MDCCLXXVI

Two new side missions are currently under construction, to add some fresh side mission content for coming version. First -- the more complex one -- is an urban protection mission, BLUFOR soldiers are tasked with providing security to VIPs in a volatile situation. There is some convoy content built into it, but not a required aspect in order to fulfill your duties and complete the mission ... or fail in your duties and fail the mission. Second -- less complex -- is another 'secure' mission, with its own unique flavor of course. Am not too fond of simple 'kill' missions as they tend to be completed by whoever can get there the quickest (CAS or lone rambo), and whoever has the most advanced weapon. As a rule I try to design missions that WILL be failed if attempted by a lone wolf (whether a rambo with Zafir + nightstalker, or irresponsible pilot with A-164 Wipeout, etc). Some testing with Zeus revealed low interest in specialist procedural missions like IED patrols. The issues with those ones is they delve further into realism aspects. Not that that is a bad thing, but in real life (realism), 95% of the time there are no bad guys hiding in the bushes and no T-100 rolling up on your position, so it becomes routine. That is a fun aspect of ArmA 3 IMO, but I think in I&A, players expect some action when they go to side mission! If you see kill missions being rolled out in the future, there will be some surgical ROE requirements (ie no civ casualties, no destroyed infrastructure, stealth, etc). --- And as always, if you want some mission content, ask Zeus to put together a small mission for your squad. A good curator can put together quite a fun and detailed mission for decent-sized squad.

Enjoy!

Get the setPlayable command to work and it makes integration of 'on/off' PvP play easier http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=7915 I did a concept test of adding PvP element to I&A back in March. The gameplay effects I saw were not the direction I thought I&A should go in. It changes the atmosphere of the server when there could be players glitching into rocks waiting for you to pass, or hiding in 3rd person behind rock waiting for you to expose yourself. I do have intentions in the medium-term to build in some multi-faction variety to I&A where you would get players able to shoot at other players, but that would be a separate branch of the game-mode, not become the main branch. The main branch is co-op. In the meantime, with your version of I&A, simply drop down some OPFOR playable units, put down a "respawn_east" marker, make sure if a player is side-EAST that they do not run BTC revive, and then build a: into the main AO sequence then in your onPlayerRespawn.sqf event script, if the player is side-East, do something like this: to spawn them in a slightly random location near the middle. And there you will have your PvP I&A. If you want one of the bigger communities to do this, I think you will not find much traction. Put a poll up somewhere and get a few hundred votes in favor of PvP I&A and maybe it will become a higher priority.

Check you PMs

I would suggest humbly to use a later build than 2.65b, it still runs reasonably clean, however some of the code has been broken by recent ArmA updates, #1 for example. The result is some scripts get stuck in very tight loops trying to execute something that as of ArmA 1.18/1.20 will no longer execute. There are also is a performance bleed in that version as of ArmA 1.18. Some things that were being cleaned up as they should, are no longer being cleaned up due to some changes BIS made. This is not the fault of 2.65b it was a good solid build, but IMO it is deprecated. #2 and #3 from my recollection were never fully implemented. #3 i believe was going to be applied to I&A Stratis in the beta. If you want some assistance, jump on TS, I am more than happy to assist you so you can set your mission up how you would like it

From experience, players like nighttime I&A for about 30 minutes and then the server starts to empty out There is indeed a more elegant solution, but consider the above. Not much of a talker, so if you provide link to .pbo I'll implement it for you and leave some notes on how it was done, how to use it, and how to remove it if necessary.

I have to disagree ... having seen both, i think they both have merits ... I like the setting of Hunger Games far more as a political allegory .. and jennifer lawrence

He said he is running 2.65b ... The pilotCheck for 2.75 era versions is quite different.

The version running on EU#1 at this time does not suffer the script bug you mention, that was fixed on AWs end several weeks ago. To fix it yourself: (or tell other server admins who are hosting versions with broken pilot restriction): 1. Find the file "pilotCheck.sqf" 2. Open it. 3. Find both entries of: player action ["eject", _veh]; 4. Change both entries to: player action ["getOut", _veh];

Battle Royale and King of the Hill are two really fun gametypes personally I dont like PvP in ArmA, but IMO they are fun gametypes and great entertainment

lol funnily enough i had to do just that last week. reason is slightly different. the hemtt transport (not covered) shares the same class as the hemtt ammo, meaning if i want to grab the hemtt ammo with nearEntities command, it also grabs the uncovered hemtt transport. hence a switch to the covered hemtt transport took place and the issue was resolved.

Also relevant and nice to see is the fixes for functions BIS_fnc_randomPos and BIS_fnc_spawnGroup, both of which feature heavily in I&A.

The issue I remember with the AH-9 Pawnee was that it was so useless due to stiff enemy AA and weak DARs against armor, that it was just a waste of a pilot slot, as the pilot would get into it and: A) have minimal effect on the battlefield and very limited CAS application. rarely did I see a JTAC/Grenadier mark position with red smoke for an AH-9 run. not be doing transport. By the time the AH-9 was any use, the AO was almost over. I disagree a little here. I like a level of specialization and adding value to each role. Giving everybody a specialization that, while useless on its own, becomes effective in synergy with other specialists. I think Rarek was going that direction with I&A 3, even down to limiting Carryall backpacks to Ammo Bearers only. I think a little longer would be required!!!

I did not remove mortars, and im not responsible for what is hosted on the server, that is up to Raz and the top brass.

I am not sitting on the box so I do not have final say with what gets hosted .. However, ill respond in brief: The spawn protection is there to stay, however for next version (that I release), there is a toggle switch for admins. There are BLUFOR assets (including respawn point) external to the airbase in next version, and there is no spawn protection at those areas, so watch your back! The airbase is very tactically uninteresting, flat ground, and some considerations need to be made for when there is no staff on and players still want to safely spawn and play the game. Admins don't have time to actually play the game. Thank BIS for adding statics that could be assembled enemies (ie BLUFOR setting up an OPFOR static). It's been considered many times. For several reasons it's stayed at the terminal, not least among them is that it is a comfort zone for players. They know where they are, and its been that way for many months. Zeus curator can do just about anything. Novelty missions such as that are best left to a curator, as the scripted approach--from experience--is lacking, when it comes to sea engagements. ----- And as the guys said above, the side mission set is now quite modular, so if you come up with a neat mission, follow the rough format given and simpy drop it in or send it to me. If it's good, I'll put you as the author and add it to the set. If you don't know how to script it, give me a brief on what you want it to be, in some detail. I try to build one side mission for each main release. This past release, has a new series of 'Secure Intel' missions, which have a slightly different flavor than the others. To give editors an idea of what is possible, so it would be cool to see some other people cooking up their own side missions to add to the heap

I'll be adding Arty back in at some point. It's fairly low on the to-do list, but it will make a comeback. The trick is to get the right balance. It is prone to abuse, and there are players who simply have no class and don't see a problem with shelling the entire AO and ruining the experience for others. ... It will make an appearance again, but in a tightly controlled manner to prevent public-server abuse. Still looking at solution pathways for it. Whether to outsource it to AI and make use of support requester, or allow players to use it and restrict the type/quantity/duration of fire missions.

The below may be different depending on editing done. 1. Could have been removed from restricted list in VAS box. Or, BIS may have added new statics with 1.20. 2. Laptop in control tower to activate airbase defense. 3. No-grass option was deliberately removed from the code for gameplay reasons. Toggling the config option won't do anything, as that entire section of the code is simply gone. I suppose an older version of it could be restored. I find no-grass to be unsportsmanlike, both in pvp and pve. 4. Laptop in control tower cycles base cleanup. 5. Lifting height display was removed when leaning out heavy lift code. Passenger list is on a (slowed down) 5 second update loop, meaning a passenger can get in and will not be displayed in the manifest for up to 5 seconds. 6. See #4. 7. clarified above. Side missions are acquired from the officer upstairs in the briefing room at base. Side missions have all been re-coded to include the ability to fail them, and there is a completely new side mission (Secure Intel) in the list. From my understanding, the markers used for the urban mission set may have been removed, which would render the urban mission broken. not my problem 8. Vehicle locks have--from my understanding--not been removed, meaning if you are accessing enemy vehicles, they have been spawned in via Zeus. 9. Fun fact: UAV operator (only them) can now fix the 'dead spawned uavs' problem on their own, from a laptop in the control tower. This will likely be made more obvious in future versions. At the moment, only experienced in-the-know players would learn about it, not very noob friendly. .. 2.75 is the first I&A version to use--for the most part--ArmA 3 code structure. Much of the processing has been offloaded from the server CPU onto client CPU, in turn raising server performance and thus also, client performance.

Some performance is lost with Zeus integration, I'd say a few FPS off the top and a few hours off server longevity. I'll send a PM to you with link to latest pbo. I'd suggest to pop it open and have a look. Performance is a new standard, although as I said addition of Zeus module shaves some performance off, without even using it. (and of course Zeus spawning stuff is a performance expenditure, and Zeus spawning modules causes irreversible buildup of de-sync which will kill the session in the end). Should get about 12-14+ good hours out of a session, assuming 1 curator making modest use of Zeus and not spawning too many modules.

All that's in there is the mission.sqm. This is likely because you've changed the name of the folder (mission directory) when you clicked 'save as' in the editor.

yea. the way to do it successfully, from my experience: plan the mission for 1/3 of expected, and don't wait for people to get their stuff working. and for the first few missions, make them easier than you otherwise would.

If you want to chip away at HC again, it would be appreciated. Use this version, should be easier to integrate HC in. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?175885-MP-Invade-amp-Annex-COOP

could also be phrased as: "I would like to see a hostage rescue, but with almost no players and with 30 minutes of time spent setting up beforehand" There are some really awesome modded up servers out there running good missions, with awesome FPS too cause they're empty and no one plays on them.

CAS is controlled via a different mechanism. There's now a spawn limit on CAS, meaning only a designated number can be in the air at any one time. If CAS is spamming, either a figure was adjusted or they are Zeus-spawned. That block you posted only controls the likelihood of an (single) enemy helicopter over the AO. 10 = 100% likelihood.

you have been spoiled altis is awesome though I do long for more tactically exciting terrain, ie riverlands with towns and bridges, and useful woodlands. Altis' woodlands are out of the way and in strategically useless areas which are unexciting for mission building unless some serious editing is done. There are so many roads and most of the terrain is so accessible to vehicles that there are so few choke points or incentives to follow main roads.

Just had a poke. Interesting idea and I can see you've put some work in. I don't think I&A is the best platform for the concept. I like your focus on random spawning objectives and capture points though. In about a week, I'll have a cleaner mission file for you to poke around in. It should have been finished a week ago but we've been having server troubles which inhibited MP testing, and I a shortage of spare time, so things get pushed back. Its ready for public hosting, however I'm sure some bugs will pop out that require fixing over the next few days. You will find it much nicer to wade through and edit. .... And for your EOS issue, are you trying to call EOS_Spawn on a pre-existing position/marker or at a random position? Remember there may be locality issues if you are moving markers around. Also a note re EOS markers. They require area markers for patrols and garrison, so its best to use an area marker, and then apply setMarkerAlpha 0 to hide it from players. That is an issue I had to overcome, I'm not sure if I had that sorted when i released the version you are editing.