(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[THobson]

I hope you do.  Best of luck in your test.

Sorry about the size - it is all the voice files.

[Planck]

I have the new version......twice now.

I lied about not getting it tonight.........I thought you might run out of stock, so I grabbed a copy.


Planck

[Mikero]

Oh yay, oh joy of joys, there *is* a God.

swoon

as soon as I've recovered from my public orgasms, I'll host this mission on the beta site too. Eta as soon as I can stop you lot melting the cables...

Done, this version, 1.2 and V1.1 are both available at the beta hosting site.

Christmas has come early people.

[XCess]

OOOOOMMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGG MY DREAMS ARE TRUE. So.... That means I don't need to dream anymore. Which means I can afford not to sleep!!! I can play this instead!!  ;D Now.. just wait foer the girlfriend to toddle off to bed n I'll have my fun  ;D Lol different to the usual meaning that sentencwe would have but YAAAAYY JOOOYYYY nonsenical celebrations abound if that made sense!! Abandoned Armies is here people! Heaven's gate is open and I've lost my sanity with sheer joy!

[Fragorl]

What he said ;D

Great timing THob, just finished exams and all.

I have a strategy for completing this mission this time- a little, often...

You may recall that the last i posted in this thread was an error message in Andropov's hideout... well basically a short while after that, i'd slaughtered, i don't know, between 30 and 40 of Andropov's men. Effectively I was pinned down in his tent not 5 yards from his corpse, and every time I ventured out, another group would come dashing past and i'd dive for cover once more, spraying the intruders with bullets. After several hours' combined game play in this spot, and many a cheat save, I ventured out only to bump into Stamenov's invasion force, in the process of mopping  up what was left of Andropov's forces.

Knee deep in the dead is an accurate description.

Anyhow, after lying there waiting for the right time to flee for almost half an hour, I finally made it out of the base, managing to save 1 of the three I had brought with me on this pseudo-special ops mission. It was a long crawl to safety; my jeep had been thoroughly perforated by a cobra on the way in. I just didn't have the heart to take on a force of that size, but was reasonably happy to have completed ~1/2 the mission... or maybe that's an overestimate...

THobson, i have never seen so many units in an operation flashpoint mission, ever.

Anyhow, I think I will change my focus/strategy in this version, taking more of a partisan/gueriila approach instead of an all out assault with 4 men vs. and entire army. That sort of thing works in the movies, but not in abandoned armies unfortunately.

BTW, once or twice i saw the cobra actually land, and it's crew get out. This was bout two times in 50 or so restarts. I died each time before I could reach it, but tell me, would there have been any way i could have hijacked the cobra? The cobra would be an invaluable tool... although i do remember you saying you have taken every precaution against the player ever getting hold of it.

[Mikero]

I have a strategy

BWAH HAH HAH HAH

ROTFML

wipes tears from eyes, can barely type a sentence

Haaaaaaaha

giggle

<slap>

[THobson]

have never seen so many units in an operation flashpoint mission, ever.

Well I am a long way from the 63 groups per side limit and the size of most groups is random so not the full 12 units per group.  Having two sides helps get the numbers up.  If anyone wants to know how many loons you will be facing then IM me.  Some people might not want to know.

more of a partisan/gueriila approach instead of an all out assault with 4 men vs. and entire army.

Coincidentally you will find in the new readme file a warning about this exact point.  In most OFP missions you can go for the jugular straight away.  That could create a very frustrating result in this mission - you don't appear to have been frustrated, I think the mission was probably finishable from that point, but would not have been easy.

i saw the cobra actually land, and it's crew get out

I can think of only one situation that would cause that to happen, and as you indicate, other factors would mean that the player's life expectancy under those conditions would be very short.  Nevertheless I will now add to my to do list a need to look at the coding for the choppers, not to prevent the player from hijacking one if they are able (that is fair if they can get one they should be able to use it), but to ensure that all the other stuff works correctly in that situation.

@mikero  ;D

EDIT:
fragorl:  I remember your screen shot of the error message - it was quite dark.  I remember thinking, jee the guy played all through the day, I now realise it was still morning.  That is a stunning piece of special ops work to get in and kill Andropov so quickly.  But as you realised - getting away with it was another matter!

[THobson]

Really wierd.

So far I have done most of my testing in the mission editor.  I am now playing the pbo version and some things are not the same.  Reorganising the team sometimes seems to change the formation leader and the wolves seem to get stuck.  I don't want to rush in to fixing these (assuming I could figure out how) - that is how errors are intorduced - but if any of you find it unplayable as a result please let me know.

[Commando]

the link 1.20 is dead, it says the page has been moved or is missing  
damn i really want to try out the new version  :beat:

[XCess]

K So I've done the civilians and spoke to my Russian matey in Houdan. Here's how I went:

Climb up the ultra steep hill but it seemed quicker than the first one somehow.. Killled the three soldiers, put 2 of their weapons in the police jeep and kept one and some grenades for myself (also stole the binocs of the cop), then went to speak to Tatyana.
Was kind of confused when he said "wait here while I go find some transport" considering I'd just laoded up a jeep with weapons right outside the front door   Then she goes runs off and gets shot.
I got to my jeep and see "Take handgrenade".. thinking the cop had some   So I pick up two and while I'm doing that get shot by the same soldiers as Tatyana.. and guess what.... I DIDN'T SAVE!!! Please oh please save stupid people like me from having to redo the cliff climb with a saveGame either when u approach Vigny or after the cutscene.

So I go through it all again (including that damned climb) and park the jeep right at the door and made sure my inventory slots were all full so I didn't get tempted to make the same mistake, and drive ff down the road.. running the lons over as I go.

Then I got to a roadblack in the next village and just drove straight past it with my lights on.. well not straight past it.. I got stuck in a tree for about 30 seconds not 5 meters away from the dude guarding the checkpoint. Oh well I think.. saved me some time reloading I spose.

Keep on driving and see a very nice lil bit of eye candy/story piece. LOVED it, Thanks THob.. almost lost my jeep   Drawing me into the mission quite well.

Reached the camp and the improvement in the cutscence was just tremendous. Getting to know the characters! One's I never used before  ;D
So me and Res friend drive of in the truck to pick up civilians while listening to the OFP theme  

Pick up other group of civilians and then feel you're reading my mind as one of the resistance guys takes them back to base letting me go search Houdan with the other one.

So we drive down the main road  ;D to Houadan pull up by a house and jump out with three enemy stood right infront of me. "Oh sh**" I think, "I'mgonna die." But nope. to my luck they just look at me. So I throw a grenade. Miss. And then shoot them all. Put 7 on stealth and then run around for a second or two til iI see one of your civilian hut thingies and run in. Now we got a russian (with a very english accent :p (best voice acting so far with this character even though the accent doesnt fit uniform)) working for us. YAY.

While we were talking I heard a few explosions and gun shots so I guessed 7 was dead. When we finished the convo I found he wasnt but there was a destroyed Ural and half a squad of corpses surrounding it. Well done good chap! I noticed a few survivors so I took cover next to a building and threw a grenade trying to keep my position unknown... but oops.. I blow myself up. I REALLY wish u didn't have the destroyed buildings thing sometimes.

So reload pick up friendly red and this time 7 is killed by a lil burst of Vulcan just after the cutscene ends. SO I pick up a law from the group of stupid three I shot again when I got there again when they just sat there and looked at me again. And sprinted down the road after the vulcan and put a LAW in it's ass.

Then I hid in a bush next to it and saved (the convoy carried on without it).

Will play more later if I get the chance. I hope to god I do.
 

[THobson]

@Commando:

the link 1.20 is dead, it says the page has been moved or is missing  

Yes it is but it will be back up soon.  I thought I had tested this to death, but a last minute change to fix a problem created another.  That is now fixed.  Version 1.21 will be here soon.

Plank what can I say?

@XCess
Tell me.  Does #1 have a 'Move' instruction over him?
If you do a `11 does it give the instruction 'all follow all' instead of 'all fall back into formation'?

On the accent - well I don't know any Russians - well actually I do but none that I would ask to act for me.  My logic is this.  To me Sergei's accent  sounds normal, to a Russian a Russian voice would sound normal also.  So he sounds exactly as a Russian would sound to another Russian, if you get my meaning

[XCess]

I haven't noticed a move order over #1 but then I didn't pay too much attention lol. I haven't used fall back into formation yet either but I'll tell you what I see when I do.

GOod logic btw  

[THobson]

[size=10] *****Get v1.21 here*****[/size] [/b][/url]

Notes for beta testers of v1.21:

Rather than refer you to the post above I will repeat here.  

Since a key element of this mission is about atmosphere and surprise I cannot give a list of all the changes - readers of this thread will already know about some that I now regret mentioning, but there are others.  In fact the changes from v1.10 are much more significant and visible (if you notice them that is) than the changes from v1.00 to v1.10.  (See - I still persist in the belief that I will be making second decimal place changes to this mission at some point.).

Changes I can mention are:
1.   There are more cutscenes in this version than in the previous one, the exact number depends on what you do and the order you do it in.  The dialogue in many of the scenes is dynamic in that it will be different depending on what the player has or has not done, who is or is not still alive, etc.  There are over 260 sound files in the mission but to hear them all you would need to play the mission many times in lots of different ways.
2.   The skill levels of your team increase during the mission.  I would welcome comments on whether the starting levels seem appropriate and whether the rate of increase is too fast or too slow.
3.   If one side initiates an all out attack on the other then their plan will be more subtle than in the previous version of this mission - they will not now ignore the border towns.  Also it is now possible that if one side attacks and suffers significant losses then the other side may initiate their own counter attack.
4.   Causing a war (not to be confused with an all out attack) is now a bit less easy.


I would welcome several different types of beta tester:

1.   People who will play the mission straight as it is intended.  In other words no cheat saves, no running around trying to break it.  Just simple straightforward play.  How does it feel, what was the atmosphere like?  Were there enough/too many savegames?  What surprises did you find? etc.
2.   People that will try everything they can think of to break the mission.  You are not worried about the atmosphere, you are determined to find a bug.
3.   People that are using ECP and similar addons.  I now have the view that these addons do things to the workings of OFP that make them not compatible with large missions such as this.  I am happy to be proved wrong on this.

In many missions a beta tester might play a mission several times to fulfil each of these roles.  I can't expect that here, the mission is just too long for that.  So just choose one and have a go.

If you find things that you think may spoil the playing experience of other testers then please IM me with the details, what you experienced, what you thought about it etc.

The usual war stories of what you did and what you saw are immensely helpful, even if you think there is nothing of interest it helps me to understand what is going on.  You many not think you are telling me about bugs but often you are.  So even if you think you have nothing to tell me, please just tell me what you did and what happened.  

This is a heavier mission than the previous version.  Comments on CPU speed, Benchmark and lag would be greatly appreciated.

This is not a finished version.  There are things I still need to change, for example:
-   I need to do more work on the Intro
-   I have hardly touched the end scene
-   I have made no significant changes to the layout of the main bases
-   etc. etc.
So if you have made comments on earlier versions and do not see them reflected here it does not necessarily mean that I will not be acting on them.  I just needed to get what I have done so far tested by you guys.


@Mikero: you have your mine toggle so it is safe to enter the huts.


@macguba: I promised a cheat version.  My website is not large enough to hold two versions of this mission so I will IM you with ways to cheat.  Just let me know when you are ready.


@All:  What more can I say?  All of my spare time (and a lot more besides) has gone into this.  I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoy making it.

Note: You must have your Video Options/Terrain Detail set to normal
If you don't have your Terrain detail set to normal some very strange things will happen to the objects placed on the map.  This is a problem with Flashpoint.  In most missions it is not noticable but because of the size and duration of this mission it can become a problem.

[XCess]

Um.. so do I download this or keep with v1.20? You just wanted that second decimal place didnt you  . Will my save work if I d/l this.. I'm guessing no.

[THobson]

 

Profound apologies to everyone.

Anyone that has downloaded a version before this post will have a mission where there is a constant howling of wolves - once it starts it never stops.  It might get less but it will not stop.

I have now found the problem and am up loading a new file (still v1.21) as I type this.

It is these bloody last minute fixes that are the killer.

XCess.  If you can live with the howling and Alexi doesn't have a Move or Stop instruction over his head then this version is the same as v1.20.   I am sorry but it doesn't seem possible to use an old save game with a new version of the mission.

I really am truly embarassed  about all this.

I am now going to go away and hide.