You mention a few times about the desire of not introducing new models (handguns/aircraft/M113 wreck). What is the background to this, especially the statics?
I first encountered this when somebody quoted to me the example of BMP and BMP2. When you have them both in the mission the game has to load both models, movement characteristics, weapons and so on. It then has to carry these details throughout the mission. The more details (=the more models) the more the comp has to do, with predicable consequences. Same goes for weapons.
With statics, the effect is obviously going to be less. (If indeed there is an effect at all.) I did some testing with statics in Un-Impossible and my impression was very clearly that 10 different statics will slow the game more than 10 the same. At one stage I had a very large number of statics, of very diverse types. (There may even have been a stage when I was attempting to use them all.) The mission suffered from intolerable lag. The mission ran slower with all the units and triggers deleted than it did with all the statics deleted. I then halved the number of triggers (which helped a little) and more than halved the number of statics with a reduction in number of types. This helped things considerably.
I am fascinated by mikero's report that removing all the sandbags seems to have created a brand new mission. This is what I would have expected, except that the consequence seems to have been much more dramatic than I would have predicted.
I don't know about false objects but I would expect that the game would load them, then remove them at the last minute. I did a lot of complex experiments with condition of presence for Regina Proeliorum, and failed to confuse the game: everything seems to exist until the last possible millisecond. I'm not an expert on the game engine so I could be wrong though.
I have a solid bank of barracks and you take out every second one, with minimal reduction in the visual effect.
In fact, if you had enough to start with, you could remove 2 out of 3 with no material effect on the look. And once you start doing things like putting them at right angles to each other ...
I didn't remove any M2s but I suggest you do. There are an awful lot.
Don't bother removing anything that has knock on effects. What you're looking for here is volume of removals. Far better to spend the time on stripping down somewhere else rather than redoing a whole cutscene to lose just one object.
I suggest that, as an experiment, you delete virtually all statics and play the game through (cheats on obviously) and see if you get hit by lagdemons. My bet is that you won't, not unless you meet 5 vehicle groups at once. If removing many statics makes the game materially more difficult, you will be able to remove some units as well. Virtuous circle time.
But there is no question that it is all alchemy.
I'd just remove the "this is fiction" title completely. You've just spent the whole intro trying to persuade us that something is real, so that we can suspend our disbelief, and then suddenly you baldly tell us its not real. Doesn't work. Everything - every last title, every tiny detail - should contribute to the atmosphere. If it doesn't, remove it. Comments like this (and Beethoven) are for the readme, where you are trying to deconstruct the atmosphere anyway.
Similarly with Sergei and the reminders. Keep it real and logical: you should only get reminders if you have had the story. It's only a wild goose chase anyway, its not critical to the mission.
Ditto the snipers. Yes they are covering the bases beautifully, but why are they there in the first place? "Quick! We're, err, not under attack! What to do, what to do ... Yes! Quick! Send some snipers out to take ideal positions for covering the base. What? What? Facing outward? Don't be a damn fool, nobody is attacking us, why would they face outwards?"
Speaking as a mission reviewer, very long time beta tester and MEC judge, the first impression of a mission really is formed with the opening elements: download, readme, Overview, Intro and Briefing. By the time you click "Continue" in the Briefing you know to within a mark and half what the result is going to be. By 2 minutes into the mission you know to within a mark. Occasionally it's not like that of course, sometimes a mission can surprise you either way, but that is the general rule. So lets look at these important bits again ...
DownloadInclude as jpgs the overview shot, a tall narrow picture that will go on the mission page in the mission depot, and a shot that placebo can use in Flashnews.
The readme should say near the top that the mission is designed for Vets and there are no waypoints in Cadet mode.
Overview - Put Thobson in bold/blue <b>like this.</b> Consider "Mission by THobson" or something. (All in bold obviously.) Consider making it right justified as well.
Intro- Check the line breaks \n in the text: make sure that when the text is on two lines it looks good. Don't have a second line of just one word.
- Also check the punctuation, a couple of commas need to be reorganised.
- The text that is spoken dialogue should be in a different colour from that of the silent narrator.
- The penultimate line should be " ... my brother Nikolai ... your uncle is a clever man ..." which is better than having brother and uncle the current way round.
- If you want more time in the Intro, copy the first and/or second section of music and repeat it immediately after it first appears. Nobody will notice or care.
- Definitely remove the "fiction" thing.
Briefing- Plan. Personally I don't like this small text. It looks ... mean, and makes the page very empty. You know there are going to be hidden objectives. Although I'm a strong believer in getting all the objectives onto the first page, for that very reason I'm an equally strong believer in ensuring that hidden objectives spill onto the second page.
Suggest amending the text to something more like this:-
What a horrible night! That decrepit excuse for a boat only just made it around the Cape. She'll be safe here though, hidden from sea and soldiers - Vigny Fjord is the best anchorage for miles. And we're very close to <a link>Vigny,</a> even if it is a <a link>steep climb.</a>
I must find my Uncle. I must find < a link> my Uncle</a> before <a link to background> something else goes wrong.</a>- <a link to Vigny>Find</a> Uncle Nikolai!
- Notes. "stay here" is not consistent with the Plan. Change to "cannot survive without food or shelter..."
- Uncle Nikolai
We have not seen my uncle or his family for several years. His daughter must be grown up by now. When we fled we managed to bring some photos, including this one of him.... No doubt he'll be a little greyer. I wonder if they still have that lodge in the mountains?- Background
It all started with a small thing, though we did not see it as small at the time.It all started with our Chief of Police - Commander Leon Stamenov. He always had grand ambitions. He was a good "bad cop", policeman, but too ruthless and ambitious. He let nothing stand in his way as he rose through the ranks to become the most senior, and most feared, police officer on the island. Malden. But it seems that was not enough for him. He did not just want to run was not satisfied with the police force; he wanted to run the whole island.
One by one members of the ruling government (and the oppostion) were disgraced, placed under arrest arrested, or simply 'disappeared'. If it were not for two things, nothing else would have happened, Malden would have was set to become a police dictatorship and, were it not for an accident of geography, the rest of the world would not have noticed.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, oil reserves had just been discovered off the coast of Malden, and the island was at a strategic location controlling the sea access to one of the Soviet Union's main satellite states.
Malden, unfortunately, has a strategic location. It effectively controls the sea lanes to one of the greatest non-aligned states. Whatever happened on Malden was of great interest to Washington and Moscow.
Our government had successfully maintained an uneasy, but pragmatic, relationship with the Soviet Union. but However, Stamenov was an anathema to them. completely beyond their control. "In support of freedom and in solidarity with our comrades and the legitimate government of Malden" and all that other bullshit, the Soviet Union invaded. However, they fatally underestimated both the size difficulty of the task and the reaction of the rest of the world.
The people of Malden have a hard life. it has made them We are tough and independent. Though not supporting Few supported Stamenov - we were afraid of him - but nobody was prepared to tolerate they were not going to have a foreign army on their our soil. We have no standing army, but a resistance movement quickly developed from the militia.
For their part the US, following the doctrine of ‘my enemy's enemy is my friend' that got them embroiled in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Ecuador and elsewhere, began sending ‘advisors' to support Stamenov. A rapid escalation followed, first on Malden and then across the globe. The world was on a knife edge.
Thinking he was under attack, an incompetent, or perhaps simply a frightened, US naval captain in Soviet waters west of Sakhalin brought down a civilian North Korean airliner. on the fringes of Soviet territorial waters shot down a civilian Soviet airliner. Shortly afterwards, his task group was obliterated by a naval tactical nuclear weapon. Then came reports of thermonuclear detonations in Siberia ... then Washington and Moscow: then London ... then Beijing.
Then ... silence... nothing ...
No ships. No aeroplanes. No radio. No TV. Nothing. Nothing at all.
With no contact from the outside and with dwindling food supplies on the island discipline in both armies rapidly broke down. Many officers were shot and the soldiers became an undisciplined rabble. Nationality became irrelevant, US and Soviet soldiers combined where they stood to defend food supplies from other ragged bands of hungry soldiers. Local alliances were formed and eventually two dominant groups emerged.
One of these groups is led by a ruthless ex-Spetz Natz officer by the name of Vladimir Ilich Andropov. The other, by none other than that evil bastard Stamenov, our one time Chief of Police.
Andropov and Stamenov fought for a while but eventually it became clear that their forces were too well matched and an armed truce was established. The resistance movement was ruthlessly put down by both sides and is now all but destroyed.
- Map. I know its another marker, but I feel the need of one saying "Vigny Fjord". Seems odd to mark the steep hill but not the fjord. The Vigny marker should be about 10m SW of its current location, so that it lines up nicely with the word "Vigny".
Mission startDialogue - remove the "low spec PC?" text. Otherwise its all very good.
Move the boat and the player about 10m to the west - you'd really struggle to get the boat into that position. Start the player facing SE: it is actually the direction he should go (since its much easier to go up the hill in zig zags) and will make the initial view more comprehensible and attractive.
Also, start the player another 5m up the hill. It's still obvious he has just got out of the boat, should he turn round to look, but makes it equally obvious that you are not supposed to get back in it and moreover it will be a chore to do. At present when you turn round you get the action menu items which will lead some people into temptation.
If you can dig out the thunder sound from the depths of the game, have a thunderclap a few seconds into the mission. Help set the atmosphere.
@SpikeTennyson I thought that was a helpful and fun story. I know how much the bit about the magically appearing gate at Dourdan will have pleased THobson.
Topic: (Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies (Read 261862 times)