@singularity80

One thing that I'm discovering here lately is to take your vision and stick to it.

Initially when I started developing the stuff I've been working on, I envisioned them as sort of a slow burn; missions where I'd patrol and maybe I'd find some action, maybe I wouldn't. As I started reading and learning and picking people's brains, I started adding more and more forces (because that's how most missions are built) until things more or less resembled a COD mission. Not what I'm looking for!

Now don't get me wrong, this is still a video game about killing stuff so I will still have more enemies than typical real life patrol missions (certainly a shit ton more), but I've been pruning a lot in the last few days/weeks and I'm having that sense of wandering and discovery again. Still by no means perfect, but more more in-line with my original goal.

I also was beginning to make this stuff for SP-CO16 which is nuts (for me) in hindsight. I generally play alone with AI so am now shooting for a SP-CO8 experience.

I typically make Assymetic Insurgency missions. This means OPFOR (the Assymetric side) will recruit forces from the civilian population; meaning the force strength they start with can dramatically increase/decrease depending on how well me and my BLUFOR mates do our job. This is a great concept and only possible thanks to the power of ALiVE.

I've been finding balancing the missions for total units on the map has been easily the hardest part of all of this so figured I'd share that. It's been a constant struggle of asking myself how many enemies I want to have per square foot so things don't get too boring and how many friendly units I want on my side to assist me when I do that. Some maps my team is part of a much larger force and with tons of action; on others, I literally use no BLUFOR AI Commander at all so it's just my squad against the world. With different missions I'm tinkering with different things.

For instance, try messing with limiting objectives a bit within the mil/civ placement modules and then go in game and watch how that impacts unit placement on the map. It's really pretty fascinating and these little decisions change the feel of a mission big time. In some missions I use "Do Not Filter" so the entire map is peppered with friendly and enemy forces. In others, I limit BLUFOR to only large objectives so they can handle the large urban areas and my small squad can handle the small towns and villages.

Lots of ways to go about it but there's lots of helpful people to help you here too if you have any questions. Good luck with your mission(s)!

Have fun with your friends!

Yes I use TADST and have been having issues. I'm assuming this is a result of ALiVE needing an update, but I'd be curious to see how TASDT ends up working for you.

With 100% certainty, you cannot use TADST itself to edit difficulty. That is broken with the 1.58 update. I hear it's still possible to edit that manually but I have no clue how.

Barring that one issue, everything should be ok from what I gather aside from two server instances showing up in your server list (I have no idea if that's a problem or not TBH or if TADST is the only server type effected). Definitely intrigued if persistence (if you use it) works for you and doubly more interested if it works with TADST after ALiVE fixes it on their end. If not, I'll need to find another alternative server tool.

I run with TADST on my local machine but after the ALiVE and BIS update, not gonna lie; I'm having issues with persistence and custom difficultly (default difficultly plays fine). I plan on investigating this after ALiVE fixes persistence on their end and then if it gives me problem, I'll (gulp...) try to learn how to use the built in server tools that came with the game ( :( ).

Here's a link that should help you get the server part set up: https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/187954-alive-advanced-light-infantry-virtual-environment-10-ga/page-16#entry3005833

Try it and let me know if it works for you! Very curious! The War Room instructions on ALiVE's War Room page are very straight toward so that combined with this should get you up and running.

@JD_Wang

Olonson just sent me this code which helps you count total units on the battle field. This has been helping me with trying to balance (for my missions) that after 20 or so minutes, BLUFOR and OPFOR have relatively similar numbers (not saying you need similar numbers, just saying I'm trying that myself to see if it balances things well). Enter this in your debug in the pause menu then click local exec:

_countopfor = 0;    {     if(side _x == east) then {      _countopfor = _countopfor + 1;     }    } forEach allUnits; 
_countciv = 0;    {     if(side _x == civilian) then {      _countciv = _countciv + 1;     }    } forEach allUnits; 
_countblu = 0;    {     if(side _x == west) then {      _countblu = _countblu + 1;     }    } forEach allUnits; 
_countind = 0;    {     if(side _x == guer) then {      _countind = _countind + 1;     }    } forEach allUnits; 
 hint format ["Opfor: %1 | Blufor: %2 | Indie: %3 | Civ: %4", _countopfor, _countblu, _countind, _countciv];

Note that the code only counts units that are spawned in.

@SpyderBlack723

Right yes. I've been teleporting around and clicking local exec, teleport again, rinse and repeat.

Can any variation of this code count total units that includes virtualized units? Or probably better to just put the active limiter to like a huge number while testing instead?

A way to get an active representation of the mission in real time would be very helpful, even if something better than this code exists within or without ALiVE if you have any ideas.

@JD_Wang If you're doing this on Takistan I'd be interested in seeing the final numbers you come up with for an insurgency mission. I only just realised that by setting both Opfor and Blufor to 400 I've been over saturating the battlefield and basically ruining the chance for the insurgents to do their thing.

Yeah sure. Working on one now actually. It's definitely much less than that (I'm guessing 130ish on each side give or take which I think is still too much) and probably even more less here soon. It's tough to factor in how quickly OPFOR will grow as they recruit the civilians but this code will finally help me get an idea on that. At least a little better than not having it at all. :)

@HeroesandvillainsOS  @SpyderBlack723

Right yes. I've been teleporting around and clicking local exec, teleport again, rinse and repeat.

Can any variation of this code count total units that includes virtualized units? Or probably better to just put the active limiter to like a huge number while testing instead?

A way to get an active representation of the mission in real time would be very helpful, even if something better than this code exists within or without ALiVE if you have any ideas.

Yes, there is a way to get the number of profiles in the mission, I can write something quick tomorrow.

I'm working on a (secret) tool that won't be solely for debugging, but will include some debugging tools that would help debug missions in more advanced and user-friendly ways.

@SpyderBlack723 Yes, there is a way to get the number of profiles in the mission, I can write something quick tomorrow.

I'm working on a (secret) tool that won't be solely for debugging, but will include some debugging tools that would help debug missions in more advanced and user-friendly ways.

Thanks. I can't wait!

Hey you're bad at keeping secrets. That'll be our little secret...

Which you'll tell everyone. :)

Where does this code go? I tried it in the debug console and it has an error in expression.

Yeah it's not. Tophe just posted and he is going to give us an update so fingers crossed, TADST will be working soon. Right now it forces default difficulty.