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Offline Wolfrug

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(Review Completed) [SP] Piper Warrior Tour Guide
« on: 08 Oct 2007, 12:21:26 »
Mission: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (v.1.11)
Version needed: ArmA 1.08
Type: Single Player only
Teamswitch : No.
Island: Sara
Requirements:
Gnat's Piper Warrior II
Mission by: Wolfrug
Download link: Mirror 1 (for 1.1): Filefront
Download link: Mirror 1 (for 1.11): Filefront

Version History:

1.0 BETA
-First release

1.1 BETA
-Added markers to make the bombing run easier
-Fixed WP not being selected after plateau landing
-Fixed bug with cutscene not always starting after bombing run
-Made failure before the hijacking as lethal as failure after the hijacking :)
-Fixed bugging out RACS in outro
-Hopefully fixed the voices *fingers crossed*

1.11 BETA hotfix
- Alternative version of voices that are uglier but hopefully not bugged (kudos to Cepstral)
- Hopefully fixed two-paged overview
- Added BETA testers to outro ;)

NOTE: In my humble opinion, the original voices in 1.1 are MUCH more natural and pleasant than the ones in 1.11. I personally have no problems with the original voices. However, quite a lot do, so that's what 1.11 there should fix for you.

NOTE 2: This mission is presently not compatible with Solus' Extended Init/Fired EventHandlers, for reasons completely unknown to me.  :confused: To be able to play it, you might have to remove those addons from your addons folder (the only other addon at the moment of writing which needs the fired and init eventhandlers is MaddMatt's effects). Note that an OLDER version of both MaddMatt's effects + the Init eventhandlers should work fine.

From the overview:
It's late and you're watching the news just before the big game tonight when you get an unexpected phonecall from your mechanic Greg: two new clients have just shown up and desperately want a tour of the island in your trusty Piper Warrior II tonight!


--> This is just a "quick" little mission I cooked up when Gnat released his Piper Warrior II. I was planning on finishing it in a few days, but you know the way ArmA and mission making works....suddenly you're adding features and fixing bugs and doing all kinds of extra things. Oh, and intros/outros take a lot of time. Not to mention adding one simple little extra resource. Gaah. Anyway:

Features:
-CSL populate island
-Custom voice acting (yes. It's the same guy doing all the voices. Yes. You can tell. Anyone want to voice act for me, feel free to PM  ;))
-l337 flying experience over the WHOLE island!
-scripts by Johnnyboy, Mandoble, MrN (I think?), CSL...and me, of course.
-Lots and lots of flying.

Average play time: With no extra saving, maybe...20 minutes, tops.

HINT (sort of un-spoilerish): Use your one "real" save game when you see the green flare! It'll make things much less annoying! (also: the waypoint isn't always triggered, but I'm sure you can find Rahmadi on your own :P).

Have fun! Beta reports welcome!


Edit: Following people's reports, it appears something is rather wrong with my tour-guide recording in the mission. It sounds echoey and overly loud. THIS ONLY HAPPENS WITH EAX ENABLED. Seeing as none of the other sounds and recordings seem to have any trouble, and seeing as there is absolutely no interference visible in the sound files themselves when played "out of game", I don't know what I can do except re-record everything.

Since this was just a quick and fun little mission for me to make, it's not incredibly likely I will re-record all those sound files very soon unless there is massive public demand/someone unearths a whole host of bugs that require me to update to the next version anyway. Until then, I suggest you toggle EAX off for the duration of this mission (under Options/Audio options -> EAX Enabled/Disabled) to fully appreciate the synthetic voice of Lucy-the-tour-guide ;)


Wolfrug out. :cool2:
« Last Edit: 05 Sep 2008, 19:48:26 by Cheetah »
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Offline Cheetah

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #1 on: 11 Oct 2007, 11:19:26 »
Alright, first test report in a while...

PWTG

Package
Good to see a promo picture and detailed readme.

Overview
Picture lacks a border, text is spread over two pages (can't access the 2nd page). Better is to fit everything on the first page. I like the image.

Intro
The camera moves through a building in the final scene (where the player moves to his car). My PC has trouble keeping everything flowing steady at times, I'm not sure if you use preloadCamera to load all the textures. Sometimes everything loads fine, sometimes (especially in cities) a lot of textures are yet to be loaded.

I like the idea, but the telephone volume is too soft for it to be audible. I recommend throwing the volume of the phone up and as soon as the talking begins - mute the TV. Nice touch with the image by the way.

Briefing
Map, plan and notes all fine. I like the detail. You might consider adding a picture of 'my' plane to the briefing. And you could replace the wp1,wp2 with the corresponding city names.

Mission
Conversations with the passengers and technician are all good. I get the impression that the passengers are up to something - guess that you want them to sound that way.

Nice procedures with the runway request and tour computer available in a lot of languages. If you want to add some humour, I guess that language thing is where to look ;).

The voices are horrible as you have noted. Did you record them in stereo? Low kbps? EAX doesn't seem to help much - with EAX enabled it sounds better than when turned off, strange stuff.

Near the mountains, I suggest giving the direction not only in the briefing but also on the screen. That part was hard and I was glad when I was past the mountains. Hard to maintain the correct altitude with all those steep mountains.

First time in the no-fly-zone nothing got triggered (you know what), instead I flew over it and couldn't make the passengers happy so they shot me over and over again (every load). Loaded up the save at the mountain WP and flew to the no-fly-zone again. This time it worked as it should.

The next part was enjoyable, they were more tolerant and I managed to land the plane in a decent way - though somewhat uphill. Looked under my seat, locked and loaded and wasted 'em. Grabbed the rifle and eliminated all of the SLA. Weird was that there was no mention in the briefing or on the screen that I had landed until I was about to leave again. And no mention of the SLA soldiers, don't know if you want there to be any though.

Repairing the plane doesn't seem to work properly. It works but takes 1 second, whereas you state that it could take a while - plane isn't damaged much though (1/10th or less). More worrying: once there were three addActions of 'field repairs', not sure what went wrong. And there was some delay between 'enter the plane as pilot' and embarking the plane. Maybe because of a script you're running?

Final part was fine, managed to do it with only a fraction of fuel left  :cool2:

Outro
The soldier in the background is making weird moves - walking back and forward?

Do you make use of preloadCamera? There were some city textures that had to be loaded when the scene was played.

Otherwise fine- nice way to end it.

Overall
Enjoyable mission, nowhere near a simple 'look what this plane can do' mission but a complete fit for SP mission ;). Well done Wolfrug!

Recommendations:
- take a look the GBU drop
- take a look at the plateau landing part

If you want: take a look at all the small bugs mentioned, and don't forget the voices  ;)
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Offline Wolfrug

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #2 on: 11 Oct 2007, 12:01:45 »
Thanks for the test!  :D Glad you enjoyed it, and that it worked for you to the end.

Intro: Yes, argh. *wince* I know, the last part of the intro is a bit borked. I don't know why, but whenever I try to do intros (same thing happened with Op:Dawning Hope incidentally) my computer goes super-slow and laggy and whatnot. But I'll try to fix it up. Did "you" actually move anywhere? He's supposed to wait at his first waypoint until apwalk1=true, but sometimes he walks and sometimes he doesn't. Intros and me...we don't mix.  :dry:

Briefing: Will consider. Picture especially.  :cool2:

Mission: Eh. I actually recorded it...well...with a mic through my speakers. I know! I know. But it for some reason sounded perfectly okay, so I thought it would be alright. I guess I'll just have to figure out another way (the site I used didn't allow for saving the sounds, alas).

Flying over the no-fly zone and not dropping the youknowwhat: Yep, well. Unless you follow their instructions very carefully...I think though I'll add a short little dialog between the hijackers and you which might give you a hint on over WHAT exactly they want you to fly.

As to the second part of the mission: glad everything worked out alright :) It SHOULD have told you though that you've landed, but...ah. Yes, that hint probably got overrun by the height-direction-customer satisfaction hint. I'll make it into a hintC to be sure it pops up.  :)

Repairing the plane: this is always added, even if the plane is fine. If the plane has more than 0.5 damage, it'll just say "repairs completed!". I'm guessing the action isn't properly removed, once again, but ah well. Actions also tend to muliply when you get inside vehicles and the like.  :dry: We'll see if I can fix it.

As to the delay: the delay is there by default (Gnat): I think it's put there as a placeholder for an animation that opens the doors or somesuch (like on the A-10, SU-34).

Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the report.  :D

Wolfrug out.
"When 900 years YOU reach, look as good you will not!"

Offline mathias_eichinger

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #3 on: 25 Oct 2007, 18:19:29 »
Hi, here's my opinion on the mission:

Overview

Quite original withe the picture of the Piper on the TV screen.

Intro

Was good and reflected what has been writting in the Overview

Briefing

Told me everything I needed to know.

Mission

The conversation was good, but once that Tour guide came in, it turned out to be horrible. Disabling EAX resulted in something absolutely ear-piercing and incomprehensible, while actually enabling EAX brought that hall effect but also a bit of relief because it was not as horrible.

I never saw any waypoints, these would have been good, as I had to constanly look on my map and could not appreciate the scenery. When I was hijacked I turned to 260 degrees right over Paraise which brought me in a more westerly direction. Did fly for 15 minutes and had no waypoint.  :(
Only when I wrote this beta test I read that I had to go to Ramadi. But Ramadi would have been more in a direction of hm, 210 or 220 degrees, and I would have been shot for that. Please look into the issues I have encountered, otherwise the "just flying" idea is great, at least when one owns a joystick.

Cheers

Mathias

Offline LeeHunt

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #4 on: 25 Oct 2007, 19:43:14 »
got some time this weekend gonna give it a whirl Wolfrug. should be fun. 

Offline Wolfrug

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #5 on: 25 Oct 2007, 21:15:46 »
Already thought no-one else was going to test this out. Heh.  :D

Yes: EAX enabled or disabled seems to make a difference for some people. Also try messing with Hardware Acceleration. I just realised I have mine switched to "disabled", so disabling that might also help! Very sorry about the sound, I will re-record it once I find a voice that's half as pleasant as Lucy's (for a whirl, try unpbo'ing the mission and playing the *.oggs in the Sound folder: do they sound alright then? They do to me  :no: )

Mathias: As is mentioned in the briefing, you have your GPS with you (default something insane like ctrl-M or whatever. Suggest remapping). By bringing it up permanently, it will sit in your upper left corner (blotting out the optimal height + customer satisfaction), where you can make sure you fly along your waypoints. Having waypoints would've been a bit too easy I somehow think. SOME effort on the flier's side is required, eh?  :)

As to the other part: weeeird. O.o 15 minutes? The customer satisfaction generally goes down reaaal fast once outside your designated flying zone, and you should've been shot within minutes. Also, the hint does tell you how to fly: direction 260 (I think it was) from the waypoint PRIOR to your last (i.e. the Sierra Madre one)! From there flying straight in the right direction should've gotten you to the RACS military base pretty soon, and from there the fun is just starting.  ;)

Lee: Heh, thanks! Try the tips on turning on/off EAX and Hardware Acceleration if you get the horrible sound from the tour guide.  :)

And to the MD staff in general: once I've re-recorded the voices and maybe added some more hints and stuff (what Cheetah found), I'll probably put this up for review.  :scratch:

Wolfrug out.
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Offline LeeHunt

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #6 on: 27 Oct 2007, 14:21:20 »
ok just finished and wanted to give you some feedback and fixes to make--

First I like it!  Creative and fun idea. Not every mission has to be an SLA bloodbath  :D  In fact I thought about making a mission too where there could be no shooting from the player at all yet amid a war.  So anyway this was refreshing and fun.

The minor fixes:

Intro- I thought at first that I had clicked on the game's stock campaign scenario that has a similar intro-- you might want to emphasize this IS the right Wolfrug Piper mission right away so others don't make the same mistake

Mission

-Camera cutscene with Greg was choppy- for some reason the camera kept swinging like it was on a vine between Greg and the player. Not a big deal but should be fixed

-I like the hint HUD on the left side of the screen with customer satisfaction etc, good idea.

-When I went off course the tourist kept saying "Where do you think you are going?" but like 500 times in a row every 3 seconds. Easy to fix i'm sure.

- After flying for six minutes mostly off course (only 3 checkpoints achieved, customer satisfaction -49) the mission all of a sudden ended, and I watched a cutscene that seemed to imply i had done something awful and a war had started. I'm guessing if I had completed all 8 checkpoints something may have happened, but for me the mission just ended in mid-air.  After designing myself i'm guessing the trigger just needs to be set differently?

Outro

- End scene with Marian Quandt one of the US soldiers in the background was bobbing up and down like he was dancing, don't know why, could just be the AI.

I also had the tour guide sound problem.  I had a problem in my own mission that required the player to work around it, but as others have stated and i agree, ultimately the mission should be fixed and compatible with every player's current setup.  So i also think the tour audio has to be changed, sorry, i know its a pain.  But this was good fun and worth fixing it up!

« Last Edit: 27 Oct 2007, 14:39:55 by LeeHunt »

Offline Wolfrug

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #7 on: 27 Oct 2007, 21:16:05 »
Aware of the thing with the intro/outro, however I didn't put that much effort into either one to be honest.  :) Although the fact that you got the "win" intro despite having lost is a bit weird.  :dry: I wonder if I somehow can use the enddialog thing instead, since I don't feel like making a separate "lose" intro. Ah well.

Greg camera cutscene: yep, I know. It's very simplistic, pretty much just pops the "camtarget" between the two.  :D But it's really just there for the "black out" in the end when the two passengers are moveincargo'd into the back of the piper. Maybe I can make it smoother, we'll see.

Regarding the off-course flying: when you reach something like -50 customer satisfaction (in the first part), you'll lose. Simply because...well...um. It's a corridor-flier, alright?  ;) You're supposed to hit each checkpoint before you can continue, pretty much. Using the GPS + the map should be enough. Cheetah managed it at least. Unless you flew off-course just for fun.  :dry:

"Where are you going?!" repeated 500 times: yes, I know. This happens whenever your customer satisfaction begins hitting critical levels. I can probably script it in so that the "say" is only said like once every three or four loops or so.It'll still be repetetive though.  ;)

And yees....will fix up the tour-guide sound. Would be nice if you could try finishing the mission as well, so that I know it's finishable for more people than one. :)

Thanks for the test though!

Wolfrug out.
"When 900 years YOU reach, look as good you will not!"

Offline megz

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #8 on: 27 Oct 2007, 21:29:54 »
Overview
Cool pic, not seen one this good before. Informative writing too.

Intro
Like how you mouled it with the game one, no probs except the camera moves through a wall near the end but it isn't much of a problem.

Breifing
No probs here

Mission
I could tell from the guys "eastern european" accent this was going to end in tears, i was expecting them to hijack the plane but im sure they said "we need to get of this island as quickly as possible" which didn't really make sence considering what happens, then i went to talk to the guy who preped the plane, there was a long blackout maybee 10 seconds before the conversation started. Anyway told by ATC to take on from runway 27, so i took off and followed the waypoints. I had EAX enabled which made the tour guide sound rather strange though bareable, i seen you said disable EAX, as soon as i did it turned her voice extreamly loud and echoy which caused me to nearly shit my pants. Anyway turned EAX back on and lived with the strange sound. Anyother thing is the subtitles don't stay on long enough for me to read and as i can't really hear what she says properly i wanted to read it. Anyway went to the final waypoint and got hijacked, wasn't quite sure where to go and it took me a few times to figure out the heading thing, when they shot me when my satisfaction rating went to low i fell out of the plane lol. Figured out where to go and headed for the base, nice cutscene for the bomb, however the explosion didn't really cause much damage and hit a tree. I like the next part where you have to negotiate the radar and AA emplacements, however i decided to take my own route through and it caused the satifaction rating to drop to dangerous levels even though i was going to land where they asked, also when you go in the gray area i mistakenly went above the 50m ceiling a few times with no consequences and the satisfaction rating droped considerably because i wasn't at optimal flying height of 150m. Landed at the plateau and they got out, i then headed to Ramahdi after the field repairs. Followed the coatline of each island all the way to Ramahdi and landed, all the way there though there was a waypoint which was telling me to go back, don't know why. Anway landed, nothing happened, turned engine off and got out and the mission ended. It mission summary also said i failed the waypoint mission even though i followed them correctly, this might be cause i was hijacked though.

Outro
Nice, however on the game interview there was a southern soldier who was dancing or something, buggin out.

Summary
A really nice little mission that worked well, a few bugs that i think need updating though. Another thing is you might want to lower the amount of fuel the plane has at the last bit of the mission because i easily made it back to Ramahdi. And also i had to check the map alot to see i was on the right heading so it might be nice to show the waypoints.

Good work mate, if you have time can you take alook at my mission, it needs some review TLC - http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=30313.15


Offline LeeHunt

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #9 on: 27 Oct 2007, 21:32:07 »
oh yes i'm try it again  :)

Offline Wolfrug

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #10 on: 28 Oct 2007, 22:51:45 »
@megz

Thanks for the test! Glad you managed to finish it as well.  :good:

Hitting a tree with the bomb: yep, aware of this. IF you fly exactly over the mountain they tell you to fly over (Esteban?) and keep the right heading, at medium speed, and at a height of 100m, then the bomb will generally hit squarely in the middle of the ammo storage/right on top of the cobra/vulcan. It's not a smart bomb though, so depending on where the player makes his approach from, the bomb will hit differently.  :D

Going above the 50m radara level : yep, you can do that, it's not "over 50 m -> instant death". I think I remember putting in something like 10 seconds or somesuch you have you stay at the wrong height before the trigger is triggered. Why? Well...try triggering it some time. O.o a LOT of shilkas tend to open up on you when you do. Don't want to  make it too hard for the poor player :D

Also I'm aware of the fact that the customer satisfaction would probably drop because you're below the 150m "optimal flight height". However it'll never drop to getting-shot-in-the-back-of-the-head levels, so it should be fine. :)

The waypoint issue I am aware of: will be fixed.  :D
The fuel level: The fuel is actually more there to discourage excessive flying in the last bits of the mission: just get to Rahmadi ASAP. I don't actually want it to run out before the player arrives, not unless the pilot decides to do something stupid. :D It seems to be at a pretty good level right now, so I'll probably leave it.

-> Mission summary "failed waypoints" : yep, you got hijacked. That's the only reason for that. What was your final rating btw? -10000?

-> Outro "breakdancing RACS" : yep...the intro is taken and pasted pixel-wise perfectly from the actual campaign mission, so the jerking soldier is probably there in the real version too :D I'll fix 'im up.


Also, I'll totally check out your mission, just been a bit busy lately with a bunch of other things.  :D
Thanks again for the test!

Wolfrug out.
"When 900 years YOU reach, look as good you will not!"

Offline LeeHunt

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #11 on: 03 Nov 2007, 14:48:53 »
hey Wolfrug,

I tested it a few more times, i must confess i am a horrible pilot.  Didn't get to the combat part again after a few tries.  Maybe less waypoints on the tour and more importantly-- the waypoints are highlighted in the player's HUD (kind of like in Operation Dawning Hope)??  That would be awesome.  I know I'm subpar at flying, but i'm gonna guess that i'm not the only betatester who would like to see that. 

P.S. finally got a new PC and tried it out on huge wide screen resolution with high graphics, so sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

Offline Cheetah

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Re: Piper Warrior Tour Guide (test, please) - fun fun flying!
« Reply #12 on: 03 Nov 2007, 19:54:42 »
Indeed visual waypoints (drop effects) would be awesome. Was thinking about that too, but thought that it would be too much work for a 'piper demo mission'.
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Offline Wolfrug

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New version out! Check first post.

Note: the "fix" for the voices was just making them in stereo (worked for some odd reason for me), but as it might not work for you, I do have another version waiting that has entirely different (although IMHO much poorer) voices that can be used instead. :)

If no-one finds any killing bugs on this, I'll be setting it up for review.  :D

Wolfrug out.
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Offline LeeHunt

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awesome i'll try it again