Jump to content

My Random Suggestions


Recommended Posts

Hello! 

 

I've been playing on your EU 1 Altis server a lot lately with my friends and we love the experience. I played I&A a while back and it has come a long way with all the cool side missions and other improvements. However, there are a few things that were not changed and I was a bit puzzled as to why. So thanks for reading my random suggestions and if you had the time to respond to my questions thank you for that too.

 

1. Classes: why are autoriflemen, explosives experts and marksmen related weapons/items not restricted to their class? I see medics with LMGs, AT guys with ABRs (or LMGs) and just about anyone with tons of explosives. I think if addressed these restrictions would encourage more RP behaviour and get people to really get into their role in the squad and avoid going rambo loadout every time and doing everything themselves. E.G. limit explosive charges to 1 for non-EOD team.

 

>> Also pilots still don't get score for their hard work. I think giving them a fraction of a point per player transported would be a good solution. Oh and on the chopper topic, restrict deploying/cutting ropes to pilots - anyone can cut and kill troops on the way down, bad.  <<

 

2. Medics: why do medics still need a yellow first aid kit and a black medic kit to perform a revive? I found myself in a mass casualty incident the other day and even though I had 10 yellow kits, it wasnt long before I couldn't revive anyone and could only heal the living. Is this intended to limit reviving? Also more distance on medic markers and better map markers for revives would help new medics. People pretty much have to call them over unless they're really exceptional medics.

 

3. EU2 Server: I very much want to see other mods involved in I&A but I must admit I don't know much technical about them. I support the call for the US/Spetsnaz weapons mod and others - so much to offer! However, the main issue for me is that I&A runs at 30 frames or less. Given the choice, I would give up the alternative mods etc and close the second server for a better primary to run at 60 frames.

 

>> In my humble opinion, this is the main issue driving new players away and I believe limiting the mode's growth. My new friends were happy and excited even to download and install the mods, but when they starting watching a slideshow on a full server it just killed their experience. <<

 

4. I still don't fully understand the FOB system. Is it currently working? Sometimes I just see an FOB marker and an ammo truck is there. Either this is just player activity and the idea isn't implemented yet or I'm just too dumb to figure it out. Without a way to reliably teleport (or paradrop) to an FOB it leaves players stuck at base bored waiting for action and new players hate that.

 

>> Getting FOBs to happen more regularly at the main AO would be great and even better if you could teleport from base to it. You wouldn't need to RTB after the main AO and could hit a side or the next quickly. Players could then go to an LZ for their intended travel <<

 

5. CAS. Yes its a touchy topic. I think there's too much of it, not so much that it needs a massive nerf in I&A but just perhaps some better control. Maybe just reduce the likelyhood of it being a reward and/or limit it to people with a certain score or something. People just log on, hop on into a Kajman someone else just earned, get 200 kills and a couple vehicles and that's it for everyone else's game. Pitching to an empty AO or finished off side regularly sucks.

 

>> Some CAS pilots are great and actually standby for targets, while others don't seem to care too much and take downtime as an opportunity to kill off a side mission and spawn another Kajman for their respawn or buddies. It's a bit too available is all I'm saying and ends up a bit abused for too long. <<

 

Finally, I mentioned in another post but I think paradropping would be great and worth a try. Think of the repair specialist deliveries! Just attach the add action to a box and let people have fun with it and figure out that its more of a tool for special/recon drops far away from the AO and catching up to friends at an old AO than trying to go all delta force and dropping in the centre of town and into swift death.

 

Thanks for all your hard work and the great community! If you made a kickstarter for a new server to run the game better and keep a second server for more mods I'm sure the money could be raised through an event/livesteam/ingame ad! Onwards and upwards!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey YeTiBr0

 

I personally agree some of your stuff but some of stuff was suggested in the past such as: Limiting equipment for each class, use EU2 as hardcore +MOD server, etc. 

 

Para dropping was implemented in past versions of the A&I missions but I think it does not solve a problem because you will require evac more people from the old AO to the base or new AO. In addition, people can abuse it by simply waiting for old AO to go and Parachute in to the new AO.

 

Solution could be use:

2 Mohawks and 1 Hellcat and 1 Pawnee/Armed Hellcat

or

1 Mohawk and 2 Ghost Hawks and 1 Pawnee/Armed Hellcat

 

About server slots. I think 40 people is magic number for the server to not commit a suicide >..> 

In addition, mission will require further reconstruction or balancing to suit/challenge 60 players.

 

About frames. Well it is ARMA. Do you need any more explanation??

 

About FOBs. They can be good and bad idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello! 

 

I've been playing on your EU 1 Altis server a lot lately with my friends and we love the experience. I played I&A a while back and it has come a long way with all the cool side missions and other improvements. However, there are a few things that were not changed and I was a bit puzzled as to why. So thanks for reading my random suggestions and if you had the time to respond to my questions thank you for that too.

 

1. Classes: why are autoriflemen, explosives experts and marksmen related weapons/items not restricted to their class? I see medics with LMGs, AT guys with ABRs (or LMGs) and just about anyone with tons of explosives. I think if addressed these restrictions would encourage more RP behaviour and get people to really get into their role in the squad and avoid going rambo loadout every time and doing everything themselves. E.G. limit explosive charges to 1 for non-EOD team.

 

This causes people to grumble when it's implemented. I have tried doing so in the past, including removing thermal optics, and it causes outrage. I think it is too late to implement these restrictions on the playerbase. If it was done around game launch it might have worked. Now, it may just cause people to go to different servers.

 

>> Also pilots still don't get score for their hard work. I think giving them a fraction of a point per player transported would be a good solution. Oh and on the chopper topic, restrict deploying/cutting ropes to pilots - anyone can cut and kill troops on the way down, bad.  <<

 

If server was giving people stable 50-60fps then there would be performance budget for complicated monitoring loops. As it is, monitoring good/bad pilot behavior is quite a performance drain with an already tight budget. Maybe a solution is out there however.

 

re ropes. its my intention to limit the ability to pilot only. I've made a few attempts but given limited time and low priority thing to do, I wont get around to recoding that for a few weeks probably. I have asked the author (zealot) to do it, but no response.

 

edit: I have just had a second look at the fastrope script, and have coded in a fix so only the pilots can deploy/cut the ropes.

 

2. Medics: why do medics still need a yellow first aid kit and a black medic kit to perform a revive? I found myself in a mass casualty incident the other day and even though I had 10 yellow kits, it wasnt long before I couldn't revive anyone and could only heal the living. Is this intended to limit reviving? Also more distance on medic markers and better map markers for revives would help new medics. People pretty much have to call them over unless they're really exceptional medics.

 

just depends on preference. I prefer the current requirements and would resist making the job easier.

 

3. EU2 Server: I very much want to see other mods involved in I&A but I must admit I don't know much technical about them. I support the call for the US/Spetsnaz weapons mod and others - so much to offer! However, the main issue for me is that I&A runs at 30 frames or less. Given the choice, I would give up the alternative mods etc and close the second server for a better primary to run at 60 frames.

 

>> In my humble opinion, this is the main issue driving new players away and I believe limiting the mode's growth. My new friends were happy and excited even to download and install the mods, but when they starting watching a slideshow on a full server it just killed their experience. <<

 

4. I still don't fully understand the FOB system. Is it currently working? Sometimes I just see an FOB marker and an ammo truck is there. Either this is just player activity and the idea isn't implemented yet or I'm just too dumb to figure it out. Without a way to reliably teleport (or paradrop) to an FOB it leaves players stuck at base bored waiting for action and new players hate that.

 

>> Getting FOBs to happen more regularly at the main AO would be great and even better if you could teleport from base to it. You wouldn't need to RTB after the main AO and could hit a side or the next quickly. Players could then go to an LZ for their intended travel <<

 

AFAIK the FOBs are not implemented yet. They were implemented in previous dev builds but I did not remove a mention of them in the changelogs. they will be back, and be focal points of attack and defend play. 

 

5. CAS. Yes its a touchy topic. I think there's too much of it, not so much that it needs a massive nerf in I&A but just perhaps some better control. Maybe just reduce the likelyhood of it being a reward and/or limit it to people with a certain score or something. People just log on, hop on into a Kajman someone else just earned, get 200 kills and a couple vehicles and that's it for everyone else's game. Pitching to an empty AO or finished off side regularly sucks.

 

>> Some CAS pilots are great and actually standby for targets, while others don't seem to care too much and take downtime as an opportunity to kill off a side mission and spawn another Kajman for their respawn or buddies. It's a bit too available is all I'm saying and ends up a bit abused for too long. <<

 

Finally, I mentioned in another post but I think paradropping would be great and worth a try. Think of the repair specialist deliveries! Just attach the add action to a box and let people have fun with it and figure out that its more of a tool for special/recon drops far away from the AO and catching up to friends at an old AO than trying to go all delta force and dropping in the centre of town and into swift death.

 

IIRC paradropping was in before and while handy, it demeaned the role of pilots and made transportation feel cheap. It may return in a different implementation, but not in the near future.

 

Thanks for all your hard work and the great community! If you made a kickstarter for a new server to run the game better and keep a second server for more mods I'm sure the money could be raised through an event/livesteam/ingame ad! Onwards and upwards!

 

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From my perspective, Yetibro, I'd kindly ask you to do the edits and we'll gladly try it out.

You'll then understand why they haven't been done.

 

Also I would only Echo what MDCCLXXVI (Quicksilver) would say. There are things we have tried and the parts that work we keep and the things that don't we dropped.

FOBs are a player created role, there's a tempest at base with everything you need to make a fob :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sweet thanks for the replies guys its nice to get an insight into your thinking. I'll neaten up my editing and send over the pbo to you with a little changelog in briefing. Give me a couple days this stuff is still pretty greek to me! One thing I forgot to ask is whether there has been any test with a headless client for the AI? I don't really know whats dragging the FPS down so much, but I suspect these buggers are to blame.

 

-- Yep, the Missions/AI are to blame. When I disabled the entire mission spawning component and no AI spawned, the server ran around 60fps. Obviously more players will worsen this but I think it's significantly better than current and could be near to reality with a HC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello!

I am back and bearing fairly mediocre presents. http://speedy.sh/9PnQ7/co45-AW-Invade-Annex-2-70e-YB.Altis.pbo


The pbo is just supposed to be a demo/testingarea for the issues I raised and how to integrate HC in I&A. A changelog and a readme on the Headless Client is provided so use cpbo to extract. If you like some of it, hopefully you will pull out elements and integrate into what you're working on in your own way.

 

I had to edit the stringtable file and added another project for the airdrop script.


I honestly don't know anything about scripting and the intricacies of how I&A spawns markers, triggers and units so that part of the HC in init.sqf I left alone. I'm used to DAC/UPSMON and calling a spawn script. I've included some detail on that below and I hope you can make sense and use of it.

If someone needs 1 more to test the working headless client set just let me know otherwise you're welcome to do as you wish with this. I am pretty sure its going to push 60fps comfortably with the HC and allow for greater numbers of enemy and missions at one time if it can be made to work!

 

From the research I've done on the topic it seems upwards of 500 AI can be handled pretty easily and improve the AI performance. I also suspect vehicles tend to grind CPU harder, so the HC benefit would be doubly good due to the high numbers of AI vehicles in I&A.

 

Was an interesting learning experience all in all and I have new respect for the guys who write this code. There are a couple servers out there running Arma 3 HCs at the moment and their performance is pretty damn good considering what they're doing, I'm sure they can help too. 

 

I also know another South African guy who is involved in hosting the ZuluAlpha unit server and they use HC for MCC so he can chip in as well.

 

If it comes down to money to buy a second copy of ARMA 3 for the HC, I would be willing to supply that if AW committed to running a HC. Although it's preferable to have a second server do the HC role, you could have it running off someone's old PC or even multiboxed on the server if you can get that to work.

 

Bad FPS with Arma AI is a problem, but there are some options in COOP. I'll keep fiddling around on my end trying to figure it out, but I think you guys will know pretty much what to do. I'm sneaking in this old post on HC for those who want to do some reading: http://www.7thcavalry.us/topic/97488-headless-client-for-invade-annex-to-offload-ai/



Here's hoping,
YB

-- 18/4/2014: I changed the upload link as I reverted to an older medicmarkers.sqf just to get it working again. I've done the basics for the HC, but there's still work to do. The key issues to get HC working are changing the if(isServer) parts throughout code to be executed and introducing scenarios to either spawn bits on the HC or on the server depending on the parameter (example bottom of init.sqf). Finally all related variables for objects (trig, mark, unit) to spawned on HC should be made global to avoid any problems. If you want to transfer ownership after server side spawn, there's more info on that in the readme but it tends to cause issues.

  • the readme contains all the server/HC execution stuff
  • if(isServer) statements to if(isServer || (name player == HCName))
  • The next bit below - I think its best to just duplicate the code in each scenario so whether its on or off everything spawns one way or another.
// SCENARIO HC ON:
if (HCPresent) then {
if (!hasInterface && !isServer) then {
execVM "spawn.sqf"; // THE OBJECTS SPAWNED BY SCRIPT ON THE HEADLESS CLIENT
};
} else {
// SCENARIO HC OFF:
if (isServer) then {
execVM "spawn.sqf"; // THE OBJECTS SPAWNED BY SCRIPT ON THE SERVER *IF THE HC IS OFF/NOT PRESENT*
};
};

You can see a successful HC in Arma 3 COOP similar to I&A here: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=23094

Apparently how to multibox the HC: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?149412-Arma-3-Headless-Client

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay so I fiddled and meddled until it seemed to work. I'm still not sure whether I did it correctly, efficiently or completely that's up to you guys to figure out, but I have made the key changes I mentioned above to get the HC and scenarios working. You can download that update here (45+1HC players): 

 

http://www.speedyshare.com/9Pm67/co45-AW-Invade-Annex-2-70e-YB.Altis.pbo

 

I did not transfer ownership of any units between server/HC and just included scenarios HC on/off based on a parameter (default on for the purposes of testing). I also didn't change all the objects to be global, because I simply don't understand that yet. Neither seemed to be an issue in my testing.

 

I'm trying to organise a FPS testing session amongst my friends but its not really something they're interested in doing on their time off so may be better if you guys tested it since you also know the mission a lot better. All the server and HC side execution is detailed in the readme I included.

 

Let me know if you get better client/server side performance with HC on and connected!

 

YB

 

- Framerate monitor for HC http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=21436

19/4/2014 - Updated pbo to include different playermarkers for the medic (green) and repair men (orange) vs everyone else (blue).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Hello Quicky. I had a very dirty go, I hope it works someday lol. Must say this version is easy to work with. Good job on that it looks great. If this method doesn't work one could transfer ownership with SetOwner (dicey). Or if it breaks spawning, to make global spawning markers/triggers.

http://www.speedyshare.com/peEDX/co40-Invade-Annex-2-75-exportH.Altis.pbo - I made changes to mission.sqm (and in editor), serverinit.sqf and description.ext. HC unit, parameter for HC on/off and server script execution scenarios. Does initserver.sqf only ever get seen by the server? If so you will need a regular init.sqf.

 

I seem to have broken the serverinit somehow with my additions and HC param 1, still trying to figure out why exactly. Probably because of a grammer/syntax error (I'm an idiot most of the time) but it may be because of it being a initserver.sqf file and that is just not compatible.

 

You can change the HC unit to whatever side as long as it's named HC. Position doesn't matter if the server allocates "local" bandwidth to HC. The readme should cover everything else execution wise. Anything not handled by the two scenarios (HC present/not) is forced to be on the server.

 

Contact me on [email protected] and we can set up some time to talk it through on your TS or something. I'm away next week for work and a wedding, but should be able to do this weekend or the next week (26th). I'll pop on your TS this weekend a couple times and see if I can catch you (I'm GMT+2).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Forum Statistics

    11.1k
    Total Topics
    66.4k
    Total Posts
×
×
  • Create New...