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Author Topic: (Review Completed) [SP] The Uprising v2.0  (Read 19701 times)

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Offline markb50k

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Re:The Uprising v1.4
« Reply #30 on: 08 Dec 2005, 05:18:34 »
Uploaded Version 1.4

I dont know if everyone had this problem but I was getting locked up at the mission briefing because of a disableUserInput call I made at the beginning of a cutscene that starts the mission.  I fixed it and a new version of the mission is on the first post.

Such a bonehead mistake... sorry.

LoTekK

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Re:The Uprising v1.4
« Reply #31 on: 08 Dec 2005, 06:30:23 »
Ah, so that's what it was. :p
Rapidshare decided to be nice to me this time round, so I managed to d/l 1.4. Will give it a shot later today. :)

edit:
Okay, took a crack at this tonight.
RES 1.96, vetmode, no superai, Benchmark 5338

Package
Not much to say here. Readme does its job.

Overview
I reckon the picture works well.

Intro
Nicely done. Simple, to the point, and as Mikero mentioned, it leaves questions in the air.

Briefing
Nice work on this one. It gave plenty of info, and retained a decent air of officiality. Definitely adds to the atmosphere and immersion. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the linnk at the end of each report (S1, S2, S3) leads to the letter from your commander, instead of the main links page.

Notes
Nicely done, well written, good immersion/atmosphere.

Gear
Nice choice of weapons. Nothing over the top (though the M21 is arguably out of place).

Group
Why is my driver a Major? :p

Mission
Man, this thing was running a little choppy for some time. Figured it was alright, just all the activity needing to settle down. I hopped in the HMMWV and left everybody else behind, ordering the driver to the nearest town to the north (forget the name). Third guy I spoke to gave up a resistance leader in some godforsakenly far away town (I thought they were neighbours? :P).

So, Hop in the hummer again, and have my driver bring me there. Ask around some more, finally narrow down the leader and arrested him. So far so good, I have 49 minutes left. Manage to find another leader, and five caches.

Big shock came when I was some ways north of Montignac: "TWO! Fuel Low!" Wha? Already? Managed to run out of fuel not 200m from the gas pumps at the airbase. Not so happy about that. Anyways, since I was at the airbase, I thumbed a ride from Echo 1-1 to the next cache location, and was in Montignac when the uprising finally happened.

Wow. My framerate had sort of settled down over the past hour, but it went to hell in a handbasket once the uprising started. Anyways, managed to nail a number of resistance troops in Montignac (along with a couple friendlies in a hand grenade incident :P), but I lost most of the island in the space of about two minutes, at best guess. It was quite literally:
Uprising starts. We've lost <insert town name>! <town name> has been overrun! Contact at <town>. We've lost <town>.
Bam, bam, bam. Like dominos. And this was after nailing two resistance leaders and five caches, too. I'd hate to see how strong their forces are with a full complement.

Anyways, that was about as far as I got tonight. And I'll be starting over the next time I try since I stupidly double-clicked on the mission name in the notebook. ::)

What can I say. Pretty awesome mission you've got going here. Aside from the performance issues, which I'm guessing are mostly unavoidable, it's pretty darned amazing. The initial phase is pretty original in execution, though I'm curious if uncovering ammo caches and arresting leaders actually affects the uprising strength, other than culling it completely if the conditions are met (see my above comments).
« Last Edit: 08 Dec 2005, 17:52:22 by LoTekK »

Offline markb50k

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Re:The Uprising v1.5
« Reply #32 on: 09 Dec 2005, 23:14:47 »
Uploaded Version 1.5 to first post:

Major change - overhauled the command engine using CoC as inspiration.  After playing the war part a few times, I realized how hard it was to give units orders, so its now more streamlined including
- - now you can click on the unit markers to select it
- - after selecting a unit, just SHIFT-CLICK the map to get them to move
- - removed the "Get Status" option, now whenever you click a unit a status window shows the unit's strength down to fuel and damage levels (an improvement)
- - with this streamlined system, I have taken away the ability of giving commands to multiple groups at the same time.  Maybe I will add it in later, but the improvements in the command engine more than make up for it.

@LoTekk
Thanks for the feedback.  I would imagine the performance can drag a bit at certain points like war start, but it should improve a bit after that and the new scripts get going.

Hehe, my 2 is a Major so I could keep the group movements orderly, otherwise the game engine has them all screwed up.

The capturing of resistance leaders and caches are VITAL to winning this mission, as I am quickly learning more and more.

Arresting leaders improves the civilian morale and for each guy captured about 5% less rebels will be created at war start

Caches have a small improvement to morale also, but their main benefit is two fold:
1) any town that has its cache found will not produce rebels during the initial attack, any civilians wanting to rebel will have to go to a town that still hasn't had its cache discovered.  Using this knowledge you can create 'safe-zones' by finding all the caches on a portion of the island, that will be safe at least during the initial attack.
2) I dont know if people know this, but periodically the rebels will recruit more fighters from the towns and a found cache will decrease the amount of recruits by half, along with Western control, and Western presence in the town.  All of that together in a town can pretty much wipe-out any recruitment there.

Thanks for the kind words, and hopefully this version will be even better.

LoTekK

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Re:The Uprising v1.5
« Reply #33 on: 10 Dec 2005, 00:04:41 »
Rapidshare ain't biting. :(
Any chance I could get the file emailed over again? :-X
Looking forward to checking out the new version. The improvements sound excellent.

Oh. What about the HMMWV's inexplicably low fuel level? Now that I know it's not such a huge deal, since I can gas up on the way to Montignac, but it's a little odd that it runs out of juice so quickly.
« Last Edit: 10 Dec 2005, 00:06:09 by LoTekK »

Offline markb50k

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Re:The Uprising v1.5
« Reply #34 on: 10 Dec 2005, 05:09:55 »
@LoTekk
I'll send you the file.

About the HMMWV, I dont know what the deal is with it.  Its completely full when you start off, but some reason the HMMWV drinks alot of fuel real quick.  Maybe a game error?

LoTekK

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Re:The Uprising v1.5
« Reply #35 on: 10 Dec 2005, 09:23:12 »
Hmm, interesting. I'll just have to remember to gas up near Montignac then. :)

Got the email, thanks! :)

Offline Mikero

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Re:The Uprising v1.5
« Reply #36 on: 10 Dec 2005, 23:31:32 »
@Mark

this is an important mission, too good to miss out on. email me the file and I will host it on the beta forum site

mikero at norfolk dot nf

(you'll have to get past my spammer)

Just say no to bugz

Offline markb50k

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #37 on: 11 Dec 2005, 07:04:18 »
Uploaded Version 1.6
Sorry for all the updates but this should be the last tweak unless someone comes up with a great idea or there is a bug.  Now I am going to try to enjoy PLAYING the darn thing.

@Mikero

Sent you the file.  Thanks for deeming this mission worthy of being hosted.
« Last Edit: 11 Dec 2005, 07:04:46 by markb50k »

klavan

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #38 on: 11 Dec 2005, 12:34:48 »
Here's my few words.

PACKAGE
The readme is complete. The pics both for the ofpec and flashnews are missing but there's time for them.

OVERVIEW
Good pic. I would prefer to see the mission version number below it.

INTRO
Good idea the betrayer. But i would like to see more a close camera work while he speak, just to look at his face to see a more emotional behaviour. The music choice is fine but please make it fade out slowly: the sudden music stop detract from atmosphere and suspence.

BRIEFING
Absolutely complete. Well explained and professional. It adds immersion and put you in the mood the right way. I found only a typo (i supposed) in the order of battle section: Traspo Platoon -->Transport Platoon.
I removed the pistol from the inventory of my squadmates: i suffered some problems in the past, with my men that preferred to use their sidearm instead of their AR/MG.

MISSION
Love the possibility to set the difficult by dialog. I set the dificult to 60% in order to have a quite simple run to finish the mission as fast as i can before you release this stuff.  ;)
I began to experiment with the command interface before to start to interrogate the civilians and i found it's quite easy to use. No problem. found.
Next i began to talk with the civilians in order to gather info. I would like to hear them speaks and to move their lips instead of simple titletext. In addiction why not adding some female characters?
After a while i began to receive hints and with my hummer I ran here and there for weapons cache and rebels leaders. Finally i found 2 leaders and 4 caches.
Just a question: does the player's behaviour influence the civilian reaction? I mean: by having my AR on the back is more usefull for gathering infos insted of having it in my hands ready to fire?
I would like to see a more dynamic environment: why not built up a demonstration? Or to make the "hostile" civs runs away after the interrogation o similar?
Or just another idea: to set up occasional fights between the pro and the anti-americans civils (and if the player interferes the support would increase/decrease and the uprising would starts immediately).
Just  a question: i found difficult to move the troops to discover the weapon chaces (it's possible to do it?).

That's all for now: within 5 minutes the uprising will begins so i'm going to face the revolt. I will report the results later today or tomorrow.
At this point i can say that this is a very good mission and i like the general idea. Only try to make the investigation part more dynamic and interactive.
Bye.
Klavan  

OFPJunkie

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #39 on: 11 Dec 2005, 13:21:45 »
I anticipate this mission going to the pending pool...I smell a reviewing fight....... 8)

klavan

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #40 on: 11 Dec 2005, 14:49:28 »
OK, the uprising started.

The last minutes before it were full of tension and inquietude. From where they will came from? Wiil they will move directly to the cities or will they slowly crawls from the mountains and the forests? Will they attack in small groups or in relative big units? What about their morale: will they fight 'till death or maybe will they surrender after facing an Abram?  
 
In a attempt ot reduce intial losses due to confusion and uncertainty i had (where and when possible) gathered all the scattered troops triyng to form major groups even if this would had means to leave some potential targets under rebel's control without the need to fight our troops.

Then a moment after i calm myself down a little, by being sure that I've made all the possible initial steps to be prepared for the fights, the firsts  messages began to clung the radio network.
Spotting reports and firefights around Morton, Levie and even Camp Patton. Few minutes and Saint Philippe, the Naval Base and many other locations fell down to enemy control or were under attack.
This mayhem make me really nervous and first casulaties reports really don't helped me.

OK, Klavan, I said to my self, you can't avoid losses: this is a COC style mission and simply you cannot control everything!!!

Luckly I did the right choice: apart for a couple of isolated groups that were attacked by overwelming forces (at least i suppose so) our other units seemed to react very well and the attackers were defeated quite easily and rapidly.
At this point, realizing that from this moment the tide must change I began to organize multiple attacks against occupied cities and the combination of Abrams, Bradleys and Apaches proved to be the right medicine for these parasites.
Surprisingly none of our MBTs or AFVs were hitted by RPGs or ATGMs (are these weapons in rebel hands?).
Within 45 minutes the both the centarl and the southern parts of Everon fall back under our control and now we're heding toward north to take back the remaining cities.

I'm really enjoying this mission and I haven't found any real bugs but only few some small issues that i'm going to explain:

-The UH60s are quite difficult to handle: made 'em landing sometimes is tedious (they touch the ground and then they jump back in the air without give me the time to get in or out) and they tend to behave independently when they spot the enemy, forcing me to give 'em orders over orders to make 'em do what i want. I know the choppers are terrible in OFP.......In addiction if i'm embarked on one of 'em it's difficult to select their markers without selecting my own one. This is fastidious and time consuming. You could disable the clickable marker for the HQ unit.

-I passed most of the time looking with attention at the map and often i missed some radio messages.....I think the sounds for radio messages are very important in a COC style mission like this one, saving you from these potential problems.

-Sometimes units reports the same message (when they spot an enemy) two or three times within few seconds. I don't know if this is a bug but these message sometimes distracts me.

-I would like to have the possibility to set the behaviour of the units. In combat mode they move veeeerrrrrryyyyy sssslllooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy and if i need to move ground units by foot from a location to another i want they to be as fast as possible. I've noticed that moving infantry units through forest eventually cause the same units to remain blocked among the trees. Maybe an "aware" behaviour would solve this.

Again GOOD JOB!
Klavan



 
 


 




Offline markb50k

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #41 on: 11 Dec 2005, 17:44:15 »
@Klavan:

Thanks for the review.  Some definite ideas here.  I will take a look at your suggestions.

- holding your weapon or having it on your back doesnt affect civilian reaction.  I debated adding that in but since you don't have a whole lot of time before the  uprising to do all the things you need to do, i figured making the player keep switching stances would be tedious.

- I will look at a some way of making clicking of unit markers a little easier.

- AI has AT weapons, I'm surprised you didn't lose any vehicles.

- For the UH60s did you try the LAND option?  I know helicopters are really screwy in OFP, but I didn't have many issues with the LAND option.

- Setting your subunits behavior should be pretty easy for me to implement.  I'll try it out.

Thanks again, perhaps I will take out handguns from footsoldiers.

Offline Mikero

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #42 on: 12 Dec 2005, 04:43:30 »
This quite superb mission is STILL beta folks, but it is now hosted on the beta hosting site so that many many more of us can get stuck in and make a few <ahem> 'suggestions'.

the link above is to the page where some few missions are located, you'll have to trawl thru to locate this one as it's uploading while I scribble this.

 Uprising1v6.zip (1 meg)

« Last Edit: 12 Dec 2005, 05:43:31 by Mikero »
Just say no to bugz

Conors

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #43 on: 12 Dec 2005, 22:33:48 »
the hummer just guzzels petrol (i belive the amaricans call it 'gas') so you could replace it with a jeep or civ car, less realistic more economical petrol wise

lilwillie_WI

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Re:The Uprising v1.6
« Reply #44 on: 13 Dec 2005, 16:34:52 »
wow, I lucked out in my getting to be back on

Downloaded and played this excellent mission some.

I used 80%(yes, I am weak) just to get a feel for the mission first off. How to use the Command engine and to better understand things. Which I can say was awesome.

Intro was great, I enjoyed the resistance soldier having a moral issue with what he was doing, gave it a realistic feel to the start.

Briefing and Overview where cool. Well laid out, didn't notice any spelling errors. Great military look to it.

Mission itself. Very fun. I jumped into a 'Hawk and flew south. Figured I would secure the south region to keep backdoor safe. Moved in some armor and air support incase things got hot. Southern three towns (there names escape me at the moment) where cleared and secured. Once I captured a leader I must have triggered something because the timer started. I used that time to get some caches under control and nab a few more resistance leaders. With a few minutes remaining I had my forces group into regional control in a safe zone. Covering, North airport, Naval base, Patton base, and a western location near the Gov's mansion. Timer hit zero and all hell broke loose. Only the Naval base seemed to take casualties. Some resistance where spotted at Patton, where I was. That is where I left off.

I also thought the radio messages where very well done. Good voice and written great.

This, as Abandoned Armies was, is the exact style of mission I truely enjoy. I hope more people follow this lead with ideas of thier own.

Very good job so far. Report back later with how the war goes.