(Review Completed) [SP] OPERATION RATTLESNAKE V2.1

[Gruntage]

Thanks for the test NightJay  Easy mode was designed to be....easy lol. There are a few other features that make the mission harder if you play in veteran mode (additional camps, larger patrols etc). You'll probably notice a huge difference if you go from easy straight to hard lol.

Glad to see you were able to finish the mission lol 

Thanks again for the test 

Gruntage

[Gruntage]

Anybody else want to give v2.0 a test? 

I know I've uploaded new versions in quick succession (which can be a bad thing) but the latest version has been up for a while. I'm eagerly awaiting feedback 

[savedbygrace]

Finally, I was able to set aside some more time for beta testing tonight. Played with CWA 1.99/veteran/Landing Site 3/Medium difficulty.

Intro
Keyboard clicks are spot on and make far better sense now. 

Briefing
Noticed the addition of more satchels. 

Mission
The base around Houdan looked "Occupied", which is what it has been missing from the start. The additional sandbagged and barbed wire fences, ammo crates and even the relocation of two of the Shilkas seemed to make a bit more sense. The medium setting seemed to be the most logical setting from a defensive stand point IMO; too many infantry is overkill and poor use of resources while smaller numbers can not adequately guard the assets. In any case, The distance camp fires (hilltop and checkpoint), when combined with that patrolling BMP, REALLY brought the entire area of operation to life. It provided a sense of awareness by the enemy rather than a relaxed mode of duty.
     The dead body detection added so much to the mission that it affects the players' overall strategy, It forces them to not only choose the proper engaging angles but the right timing as well, since you have to get the bodies hidden before another unit(s) walks up on the cadaver(s).
      I did not trip any flare traps. Rather, there were green flares being launched from mission start. The flares were also another factor to alter a players gameplan,
     It was great to see the enemy not knowing where exactly the player was. Although, I was engaged by units from the western checkpoint and I expected armor to respond but nothing happened. I suppose it's difficult to strike a balance between challenging and fun when designing a mission.
     I took a significant hit to frame rates once the alarms went off
Outro
Looks great except for the websites used credits. You typed in OPFR.info and it should be OFPR.info.
Overall
No bugs, but then, I haven't tried the alternate extracts yet. I can begin the review process if you like and finish the testing during the review. Let me know.

[Gruntage]

Ah thanks for testing my mission again SBG

So, about the difficulty settings. Creating a smooth and logical 'step up' in difficulty has been a big challenge whilst making the mission. I wanted the amount of units in each setting to make sense, as well as to give them a suitable degree of skill. The number of units in most of the patrolling groups is random, so if you were playing on the 'easy' setting you could end up seeing only a couple of units patrolling the base. I suppose this fulfills the purpose of the 'easy' setting to some extent. I wanted the 'easy' setting to provide a quick, yet enjoyable mission. The amount of units in the hard difficulty can appear a little excessive.

So, I wonder whether it's worth tweaking the amount of units in the village. Perhaps having the same amount of units per difficulty setting, but varying amounts of skill?  Whilst this may make the village defences more logical, it may take away the some of the function of the difficulty settings in general.

About the lack of responding armour. I have tweaked the armour a little bit so that they don't surround the player and make escape impossible, like in previous versions. The farthest checkpoint to the west does have a T72 nearby which will deploy if the alarm is sounded (or if the player is detected by guards of that checkpoint). So, this will probably stay as it is because I think adding additional armour may create frustration rather than enjoyment (I know in hard difficulty that tank is quite difficult to bypass).

I can't imagine why your framerates would take a hit though. I think it depends on when the alarm went off. If you had just destroyed the skilkas then the alarms would sound (the particle effects can cause damage to framerates). White flares also deploy around the time of the alarm sounding, so that could be the cause. I'll look into it but I haven't experienced any drop in framerate except for when I destroy the shilkas.

I'll make the quick change to the outro 

The hard difficulty has presented a few problems in the past, such as enemies zero-ing in on the player's position in a very short period of time. There are no scripts that give the exact position of the player to the enemy, but there are a couple of scripts that make it easier for the enemy to track the player (through the use of an sqf). It's possible that the high degree of skill of the enemies is responsible for this 'problem'.

I can make adjustments to the patrol group sizes if you think it would benefit. I'll make the quick amendments and upload a new version shortly. Once it's up then I guess we can begin reviewing (finally  )

Best Regards,
Gruntage

[savedbygrace]

So, I wonder whether it's worth tweaking the amount of units in the village.

I was going to suggest ideas for this but did not want you to feel that you need to keep changing this project to make it enjoyable, because it is enjoyable. My suggestion was that rather than add more units to the patrols and creating a train of group members for the hardest setting, I would have placed a group sitting around a fire at one of the shilkas, added a couple more 2 unit patrols to walk the interior of the camp, perhaps in different directions to increase the challenge of threading the defensive routes and finally, add just a few more units to each checkpoint to increase the challenge of exfiltration. Additional armor removes from the fun in my opinion because the player has equipped himself for stealth and does not possess the ability to battle the armor, unless he takes the time to kill an rpg unit and all of his buddies and then hide their bodies. Even then, he will not have enough rockets to combat the armor, unless you change the armor to BMP's because the A-10 fails to eliminate the T80's and it takes 3 shoulder fired rockets to disable one. Again, these changes are not necessary to seal this mission up. I would much rather see it reviewed and you move on to another awesome project before you become burned out and lose interest like so many editors do.

So, this will probably stay as it is because I think adding additional armour may create frustration rather than enjoyment

I wasn't actually suggesting for you to add more armor. It's great with the way you have it now. It provides a moving threat while not overwhelming. I was only saying that I expected it from the amount that you had respond in the previous versions.

I can't imagine why your framerates would take a hit though. I think it depends on when the alarm went off.

I should have written that better. I was never detected and thus the alarms did not sound until I activated the satchels and blew the shilkas. The FPS dropped to an almost annoying stutter but never became unplayable. I did not know about the white flares( perhaps you could insert a condition that the player be close to the camp before those are spawned to reduce some lag?) Also,if you had a helo respond, I never spotted it because I was focused on encountering ground units. Perhaps you could remove the helo with reinforcements and just have the reinforcements come from the checkpoints to help reduce lag as well. Air units induce tremendous lag due to the engine constantly calculating x,y and z coordinates for them.

But like I said, the mission is already good as it is.

[Gruntage]

The final version has now been submitted for review 

I decided to make some of the changes you suggested SBG. A small group of troops has been placed around a campfire, which is randomly placed next to a shilka (the dead body detection script has been applied to them). I also decided to remove the mi17, and replace it with a small group of Spez Naz. The size of this group is determined by the player's 'rating', or rather, how much of a threat the player is. This group is only present in the hard difficulty.

I looked into the lag issue and I think it's been resolved. But let me know if the problem worsens for whatever reason (by all means halt the review process if the lag becomes unbearable).

The mission should be free of bugs, but it seems that whenever I've released a new version, something always pops up lol  . So, let me know if you encounter any problems.

Thanks to all of those who have tested my mission. This mission would not have come this far if it wasn't for the amazing feedback provided. 

Regards,
Gruntage

[Gruntage]

Seems that I forgot to apply the alarm script and part of the body detection script to the newly placed 'campfire group' (bunch of guys sat around a fire near one of the shilkas). This has been fixed now (was quite annoyed when I realised).

Anyway, mission should be functioning properly, and is awaiting review  

Will hopefully have some spare time to test other projects this weekend  

[GW]

thanks for this mission
gruntage

i always like your missio

here is my walkthrough
time taken 45 minutes
i made 2 stop arround a corner
i plant satchel on first two shilka who are down on the road very easly.
than i take one satchel from 2 nd moved towards other shilkas
i easily planted charger on third one,i dodged that 8-10 soldiers patrol(2 snipers) i noticed,i had no chance to killing them,so i dodged them many times,i killed rpg soldier nd a soldier there,when i try to crew of fourth shilka alarm raise on,i successfully planted satchel  nd start moving toward mountain nd touch off the charger mission accomplished,t80,t72 nd bmp came somewhere nd start roaming around the base,my rest of squad get caught between armor nd infantry and i lost them,

i reached in extraction point and mission ends

i notice one thing you can not get unnoticed while putting charger on shilka which is crewless


enjoyed the mission
cheers
gw

[savedbygrace]

i notice one thing you can not get unnoticed while putting charger on shilka which is crewless

I've disproved this many times. It is possible to go completely unnoticed until the point of detonation. You must be patient, crawl and avoid contact at all costs. If you leave a trail of bodies and the other patrols find them, they will raise the alarm.

[GW]

crew is careless but group of two soldiers(rpg nd soldier) notice me everytime,there is a officer to in the middle of town.

its easy to dodge snipers petrol nd bmp,but i find hard to dodge that rpg and ofiicer,

[Gruntage]

Good to see some discussion on my recent mission. Like what SBG said GW, if a group is detecting you every time it's probably because you forgot to hide the bodies you left. When I tested the mission on hard difficulty I too had my work cut out infiltrating the village undetected (I'm assuming you're playing on hard difficulty). The skill of each soldier and vehicle is the same, which rules out the possibility of one group or one soldier being more skilled than others.

The base was carefully designed so that it is hard to sneak in and out unnoticed (unless ofc you're playing on the easy setting). Interesting though that you saw an officer in the centre of the town. I guess that, because the majority of groups within the village have 'guard' waypoints assigned to them, they're exploring parts of the town by themselves (quite clever really lol, one of the aspects of CWA AI that I like)

Also, if I recall correctly the shilkas on normal and hard difficulty are crewed, but they have their lights off so it's hard to tell if they are crewed or not (can't remember for sure whether I removed the crews entirely from all versions). When crewed the Shilkas are quite efficient at detecting you and your team.

Good luck!

Gruntage

[GW]

@gruntage

i played with medium setting

3 shilkas have crew inside,its very easy to detonate charger near to them,
why you set snipers at lower rank in your mission,they walk in last in group formation.
officer in village detect me everytime,so what i do,i detonate charger within 20 seconds nd start crawling towards hills,when 20 seconds time ends i touch off all four chargers,

a-10 arrived nd tanks too,but my squad mates got killed by armor everytime,extraction point is very much far on hill.

[Gruntage]

All of the enemy units in each group are the same rank the last time I checked. I suppose that, as you're playing on the medium setting, the skill of the shilkas is not as high as it is on the hard setting, hence the ease of placing charges next to them (unless you dance in front of their turret).

As for the officer always detecting you, I believe he's equipped with nv goggles on medium difficulty, so it's easy for him to see you (so naturally you should make it a priority to take him out).

And yes it is quite difficult to get every team member back safely. The extraction areas need to be a great distance from the base for obvious reasons. The best strategy I find is to select the 'move as group' option at the start, and send your team to whatever extraction you use (unless it's one which is on the opposite side of Houdan), and then infiltrate alone. That way you needn't worry about your team members.

[GW]

i play mostly by laptop,my laptop is of simple configuration,

i think you should have provided law to soldiers as obtion,if anyone want to play it as a battle,two ways of playing will make this mission like a thriller,i like your mission always,what the point for four insertion point

[Gruntage]

i think you should have provided law to soldiers as obtion

Fair point. The mission was designed to be done using a stealth approach, but you could always grab an rpg from a soldier in the town (the mission would become too easy if I  gave the player a weapon that could destroy all four shilkas from 200m away, within the space of about 30 seconds). At least with satchel charges you have to use caution and skill. That's probably why I didn't give the player or his teammates LAWs.

What's the point of four insertion areas?

To add to replayability and the special feature factor. Going from the same place consistently would mean using the same strategy which would get a little boring after a while. By choosing your insertion you can explore new strategies. Granted, the insertions are all in similar locations, so I suppose having one to the west of the base would have been good.

Anymore questions?