Well this was bad news... Looks like the dial home function stopped all from working for me... FIX.
Open notepad as Admin. (right click notepad run as admin). Then open your host file (%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) and add the following to the bottom.
127.0.0.1 www.ibattle.org
127.0.0.1 ibattle.org
The following also should also work find if you put it into your run box then make your edits and save
runas.exe /user:Administrator "notepad %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts"
**Maybe due to me using reporter functions but this still fixed/bypassed that
With the approval of AWOL I write this post to give you some heads up on what is going on behind the scenes, and why there have been little to no information lately as to what's going on with the mod. The information I am releasing here are what I've grasped from conversations with AWOL and streams from the developers themselves and thus are prone to change, but they should give you an idea of what's coming. Have no doubt that the devs are still working hard to release a new patch, and the reason why it (0.2.6) has been delayed is that they wanted to release something that will take a big step in the intended direction, something that will impress the community.
Maintaining two separate developer builds for release was not feasible, and pushing 0.2.6 further and further just wasn't reasonable any longer, so the current next milestone is version 0.3.0. It will come with a database wipe, partly because the database has been changed in development. A changelog is in the works and should be released soon.
Version 0.3.0 will first be released to the official hosts only, the objective is to stress test the build and see how it performs under pressure (100 players). Us official hosts have an established line of communication with the devs and will be forwarding test data during this initial launch so that the patch works well for a public release.
The current approximate ETA for release is about a months time.
What is coming up (PRELIMINARY INFO, EXPECT CHANGES)
+ Revamped building system, you can now insert buildables (walls, etc.) into the ground and snap to them, falling walls is a thing of the past + Axeman has been working on a new Epoch multi-part mission system, involving using UAV's to gathering intel, , engaging human opponents, etc. etc. + More stuff/items you can pick up + Expanded map support + Improved sapper brain + More sapper variants + New UGV-enemy + Several anti-duping fixes, one of the consequences currently of this is that you get booted to lobby after you permadie. + New treasure sites underwater, you can now loot underwater + More new loot containers (ie. at Ferris wheels) + Several bug and glitch fixes + improved antihack and admin menus + You can now bash persistent wrecks of vehicles/rocks and get scrap metal from them + Frequency Jammers now prevent loot from spawning within their area + More functions/upgradability for frequency jammers + Loot tables have been tweaked + Base items (cinder, wood, etc.) now are much sturdier and can take lots more punishment + New server events (shore ship wrecks) spawn with chests + A take all-button
I know all server's are not save from script kiddies. It's just infiStar is well known for its script leaks and easy access and by pass.
Some will spam my comment saying no it is not.... give it a few weeks and new script kiddie updates will be available and there goes your well earned money out the door.
Word of great advice, keep an eye open in the near future. The Epoch community will create and release some decent stuff for free. For right now, stick with the Devs admin tools. It offer's solid clean script that is not taken from someone else and sold for profit.
This is my opinion and not to insult anyone on any future release of admin tools for sale.
A bit bored at work so thought I'd contribute to this topic a bit. Maybe it will help someone else in future.
What you just encountered is what's called "nested arrays". It's quite simple and effective programming concept, frankly a bit hard to read if you don't have trained eye. Programmers can easily read trough brackets while scrolling, but they are just human beings and still make mistakes, typos, misses brackets etc... which is normal... and part of fun!
I will start by going one step backwards - a variable.
A variable can be anything - a defined string, code block or simple decimal digit... for example:
a = 1;
a is a variable with value of 1
a = "apple";
a is a variable with string value of "apple"
a = {b=1;};
a is a function (code block) that defines variable b when called.
a = [1,2,3];
a is a variable of multiple values. Each value can be accessed, changed or more values added/removed. But this is where the fun starts...
a = [1,2,3];
b = [x,y,z];
a and b are independent arrays and have nothing to do with each other.
a = [[b,c,d],[1,2,3]];
over here we just nested 2 arrays within one large array
a = [[["valueception"]]];
although this makes no sense, it's still legit nested array (select 0 select 0 select 0). A string within array within array within array.
a = [["a","b","c"],[[1,2,3],[x,y,z]]];
I will end with this one - nested array within nested array. 123 and xyz are 2 arrays nested together under larger array, which in return is nested within even larger array also containing abc strings
As you can see, it's all about position of brackets.
Updated Dec 22nd:
https://github.com/hogscraper/A3_EPOCH_Headless_Client
I have created a repo on Github with this code to make setting it up a little easier. The repo contains the bare essentials to
get this up and running but has a crippled AI system. When I put that in the code below, it was crap and was only
intended as a generic stand in so server admins would know how to get other AI mission systems up and running. What I overlooked
was the lack of any decent ones being out when I first posted this. To force the issue I went ahead and deleted most of what was in
the AI_Init code so it still spawns a few AI, but that's it. I want to take the focus in this thread from the AI aspect and stay with just the
HC stuff. This repo is still being put together, but it has what you need to reference so you can get your server up and running a little
easier.
Updated Dec 10th:
I added a section below on processor affinity and how to set this up with multiple instances of Arma.
thanks for the heads up axeman!
This isn't for the light of heart. If you feel confident in your ability to follow simple instructions, hopefully
this tutorial will help you out. If you get to a point and have to ask yourself, "well how do I do that?" you need
to use google. There are tons of tutorials out there on any instruction I give below and they are out of the scope
of this tutorial. I had a friend and fellow server admin run through this on a basic A3 and Epoch install on his
box and he was able to get it up and running no problems, (other than the BEFilters mentioned below).
SECTION 1: SETTING UP A HEADLESS CLIENT:
This has become so much easier lately as BI have recently included HC tech inside A3. It really is a much easier process
than it ever has been in the past. Because of this, I will be redirecting you to a tutorial they made to get you started.
You can use 127.0.0.1 wherever you find an ip address, (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx on the tutorial page), if your sever is local to
the headless client. The best part is, you no longer need another cd key for a headless client in A3.
Read this, and when you are done, I will fill in the blanks with what's relevant to Epoch:
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Headless_Client
At this point you will have an edited mission.sqm with a new unit called headlesshogs_01, (or whatever you called yours). I added a number
to my name so I have the option to create more than one at a later date if I need it. You can reference your headless
client later to add even more to it by referencing the name you gave it. In most cases, AI systems are built so you only
need to fire and forget but its worth noting if you wish to take this concept further.
Create a new text file in your A3 base folder and rename it Headless_Client_01.bat
Inside that file paste this line:
arma3server.exe -client -connect=127.0.0.1 -mod="@epoch";
This bat file will create a new, dedicated client and connect it to your server, joining the first free headless client slot it can find.
If you use a master bat file to run your server you will want to have this code called after BEC has loaded. If you are running them
manually, the order is
Redis-(wait for load to complete)
server launch
BEC launch(waits on its own for server launch to complete before running)
HC launch(best to wait until BEC is completely loaded before running)
Processor Affinity:
I'm a Windows user so these instructions are valid for that system. Before you begin, you should have some
background knowledge about the processor you are running your server on. How many cores it has, which
cores if any are hyperthreading cores, etc. This information will help you determine which cores you want to
run which processes so that you have a better idea on what to substitute for the generic values in this tutorial.
When you run multiple instances of any Arma product on the same box, its always best to assign each process
to a separate cpu core. This can help get ahead of bottlenecks when the server and the HC are both running code
at the same time. You can manually adjust these values through Task Manager but its much easier to just add the
information directly to your batch files. If you edit your batch file you only need to edit the beginning of the line:
start /AFFINITY # "arma3server.exe" ... the rest of your start parameters as they already are
The # above are the cpu cores you want to utilize but its a little tricky determining, as its a hex value of a binary number.
Your processors need to be arranged with the highest number first. So eight cores would be written down as
87654321
and four cores would be
4321
Once you have written the number of cores you have in that format you will need to create a binary number using
the cores you want to run on. If we wanted this process to use cores 8,6,4 and 2 we would utilize the binary like:
87654321
10101010
Just mark a 1 under any core number you want to use and a zero under any that you don't. This new binary number
needs to be converted into a hexadecimal value. A quick way to do that is open windows calculator. Click View and choose
Programmer
Click the radio button for Bin, (putting the calculator into binary mode), and enter the number you obtained above. After
you hit the last digit you can click the radio button for Hex and it will convert the number. So, for the above 10101010
we would get AA as the hex value to substitute for #:
start /AFFINITY AA arma3server.exe ... the rest of your start parameters as they already are
With the server assigned to the cores we wanted the headless client can be done the same way. If the HC only needs
to be run on core 3,
87654321
00000100
You get a hex value of 4 and our HC batch line becomes:
start /AFFINITY 4 arma3server.exe ... the rest of your start parameters as they already are
You can verify that the OS is running the process on the correct cores by opening Task Manager, right click the process
in question and choose Set Affinity. The list it shows you has them ordered with cpu0, (first core) at the top and the list
descending to the last core.
Ensure you are using values that you determine are proper for you setup. On my test machine I run the server on
4,3 and 2 and the HC on 1 but haven't noticed much difference whether I give each process one, two or three cpus.
This is part of the tutorial where you will need to look at what you have and figure out what's going to work best for
you.
Now we have a headless client that will connect to our server so we need to create an init.sqf to handle the HC.
Head into your MPMissions folder and find which mission you are calling from within your config.cfg. The default
is Epoch.Altis.pbo. You will need to depbo the file and it will create a folder called epoch.Altis with a mission.sqm
and a description.ext inside. If you edit the mission.sqm and it is code instead of plain text you depbo'd the file
incorrectly. PBO manager will do this incorrectly so you need Mikero's tools to get a proper unpbo in many cases.
In your new mission folder, you need to create a file named init.sqf.
Inside that file place:
if !(hasInterface or isServer) then {
HeadlessVariable = true;
publicVariable "HeadlessVariable";
execVm "AI_Init.sqf";
};
"GlobalHint" addPublicVariableEventHandler
{
private ["_GHint"];
_GHint = _this select 1;
hint parseText format["%1", _GHint];
};
The called file above, (AI_Init.sqf), is whatever init file you use to get your AI started. At this point, your server will
have a headless client that will run any AI scripts you would like. The added bit is so the headless client can
communicate with the players and let them know when a new AO spawns. The added benefit to this system
is that, if the headless client fails to connect, it will continue to retry and the AI system will spawn whenever it
finally joins the server. I didn't want the server to run the code as I have the HC for a lot more than one mission
so I set this up with the thought in mind that I wanted as much as possible to be removed from the server's
overhead.
While following this section, you may get kicked when you connect as client. There are issues with Arma3 and how
it creates the current mp mission in your appdata folder so that if your headless client connects, the next client from that
same machine to connect may try to overwrite the current_mission.pbo. Since that will fail it will kick you back to
the server select screen. All you have to do is reconnect. Once connected/disconnected it will assume you already downloaded the
mission and will no longer try to re-write the file, allowing your client to connect.
SECTION 2: GETTING AI TO SPAWN
UPDATE: From user Defent, it appears that the Vehicle_Simulation.FSM is deleting any vehicle, (AI included), that was not spawned
by a logged in client. That likely means that this code will not work running solely on the server. I have personally verified that
when I run this code exactly as written from a headless client it works fine, but when ran by the server it deletes the ai within seconds.
We will have to wait on a workaround from the Epoch devs that will allow us to move this code server side in order to do that. I will update
this again once we figure out what array or variables are protecting server spawned vehicles.
For this part, I've seen a lot of posts about people having issues with ai being deleted. I had trouble with this as well
until I changed a lot of the variables. Certain models will be deleted but I found that creating soldiers and removing their
uniform seems to allow them to stick around. I am creating a global array, placing all the ai into it and making that a
public variable. I had originally did this because I was using modified epoch code in a separate pbo on the server but
didn't feel it was appropriate to teach that route since the current restrictions say releasing that modified code is bad. I mention
this because I really do not know what affects the ai during cleanup exactly, but it seems to have multiple parts. Certain
models I spawn seem to instantly disappear while others will stick around for a few seconds, fire their guns, then disappear.
Since I don't know what exactly fixed the issue I wanted to post the code I am using as it stands right now and maybe we can
figure it out as a community. What I am posting works for me, on a private server, but I wanted some testing done.
I made all of the ai in a group from side RESISTANCE and made all of my triggers pick up side GUE. This mission will make an
AO, somewhere on the map, create a red marker and let all players know. After the mission starts, if thirty minutes goes
by and there are still bandits in the AO, the AO ends with a hint saying they took off and the marker will turn yellow.
120 seconds later another AO will picked randomly from the list and continue. If players hunt down the bandits and kill them
all before the thirty minute timer runs out, the AO marker turns green and an ammo box spawns that will last ten minutes
before it it deleted. 120 seconds later another AO will be chosen and so on. Each AO that is used is removed from the list
and if the list runs through all ten missions it will reset to full and start over.
Inside the mission folder you created for init.sqf you need to make another file called AI_Init.sqf and inside that file
place all of the spoiler code inside.
The above code has positions that are relevant to a custom map I am working are and the AO's themselves have
had their text chopped down to something generic. Since this is part of a much larger mission system I am
working on I wanted to make a generic version that you could tailor to your own tastes. Pretty much anything
you could want just needs to be added to the appropriate section or you could even work out DZMS. I previously
got permission from Vampire to modify and use his mission system in my larger A3 mod and it has been working
as well, along side this system, and works the same if I spawn them the same way as this.
One thing I didn't mention above, are BE filters. You will need to take some time and work out which filters you
need to edit. I currently have a dozen things I am working on and I honestly can't remember which ones I had to adjust
to make this work. The BEC console window will tell you what rule you broke, and that will tell you what changes you
need to make to your filters. Since any AI system you use will likely have much different code, there's no way of
knowing which filters will be affected anyways until you test it out. The above mission is more of a basic, to get
started, mission system and really should be used to figure out how to make your own or how to edit existing systems
to work with Epoch. Be warned, though, that if you chose to retrofit an A2 mission there will be a ton of things you
need to edit to get everything working happily with A3, (like ai skins and loudouts, positions, vehicles, etc).
As I said before, I have tested this many times on my test server and everything seems to be working just fine, but
if its not for you guys, let's figure out what's going on! The only issue I have run into is that sometimes the
AI wanders out of the AO. This will prompt the same reaction as killing all of the AI and a reward will spawn
as soon as the trigger sees no bandits. I am currently working on things for the ai to do other than a random patrol
and am also looking at randomizing their gear and skills and fixing the wandering issue.
If you have a better way, just let me know and I'll gladly update the top of this post!
UPDATE: We had a pretty major performance issue pop up with the 100 player Chernarus server yesterday, A fix is in testing now, first signs show that we may have increased performance from the previous version.
[Added] Started on Basic food crafting: Cooked Meat + Sweet corn + empty cooler equals full hunger; returns empty cooler.
[Added] Crafting of Large Energy packs: 3x small energy pack + Circuit Parts and a nearby fire.
[Added] Basic wild plant spawner: Poppy
[Added] New dynamic event object: Ferris Wheel
[Added] Antagonist chances moved to epochconfig.
[Added] Split server events from weather and added separate timers for each in epochconfig.
[Added] Direction labels added to teleport pads.
[Added] Epoch Story: Debug area is now Epoch Cloning facility.
[Added] Started support for all "AiA Terrain Pack" maps, starting with Chernarus.
[Added] Support for Krypto account access from classed ATM and phonebooth objects.
[Added] New loot objects: Tarp covered pallet and freezer chest.
[Added] Tree support for Bornholm.
[Added] Player Krypto accounts now expire after 90 days of inactivity. Can be changed with expiresBank.
[Added] Further enhanced DLL logging.
[Added] Paint stripper & building parts pricing has been added to Traders.
[Added] Extra logging of player connects and disconnects.
[updated] Further optimized sound system.
[Fixed] Group invite not working
[Fixed] Vests and Headgear now populate with correct epoch variants in spawn menu.
[Fixed] Item spawning now will add the items to a vehicle if target is in one.
[Fixed] Disable SteamAPI VAC ban calls for now as it was reported to cause CPU high load, it will be renabled in a future patch.
[Fixed] Better way to track dead state of player.
[Fixed] Losing group when logging out while dead.
[Fixed] Revive statistics were not persisting.
[Fixed] Optimize cleanup system for more stable server fps.
[Fixed] Removed doppleganger code for now, as it was not working as intended.
[Fixed] Epoch welcome message encoding issue and fixed Scroll bar.
[Fixed] Parachutes are now safe to use.
[Fixed] Increased the amount of thirst gained from Drinks/Sodas.
[Fixed] Increased the amount of hunger gained from Can Food and Cooked Meats.
[Fixed] Bug in sound system with Cultist caused error that broke master loop.
[Fixed] False publicVariable kicks that happen since the ArmA 3 update 1.36. (BattlEye Log shows PLAYER_REJECT_NoResponse)
[Fixed] False script restriction kicks that happen when player destroy electric wire.
MGT was removed from the official host list because none of us can connect to the server due to being blacklisted in their AH. Official servers are held to a higher standard and if we cannot join them how can we make sure everything functioning as it should.
About unofficial/approved community servers, If we cannot connect to your server then we cannot validate the server to allow it to be advertised on our site.
DaMuTz_R32 got a reaction from kikinshits in Any plans for Bicycles?