Mission advice, using MCC, etc.

  1. 8 years ago
    Edited 8 years ago by Pokey

    Hi all! First post here, been reading for a while to learn, seems like a great community, hoping I can come to you guys for some help.

    Been watching Arma vids for a long time but just recently decided to take the plunge and try and set something up for myself and a small group of friends to play. After researching it seems like ALiVE is the perfect tool to help me accomplish this.

    The basic mission concept is this: players are a small group of Special Forces operating under the radar in a simmering conflict zone that hasn't quite boiled over into open warfare. The Blufor players are operating in conjunction with friendly AAF forces against the narco-funded, ultra- nationalist FIA insurgents.

    The idea is the players need to use their wits and rely on intel reports as well as information supplied by the local population to hunt down insurgent positions and assets. The AO is most of western Altis, so it's definitely aiming to be more of an open world experience, where danger could pop up at any time. Very few in-game aids, so we'll be using GPS to navigate, relying on communication, figuring out how to get resupplied and such. Ultimately, since this is intended for a small group (usually 2 or 3, sometimes 4), I'm hoping what this end up turning into is a sort of fun buddy/road adventure layered over the mil-sim experience that Arma 3 innately delivers.

    I've been messing around with the posted templates in my spare time for a few weeks getting a feel for how everything works, and I've gotten confident enough to scrape something together something functional using Spyder's Altis Insurgency as a starting template.

    These are the mods I'm running:

    CBA
    ALiVE
    ACE
    RHS
    ASR_AI
    Spyder Addons
    Massi's SOCOM
    SMA weapons
    MRT accessories functions
    FHQ accessories
    3BAF units, vehicles, weapons, equipment

    I've had a few questions pop up, both technical and about some basic concepts and functionality.

    1) Do civilians repopulate? As in, does my insurgent faction have an endless supply of civilians to recruit from or will that resource deplete as they recruit more and more?

    2) I do have a drone incorporated for recon and CAS, but I'm a bit stumped as to how to incorporate a way for the drone to re-arm. I like the idea of it having to RTB to rearm. I know getting a drone to land is... tricky. So is there a way I can have it fly to a certain part of the map (over my little base) and have it be re-armed and refueled in flight just by entering the area?

    3) I've done some testing with MCC and think I'd like to incorporate that for its mission generator. The kinds of missions it generates seem to dovetail nicely with the ambient conflict environment I'm trying to create. Anybody have any experience doing something similar? Any words of advice/wisdom on using MCC with ALiVE?

    4) I'd like my players to be BUFOR units, Massi's SOCOM units to be specific, but still have access to the intel, logistics, and command functions of the AAF OPCOM. My current idea of how to do this is to actually create a NATO OPCOM that also commands AAF forces, using the faction override on the military AI commander module. Would that be the correct way to go about it?

    5) I'm on the lookout for a script that would indicate on the map areas of influence or control. Like a color overlay that indicates the level of hostility or threat in an area, probably based off the numbers of enemy units present. Anything out there like that or anything close? I've looked some but haven't found anything yet. Anybody have any mods or scripts relating to intel collection and display in general that they're fond of?

    6) I've managed to get my mission as it is up on a dedicated server on my machine using TADST and can connect to it, bu here's the rub: I can only connect via LAN. As soon as I try to connect via the internet tab in the server browser, I get a "failed to connect" error after trying to load something for a minute. I've forwarded the correct ports on my server, 2302 - 2305, and have set my machine up with a static IP. I haven't set up persistence yet as I'm trying to take it one step at a time and am focusing on just getting a mission up on a dedicated server first. So far I can connect to it fine via LAN including with the second machine downstairs over LAN, but not via internet.

    The server also only seems to display all the mods in use (bottom right window in server browser) on the internet tab, but some of them are red, such as CBA and ACE. When viewed on the LAN tab however, there's fewer mods displayed, but they're all green. The game seems to play fine when connected via LAN though, so I'm at a loss to what's happening. Any ideas on what sort of shenanigans are going on?

    Sorry for dumping a word bomb here and a bunch of disparate questions here, but hoping I can tap into the awesome brains around here to help me get this going!

  2. 2) I use this script which gets called from a trigger you place down on the map for rearming and repairing my helicopters and vehicles. I'd assume drones would be classified to one of these (helicopter maybe?), but I'm not exactly sure on that. http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=19139

    CAS should auto-repair and rearm, so you may not even need the script. Though again, I've never tried replacing my CAS chopper with a drone. In theory I don't think ALiVE cares what vehicle you actually use, as long as it's properly assigned as CAS.

    4) As long as your Massi faction is assigned to the military commander along with the AAF, and you have a Military Logistics module synced to the commander and a combat logistics module, you should be good. The default item is a laser designator so be sure to have one in your inventory.

    5) The C2ISTAR module has an option to reveal Intel on the map, based on parameters you can define. Try it and see if it shows you the types of things you're looking for. Depending on the mission, I generally like to let it show a medium amount of Intel, and depending on the map size, I'll adjust the radius (default is 2000 m.). The map Intel will fade so mark anything you see. I especially like how installations get marked in insurgencies, as it gives you a decent goal for what to do for the night.

  3. Edited 8 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    6) I use TADST too and it's really really straight forward so I'm sure you missed something simple. At the bottom of this page, make sure you've followed these steps: http://alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/ALiVE_Data

    And also, make sure you've followed the server setup instructions to a "t" on the war room page.

  4. Here's the thing with the drone: I cannot get him to take off, I've lined him up on the runway, assigned waypoints straight down the runway to take off, but they always veer off. So I just ended starting the mission with a drone spawned on station already, so I'm not sure how the built in ALiVE RTB function would work in this case. I was leaning towards just using the drone entirely with UAV terminal, but if there's a way to use ALiVE's RTB and avoid all the micromanaging via UAV terminal, I'm all for it.

    Everything seems to be in order with my TADST and router setup at least. I definitely used the wiki as my guide to getting my server setup, so I followed all those instructions, minus the War Room stuff. Do I need to set up a War Room account if I'm just trying to throw it on a dedicated server for quick connectivity tests? I can post some screens of my TADST and router settings shortly to confirm.

  5. Also, regarding my map intel question, I just discovered the TRACE settings. Woops.

  6. 1. Yes, civilians will always be present in towns to maintain the atmosphere, regardless of the amount of recruited civilians. Insurgents will not simply recruit endlessly though, that will stop.

    5. C2ISTAR has several options for coloring by sector.

  7. What determines when the Assym commander decides to stop recruiting?

  8. Friznit

    10 Jul 2016 Administrator

    He'll only recruit around 5 civs from each town before moving onto the next.

  9. I see, but will he then come back around and revisit a town for recruitment later on?

  10. Edited 8 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

    I don't think the trace squares are going to accomplish what you're looking for. The grid that shows up on the map is just an indication of all of the possible locations enemies could be. It's not intelligence, per say. It's more of a guide for where you should look before moving on to the next place. The map intel options within the C2ISTAR module I think are more what you're looking for.

    Regarding your TADST issues - could you try one of the missions on the wiki just to make sure a totally vanilla mission works for you? No, you don't need a War Room account to play on a dedicated server (I don't think), that's just for persistence and tracking your profile stats. Although I must say I've never tried to use a dedicated server without any of the persistent features. At that point I just use LAN so someone else may need to chime in here on how much of the war room set up steps you'd need to follow just to play on a dedicated. My best guess is none if you don't want the features of persistence but I'm really not sure.

  11. If you don't want persistence, stat tracking or AAR then you don't need warroom

  12. Cool, thanks for the tips guys. I'll give the server a test with the vanilla templates tonight and see what's up.

    Also, I tried just putting the Massi faction under the control of the AI commander, told it to command IND_F and mas_usa_delta, but apparently since they're on different sides (AAF being INDFOR and Massi's units being BLUFOR) it throws an error at the start of the mission and the OPCOM becomes non-operational. Any clever workarounds for this?

    Also gave the drone a test. I tried just setting the start height of the CAS module to 1000, but the drone appears keen on dropping out of the sky like a rock when spawned using this method

  13. Why not just set the independent hostility in the intel tab how you want, and use separate Military Commander modules for each faction?

  14. Hm I see, so you're saying I let the AAF AI Commander do its thing and then create a 3rd AI Commander that is BLUFOR and in charge of the player faction. If I made the BLUFOR commander asymmetrical would it then give me different types of missions through tasking than, say, an occupation commander?

    Also, now APEX just came out, I need to see how these mods all play with each other with the new update.

  15. Regarding your server connectivity issues:

    1 - make sure Steam is not running in offline mode on your client
    2 - test joining your server via your 'public' IP address (ie" not the LAN ip) - button bottom left in MP window

  16. My experience using MCC is that MCC and ALiVE have no functionality together. It causes a plethora of client loading issues, and if any single client is running MCC sandbox it causes loadscreen problems for everybody, even if the server isn't!

    If you want more dynamic missions I would just add a Zeus module and allow logged in administrators to access it.

  17. Hm, I wonder if that's what happened last night. I was updating my mission to accommodate the APEX update and all the ensuing mod updates it brought about, everything was functioning swimmingly until the very last test. Now my mission gets all the way to the final load screen (client side) and never leaves that spot. I hear the environment sounds, I even hear tasks being generated and coming in, but loading screen never goes away.

    It's like a weird Kafka nightmare, I hear my AI teammates asking where I am constantly... I'm in the loading screen man, can't you see me?!

    I had been testing with MCC loaded both on server and client all day and no issues though. Actually had a real fun thing going. I'm hoping it's just a weird module thing since the last change I made was throwing down an ACE respawn module and some custom objective modules.

    It would be a shame if I couldn't use MCC though, as most of the time it's just going to be 2-3 of us playing. Would be great to have all of us playing and not have to rely on constant Zeus-ing or have somebody in the group that essentially knows what's going to happen because he's Zeus. I still haven't found anything better than MCC at procedurally generating good, well-balanced, intricate missions. Or anything else at all. I know Alive tasking sort of does this, but still not anywhere near the level of detail that MCC does.

    Future feature, perhaps?

  18. Edited 8 years ago by SpyderBlack723

    Try renaming your mission file -- the mission folder/pbo, not just the mission name

 

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