(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[THobson]

goes down nicely but never goes up. It just appears at top

Some people are never happy.  Going down the flag pole is more than you would get in most missions.    Going up would require some convoluted scripting and even then I am not sure I could get it to work.  I don't think that matters, I remember as a boy scout pulling the flag to the top of the pole all rolled up and then pulling a cord to unfurl it at the top - so the whole combination is quite realistic.

Odd thing about flagpoles - it seems they are impossible to kill or damage.

setDammage 1 does nothing, driving through it (yes throught it) with a tank does nothing and multiple artillery rounds do nothing.

I think I am done on this one.

By the way mac - Yes the missing _ was an error, and thanks for pointing me to the switchmove

Intriguing side conversation - would I be interested?

[Planck]

setDammage 1 does nothing, driving through it (yes throught it) with a tank does nothing and multiple artillery rounds do nothing.

Well, I suspect that is because the model has the named property of:

dammage = no

I never have been able to destroy a flagpole.



Planck

[macguba]

Intriguing side conversation - would I be interested?

No ... it is not an interesting subject, merely a frustrating one.   If you want to join in check the Ed Depot Pending list for a new tute by mikero.    You'll wish you hadn't.   ;D

Flags going down is a bonus.  Flags going up is not worth the trouble.

I put 3 satchels on the flagpole and then gave up.   They obviously couldn't be bothered doing a trashed pole texture.

[THobson]

I put 3 satchels on the flagpole and then gave up

Well who wouldn't

[Goettschwan]

Okay, so i have played a bit more than last time and actually found the second civilians.
My team was rather well equipped this time because i used the jeep from vigny after an accident with a tree to block the road and got myself a nice ambush on one of the MG-Jeeps.  Mission went well until near la trinite, not too difficult.
Found la trinite and all the stuff, do a quick check on the village, nobody home.
Load up the bmp, put all the squad in the three vehicles, and hear tracks. Oops.
I used a savegame, and then, after my nice savegame, found out that there is really not much time until that convoy arrives. I speed like hell to put a mine up front and two satchel charges near the trees a bit down the road, and after some attemps really overcome all this.
I recognised the accuracy of the vulcan as long as somebody sees me(e.g. a truck driver) and the blindfolded patrol mode if this is not the case. Is this something you built into the mission ?
After defeating the convoy(letting everbody in their vehicles because of the short time)
i save the game. several attempts were necessary for the AI to figure out road movements and the shortest way to do them  , all the while i did a back cover in case there are others. There were, but we were already out of town.
Happily returning to the lodge, Message "we have got them fighting each other", didn't know why (but i read this thread...)
In the middle of preparing a small squad for my prized MG-Jeep to scout Houdan, while looking at the map and giving new weapon loadout to everybody, i hear lots of fighting.
It sounds way too close, i patrol a bit on my own, but i don't see anything.
I return to the lodge, and take it slow to finish the loadouts, when
2:"M1A1, 6 o'Clock, 200".  Thanks, Thobson. ;D
Should have posted some guards, didn't I...
Needless to say i will restart from the last savegame.

I found out that when you leave the game after you are dead, and reload the mission with resume, the mission restarts at the last "scriptcontrolled" save point, which in my case is just after tayana is dead. (i don't even remember if its me that done that save)
You have to press Escape and click Retry to load the correct last savegame.

I had this problem with unimpossible mission, too, so i suppose that this is a problem not to be overcome?

Thanks, StG

[macguba]

When you Abort, the mission saves automatically.   When you return, you get that savegame.     However, if you subsequently die, quit and return, you pick up at the previous Abort save if there is one.    This can be well before your last regular save, so yes, you have to Load to get to the right place.   This is a "feature".

[THobson]

:"M1A1, 6 o'Clock, 200".  Thanks, Thobson

An Abrams at the lodge - aren't you a lucky guy.  ;D  Nothing to do with me, he must have followed you - or maybe a little chopper told him where you were.  Can you recall what direction it was coming from?  (It is surprising what details can be helpful)

Maybe I should reword that message about 'we have got them fighting each other'.  It is meant to indicate that the north and south armies are now fighting.  Perhaps it isn't clear enough.

Keep at it - a fair bit to go yet.

[Dubieman]

Okay I'm definately going to play this or start it this week. I liked your first version, so this should be awesome. Plus I haven't been very active lately. Also I congratulate you on 600+ posts. Wow... ;D

[Mikero]

'we have got them fighting each other'

It didn't do it for me either Thob. 1st time thru I assumed it was a reference to the SAME enemy squad in Dourdan who at that point did indeed stop fighting me and went after other people around me in the area. I had every reason to believe it was the Southron Army fighting the Southron Army, every visual and audio clue told me that. To the point where I assumed the same squad was fighting the same squad and I wondered in amazement how you managed to do that  

2nd time thru it came out as incongruous. Very much like the savegame hint appearing for no apparent reason. I was holed up licking wounds so wasn't directly responsible for the 'effect'.

So, I don't think merely changing the wording will be effective. It will have to be a change of structure. Perhaps the war starts and perhaps we meet a civlilian who tells us what he saw somewhere.

[THobson]

Welcome back GRK.

mikero I think you are right.  The fighting message needs to be re-thought.  When I am testing the mission it is a great help to know when it starts, and because I know what is going on it never felt incongruous.  I want to avoid the player being puzzled by the sounds of battle that then start up.  One of the mad women would be a good candidate to explain it, but they are so random they cannot be releid on.  Maybe one of the team (Karl from choice) should tell the player and be explicit that Andropov's and Stamenov's armies are now fighting.

mac:  You mentioned a while ago that one of the convoys took 15 minutes to clear La Trinite.  My reply might have seemed a bit dismissive, but I did not dismiss it.  It was niggling away at the back of my mind.  Anyway I have now started to write a ‘spoiler file' that explains in much more detail how things work than I include in the readme file.  It was while writing about the collision avoidance I have built in to the mission that I realised there are times when the south convoy will be held at La Trinite while the Mg jeep patrol speed north to Dourdan.  The convoy is released to travel south when the jeep patrol has time to get to Dourdan and turn left before the convoy reaches the town.  I am surprised it was 15 minutes though - I didn't see such a long delay when I was watching it, and believe me I have watched this all until I went bog-eyed, so it might have just been an aberration.  I now see that I should have allowed the convoy to leave La Trinite but hold it just outside Dourdan.  I haven't touched the mechanics of the convoys and patrols for months and am a little hesitant to start messing with it.  I am also convinced that this issue will niggle away at me until I do.

[Mikero]

>war starts

a bit of richness perhaps. would this be too far fetched?

the radio we first encounter, it's kept by the medic, or by Irena, it listens in to army traffic. or, Our Russian has one , it, the radio, sends a msg from andropov eg to samenov eg "prepare to die you evil bastard" eg.

?

it could thicken out events after either general dies, and after an army gives up?

[macguba]

I want to avoid the player being puzzled by the sounds of battle that then start up.

Why?    Let him puzzle.  At least for a while.   You may have seen another thread where I was talking about After Montignac being the best mission I ever played.   Well I had a crack at it in the mission editor and before I was killed I heard two separate blue on blues.    Boy do they add to the atmosphere.

Some kind of radio idea is the way to go for these nuggets of information.  Whether its intercepts, or a "narrator" or something else.     The mumbling to yourself is excellent when it refers to things that are actually happening to you, but no good when referring to external events.   The problem is very simple:  the player suddenly knows that the two sides are fighting, but how does he know?   You must add a mechanism whereby he finds out.      What you have at the moment is just a debug hint in the form of a sound file.

Convoy delayed at La Trinite was not a big deal.   (I didn't think your reply was dismissive.)  If that's the time that naturally falls out of the mission then I wouldn't mess with it.   I was just concerned that you had put a simple delay in, and if you had I felt it was a little too long for fun gameplay purposes.    (The slickness thing again.)   There was no problem about it from a realism perspective.


Edit:  the deserter having a radio on which you can listen in is a good idea.

[THobson]

I wouldn't mess with it.

I just have!

the deserter having a radio on which you can listen in is a good idea.

Neat idea, have a gold star.

[Goettschwan]

@Thobson, i don't know who invited the abrams, but he came from the direction of the north-south road exactly east of the lodge. He drove between the mountaintops which are there, so i could only notice him after he emerged out of nowhere.

Thanks telling me about the "feature", i was rather puzzled by it, and not the first time either.

La trinite could use a final hint to move the player in a good direction.
This should imho be given when inside la trinite or when touching the ammo or something like that.  "What is this, some kind of marketplace ?"
" So there is some trade going on here ...  "
After that, a good part of the players should be able to figure out some doublecrossing,
and then, well, they fight each other. As it is, i abushed their convoy, and i got the message about halfway back to the lodge. Not bad, but i wouldn't have made the connection to myself at that moment.

Thanks, StG

[THobson]

Interesting.  Going to La Trinite before Houdan.  I will have to re-look at the dilogue