AUS_Viper

Life is truly stranger than fiction sometimes. I was cleaning out my study this week and found my dusty GR discs and out of nostalgia decided to re-install after some 7 or 8 years for fun. To my horror, Operation Stabilise was no where to be found! So I took a gamble and googled GR.net and much to my amazement found u guys were still around. Even more amazing was my old username and password worked lol. Next I searched for OP Stab and was even more amazed (have I mentioned I was amazed) to see a post only 4 weeks old about my MOD being re-categorized. Even after all this time, it brings me great joy to see ppl still enjoying playing a mod of a 10 year old game. Awesome I see my son (who was literally in nappies during this mods development) playing the COD MP kill/die/kill/die game and wonder what happened to the good old days of mission planning and execution that lasted 30 plus minutes....maybe it's a sign of the times. Anyway, great to be remembered fondly and having a blast playing this old gem again. Rocky, I salute your commitment and perseverance, such a wonderful thing to see after all these years. Best Wishes Team

Its about 5,000km from me, so I hardly felt a breeze. I'm down south - a bit like New orleans when a cyclone hits new york. Thanks for the concern though mate - appreciated. BTW - Saying Deks is Ok is like saying rainman is a schlolar. Deks is never OK - he's a mad Queenslander.

I just worked something out that is so simple, yet has eluded me for a while. Many may already know this, but hopefully it's news to some - as it was to me. It certainly made the "penny drop" and helped a lot of other things fall into place. It regards the use of triggers in the editor. We all know how to set up a trigger that is set off by BLUFOR present. Simple stuff. You check all the right boxes ie activation BLUFOR present, type switch...yadda yadda yadda. I won't go into further detail for the fear of being condescending.... We also know that if we take that same trigger, hit F2 and drag a line from the trigger to say...the player, that this trigger will now be activated by him only (the activation box automatically changes to vehicle - which is both men and vehicles in VBS / OFP). Nothing hard here yet...... But what if you wanted this trigger to be set off by the player only after some other condtion was met first? For the sake of explanation, lets say after objective one is complete and the player stumbles into this trigger you want a counter-attack to occur. Obviously, you don't want this counter-attack to occur if he stumbles into the trigger before objective one is complete. What I used to do is change the condition field from the default "this" to your condition variable. Again, to keep things simple, lets say after objective 1 is completed the variable "one" is set to true (one=true). Therefore, you would replace the "this" in the condition field with "one". Seems logical enough. The trigger is still set to BLUFOR present and the condition field has "one" as it's variable. So you would think that this would be set off after one has been set to true AND the BLUFOR player wanders into the trigger zone. WRONG. I have used this many times before and once the variable is set to true, the trigger's activation executes regardless of whether our BLUFOR player has entered the trigger radius. Now for the cool stuff. It all revolves around the default value in the condition field...."this". I never spared a thought on what this meant, but now I understand completely - it's so simple! "This" means "this trigger". Think about it for a second. It's the activation field and it has "this" as the default value. Why? Because you have already set the activation parameters in the above sections...ie BLUFOR...present. "this trigger will activate if BLUFOR is present". So if you want the trigger to activate if BLUFOR is present AND if condition "one" has been set to true, you don't delete the "this" and replace it with "one", you would type: this && one Which means, the variable one has been set to true AND (&&) this trigger's conditions have also been met (ie BLUFOR present). I hope I haven't lost anyone in the translation...... Anyhow - I think this is pretty important stuff as it has made me look at triggers in a whole new way, now I understand what "this" really means. It could help with objectives, ending missions etc etc etc. If this is old news for the seasoned OFP scripters - then I apologise for my unashamed excitedness. But then again, judging by the amount of condition fields that are left with the default "this" in missions I unPBO, I'm tipping it's something most have dismissed..... Anyway - I'm certainly happy about it as it fixes a LOT of issues I have with multiple-condition-based triggers. Cheers

Believe it or not, I just reinstalled GR in preparation of this MOD. Looking forward to seeing this one

Mate - on my PC that was at dusk, but it's daytime here. Did you Pshop this or is your PC monitor brightness set at "thermonuclear"

LMAO - now that IS funny

I like the idea of using many resources to put together missions strung together. One big advantage of this is all us scripters approach things in different ways and we all have different perceptions on what a scenario should look like. I think this is a good thing as you will have missions played in sequence, but with potentially very different objectives / traps / OPFOR etc. A bit like RL if you think about it. There would have to be a reasonable timeframe for mission output though. I seem to be averaging from concept to finished version about 6 weeks. Don't know what the expectation would be, but if we had about 8 guys working on 8 different scenarios, potentially we could produce enough missions to keep the ball rolling. The last thing you want is to get to mission 3 of the campaign and mission 4 is some 5 weeks away. Kinda of lose the momentum. In regards to playing - count me in. Coop would be fun, but I gotta be honest - in team vs, the XDF lads would carve us up without breaking a sweat. Well, carve me up anyhow...... I won't be able to play during the day however, only AUS night time. I only take days off work to script, not play - that way I don't feel so guilty, since no-one knows I'm home Add Ger to that list too and we have 4 very capable and likely lads who know how to throw together a few triggers and waypoints...... One question does immediately pop into my mind. Coop is fine, but in team vs - how do we test a mission before it enters the "arena"? Whichever crew tests the mission will have a distinct advantage over the others since they know the terrain, hiding spots, kill zones etc.....something worthy of consideration.

Thats why fingers rest on W.A.D. keys, but the thumb sits on V

My pleasure guys. Nice to be able to give something back to the community that helped me so much with Ghost Recon. Keep asking the questions and I'll try my best to help. Your not a noob mate - your a very talented scripter just learning a new syntax. Yeah good call Pave. This is a very good script and it isn't used often enough. N4 you can find it Here. its the one called Sniper script by pica. It's quite simple to modify it for other purposes. I used it a couple of times to have OPFOR move to random "cover" once they were set to COMBAT. I don't doubt it for a second

Here goes N4. The enemy detects you using a "knowsabout" value, which is not just about proximity, but all to do with how much the enemy knows about your pos. A sniper 700m away looking at you in his scope knows where you are, how far away you are etc - basically everything. A squaddie with an iron sight AK will not see you duck behind the bushes some 300m away - unless they have binoculars. I tested this theory with the new russian scoped AK's and it works - the scoped AK tangos "knewabout" the BLUFOR well before the non scoped AK boys. Now with that in mind it is theoretically possible to sneak up behind a tango (who has almost zero peripheral vision) and bang him on the head with a cricket bat. I say "in theory" as I have never tried it. However, they also do react to sound as if you fire off a weapon and you are out of his peripheral vision he will drop and scan the area looking for the source of the sound. That's because his knowsabout value has been lifted from knowing "nothing" about a target to knowing "something" about a target - they just don't know everything about the target yet as they haven't eyeballed you. There is quite a large explanation about the knowsabout command at OPFEC found Here The skill level of the tango appears to affect the reaction time and targeting capability. It appears to make them detect you quicker, but I believe it is just the reaction time once his knowsabout value reaches the "detection" peak. So stealth does play a large part in how much the OPFOR knowsabout you and therefore if you are "detected" or not. Information Sharing One big bugbear I have with opfor and the knowsabout value is they may look like they are on the same side, but apparently there radios don't work to well. If you sneak up on an opfor and shoot him on the southern side of the base, his mates at the north gate still stand around with hands on hips like its a dress rehearsal. There is a simple, but powerful information sharing script I have used in my last few missions that can be found here. Its the top listed script called AI information sharing. You can set the distance that enemies will share their knowsabout value with each other. So set it to 100m and all tangos within 100m of each other will share information about your location. To simulate radio intel between OFPOR, set the min distance to 9999. I tested this using a zsu location manned with four sentries. The Blufor vcl drives in from the north and races past the zsu's location. With no info script the north facing sentry spots you and goes to alert, but his mates looking the other way don't unsling their rifles untilt he vcl is almost past them. Throw in the script with exactly the same scenario and a millisecond after north guy spots the vcl, they are all onto him. Triggers comparing troop numbers You can complement this info sharing script by setting two triggers over a particular area - say a base. One trigger just counts the amount of OPFOR in the base and allocates it to a variable name. The second trigger (over exactly the same area) counts the units again, but compares it against the variable to see if it is different. If it is less, then you can set the camp to alert status, choppers can take off whatever. The first trigger set off by OPFOR present, type switch condition : true on activation: campgroup=thislist; campgroupnumber = count campgroup. The second trigger set off by OPFOR present, type switch condition:count campgroup < campgroupnumber on activation: whatever event you want to take place ie alarm=true, dude setcombatmode "RED"; dude setbehaviour "COMBAT"..etc (the red text is a variable name). I like using this as if you have a sniper at the top of the hill with a silenced weapon, it's possible not to set off the knowsabout value of the squaddies until half their base are killed - a bit unrealistic (unless you're bruce willis in tears of the sun). The info sharing script may be set to only 100m, but the camps two gates are 200m apart - so that doesn't pick it up either. With the triggers, you can set a delay on the second so after say 15 seconds of the first boy biting dirt, the camp alarm may sound. You can also randomize this delay. To have reaction teams respond to a your specific location use a hunterkiller script. I have used them in half of my missions - there's one in Airfield Patrol if you DePBO it. It basically sends a squad to the variables (players) location, checking every 60 seconds to see if his location has changed at all. Its also found over at OPFEC Here. Quite easy to "append" other scripts onto it once the OPFOR get within a certain distance of the target they react a different way. Hope this starts you mate

They are very good maps, but just be careful with view distance settings and lots of scripts running. If you plan on running a few scripts, tone back the viewdistance. Just placing heaps of OPFOR doesn't take the big performance hit - it's mainly scripts and viewdistance that take up CPU time. Scripts that loop and wait are particularly nasty... That's what I've found anyway. BTW N4 - Congrats buddy. I got two of the rugrats, so I can vouch for the drop off in online gaming.

Yeah - best fun I had with a mission for a long time. Damn those XDF boys were methodical! God help any RL OPFOR these guys come up against Will make some minor changes and then re-test. Won't be able to distribute until 2.03 is finished as it uses some of the new commands. Actually, just thinking of it - with the test going past 1 hour for the mission itself, we never got to see the onslaught of the kill zone I had developed and discussed above. That part would have come next..... Also a Mi-17 was ready to pounce, but never got released.....which is a good thing since in the excitement I think all forgot about the importance of keeping some Stingers handy...

Quote from a corny, but fun movie.... "where's he from?" "Little Rock" "Little Rock Arkansas?" "Nope. California" "What!...He's a Yankee!" "Well, not really. If your from California, your not really anything..." "Yeah...You said it...." PS - Me thinks California is a lot like Queensland. Too much surf, sand and sunblock for me. Then again, with all that damn sun, it does explain why Deks is like he is.....Sun up at 4.30am....too early for me.... I like the dark, wet, cold depressive weather down south....Melbourne style. A bit like Seattle weather for you American boys. For the record, Sydney is a bit like San Fran. Weather and well...you know.......the moustache wearing, antique restoring, tight pants hugging, metrosexual face cleansers using, strangley high pitched voice speaking kind of guys.....not that I'm trying to stereotype here at all...................

Wow! Just watched my own creations in action in the editor and it's better than a spielberg movie 10 MIA1 tanks....count them...10! and two squads of infantry were just obliterated by my nasty OPFOR AI emplacements. These poor OPFOR guys only have two T80's and a BMP2. There was shells going off everywhere! To coin a phrase from yet another movie..."it was beautiful man..!" OK...I should also add that the poor OPFOR AI also had the following assisting them... 1. AT traps to slow down the BLUFOR tanks in the killingzone(s) so the infantry could have their way with them. 2. AT mines at strategically placed points 3. Barricades that included AT traps and barrels full of fuel that blow once ignited. 4. A few infantry AT teams behind fixed emplacements 5. The 2 T80's were bunkered in emplacements, so the BLUFOR AI tanks didn't always hit their targets 6. MG posts that help finish off the BLUFOR infantry 7. Spawned OPFOR infantry reinforcements that race to the battlefront where a T80 has been lost. 8. Snipers - of course 9. Ammo dumps so the OPFOR groups can rearm their AT weps 10. Positions set up so whatever way the BLUFOR approaches, the OPFOR will be able to initiate a crossfire situation. (God I LOVE Freya!!) Having said all that, the OPFOR was still vastly outnumbered, but it does show what bunkered defensive troops are capable of. I should also add, that this section I was watching is the last part of the BLUFOR assault on an OPFOR base. Things I didn't mention before this are: a. Shilkas that will move to random locations after firing on the BLUFOR helo's - after all, they are mobile. Some of these shilkas in exposed terrain have bmp escorts. b. Patrolling BMP troops that will exit the BMP if it is under fire to help assist in the defence (You can't shoot anyone inside a tin can). If their BMP is destroyed after exiting they will follow the next armoured vcl in the group; if all armour is destroyed, they will hunt down the guys that destroyed their armour. These particular BMP's are of course patrolling with T72's. c. OPFOR Troops within 500m of each other will share information about their targets. d. All OPFOR use the recently released Cobra Scoped weps to make it fair when up against the Elcan sight. Which will make it very interesting since this mission has almost as many playable OPFOR slots as it does BLUFOR. (BLUFOR get more spawns since there up against a well dug in enemy) I could go on, but you probably getting bored..... I guess I didn't think of what would happen if the BLUFOR armour had Captain UNISOL (aka Gordon) in their midst. Those things you just can't predict - I'll have to wait and see how my AI defenses hold up..... Seriously - sorry to bore you with this post, but I was stoked at how my own "AI" boys held up against such an overwhelming force. I had to tell someone and god knows my wife isn't interested... Oh, and by the way, if you haven't guessed....a new mission is under development. Cheers.