We're all playing Ravage!

[kodabar]

The mods on here are amazing and I've been consistently impressed by the improvements that the authors have made. It's also impressive to see how long these mods have lasted and what a large player base they still have.

ArmA 3 has been out for a couple of years now and a lot of mod development has moved to it. One of the best mods for ArmA 3 is Ravage, by Haleks. You may recognise Haleks from his work on here. Well, he's certainly put the time in on Ravage and it's proving to be very popular.

The main thing to note about Ravage is that it is a mod framework rather than a mod in itself. Haleks has created something that can easily be modded to make new missions. Although Ravage comes with a missions of its own, that's really a demonstration of the system.

One of the most requested features on here is LAN play, by which people mean multiplayer without a server. It's always been rather difficult to achieve. With the latest release of Ravage, Haleks has added multiplayer support both with and without servers.

I would encourage everyone on here to give Ravage a go and I would hope that some of the mod authors from here would be interested in developing it farther. Some are already doing just that, but it would be nice to see more of you bring your expertise to the best survival mod for ArmA 3.

Full details of Ravage and discussion of its features are on a Bohemia forum page here:
https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/183264-ravage-mod/

There is also a wiki giving some details and hints about Ravage gameplay. And it also contains a list of all the missions that have been written for Ravage (there are ten at the time of writing).
http://ravage.wikia.com/wiki/Ravage_Wikia

I've made a few videos showing Ravage in action. This could well be shameless self-promotion.
https://www.youtube.com/user/kodabar

[benevolentdevil]

Was the module based structure not something that could be done with arma2 oa, that Ravage uses?
 
 Or backwards compatible maybe?

[kodabar]

I'm afraid there's no chance of making Ravage compatible with ArmA 2. It just uses too many new ArmA 3 features. Also, Ravage is designed as a framework allowing people to make missions very easily, so it's quite tightly integrated with the ArmA 3 editor.

Bear in mind that ArmA 3 isn't exactly new at this point. It's over four years old, so going back even farther to ArmA 2 would be a bit of a stretch. Sorry.

[benevolentdevil]

Koda ... would it be somewhat possible though?  

 Like a close-proximity of it at least?  

 I understand if devs don't want to work on Arma 2 OA/CO anymore ... but if it's feesible to somewhat recreate in arma 2 ... pointing those of us still using/working on it in the right direction to accomplish it ... we could take up the mantle of trying to do it?
 

[kodabar]

Well yeah, you sort of could, but we already have. And it's all this. You'll notice in these forums that one of the authors of some of the most advanced missions was Haleks, the same chap who's writing Ravage. Ravage is a development of what he was doing here. So if you play something like DaiZy Factions, then that's basically Ravage in ArmA 2.

One of the great benefits of Ravage is that it's a framework. It's not designed to be a set of missions, it's designed to make it easy for anyone to create their own. I recently made a video showing how to quickly and easily create your own Ravage mission without writing a single line of code or even pasting in a script. You just drag a few modules onto a map and you're ready to go. That kind of thing would be practically impossible to recreate in ArmA 2.

Asking if a few pointers could be given isn't as simple as it seems either. I get asked this kind of thing all the time. Today someone emailed me asking if I could just make a video showing how to handle custom loot lists in Ravage. Well, yeah, I could, but they're significantly underestimating the time and effort involved. All that would take me the best part of a week. And I'd earn nothing from doing it, whilst not doing the work I actually get paid for.

I'm afraid that what you're asking is along the same lines. We've all been away from ArmA 2 for long enough, that we probably can't remember the differences in coding. I can appreciate what you want to do and that you'd like a little help to get you moving in the right direction. But I simply don't have the time or the knowledge to help and I suspect that no one else does either.

I'm helping several people make Ravage and ArmA 3 missions at the moment. In the course of typing this (surprisingly lengthy) post, I've had four separate people pop up on Steam to ask me questions about that stuff. I'm just not sure when I'd ever have to time to go off and quiz several people about trying to translate Ravage functions into ArmA 2. Sorry. But honestly, the missions on here are as close as you're ever going to come in the first place. Something like Factions is about 50% of what Ravage is now.

[benevolentdevil]

I understand.  

I seen that video, which spurred my interest if it was backwards compatible, or somewhat compatible.

 Not all of us have Arma3 capable machines still yet, lol.  ;)
( But, when I do ... Arma3 is on my tippy top list of games to get. Because of ravage ( what I've seen on Youtube , and ArmStalker mod too. I'm sure there is more. )

 Ok, let me ask this ... if you can spare just enough time to answer it:

 Because Arma 2 uses "modules" , is it possible to create "drag and drop" modules in arma 2, to somewhat "customize" A survival experience?  Similar to A3 ravage modules... I kind of figured the extent of coding and customization Ravage had, would not technically be "possible" in Arma2.  
If so ... I'll look up how to make the editor modules to do so on my own. ( If it's not beyond my understanding, I barely have learned bare-bones Arma2 scripts and only a few functions by looking at other de-pbo'd missions. )  
 I have "ideas" just not a solid way to express the desires I have at the moment I think.

 I appreciate the work everyone did do here.  A few of us are still kicking around A2 ideas and wants/desires  still,  my only wish ... is to somehow get what's here already " updated" to latest DayZ update at least ( for when that applies.).  
 But, it's all allowed for countless hours of discovery and fun ( especially when I wasn't able to get online, or wanted to bother with other people or ... rent a server myself. )

 I just think, there is still a lot of potential with Arma2 , we only really seen the "tip of the iceberg" by what dayZ mods presented. ( Personally, I like survival aspects with regular forces ideas, and the "zombie craze" has kind of ran it's course, or has gotten old/dull, where players are now "jaded" to it.  )
 I still think , given enough know how, and creativity applied, ... more things could be presented to Arma2 , and I believe if it's A2 made, it's forward compatible to "port" to A3?
  The thing with DayZ was ... it dominated, and most wished to play, rather than invent more things, or ... lacked vision on what else could be made and played. What got "developed" was simply mods and scripts, to further mod and enhance dayZ ... given birth to Epoch, Overpoch, Origins, ect ...

 So while I am "stuck" in A2 land ... I figured I'd at least try to ... see what I can do, and push the envelope so to say.  Even if it's never "popular" , never played by anyone but myself.  


 

[kodabar]

I have to say, you're absolutely right; older stuff does deserve to be supported. I'm a bit of a Luddite technologically and often stick to older technologies until something truly better comes out. I'm still using a Tapwave Zodiac (PalmOS) PDA, my mobile phone is a Palm Pre and I've got an HP TouchPad (WebOS) tablet (actually, I've got six of them). There are a lot of people still using ArmA 2 and it's still got a lot of life in it.

I've talked to a few people and the general consensus is that it is possible to create modules (they won't quite be drag and drop though), but it's a lot of work. And sadly, no one seems interested in doing it.

I can well understand the frustration of having ideas that outstrip technical knowledge. I constantly have that problem.

[benevolentdevil]

What I mean by "drag and drop" ... ( I thought it'd be alot of work , no doubt ):

 start making Modules, then put them in a "pack" series for download as Addons.

 Then mission creators simply have to run the addon, and put modules in the editor to do what they'd spend hours doing by unit/vehicle/marker/trigger placements ... or coding building positions, ect ....

 Or ... I just realized ... you can't really do that can you?
 Theres not a way to slim line the process down to that simple.  Not by Arma2 anyways.

frustrating, but it's ok.

 work on new computer and Arma3 it is , lol.

[kodabar]

Yep, sorry, but you're right. That's not really possible. It'd be neat though!

[benevolentdevil]

Got my first taste of ravage finally ...

 meh Arma + lagg , it seems no matter what fps is going to be an issue ...

But it's neat.  
However, Ravage module configs don't seem to work 100% correctly.  I turned my "hunters" to zero, still had groups of 4-5 opfor spawning in hunting me.  
Another was loot generation - I boosted to 30% from 15 , but seemed to find even less loot.

the Zombies spot you miles away, going prone , ducking, using cover doesn't seem to effect them.  They sort of home in on your location regardless of conditions.

there's no real base building option in ravage, which is disappointing to say the least. Even if such was to use existing buildings to make some sort of fortified  base camp.

It is easy to set up and just play, which is nice.  

Inventory was really bugging me, as is Arma3 controls are slightly different from Arma2.

[benevolentdevil]

AH HA!

I found option/paramiters ... now we're cooking!

[kodabar]

The numbers in the loot system are not percentages. Setting a loot category to 100 doesn't make it appear in 100% of loot containers. The numbers are relative, meaning that you're increasing the chance of one type of loot relative to another. Such that if you increase backpacks, it just means you'll find more backpacks than other items, not that you'll find more backpacks in general.

Zombies have just been upgraded to make them more alert. A bit annoying, but at least it makes the zombies a real danger. The running ones (bolters) are really frustrating, especially when you're just starting out.

Fiddle around with the settings and you'll discover there are a lot more things you can adjust. It takes a while to find them all.

Base-building is a bust because of the way ArmA does path-finding for the AI. There's an invisible navmesh (google it to see examples) baked into the landscape which is how the AI gets around. When you build a base, it doesn't affect the underlying navmesh, so AI units can just walks through walls. Damn it. I hope this can be fixed in ArmA 4. But there are a couple of Ravage missions with base-building of a certain type. Here's one.

The missions that come with Ravage are really meant as demonstrations more than anything. If you search Ravage on the ArmA 3 Steam Workshop, you'll find hundreds more

And yeah, I completely agree with you about the controls. I play with a large ArmA 3 group and it can take us half an hour to get everyone geared up before the start. And then someone presses G instead of I and a grenade kills everyone and we have to start all over again.

[benevolentdevil]

a good amount of time has passed, found many of your SP play throughs with Ravage.  You have such a calming voice!

yes, on base building ... Vandeason's appocalypse offers now a very limited form of it , which is more like defensive barriers than actual modular base building.
So, you can fortify an area I think.

But Vand's mod , also adds other nice features, works with ravage, but OMG the aimbot AI spawned by it!  
Thats probably my number one gripe about AI in Arma games, they are just too accurate, too quick.
I hadn't figured out a way to turn off Vand's AI system in the paramiters yet.

But, you don't -need- vand's mod addon either.  

What I've found I like to do , is really customize the map used , place stashes around one or two working Vics , maybe even script in randomish air drops once you have a radio and cross a trigger.
I on large maps, pick either some existing places , or use compositions ..and drop "safezone" markers on them to use as shelters, places to use as bases, or stash locations.
Generally , I like adding in POIs, extra spots garrisoned by bad guys ( not roaming seekers). With -some-form of rewards.

Single Player or multi-player ( more like 2 or 3 co-op players) , which actually is really fun.  ( with out without Vands ) we just turn up the zombies more in case of co-op.
Seems no matter what you set AI spawns on, you always get far to many encounters anyways.

Only thing wonky there is saving multiplayer , seems to mess up some features here and there, loading a saved progress.

Over-all good fun though.

[kodabar]

Base-building is easily the most requested feature, yet the most difficult to implement. When you're creating a landscape, an invisible navmesh is 'baked in' as part of the landscape files. This determines how zombies navigate. When you place objects down in the editor or in-game, it doesn't affect the navmesh, so zombies (and AI units) can walk right through them. It's an annoying problem and one that cannot be overcome without editing the navmesh. No one's ever found a way of altering that in-game. I've always felt that fortifying an existing building (rather than constructing something new) is more realistic and in keeping with the game, but it has the same problems.

I like your idea of POIs and stashes though. It's nice to have little extra touches around the map for players to discover.

Multiplayer saving has always been a problem too. You're essentially choosing between running a full database on the server (a hassle and prone to slowdown - hence server reboots in mod days) or using as limited save system, such as the one Haleks implemented (just saves location and inventory, nothing else).

[benevolentdevil]

Bases do offer shot protection though ... but yep, AI/Zombies walk right through them.