RoyWheels

I've not had any time to work on the mission recently. I'm guessing the last version was fairly stable due to the lack of complaints so that's all good. I wish we could solve the hijack bug. It's right annoying. :mad:

Yes, all units are frozen until the first player exits the prison. I'm not sure if this is controversial, but I've reduced the mission player limit back down to 8. The extraction choppers carry a maximum of 8 players so it makes sense to make the mission limit 8 as well. If one chopper is taken out of action, everyone can still escape. New version up!

Your input is very helpful Cyprus. I do appreciate it and I hope I wasn't too grumpy yesterday. Over a month of illness has ground me down somewhat and I'm feeling a bit frustrated to not be able to put 100% energy into the things I do. Hopefully I'm on the mend now. The new version will disable all units within a 1km until someone dares to leave the prison. This should put an end to those cheating enemies who don't play fair. ;) Playing around on the dedi yesterday, I noticed that a jip player has no actions for hijacking or healing at the medical building. This must be related to the other hijack bug. I'm going to look into that today at some point. We experienced the extraction choppers not taking off yesterday. It's weird. The only thing I've changed is where they're supposed to fly to once you get in. Again, I need to see if there's something else going on.

Thanks Kingbengan, glad you're enjoying the mission. :) It is possible to get away from the search but you have be fast to get some distance. I've had an idea on how to prevent any enemy shooting at you, whether it's a guard or ambient/village squad, before you leave the prison. New version coming soon.

I wish it was that. The difference between call and spawn is that call will halt the script that made the call (and return a value on finishing) whereas spawn will execute the function separately, allowing the script that spawned the function to continue. In this context it shouldn't make much of a difference so maybe I'll change it to a call. Just to be sure and all that. Nah, the trigger works. You might be experiencing ambient troops spawning nearby who are getting involved before they should. This is especially true if the prison is spawned near an airport where there are plenty of patrols. "extensive testing" - I do have some sort of real life as well you know. :p I've not touched the tasks since working on this mission. I'll have a look. Arma ai likes to mess with choppers. Some of the time they fly into trees, some of the time they don't take off quickly... Not a lot I can do about that. Extraction events are now randomly picked from a weighted array of four possibilities. The 'megadrop' of four choppers dropping troops is one of the events, the others include more ground troops in trucks and civ vehicles (who don't always make it to the area in time) or jets and choppers. Being shot? Just dying? Nothing has changed dramatically in the mission start beyond the new trigger. But the scripts are similar. I just don't understand your point. Good good. The prison has always had lights. I'll add flashlights for the guards at some point, maybe after all this bug fixing and extensive testing you want me to do (joke :p). Because the small choppa isn't in the EAST or INDEPENDENT unit classes. I decided to use it because it's a lot easier to shoot down and isn't so punishing as the Russian chopper. The enemy are happy to use it and I think it makes for better gameplay. I've not noticed this. If there are troops around they tend to get involved. I've taken your ideas on and tried to answer your points but I'm just a single human being doing this for fun. I apologise if I can't add ideas in as quickly as you'd like.

Thanks for the tips tortuosit and for the nice weather script... :) It's a real git of a bug which only occurs on a dedi server and then, it only happens on the odd occasion... So it's hard to know how to fix. My only clue is that it doesn't seem to happen on the first play through. I've played the mission a fair amount recently and we've not seen it for ages. But, of course, that doesn't mean it's fixed. ARGH! Here's the line from the script that adds it in when the comm centre is being built: [[_generator, "Hijack", "Scripts\Escape\Hijack.sqf"], "a3e_fnc_addHijackAction", true, false] spawn BIS_fnc_MP; _generator is obviously now a satellite phone. And here's the a3e_fnc_addHijackAction function. private ["_object", "_screenMsg", "_scriptToCall"]; _object = _this select 0; _screenMsg = _this select 1; _scriptToCall = _this select 2; if (isNull _object) exitWith {}; _object addaction [_screenMsg, _scriptToCall, [], 1.5, true, false, "", "_this distance _target <= 3"]; Any ideas very welcome.

Thanks for chipping in there Neo. I hope the galactic noise maps are going well. :cool: And now on to mr Cyprus's issues... I've added a buffer around the map for the next version that should see better installation placement. I've only ever used A3MP for testing so I know it works. As Neo says, there's no difference between A3MP and AIA that would cause the mission not to work. I will look into both of these issues. Answered by Neo. Any gaps are there because Arma loves to stack objects together if they come too close to one another. I spent far too long getting those blocks to be as close as they are. A solution could be to have a prison with double walls. I'll have a think. The base creation process occurs after/during the start of the mission, when players are active as it does not affect the gameplay. Unless you teleport to another location on the map, you're not going to have a problem with this. Players should be busy getting weapons from the bag and tackling the guards whilst this happens. The way escape loads isn't ideal. Here's how I'd like to see it start: Black "Escape is loading" screen - parameters and unit classes are loaded. init and early parts of the serverinit are executed. Prison is located and built and players spawned. Briefing is shown without a map - this is tricky as the players are spawned with a map and if it's removed in the players init field (as it in the original dev 17 version) then a JIP will cause all existing players to lose their maps. Mission starts whilst bases are built and AI is friendly until players leave the prison. I'll see if that's all possible. Number 2 might be impossible but number 3 might be possible by using a trigger the size of the prison. afaik, some enemies do have gps. The prison already has big lights. They don't work for you? Most strange. That sounds overcomplicated to me. Bases are populated and depopulated as needed. That would be possible for Altis and Neo has talked about a hybrid version where maps can be entirely dynamic in base placement whilst other maps use presexisting markers and locations. It's a clever idea but not something I've added as I'm more into creating convincing dynamic content. I'm not sure. Thanks. Your thoughts are appreciated and I'm glad you're having fun with the mission. Wow, long post. ;)

Being kept busy by real life is no bad thing. Also, the last few versions have been a bit broken whilst I sort out the addons integration. Hopefully v4.34 is more stable. I'm getting a bit better at scripting and quite brilliant at adding bugs. ;) Thanks for the feedback. It's always really useful. 1. The saved parameters are something that Neo added a while back and I've never felt sure it works. I keep meaning to look into it. 2. I'll check the Karts problem out. It's probably a special Roy bug I added by accident. 3. Did the error message about the civilian vehicle mention the script it was exiting? I've not seen it before. I'll try running as a local server and see if I can trigger it. 4. The choppers are supposed to land with a small distance between them but I have seen them occasionally get a little excited and try out a double decker landing as you have experienced. It never ends well. Funny thing is, we've had times where we reach the extraction spot and think 'no way are they going to be able to land between those rocks and that forest...' and they land perfectly. :) 5. If the alternate extraction point is in the middle of the sea you have to find a boat on the shore to reach it. They are dotted along the coast. Hold on a minute... Who is piloting the boat here??? ;)

Sorry about that. I probably shouldn't have released 4.33 as I worked on it with severe sinus pain and fever. Not so clever. The weather system had the wrong parameters due to new code. Fixed now. Pure mode was broken after I fixed it... :p It's always good to break stuff when you fix stuff... ;) I've not seen any long pauses like you're seeing. Were you running with just the default arma setup or did you have some addons running? Is this a dedi or local server? I know what you're saying about a stable version but the addon system should be very stable once the silly bugs I've added are ironed out. Due to the time it takes to test all the variations of addon setups, on a multitude of maps, I need people to play these 'unstable' versions to help me fix bugs. Your post has been really useful and I've been able to fix the addon issues you highlighted. Once I get feedback I can fix bugs pretty quickly. Yeah, the AI settings are interesting. They do indeed override the Arma settings but some maps seem to then put them back again. Weird. You could have a go at using the suppression system in singleplayer mode. I'd imagine you'd need the script version integrated to get a dedi to use it but that's just a guess as I've not tried it. I love those TPW mods though. Top shelf ideas. The weather system is something I've only just been looking into. As you point out, 'Clear' and 'Sunny' do seem to be a little ambiguous. Here's the 'Tort' script the mission uses - Tort Dynamic Weather ---------- Post added at 11:36 ---------- Previous post was at 10:44 ---------- Ok, v4.34 is up. Hopefully, probably, should be, could be all working. :cool:

I see the reason for smaller modular packs but it does get tricky when I pass links to friends who want to just have a game of Arma. "You need to download that and that and then that and the replace that with that and then install that over the top..." So yeah, my vote for an all in one pack. Maybe release both the modular and a big pack? Also, thanks for making this pack toadie. I've added the weapons to my Escape mission and they're alot of fun to use.

The middle ground has been found. :cool: v4.33 introduces a automatic or manual parameter for addon selection. By default, manual selection will require needed addons to be selected on the parameter page. I've not had a chance to test it thoroughly due to illness so feedback on stability/bugs is more than welcome. The next addition will be optional weather presets based on the location of a map.

Sure, I can add it back in. Sorry to mess stuff up for you. I'm still not so sure it's the best way to do things. The server is still loading the addons regardless of their use and this can result in conflicts and bugs and I prefer the auto method for that reason. Maybe I can come up with some sort of middle ground here. I'll have a think.

But the automatic detection is there so all the optional addons are, erm , optional. There's no need for a manual switch. If the server can't detect the addons, the mission will leave out the unit classes for that addon and run without them. No need for more parameters. The pure/mixed parameter is there so the CAF and/or EAST WEST mods can be used without the normal Arma 3 kit. I use arma3sync and just run with the options I want to play with. That is indeed the mech addon. I should add a list of the opaddons in the op.

This mission uses the Arma ai. Surprises are not triggered for at least seven and a half minutes. It's been that way for a while now. If you want to be attacked by a jet, get in a vehicle. The jets like shooting at vehicles. You're talking about the arma ai again. Remember, this is a mission in Arma, not a total modification with super l33t ai improvements. I can confirm pure mode was broken. Very broken. It's fixed in the new version I'm just posting up. Yes, the outfits reflect the location of the map.

Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully, I fixed the JIP player starting unconscious in v4.28. The problems with freezing when hacking the terminal, starting in the sea and double backpacks are new to me. Starting in the sea sounds like the mission hasn't actually started properly. When you start the game spawns the players in, deletes any players not being used and then moves all the players to the jail location. If you're just seeing sea it means the mission has frozen or failed to get to the start. The terminal hacking routine shouldn't cause any issues as it's not actually doing much. It's just a small routine counting down numbers so it shouldn't cause any hiccups in performance. Double backpack.... I've no idea. :) So, my only guess is that it was something server side. Were you playing on a local or dedi server? Yay! I'm really happy you're having fun with it. Ideas on new mods to add are very welcome. ---------- Post added at 13:25 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ---------- Good idea. I'll do that in a minute. My number 1 pain in the arse bug right there. I've also seen it happen but only on a dedicated server. It seems related to restarting as I've not seen it on first play. I will look into it again as I'd like to add some other comm centre buildings and hijack'able kit. Nice! ---------- Post added at 13:45 ---------- Previous post was at 13:25 ---------- You sir, are a glutton for punishment. :p Seriously though, thanks for finding that bug. It's the sort of thing that slips through because it doesn't break the game. I will sort it out though. And have a think about the 40 second flight at the end. This is to make the choppers very vulnerable to attack. I added it when testing out the alternate extraction that occurs if the rescue choppers are downed and I kept it in as it made for a more exciting extraction. If you don't shoot down the russian chopper that appears at extraction then chances are you won't be flying out on the rescue chopper. Tbh, I'm surprised not to have any complaints about it thus far. Now you've found me out I'll make vulnerable choppers a optional parameter. :) The more I'm thinking about this the more I like it. It also makes the alternate extraction more likely and therefore lessens the need for the vulnerable choppers. I'll look into it. ---------- Post added at 14:02 ---------- Previous post was at 13:45 ---------- Thanks. :) I'll check out Fallujah. Thanks for letting me know about it. Glad you like it. :D As Dystopian1 pointed out, the mortar guys are rather stuck in their roles. I guess there might be a way to wake them up when needed but it's never seemed like something that would add to the gameplay, especially as, if implemented, the arma ai would probably make them wander off before you got anywhere near them. RE: peace loving enemies... Do you also get friendly ai without running the bCombat mod? I've never tried it out myself. I'll look into the weather/fog stuff. Thanks again for the feedback.