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almanzo

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Everything posted by almanzo

  1. 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.
  2. almanzo

    AI enemy mortar teams

    This looks interesting, thank you!
  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. almanzo

    Feedback Thread

    And nice to see Bohemia dedicate some resources towards testing new ideas and experimenting in coordination with the community in such a way. Will definately give it a go! Good luck with it!
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  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. Not anything that isn't part of ACE or RHS by default. Nothing I wrote myself.
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. I might change the title though, any suggestions?
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. almanzo

    How to get mods

    Or playwithsix
  18. So, I just finished playing through this and I would like to summarize my thoughts a bit. I will only talk about it in general terms, so it should be rather spoiler free. I'll use tags after all, but yeah. In summary though, very well done!
  19. almanzo

    ARMA (#) future path

    1.: If there is one thing that is obvious, it's that Bohemia does keep an eye on modders. Even though the relationship between the modding community and BIS could be better, there is no question that this is a focal point of BI. ARMA lives and breathes due to mods, and they are fully aware of that fact. The amount of documentation, the free modding tools and the effort of keeping in touch with modders is quite unique of BIS. I'm not aware of any developer who are more involved with it's modding scene than BIS are, even though there might be room for improvement. Now, the fact that ARMA has spawned new, spinoff titles is great. The fact that someone can make the beginning of their career are independent developers making mods for ARMA is nothing but positive, and it speaks volume about BI and ARMA as a platform. Other modding teams have moved on to commercialize addons and plugins for VBS, and I think that is great. 2: No, just no. ARMA is not tailored towards competative play, and especially not e-sports. ARGO has demonstrated that ARMA is hard to balance, has to much input lag, and has a netcode that doesn't combine well with a competative shooting scene. Large scale operations, maybe... But not e-sport. It's a bad idea to try to cash in on something that's big, when the game itself has it's strenghts elsewhere. Trying to achieve anything on the e-sports scene with ARMA will only move attention away from where ARMA has potential. 3. Dead horse, no need to beat on it. 4. I struggle to see how they are not. The modding community are very helpful, in my experience.
  20. almanzo

    Helmet Mounted Displays MOD

    Will the declutter also have an impact on the RHS littlebird HUD? For as much as I love it, the reticle is a bit large, and has a tendency to obscure the target. What have you modeled it after? Are they supposed to be that big? I downright love this mod though, and the declutter option looks to make it even better!
  21. As a representative of the COOP community, I can tell you that there are a vast variety of groups out there, that do different things. Most train their members within "closed doors" as you say, but some groups have a more open approach. A group called "FOLK" (http://folkarps.com/) hosts public sessions each week, with no requirements of membership or much prior knowledge. Then there are other groups that are more closed, and it varies how strict the different communities are maintained and nurtured. Some aim for large scale communities with alot of versitility in terms of gameplay, while others try to maintain smaller and more tight knit communities. Some communities have strict attendance policies, others are more leanient. I do highly recommend trying to find a community though, regardless of your gameplay preferences. ARMA is best served in an organized fashion, and at least for a large part of the community, mods are quite essential. You could try to play with FOLK or other open groups to get a taste I guess, or you could visit r/FindAunit on reddit.
  22. almanzo

    CTD on VTOL showcase

    Had this happen to me twice now while testing at the exact same location. It happens right after escorting the helicopter to the airfield, after recieving the new task and right after turning to fly against it. Where can I find the crash logs so that I can post them?
  23. almanzo

    CSAT Based Official Campaign

    But the APEX campaign wasn't very good to be honest. I can't say that I remember the names of any of the characters, or that the story was in any way coherent. Not a single conversation is memorable, so the motivation for actually doing the missions is just the gameplay. Now, if you take into the account the fact that the missions are designed around respawn, this even furthers the mismatch between how the characters and the campaign is portrayed and the gameplay that is actually on show here. ARMA doesn't care if your player character is a special forces operator or not, you'll die just as easily to a grunt as a regular soldier would (with some exceptions regarding gear, though). So your portrayed as this four man team killing a lot of enemies without even getting a scratch, while the reality is most likely that several of you have either respawned or been downed several times. In addition, with unlimited (or even limited respawn) all of the tension is gone. The entire APEX experience was bland, unimaginative and booring. With a map like Tanoa and a game like ARMA, the potential for story telling isn't even scratched in the APEX campaign. The potential to convey the horrors of jungle warfare, the confusion and the lack of awareness is just begging to be explored. Imagine yourself in the shoes of one of the local rebels, fighting for your life in the cover of the jungle, relying on your superiour knowlege of the rainforest to get the jump on the enemy. Or in the shoes of a regular soldier who is faced with hostile and foreign terrain, who has to fight for every inch of land and that has to live through the loss of his comrades. The mistake done here is that all of the tension is at the global scale, and while that can be part of it, it is at the human scale the most engaging stories often are found, especially in a game like ARMA, whom by it's very nature will be bound to the individual perspective of a soldier. Maybe you just got a child back home that you haven't met yet? Or that you ended up in the military as a result of there not being any other options, and now you are stuck fighting a war you have no real investment in other than to live. A very good example of this is how Cold War Rising approached the global scale. For the first quarter of the game or something, you don't even know who you are fighting and are caught by surprise. All this war is about to begin with is to survive and get home. When General Guba is introduced he doesn't have that much of an impact, but once you meet up with the ressistance you all of a sudden have a personal stake in the conflict, a motivation causing a conflict of interest with the brass. ARMA III campaign has none of this, nor do APEX. And as to prove my point in regards to memorability: "I spy with my little I, something beggining with "G""
  24. almanzo

    movement latency in Arma is awful

    Last time I played Wasteland, it was indeed heavily impacted by scripts. A lot of the popular game modes are heavily scripted in order to alter the main game, add the fact that server admins often costumize stuff in addition (often without the knowlege required to keep performance in check) and you'll end up with rather laggy servers. Now, part of this is a direct result of how ARMA is a very open platform that can be altered significantly. A downside of opening up a game for user generated content is that you loose control over the users experience. I have no idea of what to suggest for you to try out though, as I never play public games except the odd round of Tactical Battlefield. If I could suggest anything, then it would be to find a unit on reddit (r/findaunit) and try that out. There is a group called FOLK that organizes sessions that doesn't require membership and that does not have any required mods. You can visit them here: http://folkarps.com/
  25. almanzo

    movement latency in Arma is awful

    A lot of game modes relies heavily on scripting, something that can cripple the server, causing status updates to clients be delayed. Finding a good server can be difficult, what game modes did you guys play?
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