meatball

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Posts posted by meatball


  1. So, I've dug around and yet to find any mention of suggested specs to run a HC on.  In my situation I run a simple windows based Dedicated server on a spare box (i5-3570K, 16 GB RAM) for 5-10 friends of mine that we'll jump on and play together.  I've got a few other boxes floating around (AMD A6-5400K and Athlon X4 740) that I can throw together for a Headless Client, but wondering if either of them are up to snuff or whether I should just throw the HC on the server box.


  2. The Epilogue mission was really more of me trying out a bunch of random ideas including Zombies, AI pathing, etc. Spent so much time on the main episodes I never really got a chance to go back and revisit them. To be honest, after over a year of banging away at the three episodes in just about all my spare time, I'm pretty much burnt out on mission scripting, so I've not done much Arma related since I sent the mission pack into the contest.



  3. [Excerpt from the Front Page of the Stratis Times - 2035-07-20]



    Altis is on Fire!

    aof_header.jpg

    (AAP - Agia Marina - 2035-07-20) Altis is on fire, and only time will tell whether it will arise from the ashes, or be burnt beyond recognition. As two titanic forces wage battle across the island of Altis and remnants of AAF troops retreat from Altis to remaining strongholds on Stratis, we look back on the disinformation, deception and catastrophes that have led us into the disastrous state of current affairs.

    Investigations by this paper have turned up covert correspondence from late December of last year between high ranking Altian and CSAT officials looking for assistance in "expanding Altian nuclear enrichment programs beyond current techniques and technologies". While not specifically spelled out, one can infer the only logical goal of expanding current program used for peaceful nuclear technology would be the development of a nuclear weapon program. If this is truly their goal, it would be in blatant violation of the NNPT (Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty) Altis was a signatory of in 2024. To add further proof to this course of events, CSAT scientific and military personnel was observed in and about various military and government installations throughout February of this year, and they became a common sight in those areas the following months. Our inquiries through official channels as to the role of those CSAT personnel were simply stonewalled until rumors began to break publicly that Altis officials were pursuing a program of weaponizing nuclear material. International condemnation and outrage rained on our government and people as the information became public knowledge.

    As we all know, on June 24th CSAT forces began a full scale assault and invasion of Altis and within two days, fighting was raging between CSAT and AAF troops that had previously been performing 'military exercises' together. Not having the manpower or material of the CSAT units, the AAF troops were quickly overwhelmed, destroyed and pushed from the island. While NATO quickly condemned these actions, CSAT simply ramped up the build up of troops while the diplomats argued and soon occupied most of Altis.

    Reports of a build up of NATO and allied troops in the region as a 'precautionary measure' was already under way when exiled Altian officials presented their case to NATO officials to obtain support in forcing the CSAT occupiers from our homeland using any means necessary. We all believed that the NATO build up was simply posturing, but a full scale invasion of Altis by NATO forces commenced on last week. Neither side appears to have gained an upper hand in the fighting as it rages across all of Altis and the CSAT and NATO forces continue to pound each other. Recent activity at installments where remaining AAF forces have gathered on the island, appear to reinforce the rumors that our homeland troops are beginning to make incursions back onto the island.

    We cannot know whether Altis will be restored or destroyed, we can only pray for our soldiers and civilians caught between the NATO and CSAT onslaught.


    "Altis on Fire" is a 3 mission campaign I've developed for the Make Arma Not War Multiplayer Game Mode Contest. The three episodes follow the events that occur in June and July of 2035 when Altis' attempt to covertly research the technology to develop nuclear weapons leaks to the world. CSAT and NATO forces quickly become entangled in a quagmire on Altis where there is nowhere to hide.

    In Episode 1 - "Fallout", you take on the role of CSAT forces attempting to destroy evidence of their involvement in the nuclear research program when rumors of the Altian research and development comes to light.

    aof_e1_fallout.jpg

    Episode 2 - "Force Recon" follows NATO troops spearheading an invasion to kick the CSAT occupiers off the island at the request of exiled Altian officials.

    aof_e2_forcerecon.jpg

    Finally in Episode 3 - "Rock and a Hard Place" we take on the role of the remnants of the shattered AAF troops attempting to obtain and extract the remaining weaponized nuclear material from Altis while the NATO and CSAT troops wage war around them.

    aof_e3_rahp.jpg

    Want to know the real scoop of what happened? Check out the spoiler below:

    2034-12-19 - Altis military and governmental leadership decide they want a nuclear weapons program to augment their growing military forces. Through covert channels, CSAT officials are approached to ask for assistance standing up and devloping the program.

    2035-01-23 - After a month of deliberating, CSAT agrees to assist with the caveat that CSAT military and scientific personnel can be stationed on the island to oversee the process throughout.

    2035-01-23 - Altian government and military officials agree to CSAT demand and operational details begin to be worked through.

    2035-02-04 - First CSAT personnel arrives on Altis. Both military and scientific 'advisors' arrive at military installations and additional personnel arrives as the program starts to build upon current Altian nuclear technology.

    2035-03-29 - A secret,'Weapons Grade' enrichment facility is completed outside of Kore, and true enrichment activities begin.

    2035-04-19 - Secondary enrichment facility near Pyrgos comes online.

    2035-05-03 - NATO 'Climate Monitoring' satellite detects traces of radioactive enrichment activity on Altis, top NATO members are informed and covert investigations begin.

    2035-05-29 - Key and secondary NATO nations briefed on possible Altian nuclear program.

    2035-06-07 - Information released during the NATO briefings leak publicly and CSAT officials scramble to determine if their involvement has been discovered.

    2035-06-13 - CSAT publicly offers 'assistance' to NATO to investigate the claims of violation of the NNPT. They just so happen to have a task force in the region.

    2035-06-16 - NATO declines offer of assistance, claiming that regional NATO diplomats can handle the issue and military involvement is not warranted at this time.

    2035-06-18 - CSAT begins recall scientific personnel working on the project from Altis.

    2035-06-24 - (Episode 1 - Fallout) In conjunction with the military personnel still on the ground, CSAT special forces infiltrate the island and begin to systematically dismantling the enrichment facilities and destroying any evidence of CSAT involvement.

    2035-06-25 - Tensions escalate and small scale skirmishes begin to occur across the island between AAF and CSAT troops as AAF troops are told to defend any material and personnel related with the program. AAF personnel ordered to begin to take key research and material from the program and hide them in hidden caches across the island.

    2035-06-26 - Skirmishes escalate into full scale fighting, but as neither side wishes the program or their involvement to be discovered, a full scale black out of communications from the island is imposed. With reports of AAF personnel removing and hiding the material weaponized to this point, CSAT quickly mobilizes remaining forces in the region and pours them into Altis.

    2035-06-27 - Civilians take to the seas in any seaworthy vessel they can find to escape the fighting and word of the conflict reaches the outside world. NATO condemns CSAT actions and CSAT claims it moved in response to 'credible evidence' of NATO involvement in the alleged Altian nuclear program.

    2035-06-29 - NATO forces in the region go on alert status when spy plane and satellite overflights verify the fighting. Key NATO nations begin mobilizing additional assets to converge on bases in the region.

    2035-07-02 - CSAT forces subdue the bulk of the AAF units, pushing the rest off the island or forcing them to surrender. More CSAT troops are brought in to scouring the region for further evidence/nuclear material amid growing international condemnation.

    2035-07-07 - Altian government officials in exile plead with NATO to help them wrest control of their island back from CSAT. CSAT troops occupy most of the island, but resistance cells start cropping up as civilians start hit and run tactics on the occupiers.

    2035-07-11 - CSAT still not able to account for all the research and enriched nuclear material evidence of their involvement with the program.

    2035-07-13 - NATO delivers an ultimatum to CSAT that all CSAT personnel must be off the island and control handed back over to the proper Altian government by July 15.

    2035-07-14 - (Episode 2 - Force Recon) CSAT still has not responded, and NATO elite forces drop and insert onto the island in multiple locations to cause chaos and confusion amongst the occupying forces prior to a full scale invasion.

    2035-07-15 - NATO forces invade the island and initial successes allow them to gain a foothold.

    2035-07-17 - Conventional NATO and CSAT forces continue to slug it out across the entirety of the island. GPS no longer functions for either side when both sides jam the GPS signal frequencies across most of the island.

    2035-07-18 - (Episode 3 - Rock and a Hard Place) Remnants of the AAF military still in hiding in the hills and in contact with the government in exile attempt to use the chaos as a screen to extract the last remaining evidence and nuclear material from the island. The convoy carrying the material is attacked and contact with them is lost. Elements of AAF off island are mobilized and dropped in to retrieve and escape with the material.

    Features and General Notes:

    - AoF missions can be played with 2-10 players, and have multiple parameters available from the role selection screen to adjust game settings including numbers if AI, AI skill level, weather, time of day, and many other options.

    - Each mission is unique and has a style all it's own while AI is randomized every time leading to vastly different gameplay from session to session!

    - All three AoF missions contain a lot of AI. It is highly suggested you play the mission on a dedicated server with a Headless Client if at all possible. Headless Client support is built directly into all three missions.

    - For Best Gameplay, the missions should be played with all map markers turned off and at the "Veteran" or "Expert" difficulty level.

    - The missions really shine when the "ACRE" radio mod is used, but it is not a requirement and the missions can be played and enjoyed without it as well.

    - Mission specific gameplay information is listed in the "Gameplay Notes" of each mission briefing.

    Installation:

    - Download the Missions from Steam Workshop or extract the .pbo file(s) to your Steam/SteamApps/common/ArmA 3/MPMissions folder.

    Changelog:

    v 1.05

    - Episode 1: Added in a "Unit Scatter Distance" parameter to allow players to set initial unit scatter distance from 1 to 10 KM, default is 2.5KM

    - Episodes 1-3: Minor tweaks to AI settings.

    - Epilogue: Added in a new 'Epilogue' mission. The mission is very Alpha and still has some bugs in it, but I would love to get some feedback on where it stands so far. Don't have it published on Steam Workshop yet, but you can download direct from here.

    v 1.04

    - Episode 1: Redesign of the 'drop' mechanism to create better randomization of drops.

    - Episode 2: Bug fix for the Kavala "Destroy Bridges" task. Now changed to "Mine Bridges". Must mine the 4 bridges with 3-4 mines each to complete task.

    - Episode 2: Added in a few basic crates at step off points to give the players some extra starting gear.

    - Episode 3: Minor tweaks to the AI levels.

    v 1.03

    - Various minor bug fixes and tweaks across all three missions.

    v 1.01 & 1.02

    - Internal testing versions.

    v 1.0

    - Zeus is now integrated into all three missions! The missions will still work fine without someone filling the role of Zeus, but it's now supported for those that want to use it.

    - The Virtual AmmoBox (VAS) has been removed the Force Recon mission due to popular request.

    - Minor tweaks to AI and some small bugfixes.

    v 0.99

    - First Public Release. Why 0.99 you ask? Well, I've done tons of playtesting, and while I'm pretty sure all the missions are ready for release, I'm sure you guys will find issues! Please report any you find!

    Credits & Thanks:

    - Thanks to all those supported my own mission making efforts through the forums, Skype channels and various other avenues as well as the community contributors and great scripts that were used in Altis on Fire:

    - AI Spawn Script Pack by spunFin

    - Civilian Vehicle Spawn by Zealot

    - Enemy Occupation System (EoS) by BangaBob

    - MAD Ambient Life by MAD T

    - Headless Client AutoDetect Script by elec

    - Repetitive Cleanup Script by Aeroson

    - SLP Spawning Script by Nomadd

    - Taskmaster/moveObjects/Random Position Scripts by Shuko

    - Also, lot's of direct coding help and support from NeoArmageddon & spunFin

    - Also special thanks to a great batch of playtesters that helped motivate me along the way to make bigger and better missions, all while having a blast playing:

    - Dodgy Moustache

    - Harrier

    - La Gran We

    - Mr_H

    - Ninja Monkey

    - Partizan

    - Shifty

    - Smitty

    - WaZza

    - Zim

    ---------- Post added at 21:23 ---------- Previous post was at 21:22 ----------

    Quick note. This mission/campaign was originally posted up over in the Make Arma Not War Contest, but now that the Contest is over I figured it'd be better to shift this thread over to the official user made campaign/missions forum.

    • Like 1

  4. Hey Cowboy, glad you're enjoying the missions! I haven't actually messed with any of them in a while, so it could be changes in the weather scripting commands in the last few patches.

    Might be a few days till I can sit down and do some testing to figure out what's going on, bit I'll definitely take a look. If you get any screenshots or the actual error messages and can post them up, that'd be great!


  5. Yeah, I do something similar, using /affinity on a Windows machine to split the HC and server onto separate cores. In the missions I make I generally leave the static AI on the server as well and just have the HC handle dynamic AI. I'll be honest, I haven't really messed with anything in a few months until someone contacted me that they were having a hard time getting a HC working with one of missions. That's when I found out about all the recent changes.

    450 is pretty good AI wise, prior to the new updates my server (i5-3570K/16GB RAM) generally started to bog down around 250-300. I haven't tried to really push it with the new setup, but I did notice the red chains/lag with Dynamic AI spawns now that I hadn't seen before.


  6. New Version Update!

    Changelog

    v 1.08

    - Minor Tweak/Bug Fix. Since BI has changed their Headless Client Configuration/Setup I had to adjust the in mission place holder unit for the Headless Client. Should work fine now, but please let me know if you run into any issues, no matter how small!

    Altis on Fire Contest Page

    Altis on Fire - Episode 1 "Fallout" - Steam Workshop

    Altis on Fire - Episode 2 "Force Recon" - Steam Workshop

    Altis on Fire - Episode 3 "Rock and a Hard Place" - Steam Workshop

    Altis on Fire Mission Pack - Armaholic


  7. Anyone run into an issue where Headless Clients connect correctly, but do not populate into the HC slot? Been a while since I monkeyed with it or my missions, but just found out that the HC is no longer automatically dropping into the Civvie HC slot I've got setup. Not sure if it's a mission config issue, or something I'm just out of the loop on with server/HC setup.

    Edit: <Figured it out on my own, was using the old Headless Client setup and not the new 'Virtual Entity' deal. Seems to be working once I edited my missions and used the new HC config.>


  8. I'll preface this by saying, I haven't looked into whether scripting in probably 12 months, so things might have changed, but I think you're just running into something I hit and that's just how it works at moment. I posted about it a while back in one of the weather threads. I don't think there's any real way to get around it, so what I originally did was try to not make drastic changes in overcast levels in the script so regardless of things not working right, it should still transition correctly over the set time.


  9. Now that the entry deadline has come and gone, I wanted to offer my thanks to everyone that's tried out the Altis on Fire missions and special thanks for all the great feedback I've gotten! I had a blast making and playing the missions, and couldn't have done it without all the great community support!

    There's some excellent entries in the MP (and other) categories, and I wish all the other entrants good luck! I know I'm looking forward to a lot of new Arma experiences with all this great new content!

    Thanks again everyone!


  10. I'll admit it's been a long time since I've messed with any weather scripting, but there's no way to control the script while in game other than setting the original values before mission start with the parameters. You could leave the Debug Console available in the mission for admins and then manually run weather related script commands, but to my knowledge, on a Dedicated server many of the commands will only change the weather on the server and not make changes to connected clients. Until BI comes up with true Weather synch between server/clients I don't think there's any way around that.


  11. Not sure where you're getting snow from, as it's not in the game yet that I know of. Unless you're using the old script I wrote, which I wouldn't, the snow particle effect can cause crashes.

    With this script, there's not really a way to keep the weather the same from start to finish, as it's built to dynamically change every so often. If you want static weather, I'd just get rid of the script altogether and use the basic weather controls in the mission builder UI. You can set start/end weather, just make it the same.


  12. New Version Update!

    Changelog

    v 1.07

    - All 3 Episodes: Tweaked AI spawn rates/numbers a bit.

    - Episode 2/Force Recon: Fixed bug in task "Deliver Supplies - Poliakko"

    - Episode 2/Force Recon: Fixed bug in task "Disrupt Fueling Operations - Agios Dionysios"

    - Episode 2/Force Recon: Fixed bug in task "UAV Recon - Panochori"

    Hopefully this should be the last update for the Make Arma, Not War contest. Please let me know if you run into any issues, no matter how small!

    Altis on Fire Contest Page

    Altis on Fire - Episode 1 "Fallout" - Steam Workshop

    Altis on Fire - Episode 2 "Force Recon" - Steam Workshop

    Altis on Fire - Episode 3 "Rock and a Hard Place" - Steam Workshop

    Altis on Fire Mission Pack - Armaholic


  13. Hey BB, thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad you mostly liked the episode. I've already gone through and fixed some of the problems you've mentioned, and I do have a couple extra questions for you if you don't mind.

    Fixes:

    1) I've tweaked the needed gear and fixed the graveyard box issue. Mainly stemmed from the trigger counting 'itemCargo' for Binocs, when it actually needed to watch for 'weaponCargo' for them. That task should now complete correctly when 2 GPS', 2 Compasses, 2 Radios and 2 pairs of Binoculars are placed in that crate.

    2) I don't know why, but those fuel pumps at that station seem to need a nuclear device to be destroyed. Now the task should be completed if you just blow the four fuel trucks, which should be easier.

    3) I've tried to clarify the task to make it a bit more clear what you need to do with the UAV at Panochori. Basically you need to just hover the UAV above the three sections of town for 30 seconds in each area. There is a trigger when you get close to the UAV's that will show you the actual spots to send the UAV, but it was set to only fire when more than 1 player from the team was in the area and since you were playing by yourself, it never fired. I changed it so it should fire with any player from the team. So, check your map when you get to the UAV's and you should see markers for NW, Central and SE that you can use to guide the UAV. You should also get a hint when you've hovered over the area long enough (~ 30 seconds)

    4) I'll look into the FPS issue, but I do have one question. By default the mission is set with a Parameter for Number of Enemies of "Many (Good for 5-6 Players)". Did you drop that down to "Few (Good for 2 Players)"? That would definitely lower the overall number of AI in the mission and ease up on your machine. I'll look into a few more tweaks to see if I can spawn AI closer as well.

    5) You won't be able to complete the two gens with only one person, but like you said, it should fail and still counts as 'complete'.

    Other Questions

    1) Every 5-8 tasks or so, you get a 'special' event available for the player like Supply Drops or Naval Bombardments. Did you ever see any of those pop up, and were they working correctly if you did?

    2) You should be able to 'win' if you 'complete' (Success or Fail) all 61 tasks/subtasks. You should get Evac off the island, did that happen?

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