I am almost done with this. But need some input on it:
Idea: this is a Module that I am working on. The aim of it is to allow the zeus to click with it on the ground somewhere and enter radios.
For any player that gets in this area (marked in the following image), the player will lose health if he does not have a (mask/item) on him.
The player will get the icon shown in the following image on the bottom left side of his screen. flashing every time he loses a bit of his health (every 3-5 seconds)
I need input to what items should the player has on him to protect himself from this? as of this point i am using the Contact masks. but these are DLC and I am aiming to make it in a way that every player should be able to play with this without having to deal with unpaid DLC stuff on his screen.
any other ideas or feedback for this is very welcome.
I think the best vanilla workaround for this issue that is friendly to the world-building and goal of introducing something like this into a Zeus mission is to require players to cover as much of their skin as possible with their uniform/gear. This would make the “gas in the air” aspect make sense, where it damages your skin if it comes in contact, etc. This would mean wearing uniforms that cover as much as possible, and a helmet that does the same. Most combat helmets would fulfill this. There are plenty of vanilla non-DLC and DLC uniforms that do the same, such as:
-Most to all CSAT uniforms
-Ghillie suits(non-full cover more)
-wetsuit
-CTRG uniforms(apex)
-special purpose suits(apex)
You can also add face-coverings to the package if you want, and allow face-coverings that cover as much as possible. And then if players do have the contact DLC, then they can cover up using the multitude of helmets, face coverings, and uniforms that contact has to offer.
That’s my take. Also if you need help testing, I got you.
Could you code it in such a way that the module takes a (list of) item name(s) as an input argument? Then you could open up more narrative possibilities by allowing the necessary inventory to be different from one op to the next.
I get what you mean, but this means some players are already good to go in this area since they have a “cool loadout” on them anyway every time.
I’m thinking of 1 or 2 things that a player normally does not have and needs to think about it and maybe bring it as an extra to survive here.
One thing that you could do is have different equipment react differently with the “toxic environment”. Say, for example sake, that an Arma entity has 10 pts of health, and the ‘gas’ subtracts 1pt of health every few seconds. The contact gas masks and the respirator would negate the effects completely, and the player would lose no health. There are, however, other face coverings in the game. Say, for example, someone is wearing the N95 masks from laws of war DLC. This, only partially protecting the wearer, would subtract say 0.3pts of health every few seconds while in the zone. For those who do not have DLC, any of the vanilla face coverings that cover nose and mouth (e.g. bandana, stealth balaclava, etc) would lose 0.5pts of health while in the zone.
There are other things that could be done to counteract the dead zone, such as a module you can put on certain vehicles to negate the “toxic effects”
The point I’m trying to make is that there are options to facilitate those without contact, but to make a cloth bandana have the same properties as a full scale gas mask would be very immersion breaking.
I have this coded, done and ready! it just gives the Contact DLC players a powerful advantage and in a PvP mission, that would be very unfair! this is the main reason I posted this here for more ideas!
the second part with
Is a good one, but idk how much sense it makes to have something near your that helps you with the bad “gas” around you.
But it’s definitely in the right direction. Need such creative ideas.
Basicly put i need some item that is like the DLC Masks for nun DLC Players that shields them from the effect 100% and that has to make sense somehow
maybe a setting in the module that the Zeus can toggle wether or not contact masks have an advantage, with the Zeus having the option to give masks an advantage in order to preserve immersion, or disable the advantage for a level playing field in a PVP scenario
HEy Texn!
that would make a lot of stuff easier for me. but the goal has for this is to work 100% with no need for mods or DLCs.
and then we can talk about adding the modded items to work with it too which would be easy to do.
I think the best way to go about this, for now, is to make any item that is “covering mouth and nose” should shield the player from the effect.
as of now, I can only count for the nun modded items. if it works well and no problems, then we can start adding modded items to it too.
This includes bandanas, face masks from DLCs, and any cloth material that covers the face.
in time, if we find creative ideas that work for everyone, we can upgrade the module.
Hello everyone. I have remembered what I used for biohazard Zeus missions: Heli Crew Helmets in addition to a full-body uniform and gloves. Completely vanilla and non-DLC. Pilot helmets and pilot suits fit the requested description too. I can’t think of any other vanilla non-DLC gear at the moment that would fit the description. And I hope these items aren’t immersion-breaking in any way. Hope this helps and I look forward to playing a biohazard Zeus mission with a real Arma life-threatening biohazard!
this is a purely hypothetical suggestion, being that arma is arma and it would probably be a living nightmare to script… but hear me out.
What if the zeus could put a module on a player that basically states whether or not said player’s loadout provides protection from the dead zone. The protection would not be tied to the mask itself, but to the player. This, to my knowledge, would alleviate the need to approve certain moded gas masks because the mask itself is not tied to the protection. This would also allow the zeus to decide what is deemed adequate protection, regardless of modded, DLC or a vanilla loadouts.
it could be interesting, but I would presume is a hellish task to script
Domau, I like your thinking on first read—as a raw problem solve, it’s a creative way to circumvent the need for actual items. But as I thought about it a bit more, I come up with a few potential pitfalls:
It would be easy for Zeuses to use as a punish module. Just apply a damage bleed to anyone you don’t like. I’d like to think that we’re collectively better than that, but NAK does still restrict certain easily abused modules.
It would be a Zeusing nightmare to manage per-person modules for potentially ~30 players. You’d almost entirely preclude quickly dropping it on groups.
It would probably have a significant performance impact simply having that many modules populated. Remember that each module is treated as an object. More modules is more compute overhead (especially in an engine that can get really frustrating about how it handles small/easy compute tasks in large quantity).
Looking forward to all of the CBRN opportunities this would make!
No Breaks, I do agree that it is a raw problem solve. The management issue could be solved with an apply to all, side, group or player function. I do definatly agree that the module would create a performance issue and I didnt think of that. The first point, however, is an inherent pitfall of the deadzone module itself. If players do not expect that the deadzone would be used, it could be used as a punishment.
The way I write my code allows me to be flexible for such stuff so this is actually easy for me to make.
The point you forget is that the zeus can not load other mods, so he will not be able to confirm that the player has a “good item/mask” on him.
but on the other side, this could be implemented as a “this person has immunity to the virus” type of module. It is an interesting idea and will see if I will have the time to make it.
as for the performance of this script, I am building it in a way that should have 0 issues in this matter. I am waiting for the new Arma update to patch up the current issues they created with the latest update and I can be 100% sure and publish this.
I do want to mention that instituting this module and then adding subsequent ways to counteract the “dead zone” is designed to one-building a mission around CBRN ideas, and to two-add extra things players have to worry about or counter when planning their loadout and their path through a mission. To go along with the second idea, making sure players can’t just loadout their normal sick loadout and have all the normal gear like any other mission would defeat the purpose. Making sure that player loadouts have to take into account the CBRN side, whether it be needed to bring a less capable backpack or vest, etc in order to have the correct gear is important to this module. Not sure if I am adding much to the great conversation here, but that is my take.
Letting players play missions that institute this module and don’t need to change their normal loadout much would take away from the module and the experience it provides.
please feel free to post all the ideas you have as this post is meant for it!
If you see me on TeamSpeak please feel free to contact me too and we can talk more if you wish.
I will read everything in this post before i publish to make sure i did not miss any good or valid ideas that i should have known
