[SP] Al Inteqam (The Revenge) - Random Missions

[ArmaMan360 94]

Ok around 4-5 months in the making. I present to you my dream.....


Al Inteqam (The Revenge).
A series of perpetual and 'repeatable' CSAT missions all arranged randomly. Inspired by Patrol Ops, BMR Insurgency among others. But much simpler, quicker and SP.
I would encourage budding mission makers to rip this mission apart via Eliteness program and look at how I have achieved this.Its as vanilla as possible. The task files are commented for a better explanation. Always use Notepad++ or the great Atom with latest Arma 3 plugin for opening sqf files. Its my time to give something back to the community :)

Features:
1. Random Missions on random locations
2. Support modules
3. Random time and weather
4. Random chance of vehicles, and heli enemy patrols
5. New mission types
6. Field Headquarters
7. Auto cleanup after mission end (as cleanup during an ongoing mission wont allow you to rearm at dead bodies)
8. Enemy tracker action to reduce hunting time of remaining few AIs
9. AI Recruit
10. Civilians in towns

11. Oh and most important.. AMAZING FPS  ;) 

Currently the missions are:
1. Capture Town (Uses towns as locations)
2. Capture NATO Base (Uses Military bases all over Altis and some fortifications as mission spots)
3. Destroy asset ( Will select an asset from a pool to be destroyed - Transformer, Radio Tower, Drone, Artillery unit. The arti unit may occasionally get utilized by the AI)
4. Assassinate (Eliminate enemy officer)
5. Stop the convoy (4 vehicles will form a convoy in Column formation where ends will have defence forces and middle 2 will be the deal. I mean the trucks to take out)
6. Kill the Snipers (A bunch a' snipers have wandered in to the Altis wild. Take em out)
7. Secure the intel from crash site (Beware of light reinforcements)
8. Rescue our brother (Rescue POW)
9. Destroy the mortar squad (A mortar squad has been spotted in Altis. Take em out)
10. Defend the town (A lightweight defense scenario featuring towns)
11. Skirmish (Join CSAT patrol in the wilderness. Be on the lookout for any enemy.)
12. Dog Fight (Yeah now we talkin. This is quite easily my favourite. The music, the enemy, The mission countdown, the moving task marker everything is special)
13. Caught (The enemy has found our base and conducted a rigorous operation. Wait for further orders and PRAY)

14. Like a Ghost (Reach the Rendezvous point through heli and armour patrols. No enemy infantry)
..... will keep adding unique mission types and not the cliche'.

Before you play. Read this:
1. Added the awesome Bon's recruit AI script.
2. The mission will have you start in front of a flag. Use it to HALO drop wherever you need to once assigned a mission. If Dog Fight is assigned, rush to an airport.
3. Crate with Virtual Arsenal right in front at mission start so that you can choose your favourite loadout :)
4. At the end of each mission you will be teleported back to starting position with a random time.
5. I am MP illiterate. Wont be able to convert this to MP by any chance. I love SP and the convenience of playing a mission over days :)
6. Given my work schedule, please do not be angry if I dont reply to your queries quickly.
7. The reveal addaction is not a cheat, but should be used only to see that last annoying enemy left in town ;)
8. Artillery, Transportation and CAS support available. But has cooldown.
9. Each mission will have a random AO size between 2 extremes which I personally dont wish to disclose. Wont be fun to know beforehand, but I assure you its not extremely huge, nor tiny, but decent. If you insist on its knowledge, then send me a message.
10. There is no caching done here. Its not needed with such scale. I dont like the idea of a nano second lag when units spawn back. Spoils the atmosphere.
11. Spawned units are given a decent area to patrol, so even the knowledge of the AO size wont guarantee that they will remain only inside ;)

This mission is a huge achievement for me being new to the scripting scene. Had to manually and carefully place 4 types of markers. 1st for towns, 2nd for military bases, 3rd for sniper spawn points, 4th for Convoy spawn spots. In all 95 markers on the beautiful and behemoth Altis handpicked and tweaked which literally took days.

Got to learn a lot in the forums here by some amazing and hugely talented people of the community. Especially JSHOCK, R3VO, SHUKO, PERSIAN MO, GREENFIST, RYDYGIER and LARROW who helped me in shaping it the way it is and the future of Al Inteqam. But JShock 's extreme patience here kick started my interest in developing this.

I want the community to enjoy this.

MODS REQUIRED:
None :biggrin:

Google Drive (V 1.4.2):
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8jSob5bHbEBQldCdkd1TjBBR2s&usp=sharing

 

Steam Workshop:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=606946272


Community stuff utilized:
1. JShock's extremely simple unit spawning and AO deletion functions
2. Shuko's legendary SHKpos and SHKbuildingPos scripts
3. Enemy left counter snippet by R3vo

4. =ATM= Airdop by pokertour (edited to suit this mission)
5.  Several other snippets by amazing people like Persian MO, Greenfist, Larrow, Rydygier and everyone else.

WIP:
1. Giving detailed information to each task.
2. Adding atleast one unique mission with each update
3. Create a more 'living' base

 

Update V1.4.2:
Changelog:
Minor bug fixes.

 

Update V1.4.1 hotfix:
Changelog:
1. Fixed: Like a ghost mission wouldnt spawn any enemies. Possibly  due to new Arma 3 update

2. Removed mission "Escape" for the time being till its fixed and bug free.

3. Several bug fixes.

 

Update V1.4:
Changelog:
1. New mission type "Like a Ghost" which will now fire the first time you play the mission
2. Optimized "Eliminate Arti Squad", "Defend", and "Caught" missions
3. Hopefully fixed: Loadout bug
4. Fixed: AI mates unable to teleport with player
5. Edited HALO script to be extremely lightweight

 

Update V1.3:
Changelog:
1. New mission type "Escape" which will fire the first time you play the mission
2. Cleaned up the mission files to remove unnecessary code
3. Fixed: Sniper mission bug where mission would complete at -1 kills

UPDATE V1.2
Changelog:
1. Made changes to Destroy mortar squad. Should be tough now
2. Added the recruit AI option at the base flag
3. Replaced the virtual heli transport module with an actual AI heli at base as requested by community

UPDATE V1.1:
Changelog:
1. Headquarter entities are now movable (But still deliberately left invincible)
2. Lightened up the player's starting loadout a bit
3. Reveal addaction should now not show its name at the screen center by default (Thanks to tortuosit)
4. Removed dependancy on RHS units hence this should fix the task auto-complete thing.

[Rydygier 1317]

So, congrats on your very first release. I even now still remember that feeling. :) And despite I had only opportunity to quick try, it seems done better, than my first released work years ago. Some observations after short vanilla gameplay (few attempts):

 

1. Sometimes I begin without an uniform (underpants). 

2. There is portion of errors on screen/RPT each start:

13:53:44 Unexpected stringtable format inside <Text ID="STR_ATM_Main"><Key>
13:53:44 Unexpected stringtable format inside <Text ID="STR_ATM_Main"><Key>
13:53:44 Unsupported language English in stringtable
13:53:50 Unexpected stringtable format inside <Text ID="STR_ATM_Main"><Key>
13:53:50 Unexpected stringtable format inside <Text ID="STR_ATM_Main"><Key>
13:53:50 Unsupported language English in stringtable

13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controlsBackground\fn_ATM_RscTitleBackground.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controlsBackground\fn_MainBackground.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controlsBackground\fn_Altitude.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controlsBackground\fn_Keys.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controls\fn_atmTitle.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controls\fn_Alt_slider.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controls\fn_ALT_value.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controls\fn_KEY_value.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controls\fn_ATM_AD_SelectKeys.sqf not found
13:53:58 Warning Message: Script functions\controls\fn_ATM_AD_ButtonClose.sqf not found

and later:

13:54:15 Error in expression <_this select 1}		else {0};
if (typename _params != typename [])	then {_params = >
13:54:15   Error position: <_params != typename [])	then {_params = >
13:54:15   Error Undefined variable in expression: _params
13:54:15 File A3\functions_f\Debug\fn_param.sqf, line 44
13:54:15 Error in expression <zlt_repair_loop = [_this, 0, false] call BIS_fnc_param;

if>
13:54:15   Error position: <_this, 0, false] call BIS_fnc_param;

if>
13:54:15   Error Undefined variable in expression: _this

3. First thing, I did each start was going to the box and leave some stuff - soldier seem kinda overloaded by default. I would suggest set him light by default with ability to take more armament if needed.

 

4. A propos. Would be useful to have some more verbose tasks informations, including recommended weaponry and/or expected enemy kind/numbers. Witout this during my firast mission I found myself against an APC with a rifle only. Arty/CAS support was the only effective measure, I had. Launcher was left at base (to avoid overloading). Same for some general informations in-game (eg map view diary records - so one could read, what's the mission about in general, what will be his activities and such)

 

5. Despite HALO and aerial transportation would be also nice to have some land vehicles. There are two quads, but apparently "closed" - no action to drive them.

 

6. As for aerial transport:

 

- some info, how to use it would be useful as well. I mean - when I'm doing what (pick up coors, target coords), when open to map etc. Currently is pretty misleading. First try I apparently chosen my own coords as target position, second time I've chosen pick up coords thinking, I'm pointing target LZ, third I managed to do all right, but when "choose target location" action appeared, I found, I'm unable to zoom out the map, while support/action is active, and I was unable to disable temporarily this action (it was dispalyed back immediately), so another failure...

 

- Chopper appears very close, so player see, how it is spawned - bad for immersion. 

- Chopper disappeared just after I disembarked, just like that. For the immersion sake it should fly away first.

 

- Perhaps helicopter should be landed all the time at main base instead of spawn/despawn - seems logical. 

 

7. There was some Arsenal option at the base. When used, camera showed mostly a crate from weird perspective and bunch of floating weirdly icons in the middle of the screen. I could click the icons, and stuff was working, but perhaps initial view is not looking, as intended? 

 

8. 

 

 

This mission is a huge achievement for me being new to the scripting scene. Had to manually and carefully place 4 types of markers. 1st for towns, 2nd for military bases, 3rd for sniper spawn points, 4th for Convoy spawn spots. In all 95 markers on the beautiful and behemoth Altis handpicked and tweaked which literally took days.

 

 

That's why scripting is so great tool. Sooner or later you should master picking all the marker locations procedurally, via code to avoid days of tedious hand picking - see it done in seconds instead. Very rewarding, when you achieve that. :) Of course, unless these had to be picked really too carefully for procedural way, which always is a bit unpredictable - not all the precision may be coded easily. 

 

So, good luck. I hope to get some day enough free time to seriously play such nice SP missions lke this again, there is more and more of the sweet stuff in the queue...

[ArmaMan360 94]

So, congrats on your very first release.......

Rydy I am amazed by your indepth review. But I am completely clueless about the rpt errors.

- I have left the VA at the beginning to ensure that playes loadout the way they want. I personally am ok with a rifle against APC. I like to sneak up to enemies, steal their rpgs and attack their vehicles with it. I believe thats a fair deal?

- enemies are unknown to make some tasks harder. APCs, tanks, helis all stand a 50-50 chance of presence

- i wanted to shift the VA camera but dont know how

- supports are completely vanilla so i can only make the virtual support provider become support provider as apart from that I cant achieve other feats you have mentioned due to my inability with such coding yet :)

-quads are supposed to be purely cosmetic coz you dont need them since HALO system and transport is enough. I'll add some offroads nonetheless :)

Thank you again. You have given me good enough matter for the update. Wow again im elated by you taking some time off to try this Rydy. Thank you... :)

[Rydygier 1317]

 

 

- I have left the VA at the beginning to ensure that playes loadout the way they want. I personally am ok with a rifle against APC. I like to sneak up to enemies, steal their rpgs and attack their vehicles with it. I believe thats a fair deal?

 

No problem, as long it's intended by you. Mentioned about this in case, you would like to make gameplay easier. It's perfectly OK to keep it as difficult, as you like. :)

 

I'm glad, I could help. 

[ArmaMan360 94]

No problem, as long it's intended by you. Mentioned about this in case, you would like to make gameplay easier. It's perfectly OK to keep it as difficult, as you like. :)

 

I'm glad, I could help.

Actually its totallyrandom. Vehicles, armour and helis have a 50-50 chance of spawning. So yeah I will add a launcher in the update. Thank you man.

[old_painless 183]

Had a quick playtest and a few ideas came up:

 

Vehicles for transport - it seems that the vehicles that one can be teleported to (the offroads at HQ1-3) are locked? A bit easier to make a stealth approach by car, than by helicopter. And covering 5 km on foot is a bit tedious

 

Even though you said single player, I was still expecting a team to command. I tried the reveal units command but that did not give me a team, I realized then that it was not my team it referred to LOL. My bad

 

I had to take out a mortar squad, but that was not difficult. And I am really not good at Arma. They just sat there in their seats, perhaps a patrol nearby would balance that mission type

 

Another thing you may consider was that I can choose which mission type I am given, in stead of handing out a random one. So I could choose to go after a HVT, or rescue a hostage and so on.

 

Other than that it was a nice experience with some good locations. The transport system worked really well. Thanks for making this mission :)

 

-OP

[ArmaMan360 94]

Had a quick playtest and a few ideas came up:

 

Vehicles for transport - it seems that the vehicles that one can be teleported to (the offroads at HQ1-3) are locked? A bit easier to make a stealth approach by car, than by helicopter. And covering 5 km on foot is a bit tedious

 

Even though you said single player, I was still expecting a team to command. I tried the reveal units command but that did not give me a team, I realized then that it was not my team it referred to LOL. My bad

 

I had to take out a mortar squad, but that was not difficult. And I am really not good at Arma. They just sat there in their seats, perhaps a patrol nearby would balance that mission type

 

Another thing you may consider was that I can choose which mission type I am given, in stead of handing out a random one. So I could choose to go after a HVT, or rescue a hostage and so on.

 

Other than that it was a nice experience with some good locations. The transport system worked really well. Thanks for making this mission :)

 

-OP

Mortar mission didnt had patrols? Dayyum. How can I miss it.let me look into it. And thank you very much OP. Yeah HQs are present to be just stationery points. I will turn off the locks on them. You are correct, offroads are better 'sneakers' than helis.

 

And I wish I knew how to make missions selectable manually. I will have to do some research. I can add addactions to an HQ Object like a laptop on table. :)

 

Amazed by the response and now I feel how veterans like Rydy, Jshock etc might be feeling after getting expectations from the community. It builds onto you and makes you wanna improve. Update will be released in a day or two. :D

Wish I could today but cant help with the work pressure I have :)

 

 

EDIT: Just looked into it, I have placed enemy spawns in the mortar mission. The enemy infantry groups are random between 8 and 11. Check the reveal option they should be there. In the next mission I will put a 'knowsabout' on the mortars so that any enemy knows about the player, the mortars will start shooting :D

[R0adki11 3949]

Nice mission, is there any chance you might consider doing a BLUFOR version?

[ArmaMan360 94]

Nice mission, is there any chance you might consider doing a BLUFOR version?

Thank you very much for the kind words.

 

And yeah BLUFOR is very possible but will have to do a tedious task of replacing classnames, vehicles and what not :(

I have been very  very basic with stuff here. I am not yet skilled to let my mission auto detect mods or player side or even add dialogues :)

 

Until then you can loadout your player the way you want in the VA? :)

[R0adki11 3949]

Thank you very much for the kind words.

 

And yeah BLUFOR is very possible but will have to do a tedious task of replacing classnames, vehicles and what not :(

I have been very  very basic with stuff here. I am not yet skilled to let my mission auto detect mods or player side or even add dialogues :)

 

Until then you can loadout your player the way you want in the VA? :)

Using The VA may work, but the main reason why i was asking if there was BLUFOR version. As i wanted to use my Nogovan Armed Forces Mod units with it, as they are BLUFOR sided.

[SavageCDN 231]

Congrats on your first mission release!!

[tortuosit 486]

Thank you!

When I choose helicopter transport and get into the helicopter, then open map to click the destination: map cannot be zoomed via scroll wheel. Anyone else? Of not, please no further investigation as I am playing with mods.

Also, I had to kill snipers, Job was done with "-1" snipers. Did not tell me about mission complete...

I think the "reveal units" addaction is incomplete, because the "reveal unit" appears in the center of the screen when it has not been chosen via wheel->scroll. This is often the case if addactions are incomplete.

EDIT. Use:

init="null = [this] execVM ""loadout.sqf""; this addaction [""<t color='#ff7600'>Reveal units</t>"", ""reveal.sqf"",nil,0, false, true];";

[old_painless 183]

I had the zoom problem while in the helicopter too. I think I closed the map a few times before it would zoom again. I also got a mission assigned which somehow became completed before I even left base. I then quickly got the next mission which worked fine

 

Btw, good to hear that there are patrols around the mortar squads. I just got lucky to avoid them, I guess :)

[tortuosit 486]

I also got a mission assigned which somehow became completed before I even left base.

Yes, enemy helicopter over Altis with a countdown. Was completed after max. 20 seconds without me doing anything. Maybe AI did it?

[ArmaMan360 94]

Yes, enemy helicopter over Altis with a countdown. Was completed after max. 20 seconds without me doing anything. Maybe AI did it?

the problem with map being unable to zoom in/out during the transport destination beats me as its vanilla module. I dont know how to enable zoom in and out during that. I guess its supposed to be like that? And there is a work around. Initially open the map normally and zoom in/out as much as you want, when you have decided the destination, then call the transport support. Similarly, this way you can also edit the support's already given waypoint to a new location you want. But the condition is that the transport chopper must not have started the landing animation  :)

[ArmaMan360 94]

I also got a mission assigned which somehow became completed before I even left base. I then quickly got the next mission which worked fine

The reason it happened was (although i was expecting this) there are some RHS assets in the spawn pool. If they are chosen from the pool and RHS isnt enabled, the task would get immediately completed as that target didnt spawn. My bad. Ill turn this with purely vanilla units now.

[ArmaMan360 94]

 

Thank you!

When I choose helicopter transport and get into the helicopter, then open map to click the destination: map cannot be zoomed via scroll wheel. Anyone else? Of not, please no further investigation as I am playing with mods.

Also, I had to kill snipers, Job was done with "-1" snipers. Did not tell me about mission complete...

I think the "reveal units" addaction is incomplete, because the "reveal unit" appears in the center of the screen when it has not been chosen via wheel->scroll. This is often the case if addactions are incomplete.

EDIT. Use:

init="null = [this] execVM ""loadout.sqf""; this addaction [""<t color='#ff7600'>Reveal units</t>"", ""reveal.sqf"",nil,0, false, true];";

Thank you very much for the precious snippet. I am clueless about the -1 thing though.

 

Update should be out tonight :D

9 am here

[ArmaMan360 94]

Using The VA may work, but the main reason why i was asking if there was BLUFOR version. As i wanted to use my Nogovan Armed Forces Mod units with it, as they are BLUFOR sided.

For your personal or clan's purpose you can unzip the mission and place your playable units there.

Should I change the enemy side to opfor or indfor?

[ArmaMan360 94]

...

 

Vehicles for transport - it seems that the vehicles that one can be teleported to (the offroads at HQ1-3) are locked? A bit easier to make a stealth approach by car, than by helicopter. And covering 5 km on foot is a bit tedious

......

oh btw you are aware of the HALO jump right? :P

[tortuosit 486]

the problem with map being unable to zoom in/out during the transport destination beats me as its vanilla module. I dont know how to enable zoom in and out during that.

 

I don't know how you do it, but maybe you can shamelessly copy how others do it. Bring up a map, trigger OnMapClick() I think... E.g. in Pilgrimage mission, the hitchhiking in the action menu brings up a map and you click a target, which insta teleports you there.

[ArmaMan360 94]

UPDATE V1.1 released:

Changelog

 

1. Headquarter entities and quadbikes at base are now movable (HQs are deliberately left invincible)

2. Lightened up the player's starting loadout a bit

3. Reveal addaction should now not show its name at the screen center by default (Thanks to tortuosit)

4. Removed dependancy on RHS units hence this should fix the task auto-complete

 

Thank you.

[ArmaMan360 94]

I don't know how you do it, but maybe you can shamelessly copy how others do it. Bring up a map, trigger OnMapClick() I think... E.g. in Pilgrimage mission, the hitchhiking in the action menu brings up a map and you click a target, which insta teleports you there.

I'll see to it, but insta teleport will surely take away the immersion.

 

I have begun to think that teleport module should be removed altogether as you got a HALO drop from the flag at base, and you get teleported back to base at the end of each mission anyway coupled by the fact that now I have made the HQ units movable. One doesnt need transport module now eh?

[R0adki11 3949]

For your personal or clan's purpose you can unzip the mission and place your playable units there.

Should I change the enemy side to opfor or indfor?

OPFOR probably would give better re playability, if you could do it would be great. But no rush, i can appreciate it can take time to do editing work. :)

[tortuosit 486]

I'll see to it, but insta teleport will surely take away the immersion.

 

I have begun to think that teleport module should be removed altogether as you got a HALO drop from the flag at base, and you get teleported back to base at the end of each mission anyway coupled by the fact that now I have made the HQ units movable. One doesnt need transport module now eh?

No I'm just saying how he uses it there. In your mod I'd rather like to see a map come up and an easy possibility to add/correct waypoints (best case). Transport chopper is important part of the immersion.

You can check for visibleMap (boolean) in order to do things. I.e. if user exits map and has added 1+ waypoints, your transport task would start.

[R3vo 2654]

Any chance to see this mission in the Workshop? It's currently flooded by zombie and survival stuff =/