(Review Completed) [SP] Facile Ground

[The Avon Lady]

Played 0.98.

In my opinion, the KIA addition to the mine clearing was nice but takes up too much additional time, after all the intros and cutscenes we go through.

Also, while very realistic, there is no way to fight back the Russian counter-offensive. It's just too overwhelming. I don't understand why the BMPs are so skilled at firing their AT rockets with such precision while the Bradley's with their TOWs are no match. Is this intentionally scripted or set by the unit's SKILL setting?

It would be nice to have an opportunity to have those choppers come in once the counter-offensive armor has been detected and then let the player attempt to play out the battle with a little help from above.

This overwhelming ending would be good if this were a campaign mission, similar to 1985's Combined Arms mission. Maybe it's just that I don't like losing. :'(

[Sui]

Thanks for playing again
Just addressing your points:

Hawkins:

• The counter Attack never came huh? Looks like that's an issue I need to clear up...

Hardly ever happens as far as I can see, but it obviously does sometimes... I'll squash that bug ASAP

• The outro stopping... Also something that didn't occur when I tested it (of course ;D). You're right, the AT guy fires at the fuel truck... a (very) large explosion ensues... etc.

Anyway, looks like he ignored the dofire order. I'll give it to him a few times so he doesn't do that anymore

• Australian flag? AUSTRALIAN flag!!?? That, my friend is the New Zealand flag...
  If it's got 4 red stars, it's the New Zealand flag. If it's got 5 white stars, THEN it's the Australian flag...
  Australian flag!... geez... I dunno...
  
  * Sui goes off muttering to himself
  ;D ;D
  It's just something I put in every mission I make... a bit of random patriotism I guess
  
• The officer's weapon... you know I think you're right! Thanks for that, I'll fix it up
• The people firing in the Larche cutscene... sometimes you get the odd soldier still around after the 'clear' call comes. However, I think that may be related to the Counter-attack not happening issue...

Avon Lady:

• The KIA at the mine is an easter egg that has always been in the mission. It has a 1 in 5 chance of happening, so the player doesn't have to sit through it every time ;)
• The counter offensive... so that's a 'too hard' vote huh?

It all depends how lucky the player is... if the Platoon's AT attachment (2x carlGustav's with Lt. Hogan) hits the T72's then everything is made much easier.
The BMP's don't have any AT rockets, I removed them in the interests of friendly forces kicking a bit more ass, however there are standard BMP's with Sabot shells... They are also under hold fire orders until they get fairly close (within about 400m)
Anyway, it can be done if everything goes wrong, you just need to be very, very cunning.
I generally set up defensive positions, with my guys under cover but still with good arcs of fire. I keep my M113 back so the tanks don't get it (but it still gets any infantry running into town)...
The choppers should come in after the second wave of T72's, which is just before the last wave of infantry. Once they come in, any enemy armour around should get dealt to fairly quickly...
An option for making it easier is to play it on cadetmode, as there are less groups spawned in on cadetmode [/list]
Anyway, thanks very much for playing again. I really apprecite the feedback

[The Avon Lady]

• The KIA at the mine is an easter egg that has always been in the mission. It has a 1 in 5 chance of happening, so the player doesn't have to sit through it every time

Nice!

• The counter offensive... so that's a 'too hard' vote huh?

It all depends how lucky the player is... if the Platoon's AT attachment (2x carlGustav's with Lt. Hogan) hits the T72's then everything is made much easier.

Hogan's Heros they weren't!

The BMP's don't have any AT rockets, I removed them

I could swear I saw them still launching in 0.98, after coming down that winding road to the west.

Anyway, it can be done if everything goes wrong

I just think the IF is too big.

I keep my M113 back so the tanks don't get it (but it still gets any infantry running into town)...

I used the same tactic but unfortunately the BMPs slam the M113 every time.

The choppers should come in after the second wave of T72's, which is just before the last wave of infantry. Once they come in, any enemy armour around should get dealt to fairly quickly...

But the cutscene takes over and I get mission failed at this point.

An option for making it easier is to play it on cadetmode

NEVER!

[Sui]

That's a perfectly valid opinion...

Looks like I'm going to be tweaking the counter-attack anyway (to fix the happening early/late issues) so what I might do is make the waves more spread out.

The lose trigger is activated on the ratio of friendly units vs. enemy units inside Larche. By spacing the waves out a bit more, it should give the AI (not to mention the player!) a bit of breathing room... hopefully making things slightly easier

Any comments on the backblast script from anyone?
You'll need a benchmark over 1800 to view it in the mission, though you can see it in the outro for a little bit, if the AT guy does what he's bloody told

[The Avon Lady]

Thanks. Good to hear. I'd like to see those accompanying Bradleys sharpen up their skills a little bit once the BMPs and tanks are detected on the field by the WEST.

The outro was great, BTW. The slow motion video of the Russian AT launch is perfect!

[Hawkins]

Australian flag? AUSTRALIAN flag!!?? That, my friend is the New Zealand flag...

Whoops! ;D I'm lucky that my geography teacher didn't see that. I'll check the mission out again once I get home today.

Hawkins

[asmodeus]

Hey Sui!   ;D

I had a spare hour and felt like playing this mission..  So I did.  

Intro:

The Russian Officer on the hill was facing the complete wrong direction when the camera showed him.

There's a part where the AH-64 pilots say:

"Guardian is RTB."

RTB is return to base, right?  Or is it Returning to base?  I dunno, just thought it looked weird.  

The part that goes along the NATO base and shows the guys working on the truck.. For some reason the guy closest to the camera was kneeling down and fixing the empty air in front of the truck!  (the guy behind him did look like he was actually working on the truck though)  This could have been a one-time thing as I haven't watched that part a second time yet.  

Mission

First off, Avon (ma'am)    you were definately correct!  The bmps that come from the West side most surely have rockets!    I saw them in action plenty of times tonight..  Saw the missles coming from them through my binocs!  

I took the town pretty easily, got a little lucky I think.

Then after it blacked out and back in, the battle had already begun!    A bmp from the west was shooting at us!    

After he got taken care of, the battle started about 3-4 minutes after that.  (I thought it might not happen, but it did)  

I saved it at a great place when BMP's were heading in from the West and the T72's were just starting in from the South...  Which is a really good thing because I retried at that save point about 8 times.    

I noticed the "invisible weapon" problem after retrying the first time.. The FN-FAL was there... but it was invisible!    

I had many hardships and got killed in many ways...


BUTT...  :moon:


I FINALLY BEAT IT!!       ;D  

*Asmo does a happy dance around the forum*

I never thought I'd be able to do it!!  Almost gave up a couple times.. And then it hit me! (no, not a bullet, grenade, rocket or SABOT this time  )  I had finally found the key to beating this mission!    (I won't spoil it for others, but I'll IM you Sui)  

Once I found this out, I just had to get lucky just a little bit and I had beaten it!   ;D  

I noticed there's no Outro-Win... What up with that?    

I did restart it after winning and it gave me an error!  So I rebooted and tried again, it worked, then I went and shot the LT (who was literally in the building.. http://home.earthlink.net/~asmodeus777/officerbuilding.jpg ) to see the outro-lose..

And boy am I glad I did!    Quite stunning work Sui!   :thumbsup:

Here's a screeny I just had to take:

http://home.earthlink.net/~asmodeus777/facilerocket.jpg

Here's my stats:

http://home.earthlink.net/~asmodeus777/facilestats2.jpg

And an "overview" type pic that I thought looked kinda cool:

http://home.earthlink.net/~asmodeus777/facileground.jpg


A very enjoyable mission Sui!   ;D  I'm gonna go recover from typing this long post as you will probably have to after reading it.      

Asmo

P.S>  Comments about the "backblast" script...

1.   It's freaking awesome!     ;D
2.   How much do I have to bribe you to use it?
3.   Were any Llamas harmed in the making of it?  

[The Avon Lady]

So! The BMPs do have rockets!

Here's my stats:

http://home.earthlink.net/~asmodeus777/facilestats2.jpg

Two pearl studs. Now the secret is out. You played in cadet mode!

Sui, a very small grammatical note. Somewhere in the dialogue (at least once) or in the briefing or overview text, you used the word "it's" with an apostrophe. Only use the apostrophe when you mean "it is", such as "it's getting late".

[asmodeus]

lol

I've been called a pearl stud before, but who's the 2nd one??    j/k

Yeah, I played in Cadet mode..  Usually there isn't much of a difference and I like seeing where I am on the map for "spec op" type missions.    

I'm glad it was on cadet though, because it was still very difficult!

Asmo

[Sui]

My sincere apologies Ma'am... seems you were right and I was wrong!

Here's the line of code that should remove the BMP's weapons:

Code: [Select]

ecag3bmp removemagazine "HellfireLauncherBMP2"; ecag3bmp removemagazine "Cannon30AP"
However obviously that's not working... I was sure I tested it, but I guess that's moot now. I'll fix that up... removeweapon instead of magazine I feel...
The Bradley's are all at full skill level...

Thanks for the points about it's... knowing my grammar those mistakes are everywhere
I'll do a run through and fix them all up...

Hehe... well done Asmo
Thanks for playing again... a few things for me to fix there.

RTB is airforce slang (again)... that's correct usage. Play Falcon 4.0 and you'll hear the AI saying it all the time ;D

The win outro will be released with the final version (there has to be something for you to look forward to )
I've got some ideas for furthering the story line (the sequel to this mission is almost at beta stage as well... pending a few modifications) and some more classy action shots



Here's what I'm going to do about the counter attack issues...
The squads are created around a single officer (one per group), who has waypoints. The officer is set to lockwp true, but this seems to be coming off for some reason. This the reason the counter attack happens just after the cutscene (also the reason that sometimes the counter attack doesn't happen at all... the officer has already run down the hill and been shot, hence the rest of the group can't be created)

Anyway, I'm going to replace all the lockwp's and all the syncing (which seems to be completely unreliable now for some reason) with time conditions.

When the attack starts, I save the time it starts as a variable. I'm going to use this variable in the condition line of the attacking groups waypoints to get them properly spaced out. eg.

Condition: (cattime != 0) and (time > (cattime + 120))

That should solve the problems with everyone coming in at once, or the enemy dribbling in one group at a time.
It should hopefully help ease the difficulty problem...

[Sui]

Oh yeah... backblast script.

It's just a modified version of the BIS smoke script... here's the code here:

Code: [Select]

_call = _this select 0
goto _call
hint "Error in Scene.sqs"
exit

...

#OLBackblast
_atguy = _this select 2
? not ((_this select 1) in ["AT4Launcher","CarlGustavLauncher","LAWLauncher","RPGLauncher"]): exit
? not ((secondaryweapon _atguy) in ["AT4Launcher","CarlGustavLauncher","LAWLauncher","RPGLauncher"]): exit
? _atguy ammo (secondaryweapon _atguy) > 0: exit
_velocity = [sin (getdir _atguy + 180) * 10, cos (getdir _atguy + 180) * 10, -0.5]
_lifeTime = 0.5
_intensity = 10
_object = ""
_delay = 0.05
_lifeTicks = _lifeTime / _delay
_lifeTick = _lifeTicks
#loopBB
drop ["cl_basic", "", "Billboard", 1, 1.5, [(getpos _atguy select 0) + sin (getdir _atguy + 180) * 0.5, (getpos _atguy select 1) + cos (getdir _atguy + 180) * 0.5, (getpos _atguy select 2) + 1], _velocity, 1, 0.005, 0.0042, 0.05, [0.5,35], [[0.8,0.8,0.6,0.75], [0.6,0.6,0.4,1 * _lifeTick/_lifeTicks], [0.3,0.3,0.2,0.1 * _lifeTick/_lifeTicks], [0.1,0.1,0.01,0]], [0,1,0,1,0,1], 0.2, 0.2, "", "", _object]
~_delay
_lifeTick = _lifeTick - 1
?_lifeTick > 0 : goto "loopBB"
exit
It's fired using the eventhandler:
this addEventHandler ["Fired",{["OLBackblast",_this select 1,_this select 0] exec "Scene.sqs"}]

Just note I'm using it embedding in my "Scene.sqs", which is my cutscene script. Feel free to use it yourself, but you may need to make some changes to get it to run.

I also had some issues with it activating when a unit jumps out of a vehicle (don't ask me why, but the eventhandler activates then for some reason). To counter act this I added the lines:

? not ((secondaryweapon _atguy) in ["AT4Launcher","CarlGustavLauncher","LAWLauncher","RPGLauncher"]): exit
? _atguy ammo (secondaryweapon _atguy) > 0: exit

Which exit the script unless the _atguy has an empty AT weapon.... however there are still circumstances when it will activate getting out of a vehicle (eg. an guys with an empty AT weapon gets out of a vehicle).

Anyway, there it is, go nuts
I'm happy to answer questions about it... if there's enough interest I may make a generic version and release it to the Ed Depot... though I'd be surprised if no one has made one of these before

[The Avon Lady]

My sincere apologies Ma'am... seems you were right and I was wrong!

Here's the line of code that should remove the BMP's weapons:

Code: [Select]

ecag3bmp removemagazine "HellfireLauncherBMP2"; ecag3bmp removemagazine "Cannon30AP"

Wouldn't simply using the standard BMPs be easier than trying to remove the AT rockets from the BMP2s?

[asmodeus]

hmmm...

If I'm not mistaken, standard bmp's are armed with rockets as well!      

*goes to check and make sure*

brb...

*Edit*

Yep!  Comes right out of the tank barrel!  (which looks very strange)  

Asmo

[Sui]

Holy crap they are too!

For some reason I thought that BMP1's didn't have AT rockets.
[edit] They must have been added in a patch, as they aren't mentioned in my weapons list (which I got in about version 1.3!) [/edit]

The reason I put one BMP2 in there is because I like the Cannon on it... it also helps the Bradleys survive longer as there is one less 73mm Gun to be aimed at it

* Sui goes off to take the AT missiles away from those naughty BMP 1's

[Sol Fire]

lol..

i remember Rockets coming from BMP's back when i didnt have OFP and i played the Demo!

anyway i'll test this again (i just HAVE to see the outro(s) )

be back later with Results