Jackpine Savages' Home on the 'Net

Long overdue update here.

After an enthusiastic response to AU at a LAN party a couple of weeks ago, I've been working to get it up and stable on A3 Llama. After a lot of wailing, gnashing of teeth, and sacrificing of old keyboards by the light of the new moon we're finally there!

At one point I ended up having to move Llama to a new server so the IP address has changed. The name is still listed as ! =JpS= Llama is Reborn!. (note the space after the first exclamation point.) The IP address is 144.48.104.166 port 2302.

Besides Antistasi Ultimate, the server is currently running Drongo's DYEL mod and supporting Enhanced Movement as a client side mod.

Future Plans

• Get Enhanced Movement Rework supported because it adds some nice features to EM.
• Start planning the next AU campaign. We have a lot of options here because AU supports a whole bunch of maps and faction mods. I'm leaning toward Lingor because it's a gorgeous tropic map and probably RHS factions.
• Support for other quality of life mods.

Vague Notions

• What to do about the Teamspeak server? We haven't been using it at all. I'm seriously considering shutting it down in favor of helping to pay for a headless client.
• Map choices. Anyone have any preferences?
• Factions. Again, any preferences? AU supports a TON. Check out the list on their website to see if anything grabs your attention. The Halo one looks like an interesting diversion, for example.
• What other quality of life mods are people interested in? (Yes, Bullets, Zeus Enhanced is on my list to dig into.)  In all seriousness, though, I'm thinking that ACE might be a nice addition. Drongo's Artillery is another possibility. Etc.
• Memory upgrade for the server. It's running with only 4 GB at the moment which is pretty minimal these days. I haven't dug into HostHavoc's pricing lately, though.

We currently have a tentative Sunday-Tuesday-Thursday at 7 PM Central starting time when a bunch of us try to jump on. It's an open invitation for anyone to join so feel free to join us.

This is a very free form schedule. We won't all be there every planned night and mission schedules will vary quite a bit in length. It all depends on who can shake loose and when.

Don't hold yourself to just that time slot either. Again, feel free to jump on whenever you want. The more, the merrier!

I've been messing about with a few mods and scenarios. At the moment the server is running Conflict PvE Remixed. It basically takes the official default Conflict mode which is PvPvE and eliminates one player faction. It keeps all of the default stuff in Conflict; ranking system, capture points, emphasis on fulfilling roles like medic, engineer, logistics, etc.

Think of it as baby steps towards a KP Liberation or Anti-stasi like gameplay. It's fun as is but not as complex as it could be. Even so, I can see the outlines of where it could be developed further. It has real possibilities for further customization. 

I also took a crack at getting Overthrow running without success. Overthrow is a lot closer in spirit to Anti-stasi and might be another fun scenario to play. Unfortunately, development on it had stalled at some point and I couldn't get it to run.

I see that the mod team is digging back into it over the Christmas break. Hopefully they solved the issues with getting it running. I'll likely throw that up soon to check it out.

Finally, I am trying out some admin tools to see how well behaved they might be. More to come on those.

i am homeless right now...
well, i have a home, but it's not finished yet... hopefully by end of jan.

DARK!!!  Long time, buddy! We missed you at last summer's LAN! I'm really looking forward to seeing you online.

The Arma team has been talking about adding a logistics systems for some time, and if what memory I have left I believe this is something that we would have liked to implement.

So yes I'm up for some play time, just now need to alter my sleep shecdule back to normal hours instead of waking up at midnight, mostly not work releated and not by choice.

I'm not dead yet, but that bright light keeps calling me name.

After what? A year and a half since it was first released? 

It has gone through a heck of a lot of development since then. Besides the usual bug squashing and performance improvements that accompanies any new release there are a ton of new toys to play with.

The trailer for the release is pretty cool. It shows off a bunch of the new features starting with a couple of transport helos! It also spotlights a bunch of specialized support trucks; new command truck, ambulance, supply, fuel, ammo, vehicle maintenance, etc. In addition to the vehicles there are also new or revamped depots.

• Speaking of the helos, controls for flying them are pretty basic at the moment. No support for things like TrackIR or HOTAS set ups yet. Even so they fly pretty well with just keyboard and mouse. I haven't tried a joystick yet as I don't have one down here.
• The map UI is a lot more useful now. I haven't explored all of the changes yet. A couple that I have tried are:
  
  • There's a new built in protractor for angles and distances.
  • Even better is a really nice way to add notes, comments, etc. Just double-click and a wheel pops up to let you add icons really fast. It's really slick.
  [li]In addition, Conflict has been heavily re-written to take advantage of the new features. It now sports a brand new ranking system, a completely revamped supply system, a new medic system, vehicle repair, a new mobile respawn system, and other gameplay tweaks.
• Playing as a medic, logistics, vehicle repair, sapper, are all roles that players are now able to do in Conflict. Each role can earn points for advancement up the ranks to gain access to the bigger depots and vehicles. The helopad, for example, isn't available until someone reaches sergeant.

Development hasn't stopped with this release by any means. This is Bohemia Interactive after all. I don't think they know HOW to stop. Check out the planned roadmap for the goodies that they're planning going forward.

I found a video by Ironbeard that does a pretty good breakdown of the more interesting updates in 1.0. Well worth watching if you have a free half hour.

I've updated our AR server and set it to vanilla Conflict mode for the time being. You can find it at ! =JpS= Llama is Reborn! 147.124.197.80:2001. (Note the leading exclamation point to push it near the top of the list when sorting by name.)

I plan to play Tuesdays and Thursdays starting between 7 and 8 Eastern plus some weekend evenings. Anyone care to join me?

Quick note: If you played AR during its beta period I highly recommend completely wiping all of the mods that you downloaded. The Workshop was reset when it went to 1.0. I had double entries of all the mods when AR updated my cache.

Finally, with all of the updates plus what I've seen what they've done with Conflict? I'm looking forward to seeing what modders are going to do with it. There's at least one PvE CTI mode out there that I saw in beta that I'm hoping will be re-released now that 1.0 is out. It's not quite at the level of sophistication of Antistasi or KP Liberation (yet). With a pretty vibrant modding community though, who knows? We may have something pretty quickly.

I got put onto a base building & logistics wetdream ... it's over head not first person though ...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/505460/Foxhole/

They even have guys who do the recaps like arma3:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwTE67x7vHY

Persistent campaign, tons of ppl just get resources and manufacturing, moving stuff around etc supplying front line forces.

Quick logi guides:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q80NhfEOEGQ

A friend from High School started a band called the "Jack Pine Savages". He is having an album release party from 1:30 PM to 5 PM on August 20 at Barely Brothers Record Store. I plan on being there and you should too. No cover charge and free beer! Maybe some BBQ.

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I spoke too soon! Work became all consuming again and I have had very little time and energy to do any mission creation until very recently.

For the past three weeks or so I've been spending my time with Drongo's collection of tools for mission creation in Arma 3. It's amazing what he's managed to put together.

At the moment I have a long running test mission that I'm playing around with on Altis. Similar in concept to KP Liberation or Antistasi although I'm heavily influenced by the war in Urkaine. I have the main population and weather modules set up the way that I like. I have barebones versions of the missions, CAS, and arty modules set up. I have a few others of Drongo's that I'm interested in that I want to play around with.

There's also an AI "High Command" mod called "NR6 PACK - HAL Evolved" or "Hetman Artificial Leader NR6 Edition." It gets high marks for creating an aggressive opposing AI and/or an overall friendly commander. I'm looking forward to playing with both of them to so see if it can fill the capabilities that ALiVE used to do back in the day.

Next steps are to:

• Finish playing around with the mods.
• Get an alpha or beta build to play around with and troubleshoot on my portable laptop server.
• Set up a play test on Llama.

Hopefully I'll be able to control my work environment enough to actually get something done over the next several weeks. Seriously, I could have an alpha build of something playable in a week or two if work wasn't sucking up so much time.

More to come!

i've hopped on the last few nights... I might send out an email too...
the server seems to be setup as just quick little missions, when you die you get a certain number of respawns...
so not the long campaign