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Missions Depot => Mission Discussion => ArmA - Reviewed Missions => Topic started by: Cheetah on 04 Jan 2008, 19:14:28

Title: (Review Completed) [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Cheetah on 04 Jan 2008, 19:14:28
Air Traffic
Version: 1.02
Type: SP
Addons: none

Mission Summary:
Deliver Special Forces to Cedras and return to base.

OFPEC Download (http://www.ofpec.com/missions_depot/index.php?action=details&id=171)
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Wolfrug on 04 Jan 2008, 23:50:02
Package

Promo pic + readme + mission. No complaints!

Overview

No picture, no attempt at a story: why not use the promo pic as an overview pic?

Intro

N/A

Briefing

Massively short. Working links to the objectives though. No background story, no set-up for the continuation.

Mission

Exceedingly simple. Fly over to Cedras (takes a couple of minutes), drop off SF. You will get the command to return before they've all disembarked. Once returned, you are given an order to destroy some enemies massing near Corazol - changing from transport pilot to attack pilot in a second. It takes another couple of minutes to destroy all the T-72s + the one UAZ MG : manual fire + long distance Hellfire shooting leaves me with two rockets still left. Mission ends on return to base. Bunches of kills and a high end score.

Niggles: You can break your helicopter anywhere without the mission ending or even getting a reprimand: breaking the Blackhawk at the beginning (for instance bringing it down to a hard landing) will only prompt the SF to disembark and continue to Cedras on foot. Breaking the AH-1Z will not garner any response from anyone, and you're free to for instance walk back on foot from the T-72s. During my second playthrough I was shot down by some AA soldiers on my way back from the T-72 run, but no-one really seemed to care (no radio comms or enemies chasing or the like).

Debriefing

Short one-liner. Doesn't change depending on circumstances (say, that you've killed both your co-pilots and wrecked a Blackhawk and a Supercobra).

Outro

N/A

Summary

A very, very short flying mission which anyone who has passed the basic Blackhawk/AH-1Z tutorials will be able to pass with flying colours. It could benefit from a host of improvements, from more radio comms and reactions ("base" seemed to be some random guy, could be defined either has Firefly base or Crossroad, or barring that, given a proper name with setGroupID), and most importantly from some CHALLENGE. For instance, adding hostile ground troops around Cedras that you have to help chase off with your M136 miniguns while dropping off the SF; making it nighttime; putting the T-72s in hull-down positions or generally giving them more cover/make them more spread out so that they can't just be killed without you ever laying your sights on them; adding a random patrolling Shilka someplace; more objectives in general, maybe retrieve the SF team from Cedras after they've finished their mission?

There's nothing wrong with "basic" missions that are quickly loaded and quickly played, but the more "basic" they are, the more polished and accessible they need to be. Piper Warrior Tour Guide for instance is quite a basic mission with basic objectives, but it still took me several weeks to initially finish + a couple of more weeks to remove most of the bugs (and I also sort of went overboard with stuff there, but still). :) Add some more challenge, maybe a dialog that lets you pick a bunch of options (daytime, challenge rating, vehicles preferred?), and SOME kind of intro/outro + backstory and I'm sure it could turn out to be an okay mission. :)

Wolfrug out
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Cheetah on 04 Jan 2008, 23:56:45
Thanks for the detailed test report Wolfrug, already expected a report similar to this one. These missions are supposed to be for a new category of missions 'no frills' which hasn't, and in the future won't, see be realized. Most of the missions are really simple in terms of editing due to the idea of the no frills being that they should provide more enjoyable playtime than devtime.

I guess that some of them are too simple to see life. Interesting to see how the others are liked or hated ;).

Note that your report will be taken into consideration when I get to improving this mission, but I don't know how soon that will be.
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Mandoble on 05 Jan 2008, 01:14:11
Just a brief comment here: outro, intro, overview, pics and briefing represent for me no more than 0.001% of the potential fun of a mission while all of them usualy take days to complete (develop) :P
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Wolfrug on 06 Jan 2008, 00:11:12
I sort of figured it was something like that, since most people don't post a whole pack o' missions in one like that. A short explanation might have been in order though :D

Anyway, I didn't mean to sound overly critical! And I totally support a section of "no frills" missions. I think there are a -lot- of inherently good and atmospheric missions out there which might have been created in a couple of minutes of screwing around in the editor, but might still be perfectly okay for sharing (particularly since not everyone is skilled enough in the editor to create even relatively "simple" scenarios). I really hope one "bad" review doesn't crush the whole project.

I suppose though that when reviewing no-frills missions a slightly different approach has to be taken to the review. I.e., just looking for the basic stuff: does it start properly, does it end properly, are the objectives clear and obvious enough, and is the difficulty level suitable? I suppose stuff like intros, outros, overview pictures and storylines are "frills" that might not be necessary ;)

I've been poking around some of the other missions, and some of them look quite nice and entertaining indeed! Seriously - don't give up on this project. I'd be more than happy myself to post a bazillion no-frills, stress-release type of missions. Set up a system where you can post your own missions and get user comments & review scores on them, and a nice database where you could look up what kind of mission you want (Infantry, Air, Tank, whatever...), and I think it could be a big success. :)

Sorry if I sounded rude or somehow ungrateful. In this case though, the Air Traffic mission COULD use -a couple- of more frills, but nothing that can't be added in a couple of minutes. I forgot to add, btw: you won't get to the next part with the Cobra until after you've parked your Blackhawk exactly on top of the landing pad ;) Just a note...

Wolfrug out.
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: bert on 06 Jan 2008, 16:12:51
Overview and Briefing. No pic in overview, very basic. Briefing was short but outlined the objectives well enough. Perhaps a bit of background info could have improved things.

Mission. Part one was pretty straight forward. Not trouble encountered.
On the second part I took out the tanks without even seeing them. Hellfires kept missing the uaz for some reason so I made a high speed pas with rockets which did the job. Since I saw a bunch of infantry I decided to have a go at them for good measure. This got me shot down, I managed to put the cobra down amongst the burning tanks. Fought off about a dozen infantry with the gunner and ran off. Since the other black hawk crewman was still at the base, I got him to bring a helicopter out and pick us up. Pick-up went fine and then the stupid pilot flew us in to a tree :blink:.
Since I had saved just prior to engaging the tanks I had another go. Took out all of the tanks and the uaz from a distance and then flew down to the water and approached the enemy position from the islands in the bay despite not having to do so. I popped up outside visual range and hosed the area down with rockets and then returned to base. Mission completed. In 10 mns. Killed 5 T-72's and their crews, 9 infantry and the uaz. 2 AA soldiers were amongst the infantry.

I think that in the event of crashing or being shot down, being able to call in a SAR mission would be quite a nice idea. Its possible to do this yourself on the cobra section of the mission, but obviously its not possible on the first part. I agree with Wolfrung that the tanks could be spread out a bit. I didn't notice any friendlies in Corazol. Perhaps some defences could be added?

Summary. Whilst being basic, its was reasonably good fun. It reminded me of my OFP days as I made a ton of similarly basic missions to play quickly before firing up the editor, remember that map bug anyone?

I've played some of the other no frills missions. I'll try and post some reviews sometime. My internet connections is a bit iffy at the moment though as there's a fault on out phone line.

bert.

Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Rellikki on 13 Jan 2008, 03:31:12
Played with ArmA v.1.09 Beta + Queen's Gambit, TrueMods and Lowplants. Veteran difficulty.

Package
The package has everything it needs.

Overview
The overview is good, but you should add an image.

Briefing
The briefing seems fine. More information wouldn't hurt it, but it's fine like that too.

Mission
I dropped the enemy at the objective and flought back to base. No problems here, except the objective got completed before all of the SF guys had disembarked. Nothing serious though, but could use fixing...

As I landed in the base, I got the second objective, but what was I supposed to do with the UH-60 crew? Maybe you should ungroup them from the player's group at this point and make some other AI pilot join him (place him inside the AH1 in the gunner's position to make it easier). Also, you should make the game get saved at this point. I actually got killed trying to destroy the enemies... The UAZ with the MG broke the rotors... >:( At the second try I got shot down by an AA-missile. :dry: Managed to complete the objective succesfully on the third try, phew. I returned to base and mission got completed.

Debriefing
Completed the mission with 17 infantry kills, 5 tanks + 2 UAZ. Duration 8 minutes.

Summary
A basic flying mission. Good for beginners. Implement my suggestions above and it'll be perfect. ;)
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: mathias_eichinger on 21 Jan 2008, 16:47:54
Package, Overview and Briefing

These are up to your usual "No frills" standard.

Mission

Finally, a flying mission I am able to beat. But first things first. I am in a Blackhawk with a squad getting in, and the following airlift to Cedras is eventless. I just drop the squad off, head back and disembark. Then I am suddenly re-tasked to stop an enemy convoy in Corazol. I board the Cobra together with my gunner, and off we are. At Corazol it is quite easy to kill all T72s and a UAZ which completes the objective. However, every time I head away from the area, my motor shuts off and I am forced to eject while having sustained only minimal damage from a few MG rounds. Is that intentional?

The jog back to the Airport is very long and I had to do it on 4X time.

Conclusion

Nice little flying mission, but I would have preferred to fly back home.  :D

Keep up the good wirk.

Mathias
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Rellikki on 22 Jan 2008, 15:52:46
mathias, I don't think it was scripted or anything. There are some soldiers with AA missiles down there, so I think one of them hit you. ;)
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: mathias_eichinger on 23 Jan 2008, 11:58:33
Hi Rellikki!

Yes, that sounds reasonable, I don`t have much experience with flying missions and hence with AA soldiers.

Greetings

Mathias
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: Cheetah on 23 Jan 2008, 15:40:28
There are no scripts, so I guess the AA soldiers are the pain in the ass.
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic (please review)
Post by: Cheetah on 22 Jul 2008, 20:39:17
Updated this 'no frill' to v1.01.

One major change: added rescue possibility after completing the 2nd obj.
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic (please review)
Post by: schuler on 27 Jul 2008, 02:07:04
me  :clap: me  :clap: , mark it please
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic (under review)
Post by: schuler on 04 Aug 2008, 12:14:32
Hey Cheetah, a pilot will come from nowhere and  enter your attack heli if you don't board it fairly quick.

But I got this [bug] after I destroyed all the armor and started to remove some ground troops. i fought off enemy after the landing but no rescue came. There must be a fault in this trigger.

  i enjoyed the fight there with little ammo, nice challenge, picked up an AK and some nades to throw. i liked the men by the truck,!! a few well placed grenades cleaned them up. 
Cheers mate!

Anyone else?!?!?, feel free to post on this mission
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic (under review)
Post by: Cheetah on 08 Aug 2008, 21:32:30
I'll look into it.
Title: Re: [SP] Air Traffic (under review)
Post by: Cheetah on 11 Aug 2008, 11:46:15
Made an error by adding a variable of the same name as the rescue truck.

Final version uploaded. See first post.
Title: Re: (Review Completed) [SP] Air Traffic
Post by: schuler on 08 Sep 2008, 12:28:27
  :yes: review complete, but please feel free to discuss this mission further here if you like.
schuler