=VG= SemlerPDX

All that being said, I am 99% done with the TrackIR Shooting Contest and it has been live on one of the test servers for a month while I've been trying to learn how to make a stand alone program that can pull the shooters scores, names, and one or two other things from the arma2oaserver.RPT file. I did not succeed. I spent a week taking this C# (C-Sharp) tutorial program that Terremer hooked me up with and learned 2 things - C Sharp is a rather poor program for myself to learn as it so changes the concepts of how to code in C that it would ruin my goals of learning C and C++ with any proper learning curve. Secondly, I learned that the time and learning curve can so delay progress, even though I am getting new tools in my coding toolbox, that I should give up. Clearly, the most appropriate action is to outsource it to another member of our team to bring the score board/leaderboard of the shooting contest here to the website like with the DayZ and MSO leaderboard proof of concept tests. (Go test the TrackIR Shooting Contest - it knows if you've already seen the intro video, you won't have to watch it twice - and you don't need a group, it's not COOP - it's like a single player thing, so go log some test scores, dammit! Shoot to win! Try to beat your high score! TEST! Then do it again in a day or two! password is in the ts3 channel descrip, and an ingame leaderboard will show you how you and everyone else did. Final mission will not allow restart, BETA Test, you will restart at the pistol lane, and can check the scoreboard. PLEASE TEST! Ignore the crooked hescos, and lack of polish/flair and only report to me any control issues or teleport bugs, etc. I only need data - I will check the RPT file after the weekend and collect my data.) The TrackIR Contest BETA Test is up, and has been up. Please go run through it, try to get the best score you can get as if you would win an awesome TrackIR unit for winning. Give feedback, if you want, but really, I just need to check the logs after so many players have done it. It is designed to be autonomous, and funneled - The player enters the contest, sees an intro video of what the contest is, what to do, what can be won, and lets them know where to go to check their place in the leaderboard (here at website). They will shoot a pistol, then fade out and fade into the rifle range with a rifle, after 30 shots, they are done - they get a "Thank you for participating!" message, and for the BETA, there is an in-game example of the leaderboard as I have only the ability to code an in game one, website will be up to SolarFlame, Terremer, Poffadder, or anyone else capable of doing so. I must focus on what I am good at - GO TEAM VG!

Regarding the TrackIR Shooting Contest: Sorry for saying I could do something, but I had more learnin to do to make a secure, organized, structured shooting contest that is fair, cannot be cheated in without obvious indicators in the score logging, and looks cool and is fun. I'd like to extend a personal apology to BLuDKLoT and Seth at TrackIR for getting the gears working back in May, only to have contact drop off with no updates. I had so much more yet to learn, and should not have "bitten off" such a large chuck without respect for what it would entail. At all points, I ran into issue after issue, regarding use of coding sytax to score logging and variable corruption. I felt like only news I would have been able to report would have been inconclusive and inaccurate estimates of when such a thing would be working and completed. If you are still interested, I can make this happen. Humbly, -SemlerPDX (shown in photo: in-game leaderboard proof of concept, final is website only but I can't program one - HELP!) Also, at no point did I toss this on the back burner and forget that I had committed to making this secure database logging contest system and fun shooting contest promotion. I am disabled, and cannot go off to a nice job and office, so this is my office. I am a perpetual student of object oriented programming, and specifically fluent with the Arma 2 game engine, and chose to dedicated myself to that engine (and the new version coming soon). I have spent an average of 10-15+ hours a day since May creating this wonderful contest system, which I am fully able to adapt to most anything inside the Arma engine, perhaps even that DayZ contest idea someone had - except I understand the concept of a target shooting board, but can't picture people competing for kill count without it being corrupted by cheaters. At least not yet - I continue to learn more and more every day, as my friends here can attest to - it's hard to drag me away from reading, learning, or writing awesome game systems and code that I want my game to have. I do all this for a number of reasons: 1. I love gaming and playing games, and hated the days when all I could do was complain ("ARG! I died again from that stupid bug!" or "Dude, this game rocks, but if it only had.....") 2. I cannot just "play" games anymore - I'm too old for that. And I even have life's most perfect excuse, as it were, being disabled (if you don't know, my damn shoulders won't stay in socket. I gotta be super careful all the time). But hell, my daughter is nearly as old as some of our younger members. I needs money for her college, I love having time to be a dedicated father, happily report she's an 8th grader in 9th grade Algebra and loving it, and I dedicate all the rest of my time to the VETERANS-GAMING Core Vision. This is because I know now, more than when I was in my early to mid-20's, that hard work and dedication pay off if you stay true to your goals, and the industry we've chosen deals in BIG, BIG numbers with the added benifit of working at home, internationally conferencing instead of being slaved to some office building or jet-setting all over hell and back. 4. ...or are we on three? oh yea, 3. I have so much fun with all this - the game events, the socializing, the productive creation of amazing functional works that delight us all, the networking. Therefore, if there is a possible paycheck down the road, I have a sense of purpose - a goal, a dream, the VG Vision. I would like to thank BLuDKLoT, the founders of VG and all who came before me, from the very bottom of my heart for giving this purpose to me. The teamwork on the fields and behind the scenes is so unique and wonderful that it almost brings a tear to me 'eye. So, to conclude, creating and not just playing all the time (I swear I will get in game more - read below) fulfills and completes the top level of my Maslow Triangle heirarchy of needs. (or is that one food? I can't remember, I think I saw it on a cereal box about 20 years ago...)

!wiz the force is strong with this one ... ...though the rabbit hole does indeed keep going deeper...and I am on to learning higher concepts of Arma 2 scripting. -Only for those interested, the bored, and those who need a long book to get sleepy- A VG Arma Dev Projects Update *LONG* Blog (not required reading) regarding my status, the TrackIR Shooting Contest, and what that awesome USMC image is on the very last post: Now that I am "done" with all the learning hoops I had to jump through to really understand in a practical way this code syntax, applications, and best practices of, I have found out, tested and have premade examples of: - Amazing cut scenes; embeded pre-recoreded video in game (I watched "Clippy's Tactial Roll" video from within Arma - way cool), I can also control titles; dynamic notes; and then just recently I learned how to make dialog boxes (those things that pop up with words and a few buttons to click like Okay and Cancel - For example, ACRE Radios are a "dialog box" - an image with clickable buttons that pops up on your screen). So, yes, I can for example make a game inside a game(Arma 2), say, Pong, on a TV you walk up to, even multiplayer (2 players max, duh) - just need to see the code for Pong and translate it into Arma 2 Scritping language, and build a simple dialog box from an image I'd request from one of you, say, a hand held video game looking device (with ambient non funcional buttons like dpad and functional buttons like Start and Select, or A and B, and a big black empty square where the screen would go for my additions. I don't need this, but it can be done easier that you'd imagine. Pong is lame, just an example. I was thinking more along the lines of many training modules for weapons systems, vehicle systems and group/convoy deployment and formations, etc. Using the score logging systems I wrote for the TrackIR Shooting Contest, I could do most anything like that.

For "After Party", please see first page of this thread - we will be using standard ACE/ACRE, but with @mcc_sandbox mod as well. You won't have to "turn off" MGB killhouses or MGB cinder city because I've allowed them, but won't be using them, in the after party (I just want to avoid confusion, so I've added them keys to the party, which is actually on a separate server than the one we will use for Savage's Event Mission) Not trying to complicate things, and I'm on my first cup of coffee, so I hope this is all very simple and clear. See you all at the event! !coffee (@Savage - both; UPSMON AI in DAC Zones (point and click, up to 40!) - and btw, that guy who spawned things in wrong zone - common mistake, cuz have to "update" the menu GUI after choosing different faction to work with, if current selected zone is #18, after update, it will be 1 again. So, what I do, is I never place a Zone #1! Start at 2, then, worst case scenario, NOTHING spawns.)

Wow - I didn't know that, about making a list so "unpopular" posts are not show on the main feed of my friends. Gonna set that up asap. !cheers

!cheers to all our donators!!

Yes it does break forums - the embeded timer. We totally need a Zulu clock of our own here at the website. Solar is the only one I know who could write one for us in any short period of time. Very simple to him I bet, but would take one of us awhile just to learn the language. Server side you say? I look forward to testing this! Already sold on DAC hook, line, and sinker - suppression would be the icing on the cake. Also, found tip - set all non-combatants to this setSkill 0 for huge perfomance increase on server. Set your playable units to skill 0, too. Just remove all skill settings for anything that won't be firing at the players. Oh, and you don't need to leave editor to change Mission.sqm or description.ext if you simply save changes, load blank mission, then re-load your mission. I was getting annoyed with having to reload arma ace with each edit - and didn't know one could do this. !cheers

Here's the DL for MCC_Sandbox (it's a mod, put it along side your others to be used later - don't launch with it yet!): mcc_sandbox_v10.rar

I'd be happy to lead a FT or just play - Sign me up! !cheers Castor =VG= LAN_WROTE ... I'm in, start counting people dude :) also should we search for a ACE CO-12 mission? would be nice to something else as well after that, especially if its a short mission :) I got that covered! We will have extra play time post mission - and I'd like everyone to DL the MCC Sandbox - this WILL NOT be used for Savage's mission AFAIK, but people will need this for Post Event Games, might as well get it before the weekend, it's only a 2MB mod.

!cheers You'll be happy to note I finally got Abrams tanks to go uphill at proper speeds - add a Torque Drive (more of a limiter remover) and now grass and hills pose no "nerfing" to tanks, or anything.. See you when you're done!

Okay, this is uncanny - I pressed shift-k ingame, and the exact same watch (not the above model, but one with bearings that I decided not to use) is THE VERY SAME watch already integrated into ACE! OMG! Well, scrap that project - it's already done. Great minds stink alike... !lol

For HALO ParaJumping: I need an altimeter. I guess I'm just not "hardcore"...lol So... it seems it's not quite so hard to use C++ and GIMP (thanks to Iffn for the tip!) to define a new custom image with a variable text box to display data, in this case, player posATL (altitude above terrain level) and to display that resource during a HALO jump for instance. Personally, I need something like this - at the very least, a text output of my Altitude while I'm falling from the sky. It's no big deal to make a hint format to display that in text, I've done it before in the CLAfghan Mission, but where's the fun in that?? I think this will be very cool to have an actual OpsGear Suunto Altimeter Watch to display the data like every other piece of equipment we have in Arma and in ACE. Should be done by tomorrow or Sunday.... !cheers (if this gives anyone ideas for any other system, let me know - this is not too difficult to create...)

banned. Saw that crap in the logs - what a liar... /locked

banned. thanks for the report!

Yea, the other standard i44 missions run AMAZING! I suggest we use those till i44 Domi has received some dev luv. !cheers

TortiaBoy =VG= LAN_WROTE ... and aren't you not supposed/allowed to mod Dayz...? The deal is that you have to run a private HIVE - it cannot be part of the public HIVE that governs all the public DayZ games on Chernarus. This is fully allowed, and approved by the DayZ devs - else we wouldn't do it. Private HIVE means that our database is our own, not connected elsewhere. @Murderface: See? Not easy to choose between two very cool missions - much better to find a way to have your cake and eat it, too. Today I'm adding an Ammo Crate Request GUI to the ACE/ACRE Domi, as well as a CAS Pilot System GUI, and some kind of turbo for tanks so they can go uphill faster than 8 km/h. According to Renainn (a.k.a. Davestrike), who was a loader in an Abrams during the Gulf War (2nd I believe) - the Abrams has a massive engine and can propel it up greater than 15 percent grades at ~40 km/h regardless of it's weight and terrain. That's why the Abrams rocks! AMERICA FUCK YEA! Come test later this afternoon! !cheers (oh, and BTW, that poll was made wrong. I just copied this link to another browser where I'm not signed into VG, and as an annonymous non-registered user, I was able to vote for the "something else" vote - NOT my vote, but proves that POLL Posters need to select a proper vote/storage method i.e User ID (only members can vote) - please use that option for ALL polls. Thanks!)

I'll play with you - I know it's kinda last minute, and middle of the week, but I'm always down for a little Invasion 1944. Someone should go over to their website forums and post up the event - we will get a full server, trust me. !cheers

4 servers could be run, and yes, we still need numbers to see, cuz if each server were as populated as Insurgency is most the time, we may have to scale it down. Point stands though, we can run several of our ideas at once, and that we shouldn't feel like we have to lose one server (DayZ) to work on another (MSO) - My point was that they both could be up, but we have only 3 people + Solar doing the PHP/other coding server and website side. Hope that point is understood..

I don't understand the poll. You do know that we have an i7 2600 CPU with 8 cores and 32GB of RAM, right? It can run at the same time DayZ, MSO, ACE/ACRE Domi, and Insurgency + a dev server or two that remain off most the time, without running into performance issues. We can host several servers, and though the current focus of the VG Arma 2 devs is not on DayZ at the moment, I don't think it, or MSO, are on the chopping block or even the editing floor. We ran into complications with MSO, but liked many things about it. DayZ is no easy mission to modify, and as for the "somethings else", we try here and there to have some fun as we go - like ACE/ACRE Domi. That was really hard for me to find, the 2.60 ACE Domi - not gonna let that one go. Plus, I promised PITN that I would read through Insurgency (line by line!) and understand it, so we can overhaul it a bit. We do not run 1.5 Ins because of bugs I guess, but I am a true Armaholic and should be able to apply myself in a positive way to improve our Insurgency server that is currenly the Flag Ship of VETERANS-GAMING. I am just one man, though, coming out of a shitty flu I caught from ridDle somehow. My 2 cents, semi-off topic, meh: I've been seeing a lot of great polls lately, but as one of the VG Arma Dev team, I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on the entire concept of the workload involved and call out for more peeps. We have a team of only 3 people familiar with Arma 2 scripting, with Solar as a fourth dev on website/PHP end(which is where all those cool test leaderboards come from) and there is only so much we can do at any moment. Trust me, we are not lacking in focus - and our direction is one that has put a lot of new tools in our toolboxes. If it weren't for our experiments with MSO, we wouldn't know what we do now about SQL Database systems working with Arma, and if not for the DayZ - we would not know so much as we do now about HIVE Database (if we know anything about it). One thing that finally got me into Arma development was that I was always sitting around waiting for Savage or Poff to, for example, fix a bug we had identified, or an implement an improvement we had all agreed on. It was easier than I thought, and now we all can help any new scripters cuz we have the "knowledge". Back before I could script in Arma 2, I felt kinda selfish when I would be impatient with one of them(Savage/Poff), cuz I wanted to play so bad. I understand not everyone has the time to learn a complex thing like that, and not everyone is even capable (say, if they hate math and the lot). I started learning Arma 2 scripting exactly one year ago now, and only now do I have the skills to quickly read and write these things - knowing where to get info online, and have all the tools installed on my PC to do it. And I spent over 8 hours a day dedicated to learning these skills. Time for someone else to step up and join the dev team, your curve won't be as bad as mine, cuz we can help like I said. For now, know that we (Solar, Savage, Poffadder schedule permitting, and myself) have long discussions nearly daily about the direction we want to go in, and the servers that we could run. These discussions don't make it here to the forums, but rest assured, we are not sitting on our hands for lack of a whip being cracked on us. Believe me - we are plugging away at the VG dream, and we have a full plate most all the time. (no offense, but I did not vote - cannot, because I'd add the choice "None of the Above")

Wow! All I can say is, those looks amazing! BMS is beautiful! !2cool

CASTOR AND FASTJACK BOTH! GO TO YOUR CORNERS, THE BELL HAS RUNG! !beatdown I have or will talk to both of you, as I'm sure BLuDKLoT will as well. Let's stop the negativity, I DON'T CARE WHERE IT STARTED, and try to be constructive with our brainstorming. We're all a bunch of gun loving war jockey's here - it's only natural that we can clash from time to time. Lets get back ON TOPIC and OFF of each other right now. As to TvT vs COOP - YES, VETERANS-GAMING is the premier COOP Gaming Clan and we specialize and prefer to fight AI over our comrades. This in no way means we cannot or will not utilize a game in it's default PvP or TvT manner from time to time, and DayZ is a great example of that. My opinions were too difficult, but without even playing our DayZ, I can understand how without the element of PvP danger, the mission is almost boring and lacking depth. We should never give up on trying to get our version of a game populated at a discussion stage. Sure, we have no long term direction for what Arma server will be what because we (the button pushers behind the curtains of our servers) are still trying out and testing different things to see what is: Stable, Playable, Modify-able, "Could-Be-Popular", and sorting out the crap that doesn't work, or cannot be fixed. There is a shitload of content out there, and we've just scratched the surface. Great things are coming soon to all VG Arma servers, but keep the suggestions and CONSTRUCTIVE opinions coming!!! !cheers But if I had time, a lot of it, like months, I would fashion an AI DayZ faction other than Zombies, and they would have guns and choppers and boats. And they would collect shit (not literal 'shit', but you know, shit...) and collect zombies randomly, with they're awesome assets and tip top guns, and kill/capture the players if they didn't hide or defend themselves from these AI "Umbrella" like forces. Maybe someone else will do that for us.....could shit in one hand, and wish in the other, too. !lol (oh yea, and I voted for the bottom one, also with strictly enforced rules for bandits if we were to do it) (and, and, I want ACRE!!! Perhaps a custom "CB Radio" styled version? and "findable" linear amplified antenna?)

TortiaBoy =VG= LAN_WROTE ... my only question is..why would you film a ((seemingly)) high school, PE dodge ball game? if it were high school dodgeball, I would be asking the same question! haha! Was at Kean University, and you can hear the guy talking to the camera man before he heads out around the ring, and gets a ball - apparently so he could get his sick ass Funk KU on video !lol

Funniest part of the whole mission, Eclipse:

In todays Event at one point, Poffadder had manned a Stryker, with Iffn on the gun, and 2 Fire Teams in the back. Kinda cool to look down the rows and see everyone with their personal rifle - very Spec Ops! We investigated a reported IED outside the Green Zone, and met some contacts there. We then proceeded to the site of an ambushed friendly convoy, and were attacked by guerillas who had stolen 2 Strykers - a M2 and a Mk19 variant. Needless to say, chaos ensued when we came under fire from what sounded like BLUFOR weaponry. If those ex-farmers had any idea how to use them with any effectiveness, we might not have survived such a 'surprise'. My AT4 made short work of the Mk19 Stryker, once we had shaken off the fog of war, and Poff finished off the M2 one with an RPG he stole off a dead OPFOR - Now that's poetic justice! Views from inside the Stryker: The Team on the perimeter before we came under 'friendly' fire from the stolen Strykers: (check the wheels on the Stryker - apparently they came from "South Park's Canadian Wheels Mod" or something! haha) Poffadder lead us through hell, and came out looking like it: (dare I say, 'slashed up like medical malpractice') You know how when you're taking pictures, and there's always that one guy who pops into the photo yelling "WOOOOO!" ? Gotta love that lean in, and what looks like a smirk on the dudes face, as I photograph Poffadder's lacerated mug... Good games today! Can't wait till the next ACRE Event! Thanks to all who participated! OORAH! !2cool

(an amazing find by =VG= ridDle) ...because one day, in a KU Gym, those 20 years of intense Kung Fu training overseas will finally pay off.