@ Hoz - You raise an excellent question. I wish I had a definitive answer for you, but let me share some stats here and perhaps (with help from the rest of the OFPEC community) we can shed more light on the subject. Each time we release an edition of BAS f we see 500+ downloads, and since we only have a handful of active mission makers in ShackTactical I have to believe that 95% of those downloads are by members of the wider editing community*. I realise that 500 is not a massive number in comparison to conventional addons, but it seems pretty healthy for the smaller community of mission makers. The problem (for me) is that download metrics do not tell me if anyone is
using BAS f - and there is very little feedback in the BI Forums (where the official thread for BAS f lives). From time-to-time I meet people in other groups who do use it (Tactical Gamer, for example), but frankly I'd give a lot to hear from the wider community - and even more, I'd love it if folks would send me examples of their work!
@ Captain - Thank you for posting those links, I'll be downloading the files tonight! You are right about ShackTactical missions - we have an internal agreement not to release mission files; however, I will talk to the relevant people about whether an example might be put out. The challenge is that much of the value of a ShackTactical mission lies in the
way we are organised and co-ordinated in-game, as much as anything which you will find in the mission PBO. The ShackTactical experience is not just about playing one of our missions, but playing it
our way (which is not to sound arrogant, because there are plenty of other approaches which are equally valid and fun). I'm afraid I cannot comment in any detail on ACE at the moment, except to say that I take the support of mission making for major mods very seriously and we will be releasing modified version(s) of BAS f at the appropriate time. Already in BAS f you will find support for several of the CWR islands, as well as one or two other community-built islands. As ever, I would be very interested in hearing from any other mod team(s) that would like to see their work supported, and am happy to supply cut-down versions of BAS f for shipping as part of mods' download packages.
@ Rommel92 - Sorry that you have not found the manual useful. One of the challenges with documentation is that it never meets the needs of all users: you find it too long, others still find it too short or not clear enough. When I started writing the manual my intention was to make things as clear as possible, and to hold the new mission maker's hand through the process of configuring (and hopefully understanding) each component. Unfortunately, doing that makes the manual quite long, but I think that if you give the document a chance you'll see the value of it. Plus, once you've read through it once you'll soon understand the basic concepts. I very much like your idea about an example, and will see what I can do about that for v1-2 (already in development). As regards other features, we do add news things at each release, but please bear in mind two things:
a) Not all script writers are happy to have their work included in BAS f, and we always seek full permission from third party authors before inclusion.
b) To prevent the framework from becoming too bloated, we try not to include anything that is too specialised, or which is easy to add by the mission maker; a good example of the latter is that we do not include a version of DAC, but we know that quite a few people (ShackTactical) like to combine BAS f + DAC to make some awesome missions.
@ All I'm really glad we're starting to have this discussion, and value the input from this community. Ultimately, the goal of BAS f is very simple: I want as many people as possible who are curious about mission making for ArmA1/2 to be able to make a finished, high-quality mission without giving-up halfway through (as I know many do, and did in OFP days). Any and all feedback is always gratefully received.
- Fer
* Of course, it
could just be my mother trying to make me feel better, but since I've yet to see a release of co2_You_Never_Call, I'm guessing not.
Topic: BAS f (Mission Development Framework) v1-4-2 (Read 10102 times)