(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[macguba]

Not in this mission, but I have experience something similar.    The AI does have trouble sometimes in spotting you when you are in a vehicle, or rather working out that you are an enemy.     And if you start running them over they sometimes get so confused you can get the lot of them.

[THobson]

I also have experienced this in other mission.  

If I understand correctly the tanks got you so the problem only applies to infantry.

Could it be that you were in a jeep (that is a naturally western sort of vehicle) and the soldiers at Vigny are west?  I have not tried what you did but I have stolen a ural from the southron convoy and the infantry at Dourdan had no hesitation in letting rip at me.  But that is west infantry having a go at an eastern type of vehicle.

I think the odd AV mine in or around these field camps would not be at all unrealistic. ;D

[Henderson]

I was in the Civil truck. Maybe the AI thought I was a Civ. When I tried running people over later in the mission they blew me up.  ;D

[THobson]

When I tried running people over later in the mission they blew me up

That's a relief! ;D

[macguba]

I think with anti-player mines you need to leave clues.  Otherwise its no fun.    You don't have to say anything, but ... well for example if you have these big anti-tank fences on either side of the road with a big obvious gap for you to drive through .......

But don't put any AV mines anywhere near where one of your convoys is due to run.   That has only one end.   ;D

[THobson]

But don't put any AV mines anywhere near where one of your convoys is due to run.  That has only one end.

Especially as they can't be guaranteed to stick to the road.  

It seems Henderson you got your just deserts later so I will put this one down the priority list a bit, for a while.

[Dubieman]

Maybe another one of your "danger" areas like in Saint Marie. Only on that road that comes off of the road to St. Louis and goes to the middle of the desert area. Seemed pretty abandoned when I looked around there. Or another town that is booby trapped...

@random AV mines....
*shudders*

[THobson]

Seemed pretty abandoned when I looked around there.

If you look in the editor it is - a bit.  If you look at the scripts you will see that that cannot be guaranteed.  The waypoints of several groups of infantry are moved to random locations at intervals around that area.  If that is what it looks like in mission - well it is a large area.  

A booby trapped town might seem odd because it would be in an area controlled by one of the sides.  Saint Marie is mined because:
- Stamenov wanted to make sure there was no possibility of civilians living close to his base.
- He wanted to prevent his soldiers from going there for R&R
- He wanted to prevent it from being used as a base by any enemy, but did not wish to station and soldiers there (his forces are mostly at the front or protecting his base)
- He has certain items that he wishes to keep safe locked away in the basement of one of the buildings there - sufficiently close to his base that they are accessable
- He had a childhood romance but lost her to a rival.  They married and are living in Saint Marie (or at least they were living in one of the houses when Stamenov had his soldiers mine the place.  Whether they have been blown up or simply starved to death no one knows)

Take your pick.  I came to the conclusion that I could justify one mined town.  Not sure I could justify two though.

Keep the ideas coming.  Thanks

[Dubieman]

:wow:

I learned a bit of the storyline I never knew before.  
Now you know the curiosity factor is gonna drive me to try my luck jumping into that town. To find his special thing..... Curiosity will kill the GRK. :'(

[Pilot]

I thought give my progress for these last few days, before I go to my brother's place for this week.  I haven't gotten too far yet, as I have not had much time to spend on this mission.

I head south to Chapoi to see if I can't find a chopper.  I look around, but can't find it.  I think it may have been shot down early on.  I come across a few men, and kill them.  I notice the tanks are still down here, somewhere in the hills to the north.  I decide to ambush them.  I lay up to 24 satchel charges.  I intend to lure the tanks into town, and detonate the charges.  As I lay my 32nd charge.  I get killed.  Damn!  I retry back to where I had layed 20 charges, and I lay four more.  At this point I see the man who shot me, and up to 8 others.  How did I miss them?  I go into the second story of the house, and start picking them off.  About this time I realize the tanks don't appear to be in the hills anymore.  The fog has lifted, and I can see up the hills, but don't see the tanks.  I really hope I didn't lay 24 charges for nothing!  I think I did, so I head back.  I decide to scout out the airfield one more time before I attack.  It appears Andropov only has one functional tank on the airfield, and a few AT soldiers.  I attempt to take out the tank on the airfield, but every time I do, I get shot by a sniper.  So I scratch those plans, and head back.  I am going to attack the airfield in the T80 tomorrow.  
I find out the tanks from Chapoi haved moved to a position north of my camp.  I only have a Carl Gustav launcher with me, so I can only do limited damage.  I launch the Carl Gustav at the M1.  It hits the M1, but doesn't destroy it.  The tanks look for me, but never find me.  They head south, and I assume the are going back to Chapoi.
I go back to my men.  As I get back, the weather starts to worsen.  I decide to wait it out with my men.
My intentions are to destroy the three tanks before I launch my assault at the airfield.

[THobson]

This is the sort of situation I was trying to create.  Difficult but not impossible, where you need to think about what to do and where you have time to do the thinking and a lot of options to chose from.

I am begining to think I might have tempered the weather too much in the next version.  I quite like the idea that you decide to wait out the bad weather back at base.

Progress Report:
I believe I mentioned that I had inserted three more cutscenes.  Well I am now working on a fourth.  Then I just need to round up enough people to get in front of the microphone :-\ do a bit of tidying up and the next version should be ready

Bye the way GRK I was waiting to see if you found anything in Saint Marie

[Dubieman]

Soz I haven't been playing this for a few days now...
But I now have some incentive to do so... ;D

*feels trapped and pressured to go into St. Marie*

[Planck]

If you go to St Marie......make sure you wear a tank......and don't take it off.


Planck

[Dubieman]

Way earlier in the mission, I went through with a jeep or something, wasn't pretty. Never went into it again, but had to laugh when one of Stamenov's assualt squads who were chasing me just happened to try to shortcut through there to get to me. Casualties were very high in that group. ;D

[macguba]

I've just had a look at Ste Marie which drew into looking at minefield.sqs.   Now that is an evil little script.   ;D

Two suggestions.   Firstly, make the explosion a random choice of either _killthis' postion, 12m under the ground beneath him, or at a random spot a few yards away.   This simulates different types of mine and booby trap.

Secondly, put a maximum number of explosions in there.  At the moment its infinite.

I am impressed by the use of one trigger though.   My minefield had one trigger per mine and I although I figured out several ways of doing it with one none of them were satisfactory.     Making the initiator time based rather than location based is the gordion knot moment in that little problem.