(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[SEAL84]

Abrams comment.   Classic example of soaking and joining up.   The comment itself is, as you say, not that important to the kind of player who is going to play, enjoy or complete this mission.   However, it is ideal for developing the character of the loon in question.   When you meet him, he gives you clues about running away from tanks.   Later in the mission, if you give him a rocket launcher, he will complain.   He is the non-anti-tank man.    Give him a machine gun and he's happy.

Agreed.  Nobody needs to be told to stay away from an Abrams if you're on foot.  I'm thinking you could make the character who warns you about them the token whiner of the group - he's always complaining about something, which if done properly could give you a moment or two of humor in an otherwise serious mission.  Then again, it might just be irritating, I dunno ;D

As far as restructuring the conditions to go to war, I agree...playing this mission for the third time seems a little...stale.  Having stolen the ammo truck from 3, I really don't need to go foraging for weapons as I did before, and since attacking 3 is the "approved" way of starting the war there doesn't seem like there's as much to do.

Allowing the player to weaken one side manually and incite the war would make things a hell of a lot more interesting, that's for sure.

And as for 3, maybe you could make it a little more dangerous since there's such a big prize?  Perhaps mines around the town (save for the north-south roads), or small groups of Spetznaz and Black Ops nearby monitoring things, since the two sides don't trust each other as it is.  If I was one of the commanders, I'd want a recon team watching to see if the other side was plotting to ambush me when my convoy got there...

As always, just suggestions.

[macguba]

Whinging character, like it.

I did once think that 3 should have a permanent garrison of mixed, unarmed troops from both sides.    Or perhaps pistols only.   SetCaptive true, then perhaps combining against you when you appeared or something.

I was, if you recall, at my secret laager in the hills.   Went down to the farm to pick up the lorry - the one I'd forgotten about and which I could have collected instead of going to all that trouble in Dourdan - and, since I was in passing and it would have been churlish not to, put four ordinary mines in the road at Houdan.

Returned to laager, getting warstarting message on the way.  Put everybody in the truck and set off but killed almost at once by a wandering squad.   This is the second time in the mission I have been killed while driving a truck from A to B.    Things like this are why I didn't bother at all with vehicles when playing v1.00.    I know it can't always be helped, but I do think you should try and reduce the random squads.    They just make the mission more boring.

Dropped them without trouble on the next attempt - there were about 7 - and then headed by truck to Vigny.   I want to check that the boat is ok and Ruslan wants to bury his wife.   (*sigh* ... another trigger.  Would be a nice touch though.)   Took a chance and drove through La Pessagne which which I cleared last time I was here, but approached Vigny tactically - I was never really positive I'd got them all.

Ah!   Remember I was whinging about the one of the bodies being too near the two loons who shot?   This is what I meant.

And there was one loon in a garden: stuck I suspect.   We gave him the good news.    It was too dreich to see down to the boat and I didn't fancy the walk down, or rather back up.     The carnage to the west of the village, where that loon's squad had died, was dreadful.   We left Vigny:  there's nothing for us here.   I have a feeling I won't be using that boat anyway.

Drove back to La Pessagne and got the map out.     Stamenov knows about me now:  he knows that all his village garrisons are dead.   He knows that Andropov is attacking him.    There is nothing left to do except to head for Chapoi.

But not now,sadly.

[THobson]

@SEAL

Having stolen the ammo truck from 3, I really don't need to go foraging for weapons as I did before,

I plan to lose the vehicles at 3

playing this mission for the third time seems a little...stale

I know what you mean, and I agree.

Allowing the player to weaken one side manually and incite the war would make things a hell of a lot more interesting, that's for sure.

This is my next big soak.

small groups of Spetznaz and Black Ops nearby monitoring things, since the two sides don't trust each other as it is.  If I was one of the commanders, I'd want a recon team watching to see if the other side was plotting to ambush me when my convoy got there

There are in fact groups like this - not special units just standard infantry - but to prevent the war starting spontaneously they are some distance away.  Also I originally had north and south border guards at 3 to make it difficult for the player, but it didn't work - they caused a war.  I will think on this more.

You guys must be masochists.

@northener
Best of luck with your finals, see youwhen you can get back.

EDIT:
@mac

I did once think that 3 should have a permanent garrison of mixed, unarmed troops from both sides.    Or perhaps pistols only.  SetCaptive true, then perhaps combining against you when you appeared or something.

I started the mission with exactly this.  Problem is captive units trigger guard units so when I extended the mission to include others a war always started.  

Ah!  Remember I was whinging about the one of the bodies being too near the two loons who shot?  This is what I meant.

Fixed

I know it can't always be helped, but I do think you should try and reduce the random squads.  

 If you meet them in no-man's-land they are guard units going somewhere.

[THobson]

Re-ordering the team:

Rather than wait for v1.11 or whatever the next version is - are there any comments on the attached?

Just use your radio to activate the scripts for re-ordering the team.

[SEAL84]

Attacked Arudy all by my lonesome with an HK and a pair of frags...two guys wandering around, one standing near the mash tent and another in some bushes taking an extended leak or something...HK the bush man and the small patrol, head towards the tent from the side and get dropped by a sniper.  Death cam reveals that he's about 20 feet away, laying in a bush.  Not the best sniper spot if you ask me.

Retry...attack again, this time HKing that sniper first off, then the patrol, then the bush man, then head for mash tent...shot by ANOTHER sniper again laying down in a bush about 50 feet away.

Retry...this time take the M21, circle around Arudy to the West and come in from the Southwest...can't see the damn snipers (even though the weather has cleared somewhat) so I snipe the guys in the town save for bush man, who I can't see, and then start looking for the snipers.  Luckily the terrain blocked their LOS on me so I peek over a small rise and chuck a frag at one, then shoot the other guy in the melon with the M21.  Crawl into position to shoot bush man and do so.

I take cover at sniper #2's position, which is in a bush next to two small trees, and wait, because I hear something coming.  Another jeep convoy drives up - forgot each side had one - and they seem to get all screwed up when passing through the town.  I don't think any of them disembarked upon seeing the carnage, but another infantry squad arrived from the SW as well...sniped the crew of the last jeep in line and the rest of them seemed to be content to sit in between the houses where I couldn't shoot them.  I think one, however, did drive off.  Dealt with the infantry from the safety of my bush with the M21/CZ75 combo and sniped the crew of a second jeep which appeared to be untangling itself from a tree.  A third slowly crept out of the town heading West.  He wasn't moving very fast so I shot the driver in the face and as it rolled to a halt I took care of the rest of his passengers.  Three confirmed jeep kills in the town and I do belive that the lead one was the one that got away.

Meanwhile my men have reported an infantry squad at the lodge - two of my men were killed but they take care of the enemies.  I jump in one of my liberated jeeps and speed back to base to find that two of the soldiers are dead - dammit, shoot the civillians if you want but leave my soldiers alone! - and the two in question were armed with a LAW launcher and a Pig (M60).  I angrily try to figure out how an infantry squad got within 50m of our position without anybody noticing - especially when the officer is carrying a fecking yellow flag on his shoulder - but then ANOTHER infantry squad materializes and shoots me in the back.  My men didn't say a word.

Dammit.

More later.

[macguba]

I plan to lose the vehicles at 3

That's quite a big change.    What's the compensation?


Just tried the wee download.   My, you have learnt dialogues quickly!

Well it certainly works, and it certainly does what we need.   Sadly, for some reason, I am too befuddled at present to add any more useful comments.     You could make it slightly more beautiful, and add fancy features, but it already does what it says on the tin so well done.

The best part is that, assuming you can use it througout the mission (no reason why not) you can take certain people with you in a reasonable formation, and leave others behind.    Actually the more I think about this little thing the more I like it.  Would be handy in many missions.

[THobson]

That's quite a big change.    What's the compensation?

A longer mission that takes more thinking about.

Just tried the wee download.  My, you have learnt dialogues quickly!

Vektorboson's turorial showed me some of the posibilities, then razorwings18's dialog maker got me most of the way there and then back to Vektorboson for his superb Dialog Commands Reference.  Plus natural talent of course

You could make it slightly more beautiful

- and somewhat less noisy.  Have already made progress on both of these.

The best part is that, assuming you can use it througout the mission (no reason why not) you can take certain people with you in a reasonable formation, and leave others behind.  

It will become available as soon as you get a team and remain available to the end (I have added code that deals with the situation of all your team biting the dust).  Your last comment is interesting.  As I wrote it originally any team members that you did not chose were left out of your squad (you could get them back by running the script again), but then I thought - I would not want to leave people around that could not report back to me - so I made it add any un-allocated units to the end of the squad.  As I write this (through a haze of red wine) I realise that this was a mistake.  If the player chooses not to select everyone then so be it.  He should get the squad he selects.

A couple of drawbacks I see in this:
1) It might lead to less involvement with them as individuals. Without this script 5 is Irena - for every body, at all times.  9 is Sergei etc. etc.  I know who they are by thinking about when they joined.  With the script I lose that.
2) Part of my intention was to have the player uncomfortable.  Having resistance soldiers and civis mixed up helped with that.  This script gives the player the chance to tidy things up and so make it easier for himself.  I am not yet sure I approve

As an aside,  I said earlier that I chose name combinations that pleased me.  It was not until running this script that I realsied I had named Sergei after a handgun!  I suppose Tokarev is an equivalent to Smith or Weston.

[Planck]

Sorry I haven't managed to get around to playing this again yet, I haven't had the time.

If I don't get to play soon I might just wait for the next version.

BTW

The name Tokarev is used by BIS in the game config as well.

In the cfgWorlds section....class East....class Soldiers:

Georgi Tokarev
Maksim Tokarev

 ;D ;D


Planck

[Mikero]

The holes in this mission for me are as follows

lameness during collect all the civils / Trinite

godzilla

ap/av

extreme imbalance (lack of) of dialog  / cutscene / interactiveness.

I don't address them specifically, it colors my thinking in all my many  replies.

---
@Thobson

resistance

A background briefing does not work for me in *this* mission. There are two reasons for this

the stark, start here, attack Vigny. Nothing more.

The dramatic affect of learning as I go. No amount of briefing immerses me so hard into this mission as your currently beautiful cutscene information content. I am expecting here, o wow, oh wow o wow, of course, as I read some titletext.

What I need here (opinion) is a stark obviousness that the resistance troops are of this Island, they WILL defend their family, it is the reason why they cannot, would not dream of, joining the two FOREIGN armies. I need a like-minded-souls stuff. People who defended their Island while as a kid, I was escaping with my mum. I am, the next generation. These are, the Resistance, what remains of them. And great caution here, we are not Resistance at all, we are guerillas.

War trigger.

My game plan involved keeping the armies balanced. The last thing i wanted, in my game plan, was a trigger (convoys) to start a war. However, my game plan is wrong, and, the trigger is too easy. One thing I AM going to do before a war starts, is to hurt the enemy anywhere i can. >>YOU<< told me to do that in a titletext.

Please dont do anything that suggests to the player he SHOULD imbalance the sides to cause a war. This masterpiece is built around the so many options theme. I got it wrong, you can bet I'll replay to get it right.

>Abrahms

wouldn't a 100+ plus player know that.

No, she would not (But i understand what you said, and initially had an immediate backdown here).

I have played a conservative 1,000 missions, probably much more, whatever number it is, it's the number where you stop counting. In all those missions, I have never been at the pointy end of a Godzilla. This is in fact logical, statistically, missions are mostly the good guys, nato, against the baddies. Some few missions against Godzilla are satchel charges. I never knew they were tougher than a T80.

Fairness wise Thob, if FOUR AT people cannot destroy them, something is out of whack. You would not be using so many of them if Nato had the equivalent of a T72.

@Macguba

I bow to your knowledge of ammo boxes if they cause lag. This surprised me. You are spot on, they are not required, which is very diffent to not having or using them. Cange of mind here, they would reinforce the difference theme, if only one army had them.

@Seal

And as for 3, maybe you could make it a little more dangerous since there's such a big prize?

The first time I played this mission I headed straight for Trinite. My experience there was TWO full convoys of troops at same time. Hunting me in mist IN THE TOWN. I never went back.

I mention that for author feedback.

It made no sense to me that the town was a ghost on 2nd mission play. No sense at all that I could waltz right in and plunder anything I wanted. M2 nests face to face, and spetz singles (eg) guarding assets, all of them, make sense. There's no way a truck can drive through center road. It's barricaded.

Seal, you've touched on the 'lameness' I felt post mountain lodge. The general run around and shoot nothing, followed by an obvious attack Trinite first, which again, is often, lame. The answer Thob might be that sentries only have handguns (which hopefully don't start a blue on blue)

@MacGuba

lose the random squads against truck drives.

Cannot agree with you here Mr Mac. This pig is ordinarily a mortal sin from an author. In this mission, you 'learn' that because of the mist, you can outdrive anything. Five meters of petrol only, and they can't shoot you.

Secondly, it's thematic of the mission. The randomness is why you had so much 'fun' borrowing the truck and brought tears to our eyes, I'm still repairing my chair. Losing this, alters majorly, game play.

@THobson

I am not yet sure I approve

I strongly dissaprove. The uncomfortableness, the misery, is the mission.

You have forgotten, Thob, you've no longer noticed the WOW, a woman in my pack. The total, god-awful jumble. You've immuned yourself from the dramatic wow, this hodge-podge has had. I never knew you could mix and match to this degree, don't lose it.

[THobson]

@Planck
As you can see I am getting a lot of help on v1.10.  Some major changes are likely for the next version (war trigger; fog; vehicles @ 3?; more immersive story; more NPCs?; av/ap mines etc.).  Someone with fresh eyes would be really helpful then.  So please feel free to play this version if you wish, but don't feel bad about not doing - you will be helping me in the long run.

The name Tokarev is used by BIS in the game config as well.

I believe that is where I got it from.  I couldn't face any more telephone directories.

@All, but particularly in response to mikero's latest post:

3 is a complicated place that I have spent hours on, it has seen more overhauls than any other part of the island.  The theme of having soldiers there was where this mission started.  NeverFire; setCaptive true; border guards from each side facing each other down the main street. I tried everywhich way to make it work before giving up and re-thinking the whole set up.  Believe me, a single loon at 3 even if he has no weapons and is setCaptive true will cause a war.  The problem is that captive units still trigger guard units (this is a significant flaw in OFP in my view). The sequence of events for one loon is: opposite convoy turns up; they see each other; guard units from both sides turn up -> war.  I briefly toyed with the idea of having these border guards as civilians dressed up as soldiers, but that will not work because they will then not shoot at the player or his team and his team will not shoot at them.  While I am reminiscing - at one point I even had a female civilian spy in one of the buildings sending the player radio messages about the arrival and departure of the convoys.  What memories!

mikero is of course correct the central road of 3 should be barricaded.  The problem here is that vehicles seem not to notice these barricades.  They drive straight into them and when it stops them they just keep trying.  What I definitely want to avoid is for the player to return to 3 after starting a war and be faced with the awful noise and sight of a tank stupidly bashing itself against the blockage in the road.  I believe I have chosen the lesser of two evils.

The resistance theme - I can see that this could be developed considerably through additional dialog in the existing cut scenes - that is before I even add any more and it looks like I will need to.

Injured woman being nursed by Sergei.  His hut now has a bed and I can get her to lie down, but I can't get her to lie on the bed!!  I have not tried a fast loop to hold her there - but I would not want to do that anyway.  This is one of those cases where if OFP cannot not do what you want it do you have to change what you want until it can.  I need to think more on this.

One problem with the West tanks is the enormous difference between the M60 and the Abrams.  You are right, if West had something similar to a T72 I would not have so many Abrams.  On whether the player would know about the Abrams without being told - I recall you saying you don't make missions you just play them (which by the way makes the insightfulness of your comments even more impressive).  One of the first things I did when I discovered the mission editor was to set up some shooting galleries so I could train myself on long range LAW/RPG and AT shots; bringing down choppers with a LAW etc.  It was here that I learned the relative strengths of the armour, not when playing full missions.  So you are right, someone can play a lot of missions and still not have experience of being on the wrong end of an Abrams.  There is a strange phenomenon I find with with Abrams.  When I am in one it seems much more vulnerable to AT soldiers than it does when I am the AT soldier.

Re-ordering the team:  Even if I say so myself the re-ordering script is quite elegant and I am very pleased with it.  My concern is that it is an elegant solution to a problem I don't think I want to solve.

You are right (again) having a mixed team of civis including females is something I have not seen before - but over the last few months it has become normal to me.  I have tried to do some things that don't often get done - you may have missed it, it was in an early post, but at one point the mission started with the player in Le Port with only a bicycle for transport!

The whole war trigger thing is a change that needs to be made - but it is non-trivial both in execution and in impact on game play.  I need to think long and hard on this.


Same comment applies to the fog (except for the execution bit)

[Mikero]

@Thobson

after the hell you have put me through, severely and severally, After all the pain, misery and anguish you have supplied to other players, after reducing MacGuba to a mere grunt, after reducing all of us into gibbering wrecks when the theme and mood style changes faster than we can reload, I have to say there's much more than a touch of satisfaction in reading about the hell you're going through in making things work that wont.

>barricades

put a building there.

>re-ordering

I have nothing against the re-ordering, per se, I have yet to test your snapshot. I made comment what you forgot, and you recocginsed it. 2cents paid for.

>Bicycles.

I nearly swooned when I read that.

Put it back in.

boat to hamlet extreme NW because it has something to do with scud, boat sinks just as you get out, lose all equipment (basil fawlty cringe mode). Bicycle ride all the way back to mountain lodge. Ok, not that far, but,,,   ;D

[THobson]

 Your hell is as nothing compared with my hell ;D

[Mikero]

>snapshot thingo

Oh wow. Instant bereavement, instant homesickeness, how much I wanna get back there and play it again. I miss that Russian, and every woman likes flowers dont they? How dare you do this to me Thob, in the middle of my dinner. Here, Fido.

This tool has nothing to do with squad hodge podge, it's just an excellent, yet another, excellent, addition to the game. Why on earth wouldn't you let me adjust stuff. It's even MORE choices to make.

I dont like the loudness of the panel, I hope you can tone that down.

Got no idea what ADD means, I know what it does, but whatever...

Terrified I might delete one or two of my new friends, the people I care about now, so make sure I know I wont hurt me. Or warn me of sticky fingers.

Nice, but tone it down, and please put a squeal from one of the gang that they wanna be close to one of the others.

[macguba]

after reducing MacGuba to a mere grunt

;D


@Planck - consider waiting for the next version.   I will certainly play it, but I'm not sure I'll play it for real since by then I will have done it twice and others may feel the same way.   It's important that somebody plays it straight.



The reason you played Un-Impossible as East was the Abrams.     It has the same gun as the T80 and the T72 but is much harder to kill.    For details see this tutorial.    Sadly, the OFP community seems to regards west units as "goodies" and east units as "baddies".    Consequently you play far more missions as west.

And yeah, we all wish west had a T72 equivalent.

Ammo crates for one side only - obviously correct

Reordering - you should always have the full squad at the end of the dialogue:  there is no virtue in having loons leave your squad.

Having beta testers refer to loons as 5 (which you know is Irena) is part of the problem:   the objective is a mission where the beta testers subconsiously refer to her as Irina.

Guards in 3 - as I wrote that I thought there might be problems with it.    Deserted it shall be.

I've attempted to drive across country on three trips.   On two of them I've been shot by random squads.  I cheat save like crazy while beta testing so its not a big deal, but with limited saves it should be.   I love the randomness aspect, and appreciate that this kind of thing in this kind of mission is completely unavoidable.   All I'm suggesting is a perhaps a minor rethink of guard groups positions to make them choose more obvious routes.  Or perhaps put more of the guard groups in lorries themselves.

You're not going to get somebody lying on a bed without a fast loop.   You could run it only when the player is close.

Team reordering is going to be a big help.    Part of the problem is that your squad is so unbalanced - two civvies and the medic on the evens side for example.    Also the strength of the opposition:  you daren't go anywhere without at least 9 rockets, which even after picking up the deserter leaves you only 6 slots for AA, satchels, machine gun mags, spare rockets to use as mines and so on.   (Actually I gave the civvies bizons, which have big mags, and made them carry some stuff.)     The consequence of that is that you really have two squads, each of four loons.   One heavy, one light, but at present the arrangement is the heavy one on your left and the light one on your right.    Reordering takes all of these constraints and makes them fun rather than frustrating.    It also opens up a new area of the game:   now you really can organise fire teams that make sense without spending hours having loons drop all their kit and pick up each others'.  

Oh, and it will give the player far more involvment with the team.   During reordering, the squad is in front of you not behind you.   They are listed by name so you become much more familar with the names.    I would suggest having a couple of the names changed to nicknames.     Not Alex Tokarev but "Plunger" Tokarev.

The reordering interface is an ideal place for whinging from the squad as mikero suggests.    You can organise it all from the script so no need for extra triggers.     I suspect the more detail you put into that interface the better.   More informatoin about each loon would certainly help, for example skill level and one interesting fact.  ("Tatyana's husband"   "The Emperor of Houdan")

[Mikero]

@MacGuba

>Abrahms

I dont have the ready made solution to their 'unfairness'. As you probably realise I'm throwing ideas into the wind. Someone will pick up on this, possibly Planck, and get it right. This is the right place right time to keep chipping away at them. But I'm spent. I'll stop mentioning them for awhile.

>we all wish west had a T72

last throw of the dice. Supply FIA T72's to this side.

Having beta testers refer to loons as 5 (which you know is Irena) is part of the problem:  the objective is a mission where the beta testers subconsiously refer to her as Irina.

Too bloody right. I'm going to marry her. I only fell hopelessly in love 2nd time through to reinforce the message that caring about them didn't come as soon as it should have. 'Personality' is needed, a whingeing (sp) npc will do this. Just one is needed, for the player to be alert to,  to pay attention, look out for, other npc's to do similar.

>Reordering

You may have noticed, I did all I did do in my 'episodes', to inform the author of my constant checking of which flank was my weakest, was #2 (any #2 btw) *the* #2 that I needed, and etc. This was part of my game play, and the new addition is brilliant for me. I play this flank buisiness very well, which is why i dont normally park bits of my squad somewhere safe. That's my game play, and this addition will bring others to that table. It's added at least an extra hours enjoyment to the game.

>Guards in Trinite

Mac, does your comment stand if they only have handguns?

>npc details

you're on the money, Mr Mac.