WTB Dedicated Server help...

6 years ago

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Bigs
23 Jul 2018

Hello everyone.
I've lurked and read so much from here. I've tried many times to recreate fun I've had in previous Units, using Alive. All to very little lasting success.
Currently, I am in a small (12-16 members) Unit. We run Operations twice a week, but many of us want to play more often.
We have tried other mods like Invade and Annex, and Liberation, but for various reasons, those did not work out. I keep coming back to Alive, trying to make it work.
Sadly, I simply do not have the time or knowledge to do this.
I've searched through the forums, to see if others have asked to do what I want, and haven't found any. Before I ask, please understand, I am not a bad guy, or some villain. I simply love playing Arma 3 with Alive, and need help.
I'm here looking to 'hire' someone with experience to set up our dedicated server, with our specific mods, and a scenario based off our Unit, on a specific map. If it is possible, I'd like to set up a few scenarios and maps, that we can rotate once every week or two.
If asking for this is against the rules, please let me know.
If it is not, let me know if you are interested, and we can negotiate a fair cost for your time and effort.
Thank you.
Bigs
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HeroesandvillainsOS
23 Jul 2018 Moderator

Edited 6 years ago by HeroesandvillainsOS

Although I understand the desire, I’m not a big fan of players soliciting services for money here. That said, this is my own opinion and I do not know whether the higher powers that be have any rules against this or not, so at least at this very moment unless I hear otherwise or unless this thread gets out of control, I’ll let the post stay.
Here’s the thing, if you describe what you want, you might get some good free advice. This is what I hope the outcome will be. Though if you’re trying to tie in Exile like rewards systems or something of that nature, I can almost certainly tell you no one here will be able to guide you. We’ve had requests like this before and they didn’t end up well.
What exactly are you looking to do?
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Bigs
23 Jul 2018

Edited 6 years ago by Bigs

@HeroesandvillainsOS , thank you so much, for taking the time to read, and talk/work with me.
My team is a MilSim Unit, of CIA-SOF. Similar to the 13 hours of Benghazi, Sicario, Jason Borne, ect movies.
We are looking to run a campaign where OPFOR has taken control of an urban map (originally I was thinking Falluja, but people say that is a poor performance map), and we are assisting the local civilian population in an Insurgency against OPFOR, who have the entire map and population on lock-down. Heavy presence, patrols, road blocks, hard QRF, ect. I would like specific OPFOR assets. No heavy tanks, hard hitting helicopters, bombers, ect. Moslty infantry, small technicals, and lite motorized armored vics.
On operations, we would build and run a controlled OP, with Alive assisting. But, on non-operation times, we still would like to help the civilians. Thus, if possible, even though we are not part of the official Insurgency, I would still like to be able to ask the friendly AI for missions, against OPFOR.
We are off the books, so the 'real' insurgency is AI controlled, but I would like to have the Alive insertion helicopter asset (module). The mortars and CAS assets (modules) are not available. I would like the trigger for those to be our radios in our possession. We need a civilian building on the outskirts (or outside) of the AO (major urban area) to act as a HQ, with lockers as Arsenal's, and a garage to hold 4 off-road trucks, that respawn an hour after they are destroyed. I have tinkered with Falluja, and found a large enter-able warehouse with vehicle doors, near hangers in an abandoned and old military base at the train yard, on the northern part of the map. If possible, we would even like the ability to wear civilian clothes and no weapons, and not be attacked by OPFOR (similar to Invade and Annex Covert mode).
We would like OPFOR to be heavy favorites against the Insurgency, and we are hard pressed to push them back. We would also like the OPFOR to have to make the QRF travel, after we do our thing. Not just respawn in the area we just took control of. When no one is online, we would like OPFOR to regain control (albeit slowly if possible), so if we play often, we gain good progress. If we miss a couple of days, OPFOR will have regained control of everything (Not including where the players start, of course. We'd like civilian spawn and arsenal area in to be a very small, but safe area/building.)
And of course, all our Unit mods we use, most of which I have figured out on the server already. I'm sure there are a few little things I am not thinking of right now.
Thank you again.
Bigs
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HeroesandvillainsOS
23 Jul 2018 Moderator

Have you begun building this at all? Some of the features wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, such as using an undercover script (I have no clue if it’s going to work right on a dedi): https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/202256-release-incon-undercover-a-comprehensive-undercover-incognito-simulation/
Other features, such as specific requestable tasks to help the insurgents directly (especially spending on how you define what you want that to look like), might work. ALiVE’s built-in auto tasking with C2ISTAR gets the job done mostly, but it sounds like you want a lot of control so you could always leave the auto portion OFF in the editor, and have a human mid-game open the tablet and request a specific task against the faction of their desire in the location they desire.
I find some C2ISTAR tasks a bit buggy though, but the offensive tasks (HVT, Clear town, etc) are mostly reliable the last I checked. I’d avoid CSAR, rescue, transport troops and defense missions though. They sometimes work, sometimes don’t.
Fallujah PROBABLY works ok, but due to lack of enterable buildings, civ spawns, CQB and insurgent installations may not populate as much as you’d like.
For the option for the mission still running when no one is online and losing your captured ground, you’d probably want to try keeping the Auto Pause option off. Though note I don’t run a dedi, so have no idea myself if this will accomplish what you want there or no. But I think it should in theory.
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Bigs
23 Jul 2018

Whoosh. Ok...
I have a working version of Alive, using the Panthera map. I have two opposing factions at war with each other on the main land and an Asymmetrical commander in between, with the players outside the fighting on the NW island. It 'works', per say, but is better suited to a larger player force, and a Unit that is more infantry styled. Its very... confusing. Things are happening everywhere. I think. I can't really tell, actually, as it seems all sides spawn everywhere, and no one 'travel's' to objectives. This is where the players started to request things they enjoy about the game, and play style. (Urban combat, playing Good guy insurgents, ect). Perhaps I can rework that map to do what I want, they have a few large urban areas.
That undercover mod looks VERY cool. Probably way more than what I was thinking. I had no idea things like that could be done. That is so much deeper and better than what I had imagined.
As for 'control', players don't need more, per say. For 'operations' twice a week, we'll jump into Zeus, and make what we need. If not, we'll get another server just to run OPS, and keep Alive for non operation days. I remember how great Alive is, and figure most of the trouble we will get into will be provided by Alive naturally.
The only thing players would request is a mission to start, and transportation from the helicopter, if needed or wanted, on non-operation days.
I've heard from many people that Fallujah isn't really what I want. Might you have a suggestion on another map that would provide a large urban environment, we can use to run our Insurgent campaign?
I was completely unaware you could pause Alive. Ok, now that I think about it, not really. I remember reading about someone putting a trigger to pause and start based on player count. But, that leads me to my original point...
I obviously lack the knowledge and skill to do what I am trying to do. And we have a great group of guys, who are getting itchy to have something to play. We have been using two public servers (IronFront Liberation, and Atlas Invade and Annex), to bide some time. Add in to that, I simply do not have the time, as my job leaves me only about 2 hours of free time a few nights a week. And I would rather spend that time playing with my friends, than spending hours and hours trying to get Alive to do what I want it to do. Which is why I am here hoping to find someone with more skill and time than myself.
I saved all my questions from about for the last. Some on and off topic, regarding my specific server...
1. Does the Alive response scale to the number of players in the group? I want to say I remember it being something like that from before. More players, more bad guys?
2. Can another mod, like DUWS work inside of Alive? For making quick easy missions?
3. A good urban type map to run as good guy Insurgents fighting against an occupying OPFOR force?
@HeroesandvillainsOS, thank you so very much. Please understand how humble I am, regarding this. I am not a programmer, or game maker of any kind. I am a retired athlete, who likes shooting bad guys in Arma 3 with my firends. I'm just winging all this, as no one else in my group has the skills either. I just happened to be able to financially afford the game server and TS server (for TFAR).
I am completely open to showing you what I have, or hiring someone, or anything. My entire goal is to have fun with my friends, playing this game.
Bigs
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HeroesandvillainsOS
23 Jul 2018 Moderator

I think as far as maps go, Icebreakr’s maps are a good choice for what you’re going for because he does a good mix of open land and dense urban environments. Isla Duala is one of his and it’s excellent. I never used Panthera but I’m sure it’s great as well. So I say if you’re relatively satisfied, I can’t think of much better.
With normal use, just plonking down the modules, you really won’t see aggressive advancing. ALiVE will hold groups back to defend objectives. Anywhere where a CIV or MIL Obj Placement module is set to “place units” will have groups placed. This probably accounts for why you’re seeing groups on all sides everywhere.
What you could try is in the editor, to look for places you’d like each side to place a high priority at, and place Custom Objective modules on them (more than one if needed), then sync those modules back to the Commander modules you want aware of the objectives. The default values are “50” for size and priority. Let’s say there are certain villages you always want to have attacked and defended, you could place some Custom Objective modules there, and put something like 300 size and 999 priority. This SHOULD tell the Commander(s) the module belongs to to consistently be sending groups there. Though note, I don’t use this tactic much so I can’t say for certain you’ll see your desired result. But it’s worth trying if you feel specific places are too barren when they shouldn’t be.
Another thing I’ve never really done is to “support” the insurgents. It’s a cool idea. I usually play against them (USA fuck yeah!). From my understanding, insurgency (aka Asymmetric Commanders) is really designed with the players fighting them in mind. What will happen is, as insurgents take territory, they’ll create weapons depots, recruitment centers (to recruit civs to their side), and IED factories. Only the player can disable these. AI are not able to.
With default settings, since you are fighting on behalf of the insurgents, this could be a problem. Specifically with the civ recruitment centers. Since their AI enemy wont be able to neutralize/disable these, the insurgents over time will just recruit and recruit and continue to grow in size.
You can however, in the Asymmetric Commander module, edit the default values for how many civs have to be around an objective for them to have a % chance at being recruited. If this is a mission you really want to see if can work, you’ll probably want to raise the “minimum civilians present to recruit” option to a pretty high number (Default is 2. I’d go with 10 or so). This should pretty much make the civ recruitment centers useless unless there are a ton of civs nearby. That said you’ll probably need to experiment with this to make sure they can recruit enough civs to keep up with their enemy. Best thing you can do here is to turn debug on in the Virtual AI module and let the mission run from the editor for a few hours to see how things shake out.
To get an exact number for the total number of groups for each side at any given time, you can run the Profile Counter code seen on this page in the debug menu in the esc menu, then click local exec, then read the totals on the radio chat:
http://alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Script_Snippets
I think that most of your ideas can work just fine without too much effort. Especially if you can ease up your group’s expectations a bit. I’d say, set up the basic outline of the battle with the modules in the editor, then watch how things play out with debug on. If things seem a bit “slow,” trying placing some Custom Objective modules down to give certain areas more action. Or hell, don’t be afraid of placing some enemy groups down with Zeus if needed too.
If you want to spice things up and give players a task they can achieve optionally while doing their other objectives, go ahead and request a specific task in the Tasks menu in the ALiVE menu so at least it’s there if they want to accomplish something more concrete.
The undercover script may or may not work how you’d hoped but may be worth a try implementing. I’ve heard good things about it but never tried it myself. If that doesn’t work the way you want I’m sure there are others out there.
All in all, if you still find ALiVE is not giving you what you’re looking for, I get it. My opinion is ALiVE is really best at when you want to get into a battle randomly and easily and don’t mind what’s going on in the battlefield to be in a state of gray. Other mods may provide you with a more curated experience, especially if you need tons of different tasks or a very clear cut objective with markers telling you exactly what groups holds what town. DUWS or Liberation might be more up your alley in these respects, as might be OPEX or The Forgotten Few 2 or the TRGM series.
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YonV
23 Jul 2018

If you need server work, I can help get you started, no charge, and show you how to set it up so that you will not need further help, I already oversee 10,000 servers for work what's one more :)
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Bigs
24 Jul 2018

@YonV , that is an amazing offer, and thank you. Your help with the server will get me through half of my issues. Now if I can figure out the details of Alive, I'm all set.
How do I contact you?
Bigs
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HeroesandvillainsOS
24 Jul 2018 Moderator

You can start a private conversation by starting a new post, then selecting the user you want to have access to it.