(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[THobson]

@GRK

really wouldn't use a HEAT shell. They are much too weak. Use Shell120 or Shell105. Just a suggestion, when you place an AV Mine it puts a real OFP tank mine there

Actually due to a 'feature' of OFP if you ask for a Shell120 you get a HEAT (try rearming an empty tank to see what I mean - addmagazine "Shell120" and you get a fullload out of HEAT).  That is what I am using on the mission you have.  I quite like it.  It takes out anything less than a Bradley, and it disables a Bradley so the crew get out but it is repairable - so long as you don't have another explosion near by like Planck did .  A real OFP mine will only explode when it detects armour.  I want somthing that will take out anything from a motor bike upwards.

@macguba

With my fancy mines idea, it was never the intention that the actual explosion should be the same as the item you placed

No, but I thought it would be elegant to do it that way - I was also quite pleased with myself for camcreating  LAW and RPG explosions.  I think I will go back to the explosions in v 1-00.

@Mr Pibb
The empty tanks that cannot be re-armed - All I can say is - sorry.  They are there so that having taken one base as infantry you can have a different experience in taking the other base riding in a tank.  There are two problems with v1-00, one caused by me (in a quick last minute change I removed weapons from the tank, not removed magazines) and one by OFP (a tank with no ammo cannot be re-armed by an ammo truck). Both are fixed in the next release.  In v1-01 these empty tanks will still start off damaged, with no ammunition and only a whisper of fuel, but you can now bring them to full operational condition.

On your wonderful compliments - thank you, I realy do appreciate them.  I realy did want to create a world where people would 'want to live for a while' until they figured out what they wanted to do next.  Your comments have given me the energy to continue flogging though the mountain of To-Do's that the last two weeks have created.

EDIT:
Disabling Mines:  I put an Action on the mine case for this.  The idea is that the case is placed ~10 seconds before the mine is primed and so it should be possible to disable it immediately.  Unfortunately OFP seems not to work like that.  It can take a while for the addAction to become available in the player's menu - so mistakenly placing a mine next to your tank will still be a problem (except you might not have the required item in inventory to make the mine) - Oh, I can't remeber if I said.  You cannot now place mines when you are in a vehicle, sometimes the action is removed by OFP when you get in a vehicle and sometimes not.  Even when the action is not removed it is now not possible to action it.

[ACF]

I've had a thought about the 'sinking' lodge - could it be down to different terrain detail settings?

As you crank the terrain detail up the fine detail is interpolated against some 'roughness' factor in the island config. My theory is that the random interpolation is different for different people and, maybe, the same person at different times; so it's not the building that's sinking, it's the land around it being drawn differently.  If you ask, I'm sure screenshots of the critical (west?) side would be forthcoming to confirm or deny this.

If that's the case, the fixes would be to find a flatter or less rough spot, or force SetTerrainGrid.

[macguba]

The "arming process" takes a few seconds anyway, and its not unreasonable that you can't disarm it till it has armed, so I wouldn't worry about the delay.

The southron base hadn't been completely overrun, but the northrons did come out on top when I played.   When I arrived at the southron base the northrons still had at least two armoured vehicles to the southrons none, although the chopper hovering over the southron base was presumably southron.     Northrons were left in complete control of La Trinite.  

When I looked at the map in the mission editor one of the things that surprised me slightly was the density of northron troops and bases compared to the much more widely spread southrons.    This shouldn't have surprised me - its a function of the road and village network, but it does mean that the northrons have the advantage of concentration and short lines.

ACF, I've only had time for a very quick test but it appears you are correct.   Good thinking!

[THobson]

ACF, I've only had time for a very quick test but it appears you are correct.  Good thinking!

Well that's a relief. I was wondering how I was going to fix a problem I have not seen.

the fixes would be to find a flatter or less rough spot, or force SetTerrainGrid.

The lodge is at a saddle between two peaks so it is about the flattest land available for miles.  It looks like I will have to try setTerrainGrid.  It would help me to know what settings people have for their terrain detail and whether or not they have experienced the 'sinking lodge' so I can home in on an appropriate setting.

This shouldn't have surprised me - its a function of the road and village network, but it does mean that the northrons have the advantage of concentration and short lines.

This really is a practical demonstration of the power of short lines of communication.  I have been scrupulous in balancing forces. And then laying them out in a reasonably realistic way.  At first I thought the northrons were exposed having their base so close to the front but it turned out differently.  In the version I use for de-bugging I have markers to show the location of each group, and for the convoys, patrols and choppers the location of each vehicle (I have removed these from the version I posted because they consume valuable names and so contribute to the large savegame bug). It is fascinating to see the battles progress by watching the map.  Northrons really are able to get their stuff to La Trinite much more quickly.  For some reason I also always seem to target the southron convoy so they are already weaker by the time the action starts.

but the northrons did come out on top when I played.  When I arrived at the southron base the northrons still had at least two armoured vehicles to the southrons none,

I think I will down grade one or two of their T80s to T72s, nothing too drastic.

[macguba]

It should be emphasised that although the Nortrons always appear to win, certainly in my case they won by about the right margin for good gameplay.     Thinking about it, I'm not convinced you should mess with this, at least not without a fair amount of testing.

At the moment it works.    The only problem is that northrons always win.   Well when you play the mission for the first time that doesn't matter because you don't know.   When you play it for the third time its actively good because you will, knowing this and wanting a new challenge, play it to try and get the southrons to win.     It's only a problem - if you admit its a problem at all - for folk playing it the second time.

However, if you mess with it a little you may end up with the two sides annihilating each other perfectly, leaving nothing for the player to do.     Simply reducing the northron's strength a little is, I suggest, a mistake.    Either live with it - and nothing wrong with that - or do lots of work.    The trouble is that you are trying to create a knife-edge (where clear victory can go either way) and you may end up with a plateau (mutually assured destruction).

Attached pic of doorway into sinking building at very low terrain detail.

[macguba]

Low, obviously.   There is a slight difference.

[macguba]

Normal.  I suspect this is where it was when I first arrived (or maybe low), and when I came back later I was on very low.    I certainly had been playing with terrain.

[macguba]

We're getting there ...

[macguba]

Lastly ...

[Mr.Pibb]

Heres a breif descript of what I found last night through playing for bout 3 hours and a few minor suggestions following:

 Spent alot of time at the north base until every enemy vehicle or soldier I could find was dead (including the N boss), then carried on in a T72 I fixed down towards the southern base. Fog started setting in as I neared the southern base from the mountians, I drove right in the base area with the area mostly devoid of enemy presence, except for scirmishes happening nearby the base, everything in the base was dead - except the N boss and one of his ladies, - took out the N boss, at this point fog was gettin really bad, raining again. I hijacked an empty T80 nearby and dumped the T72, fog now so close I decided that trying to engage enemies would be almost impossible, so I drove back to the Cabin and called it a night.

 Heres a few suggestions, thats all they are is suggestions, nothing actually 'wrong' did I find in last nights run (aside from the no ammo rearm which I described). - and I do also reccomend if you allow some 'repairable' tanks to be around, personally I would set them back in an area where they would be being fixed at, not at the front of the base (like at the rear refuel depots), just looked a little to much like they were put there for you.

 The N base had good defenses, nice dispersal of troops and tanks. The S base seemed to show less sign of substantial defenses, although I had gotten there after the battle there were only a few destroyed tanks around, and the base seemed very 'crammed' with its elements in the city itself.
 My suggestion is to make both bases really more like large scale bases, simply put. The N base like I said really was perfect mostly in the defenses, but the base structure itself was very tiny. Would be nice to see more buildings spread out, parimeter MG bunkers, more tents for troops, camo canopies for some more of the vehicles, and I would set those damaged vehicles back from the front lines of the base, a little imagination into what a large base at that location would be like and just placing some stuff would make a very big difference in my opinion, and also few more enemies within such a base structure would be nice just to make it more 'interesting' when the player does finally get inside the base itself, just a realistic base for what really is a huge enemy force.

 The S base could use pretty much the same overhaul as mentioned above, frankly I thought the S base was super small and very crammed. Even if the city is the base I would still put alot of additional military style buildings and tents in there, personally I prefer to seperate the areas, tent areas for housing troops, some building structures for whatever in certain areas and spread out too, etc. Personally I would spread the S base way out from as it is, even if it means going beyond the city limits abit, it just really didnt feel like a base at all when I was there (even with the sandbag walls).

 Really to me it seemed arriving at the 2 bases was 2 of the 'high' points in the mission, I think they should be very immersive expereinces.

 Lastly, its your mission and the changes are purely your decision, but I found personally that the second wave of fog was just too much, I felt quite helpless when thinking about engaging an enemy force at that time, it does add a neat twist, but personally I am gonna wait as long as it takes for the fog to dissipate before I move on to any major operations at this point.

 So, these are just pointers, nothing more, I still feel the same, outstanding job, I'm sure to be playing this mission many times over and it will prolly remain on my hard drive for like forever. And I hope you dont feel like you have to kill yerself to make any changes you have decided to add, a mission this size I am sure took many months to get this far and I would rather just enjoy it as is and see you come out with the final product in yer own time rather then you going overboard to try to get it done as fast as possible.

 Best to you

Pibb

[Dubieman]

Now that I think about it, my settings are usually normal (I think) for land detail. And when I was trying to get my T80 away from those nasty southerons LAWmen I was climbing some big hills so I set my detail to low so I could hurry on a bit faster being that there is no 4x.

I suppose it supports the theory we have now...

[THobson]

@ACF & macguba
You are my heroes.  ACF thank you for the idea, macguba thank you for the screen shots.  Looking at them I clearly play on normal all the time.  From the comref I see I need to setTerraineGrid to12.5.

@Mr.Pibb

And I hope you dont feel like you have to kill yerself to make any changes you have decided to add, a mission this size I am sure took many months to get this far  

It did! but I am now very consious of its shortcomings so I want to get them fixed  But at the same time I want to take time and savour the improvements.  

I was quite mean with buildings etc in the bases because I was concerned about lag, but that doesn't seem to be a terrible problem (except for poor old Planck.)  

I do appreciate your comments thanks.

@macguba
I understand what you mean about a perfect cancelling out.  That would be a problem.  What I had in mind was a slight weakening of the northron attack force so that more is left of Stamenov's base for the player to deal with.  I might experiment with it a bit.

[Planck]

I agree that the 'sinking sensation' is probably a consequence of terrain detail.

I never change my terrain detail level, it is always 'normal'.

I also never use accelerated time, I play a mission always in 'real time'.
So I don't really notice the absence of this feature.

OK......Time for part 2 of my story.


The Airfield
------------

Ok, it's dark now and I'm inside the airfield perimeter.
I can see a manned M2 beside the lone building to the north.
There is also a machine gunner and a black-op or it might be an armour crewman, it's hard to tell in this fog.
I sneak closer intending to take out the M2 first.
I'm almost in position when 2 jeepmg's arrive and pause on the road just before the turn-off to the far northern fuel dump. They wait here for about 30 secs then turn up the road to the fuel dump.

Once they have gone I take out the M2, the machine gunner and the black-op.
I wait around to see if there is any reaction....there is none so I continue towards the first fuel dump, there is a lone black-op at the fuel dump, he is standing beside the Ammo truck.
I shoot him and continue to explore the dump.
All vehicles, apart from the Ammo truck and a T80, are destroyed already.
The fuel station is also dead.
I decide that I will take the T80 once I manage to find some fuel for it.

I continue north towards Andropovs HQ.
On the way, I notice another Ammo truck and a Fuel truck stopped together in the middle of the airfield area across from the HQ.....I found some fuel
These trucks are guarded by 2 soldiers, probably the drivers, so I kill them and continue on.
On the approach to the HQ I notice another manned M2 and another machine gunner lying down.
So I find a nice convenient bush to use as cover whilst I deal with them, however, I notice a sniper in another bush, not far from my bush, but further north. So, I deal with him first before taking out the others.
The fog is beginning to lift a little now, but the rain continues.

No reaction from the HQ, no sign of life, so I advance to investigate the buildings.
I went round the back of the buildings, the ones near the fence, and crawl back towards the road, in-between two of the buildings, there is a bush at the other end.
Once I get to the other end I see a Spetz running about between the vehicle enclosure and the hospital area, he just keeps going from one to the other, pausing now and then to look around.
I wait till he pauses in the vehicle enclosure, then I give him the bad news.
Up pops a message that says Andropov is dead.
I continue to search the buildings area and eliminate any other soldiers I find.

I decide to investigate the northern fuel dump next, but my plans are interrupted by the arrival of more troops, then more troops, then more troops.
Then I realise that this is the remnants of Andropovs men returning to base after his death.
I spend some considerable time killing them all and waiting for more to arrive.
They must be coming from different areas on the island and the last remnants will take a while to get here.
The 2 jeepmg's arrive at the HQ........easy prey.

Eventually a Vulcan turns up, followed shortly after by an Abrams.
The Vulcan is very actively looking for me around the HQ area, so I find a spare RPG launcher and take him out, the crew survived and headed for the trauma tent, where they died.
My group report the occasional contact, followed by a 'I got him' or a 'soldier is history'.
I need an AT4 or Carl Gustav to take out the Abrams, but all the ones on the dead soldiers are empty.
The fog has all gone now and the rain has stopped.
I notice the wreck of a Hind on the hillside west of the airfield.

I make my way to the first fuel dump and the Ammo truck, where I get myself an AT4.
The Abrams eventually parks near the HQ after failing to find me, so I let him have the AT4.
I am now immediately under fire from the right of the fuel dump, so I drop the empty AT4 and hide under the T80.
I took out 2 soldiers that were running about looking for me, then it went quiet.
I turned around and looked out from behind the T80.....there was a squad lying down right behind me. They hadn't seen me yet, so I crept quietly away back to the HQ area and borrowed an M21 from that snipers body.
My group reports a Hind way over to the south.
I took them all out from a safe distance, the officer first, as he was the one with NV goggles.

Back to the Ammo truck for another AT4 and re-arm with another Bison.
Waiting for the Abrams to reappear, but he had gone east of the HQ area down near the water and didn't seem to want to play any more.
I was just considering going to look for him, when there was a large explosion followed by another.
The Abrams was dead, but, who killed him.........must have been that Hind, in fact it was buzzing about the airfield right now.
I get rid of the second AT4 as I don't need it any more, I instead restock on my Bison mags.
I went over to the HQ area intending to kill any survivors from the Abrams that had made their way to the trauma tent, but there was nobody there, so they must have been killed.

I picked up a Strela Launcher and waited for the Hind to pass overhead.
It only took the one shot to kill him, I think he must have been damaged already at some point during the fighting.
As he went down over the water, the crew, if they bailed out, would not have survived.
I drop the empty Strela and pick up the Bison mags again.
There was still the odd few soldiers turning up, but I decided to take the Fuel truck I had found and go refuel that T80.

I was under fire as soon as I started driving the truck, I ignored it and reached the T80 ok.
I jumped in the T80 and refuelled it.
I moved the T80 to the Ammo truck but I was unable to re-arm it, the action to re-arm just never appeared in the action menu.
When I was in St. Louis previously I found a damaged jeepmg at the eastern entrance to town, it had hit a building.
Slightly further east, along the road to the airfield there was a Repair truck, undamaged, but abandoned.
I had used this Repair truck to repair the jeepmg, then parked the Repair truck at the roadside.
This is where I took the T80 next in order to repair it.
Once I had repaired the T80 I went back and tried re-arming it again. but no joy.
Never mind, I had at least gained a bullet proof vest on tracks.

I took the T80 to the fuel dump further north.
There was absolutely nobody there, there were no vehicles there either.
I don't know if the fuel stations are supposed to work at this dump, but in my case they didn't work.
Back to the HQ area....crushed a further 6 troops, they were probably the ones shooting at me whilst I was getting the Fuel truck.
It was now very quiet with no sign of anybody, but of course there must be more troops it was just a case of finding them.

I called my group and told them to move to the first fuel dump.
Whilst I was waiting, I moved to the HQ area and spotted 4 snipers there plus 2 other soldiers, all of which I crushed with my trusty T80.
I went looking in the beach area for the Abrams wreck, but instead found a lone AA soldier just standing about, I made him lie down, permanently.
I still never found that Abrams wreck either.
Back to the fuel dump and waited for my group to arrive.
When they arrived I told them to go prone and ordered #2 to board my tank as gunner.
Whilst he was doing that he was fired upon, the rest reported a sniper followed by 'I got him'.

I took #2 to the Ammo truck that was parked further north and got him to board it as driver and then go back to the fuel dump.
#3 was ordered into the other Ammo truck as driver. #4 became driver of the Fuel truck.
I got #5 to join me in the tank as gunner.
#6,#7, and #8 went into a truck each as passengers.
Ordered a 'return to formation' and proceeded to make my way to the road.
#4 somehow managed to put the Fuel truck on its side, so I had to order #4 and #6 out of the Fuel truck.
#4 and #6 were put into other vehicles as passengers instead.
So I had to leave the Fuel truck.
I was leaving the airfield, but planned to return another time to look for stragglers.
We made our way to St. Louis.
Once there, I got #4 to board the Repair truck as driver, #6 and #8 crewed the jeepmg.
Ordered a 'return to formation' and started off for Larche.

At Larche everything went pear-shaped, in that 3 of my vehicles got stuck.
I carried on to the lodge and waited.
By carefully ordering the stuck vehicles to various positions I managed to get them unstuck and eventually everyone arrived safely at the lodge.
At the lodge I healed anyone that was wounded, including myself.
I also replenished everyones ammo.

By now, at the lodge, I had:

1 jeep
1 jeepmg
1 5t Truck (open)
3 Ammo trucks
2 Repair trucks
1 BMP Ambulance
1 Car
1 Bicycle
1 Motorcycle
1 T80

I told everone to wait for me, I was planning to make my way to Chapoi to visit Stamenovs HQ.

--------------------------

This post is getting long, so I will stop again and continue in another post tomorrow.



Planck

[THobson]

Planck.

This is wonderful ;D.  I apologise for you not being able to re-arm the tanks.  I mentioned in a post above that there are two reasons for this.  Both have now been fixed.

[Dubieman]

Hey! Almost finished. Its just been too many hours playing....

Well a shorty version from where I last left off.

I took a squaddie with me to be the gunner of the tank. Now I can usually if I'm leader command the gunner what to shoot at and with what ammo. But because I'm a private, I can't tell anyone what to do in a tank. A quick fix would be nice.

Anyways off to Stamenov's again to deal a death blow. I drive down there and mow down lots of ppl and kill Stamenov. ;D His women ran off. So I search and kill a few more soldiers and look for that T72 that's prolly headed north by now. So I'm relaxing when whiiirrr crunch crunch....Seems Stamenov called his last cobra back to base to rescue him. Well after a few retries and dodgy driving my civ gunner manages to machine gun the heli out of the sky. The city is now more destroyed than before with those TOWs and FFARS!

So I head east then north to inspect Le port and Houdan. Find the remanants of a large tank/infantry battle east of base as suspected before. I lose another guy at the lodge...damn right through a window prolly.

Find nothing and go up through La Trinite and kill a LAW guy and a MGer and continue on to ambush a jeepmg with infantry escort. Ran them over and rammed the jeep into a tree.  

So save and I decide I'm so cool :toocool: so I attack Adropovs (forgot his name) base and get the stuffing beaten out of me by an abrams, vulcan, and a hind. :'(

Alright, I head back to base on a retry. Find a wayward T72, put him out of his misery(he was patrolling the mountains). I get back to base to find the infantry that had killed a team mate of mine. Killed them.

Now I went solo with my PV3S (full of weapons galore!) to go in the back door through the desert to Adropovs base. I get to the desert with no contacts yet. Then I happen upon a vulcan and abrams sitting in the desert staring the other way. ;D ;D

I get an AT4 out and put it right into the engine area of the abrams (forgetting the glitch that makes the engine the strongest part).

I grab my RPG while hiding by my truck in open desert and blast the vulcan away. After  a frenzy of running, ducking, and hiding around my truck I disable the Abrams (with 4 RPGs ) and kill the crew. :booty:

I can come back and salvage it later. Anyways onto the base where I kill about 35 infantry with my M60 and M21 and then shoot down the pesky hind. ;D I come upon an abandoned T72 with a busted track. The big force of the northerners are approaching now and the turret is still usable on the T72. I slice into them with the T72's weaponry and blow away 2 M2A2s and kill 15 infantry + another vulcan. ;D

I then run into the base, which is kinda a small place on this large airport and grenade the adropov guy and he dies then I kill another squad and shoot some snipers. Now I take my truck full speed to the repair place where some infantry are firing on a southeron tank that's stuck in the wrecked building, they "just" saw it...

Anyways I park and find a fully working abrams that's been abandoned with a busted turret. I repair, refuel, rearm. Then off to St. Louis and down to Chapoi to show any surivivors my new shiny abrams. I eliminate an infantry squad and find no one else. I head back to base, lost another guy from my group...

Now its foggy as hell again, it was nice and sunny before, but now its 1:20 OFP time and I get my guys to crew my abrams and my T80. Time to go huntin! ;D

So we kill some wayward infantry and I send my T80 down a road I haven't been down yet. We arrive at the airport to hear my mates back at the lodge are reporting M2A2s and lots of infantry. (where the hell are they coming from? ;D )

Me in the abrams with "6" wipe out an infantry squad and then I find that putting AP mines at the fences entrances could work very well cause the infantry are bottlenecked through the gates. ;D We'll see how it works out. So my T80 joins me and we get attacked by 2 M2A2s and 2 Vulcans. Dead meat they were.

Okay that's it, I'm waitin at the airport to just let everyone's guard waypoints draw them to my abrams and T80 while we wait with the repair, refuel, and rearm trucks behind us. Odds= in our favor

Okay that's my account for now....

Comments:
-change my rank higher?
-some serious clipping troubles at Adropovs place, found a T72 in perfect condition upside down :-\
-found those women running up & down the streets
-fog is nice when starting for cover while you're weak but a real pain when near the end
-the northerner base is kinda odd, spread out and not very "real" to me
-many units in the bases are very stationary, is there anything to be done about that?
-don't know why so many enemies pass my lodge. When I'm on the other side of the map. Shouldn't they attack me? :-\


Hmm, if I think of anything else I'll respond again. Almost done now, its just a waiting game.