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[Krieg]

What I would like to know now is what you guys think I could lose or add to the mission?

Hmm... Some Eastern weapons would fit in just fine, as much as Western ones. Player is going to very important mission (apparently, since command is willing to break protocols), so why not?

Not sure about variety of transport vehicles... But I do not think so, since it would not be realistic if you could choose from entire parking place.

I was killed before I could notice any... Erm.. I committed suicide before I could notice any.

Not too much. It is a a cease-fire period anyways. You would not expect to have several dozen choppers patrolling the region at cease-fire. Since West is going to (mostly) obey the cease-fire and resistance does not seem too active, I think that they would be saving fuel unless something huge popped up.

I have one suggestion on what should be added. Perhaps a bit of notoriety script? Basic functionality:
If player goes massacring the Soviets too much his notoriety increases and number of patrols increases. But if player is inactive for some period of time his notoriety drops and number of patrols decreases.
I am pretty sure that THobson's Abandoned Armies had similar script.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

• Patrols were not meant to be the main defense but rather a chance encounter(they are certainly out there) I also held major threats off until after the pilots have been delivered to prevent AI inconsistency from interfering too much in gameplay.(I'll step up patrols)

If you like. I was merely reporting, not necessarily complaining. But too many patrols may make this mission a pain. There's no way you're going to get me to crawl across all of Kolgujev to avoid patrols.

• I'm not sure I understand the ironsight problem?

After I've collected my gear, I try to look down the sights of my Bizon (right click on my PC, usually V in default OFP). It doesn't do anything. I can right click and click and click and nothing happens. Going outside doesn't change anything.

But once I pick up a different weapon, such as my SG551, I can look down its sights, and if I switch back to Bizon I can look down sights, too.[/list]

[savedbygrace]

I can only think that I should simply add the gear to the crate rather than the player to avoid that bug. I noticed that too but figured it was just another wonderful misfeature of OFP that folks would have to adapt to. I'll move the equipment from the script to the crate to remove that concern though.


I'll see if I can increase(slightly) the patrol presence more often. But in all honesty, the mission can be quite difficult when trying for the secondary and then optional objectives.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

Played again. The pilots were at DF72 again. (They're not always there, are they?) This time I took a different route and ran into a few more patrols. I don't believe they detected me.

However, sometimes I would hear a crackling sound and then a flare would shoot up right next to me. No infantry seemed to be around to shoot a flare, but maybe I just didn't see them. Is this a tripwire used to detect infiltrators? Maybe you should introduce this concept in briefing somewhere (e.g., "the resistance also reports that the Soviets have put a lot of flare-tripwires near their bases") so that the player isn't all "liek wtf is that?"

Anyway, took out all Russians again, and once again, for the life of me SBG I cannot find the keys. You said they were in the checkpoint office (I didn't see any medical barracks); do you mean this thing?



I've walked all around there and I don't get any sort of addAction saying "take keys." At least this time I saved before using explosives on the gate.

Besides that it looks like a very enjoyable mission, just work out some kinks. In response to your other questions (I didn't have time to answer them all earlier):

--Regarding weapons, you seem to be missing the good old HK MP5.

--Regarding transport vehicles, I'd say no. No sane player is going to drive around behind enemy lines. For me the jeep is just there to shave 5 minutes off the trip to the front lines.

--Regarding lightbulbs, I guess it depends if enemies can actually see you better when they have lightbulbs. Does the engine work that way?

--Regarding air units, well, if NATO is blockading the island there can't be rich supplies of fuel, so we'd expect the Russians not to have choppers flying around all the time. But maybe you can have them deploy one or two choppers once they realize they've got a one-man army tearing up their remaining supplies?

--Other suggestions? Well I've already made most of my other suggestions.

I am discouraged now though. I have spent quite a bit of brain racking time on this mission to reduce lag as much as possible and prevent the savegame bug though I have none at all, it is very difficult to gauge what others will run into.

Actually for me there was practically zero lag during the mission itself. It's just the big explosions in the outro that put a strain on my computer. Disabling particle effects during the mission won't carry over into the outro, will it?

So don't be discouraged. You have a good mission on your hands!  

[savedbygrace]

Thank you for the encouraging words, that helps my motivation quite a bit. I apologize for the inconvienence of those darn keys. I can't believe I forgot to put that hint in there(I'll chalk it up to my many tests before hand and me already knowing where everything is generallly located.

The crackling sound? Well, there are grenade traps located in most of the forests and flare traps encompassing each base nearer to the front lines. If you are running 2 or 4x speed they obviously will not have full effect but at normal speed, you will first here a greande pin pull for the nade trap, followed by a short delay before that position sets off a grenade. The flare trap, you'll just here the launch of a flare which will be accompanied by a smoke shell. In both cases, A hunting party with a virtual pack of hounds will move toward that position, once there, they will wait around until you trip another trap, where they will then move to that new position. It was not made to be condemning or overwhelming but to keep the player moving and on his toes. The hounds were used to warn the player since you can hear their approach halfway across the island.

My reasoning behind the use of the bizon was two fold. First and most obvious is the fact that it holds more than twice the killing capacity of the Heckler and Koch machine pistol. The second and least obvious is that I was adhering to story line where no ties to US military were to be established and US weaponry creates that potential. But I have no problem adding all weapons inside those crates if you guys don't think it would remove from the story.

The medical barrack is located at only one of the four possible pow camp sites. The keys addaction is on the officer inside that office dead or alive, you have to be within 2 meters of his body for it to appear. The officer should never leave the building as he was meant to appear isolated from the others. But then, I was suppose to include a hint from the prisoners when the door was tried. I'll work on that hint...unless you guys think the task of finding the key to be rediculous or redundant. I could just as easily remove it with no hard feelings.

The lightbulbs do not currently affect the skill level of AI though this was on my todo list(If the lightbulbs were even noticed). I don't think I want to get into working on the lightbulbs anymore though. It was more of just a preference thing because I remember more than once wanting to be able to shoot out bulbs before crawling across a compound yard to another vantage point. I may or may not look into it but it will be noted in the changelog if it is updated.

I'll see about adding some eyes in the sky once the player has been detected somewhere.

I am uncertain how to allow an option for player preference during the Outro and Intro which disallows player interaction by default anyways.

The first objective is just the icing, the secondary targets(nonoptional) are slightly more difficult while other optional targets are quite difficult though not impossible. The most difficult of them all would be the notebook task and that is only because it's location can be in any of six different forward bases and since the bases have multiple notebooks in them, the player would have to approach each one to find the addaction.

Thank you for playtesting this one further. Further testing would be greatly appreciated if you could locate that key. I'll see about making the key location more obvious(or just remove it altogether)

So you chose to disable particle effects during the mission?

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

But I have no problem adding all weapons inside those crates if you guys don't think it would remove from the story.

Well, if you already have an M16 in there, sure. The HK MP5 isn't even necessarily an American weapon, after all.

I guess it depends on whether the purpose of the secrecy is just to give the US plausible deniability or to keep the Soviets from ever knowing who ordered this mission. If the former, then including things like HKs and M16s isn't really a problem. You could get those guns from a lot of places, so it could plausibly be argued to the global public that the weapons did not come from US. But if for some reason the Soviets can never know that the US was behind Mordecai, then even that M16 will probably be too much of a giveaway.

The keys addaction is on the officer inside that office dead or alive, you have to be within 2 meters of his body for it to appear. The officer should never leave the building as he was meant to appear isolated from the others.

Uh-oh, I think we may have a bug on our hands. First, that officer did not stay put inside his checkpoint once the shooting started. I shot him once through the window but failed to kill him, then he crawled out and was shot later. On top of that, I've walked over his dead body like 50 times and seen no menu action. Maybe I need to wait for a few seconds or something? Or maybe savegames somehow screwed up added actions?

I could just as easily remove it with no hard feelings.

Actually the key seems good to me as long as it's possible to rescue pilots by blowing the gate open, too. Then the player will have to decide whether he wants to track down keys (and risk getting shot by an infantry who was late for his appointment with your weapons) or blow it open (risking harm to the pilots).

I don't think I want to get into working on the lightbulbs anymore though.

If it's just cosmetic, then, I don't really see a point putting those things on the lights and adding lag potential with eventhandlers or whatever you used to detect getting hit.

Further testing would be greatly appreciated if you could locate that key.

Certainly. By the way, have you had a chance to test Village De-pacification again lately?

So you chose to disable particle effects during the mission?

No, actually. I asked about the particle effects and outro to see if there was a way that I could disable them just before the outro starts. But then again, the only people that would do that, would be people who knew what was coming in the outro!

EDIT: Still no keys appearing on the officer, in the checkpoint, or anywhere else, even if I wait for a while. I think we have a bug.

[savedbygrace]

I simply do not understand the key issue. I have played this thing countless times with no problems of that addaction appearing and disappearing.
In any case, I have corrected it for the update so that the keys are no longer attached to that officer but rather a guard post outside the prisoners pen. I hope that solves the problem.
I am in the process of addressing the other issues as well so please wait to play again to prevent from getting burned out on this project.

Thanks guys.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

I am in the process of addressing the other issues as well so please wait to play again to prevent from getting burned out on this project.

Okay, will do.

I too am honestly totally stumped on what could be causing the keys addAction to go AWOL. I would try playing yet again but if a new version is coming soon anyway, it will hopefully be a moot point.

Good luck

[mboshell]

I want to test this one, but all addon links take me to the site, but with no content on the site.  Is it my pc?

Thanks

[savedbygrace]

I've placed this one on hold for a while. I need to finish the update  first. I'll look into uploading those addons to a file share site when I do. The problem with that site is that you can link the page but the page changes when new stuff is added. You end up having to dig for the addon. I'll look into uplading the addons to a file sharing site or figure something else out when I release the update. Sorry.

[mboshell]

Got it, SBG.  What's wierd about that site is that I swore I remembered it having more addons than any other site about 6 months ago.  Now, even when I go to the main page, ofp.gamepark.cz, I get to the site, but no content loads on the page.  I'll be ready to test when your ready with the update 

[savedbygrace]

I used internet explorer as my browser ever since I got my first pc but they have really mucked things up lately and so I made the switch to Firefox. That site was not displaying for me with internet explorer but it works great with firefox.

[savedbygrace]

A new version is linked on the first post.

[Denz]

Got two missing addon errors
JOF Objects 1.2

Code:

ftp://www.ofpr.info/ofpd/unofaddons2/JOF_Objects1_2.zip

I've added the SG551 link to your first post but direct linking to an ftp address was too much for my brain at this time of the night/morning
SG551 Sniper-Rifle
You also need to check the link for the AMC PSG-1 Sniper Rifle same problem with linking to an ftp address

Looks great btw - expect a report very soon!
Gotta say though I love the little details like the jangling of the keys before the ignition is turned

[savedbygrace]

Ah crap. I was rushing and knew I was forgetting something. I meant to remove the SG551 sniper from the sqm; it's not used.

I'll look into JOF objects as well, I don't remember using anything from it.

I work on that AMC PSG-1 link as well.

Sorry for the trouble folks. I'll get it right in the next version.