The recently released Arma2:CO world 'Caribou Frontier' by Raunhofer offers an interesting mix of detailed, rugged, rocky terrain, gentle and steep slopes and industry facilities. With all objects being manually placed, each place and thing offers a sense of purpose.

It is well suited to combined arms combat, offering neither vehicles nor infantry a big advantage. The terrain selected for PlannedAssault mission generation is the southern and center part of the island, containing the Oil Bay industrial zone.

USMC LAV-25 in rugged terrain with an industry facilities backdrop (Arma2)

A Ka-50 flight engaging marines on the ground (Arma2)

Russian infantry west of Oil Bay on Caribou Island (Arma2)

I have also uploaded a bug fix to remove a 'security delay' at mission start for recon forces; obviously, recon forces should be the first to be on their way, and in newly generated missions that is again the case.

William

I just hit a new record, having defined 419 different teams, sections, platoons for a single mod (Operation Frenchpoint, abbreviated OFrP). With their update version 3.2, OFrP again introduced dozens of special and unique units that make great Arma2 missions, with camouflage variants to match virtually any theater.

Leclerc and French rifle man in a hot zone (Arma2)

French infantry providing combat aid (Arma2)

French ghillie topped sniper/spotter pair (Arma2)

Few add-ons pack more artillery than OFrP, with their LFI 51mm 'equipe feu' mortar (50m-500m), the LLR 81mm (0.1km-3.7km), the heavy RT-61 120mm mortar (1.4km-7.8km) and the CAESAR mobile gun system (4.1km-9.0km). All supported for PlannedAssault missions.

Special forces are available as part of the army (Armee de Terre), such as the COS (CE and Daguet camo), the 13RDP long-range reconnaissance) and as part of the air force (Armee de l'Air), as the CPA10 paratroopers. OFrP also brings several snipers, both in full ghillie and in ghillie tops.

The screen shots show what OFrP's units can do for your PlannedAssault mission.

Two French LRRPs from the 13RDP (Arma2)

CAESAR battery lit up by their own fire (Arma2)

French RT-61 120mm mortar team (Arma2)

Today's second improvement consists of all news entries being labeled. The labels underneath each news entry enable you to quickly find related news entries, for hints and tips, popular 'islands', examples of cool (scripted) unit configurations or tactical improvements to the mission planner.

A 'tag cloud' of all labels is available here.

Two naval Rafale M's flying over Tropica (Arma2)

VBLs and Leclercs in desert camo (Arma2)

Dutch air force C-130H dropping parachutists (Arma2)

On a final note, I've also updated the unit database to version 3.0beta of the Dutch Armed Forces mod. Although very few new units were added, the unit database again reflect the add-on's latest class names.

Enjoy,

William

The Arma2 Schwemlitz map (one of my favorite maps) received a winter variant (Winter Schwemlitz). I've immediately generated the terrain database so the mission planner can generate missions for it. The screen shots below show the results, with a Swedish mechanized force in snow camo moving through.

You'll find Winter Schwemlitz, by Falcon & Lancer, here.

Railroad bridge near Hagen on Winter Schwemlitz (Arma2)

Swedish LvKv90 under fire (Arma2)

Su-34 Fullback operating above snow covered Schwemlitz (Arma2)

I've also updated the Arma3 unit database to reflect the latest additions to the Arma3 Beta: tracked armored vehicles. Please be aware that the Arma3 AI is still a work-in-progress: AI drivers struggle to properly drive the IFVs across hills.

Swedish infantry in snow camouflage in Schwemlitz's woods (Arma2)

Swedish mechanized Strf90D unit advancing (Arma2)

Arma3 beta's new BTR-K Kamyah's in position (Arma3)

Enjoy,

William

This update introduces a small change to the web UI. The "Continue" button which allows you to advance to the next screen when editing a mission has been moved from the bottom of the screen to a tab on the side. For tall screens, two new "Continue" tabs are shown, reducing the amount of mouse movement required.

Old 'continue' button placement

New 'continue' button placement

Title slide from Planning in Games 2013 workshop, Rome

My slides from the 'Planning in Games' workshop invited talk are available here and discuss PlannedAssault's design. The workshop was part of the 2013 International Conference on Automated Planning Systems (ICAPS), took place in Rome, Italy, and was great fun.

Prior failures and rejected ideas slide

Dealing with combinatorics in attack planning slide

Planner performance slice: handling larger number of units nicely

Enjoy,

William