"ghosts In The Arma"

[Lightspeed]

The Objective - "To build the Ghost Recon style of play into Arma2"

Specifications -

1. Cooperative play - between 4 and 12 players initially - aim to scale the AI according player numbers"

2. No Respawns.

3. Closed Server - wait until the mission ends and then join in.

4. Limited use of vehicles - the Ghosts are a ground unit and that's where they do their best work. You won't be driving Tanks around...jeeps and trucks...yes.

5. Missions - multiple objectives between 30 minutes - 2 hours length - you choose the order.

6. Map Size - bigger then GR but way smaller then Arma - no 20 minute travel times - you insert close to objectives - get in, do you job, get out. All objectives will be within reasonable distance - 1 -2 miles.

7. No Ranking System - it's team work - not solo effort.

8. No Ranking to gain access to weapons.

9. Want to rule the sky? - That's fine - but it means you can't rule the earth (your access to ground weapons will be limited to a pistol and weapons you may find lying around if you lose your bird. The Ghosts need you for inserts, extracts or air strikes - that's all)

10. Remove the annoying voices.

11. Tournament Play - one of the goals is to build in Coop Tournaments a la GR.

12. Sniping, Demolitions, Intel Recovery, Recon, Targeting, Ambush, Rescue, Capture, Firefights, and Stealth.

13. Insertions by boat, truck, chopper and HALO.

14. All of the weapons you need and expect to complete missions- but no magic refills after insertion.

15. Medic - in some form - as realistic as possible.

16. Unique Ghost Camoflage and Face Paint??? Arma2 will take place in Eastern Europe it would appear - so perhaps a NATO camoflage for example? Just a thought.

In other words, all the things I/we love about GR plus all of the things we missed in GR - in a bigger, better engine.

Let me know if you're interested in joing this project - should be a lot of fun and the results could be amazing.

Lightspeed

[Papa6]

what would be nice is if you could develop a campaign based upon the former cold war scenarios.

[Lightspeed]

plz explain - u talking about the GR campaign or on a broader scale?

[Dai-San]

So your looking at the Revive gametype then or just medic?

Also (and this is a personal POV) I think you should stick to NO Vehicles (enemy can have them of course). I think that was the one big thing that seperated GR from other titles. The minute you let people just drive off, be it in a jeep or a Helo then you are immediately splitting the team and introducing the temptation to "Just get there quicker".

No vehicles mean from insert to extraction you move at a set pace and stick together.

[krise madsen]

Lightspeed, are you thinking exclusively co-op?

Respectfully

krise madsen

[Lightspeed]

no - I'm thinking SP and COOP - actually, at some point if this was growing enough I would look at MP.

@ Daisan - the more I think about it the more I'm starting to think that using vehicles could be a mistake too. Could still do the inserts but driven by AI.

[Sup]

Everything listed here has been done.

I don't know the names of all the mods, but i'm sure the ShackTactiacl guys do.

[squad_e]

Could still do the inserts but driven by AI.

Also agree, with just uh-60/Mh-6 inserts.... The AI are just plain ###### when it comes to vehicles and armour... They can't drive for poop...

If your wanting jets, then maybe... Because you could use triggers activated by radio to call in air support... Don't forget artillery support

Edited December 18, 2008 by squad_e

[Lightspeed]

what a learning curve!!

i have started pulling apart .pbo files to see how they function, continuing to read tutorials, work out where files are and what they do, and tested a couple of missions.

i cant help feeling though that Arma just doesnt feel as good as GR feels - i guess in time that feel will come.

[krise madsen]

no - I'm thinking SP and COOP - actually, at some point if this was growing enough I would look at MP.

I ask because game type can have considerable impact on vehicles. In fact the issue of driveable vehicles in a shooter is a huge subject all by itself.

In single player, you need the same level of command features for vehicles that are part of your team as you do for your AI team mates.

In co-op and MP, as Dai-San noted, having the team split up is a problem.

Especially since this is supposed to be a tactical shooter and not another on-rails action flick (or Quake-style MP mayhem), vehicle interaction either has to be really great, or not be there at all. This has always been a weak spot with the OFP/ArmA series IMHO. Generally speaking, less is more.

Respectfully

krise madsen

[NoQuarter]

Also agree, with just uh-60/Mh-6 inserts.... The AI are just plain ###### when it comes to vehicles and armour... They can't drive for poop...

Agreed - which is exactly why vehicle use should not be (strictly) limited to the AI.

How many times have you watched an AI driver bypass a perfectly good bridge and attempt (and fail) to ford a water course -losing the vehicle/equipment in the process?

How many times have you ordered that AI driver to reverse -and he advances in some crazy Y-pattern, giving up your position.

Or how many times have you tried to get an AI pilot to change an LZ location mid-flight?

____

Leaving the vehicles to AI use only, no matter how much the new Micro AI and pathfinding improvements are being touted...well, good luck with that.

[squad_e]

I just had a thought, why not make a GR sound mod for ArmA too?.. Using the GR classic sounds?.. But i think the devs wont like that hmm

[Buehgler_AS]

1. Cooperative play - between 4 and 12 players initially - aim to scale the AI according player numbers"

2. No Respawns.

3. Closed Server - wait until the mission ends and then join in.

4. Limited use of vehicles - the Ghosts are a ground unit and that's where they do their best work. You won't be driving Tanks around...jeeps and trucks...yes.

5. Missions - multiple objectives between 30 minutes - 2 hours length - you choose the order.

In ArmA, these are all under direct control of the mission builder. There are a few good missions out there that capture many of these ideas, but these types of missions tend to no appeal to a significant audience, and are thus not getting scripted by many people. Unfortunately the people in AS that like to write missions (including me) have been far too busy with RL for the past 6 months to make any of these

6. Map Size - bigger then GR but way smaller then Arma - no 20 minute travel times - you insert close to objectives - get in, do you job, get out. All objectives will be within reasonable distance - 1 -2 miles.

This is up to the mission builder again, but if you use the larger "standard" islands you will need natural or artificial boundaries to keep your players from moving wide of your "play area".

7. No Ranking System - it's team work - not solo effort.

8. No Ranking to gain access to weapons.

Uhhh, you do realize that these "features" are added through scripts to "evolution-style" missions and are not part of the underlying game mechanics??

9. Want to rule the sky? - That's fine - but it means you can't rule the earth (your access to ground weapons will be limited to a pistol and weapons you may find lying around if you lose your bird. The Ghosts need you for inserts, extracts or air strikes - that's all)

doable with some scripting (I think)... Certainly you can control who goes flying, the weapon thing may be a bit more difficult.

10. Remove the annoying voices.

There are a HUGE number of mods that do this in a variety of controllable ways already

11. Tournament Play - one of the goals is to build in Coop Tournaments a la GR.

The ArmA mechanics make it impossible to maintain any security w.r.t. the underlying mission script. There are also some real problematic issues with the mod signature checking system for players that have slower connections. As such, it would be EXTREMELY difficult to run an event that provided the level of trust/security which made GR tournaments a success.

12. Sniping, Demolitions, Intel Recovery, Recon, Targeting, Ambush, Rescue, Capture, Firefights, and Stealth.

13. Insertions by boat, truck, chopper and HALO.

14. All of the weapons you need and expect to complete missions- but no magic refills after insertion.

15. Medic - in some form - as realistic as possible.

Again, script/build what you want. The game does not make any of this difficult.

I just had a thought, why not make a GR sound mod for ArmA too?.. Using the GR classic sounds?.. But i think the devs wont like that hmm

There are a few mods out there that come close to doing this already. ECS can be configured to add familiar voice chatter to the SLA.

@Lightspeed, my suggestion is that you actually spend a decent hunk of time playing some "co-op" centric missions -- there are quite a few out there, but it takes some effort to find them. You will find that there are core difference in how ArmA plays when compared to GR, and those will end up constraining what can and can not be done effectively. Specifically, it is very tricky to produce fluid CQB situations, but at the same time it is hard to get the AI to fight effectively at ranges that are comparable to the ranges where player-snipers start dominating the AI. So the challenge is to pick terrain or constrain loadouts in order to promote "good" firefights.

[Dai-San]

Specifically, it is very tricky to produce fluid CQB situations, but at the same time it is hard to get the AI to fight effectively at ranges that are comparable to the ranges where player-snipers start dominating the AI. So the challenge is to pick terrain or constrain loadouts in order to promote "good" firefights.

Absolutely spot on, in fact I will go further and say that ARMA as a game is absolutely dire at anything approaching CQB.

TBH Lightspeed, turning ARMA into anything resembling GR is going to be a VERY tall order. Thats not to say it isn't an enjoyable game, and what it does it does well. But it's no GR unfortunately.

[Lightspeed]

hmmm that's interesting info, and I must say when I jumped in to play some small COOP missions last night (just me and AI to test what was out there) it just duznt have a GR-feel.

@Bueghler

I know a lot of the stuff I am looking for exists out there already - just specifying the things that I would be looking to implement into this Mod. Having played it last night though, it just doesnt feel anything like a GR experience.

Disturbing to hear that you don't think Tourneys can be built into this - this is just because of cheaters and inability to track them effectively?

Also, very disappointing to hear that while the CQB sucks, at long range the AI sucks. I will play some more COOP stuff to see if I continue to feel disappointed, but I do think that the smaller COOP missions are the best way to go at this stage.

When I mentioned map size - I meant distance between objectives being constrained so that you dont need to travel large distances.

Finally, the last thing that disappoints me is the horrible weapons lag I get unless I turn the settings down substantially - graffix are still better then GR of course, but annoying to know what you miss out on due to memory limitations. I wonder if Arma2 will be more demanding.

[Sup]

There's a setting in the options for how big the 'dead zone' for your aim to float around in is. Make it a smallish number (i like a little slack for snap aiming, but you can very well make it 0 and aim like in other shooters) and double tap shift ingame to toggle walk as default and your cqb woes should be fixed.

[Bota:16]

About the AI in ArmA: Supposedly this is something they have spent alot of time on in ArmA 2, hence why an entire core of a processor is dedicated to AI.

I think the AI havior is going to have night and day difference in ArmA 2, so the long range AI problems may be a non-issue.

[Scorpion1813]

I know ArmA is based on some American force (sorry can't remember) but if you are wanting something similar to GR how about having characters from different nationalities. Defined by a flag on an armpatch or something.

[squad_e]

Has anyone had a go at making their own custom face yet?. I think that's gotta be one of arma's most funniest and unique aspects of the game... Adding war tribal tatoo's to your face is just LOL...

Then when you die in game you see an entry wound on your face Now that's realism

[WytchDokta]

What happened to that SAW puppet mask face for ArmA?

[Lightspeed]

Update -

I have decided that the best way for me to learn at this stage is to produce a SP Campaign and have decided to redo my Behind Enemy Lines mod in Arma.

Learning heaps about the editor, and this campaign and what I want to achieve with it is my driving force - so far everything I have wanted to implement is working and as I go I throw the questions to the forums and answers follow soon after.

It's a good place to start I think.....

[krise madsen]

Update -

I have decided that the best way for me to learn at this stage is to produce a SP Campaign and have decided to redo my Behind Enemy Lines mod in Arma.

Learning heaps about the editor, and this campaign and what I want to achieve with it is my driving force - so far everything I have wanted to implement is working and as I go I throw the questions to the forums and answers follow soon after.

It's a good place to start I think.....

The good thing about generalisations is that I get to say a lot of things without really saying anything of substance

So, generally speaking , if you're doing this with an eye to Ghost Recon, you should try to mimick the best features of [GR], and exploit the ArmA2 engine to avoid the weaker points of [GR]. Caveats: I know too little about ArmA2 to make any informed suggestions, and I know practically nothing about modding anyway, consider yourself warned. Also, I tend to repeat myself

Squad Combat:

Soul-switching and the lack of a single hero character was a key element of GR. A good player spent as much time going over team tactics as he did firing his weapon, and focused on the team as a whole rather than on a single character. Copy this feature as much as possible.

Squad commands was a little weak in GR. Having played an awful lot of the original (pre-Raven Shield) R6 games, I missed the "go-codes" that let me set up a plan (though you'll have to do it in-mission rather than during the planning stage) and execute it at the press of a button. The GRAW games actually tried to remedy this, though it wasn't terribly well executed. This would be an excellent place to improve on the [GR] gameplay.

Fire & Movement:

The way GR put realistic limitations on weapons performance (i.e. the expanding crosshairs) was a vital feature. It forced the player to make a conscious decision about which weapons to issue the team, and also influenced the actual gameplay (don't rush into a building with a sniper rifle, and don't go into a sniper duel when you have a submachinegun). It is absolutely vital that weapons act in a similar manner.

Distances:

One of the weaker points of GR. Compared to GR, Delta Force was horrible in almost every way, except that you could snipe someone half a mile (or more) away. I've heard that ArmA does long draw distances quite well, so this is an area where you can go one up on GR.

Vehicles:

For single player in particular, less is more, though there is also an opportunity to better GR. If the command system gives you a sensible level of control over AI-driven vehicles, you might consider something like a spec ops equipped HMMWV for long range vehicle patrol missions or direct action raids. It would also be cool if you can navigate a Zodiac to the beach or up a river (rather than just start the mission at the beach like GR), and certainly if you can make an escape in the Zodiac, racing away from shore. However, it has to work, and work really well, or you're better off without vehicles. I'd stay off armoured vehicles and any aircraft altogether.

Respectfully

krise madsen

[viiiper]

The Objective - "To build the Ghost Recon style of play into Arma2"

Specifications -

1. Cooperative play - between 4 and 12 players initially - aim to scale the AI according player numbers"

2. No Respawns.

3. Closed Server - wait until the mission ends and then join in.

4. Limited use of vehicles - the Ghosts are a ground unit and that's where they do their best work. You won't be driving Tanks around...jeeps and trucks...yes.

5. Missions - multiple objectives between 30 minutes - 2 hours length - you choose the order.

6. Map Size - bigger then GR but way smaller then Arma - no 20 minute travel times - you insert close to objectives - get in, do you job, get out. All objectives will be within reasonable distance - 1 -2 miles.

7. No Ranking System - it's team work - not solo effort.

8. No Ranking to gain access to weapons.

9. Want to rule the sky? - That's fine - but it means you can't rule the earth (your access to ground weapons will be limited to a pistol and weapons you may find lying around if you lose your bird. The Ghosts need you for inserts, extracts or air strikes - that's all)

10. Remove the annoying voices.

11. Tournament Play - one of the goals is to build in Coop Tournaments a la GR.

12. Sniping, Demolitions, Intel Recovery, Recon, Targeting, Ambush, Rescue, Capture, Firefights, and Stealth.

13. Insertions by boat, truck, chopper and HALO.

14. All of the weapons you need and expect to complete missions- but no magic refills after insertion.

15. Medic - in some form - as realistic as possible.

16. Unique Ghost Camoflage and Face Paint??? Arma2 will take place in Eastern Europe it would appear - so perhaps a NATO camoflage for example? Just a thought.

In other words, all the things I/we love about GR plus all of the things we missed in GR - in a bigger, better engine.

Let me know if you're interested in joing this project - should be a lot of fun and the results could be amazing.

Lightspeed

Everything listed here has been done.

I don't know the names of all the mods, but i'm sure the ShackTactiacl guys do.

This thread is about ARMA2, I agree with Sup, everything that LS has mentioned for a GR styled ARMA2 mission/ gameplay is already in as STANDARD in ARMA 2 CONFIRMED !!

AS for a specific mission in true [GR] flavor it is 100% possible with the EDITOR, I've already tested it only point 16. does not come as standard in the pack.

YOU (We) will love ARMA2

[Lightspeed]

@ Krise

Just to give you an answer to your queries.

1. There is alread soul-switching in Arma and will be in Arma2.

2. Squad commands seem to be more comprehensive then GR although I havent tested them a lot to see how well they work.

3. Definite fire limitations and on the weapons - v well done in my opinion. Only problem was the weapons just didnt have the right 'feel' as they did in say GRAW - this has been addressed and improved for Arma2.

4. Draw distance- nuff said - its amazing in Arma.

5. Insertions are brilliant - just pick the vehicle and start it from whereever you like - land, sea or air - live insertions and extracts every time.

6. I will never allow vehicles to become the focus of my work - I would allow one chopper pilot and chopper, possible humvee use depending on the mission, and the use of certain vehicles if specified for a mission.

The BIGGEST downside of Arma was the ability of AI to see through trees and grass while the player could see nothing - not a fair fight at all AND the poor performance of the AI in CQB and midrange combat. I know the tree/cover issue has definitely been resolved, and understand the AI behaviour has also be rebuilt and is much more pwerful and intelligent.

I am very optimistic about ARMA2 and is the reason why Im working hard to become a mission builder to produce GR specific material.

[Sup]

Check out the ACE mod that was posted in the Arma section, you're going to see improved ballistics, weapon performance, and a better medic system.