(Review Completed) [SP] The Black Gap

[Tyger]

Sui, have you tried having the player join objNull? I believe that might fix your problem.

[Sui]

Thanks mate... that does seem to help the situation a little.

I've tested it a few more times and only encountered the problem once out of about 5.

Bugger it... I'll post up the latest beta tonight or tomorrow anyway
It needs some community testing, and I can't be bothered perfecting it until the cows come home...

[456820]

by anychance does it have anything to do with the group they are called ?
since if someone from say grpalpha switched with grpbravo as team leaders would grpalpha now become grpbravo or would it stay the same since the player may still be part of groupalpha and then it gets muddled up with grpbravo and still gives you the radio messages ?
i doubt you understand that but its the best i can explain it

anyway cant wait for the release or beta release either way cant wait it sounds great cant wait to go into that awsome firefight again Great stuff

anyway im going to be waiting for the release either way tonight or tommorow ive got something to look forward to from coming back from school cant wait

[Sui]

Right... that's a little bit better...

New version up (available from the first post in this thread)
I'm keen to get a few more reports if anyone is able to please.
Here's a quick (and dirty) list of some of the new things to this version:

• Outro
• Court-Martial for if you kill your Lieutenant
• New commands one the command interface:

> Establish Base of Fire
          > Merge squads (if squads have reduced numbers)
          > All squads report Status

• Beta testing radio calls:

> Take command of platoon
          > View outro (ends mission to view win outro)[/list]
I would really appreciate feedback on whether or not anyone get's the 'stuck on alpha's radio net' bug... I'm hoping I've eliminated it but it's one of those bugs that you never really know for sure

Anyway, thanks for the continued interest... I'm two parts away from having all the voices done. Hopefully release shouldn't be too far off (this has got to be one of the longest running OFP beta tests ever ;D)

[456820]

WAHOO new version 0.95 right if its not please tell me before i test it ive got homework now but will test with ECP straight after cant wait
also ill edit this post witht he review

EDIT first of all when i just opened the donwload i did not see the file in the .zip you have to save the .sip on your computer to extract it i suggest you put that on first page Sui

Right here we go with ECP new version

Overview
same part it says 0.95 instead of 0.90

Intro
Pretty much the same except a few new angles and shots but apart from that same
i did notice 2 things though when Buffalo gets attacked they say they are unable to return fire i get no reply from command then they say there going back to dourdan
and also buffalo seems to take far too long to react to the attack in the valley

apart from that very good and nice touch with no voices but the lips still move how is that done its new unless i couldnt hear the voices ?

Briefing
good pretty much the same even though i didnt read it all

i gave me the 203 with 3 grenades and a law as secondary with no laws for some reason weird

anyway time for the mission

note im going to complete the mission then tell you about it

Mission

Played it and its great
i started of came throught the valley encountered a few patrolstook them out then encounetered the UAZ took it out after wasting my M16 so i swapped it with an Ak i wanted to take control so i killed the Lt through the radio sorry i forgot to get court martialled

so i ordered charlie to give a base of fire i dont have a clue what it ws meant to do i thought it just meant the squad fire in the position i clicked but now i think they just lye there and shoot at the enemy wich is right ?

anyway after a rety, new idea and an intense battle with tracers going past my ear making me duck behind my table we secure the area the engineer comes along blows the road block then the tanks ocome past and mission acomplished DAMN i wanted to attack Arudy but oh well mission is still complete

i would of like to see the tanks seize Arudy but it doesnt matter cause i got to watch a cool outro

Outro

great i always love your cutscenes and especially if they involve a fire fight your one of the very few who can film a fire fight and make it look good others just make it look like a mess me included

but this was great bullets all over the place machine gunners laying down covering fire the atmosphere was just as good as the mission

nothing wrong i spotted with the outro
also is there an outro win and outro lose if so wich did i watch ?

anyway great mission

the atmoshpere in taking l'espace noir was not as good as last time i played have you removed some enemy's if so put them back i found it far to easy this time only took one retry last time took a good 10 and i didnt want to give up since it was so good

anyway amazing work a good solid 9 definately going towards 10 with a few more enemy's in l'espace noir who have waypoints coming straight at you would gie this a 10 aslong as it has the voice files and all the other things you were going to included

Great Mission

cant wait for the next version or will that be the final ?
keep up the amazing work

[456820]

just a quick edit ive noticed that the base of fire when the team is in position then those little dots come from there symbol when i tell the squad to move again they stay there and dont get dleted

edit - sorry just relised i didnt edit that post

[Trapper]

OFP1.96 bench 5555, vetmode, no superai, ECP

First time that I play this mission.

Readme:
A good one.

Overview:
Many informations. Impressiv.
The shadow of the picture doesn't seem to be transparent.
The two paragrahps on the first page read a bit like one of them would be enough.
The first one is the one I would keep, but the second one reads like the old originals.

Intro:
Good camera work and quality. Involving.
I hope you'll remove the "Buffalo: " ect from the subtitles when you find voice actors.

Encoutered a bug at first: The Russian AT soldier refused to launch the AT and then I saw the tanks driving in slowmotion until I canceled the intro.

Briefing:
Very detailed, almost overwhelming. (But still fine )
On thing that gets lost in the shuffle of the infos, is where the player will be in the platoon. - The only clue I did find, is in Command & Signal, and I had to know what "Alpha Blue" above the map is standing for. You could add (my squad) in Command & Signal to solve this problem for rookies.
A realistic looking squad and gear selection.

Mission:
-I was very happy that my lieutenant survived the mission.
-After providing covering fire with my squad in front of L'Espace Noir, he ordered me to the "trees south of the road". I wasn't  sure if he was talking about trees in front or behind of the fortifiactions.
-Also I never saw the yellow guiding lines again from this moment on.
-The star icons in the briefing look nice, but I prefer big and useful text links. These small icons require sniper skills when reading the briefing in combat.

The first objective on your list when you finish

Intercept the patrol

The last objective on your list when you finish

Support the armour

Your opinion on the Formation Guide. Too annoying? Does it show up enough?

Very nice done and ok. But after approaching L'Espace Noir it was gone.

Difficulty when assaulting L'Espace Noir

Moderate, but I wasn't in command.


Overall the mission has a very realistic and immersing infantry feeling to it.


Debriefing:
This picture shadow looks good.
You have a notable tendency to fill up every empty piece of paper you can get your hands on. - But thats not really a problem.

Outro:

Typo: Vektorboson

The outro is very hard for me to review.
+ with it's quality it could easily replace the CWC outro
- its too much and too long for one mission

After watching it, I've got the feeling, that the quintessence of the whole outro is only the last sentence shown in it.
I would suggest to make the outro not one second longer, than you really need it to give all the credits. But you're listening to someone who is bored by all the repeating OFP scenes, because he has seen them too often.

[Sui]

Thanks for playing guys

This should (hopefully) be the final beta, all that really remains is adding the last two voice parts and cleaning up any remaining bugs.

456820, thanks for the tips on the base of fire function. I'll make sure I get rid of those dots after it ceases

Trapper, thanks for all the feedback. There's still quite a few bits of polishing to be done on the outro (including cleaning up the credits, as I'll be using custom resources).
I'll have a re-look at the code that calls up the formation guide. 'The group of trees' becomes more obvious if there's a yellow marker pointing to it

Thanks guys.

For anyone else, I'm still keen to see if anybody gets the radio bug when taking command of the platoon

[456820]

hey i havent had trouble with the radio it was fine i could order my own team i wasnt connected to alpha anymore it was fine also what does the base of fire command actually do on this i thought it was like covering fire but it didnt look like they were doing much covering

[mathias_eichinger]

Hi there!

I also played the mission the first time.


Overview

Nice touch, you don't see too many overviews that are more than one page long.


Intro

I could not see it, one of those "missing addons" things came up.


Mission

Wow, this mission is one of the best I ever played. I was sceptical of the "platoon action" because I never managed to use the CoC Command engine properly.

But it starts with me being a squad leader in a platoon. This brings immersion for the player, because it's the was conventional infantry missions are "meant to play" IMHO.
Oh and the conversation in the helo is funny  

Bug

I could never see the formation guide in the first person perspective, I always had to check my map.
But I think it is a very good idea and very helpful!

After I cleared the OP, we encountered a sniper who took care of my LT. Now, the platoon interface came into play. WOW! No more dreaded CoC interface, very easy to understand and to use. Well, but I did not use the "fire base" option. What's that about?

The Espace Noir was not a problem for me. I just underestimated the time for a flanking maneuver of my two squads and I finished most of the enemies off myself. Speaking of the enemies at that roadblock: The outflanked me from the right and I took heavy casualties (my squad being down to 6 men). But I survived and better platoon management should make this rather easy.

Arudy was not so difficult, because I had tank support. Overall, this mission is really great and the first fluid attempt at platoon command I ever encountered. It would have been great if I just remained a squad commander as well  ;D

First Objective: Take out OP
Last Objective: Take command of your squad.
All other objectives sandwiched between the two.

Outro and Cutscenes

Superbly done, especially the Outro. You don't see such a perfect firefight camescripting every day!
 

Cheers

Mathias

[Sui]

The base of fire command get the squad in a position to cover a direction. It makes they take cover (setbehaviour "Combat"), and keeps them facing the direction you told them to. It's good if you want to do a bounding overwatch, or set up an ambush.

Thanks for playing, mathias

I'm glad you found the system intuitive... that's exactly what I was aiming for. CoC is much more indepth and comprehensive than mine, but I like simplicity.

I'll check that formation guide, as it's obviously not behaving.

This mission is very close to release. I'm just waiting on a couple more voice parts, and I'm away laughing. More testing is always appreciated though

[456820]

cool cant wait for it ill probaly play again this is a great mission

[456820]

just wondering do you have any more plans after this missions since the 3 missions this, Airborne and facile ground all link to each other, is this like a bunch of single player missions with a story or are you stopping after this and leaving it as a kind of cliff hangar
'This fight for Malden continues' or what ever it was  ;D

anyway cant wait for the mission ill try to get antoher test in i keep meaning to but theres something that gets in my ways Eg Facile Ground cause its below this mission on my SP list so i end up playing that  ;D

anyway i love your missions there all top notch high quality kick ass missions keep up the great work

[Sui]

Yeap... the next one is already planned out in my head.
I may wait for ArmA though

[Sui]

Well after what is quite possibly the longest beta period ever, this mission is finally RELEASED!.

A huge thanks to everyone who contributed. Your hard work made this mission much better than it ever would have been had I not put it up for beta test.

Thanks too to all the great people who volunteered for voices. The ambience added to the mission puts the atmosphere up at another level.


So if you'd like to see the final product, head on over to the missions depot and check it out