Yet Another Editor Question/Suggestion/Whatever!

[Fenix]

The more i see the editor, the more i like it . Simple, strong and quite fun, but yesterday, as i was thinking about other good but more complex editors, i remembered a feature that i have only seen once, and that could fit perfectly in CMSF.

I don't know if some of you has ever played ArmA (Armed Assault, from developers of Operation Flashpoint). ArmA editor allows one to do a high variety of things and make lots of different battles in varied environments, but it was quite complex and to make one simple thing (force an AI blackhak pilot to unload an infantry platoon required scripting!), the editor had one of my favourite features: unit appearing probability. As it sounds a bit strange and as i'm not sure if my translation is correct (my apologies), i'll explain it with an example:

Company Whatever is about to enter a hostile town where elements of the Ouch! Company have just been ambushed (just like in "Ambush in Al Fubar"). They must reach the survivors and exit, but even if Company Whatever know that the town is hostile towards them, they don't know how many of the civilians have weapons.

Actually, in CMSF you create this battle and put a number of OpFor troops, always the same number, always the same battle. With the feature i'm talking about you assign a percentage to one or various OpFor units, 50%, 75%, 20%, etc. and those units will have that chance of appearing on each battle, so each time you play the map you'll face a different number of enemies, but always as defined by the battle designer. Another example:

Only a Stryker platoon of Whatever Company has arrived to the area of operations, as the rest of the Company is 10 minutes behind fighting their way to one of the flanks of the town. They HAD to fight to reach their reinforcement position, so we put a percentage of 75% to 80% representing the losses they suffered while on their way.

I hope i've explained correctly, with this simple feature you greatly increase replayability of each scenario/campaign. You play the above mission and aquire a Major Victory, because only 65% of the expected enemy civilians were armed (65% of the enemy Uncons appeared) and your reinforcements were at 100% because encountered almost no resistance to their flanking position. Five minutes later you play again and achieve a Major Defeat because there were more enemy civilians armed than we have expected (90% or so) and your reinforcements are at 50% because they had a hard fight to get there in time.

Would that be possible? Maybe if not in CMSF, in any other of the next CM?

Again, my apologies for my bad translation, and thanks for your time.

[emcnally]

I thought the scripting in Operations flashpoint was easy after learning the commands. That would work great in this game. You could make your different units do whatever you wanted them to and even the scenerio creator wouldsnt know where the enemy was gonna pop up.

[Fenix]

Yup, that's the point emcnally. In a simple scenario i made in ArmA i got my ass kicked twice while i was testing it because ALL patrols appeared, so they vastly outnumbered me. Imagine that in CMSF. The perfect test for advanced commanders, and a valuable tool for scenario designers to test their own maps. Not to mention the realism and chaos variables it introduces.

IMHO, of course.

[missinginreality]

A version of this is almost possible with the current editor if I'm understanding correctly, using timed reinforcements perhaps?

e.g in a 6o min battle, have reinforcements arriving after 10 min with a span of 60 min could mean you either get them or you don't?

there is no possibility of changing the randomness of whether they appear or not but it does add an element of chance arrival into the scenario at some stage.

Obviously with this method though there is also no control as to when they appear other than within the time frame specified.

However it does mean that in the same scenario played many times you would never know whether or not you were going to meet heavy or light resistance at some point through the battle.

[Marwek77 aka Red Reporter]

ArmA editor allows one to do a high variety of things and make lots of different battles in varied environments, but it was quite complex and to make one simple thing (force an AI blackhak pilot to unload an infantry platoon required scripting!)

What are you talking about? To unload an infantry from Blackhawk was also possible without scripting by creating 2 plans for helo and for squad. Same you can do now if you just want to use your IFV like taxi only.

In CMSF you can use reinforcement with variable time entry, but we cannot regulate the amount of forces. Maybe later...

[Fenix]

Marwek, i'll ask you abouyt ArmA by PM

Anyway, adding the appearing probability would be awesome, and would fit in the style of the game.