[SP/A2CO] The Battle Of Zargabad (Review complete)

[SaOk]

Author: SaOk
Version: 1.5
Requirements: ArmA2 Combined Operations (1.56) + BAF/PMC DLC

Mission Description:
Fighting between the Takistan Army and UN peacekeepers have broken out in Zargabad. US/GB reinforcements are facing heavy resistance before reaching the city from the south. Only Echo13 arrives in time.

Features:
-Played as British Infantry Squad Leader
-Overview/Briefing/Gear Choose
-Custom gameplay elements (Minefield Creating System, First Aid packs, Reinforcement System)
-Cutscenes
-Basic infantry action on streets of heavily destroyed Zargabad (offensive, defensive tasks)
-Friendly AI groups fighting with player
-Many sides involved (US, British, Czech, German, UN, Takistan Army, Takistan Militian, Criminals)
-Indoor fighting (some)
-Ambient Life
-Perfomance Friendly Methods

Special Thanks:
-Bardosy, Dale0404, Nettrucker, Poacher & SavedByGrace for voice-acting
-Nettrucker for translations
-SavedByGrace for other ambient voices/sounds and english corrections
-DarkXess for Israeli Air Raid Siren sound
-Zipper5 for loading screen template
-Big Dawg KS (Building Patrol Script v2.0 was base for altered building patrol script used in this mission)
-Also for all testers

Change Log:
1.0:
-Added full voice acting including combat voices & ambient radio (by Bardosy, Dale0404, Poacher & SavedByGrace)
-Language corrections (by SavedByGrace)
-Last task fixed/made better
-Better reinforcement system
-New optional auto-rearm zone near Ammotruck (could be usefull for ACE2 users)
-More randomness
-More custom scenery
-New cutscene
-Credits added
-Ammotruck marker should work better now
-Better animations for medic pack system/minefield builders
-Added new OA advanced hints
-Many other tweaks/fixes
1.1:
-PMC units added
-More chooseable gear (including AA12) in briefing
-Updated weaponbox at airport
-Minefield system now compatible with expert difficulty level
-Possible radiochat superposition fixed
-Some scenery/ambient/friendly AI squad tweaks
-Other tweaks/fixes
1.3:
-More randomness especially in first task
-Crows & flies added
-Voicefile tweaks
-Minefield builders can now be selected also from normal view
-Battlevoice scripts highly improved
-New voicefiles (including german)/ambient sounds
-Many other tweaks/fixes
1.5:
-Over 40 new german battleshouts by Nettrucker
-Some older unfitting german/british voice(s) removed
-British weapon box added
-AI soldiers behave more alarmed now on airfield.
-Mosque ambient sounds now working right
-Some other tweaks/fixes

Download 1.5:
http://www.filefront.com/17649429/SPTheBattleOfZargabadCOBAFPMCv1_5.7z

[Zipper5]

This is a pretty cool mission so far, SaOk. I've been trying to complete it off and on the last 2 days, but keep getting mowed down by tanks that seem to appear out of nowhere.

Still, I'm progressing, and I should have a report coming soon. I will say so far that the American ambient voices combined with British units don't really... Fit, but I see you're trying to change that.

[SaOk]

Thanks for testing. I have the proper voice-acting coming with updated dialog (attached new stringtable). The mission will hopefully have own unique language "battlecrying" for each friendly sides.

[Zipper5]

The Battle Of Zargabad - by SaOk
v0.6

Played with:

• ArmA 2: Combined Operations v1.54.72967 & the BAF DLC
• Regular difficulty modified to Veteran difficulty settings (allows more than one save game)

Overview:
A picture with a nice contrasting border along with some descriptive text and a version number. The only thing I'd say about the overview is the picture is kind of misleading, i.e. I originally thought I was going to be playing as Germans, but you actually play as the British. Might want to look into that. Also, here's a file you might find helpful if you want to make your pictures look like the official ones, and I also have a loading screen template if you want to do the same with it.

Intro:
The first thing I noticed about the intro was the text indicating where the scene was taking place was out of alignment. I presume that is because you play on a different UI size to me (I play on Normal). As for the rest of the intro it had some nice camera angles, slow motion and good choice of music with enough interesting stuff going on to keep me entertained and introduce me to the events of the mission.

Mission:
I'll start off by saying that the mission simply isn't ending for me. I've managed to wear down the counter attack enough so that it's told me to go looking for the last remnants of the forces in the city. I did do that, ran across some left over Militia holding only handguns, oddly enough, and then randomly more Takistani Army soldiers started to appear on the outskirts of the city, which the Apache and my team engaged. Now there are no more marker updates on the map, the Apache nor any other friendly units are engaging any enemy units, and the mission won't end. Plus, the counter attack task is still marked as incomplete. It's a shame it ends like this because, for the size and complexity of the rest of the mission, it ran very smooth.



There were only two hiccups I noticed during the mission. The first was when we were attacking the UN offices and the objective wouldn't complete. I thoroughly searched within the red circle and didn't find anything. Eventually, outside of the red circle, I came across an enemy Militia (also only using a handgun, is this a feature of the mission?) and killed him, upon which the task was completed.

The other was when I came across two POWs and their guards on the way to clear out the statue surroundings. An error popped up once I had killed the guards:

Code: [Select]

'..._speedmode "NORMAL";
POWCOUNT = POWCOUNT |#|+ 1;
DONTDEL = DONTDEL - [_unit];
nul = ...'
Error Generic error in expression
File missions\__cur_sp.zargabad\takeweaponanddefpos.sqf, line34Other than those two errors, I didn't encounter any others until what I presume is the end of the mission.

I liked how reinforcements were often flown in and either given to me to command or went about their own business. Some parts were difficult, like one when I was going to clear the crossroads and a T55 and BMP appeared out of nowhere are started gunning us down on top of the Takistani Army troops already shooting at us. Eventually I made it through.

Now, the last issue I had was the start of the counter attack. When I got the notification about it, it told me to use the ammo truck. "Shit!" I hadn't taken the ammo truck with me at all and had left it back at base. So, I started to run as fast as possible back to the airfield to pick it up, and sent the rest of my squad to the defense position. Before I got it, music started up, and all I thought was "Damnit, the attack's started." and indeed it had. I should be reprimanded for forgetting the ammo truck back at base, I just didn't see a use for it up until the counter attack. However, I think the counter attack started a bit too quickly. The tanks had rolled in and it was well under way by the time I got to the defense position. Perhaps a bit longer of a delay is in order.

But eventually we fought off the counter attack to the point in which we were told to search for remaining survivors, and then the mission wouldn't end as I mentioned before. I think that rather than have us search for the survivors, the mission should end when the counter attack has dwindled. It was getting very tedious racing around the city to find and kill one enemy AI after the other. Just my opinion.

I'll skip the sections about the debriefing and outro because the mission still hasn't ended.

Overall:
A great and seriously long mission that kept me entertained the whole way through. It did have some minor and major hiccups, but that's to be expected with a mission of this complexity. I think it has huge potential to be something great once the issues I've mentioned have been ironed out. I also look forward to seeing it fully voice acted, and might I recommend changing the main characters voice to one of the voices included in the BAF DLC rather than the British-American one you have it at now?

You did an overall great job on this, and I look forward to further updates.

[SaOk]

[mathias_eichinger]

Hey, SaOk, I played the mission a few days ago, and whereas I am totally impressed, I had some of the same issues that Zipper encountered.

Overview

Same as with Zipper here, the pic is misleading, and a bit small.

Intro

I liked the long battle scenes, but contrary to Zipper, the text seemed to be well aligned to me.

Mission

The mission itself was really great - long and with different, believeable infantry combat objectives. I am totally impressed how you designed a destroyed Zargabad and especially how you managed the AI to fight so well in buildings - could you share some insight on how to do this?

I did not spot any POW error, but I also never encountered the criminals (or maybe I just ignored them because they did not threaten me and I mistook them for civilians). The objective at the UN building took a little time to be completed, but it worked eventually.

All throughout the mission, the difficulty was just right - for each objective, I needed a few retries, but it never felt unbelievably hard or was too frustrating. At several points I got reinforcements (just in time as I needed them), and the Apache was also helpful.
Zipper is right though that the custom American ambient voices distract a bit from the immersion.

The only major letdown are 2 things:

1) The ammo truck is needed only on the last objective, when you have to lay the mines. I see no reason to bring it to the city fight, as it would negate your squad's ability to move from cover to cover, through compounds and alleyways. Please let AI drive it up to the northern defensive position.
2) For the very last objective, after the counterattack is defeated, I overlooked the radio message and all I noticed was that I had to look for remaining enemies which I only did in the vicinity of our fighting position, killing a leftover T72. The mission did not end though which was a real shame because all the rest was so great, probably better than anything else I played in ArmA2 so far.

[SaOk]

Thank you for testing and kind words, Mathias.

I use named invisible helipads to destroy randomly wanted areas in the city with this code:

Code: [Select]

buildings = nearestObjects [helipad1,["Static"], 100];
{_x setDamage (random 2)+1/3;} foreach buildings - [helipad1];
To get the AI patrolling buildings, I use this script (based partly on Building Patrol Script v2.0 by Big Dawg KS - I rewrote it to be simpler and compatible with SPAWN-command which I am using a lot in the mission):

Code: [Select]

_unit = _this select 0;
_building = _this select 1;
_wps = _this select 2;
_start = _this select 3;
if (_start != -1) then {_unit setpos (_building buildingPos _start)};
_unit setunitpos "UP";
_unit setbehaviour "SAFE";
sleep 4;
_count = count _wps;
_picked = 0;
while {!isNull _unit && alive _unit && (_count > 0)} do {
_pos = _building buildingPos (_wps select _picked);
_unit domove _pos;
sleep (25 +(random 15));
_picked = _picked + 1;
if (_picked > _count - 1) then {_picked = 0;};
};
Example (array numbers are building positions, bui1 is helipad over the wanted building) :

Code: [Select]

nul = [leader _g1,nearestBuilding bui1,[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15],2] execVM "Scriptname.sqf";
I have worked on new version which already have everything fixed and much new little features added/tweaked. The objectives are more clear - player never need to find needle from haystack. There is an exact marker areas to be cleared with second layer marker areas to point the remaining enemies. One by one, and with not too accurate markers (10-50m accuracy).

Mission will have full voice-acting made by Bardosy, Dale0404, Poacher and SavedByGrace. German and Czech units shout hungarian during combat, british have their own accent and american have theirs. Once the last voice-files are made, I will release the new version in notime. Before that I continue tweaking the mission when ever I have something new in mind. But overally, the mission is very polished. The last objective is fixed/improved (even the truck is driven to the final task by AI if player is far from it and have no team-members using it). I had some oscilating fps behaviour near statue, but it seems to be gone now. Not sure if beta fixed it, or that my timing tweaks in many scripts helped.

Those criminals are quite rare, you could most easily spot them at market place just after statue. They usually get shot by AI, even before they pull out the gun. Mostly I have, the criminals and ambient enemy patrols spawned slowly and randomly at locations where player shouldnt be, to keep the whole city and surroundings living and dangerous. I am not using any ambient modules made by BIS. Instead they are selfmade to have full control of everything.

The reinforcement system is updated for next version to aim keeping one medic and AT soldier on player group with 2-4 random soldier classes (minus medic/AT).

Other new stuff/features:
-Language corrections (by SavedByGrace)
-New british overview pic/loading screen
-UI fixes
-Better text format for spoken intro/POW-text
-New optional BIS first aid modules & auto-rearm zone near Ammotruck (could be usefull for ACE2 users)
-More randomness (one of the enemy AA soldiers is random placed to one of the 3 possible rooftops. Also enemy patrolled buildings are more random trought the mission)
-New cutscene (after holding the town there is a small end cutscene before debriefing and outro)
-Credits added
-Better animations for medic pack system/minefield builders
-Added new OA advanced hints
-New scenery
-Many other tweaks/fixes

Next version will be much different so its better to hold testing before it arrives.

[SaOk]

New version is here including much fixes and new features including full voice-acting. See the first post for change log and download link. Let me know what you think.

Edit: The current chopper AI flies really drunk which make the start of the mission look little silly. The air support and second reinforcement chopper with british squad may also crash sometimes, but I can only wait game patch for that.

[SaOk]

A new version again. I fixed the highly possible radiochat superposition when the hind arrives and added some PMC content. Minefield system didnt work before when the command view was disabled. Now its not needed. The last member of the group is sent for job if player dosent choose any in that command view. Player also receive some more help in final task as the radiochat suggest.

[savedbygrace]

I have been playing this one on and off for a week now. One thing I should say is that the UN soldiers do not look very worried over an impending attack on the base. During my defense of the main gate, they walked around as if the only thing on their mind was lunch. Also, the shouts of the soldiers near the gate(Bardosy's contribution I am guessing) seem far too loud to be on the other side of the wall.

The city also seems to be dead once the initial attack on the base is done. You have this one hint that notifies the player of an update of enemy presence but I don't see the need in it. I'm usually watching corners and moving carefully anyhow, I pay no attention to the markers on the map. Also, the red markers never go away after you clear the area. Perhaps you could change them to green?

Another important note is that I could tell when you spawn soldiers because they all seemed to appear at once, in an area I had just cleared. Could you spawn the enemy from a distant part of the city and have them make their own way toward the AO much like the player has to do? The city just needs more life to provide a better sense of urgency. Maybe add some patrolling vehicles that never stop to fight but rather drive by blasting blufor positions with streams of bullets and then screaming off before they can get blown up.
The snipers on the rooftops were great.
I will of course provide better feedback once I actually complete it.

[SaOk]

[HailStorm]

Just Given 1.1 a go, and it's looking pretty airtight. I haven't run into any showstoppers, and the mission has a really nice flow to it.

I gave this a go with 1.56, and using only the 'lite' versions of both DLC that come with the patch. which probably means you can call this mission essentially "addon free", while adding a note that having both DLC packs is recommended, but not required. (might get more people playing this great mission)

You mentioned trying to avoid the accidental crashing of choppers in the mission, may I suggest using the flyInHeight command to determine a higher altitude for those choppers to fly at to avoid them crashing into terrain?

May I make another suggestion? would you be able to add an autosave point upon insertion to the airfield, just so if the player dies then they can skip the opening cutscene? granted, it's good, but there shouldn't be a reason to sit through it again if there isn't a reason to.

Man, I never realised how terribad I was at CQB in Arma, whether it was just me or the drunken way my soldier seems to take forever to swing a weapon to where I want it to point, but in any case it's not a reflection on your mission, just that I had to re-start about a hundred times to finish this thing because the AI was just simply able to aim at me faster than I could aim at them, even with the advantage of surprise.

Most of the mission was really frantic for me, having to run to defensive positions when being counter-attacked, as most of the time there was little to no warning in time to set up decent defensive positions, but that added to the atmosphere for me and it feels part of the tempo of the mission.

Unlike savedbygrace, I did feel like I was running through a living city, there was a lot of ambient wildlife and civilians running around, and even if I never got close enough to shooting a civ through mistaken identity or whatever, their presence did make the whole situation more real to me.

I noticed you delete the bodes of soldiers killed after a delay, but I'd prefer if the Igla Troopers bodies' stayed where they are, simply because I ran to grab one of those to fight the hind (which presumably most people will try), only to lose my AT launcher once the dust settled and I remembered to go back for it - by then the body had disappeared.

The tank counterattack was well done, but I noticed that the T-55 (I think? the one that appears on the left side of the main road) actually spawned/drove onto a wrecked car, where it flipped, causing the crew to bail. that happened on the second playthrough, The first time the attack happened smoothly and how you intended it.

I did find some additional UN hostages near the AA building objective, which was a nice surprise, but I never actually tracked down the other set of captured troops - my squad somehow found and dealt with that on their own, sadly losing one of the other rescued UN troops in the process.

Most of the town clearing was otherwise pretty straightforward, I went around climbing on rooftops using a height advantage and range to keep my squad and in relative safety while proceeding.

At the final counterattack, I only just had enough time to run to the position before the attack began. I appreciate that the ammo truck has been moved here, but the only thing I was able to utilize from it was the automatic re-arming - there just wasn't any time to set up any mines before the attack, and attempting to build one during the battle was a quick way to get my troops killed. By the way, nice work with that T-72 placement during the counterattack. That B*stard got my AT gunner and Machinegunner before I put a Jav into it's side at point-blank range. man, you shoulda seen the look on my face when I first saw it... 50 metres away. haha, nice work.

From what else I saw, everything is running just how you intended, and I can't say a spotted anything abnormal about how anything else in the mission played out.

[SaOk]

[savedbygrace]

I truly hate how the AI can shoot while turning and still get a hit on me somewhere. With that said, the chorus of sound files that accompanies the damage really got annoying after a while. It seemed like every time I was hit, The unit would simply go through each sound file in sequence.

The tasks were spread out nicely each with it's own ambush points. You may want to consider placing an ammo crate for rearming rockets ad other ammo at the UN building so that the player can get ready for the inner city battles without having to back track to the airfield. If there is already one there, ignore this request.

I did happen to see more civilians running through the city this go around. I'm sure I just overlooked them last time.

There definitely needs to be more time to prepare for the final showdown. There were no mines in the truck OR the ammo crate at the hilltop fortification. Even had I found some mines, I would have had no time to lay any out.

[SaOk]

Edit: New version 1.3 is here with much fixes and new features/content. See the first post.

Edit2: I just got the translations for german lines and there seems to be currently many unfitting lines for the germans. I remove those in next version, but it will take some time since I try to make it as the final version.