My Ideas for ALiVE (with a grain of salt)

8 years ago

D

Diabolical
8 Nov 2015

I was told this was a good enough place to put my ideas and suggestions for future builds of ALiVE.
I'am also aware that the team is currently in a "fix all the problems" state and new features aren't on the urgent list.
Regardless I thought it was a good time for me to add my wish list for future releases.
Now this list isn't just from my recommendations, I'am currently apart of the Aussie ArmA outfit RIFM (Rifling Matters) who on our main mission nights average around anywhere from 60+ players. Now just recently we have been playing around with ALiVE on off nights to see if it could replace our current mission framework which is heavily dependent on the DAC code. There has also been a spark in wanting to play MSO style persistent campaigns every now and then.
So after a few nights of playing around this is what we have had issues with and also what we'd like to see.
1) white list instead of black : being able to call what unit you want present instead of the other way around in my personal opinion is much more intuitive. Especially with factions like vanilla OPF_F were there are many sub-factions to the class you have to add to prevent them popping up in your group compositions.
2) custom task compositions : I've brought this up in the past and thought i'd refresh on it. being able to create your own compositions for Tasks, Roadblocks, bases etc etc. would be a massive smile on my face. currently having a un-conventional force using statics from the future doesn't really sit well with me. Also with the new 3D editor around the corner there is going to be an influx of cool community made templates that will be itching to get into ALiVE.
3) Scripted AI movement : I've noticed with ALiVE it only allows for basic MOVE & CYCLE waypoint placement's that also dont work on basic activate triggers. having a mission with "one off" scripted events would add to the mission making ability's. I know this isn't the objective of ALiVE but having access to the old way of doing things along with ALiVE's caching system and HC would be a nice addition.
4) Dynamic CQB placements : This was another thing I picked up on. This is an idea to have larger or smaller numbers of cqb placements in comparison to the buildings in the area. Having a fire team spawn in a building with two rooms is fine but when you have an apartment block with more then ten rooms the cqb ai seems to be spread pretty thin throughout the structure.
5) Better ACE integration : I know this is already on the todo list but id like to give some suggestions anyway for I dont know the DEV's plans for it.
Having all civilian interaction in the Ace UI, so pretty much the communication with the civilian populous for ace has its own restrain and search feature.
having the ALiVE player logistics integrated into the ace UI.
better ACE IED integration (having the use of ace tools to disarm ALiVE IED etc).
6) AI Transport : Just recently I have been playing around with the GAIA AI manipulation script that comes with the MCC mod and found it had some pretty cool ways for AI to communicate and one of the big things was transport. Pretty much if there was an AI inf group a rather long way from its objective and if there was a trans chopper or truck (you get the idea) near said group, that vehicle would go pick up the inf group and take them to their destination and then return to its original place in the ao. cant say I've seen this in ALiVE yet and think it'd be a cool addition to have something similar.
So for me this is just skimming the surface of what I'am sure ALiVE is capable of and I'm sure you guys are going to get sick of me asking questions about the mod in the coming months as myself and outfit continue to test it on our server.
All in all though I think that ALiVE is a revolutionary framework for people to make intricate mission without having to put in the hours of work.
So on that note keep up the great work guys.
SpyderBlack723
8 Nov 2015 Moderator

Edited 8 years ago by SpyderBlack723
3) Scripted AI movement : I've noticed with ALiVE it only allows for basic MOVE & CYCLE waypoint placement's that also dont work on basic activate triggers. having a mission with "one off" scripted events would add to the mission making ability's. I know this isn't the objective of ALiVE but having access to the old way of doing things along with ALiVE's caching system and HC would be a nice addition.
It only allows MOVE and CYCLE waypoints during virtualization. If a waypoint is any other type the units will switch back to that behavior once spawned. Not sure if it would be really possible to support what you're asking for (if I'm interpreting correctly). It's probably possible with a bit of ALiVE focused scripting though.
ie. This would simulate nearby opfor infantry rushing to a location when players get near
```
Trigger Example:

Condition:
waitUntil {{(_x distance (getPos thisTrigger)) < 50} count allPlayers > 1};

Activation:
_nearProfiles = [getPos thisTrigger, 500, ["EAST","entity"]] call ALIVE_fnc_getNearProfiles;
if (count _nearProfiles > 0) then {
	_profiledWaypoint = [getPos thisTrigger, 100, "SAD", "Full", 20] call ALIVE_fnc_createProfileWaypoint;
	{
		[_x, "addWaypoint", _profiledWaypoint] call ALIVE_fnc_profileEntity;
	} forEach _nearProfiles;
};
```
4) Dynamic CQB placements : This was another thing I picked up on. This is an idea to have larger or smaller numbers of cqb placements in comparison to the buildings in the area. Having a fire team spawn in a building with two rooms is fine but when you have an apartment block with more then ten rooms the cqb ai seems to be spread pretty thin throughout the structure.
This can be done already with the "Density" setting in the CQB module.
Having all civilian interaction in the Ace UI, so pretty much the communication with the civilian populous for ace has its own restrain and search feature.
So, if ACE is running, only add the "Talk to X (Politician, Priest, etc)" option to the civ's interaction menu since ACE has it's own restrain/search options?
Does ACE allow users to set a custom item required to disarm IED's or is it always the ACE disarm kit?

My Ideas for ALiVE (with a grain of salt)

Diabolical

SpyderBlack723