(Review Completed) [SP] Clear Water - Vietnam

[DarkAngel]

Hi folks,

I've got a new Vietnam mission which would benefit from beta testing - I've been working on it a few weeks now and I could use other peoples' opinions. You're leading a Special Forces squad with the task of locating an NVA force and attacking a mortar site.

The only required addons are in the SEB Nam Pack 2 available from:
http://ofp.gamezone.cz/mods/sebnampack2_full.zip

Known issues:
- On loading the briefing I get the error message "No entry 'config.bin/CfgWeapons'". Can't do much about this till I can get at OFPEC's tutorials again, but it doesn't seem to affect gameplay.
- Briefing still needs work.
- No intro and outro.

I'd especially appreciate comments on difficulty level, atmosphere and realism.

You can download the mission from http://www.geocities.com/tomlemans2000/darkangel2.html - if this link doesn't work try clicking on the one in my signature...weird  

Cheers,
Dark


Edit: This mission has been reviewed and is available from the Missions Depot.

[deaddog]

Hey DA,

I got the mission and I'm playing it now....


Overview
A nice pic with a border would look good.  Put your name here, too.  That way, people will immediately know the author.

Briefing
Very nice, lots of good info without a bunch unnecessary stuff (which I personally don't like ).  The objective of the mission of clear.  Good weapons selection, which is entirely appropriate since we start out at a base.

Mission
I started out by putting 7 and 8 in the MG jeep.  We got into some action right away, as we were just heading down into the valley toward the river.  I spotted several VC about 500 meters away and my MG Jeep gunners started taking them out.  Maybe you should have them crawl into position after the player gets closer to the river.

Took care of those guys but just as I was about to ford the river, we got attacked by some regular NVA.  One of my guys got injured but we got most of them.  I saw one crawling away but he disappeared before I could shoot him.  By this time, my M79 guy has used four grenades.  I guess I'm going to have to hold fire on him for a while

BTW, the light from the rising sun over the river looks really cool.

I decided to approach the village from the NE.  We ran into some VC up around EA29.  I'm glad I brought the jeep. But I had to switch places with the driver because the AI can't drive through the thicker areas.  Tried to move SW towards the village but had some more VC come at us from the south.

Alright, I'm coming up on the village from due east.  This is proving to be a tough nut to crack.  I'm having the main problem with Ia Drang.  My shots hitting the ground.  I have a clear shot over a small hill but my shots hit the ground in front of me (this is a major problem with this mod).  Stand up and get shot!!  Good thing I saved before I assaulted the village.  

OK, I finally managed to take the village, though that was not in the objectives.  There was one marine left alive but nothing happened when I got to him.  You should make it so that he at least joins my group to help us out.  After all, I lost 5 men and a lot of time taking that village.  I should get some kind of reward.  My jeep has long run out of ammo at this point.

Gathered my remaing guys and headed south to take on the heavy weapons.  Managed to take out the DSK but finally got shot.  I'll have to restart from my saved position to finish (later).  One recommendation that I have:  You should put unlimited save games in, for the beta testers sake.

So far it has been enjoyable (though frustrating at times).  The village/base has plenty of soldiers, as it should.  It should be difficult to take the village and it is, even though that is not one of the objectives.

I'll add to this when I finish it.

BTW:  That error message at the beginning is probably due to an error in the description.ext.  Check the area where you added the weapons.

[Black_Feather]

replace your description.ext with this and it should work

onLoadIntro="Clear Water"

onLoadMission="Dawn in Ia Drang"

showCompass=1

showGPS=0

showMap=1

showNotepad=1

showWatch=1

debriefing=1

class Weapons
{
class sebcar15
{
   count = 12;
};
class sebcar15gl
{
   count = 4;
};
class sebm16a1
{
   count = 4;
};
class sebm14
{
   count = 4;
};
class sebm16a1gl
{
   count = 4;
};
class sebrem700
{
   count = 1;
};
class seblawlauncher
{
   count = 2;
};
class HandGrenade
{
   count = 24;
};
};

class Magazines
{
class sebcar15mag
{
   count = 50;
};
class sebm16a1mag
{
   count = 50;
};
class sebmM16a1mag
{
   count = 50;
};
class GrenadeLauncher
{
   count = 12;
};
class sebrem700mag
{
   count = 6;
};
class sebLAWRocket
{
   count = 6;
};
class sebm14mag
{
   count = 24;
};
class sebm79buck
{
   count = 8;
};
class HandGrenade
{
   count = 24;
};
};

you had this in
class
{
   count = 4;
};

so you may not have something you intended.

[deaddog]

Alright, I restarted, this time with the sniper rifle.  That was a good idea to limit the ammo amount for the sniper rifle.  I ran out later in the mission and had to pick up an AK.

Anyway, after fording the river I decided to skirt the river banks southwards.  Engaged a couple of patrols along the way and headed towards the mortars from the east.  This time, I parked the jeep on a small hill (around dh36) but not in the view of the mortars.  He engaged a few enemy.  I left my guys behind and snuck close to the mortars and killed one of the gunners. Of course, this stirred up the hornets nest and I had to crawl back east a ways.  My guys picked off the NVA as the came at me.  A little later, a truck showed up and my jeep gunner took care of him.  By this time, he was about out of ammo so I made him disembark.  Thanks, Jeep

Managed to clear out the base and destroy the weapons so I headed north.  I snuck up to the village from the southwest.  Using the same technique as before, I picked off a few enemy and my guys took care of the ones who chased me.  This is about when I ran out of sniper ammo.  I never could see the Marines because I had a bad angle.  I could see the group of guys around them, though.  We crawled into the base and killed the last few enemy and then headed east.  Engaged one more VC patrol about halfway to the river.   Just about as I was going to cross the river, BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!.  Land Mine  :'(  Hell, I even saw it right before I stepped on it.  Kind of sucks    Oh well, that's war for ya.

I didn't really feel like reloading my saved game because it was very old.  Maybe I'll pick it up later and try to finish.

Overall, I think the enemy placement is really good around the bases.  This mission has virtually no scripting and it plays very well.  I had no noticable bugs,except the one you already know about.  The first two objectives checked off ok.  Maybe you can turn the markers blue or black after that objective is complete.  That always looks kind of cool.

Good Job.

[DarkAngel]

@Black_Feather: Cheers! For some reason I didn't notice the redundant code when I was checking it earlier. Bit dumb...   Have purged it from the description.ext so should be gone for the next version.

@Deaddog:
"Overview
A nice pic with a border would look good.  Put your name here, too.  That way, people will immediately know the author."

I'm still looking for a nice picture...and the idea of having my name there is cool. I might take a leaf out of your book and make myself a little logo.  

 "I spotted several VC about 500 meters away and my MG Jeep gunners started taking them out.  Maybe you should have them crawl into position after the player gets closer to the river."

Good idea, although I do want to reward the player for doing recon before crossing.   Were these guys on the hill to the left of the crossing? If not they might have been a random patrol - I'll adjust their random waypoints so they don't get too close to the river.

"BTW, the light from the rising sun over the river looks really cool."
Cheers! I'm going for that Apocalypse Now look...

"OK, I finally managed to take the village, though that was not in the objectives.  There was one marine left alive but nothing happened when I got to him.  You should make it so that he at least joins my group to help us out.  After all, I lost 5 men and a lot of time taking that village.  I should get some kind of reward.  My jeep has long run out of ammo at this point."
Didn't you read the briefing? It says "Do not engage"! You're heading for a court martial!   Seriously, that's a good point. I originally planned to do a seperate mission for the rescue but it makes sense to put them together. Maybe the Marine could give you a bit more intel about the mortar site as well.


"By this time, he was about out of ammo so I made him disembark. " Thanks, Jeep
Glad you found a use for the Jeep...comes in handy that fire support, eh?  

"Just about as I was going to cross the river, BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!.  Land Mine    Hell, I even saw it right before I stepped on it.  Kind of sucks    Oh well, that's war for ya."
What goes around, comes around...  

"I didn't really feel like reloading my saved game because it was very old"

Fair enough. I'm implementing your suggestion about adding in unlimited savegames for the beta. In the final version I'll probably just give the player one or two extras...can't have life getting too easy now, can we?

Thanks for your help guys...I'm heading back to the jungle now to make a couple of changes...

Dark Out.

[deaddog]

Read the briefing??    I probably forgot the part about not engaging  ;D  But I like the idea of rescuing the marines in a separate mission.  Maybe you could punish the player if he attacks the base by having a large counter attack which would pretty much guarantee that the players group gets wiped out.  And then have another ending/debriefing that says something like "You probably should have read the briefing better, you were told NOT to attack the base" .  If the player attacks the base before destroying the mortars then the mortars could rain destruction down on the player.  Simulated by camcreating a fake arty attack around the player and then end with one right on him.  ;D  Do a quick cutscene that zooms back to the mortar pits.  That way, the player knows what got him.  Just a thought.  Won't hurt my feelings if you don't use it.  

I did finish it.  I've pretty much spent most of my day (on and off) on this mission.  Final time was 59 minutes and a score of a little over 9000.  I had a lot of kills with that sniper rifle.  You might want to consider taking away one or two clips of ammo.

One more thing, which really won't add to the game play.  Maybe add a few more units standing around the player's base.  Just for atmosphere.  

[DarkAngel]

Nice idea, I'll think about implementing it for the Beta-2. The only problem I can see at the moment is that the NVA probably wouldn't attack their own base with mortars   ... but the heavy counterattack would make sense, particularly if they thought you weren't an isolated patrol but part of a larger attack force - maybe some tanks turn up or something. I'll give it some thought.

In the meantime I've uploaded a new version of the first beta which enables you to rescue the surviving Marine, just in case I never get round to designing the second mission. I still like the idea of another mission though - maybe using the Command Engine, definitely striking in darkness to give you the advantage of surprise. Or it could be an extra mission if I turned it all into a campaign. In the meantime, however, here are the changes for Beta-2:

-Overview with picture added
-Config.bin errors sorted out
-Infinite savegames.
-Confusion in the briefing - there's now a distinction made between locating the Marines and locating the NVA forces.
-Player's squad expanded to 12 (to allow the base to be assaulted better)
-Markers change colour as their objectives are completed.
-You can now rescue the surviving Marine (if you're feeling like Rambo)  


Known issues:
 
-For the next version I'll be adding seperate debriefings if you rescue the Marine, or if you rescue him and he then gets killed.
-Intro/outro still not done - my OFP has a habit of crashing when I alt-tab so I'm putting it off as too time-consuming at the moment...need to kick myself into gear...

DeadDog, thanks for all your help. Hope all goes well with your new one too!

Dark out.

[alimag]

Sorry, the page you requested was not found.

This is what I received at the link you gave...

Cheers

[DarkAngel]

Sorry Alimag - should be working now. Don't know quite what went wrong there... If the link on the top still doesn't work, there's a link on my signature which should go direct to the site.

Happy New Year!

DarkOut

[Hawkins]

Hey there! As I like playing 'Nam missions, I had to try this one too.

The overview picture is a bit fuzzy. :-\ Maybe add some outline to it too so it would look better. Other than that, it's cool. J

In the notes section of the briefing, there's "how many men he has there…" and right after it "..or what kind of weapons they have". I'm not sure but shouldn't it be how many men they have? Or do you mean Uncle Ho in person? Charlie was used for all VC and NVA. NVA was also called Nathaniel Victor. Ok enough of me.

Add some HE ammo bags to the weapon selection.

At the start I noticed the save game. Great add to a beta.

When I started to cross the river, I noticed that it was kind of deep and the crossing point didn't look good all together. My guess proved to be right. A very well positioned sniper killed three of my men and two drowned! I freaked when I heard that bullet go past my head. I instantly hit the ground and my men did the same. Two drowned and I ordered the rest ashore but the sniper got three of them.

As I continued towards Plei The, I decided to flank the ville from the north. Left my men about 200m from the ville. Took out my Hush Puppy, took out a guy from a bunker and sneaked in. Got the radio message and as I was told in the briefing, I didn't engage.

At this point I started to wonder, that this might be good as a night mission with a smaller team maybe? SF forced kick major ass at night, and it's harder to see anything which makes the player edgy. That's a good thing IMO. And even if you don't make the team smaller, add some "Nungs" to it. Most SF RT teams had local tribesmen as interpreters and pointman. And US SF camps all togehter consisted mostly of CIDG forces and little US personel. Goddamn don't listen to me! This is your mission and I'm talking in the middle of the night! ;D It's your mission. And it's turning out to be a great one too.

Also IMO you should switch the sideradio to titletext. Would fit better.

I continued towards the mortar pits. Again flanked the position from the NW. Saw one patrol from a distance, maybe a good 500m. Didn't engage.

Don't know about the rest yet since it's 1:40AM here (Happy new year btw ) and I've drank way too little and I'm sleepy. I'll finish this off first thing tomorrow and write the rest of this. G'nite!

Ok. I played it more.

There was a russian Ural at the mortar camp. Maybe change it to a PVS of whatever the civilian truck is called. ;D

I had a fearsome firefight at the mortar camp. We got most of the defenders in 10 seconds (assigning targets seemed to work) and I pulled my LAW to take out those mortars. And suddenly there was at least two squads of NVA running towards the camp. We had a dustup there for a minute and I lost two more men. So I had 3 AI left. All wounded. One tough SOB took out half of an NVA squad by himself! I'll put him up for a medal later on.

We left the camp once the mortars and the HMG were down. Didn't notice if there was a savegame, but this would be a good point to add one.

I returned to Plei The only to notice it had been reinforced by at least two squads. Saw some marines under a camonet and thought what the hell, war is hell and attacked. Outcome can be known. We zapped a big dozen of NVA before they even knew what was going on. I got the HMG and lost my legs, got hit by a grenade twice and my men were killed by a grenade too. I crawled a bit before I got an AK round on the head.

Didn't finish this one. Decieded to go for the marines and didi once I got them. Unfortunate for me that the camp had been reinforced. I might have had a chance otherwise.

This is one helluva mission. Reminds me of my Greenies a year back. This would fit perfectly as a coop and if it's not too much trouble, could you make the AI playable if they aren't already. Would really love to check this one out with some of my mates.

And of course, if you want, I can put this up to my site once you've finished it.

HawkNam

Hawkins

[DarkAngel]

Hey there! As I like playing 'Nam missions, I had to try this one too.

The overview picture is a bit fuzzy. :-\ Maybe add some outline to it too so it would look better.
Yep...I'll see what I can do about that although the problem is I've only got Paint to do it with  .

In the notes section of the briefing, there's "how many men he has there…" and right after it "..or what kind of weapons they have". I'm not sure but shouldn't it be how many men they have?

Good point - altered.


When I started to cross the river, I noticed that it was kind of deep and the crossing point didn't look good all together. My guess proved to be right. A very well positioned sniper killed three of my men and two drowned! I freaked when I heard that bullet go past my head. I instantly hit the ground and my men did the same. Two drowned and I ordered the rest ashore but the sniper got three of them.

Yep, it's nasty that sniper. I'm quite pleased with it  


At this point I started to wonder, that this might be good as a night mission with a smaller team maybe? SF forced kick major ass at night, and it's harder to see anything which makes the player edgy. That's a good thing IMO. And even if you don't make the team smaller, add some "Nungs" to it. Most SF RT teams had local tribesmen as interpreters and pointman. And US SF camps all togehter consisted mostly of CIDG forces and little US personel. d**n don't listen to me! This is your mission and I'm talking in the middle of the night! ;D It's your mission.

Interesting idea...I'll give it some thought. But I do have plans for a seperate, follow-up mission in which you go in at night and rescue the marine (before fast jets level the ville), so this one'll probably stay as it is. Maybe if I justify it a bit more in the briefing, just say something like "Command wants this dealt with as quickly as possible"

Also IMO you should switch the sideradio to titletext. Would fit better.

Good idea.

There was a russian Ural at the mortar camp. Maybe change it to a PVS of whatever the civilian truck is called. ;D

Will do, good point.

I had a fearsome firefight at the mortar camp.

Yeah, it's pretty hardcore. There's a lot of patrols in the area, and several of them move in towards the camp once you're spotted. The way to deal with it seems to be to assign your LAW guys to the targets before opening fire and do the job as quickly as possible - unless you're in the mood for a serious firefight. I keep meaning to try it by sneaking in and doing it with satchel charges but my trigger finger just gets too itchy.  

We left the camp once the mortars and the HMG were down. Didn't notice if there was a savegame, but this would be a good point to add one.

Think there is one in the new version I'm working on. I'll check.

Didn't finish this one. Decieded to go for the marines and didi once I got them. Unfortunate for me that the camp had been reinforced. I might have had a chance otherwise.

Reinforced? What's happened there...ah yes, there's a patrol on a timed WP there, if you hang around long enough they move on, leaving the village a bit less heavily guarded.

This is one helluva mission. Reminds me of my Greenies a year back. This would fit perfectly as a coop and if it's not too much trouble, could you make the AI playable if they aren't already. Would really love to check this one out with some of my mates.

Interesting idea...I'll do a MP version. I don't do much online playing since I've got a very slow connection, but if you think it'll work...

And of course, if you want, I can put this up to my site once you've finished it.

HawkNam

That'd be cool  

Thanks Hawkins, I'll make some of these changes. And I love the village being soooo tempting to attack  ;D

[DarkAngel]

Hey guys!

I've just uploaded a second beta version to my site, making a number of changes based on the suggestions Hawkins and deaddog made, and a few on my own initiative.

- Squad size changed to 10 for realism purposes.
- Objectives tidied up (there was a bit of confusion between reconning Plei The and locating the marines, now you have to find the Marines in Plei The which is combining the two  
- A Nung pointman has been added to the squad, he'll give you advice about Charlie's tactics - cheers Hawk.
- Sidechats replaced by TitleText to simulate direct speech between team members
- SF camp populated a tad more
- The whole SF team should now be playable in Multiplayer (I haven't tested this)
- Expanded briefing and narrative
- Mission fails if you get the Marine killed.
- And a couple of nasty little surprises...it's a jungle out there  ;D


Still to come:-

Intro and Outro
Proper cutscenes
Custom sound
Possible voice acting

Thanks to everyone who's helped so far. Have fun!

DarkOut

[deaddog]

I like the added hints on the screen.  One thing, though.  That heavy machine gun at the SF base should be an m2, not the Soviet version.

The mission played out pretty much the same as before but I did have one really good game play moment.  When I was coming back and just about to ford the screen, I set off a claymore type mine and nearly jumped out my skin  It missed me but there were little bullet holes in the ground in front of me.  I think I set it off a little too early.  I did lose a guy in the river by drowning.  I think next time I'm going to steal a truck and drive across  ;D

[DarkAngel]

Hee hee, that claymore works rather nicely  ;D In a funny sort of way it's probably a good thing that you can set it off without being in the killzone. Will change the machine gun - I just really liked the sandbagged pit.

Glad you liked the hints - I was checking out some links I got from Hawkins' Nam site and thought, hmm, there's an idea...

I'll change the M2 round.

[Hawkins]

Played it a bit again.

The overview was nice. Much better now.

Got hit by a mine about 10m from the SF camp. Own mine? Make them activated by East.

I was wondering, how close do I need to go to make the player "see" the marines? Since the last time I played, I was 2m from him. That wasn't too healthy. Do I see him when I knowsabout marine >= 3 or sth? Since this would be better. I'm not very keen on going into Charlie's ville in bright daylight.

Oh and do you use createunit to make troops or are all of them on the mission when it starts?

Hawkins

[DarkAngel]

Hi Hawkins,

Sounds pretty odd. There are no mines around the base perimeter. I think what may have happened, if you were north-west of the base, is that you ran into an old booby-trap from a different version of the mission, which I've now deleted. It was an OK idea - there was a tempting little sampan to allow you to avoid the choke point at the river crossing, which was of course surrounded by mines - but not very well implemented, and anyway this side of the river is supposed to be clear now - at least so close to the SF camp.

Anyway, I've uploaded a version with the sampan and mines removed if you want to have a look at that.

In order to "see" the marines I do indeed use a knowsabout trigger, it's set to a very low value to compensate for them being under camo. CreateUnit isn't used at all and the enemies don't respawn.


Cheers
Dark

[Hawkins]

Sounds good. I'll download it and check it out!

Hawkins

[Hawkins]

Played it through. Didn't find any bugs. Everything worked cool. Just a few suggestions:

When I got to the ville, the text about the ville being infested with gooks showed only for a few seconds and then it reported the marines. Maybe put a small, maybe 8 second, delay on before the text about the marines is showed? This is to prevent the text flashing away too early if the player spots the marines right after he spotted the ville. You know what I mean? ;D

English isn't my best language (I'm finnish) so I don't know for sure, but in the debriefing when it says; stiffer than expected resistance or something like that, wouldn't it sound better if it was; stiffer resistance than expected? As I said I'm not sure and what I've gathered you know more about english than me ;D so I'll rest my case. Just a thought.

I got 7 men left, including me, at the end. The ending trigger seemed to activate when all team members were in the base, which was good. Finished in about 30-40 minutes, with score about 1700. I should have taken notes of those but the thought slipped from my mind.

This is a great mission! I'm eagerly waiting for the version with voices (I hope you get voice actors), music (Right? ) and cinematics.

Hawkins

[DarkAngel]

Thanks Hawk!  

The gooks infested and marines spotted messages actually use seperate triggers, which is a bit of a problem. I'll probably change that. Maybe just have one of your squad spot the marines or something.

Voice actors will probably have to wait until the Recruitment Depot comes back on line and I can beg people!   I'm a Brit and while I could fake an American accent (very badly) it wouldn't be the same...

The language in the debriefing is a bit clunky, you're right. I'll simplify it.

I think the playing part of the mission is pretty much ready to release, it's just getting the details of music, sound and cinematics right, which may take a while.

Anyway, thanks for your help and glad you enjoyed the mission!   (Great site by the way, it was really useful  ;D)

Dark Out

[Munk D]

Played for about 15 minutes, complete objective 1 and havent found any bugs yet   Just a freak accident involving a gook and his own minefield   I was straight down on my gut crapping my pants when that happend. Is he meant to blow himself to hell or what?

While searching the up river bank for anyone planning to ambush I discovered a sniper and took him out wondering how he missed me crossing the river. I tried taking my whole squad across, then the Jeep and finally the truck. Nothing. Im thinking he's the worlds first blind sniper  

[DarkAngel]

Hey Munk,

Thanks for having a go. The blind sniper - to be honest, I just stuck that guy there without giving him any waypoints or anything. Should be sorted out now. The gook blowing himself up - well, that's never happened before. They're supposed to stay behind the line of AP mines. Ah well... will take a look at the waypointing/triggering there and see if I can sort it out.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the mission.

[The-Architect]

Make the mines activated by east  ?
Are mines in real lifew able to distinguish who stood on them?
Wow! What an invention, no more innocent people killed or maimed by landmines. Cool or what?

[deaddog]

Think of it this way.  In real life, these guys would know where the mines are and avoid them.  But this is OFP and sometimes you have to help the AI out.

[DarkAngel]

Interesting points guys. I'll change the activation to East and see if that helps.

This mission is pretty much ready to go I think, just intro and outro to finish. I've got a couple of other missions I'm developing but if there are any other comments it'd be great to hear them for this one!