Desert Combat Realism: The plan for a new release

[tanelorn]

- Note : This thread is mirrored at Battlefield Single Player forums, as the goal of the new release focuses on COOP / Singleplayer. Discussion in this thread here will be limited to features other than AI. To visit the single player thread, go to: http://www.battlefieldsingleplayer.com/ ... opic=15529

Hi all. I know it's been a helluva long time since DC, but I've been getting messages for years encouraging me to make DCR COOP playable, so it can be enjoyed by small groups of live players. So I'm doing it. I started investigating it a year ago, but hit so many brick walls that I was utterly discouraged. Now I'm hitting it again and making great progress, with the help of members of this board, especially 4CentsShy.

So, here's the plan of what I intend to do:


1.Overall, the new release will be made with the understanding that DC is too old to make an ambitious new release. With this in mind...
2.Add bot support. DCR had none. NONE. Now I will do my best to make all the vehicles and troops effective in COOP games. Exclusions will include vehicles that bots don't handle well, like helicopters.
3.Add COOP support to maps that already have COOP support in the mods that DCR inherits from. This will include the best picks from default BF1942 (such as El Alamein and Tobruk), and DC maps that have COOP (such as Basrah's Edge).
4.Try to add some excellent previously non-COOP maps to the list. I will probably have to import information from DCX to do this, as one of their great achievements was to add COOP mode to many DC maps. I'm thinking Aberdeen, Inshalla Valley, Dustbowl, and other maps that the bots should perform well in.
5.Add some new effects that I've wanted to do for some time, such as:
- Dust kick-up effects for tank cannons and machineguns that create dust dynamically if fired over dusty soil
- Rocket backblast damage that can injure someone behind you, or yourself if you fire from a small room or a wall is behind you
- Tweak the WP smoke to be more immediate
- Improve the DPICM artillery call effects
6.Make some minor tweaks to special DCR features such as:
- Perhaps remove the mostly useless waypoint command from the squad leader role. Suggestions for a squad-leader related replacement welcome.
- Revise the targeting assist for the SCUD to make it easier to understand
- Some others that I can't immediately remember
I appreciate any suggestions / criticisms you may have for a future DCR release. I know it's so darn "after the fact" for this mod that there won't be alot of attention for it, but this lack of COOP support has been a thorn in my side for a long time. When DCR was designed, there were lots of players and DCR was specifically made for large scale teamplay. If DCR is to be enjoyed anymore, it is going to need COOP support so a handful of players can play and have fun. I owe it to everyone who has enjoyed DCR to do this.

Again, super thanks to 4CentsShy for making this possible!

[tanelorn]

UPDATE

The DPICM artillery call looks amazing now. But a new mysterious issue has occurred. Any insight you may provide would be greatly appreciated.

At the end of this post is a detailed explanation of the whole arty call process. But as it may not be worth your time, I'll just outline how the designator handweapon works as that's probably the root of the issue.

The designator is basically a binoculars. It works the same way, only it has limited ammunition (1 round available). In the kit is an ammunition replenisher for the designator. You actually permanently see the ammo-restock icon when you use this kit. I do this because the arty call takes a long time, and I can't let you make a new call before the old call has actually produced the strike. Yet, you're going to need access to your weapons while you wait. This way, you make the call in about 20 seconds, then wait the rest of the time out with access to your weapons. The actual designator projectile creates a pseudovehicle at the target point that holds spawnpoints for the munitions. Now, before I worked on the DPICM, this method worked flawlessly, but the effects were not very exciting. Now, after I have enhanced the DPICM impact effects, the ammo is acting crazy.

This is what is happening now:
I will activate the designator, and it fires fine, the strike occurs, that part works fine. But the ammo is acting wierd. I do not actually lose my ammunition until about 10 seconds into the process. Then, there's only a chance that my ammo is replenished so that I can call a new strike. This is very odd and I've never seen occur for any other handweapon. I worry that it has something to do with that the projectile actually spawns an object rather than just impacting.

Your thoughts?

--- Full details on the DPICM process ---
THe laser designator works this way:

1. You aim and fire the designator. An invisible projectile flies downrange and hits the spot you aim at. The impact creates...

2. A DPICM arty strike spawn object (invisible) appears at the target spot. This object is actually a pseudovehicle, with spread out wheels with springs, that makes sure the spawn object is flat on the ground. Multiple munitions spawns are attached to this vehicle, spread out in multiple directions from the center. They have a countdown of about 45 seconds, with some variability so that the airbursts occur as a barrage. It also includes a special spawn for the actual cluster shell to appear, which is higher than the airbursts.

3. The cluster shell spawn timer hits 0, and a cluster shell appears high in the air with the sound of incoming artillery. The shell is just an effect, which drops bits of itself like the A-10 clusterbomb. It also bursts like a grenade.

4. The munitions spawn timers begin hitting 0, which will create a munition pseudovehicle at that spot. Each is also a pseudovehicle with critical damage effects at 1,2,and 3 second intervals. The vehicle is already set to be at critical damage, starting at 150 and losing HP at 50HP/second intervals. At each 50HP of damage, two things occur:

4a. Three airburst effects occur in the air at different locations, each creating an airburst effect, pop sound, and downward shooting submunition with a smoke effect attached. The submunition is created by an emitter, and is a tiny physical object with no physics properties (other than mobilephysics) so it passes through the ground and dies within a second or 2. This creates the illusion of an airburst and the smoke from a rocket propelled munition shooting towards the ground.

4b. Three ground burst effects occur on the ground at different locations, emulating an actual munition impact.

5. Each munition pseudovehicle (as spawned by the DPICM pseudovehicle) runs out of HP and detonates, causing true damage.

6. The DPICM pseudovehicle runs out of HP and disappears (maybe it disappears before the munition pseudovehicles detonate).

[tanelorn]

New challenge:

Origionally I thought it would be easy to create a zone of backblast damage for shoulder fired rocket launchers, which would also harm the shooter if he stood too close to a wall. The idea was to create an invisible grenade like object with a short timer that would fire out the back as the rocket fires out the front.

Looking at my coding options, it now seems not possible to create a different projectile in the same firearm. Making the rocket launcher fire 2 identical rockets in different directions is simple. But to get 2 different projectiles with two different muzzles... I can't figure that one out. There have been some mods that have an over-under type weapon, like a rifle with underbarrel shotgun, or a musket with a bayonet, that uses alt-fire to engage the second attack. The bayonet is used in BF:V, and may be new code not available to BF1942. In any case, I haven't found a code snippet that could help me with that.

I'm also thinking about using an effect to do this, but I don't believe that I can eject an object out of an effect emitter that can actually explode and do real damage.

If anyone has tried this or has some ideas, I'd love to hear them. (I am trying to do this for infantry shoulder fired rocket launchers, not for vehicles)

[freddy]

But to get 2 different projectiles with two different muzzles.

dunno if this is what your looking for but maybe it can help.

this worked for me, only thing is i have no muzzle effect on the rocket launcher but instead on the rocket itself

the "new" gun

Code: Select all

ObjectTemplate.create FireArms aaBombDummy
ObjectTemplate.projectileTemplate KatyushaRocket3
ObjectTemplate.visibleDummyProjectileTemplate KatyushaRocketDummy
ObjectTemplate.setInputFire c_PIAltFire
ObjectTemplate.addFireArmsPosition -0.25/0/0.15 0/0/0

dummygun for "backslash" effect using knife projectile

Code: Select all

ObjectTemplate.create FireArms AA_GunBarrel_fejk
ObjectTemplate.projectileTemplate KnifeProjectile
ObjectTemplate.setInputFire c_PIAltFire

ObjectTemplate.addTemplate e_MuzzAAgunB
ObjectTemplate.setPosition -0.25/0/-0.75
ObjectTemplate.setRotation 180/0/0

binding to maingun

Code: Select all

ObjectTemplate.create Bundle AA_Allies_Pipe
ObjectTemplate.addTemplate AA_Allies_GunBarrel
ObjectTemplate.addTemplate aaBombDummy
ObjectTemplate.addTemplate AA_GunBarrel_fejk

effect from rocket

Code: Select all

ObjectTemplate.create Projectile KatyushaRocket3
ObjectTemplate.geometry r_rocket_m1

ObjectTemplate.startEffectTemplate e_MuzzPriest

code shortened, just left things related to effects. hope it helps.

[tanelorn]

Couple questions on that:
1. So I can attach other firearms to a firearm, by creating a bundle with the extra firearm in it?
2. I see that the muzzle effect has been rotated 180, but the actual muzzle has not. This looks like it would fire both the katshyua and the knife projectile forward.

It looks like you are using the fixed AA gun for this, is that correct? I suppose I wasn't descriptive enough... I intend to do this for shoulder fired rocket launchers. I'll edit that post to make it more clear.

--------------------
UPDATE

I was able to create a bundle object that is released as an effect attached to the weapon. THe object acts like a mini-vehicle, with armor, critical damage, and an end-of-life explosion. I am using the handgrenage geometry for this. It seems that this may be a good approach, but by doing this I lose alot of control compared to a projectile. THe only way I can make it do area damage is by making it self-destruct (as vehicles self destruct when abandoned). But the timer for this is in whole seconds only, as it applies critical damage each second until it destructs.

So, for testing, I have the RPG fire one of these bundle objects out the barrel at low velocity a 30degree high angle. This lets me watch the grenade bounce and then destruct. If I fire out of a window, the grenade will hit the wall above it and bounce back, then detonate. The goal is to have this fire out the back, have the potential to bounce off a wall back towards you, then detonate. This emulates the damage you would experience if you fired a rocket launcher in a tight space. So, it will be easy to change the direction when I am satisfied with the behavior of the object.

Still, there's a big problem with this. As mentioned above, I can only get this to detonate in whole-second time lengths. Waiting a second for detonation is way too long. So it does seem that using this technique is not going to work out. It would be much better to fire a specialized projectile out the back. So I am still at square one, it seems.

[freddy]

perhaps a "deathbubble" on the object could do the trick?

it was a long time ago i made the "aa-rocketlauncher" so i dont remember much, other then it was late and i was tired and just wanted the damn thing to work

[Apache Thunder]

I would imagine you can fire a second projectile type using the tracer system? Though the tracer system always fires at half your weapons fire rate. Unless it's a single fire weapon, then I think it would work for what your trying here.

[Herrmann]

I want test and play, what do you think about a Public News and release? Then some can load and use this Mod for play?

[fo0k]

We could use a news/announcememts plugin round these parts.. Ill have a look.. would be good to throw some stuff up on the homepage occasionally

[tanelorn]

-- UPDATE --- (and replies)

About posting a playable beta: Give me some more time to work out some critical kinks first. I'll keep you posted. If anyone wants to put news of a DCR COOP revival on a news site, feel free to pull from the original post. The DCR website is in my signature for any screenshots, etc.

Deathbubble: Meaning, one of those negative healing auras? If that can be attached to a bundle, that might be a solution (although it wouldn't produce a push or shaky screen). There's a problem with it, which is elaborated on later in this post: any effect attached to an object (usually this method is activated as a 'critical damage' effect) will exist for a minimum of one full second. Equally, if it were directly attached to an object, it takes a minimum of 1 second for the object to 'self destruct' by critical damage HP 'decay'. Either way, this would create a 1 second long 'deathbubble' that could be fixed or could travel, but either way would not seem right for an 'instantaneous' backblast. Still, I'll investigate this possibility.

Tracers: Problem is, tracers follow the same path as the original projectile. Also, as stated, they don't work for single fire weapons.

--- MOD DEVELOPMENT UPDATE ---

SHoulder fired rocket backblast damage. This is on hold for now. My experiments have revealed many interesting ways of implementing this, but none that are acceptable. 2 that I explored and were 'almost there': Both involve using the 'bundle' object, which has some but not all properties of a vehicle. I had an object that would be ejected, and like a vehicle would lose HP until it kills itself, then exerts explosive damage upon death. I used two methods on this: one that threw the object backwards and then detonated (the object had physics so could bounce off objects / walls / etc.). The other method simply created a non-physics object in the air behind you to detonate. The problem with this whole approach: the HP loss occurs in 1 second intervals only, so the least amount of time before the objects detonated was 1 full second. This was too long, and allowed the object to bounce and roll back to you from long distances, or for you to 'back up' into the blast area after firing.

DPICM laser designator ammunition not recharging properly Still an issue. I'm moving on for now. I suspect it's an isssue of the weapon creating multiple PCOs as spawnpoints, and the game not wanting to recharge the weapon if some odd thing happens with these objects. The debugger is not providing any feedback on these odd behaviors.

Tank cannons and handheld machineguns create dust over appropriate terrain Initial experimentation with tank cannons is proceeding well. It is taking a long time to tweak values, playtest, tweak, playtest. It has to look good at all firing angles. Also I am working on the actual effects to make it look good. So far there is a nice instant dust effect around the cannon, and a stream of dust that follows the projectile along the ground for a little while.

AI / bots Proceeding smoothly but slowly.

assistance Anyone who thinks they can help with the backblast or DPICM issue, please let me know. PM me or post here.