(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[Planck]

I already guessed......... ;D ;D

EDIT:
With reference to the ladder problem.
Might it be that your game logic, or previously your trigger are in some way negating the climb ladder option.

It might just be coincidence that you place a game logic, or trigger close to the ladder, but, it might also have some bearing on the problem.



Planck

[Mikero]

@thob

would a car blocking entrance achieve similar?

[THobson]

Mikero:

or you could get them to arm themselves from crates at the village and defend themselves

Of the previously mobile variety?

Planck:

Might it be that your game logic, or previously your trigger are in some way negating the climb ladder option.

I don't think so.  In the version you are playing the Game Logic is 999.8 m directly above the building.  You have to climb the ladder to get close enough for the cutscene to trigger (< 1000).  My way round the problem of not getting the action was to put the GL near the foot of the ladder.

The mental image I now have is that buildings have an invisible structure - the location of BuildingPos, actions to climb ladders etc and a visible structure and that over time these move apart.  This would explain why I also had difficulty going up and down the stairs in the building and why Planck - your woman was on the ground floor after the cutscene - but not before.  It is all beginning to make a sort of sense.


EDIT:

would a car blocking entrance achieve similar?

Not quite sure what you mean.  Anyway the road outside the door is a part of the route followed by the mg jeeps so I couldn't block it.

What I am testing now is - acually quite difficult to explain.  There are places in buildings called BuildingPos n where n is a number.  It seems that buildings and BuildingPos move apart over time.  What I am now testing is if I put a Game Logic at a BuildingPos will it move with the building or with the buildingPos.  If that makes sense. If the former I can think of a solution (ugly but it should work)

[Planck]

Buildings do indeed have an invisible structure, several in fact.
The main one being the Geometry LOD.
The Resolution LODs, of which there can be a few are the ones you see.
The building positions are in a separate LOD called the Pathway LOD.
The ladder start and end points are in the Memory LOD.

These things shouldn't really be able to move, as they are part of the overall building.......but you never can tell with OFP.  

I think the woman just falls through the roadway lod down to the ground floor, much the same as being able to walk through walls at times.


Planck

[Mikero]

@Thob

friendly ai intelligence gains

knowing you're onto other things at moment, I now think it might be unnecessarily generous. My experience of it was marred because of terrible lag (my fault) and poor visibility. My people have never been that bad since that once only, one off.

It's either about right as is, or could be a little harder to gain. Most players (unlike me) seem to prefer to keep them out of harm's way for the early bits anyway. The gain is so quick (imho) that most players? wont have noticed that they dont all start as experts. It's a nice game experience and a very nice touch you added there Thob, I'd make more of it. Relative to the entire game time, it's less than 5% before they're savage.

edit:
>previously mobile variety

damn good idea. Another one of those player feedback things where she did the right thing killing them off in the first place.

[THobson]

Planck:
I knew I should have just asked you inthe first place  Can you think of an easy way of checking if these structures do move appart over time?  I could report on the getPos of the building and the getPos of one of the Building Pos.  Can you think of anything else?

Mikero:

The gain is so quick (imho) that most players? wont have noticed that they dont all start as experts

I agree.  The trouble is that most of the things that raise skill levels happen early.  It is on the list to look at.

[Planck]

I can think of no way that any LOD from the model can move away from the rest of the model, it just doesn't seem possible to me, it is after all one complete model, it just has several component parts for different purposes.

I don't know either if any of your custom actions are somehow hiding the buildings actions in some way.
However you would expect that to manifest itself earlier anyway.

Emmmm.....anyway, its getting a little off-topic now.....someone call a moderator.  


Planck

[THobson]

What's off topic about it?  I have a problem that I need help on.

I can think of no way that any LOD from the model can move away from the rest of the model, it just doesn't seem possible to me, it is after all one complete model, it just has several component parts for different purposes.

Can you think of any reason objects would move vertically?  Take care as you answer I have you covered - sorry wrong script.  Just take a look at the picture attached to reply 487 first.

[Planck]

Objects do move vertically, but this is more down to the terrain it is sitting on and possibly the detail level that is being used.

If the object is set on the ground in normal detail level and then you switch to high detail level and reload the mission, you may find the object has sunk a bit into the terrain.

It's just some OFPness.

EDIT: I was only joking about the off-topic.........sorry   ;D ;D


Planck

[Mikero]

My money is on the cutscene trigger blocking the ladder action thob. Get rid of it for testing purposes. Or, if you tell me how, I'll test it for you while you do other thingz.

[XCess]

1000th post is MINE!!!! ;D

On topic. I'm going to try and play the mission WITHOUT the squad. as they shot me to death. I'll keep the medic with me as a mobile mash and nothing more. See if it can be completed without the lodge civs.

[Pilot]

I know you are busy with other problems, but I want to suggest something anyways.

@Red-tagged vehicles
One possible fix for these vehicles could be to write a script that, when the crew are dead or out of the vehicle, creates a similar vehicle on an outlying island, applies fuel and damage levels to it, and set it in the same direction as the original vehicle.  The script can then set the new tank in the position of the old one and delete the old tank.  The script can loop slowly, wouldn't require any global variables, and is a one time use script for each vehicle.  I don't think it would contribute to the lag very much, and it would solve a problem that is annoying at the least.  There are two things I an unsure of though: How, if possible, to transfer the ammo levels to the new tank.  And how, if possible (I don't think so), to set the damage levels to specific parts of the tank.

-Student Pilot

[XCess]

Haha. THob... you're gonna love this one  ;D

7:30 game time. Andrpov is dead.
So I decided to let the medic be at Le Port for now and waited until there was no sign of the Abrams... after having some fun with his tracks with the use of a mine. Didn't do significant damage as you'd expect.
Once the BMP and Abrams drove off (looking for the cause of the explosion i suppose) to the west (which is strange since a LAW could NOT have hit from the west.. the Abrams was on the east side of the chapel or whatever. I jumped in the Jeep and headed north to the airbase, with a little supply stop at LaT.

Drove up the east coast and parked in shurbbery just SE of the buildings on the airbase. Ran towards some trees and found a Vulcan sitting around so I hit it with a LAW and ran to a bush closer to the airbase. Out came a T80 a  Bradley and I think two squads of Infantry. Ilet them do their search for a bit until the T80 parked up right in front of my bush looking to the south. Crawled up and placed two AV mines hoping the crew would disembark. No luck so I made a made dash for my jeep.

Reached it with no trouble (thank god for fog) jumped in and decided to do a suicide run. Drove due east and too my luck there was an open gate. So I drove through and on to the road headiing to the buildings. Ran down about five people in one group half way there and stopped right next to one of the bushes in front of the building at  the end of the road. Crawled through the bush until I spotted some Black Ops and a couple of Spetz Natz. Shot them all in the head with my Bizon. Crawled about a metre east in the bush and looked at the tent where there were two Spetz Natz. Shot them to pieces with the Bizon and got the "Andropov is dead" voiceover.. strange... nobody ever mentioned his name yet  

Jumped back in the Jeep and went back the way I came.

I'm now on my way to Vigny to go see Tatyana and then to Houdan to see what Sergei has to say about the death of Andropov as he wasn't there last time I checked.

[THobson]

Mikero:

My money is on the cutscene trigger blocking the ladder action thob. .

I don't think so.  Let me tell you why.  To get the cutscene to trigger only at the top of the ladder is not easy.  In the version you are playing there is a trigger that fires when the player gets near the house and there is a Game Logic suspended 999.8 m above the house (in OFP terms this means 999.8 above the top floor) and all I do is fire the cutscene when the player is within 1000m of the GL.  (Why so high? - so that the whole of the top floor of the house is contained within the sphere radius 1000).  I ‘solved' the problem of having no Climb Ladder action by putting the GL at a BuildingPos that is located near the foot of the ladder - but this is in the version I have not yet uploaded.

Get rid of it for testing purposes. Or, if you tell me how, I'll test it for you while you do other thingz.

Thanks.  I have a test set up that I just need to run over night.  At the start of the mission I move a GL to the required place and I have a radio trigger that reports on the location of: the building; the buildingPos that the GL was placed at; and the GL itself.  Over time I expect the GL and the buildingPos to part company.  One very simple test you could do is: in the Mission Editor go into an empty map of Malden.  Put a single unit down in a town.  Larche might be better than Dourdan as it has many buildings of this type.  Check you can climb the ladders.  Go back into the street, leave it to soak for a few hours and then see if you can climb the ladders.  I predict you will be able to cliomb the ladders initially but not after time has passed.


XCess:
Your first post:
I am pleased for you (1000th post).  I believe doing it on your own should be possible - but quite a challenge.  If it is too easy I may need to make some changes.

Your second post:
Well you are certainly sorting out my continuity issues.  You are actually told about Andropov in the intro and in the briefing so I don't think getting a message about him being dead is a problem even if it is before you go to Tatyana and the lodge.  What might be strange is the absence of any mention of his demise in the dialogues there.  Sergei also is not a problem, he is a restless soul and goes walkabout a lot of the time.  How likely do you think your approach to this mission will be followed by others?  I can easily stop others taking this approach, but is it really necessary?


Pilot:
I have a very simple way of dealing with this mission - actually it is the way I deal with life the universe and everything - but that is another matter.  Being a bloke I can't parallel process but I do simulate parallel processing by using lists.  So any thought even if not relevant to the current discussion is good - if I can't deal with it then it goes on the list.  In this case: I agree with the difficulties you identify.  (1) I have not found a way to damage a vehicle by script that will only damage specific parts; (2) Ditto for setting the number of rounds.  One mag of HEAT adds 35 rounds of Sabots to a tank (and one mag of Shell adds 35 rounds of HEAT!!)  I don't know how to add smaller quantities.  But the big BUT is - are you sure it will work?  I have not tested it but it seems to me that it is not the original owner of a vehicle that determines its colour, but that it is associated with the model of the tank.  As I said I have not tested it but if you put an empty T80 and an empty Abrams on the map and then get into each I predict that the other tank will show red (maybe you need to put some of your team mates into the other tank first to make it live)



Planck:
As ever - I love your stories. Doing the write up after you have finished indicates an amazing ability to recall details - but I suppose at 3fps every step is etched in your memory.

[Bonko]

dunno if my experience is of any use, but the first time i played this wonderful mission i didnt get the climb ladder action, tried it several times, then i replayed the mission but i removed from my generic addons mod folder the editorupgrade175 and a few objects# pbos and it worked, still, the cutscene started on top floor but it ended on the ground floor.