(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[Mikero]

@Henderson.

Thob is trying to reduce objects to reduce lag. Frankly, I'm surprised that static objects like ammo crates produce any lag at all. If they don't I'd keep them 'as is' to re-inforce the difference btwn north and south. But, as far as usabilty is concerned, they're useless. You can't stick around long enough to take advantage of them any more (or less) than you can stick around to collect from bodies. Time, and command wise (getting ppl to pick things up) is identical for both, so they aren't a bonus to player, just another lag object who's real purpose is to provide eye-candy.

To reduce lag further, some of the mobile ammo crates, eg the ammo trucks, *could* go. A compromise would be to still be able to access and capture the convoy ammo truck and remove the vacant ones at T3 (eg). Not much effort, frankly, is required to sneak in and race out with a T3 vehicle. Tough only once in ten attempts. (I should know, I've been sitting in T3 for ten hours now for a little excercise that bloody author wants me to check)

>But, if the player wants weapons quickly...

that's the point, some of us don't feel that's a 'good idea' (tm)

@Xcess: agreed with you again. But I must say having played this and 1.1 a few times now, i'm looking for more than yer standard battle tactics, so I enjoy scavenging.

@Thob: voiceover for the prison, not the escape.

The escape voicover occured for me only once, and I was hidden behind building 'in the vicinity'. I did not get a visual on them, my troops did, i was very close by. It is in fact the first time I noticed this visual happening.

>confused
why? I think it's a marvellous scene, and I think it is wasted because so few will spot it. I think more to the point I would have liked to have saved them, so perhaps that's what I *really* mean about wasted. Now I'm confused, thank you THob. Why do you always do this to me!

[THobson]

XCess:
Mikero has experimented at some length with fog and rain.  I believe the conclusion he came to was that rain is what causes the unfairness between the player and ai, not the fog.  If you are going to have a try you might try the settings I am planning for the next version which is:

Leave the fog as it is.

In weather.sqs don't change the rain settings during the inital period at the start, but once the overcast starts to cycle change:

Code: [Select]

if (_overcast >= 0.9) then {60 setRain 1;RainLevel = 1}
if ((_overcast >= 0.8) and (_overcast < 0.9)) then {60 setRain 0.75;RainLevel = 0.75}
if ((_overcast >= 0.7) and (_overcast < 0.8)) then {60 setRain 0.5;RainLevel = 0.5}Ugly I know.  To:

Code: [Select]

if (_overcast >= 0.9) then {RainLevel = 0.5;60 setRain RainLevel}

All:
On the ammo situation, I balance might be:  Goodies in the ammo crates at LaT, but no ammo truck.  So you can get most of what you want, but it isn't mobile, and you have dodge the convoys.

One thing about the 'previously mobile ammo crates' is they don't carry mines or satchel charges.  I could make them but that might cut down their normal ammo too much.

Escape scene.  It's a bummer that you got the voiceover but didn't see them.  You knew about them because your team mates spotted them.  I have no solution to that.

I've been sitting in T3 for ten hours now for a little excercise that bloody author wants me to check

;D Lol.  Thanks.  You can stop listening now.  I suspect the problem is that triggers that generate sounds stop after a  while.  I have a solution to that.

Some good news and some less good.
The good: By moving triggers around depending on where Alexi is I have taken 9 triggers out of the mission and reduced the complexity of the condition field of two more, all with no change of functionality.

The less good:  I don't notice any improvement in lag.

EDIT:

Sorry meant to comment on this also:

it is wasted because so few will spot it.

It is all part of trying to make the experience different every time.  The down side is that some things I have spent ages creating will be missed - that's life I suppose.

Thank you for kind words bye the way


EDIT: EDIT:
I have been meaning to ask.  Is it just me that finds the music in the vehicles too loud?  I spent ages getting the levels right in a test mission.  Some vehicles have louder engines than others so the volume of the music depends on the vehicle the player is in.  When I come to listen in the main mission it seems over powering.

[Mikero]

>music

I was wondering why it sounded 'picture perfect' no matter which vehicle I was in. You'd never guess, but i DETEST battle music (umm perhaps I've already mentioned that, often)

For me, the volumes were Goldilocks standard, just right.

Don't tell anyone, but I enjoyed having them, immensely.

>ammo crates.

as usual, you turn out righter than right in the end Thob, the ammo crates have to stay at T3, in fact, that's the perfect location, for satchels and mines. That *is* the reason for including them (other than eye candy). Always one step ahead of the rest of us, aren't you! It makes for great game play for those players determined to take the tanks on, despite the warnings, make 'em work for it.

>escaping prisoner voiceover

on the contrary, the speech was perfect because it made me L ::)K

without it, I would have missed the significance, I was only on corner of building and because of it, i poked my head around. Otherwise I would not have, so it worked, perfectly.
----
Have had a skim read of some tutes in here and sqf files are mentioned as being faster than sqs. The justification being that they are permanenltly resident in memory which sqs are not. This happens to be a lie, both are in memory, and both are interpreted, not compiled, but would they make your game faster if you used them?

also, you're not using csv. Any reason?

[Henderson]

@Henderson.

Thob is trying to reduce objects to reduce lag. Frankly, I'm surprised that static objects like ammo crates produce any lag at all. If they don't I'd keep them 'as is' to re-inforce the difference btwn north and south. But, as far as usabilty is concerned, they're useless. You can't stick around long enough to take advantage of them any more (or less) than you can stick around to collect from bodies. Time, and command wise (getting ppl to pick things up) is identical for both, so they aren't a bonus to player, just another lag object who's real purpose is to provide eye-candy.

To reduce lag further, some of the mobile ammo crates, eg the ammo trucks, *could* go. A compromise would be to still be able to access and capture the convoy ammo truck and remove the vacant ones at T3 (eg). Not much effort, frankly, is required to sneak in and race out with a T3 vehicle. Tough only once in ten attempts. (I should know, I've been sitting in T3 for ten hours now for a little excercise that bloody author wants me to check)

>But, if the player wants weapons quickly...

that's the point, some of us don't feel that's a 'good idea' (tm)

I agree that some objects should be taken out because of lag, but as far as I aw in La Trinitie, there was only one ammo truck. I know it isn't a James Bond escape to get out with the ammo truck, that is true, but to me, that isn't the point.
 Now about what you said about it not being a good idea(the player getting weapons quickly), why? The mission is all about choice. If the player wants the "easy mode" he can go to La Trinitie and take the ammo truck. If the player wants the "hardcore" mode, he doesn't have to take the ammo truck, he can go around ambushing people and taking their weapons.

[XCess]

Its no more difficult to get the weapons from the truck han it is to ambush for them. I quite easily halted and slaughter the southron convoy in my first attermpt, driving off with both the ammo and repair trucks.  But why would there be an amoo truck in the trading zone? crates have justification, truck doesnt. Empty vehicles like this in enemy bases.. now that would make more sense.

[sharkyjoe]

Ok I've been testing Your Mission for a while Now. Lets see almost a week of on and off playing. Summer here In the States
Overview-good
Loved the Intro
Briefing very fun
Mission-loved the premise.
I got to the third civy area saved it by radio game save you provided. Shut down OFP and then came back to the game the next day and I started from atop of the Lodge from previous save(not where I saved it before).?? As anyone else run into this problem??

Otherwise Love the cut scenes and Great voice/voices of characters.
Wild ride of random troops
Still playing From the Soggy Foggy Feilds of Malden and Alexi says "Hi"

[Mikero]

Hi Sharky :wave:

the restart issue is a documented feature of ofp , it's the autosave.fps in your users folder. To get over it all you have to do is load from the retry option.

You wouldn't have encountered it very often because very very few missions out there need DAYS to finish

[THobson]

Mikero:
Sqf files faster than sqs.  I have only ever seen sqf used as functions not as scripts that effect things in the mission.  They must work that way though, so it must be possible.  My immediate thought is that when constructing the scripts I have been conscious of the need to spread out the processing load.  I suspect the main causes of lag are triggers (especially those with complicated conditions); @statements and anything generating a visual effect using the drop command (fires; burning vehicles).  I have been concentrating on these.  There are now only two permanent fires in the mission, I have used a lot of scripts instead of triggers.  An overnight flash of inspiration has led to an idea that will remove another three triggers with no loss of functionality.

Other sources of lag, I am told, are groups of units; static objects; and waypoint.  I have used very few waypoints in the mission and feel there is little scope for reduction.  There are surprisingly few groups in the mission.  I presume the lag from static objects is the need for the engine to keep checking for units colliding with them.  Probably small for each object, but cumulatively large if there are a lot of objects as there are in this mission.  This will be my next area to look at.

csv - that is the string table?  Before embarking on the dialogue I posted a question about what the benefits are of using this.  The conclusion was: (1) to make multi-lingual versions; (2) to get all the text together in one place.

I have achieved the second of these.  All the text is in description.ext and having seen how long it took macguba and Student Pilot to create multi-lingual versions of their missions I have absolutely no appetite for that with this one.  The script runs to over a dozen pages and you have seen the size of the readme file.  Also when I stared on the dialogue I didn't know how to do coloured text and have it in a string table - I do now, but can see no benefit it changing it.


Henerson:
I am really sorry. I am now persuaded that the LaT ammo truck should go.  This has been in the back of my mind for some time and the recent exchange has confirmed it for me.


Sharkyjoe:
Glad you are enjoying it.
The pattern I have noticed is that when you go back into a mission it takes you to where you last exited the mission alive, irrespective of any saves you might have made in the meantime.  Knowing that I now find it much less confusing.

[XCess]

Had a quick go just now with the different fg settings and have hardly been troubled at all lol. Walked up the hill and didn't see a hole this time (I changed the islandInit.sqs at the kill all part and changed setDammage to 0 so I guess that's why). Skipped Tatyana and just drove off in the police jeep to LaT. Arrived from the south and nearly crashed into the ass of a Bradley, turn off to the left and led in bushes for a while when the infantry came into the town. When my route was clear I ran into the hut and grabbed a bizon a mine and a LAW. Ran back to the jeep which was parked near the Jeep and saw lights were wtill on from the convoy... Peeked round the corner and saw two trucks next to each other facing opposite directions, closest was the Ural Ammo. Put a LAW into the side of the ammop truck, saw a massive explosion (I think two other vehicles got caught) and drove off in the Jeep not wanting to take the risk of assesing damage.
Drove quickly down to Houdan where I saw no Sergei.
Carried on going south, further down the road I spotted a single dead soldier with a PK. Got out to investigate and saw ... something. One question,.. If there's dead soldiers how did they not stand a chance at defending themselves?
Kept going south and nearly crashed into a BMP but just kept on driving. Parked at the south of the village, shot a guard in a tower and continued to the fences. Shot a rifleman grenadier and went to the gate. Cutscene. "We're a small group of resistance soldiers" or something similar... I was alone. After the cutscene I was quickly killed by a guy with an AK.

That's all for now.

[THobson]

If there's dead soldiers how did they not stand a chance at defending themselves?

Only two of them were armed.


EDIT:
I have just carried out a bit of a test on lag.  I used an empty Malden map and I put on it 5,000 empty BMPs each running the smoke script I use in Abandoned Armies.  So that is 5,000 @(getDammage _this > 0.98) commands all running simultaneously.

Providing I was on a part of the island where the BMPs were not visible then I experienced no discernable lag.  If I could see them the lag was sever.

I tried the same with 5,000 ammo crates.  Again - as long as I could not see them there was no problem, but if they were in view then again there was sever lag.

I then wanted to check how much lag my white walls around the bases were causing.
I could not put enough on to cause any discernable lag.  I gave up at 30,000.  It may be though that I had them so far apart that not many of them were in view at anyone time.

I tried something similar with triggers.  Even 10,000 did not generate any discernable lag.  So me saving the odd one or two is unlikely to be noticeable

So I am coming to the view that it is not collision avoidance that is a main cause of lag, it is creating the visual image for the player to see.  Two, four, eight or even the original 16 ammo crates at LaT are un-likely to be a big issue


Incidentally I also tested the 5,000 BMPs that instead of the @ command had
#loop
~0.5
if (getDammage _this < 0.98) then {goto"loop"}
and the lag was horrendous even when I could not see them.



EDIT: EDIT:
It just occurred to me I need to be more scientific than I have been. The 10,000 triggers were all West Present, with only one west unit on the map.  It could be different with more units to check

[Fragorl]

Interesting. Yes, the number of units on screen at any one time is probably the largest 'lag factor' you will run into. Ofp tends to prioritise scripts quite poorly; that is, when you place a ~0.01 or a @ in one of your scripts, it will loop at that speed but only if everything else is running optimally. Introduce even the tiniest bit of lag and ofp will immediately cut down on the rate of looping drastically, even to the point where your scripts don't function as you expect them to.

For examle, place 30 or so BMPs on the map, and run the script on one of them, with say a hint in the body of the loop:
#loop
~0.02
hint "hello"
if (getDammage _this < 0.98) then {goto"loop"}
you might find that when you are far away from the bmps, you get a 0.02 second looping hint. But move close enough to the BMPs to get noticeable lag, and you will probably see the hints dropping off quite markedly. I can barely imagine what 5000 BMPs would do, but i doubt it would be pretty.

Also, scripts jockey for priority, so more scripts running means a reduced frequency too. With your five thousand scripts, i'd say that whilst there may be little lag, they aren't looping as fast as you think. Of course, you can test that too.

[Mikero]

adding to the commentary while adding little to the knowledge , what has been said re visuals would explain why, even though the 'sound' of battles can be horrendous (4 x choppers eg) those battles do nothing to the lag. This would make sense to me that once an audio card has been triggered it loops independently.

I can also confirm that while at the lodge, a total of 6 tanks were destroyed 'all at the same time' and god knows how many loons immediately to my north, in fact, litterally on other side of hill, mapwise, some 500 meters. The noises were furious, but zero lag.

>loop scipts

this helps to confirm suspicion that the engine is geared to sacrifice all background housekeeping, as much as required, before it will sacrifice visual. I have seen this, *very* occaisonally on a loon moving eg, long after the explosion that destoyed him went off. But I think you could safely assume that if there's a lot going on, your scripts aren't running at that point.

Functions (as opposed to scripts) cannot work in the above manner, once started, they must end. The engine sets a timer to crash the game if the function doesn't exit in 'x' amount of time. What the x is, i don't know but suspect 2 or 3 seconds. This would be a great method of ensuring certain, critical scripts, actually did run. (re-written as functions). By their nature, they have a higher priority than a visual.

[THobson]

Fragorl:

even to the point where your scripts don't function as you expect them to.

Hence 456 being shot and the YuriClone problem.  It all begins to fit.

With your five thousand scripts, i'd say that whilst there may be little lag

Lol:  Yes I have a lot of scripts, but I carefully spread them out.  Instead of having most of them running all the time I have a master script that calls many of them at spaced intervals.

Mikero:
I had forgotten that about functions, that they run to the end.  None of my scripts are that critical that they should take priority over the visuals, in fact it is improving these visuals that I am concentrating on now.  I will check my scripts again for any interactions I have assumed to happen but the only one I can think of is the one discovered by 456, but I need to check for others.

In my run through - I am going slowly.  To recap.  I concentrated exclusively on the southrons.  At around 5pm the southrons were so weak that the northrons attacked.  After multiple flag changing at the border towns and a bit of fighting around LaT I headed for the airbase.  I was at Saint Louis at about 9pm when I heard some southron armour attack the airbase.  A bit of sniping and a bit of crawling and Andropov was dead.  On making my getaway we were attacked by a T80 and a Bradley.  The T80 took multiple hits and I killed the Bradley.  We lost Marek and Sergei.

Then to Chapoi, now the choppers were out of the way I was able to use our armour: Abrams, T80 and T72.  Reaching the hill overlooking Chapoi the lag was terrible.  A few HEATs into Chapoi reduced the lag immensely.  It is now about 10:30 pm

Things I have noticed:
NVGs cut through the rain and fog wonderfully.  I hardly notice them

I am concerned about the Chapoi lag, especially since there were not that many loons in the town.

One of the attacking northron armour units was destroyed near the Chapoi repair facility destroying the empty armour units there.  Lucky I got some from elsewhere, pity the player that doesn't.

There can be a lot of AT soldiers left alive in the end game.  This concerns me less that it concerned macguba.  It just means that you still have to be very careful even if by then you are all in Godzillas.

[Planck]

Running 1.96, not using ECP this time, benchmark 2235, 2-3 FPS rising at times to 3-4 FPS but also dropping at other times to 0-1 FPS.

I'm going to try and play this according to the information available to my character as and when he gets it, so, although I know a lot of things about the mission, I will only play according to what my character learns as the plot unfolds.


Ok, trudging up the mountain to get to Vigny, it is very dark, so I have to use my compass to keep on track.
Eventually I reach the top and see the light from one house.
I make my way towards it, passing bodies on the way and getting the comments of outrage from my character as I go.

I can see 2 soldiers in the house, so after finding the best position I shoot them both, after a minute or two a third soldier makes a break and runs from the house.

I 'borrow' an M16 from one of the dead soldiers and hunt him down, he didn't go very far and it was easy enough to find him and shoot him.

Entering the house I meet Tatyana and the cutscene goes fine and she leaves in a hurry.
Of course, she gets shot and I was easily able to kill her 2 killers.

I start gathering all the weapons and putting them in the police jeep, I had just finished doing this when a group of soldiers arrived.
My first instinct was to make myself scarce, but I decided to try and follow what the character would feel he needed to do in the circumstances considering what they had done to Tatyana etc etc.
So, I hid and picked them off, one by one til they were all dead.
I then collected their weapons and also placed them in the jeep.
Time to go to the Lodge.


I reached the lodge and got the order to halt, which I did promptly.
Cutscene worked fine, after which I had my own group.
I changed everyones weapons for the better ones I had brought and told them all to stay there.
The girl I gave the hunting rifle, she seems to be good with that, or an M21.
I was planning to scout around a bit, but first I tried leaving to see if I got the message about the radio......I did.

Checked the radio, jumped in the civvy truck and made my way SW to the first group of civvies.
I reached them with no incidents, cutscene worked fine, they boarded the truck and we went back to the lodge.
Cutscene, civvies are going to repair the lodge...goody goody.
Also told about the women I must try and find in Houdan.

OK, so I now had a new member of my group and I changed his weapon also.
The second group of civvies, who's location was revealed once I rescued the first group, was next on my list of things to do.
I reached the second group, also with no incidents, cutscene also worked ok and they set off on foot for the lodge accompanied by the medic, whilst I and the corporal go in search of the third group of civvies which he had mentioned.
We found them....all dead
Ok back to the lodge we go.

We arrived back at the lodge and I told the corporal to disembark.
We arrived at the same time as the medic and the second group of civvies.
So now I have another 2 members to my group, so I give them better weapons also.
I decided to park the civvy truck in amongst the trees, out of the way, thats when I noticed that I still had a passenger in the truck.....YuriClone??
I just left him there.

I still intend to scout about on my own, so everyone is told to stay.
As the corporal who was with me mentioned La Trinite a lot, I decided to go there first.


I got to La Trinite on foot and it was deserted.....nobody about at all.
Found the 2 huts, 1 ammo truck, 1 repair truck, 1 BMP Ambulance.
I checked the 2 huts and then changed my M16 for a Bizon, I also grabbed some NVG's.
Shortly after that I could hear vehicles approaching, so I jumped in the nearest truck and zoomed off back to the lodge.
It was the ammo truck, so that wasn't too bad at all.
Once back at the lodge, I changed everyones weapons again, the girl now has a nice shiny M21.

As Stamenov was the one who was clearly more of a threat to the civilians I decided to concentrate on decimating his forces first.
I moved my group out of the lodge area, south to a clump of trees with a large rock, just in case anyone had followed me back.
My next move was to scout out Arudy.


I changed my weapon for an M21 and headed off alone again, this time to Arudy, approaching from the north and finding a nice vantage point with a bush.
I observed for a while, there was a garrison and a group patrolling about....a guard group I suppose.
I picked the guard group off one by one over a period of time, changing bushes now and then.
Eventually they were all dead, so I switched my attention to the garrison and killed them all as well.
At this point a jeep arrived and the 4 soldiers in it jumped out and started searching.
All they found were some bullets.
Ok, I entered Arudy and checked it for anything useful.
There was just a truck which I jumped into and used to get back to the lodge.
At the lodge I now had a police jeep, an ammo truck, a 5t truck as well as the civvy truck, car and motorbike that was there already.


My next move was to go to Houdan and search for these women, I decided to go alone again as it was easier travelling that sort of distance alone rather than trying to shepherd the whole group.
Being alone has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages.

You get used to playing at 2 FPS after a while, it can still be annoying though.
Luckily I haven't been killed yet, only slightly wounded once at Arudy.
Fog is my friend, rain is also my friend.

Tune in another day for more to the story.


Planck

[THobson]

That is wonderful Planck.  There is one thing you are missing that is fixed in the next version - you cannot change the flag in any of these towns if you are on your own.

I just can't play at those sorts of fps.