Arma 3 - RELOADED (An Invade & Annex PvE Clone)

Yup, that's right an 'Invade & Annex' clone (of sorts), but RELOADED!

Since June 2017 I have been creating my own version/take on the PvE Arma 3 mission which is similar to the basic I&A that is known in and around Arma 3.

Why? Well... after getting back in to Arma 3 earlier this year after a short break, I and a few friends started playing I&A... it was ok to begin with, but grew boring as it was the same thing over and over and over again, but at different locations on the map (of Tanoa).

The 'Area Of Operations' gets chosen, a 'HQ' task is spawned, a 'radio-tower' task is spawned, and a 'take over' task is spawned. Needless to say, I rather enjoyed the PvE aspect and the teamwork that others provided... but that's as far as it went. The game play was boring/mediocre at best... as we had to literally hunt down AI to kill, and some times didn't encounter any for twenty minutes or more.

After being frustrated with the I&A server(s) that I and friends played on, I thought 'how hard would it be to make my own... dynamic version', so I got to it. I planned out roughly how I wanted it all to piece together and have it be as dynamic as possible. Without knowing if I was actually capable of creating what I had in my mind, I proceeded anyway and jumped in the deep end (so-to-speak).

What makes my version different to the original I&A? Pretty much everything within the back-end.

The mission principals are very similar to I&A in what you are to achieve for each AO (attack and hold the Contingency Operating Base, secure sub tasks successfully, secure simple tasks successfully and such). Each sub task completed successfully will increase the capture progress meter as well as increase an AO multiplier. If tasks are failed, the progress meter and AO multiplier works in reverse. The AO multiplier is a per-unit/per-vehicle weight which either speeds up or slows down overall AO progress.

NATO base at Tanoa Air Field

The NATO base is at Tanoa Air Field (where players will respawn upon death), which hosts the player arsenal for custom loadouts, as well as NATO helicopters/planes, land/water vehicles and UAV/UGV. Each player slot is role specific, so players can group up (default U key) and attack the AO any way they choose. There are also specific helicopter and jet pilot roles for the transportation of units and objects, as well as armed air support.

I have designed and coded it all from scratch... by myself. I have coded, tested, fixed bugs, tested, played, etc, etc over and over since June 2017. I have since then got a few friends involved to help me test, as well as doing a small wave of invites over Discord... and even at a pre-alpha stage it was more enjoyable (their words) than what already exists within the Arma 3 I&A realms. I have tried to code in a very dynamic way, so that each and every AO is different (which it is).

Each AO position is randomly chosen on the map (no AO will spawn in the same or close position twice), and then a sub position from that is the final starting center point of the AO. It then randomly chooses what diameter the AO will be, along with the randomly chosen number of tasks (main/sub/simple) that will be within the AO. It then scans the AO terrain for bridges/forest/land/paths/railway/road/runway/shorelines/water and compiles positions based off of specific criteria within the configuration files (maximum land grade, min/max depth of water, etc). It then randomly chooses a position from those compiled terrain positions then randomly chooses a task to propagate for the terrain structure (water/land/forest/road/etc), it then randomly chooses a base composition to spawn for the given task, all whilst the positional scripts error check that tasks are not on top of each other. (I hope I explained that proper).

This method and structure of how each AO is presented and put together is extremely random and is unpredictable to what each AO will consist of each time... aka dynamic.

All the patrolling AI that spawn within the AO are created unequal, as each one will have their own skill levels, so it matches more to a PvP environment skill-set (as every player has their own skill-set), yet they are AI. I find this method more diverse than to set all AI at the exact same skill levels. The AI use a custom patrol script (third party, modified) which makes them act and react as any player would, eg use cover before shooting, move from cover to cover, peek around corners, give intel on other close by AI to your exact location, flank you when you least expect it, and call in heavy land/air vehicles for armored backup, if you (try to) run and hide, they WILL hunt you down!

This game mode I am creating is not suppose to be easy (which it certainly is not) as the amount of immersion makes you concentrate on your surroundings, and with the AI being more skilled (in balance to human players) it leads to more/proper teamwork within the NATO side (you'll have a hard time going solo!).

AI being redeployed by landed helicopter

The AI spawn and respawn systems are all custom and dynamically coded also, which has an effect on immersion. AI are re-delivered to the AO (and tasks) on foot (ground troop) by helicopter (paradrop/landing), by truck (chauffeured), by quad bike (self driven), by unarmed vehicles (self driven)... so there is always something to be aware of within the AO, as you (and your team) move around you will hear vehicles driving past, helicopters fly over, see paratroop jump out of said helicopters, hear distant explosions (self clean up of abandoned vehicles) as well as the shots and snaps of bullets as the AI hunt you down to attack and also defend their tasks. There are also enemy patrol vehicles that roam around the AO, from armed off-roads to quilins to tanks... their redeployment is all chosen and spawned in randomly, as well as the patrolling helicopters and armed jets that give intel on spotted enemy... so best keep out-of-sight when you hear them above.

The amount of tasks within the AO are also chosen randomly (fitting within the AO diameter) and each one will be different and have a different task roles applied. One task could be a 'secure' mission one AO, and then a 'destroy' mission the next. The task roles can be easily expanded upon, so any role can be created and inserted to the mission with ease... which may spark interest for mission builders to code their own task roles. At current (November 2017) the task roles that are functional are secure, destroy, repair and steal.

Simple Task Base Composition (destroy communication tower)

The base compositions that are used for tasks are all custom made either by myself or community contributors that were excited to help out with the mission creation (which has been greatly appreciated). The system to incorporate new base compositions in to the mission for use with tasks is extremely easy to achieve. Base compositions are created within the Arma 3 3DEN Editor on the VR environment map with [0,0,0] as the center point. A custom export script (included with the mission) is used to export to a script, which is then saved within the mission file structure in the corresponding base directory (land/water/road/etc), then the task configuration files are either added to or adjusted to allow the new base composition to spawn in (if randomly chosen).

It's really as simple as that... I created this mission with the intentions of having it easily expandable by literally anyone that chooses to (and yes I plan to release this mission to the public to host on their own servers).

The 'RELOADED' mission has come along extremely well, the systems that are in place for mission structure and (re)playability, spawning, de-spawning of AI and objects, timing and schedules, etc have all been quite the challenge to plan and actually code, but I am quite proud of what I have accomplished to this point (and also surprised that I was capable of actually doing it). I and fellow testers have had much fun playing and testing the mission, even at this early alpha stage.

We currently have a playable server on the West Coast of the USA which hosts the development 'RELOADED' mission. The current mission is still in 'alpha' stage (as of November 2017)... although it is 100% playable and re-playable currently. There are minimal bugs (and newly found bugs are always fixed promptly), but the main progress timing loop has not been coded as of yet so each AO is manually triggered and spawned via a laptop at the NATO base. Debug mode is also turned on so there is a LOT of system chat spam for system functioning and information as well as map marker spam whilst the AO spawn does all its calculations (visual terrain debug information).

Does this mission spark your interest and...

Are you interested in helping out (code/create)?

Would you like to alpha test (play/test/give feedback and suggestions)?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you are welcome to join our Discord community (blackSheep) at -> https://discord.gg/sEPK9Ta and have a read of the #details, #rules and other informative channels for the mission (as well as the blackSheep #about and #codeofconduct channels).

Here are some screen shots of in-game play (whilst in spectator mode)...

Click here for more screen shots!

I hope I've explained the mission I am/have created properly in this post... think Arma 3 I&A, but redone, more random, more dynamic, more immersive, more teamwork oriented and more enjoyable for all. It's not the same thing, different location over and over and over like the vanilla I&A (and most I&A servers around), it's how I envisioned and wanted I&A to be... but RELOADED, so I created (am still creating) what I have.

It's really hard to explain everything, to give users the big-picture on what this mission is... but in order to really know what the mission is about... is to actually play it.

TL:DR, I created an 'Invade & Annex' style mission (clone) within Arma 3 from scratch, which is a LOT more diverse/random/immersive/enjoyable/replayable/expandable. Want to know more? Join our Discord server and have a read about the mission, chat to others and actually play/test the mission yourself. -> https://discord.gg/sEPK9Ta

Got questions about it? Feel free to hit me up on Discord (the link is in this post).

I also posted about the mission over on the BI Studio forum which you can find here -> https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/211716-wip-reloaded-an-ia-pve-clone/

-soul.