Hey all,

First voyage was a good one with great turnout for unexplored waters, but of course a few issues came up. Please report anything odd you noticed here if I haven't already noted it as in line to be fixed. I'm also open to feature requests.

KNOWN ISSUES
- Mobile rally point can be destroyed forever if it is in a vehicle which is destroyed while it is loaded.

FEATURE REQS
- Ability to spend rep to change time and weather
- IED system

Either a medic role or an existing role that can build mash tents. Wounded status and no way to heal it just sucks.

I have reconsidered my opinion on the UAV from last night - leave it as is please. Tao's question was "should it have 8 missles good against vehicles and no soft target weaponry, or should it have 4 anti-armor missles and 4 anti-infantry missles?"

My feeling is that it shouldn't be a mini AC-130. Last night I was able to add support against vehicles but had to interact and communicate with the ground troops to deal with the infantry. That's how it should be. If it had several types of weapons I probably would have just attacked the targets with it and not used it in its more valuable role as an airborne thermal recon asset.

With that in mind, I may reduce it to four missiles, but give them slightly better all-around capability.

I will enable the healing system in NORRIN's respawn/revive script, which should reduce the problems with wounding. If you don't mind commanding AI, I always take at least a Medic with me -- they are recruitable. That's probably why it never occurred to me to add anything like a hospital tent, etc.

Really think a human medic player is a must, btw really like the map..

Is Counterinsurgency available to download somewhere? Just that with the time zone differences it's nearly impossible for me to join the SimHQ sessions but it would still be nice to try it out with a group of guys that I regularly play Arma2 with.

Taosenai, just a passing thought but one that might interest you even if it's only cross pollination of ideas. Have you considered having a chat to the guys working on MSO? There might be some common ground between the two projects. I'm not associated with the MSO guys but just have been following their work with interest over the last year or so. Anyway for what it's worth link is below:

MSO project

Cheers,
Stonehouse

I will make a version available publicly after another fix-up revision or two, certainly. Just don't want to send out something that I'll regret.

MSO looks a lot more ambitious than what I'm working on, really. COIN is just a one-off for Takistan. Looks really cool though!

New version of this being sent off soon.

Changelog for 1.0beta (from 1.0alpha):

- Fast Travel now works correctly on dedicated servers
- Hospital tents and HMMWV Ambulances can now be built by the mobile constructor, and the FOB and airbase have both
- Flying mobile constructor/medical chopper added at Loy Manara
- Support Specialist class can now fully heal nearby units
- Players can heal themselves partially one time per life
- UAV Hellfires reduced to 4 but with improved fragmentation. Good against vehicles and tightly clustered infantry.
- AC-130 cost increased to 2500 REP
- Loy Manara can be unlocked without capturing Chardarakht
- Fewer towns are attacked simultaneously during phase 2 to reduce lag
- Loy Manara units now have fuel
- Added many MTVRs to Loy Manara AB
- Removed one Bradley and one Abrams and replaced with Stryker MC and Stryker TOW respectively
- AI will now spawn in combat mode and will not be so easy to pick off. They will take positions in towns and are harder to surprise and murder in big formation groups. They will naturally travel bounding, since they could be under threat at any time from unseen forces (UAV, artillery, etc.)
- Players can no longer sell or repair buildings with the mobile constructor due to issues with the way this is handled which I cannot fix
- Some shuffling of icons and map markers to be better readable
- Players now have permanent map markers
- Mobile constructors now have permanent map markers
- Updated to newest version of Tire Fix Script
- Some misc changes to building costs

I'm uploading this new version now, it'll be ready in a few moments.

My apologies to the player "El Nino" who's game I had to interrupt for the upload.

I say we try it out tonight, say around 8:00?

Deadmeat - I am IN!

I'll see if I can make it maybe around 9. Hectic around here!

i might pop on for a bit as well

Any new bugs or features needed? I was too late.

no idea, i was to tired so went to bed instead

We noticed that stage 2 did not activate after taking the first few towns and unlocking the airport. We got the message teling us that it started, but nothing happened.

Other than that, Tanker and me had a good time. Although it might be nice to lower the cost of basic town defence items. After takeing the first few towns we only had enough point to place a few riflemen, a static weapon, and a small bunker or 2 before we ran out of rep point. Maybe raise the amount of points gained for taking a town, either way when it is just a couple of guys running around it's hard to hold the towns with so few defences at each.

-DM

How long did you wait? I tested that it starts on a dedicated server as part of my usual regression testing, but because of the new AI movement behavior, they are much slower to actually get to the towns. I like this, since it gives some time to consolidate your gains in phase 1 before phase 2 baddies start hitting. I will double check it and possibly reduce the distance away from towns that new baddie groups spawn, though.

I am planning to add a new way to get reputation separate from killing bad guys: destroying weapons caches. Weapon caches will spawn at random locations in towns; players can find and destroy them for probably 500 points each. Still determiing how to do the random placement though. I'll also look at tuning down some of the basic stuff, especially the AI infantry.

Oh, also, there are more bad guys on the map other than in the towns. Go out on patrol to the north and see what I mean when an RPG team ambushes your convoy :3

I noticed that! There was an enemy group north of Chak Chak with a mortar team and a technical. I mean well north and out of the red zone. They were shooting up my littlebird and dropping mortars on our constructed base till I found them and wiped them out.

We probable stayed on for about a half hour, and did some flights up north and didn't see anything but a handfull of scattered enemy.

Yes, further testing shows that though they spawn and move toward the town, they do so at an abysmally slow -- but very tactical -- pace. I have changed their behavior again. They will now descend on each town like lightning, fully aggressive! Or at least I hope so.

The next version will also feature buried roadside IEDs (which was previously turned off), some randomly generated and some hand-placed together with ambushers. Hopefully this will encourage groups of players to stay together on work on one town at a time, since you will need to have a Combat Engineer to do detection and EOD, plus a Support Specialist to heal when you are suicide bombed :3 Or a JTAC can call an airstrike on the IED location to take it out, or an Operator can hit it with a Hellfire, or a Sniper can nail it with his anti-materiel rifle, or a squad leader can use one of his AIs to... well. Suicide bombers are more common again.

I've also added the BIS Improved Modules script set, which improves the ambient civilians/cars/animals and adds a small performance boost.

Still working on the caches.

EDIT: Static defense/AI infantry costs also lowered across the board. Vehicle prices increased slightly to encourage formation of a logistics network with vehicle airlifts to outposts from the main bases.

EDIT 2: Unarmed IED caches worth 500 points added. There are some hand-placed ones in the south. The phase 2 ones are automatically generated in towns which are under attack by enemy forces and placed near buildings. They are tough to find! You shouldn't miss the very first one.

Sounds good, can't wait to try it out again. I see a possible all nighter, maybe Friday or Saturday.

See you in the game
-DM

Yeah after some tests I will send this version to adlabs and schedule something for Saturday night maybe. Might not be able to come myself but at least it'll be out there.

After some dedicated server testing and a few fixes I've sent this off.

Changes:
- IED caches added: destroy for 500 Rep. These appear randomly in northern towns under attack, and are hand-placed in the south.
- Randomly spawning buried pressure-plate IEDs can now appear, especially near roads. Watch out! The Combat Engineer can disable these, or you can blow them up.
- Suicide bombers should be more common.
- Added a few more set-piece encounters.
- Reduced costs of buildings.
- Enemies attack the northern towns more quickly.
- Some vehicle changes.

Tao,

I played this mission Friday night. Just myself. I cleared the first two towns and then it crashed. (9:30 P.M. EST 'ish).

My 2 cents:

Way easy. I cleared the first two towns all by myself and only died twice. I just sniped and used the Strykers from the hilltops. Never encountered any ieds, bombers, etc.. Is it based on number of players?
The only thing I saw was a muj run up to plant a land mine in front of my stationary Stryker. Then he just stood there, so I shot him.
Come to think of it, I never had to move. After the first shot they all came to me. Group comes close, kill, next,...... Town clear.

The server most likely went down to upload the new version, since adlabs emailed me about it around then. NEW VERSION IS UP

The first four towns are statically designed and do not have any dynamic spawning. They are designed to be cleared out quickly and easily by 1-4 players to provide an introduction to the game type and allow an initial growth of Reputation Points for building outposts north. Once those four are secured, you unlock the airbase and the enemy begins spawning dynamically, including more powerful groups up to a T-34+infantry team, as well as random hidden mortar teams.

The number of enemy groups that spawn in Phase 2 is determined by the number of players connected at the spawn time. More players means more groups attack each town, but fewer towns are simultaneously attacked.

I'm surprised you were able to get away with sniping and Strykering without moving. In Chak Chak, they have a mortar base set up which will shell the heck out of you near the town -- it has always prevented me from using that type of tactic, if I don't get slaughtered by the SPG-9 trucks first. Suicide bombers and VBIEDs will only be found in CQB in the town -- the newest version has also roadside bombs, but they are not excessively common except in a few zones. If this turns out to be an issue even in phase 2, I already have a solution in the pipeline that will spawn dedicated groups that know your position and will continuously hunt players down across the map, lol. Hit squads! I've held off on this.

That said, it's not designed to be that difficult in terms of actual fighting -- U.S. forces have a huge tech advantage over insurgent junk. The challenge comes in phase 2 when you can't be everywhere at once (while the insurgents can), and have to rely on your bases, logistics network, outpost fast travel links, and other transport assets to fight across the map to hold as many towns as possible. We discovered this playing with 4-5 players before. Even with Apache + Abrams and other assets, we were having trouble holding just the southern towns consistently, since as soon as we left the enemies who were hiding in the town could reclaim control, and it was risky to move the base building equipment around near uncleared areas.

Thanks for the explaination.

Another thing I did not like is having to go to that tent to change my view distance. Can you just that on the map or radio?

Since that's a one time thing, I don't want to clutter anything up.

bug - need to fix fast travel

maybe some sort of anti-flip thing for the vechiles?? as fun as it is watching a stryker fly several thousend feet in the air when hit with a bradley, it is a bit annoying

Bug - Abrams at Loy Manera are locked and not playable.

There was a floating guy in a static .50 just north of the the middle of the airbase.

Just sent a new fixed version off.

Fixes:
Fast Travel should be MP compatible now.
I removed the IED system -- it doesn't work on dedicated servers. I will see what I can do about replacing it somehow.
I deleted that floating M2 guy. Wonder how he got there.

Wouldn't expect any major updates to this for awhile, unless the fast travel turns out to still be broken. I am reconsidering the concept and trying to determine how I can make it less possible to stand off and just abuse technology against them. I wanted this to be a very up close and personal type of conflict. Perhaps I will make a new variant that only includes light vehicles.

more people inside? that way you HAVE to go in on foot and clear them out?? TOW pads?

More takiban in the houses would help. With this 1.60 I saw a takiban take cover in a house.

Maybe it is my military training, but standoff firepower from high ground is the only thing I do.

I think the issue maybe the game itself. When ever you shoot at a squad/group of AI they just automatically start making their way toward you. Then you just keep picking them off as they get closer. The game has always been this way. So when I roll up to a town I take a couple of shots at group to start them coming at me. Take them out and then start with the next group. So on and so on.

It's a difficult issue for sure. The main weakness of the default AI is its unwillingness to engage with suppressive fire at long ranges. They prefer to just run towards you until they get a nice kill shot possibility. Meanwhile you have killed 80% of them. This is greatly improved by certain AI mods, but it's difficult to build into a mission.