co10 Escape

[NeoArmageddon 958]

 

The mission
In this mission you and your squad was send out to scout the military presence on an enemy island in preparation for an invasion. But your squad got captured by local layalists and you are now held in an improvised prison awaiting enemy officers to arrive for questioning. But friendly insurgent managed to hide a backpack with weapons in your improvised prison. Your task is now to overwhelm the guards, escape the prison, find a map of the island, make contact with your HQ, reach the designated evacuation zone and escape the enemy island!

The mission is fully dynamic. Every playthrough will be different. Also the mission is quite hard to beat completly. You will definitly fail at the first try. But the mission is meant to be played more than once (infact our squad plays it serveral times the week).


About the mission

Escape was first devloped by Engima of Östgöta Ops. for ArmA2.
At that time me (NeoArmageddon) and Scruffy ported the mission to different islands and began customizing the mission.
When ArmA3 was released, Vormulac and HyperZ made the effort to port the mission over to ArmA3. From that point on Scruffy and me improved and fixed the mission to the current state.
Most of the scripts are replaced and were updated to A3 standards. At this point the mission can surely be considered a complete new A3 mission and not a port from A2.

The the official version of this release is 1.10


Terrains and Mods
We ported the mission to the following terrains:

• Altis
• Stratis
• Chernarus (CUP TP)
• Chernarus Summer (CUP TP)
• Sahrani (CUP TP)
• United Sahrani (CUP TP)
• SMD Sahrani
• Porto (CUPTP)
• Takistan (CUP TP)
• Bornholm
• Celle2
• Podagorsk
• Isla Duala
• Esseker
• Isla Abramia
• Al Rayak
• Tanoa
• Winthera
• Lingor
• Dingor
• Malden (CUP TP CWR)
• Everon (CUP TP CWR)
• Kolgujev (CUP TP CWR)
• Nogova (CUP TP CWR)
• Malden 2035
• Thirsk + Winter
• Australia
• Clafghan
• and more.... I lost track...

 

For A2 terrains AiA TP works but I strongly suggest using the newer CUP TP!

 

 

Also there are serveral flavours of the mission with different unit sets. At the moment there is a version without any mods called "Vanilla" (except the terrain you are on)
and the following mods:
RHS

CUP

APEX (DLC)

Contact (DLC)

Global Mobilization (CDLC)

We tried to compose a unitset for every terrain that match the scenery.

We plan to add more mods and terrains in the future but we also want to release the tools to port the mission.


Release notes
To port this missions with more than 15 different mod setups to more than 65 terrains (overall we have produced 580 missions) we used an autocompiler that merges one codebase and the different config files.
With this huge amount of mission we were not able to check every mission. When one of the missions seems to behave different (broken start, missing units, etc) please post the missionname here in the thread
and we will fix the problem ASAP.

 

This mission was build for dedicated server use!

 

For statistics and improving this mission at the end of each session (fail or win) the result of the mission is stored anonymous on a server. Version, terrain, playercount, session length, servername and type of mission ending is sent. No personal informations like IP, player names, etc are sent or stored. This function can be disabled in the parameters.

Download Mirrors

 

IMPORTANT: The workshop release is not packed as single mission but as an addon/mod with multiplayer missions in it. If workshop files (or addonfiles from complete pack) are used on a server, all players need the addon files.

The missionfiles from the complete pack are the recommended DS installation and are downloaded automatically to all players connecting.

 

Complete Pack 1.10 (newest Release)

co10 Escape (Complete) 1.10

I recommend checking out the more up-to-date development version on Github (click here)

 

Steam Workshop Addon Release

Workshop release without mods

Workshop release with Apex
Workshop release with CUP
Workshop release with RHS

 

 

Complete Pack 1.9 

co10 Escape (Complete) 1.9

 

 

Complete Pack 1.8.1 Hotfix

co10 Escape (Complete) 1.8.1

 

Complete Pack 1.7.5 @ Armaholic
Armaholic Mirror (Version 1.7.5)

 

 

Bleeding Edge/Development Version:

 

The newest development version are in our Github (format Dev_Year-Month-Day):

Download latest development archives

 

 

Keep in mind that the versions that are builded automatically are considered bleeding edge versions. That means the changes are completely untested (actually we use those versions for our internal tests), may break the mission, arma, your PC or even the world. When you use this versions, make sure to read the changelog and contribute feeback and bugreports.

 

Repository and Issue Tracker:

 

For discussions, help and support you can join our official Discord Server: https://discord.gg/0kV3JvVEhmnMfmq1

 

We host an issue tracker and repository of Escape in Github over here: https://github.com/NeoArmageddon/co10_Escape

Everybody is invited to create bugreports, issue and feature request.

 

 

Changelog from 1.10

 

Changelog for co10 Escape 1.10 (from 1.9) including Vanilla, Apex, Contact, GM, CUP and RHS versions

 

## Highlights ##

Complete rework of the initialisation and bootstrapping of the mission. This not only fixes a lot of long standing bugs like spawning on client hosted mission or with exotic server configuration but also makes startup of the mission much faster and reliable.

Reworked patrol spawning and area dependent patrol densities.

Huge performance refactor (server and client side).

Added new units from CUP and RHS and added support for Contact DLC and Global Mobilization CDLC.

 

## Added ##

Added vehicle lock param to lobby (with this heavy or all enemy vehicles can be locked for the players)
Added new POI templates from aussie-battler
Added custom flags to comcenter templates
Added localisation (by kuroneko)
Added new CUP setups with units introduced with latest patches (RACS, PMC, ...)
Added Contact CDLC setup (CSAT vs US)
Added search chopper FFV positions
Added virtual arsenal to "additional weapon boxes"
Added a library of porting missions to all terrains done by Scruffy and Neo
Added some QoL functions
And many more minor additions

 

## New supported terrains ##

Zargabad (CUP)
Kujari (Temppas)
Livonia (Contact DLC)
Winter Chernarus
Chernarus 2020
Bukovina
Utes
Improved Podagorsk markers
MKSE (Port by DPM)
Reshmaan (Port by DPM)
Napf (Port by DPM)
Anizay (Port by DPM)
Vidda (Port by DPM)
Vinjesvingen
Mull of Kintyre

 

## Changed ##

Improved object removal around comcenters.
Improved ACE medical support in regards to the missions revive script.
Improvent missionflow handling by not assuming some loading time constants but sending state messages .
Improved guards reacting faster to an alarm.
Improved nightime and daytime settings to cope with northern terrains.
Items from civilians vehicles are now mostly removed (no more free medkit for you!).
Heavy vehicle spawn is delayed to 5-10 minutes after missionstart.
Improved Porto mission.
Improvement of unitclasses (general tweaks).
Made spawn logic server side (reduces network traffic drastically).
Reduced trigger update interval from "per frame" to a few seconds (reduces server load drastically).
And many more minor changes

 

## Fixed ##

Revive: Fixed JIP players sometimes becoming stuck in captive state.
Fixed: Maximum number of patrols was not always enforced per zone.
Fixed param for environmental grass.
Fixed flags not being synchronised across network.
Fixed jagged fences of the prison duw to network latencies.
Fixed a bug where a player stayed captive after escaping.
Fixed a bug in a roadblock templated resulting in statics being spawned in ground floor (and thus being slightly obstructed).
Fixed reinforcement trucks not spawning.
Fixed civilian traffic on very small terrains not spawning.
Fixed guards assuming the players position behind prison walls and shooting through said walls.
Fixed BI CAS module (again...).
Fixed "mapconfig\logo.paa" error.
Fixed HMDs not always removed from players ivnentories on startup (with mods having NVGs in vest for example).
Fixed comcenter 2 and 3 not rotated correctly.
Made terrain config available to all clients.
Fixed daytime settings being always at 01:00 in the morning
And many more minor fixes

 

## Removed ##

Duplicated and depreciated files and functions.
Removed a motorized search group that started right after the alarm sounded (known as the instant BTR/BMP).
 

Screenshots and Videos

 

Please submit your screenshots and videos and share your Escape stories with us!
 

 

Tipps, Tricks and Tutorials

 

Port to another terrains by Scruffy

Replace Revive with ACE by belbo

 

 

Credits

Original Mission (Arma2) by Engima of Östgöta Ops.
Mission ported to Arma3 by Vormulac and HyperZ.
Continue devlopment by NeoArmageddon and Scruffy.
Island ports and unit configs by Scruffy.Additional scripting and fixing by abelian, FrozenLiquidity, Dystopian, Phantom, DPM, Cyprus, aussie-battler, Kuroneko, Belkon, jaj22 and invrecon

Additional ports and configs by 
SurvivorOfZeds (IFA3+LEN)
Nils5940 (IFA3)
CRCError1970 (Malden and Kolgujev)
supercereal4 (Malden 2035)

Kuroneko

DPM

 

Mag repack script by outlawled

 

Testing:

Armed-Tactics (Maikeks, Darcy, Memphis Belle, Aurelia, Freshman, Lunatic, Joshi) 
The Flying Monkeys In Space,
Roy and many more.

 

The official co10 Escape mission for Arma3 is currently developed and maintained by NeoArmageddon and Scruffy.

Feedback
Please post all feedback, bugs, ideas, request, etc here in this thread or in our Github issue tracker.

Edited July 19, 2020 by NeoArmageddon
Updated mirrors to Escape 1.10 release

[benargee 20]

Nicely done. To address difficulty, maybe you should make use of mission parameters so that people can customize it a bit.

[scruffy 22]

We are almost ready to also release the other islands and mod versions. The cleanup Neo did was bigger than planned, so more changes were needed to mission files and unitclasses.sqf

I might even do a small tutorial in one form or another on how to port the mission to other islands. Until then please tell us about any problems you find with the new version.

Benargee: I think we can cook up a harder version for you.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

I updated the first post with the non april fools versions. I hope you guys had a good laugh with it. And have fun with the actual 1.7 release!

Scruffy an me would really appreciate some feedback for this update.

[jeza 5416]

Hey mate

Will try and get a few on later tonight to go through different versions of it, some screens and Videos inbound. Many thanks for the effort!

[Belbo 462]

Known bugs

You can drown while unconscious.

Wait... you mean... if you're unconscious in the water, right? :D

I'm glad that you finally released your updated edition of this mission. It's one of my alltime favorites, definitely! :) I'm especially happy about the artillery-parameter in the mp lobby, since I've always found the arti a bit too hard on little groups.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

Wait... you mean... if you're unconscious in the water, right? :D

Yes ^^

I'm glad that you finally released your updated edition of this mission. It's one of my alltime favorites, definitely! :) I'm especially happy about the artillery-parameter in the mp lobby, since I've always found the arti a bit too hard on little groups.

We just got nearly killed by arti ...

Edited April 2, 2015 by NeoArmageddon

[scruffy 22]

First a big thanks to Armaholic for hosting :ok:

Here is a small video of our first successful April 1st run:

If you want a harder mission and more mayhem I suggest trying the Porto versions. It's really a different experience, because the whole island is active from the start. From 10 tries our

lasted 10 minutes, most of the times you can't get away from the prison :D

Youtube is still processing a complete video from a long but failed run and parts from a successful one on Celle. I'll post them when they are ready.

Today I finished the "porting missions" you need to place markers to port the mission over onto a new terrain, so all of you can do the work for me ;)

Artillery is dialed back, even on the "normal" setting, because it's not placed on the map by hand anymore. It was a fixed number of units before, so on smaller terrains everywhere was covered twice or more, and because of a (now fixed) bug every site in range would fire.

Now a small site with a mortar is spawned randomly instead, just like the ammo depots, and the parameter changes the number of them.

Speaking of ammo depots, it's now worth it to visit more than one. There are no longer crates filled to equip a small army and the content of the crates is randomized. You always get some basic weapons and ammunition and some kind of launcher, but maybe need to raid another one to find a good scope for the Lynx you just picked up.

There is another new surprise where you can get a few western weapons. At least there should be, we didn't find it ourselves yet and hope it works :D

[rekkless 240]

Thanks mate for uploading this. Myself and my squad have been playing it all night. The RHS and LOP versions are great and it is very cool to try it out on different maps.

The only thing you could work on is the script when you are unconscious, the chopper sound or the vehicle sound is awfully loud and unnecessary.

The rest is as overpowered and difficult as a Escape XXXX should be. Fantastic stuff.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

The only thing you could work on is the script when you are unconscious, the chopper sound or the vehicle sound is awfully loud and unnecessary.

I am aware of that and I have no idea what is causing this. I assume a bug with the camera and sound in the engine. But I will try to get a workaround.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

I updated the first post with the 1.7.1 Version (Hotfix)

Changelog:

Soundbug in revive cam solved (BIS!!!).

[scruffy 22]

How to port Escape to another terrain

You will need:

• the current version of the mission
• a tool to unpack .pbo files
• a text editor
• these porting mission files to place markers (edit 2018: new link to folder where you can find newer versions)

Step 1 - Prepare the files

Unpack the .pbo mission file "co10_Escape.Stratis.pbo", this will leave you with a folder "co10_Escape.Stratis" that includes all mission files and scripts.

Inside the archive with the porting missions you have three additional folders "TE_BuildCommunicationCenter.Stratis", "TE_VillageMarkers.Stratis" and "TE_PatrolBoatMarkers.Stratis".

Put these four folders into your ..\Documents\Arma 3\missions folder. If you use another profile name it should be in ..\Documents\Arma 3 - Other Profiles\YourUserName\missions

Now you need to change the terrain suffix on all four folders. Just rename the folders to whatever the new terrain uses, which could be as easy as ".Altis" or something like ".FDF_Isle1_a" for Podagorsk. If you don't know the proper name, just save a test mission on the island to look it up.

Step 2 - The mission

Now start up the game, go to the editor with the island you want and load the mission "co10_Escape". You will see the player units and logics. Go into (edit 2018: map mode first (M) and then) marker mode (F7) and a whole bunch of them will show up too. They might be on land, they might be inside the water, but they sure are in the wrong position. You will need to move all of them around.

• Player units: move them somewhere on land! If you want to change the units just edit them, but if you do delete them and place new ones make sure to copy the proper names and init.
• The two logics named "SouthWest" and "NorthEast" limit the mission area. You can still go outside of this area later, but camps, patrols or the prison will not be spawned there. Use it to exclude islands far from the mainland or the empty infinite terrain.
• A logic and a marker named "center", put them both at the center of the area
• Respawn_West, Respawn_East and Boot_Hill, place them all somewhere on land and away from the action. If available use a small island somewhere off the coast.
• The "drn_insurgentAirfieldMarker" tells the mission where the airfield is and keeps the prison and ammo camps from spawning in some radius I can't remember now around it. Put it on an airfield obviously, along with the "drn_searchChopperStartPosMarker" and "drn_dropChopperStartPosMarker" markers. Also move the "TrafficMarker_AirField" on one of the roads there.
• Move the eight traffic markers named "TrafficMarker_North", "TrafficMarker_NorthEast", "TrafficMarker_East", etc. on a road somewhere on the edge to that direction (edit 2018: not needed anymore, you can delete them. Will show an error hint in chat on v1.8, but work, no chatmessage anymore since v1.9)
• Place the marker "RoadBlockNullRoad" on a road somewhere
• Move around all markers for the possible extraction positions. There are always three of them belonging together for 8 possible locations. There are "drn_Escape_ExtractionPosX" and "drn_Escape_ExtractionPosX_1", this is where the two helicopters will land, and "drn_Escape_ExtracionBoatSpawnPosX" where the helicopters (yes, despite the name...) will get spawned in.
  You need to move all 8 to a suitable position, I think placing more will do nothing right now.  (edit 2018: you can place as many as you want)
• (edit 2018: I added empty civilian boats on some islands since Tanoa was released. Only motorboat and rescue boat, to not mess with people that don't have DLCs. In harbours and near small piers, with a probability of presence set in editor. Only on small islands where a prison might spawn I set it to 100% so you don't need to swim. You might want to add them too, depending on terrain)

Step 3 - ComCenter markers

Load another mission, this time "TE_BuildCommunicationCenter" and you will see a player unit and some triggers. First, place the unit on land if it ended up in the water. Again, change to markers mode (F7) and a bunch of them will show up. The important ones are the red markers named "a3e_var_communicationCenter_X", where the X is a number. They are used to mark all positions the game can later pick from to put a ComCenter there. All other markers are just there to help you with placing them and ignored on export. You will have 9 of these relevant markers on the map already, which you could move around, but you can also delete them (and the area_X markers on the same positions) and start with a new one.

There is a red empty marker named "a3e_var_communicationCenter" and a red rectangle marker named "area" without the _X suffix on the map. An arrow marker below point to them and tells you to copy the two. Listen to the arrow :)

If you now paste the markers the game will automatically add the _X number on the end of the name. The mission stops exporting when it can't find the next number, so with _1, _2, _3, _6, _7 only three positions will be generated. This way you don't need to change the names and remember which numbers are used already. The area_x marker shows you the size of the comcenter, to help you placing it in the 2D editor, but you don't need to use it.

Put down the markers wherever you want a possible ComCenter position. Depending on the terrain that can be just a few suitable positions or quite a lot. Don't be afraid to place them right next to each other if you found 2 great positions, the mission checks for the distance between them and will never use both (unless you want to change this minimum distance, more on that in step 6).

When you are ready, don't forget to save the mission, and hit Preview. You now stand on an empty island, but you have three radio triggers available.

0-0-0 will build all the comcenters on the markers you placed. The best way to check them out now is the camera available in the editor, press "Esc" and the button "Camera" on the lower left. You can now see if your positions are viable, or if other objects are in the way or the terrain is to steep and you have to move them.

Get back into the editor and change them, then check again.

0-0-1 will only build a single ComCenter. It's a3e_var_communicationCenter_1, but you can change the number in the trigger. Not really needed, unless want to check overlapping positions I guess.

0-0-2 exports the marker postions to your .rpt file

You only need to do this once, when you are finished and all markers are ready. We'll use them in Step 6

(edit 2018: adding a help-trigger instead of the helpmarker will make you see the (approximate) dimension in the 3D editor, making it really easy to find positions and place them properly. Copy markers and trigger in map view, paste and move/rotate in 3D. Select all in map view if you want to change, 3D view will only select the trigger)

Step 4 - Village markers

Next mission to load is "TE_VillageMarkers", again you will see a player unit you have to move onto land and a trigger. Change to marker mode and find the blue circle named "a3e_village", there's another helpful arrow pointing to it and telling you to copy it. You can use all the other already existing villagemarkers or delete them and start from scratch.

As explained above when you paste the marker the number suffix is added, so you don't need to mess around with the names. You do need to change the sizes though, so open up the new marker, guess the sizes and type them in by hand, press OK and repeat.

Place markers on every city, village, industrial area, military installation, farm or small lonely fishing hut and whatever area you want to have enemy patrols.

You can place a single big marker or a bunch of smaller ones to cover a bigger city. If you want to confine the patrols to the inner part, make it smaller, if it's larger they will also patrol around the city.

The size of the marker determines the number of enemies, so don't just slap a big marker over square kilometer with three farms, if you don't want that area heavily guarded.

These markers are only used for the village patrols, there are still the random searchgroups and military traffic and other surprises to find you outside of these places ;)

0-0-1 exports the marker postions to your .rpt file

You only need to do this once, when you are finished and all markers are ready. We'll use them in Step 6

Step 5 - Boat markers

This one works the same as the village markers, only the marker names are different. It is kind of optional, if you can do without the patrol boats (I think only Altis, Stratis and Porto have them right now), and sometime in the future Neo wants to change the boat system anyway, which will make them obsolete.

If you do place them, remember that the size of the marker determines the number of boats spawned. If you place a big one spanning a kilometer of coast or more, there will be a lot of boats. Try the mission on Porto, where I covered the whole coast :D

0-0-1 exports the marker postions to your .rpt file

You only need to do this once, when you are finished and all markers are ready. We'll use them in the next step

Step 6 - Putting it all together

Now you will need the text editor I mentioned. First find and open your .rpt file. (It's the error log Arma creates while running. It should be located in "C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Arma 3", you will need to show hidden folders to see AppData.

Open up the latest arma3_YYYY-MM-DD_hh-mm-ss.rpt and scroll to the bottom after you exported some markers. You can search for "a3e" and will find blocks of lines looking like this:

 

17:57:45 ""a3e_villageMarkers = [];""
17:57:45 ""a3e_villageMarkers set [0, [[2131.56,5668.21,0], 13.9301, ""RECTANGLE"", [140,200]]];""
17:57:45 ""a3e_villageMarkers set [1, [[2001.33,5255.97,0], 13.1558, ""RECTANGLE"", [50,120]]];""
17:57:45 ""a3e_villageMarkers set [2, [[1951.52,5725.94,0], 13.4924, ""RECTANGLE"", [50,35]]];""
[...]
17:58:03 ""a3e_communicationCenterMarkers = [];""
17:58:03 ""a3e_communicationCenterMarkers set [0, [[1823.05,5456.52,0], -73.8474]];""
17:58:03 ""a3e_communicationCenterMarkers set [1, [[1713.08,5128.84,0], 106.619]];""
17:58:03 ""a3e_communicationCenterMarkers set [2, [[2010.57,5840.23,0], 823.774]];""
[...]
17:58:23 ""a3e_patrolBoatMarkers = [];""
17:58:23 ""a3e_patrolBoatMarkers set [0, [[2506.64,6677.39,0], 24.2737, ""ELLIPSE"", [300,500]]];""
17:58:23 ""a3e_patrolBoatMarkers set [1, [[1290.75,3484.85,0], 0, ""ELLIPSE"", [200,500]]];""
17:58:23 ""a3e_patrolBoatMarkers set [2, [[4125.01,1920.2,0], -50.1342, ""ELLIPSE"", [500,200]]];""

 

Open up the mission folder of the edited Escape (Documents\USER\Arma 3\missions\co10_Escape.ISLAND) and inside there go to the folder named "Island". Here are the files you need to paste the marker data into. Copy the blocks with all the marker positions into the corresponding file. Now you need to clean up the rpt output. No need to do it by hand on every line, just use the replace option of your text editor: Replace the Timestamp and double quotation marks at the beginning of each line, and the quotation marks at the end with nothing, press "Replace All". In our example it looks like this afterwards:

(edit 2018: since some time (I think 3D editor) Arma will export marker shape with doubled quotation marks, so ""ellipse"" instead of "ellipse". You need to change that too, so replace all "" with " after you did the other two changes)

 

a3e_villageMarkers = [];
a3e_villageMarkers set [0, [[2131.56,5668.21,0], 13.9301, "RECTANGLE", [140,200]]];
a3e_villageMarkers set [1, [[2001.33,5255.97,0], 13.1558, "RECTANGLE", [50,120]]];
a3e_villageMarkers set [2, [[1951.52,5725.94,0], 13.4924, "RECTANGLE", [50,35]]];
[...]
a3e_communicationCenterMarkers = [];
a3e_communicationCenterMarkers set [0, [[1823.05,5456.52,0], -73.8474]];
a3e_communicationCenterMarkers set [1, [[1713.08,5128.84,0], 106.619]];
a3e_communicationCenterMarkers set [2, [[2010.57,5840.23,0], 823.774]];
[...]
a3e_patrolBoatMarkers = [];
a3e_patrolBoatMarkers set [0, [[2506.64,6677.39,0], 24.2737, "ELLIPSE", [300,500]]];
a3e_patrolBoatMarkers set [1, [[1290.75,3484.85,0], 0, "ELLIPSE", [200,500]]];
a3e_patrolBoatMarkers set [2, [[4125.01,1920.2,0], -50.1342, "ELLIPSE", [500,200]]];

 

If you don't place boat markers just put this single line into PatrolBoatMarkers.sqf:

a3e_patrolBoatMarkers = [];

 

Now open up the WorldConfig.sqf in the same folder. Change the values according to the islands size. You will see the ones for Stratis are pretty low, so I added the ones for Altis and Chernarus as examples:

• A3E_MinComCenterDistance = 1200; Altis 5000, Chernarus 3000
• A3E_WorldName = "Stratis"; The name of the island displayed at the start of the mission, where it says "Somewhere on ..."
• A3E_ComCenterCount = 2; Altis 6, Chernarus 5
• A3E_AmmoDepotCount = 4; Altis and Chernarus 10
• A3E_CrashSiteCountMax = 1;
• A3E_MortarSiteCountMax = 4;
• A3E_MortarSiteCountMin = 2;

The maximum and minimum number of mortar sites is used as set here only on the "normal" setting, if the parameter is changed to "DiF" the values will be doubled, if changed to "lowered" it will be halved. So don't go below 2 for Min if you don't want to test if Neo added a proper check in the script ;)

If you extract another mission and don't find some of these entries in the WorldConfig, that's because we didn't change them, a standard value will be used.

Now you should change the name of the mission. Inside the mission folder open up ..\include\defines.hpp with your texteditor and change the name on lines 2 and 3.

You can now load up the mission in the editor again and change the name there, too. Now save it and you are nearly finished.

Step 7 - Release it

You did all the work to port Escape onto another terrain. Why not share it with others? If you send us the files we can add the terrain to the next release.

I only need the mission.sqm of the co10_Escape.ISLAND mission and the content of the \Island folder, but you can of course just post the whole .pbo of the finished mission.

If you have problems with extracting the markers from .rpt just save the placing missions when you are finished and send those.

(edit 2018: I really want to stress this again: Please send us the files, a lot of people helped us with this so far and a few modsets and I guess a third of the islands would not exist. Send the mission.sqm and the whole marker mission folders, then we can publish those here and change markers later/add more)

That's it. I'll explain how to do mod versions and the content of the unitclasses.sqf a bit in another post, coming soon™

(edit 2018: Wow, still no post for that. I really am lazy... I think the content of unitclasses file is pretty self-explanatory, but maybe that's just me working with them for years now. Just unpack a current version and use that as a base. To find unit classnames place them in the editor, mark them all and rightclick -> log to clipboard. You can place the whole faction and copy the classes into another text file. Weapon and magazines just use arsenal and export to clipboard, but that's a lot more alt+tab work)

 

If you have any more questions about porting the mission ask here or write me a PM.

Edited March 28, 2018 by scruffy
Some new/changed info after 3 years

[5harp5hot 11]

Hey guys, wanted to report an issue:

Upon resuming a saved game in MP, the host retains all of his gear, but everyone else starts from zero, even though they all selected the same roles as where we left off.

(My group have lost maps many times due to this >.<)

I'm unsure if this is an 'In Arma' bug, or it's something that you guys can fix, but I do hope it is the latter!

Saving the game for us is a must, as due to obligations we can only play for so long, usually only enough time to get a map and to get ready to raid an ammo cache.

Overall though, this mission has been wonderful at acclimating my friends who are new to the game, and we've had some awesome moments, thanks for that!

[NeoArmageddon 958]

Upon resuming a saved game in MP, the host retains all of his gear, but everyone else starts from zero, even though they all selected the same roles as where we left off.

That is because of how ArmA3 savegames work. Also as far as I know, saving in MP was broken or wonky, since... ever... and Escape was not designed to support saving an MP session. But maybe, when I have time, I could add somekind of MSO like player persistence.

[5harp5hot 11]

That is because of how ArmA3 savegames work. Also as far as I know, saving in MP was broken or wonky, since... ever... and Escape was not designed to support saving an MP session.

Darn, that's what I suspected >.< A player persistence would be the only solution I suppose, but please, don't feel pressured to do it if it's going to be some massive undertaking. Thanks anyway, hopefully my buddies and I can find more time at some point to play.

[AstroRetro 10]

Thanks NeoArmageddon and Scruffy for your hard work on this most awesome mission of all time! My team and I love it and have been testing all the beta versions as they came out. I must say that this release takes things to a new level and exceeded our expectations. Well done. It has also inspired us to try out RHS: Escalation and Leights OPFOR Pack.

So far we have played Escape Altis Vanilla through one successful and several unsuccessful escapes. I hosted it from a listen server and even used a save game and apart from other players losing gear on reload and the respawn audio bug noted above everything went perfectly. We used the default settings for all parameters, except extraction points which were set to 'close'.

I have also tested Escape Bornholm RHS LOP on my own (again using a multiplayer LAN listen server) in order to test it out with all three mods active. The action was intense and exciting and everything went well up until the end. After I successfully hacked the comms terminal the extraction marker did not appear on the map. I made my way around half the coast hoping to bump into it, but did not succeed. Possibly the extraction marker selection is bugged for this island? I will try again in Escape Bornholm Vanilla v1.7.1, with random extraction points on and see if it changes.

Great work and many thanks!

[NeoArmageddon 958]

I have also tested Escape Bornholm RHS LOP on my own (again using a multiplayer LAN listen server) in order to test it out with all three mods active. The action was intense and exciting and everything went well up until the end. After I successfully hacked the comms terminal the extraction marker did not appear on the map. I made my way around half the coast hoping to bump into it, but did not succeed. Possibly the extraction marker selection is bugged for this island? I will try again in Escape Bornholm Vanilla v1.7.1, with random extraction points on and see if it changes.

Glad you report this. Maybe something broke in the compiler stage. Last time we tested, Bornholm worked as expected. We will look into it at the end of the week. We also plan to add more patrols to Bornholm, as for now, most sites are abandoned (Yoshis fault ;) ).

Also you guys should try the accelerated time setting. Set it to the smallest setting (factor 4 I think) and start at around 10am. You will have a whole ingame day in one Escape session, that just feels awesome!

[NikolayKarpov 10]

Hey guys, wanted to report an issue:

The same for me. We tried delete all saves but nothing happens.

Fix: unpack mission and change "briefingName" string in mission.sqm for something new, example "Escape Takistan RHS 1.7.1_2". And never more to press button save and exit;)

[NeoArmageddon 958]

I have also tested Escape Bornholm RHS LOP on my own (again using a multiplayer LAN listen server) in order to test it out with all three mods active. The action was intense and exciting and everything went well up until the end. After I successfully hacked the comms terminal the extraction marker did not appear on the map. I made my way around half the coast hoping to bump into it, but did not succeed. Possibly the extraction marker selection is bugged for this island? I will try again in Escape Bornholm Vanilla v1.7.1, with random extraction points on and see if it changes.!

Found the problem (a typo). It only occures when selecting either "Far" or "Near" Extraction points. With "Random" everything should work fine. It will be fixed in the next update. Thanks for your feedback :D

[rhett 2]

Hey, love the map (as always, still by far my most favorite map). However, I'm worried that the new patch might break it. A few things:

Playing it with no mods (Vanilla), on Dev branch (at time of posting, soon to be the official release), there are several errors that pop up at the start (comm center distance-related), mid-mission (search leader, and "surprise" drone, etc). Mission plays fine, but these errors cover the screen for a good portion of the game.

Playing it with RHS (RHS version obviously), the mission on any island will not load. It goes to a black screen and says "Loading...", but if you hit escape it's a view of a general area, like it's hanging on something.

Additionally, possibly dev branch related, sometimes the main weapons on the starting guards are "broken", or the magazines in them are bugged, and they resort to their pistols. If you, yourself, pick up said weapon, you have to reload it before you can fire it.

Lastly, some more non-bug-related-things...

1: Will there ever be a built-in feature to randomly add weapons and ammo from enabled mods onto randomly generated patrols? Is this possible? This is my most desired feature, but I get the feeling it might not be that easy to implement.

2: The green bag is hard to find in the middle of the grass at times, due to its size and color. Damn you, camoflauge!

3: The arsenal in the newest update lets you make loadouts for soldiers and save them to be exported into missions (Arsenal). I'm hoping this can be utilized somehow?

Love everything you guys are doing. Keep it up!

[NeoArmageddon 958]

Hey, love the map (as always, still by far my most favorite map). However, I'm worried that the new patch might break it. A few things:

Playing it with no mods (Vanilla), on Dev branch (at time of posting, soon to be the official release), there are several errors that pop up at the start (comm center distance-related), mid-mission (search leader, and "surprise" drone, etc). Mission plays fine, but these errors cover the screen for a good portion of the game.

That's a devbranch problem. The error messages are no harm as most are only related to undefined variables with "private". I am slowly fixing all the scripts with it. But to make sure, you could upload your RPT for me with all the error messages you observe.

Playing it with RHS (RHS version obviously), the mission on any island will not load. It goes to a black screen and says "Loading...", but if you hit escape it's a view of a general area, like it's hanging on something.

RHS version works for me. Maye you could provide me a clean RPT (Restart ArmA3 CLient and Server, launch an RHS mission, wait until the loading screen, wait 20 sec and exit everything) of your client and server, when this happens.

Additionally, possibly dev branch related, sometimes the main weapons on the starting guards are "broken", or the magazines in them are bugged, and they resort to their pistols. If you, yourself, pick up said weapon, you have to reload it before you can fire it.

I assume it is a devbranch problem. We will see.

Lastly, some more non-bug-related-things...

1: Will there ever be a built-in feature to randomly add weapons and ammo from enabled mods onto randomly generated patrols? Is this possible? This is my most desired feature, but I get the feeling it might not be that easy to implement.

2: The green bag is hard to find in the middle of the grass at times, due to its size and color. Damn you, camoflauge!

3: The arsenal in the newest update lets you make loadouts for soldiers and save them to be exported into missions (Arsenal). I'm hoping this can be utilized somehow?

1) That won't happen because we want the mission to have a certain realism and style. There are no "side" variables in weapon configs so we can't see to which side which weapon belongs. This would ultimatly result in a weapon chaos and the chances that you encounter an enemy patrol with the ammo you are in need if would become less the more mods you have installed. This would not only break immersion but gameplay too. But we can always incorporate other mods in the mission, if there is a demand and the mods stands for itself.

2) It's a hidden backpack ;)

3) That was already possible for quite some time, but creating loadouts for every mod and keeping them up to date would be a big struggle.

Scruffy and I dicussed a new approach for patrols and loadouts today that would increase the immersion and variation of enemy patrols. But it is just an idea for now.

And thanks for your feedback!

[shindigero 19]

Firstly its great to see this mission given new life in arma 3, the group i play with got super excited when I told them about it. However, I tried it out yesterday with another guy and got quite far. In the end we only died because I accidentally killed us both with the backblast from an RPG and it was after that that we wondered why it had taken us so long to die. We played it again and walked out of the starting prison area and the guards didn't try to shoot us. Even when we shot them they didnt return fire and none of the enemies seem at all bothered by us. We have ASR AI running on our server so I dont know if thats a contributing factor but I thought I'd let you know and see if theres anything we can do.

[NeoArmageddon 958]

We have ASR AI running on our server so I dont know if thats a contributing factor but I thought I'd let you know and see if theres anything we can do.

Try disabling ASR AI. I have no idea if it is messing with the AI in escape. You can also test with the debug console "captive player". When this is true, something has prevented the escape scripts to set the captivity correctly.

We also just noticed a problem in the vanilla version with taking items that are in no container (map, fak, glasses, etc) from bodys. Haven't checked the other versions yet. Looks like BIS broke something with the inventory again... I will see if I can fix that from the mission side.

[main_cz 11]

The issue with AI happened to me as well. Running vanilla A3, enemies wouldnt shoot at all or they would but only some of them or after considerable delay.

Played yesterday, enemies started shooting at us immediately after we spawned and havent touched the backpack yet or moved. Also the helicopter spawned right next to the prison and we couldnt get rid of it. But otherwise great mission :)

[NeoArmageddon 958]

The issue with AI happened to me as well. Running vanilla A3, enemies wouldnt shoot at all or they would but only some of them or after considerable delay.

Played yesterday, enemies started shooting at us immediately after we spawned and havent touched the backpack yet or moved. Also the helicopter spawned right next to the prison and we couldnt get rid of it. But otherwise great mission :)

Tested vanilla now a couple of times and AI shoots at us as expected.

You see the heli spawn, when the Prison is next to the airfield.