(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[THobson]

Vehicles showing as red on the radar and resultant targeting:

I'm not sure if Thob could do anything about this, but it's tied up with the fact that all your convoy is 'red'. If that marker can be removed, as in side=2 in the scripts, then it would go away

I can think of no way to do this.  I think it will have to remain a feature I'm afraid.

The concentration camp.  Clearly some changes are needed here.  As part of getting to what that should be let me give my logic for you all to comment on and add your own:  
What I was trying to do here was: (1) reward the player for venturing beyond the road block leading to Le Port even though no clues are given to the player to do such a thing.  My expectation was that few players would do that, but on reflection the hardcore players that venture beyond the obvious objectives and really appreciate the mission will almost always find the place.  (2) bolster the story line and explain where all the men had gone. (3) provide the player with a replacement medic should he need one.

The civis are meant to be traumatized - hence the reason they are just staring into space and do not interact with the player.  If any of them had been injured then Viktor would have healed them already. Leaving some of your people to guard them is a compassionate and possibly realistic thing to do (though a different leader might leave them to their fate and not risk weakening his team - sacrifice a few for the good of the whole type of logic).  I tried to get some of the civis to sit down, but there is an OFP feature that causes sitting units with no rifle to stand up, and I certainly can't give them rifles.  I could get some to lie down, but I felt that would look odd.  Something bad happening to them if any soldiers turn up is not a bad idea (but will require some work on my part and probably some dialogue if the player ever goes back there).  I did contemplate having them all escape and join the fight as an independent group - but their fate would be horrible.  I cannot have them join Alexi's group because that would reduce the need for the player to look after his original team.  I thought that leaving them in the camp would be the safest place for them until they are able to come home and that Alexi really would think that.  All the dialogue is already making this quite a large file, so I am not looking to add to it.

All comments welcome.

dependent solely on the merest twitch of your finger and a decision to move south not south east in earlier game play

This has been a wonderful revelation for me.  I tend not to vary too much how I play missions but you guys are doing it in all sorts of different ways, and the results are great.  I have deliberately not over scripted the behaviour of the soldiers and I am really pleased at how fluid the result is.  If any of you are aware of Chaos theory I think this is a good example.  There is nothing complicated in this mission, just lots of simple things that interact in simple ways but all combining to give a quite complex result.



Pilot:  Good to hear you are still plugging away in there.  Progress reports always appreciated.

All:
I now have proper trading going on reflected in the contents of the convoys and the ammo crates at LaT.

I am keen to get the next version out soon so you guys can get past the ladder at Dourdan but I would not want to distract any of you that are still working through v1.21

Planck:
Reorganised your team yet?

[Mikero]

>Chaos theory

The 2nd group of 'reinforcements' that some of us report encountering at

Vigny
La Pessagne
Hut near civils
Bus road block
anywhere in between

is proof positive of this.

In one encounter they double backed on me and one hell of a fight happened two nanoseconds after I'd got the 1st civilian cutscene, with predicable results i might add (sigh)

I might also add that since they shot yuri-clone and ruined both my savegame and my hairdo, I took on the entire northron army in a rage. ;D

(ps this battle tactic doesn't work folks)

But, it's an indicator that you just don't need 1 squillion enemy nasties to give the impression that there are 1 squillion of them, that the encounter is random, and, all eventualties are covered. This one single group of seven loons takes care of nearly all game play in the west and promotes the essentials, never, stick around. They also cause the war to start, if you're that lucky or treacherous.

>pows. Reasons 1,2,3

for me, 1,2,3 was exactly as experienced. I think it more likely that what's happened here is just another immersive, tangential storyline, something not quite finished about it, leaving a player wanting more. Maybe that alone is good enough.

But, you take great pains to force us to help the 1st two groups by essentially, retrieving them. These ones are left in limbo (depending on how you interpret the voiceovers which is, as usual, excellent btw). By this time in the game we are so conditioned to information content, that there has to be more, something hidden in the message stuff.

It's no biggie Thob, you could leave it as is, you could dissapear them into buildings, or you could get them to arm themselves from crates at the village and defend themselves. I like this latter choice because by this time in the game, WE are taking the island back. If the nasties come down this way, and the player has, effectively two groups of friendlies, well, ......

>hardcore players

These people wont be found until the 3rd run thru this mission. Along with the ones at 3 x other out of the way locations (I know of) that I'm not going to spoil. Two other locations cause a new game experience btw, because the reserve tanks (for want of a better expression) change the dynamic again. These are easter eggs. I wouldn't assume that *any* of them will be discovered, think you're wrong about that (the way you phrased it).

[Planck]

Planck:
Reorganised your team yet?

No TH .....I left my team as they are.    ;D ;D




My T80 and the T72, reached Houdan without meeting any enemies.
I called up my 3 footsoldiers and told them to make for Houdan.

The tanks were pressing on south.
I planned to scout out Chapoi next, but the soldiers at the roadblock to Le Port persuaded me to do otherwise.
I was hit by an RPG, and my gunner flat refused to do anything, despite being ordered to target the RPG soldier.
She just carried on watching north and occasionally swinging round to face forward.
It didn't matter how many times I told her to target the enemy soldiers she just did nothing.
It was a waste of time carrying a gunner.

I had a brilliant idea, I switched to gunner position and she took driver position.
Bad move........as soon as she got the drivers seat we zoomed off across country in a general north westerly direction.
Telling her to halt was ignored and you can't switch positions again whilst moving.
I told her to go back to where we were......she ignored me.
So, I told her to disembark, this she did, by this time we were about 1.5 km from where we were and the T72 was wondering where we were.
I switched to driver again and got her back in as gunner.
I went back to the roadblock and just crushed the soldiers there.......you could tell they were impressed.

Change of plan, I decided to visit Le Port.
There wasn't many guarding Le Port, the T72 took care of most of them and I crushed one or two.
There was a guard in the guardtower and a compound of some sort with civilians it it, up near the fuel station.
There was also one soldier lying prone in front of the compound.
I didn't want to risk firing at these two soldiers in case the civvies got hit, so I elected to crush the guy on the ground and demolish the guard tower and hopefully the guard would fall out and I could crush him too.
So I carefully got into a good position and moved forward slowly to crush the one on the ground......I was just about to crush him......almost there......when THobson killed me.

A cutscene started and I was outside my tank talking to a medic, when the cutscene ended the guard in the tower shot me.

Ok, started again from Houdan, but this time when I got to the roadblock I didn't let my gunner anywhere near the driver position.
I just crushed the soldiers and moved on to Le Port.
The guards in town were dealt with more or less as before, but the last two I decided I would disembark and kill by myself.
So, I got out, and my gunner immediately advertised our position by switching on the vehicle lights, even though we are all in "stealth" mode.
There was a bonus, she immediately shot the guy in the tower with her machine gun.
I got the guy lying prone and the town was now clear.
I moved to the compound and got the cutscene again.
I then ordered my 3 footsoldiers to Le Port, we waited for them, time for a fag and coffee, it's a long walk from Houdan.

When they arrived I moved them to a position amongst some bushes north of town and told them to go prone and wait for me.
I got my gunner and commander to disembark and join them there.
They were told to watch north.
Whilst they were doing this the T72 reported troops approaching from the west of town and he killed most of them with machine gun fire.
Two of them made it into town and one of them killed '6', my first casualty.
I crushed them both.
I positioned the T72 to watch that approach to town and told him to wait for me as well.

I went off to scout out Chapoi.
I followed the coast till I was south of Chapoi and then moved slowly north till I could see the town and its surroundings.
I saw a few M2 machine guns guarding the approaches from various directions, I didn't see many troops, but I didn't doubt they were there.
There were a couple of armour wrecks south of Chapoi, so, there had been a battle here earlier.
there was also a T72 standing guard near these wreck, it was facing north.
There was no more armour about, apart from a vulcan further north of town which I wasn't worried about for now.

I fired at the T72, it was damaged and the crew, ejected.
I killed them with a heat shell as they were running for town.
There was only 2 M2's that I could see well enough to fire at from here and I destroyed both of them with heat shells.
I moved to a position east of town from where I could see another 2 m2's well enough to fire at them, I destroyed them also.
There were a lot of troops either running around or crawling around, I used heat shells extensively to decimate their numbers.
Then I moved round to the west of town and took out more m2's, although one of them didn't blow up, but the gunner was killed.
It was eventually crewed by someone else, the second shot destroyed it.

I moved off to the fuel station just outside town to the west.
There was a whole heap of soldiers here, a lot of them were AT types.
There was also 2 m2's.
I got hit 4 times in the process of crushing them all.
Eventually I stopped at the repair truck which was parked there and repaired my tank.
I was also hurt so I stopped at the medical tent which was also there and got healed.
By this time troops had made their way from town to the fuel station and I had more crushing to do.
Once it went quiet again I went back to town and just basically crushed any troops I came across.
A lot of them were black ops and snipers.
I also went and found the vulcan and rammed it causing it to tip over on its side, the crew jumped out and I crushed them.


Now and then more troops turned up from....somewhere......and I was getting hit every so often, but, there was a repair truck in their compound that I stopped at now and then for repairs and also a hospital that I used for healing when necessary.
There was also a fuel truck and an ammo truck there.
I decided to visit Stamenov, I cruised around town for a little to kill any troops I saw then I stopped at Stamenovs HQ and disembarked.

There was nobody about to stop me, the ground floor was clear, apart from the black op waiting on the stairs.....I shot him.
The heard a woman pleading not to shoot, so I went upstairs....second room there was Stamenov prone on the floor and womens bodies lying near him.
I shot him, no problem, but decided I needed to get back to my tank, before his remnant army turned up.


More below.........


Planck

[Planck]

Back in my tank and almost immediately was hit by 2 RPG's or LAW's.
Found the troops and crushed them.
Now I know that crushing all these soldiers doesn't count towards your score, but really I wasn't worried about that.
I waited about for any troops to arrive, switching to gunner position when I could, but moving to driver when there were lots of AT types.
Eventually it went quiet.

Then a BMP arrived with some troops, I destroyed the BMP with sabot and was hit twice by RPG's, I decided to go for repairs at the fuel station.
Whilst I was there I destroyed the 2 m2's that I had left before.
I got back to town and there was a battle going on, some northern troops had arrived.
They had brought a vulcan with them, I did the same with this vulcan as I did with the first one, rammed it and disabled it.
I crushed any troops I came across....it went quiet again.
My T72 reported an Abrams approaching Le Port from his position, I told him to engage.
I watched on the map screen, they both passed each other and nobody engaged anybody.
Meanwhile, another bunch of northern troops turned up, as before I went about crushing again......I know just call me 'Crusher'.
I was in the process of crushing troops when Stamenovs remaining troops surrendered.

I decided to go look for this Abrams and deal with it, I found it empty on the road, it had been on its way to Chapoi when Stamenovs men surrendered, so , it must have been a southern tank.
So, I now had an Abrams to play with.
I ordered everyone to my position and I changed to the Abrams.
When everyone arrived I ordered 2 of them into the T80, the girl as gunner.
I ordered the remaning 2 into my tank and we set off for Chapoi again.
I did a quick run around town to crush any troops I saw and then I disembarked and boarded the repair truck and took it to the damaged T72, south of town.
I repaired the T72 then took the repair truck back to its parking spot.
There was a damaged Abrams and a damaged Bradley here too and I decided to repair the Abrams, so, after moving the Bradley, I got the Abrams out and moved it close to the repair truck and then repaired it.
I decided to keep this tank and ordered the commander in the other Abrams to disembark and get in again as driver.
I now had 2 Abrams, 1 T80 and 1 T72......with an option for a second T72 if I wanted.

Someone fired an RPG at the Abrams, but it missed and hit the repair truck, or maybe they were aiming for the repair truck, anyway it was destroyed.
So, there must still be some northern troops about.
I searched about, but only found 2 soldiers to crush, then I moved off to the fuel station again.
I got the commander of the T72 to disembark and board the repair truck there and told him to drive it into the woods away south east of town.
I got him to disembark and move to a location to watch for any troops.
I went back to town, disembarked and boarded the ammo truck which by some miracle wasn't destroyed when the repair truck was blown up.
I took it to the same location as the repair truck.
I went back to town and boarded my Abrams again.

I was just cruising around the town when someone reported a helicopter 'FAR'.
I ordered all tanks well south of town, parking amongst some trees and everyone disembarked.
We all moved off to the same woods that the ammo truck was in, I was hoping it had some AA Launchers I could use on this chopper if it came this way.
I got myself an AA launcher from the ammo truck and dropped the ammo for it on the ground near a tree, then I went back to get another round.
I waited by that tree for 10 minutes, nothing was coming, and I was about ready to order everone back to their tanks when the girl reported 'enemy hind 11 'oclock'.

Now, thay hind first targeted and destroyed the T72 south of town that I had earlier repaired, but never used.
It then turned its attention on the empty tanks parked in the woods where we left them......about 400 metres to our west.
The T80 was destroyed, before I could fire the first AA missile at the hind, I hit it and it moved off, but I knew it would come in for another run.
So I picked up my second round, it always takes about 2 to down a chopper.
I reloaded and waited.
It came in from the West this time and it didnt target the tanks it targeted and destroyed the ammo truck behid me.
I let it pass my position and then fired my second missile.
I hit it again and it started going down.
It was quite low at the time, so I didn't think any crew would survive an ejection, I didn't see any parachutes anyway.

We all went back to the tanks, except 7 and 8 (the medic), who I ordered to stay and wait.
One of the Abrams had a badly damaged gun so I took that tank and everyone else boarded the other Abrams and the T72.
The T72 was fully crewed, and the girl (5) was gunner in the other Abrams.
They moved back to town whilst I went to check the chopper wreck and repair my Abrams at the repair truck.
I didn't find any pilots and so I eventually went back to town and cruised about looking for soldiers.
I eventually found 3 soldiers which I crushed and I parked by the flag area and waited to see if more arrived.
'Unknown Man' was reported by 7, followed by 'I got him'.
I presume it was a pilot that survived the chopper crash.
After 20 minutes I decided there would be no more troops, I disembarked and got 4 to disembark and get healed at the hospital, he had been injured previously when the ammo truck blew up.
Whilst he was getting healed I got the change flag thing again.

I left everyone there and went to check out Cancon and La Riviere, both were empty and as they had no flags were not worth any further attention.

It was time to think about moving north to 'crush',,,,,,,,hehehehe,,,,, Andropov.


More next time folks.



"Crusher" Planck

[THobson]

Planck:

Your two wonderful posts have just saved me from topping myself.

Remember the cutscene at Dourdan where you are the only person that gets the ‘Climb Ladder' action?  Well I got a solution.  The bottom of the ladder is very near BuildingPos 3.  So as soon as the player goes into the building I create a Game Logic and move it to BuildingPos 3.  Then when the player gets close the cutscene starts and the player is teleported to the top floor.  Neat or what?  Works perfectly in the mission editor.

I just created a new pbo file that was to be the next beta version I was going to up load.  I played the mission from the beginning.  Vigny; Mountain lodge; Civis 1; Civis 2; Houdan etc.  Nearly an hour it took.  Then I get to Dourdan.  Up to the first floor (if you are British - 2nd floor if you are American) get to the ladder and there is no action to climb the ladder - and there is no bloody cut scene either!!!

Serious sense of humour failure followed.  I rechecked in the mission editor and another pbo file and I cannot replicate the problem without playing all the way through.

I am not a happy camper at the moment.

I must look at the Concentration camp cutscene - not good getting killed like that.


PLEASE reorganise your team.  I need you to.  I need you to test something.


Mikero:
So you got attacked at the first civi hut? - well you must have upset someone earlier.  ;D

[Planck]

Well........ummmm.......I finished the mission, I'm just feeding the details as I write them up.

I could always return to my last save and do some re-organising.

Any particular re-organisation you wanted me to try?


Planck

[Mikero]

@Crusher

Looks like I'm wrong (like many things) about hardcore players not finding Thobson's easter eggs, first time thru.

You should have been 'entertained' by 3x sentries at both towns with no flags.

You don't mention visibilty. Has the rain made no difference? You only encountered one live tank (a T72) but for me, the rain gives an unfair advantage to the opposition, they can see me 30 meters sooner.

The decrewed southron abrahms came twitching from Cancon, my opinion? you were lucky not to encounter it on your journey. It would have 'seen' you 50 meters sooner if it were on stationary alert. On that point umm errr, i should know

@Thob
>well you must have upset ....

I have depbo'd your mission and am grepping all the scripts looking for the command exec ChaseMikero

[Mikero]

@Thob

>ladder

If it helps at all (which i doubt), I have played this mission from Vigny to ladder depbo'd and the results are same, = no ladder.

>chased at 1st civilians.

again, if it helps, I went back (after I recovered my hair). I took a sneaky jeep path to where i 'thought' these vicious buggers would be found. Sure enough, they gave me the impression that their start point, game wise, was v close to the civiln's because there was a momentary lag on their part from inactivity, at-ease, to movement. As if i'd startled them into some sort of trigger action.

[Planck]

The decrewed southron abrahms came twitching from Cancon

I don't think so, I think it came from up north on it's way back to base after the 'boss' was killed by me.

If it had come from Cancon I would have noticed it before it got to Le Port.


Planck

[Mikero]

@Crusher

yep, should have put a ? mark instead of a statement of fact. I assumed Cancon (still do via a circuitous route), but I'm keen to know if other players are finding rain as devastatingly bad for play, as much as I am. It's particularly pronounced on any 'vehicle' that has zoom view. Sniper, Mgun nest, Vulcan eg.

edit:
rain and specifically rain, not 'mist', not fog, not overcast, rain.

[Planck]

Rain does cut visibility a bit, but I didn't find it much of a problem.

I didn't perceive that AI had any advantage because of it either.  

I preferred low visibility, I found it helped me to get about better.


Planck

[THobson]

Planck:  If you wouldn't mind it would help me if you would go back to one of your saves - the later the better, and reorganise your team.  Did Sergei survive by the way - it would be a better test if he didn't but don't worry about it.  Well actually if you could  send him on a suicide mission first.  I have no particular preference for a team configuration.  Just get your team to talk to you, several times.  Then you will know what I want you to do.

I now have a suspicion that as time passes things move on the map - we have seen things move vertically if terrain detail is not set to normal.  I think they move horizonatlly as well, so that over time whatever it is that causes the player to get an action to climb the ladder parts company from the ladder.  It may well be several feet away just outside the building by the time we get there.  If I am correct then after the many mission hours you have taken the action and the ladder should now be a long way apart.  So if you wouldn't mind - a trip to Dourdan from your last save would help me check that theory.

Mikero:
So you haven't found the script:

#keepTrying
~5
if (player == Mikero) then {KTB}
goto "keepTrying"

 ;D ;D ;D

If it helps at all (which i doubt), I have played this mission from Vigny to ladder depbo'd and the results are same, = no ladder.

Thanks.  Actually it does help - a lot.  It is consistent with my theory of objects moving over time.

This might screw up the peeping civis as well.  What a bummer.

[Planck]

Hmmmm.......in my next installment of the epic journey you will hear how, on the way north I tried the ladder again, except, there was no 'climb ladder' option any more.

So, it has disappeared from my action menu altogether.


I will have a play with my last save, the one before I attack the airfield........re-organise my team send poor Sergei to do it instead........alone.  


Planck

[Mikero]

I preferred low visibility, I found it helped me to get about better.

Oh, definately. It's about the only weapon in our arsenal against the odds. On V1.1 it was my best friend, but in 1.21 it has been my worst enemy. I played crusher (like you) against the airport, and, like you, had no real difficulty with visibility, nor the mission itself. It played similarly to you, only in reverse kinda thing.

But, on subsequent attempts both Chapoi, and Airport, where I wasn't lucky enough that most of 'their' armour had been scrunched, I was swiped off the battlefield before even starting. I'm crap in tanks, but not that crap.

I also encountered it at Chapoi, times two sessions, most of us armed as snipers, and the opposition just took us out long before, 5 to 30 meters before, we had any visual on them. I subsequently removed the rain out of the mission, and, although the fog and the overcast were just as visibilty-poor (and great because of that). This 'advantage' of the enemy dissapeared, we were about equal. The only thing I haven't tried as Thobson has, is NVG. If it really does make the difference, I'll have to find my favorite rock to go hide under.

Have also noticed that Chapoi is murderous. It's flies to flypaper stuff. The longer you stick around, the larger the enemy count. You can either rush in and take out the big bad general, real quick, or suffer assaults from every direction. This isn't quite as pronounced using a tank, because lots of nasty things to crush is basically what you want. You waited for them to appear from time to time, wheras all I could thing of was how to escape

[THobson]

So, it has disappeared from my action menu altogether.

Itis all falling into place now.   Knowing the problem and finding the solution are two very different things - but at least it is a start.

No need to reorganise now - unless you want to know why you weren't told about the woman.