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Author Topic: (Review Completed) [SP] Defensive Strike  (Read 18244 times)

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Offline THobson

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(Review Completed) [SP] Defensive Strike
« on: 30 May 2004, 15:37:12 »
23 August 2004

*** Mission and Readme file Updated ***

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/trevor.hobson/Operation%20Flashpoint/A%20Defensive%20Strike/A%20Defensive%20Strike.zip

Background
The Russians have brought a group of SCUD-D missiles on to Kolgujev.  They must to be taken out in one strike before they are dispersed across the island.  The missiles have heavy AA cover so you will need to go in on the ground.

You will lead a team of Special Ops that will parachute into the centre of the island.  Your job is to clear the landing area for a squad of infantry (Bravo squad) arriving by helicopter.  Together you will attack and destroy the missiles.

You will have some control over the helicopters and Bravo squad by use of radio commands, but be careful, they will do as you tell them.  Tell the chopper to deliver Bravo before the first base is clear and it will fly right into trouble.

Apart from the scene of your death, there are two endings.  One where you call in the rescue helicopters before clearing all the AA, and the other (successful) ending where the rescue helicopters survive.

There are three main concentrations of Russians that you are instructed to attack: Base1, a road Junction and Base2 and they are meant to be dealt with in that order.  Bravo squad will land in Base1 so clearing that base is essential to you getting your own reinforcements.  If you bypass Base1 and attack the road junction first you will find Russians from Base1 breathing down your neck.  If you go straight to Base2 it will be reinforced from Base1 and the road junction (as well as from elsewhere - but that happens anyway).


I would really appreciate any specific comments that I can use to improve this mission.

Thanks

----------------------------------------------------------------
Mission Type: Single Player

Mission Name: A Defensive Strike (Kill the SCUDs v2.0)

      Format: PBO File
          
    Add-ons: None needed

    Flashpoint Version: Built and tested in ver 1.96

Edit: This mission has been reviewed and is available from the Missions Depot.
« Last Edit: 09 May 2009, 01:29:03 by Walter_E_Kurtz »

Dubieman

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #1 on: 30 May 2004, 16:53:13 »
I guess I'll give it a try...


And autosaves are a tricky thing as the player has one save already. Too many and the mission is too easy as you can die and then easily find who killed you and where and act accordingly. Too few and each retry is like restarting the mission.

Then again you could use the cheat for saving..... But its not recommended unless you are seriously bad at OFP. ::)

Dubieman

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #2 on: 30 May 2004, 16:55:25 »
Thank god a small download!
But when submitting to OFPEC oficially its got to be in .zip form. Even though I like a .pbo for beta testing. :)

Dubieman

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #3 on: 30 May 2004, 18:34:02 »
Okay I haven't finished it yet but there are a few things I would like to see changed.

-AI groupies don't need Binoculars
-very hard for the first part, increrase the difficulty as you go along

-mgs are a real pain, but realistic, leave them there

-enemy too smart, as they saw me in the dark no NVs or flares at 250m away

-maybe have an increase in group members as I lost everyone one time in 5 secs

Well my almost succesful try:
I liked the intro, good camera work. Briefing was ok, nothing wrong with it. I took the M21 but I haven't tried anything else yet so my susppicions are that the HK is better. I started in the chopper clipping along and my team was ejected and nobody died on landing. :)
But after traveling a little my guys started whining WHERE ARE YOU WHERE ARE YOU. I got them together again after a few minutes. Come to find out they are sitting there with their binoculars and checking the landscape. Please change this, 6 was 400m away from me. :(
Told everyone to drop their binoculars and moved on.
Tried every way to get into the base and none worked after an hour and a half. I had a genius idea to set my guys up in a firing line to the west of the base and bait the enemy into running after me and my m21 after popping their mg gunner. Nothing, so I crawled up and blew up one bmp then ran. It worked yeah, except as I'm defending my squad against patrols to the north they say guy at 6 o clock south 100m, okay they will take care of it.
Wham! I'm dead my squad let the two guys come up and shoot me and two others before being cut down by Hks.
Most of my guys had LAWs and even after commanding them to use HKs nothing. Urgh stupid AI, maybe increase my teammates skill.
I called in bravo a  few times to experiment and those AA soldiers (two of them?) are not very smart, one missed and the other hit the chopper on the ground. Bravo got suppressed and killed then some spetz natz blew everyone including himself up with a grenade. Weird I thought, suicide? Glitch probably.

I'd suggest decreasing the number of enemies in the first camp so you can then increase the difficulty as you go to the road and the last base.

I was really hopin to have that UH60 use its rockets and flatten the base, but nope, it would have really helped me out. :) :P But don't put that chopper part in, its my opinion.

Don't let this deter you, its a good mission that I'll try and beat.:beat:

Offline THobson

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #4 on: 30 May 2004, 23:14:30 »
Unfortunately the site I use will unzip any zipped file I upload, so it is .pbo or nothing I am afraid.

Thank you for your comments.  I have embedded my own.

-AI groupies don't need Binoculars
OK I will change this.

-very hard for the first part, increrase the difficulty as you go along
Er… well actually it does get harder

-mgs are a real pain, but realistic, leave them there
Pity their light does not move where they point the gun.

-enemy too smart, as they saw me in the dark no NVs or flares at 250m away
Are you sure it was them that saw you?  (See your comments about patrols to the north and south)  Bye the way there are quite a few NV Officers.

-maybe have an increase in group members as I lost everyone one time in 5 secs
I would like to see what others think about this.  I have just had a run through and lost none of my squad.  Some of Bravo would also have survived had I not killed the last ones when I took out the SCUDs. but as I said in my readme file I know how it works.

I liked the intro, good camera work.
Thanks

Briefing was ok, nothing wrong with it. I took the M21 but I haven't tried anything else yet so my susppicions are that the HK is better.
The m21 is a bit of a give away in the dark

But after traveling a little my guys started whining WHERE ARE YOU WHERE ARE YOU. I got them together again after a few minutes. Come to find out they are sitting there with their binoculars and checking the landscape. Please change this, 6 was 400m away from me.  

I am not sure what to do about this.  They bale out very close together at high speed.  I will check to see if I have miss set something

Tried every way to get into the base and none worked after an hour and a half. I had a genius idea to set my guys up in a firing line to the west of the base and bait the enemy into running after me and my m21 after popping their mg gunner. Nothing
I have now fixed this.  The base goes on alert if any of the mgs (etc.) are taken out.

, so I crawled up and blew up one bmp then ran. It worked yeah, except as I'm defending my squad against patrols to the north they say guy at 6 o clock south 100m, okay they will take care of it.
Wham! I'm dead my squad let the two guys come up and shoot me and two others before being cut down by Hks.
Most of my guys had LAWs and even after commanding them to use HKs nothing. Urgh stupid AI, maybe increase my teammates skill.

OK I will have a look at that.  I think I did give them a bit of a boost over the default.

I called in bravo a  few times to experiment and those AA soldiers (two of them?) are not very smart, one missed and the other hit the chopper on the ground.
Every time I do this the chopper is taken out first shot - that's what is good about this game it is never the same.  Maybe I had better put another AA soldier in.

I'd suggest decreasing the number of enemies in the first camp so you can then increase the difficulty as you go to the road and the last base.
The road junction is not too difficult but the final base is more difficult than the first one.  As I said I would like to see how others get on.

I was really hopin to have that UH60 use its rockets and flatten the base, but nope, it would have really helped me out.   But don't put that chopper part in, its my opinion.
That would be too easy - except of course for the AA.

Thanks again.

Dubieman

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #5 on: 31 May 2004, 02:06:10 »
Yeah so many unknowns here. I know your gonna wait for others to test  it. But remove the binoculars off the AI team members. The reason 6 was so far away was becasue of the binocular problem. Well I'll give the base another try tomorrow with an HK.

And are all the LAW guys used when you test the mission cause I know you probably cruise through it cause your the designer?
I ask this because 4/6 ppl in my group are holding laws up when in danger, keep low, and engage at will.
This only leaves me and the medic with rifles at the ready.
Well 1 and a 1/2 cause I had the M21. :P

If I fail horribly then I'll bypass the first base and let Bravo deal with it to see what the road and the last base are like.

GRK out
 :cheers:

Offline THobson

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #6 on: 31 May 2004, 11:28:04 »
I am puzzled by the LAW thing.  It is not something I experience.  If there is armor around or if they have just killed armor then they do keep holding their LAWs otherwise they seem pretty good with the HKs.  I suppose you could tell them to use their HKs but that is a pain.

Are all the LAWs used?  Well in total the mission has 14x armor units (BMP/Shilka/T72/T80) and 6x SCUD almost all of which needs to be destroyed to complete the mission, but then you do have Bravo to help with some of it.

Bye the way, all the AI in your squad is on maximum ability.

Dubieman

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #7 on: 31 May 2004, 15:21:28 »
I'm not sure it may be the way I set my guys up. I'll try a test mission to see what LAW guys do when they are ordered to go prone and are in danger mode.

I'll stop complaining until I can beat some this mission.

cya

Offline dmakatra

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #8 on: 31 May 2004, 17:19:39 »
I'm gonna try this out. Downloading now. :)

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

Offline dmakatra

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #9 on: 31 May 2004, 18:58:03 »
OVERVIEW:
Like the text but you need to rework it and make it smaller so you can fit in a pic there as well.
INTRO:
:-\
BRIEFING:
Good, good. Could use a handgun though. And remove those binocs, AI can't use them very good. BTW, I can't see why Bravo can't paradrop with me directly? Must be much smarter.
MISSION:
Make that the intro instead. I don't want to watch that every time I play the mission.
I wouldn't mind a retry pos after the jump.
I got some msgs from some dude Charlie Red 1, said he was closing in and was ready to drop me? WTF? I allready jumped.
So I took the base m-kay? Easy. Lost one man though. Anyway, called in the chopper. Unfortunatley, Bravo got caught in some kind of bug and stayed at the base. WTF?
So I took the crossroads myself. Harder than the base, especially since I had no support. My guys started shooting at the emtpy M2s, this is a weirdo bug that OFP has and I don't think anyone know what causes this. But you have to remove those M2s and replace them with something cause the player don't want to see this happen. Under no circumstances.
Anyway, I lost another dude and since I had to do all the work myself cause my AI was set to hold fire I ran out of ammo. I got back to the base. Bravo was still in that bug.
Attackted the base, 3 and 6 got wacked before I got there and it was just me and good ol' 2 left. We cleared the camp by ourself. Unfortunatley, 2 got wacked during clean up duty. :-\
Blammed the SCUDs, called the chopper. And what happens? After all this fighting with no support from Bravo or anything the chopper got knocked down by a shilka. WTF? I didn't know there were 3 shilkas (wacked 2 of em) !! I assumed it was clear. OK, maybe my fault but it wasn't a surprise, it was really annoying. You have to add those shilkas to an objective. Like "Clear the area of tripple A" or something like that.
Conclusion:
I found this very fun even without Bravo since I got it a bit harder and I'm quite a good player. Although that bug REALLY needs to be fixed. Also, remove the M2s and add that shilka objective and we have a neat mission that is something extra out of the ordinary.

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

Offline THobson

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #10 on: 01 Jun 2004, 11:58:42 »
To:  The Real Armstrong.

Thank you for your helpful comments.  First let me admit to being a bit new to some of this so for example I don't know how to put a picture in the Overview.  I will add this to the list of thing I need to figure out.

Hand gun:  Which would you like?

AI with binoculars - I will take these out.

I have not figured out how to make an intro - I will look at that.

Charlie is the call sign of the chopper that drops you.  You were not supposed to bale out, just wait in the helicopter until you are ejected.  Can I stop someone baling out themselves?

What does m-kay mean?

Bravo bug:  This also happened to me for the first time last night.  On investigating I found that one member of the squad was just standing around and not attempting to board the truck.  The only solution I found then was to shoot him, the truck then moved off.  This seems to be an intermittent problem.  I think it is due to two members of Bravo being assigned as the driver.  I assign one and I suspect that sometimes this may come after an automatic assignment.  I have recently moved a few waypoints so that could be why it is new.  I will remove the assignment I have coded in and just allow the driver to be assigned automatically and see if that fixes it.

The Road junction/crossroads.  You will always have to do this yourself.  Bravo drive to close by, get out of the truck and take up a defensive position facing back the way you came.  They just watch your back while you do the business.

On the Machine Guns.  I also noticed that sometimes my guys would just keep shooting when there was nothing as far as I could see to shoot at.  I had not realised it was the empty machine guns.  This is a new ‘feature', I don't recall it happening before - it is also intermittent.  I will replace all the East MGs with Empty MGs and then assign a Russian as the gunner to see if that fixes it.

Actually there should be 4 Shilkas.  I thought it might be more realistic not to know that - but I can understand the frustration.  I like your idea of making clearing the AA a separate objective and I will do that.

It will take a little while to do this.  I will let you know when I have updated it in case you wish to try again.

I have also completely re-written the radio system.  There are separate channels for giving instructions to Bravo, Charlie (your Chopper) and Delta (Bravo's chopper), that will be in the next update.

Thanks again for your time and comments.

Offline dmakatra

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #11 on: 01 Jun 2004, 15:32:34 »
Hand gun:  Which would you like?
Doesn't matter, just pick a NATO one.

Charlie is the call sign of the chopper that drops you.  You were not supposed to bale out, just wait in the helicopter until you are ejected.  Can I stop someone baling out themselves?
I did not bail out myself, I was automaticly ejected. Locking the vehicle will stop the player from ejecting, not AI though.

What does m-kay mean?
OK.

Thanks again for your time and comments.
Now, about that check you're supposed to send me... ;D

:beat: *Gets Shot* :beat:

Offline THobson

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #12 on: 01 Jun 2004, 16:14:23 »
So you were automatically ejected - which is what should happen - and then you got messages from Charlie about dropping you!  That is totally wierd.  You should only get 2 messages: 1. Crossing enemy coast and 2. Appraching drop zone.  Shortly after that you get ejected.  I must have played that part of the mission over a hundred times and never got anything else.

I don't even know how to begin testing this.

Anyway it will take quiet a bit more work before I upload a modified version.

Seriously - thanks for the comments, they are really helpful

Dubieman

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #13 on: 02 Jun 2004, 03:57:51 »
Well I have been busy and had no time to post yet. I beat it. I used totally diff tactics, I just kept shooting everyone from my pos above the base on the hill, I let them come to me and my HK death squad.

Its not too hard, its good, I don't know what the prob was before....

ONE glaring problem: Two bmps in 1st base, one rushed me and got rocketed.

THe other was driving aroud and the crew got out and rushed my team on foot? I killed them quickly and started picking off mgs with the law and rpg I picked up.
Then bombarded the base and wiped out any thing I saw.
I let bravo come in and the UH60 was never touched maybe except for a few bullet holes. Bravo lost two and cleared the place for me.  :)

So I went down and reloaded ammo and healed. Got in bmp. Bravo wouldn't move in their truck so I busted it with my bmp ramming it. They moved on but were of no help later in the mission. I think they ran into a squad or bmp or sumthing. :'(

I rushed the raod and took it while taking one glance of a RPG. PHEW! Lots of infantry so I unloaded everyone and went to manuel fire. They all died, oh well. A bmp responded and I got real panicky but he didn't fire!?
I dispatched him via sabot and moved on to the base and NO ONE fired a single shot!? I bumped off the scuds and 3 AA when a shilka and bmp came and I saved. The bmp and shilka attacked and I died so restart and I had a really messed up bmp by then, nearly all red. I took out everything after and a lot of infantry. I thought the t80 might get angry but I figured out they were toasted ( the crew). I stole the t80  ::) and wrecked more havoc on any and all enemies. Everything was dead and I couldn't call in the chopper so I scouted out the raod and blew up the remaining guns and found out bravo is down, oh well, moved on to the evac and nothing would come, no radio commands and I lit those fires and nothing happened still.
Spent 5 mintutes trying to end it, I got out of the tank too.
No shilkas either. :P

Finally just used the endmission thing to see if an outro was there. No outro, I'm sure you put one in.
Fix that bmp thing and the last chopper part.

Otherwise listen to armstrong's remarks for everything else. 8)

Offline THobson

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Re:A Defensive Strike
« Reply #14 on: 02 Jun 2004, 09:17:38 »
Thanks.  It is a real insight hearing how others get on with it.  I think I know the problem with Bravo and the truck.  I will also write a script to fix them if they hang up in future.

NO ONE fired at you in the final base!!  I will need to look at that.

I think I know the problem with the final helicopter.  It was caused by the problems with Bravo (don't ask).  That is fixed in the version I am working on now (not yet up loaded), that will have a much more refined set of radio commands.

Thanks for your comments, I am sorry the end did not work properly
« Last Edit: 02 Jun 2004, 09:18:24 by THobson »