(Review Completed) [SP] Shot Down

[UH60MG]

Author: UH60MG
Addons required: none
Island: Sahrani
Player side: West

Info:

This is a mission which is structured but has lots of random elements, including enemy placements and location of objectives, so it has lots of replay potential.

Here is what should happen in the mission (spoilers)

- (Cutscene) The Black Hawk carrying your squad crashes at random location on the map

- A number of enemy units attack you from random directions.

- After this force is defeated (or 4 minutes have elapsed) you are ordered to hide.

- You proceed to the randomly selected hiding-place waypoint, on the way there you may encounter enemy forces looking for you. There may be armour around which might have to be neutralized.

- After you arrive at the waypoint, several hours are skipped.

- You then proceed to the extraction point, whereupon another black hawk will land to pick up your squad, ending the mission.


UPDATE 1: Beta 2 ready for testing, it has the following new features:

-A start menu where the player can control the time of day / difficulty of the mission
-AI firing flares at night
-Enhanced cutscene
-Enhanced overview
-Players group has fixed identities
-Debriefing notes who survived and who died
-Many other minor tweaks

UPDATE 2: Final version ready for review!

OFPEC Review

[WinKIller0]

Time to get something else to do than missioning, here we go:
Played with ArmA ver 1.08 and 1.09 (complete test with 1.08)

Package
Has almost everything it needs, only thing's missing is promotional pictures.

Overview
Picture taken from the start of the mission, doesn't have borders and is kinda big for a overview picture. You're missing overview text also so you might consider adding it and make the picture bit smaller than it's now

Briefing
Well done, allthough it's kind of silly to me when I couldn't get any information what kind of mission they were coming from. The thing that the briefing and the map was updated during progress (and map allways randomized  ) is somethihng I've not seen quite while. Great job

Intro
According to ReadMe there's intro, but, only thing I found was intro like was the start cutscene

Mission
After I had crashed I ordered my man to disembark ... Terrible mistake. I though they were coming from random directions so I put my squad looking for other directions, after I saw my medic (happy remaining mission in arma) diying I quickly ordered my men to fall back into formation. The first fight didn't really give any thrills when it was easy mode to kill those soldiers when they head show up from the hill.
Finally after 2 minutes of waiting (might wanna consider changing that) I had new orders to my briefing screen, again good job, started to proceed there. At some point before the next attack was coming I started to think what in heck am I doing with AT soldier? Got me answer when BMP-2 came out of bushes and shot me TWICE to the legs (hmm.. now when I come to think aobut it maybe, just maybe, I should've started the mission after the medic died, oh well). Now this was the fight I was looking for,though not hard, but on hte other hand you couldn't give any spare time to OPFOR. Finally after 5 minutes of fighting I got to the so called "camp" (or such) with pilot only 1 clip (thanks to arma AI I watched how my men died side by side when they couldn't react bullets coming from 50m , behind the bushes)12 hours later I got my orders to move to extraction zone... 3 OPFOR coming from the other side, low settings, one companion, lagging-> this US soldier decided to run for it, what would guys at white house say if I use my squad as shields , waited the UH laying down the bushes and ran into it when it landed, mission accomplished.

Debriefing
Don't remember anylonger, had greeat score though 

Summary
Mission which has potential but doesn't give any challenge at the moment if you have your squad alive (don't look at me, they shot them!). Well done brief and wait zone. Try to add some more troop into it, I'll look forward future releases ^^

Score: -7/10

-Wink0

[Denz]

First of all,  to OFPEC UH60MG!
Just gave your mission two run throughs

Tested on ArmA 1.09 Beta with FFAMM 1.4; Veteran Difficulty

Package
Readme included 
Maybe add a screenshot for advertising

Overview
Big picture -no border and no mission description or version number - apart from beta that is 

Intro
No

Briefing
Just the bare details. Try to include some setting with your briefing to suck us in to the story. What were we doing on that blackhawk? Had we just been picked up from an observation post or were we escorting the Colonel's mistress back to Corazol? Have some fun here and create something immersive.

Mission
First time through was really easy even though it had a T72 (which accounted for two of my squad) but only a handful of enemy soldiers. Funnily enough, only me and the pilot completed the mission. The second time got my attention though.
Ok, piled out of the helo and straight in to contact. A UAZ and some foot soldiers were fast approaching and I'm trying to shoot and get my loons into the nearby cover of some trees. Once they were dealt with, I get the "Objective Complete" hint and am told to move to a location and hide.
--Why there? Who says that place is safe? These are things to consider for the story of the mission.
Next, I start looking for useful weapons and ammunition from the dead soldiers when I get the report of a BMP2 coming. I considered taking the launcher off my AT guy but decided to race for the body of a downed RPG trooper instead. A few scary seconds feel like minutes until I plug the BMP with an RPG.
I then fight a running battle over the next 600 metres with enemy soldiers appearing from two different directions. Amazingly, my squad's AT guy manages to take out another BMP. Enemy contact dwindles about 250 metres from the hiding spot. Get my extraction orders and move out. Have a couple of skirmishes along the way. At the LZ, just as the blackhawk arrives I get more targets coming my way- Yippee!! I take them down while ordering the squad to board (every one survived). Job Done!

Outro
None

Summary
Ahh, if only they were all like the second run through. That can be the problem with randomised missions, sometimes they are a walk in the park, other times a decent challenge. You have the ground work in place, now it's just a case of tweaking it to balance it out. Oh and flesh the story out a little.
Not a bad job so far! 

[UH60MG]

Thanks for the useful feedback. A new more finished version is now available.

[Wolfrug]

Downloaded new version, will take a look a bit later. Version history is looking good. 

Wolfrug out.

[mathias_eichinger]

Hi, here`s my report for Beta 2!

Package

Has everything it needs and more (I mean the promo screenshots).

Overview

Quite a nice shot of a crashed Blackhawk. Picture could use a border, but is ok.

Intro

I really liked the custom dialogue interface which lets you choose the difficulty and time of day. I choose Random which put me in daytime and medium difficulty. If this is your first mission: Very well done.
The intro itself was just a shot of a Blackhawk crashing, quite fitting. To continue to the mission, I had to press a dialogue field, something new to me, as other cutscenes end by themselves.

Briefing

Very short and without notes. It would be fine if it had some kind of story, e.g. the battle just fought and that you are glad to return home, or maybe you are enroute to some target...just a bit flesh on the bones of the mission.
Especially the Notes were lacking.

Mission

I was still in the Blackhawk, had the choice of a heavy MG which I did not pick up and I sticked to my M4. Ordered my men out, and we immediately ran into enemy soldiers and a UAZ, both of which were dealt with quickly. Then we ran to a forest very close to Eponia and encountered a BMP on the way. It killed us all off, so the next time I took a jog through Eponia to aviod it, because my AT gunner never seemed to hit that nasty APC.

Eponia itself was completely deserted, maybe the reason why my squad hid so close by. Just in front of the forest we encountered another enemy squad, killed it and hid in the forest. Some time passed and then it was time to run for the LZ. Another squad was thrown into our way and cost me one man. Then the Blackhawk appeared, we boarded it and off we were...mission complete.

Conclusion

Quite a nice mission, nothing complicated and fun to play but it can still be improved.

Recommendations

*Add a AT rocket to the Blackhawk to help the player deal with the BMP.
*In general, the hiding place should be somewhere further away from any settlement, seems more logical that way.
*The longer routes to such a deserted place could be spiced with small patrols which are to avoid or fight.
*Settlements could be populated with civilians and/or soldiers.
*In general, there is a need for radio communication with the HQ (where to hide, to call the Extraction helo) and maybe between squad members (use sidechat and titleText).

That's all, keep up the promising work!

Mathias

[UH60MG]

If this is your first mission: Very well done.

It's not my first mission. I used to be posting as OFPWhizz...

*In general, there is a need for radio communication with the HQ (where to hide, to call the Extraction helo) and maybe between squad members (use sidechat and titleText).

I wouldn't know what such radio messages would contain.

Add a AT rocket to the Blackhawk to help the player deal with the BMP.

I'll add AT to the Black Hawk on easy mode. The player already has an AT soldier in the squad and I dont want the medium difficulty to be too easy. Also, some of the dead enemy soldiers wont mind you borrowing theirs.

[Wolfrug]

Here's my quickie review of Beta 2!

Package

Perfect, nothing needs changing. 

Overview

Except for the lack of a story (which would fit here), the overview works fine as it is.

Intro

Nothing much, really. You could do all kinds of things with the intro (view from inside the chopper as it gets hit, claxons going off and people shouting...), but the simple version you have right now is just fine. The difficulty dialog is quite pretty too

Briefing

Short. Might, as others've suggested, want to add some kind of backstory. Hell - if you want it to be important for us to save those poor blighters, you might want to add some personality to them via the notes as well. Just some suggestions.


Mission

Tried it at Moderate, at Dawn. Liked the way the chopper started in the trees, and then sort of fell down. Got out - got killed. Repeated a couple of times until I had a proper game plan. I put my guys into combat, sent them towards the farm house, and raced there myself beforehand to give cover fire. Didn't do a very good job of it, since everyone but the medic (3) got killed in the ensuing firefight. Was pretty intense though!
Once the first batch of enemies were done for, and the waypoint updated (might want to add some sideChat radio traffic here for effect), a T-72 comes rolling around. I pick up the dropped M136 of my pal, and blast it to bits, after which me and the medic exchange some rounds with the survivors. Once they were done for, we drive off in our nice little red car towards the waiting point.
A couple of hours later, we run off towards the LZ. There are no more enemies seen anywhere at this point, completely empty.  Pretty lucky though, since I was down to one M136 and a few half-empty M4 clips. The Blackhawk comes around and picks us up - mission complete.

Summary

I liked it! It needs some more radio traffic and other things that clue the player in better than just waypoints - remember some people like to play without them - such as a simple radio message from HQ now and then that tells you what to do. Right now it seems as if you're in some kind of telephatic communion, since they seem to know exactly what to do and so do you with no further discussion Also, the second part after the initial firefight - the run to the LZ - is a bit short. Just over the hill, 300 meters. I'm sure that I just got lucky thanks to the dynamic nature of the mission and that's why there weren't any enemies, but yes. Maybe some static guards?
Could also add a middle-cutscene if you want (from when you rest at the hideout), just a short pan should do it, maybe show the time changing by looking at the sky and then back down again. "6 hours later" and such.
And finally, if you want, you could try adding some civilian life, but that's quite optional.

Otherwise it looks pretty done to me! A quick little 10 minute romp in and out.

Wolfrug out.

[UH60MG]

make a reply to your thread, saying "review please"

review please

[mathias_eichinger]

I`ll review this one.

[mathias_eichinger]

Review done.

After-discussion is opened, want to share your thoughts? This is your chance!

[NightJay0044]

Very nice mission...took me about 15mins to complete, took my time to ensure no other soldiers were around.

This was a good mission, it kept you on your toes you didn't know which direction the enemy was.

Here is a debreifing for you..

http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shotdownjr0.jpg