Urban Conquest by tvig0r0us

[tvig0r0us]

Okay, I see your point, in that case I have a counterpoint.

Capture Points, I assume, are supposed to be points or places of strategic or tactical value. In real life those would be tall building, high ground, sandbag strips, weapon caches.
In the game, right now, capture points seems to not have any strategic or tactical value whatsoever. It seems like they're random points scattered around the maps.

If you want more realistic approach then you have to make capture points to have actual tactical or strategical value, something that give some sort of advantage to the side controlling it. Even a simple bunker, tower, roof of a tall building or a strip of sandbags is already a point of tactical value.

That way, it not only be realistic but it will also improve the gameplay, since players (with more than half a brain working) will instantly be able to recognize a tactically important place and figure out that it's a capture point.

---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:23 PM ----------

Speaking of AI routines. I think you should refrain from editing AI and try to only rely on built-in waypoint system.
1) It would ensure the best compatibility with all kinds of AI related mods.
2) ARMA 2 AI already does most of necessary stuff itself.

I absolutely see your point of view on this, but this mission is not about strategic points... Nothing about a capture point implies a strategic position other than the fact that you need to posess that piece of real estate to win the game. That's what this mission is about, real estate, and nothing more. All that the CP's symbolize is the occupation or ownership of another area of the city. It's not that there is anything special about any one of these positions, it's that they are there and it's up to you to drive your enemies from them. That is why there are CP's in almost every part of the city. To be honest, I'm not really sure where the notion came from that CP's must have any strategic value outside of the value that being a CP in itself provides.

As far as the AI go, I do not use the waypoint system because... well I really don't have any reason, but as I stated in my earlier post, I intend to do as little as possible to alter the routines of the AI. I don't understand what you mean about compatibility with mods and whatnot. Do you mean AI mods in particular? I don't see how there would be any interference with any mods using my current system of AI command. Perhaps there's something I haven't considered.

Anyhow, I really do appreciate your input on this and I may consider adding things here and there, but the mission is predicated on the notion that the fight is purely over who controls what area of the city... There are no micro objectives or anything of that sort that give greater value to one point or another. Reading this thread makes me feel like I'm poo pooing your suggestions and that's not my intent at all. Just understand that the very element you are suggesting is lacking is in fact the very element this mission was meant to showcase above all else. Kind of like a simple team deathmatch, where the only objective is to kill the enemy.

Thanks again for checking it out... try to play the mission out all of the way once or twice. It really is fun IMHO.

Cheers

[kiberkiller]

No problems, I understand that you're trying to adhere to a certain concept.

In that case, if CPs are nothing but a way to represent area control of the city, I think that they should
a) Be marked as big squares (let's say 25mx25m, just for example) on the map, to actually tell the player that they represent an area.
b) Capturing of that CP should be done no matter where in that 25mx25m square.
c) Most importantly, those CPs should be placed evenly across the map, like a chess board.

Otherwise you're giving a totally wrong idea of what CPs are.

[tvig0r0us]

No problems, I understand that you're trying to adhere to a certain concept.

In that case, if CPs are nothing but a way to represent area control of the city, I think that they should
a) Be marked as big squares (let's say 25mx25m, just for example) on the map, to actually tell the player that they represent an area.
b) Capturing of that CP should be done no matter where in that 25mx25m square.
c) Most importantly, those CPs should be placed evenly across the map, like a chess board.

Otherwise you're giving a totally wrong idea of what CPs are.

Where exactly are you getting this rigid set of rules for what constitutes a CP. Mission creation is a form of art if you think about it... there are no rules other than what can and can't be done in the confines of the game engine. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one I think, although I have adjusted the marker type to reflect the boundaries of the CP. As long as I'm the one making the mission, a CP is what I say it is in my eyes.

Cheers

[Kremator]

Author can do what he likes, call it what he likes, as it is his mission.

[andersson]

I like what I read Will for sure check it out in a later stage. Sometimes all I want is "simple" urban combat.

[tvig0r0us]

Thank you Kremator.

Just wanted to jump on and post this update. I've made some big changes and got MP working very nicely... but, the mission uses some serious bandwidth, maybe because there's so much going on? In any case, I had a couple of long lan sessions with one other person running it on my dedicated server and it ran perfectly.

Changes:
- Fixed Recruit soldier action to work properly in MP game running on dedi server
- Added dismiss action for soldiers in player groups, works the same as recruiting
- Fixed problem in vehicle code that was forcing player's group to disembark
- Fixed vehicle recruiting of existing crew
- Optimized, or tried to optimize, all scripts to store fixed arrays at the start of the script so as not to pull on network resources on every loop
- Divided civs into groups similar to soldier recruit script to keep them from massing around the civilan group leader... as a side effect of this they behave much more as you would expect a civ caught in combat to behave
- Changed CP markers to reflect the size of the CP... colors remain the same

I will continue to work on this... If anyone can give me some kind of a hand or point me in the right direction in getting JIP to work I would greatly apreciate it. There is a great void of information regarding the firing order and what is called upon natively by the engine so I'm having a difficult time figuring out how to initialize everything in a way that will allow JIP to happen.

Thanks ahead of time for checking it out

Download Urban Conquest v1.01 Zargabad
Download Urban Conquest v1.01 Shapur

[kiberkiller]

Where exactly are you getting this rigid set of rules for what constitutes a CP. Mission creation is a form of art if you think about it... there are no rules other than what can and can't be done in the confines of the game engine. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one I think, although I have adjusted the marker type to reflect the boundaries of the CP. As long as I'm the one making the mission, a CP is what I say it is in my eyes.

Cheers

Basic rules of game design, but as you said it's your mission and you're free to do whatever the hell you want with it.

Good luck with what you're doing then.

[SavageCDN]

I will continue to work on this... If anyone can give me some kind of a hand or point me in the right direction in getting JIP to work I would greatly apreciate it. There is a great void of information regarding the firing order and what is called upon natively by the engine so I'm having a difficult time figuring out how to initialize everything in a way that will allow JIP to happen.

Thanks ahead of time for checking it out

Download Urban Conquest v1.01 Zargabad
Download Urban Conquest v1.01 Shapur

Just don't call them CPs and all will be glorious

This does look interesting I will check it out. If MP is working well I might port this to Fallujah and test it out with a group of players.

As for JIP (I am no coder) but I would check out the F2 Mission Framework and perhaps there are elements you can use in your mission as it does support JIP. In my (limited) experience a lot of JIP issues come with updating the joining client with mission markers and other mission data that has changed since mission start... of course you may already know this and for that I am sorry

[tvig0r0us]

Thank you all for checking it out. I'm pleased to say that I've got JIP in the bag and things are moving nicely. There are only a couple of features I intend to add to this one beyond what it is and I'll be wrapping it up. It's certainly fun to play, but is an experiment and acclimation to coding for arma. I'll keep on defying the "basic rules of game design" and post an update as soon as I'm done with it. If you're really interested in porting it, I'll set up a template and include it so you have an easy starting point to go from. Thanks again!

Cheers

[Kremator]

It's certainly busy Good work.

Have you had a go putting tpwcas suppression and the LOS in as well? That would be interesting.