Addon Updates

Anything related to Addons on the No.2 Server. Please contact Ben or Rory for more information on Addons.
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ashley
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Addon Updates

Post by ashley »

All updates to do with the plans for the Number 2 server addons will be posted here. This includes both items to be added or removed from the pack. Also if there are any announcements or polls asking for the communities input on a decision to add or remove something it will be posted here.
[Ben]
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by [Ben] »

A message mostly to the Number 2 Mission makers:

There are plans in the works to replace Leighs Opfor Pack, we like the fact that it gives us lots of new factions and visually different units to both shoot and play as, however with the config errors that a lot of the factions have, (vehicles that you can see through among other things) as well as it being quite large in file size.

So a solution we are going to try is to config our own, Zeus Faction Pack, which will fill the same role of giving new fully configed units and factions for use in missions, that make sense for the terrains we have. Unfortunately i do not know how long it will take to make this pack, as these kind of things usually fall to me and Dmitry, and we have our hands full with terrain and other mod work, so we will get it done as soon as possible, anyone who can perform high quality retexturing is more than welcome to get in touch and lend a hand.

This means for now, mission makers should continue to make missions using LOP however be aware that eventually they will need to be updated with new class names from the Zeus Faction Pack, when it's ready and LOP gets removed. If possible i will try to give advanced warning as to when this will be, closer to when we finish, so that missions can be updated promptly.

Regards.
-Ben
You couldn't script your way out of a cardboard box.
Terox
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by Terox »

You dont need two locations to inform folks about any changes to the addon pack.
This is how the system works

1) when you log onto teamspeak, the pop up box that everyone ignores has a date on it.
This date is the last "Change" to anything community related.
Start taking notice of this and then when you see the date is different to the last time you logged onto teamspeak, hey presto, its time to click on the link.

2) This takes you to the Google doc "latest news", this document lists the changes that have occurred and also if it were No.2 addon changes it also links to the spreadsheet.
Take a look at it here..
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IoN ... sp=sharing

3) If you take a look at the spreadsheet, there is a column entitled "latest Updates". Take a look down that column and you will see clearly defined the changes since the last update. These are also mentioned on the News page.

So there is no good reason to create yet another level of beurocracy and misdirection that needs to be kept up to date.
Rory
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by Rory »

I Disagree

What Ben just posted would probably be too long to be put on the addon news section. That is what this thread is for so we can discuss changes more in depth, what might be happening in the future and major decisions / polls.

I know not a lot of people use the forums and you want to push the repo being the main source of information but I don't see this being a major hassle if its just Ben and myself handling it.
[Ben]
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by [Ben] »

There have been a lot of suggestions for new addons, in the suggestion thread, just wanting to address something about the current state of ArmA and the procedure for adding new stuff for the next few weeks.

There have been a lot of weapons pack requests, a few of them being more HLC stuff, in terms of quality i am happy with the existing HLC stuff we have so that isn't an issue, making sure any new weapons added have a proper place and are not just added for the sake of "getting new stuff" is my main priority.

A few of these weapon packs may be integrated alongside the Zeus Faction Pack we are making, as we have a few European blufor factions planned, that use weapon systems we don't yet have.

A few weeks ago we did some optimization of the terrains we have in the addon pack, removing less used terrains that take up a lot of space and replacing with, new ones that provide similar game play but with smaller file sizes. This has had a positive effect on the overall size of the addon pack.

Next up however is the turn of the equipment, we have a lot of equipment related things in the pack that are not really used, and are at this point in there because "the screenshots looked nice, and why not have them?" they aren't really serving a purpose.

As for the integration of new equipment, or new addons in general, this is on hold for now due to the impending EDEN update. The release candidate for it should be out either this week or next week, and BIS themselves have said that there are a lot of engine changes with this update and it could cause issues with a lot of mod content. For this reason nothing new will be added until the aftermath of EDEN has died down a bit and mods are releasing patches for their content.

After things have calmed down, we can commence reviewing things in the suggestion thread properly.
You couldn't script your way out of a cardboard box.
[Ben]
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by [Ben] »

Greetings all, just a quick update from me, today i added a small AI enhancement mod called Fire for Effect. It is an enhancement to the AI controlled Artillery meaning they can actually use it properly now.

The main features of this mod is the ability for AI units, to act as observers for any kind of artillery battery that is on their side. This applies to any infantry units as far as i am aware, not any specific units. The accuracy of the fire missions called are affected by how long the observing units has had line of sight on you, the weather, wind, as well as standard effects like the distance from the battery to the target. The mod also properly simulates the ability to stop following fire missions by killing the observing units that are calling it in.

There are lots of tweakable parameters that mission makers can use and i will be making a thread in the editing forum with links and suggestions to it. Overall i think this should spice up missions that use forms of Artillery and promote a change of tactics in response to enemy observers. Also the mod is setup to use artillery pieces from our addons like the BM-21 trucks from RHS.


On a slightly different note i have had a request to consider reviewing the ACRE radio system, i have had an initial look at it, and have started noting the differences between it and TFAR, i will soon be making a thread opening ideas and comments regarding it to everyone as a potential replacement for TFAR, this is by no means anything concrete at the moment just very early considerations.

Regards
-Ben
[Ben]
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by [Ben] »

So it seems to be that time again for keeping people in the loop as to what is going on with addons.

It has been difficult to plan for things to add or take away from the addons for the last few months, due to the whole lack of numbers and the locking of the server, this caused a drought of missions being made from the wider variety of mission makers we used to have, this seemed to cause the few mission makers that were cranking stuff out, to stick to the similar areas of the same maps, because it was appropriate for the numbers. (You can see how these kind of things have a knock on effect.)

Because of this lack of missions it has been near impossible to judge what is and isn't being used. Now that we have players coming back hopefully missions will start being churned out and i can get some more accurate data on what isn't liked by mission makers anymore, and then i can plan ahead to what can be removed and added.

In other news we are making slow progress with our faction pack replacement for LOP, however we hope that productivity on that will increase with the help of Hund who has shown a great ability to retexture stuff.

Also will be posting a poll aimed at everyone not just primarily mission makers about opinions on the size of terrains we play on, to help gauge what kind of terrains i should add, seen as there have been a batch of them released through March.

Hopefully the next update will be in regards to adding our faction pack, and removing LOP and possible other clutter.

Regards,
-Ben
[Ben]
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by [Ben] »

Okay, so lots of things got changed around today, so i will try and power through this.

Firstly a lot of stuff got removed, because it was either breaking missions/server, or it was past its sell by date and nobody was using it in missions so it was time to free up space in the pack for new things down the line.

So in no particular order:

Leighs Opfor Pack (LOP) - Removed due to it slowly killing us like a cancer.
Hunds Takiban - Redundant and conflicting.
British Armed Forces (BAF) - Past its sell by date.
Altis Forces Rearmed (ALFR) - Past its sell by date.

Now some things to note, ALFR has been stripped down considerably, its now almost half the size, the uniforms have been fixed by Dmitry so they have correct armor values, the things that were used a lot like the Carl Gustav launcher, and the vehicles like the land rovers have been kept, the M4's and such have been scrapped.

We have also put in the very first and very very early iteration of our in house faction pack, at the moment it consists of Danish units for Blufor and some updated Takiban, which is why Hunds takiban was removed, as it is now included. Unfortunately this meant that there was a class name change, so any missions using the takiban WILL need to be updated. Dmitry and Hund have been working on the content in the faction pack to far, and we plan to add more factions to it that are suitable to the terrains we have as we go. As a side note, if anyone is experienced with retexturing vehicles and would like to help talk to Dmitry. As it stands the Danish have most of the vehicles that they field in vanilla ArmA, however we need someone who can do vehicle retextures to make them fit with the infantry.

Finally, with all this space freed, up a new terrain has been added called Napf. It is a 20.4km x 20.4km Woodland island, based on real elevation data from Switzerland, however the place names are fictional. Its scale is similar to that of Al rayak but with a similar feel to Chernarus. I think it has potential for a multitude of missions and look forward to what mission makers apply to it.

As for the future, we are due an RHS update, hopefully this month which will bring us lots of shiny new toys as always. ACE will continue to be updated with features throughout the months. There are still issues with VT5, i have tried to get in contact with the maker of the terrain, however whilst he is active on the BI forums, he has not been active in the VT5 release thread since November of last year, so it seems unlikely we will get updates from him. We are going to try some in house fixes for the map, however without the source material it will be tricky, if we do not succeed it will most likely have to be removed, as it makes no sense to have content that doesn't work in the pack.

A lot to digest here, some changes not everyone will be happy with, but hopefully the majority will see that this opens the door for more quality and appropriate content for the future.

Regards
-Ben
[Ben]
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by [Ben] »

Don't panic! Things will be sorted soon.

So the big thing that was updated was RHS of course, which had a shaky integration but was sorted in the end. Naturally we got a load of new toys for the Russians and the US, and crucially some bug fixes for major issues like the RPG server crashes. It also removed the Insurgents and worked new Independent units into a third pack called GREF, which works out well for us, as several of the planned factions for our in house faction pack have been done in there, and to a better standard than we could manage.

Now at the time of writing this, BIS decided to hastily push out the 1.6 visual update. Which looks great on the vanilla maps, however as predicted cause more than a few issues on our addon terrains. The most noticeable being the hellish skies like on Napf. This should only be a temporary issue though that we will just have to deal with, as the CUP terrains team are RC testing their dev build that will have new lighting configs that will not only fix these issues, but should also make many of the CUP terrains look how they are supposed to. All we have to do is sit tight and wait, it shouldn't be very long at all.

Other than the CUP update, there shouldn't be any more major updates for a little while, ACE are still working on their 3.6.0 version and to my knowledge are about half way done, so we should see that at the earliest towards mid/late june. Internally we will work on the faction pack when we have the chance, though Dmitry is tied up with several projects as usual. One of which i may be able to share more details of soonish.

Finally, there have been a few requests in the addon request thread for things that don't seem to fit with what we have in the pack currently. It may be a bit much to ask, but if we can try and suggest things that would fit well and make sense with the equipment and terrains we already have that will, A) Make my job easier, and B) Make it more likely your suggestion would actually make it to a testing phase.

Regards
-Ben
[Ben]
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Re: Addon Updates

Post by [Ben] »

Okay, been a little while since i posted one of these, but there has been a fair amount of changes recently and a lot of spurious facts about the state of things being thrown about by a lot of people. Frankly i wasn't aware that everyone that plays on the number 2 server is an expert in mod making and how ArmA servers work, i should really tap into all this raw knowledge that apparently surrounds me some time.

Here are the facts as to what has been going on recently:

After the Apex DLC was launched in july, BIS themselves altered the way that all weapons in the game are configured. Why they did this is beyond me, but it's what BIS do from time to time. Now RHS updated everything right away and so those weapons were not a problem anymore, (not for a lack of people deciding to shout that they were) however RHS is not the only mod that gives us weapons, the other major culprit was HLC.

So in the interest of server stability, (E.G having to load a mission twice, and reboot the server several times in a night.) any mods that were using the old weapon config systems were removed. This happened to be HLC and most of the zeus faction pack. HLC has since been updated, however there are still errors present so at this time we will not be having HLC in the foreseeable future until Toadie get's his shit together and fixes these errors.

More recently there was a problem identified with majority of the foliage on the terrain FATA. The problem being that AI can see through it as if it wasn't there. At a guess this would have something to do with changes to vegetation LOD's that were implemented with APEX. Unfortunately FATA packs all of it's foliage itself, this means it DOES NOT use CUP foliage otherwise this wouldn't be an issue. Seen as FATA is an old map and no longer having development supported this will not be fixed, and so it has been removed.

In an attempt to replace FATA, i spent most of an afternoon searching through Armaholic and testing maps. I have decided to add the terrain Aliabad which we have had before when we used All in Arma. It is smaller than FATA and doesn't have as much vegetation but in my opinion it is the most suitable replacement i could find, after scouring through not only Arma 3 terrains, but Arma 2 ones as well. It isn't a perfect solution but it is what we have.

That sums up all of the major changes recently. Hopefully on the horizon we have an in house mod being worked on which is an Artillery Calculator, a lot of missions recently have been having certain roles having artillery support, we think it will be more enjoyable and involved if mortars were provided by the players and the manual calculator system over the rather cheaty vanilla Artillery Computer. Hopefully more details can be shared about this as it is closer to being finished.

Regards
-Ben
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