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almanzo

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About almanzo

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  1. almanzo

    AI enemy mortar teams

    This looks interesting, thank you!
  2. Hi! Is there a way to spawn mortar teams with MCC or Zeus that are functional, as in they actually shoot at enemies? And how do they function, if it is possible? It would be pretty cool to be able to actually use mortar teams, but I have no idea how to utilize them in a MCC/Zeus scenario.
  3. So, I am mainly making missions for my community by using MCC, as such, my question is not directly in regards to technical issues. It is more of an attempt to figure out how to create scenarios that makes sense both lore wise and from a logistical/military perspective. What kinds of objectives should I make? Why is it we are taking those objectives? What kind of force is defending it? What assets do they have? What kind of assets should I make available for my team? I find that it is very difficult to come up with authentic or at least emmersive mission designs, as I have little to no knowledge on how military strategies are made in real life, what an invading force would prioritze and on how to go about that. Further more, I have no idea of how a real army or even a militia would set up defences around an objective. ARMA provides a lot of tools in that regard, but I have looked around the internet and found very little in terms of designing authentic missions. Can someone provide some insights or resources?
  4. Well, I feel pretty confident that OFP was mainly focused on single player content, given how many people lacked internet access back then, and the core mechanics are still the same as they where back then. You are kind of summarizing my point, the scale of the terrain and the lethal realism is part of why I think ARMAs mechanics screams for å different focus from their single player content team. If you look at the single player content that is there, it would have been better suited for an engine such as Battlefield, more linear, more arcadeish with features such as regenerative health. The current single player content is fighting against the "limitations" of the game, rather than taking advantage of them. If you can stomach the quirks of ARMA IIs engine, download CWR2 and play through the campaign from OFP. You will quickly understand what I mean. As to what Bars91 said: if you play the single player content in OFP, you will quickly see that the game was indeed designed to deliver strong, narrative content. There are so many beautiful details in OFP, every time you died, the camera would pan to who or what killed you, while giving you a famous quote about the fragility of war. The entire experience was built around the fact that you where insignificant, and it was a stroke of pure brilliance. But you are right, it is a harsh statement. I might moderate myself abit and say that their writers and campaign designers don't understand the product very well. The best SP content in the game currently is Laws of War DLC and the original showcases. ARMAs bread and butter is combined ops, it's what it's designed for. Despite that, combined ops is hardly featured in the campaign at all.
  5. Oh, I am completely aware, check my post history. I wrote my master thesis about user generated content in ARMA. But this is the important bit: I got Operation Flashpoint as a teenager, and I fell completely in love with it. I didn't have internet back then, so single player content was basicly where it was at, and I loved all of the original campaigns. Besides sharing mods with friends on burned CDs and making silly stuff in the editor, the original content was all I had. I was devestated when the whole deal with Codemasters happened, and super thrilled when ARMA: Armed Assault was released. Then I played the single player, encountered a game breaking bug (very early on) and gave up. Fast forward a few years and I bought ARMA II at release, single handedly for it's single player content. Encountered both a lot of bugs, and found the story to be lackluster. A small SF team solving an entire conflict while officially not even being there? Nah, did not float my boat. Gave up on it quite quickly, and it could have ended there if it wasn't for how much I loved OFP. I used to play through all of the campaigns at least once a year for ten years. I then stumbled upon Dslyecxi videos and was intrigued. I applied at ShackTac, but being a European their times was off. He recommended a different community, I applied and started playing. I'm now an admin in a community with a nice mix of both old timers and newer players. The key here is that it was the single player content that got me here in the first place. Not only that, lackluster single player content allmost made me leave. A good campaign can be what pushes someone over the edge enough to go explore more what the game can do. But for someone unaware of ARMA as a franchise and of modding, what they will do when they buy the game is either try the campaign or join a public (most likely official) server, that might put a lot of people off. Now, we all know that the bread and butter of ARMA is in it's modding scene and in user generated content. But a good campaign can be a blessing to both the game and the community. I stepping stone to learn the gripes, while being presented to a gut wrenching story to boot. And even though I understand your interest lies elsewhere, treat yourself to http://cwr2.arma2.fr/ If you are unfamiliar, it's basicly Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis ported to ARMA II, with the entire campaigns present. Even though some of it is a bit dated now, the story is really well told and it really shows how well suited ARMA can be for telling meaningful stories about war and warfare. Keep in mind that it's 18 years old by now. I could not recommend it more.
  6. Laws of war was is by far the most interesting official SP content avaiable to ARMA III, but it isn't flashed out (Being a DLC). The thing is, OFP was also a story about a conflict, but where ARMA III has the entire story rest on your characters shoulders, in OFP you where merely a small piece in a much bigger picture. It was told from the perspective of a regular grunt, a tank driver and a lieutenant. It wasn't less grand, really, but it's focus was how war was experienced by the people in it rather than focusing too much on the geopolitical stuff. That was there too, but it was more of a backdrop. A weird comparison, maybe, but if you take a look at Witcher 3, another narratively brilliant game. What makes Witcher great is exactly that Geraldt, despite being the main protagonist, isn't the most important character of the story. The story isn't about him, but you experience it through his eyes. It's a bit hard to explain, but it's the same concept.
  7. Hi! I've been part of this community since the release of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. As such, I started my ARMA career in singleplayer, and because of that I've also cared about the single player content in ARMA games since I started out, despite the fact that my main focus these days are on the multiplayer aspect. This post was sparked by the "Contact" announcement, but it is in no way limited to that, as I see "Contact" as the last development in a trend that has been going on pretty much since ARMA: Armed Assault. What draw me into the world of ARMA was the brilliance of the Cold War Crisis, Red Hammer and Resistance campaigns. All of them did something unique that I've felt has been lost to a growing degree in the following releases in the series. It seems to me that Bohemia Interactive increasingly is unable to understand the strenghts (and weaknesses) of their own product. What made the original campaigns good (even Codemasters developed "Red Hammer") was that they all where rooted in human stories. War was the common theme, the backdrop. But the stories ultimately was about how war influenced the characters of the story. We got to feel the confusion, the excitement, the horrors and the fear that the characters while being part of something that was bigger than themselves. A theme that fits the ARMA franchise perfectly, considering how vulnerable and insignificant one infantry soldier is in the grand scheme of things. You where a cog in the machine, while having some influence on the development of the story, you had to rely on other elements and other units in order to succeed. If you died, the war would enevetably move on without you. Instead of focusing on the grand political schemes, the original campains all orbited around what war was like for those with boots on the ground. Gradually, the series has been moved further and further away from that, with the small exception of the free "Eagle wing" campaign in ARMA2. A tiny campaign lasting for only a few hours that despite that was able to achieve a sense of mystery, loneliness and terror that none of the other official campaigns since OFP has ever been able to achive. ARMA is really, really good at making you feel small and insignificant, and it seems to be that BI doesn't understand how powerful that is as a narrative tool. In order to succeed, you need to rely on others, and you need to cooperate. ARMA is one of the few games where individual skill matters way less than a groups ability to coordinate, both within themselves, but also with other assets such as helicopters, planes and land vehicles. You see allmost none of that in ARMAs official campaigns anymore, they all strive to fulfill a power fantasy that is ill suited to ARMAs capabilities and strenghts. The civillian faction has gone from being an integral part of the story, to becomming backdrops and setpieces that are insignificant to the story itself, and the main focus has shifted towards grand political schemes and cinematic, bombastic hollywood heroes with nothing in terms of personality. Small groups of characters single handledly changes the outcomes of large scale conflicts, and to be quite honest, it sucks. There is no human element anymore, and it feels like ARMA desperately tries to compete with the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty when it comes to storytelling, trying to recreate the super soldier of the silver screen. The end result is simply forgetable and bland, and Contact seems to further the trend even more. ARMA has the ability to be grounded, to tell stories with impact about modern conflict. It has the ability to be unique, mainly because the gameplay itself IS unique. No other game has an engine as capable of conveying the horrors of war as strongly as ARMA, because the whole games premise is how useless you are on your own. To match that with stories about super soldiers is simply bafflingly stupid, and it is incredibly ill suited for it. ARMA is a great game, and thanks to mods and multiplayer, I'm able to play content that is better suited to the strenghts of the game. But it would be awesome to get to play a professionally made campaign that takes advantage of what ARMAs engine has to offer, instead of having to rely on hobbyists to get the most out of what ARMA can do. Don't get me wrong, ARMAs modding community is simply what keeps this game alive, and I love them. But it is about time that BIS understand what kind of gem ARMA really is and start making content that makes sense from a narrative perspective. Think more in terms of "Band of brothers" rather than "American sniper". Stop relying on fancyful super weapons and aliens and focus on the humans who are doing the actual fighting. On what's on stake for them, on their families, their fears, their struggles and their victories. Their cameraderie and their losses. ARMA has a unique opportunity for story telling like that, take advantage of it. Don't try to compete with the bombastics of the tripple A's, create something unique. Find new writers.
  8. Not anything that isn't part of ACE or RHS by default. Nothing I wrote myself.
  9. Hi! I've been toying around with my own Warlords scenarios lately, and have enjoyed it a lot. However, there is a feature connected with the teleport functionality that drains your stamina completely after teleport, so you'd have to lay down for quite a while before being able to move. It is disabled if you turn off fatigue in the mission parameters, but then the entire fatigue system is turned off, and that's not what I want (besides, that causes a bug with our modlist, making movement speed insane and weapons drift away). Is there a way to remove the stamina drain from teleporting, while keeping the fatigue system active?
  10. I figured it out actually. I ran the mission with the "Fatigue" parameter turned off. Testing in SP or in editor with fatigue on gave a lot of weird effects. Turning it off fixed it. From what I've been able to gather, the issue might have been with ASR_AI
  11. I might change the title though, any suggestions?
  12. It only happens in Warlords though. We've used this exact modset for many other missions, including antistasi. So far we have not encountered it in any other mission.
  13. First bug happens right away, basicly something is messing with movement speed, fatigue or something along those lines, resulting in super speed. Second bug can be seen around 1:07 mark, gun either drifts upwards or downwards and is not linked to the rifle anymore. Note: This is not a result of double tapping ALT. I think it might have something to do with weapon sway, but I am not sure. The mission is very straight forward, only thing different from the tutorial mission from the live stream are the faction settings and asset list with RHS assets. Mods used: Ace Ace_compat Ace_ragdoll Achilles Acre2 Adv_acesplint Asr_ai3 Bloodlust Cba_a3 RHS mods JSRS and compatability mods Miarsenal Project_Opfor Rh_acc STUI Ui_sounds Vcom_driving_ai Pluss some inhouse AI mods
  14. almanzo

    Helmet Mounted Displays MOD

    Kimi, I'm really sorry. I did not mean it like that, I must have been in a bad mood at the moment. Allthough a lot of the features of this mod are not that important to me, I do appriciate the effort you have put into it and I do in no way expect you to cater it to my needs. That being said, even though only parts of the mod is relevant for my use, it's still an essential mod for me these days. I didn't mean any disrespect, I'm deeply sorry for offending you.
  15. almanzo

    Helmet Mounted Displays MOD

    Second this, it's really annoying, especially the damage part. I basicly use the HMD for a proper aimpoint, nothing else.
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