First things first, bare in mind I'm the most active idiot on the forums. :) Second things second I use and adore TADST so here's a link to a post I compiled for how to get yourself setup. https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/159708-alive-advanced-light-infantry-virtual-environment/page-342#entry2937748

SP is not recommended if you want to use the full ALiVE suite. TADST is a dedicated server tool which will allow you to enable persistence in your mission(s) and save your progress to ALiVE's War Room. This ensures good performance and the ability to "save" and "load" while using multiplayer. For me, persistence is key. I hate the idea of my mission progress not saving so this alone is brilliant for my needs. When I'm done for the night I "server save and exit" and the next day I can continue my mission again. It's awesome.

When I first got into ALiVE, Autigergrad (mission maker. All around good dude. He has some missions here and on BIS and Workshop) turned me on to Assymetrical insurgency missions. You can learn more about Assymetrical missions here: http://alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Insurgency

So this is really all I can speak to. It's my favorite mission type and really the only thing I play. It's also excellent for solo players and small groups because there's more to do than just kill dudes. What I try to do is replicate the war in Afghanistan circa 2009(ish). Good guys versus the Taliban. Also excellent for small groups because they really shouldn't be overpowering you unless they overwhelm you with numbers.

What I like to do when I make my missions (I have one in the mission template thread. Two more coming soon) is to group 5-6 "playable" units to me. These are generally my AI teammates, but I leave them on "playable" in the event I make some friends someday that want to play with me. :) But it also ensures I am never out there alone. I also use SpyderAddons in all my missions, not only because it adds so much life to ALiVE (ambience, conversation trees with civs, etc), but because it also allows me to have an AI spawner in the event I need more warm bodies to tackle an objective and also a vehicle spawner too: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=579263829

Sorry if the next bit of stuff is a little inside baseball. What I like to do when making my missions is to place a "safe zone" around my base. A decent size TAOR so when I get going initially I'm not immediately inundated with OPFOR. Generally I'll place the opposing Assymetric side's Military Commander module pretty far away from my base so the insurgency starts as far away from my base as possible. When the mission starts my "job" is to go around interrogating civilians in the nearby towns, trying to get a leg up on where OPFOR is doing its dirty work.

For my side's Military Commander I like to have more units than the OPFOR side to start. So I start out a little more powerful. OPFOR will recruit more units from the civilian population as things get going (Civilian Population and Civilian Placement Modules are required for this. I usually place several Civilian Placement modules so the missions are jam packed with civs. OPFOR can recruit a ton of you're not careful).

Once the basics of the mission is made, I then like to manually add some more enemies (syncing them to the virtual AI module) as far away from my base as possible too. This simulates a 'the further from base you go, the more dangerous the game gets' kind of thing. I then like to pair that with a high priority custom objective module on the other end of the map too. This increases the likelihood of OPFOR being numerous on the opposite end of the map.

After placing all the modules and having a basic functioning mission going, the first thing I do is debug the virtual AI module. I then enter the mission and look at the map. Areas populated by BLUFOR and OPFOR will start lighting up. I take note of the empty areas. I then exit out and do this a few more times. If certain areas of the map never get populated by OPFOR, I'll generally place some custom objectives over these dead areas. Or, if the dead areas are only in the hills/valleys, I'll place markers over those spots, add another military objective module for OPFOR, set "random camps to medium, whitelist the module to only populate enemies in those areas. This means any area on the map *can* be dangerous.

Because I'm usually playing alone, and also because I'm trying to replicate a very specific kind of real life terrorism mission, I don't generally like to let either side use a ton of air vehicles or tanks or what have you. I keep it mostly infantry and light vehicle based. I'm also not a particularly good player. Lately I've been messing around with more conventional all-out-warfare missions too so I hope in the future I'll be able to balance those to a more SP/small group oriented experience as well. But for now, setting that kind of thing up is a little out of my league.

I have a lot more I could say and many more proncipals I could share but I don't want to overwhelm or confuse you. If you have any specific questions let me know and I'll do my best to help.

@singularity80

One thing that I'm discovering here lately is to take your vision and stick to it.

Initially when I started developing the stuff I've been working on, I envisioned them as sort of a slow burn; missions where I'd patrol and maybe I'd find some action, maybe I wouldn't. As I started reading and learning and picking people's brains, I started adding more and more forces (because that's how most missions are built) until things more or less resembled a COD mission. Not what I'm looking for!

Now don't get me wrong, this is still a video game about killing stuff so I will still have more enemies than typical real life patrol missions (certainly a shit ton more), but I've been pruning a lot in the last few days/weeks and I'm having that sense of wandering and discovery again. Still by no means perfect, but more more in-line with my original goal.

I also was beginning to make this stuff for SP-CO16 which is nuts (for me) in hindsight. I generally play alone with AI so am now shooting for a SP-CO8 experience.

I typically make Assymetic Insurgency missions. This means OPFOR (the Assymetric side) will recruit forces from the civilian population; meaning the force strength they start with can dramatically increase/decrease depending on how well me and my BLUFOR mates do our job. This is a great concept and only possible thanks to the power of ALiVE.

I've been finding balancing the missions for total units on the map has been easily the hardest part of all of this so figured I'd share that. It's been a constant struggle of asking myself how many enemies I want to have per square foot so things don't get too boring and how many friendly units I want on my side to assist me when I do that. Some maps my team is part of a much larger force and with tons of action; on others, I literally use no BLUFOR AI Commander at all so it's just my squad against the world. With different missions I'm tinkering with different things.

For instance, try messing with limiting objectives a bit within the mil/civ placement modules and then go in game and watch how that impacts unit placement on the map. It's really pretty fascinating and these little decisions change the feel of a mission big time. In some missions I use "Do Not Filter" so the entire map is peppered with friendly and enemy forces. In others, I limit BLUFOR to only large objectives so they can handle the large urban areas and my small squad can handle the small towns and villages.

Lots of ways to go about it but there's lots of helpful people to help you here too if you have any questions. Good luck with your mission(s)!

@SpyderBlack723

Right yes. I've been teleporting around and clicking local exec, teleport again, rinse and repeat.

Can any variation of this code count total units that includes virtualized units? Or probably better to just put the active limiter to like a huge number while testing instead?

A way to get an active representation of the mission in real time would be very helpful, even if something better than this code exists within or without ALiVE if you have any ideas.

@HeroesandvillainsOS  @SpyderBlack723

Right yes. I've been teleporting around and clicking local exec, teleport again, rinse and repeat.

Can any variation of this code count total units that includes virtualized units? Or probably better to just put the active limiter to like a huge number while testing instead?

A way to get an active representation of the mission in real time would be very helpful, even if something better than this code exists within or without ALiVE if you have any ideas.

Yes, there is a way to get the number of profiles in the mission, I can write something quick tomorrow.

I'm working on a (secret) tool that won't be solely for debugging, but will include some debugging tools that would help debug missions in more advanced and user-friendly ways.

@singularity80 @HeroesandvillainsOS

TADST was updated!

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=11656

Yeah I'm using Baconeo's version doing a night op on FATA right now. :) I'll pick up Tophe's official update here pretty soon. The fact that he's still active makes me smile from ear to ear. TADST is an incredible tool.