Rarek

Welcome, laddy! Glad to have you on board! Starting next week I'll be horrendously busy, so I'll try and guide you through the coding of our domination mission and you can help me improve it.

Bit late, but welcome, YiANas!

2.77 is currently running on our server. I've hugely improved the UAV and added radio towers into the mix (digging through game files pays off eventually)! I'll leave players to test it for a day or so and then release it here. This will most probably be the last release before 2.8.

Are you hosting the game on your own machine? If so, that might be the cause. The fast creation of such large volumes of enemies is what causes the lag when I test the mission on my own machine, but our dedicated server handles the load fine. On a less helpful but more on-topic note, 2.76 is looking pretty good so far. We've introduced a personal UAV into the mix.

God raz, read the patch notes!

Updated to 2.75. Added quite a few nice little additional features. Spectator script, load-outs and boats (both BLUFOR and OPFOR) will be coming in 2.8.

The metaphorical icing on the metaphorical fish-tank of a cake.

Hello CoNnEcToR (and everyone else who's been looking at this page)! As razgriz said, we've had a big Ahoy World meet-up this weekend so most of the admins have been offline, but we're back monitoring and developing the mission now. The parameters we have at the moment are editable once choosing a role in the mission (there's a small button labelled Parameter in the top-right of the screen) and are as follows: Time of Day (choose the hour you wish to start) Weather Preset (choose between Sunny, Cloudy, Stormy and Overcast) AO Size (100 - 1,000m diameter) Number of enemies that can be present in the AO and still have it captured (1 - 10) Number of 10-man squads patrolling the AO (1 - 16) Number of 10-man squads defending the AO (1 - 16) Number of 4-man fire teams patrolling the AO (1 - 16) Number of 4-man motorized infantry squads patrolling the AO (1 - 16) We can add more of these if you let us know what you want. For now, I believe Ahoy World is running a stable 2.74 version of the map. Because of the meet-up, I haven't had time to fully test the version, but as soon as I know that it works consistently I'll post it here. Carry on providing us with suggestions and let us know that you're using our map! It's fantastic to hear that players and servers from around the world are benefitting from the map we've developed and we always like to know how we can make it better.

Updated to 2.73; mainly bugfixes, but I did add parameters for raz.

Updated to 2.7. Read changelog for details.

Welcome back, my good man! Good timing as well; we'll be really firing on all cylinders with our Minecraft stuff soon!

YouTube will just be an embedded slide, while the Twitch.TV player will be a slide that comes down over the entire slider, meaning it'll overlap the YouTube slide too.

Make a dungeon / gauntlet. As soon as you start making those you'll think of things to slot in that require redstone. Kinda forces you to learn.

In regards to the plan for the Twitch.TV stream, it'll work much the same as the old site, but will this time be a pull-down banner that comes over the slideshow banner. See http://www.ahoyworld.co.uk/tracker/issue-6-create-a-drop-down-twitchtv-live-stream-for-the-site/. YouTube will most probably be an embedded video (either our latest or featured) in one of the slides coupled with a title, description and links to a few other videos.

No indecent names, please; they'll be removed very quickly and you'll be given a warning.

Looping should be possible. I've never fiddled with sounds in C# before but one assumes it's quite dynamic. In addition to the Betty announcements you have, there's a small sound-board-type post with a lot of Betty sounds in it here. Do zip those up, though! Sounds bloomin' fantastic to me!

In regards to all the buttons, here's all the mappings I've got so far: Gear Lever - Throttle control Left joystick left / right - Rudder POV Hat on left joystick - Free looking around cockpit Filter Control System Switch - AutoHover On / Off Oxygen Supply Switch - Required to be on to start up engine Fuel Flow Rate Switch - Required to be on to start up engine Buffer Material Switch - Gear Up / Down VT-Location Measurement Switch - GPS On / Off Main Weapon Control Button - Change main weapon Sub Weapon Control Button - Change gunner's weapon Magazine Change Button - Reload Chaff Button - Countermeasures Night Scope Button - Enable / Disable Nightvision (light on controller stays on when enabled) Line Colour Change Button - Vehicles lights on / off (light on controller stays on when enabled) Override Button - Enable / Disable Manual Fire (light on controller stays on when enabled) Manipulator Button - Changes fire mode Tank Detach Button - Releases vehicle (if any attached) Comm Button 1 - 5 - Communication channels 1 - 5 (explained below) Right Joystick - Aircraft control Right Joystick Main Weapon Button - Push-to-Talk Button Right Joystick Trigger - Fires main weapon Map Open / Close Button - Opens / closes map Map Zoom In / Out Button - Zoom in to / out of optics Mode Select Button - Select option in / open action menu Sub Monitor Mode Select Button - Scroll down in action menu Zoom In Button - Flaps Up Zoom Out Button - Flaps Down Cockpit Hatch Button - Get out of vehicle Eject Button - Eject from vehicle Ignition Button - Must be held to start engine (explained below) Start Button - Start Engine / Reset Controller button Slide Step Pedal - Left Rudder Acceleration Pedal - Right Rudder To first explain how the communication channels work, the tuner dial below the communication buttons is an axis that has a value from zero to fifteen, zero being when it's at the nine o'clock position. So, when the dial is at zero, the communication buttons act as in-game chat channels. If I press the first communication button it will stay lit up. This is the Direct Communication comms channel. If I then press and hold the Push-to-Talk button (the right joystick Main Weapon button), I will transmit my voice to the Direct Communciation channel within ARMA. If another comms button is pressed, the last one will disable itself and the new one will light up. The communication channels go as follows: Direct Communication Vehicle Channel Group Channel Side Channel Command Channel Moving the tuner dial to the twelve o'clock position and selected comms channel one allows me to speak in TeamSpeak chat using the Push-to-Talk button. If at any point the Push-to-Talk button is pressed while no comms channel has been selected, the buttons will flash and (one I've sorted out sounds) a robot lady will say something along the lines of "no communication channel selected." The start-up sequence is something that's a bit up in the air, but seeing as I seem to be flying a helicopter with two joysticks I don't think it matters too much. It currently goes like this: Flip the Fuel Flow Rate Switch and the Oxygen Supply Switch. The entire panel will flash once and then the Ignition Button will keep flashing on its own. Hold down the Ignition Button and the Start Button will light up. Whilst still holding the Ignition Button, press the Start Button and the console will (in the future) do some cool flashy shit. Engage the throttle and away you go! The main annoyance is that ArmA II doesn't have any key binding possibility in regards to turning your engine on or off. If they did, I could make it so that if specific switches were disengaged the engine would automatically kill itself and little things like that. Ooh also worth mentioning that because there's no way to have ArmA and the controller communicate, I'm using the Start Button as a reset. If you hit it at any point (apart from when you're holding the Ignition Button) it will flash the console and reset all the buttons. So, any suggestions?

I've got a lot of stuff working and programmed; just a few more little touches to get done. Namely, sounds. Fergus / Razgriz might be able to help with this. I need some sounds made for starting up / shutting down the controller (for when you hit the ignition key and the like). A robot lady saying these things would be perfect, but obviously that's pretty hard to achieve.

Creepiest post of the year award?

I was using Cockpit Hatch for switching between third and first person. Is that a cheeky thing to do when playing a simulator? I've been fiddling around tonight. Before I read your post my start-up sequence is working as follows: Turn on the Fuel Flow Rate Switch. This causes the gear stick lights to light up in order (R, N, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and once they're all lit together it flashes twice and then lights up the N. Turn on the Oxygen Supply System Switch. This currently doesn't do anything fancy but I'm sure we can make something flash. Turn on the Filter Control System Switch. Now that all three switches are enabled, the entire panel flashes three times before leaving nothing but the Ignition Button lit up (and the N on the gear stick from earlier). Pressing the Ignition Button now starts the engine and then turns the ignition light off. That's it so far. Small steps. I haven't done C# in a while but it's really, really, really exciting to code something that has such an immediate effect. I'm holding in my squees; can't wait to make a demo video of this!

As a few of you may know, I have a Steel Battalion controller from a long while ago that I recently dug up out of the attic. If you're unsure what that is, Steel Battalion was an original Xbox game released in 2002 that came with a huge, 40-button panel of controls complete with two joysticks, a gear slider, three foot pedals and a big ol' eject button. Long story short, it's a beast that, until recently, was only available for use in Steel Battalion and Steel Battalion alone. Here's a picture so you can see just how impressive it is! Someone smart made some drivers for Windows that (after a few hours of fiddling with and editing to make them work with Windows 8) I'm now using. I've got all the axes working (right joystick acts as the normal joystick in any plane/helicopter, the gear slider works as thrust, pedals work as the rudder (middle pedal is currently unassigned) and an analog stick on the left joystick lets me look around the cockpit) but I'm struggling for what to assign all the buttons to. Now there's an SDK written by some Russian fellas (and placed on a Russian site) back in 2005 that can utilise all the functions of the controller. After adapting that a small bit, I can now write a single file in C# that will control the entire controller. Button presses on the controller will convert to virtual keyboard commands, allowing me to skip out the issue of Windows limiting gamepads to only 32 buttons. The main point, however, is that now I can control the panel using C#, I can get it to do anything. I wrote 'anything' in bold as I really do mean that. Buttons can flash when I want them to, switches can do particular things (even stuff like holding down shift keys). I could make it so that I couldn't use the gear slider until the 'Fuel Flow Rate' switch is switched on and I'm holding down the Ignition key. With this is mind, I need ideas. How should I start up my ArmA II helicopter and what shall we make all the buttons do? Below is a diagram of the controller so you can see all of the buttons available. Underneath that is a (very) quick list I've made of the functions I reckon should be in there. I also need a place to put my flaps up and down and that kind of thing. I'm looking forward to what you guys come up with and if I can get it finished soon we can all have a go at the Ahoy World meet-up! Also, once some of the basic functionality is down I'll post up a demo video that'll show you how everything works. Thrust = Gear slider up Brake = Gear slider down Banking = Right joystick Rudder left = Left pedal Rudder right = Right pedal Look around = Sight analog stick Fire weapon = Right joystick trigger Switch weapon = MAIN button Manual Fire = OVERRIDE button Flares = CHAFF button Reload = MAGAZINE CHANGE button Eject = EJECT button Open Map = OPEN/CLOSE button Toggle zoom level on map = MAP ZOOM IN/OUT button Night Vision = NIGHT SCOPE button Change Fire Mode = MANIPULATOR button Release Vehicle = TANK DETACH button TeamSpeak PTT = Right joystick MAIN WEAPON button Zoom in / Lock on = Right joystick LOCK ON button Toggle HUD = LINE COLOUR CHANGE button Toggle Gear = BUFFER MATERIAL switch Toggle GPS = VT LOCATION MEASUREMENT switch

Here be my contribution. There's a few from Dead Space 3, a few from Dishonored and one from Skyrim too; basically just the games I've played recently.

Aye welcome back, bud! Your building does look bloody impressive, ya know...

To make Ahoy+ and its benefits easier to understand, we've gone ahead and created an Ahoy+ Subscription page laying out everything you'll get if you choose to support Ahoy World. Check it out here or by going to Shop > Ahoy+ Membership in the nav-bar. What do ya'll think of the new page?

I need to re-jig the YouTube capture regex, but partially fixed.