(Review Completed) [SP] Red Tide

[GI-YO]

sorry i did get the outro, i thought it came after the debrief, but obviously not, im nearly asleep mind you :-\ .
. my edited comment above
GI-YO

[Mikero]

tested again, thrice to *make sure*. The losing outro now works. There *is* a black pause between hands in the air, and ending etc, but last two tests they were small. First time was a black stall.

(ofp 1.96 pristine) NO addons allowed in addon folders\ other than editor (have been there, dun that)

Have to tell you, this is very well done indeed. More experienced technophiles willl correctly point to it's defects, but this storyline grabs me.

I was not shot at end, just a very agreeable storyline about losing the war and being set free. MADE ME WANT TO PLAY IT BETTER NEXT TIME. If at all possible the panning of my squad surrendering should be lengthened, shots of just me wasn't enough. It was cleverly done because it was in context to where the hell I gave up at the time. I wanted to see my squad positions too. This moment is tragic, and beats any amount of Rambo.

standard winning Outro was 'ok' but where was the LST?
Shots of captured Nato trucks are fine, but where are the body bags? The lack of detail here is not good enough, relative to the rest. You  most definitely have the wits about you to improve this.

[Pilot]

standard winning Outro was 'ok' but where was the LST?

Don't tell me the LST wasn't there?  

Shots of captured Nato trucks are fine, but where are the body bags?

BODYBAGS!!! Of course!  I knew I was missing something in that scene, but for the life of me I couldn't figure it out.  I will add bodybags immediately!

EDIT:
Nevermind my first comment.  I didn't put the LST in.  I got my intro and outro mixed up.  I would assume the LST would stay out at sea, while the helicopter would ferry men in.  I would be dangerous to send the LST in for two reasons: The water may be too shallow, and if the Americans attacked in force while the LST was near the shore, the results could be disasterous.

[macguba]

Change the units.   It's a boring half hour, but so what.   Less effort than you think.

The binocular rescource does not magnify the scene

There is a command to magify the scene, which I'm too pissed to remember.   0.7 is normal, that much I remember.

@mikero:   a very flattering remark, which is much appreciated.   But keep talking, we all learn from each other.

[Pilot]

Change the units.  It's a boring half hour, but so what.  Less effort than you think.

Ok. *Goes off to spend a boring half hour*

[Fragorl]

I gave it a whirl last night, but couldn't post til now.

Summary:

#Intro
Nice intro, good camera work, cuban missile crisis etc. Only one (minor) thing (for me) was a couple of camera shots had the camera changing direction quickly, causing a bit of lag. But not too bad at all. Sets the scene nicely.
Wording: 'The soviet missiles were taken off of cuban soil' (or something like that). 'off of' - not sure if that's correct, or if it should just be 'off'.
'The soviets still, after 20 years, desired to have missiles close to america' (or similar). Perhaps consider 'After 20 years the soviets still desired... etc'. But that's just a suggestion, it's ok the way it is.
Listen to me, trying to correct grammar Anyway:

#mission
I liked having the squad starting on the beach with the boat speeding off, no unnecessary time-wasting boat ride and then sudden teleportation to the shore. I think someone already said that. Ooh! A little piece of everon i haven't seen There aren't to many areas like that for me anymore. Guess I never spent much time near that base... oh well. My squad and I head along the coast, carefully avoiding those patrols the briefing warned us about. Having reached the base, i see it is not really feasible to sneak up from the coast; blast those two guards on the jetty, either they spot me or I'm forced to kill them and am subsequently cut down by the base's front defenses. Are those machine guns in the guard towers too? After some fatal experimentation, I find a good tactic: shoot the patrol on the road, ignore the alarm, set my squad in position at the top of the rise overlooking the base, flank round myself to the hilly eastern side of the base, order 7 to explode the quite useless m113, and then proceed to clean out the base. After a while a patrol comes down the hill to my right, and along next to the base's fence. Spotting them quietly with my binocs, my squad makes quick work of them in literally a matter of seconds Cue hurrahs and all-round congratulations. We patrol round the base, killing a few stragglers, and circle back to the front. I sit there, waiting expectantly for a well-deserved pat on the back from soviet hq, which is why the surprise american counter-attack, launched form the direction of my initial assault, catches us completely by unawares. A heads up would have been nice! Altough it does create tension . Catastrophic consequences for my buddies; 10 the medic, 7 the law soldier, and my machine gunners are wiped out in the first round of gunfire alone, and 2 and 3 fall before i've worked out where the attack is coming from and thought to take cover behind the fence-posts. I order one of the survivors to take up position on the mgun, and he gives a good account of himself before he too is tragically killed. 4 of us are left by the time we've repelled the assault. Not too good  :-\

At this point nothing else happens; it could be last loon sundrome, but i see other people have got it to work, so i've missed something. Either way, it was fun! I surrender, for the hell of it. (Who to, i wonder)

#outro
The one I saw, with you as a pow, was great. Nice pow camp, good camera work, i liked the fact that i was just taken prisoner, the released later. Realistic! Those americans... (shakes head)

To conclude, I had fun with this one, I enjoyed the base assault and the fact that my tactics paid off. Eventually. I didn't do it in one go, as this post suggests, though. Oh no! The counter attack caught me completely unawares, but it was great that you could use the base (and m2) to good effect to stop it in its tracks.  Please tell me what to do to complete the mission!

Fragorl

[bedges]

heheh... ah gubes the command is

Code: [Select]

camera_name camSetFOV n
where n is something like 0.7, which is the default as the merry gubes indicated. the lower the value, the closer the zoom. be aware though that it's not 'zoom' per se, more changing the field of view, so things might distort at high/low values.

my loons and i are currently attacking the base. more soon

oh, and the not-fully-faded bit in the intro is out at sea. put the intro script call in the init line of a loon facing the side of a house or something, that works for me.

more anon/

[THobson]

I had some difficulty downloading the file.  Clicking on the link gave me an error.  Anyway I now have it.  I normally do not read what others have done before testing but as there has already been so much comment here would you like me to?  Is there anything you specifically want me to look at?

I will start by not looking pending a reply.

[THobson]

Red Tide
As usual, written as I go, and at least initially without looking at what others have written

Overview:
I guess from the title and the picture of static western forces on the defensive that I am going to play as east.  It might be helpful to make this clear in the text.

Intro:
Loved it.  
Two comments.  1. Read Xenophanes tutorial, or General Barron's more recent tutorial and get some coloured text in there with a different font. 2. 4 BMPs and 12 infantry seems pretty light for an invasion force.  Could we be part of a much larger operation?

Briefing:
You and your men comprise, not compose.  The text could usefully be spaced out a bit with a blank line of so.  The marker for the start of the mission should be turned round to point south.  To say we are to be landed sounds a bit better than to say we will be dropped off.  The latter would be more appropriate for a helicopter insertion.

Intel:
We are landing at 10:20!.  You don't need to put a link in every time you mention Chotain and Entre Deux.  You could rearrange the text to make it a bit tighter and avoid so much repetition of theses names.

We are outnumbered 2 to 1 and I have 5 recruits and 2 rookies!!

I arm us all with: 5 with AK74s and PRGs and all the rest except the medic with PKs

Mission:
Okay so I go WNW into some woods.  All loons on hold fire.  South to Fb45 where I leave an rpg and an a PK soldier guarding the road.  Head off east see a two man patrol of the dirt road between me and the base.  Drop the both quickly.  Leave a PK soldier covering the road and take the rest of the squad to the crest of the hill to the west and overlooking the base.  All weapons free and I put an rpg into the M2.  A few seconds later there was no living movement in the base.  We stay where we are waiting for any reinforcements.

An M113 is reported by the guys at Fb45.  Shortly after that an M113 arrives near us and one of my squad kills it.  I cannot get any response from the guys at Fb45 now.  They are both dead.  I won't do that again.  We are on the hill overlooking the dead base waiting for any reinforcements to turn up.  Nothing can move in the base without us killing it from where we are.  A full squad of infantry turn up from the south and my PK gunners drop them all before they know what has hit them.  Other squads turn up frome various directions, all heading for the base and all cut down quickly.  One of my guys gets injured a couple of times but there is no problem he has time to heal before the next lot of reinforcements turn up.  Damn but those PKs are good!

Actually we had not killed everyone in the base, just everyone that was visible.  There was one officer still alive as I found when I went down to investigate.  I killed him and got a message about the Americans retreating.  A few seconds alter the mission ended.

Outro:
Good.

General comments:  I really liked it.  I would have preferred it to be early morning say just after dawn and I would have preferred for the American response to have been stronger.  More M113s and maybe a T60 or two.  The reinforcing loons just ran straight for the base and got cutdown.  Try having some groups on Guard including possibly a group in the base.  When I got to the base (remember I had nearly a bird's eye view from where I was) the loons were just standing around doing nothing.  You might want to have them doing something.  Also the loons on patrol around the base - I did not see any go into the base or others come out representing a shift change.

I am damned annoyed I lost two men as this was a bit of a cake walk.  I was prepared to sacrifice them to give us early warning of some armoured response - but to lose them for an M113 was not a good trade.

Toughen it up and this is a mission you can play time and again.

EDIT:
I have now read most of the other comments.  It seems that I got lucky when I decided we should stay where we were for a while after attacking the base and not go down into it.  It would have been difficult to deal with the reinforcements from down in the base.  If you had units on guard it would have made my tactic less effective.  I did have some of my guys guarding our backs and they never fired a shot.  

[Pilot]

Wow, I go to bed, wake up the next morning, and find all these replies!

@Fragorl
I have already corrected the grammar in the cutscenes.

A heads up would have been nice!

I intentionally did not put one in.  Who would give it?  You are the first attack wave on the island.  No one else can warn you of a counter-attack.

Please tell me what to do to complete the mission!

I have two conditions for this mission to end:
1)All the men in the base must be killed.
2)There are three squads in the counter-attack.  When all but 4 men of those three squads are dead, the remaining men flee.  When they flee, they make a boolean true.  When the boolean is true, and the base is cleared, the mission ends.

@Bedges
I am looking forward to your progress!

oh, and the not-fully-faded bit in the intro is out at sea. put the intro script call in the init line of a loon facing the side of a house or something, that works for me.

I do have the script in the init line of a man, although he may not be next to a house.  I'll check this.

@THobson

Two comments.  1. Read Xenophanes tutorial, or General Barron's more recent tutorial and get some coloured text in there with a different font.

This is already done in my latest version

4 BMPs and 12 infantry seems pretty light for an invasion force.  Could we be part of a much larger operation?

It's acutally 4 mechanized infantry squads.  4 BMPs and 44 men.  Anyway, I'll see if I can't make the operation feel bigger.

You and your men comprise, not compose.  The text could usefully be spaced out a bit with a blank line of so.  The marker for the start of the mission should be turned round to point south.  To say we are to be landed sounds a bit better than to say we will be dropped off.  The latter would be more appropriate for a helicopter insertion.

Your first and third suggestions are already implemented.  I'll change "dropped off" to "landed".  Please clarify your second suggestion, I'm not sure if I understand you correctly.  Do you mean to divide it into paragraphs?

You don't need to put a link in every time you mention Chotain and Entre Deux.  You could rearrange the text to make it a bit tighter and avoid so much repetition of theses names.

Ok, I'll try to tighten it

We are outnumbered 2 to 1 and I have 5 recruits and 2 rookies!!

I've changed this.  Now you'll have no rookies, 3-4 recruits, 6-7 veterans, and 2 experts

More M113s and maybe a T60 or two.

I might add another M113.  But don't forget the other two invasion groups have BMPs, so they will be the ones especially targeted by enemy armor.

Try having some groups on Guard including possibly a group in the base.

When I first made this mission, I had all the groups on guard waypoints.  I ran into a problem, however.  When a group on guard was alerted, he would go to where the contact was made, not where the base was.  So I had some instances of these groups on guard waypoints ending up 200-300 meters away from the base, where the player couldn't see them.  Should I add a sentry waypoint to groups in the base?  (stupid question I have never found an answer to: What exactly does a sentry waypoint do?)

You might want to have them doing something.

I think I have partly corrected this in the latest version.

Also the loons on patrol around the base - I did not see any go into the base or others come out representing a shift change.

Well, it is 1020, you've only been on the island for 20-30 minutes, so I doubt you would see a shift change.  But maybe I'll add a shift change at 1030, anyway.

Toughen it up and this is a mission you can play time and again.

You thought it was too easy?!  Ok, maybe I should remove some members from the players squad?

If you had units on guard it would have made my tactic less effective.

Ok, I'll see what I can do.

Thanks for the beta-tests, Fragorl, bedges, and THobson!

[THobson]

Do you mean to divide it into paragraphs?

Yes.

I might add another M113.  But don't forget the other two invasion groups have BMPs, so they will be the ones especially targeted by enemy armor.

Okay, but still think about it.  The mission is a pushover as it stands, a T60 would add some tension.

I had all the groups on guard waypoints

You don't need them all to be on guard, one or two groups should be sufficient, especially if one of them is in the base.  It will add some randomness.

What exactly does a sentry waypoint do

A group waits at a sentry WP until it detects the enemy, then it moves to its next waypoint.  It can be used to simulate a lone loon having to run back to base to raise the alarm.

1020, you've only been on the island for 20-30 minutes

True.  Did you have a shift change that I missed?

You thought it was too easy?!  Ok, maybe I should remove some members from the players squad

Well.  Interesting question.  Balancing a mission needs care.  A group of 12 can be difficult to handle, so reducing the size does not necessarily make it more difficult.  As it stands the mission could be done with the player plus 4 PK soldiers (5 to be on the safe side) and a medic or drop the medic and add a couple of RPG soldiers and is would still feel easy.  With no PKs this mission would be very difficult indeed so you might want to limit their availability to say two or three (I shudder at the thought of only having 2).  As for the enemy it is not the number of enemy so much as their behaviour that I think needs to be looked at.  All these infantry groups running blindly to the base while I have my PKs on the ridge overlooking the base cutting them to pieces is what makes it easy.

My suggestion(it may not work so should be tested but it feels about right):
-Squad of 9
-Only 3 PKs available
-Put one of the existing counter attacking infantry groups on Guard
-Add one infantry group (say 6 to 9 loons) in the base and put it on Hold or Guard when the action starts.
-Add one T60 and one M113

I think that will be tough, especially if the T60 is grouped with one of the M113s

Bye the way, one thing that is very very good and quite rare about this mission is that the approach taken by the player - wait for the counter attack on the ridge or go down to the base to receive the counter attack - seems to have a very significant effect on the outcome.

As I said good stuff.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention.  With all that Spetz Natz surveillance (I liked that as well bye the way) I think we could have more in the briefing about enemy numbers especially the size and makeup of the possible counter attack.

[Pilot]

@THobson
Ok, I'll divide the briefing up a little more

Okay, but still think about it.  The mission is a pushover as it stands, a T60 would add some tension.

Heeding Macguba'a advice, I replaced the American units with resistance ones.  In the process, I replaced the M113 with a T55.  I may add the M113 back in, depending on how hard the mission is.

You don't need them all to be on guard, one or two groups should be sufficient, especially if one of them is in the base.  It will add some randomness.

Ok, I will do what you suggested.

Thanks for the info on the sentry waypoint!

True.  Did you have a shift change that I missed?

No

My suggestion(it may not work so should be tested but it feels about right):
-Squad of 9
-Only 3 PKs available
-Put one of the existing counter attacking infantry groups on Guard
-Add one infantry group (say 6 to 9 loons) in the base and put it on Hold or Guard when the action starts.
-Add one T60 and one M113

I have already limited the number of PKs to 4, I will further limit it to 3.  I will put one of the groups on guard.  I will also do the same to a group in the base.  I may add the M113 back, depending on what other beta-testers say.

I forgot to mention.  With all that Spetz Natz surveillance (I liked that as well bye the way) I think we could have more in the briefing about enemy numbers especially the size and makeup of the possible counter attack.

I'll add some more detail.  I wasn't too sure how much detail to put in, but now it's obvious I need more.

I think I'll have a new version ready by this evening.

Thanks for the suggestions, THobson!

[Pilot]

Ok, here's version 1.1.  Sorry for the late update.  My adjustments took a bit longer than expected, and my internet is acting up.

Changes/Fixes:
Added addon details to readme
Changed Overview text and picture
Custom text in Intro and Outros
Adjusted opening text in intro
Adjusted the briefing
Changed direction of start marker
Tightened weapons selection
Changed all American units to Resistance ones
Removed the M113, added a T55 and BMP
Adjusted the response script, enemy units now respond quicker to an attack
Changed the direction of the final wave of counter-attacks
Added more movement to base
Shortened name of player
Added more veteran units to player's squad, removed rookies, and reduced number of recruits
Adjusted surrender script:  Now the enemy units *shouldn't* shoot at your squad. (not fully tested)

To Do:
Add more shots to the intro and both outros
Add spetz natz getting in the boats at the beginning of the mission

Red Tide has been submited to the missions depot.

[bedges]

well, there's the thing about taking so long to test a mission - another version appears in the meantime

'red tide' v1.1

flashpoint 1.96, veteran, benchmark 5050, cheat saves

firstly - rename your file, as the space is creating a bug. i needed to rightclick and 'save as'. use an underscore.

overview

typo - 'Politbure'

the border on the pic is still pretty rough. the text is better, although the 'central attack group' bit sort of begs for an explanation... perhaps use 'main attack group'?

intro

fully blacked out.

nice custom text. i shall have to figure out how to do that properly. i have attempted it before, but i couldn't get the text to fade out. want to share how you did it?

otherwise, as you've indicated, some more work to do on the pacing and shot selection.

briefing

the shore in 'Eastern Shore' (in the beginning title) doesn't really need to be capitalised does it? it is only a shore after all.

have another look at the paragraphing. consider a line break after "eastern shore of everon". otherwise fine.

mission

well, i confess i've not tested the latest version. i took my time doing the last one, so i'll give a quick rundown of what i did.

because you stressed the reinforcement locations of entre deux and chotain, i decided to tackle them first. sniped a couple of two-man patrols on the roads. split my teams up into two smaller squads, left green just up from the beach and took red up to the farmhouses at Fb44. dealt with the squad there and rearmed with american weapons. nipped into the forest, just in time to spot a lone wandering officer on a very very long patrol. followed him to see how far his patrol would take him, aaaall the way to the farmhouses. put him out of his walking blues misery. called up green squad to flank the north of entre deux, while i took red up to the southwestern end of the town. took a few attempts, but sniping away the machine gunners and enticing enemy loons out of cover, we dealt with the lot, including the m113 and contents, and the outer patrol squad ringing the town. rearmed green squad.

then off to chotain. same scenario really, although attacking from the forest at Fc51, we had a clear run at the town and cleared it in minutes. then off to the base.

i tried arranging a duckshoot from the southwest hill, but lost too many loons that way, so i ended up taking 2,3 and 4 down to the flat area behind the base to cover the northern side while i sniped the tower guards, the loon on the harbour jetty, and dropped the base loons one by one as they ran around the southern side of the base. a couple of grenades took care of the loons left in the base. cue radio message and winning outro.

http://www.tumeric.co.uk/mrb/flashpoint/debrief.jpg

outro win

slow. very slow. a lot more shots needed here, all that's really required is different/dynamic views of the same stuff.

overall

great mission. as i can see from posts above, the player can approach this the direct way, attacking the base first and then dealing with whatever rolls down the hill afterwards, or the way i did things, slowly and exploring. it is a lot of fun to play, reminds me a great deal of the feeling i got playing the original flashpoint missions, trying various tactics, setting things up, rearming... all good stuff. i may try the latest version again, with a different tactic this time. it's a good romp. nice work

[THobson]

I really hope to have another look at this today, but today is also the day I have several people (two actually) lined up to record some voices for me, and I am going to be out of the country all next week.

So let me just comment on the changes you have made in case I don't get chance later.

Just because you have changed to resistance does not mean you are limited the resistance vehicles. What I think you are trying to simulate here is some non-US but western friendly army.  In that case they would not have BMPs but would have M113s