Hi everyone! Over the last few nights I've been working on a CBA/ALiVE only showcase mission, designed to be an avenue for two things:

1. New players will be able download this mission and see an example of what the ALiVE mod can do. This can also serve as a template for them to unpack in the editor and learn from.

2. Experienced players will be able to jump right in, without the hassle and worry of outside mods.

This mission is designed to showcase a few specific aspects of the ALiVE mod. You play as NATO Special Forces stationed on the north west Tanoan islands. The Syndikat have an insurgency going on the main eastern island, and are backed by a conventional CSAT army in the southern island chain. And of course it has CAS support, transport, artillery, a drone you can use, a Virtual Arsenal, logistics, optional tasks, empty vehicles you can fly and drive (and boats you can sail with) and just about anything else you can imagine as a core part of ALiVE's bells and whistles.

What I'm looking for is some feedback of any kind. Too easy or too hard? Tell me. Is it missing a vanilla feature you think I should add? I want to know about it. I basically want to ensure I've balanced this in a way and provided the tools enough for players to have a chance to win over persistent sessions.

This is designed to run on a local host server. SP/COOP 1-10. Requires Apex (obviously):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/irukmgqb642fs9v/ALiVE-Tanoa_Showcase.Tanoa.pbo?dl=0

+1

Minor update to the mission above. Had to disable simulation on some ammo crates cause they were dancing around and moved across the entire hanger after a few minutes. Lol

I also removed some units from the Transport chopper too so all 10 grouped playable slots can fit in da choppa. It was sad making some of those friendlies have to swim. :)

@hardly I laughed out loud when I walked into the hangar and saw the Altis Seismic Activity Map.

Could you make Ben Kerry the protaganist and have Miller repeat his "Oh, Kerry, glad to see your alive!" line?

Ha. I don't really get why BI never gave us a Tanoa whiteboard. :(

I can make it a custom image. I'm sure by now someone has uploaded an HD one for Tanoa. Or I could place a blank white map I guess.

Hey thanks for the feedback. For this mission, I enabled the ALiVE option for ambient sea patrols. I honestly don't know a whole heck of a lot about this feature because I generally don't play on maps where it's even viable (most maps are landlocked).

So what's the issue exactly? The boat types that are spawning or the entire feature itself? From what you're saying, it seems you don't care for the fact that they are being abandoned because they are armed. In which case I can see why you'd prefer they used unarmed boats but I'm not sure how much of this I can control.

@spyderblack723 can you explain how this feature works in a bit more detail? Are these guys supposed to stay at sea and do sea patrol only, or are they given land waypoints and designed to abandon ship once they hit land? Or is this just how units cross the water whether ambient sea patrols are turned on or not?

Regarding dedicated server use, there is a guide using on the wiki (data section) using the community made TADST tool. But honestly, TADST needs an update so if you want to do it right, head over to BI forums in the servers and admin section and check out the guides for setting up your own. TADST will still work, especially if you're playing alone or with a small group though. It just hasn't implemented some of the newer features of the Arma platform.

You could always rent one too, which would probably be ideal if you have a large group of regular players.

Anyway, if you change the DATA module in the editor from local to clouddb, the mission will be dedicated server ready with a server registered on ALiVE's War Room.

@Friznit Two different module options: ambient sea patrols and infantry using boats to cross water. In the latter, the boats should despawn after use. Ambient sea patrols should not go anywhere near the shore, unless AI mods are taking over and giving them waypoints.

Perfect. Thanks.

What's your personal preference for these two options on Tanoa @Friznit ? Seems to me it would be most logical to enable both and keep everything as I have it. Otherwise, if I disabled infantry using boats to cross water (which I think is the source of the complaint from @hardly) the groups would just swim to other islands, correct?

Yuck. I'll leave it how I have it. :)

IMMERZIONS

Probably via a static data file. Just trying to decide if I should really do that or not. Wouldn't NATO and CSAT probably send armed boats IRL if they knew the other had bases on opposite islands?

I have no clue myself. I'd assume but I'm no military buff. My best guess is they default to these boats because they can fit full groups in them but that's just a guess.

Is the issue you're having how easy it is to find armed boats lying around? I guess I can see that being a concern from a balancing perspective. Just trying to nail down exactly why this concerns you. If so, what's the classname of the boat(s) you'd prefer?

Friznit said these should be despawning at some point. I'll have to look at this because I honestly have no clue. I'm new to boat spawns.

@hardly I didn't place very many boats for the player. There are two "docks" worth on each end of the BLU held island. I highly doubt this is where they are coming from.

I'd just about guarantee they are from the feature that lets groups use boats to cross water. And as Friznit said, if they are designed to despawn or get cleaned up, I don't think they'd cause much of an issue long term. That said, I haven't looked at it yet.

One thing to keep in mind with most of the missions I make. These are designed for long term persistent play. For example, my insurgencies could feasibly take weeks. Or maybe longer. Remember, we've been in Afghanistan 16 years. I give the players tools for long term persistent play. You might not need what I give you now, but you might after 20 hours.

Obviously, I'm always looking for feedback and certainly don't mind toning empty vehicles and stuff like that down if that's what should be done to keep players on the edge of their seats. So let me know and I'll do my best and check out the link I sent you in the other thread. I think you'll make good use of it.

I've updated the Showcase mission (same link as above). Increased civs, lowered min civ recruit for assymetric to counter, now allow BLU to take some obj's in Syndikat territory, and synced BLU and OPF to each other's obj's in full so they bring it to each other. Tweaked the Diary record entries too. Will probably add MACC for BLU and OPF at some point soon as well.