Client side mods (E.G. JSRS, Blastcore) - Yay or Nay

[Minipily]

4 hours ago, Origins said:

Something to consider here, visual mods, such as blastcore will alter what the player sees, however they don't change what the AI see's, therefore it provides a false sense of security. This is the big issue, as smokes which would be used to provide cover, may not provide any at all, which will cause players to be frustrated to why they died.

Indeed this is true, however I don't know if this is so bad as to decline the mod there and then. If left optional then people can choose whether or not they use it and if so will deal with any negative consequence it may hold, and frustration will be at their expense. I'm sure others like me haven't had too many issues with smoke, as throwing a smoke to conceal my position is one of those last resort scenarios that I prefer not to get myself into in the first place. But, I do understand the negatives Blastcore can bring and I believe it being optional like the others will smooth those out as people are not necessarily forced to use it but those that do enjoy the added immersion can enjoy it.

 

Overall, I do see the negatives some of these mods can bring but I think most of them can be avoided by just having those that experience such issues, not use them in the first place. I'm yet to see any evidence that these do in fact cause server lag, and I'm sure if we had such evidence then said mods may just be declined by the steering committee.

[Johnson]

7 hours ago, GhostDragon said:

Baf smoke is seen by AI the same as we see it. That's why we like it as much as we do

All the more reason for Blastcore to be added then, since we have more smoke grenades to choose from other than vanilla.

4 hours ago, Origins said:

therefore it provides a false sense of security.

People, if they desire strong smoke, can continue to use BAF smoke as they always have. I don't believe Blastcore will change much as if players want cover from EI, BAF smoke will work all the same.

[Johnson]

I just tested it and it seems that Blastcore makes smoke clouds smaller, not larger.

(Using Blastcore: Phoenix 2)

 

 

Each vanilla, RHS and BAF smoke grenades are altered by Blastcore in some way;

 

• Vanilla grenades have different particle textures and are considerably smaller.
• RHS grenades are, from what I can see, exactly the same as the Blastcore's vanilla.
• BAF grenades look much better, in my opinion, with better smoke textures are more realistic smoke output (yes still enough to cover yourself).

 

 

(Smoke from left to right: Vanilla - RHS - BAF) All smoke may look smaller due to distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(BAF smoke size compared to player - makes me want to use BAF smoke a lot more now its a bit more controlled and refined)

[Teddy]

48 minutes ago, J0hnson said:

I just tested it and it seems that Blastcore makes smoke clouds smaller, not larger.

(Using Blastcore: Phoenix 2)

 

 

Each vanilla, RHS and BAF smoke grenades are altered by Blastcore in some way;

 

• Vanilla grenades have different particle textures and are considerably smaller.
• RHS grenades are, from what I can see, exactly the same as the Blastcore's vanilla.
• BAF grenades look much better, in my opinion, with better smoke textures are more realistic smoke output (yes still enough to cover yourself).

 

To add you can delete one of the files in BCs folder to return the smoke effects to Vanilla as i prefer that. I've done it and it doesn't effect me joining EU1.

[Vlk]

Been discussed a "few times". I favor for implementing. As for the whole different experience/not hearing the same/one hears a gunshot while others don't, so what ? It's not a milsim, and ppl often don't react to gunshots before someone is hit by them anyways. +1


Sent from my iPhone using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[Ryko]

Alright, myself and members of Steering committee have done some pretty extensive review on this.  Before getting into the results, a few initial statements on mods.

 

1. The design philosophy of AWE is such that we try to limit the mods on the server to those that don't produce errors, don't unreasonably impair server / mission performance, and are reasonably recently maintained.

2. We try to implement mods that have a relatively small size footprint to keep the repo size down.

3. We try to implement mods that don't require a great deal of effort on our end in terms of mission optimization or server integration.

4. If the mod passes these thresholds, we try to implement mods that increase player enjoyment for a majority of players.

 

Enhanced Soundscape is currently broken, with several of the sounds not working correctly on vanilla maps, as well as the mod not working at all on any modded maps. The author is aware, has confirmed the problem, but does not currently have time to fix or identify the specific issue.

Blastcore hasn't been updated since 2015, in fact, the mod's author, OpticalSnare, decided to cease further development of the mod and no one has been able to continue its development.  Arma has been updated several times since then, with more and more of Blastcore's features failing. At present, the only functionality that seems to work is the revised explosions (they are certainly pretty) but combined with the cookoff functionality in ACE, it is kind of a fps nightmare. Further, the mod produces several script errors that quickly spam your .rpt file.

Dynasound used to have an issue that if it wasn't initialized on the server, you won't hear the AI fire. We haven't confirmed whether or not this has been fixed. Of the mods, this is one that we are open to considering as an optional basis on the server, but it will require further review.

 

Based on these findings, we're not going to implement Enhanced Soundscape or Blastcore. We will review Dynasound, and if it requires little effort on our part to implement, and has no impact on the performance of the mission, then we will implement that as an optional mod.

 

Some further notes:

 

On the topic of the similar experience between players, I do believe this is important, but not vital, to the experience on the server: if you know what a certain explosion means, that's all that's important, and there are a variety of ways to improve your sound quality so you might hear sounds that other players do not.  As well, if you have a beefier computer and can handle more / better / different visual effects than other players, so long as the mod didn't impair the experience for other players, I have no problems with your freedom to have this experience. But when it comes to diverting resources in terms of staff time into implementing / troubleshooting / supporting these mods, I am most definitely not interested in allocating those resources into mods which do not have a functional impact on game performance, and more importantly, I do not wish to allocate resources to troubleshooting problems related to these mods, or creating patches to implement them in our community.

 

And before people say "so what if there are errors, it still works fine on my game" I would caution you against that kind of thinking. Everything works fine until your .rpt file is in the hundreds of thousands of megabytes, and then you wonder why your game crashes.

 

So why do we allow Dynasound on EU1, you ask?  Because the public servers are distinctly unmodded, and Dynasound is designed to work explicitly with the vanilla experience. As well, the game experience of the public player tends to be more casual. But, if Dynasound started causing errors which caused I&A to stop working well, I can assure that allowance would be removed.

 

Feel free to continue this discussion, but that's my decision at the time being.

[GhostDragon]

See the view that dynasound is "made for a vanilla experience" is flawed because the author LAX makes the sounds for both RHS and BAF weapons meaning that the reason they do not meantion "support" is because the sounds are already his


Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[Miczils]

Alright, myself and members of Steering committee have done some pretty extensive review on this.  Before getting into the results, a few initial statements on mods.
 
1. The design philosophy of AWE is such that we try to limit the mods on the server to those that don't produce errors, don't unreasonably impair server / mission performance, and are reasonably recently maintained.
2. We try to implement mods that have a relatively small size footprint to keep the repo size down.
3. We try to implement mods that don't require a great deal of effort on our end in terms of mission optimization or server integration.
4. If the mod passes these thresholds, we try to implement mods that increase player enjoyment for a majority of players.
 
Enhanced Soundscape is currently broken, with several of the sounds not working correctly on vanilla maps, as well as the mod not working at all on any modded maps. The author is aware, has confirmed the problem, but does not currently have time to fix or identify the specific issue.
Blastcore hasn't been updated since 2015, in fact, the mod's author, OpticalSnare, decided to cease further development of the mod and no one has been able to continue its development.  Arma has been updated several times since then, with more and more of Blastcore's features failing. At present, the only functionality that seems to work is the revised explosions (they are certainly pretty) but combined with the cookoff functionality in ACE, it is kind of a fps nightmare. Further, the mod produces several script errors that quickly spam your .rpt file.
Dynasound used to have an issue that if it wasn't initialized on the server, you won't hear the AI fire. We haven't confirmed whether or not this has been fixed. Of the mods, this is one that we are open to considering as an optional basis on the server, but it will require further review.
 
Based on these findings, we're not going to implement Enhanced Soundscape or Blastcore. We will review Dynasound, and if it requires little effort on our part to implement, and has no impact on the performance of the mission, then we will implement that as an optional mod.
 
Some further notes:
 
On the topic of the similar experience between players, I do believe this is important, but not vital, to the experience on the server: if you know what a certain explosion means, that's all that's important, and there are a variety of ways to improve your sound quality so you might hear sounds that other players do not.  As well, if you have a beefier computer and can handle more / better / different visual effects than other players, so long as the mod didn't impair the experience for other players, I have no problems with your freedom to have this experience. But when it comes to diverting resources in terms of staff time into implementing / troubleshooting / supporting these mods, I am most definitely not interested in allocating those resources into mods which do not have a functional impact on game performance, and more importantly, I do not wish to allocate resources to troubleshooting problems related to these mods, or creating patches to implement them in our community.
 
And before people say "so what if there are errors, it still works fine on my game" I would caution you against that kind of thinking. Everything works fine until your .rpt file is in the hundreds of thousands of megabytes, and then you wonder why your game crashes.
 
So why do we allow Dynasound on EU1, you ask?  Because the public servers are distinctly unmodded, and Dynasound is designed to work explicitly with the vanilla experience. As well, the game experience of the public player tends to be more casual. But, if Dynasound started causing errors which caused I&A to stop working well, I can assure that allowance would be removed.
 
Feel free to continue this discussion, but that's my decision at the time being.

Just to correct, Opticalsnare stopped developing blastcore but another guy on steam workshop picked it up a month ago, and the mod is being continuously updated at the moment.

Sent from my SM-G935F using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[Ryko]

Then we will await the results of that development.

[SkullCollector]

3 hours ago, GhostDragon said:

See the view that dynasound is "made for a vanilla experience" is flawed because the author LAX makes the sounds for both RHS and BAF weapons meaning that the reason they do not meantion "support" is because the sounds are already his
 

 

Which also means that it won't affect us on account of our primarily modded equipment that already implements Laxemann's work. Dynasound does improve ACE-triggered explosions and sundry effects as ACE also draws from vanilla source files, but I would argue that alone doesn't justify a debate to the extent we've seen here. This is also why we're open to reviewing it as an optional addition after all.

 

Dynasound comes out best in conjunction with Enhanced Soundscape which we've always been keeping a close eye on in the event it finally serves our purpose, i.e., works with modded maps and produces no tangible performance hit. Thus far, it's not quite there.

[Johnson]

On 23/08/2017 at 9:28 PM, Miczils said:

another guy on steam workshop picked it up a month ago

If it's the same guy, hes also on Armaholic - http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=32385