Keeping your Insurgency under control (server advice)

  1. 7 years ago

    I'm running an Insurgency mission set in Takistan on my server currently.
    Now this isn't a busy server, it's usually just me a couple of times a week and maybe 1 or 2 others at most and I'm trying to keep a balance without the Insurgents swarming everything. I have Installations set to low, low density CQB, and Civ Obj force size of only 30 for both sides.

    Now I started the mission again last night, played for a bit, then logged in after work today and all of a sudden there's insurgents everywhere. I've tried setting the profiling speed to 25% previously, and than last night tested profiling back at 100% but with Auto Pause turned on (this actually seems to do nothing from what I could see)

    Am I just best on a low traffic server to do a "server save and exit" each time I stop playing?
    What's the best way to keep the Insurgents in check while I'm off having to play stupid real life games?

  2. [getposATL player, 1500, 3600] spawn ALIVE_fnc_Nuke;
  3. The answer is simple. Quit your job and save the world from the virtual insurgent threat!

  4. Lol guys.

    JD_Wang, if you're feeling pretty good about how populated the map is while you're playing, I'd say just leave it as is and try to duplicate the server pause function not working and open a ticket. It's supposed to pause the mission when nobody is on the server to prevent this kind of thing.

    Am I understanding correctly this is basically the issue or are you looking for tips on lowering the amount of insurgents in general too?

  5. No to start off with the number of insurgents is fine, I'm just trying to work out the best way to have a slow steady growth in insurgents instead of everything being fine today and then when I log back in tomorrow there's more insurgents than I can shake a stick at.

    If it was just me on the server I'd save and exit the server each time, but because I've got a couple of friends who occasionally jump on I don't want to have to give out admin to all of them so they can save/load as well.

  6. So there's an issue with the auto-pause function is what you're getting at? Because it should pause the mission when no one is on when it's working correctly and should help with the exact things you're talking about.

  7. I assume there is, I had the mission running for an hour or so then logged out and when I logged back in the next night there were vastly more insurgents then when I logged off.

    I'll do a proper test over the next day or so and double check

  8. The pause function is turned off by default. Take a look to see that it's turned on just to rule out the obvious.

  9. Yeah I deliberately turned it on to see if it would help.

  10. I'd try to duplicate this in a vanilla environment and then get the devs whatever they'd need. Probably a server rpt with ALiVE Required and Data debugged or what have you but they'd definitely have to clarify.

    Obviously if your mission doesn't pause, it sort of kills any hopes you have in a believable insurgency campaign on a server that's always running.

  11. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    I sort of feel like installations spawn new profiles at too high or fast of a rate. Could anyone talk a bit about what happens under the hood once a recruitment center has been established? On smaller maps I don't find it too too hard to keep an insurgency under check but on larger maps, it's tough to prevent the growth of profiles because you can't be everywhere at once.

    Once a recruitment center has popped up, what sort of things influences the rate at which profiles generate from that location? Let's say it's far away and I can't be there. Will sending friendly profiles to the area to occupy it halt the recruitment (seeing as AI can't destroy the installation itself) or does it physically need to be destroyed? Or is it strictly based on civilian hostility levels and density in that area and nothing else?

    Do IED factories and weapons depots spawn profiles or just arm the ones that have already turned dark side? Meaning, if I want to keep profiles from spawning and I have an IED factory, a recruitment center and a weapons depot on the map, should my priority be destroying the recruitment center above all else?

    Last night I spent 3 hours in a mission with a "high" density of civs (with low hostility of towards both sides), pre-placed installations set to "none," and approximately 70 profiles for the occupation OPCOM and 70 profiles for Assymetric OPCOM (so 140 total). After 3 hours, they've established 3 installations, and the mission has a total of 172 profiles so by my calculation that's 10 new Assymetric profiles being generated per hour (or likely much more seeing as over the 3 hours, lots of Assymetric profiles were killed). This will only go higher once more installations are placed.

    It feels like it's too much. Any thoughts or insight that may help me slow things down? Perhaps I should use a medium civ hostility towards the insurgents?

  12. Deleted 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS
  13. Have you tried changing the profiled units speed setting?

  14. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    Yep. 25% speed. Anything higher makes it worse.

    Don't get me wrong, most of the insurgencies I make seem to balance just fine. The smaller the map, the easier and the better they look after lots of hours. I just feel like larger maps with full map battles tend to expose the weaknesses in the Asymmetric system quite a bit. As it stands now, to keep things from getting out of hand even as quickly as the 6-10 hour mark, I need to use no pre-placed installations, "high" or lower civ density, "low " non-assymetric civ hostility, and a very small amount of insurgent groups relative to the map size. I basically have to use the smallest amount of everything I can as possible to keep it all in check no matter the map I use. Normally this works (and works well!) but I still feel like new insurgent profiles spawn too quickly/frequently once installations begin to get established.

    I also feel like the simulated battles happen too quickly in general as well. With my 70 BLUFOR profiles (set to replenish in packets), I received BCR's 6 times in the last 3 hours of play (so two times per hour). At a 25% simulation speed that still feels too frequent but I guess that's a topic for another thread.

    All in all, I'm very hopeful maybe I can learn some things and get some breakdown for how the systems work with my questions in the post above. My ultimate goal here is to have every insurgency I make be at least potentially beatable. I personally consider any mission a failure if the insurgency becomes insurmountable; whether that be 10 hours in, or 100 hours in (and I'm not saying the one I'm playing now wouldn't be beatable. I'd just like to learn more about the behind the scenes stuff and strategies to apply while playing to know how the profile spawning works).

  15. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    Hmm. I'm certainly a little discouraged. The mission is on a 20 x 20 map. It starts with:

    74 vs 74 (insurgents get tiny objectives, BLUFOR gets small so player stays engaged)
    No pre-placed installations
    Low pre-placed roadblocks
    Civ density high (unfiltered)
    Civ hostility low for each side

    Now, after 6 hours, the total profile count between the two sides is 205. If we assume BLUFOR is at full strength, which it would seem, this would mean after constant fighting, the insurgents have gained 57 profiles from what they started with. So around 10 per hour above their initial profiles. Isn't that kind of insane?

    For the mission, the insurgent OPCOM gets a civ obj module with 100 profiles and gets objectives only for the mil obj module. I do place a few cust obj's (which gives them an additional 10 profiles), but for a map this large, I'd say my settings are very conservative. I mean, if I trim it down any further, the map would be very barren at the beginning and players would be doing a whole lot of nothing.

    Honestly, I don't see how this can be intended. I think I may just open a feature request, either to get them capped in some way based on their initial size and available objectives, or have installations be less efficient with recruiting or maybe all of the above.

    I'm definitely curious how changing civ hostility to medium towards the insurgents might play out, but I have to wonder if it's powerful enough to overcome this on its own. Remember, they have low hostility towards my side too.

  16. Edited 7 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    For anyone that wants to discuss this and tell me I'm wrong :)

    https://github.com/ALiVEOS/ALiVE.OS/issues/138

    EDIT: I realize I can just lower the amount of insurgents/increase the amount of friendlies at the beginning, but I touch on why that is a little less than ideal considering the current state of the game and mode itself. Come on over and let's chat.

 

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