Help setting up Arma2 DayZ server

[Spoeggie]

Hi guys, I need some help with some settings on my DayZ server.

So firstly I read so many forums and viewed lots of videos and read guides, but after a few VERY late nights I finally got my server working.

I'm launching the server this Friday 13'th (I know I should have picked a better date) so I still have time to get the last few things ready.

I'm not running a Epoch mod, we already have 3 of those in my country, and I felt there isa gap for a DayZ Vanilla mod. I couldn't find any good forums for the vanilla so I came to you guys hoping most of the stuff works on the same principle.

I'm currently running v1.8.7, but right now I'm not sure if I should maybe revert back to 1.7.7 or something, but we will decide that later.

 

So currently I know a bit about SQL and was able to work my way around the DB with not too much trouble. I also think I have the .pbo editing down.

I used Pwnoz0r's DayZ server guide and files to get started: https://github.com/Pwnoz0r/DayZ-Private-Server. The SQL was empty for everything accept the function, or Routines, so I removed all the basic tables and added other ones from one of his older guides, not sure where I got the SQL files, but doing so fixed a problem of vehicles not spawning so I think everything is right with the DB.

 

Now here is what is bothering me at the moment, or just things I want to change to make the server more fun:

 

(1) First the loot spawns are bothering me, General loot spawns and heli-crash sites.

So while I was doing some testing on the server (checking if vehicles spawn, and that the server is persistent) I got carried away into running around the map and looting. After hours I found like 3 military grade guns, best gun being a ak-47m. I went to barracks so many times finding 0 weapons in them (the loot did spawn). So I thought well lets go check the heli crash sites. After about 10 crash sites I never found 1 with weapon loot, all just medical and and mi17 general loot.

I remember back in the day there only being weapon crash sites and also when going to NWAF you are guaranteed to find decent guns/ snipers in almost every barracks. So is it possible for me to set the loot something more in the direction of Epoch, much more gun spawns and less junk, because if I'm playing for hours and not finding decent gear, how will it be when 30 other people have to share the little there is. Maybe there is a different way to approach the problem than the line I'm currently thinking in, please do give suggestions on this.

So to summarize for (1) -> Remove medical/ general crash sites and only spawn weapon crash sites, and Increase the weapon spawn rate for barracks and other military buildings.

 

(2) I would like to add a debug monitor and kill messages.

Just 2 things that I always found nice on servers, not really a must have but would like to have them. I tried to add these but most guides are for epoch, and I just can't figure it out.

For the kill messages, closest guides I got was for 1.7.7.1, I have edited the files but not tested it yet: http://dayz.codeit.org.ua/kill_messages.htm

 

(3) Auto server restarts.

It doesn't seem to me like the server is restarting. I edited the "3h updates" table in the db so that it restarts every 3h, but it doesn't seem to be working.

 

(4) Lastly are two more things I would like to change but they are not really essential, like (2)

First I noticed like 30%+ of the loot is just junk and unusable objects, like toilet paper, empty tins, razer blades and a bunch of unusable crafting materials. Is there a way for me to completely remove these? I'd rather have more useful items spawning than a lot of junk slowing everything down for no reason.

Then lastly is there maybe a way to disable infection. I turned down the damage of zombies to 0.5, but it still just takes that one hit to get infected. I know you should play it smart and not get hit, but I don't really like the idea of getting infected is almost guaranteed death, since I never found any antibiotics in hospitals/ tents or wherever.

 

That brings me back to 1.7.7.1 vs 1.8.7. Should I just maybe start of by using 1.7.7.1, I think that that was one of the main versions I used to play on and there wasn't any "crafting junk" spawning, and there was always guns in the barracks, and only military weapon heli crash sites. Or was it just that the admins of the servers I played on changed the loot?

Thats pretty much it, any other tips for a new admin are welcome, and maybe some admin tool suggestions would be nice too.

Here is the list of tables and routines in my DB currently:

"3h updates", "character_data", "character_dead", "countVehicles", "countVehiclesClass", "countVehiclesGroup", "event_scheduler", "generateUID", "object_classes", "object_data", "pCleanup", "pCleanupBase", "pCleanupOOB", "player_data", "player_login", "pMain", "pSpawnVehicles", "randomizeVehicleHitpoints", "randomizeVehicleInventory", "rndspawn", "vehicle_groups", "vehicle_hitpoints", "vehicle_inventory", "vehicle_locations", "vehicle_spawns", "vehicle_spawn_groups".

 

Sorry for the really long post, didn't want to spam the forum with 4+ posts, and wanted to give as much info as possible.

Thank you :)

[mgm]

wow Arma 2 DayZ server - are you testing your time machine? it's working, you successfully reached 2012.

 

for request/question 1 - it's too late now, but if you search on the forums there are several loot scripts/threads from what I remember.

2 - you have a solution there, test it and if you can't make it work I can give you a working basic one for VDS/VPS machines here 

3- for restarting Arma2 in a automated fashion you should use BEC utility. here's a tip to make it work (it stopped working due to author shutting it down) 

4 - junk loot is there to make it relatively more difficult i.e.: you don't always find gold/gold rated weapons every time. to keep it surprising etc. not sure if it's a good idea to make all loot worthy of time. I'd search the forums I'm sure this one and infection disabling is properly documented somewhere.

 

[Spoeggie]

Thanks for the info mgm.

Regarding the server restart, this is what the console says if this is of any use:

9:48:31 Dedicated host created.
 9:48:32 BattlEye Server: Initialized (v1.207)
 9:48:32 Host identity created.
 9:50:57 reinh uses modified data file
 9:50:57 BattlEye Server: Player #0 reinh (192.168.1.17:2304) connected
 9:50:57 Player reinh connecting.
 9:50:58 Mission DayZMod read from directory.
 9:50:59 Player reinh connected (id=*********************).
 9:51:05 Roles assigned.
 9:51:05 Reading mission ...
 9:51:24 Mission read.
 9:51:25 Game started.
10:02:30 Player reinh disconnected.
10:02:30 BattlEye Server: Player #0 reinh disconnected
 

But I'm not sure if battle eye is working correctly, since I'm using my steam account to host the server and borrowing a friends account that got a battleye ban to join and test stuff, but I never get kicked.

 

I think I found a answer to the loot spawns, I excracted my dayz_code.pbo and found all the loot data in there. I will be doing some testing tonight.

Here is a example of one of the heli crash sites:

CrashSiteUSPile[] =
{
    //Tools
    {Loot_WEAPON,        2,        ItemCompass},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        3,        Binocular},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        4,        ItemKnife},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        4,        ItemMap},
    
    //Items
    {Loot_MAGAZINE,        8,        FoodMRE},
    
    //Other
    {Loot_GROUP,        10,        Consumable},
    {Loot_GROUP,        30,        AmmoUS},
    {Loot_GROUP,        20,        MedicalLow}
};

So that is a "medical" site, but i will just change the code in the {} to something like the RU site:

CrashSiteRU[] =
{
    //Weapons
    {Loot_WEAPON,        2,        Makarov_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        4,        PDW_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        4,        Bizon_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        3,        AKS74U_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        3,        AK74_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        4,        AKM_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        4,        RPK74_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        2,        RPK_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        0.7,    PKM_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        0.7,    SVD_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        1,        M40A3_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        0.7,    FNFAL_DZ},
    
    //Tools
    {Loot_WEAPON,        1.5,    ItemGPS},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        1,        Binocular_Vector},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        0.5,    NVGoggles},
    
    //Backpacks
    
    //Clothing
    {Loot_MAGAZINE,        2.5,    Skin_Camo1_DZ},
    {Loot_MAGAZINE,        1.5,    Skin_Sniper1_DZ},
    
    //Containers
    {Loot_CONTAINER,    3,        DZ_MedBox, MedicalBox, 10, 20},
    {Loot_CONTAINER,    2.3,    DZ_AmmoBoxRU, AmmoBoxRU1, 10, 20},        //545x39    AK74, RPK74
    {Loot_CONTAINER,    1.7,    DZ_AmmoBoxRU, AmmoBoxRU2, 10, 20},        //762x39    AK47
    {Loot_CONTAINER,    1,        DZ_AmmoBoxRU, AmmoBoxRU3, 5, 10},        //762x54r    SVD, PKM
    
    //Other
    {Loot_MAGAZINE,        1,        PartVRotor},
    {Loot_MAGAZINE,        2,        ItemCamonet},
    {Loot_GROUP,        7,        AttachmentsEast},
    {Loot_GROUP,        3,        AttachmentsWest},
    
    //Piles
    {Loot_PILE,            15,        CrashSiteRUPile, 2, 4}
};

 

 

Now I will probably figure it out tonight, but maybe someone can point me in the right direction. Lets take the CrashSiteUSPile as an example, if I were to want to change the  {Loot_WEAPON,        4,        ItemMap}, spawn rate, would I just increase the number to 8, or should I then also decrease the number from the others by 4. So basically what I mean is does the class work from a static total or does it dynamically calculate it... if that makes scene. Like I said I haven't tried yet (at work right now) will try tonight but maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks guys :)

[mgm]

sorry don't know about your loot question.

on the other thing (automated server restarts with BEC & automated recurring announcement messages with BEC) - did you download and install the third party tool called "BEC"?

[Spoeggie]

4 hours ago, mgm said:

sorry don't know about your loot question.

on the other thing (automated server restarts with BEC & automated recurring announcement messages with BEC) - did you download and install the third party tool called "BEC"?

Awesome, I was mistaking BEC for Battle Eye Client, and looked over it the whole time because I thought it was installed. Will have a look tomorrow and see if I can get it set up (seems like you got to add code to your .bat server launcher.)

I was also wondering about a setting in server.cfg:

persistent = 1;                            // If 1, missions still run on even after the last player disconnected.
Does putting this off just mean if the server is empty it will not run the map, and then if someone joins again it will start again? Will this maybe save some bandwith when the server is empty?

 

So on the Loot side of things, I struck a little bit of luck, but not all the way there yet. This is what I did:

For testing I removed all guns from crash sites and added just 2 to see if only those and nothing else would spawn. Here is the code:

//Crash site types
//Vehicle class, loot group
CrashSiteType[] =
{
    {Loot_NONE,            2,        CrashSite_RU, CrashSiteRU},        //Russian Mi-8
    {Loot_NONE,            5,        CrashSite_US, CrashSiteUS},        //American UH-1Y
    {Loot_NONE,            5,        CrashSite_EU, CrashSiteEU},        //European HC3
    {Loot_NONE,            5,        CrashSite_UN, CrashSiteUN}        //United Nations Mi-8
};

/* Russian */

CrashSiteRU[] =
{
    //Weapons
    {Loot_WEAPON,        20,        M40A3_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        17,    FNFAL_DZ},
};
/* American */

CrashSiteUS[] =
{
    //Weapons
    {Loot_WEAPON,        50,    DMR_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        10,        M24_DZ}
};

/* European */

CrashSiteEU[] =
{
    //Weapons
    {Loot_WEAPON,        0.7,    M240_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        1,        M24_DZ}
};

/* United Nations */

CrashSiteUN[] =
{
    //Weapons
    {Loot_WEAPON,        2,        L85_Holo_DZ},
    {Loot_WEAPON,        1,        RPK74_DZ}
};

This worked!

Found a crash site with about 5 DMRs and a FN FAL, which was wierd, since the FAL is not combined with the DMR, but its good enough.

After this I tweaked around some more to get a feel for things, but my luck ran out and nothing was working other than the crash sites.

I tried these: 

Hangar[] =
{
    //Weapons
    {Loot_WEAPON,        50,    DMR_DZ}
};

Trash[] =
{
    {Loot_MAGAZINE,        1,        ItemSodaClaysEmpty},
};

And a few others. I just emptied out most of the data to see if it works, but noting worked. Anyone know why the crash sites worked but not any buildings?

 

Thanks again :))

[mgm]

setting persistent to anything but 1 doesn't sound like a good idea to me but I haven't tried personally.
not sure about loot question either.

 

for BEC, you will need:

1. BEC (the application).
2. BEC configuration (what to do, when to do) in XML format.
3. A BAT file (or a 3rd party scheduler tool) to call the BEC application.

it is quite a task to get it right if you're new to it. I suggest rather than reinventing the wheel use on of the tested & working solutions. search here on the forums and you will find many server owners posted their files. good luck

[Spoeggie]

No luck with BEC so far, might need some help on this one.

I installed BEC to my desktop set all things up best I could, but when I tried to join the server it thought it was a epoch server. I then moved BEC into my cfgdayz folder (where my original battleye and its settings is), and after some trail and error got it to launch. But as soon as the server starts, the yellowish BEC icon and console closes. When I joined the server I was not able to access commands.

I am now going to begin everything from the beginning, starting with a fresh arma 2 combined ops folder and do everything over. I'm not sure where I might have messed with files and maybe forgotten, so maybe a fresh start is what I need.

Where should I put the BEC files/ where should it be installed?

[mgm]

2 hours ago, Spoeggie said:

No luck with BEC so far, might need some help on this one.

I installed BEC to my desktop set all things up best I could, but when I tried to join the server it thought it was a epoch server. I then moved BEC into my cfgdayz folder (where my original battleye and its settings is), and after some trail and error got it to launch. But as soon as the server starts, the yellowish BEC icon and console closes. When I joined the server I was not able to access commands.

I am now going to begin everything from the beginning, starting with a fresh arma 2 combined ops folder and do everything over. I'm not sure where I might have messed with files and maybe forgotten, so maybe a fresh start is what I need.

Where should I put the BEC files/ where should it be installed?

have you checked official documentation at http://ibattle.org/install-and-configure/
one tip for BEC is use Notepad++ do not use any other text editor as some of them mess up with encoding which is invisible to human eye but causes BEC to act strange or silently fail