EpochZ: Black Tide

[3M0]

hi guys, cant get the Tryk's Uniforms to work, anyone knows wich one is the correct to use? :)

[Grahame]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=779520435

[Grahame]

EpochZ: Black Tide is now running on its own dedicated server.

New IP: 149.56.28.85 Port 2302

Also made some changes including the new use of hotwire kits to crack vehicle locks and base doors. These are not purchasable from the traders and a rare loot find in some Epoch loot containers. e.g. bunks, pelicans, etc.

Other updates performed. More to come of course.

Thanks to @RC_Robio for his advice on the choice of server provider. Much appreciated, great service from them so far!

[Grahame]

"Camp Redoubt has received reports that the Russians have found an experimental weapon in the ruins of Damascus and are planning on testing it out on the island of Altis. Be on your toes, stay frosty and alert"

A major overhaul to the server began yesterday with the following changes being made:

• Simple Epoch Missions system updated to new version provided by @He-Man Modified all AI gear, vehicles and loot to use CUP though and added several new dynamic convoy missions.
• Lock picking of storage is now possible in the same way as vehicle lock-picking.
• A new price list has been installed for Epoch and Black Market traders. This has been in the works for some time now but we wanted to get it right. Although prices are now higher for military gear it is balanced by the fact that sale prices have also risen proportionately. It does however mean that it will be a little more work to get the high end military gear.
• Several new additions to the Black Markets including new Littlebirds, woodland and black versions of the Mk16 and Mk17 SCAR rifles, Vector SMGs and the SpecOps HMMWV and Mk-19 equipped Land Rover.
• InfiSTAR updated to latest version.
• A "surprise" has been added to the roaming land vehicle AI (see the top of this post).
• A few minor bugs and glitches have been fixed.

[Grahame]

There have been quite a few additions to Black Tide today:

• The addition of the RDS Civilian Pack mod adding all the missing vehicles that you love so well, including the mountain bike, Thomas the Tractor, Skoda vans, an ambulance and militia car with working sirens and lights among many others.
• Deploy and repack a bicycle if you have a ToolKit (available in the initial gear selection).
• New Buildables at your base (all are saved to the database and behave as any other base parts, apart from the lack of PhysX when building): working Portable Lights, a Sink and Field Toilet (both are water sources), Razor Wire, Watch Tower, various Sandbag Walls, Fuel Pump, large and small Camo Nets, Loudspeakers, a Burn Barrel and an ATM (which acts as an ATM unsurprisingly).
• Toggle on and off plot pole jammer boundary markers to see the extent of your demesne. 
• Dynamic Road Debris from Epoch 0.6 Experimental (this one's been there for a while).

See the EpochZ community forum for the crafting recipes for the new buildables in the Black Tide section.

 

[Grahame]

A few changes, some major yesterday on Black Tide:

• Addition of the Hellenic Armed Forces Mod
• Addition of the Enhanced Movement Mod (map custom Use Action to '5' and that'll jump and climb)
• Addition of Autorun - default 'Y' key to turn on and off (thanks @Ghostrider-DbD-)
• Removal of Toolkit when you start deploying a bike and adding it back when you repack the bike
• Several tweaks to both the BlackEagl's and Wicked AI mission systems (including rare hotwire kits as mission loot)
• Addition of the Jammer Z Shield around your base
• Roaming AI tweaks - crypto from the roaming AI is now found on their bodies, not mobile phones

To use the climb/jump from Enhanced Movement, set your Custom>Use Action 5 to a key like '5' in Keyboard Configuration. If you set it to another number key you will need to remove the mapping of the other number key in the Commands section of keyboard configs

Also by default autorun will be mapped to the Y key (turn on/off toggle). Hitting another WASD or the 5 key will also take off autorun by default (that's why I recommend '5' for your enhanced movement jump/climb)

[Grahame]

Removed Hellenic Armed Forces Mod since I cannot get it to be supported by A3Launcher 

[Grahame]

The Chinese use of nuclear weapons on their own cities before The Fall has had an unfortunate effect on weather patterns across the world. While not a fully fledged "nuclear winter", the winters in Europe have become a lot more severe.

Merry Christmas everyone from myself and my admin team for the EpochZ servers. In the spirit of the season, the Winter 2035 mod has been added to the EpochZ: Black Tide server until the new year.

In addition, the Hellenic Armed Forces Mod (HAFM) is now required for Greek vehicles and uniforms and a few other minor changes (fixes) have been deployed (note that A3Launcher now supports HAFM).

[Grahame]

Winter is at an end on Altis until next Christmas, so Winter 2035 is no longer required to join the server.

CUP Terrains Core has been added to the mod list. This is required for some upcoming major map changes and to support the Wicked AI missions ported from ARMA2 DayZ/Epoch.

Some other changes today:

• New weather script deployed. The weather should feel more realistic and be less rainy
• Bug fixes to Loot Spawner and Simple Epoch Missions
• Some vehicle changes for BlackEagl's Mission System (the blue, red, green and orange ones) together with the addition of one extra blue and red mission (the easiest ones)
• ARMA2 DayZ/Epoch missions deployed for the Wicked AI system (Abandoned Trader, Drone Pilot, McDonald's Farm, Slaughterhouse and USMC FOB)
• Fixed the issue with buying the RIS version of the G3A3 and added the magazines for that
• Changes to the hunger/thirst boosts from food and drink and rationalized their pricing.
• Removed Epoch's crashed satellites for the moment (they will be back when I make them better)
• All players now start with energy so that they can place tents, etc.

[Grahame]

Several more changes in the past week on EpochZ: Black Tide, some major, some cosmetic:

• Added Apex's boats and 4WD offroads to the trader price lists
• Added the Greek HK416 (uses STANAG mags)
• Added my customized version of A3EAI (roaming AI). AI now have appropriate gear and weapons depending on their difficulty level: 0 = civilian, 1 = Greek Army & Police, 2 = BAF, 3 = USMC. Played a bit with the loot found on roaming AI too
• Removed the plant spawn markers and configured Epoch so it does not make the other markers larger as the map is zoomed
• Freshened up starting spawn gear and locations
• Added a knife and can opener to the traders and loot. You now need a knife or hatchet to gut a dead animal
• You now need a knife, can opener or hatchet to open all cans other than sardines. You will get a decreasing hunger reward depending on which you use due to wastage
• Morphine now works properly and only heals leg damage after you have broken one (a broken leg in Epoch happens when you take over 50% damage there). If your leg is not broken then using morphine has no effect (but does not use up the injector)
• Added missing Mk200 to traders
• Added missing SR-25 and SR-25EC to the traders
• Added the following missing magazines to the traders: 10-round Sa-61 and blue, purple and orange 6-round signal mags
• Added the following missing muzzles to the traders: Khaki and sand variants of the 5.56mm and 7.62mm standard ARMA3 suppressors
• Reworked trader dialogs so some of the items now appear in the proper categories rather than being lumped under Magazines>Other. Added two new categories: Magazines>Medical and Magazines>Vehicle Repair to make it easier to find these items
• Temporarily removed vanilla Epoch UAVs. I had fixed something that I had done that had broken them but apparently I fixed it too well since they were starting to spam people. Will get the issue resolved and add them back. In the interim, the A3EAI system that handles roaming AI has it's own UAVs that summon in AI help (actually in a more realistic way). That system is still active.
• Added the Ural chassis to the traders as well as a couple of other items that were glitched in the black markets
• Removed the toxicity and radiation effects of sardines... I like sardines! Now if only I could make toast @Helion4 (hint, hint )
• Tactical Bacon moved to correct Magazines>Food section in BM trader
• Anti-virus pills/injectors moved to correct Magazines>Medical section in BM trader
• Added new buildings used in current and future Points of Interest to the ground loot tables
• Replaced the ATMs in the trader camps with bankers (the guys in the suits). Hold SPACE and click on the Crypto ("Bank") icon. ATMs no longer access the bank but phones do (you are on the phone with your banker)
   

[Grahame]

Players: We want more weapons...

Grahame: But you have all the CUP Weapons, there are a lot of them, and the stuff from HAFM

Players: We Want More Weapons.

Grahame: But it's a lot of work adding new weapons mods 

Players: WE WANT MORE WEAPONS!

Oh, alright then. NI Arms All-in-One mod has been added to EpochZ: Black Tide. All the weapons and attachments from the mod are available at the traders and spawn as loot. 

Mod can be subscribed to on Steam at: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1208517358

[Spiff]

Hey Graham

Love the winter mod gives Altis a whole new lease of life & personally makes the weather system a lot more pleasant to operate in, so good on you for putting this together.

There is though one small irritation, for some reason it takes the server nearly 20 mins to come back up after restart, I dunno if its possible to do anything about this, but I thought you should know.

Once again thanks for keeping it interesting

[Spiff]

Hey Grahame

sorry to be the bearer of issues - but those of us who've been on over the last three or four nights have been experiencing multiple disconnections during a single session. All seemingly random & involving either arma crashes for status access violations or public variable disconnects. My personal record is five disconnects in a session.

Here's hoping you can perhaps throw some light on this

 

cheers

[Spiff]

Hi again

I'm afraid were still getting kicked seven or eight times per session with the 'public access variable' issue by battleye

cheers

 

[Brickhouse]

Server seems fun but uh, game won't let me pick a non-female avatar. Both options, right and left, spawn me as a female.

 

....What?

[Grahame]

As it says on our FAQ channel in discord, now pinned:

Quote

***Why is my character secretly female?***

To start with it is useful to know that ARMA has four "sides" in the game, these being BLUFOR, OPFOR, GUER or INDEPENDENT and CIV. The relationship between each of these sides can be set in the mission and even changed while a mission is running (thus player actions could turn a guerilla group against them mid-game). Multiple factions can be defined for each side (for example USMC, US Army, BAF within BLUFOR) but that has no bearing on the question.

So, how does this affect Epoch and your player then. Well, Epoch being the first of the ARMA3 survival mods, wanting to continue to allow female characters as ARMA2's DayZ/Epoch did decided this time around to use siding, rather than a variable in the player record to specify gender... which is a problem, because if female characters are BLUFOR and male OPFOR, which they are in vanilla Epoch, then only one side is left for enemy AI (CIV is used for objects).

Since I had introduced the infected, I wanted to make the servers more immersive and allow the AI soldiers to battle them if they came into contact. Basically, though the AI can not *trigger* the infected spawns, if they came across players battling infected then I wanted the three sides to all be hostile to each other (before I did what I did they would ignore each other, which was not very realistic).

So, I made everyone BLUFOR (female), freeing OPFOR for the AI and GUER for the infected. Now, as you have seen when all three are in an area together then there is a three-way battle as there would be irl. 

The issue is that, without producing a custom client-side mod, I *cannot* change the CfgVehicles definition of male and female characters so I faked it to some extent. Male characters when first chosen or when you respawn appear to be male in the spawn room but when you take your uniform off ARMA makes you appear as your character model is defined, i.e. female...

***Why can I not put certain uniforms on in the field?***

Bohemia, in their infinite wisdom decided that wearing the uniform of the enemy is against the laws of war and prohibited players from *easily* doing so. The side that a uniform can be worn by is often defined in the definition of the uniform (all CUP, Epoch and ARMA3 vanilla uniforms do this, Tryk defined their uniforms to be worn by anyone).

In vanilla ARMA3 Epoch, which some people have not encountered yet, female characters can only wear BLUFOR and CIV uniforms, male characters can only wear OPFOR and CIV uniforms and no one can wear GUER uniforms.

With the changes I made to gender, obviously all characters are defined with the female model. This means that in the field, with ARMA's limitations, you can pick up and wear any BLUFOR uniform (and CIV and Tryk's) without a problem. The engine however prohibits you from picking up and wearing OPFOR and GUER uniforms!

To allow you a choice of uniforms, I "fixed" the player load and spawn scripts, together with the Black Market traders scripts to use the forceAddUniform function which ignores siding when putting one on you... this is the only way for a player to wear a non-BLUFOR, CIV or Tryk uniform.
 

On some of the servers I run I provide a client side mod that unlocks all the uniforms and makes everyone BLUFOR by residing Epoch's male character, but because I want Black Tide accessible on A3Launcher I cannot add my own client side mod because I refuse to pay to have my EpochZ community mod on that launcher... Mod owners are forbidden by Bohemia to charge for their mod so I find it difficult to understand how an third party ARMA Launcher can. But that's the way it is.

 

[johnny wad]

Not sure whats going on but I keep getting kicked! I even reloaded arma didn't help. as ideas?

blacktide server 

 

[Grahame]

Happy slightly belated seventh birthday to EpochZ: Black Tide... still running to this day :)