Fucking bastard kittens. ;D They climb onto the desk just as the phone rings so I do a Ctrl-C to copy what I've already written. The post is trashed. But it seems they managed to do another Ctrl-C of 7 blank lines ......... :swipe: :wallop:
Anyway.
- Try and make it so that the medic is 6, not 7, in your squad.
- I like the way the mist comes and goes.
- The more I play this the more I dislike the infinite savegames. (Essential for beta testing of course.) I'm using them as a surrogagte for 4x: hiding the bushes I save, go and put the kettle on, come back and if nothing has happened (I'm waiting for a convoy to leave La Trinite) save again. It's funny how whether you have a shotgun at the start, whether you have 4x and whether you have infinite savegames are all really the same question.
- You could perhaps use area markers or coloured question marks to suggest which towns are in the control of which faction. Don't be afraid to use just writing on the map. "This area controlled by x".
- I am getting a tiny little bit of lag now. Not problematic. Lower graphic settings fixed it. Suggest you put setViewdistance/setTerrainDetail commands in init.sqs. Not too low, as you want the chopper radar to work. Players can adjust themselves if they want to.
- I'm not convinced by the mines as they take up no slots. You have the AT mines from the game anyway. Here's an idea.
Action menu based mine system. You find instructions for improvising mines int he field at the ammo dump.
- Place mines
Click it and you get
- Place hand grenade mine
- Place grenade mine
- Place satchel mine
- Place smoke mine
but ONLY if you have the requisite item in your inventory. When placed it is removed from your inventory of course, and the actual explosion does not have to be the exact same thing as long as its consistent.
Next, you get the fusing menu
- Infantry fuse
- Light vehicle fuse
- Armour fuse
- Any vehicle fuse
- Infantry/Light vehicle
- Anything
Or whatever you want. You'll have to play with it a bit to get what you want but the point is you have infinite mines, fused to got off however you want, as long as you have the kit to make them.
You could even add a time delay menu if you wanted. Or place the fuse and mine in different places. This would open up a world of possibilities: you could have different coloured smoke grenades go off near your location to indicate that the enemy were present in a remote place. Obviously you could fix it so that you could order your loons to place mines. And you could have a defuse mine action if you got close enough to a placed mine and had the slots free to carry the item ... or maybe just leave it on the ground. Anyway, something upon which to cogitate. You could just keep it simple and make it hand grenades and AP mine.
The problem is the number of triggers. This can be handled by making you find a box of fuses or something, rather than the complete mine.
- The story so far: I've rescued 2 groups of civvies, got 1 killed, and am lying on the outskirts of La Trinite. Moved into town and discovered the mines and ammo dump, got the hints. Took a few goes at this because I kept getting interrupted, but in the end managed to equip everybody with a long of some sort and move the ammo and repair trucks and BMP ambulance to the east of the town, to make them easier to steal on the next approach. Convoy from the north came in and we hid on the east side of town while they minced around.
Collected the wagons and headed back to the third civvy point, which I suspect will be safe. There we rearm. Bizons and NVGs for everybody, M21 and BGlockS for me. 2 rockets and a satchel for those as can carry them. It's 8.30 am and it looks like its going to be a nice day. Let's go and start a war.
Got into position overlooking La Trinite. The southern convoy was up, so I popped the vulcan and then the brad from 330m. The bangs took out some infantry and trucks, and the remaining loons who came towards us were dropped by my brave lads and lassies.
An idyllic scene. (twinSmoke.jpg) You will note that my civvies are fireteam green and the soldiers red. I don't know why, it just seemed like a good way of keeping track of things.
Normally at this point I would have legged it to avoid retaliation, but as I testing I hung around to watch. Didn't see much but after a minute or two got "hmm they're fighting each other".
Used the retry to investigate this a couple of times - I didn't fully understand what was happening. Certainly a lorry came up from the south and won a small firefight with somebody in the town, but I don't know who or how they got there. The place should have been empty of Northrons and although I can't swear nobody arrived just at the moment I didn't see any evidence of it. Unless they came in immediately by the west road, which I have no chance of seeing.
I'm not thrilled by this massive improvement in the weather. I would suggest you let it get light, leave it for an hour or two and then have weather improve. More atmospheric that way and gives a greater variety of conditions. Fog burns off in the morning only if there no thick rainclouds above it.
Left the firefight in 3 (short for La Trinite, geddit?) and I boxed round to the north with a view to mining the road. We must keep it fair in terms of armoured vehicles destroyed, mustn't we? Placed one AV mine, ran back to the squad and then headed south. We sorta ran into a couple of infantry squads, one moving away from us which we mostly dropped and then 5 standing still which we took out, but then I changed the plan slightly and we headed east back our Base at the old civvy house. On the way I heard one vehicle blow up - smoke at the northern edge of 3 - and later a chopper's gun firing followed by another explosion. The war appears to be going well. We rearmed and I put on a brew and got the map out.
My little base is in a dreadfully inconvenient place but moving it is going to be a nightmare in daylight.
Oh, here's another idea. The player finds a transistor radio and picks it up. Whenever he likes he can listen to it. There are several channels. Music of course, for long journeys. Maybe you could have two stations, one for CWC tracks and one for Resistance, and give the stations funky names. Then there is the weather channel, which gives weather forecasts for the next hour or two. They need not be 100% accurate but they should be generally right, allowing you to plan your day: I can't move my vehicles now, but in a couple of hours it might be possible if the rain comes back. Or maybe its going to be sunny all day and I can't move them unless I just take the risk. If I have infinite savegames of course then I might just keep trying till I get lucky.
Anyway, given where I am, it seems the best thing to do is recce the northern airfield. I could spend the morning clearing towns, but ...
By the way, if there is anythng you want me to check just say so. I'll plug in a savegame and go look. My strategy at the moment is to recce the airfield and do some damage/destroy it if possible. Then perhaps a town or two, working my way south to do the same at that end. When I think I've got enough brownie points to get away with it I'll go back to the lodge and shoot the civvies.
So I heads north and from as far away as possible hit the dirt and turn up the viewdistance as far as I dare. (3500m) I see a 3 man patrol going up the east side of the airfield fence in combat mode, which looks a little excessive. A lone RPGer behaves similarly on the southern fence. There's nobody on the road to St Louis that I can see and the airfield gate is unguarded. Bradly and tank by the main buildings, another brad by the fuel station, a few loons running around, the odd M2.... this shouldn't take long.
For fun I decide to take out the M2 gunner by the southern building. 7 rounds at 834m is nothing to be proud of, but in my defence there was a convoy going past which meant I couldn't see the fall of shot. Feeling cocky I switch to RPG and have a pop at the Vulcan that just arrived, but 1100m is too far and the missile airbursts short, I think.
There is a constant problem with my 2. He keeps running forward, out of position, even when he is supposed to be lying down. It's not so much getting himself killed - if he is going to do that the sooner the better frankly - but he has just given away our position.
That's it for now.