Arma 2 mission making - suggestions, ideas and repository.

[Wolfenswan]

As the ARPS thread is bloated enough already I figured a new thread dedicated to mission making might be in order.

Use it to talk about ideas, implementations, problems, provide links etc.

I'll edit this post with useful links and what not as they come. There's an excellent mission making subforum over at the FOLK forum too (link follows later, I'm at work atm), this thread is mostly intended towards general orientation and exchange.

Mission making related stuff

- F2 - "F2 is an attempt to help the new mission designer take advantage of a library of pre-tested components that will increase the quality, re-playability and performance of his/her missions, whilst allowing him/her to focus on making his/her own unique ideas come to life."

- cLass names | tables - All Arma 2 & OA classnames for weapon and units in several tables

- class names | w. pictures - another library with all class names; a bit slower to navigate but with pictures for every unit and object.

- The FOLK forum's mission making subsection (useful scripts, general and specific advice etc.)

Other useful stuff

- Arma 2 Mission Repository - growing archive of arma 2 missions (1300+ at the time of writing) in one big .rar, all categorized and accordingly renamed

[Wolfenswan]

Mission Idea:
Car chase through Takistan versus BLUFOR and TK (Adversarial).

I was listening to too much music from cheesy 80s series and was thinking of a way to recreate a proper (adversarial) car chase.

Goals:
The rough concept is that TK/Militia have to get one person to a safe zone and have several checkpoints on the way, guarded by (a few) friendly AI). BLUFOR have to stop the convoy and take the "VIP" alive.

Implementation:
- BLUFOR would use the teleport script as seen in highway to teleport to one of a set of army bases where vehicles are waiting. (Of course this system is abuseable, but we're all gentleman right?)

-Giving BLUFOR only lightly or even non-armed Humvees would force them to actually ram/block the enemy convoy.

- The escort might get a few pk technicals as they are very limited in terms of firing arc. Maybe a (unarmed) BMP HQ to escort the VIP in ("houserules" to ensure it doesn't just keep driving?). Or a crappy car to keep them on the roads.

- The checkpoints could be lightly fortified villages with waiting spare vehicles or even additional player controlled squads (so Ind get stronger on the way)

_______

That's it so far; general implementation wouldn't be too hard, achieving what i'm going for might be.
Any ideas?

[StrangLove]

Some sort of adversarial vehecular combat mission, with AN2s...

But seriously, some kind of scenario where a massive attack is posed around the playersquad, with the playersquad acting as mounted/armoured infantry, akin to some of the A2 scenarios, would be great fun.

[Joseph-Sulphur]

I like the idea wolf. I suggest sticking the VIP in a Lada or something to force the indies to actually defend him. Give BLUFOR unarmed Humvees/Land rovers so that they have to set up some kind of rudimentary ambush in order to have time to bail out of their vehicles and fire their weapons.

I've got a mission to decent working standard now, with a couple of issues. Its called 'Ride of the Valkyries', and I made it using F2. Just as a side note I'd like to mention that F2 is really, really useful to a mission making newb like myself. Streamlines things a lot.
We play as Takistani Army and start at the southern airbase in Takistan with two Mi-24s and two L-39ZAs. We have to kill all BLUFOR in two towns. The idea is that the Hinds are used to transport the infantry and then as fire support along with the LZ-39As. As its a folk mission I designed it intending for the air support to be used in a coordinated way, i.e. being called in by the infantry instead of flying around shooting at everything they see.

I have two problems that I need help resolving, as while the mission is perfectly workable right now I'd like to add these features.

Firstly, how do I create custom F2 map markers for the Hinds and L-39s?

Secondly, is there a quick way to have a unit's waypoint activate when a trigger is activated?

[Wolfenswan]

Firstly, how do I create custom F2 map markers for the Hinds and L-39s?

Do you want the marker to give the location of the (empty) vehicle or the dedicated crew?
For the latter it's a matter of adding the group name (xyz group this, the exact syntax eludes me atm.) to two of the Folk Group ID sqf files (one's for the ingame chat display, the other for the markers themselves). Make sure you add them to the correct case block (that indicates the faction)

With an empty vehicle it might just work the same but I am not 100% sure, might need some trickery. Best to try it out.

Secondly, is there a quick way to have a unit's waypoint activate when a trigger is activated?

Use synchronize. It's the best thing ever. Create a group/unit, give it a first waypoint and sychronize the waypoint with the trigger. As soon as the trigger goes off the group will move to the next waypoint you gave them.

[Joseph-Sulphur]

Thanks wolf thats a great help. I'll crack on with that.

Saturday's ACE session was fun but there were a lot of bugs in the missions we played. Someone suggested making ACE versions of tried and tested RPS stalwarts like Stilborn Eagle and Skirmish Devils, which is an awesome idea. Stilborn with ACE weapons and crucially ACE ordnance (Claymores! Bouncing Betties!) has captured my imagination. I don't have a .pbo of Stilborn in my MPMissions cache, so could someone upload it somewhere?

[Wolfenswan]

Check the Arma 2 Mission Repository. Both should be in there.

[Bodge]

-Battle Royale-

Arma mission where players are spawned across chernarus (escape style) with random gear. Grid squares randomly become lethal following a warning. Victory is achieved by being the last one standing (or if you want to be true to the film you could have a fortified compound containing the "Boss" who can be eliminated).

I haven't really researched this much but I like the idea of it.

[Wolfenswan]

Two rough ideas in my backlog:

A mission named UN-necessary violence.
Includes UNO, that's basically the only premise.
I was thinking of pushing into Shapur as the map is somewhat underplayed.
Maybe they have to escort a bus full of un delegates/doctors to the airport through defending militias/ofpor.

Adversarial alternative could be that there are hardly any to none AI enemies but the opposing team starts south in (unarmed) technicals and has about 5-8 minutes to get into position in the center of town, then the UNO guys move through. Goal is to capture, not destroy the bus. Probably needs houserules to make it really fair (like "bus has to stay on the mainroad")


Mission with seperated elements, relying on each other

Harakka's mission gave me the idea but we've been contemplating that more than once I think. Basically one squad has to do X while the other does Y and one failing with their goal makes it harder for the other.

An idea was to feature an element attacking a military base via hit & run, taking out enemy vehicles. The more are taken out, the less are in the convoy that has to be taken out by the other element. (Can be switched too)

Or have one element attack the outer perimeter of a base to flush out an officer, who's convoy has to be taken out by the other element. Maybe use a big TK irregular element and a small OPFOR special units element.

Final goals could be included where the elements to unit for a final, big assault.

[Wolfenswan]

cross-post from the FOLK forum:

I'm currently converting a script I found in a I44 mission to regular CO Arma 2.

It basically enables infantry guys to throw grenades inside a vehicle.

So far I've made good progress but I'm having problems with converting a rather clunky line from the unit's init to a general script.
At the moment every unit with said ability needs to following code in it's init with the respective unitname. I'd rather prefer a simple this execvm scriptname instead.

Here's the code.

UNITNAME addAction ["<t color='#dddd00'>"+"Throw grenade inside"+"</t>","GIT\initgrenadeintank.sqf",[],2,true,true,"", "({((_target distance _x) < 7)
&& ((side _x) == east)} count nearestObjects [_target,['tank'],7] > 0)
&& (alive _target) && ((vehicle _target)==_target)
&& (({_x in magazines _target} count [""HandGrenade_West"",""HandGrenade_East"",""HandGr enade""]) > 0)"];

a simple _unit = _this select 0;
and replacing UNITNAME with _unit *might* be enough but I'm not sure.

Edit:
Yes it was that easy. I'll upload the complete script in a comfortable package soon-ish.

[Kelron]

I don't have a clue where to start with the mission editor and I don't like coding, so here's a couple of ideas I had if anyone else feels like playing with them.

Mission involving search and secure in Zargabad

Ideally a fairly simple, fast mission. Littlebird forced to land in Zargabad blah blah. 2 pilots lightly armed and on foot, rescue team coming from military base north with Humvees. No radio contact. Scattered lightly armed enemies around Zargabad that the pilots need to avoid or kill while trying to make contact with the rescue team. Considerable enemy forces coming from the south with technicals, they should arrive before BLUFOR to defend the crash site and hunt the pilots.

Main objective for the rescue team is to locate and secure the chopper, finding the pilots would obviously help as they know where it is, but the mission won't be failed if they die.

Multistage mission involving botched HALO jump

Make up a reason why a special forces team is falling out of the sky scattered and with half their equipment missing. They got shot down or something. They need to meet up, secure transport and equipment before moving on to destroy some AA/armour. They could either recover equipment from the flaming wreck of their plane (which would draw enemy attention, but make an easy meeting point), or attack an enemy outpost for theirs. Extended map info should be off, but they'd all be in radio contact and not spread out too far, so people should be able to see the same landmarks.

[Joseph-Sulphur]

fkco_co45_ride_of_the_valkyries
Map: Takistan
JIP: No
Servers: RPS and Folk
Scripts: F2 OA Folk
Description: A Takistani Army airborne force must take two towns from US and Czech forces. The host/admin/CO should choose to take either two Hueys and an LZ-39A attack jet or two Mi-24 Hinds.

Mission idea: Abrams troop attacks Zargabad
Four, maybe five M1A2 Abrams assault Zargabad from the East. They have access to an AH-6X (Unmanned drone littlebird) and one player drives a repair truck. Possibly have a mortar striker as well, and maybe a Linebacker if I want to add hostile air units. The town will be heavily defended by armoured enemy as well as concealed RPG dudes.

Mission idea: Lightly armoured convoy protected by A-10
A BLUFOR convoy comprised mostly of unarmoured trucks and infantry (possibly with a few Jackals/Humvees) has to move across Takistan where it is repeatedly ambushed. An FAC on the ground has to call in air support from an A-10 which is equipped solely with laser guided bombs (and cannon, of course).

[Wolfenswan]

Script: Concealed Weapons

Edit: i found a script that does the job perfectly fine and works on a global level. Here.

This short script adds an action for the player to pull a concealed weapon, creating it out of thin air. As ARMA2 defaults to pull a gun as soon as it's equipped, it's hard to have player incognito by default without taking away all their weapons.

As the script fires it adds one of three random weapons and the corresponding magazines to the player's inventory and makes them pull the weapon.

The script's simple enough and you can easily change it to give specific weapons instead of random ones.

Known Bugs:
- as long as a player has not pulled the weapon, other players can activate their action for them when near; probably easy to fix but I'm ignoring it for now
- players have to change firemode/select through weapons ("F") after activating the script and pulling the gun; this is an arma2 thing, probably unfixable.

pullweaponaction.sqf

_unit = _this select 0;

_unit addAction ["<t color='#dddd00'>"+"Pull concealed weapon"+"</t>","scripts\pullweapon.sqf",[]];

in the unit's init: nul=[this] execvm "scripts\pullweapon.sqf";

pullweapon.sqf

Private ["_host","_value","_action"];

_host = _this select 0;
_action = _this select 2;
_value = floor(random 3);

if (_value == 0) then {
{_host addmagazine "20Rnd_B_765x17_Ball"} foreach [1,2];
_host addweapon "Sa61_EP1";
};

if (_value == 1) then {
{_host addmagazine "30Rnd_9x19_UZI"} foreach [1,2];
_host addweapon "UZI_EP1";
};

if (_value == 2) then {
{_host addmagazine "8Rnd_9x18_Makarov"} foreach [1,2,3];
_host addweapon "Makarov";
};

_host removeAction _action;

[fer]

@ Wolfenswan - see this response: http://www.ferstaberinde.com/folk/fo...2&p=1895#p1895

[DWZippy]

-Battle Royale-

Arma mission where players are spawned across chernarus (escape style) with random gear. Grid squares randomly become lethal following a warning. Victory is achieved by being the last one standing (or if you want to be true to the film you could have a fortified compound containing the "Boss" who can be eliminated).

I haven't really researched this much but I like the idea of it.

Please, please can this be made.

[Wolfenswan]

Can I get some feedback on what can be improved in Jahannam? I'll remove the armored columns and many enemies up to and in the first town. Probably the triggers in Gorka as well.


I'll also be fixing up nightblind for a 30+ player count, suggestions are welcome.

[Bodge]

Maybe try a version where players have torches (I dunno which weapons do tbh), not as an actual mission but to see if you learn anything about the mission that way.

[Wolfenswan]

Maybe try a version where players have torches (I dunno which weapons do tbh), not as an actual mission but to see if you learn anything about the mission that way.

i like the idea. might give them to one unit per squad (not the FTL) or the medics.

the weapons in question:
glock17_EP1
M4A3_CCO_EP1
SCAR_L_CQC_Holo
SCAR_H_CQC_CCO

[Wolfenswan]

script to call in off-map illumination

Edit: Code deleted, PM me for the script; I'm in the process of rewriting it.

A script i worked on for nightblind. It's nothing fancy but probably worth the share.

What it does is that it adds the ability to certain units to call in off-map artillery for illumination who then go off x times over a target area after which there's a brief wait for the next barrage. The script's fairly self-explanatory and comes in 4 files.

Note that it won't broadcast the sidechat stuff to all players, only to the player that runs the action (which is either CO or DC). That's thanks to Arma2's locality things and the only way to fix it would be to externalize all messages into a script that's fired by a mission-side trigger which itself has the starting condition where otherwise the chat would be. I felt that this would bloat the script unnecessarily and players can just communicate what they are reading.

[/quote]Feel free to comment, criticize etc.

[Nullkigan]

I might start putting those up on the herosquad news feed, just to have something on the page.