3 Commando Brigade

Operation Iron Justice

Welcome to Zargabad, soldier. Operation Iron Justice has begun.

18th December, 2003
South Baghdad, Iraq

Insurgency from the Islamic States terrorist's is still rife in and around Zargabad causing increasing pressure on the Takistani government and the extremist militant organisation, People's Islamic Front, who have been trying to overthrow the government for two months now.

The PIF are believed to be taking advantage of the situation seizing many of the key military locations. Their leader has denied all accusations and blame Iran for supplying the insugency.



NATO forces have been stretched along the country and have limited resources for controlling the situation. A detachment from 3 Commando Brigade of British Royal Marines have been stationed in an FOB set up just south of the green zone in Zargabad.



Tasking:
1. Protect the Iraqi civilian population. Collateral damage is not acceptable. We don't want any bad press reports derailing our mission through public opinion back home.
2. Find, capture and return to base, 14 civilian fuel trucks, which are currently being used as stationary refuelling stations to support the motorised and mechanised aspects of the insurgency and the occupation of the city.

General ROE:
We expect heavy resistance from both the People's Islamic Front and the Islamic States terrorists - use of lethal force is permitted.

Other:
Our intelligence has received multiple reports of insurgents digging around the road-sides, so be vigilant for IED's. Defuse or destroy them whenever possible.

Now running on the Public Server.

Update your Public Repository on Play withSix - 15 mods.
@agm
@alive
@allinarmaterrainpack
@asdg_jr
@beretpack2
@burnes_challenger
@cba_a3
@chinookpack
@evw
@iraqi_warfare
@psylandrover
@rh_m4_a3
@st_nametags
@sthud_a3
@task_force_radio

Comments:
- using a new vehicle respawn script, hopefully better than the buggy vanilla BIS modules!
- the enemy are currently armed with vanilla weapons. If the mission is received well and there are no bugs, they will likely be upgraded to AK's etc with the HLC weapon pack.
- the @psyLandRovers are known to 'wobble' at medium/high speeds

Performance:
It is generally well known that Zargabad is a resource intensive map on which to run massive Coop's. To mitigate this we are using @Alive to dynamically spawn AI, while running a headless client which controls all the Islamic State Terrorist units (@Alive CQB), taking much of the strain off the server process.

In testing it is usual for client fps to drop to around 20-25 in the centre of the city, although the server fps remains close to it's maximum 46. This is with over 100 AI enemy spawned and active. If enough reports come in to say that client fps is too low, we can reduce the AI count to raise performance.

Disclaimer!
It's quite possible that we'll find something major game-breaking with this mission when it gets high player-counts on the public server, given the complexity of @Alive, Headless Client, Zargabad map and two new faction mods introduced.
If we do, don't panic; we'll just revert to a previous mission and let the insurgents keep their petrol!

So glad to see a mission Zargabad, one of my favourite maps! Will definitely be on to test!

Thanks to all those that helped with the testing of the Iron Justice mission yesterday.

In case anyone's interested, here's what we've learnt which has resulted in the mission going live on the public server today:

Background
@Alive has two types of units that spawn - CQB and Military Objective (Mil).
The CQB units are spawned on the Headless Client (HC)
The Mil units are spawned on the Server.

Findings
Switching off Mil completely I was able to sit in the centre of Zargabad with over 100 AI CQB units spawned active in close proximity (all on the HC) with client fps of 30+. The server fps was solid at 46. So the HC is doing it's job really well and it would be interesting to see how far we could push it.

Switching back on Mil, has a big effect on server fps and therefore client fps. If the Mil Objectives are not configured very carefully it will bring the server to it's knees (10-15fps). 
I improved things by placing only Custom Military Objectives with small troop concentrations (20-30 infantry + vehicles), rather than using a generic Military Objective that auto searches the map for places of strategic importance. By doing this I think the centre of Zargabad is still playable (20+ fps) with probably around 150 AI spawned.

Conclusions
Headless client definitely seems to be the way to go with mission design. I guess we knew that from others experience, but it's being confirmed on our own servers now.
Ideally we'd be able to off-load all @Alive profiled units to the HC, but I'm not sure that's currently possible?
We should try to test the limits of single HC performance, and maybe consider testing multiple HC's.
Existing missions should be converted to run with HC (both Public and Private).

Cheers,
Apollo

Trying to switch slots: "You cannot rejoin this server as a different class (except squadleader)".

Thanks Alexander, I'll investigate.
It sounds like some @Alive 'feature' that probably isn't documented. That mod seems a bit like Fight Club. You know, the 1st rule, and all that.

That's the player persistance element - part of the "Requires Alive" module I think - simple to change

SJ

Sorted, thanks.