(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[macguba]

Chopper screenie was using good old command view.    I don't use it much (not even beta testing) but its occasionally useful.

Waited a few minutes and there was a contact northeast of the village with a vehicle explosion.   Shortly afterwards I got the "running away" away sound file.     These musings are good, except when they are based on observations that the player has not made.     I'm more and more leaning towards the idea of a narrator-cum-papa-bear character to tell you these things.

An unarmed solder comes towards us but I shoot him anyway.  Bastard.   That chopper is still around and there is armour in the village, I suspect that damaged abrams I saw on the aborted run.

It seems to me that Andropov's army, thanks to the head start we gave him, has simply won.     If Stamenov's lot lose their weapons and run for a distant point when they get down to the last few, then that's a cool idea.    I plead regularly in beta reports for the use of unarmed soldiers, but bizarrely nobody ever does it.

[THobson]

It looked too high for the command view.  I had just been playing with camera.sqs (would you believe I have only just found out about it?)  so was tuned in to having cameras in strange places - and to there being a lot of things I still don't know.

Stamenov's lot lose their weapons and run for a distant point when they get down to the last few, then that's a cool idea.

That is eaxctly what happens.  Andropov's lot do something better - but you won't see it because the final scene will kick in before it happens - they run into the base (unarmed) and then surreneder.

[macguba]

You've only just discovered camera.sqs?   Oh you poor sod, Sorry, I should have told you.   Transforms cutscene making.

Good that the two sides do different things.     Where do the southrons go?

I've had one quick recce by death (I have to stop now) and there is a definite nortron force holding Chapoi now.   I was right to get of there and come back afresh.

[THobson]

Transforms cutscene making.

You're telling me.  You would not believe how much of my long forgotten geometry I had to dig out before.

Where do the southrons go?

Random locations in the wood at Dc80 - De82

there is a definite nortron force holding Chapoi now.

This will be really interesting, I have not seen this before.  Usually the northrons do a terrific amount of damage to the southrons at Chapoi but I have never actually seen them win.  All sorts of possibilities open up - as others close.

[macguba]

Plenty of northrons at Chapoi now.    Abrams, T72 and at least one infantry squad.     9, who can't walk, is left covering the village from short of the fuel station.   I sneak in and pick up an M21 from a sniper (recently deceased) and, since the angles of attack round this place are all horrible, head out to Ste Marie to see what's there.     You could still save a sign or two I think, especially if you made the trigger slightly smaller.   There were 5 or 6 dead loons, in two groups:  one at the southwest of the village and one at the east.    I sent my boys in, in two waves but by the same route.   I followed.   Nobody got past the jeep.    Too many explosions I feel.  (About seven, all in the quadrant immediately southeast of the jeep:  we had come up the road.)    No sense of mystery, or can I get out of this.   Just death.

Back to the savegame.

I'll give this section in some detail since it is not something you have encountered before.    We are in the bushes at the end of the bushline running WNW from the village, everybody on hold fire.    We run northeast to the road.    9 reports infantry and armoured contacts and I give him permission to fire:  no sense in him getting killed without taking a few with him.     We reach the road and follow it back towards the village, reaching bushes 50m short of the fence.    9 fires two rockets and there is an explosion.   Somebody reports an Abrams so I suspect he has destroyed an already damaged T72:  I can see the pillar of smoke but not the vehicle.    I order him back towards the fuel station, where there is a dead squad.   He will be able to get at least one rocket there.   On the way he drops at least one loon.     Savegame.

We move up to the fence and I go through the gate.   Suddenly the ground to our front right, just outside the sandbag fence, is alive with enemy soldiers.    There is a puff of engine smoke in the middle of the village.   We drop several enemy but one of them gets me, I suspect through a fallen tree.

Try again but the game goes into megalag - one frame every 4 or 5 seconds.  Never seen that before.   Well we'll give it minute to sort itself out.   Picked up the savegame and it was fine.  Wierd.

Moved forward and right, wounded one loon as he came over the rise but the others didn't follow:  they never figured out where the shot came from.   The Abrams moved right to left across us, close to the houses.   Damaged gun so no problem there.   We moved forward and I saw this in the middle of the town.

Prisoners, with armed loons around them.

[macguba]

The main squad moved out into the open on the left and I start dropping them.     There's a bit of coming and going.   From the movment I would say that there are elements of at least two infantry squads here, and possibly three or even four.   Hard to tell because of the buildings, which disrupt formation so much.   The large squad had at least 8 members.      I was concentrating so hard I forgot save, which proved irritating when it transpired I had also forgotten to reload at an appropriate and necessary moment.  

(It's drizzling btw, should have said right at the start of this session.)     We try again and have a fight with the squad over the sandbag fence.   Miraculously we drop the lot without casualties, since we don't stand up and they do.    No sign of the second squad:  I suspected they had run in from the southeast and either they haven't showed up this time, or there really was only one squad all the time.    The abrams is milling about and I don't want it calling in more guard groups on his, so it gets a few rockets.  One crew bails out and I suspect the secondary explosion doesn't get him.   Sure enough, a few minutes later he crawls out dragging his flag.    Well he's got more guts than 9, who doesn't appear to want to move.    Savegame.

Next the chopper.   Can't find an AA loon but eventually work out to get the kit from the lorry.   Two rockets required of course, then parachutes.   How dull.   I run over and shoot them both.     Back to town, no interaction with the prisoners, they just stand there.     Try to change the flag but no luck.    Run around looking for trouble but there is none, it looks like Chapoi is clear at last.   Time for a tour.

The biggest problem with Chapoi is that there are too many static objects.   They eat memory, and although I played this without major problems it was a bit sticky once or twice and I did have to play with my settings.   Everybody is dead now and it still feels heavy.

In a classic case of overcompensation, the general's compound is now too empty.   You must have the fence of course, but I'd lose the barracks, add back some tents, add a flash sports car or something, hide the bodies a bit more and try and make the whole compound smaller to save on fencing.   The fence must have a recognisable purpose.    Consider moving the big house to the middle or something.  

I know you need space for vehicle turning but the big sandbag fence enclosure is awfully big.   Consider moving the hospital to where the barracks on the west side of town now are, and fencing closer to the road.      The layout on the north side is not good, its all cramped up.   Given that you have this space, divide it more clearly into ammo; fuel, and repairs.   You can lose the barracks altogether, the houses would have been requisitioned and the locals turfed out.      You don't really need all those ammo crates (I know balance with 3 is required) and you're getting no value at all, for example, from the fuel barrels.     The ammo lorry should be facing in to make it easier to get stuff out of it:   one of my loons got slightly stuck, I think.    I like the camo net over the fuel station though, that works.   As does the little repair shed.  Not convinced by the big one, looks too permanent.    (Like the barracks.)

Rearmed the wagons without even getting into them, and refueld.   No chance to repair, the repair truck had been trashed, not by us.

[time passed]

Grrrr hours of pain later. .... still not fully reorganised.    Endless loons getting stuck and other stupid problems.  

We left the village with the armour.   I went ahead in a jeep to see if my mines had caught anything at Houdan and hooray!   A wrecked T80 and an immovable but enterable Abrams.   Noticed on the way that the buildings at Fi71 are undamaged.

[THobson]

Another neat picture.  It is theoretcially possible for this to happen but I have never seen it.

I had wondered if you would be bothered by northron guard units, it seems not - or they are still on their way!

The base does need to be looked at I agree.  A comment on v1.00 by one of the beta testers was the wish for the first sight of the base to have an OMG impact - so I probably did over do the buildings a bit.

You are right about the turning circle for the convoy, but more can be done with the space being used by the barracks.

Oh well - I had better the contractors in.

Rearmed the wagons without even getting into them  

Does this feel wrong?  It seems that a tank that is out of ammo cannot rearm at an ammo truck.  I have written my own script to rearm them and it is activated an 'Action' that I have added to each tank, so of course it becomes available as soon as the player is close.  I suppose I could go the whole hog and make my script work exactly like the OFP standard (only work when you are in the tank and near an ammo truck)

So the repair truck is trashed and the ammo truck next to it is fine.  Well that's an interesting development.  The previous version had, and the next will have, a repair truck at the fuel station out of town.

[macguba]

Timewise I got to my little basette in the woods northwest of the farm at about 15:30.    After we brought down the chopper there were no enemy around Chapoi, except a couple of stragglers.     No sign of guard groups although as you say they could still be on their way.      I'm sure we were seen:  they certainly knew they were under fire.   In all the retries I slightly lost track of what happened on which run.

I don't really want you to do more with Chapoi base:  it's already pretty good.   What I'd like more than anything is for it to be smaller to avoid the lag.  

Note additions to last post since you posted.

Rearming the wagons definitely feels wrong.    I know its tedious but I would recommend replicating the normal procedure.       Everything in that area was fine except the repair truck which was totally trashed.   It looked so odd I suspected you had done it deliberately.    Oh, and fuel truck right in front of the fuel station looks a little odd.

If the zero ammo thing is the problem you could just leave a few rounds of mg ammo:  that wouldn't feel particularly odd, even if you noticed.

Oh yes, shot the POWs of course.   Two went down but the other two, who had their hands behind their heads, stayed up in spite of being covered with blood.   Trapped in their switchmoves, I suppose.   Not a big deal.  I'd have run them over if I'd really cared.


It's no good, I've lost the will to live.    How can 2, driving a pristine T80, get stuck between two tents 500m from his route?     And then do it again when I give him a different route?    Hrmph.   Nothing to do with the mission, just AI routefinding nightmare.

It's all a bit confused but I think there was an infantry squad moving south through Dourdan and Houdan, as if it was on Guard and moving towards Chapoi for the northrons.    Very far north though, you would have expected it to have got further south.

[Mikero]

>choppers

In the twice that I've played this same version, i have never encountered the choppers. The perception for me is that there is only one of them, and it's always in the sky passing over mountain hideout. I know this not to be true. I also know, design wise, the choppers may or may not be alive at the end.

When war breaks out, there are atmospherics, the choppers are making all shorts of horrible crunchy noises to all sorts of armour. In my case (because I kept armies in balance) the crunchy noises were coming from everywhere, ie not just Chapoi eg. No amount of loon shooting loon is as significant, player wise, as hearing all this stuff go bang, you really know, you've started something, rather than an isolated incident in one town. Thob should, I hope, stay aware of the significant difference between a fistfight among loons in a town, and the awareness that this is global.

My gut tells me the reason why Chapoi was overrun was because of a chopper staying alive. More significant, I think, than any amount of squadies making an attack, and more significant than any of the damage you as player might have caused (750 + enemy is a big task). In the wash up, it doesn't matter, does it, because a lot of sequences here border on illusion.

I am surprised by that jpg of yours Mac, I wasn't aware southrons would surrender in that way (as described for Northrons)

Your description of tank vs tank is similar to mine. It had same effect Thob on both of us, we were relieved, and in my case surprised and thankful, that they weren't after us. That fact only dawned sometime later, I'm not as fast on my feet as Mac. Again, tanks were coming from west, and their battle occurred west, not south, of Chapoi. Just to fill more detail out here, the survivors, probably Northrons, chased me into South forest.

The fenced compound you mention was a pain for me, AFTER the smoke had cleared. Moving vehicles out of that was close to impossible on ai.

How can 2, driving a T80, get stuck between two tents 500m from his route?

This is an area of game play, where i get the feeling Thobson has not done any homework. And I also have to say I have no clue what I'm talking about.

The perception, true or false, is the author has made scripts to get round all sorts of issues with ai loons and not touched any tweaks to get ai-driving working 'properly'. I would not know if you can get them working, 'properly'.

I had an awful time getting my buggers to drive a simple road, Dourdan to Tjunction (Le Port). That's a straight line, they couldn't achieve it. Engine wise, their inability to do anything 'correctly' was identical to the scene you often see when your squad fall back and start a lot of 'where are yous'. It's a garanteed indication that you, the player, have missed something in the rush, ie a large concentration of nasties that block your squad from joining you. Perhaps this is the clue why the ai-driving is so erratic.

The end result for me was that I 'learned' to use a single troop truck and outdrive >anything< in the mist. Fine by me, fine thematic, I mention that ai-driving is a nightmare. I imagine that many players like being tank crew, for me, it became a nogo area (particularly the enemy T72's seeing thru mist fog or whatever it was)

[macguba]

Tank drivers in OFP are notorious for being drunken, incompetant, insubordinate swine.

Chapoi was overrun by the northrons because I had attacked only southron units.    All of the southron villages had been cleared, as well as both convoys, several guard groups and one armoured group.   Frankly the southrons didn't have much left, except the Chapoi garrison and I took out some of that too.      However, you are partly right:  if the southrons had won the air war their remaining chopper would have taken out the final northron attack.   As it was the armour in that last attack was badly damaged.

[THobson]

I see mac posted while Iwas writing - I will still post it in its original form:

Stamenov's compound.  In v1.00 I didn't like the repair facility and Stamenov's tent in the same place but  if I took out any of the stuff that was already there then I had to take it all out for it to make sense.  As you can see I did struggle to fill the space it left

Fi71:  Strewth you're thorough.

Rearming the wagons definitely feels wrong.    I know its tedious but I would recommend replicating the normal procedure

It was a case of finding a solution to a big problem and then being happy with it without going the next step.  I am quite pleased with my script for this.  It detects what type of tank it is dealing with and re-arms it accordingly.  I was so pleased to have any sort of solution to a very strange problem (see below) that I just moved on to the next problem, which if I remember correctly was your last loon not turning up in v1.00.  That led the to surrender/run away scripts

If the zero ammo thing is the problem you could just leave a few rounds of mg ammo:  that wouldn't feel particularly odd, even if you noticed

The problem is a strange one.  Take an Abrams as an example: it starts with HEAT, Sabot and mg rounds.  The HEAT and Sabots come in ‘magazines' of 35, so remove one magazine and all the rounds are gone - now here is the killer - any tank that has run out of HEAT rounds or Sabot rounds cannot get any more from an ammo truck!!.  This is standard OFP!!  Create a missionette and try it - I couldn't believe it.  The standard OFP Rearm at Ammo Truck only tops up the ammo that is finds in a tank already.  I mean… even my script is more intelligent than that.  I will have a look at this if it feels wrong.  The irony is that the better I make the script replicate what OFP does the more it looks like I have done nothing at all - I bet few people know about this rearming ‘feature' of OFP.

Everything in that area was fine except the repair truck which was totally trashed.  It looked so odd I suspected you had done it deliberately

Not me.  The repair truck and the repairable tanks are meant to enable you to have a different experience for the next battle - should you chose to do so.  But if anything gets trashed in the battles then, well, tough. I have seen the northron Hind attack the nearby M2, miss and completely destroy that whole complex.  I was not amused.

Oh, and fuel truck right in front of the fuel station looks a little odd.

I will look at that.  It seemed logical at the time to have a fuel truck parked near a fuel station, ready to go as it were.

 

Oh yes, shot the POWs of course.  Two went down but the other two, who had their hands behind their heads, stayed up in spite of being covered with blood.  Trapped in their switchmoves, I suppose.  Not a big deal.  I'd have run them over if I'd really cared.

Thanks.  I thought I had dealt with all the places this could happen - but then I added the surrender feature.

In the twice that I've played this same version, i have never encountered the choppers. The perception for me is that there is only one of them, and it's always in the sky passing over mountain hideout.

Interesting.  Sometimes they are a significant factor and others they get neutralised early on in the war.  I like that very much.  In fact each side has one Hind and one Cobra, but there will never be more than two in the air at anyone time and often only one.

My gut tells me the reason why Chapoi was overrun was because of a chopper staying alive

I'm not sure about that.  I frequently encounter a badly damaged Chapoi that is still in the hands of the southrons with the northron attack force completely destroyed - but with a northron Hind buzzing the town.  From mac's description it looks to me like he might have sufficiently unbalanced the forces that the northrons launched an all out attack.  The result I fear might be a pretty lame defence of the northern airbase when he gets there - this is clearly something I need to work on.  I await his story about the northern attack with bated breath.

because a lot of sequences here border on illusion

I am not sure I understand this.  At one level the whole of this, and every game, is an illusion, but leaving aside deep philosophy - I am puzzled by the comment.

I wasn't aware southrons would surrender in that way

This is force of circumstance giving a good result.  Loons in the wire compound cannot seem to find their way out when ordered to do so, so any loons that are in/or near there when the army downs tools will surrender and not attempt to run away.  I didn't think anyone would see this - I have never got Stamenov without first killing everything in the compound.  I do not think it is realistic for the escaping soldiers to run past Alexi completely ignoring him so in the next version if any of those running away pass close to Alexi they will surrender also.  In the north everyone surrenders.

Your description of tank vs tank is similar to mine.

Sorry, but this is standard OFP - and I wouldn't know where to start to fix it.

The perception, true or false, is the author has made scripts to get round all sorts of issues with ai loons and not touched any tweaks to get ai-driving working 'properly'

There are two really big issues I spent most of my time on in making this mission:

1. The convoys and jeep patrols.  I wanted these to only refuel and repair at their base (no cheat scripts in the background to repair and refuel them regularly), and I wanted them to run forever if the player left everything alone.  And I do mean forever.  I would often get a flawless 20+ hour run and then something would screw up.  I eventually got it so I could set it all running on Sunday evening, go away for one of my trips and when I got back Friday morning everything was still ticking along fine.  Even the choppers visit their fuel station to re-fuel.  I spent days as a gunner in each of the jeep patrols, and days as the gunner of the Vulcan in each of the convoys.  If the mission is run in ‘debug' mode then the location of all the key units are displayed continuously on the map.  I have spent hours watching this.  I even had my wife ring me at work with status reports.  Why am I saying all this?  The problem is so simple.  Two groups of 4 jeeps each follow a circular path, two groups of 5 vehicles follow a linear path, turn round and go back.  What could be simpler?  Yet it took months of my life to get it working the way I wanted it.  (Then the player comes along with a LAW or a mine or two and it is all gone!)

2. The last loon problem.  This is a real irritation when it happens in a normal mission, it brings on homicidal feelings when it happens in a mission that you have spent 20 or so hour on.  I experienced this with a beta version of mac's Un-Impossible mission.  In the end it turned out the last loon was actually 2 in a jeep in a place they should not have been.  So I have done a lot of scripting around this.  Yet despite my best efforts to get all the surviving loons to their base in a realsitic and orderly fashion mac experienced a missing last loon at the northern airbase with v1.00.  Hence the surrender/runaway solution.  OFP might lose one loon but I doubt it can lose ten.

Anyway that is where most of the time was spent - though the cutscenes are now catching up fast.  Fixing OFPs vehicle handling AI, when I don't know where a unit is supposed to be going, what it is supposed to be doing etc. is not something I wish to tackle.  All vehicle movements except for the patrols, the convoys and the refuelling of the choppers is pure OFP.

[macguba]

 ;D Fi71 is an interesting location and I often pop in when I'm passing.   It turns up in missions with just about the right frequency.   It's intersting because it has a jetty, the turn off is marked by a burnt out house - very unusual on Malden - and it's very close to the main road.

The ammo problem is weird and, once fixed, its the kind of thing you need to bring to the attention of the reviewer and the player - otherwise you would never notice.    If it was me, I'd probably use the ammo slider to leave a few rounds in.    Given that you've done half the scripting already, you might as well finish the job.

I'm not complaing at all about the repair truck being smashed - just one of those things.  

Anyway, it's been a really tedious job but I am at last organised.   The main problem was the T80, which repeatedly got stuck next to the field hospital in Houdan.   Needless to say his orders, certainly by the third or fourth attempt, were to stay well clear of Houdan.   It is an OFP issue, not a mission issue, but I'd still recommend rearranging the tents there.   It may be to do with battle debris but there is clearly something there working like fly paper, or should I say tank paper.

We are south of Houdan.    Two Abrams, T80 and Bradley.     Just behind us are a repair truck and a vulcan.     Up at my old base in the woods, to the west of us, are several more vehicles I can't even remember exactly what.     During our repairs two small squads of infantry approached from the north.    The second group could I suppose have been rallying fleeers from the first group:  I wasn't involved in the contacts.    I was orchestrating things from near the repair truck, with all the armour except the vehicle actually repairing in a skirmish line facing north.

I know that three choppers are down and I haven't seen hide nor hair of the fourth:  I suspect it was shot down a long time ago.  It may even have been my, I did shoot down a chopper once but not sure if that run ended up being saved.

I don't know what the each side started with, armourwise, so I don't know what armoured opposition awaits.   The northron convoy armour should still be alive, plus any base patrol vehicles.   I believe two northron armoured groups were destroyed at Chapoi.   I don't know who was the owner of the armour wrecked at Hourdan.  I do know that there will be plenty of infantry waiting for me.

Off we go.  After one careless, disastrous run common sense prevailed and I left the Bradley behind, with a view to bringing it and the repair truck up as required.   Oh that 8 wasn't dead!    That extra man would have been so useful.      

There was a squad in Dourdan and another at La Trinite, where there was also a wrecked chopper.

[THobson]

I do know that there will be plenty of infantry waiting for me.

I hope so.  I might have over committed the northrons in their attack on Chapoi.

I have never seen a tank do anything other than ignor a tent, that and flatten it.

If it was me, I'd probably use the ammo slider to leave a few rounds in.

That would fit with the sloppyness I am trying to cretae for the southrons - leaving live rounds up the spout when a vehicle is sent for repair.  Not sure it fits with Anropov's image though.

[macguba]

Another difference between the factions then.   You need to do everything you possibly can to differentiate between them, although this is yet another one the player probably won't notice since he is unlikely to borrow tanks from both.

We swung left from 3 towards Larche - don't want to keep going straight into the opposition.   The two lads in the Bradley, next to the repair truck between the 'dans, calls occasional contacts.    Stragglers or guard I'm not sure, I suspect stragglers because a whole squad has a good chance of taking out a single brad, assuming it has a LAW.

At Larche we found two soldiers, one of them with 3 rockets all of which hit.    I had to switch to the other abrams and send mine back for repair.  Accompanied by the T80 I headed to Saint Louis, the scene of such difficulty in v1-00.    There has been a battle here:  dead soldiers and a burnt out Vulcan.    The T80 takes out one or two (not sure) jeep/mgs and I hit some infantry, all of whom have come in from the airfield road.

It's 16:20 and the weather recently has been good.    The light is getting difficult now and I think the fog is starting reappear.    The sun appeared for a little while a while ago, which was really, really nice.    Since we can't have full daylight - which would have been nice - I'm now waiting for dark when we'll have an advantage with NVGs.   Presumably at least some of the infantry don't have them.

We moved north and then east towards the airfield gate:  I wanted to keep the hillside between me and any armour at the northern end of the airfield.   That part of the plan worked, but two law loons combined first to kill my driver - always a depressing moment - and then me.

Oh ya beauty!   Repair convoy abandoned south of Saint Louis - was that you?   Gonna make life much easier anyway.    Dammit, killed again.    I'm in an Abrams but still the rockets toasted me before I even had time to swing the turret.

[Mikero]

>Illusion

is where you see 3 soldiers on a ridge skyline and think there's 3 squads up there.

when you think tanks coming out of the mist at you are actually gunning for the tanks you didn't see behind. You don't even know their number, could be 20 of them.

The illussion that an entire squad, possibly an army, wiped you out, when all it was, was one nasty M2 and a sniper from behind.

mist = smoke and mirrors.