WOW! Thank you Sneaker, I read all of that and I'm going to read it several times more. It's great to have such a detailed report, I really appreciate it. I have, as you say, put a great deal of work into this, and it's nice to get a response.
You are now the Un-Impossible Mission Champion. The only other person to have completed this version is Planck (also a Scot) although others have completed earlier (easier) versions. He took over 26hrs mission time and scored over 68,000. (See page 11 of this thread.) The flag raised on the Hill in the Outro is now a Saltire, I think it is on your version if you want to look again. I struggle to do a fully cheated run through in less than 2.5 hours gameplay.
You played extremely well and you were also very fortunate - you rarely get a chance to down the chopper before the fog clears. However, your skill in disabling an Abrams was vital: Planck did the same thing I think. Which only goes to prove that my first instinct, 2 years ago, to have no armour was correct. The mission is too close to finished to take the armour out - plus it is fun to have it in - but I will rethink it slightly.
then skipped to the last page and got the link to your site, where I downloaded the mission.
Was there anything in particular that attracted your attention?
I played it twice and got killed the first time, and all of my squad except 1 and me the second time within about 2 mins.
Good. ;D That's what is supposed to happen.
I later worked out it was south east and south west of the hilltop respwctivly.
If you want to give it another go there are more start positions for you to find, as you will have seen from the map the civvies gave you.
My squad was equipped mostly silenced (me and 2 others with HK's remaining and a couple of bizons) except for 1 soldier who had a Dragunov, and the medic who had a M21
Silenced is probably the best way to go: sniper rifles at the start are no use at all because of the fog. There are plenty of snipers around for you to pick one up later if you want it.
Thank god for my squadmate number 7, who through the mist took out the Cobra as it came past within 100m with his strela .
That's lucky. It's quite rare to get a glimpse of the chopper in the fog. Sometimes there is a second chopper.
I crawl up, and place the satchel in the perfected distance that will damage it enough for AI the crew to bail, but not to completely disable it.
The critical moment.
Then comes a Truck and a couple of jeeps
I'm quite proud of those. They can be a bloody nuisance if you're not careful - that M2 on the back can take out half your squad in 2 seconds - but if you are on the ball they are easy - and fun - meat.
The place we started in was the OLD BASE! (which is of course the main objective - great! , Well that's what I thought at the time that it would make it much easier, little did I know what was coming later however :p )
Ah yes, the old false sense of security. ;D
and for the lower part of the main hill chose a route what I thought had the least bushes (less likely hood of snipers normally).
Correct. Although in the open you have more chance of being found by a patrol. Also there is nowhere to hide if a sniper does spot you.
Id spotted my first sniper. It was the one south of the rock. I took him out with the HK.
Like everybody else, the snipers are on prob of presence so he may or may not be there next time.
The next 5-10 mins was the most intense OFP experience for a long , long , long time, possibly ever, and that's saying a lot! That moment, which occurs when I forget I was playing a game, acting on pure instinct, and genuine fear are the greatest moments ever!
That's what its all about. Do you remember "After Montignac" in the original campaign? When you are lost and alone and trying to get to the extraction point where you are captured? That mission made my palms wet and my knees shake. That's the feeling I wanted to recreate here.
and placed a satchel on the barbed wire hoping to blow it on my side! No such luck, I geuss you thought of that.
I did deliberately choose the type of fencing that you can't blow up. I think that's a mild unfairness in the game in general, but it's hardwired and therefore legitimate for me to use. Also as you discovered its a red herring - there is no difficulty about getting into the fenced area.
I got worried for a second (it seemed like an eternity) when I got to the flag and there was no option to take it.
There is no action because it's designed so that one of your loons can do it without any hassle. Also you're not going to go there and not change it. The delay before things happen is only as long as it takes the trigger to notice you are there, and then there is 3 seconds before the new flag goes up and you get the savegame, but it feels like an eternity.
I could hear the bradleys on their way to the base, so I powered down the hill in the jeep straight towards it
I pleased to hear you felt you were in a rush. One of the subtleties of designing this mission was to put doubt in the player's mind whether he is supposed to be attacking the Base or defending it. In fact there was no need for you to rush at all - the Bradleys weren't even going to the base, they're just on a guard waypoint.
so I didn't risk reloading my law and getting shot
Very wise! How many times have we all been killed that way...
I could hop in the gunners seat of the M1 I partially disabled earlier (aha yes my plan all along. Cunning, at least I thought it was )
As cunning as a particularly cunning fox who is a Professor of Advanced Cunningosity.
I chose at this time to use the save that u get for approching the base now that I was safely (hehe well sorta) within the tank and had shaved off another abrams.
There is a 50% chance of a third Abrams, in the same group as the second.
But it was the couple times that the sniper hit me from close by in the woods to the north that was getting on my nerves.
Tee-hee, I thought that having the Base covered by hard to spot snipers would annoy somebody. ;D
Id had a few 20-min breaks after a particularly annoying death - going so well. then blam . One of those times was too get my dinner - a few hours late, but I had to do something to get my adrenaline back down to stealth mode (those firefights, even silenced on one side, are intense!.).
I know that feeling.
And also my system needed a reboot (my PC is older than Flashpoint lol ).
I pleased to hear that. No I don't mean I'm pleased you have an old PC. ;D But the earliest manifestations of this version (round about the late 50s) suffered severely from lag and I'm glad that the problem has been solved.
Even though it gave me the choice to finish , me being never one to give up a challenge, chose to take my battered jeep south.
That's the spirit! I never thought of somebody heading south at this point but there's no reason why you shouldn't.
I wasn't sure about the retry time even though it said updating retry position on completion of main objectives.
There is an automatic retry on completion of the main objectives which you could go back to. You also get an additional radio savegame once you elect to Continue.
I headed off to the Landing Zone area to see if there was anything interesting. I did a sweep and got out for a foot search but no sign of anybody or anything.
Nope, there is nothing there. It is the start position for a group of jeep/mgs so it's theoretically possible, if they have been fleeing, to find them there.
flew to the spetz camp. Civvie stayed in the chopper on the road while me and my new spetz buddy got out to deal with anyone who was there.
Again, there is nobody supposed to be there but it is close to the start position of a guard group and you do sometimes find somebody in the area.
so I took an enemy count on the radio. There were still 104 Americans left!!.
You did well - I've never completed it with anything like that number, usually its 30-40. (Actually I've never completed this version at all.)
Again if you chose to read it I'm sorry its so long (it took quite a while to write it too as you can imagine)
On the contrary, I'm delighted you wrote so much. :thumbsup:
Good thinking about use of the tank when it came at the start and good luck that it was the main base I started at!
You can't win this one without both good thinking and good luck.
I used all the saved that came with the mission that I received, plus I used the one you always get on OFP near the start
I was once concerned that there weren't enough savegames but they have such a huge impact I really didn't want to give any more. From what you said it seems to be about right - you had 2hrs of gameplay and there are 6 possible savegames so that's one every 20 minutes.
Played Vet mode as requested. Tracers and Third Person view off. Super AI on.
You get no waypoints in Cadet, plus a hint and titletext at the start telling you off. Tracers I think are fair anyway, and 3rd person/Command view is part of the game. Super AI makes little difference as everybody is very high skill anyway (though not max).
Ive attached obligitory screenshot score and such like.
Always good to see.
a few tactics from the early posts in the forums
That's not cheating anyway, that's making good use of Intelligence Assets. ;D
Patience, resileence, and a bit of luck saw me through
And skill.
The endings were very nicely made and a good reward for all the hard work the player has done.
Glad you think so, yours is the first report on the Outro.
and still have enough residual skill to get me by. Just.
Some people struggle to get past the start. With some luck and persistance the good average player can change the flag but can't get any further. You have to be a genuinely strong player to get off the Hill.
You've obviously spend a lot of time on this
Several hundred hours over two years.
and although ive not given much back
No pal, you've given plenty back.
that's because I couldn't find anything wrong or glitchy with it!
*smug glow*
(there were a couple of blackops running about on their own , that was maybe supposed to happen)
They were probably the motorcyle patrol after having dismounted. It's a small group to start with. Everybody is on probability of presence and its not unusual to find groups of only 3. Also, once you're well into the mission, you find a lot of small groups: they are the rallying remnants of a group which has been 3/4 destroyed and has fled.
Its Great work. This sort of thing is that you have done is why Operation Flashpoint is the best game ever made , on any platform , ever! And thanks to people like you, people like me can go into a whole other zone.
It's comments like that that make it all worthwhile, thank you.
Oh by the way. You reference to Ace Rimmer at the civilian meet was a nice touch , that alone made it worthwhile for me. Great! - What a guy!
Lol you're the first person to notice that.
I would greatly appreciate if you could reply to this, even if you've only read the start and end, to confirm you got the email.
I haven't had a message from you other than the post. Replying to such an excellent beta review is a pleasure.
And also the experiences other people have had , coming from other directions and such like - and also your view on the way I did it and how I started at the base.. lol
Read through the thread, there are some good war stories. I encourage people to post rather than email me so there isn't really anything I can add.
I think you played it extremely well. The Base is probably one of the better places to start at, though they are all designed to be reasonably consistent. Certainly there are no fundamentally "easy" or "hard" ones, it's more a question of geography, plan (where you are going first) and personal taste. The secret was that Abrams you captured: it enabled you to mow down the approaching enemy sufficiently fast to trigger the end during a "hole" in the attacks, rather than having to take out another 10 or so groups. As for going up the Hill, you naturally did the right things: watch for snipers; just below the top conduct a reverse slope defence against the groups coming down from the top; and don't take the risk of standing on the summit (there is a sniper you may not have seen who would have shot you).
You have also proved a theory which I've always had: that speed can win you this mission. 2 hours is very fast and it helped you: there were plenty of guard groups heading towards the Base from the other side of the Hill when the mission ended. That's not a flaw, it was designed like that, its just that nobody has done it before.
The alternative approach, which Planck took, is to take it very slowly, slowly catchee monkey. Clear the road patrols, wander down to the civvies and take out the roadblock, ambush guard groups. Equally valid of course, it takes longer and you get more kills. When Planck got to the main end there were only 8 Americans left.
From what you've said it's clear that I have to make it slightly harder to capture that Abrams.
Perhaps in a couple days when I get some sleep etc I can deal the with other hundred Americans that remain! Is there any extra reward for this i.e a separate cutscene, cause if there is I could be tempted to try.
Yes there is. Not only do you not have to sit through that worthy but dull mission accomplished cutscene again, you also get a modest easter egg for your pains.
Thanks again for all that. I've sent you an email and I'd love to see the screenies.
If you do see the Outro again I'd be grateful if you'd look at your squad carefully: it should be the same as when you finished the mission. This is a new trick in OFP, I don't believe its ever been done before in a Single Mission. It works for me, but its always nice to have confirmation.
Topic: (Review Completed) [SP] Un-Impossible Mission (Read 69318 times)