AGAIN...can't find last officer...and DeNiro...?
 

Need help folks.

This is weird.

Until v.5, I've never had an issue with "losing" the last member of an enemy group, but since I've installed v.5 it's happened to me twice.

I deleted all of my Saves, and started over from scratch to test the game further than I did before, and once again, the last policeman can't be found.

Might this be due to...
...the Col. and his inferior leaving the station shortly after the shootout begins? The two of them have done this before numerous times, and has never been an issue, so I don't see why it would be now.

...a wounded officer crawling away to a yellow safety zone?

...DeNiro from Taxi Driver is NOT in this build. Instead of the yellow taxi, there's a red auto. Is this related in some weird way, or...?

Exasperated me!
Kyle
July 10, 2010

Their pictures can be scaled down, but the engine still reserves the space for the original picture so that wont work.
I think you said a few days ago that you re-installed the game. Could it be that you forgot to turn on the "Last Enemy" in the options? That would explain your troubles:)

I did a little testing last night with larger player team size and decided to put the cap at 12. Through the outourcedconfig.ini one can set the number between 6 and 12 and I hope it gives the sense of freedom. The reason I dint make the cap higher is mostly due to the spawn points. If the team is too big they wont all fit and the player would be forced to spit their team when entering a sector. It would mean a lot of dragging and dropping of their name tags on the "enter town window" before entering a town. But I think 12 is more than enough and most people will have only 9 or 10 mercs, if they use this function.

I'll add the new skills the the classes today, it wont take much time. If people are interested I could release the next version of the Class System later, just let me know.

There's far worse dude (or dudette, I don't ask if someone ain't telling)... I've seen a video with a claimed 1500 different and unscripted AIs (750 vs. 750) in ARMA II.

Ninja2dan, thanks for answering my questions about the hypothetical spotter build. Basically I was referring to this:As such, I was wondering if there was a way to make it more viable, i.e. to make the squad more able to "spare" a person to act as a spotter. If I had six operators to work with in 7.62, I'd most likely set aside the best at sniping and close-quarters defense to act as my sniper/spotter pair, then try to get the other four to emulate a fire team... possibly swapping out one of the two 'regular' riflemen for a designated marksman. If I could spare someone or had more people to work with, I might even add a flanker to the sniper team, as mentioned in the link.

Kyle, I believe the term you were looking for is "digital" camouflage, or "digicam," though a more accurate term would be pixelated camouflage.

R@S, personally I'd prefer a higher "hard cap" be possible in the new outsourcedconfig.INI, but 12 as a default cap sounds appropriate... both for manageability and because it's close in size to a modern Western infantry squad or section, as opposed to common video game references to a "squad" as 4 (more like a fire team) or 6 members. While I'd want the ability/option to "break the GUI" :P... 12's definitely a good choice as a default/recommended, so you have my agreement on that much.

The reason for the low cap on team members isn,t just balance but the ability to play the game without frustration. I've been forced to lower it even more, the cap is now 11, because if the team is bigger than that, weird stuff happens, like team members leaving your team for no reason whatsoever. Of cource I want to give the player as much freedom as possible, but not at the expense of playability.

Here's the laters test version:

Class System v6 beta

Changes in v6:

- Temporarily placed Mercon on starting map

- Fixed issue with start dialog

- Removed Show Intro Movie from the OutsourcedConfig.ini

- Added a 250 point cap on all Parameters and Skills

- Added a sixth Class Skill to all classes

- Added the increased player team function in the OutsourcedConfig.ini

Let me know how it works.

In any situation where you have a smaller "squad" or element, such as SpecOps units, managing a team and deciding what roles each will take on a mission is part of the challenge. This is why most SF operators are trained in a variety of skills, because they might be required to swap roles on different missions or even mid-mission. For example, while one operator might be acting as a sniper/observer for one mission, he might be taking part of the assault/entry team on the next mission.

The element size in 7.62 is pretty small, and the guys are closer to a SpecOps unit than your regular infantry squad. Because of this, I prefer to keep enough equipment available that I can outfit every character depending on the specific mission at hand and what role they will be required to take for that mission. I also like to cross-train the characters on similar skills, and buddy up as many as possible to increase effectiveness and survivability.

As you mentioned, it's usually a good idea to use a spotter in this game that is good at CQB, just in case their section is surprised or compromised. The sniper's slow but long-ranged weapon system can be used against enemies as they close in, while the spotter's rapid-fire short- or medium-ranged weapons are used to finish them off. Rarely would you need a spotter to actually take long-ranged shots, in most cases the only time I'd do that is if my sniper was dead/disabled or performing another critical task such as healing or reloading.


As for this "flanker", I've never seen any such role used in the US military by a member of the sniper team. The task that they described is usually performed by members of a nearby infantry/scout squad, or maybe even a light-armor unit. Snipers are also being deployed more often in clusters, multiple sniper teams deployed in the same AO to cover different sectors. By doing so they can provide cover for each other, and help ensure they have an entire area under the scopes.

In games like 7.62 though you shouldn't need a third character on your sniper team. If an enemy does happen to be spotted outside of the sniper's capabilities, then a member of your assault team should be able to take care of it. When no such enemies are known, that third member might be rotting away twiddling his thumbs instead of supporting the team better such as assisting with entry/assault or medical/support duties.

But everyone has their own methods, their own tactics, their own style of play. If that particular tactic works best for you, by all means go for it.

I haven't seen any vehicles painted in a digicam pattern, but I have seen a lot of oddball patterns since WWI. Back in the earlier wars they used to paint large circles on their tanks, polka-dotted armor was supposed to make them harder to spot. It wouldn't surprise me though if some nations were trying out a vehicle-based digital pattern, seeing all of the "hype" about those styles lately.

The reason digicam is supposed to work better than regular patterns is because the small "pixels" appear to blend together much smoother from a distance. Solid lines used in all previous patterns were often easier to spot than a broken-up pattern, and the digital patterns are also much harder to see using night vision devices or other electronic imaging.

There are a few problems that I see with having that many characters on your team. The spawn areas are already too small, especially if you are using a vehicle, and adding more characters is only going to make spawning in even worse. Unless R@S or someone else can figure out how to enlarge those spawn points sufficiently enough to support the larger teams, you're just going to have a huge mess.

Another problem with it is that the element in 7.62/BSM is not intended to replicate a full-sized infantry squad. Your team is made up of mercs, and is intended to function more like a SpecOps element. If you planned to keep the element together as either a full squad or into two fireteams, then it wouldn't be so bad. But the maps aren't large enough to support such large elements.

I remember finding a posting somewhere while playing the vanilla game, before I even knew about the mods, about how to "hack" the game and allow larger squad sizes. I tried it a few times, wanting to give myself better odds and just to see how it would work out. But it was horrible.

First, in order to select those team members you had to pan all over the map looking for them, and manually select them. Second, you had no clue as to their operational status without actively selecting that character. They could be shot, bleeding out, dead, or burnt out from running and you'd never know. It was a huge inconvenience, and I decided not to deal with it. I learned to just stick with the default squad size.


If it were possible to somehow alter the GUI to allow more characters, then I can see it being OK up to a point. But even if the bugs you mentioned above were fixed, the maps are still not large enough to support huge squads. Sure it would be fun to have 20 grunts armed with nothing but hand grenades and knives, running around like wild indians out for blood. But if you're trying to play the game seriously, it's just going to be too crowded.

Besides, with games like this I tend to prefer using smaller elements. When fighting using unconventional tactics, smaller teams tend to work better because they are harder to detect and have a little more freedom of movement and options. But if others want to run with 8-10 characters, and any bugs associated with using that many are fixed, then it's your call. Like you said, it's good to give people additional options that support their own style of play.

Squad size cap...
 

R@S,

I've only ever played 7.62 with the "auto-reveal-of-the-last-enemy" deactivated. For myself, it heightens the tension till the very end, because you can never know if that last enemy is going to deliver another dosage of grief just before the sortie's over.

I'll try build 6 and see if an enemy goes completely missing again. Three times in a row...what are the odds of that happening? I hope that they're VERY low indeed! :-x

Is the fact that DeNiro's missing from my game an indication that something's wrong, or...?

I have to agree with a number of the points that Ninja2dan brought up in regards to squad size. This game is definitely designed with SF tactics in mind, and while it does no harm to set the maximum cap at 11, I'm certainly not ever going to go past 9, as that's a pretty routine size for a SF team.

The scale of the maps are such that there isn't enough room to try tactics that require more room. I used to be pretty active in playing Combat Mission Shock Force, and to compare the scale of the maps in that game to this one is a perfect illustration of what I mean.

With the release of the Marines module for CMSF, a number of mission designers started using the squad size of the Marines to simulate SF squads. If there's one title that has a larger percentage of players who are active/retired military personnel, I can't think of one (and "Yes," that includes the Operation Flashpoint and ArmA communities). Like Ninja2dan, they're quick to supply detailed critiques to make the missions more accurate and better, and when it comes to the SF-type missions using the 9 man "Marines" setup, I've yet to read any criticisms of it.

So R@S, I wouldn't pull my hair out trying to figure out a way to get 12 or more units functioning properly in the game. I'd put that at the very VERY bottom of the To Do list.

And in regards to the "blocky" and "chunky" camouflage schemes that have come into prominence on tanks, personnel carriers, and the like... I wouldn't use the word "digital" to describe them. Digital camouflage deliberately evokes the usage of pixels that sort of "fade" one into another at the edges of another color, so that the boundaries between the different colors appear "soft." Very much like how the artist Georges Seurat invented pointillism to create images that appear to have smooth transitions of colors at a distance, but when one gets closer the multitude of dots become more distinct. I wish I could find the vehicle photos that I've stumbled across in the past, but when I say "blocky" I mean BLOCKY. The schemes look downright silly, but I'm assuming that they have to work on some level, right?

Time to play v. 6.

:grin:

Activated "last enemy" feature...
 

I activated the "last enemy" feature and I was able to clear out all of the police.

The last officer kept peeking around the corner of a building while my two mercs took shots at him till the bitter end. Is the last man standing setup so his behavior is a bit suicidal, or...?


DeNiro and his yellow taxi was still gone from this build. Is this intentional since we get the red car at the start of the game now, or...?


I liked having the Merc Recruiting Agent right at the startup site. With the amount of cash we now have, I decided to actually use him for the first time. Out of the four mercs I summoned, only one was willing to be hired by me, Dessert. Another one, Ali, was pretty hostile. We had "words" and was I surprised to get a M60 from him. Nice! Then I summoned Sonar. She wasn't interested in me hiring her. So "words" were exchanged once more. I got a MP5A4 tricked out with a collimator and suppressor. Nice. I summoned Beaver, and he wasn't interested in joining either. So I threw the "dictionary" at him and got a tricked out Saiga shotgun.

After so many declinations, I stopped summoning them.

Are all of the declines typical when using the Recruitment Agent? If so, are there any work arounds to finally getting them hired, or are these only attainable after completing certain missions?

If they are only acquirable after certain events have been triggered, what will happen now that they were killed at the very start of the game? Will they suddenly reappear, alive again? Will they have their gear restored, or...?

I'm hitting the sack. Tomorrow I plan on testing out going to get Pacquito, get my missing gear, and check out the bank to make sure it's working.

Good night all!
:grin:

I find "Last Enemy" very useful, especially in city maps where the enemy has a tendency to get stuck in walls. It saves a lot of time having it turned on, you don't have to run around looking for that missing guy you missed in your first sweep. What the setting does is make the last man standing seek you out instead of you seeking him.

The Taxi diver is removed, he was not needed anymore since I changed so much in the startup of the game. The car has always been in that location, people just started noticing it when the taxi driver appeared:)

The mercs wont work for you if you have too low professionalship, and since you decided to kill Ali, you got a 50 point drop in that. That's the reason you couldn't hire any mercs after killing him, and you need to do some missions to raise the proffesionalship before anyone will work with you again.

EDIT: Ali only works with black people, if you're using mercs with any other nationality he wont join your team.

R@S,

Ahh... All of those things are VERY good to know.

I like that the last enemy standing tries to hunt you down. Kind of gives his last moments a tragic sense of desperation. I'm leaving that setting as is. Especially since the enemy can "disappear" inside of walls. Didn't know that one either, and I don't desire to have to ever search for such.

Poor Ali. I had no idea that I had to be black to get him. And after I axed him, my loss of Professionalism virtually guaranteed that nobody was going to work for me afterward...

Lesson learned. The next time I summon potential squadmates, I'll leave him off if I'm white, which is a shame, as he has some of the best stats out of all of them. :(

Sorry to see that DeNiro's gone. That was a nice Easter egg in my opinion.

Off to do some more testing! :)

i just can't take it anymore....
kyle and r@s... i have only read about half of this thread... i haven't been able to access the forums since about 2 1/2 weeks ago...
is there some way we can meet in an irc chat, skype or icq or something similar?
you have been adressing the most important aspects of whats missing in 7.65 just now and i'd really love to delve deeper into whats possible to do with this (sadly) dying game... please excuse me saying that because i know .. something could be done about this.
i'm saying this because i'm fed up with seeing my favorite sofware developers go into bankruptcy... especially because at some point in my life, i'd love to go professional.

there are many things i'd like to respond to in this thread..... but i'd much rather talk to you guys 'in person' because i'd prefer an immediate response.