RELEASE: DaiyZ ULTIMATE (Chernarus)

[Above]

Ok, I haven't seen survivors kill bandits then. But I'd get pissed if they stole my kills. :(

[DayZ_SP]

OK, let's try this again:

DaiyZ ULTIMATE v01b

http://www.mediafire.com/?x6h6feb7yevy8

Changelog:

A.I.

-AI Bandits & Survivors now have a randomly selected primary (rifle) and secondary (pistol). They will switch between them in appropriate combat situations like when they are low on ammo, or in close quarters.

-Random weapon selection for AI now consists of tier one weapons like the M4, AK 74, M1014, MP5, etc.

-Survivors and Bandits should now freely engage Zombies, each other and the player without any input from the player other than strategic movement, hold fire, etc. orders from the command que.

Thoroughly tested and confirmed, Bandits & Survivors spawning normally again... But with enhanced awareness. There might be a slight pause as they assess all the targets, but again, this should not be that big a performance hit depending on the speed of your CPU.

Try and stay hidden and just watch the mayhem as Bandits not only slaughter Zombies, but EACH OTHER as well. I don't know why they are doing this, but it's a nice side-effect even if unintended. I watched a battle unfold for a half-hour in and outside a little town. It's the closest thing to MP without being online, IMO.

BEWARE: Friendly A.I. will now turn on you if you kill one of your own!

Sometimes, this is unavoidable because the A.I. will become stuck and you have no choice. Kill the one that is bugged and then quickly kill all remaining A.I. team mates because they will (try to) kill you immediately after taking out their team mate. You can then use the "Heal Me" cheat to restore full health if you take damage during the coup.

It's not an ideal setup, but this is all that can be done for now and probably the foreseeable future.

Player

-Markov and Melee Hatchet have been removed from player's spawn loadout. Added PDW (Micro-UZI) and M9 (Baretta 9mm) as part of randomly chosen starting weapons. Spawn loadout is still only limited to pistols, however.

Please, post feedback and let me know what you think of this version

[Above]

Awesome, I just got some AI spawned in. Haven't really tested it yet, just encountered my first AI.

Btw, does some survivors get ghillie now? :D (Reckon one of the 2 I killed had one). :D

Seems kinda cool, I like that the survivors will do their best to fuck you up if you betray them.

Update: The AI's ARE FUCKING AWESOME NOW!! I heard a gunfight (we're talking mini war here). Tracked one, tried to nail him with my revolver, but I had to hide behind a wall. And the bandit flanks me, and kills me instantly! :-D

I will deffo have to sneak now. This is bloody awesome so far! :D

Tested some more, it's a small problem with the survivors getting pissed off. Because everytime they spawn, they'll spawn ontop of you and just spray you.




Update2: This update works properly with the toolscript aswell. Handgun + main weapon spawn properly, aswell as the tool.

[DayZ_SP]

Tested some more, it's a small problem with the survivors getting pissed off. Because everytime they spawn, they'll spawn ontop of you and just spray you.

This is an easy fix.

I can increase the radius in which they randomly spawn.

It will take them slightly longer to reach you, but that might work out better because A) you won't see them spawn instantly like you do now, and B) They should engage any nearby targets on their way to you and this is more realistic than just running straight for you like the pre-progammed bots they are.

Now that everything is working as it should, I am going to re-activate Niceonegunit's random Survivor addition as well. These Survivors will NOT become part of your team and will just roam (patrol) the land like the Bandits... And probably attack you and your team as well! Think of them as Bandit-Survivors... Or typical PVP kiddies, heh.

Oh, I figured out why Bandits are killing each other. Duh! This is what I wanted... But I *may* change this in the future so there isn't just total carnage on the battlefield, but for now it actually mimics real MP better than anything we've done previously, IMO.

The last piece of the puzzle is to get Survivors to defend themselves against Bandits. This is hard because they are all the same base class ("Soldier_Crew_PMC"). I could probably change the class on one side, but I'm trying to avoid altering the DayZ files to keep things simple and forward compatible for new versions of the mod itself; It's much easier for players and developers if the map is the only thing that needs changing for every new version of the Mod that is released.

Thanks, for your feedback!

[Above]

Would be awesome if you could increase the range, I don't wanna have to be a good boy. :(

And about Niceonegunit's script, wont that lag down the mission pretty bad? I don't know why, but after about 30 min I started lagging pretty bad. And then it kinda went in waves, so it's a strange matter. :o


Imo, we're really, really close to perfection.

And np, thanks for letting us enjoy this. :D
The AI seems alot smarter in this release.

[Forgemaster]

I bet the changed map is now 5x more awesome than before. Going to take it for a spin and see if some of the issues I encounter still persist, at least the ones that seem game-breaking to me.

Edit: Okay, I played it. And it sorta blew me away? Once the AI spawned he was able to spot me 200m away while I was hiding in the trees waiting to turn his back so I could approach him, a few seconds later he started shooting and I somehow attracted attention of a zombie. The guy in the ghillie suit shot me down mercilessly withing 5 minutes of spawning, I was not dead though, he only knocked me out. So the zombie that was behind me starts trying to eat me. When suddenly the guy shoots again but at some zombies, the zombie that was trying to eat me magically got attracted by the AI shooting and he ran towards the guy and tried to attack him I think. I couldn't believe my eyes since I have never seen a Z attacking an AI. The vision was blurred when I was knocked out, so I couldn't really tell if he did any damage to the ghille suit guy.

Wow. I felt like it was multiplayer all over again.

The AI moved away some hundred meters to the streets of Elektro I picked up the only bandage that I had in my pocket and fixed my bleeding. I wanted revenge. My eyes were literally burning at this ooint. So I went after him and shot him with my M9 a few times while he was on the ground shooting zombies which didn't pay attention to him anymore. But now I attracted all those zombies around, I wanted to loot his backpack but I couldn't catch my breath since I was getting attacked. I found a building at the edge of the city in which I would find some more bandage, I also tried losing the zombies there but, it was a mistake to circle around the building. Now the zombies have me trapped and there is nowhere to run or hide.

They knew I was phucked.

They kept flooding in through the doors until they engulfed the other rooms around me. They started to approach the room I was in, I had my trusty pistol ready, locked and loaded. They kept creeping up closer. I waited the perfect opportunity to strike their heads with my bullets. But disaster struck, I passed away before I could do any damage to them. And then I was gone.
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This experience that I just went through was quite enlightening to say the least. I didn't expect the AI to become instantly 2 times more aware of their surroundings than before. He spotted me instantly and didn't hesitate to put a bullet through my head. I made a mistake when trying to get so close to him without proper cover.

All of this happened in around 8 minutes. And it took me around 20 to explain what has happened.

I was kind of shocked for the first time in SP because I didn't save my game and I had to restart again. Maybe I should start playing hardcore, so if I die I restart just like in MP.

Usually I could take down an AI fairly okay if I have a weapon, but this time was totally different. I got my ass handed to me. This. Was. Awesome.

[Above]

That might've been the most awesome story, told in the most epic way ever. That's awesome!

[DayZ_SP]

And about Niceonegunit's script, wont that lag down the mission pretty bad? I don't know why, but after about 30 min I started lagging pretty bad. And then it kinda went in waves, so it's a strange matter.

One difference between then and now is we have the "Clean Up Dead Bodies" command at our disposal.

So, if things start to slow down, we can take some of the load off the CPU and GPU by deleting dead / already looted bodies. Remember, this is a single-threaded program that has to manage a lot of routines (scripts, player data, loot tables, Zombie AI, etc.) at once. This is the primary reason it can slow to a crawl sometimes depending on the amount of instructions being processed simultaneously.

This is why I made the Clean Up script player controllable and not an script that loops during the game and deletes the dead bodies after X number of minutes / seconds. Sometimes you'll be engaged in a firefight, or running from Zombies, and it will be a good three minutes or more before you can make your way back to a dead bandit to get the gear. If I used a looping script it would delete bodies every two, or three minutes (like console games do to help with memory), but then you might miss out on some good loot. That's why it is a player controlled function and not a built-in mission function like MP servers have for deleting things on the server side to keep the processing load down.

[Forgemaster]

I think some beta releases ago, BIS added a parameter that would allow to use more cores than one, or so I think. Might be earlier I dunno.

"C:\*********\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -beta=Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion -mod=@daizy -cpuCount=2 -exThreads=1 -nosplash -skipintro

Notice the "-cpuCount=2" and "exThreads=1"

I think I got these two from a thread somewhere in one of the DaiyZ earlier releases. How much do these parameters help I wonder. I have a 6 core Phenom II 960T/1600T and I see almost no difference in performance with or without. I haven't played much around with the parameters. Going to change the numbers a bit sometime and try using an fps counter.

It's mostly my graphics card that is limiting me on resource hungry games that have been modded. Or most games created near the end of 2011. I really hate my 460 GTX right now. :) I need to pick up a HD Radeon 7870 when I have some cash to spend on luxury.

I think the most things that my graphics card hates right now is high resolutions (I don't play on 720p since I feel stutter from anything higher than 1152x864 on games) and also post processing (this is the biggest performance hog ever). It was a good graphics card but I should have went with the 560Ti, made a mistake.

DayZ rarely lags though. I barely see any sort of lag in SP when there are lots AI running around and stuff. It's in multiplayer when lag seems to surface though. I started to like SP far more than I did before, when I discovered Kronsky's SP missions first time. This is a worthwhile project IMO and I would like to see it bloom.

Edit: I wonder if it would be possible for AI team survivors or bandits to heal you. For example if they had an epi-pen they would be able to revive you at the moments notice, or they would give you blood if they have a blood bag on them and your blood falls below, say 4000 or 6000.

All they seem to do is shoot zombies while standing in place like a statue, unless you order them around, as zombies keep spawning they won't move most of the time. So in a nutshell the team AI is pretty simple, but shouldn't the AI be capable of performing more varied tasks?

Don't get me wrong, the AI that will attack you on sight is near perfect, I just witnessed it.

I guess you guys are waiting for standalone to come out but I am just giving a few ideas. It would be really immersive if a bandit or survivor made a fireplace, sat down and cooked raw meat and when they finish they would move on.

[Above]

  This is why I made the Clean Up script player controllable and not an script that loops during the game and deletes the dead bodies after X number of minutes / seconds.

The script was controllable in the first place, I used it in a script executor before you added it. :P



Btw, DayZ_SP, where did the Taviana mission go? :( I wanna give Taviana another chance. D:

[DayZ_SP]

It may be mutlicore enabled, but it is still a single threaded application and this is the biggest bottleneck. That's why a good CPU with has a high rate of IPC (Instructions Per Clock / Cycle) is good for single-threaded apps like gaming e.g. the i5 3570K, i5 2500K, etc.

There are auto heal medical scripts available for ArmA 2... Unknown even included one in an earlier build of one of the maps... But it doesn't work properly in DayZ because of the modifications Rocket made in order to get it work. Rocket's emphasis has always been on MP since that is easier to develop for since human beings don't need to be "programmed" to do things they do naturally e.g. attack each other regardless of player class; see Zombies as constant threats, etc.

This also leads me to your last question about coding A.I. to mimic players.

Anything is possible, but not only is it a lot of work, it's not really practical for an alpha mod whose life may be coming to a very quick end once the stand alone is released, regardless of whether stand alone has any SP elements, or not.

The A.I. in normal ArmA 2 is some of the most flexible in the world, but even it has its limits and a lot of those limits have to do with how different situations are set up e.g. DayZ doesn't follow standard ArmA  friend / enemy classes, so this is just one thing that has to be overcome before more advanced features are added.

[Above]

Guys, I got an intel pentium dual core. Come at me. xD

I can still play with decent graphics somehow. :D

And please upload the Taviana mission agian :-(

[DayZ_SP]

The script was controllable in the first place, I used it in a script executor before you added it.

Using a debug menu outside of the game is not the same as an in-game GUI.

Besides, I modded it to include Zombies and not just Suvivors/Bandits, too.

[Above]

"man" includes everything :P at least in the debug console. It removed everything for me. :P

But nvm, what happened to the Taviana mission? ;(

[Forgemaster]

If the DayZ standalone doesn't have most of the technologies modern games use like multi-threading to make it more stable I am going to think what is wrong with this world.

Well, if it uses ArmA 3 engine (BIS claims how stable and fast it is even on older machines) then I guess there is nothing to worry about.

[Above]

I think Rocket said that they're building the standalone on the ArmA3 engine. Either way, he's going to do alot of things to improve the performance, that I remember him saying.

[Forgemaster]

Now all I can do is wait. To me, it hurts waiting for game releases, but the standalone isn't that far off now.

I can't wait! People always say that.

Edit: Okay, so I found out what those CPU parameters really do. Turns out the game auto-detects this stuff, but it is like the .ini file in Skyrim, you can state the amount of processors/cores present and the threads to use but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I guess those params are pointless and I can probably remove them from executable shotcuts.

I think I just took those params and crammed then in even if the game didn't need them, plus they are set wrong so the game doesn't perform as it should. I have 6 cores and 6 threads. And with the params I had the game was basically trying to emulate a dual core, which is stupid when I think about it.

[DayZ_SP]

UPDATE:

DaiyZ ULTIMATE v01c (Chernarus):

http://www.mediafire.com/?x6h6feb7yevy8

I know people are probably getting sick of constant releases and updates to this one map, but remember, this is the test platform Rocket chose and it makes developing and testing things for SP a lot easier than on custom maps that not everybody may have.

NOTE: I will leave version 1b up in case there are game breaking bugs like no A.I. spawning. I tested it thoroughly before uploading, but you never know since this is a mod of an alpha mod!

Changelog:

A.I.

-Same enhancements as version 1b, but now there are "random survivors" thanks to Niceonegunit. These units look like Survivors, but they will NOT join your team and they WILL try and kill you and your A.I. team mates! Think of them as Survivors on their way to earning their Bandit skin

-You should encounter a lot of these on your way to various cities and towns, so use real stealth like you would in MP.

-Tweaked spawning radius, so encounters with A.I. should seem more natural and not as "scripted" or instantaneous as in the past. Survivors spawn radius increased, Bandits spawn radius decreased and Random Survivors somewhere in between.

-There is still a slight pause/stutter when A.I. units spawn. There is no way around this at this point as the method of "marking" enemy units takes time to calculate. The pauses should not be that bad, but again, this all depends on the hardware you may be running.

Wrecks, Vehicle Spawns

-Spawn radius has been greatly tweaked.

In previous versions, vehicles and wrecks spawned in the water, or deep in forests when they should have spawned on roads and other normal places. Hopefully, this corrects that problem and makes finding and restoring vehicles a viable part of game play again.

Tents & Tent Loot

-Removed tents & Tent loot.

Player

-No player tweaks in this release.

================================================================================

Once again, feedback and testing is greatly appreciated by me and other members of the community

[Above]

The only thing I can say about the parameters, I couldn't play on any resolution above 1200 before I started using -cpucount 2. This could be because of something else obviously. But I don't know what that would be. Either way, I'm happy that my dual core can handle DayZ on high graphics.

[DayZ_SP]

I think Rocket said that they're building the standalone on the ArmA3 engine. Either way, he's going to do alot of things to improve the performance, that I remember him saying

He said in an interview it is actually a modified version of the current ArmA 2 engine.

The real performance will come from the fact he and the team are moving everything server side like most MMORPGs.

The reason it performs so poorly now is because everything is client side... Which is also why there are so many script kiddies  & hackers.

The stand alone will shift the heavy lifting (Zombie A.I., physics calculations, etc.) to the server like modern MP games do (and thus close the big hole for hackers to exploit)  and this is where you will see the biggest performance supposedly because the Zombie AI is very basic and not like other shooter A.I. that needs to flank, shoot, reload, fly aircraft, drive tanks, etc.