Thought I'd give a small interim beta report on this, if for no other reason than bumping it. Well worth the play!
Less weapons at the start and throughout the mission = works well. You really are left with very little from the start, but after a bit of scrounging around you've pretty soon amassed enough for everyone.
One thing is of course that once one of your soldiers has 4 mags, that will probably last him until the end of the mission. Why? Well...for one, you generally keep your guys carefully hidden and try to avoid getting them killed. So they don't always get to shoot very much. Second, ArmA AI are by default frighteningly accurate (I hate seeing an enemy shoot : almost always means that one of your own just went down -> retry), which means that in a firefight which in the real world would expend thousands of rounds, in ArmA you're done without reloading once.
Solution? Well...unless via a HD-weaponry mod, or somehow scripting it (or maybe 1.09 will bring full functionality to the setSkill array command?), I guess there's just no 'solution' to this 'problem'. One thing you do want to keep tabs on is the number of AT-rockets you've got available though, although I've never really been in danger of running out. Especially as in ArmA, unlike OFP, you only need one well-placed rocket to the rear of a T-72 to make the crew bail, so a standard load of 3 RPGs is enough to take out a whole fast reaction force (if used carefully. Then again, missing usually means a facefull of lead a second later
)
Some notes: When rescuing Maria, be sure to unassign all vehicles from her (maybe disable her AI to be on the sure side) and such: I drove her to the safehouse in a stolen UAZ with a MG (with her as gunner
), and once there she got out, ran a bit to the side, waited, and then re-entered the gunner position of the uaz. I placed her on Alcazar to watch the road below
Speaking of: the Kamov was just hovering near Alcazar. Said girlfriend shot it down with her machinegun, and it carefully landed near the houses down there. Driving a repair truck + refuel truck (freely available from the base where the police are) to it repaired it fully - zhasam, you've got yourself a gunship! Doesn't make things -overly- easy (still Strela launchers and Shilkas around to worry you), but...well. Might want to consider making it a little harder to get the Kamov (for instance the pilot could place a satchel near it when getting out and then blow it up like 30 seconds later or somesuch: scripting that wouldn't be foolproof by any means, but it'd work sometimes?). Then again, it was probably a fluke the chopper was just hovering in such a friendly manner, and also luck it didn't explode when falling down.
Carla I've already PM'd you about, but in short: 10 minutes is a little too little. It really only leaves the Pita airbase to exploit her in, and sadly a single satchel someplace there won't do TOO much good. Speaking of : is there any chance you could make the effect of killing Beria before all his men a little more tangible? I assassinated him with Carla, but no-one really seemed to care overly much. Not really sure how that could be achieved though: a global decrease of "allowFleeing"?
You could possibly make the American weapondrop a LITTLE more rewarding: the Mando Mortar and the Stinger Launcher are both great, but the 4 M4s are a bit dry. I think what the group misses the most at the point where you feel strong enough to attack the AA site and so on is heavier weapons: machineguns, grenadelaunchers. Maybe add a M240 or a M16-M203 to the lot?
Just to spice things up inbetween all these AK-variants. Also: the UH-60 just kept flying around the dropzone in circles after picking up Floyd. Dunno why. Suggestion: just script in something that deletes it after the player is X meters away: you can't fight the ArmA chopper AI, after all.
More and faster response to your actions: check. They're everywhere.
Although I've never tried playing at night, even though you keep recommending it. Partly because I've got weirdo glitches with my NV (it turns off now and then for no reason - probably drivers/GPU related), partly because I know the ArmA AI doesn't have a lot of trouble seeing in the dark (even without NV goggles).
I should probably try it just for a more atmospheric experience.
Oh, btw: when Augustus panics and runs, he still doesn't get out of his transport.
Just sits there, cow-like.
And finally: when loading a retry after having flown around a bit in my Kamov (close to Pita airbase) I got myself a loadgame related CTD. I'm hoping I can still 'fix' my save (can't remember how right now, but it was doable, I think ^^), but yep. I have to admit though I've got quite a lot of mods running in the background (MaddMatt's, FDF, Hulk's Oggplayer..), so it might also be due to those.
Thanks for many hours of fun! If I find anything else to comment on, I'll be sure to do it here.
Wolfrug out.
Topic: (Review Completed) [SP] Punishment Battalion (Read 17835 times)