(Review Completed) [SP] Ghost Drop

[Merc]

First: I am NOT done with the mission yet and was wondering what people thought of it (so don't remind me that i have no overview or objectives)

Ok...

You are part of a special forces team that is being para droped behind enemy lines to take out some stuff. This mission will self-destruct in 30 sec.

Since the objectives are not in the mission this is what they are:

Objective 1: Destroy some T72's

Objective 2: Destroy some Shilka's

Objective 3: Survive

Warning: Some stuff will not be there the 2nd time though.

The green dot is where you are. The rest you can figure out yourself.

All comments are welcome.

Edit: Forget the above. There are objectives in the mission. The 6th version is out and since Mikero does not like to look for stuff, here is the 6th version

Edit: This mission has been reviewed and is available from the Missions Depot.

[scooter24]

Hey Merc!
First of all, I loved the 'sky-dive' feature. The altimeter is also extremely handy. This is A-Grade work to begin with. When I reached both towns however, I simply laid down a barrage of surpressing fire on the guards and they ran like an elephant from a mouse. You'll want to use the '"_x allowFleeing 0" forEach units  myGrp' command. Also, consider using a 'switch' trigger to cancel the 'CYCLE' waypoint and set it to 'SEEK AND DESTROY'.
     This mission just goes to show how important briefings and objectives really are. Try it and you'll know what I mean.
     This is a very interesting mission and i'll be lookinng forward to it's release. Good luck!
scooter24.

[Tarados Qeng]

Even if it's a beta, it should have even some sort of a overview and briefing. It makes it difficult to test if you don't know what you should do and you have to alt-tab to windows to see what were the objectives. I started this not looking at your post and was really surprised by the beginning. Always include overview and briefing to your beta missions.

No intro. Why can't I select my weapons? I would have wanted a LAW for some of my loons. Add a gear selection, when you do the briefing. Well, well. The mission. I moved on and get to the T72s. A large bunch of crew guys are walking around, not very realistically. There's another bunch of soldiers a bit farther. Me and boys killed the crew soldiers, lost three of my own in the firefight. Why didn't the crew try to board the tanks? They just ran around and shot every once in a while. Got into one of the T72s. Killed the another bunch of bad guys from it, and ordered 5 to board my tank, too. Shot other three T72s with sabots.

Moved on and came to Lipany. First time I killed most of the soldiers and the Shilkas, but got nailed by AT guys. I have to say that the defense isn't well organized - there's just squads running around the town.

Second try. I shot the Shilkas from distance and drove away. Okay, guess I'll have to destroy my transport, too. I took a look on the map and decided to first drive to the evac point. I got near to it, and disembarked. I was just about to plant satchels, but a weird, editor-driven cutscene interrupted me. Didn't get the idea on that.

Well, I thought it was the mission end, but it wasn't. I planted two satchels and blew the tank up. A radio message - get to the evac chopper. Was the chopper waiting there from the beginning? How did it get there - there were Shilkas nearby, if I remember correct? I think it should arrive after I've completed  the objectives.

Well, boarded the chopper and got another editor-driven cutscene. Mission end. No outro or debriefing.

Feedback, suggestions etc.

Make the T72 base more realistic. Make the unit behaviour more realistic. Make it harder. Lipany's defense should be started from the scratch again - it's very unrealistic just having squads walking and running around. And the briefing should give me very much information, considering what kind of mission this is. Give me gear selection (binoculars, LAWs...) The chopper shouldn't be there from the beginning. The idea of the mission is quite good, but there's a lot to improve in the mission.  

Edit; Just forgot something: The altitude meter was nice.  

[456820]

hey i played your mission and it was good

overview and breifing
didnt have as you said

intro
none but with how you start a good idea is have the plane you start in show the black op's then look out the end of a chinkook or something anyway

mission
now the begining was very good loved the idea of sky diving and the pull chord action.
so when i landed i thought i was alittle close to the town but they didnt notice i then creaped up close and started killing half the population. then got to the t72's put 2 satchel charges and ran then yay objective 1 done atleast i thought. you could atlest have a hint saying youve complete that objective since you dont have a breifing yet but its no biggie. i then killed the rest and set of to the ammo dump there could atlest be 1 or 2 men patrolling here so i took some more charges and again i creapt up to the shilka's killing all the men. (try raising there skill meter they were just loking at me without shooting)but i did get shot eventurley as i was placing a charge next to a shilks.

outro
didnt get that far

overall
great mission lots of potential here its just alittle to easy make it harder and it will be a great mission good scripting like the sky diving.
 keep up the good work

[Merc]

@everyone
Thank you for testing my mission. I will fix almost everything suggested to the mission later today.

[Merc]

I have a briefing problem. The briefing won't load into the game. The mission still works, but no briefing. Why would the briefing not load?

[456820]

it could have a problem in the breifing but im not very good with breifings myself but thats just a guess aslong its as .html and is in your missions folder there should be no reason why it doesnt work

[Dubieman]

Get CHOFPSE, Chris Henderson's ofp scripting editor to make some quick briefings and overviews. Plus it helps with other editing needs too.

[Merc]

@GuiltyRoachKillar
Thanks for telling me about that scripting editer. It really helped.

@everyone
Here is the updated version of my mission. It has one MAJOR difference...

A BRIEFING!!!!!
 ;D

So download it and tell me what you think.

[Merc]

This version has an overview and some more minor changes.

[THobson]

Ghost Drop 3

Overview:
No picture.

‘You mission…' should be ‘Your mission…'  The mission is to get in destroy and then get out.  Is there space to give us a clue about what we are trying to get in to?

Into: None

Briefing:
Again:  â€˜You job' should be ‘Your job'

You could usefully add some blank lines to give it a less cramped appearance.

There is a lot of information on the map.  How would we know all this and how did the ammo dumps get there?  It might help to set the atmosphere if you could expand the story a bit to explain these.

I got some binoculars for me but left all the other weapons unchanged.

Mission:

I loved the freefall start.  I am playing it during the day with the curtains closed - not the best way to play a night mission.  It took me a few goes before I landed safely.

I leave my guys at the first ammo dump and go and explore.  I see 4 tanks well illuminated in the town with their crew standing around, I also see a couple guys patrolling the outskirts of the town, actually no they are walking up and down the road.

This is definitely my sort of mission.

I try several times to creep close to the town, but each time an alarm goes off.  Now I like to think I am pretty good at this stealth stuff and I was surprised at how far away they detected me.  If the trigger is a West detected by East trigger then I must be getting rusty.  If it is a West present trigger then I think that is a bit unfair and it will take away from the fun.  I will try again.  I seem to be detected at about the same place each time.  Either there is a guard I am not seeing or it is an unfair trigger.

New plan.  Scatter mines and satchel charges.  Wake them up and let them come to me.

All my men now have LAWs and no one can get near the ammo dump for mines and Satchel charges.  Time to wake them up.  I start hitting the tank crew with HK rounds at long range.  They run around a lot, die quite a bit but don't get in the tanks.  Even after all this I see the two soldiers still walking up and down the road in safe mode.  No alarm yet, I am keeping out side your trigger.  It looks like the order to the crew to get in the tanks is linked to a West present trigger.  I shoot one of the guys walking up and down the road and the alarm goes off.  One tank now comes to life and heads off to somewhere I can't see.  Some infantry appear and I notice some guards still walking up and down in safe mode!

Eventually the lone tank wanders by and I give it the good news with my LAW.  Some infantry chase me so I head back to where I have my men (on the hill over looking the ammo dump).  I am now short of ammo.  Go to the creates and… there are no HK mags in the crates, so I take an UZI.  I keep hearing explosions of grenades.  Could the loons be walking into their own booby traps?

I get my men together and go round to the hill over looking the town at the NE and come in from there.  My guys start taking pot shots at the stationary tanks with LAWs so there must be some one in at least one of them.

I see a couple of infantry running away and the town is then quiet.  I go into the town and find a slightly damaged tank, a lightly damaged tank and an un-damaged tank.  Now something really strange happens.  If I kill any of the tanks my own team mates kill me!!  Could it be that empty vehicles are seen a civilians and so by killing a tank my rating is being reduced below zero?  I don't know but it is a pain.

So there is no alternative.  I line my men up and shoot them all.  Then I get into the good tank and kill the other two.  I go to the other ammo dump and get some satchel charges.  I then drive to the top of the hill to the west of Lipany and rain HEAT and MG fire on the loons in the town.  I drive into town sabot the shilkas there (I only needed two shots.  Each exploding shilka killed the one next to it). Headed for the pick up point.  On the way a cutscene kicked in and I had an impressive overhead view of my tank speeding along, but unfortunately I could not see where I was going and ran into a house.  Got near to the pick up point, got out of the tank and put a satchel charge next to it.  As I was approaching the chopper I detonated the charge.  I now have three green ticks.  

I got in the chopper and nothing happened.  It didn't take off and the mission did not end.  After a while I get out shoot the pilot and get in as pilot myself.  I now see the problem.  The chopper has no fuel.

At this point I kill the mission.

What can I say.  I really like missions like this and this one has a lot of potential.  Lipany would have been very difficult without the T72.  There are a few things that need to be fixed as you can see from my account above (key points below).

I don't like the green dot showing where I am.  I know where I am and when I don't it is fun figuring it out.  The trucks should not be marked on the map - I can find them.  The bobby traps are a puzzle.  How do I know about them and why do the loons keep blundering into them?  I should not have to kill my whole team to complete an objective.  The mission should end cleanly.  The alarm trigger should be more realistic.  West detected by East, plus the death of any one of the loons (after an appropriate time delay) should send the base on to alert.

Best of luck

I will post again if I think of anything else.

[Dubieman]

Test soonish...

[.pablo.]

here are some quick thoughts, i only tried it once and didnt get past the t72s...

why aren't there more hk mags in the equipment select screen?

in the briefing, i was asking myself, "how many t72s/shilkas are there?  what is their status?" (are they patrolling, are they just sitting there, etc)

i died the first time we parachuted it, i didn't know i was supposed to deploy the chute manually

i landed on the ground and realized i didn't have any binocs, but i wasnt sure if i had accidently deselected them or not; binocs by default would be appropriate for this kind of mission

i didn't know what i was up against, so i outfitted myself and my squad to be able to take on 3 patrolling t72s and patrolling shilkas; in other words:

me: hk, law launcher, 3 laws
2: hk, 3 laws (no launcher, i didnt want him wasting them)
3: hk, carl gustav launcher, carl gustav
4: hk, carl gustav launcher, carl gustav
5: hk, carl gustav launcher, carl gustav

when i saw the 4 parked t72s with crew running around, i thought "damn, now what..."  i told my ai to hold position and i ran closer, but got spotted.  i managed to take out about half the crew members before they could get in their t72s, but 2 still became operational and managed to kill off me and my squad (my ai missed the t72s with their carl gustavs)

i forgot to check my score; sorry!

[Tarados Qeng]

I didn't actually test this mission again (yet) but I took a look on the overview and briefing.

Overview should include a bit more text, perhaps, and a picture. Briefing should tell you how many T72s and how many Shilkas there are, are there much enemy forces in the area, stuff like that. Remember that specialists have always more information about the mission than regular soldiers.

[Ade]

Bear with me because I'm rubbish at black-op type missions (I like my Minimi  :gunman: ). The overview needs a pic, but you can always add that in later. More importantly, the briefing is fine as it goes - very clear and straightforward, but maybe expand the notes section a bit to give more of an atmosphere. Storyline's no big deal with a mission like this, but something that gives more of an impression of being part of a big operation really helps.

Decide to play on FlashFX version 3. No glitches noted.

First try - parachute script is excellent, a really good, fun way to start. Land quite close to the first objective, get my squad together and find the ammo dump.  Having already equipped a couple of LAW's at the briefing, I decide to come back for a refill later.  Approach the base from the west. Siren goes off, Russian troops run about reasonably convincingly and then I die in a hail of machine gun fire. Oops  :-X

Restart and decide to approach from the East, round the back of the church.  100 metres or so from the church, we spot a few Russians (3 or 4) and shoot them.  This stirs up the rest of the guards.  Advance on the church and sneak past the MASH tent. Engage another 6 or so guards and then hear diesels firing up. Sure enough, no. 2 spots a T-72 rumble down the road. Despatch a LAW loon to sort it out.  Spot crews piling into further T-72's behind shed and decide to sort them out myself. Run for shed, unstrap LAW and blast one tank. Reload while other crewed-up tank's turret swings towards me. Fire LAW. Then follow standard procedure when hit by 105mm HEAT round (ie leap 50 feet in the air and spread myself over a wide area). Ow.

This looks like it has all the makings of a very good black op mission and the only improvement I can suggest thus far is pretty cosmetic - where the T72's are located doesn't really feel like a camp. It might be better if the loons in the camp are sat round a fire or otherwise lounging, while there are a couple on guard and maybe some perimeter patrols. A few more tents and maybe a repair or ammo truck would top it off. Just a thought. I'm going back for another crack (always a good sign) and will comment on the second section once I get to it.

Hope this helps,

Ade

[sharkyjoe]

Good Job--Not bad for just beginning.
Did the Missiom 3 times-it was Fun. 3rd time got to end.
1st time shot right away trying to get closer. 2nd time surround tank town took it out. Died in the Shirka town. 3rd time surround tank town got key postions,one tank had loons in it the rest were all mine empty and to play with -->3 in all.  So now its goto  Shirka town took'em out with my captured  tanks. I skipped the northern  town(why fight when the objectives are pretty much done). Drove the tanks close to chopper jumped out. Loaded the 3 men left, into chooper blew the tanks jumped in chopper... Nothing happened... sat there... Nothing.
Same stuff as above tank town gaurded/patroled better more suff in it. Shirka town good number Loons. Shirkas to close, easy to take out. Maybe make something happen in the northern Town. Like meet a guy that takes you to landing area(hinden objective or marker). And of course see how that darn chopper didnt start up or have the chopper be called in when man shows ya the way.
Over all pretty good. I would down load it for 30-50min sp map game once the buggs are out. Keep it going  

[Mikero]

Hmmm.

Like evry1 else I loved that parachute drop. Spectacular. And I think like every1 else I forgot to pull the chute

Niggle: Hoping I would get shot so i could start another paradrop, but it didn't happen <grin>

Booby traps are great, I do wish though that you'd tie them into mines (eg) ie something visible we could disarm, or at least avoid. Bit of a spoiler just getting blown away for no apparent reason, no apparent logic to where they're planted etc.

I wasn't expecting the four tanks to start up. It became a great satchel mission when they did.

Whole first part was good, you could replay this section 6 different ways (and judging from others comments, they have)

The enemy AI is far too low, they just dont see you, that's dissappointing and quite boring.

The shilkas were 'ok', sort of. Thought it rather pointless having all these ammo crates and trucks liberally scattered everywhere. Part of the 'fun' is to retreat and get what you forgot. The amount of ammo/trucks was silly.

as others have commented, why no HK mags in ammo crate?

By the time i got to town past lipany I was pretty much sick of the mission. The ai was dumbed down to hell, blasting away at soldiers, all remaining in safe mode. (I eventually just ran over the lot of them)

Unlike others, i recieved NO cutsene middle bit, did you take it out on rev3?

Got in chopper, and waited, and waited, and waited...... -endmission

Not worth playing again, unless the AI is turned up something fierce.

[THobson]

Am I the only one that was attacked by my own side once I had killed the empty tanks at the start?

[Mikero]

Am I the only one that was attacked by my own side once I had killed the empty tacks at the start?

dunno. I got so *excited* by the paradrop, i chuted directly onto them!

Think I may have altered gameplay a tad ;D But I probably got extra brownie points for my skill and daring, so >I< didn't get turned into a civilian.

<slap>

[Merc]

Thanks for all the great comments everyone.

I am going to fix up the mission right now.

[Merc]

Here is version 4. I FIXED THE CHOPPER PROBLEM!!!!!  

I added a picture. More minor tweaks. Took out an ammo dump. Added HK magazines to ammo dump.  ;D

If anyone thinks the mission is to easy after they play this version, the i will turn the mission into one like Kill the Secretary (mikero will know what i'm talking about   )


just kidding...

I will just turn up all the AI's skill to max if anyone thinks it's too easy.

...

I just remembered something....  

I took a squad out of the mission by mistake.

o well...

Enjoy ver. 4 until ver. 5 comes out later today or tomorrow.

[Merc]

sigh...



Here is version 5, out earlier than expected.

[Mikero]

Smack

always edit your first entry.

OFP 1.96 pristine, bench 5895, no super ai
Readme: none

Intro: none

Overview:

Nicely presented and a TERRIBLE picture. Do this again with sky as background.

Briefing load:

Boring old "get ready". Change it to something interesting.

Briefing:

A bit ordinary but nicely presented.

Notes:

nice

Gear selection.

Black ops require binocs. Always.

Group:

Good but a little ho-hum all being experts, Not necessary and certainly not interesting.

Mission:

intro:

Brilliant, absolute 100% brilliant.

A player will forgive you many sins after this.

Map:

You are confusing your excellent attention to detail providing tents, mash, trucks through the entire journey, and, it is a journey, with map details about arming here, getting there, ammo dumps here here and here, remove some of the ammo dumps, and drop the noise level off the map. A player *enjoys' discovering these items. Not being led by the hand the way you have done.

The mission is FUN with a large capital F. The mission alone is an 8 rating. Easily.

The loons in so far as I could determine (see why below)  were savage. Lovely stuff.

Since I've played before, I decided to 'hell with this' and just raced for the tanks. We took out pretty much all that moved.

Niggle: I dont think it 'correct' that becuase I drop a sentry, the alarm goes off.

Niggle: am not happy about the lack of visual with your booby traps, these should be claymores to give me a chance.

Most of my squad dead by booby traps but #4,5 and myself get in a tank, 5 fdies by booby before he gets there.

Very few crew made it alive. Only one tank twitching. It goes up and I take out remaining empties (2). There's a lone crew trying to get in one, but, hee hee.

I splatter a few roamning loons but basically not interested in them, if they've got laws, i'd whack em.

drive up to capital city and THEN the fun starts. My god this was good stuff. I rarely, if ever, enjoy tanks. But, the chemistry is 'right' here. There's a squillion loons being bloody unpleasant. The buggers are swiping at me, left, then right,  centre, right again, and so-on. I wont tell you the quantity of cheatsaves I used, that, is a beta testers discretion

Ultimately I get it right, I stay out of town and circle it. Blapping anyhting in a sideswipe. Eventually get into town outskirts sufficiently to pick off shilkas. Enemy AT and Enemy RPG is BRILLIANT.

At one point an AT got me, before I die, because the tank was destoyed, i get an 'objective' complete. Fell off my chair laughing.

I have no Machine gun left, am down to maybe 7 HEAT, and ignore remaining loons at north of city, other than to swipe anything that has a big bad pokey thing that could cause me damage.

drive up to other twon, sensibly marked as just ? on map (very well done there author)

Luckily smack the buggers as they move west into town centre, sheer b*lls on my part that I got the rpg'ers. Lovely, Lovely stuff, thouroughly enjoyed mysefl here, and THAT IS what mission making is about isn't it?

Swap positions and drive to chopper, 4 is a hopeless navigator, he's wounded, tank is badly scratched and I blow it up after I get 4 on board

chopper gets us out of there, a VERY NICE, NVG visual of mission complete.

Overall.

Others, self included, will and have, rave about that paradrop. But for me, using that tank was the bestest best. You will never, not ever, get me to be a black op in this mission. Not never ever.

A total waste of time providing any ammo boxes anywhere, completely un-necessary, black op, or tanky tank.

An annoying booby that I wish you'd visually fix up.

Briefing is poor. Just doesn't grab you.

Rating.

Oh, definitely 8 and bordering on a 9, tank and pardrop combined, but right now, only a 6 because of the poor bits mentioned and the lack of an intro.

[Merc]

I am going to add an intro in the next version which will hopefully be out this week sometime. I will mark the traps and add some other stuff (like make a new picture for the mission). I didn't mean for everyone to take a tank but since everyone likes to do that, I guess I won't change it. The next version will most likely be the last version unless anyone has any major faults with it.

@everyone who tested this mission and commented on it
Thank you for testing this mission, it is the first one I put effort into and I want it to get a good score  ;D

[Mikero]

Actually Merc, I don't like getting in tanks, they're very dull things that almost always cause the ai to go dumb, turkey shoots aren't that interesting. Either that, or your cooked by AT guys, or whacked by too many tanks on the other side or a chopper you can do nothing about. The ofp engine only works 'well' with grunts. All other objects are compromises. Think you will find most players agree with my sentiment.

But, your mission was different. I had initially intended just to use it to blow away the other tanks, knock a few loons off in that village, then go back to black op.

It turned out that the 'chemistry' around the capital city was that magic number. The buildings alleys and roads saved the loons from being turkey shoots, and saved me from being whacked by AT I would never see till too late. So this is a once off, never to repeated, style, for my general game play.

[Merc]

I am currently working on the next version of this mission. The AI will have all max skill :gunman:, some random stuff will appear :tomato:, an easter egg somewhere :hmm:, and a intro and outro .

[Merc]

This is probably the last beta "Ghost Drop" mission, unless there is any major fault with the mission. I am going to make the bases more base like for the final one that I submit. Read my last post for what I changed.

Edit: Go to first post to find 6th version

[Mikero]

Out of principle I wont download this new version until it's on first page first comment. No-one should have to wade through umpty dozen replies to find it.

Gi-yo made a great suggestion that I hoped you implemented in some way, an objective to find a civilian to find the chopper. It's a very clever touch because it gets around the boring, and now attack the 3rd town, you just have to pass thru it to get where your going, or better still the civil is in the town.

[Merc]

@Mikero
Happy now?

I am considering the thing about the civilian in the town.

[Merc]

I am submiting the final version to the Missions Depot now. Thanks to everyone who tested my mission.

Edit: This mission has been reviewed and is available from the Missions Depot.