(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[GI-YO]

Alright thanks for that, i will have some experimenting to do.

MISSION(con'd) Im hiding on the big ridge above the airfild, visibility getting better and it sounds like there is a tank battle going on down there, and i hear a lone sniper...

EDIT

Now this is more like it, i find a sniper in a bush and dispatch him, and then pick off the many RPG/AT4 men all aiming at a slightly disabled T80, with their ak's on their backs (is that suppose to be like that) makes them very easy to shoot seeing as they dont shoot back. slowly reccing the field with my new gun.After a few attemps i manage to get to the tank and i hop in and drive back to the repair truck from earlier, after fixing my steed i speed into the base and finish of the baddies, another tick done. I save there in my shiny T80  ;D, off to work soon.yay

few comments on the base - why all the rpg soldiers aiming at the disabled tank, they were too easy to shoot in the back. There were  alot of soldiers running into the base through the southern gate , where are they coming from? Are the helicopters destroyed at the start of the mission or during it, because they were crashed all over the fuel pump rendering it useless.should the boss man, stamanov in the north try and escape or run away, or plead with you before you execute him, just running him over in the tank ws not as satasfying as it could have been. Good to hear some voices again after my lack of progreess. Awesome stuff all the way. more tomorw.

GI-YO

[THobson]

Lone sniper?

[Dubieman]

I've dispatched the northeron army...

Now to go find some southerons....

[GI-YO]

just spotted your post, they was a nother couple down there, but they were already dead.

[THobson]

Couple?

[dmakatra]

About the rain:

http://www.ofpec.com/yabbse/index.php?board=27;action=display;threadid=18119

Old, crappy written, but it looks quite cool. Worth checking out, but remember to do a benchmark check before you launch it.

Been wondering of rewriting it, but not now.

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

EDIT: Ooooh, and I fuckin' hate 'em snipers. Especially when the sun starts to come up but the fog is still there. They can see through the fog and shoot me like 200 meters away. Dammit! :-X

[THobson]

dmakatra:  I saw your rain thread when it first started, I also followed a few threads on snow falling as well.  In the end I decided that I would use default OFP as much as possible.

[Pilot]

The rain is default?!  I'm not sure what made me think it wasn't, oh well.

Ok, from where I left off, I had just gotten to the lodge, and found out about the civies.  After getting ready to move out to rescue the civies, I find out that 2 won't respond to my commands.  Insubordinate bastard!  So I head out alone, and am able to rescue all three civie groups, without, I might add, getting lost! ;D.  I did not come into any contact along the way, and it was quite easy.  After rescuing the civies, I thought about what I will do next.  I dicide to attack Larche first (attacking La Trinite seems a bit to aggresive this early on).  I set out alone, and move north to scout out the town.  I find 1 infantry squad guarding Larche, and immediately set up my plans.  While I'm looking for a good place to attack the squad, a jeep patrol comes into town.  Damn, they're right in front of me, and me being the brilliant soldier I am, find myself in the middle of the road!  Somehow, I am able to duck into an ally, without them seeing me.  The jeep patrol passes without incident, and I attack the infantry squad.  I kill them all on the first try, and get out of there before someone comes to investigate.  I make it back to the lodge without incident, and realize I forget the NVG's again!  I decide to go back and get them, and hopefully find some binocs.  At this point the fog is receding.  I approach the town, and don't see anyone.  Wait, what's that?  It appears to be a soldier, yep, it is, three in fact.  BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!  That was easy enough ;D, I get my NVG's and binocs and head back to the lodge.  On the way, I decide to shoot down the hind.  It takes me several retries, but I finally succeed.  A parachute.  Great!  Another pair of NVG's.  I kill the person who landed and walked over.  Wait a minute, THIS IS A CIVILIAN! WTF?!  Uh, ok, I guess I'll just head back to the lodge.  At this point 2 is listening to me again .  Before I started out to my next target, an enemy squad decided to pay us a visit, probably investigating the hind wreckage.  We dispatch them quickly.  No casualties yet.  I scavenge the weapons, and put them in the ammo crate.  Four more men come from the south, we dispatch them, another squad comes from the south-east, we dispatch them, I take one casualty doing this (it was 2 , he deserved it anyway).  I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't have shot down the hind ;D.  Suddenly all goes to hell.  A T80, T72, and Vulcan approach from the south.  I destroy the T72 and Vulcan and disable the T80.  Right after I accomplish that, an M1A1 and BMP2 approaches from the same direction.  Somehow, I am able to also destroy these two vehicles, so much for not being aggressive .  I decide this place isn't safe, I get my men together and we prepare to move out.  Before we do so, we have to dispatch another squad that snuck up from behind.  No more casualties, yet.  We leave the area to the north (I decided the forces I dispatched were southern forces, considering they came from the south, as a result, I would have relative safetly in the north), and I have put my men in a small clump of trees at Ed 33 (or is it Ee 34?  I can never tell, it is the clump of trees just south of the first large bend in the road west of Larche).  Fortunately, my squad is mostly intact.  Unfortunately, I don't have access to the ammo that I stashed away at the lodge :'(.  I decided to go back alone and see if I can't get another RPG or two from a dead guy for my RPG launcher.  This was done easily, I didn't see any more troops, but I didn't stay long .  I head back to my men.  A jeep patrol goes by on a nearby road, I decide to wait for awhile.  At this time the fog is completely gone, and the sky is clear, which is what I don't want.  Current game time: It's the 10th, at 9:50.

I have one suggestion for you:
If the player is able to kill a lot of men and vehicles (like me) on one particular side, it would be nice for the other side to attack, to relieve pressure off of the player.  And I think this would be a realistic reaction.  One general, seeing the other has been weakened, attacks, expecting to have the upper hand.

As I said above, I'm going to wait for awhile before I make my next move, maybe I'll do some recon.  I'm having a blast (literally) with this mission!  I love the freedom of movement, and the fact the player isn't really tied to any specific objective.  This is a wonderful change from the usual missions!

[dmakatra]

So I should look out for it about the time we are all playing OFP 3 then.
Actually it's ready for an early beta testing now... But I'm holding it on until the beta testing party.
OoooOOooO, OFP 3 is out! ;D

dmakatra:  I saw your rain thread when it first started, I also floowed a few threads on snow falling as well.  In the end I decided that I would use default OFP as much as possible.
Yeah, thought you'd say that. It's kinda crappy ain't it. Was like made ages ago, when I first learnt drop.

BTW, what's with 4x speed? Why? :-\

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

[THobson]

@Student Pilot:

If the player is able to kill a lot of men and vehicles (like me) on one particular side, it would be nice for the other side to attack, to relieve pressure off of the player.  And I think this would be a realistic reaction.  One general, seeing the other has been weakened, attacks, expecting to have the upper hand.

I thought about this for a long time.  I decided - no what the hell, let the player take the heat.  I may still add a: the enemy is weak let's attack them scenario.  In fact the more I think about it the more I like it.  As it stands the player has a difficult way to finish the mission (get them fighting at La Trinite) or a very difficult way (don't get them fighting at La Trinite).  Having one side attack because the other side is weak would really help reduce the linearity.  Jeez beta testing is wonderful - I wish I had done it for all my missions.

Your need to abandon the lodge raises interesting questions about leaving the civilians there that supports macguba's instinct that something was not quite right about this.

Keep at it you are doing well.

@dmakatra

It's kinda crappy ain't it. Was like made ages ago, when I first learnt drop

A  couple of points: no it is not crappy, and  I have not yet learned drop.  I just got the default rain working well enough that I was happy.  Also I knew from the outset that this was going to be a big mission so lag could be an issue so: smallest island, minimal use of non-standard stuff, and apart from General Barron's editor upgrade - absolutely no addons.

EDIT:

So I should look out for it about the time we are all playing OFP 3 then.
Actually it's ready for an early beta testing now... But I'm holding it on until the beta testing party.

I was refering to the mission you say mine has inspired.  I naturally assumed that the one you have been working on for the last 37 years is nearly finished.

[Pilot]

At my camp in the cluster of trees, I decide to set out alone to do some recon to the south.  Nothing but a 5t Truck and a few tents were in Arudy, so I moved on to Chapoi.  Before I could do much recon, the weather went to hell, and I spent at least 40 minutes waiting for it to clear.  After it cleared, I checked out the main base at Chapoi, but the T72 kept me from attacking.  I then checked out Cancon, which seemed like a Utopian town in this ravaged island, as it was fully intact, and no guards were there.  I then checked out La Riviere, but found it to be like Cancon.  At this point I decide to head back to my men.  On the way, they reported seeing two trucks, but nothing else happened.  After a lot of walking, I finally arrived at my men's position.  I think I will start clearing some towns in the north.  I am going to stop for tonight.  It may be a few days before I can do much more, as my schedule is busy this weekend.

When I made my way south, I stopped at the lodge, and found, to my surprise, that nobody was there except the civies.  It was also unoccupied when I came back.  It appears I must have killed all of the response units.  I will probably stay out of the lodge for the remainder of the mission, however, considering what did happen there.

[macguba]

Having multiple triggers for starting the war is a good idea.  

Do you want to ensure that the war starts even if the player has chosen not to start it?    If not, what kinda probability do you want?

At what strength ratios do you want the war to start?

Or is it going to be when one side hits an absolute trigger?  (Obviously randomised.)

What mechanism could you use?    Side A must somehow learn that side B might be weak, and then investigate that, and then get the informatin to the boss who then has to decide whether to start the war.    

Maybe bring back your mad civvy women:  except make them not mad, make them itinerant whores, heavily armed for their own protection, who travel between the sides selling booze and sex.   They can start the rumour (as long as they are still moving) and then a recce patrol can confirm/deny it.   If the recce patrol comes back, a war starts.   If it doesn't, it doesn't.    Or something.

Or perhaps have a setCaptive observer from each side at the other side's HQ.    If the side he is visiting gets weak, he legs it.  An appropriate distance away he gets setCaptive false and again, he either makes it or not.

[THobson]

Wow!  In deed.

One of the things that really took a lot of time was to ensure:
1. The player has a 100% chance of starting the war if they do something remotely reasonable
2. There is a 0%  chance of a war starting on its own.

That is one of the reasons I had some very long soaks (multiple days) not just to make sure the vehices were not getting screwed up, but also to ensure the war did not start spontaneously.

So I am going to mess with this balance with very great care!

I like the idea of the mad women 'peddling their wares'  but it is not quite in keeping with the ethos of the island where the soldiers just take what they want anyway.

The patrolling choppers are there to observe the truce and so would be a reasonable source of information about what is happening to the otherside.  A bit boring I admit.

EDIT:

Or perhaps have a setCaptive observer from each side at the other side's HQ.    If the side he is visiting gets weak, he legs it.  An appropriate distance away he gets setCaptive false and again, he either makes it or not.

Now there is a really neat idea.  Unfortunately units that are setCaptive will still cause guard units to respond.  A real pain in the arse.  I originally had La Trinite occupied by 'border guards' (setCaptive, never fire and all that) from each side.  Problem was all the guard units from both sides turned up and started whacking each other.

I will think more on this one it is such a neat concept.


EDIT2:
Now this reminds me, one plan I had was for the player to find some high ranking officers from each side that did not like what was happening on the island and would cooperate with the player and each other to stop it, but that was screwed by the same problem.

[Tomasz]

Guys, Im with ya'll, you still ( just ) need 137 posts to reach un-impossible mission reply amount .

Good luck lads

Tomasz

[GI-YO]

Victory is mine! But i think it wasent suppose to be so early. from the airport i drove north to the fuel pumps and blew up that pesky jeep patrol with HEAT, that will teach em  . Drove along the coast and then headed to my ldge to load up my tank with friends. got them into the tank and headed down to goisse, but no one there so then to vigny. but on the way down the hill just before i got there text and voice stated that stamanov was dead. Did he commit sucide before i got him? Must have been killed in an accident.

OUTRO - good stuff, like the tune. not to sure about the repetion of the shots of the sea in between takes, could focus on a dead man or civ etc. Apart from that all good.

Score - 26300
Kills - vulcan
10 x night eqip officers (east+west)
2 black op
spetznat bizon
2 x snipers
9 x LAW
4 x AA (east+west)
bmp2
3 x AT (east+west)
10 x RPG
5 ton truck
8 x machinegunner (east+west)
6 medic (east+west)
5 x grenadier (east+west)
ural
ural ammo
5 x crew (east+west)
23 x soldiers

Freindly kill
MASH trauma unit east.
I would take a screenshot but i dont know how.

OVERALL

First of this mission is brilliant. The whole idea of fighting on a whole island seemed like a dream back in the day when ofp was released but the community has come so far, so well done :thumbsup:. There are realy no errors in this mission, which for a mission this size is incredable! Some things i will make a comment on are things that have been mentioned before but oh well.

WEATher - the fog needs to be not quite so random, it realy does hinder play although i think this has been fixed in the next version if i rmemeber correctly. I thought that it would be good for the fog to drop after the two sides start fighting to allow the player to gather weapons and ammo in safty of sorts.

Maybe change the pistol so it makes it easier to make it up that cliff, oh how i missed x4 running speed. Other things i have already mentioned so you will be aware of them already.

The voices should sound a bit more emotional, i know your not actors but some of those statments were devoid of all emotion, but voices at all rock!!

And i think my ending was a fluke so i will try and finish it off properly tomorow. dont remeber this happening to anyone else.

Hope my words have helped in some way with this incredible mission and i look forward to version 2

GI-YO out....