(Review Completed) [SP] Deep Water

[The-Architect]

LATEST VERSION, LINK ON PAGE 3

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

Features:
Voice acting. (All by me. I need voice actors to help me out, so if you can do an American accent, contact me.)
Weapons selection.
Alternate endings.
Full radio support. (Bravo squad etc.)
and more.


Mission Background.
A US Senator's son has been kidnapped by terrorists and taken to a safehouse on the island of Everon. The president has authorised the use of force to get him back and your SEAL team has been chosen to do the job.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you've got a mission here waiting to be tested, let me know and I'll take a look.

Cheers guys.

[bedges]

it'll be interesting to test something from another of the leading lights in the community

mkay. here we go.

No entry 'config.bin/CfgVehicles.ZU23R'.


briefing -

plan

typo 'excercise'
'smash and grab' could be 'smash-and-grab'
'Full Details' doesn't need a capital D

detailed plans -

siterep - 'Weather in the Area..,' doesn't need capital A.

infiltration - 'Its a swim exactly...' needs an it's. 'coms' could be comms?

communication tower - 'Its a small island' needs an it's. 'shows there's only three' should be 'there're', or ideally 'there are'.

the lift - 'so its just a case of fighting...' needs an it's. 'i want to see all you're ugly faces...' should be 'your'. 'He'll be the only one with the American accent' could be 'an American accent'.

exfiltration - 'into the village if its clear' needs an it's.

friendly forces - '...same way they came in. Via....' could be a comma, and one sentence, make it read easier. typo 'independant'.

enemy forces - typo 'assaninations'. typo 'Norwiegian'. 'The FIA are are still fighting...' '...main base of operations and its...' needs an it's. 'Its not much to worry about...' needs an it's.

team members -

mike loud - typo 'immediatly'.
steve blackmon - needs a paragraph break before his bit.
mitch mcdonald - is it 'motorcross' or 'motocross'? google says either.
demarco robinson - typo 'portugese'.
donovan ryan - typo 'artic'.
kobe abbas - typo 'weaponary'. typo 'langauges'.

link back from team members to objectives appears all on its own page.

notes -

typo 'second, its freezing' needs an it's. same with 'then its his problem'. typo 'accross'. typo 'shoudn't'.

right. now after having pointed all that out, i just want to say this is one of the very best briefings i have seen to date. mine tend to be as complex but not as well laid out. i'll be following a format very like this from now on. great stuff, loads of info, clearly stated. could maybe do with a few more pictures, and the pics there are might benefit from borders, but otherwise, excellent.

mission -

so far i've tried the initial swim twice, and neither time did my buddies follow me. i skipped the swim on this the third attempt, and we're all on the shore.

radio tower is disabled after just the tent loons are dropped. there are still loons outside who could possibly operate it...

after taking out the castle guards i immediately get a message about two loons on their way up... perhaps a wee pause here would be useful.

took out the guards in saint pierre a couple at a time from the treeline southwest of the town, then suddenly 2 reports a couple of loons in the woods behind us... sheeit. the alarm goes off and we're rumbled. heheh. the tone of this mission is very good. lots of silent stalking, and when the cover is blown, it's blown with gusto

there are a few 'runners', and i'm not fast enough to drop them. i remember reading about the north road in the briefing, so i have only myself to blame if reinforcements arrive.

i ask bravo to kill the lights and we start picking off badguys. once the lights are out and the action has died down, i prone across to the t72 (helpfully pointing away from the action) and satchel it.

i then move around the main group of houses, switch to pistol and start dropping the guards (who are standing there waiting for it, it seems), into the house and free the prisoner. i notice at this point that the seals' voices are quite quiet, the hostage's voice rings loud and clear. our words muffled by the swimgear perhaps

i invite bravo to join us, order the hostage up into the relative safety of the woods, and then try to summon the evac chopper - strange hint here - "no radio present" or something. ho hum.

i zip around in the dark dropping any remaining loons when suddenly a few of my buddies are dropped, and i spy reinforcements coming up from the beach. drop them no problem. i take out the last armoured truck after an explosion from behind the town tells me bravo has taken care of the new tank.

there's a chopper (looks like a gunship) overhead, and i wonder why it's not landing. i sweep the area one last time looking for the last loons in case that's what the chopper's waiting for (meeting bravo in the town - lucky i held fire ), when i realise the evac chopper has already landed at the beach and is patiently waiting for us... me stoopid  

in we get and off we go.

no outro

debrief attached.

overall

i want to go back and start this again. i must admit i was daunted by the number of addons needed, but they do add quite a bit to this. it's unfortunate that the mission is so dark, not being able to see the full effect of the new seal loons. the weaponry is excellent, i'll be going back to try it all out. my only comment on the equipment was that it made things pretty easy (until we were spotted) - i picked off loons from miles away, tackled pretty much everyone on my own. the others were just there for backup fire when things went awry.

the radio chats all worked, although as mentioned, they were pretty quiet and/or muffled.

plenty of savegames, perhaps too many? they were all in helpful spots, i.e. on approach to the town, after releasing the hostage, etc. but perhaps cut them down to after things have happened, let the cautious player save before if s/he must.

the missing addon seems to be the anti aircraft gun, as that's the incomplete objective... didn't spot that anywhere, although to be fair i didn't go looking for it either, thinking if the addon was missing, it would be too.

i'll go back over this again, give it a proper beta shakedown to try and force some errors, but otherwise everything works - apart from my buddies staying out at sea when not skipping the swim. i'll report back with any obvious problems.

great stuff, strong storyline, executed with style. nice one

[Hawkins]

I must admit, I love these kind of missions. Stealthy approaches, silenced weapons, taking out the enemy wihtout them noticing. Just brilliant.

Bedges coverd most of it, but here's my story.

This mission is screaming for an intro! ;D

The athmosphere is good, I love the swim part. I saw a boat passing by the CIA guy but the guys on the boath didn't pay that much attention to him. It seemed a bit weird.
Once we got to the shore, a BTR passed us! Fuck, you can't believe how relieved I was that I told my loons to hold fire and stay quiet. The tincan passed without him ever knowing we were there. I loved that, brilliant. We geared up and headed for the radio mast. I took the small pass straight west from our insertion. I told my guys to stay put while I went to check the place out. Easy as pie, take out the guys at the mast, a burst to the loons at the fire, move closer, shoot the guard and cap one to the loon at the tent. Clear.
Went back to my boys and started moving towards the woods at the north. At this point, I went pass the church, but I'd come back for it. We sneaked up to the church that's north of the town. There were two guys at the road, one at the bunker and one outside it, took them out. Then the BTR came and I had two choices, either take it out or be killed. I chose the first option. Bravo had reported a bit earlier that they were ready to rock. I took out the BTR and called bravo in. Time to rock.
Ordered all of my men to guard the road at the point where the bunker was. It provided them with good cover and they could support me and bravo when we cleared the north part ot Pierre. No problem here, bravo took out the tanks and the rest was a turkey shoot. I saw the hostage at a house, cleared it but didn't go cloe to him yet, I wanted to make sure the town was secure first. Continued on with bravo and we cleared the city pretty fast. I didn't notice any US troops go down either. I was pretty proud of that.
I went for the hostage (omg, Hawkin! ) and called for evac. Once the chopper was close and reported where he'd land, I got an error:
me1 sidechat "Roger Yankee...." didn't catch the end of the message. It was obviously missing a ".
I went back to the church to check if it had the AA gun.  I took out four loons, obviously they were hiding some weapons, since there were crates here. No AA gun though.

Overall, I loved it. I always like to play these kind of missions. I'd like to know where that AA gun is, I never saw it, neither did I see it fire shots at our evac chopper.
I played with ECP, but I think you did use some FX, the combat ambience, the sounds when a flare was shot?, the resistance shouts... They added a lot. I'd love to see an intro and outro for this. Is the hostage randomly placed? Would be great to see him be in different places every time the mission is played. Same goes for the AA gun. Didn't see any patrols either, add 2 or 4 2-man-patrols in and around the city.  Some hidden objectives would also be nice, like some radio chat between the player and HQ when the castle ammo stash is discovered. Maybe even add a small random possibility of a second AA gun that's heavily camoflauged that might shoot the evac helo down if the player doesn't find it. Then the player would have to use other means to exfil.
This is just my two cents. I love the mission the way it is now, but adding small things will make it better. This ones a true keeper, nice work!

[The-Architect]

Cheers for the input guys. There are a few things I'm going to change as a direct result of your feedback. Keep your eyes peeled for the new version coming soon.

I think I understand what the problem is with the AA gun. I think its conflicting with someone-else's addon. I've heard reports that the AA gun emplacement is there but the gun isn't. I'll use a different addon I think.

P.S. There is half an intro that I've made for the mission already. If you un-pbo the mission you'll see it. You have to write this exec "CameraI.sqs" in the init field of the player.

[bedges]

mmmwell i tried the intro, and it's clear flashpoint wanted to do something, but after a brief 'kawhump' sound it popped back to the editor... until i discovered the 'end intro' trigger over the player  

what can i say? the music fits perfectly. the smoking effect is... hats off to whoever came up with it. the entire sequence adds to the story - the senator viewing the tape at the end, great touch.

i will say that although the constant blackouts fit, and other than straight cuts there's no other option, on occasion they were too close together - what they enclosed was too brief. also, a couple of the vehicle shots lasted just that wee bit too long after the vehicle in question had driven out of shot. the shot of the jeep snaking through the countryside into the distance was nice though. ofp can be bonny sometimes...

suggestion for the hostage tape scene - pan back to a camera in the foreground. as it stands, it's not a huge leap to assume they're recording demands, but seeing as there is a camera model in the editor, it would help to reinforce the whole scene.

and they do bash that boy around a bit don't they maybe stick in some front-facing strokefists and hostage falling backward? an fxdismay or two?

otherwise... superb. after seeing the intro, i almost wish the mission was bigger and/or harder. the intro warrants it, definitely.

looking forward to the next beta

[The-Architect]

Yep, the intro is very beta at the moment, that's why I hid it in the download  

I have a lot to work on I guess. Its ok though as the whole mission is early beta. I've got outro and outro loose to do yet.

[Hawkins]

I was tempted to take a look at the intro. It was really good, even though it's not finished. It has a lot of movie quality and it would fit any Steve Seagal or any other legendary spec op type actor... Good stuff! Eagerly waiting to see the finished product.

[Acecombat]

FINALLY i got this mission working , turns out it was that damn ZU-23 addon which was giving me those fatal CTD's so i d/lded it again and got the new version and it works now , however a error did pop up at the start.

The mission is good over all the theme is nice but unit selection needs working on i'd say , with the amount of addons youve used already might i suggest using some other units a OPFOR? Like those generic-opfor troops or maybe edges resistance units?

Ok on to the mission:

I started out in water skipped the swimming part landed on beach , everyone talks about crates and i dont see any (wtf? am i blind  ), i leave it at that and start hiking towards the Comms MAST and kill those poor sods guarding it from a distance and did it with ease (btw that light sweeping the area from those cars was very nice effect   ).

Then i head down , it seems bravo and echo are just about to get their act together and be on time for a joint assault on the town , however i forsee a major problem coming , with no LAWS on me (thanks to the CoC diver mask) i cant neutralize those tanks and BTR's roaming about i take the chance anyway and take down everyone on the coastal side of the town even the BTR by shooting at the driver  .

We look about for the senators little brat , cant see him here so move in to the main part of town , and meet resistance however the enmy troops act like as if they are blind , killing them is as easy as 1.2.3. I say you need to work on this a bit perhaps improve their skill level? I'd want a bit more resistance from them. As we move in i dont see ECHO doing their job i.e sniping (?). I see the senators son neutralize the buildings guard and get him out unfortunately at that moment my men are cut down by some lucky sods grenades and i'm down to 2 men now. I see 2 T-72's now one gets killed by one of my men who i DONT KNOW from where got a LAW (perhaps he took it up himself    unprecedented action i'd say for OFP's AI , i'd give him a medal) then i see one more so i RUN yes sprint side by side with it as soon as it stops put my satchel charge and RUN for it and then blow it up as soon as i am sure i wont killed by the blast atleast , the tank is smoke as i look back and the crew too  .

Now troops are coming in from the valley as trucks and BTR's move in , i start chalking up kills from distance as they never see me and own them ALL along with my 2 buddies. Then suddenly i see the Cobra coming up and opening up its arsenal on the baddies (and i never saw the Zu-23 or kill it so how did the cobra come to my assistance?) , then i call for exfil the BH lands i jump aboard still wondering where the hell are BRAVO and ECHO , as we leave of for the Poseidon.

THE END .

[456820]

Ok i think ive got the problem fixed i also didnt see the addons needed bit so i am now currently re downloading the addons and i hope the mission will be good

[The-Architect]

Multiple AI tweaks and added cutscene are available in my latest version. I will upload it today. Current version is obsolete.

[456820]

cool i think i will wait for the updated version then but i think ive also got the right addons

[The-Architect]

LATEST VERSION ON PAGE 3

Finally got the new version ready to go. You can get it at the same place as the last version. Here's a link.

http://www.freewebs.com/thekillingground/docs.htm

The file is called "Deep Water"
Read my first post for details.

I have changed one addon, the faulty ZU-23. It is no longer needed. However, a new AA gun has been added in its place. The new addon list reads,

Super Cobra - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=5906
      Seal Divers Pack + Needed Addons - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=7151
      Nacho's Zodiac - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=4121
      Extraction's Seahawk Pack - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=7617
      2cm Flak cannon - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=8152
      NoRSu's BTR-60 - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=4836


As always, Freewebs is a bitch, so a mirror would be greatly appreciated.
Enjoy.

[Hawkins]

Ok, I'll get a mirror up once I get this, if no one beats me to it. ETA is three hours. ;D

[supershooter]

hey

get a mirror up as soon as possible beacuse its gonna take me all year to dl from freewebs! it says 2 hours remaining on broadband and its only 10mbs.

[Hawkins]

Here's a mirror:
http://ofptf.net/users/Hawkins/Deep%20Water.zip

[bedges]

hawkins, you are the saviour of the impatient sir

d/l now...

[The-Architect]

Cheers Hawkins.  

[bedges]

mkay - this will take a while on and off, i'm giving this a proper beta shakedown (killing my own guys, dancing in front of the hostage takers, that kind of thing) so i'll add to just this post as i go along...

intro

again, there are the vehicle shots in which there's hardly any vehicle. the first vehicle shot in fact has two tyre tracks and that's it. the voices are pretty low-volume, but still understandable.

some of the black-outs are too quick, gives a jumpy feel to the thing - dunno if that's just flashpoint catching up or what...

briefing

siterep - "it's a village called..."
infiltration - "Sat-Comm"?
aaa threat - "can't allow those guns..." last link has a bracket on its own line...
enemy forces - "please note that there is..."

mission

hmmm. skipped the swim again, collected goodies, sort of a repeat of last time (up to the lighthouse first) but after dropping the two guards up there, the alarm went off in the village. neither of them saw me, so what's up? someone saw my buddies left at the jetty? i shall investigate...

more soon/

[Hawkins]

Gave this another go.

At some points, the intro feeled a bit long, especially during the name blackouts. Also, it would be great to know what the guys did who are mentioned, or at least say "Thanks to..." or sth.
Some of the voices are really low-volume. If possible, could you boost their volume up a bit?
This time the alarm went off when we attacked the village, this didn't happen last time. Maybe we we're too fast then.
I took out one Flak that was on the north side of the ville, near the road. Another one was stationed at the south end inside the fences. I was gonna take that one out, but to my astonishment, there was a SEAL manning it... Ok I thought... Bravo must've beat me to it and decided to use it against the enemy.
Enemy reinforcements started to arrive just before our chopper got to the beach. Some guy must've slipped past me, but I remember killing the "runner" that left the ville in that jeep. Anyway, our gunships took care of most of them and we got off without any injuries.
When I checked the intro on the previous version, I noticed a three man patrol inside the woods to the west of the ville. I wondered then how on earth had I evaded them, but this time we ran into them but took care of them before they were able the cause any grief to us.
Didn't remember to check out the castle this time.
Didn't notice any scripting errors or anything. Though, when the alarm went off this time and the resistance guys shouted trivolka or however you spell that, it played three times in a row, each time overlapping the previous shout. The shout seemed to come from the same guy. Not a biggie though, it just caught my ear.

[The-Architect]

Cheers guys. It seems like everytime I update new things come up.

@Bedges
I think what you said about Flashpoint catching up makes sense. Everything works as it should when I run it through, but I've usually stopped and started enough for Flashpoint to get its act together. Maybe I'll add something in the Readme that says you should run a BIS cutscene first. I dunno what else I can do there.

I'll get on those spelling errors.

If you left guys at the Jetty chances are they were detected. There's the APC that goes by plus a foot patrol.

@Hawkin
I agree with the length of the cutscene. I might do away with the blackouts altogether and put everybody's name at the end. What do you guys think?

Will look at the Volume again.

I'm stunned about the SEAL too. I think I figured it out though. I used the ManMG script. Maybe there's a problem with sides. I'll look into it.

Runners x2  ;D

I left the Castle up to you. I think its obvious that you shouldn't blow it up. I did add some full ammo crates though. Maybe I'll add a trigger which will alert the base if you blow it.

Cheers for your time guys, I'll get right on it.  

[Acecombat]

I cant find the crates , can anybody tel this blind man where they are?  

[bedges]

as mentioned in the briefing   they are hidden in the reeds on the left of the concrete jetty as you swim in...

[Jim666]

I'll try this as soon as i get home.

I was downloading the addons last night, but i ofp.info was going slow, and some of the downloads lost connection so i lost track of what i had.

I'll redownload tonight though, then post a review.

[Acecombat]

I did look there but no otpions came up as they usually do when you near a crate and i thought they werent there  

[Mikero]

@Hawkins

thank you

OFP 1.96, Veteran, Benchmark 5895, no super ai

Readme

excellent and clear to understand.

BUG

a zip, along with the rangerpath folder is included in addons


Overview:

I nice picture being a different, narrow format. Crisp, clear and easy to see what the hell it is.

I like to see version numbers and author advertising. These are not present.

Intro:

IMPRESSIVE! You just keep watching, don't you.

Impressive use of Myst style music. This intro has very little flashy bang bangs, and you just keep watching.

Good use of serriffed text. Almost impossible to make courier readable. That was well done.

BUG

Formosa

needs to be listed later, perception is, this is the Island we will go to.


BUG

Colinsville..... something.

flashed before I read it.

some later text, same session was a little too quick, the above, flashed by.


I am assuming the attack is early morning, it's a little fuzzy on my monitor.

I dont like the triple assault on the brat. What I think you were attempting was a 3 hit punch before he fell. But it smacks of cheesyness, overdone brutality as if this will be all this mission is.

Rarely seen testers mentioned in this way. You just keep watching, not because I want my name in lights too, it just 'works', it makes the intro deeply involving, backed by music, as in, "My god, just how much work has gone into this mission?" asks the player. Good stuff.

final briefing in 'barn' didn't work too well for me visually, again, a fuzziness issue. Would suggest, and ONLY suggest, you darken the speaker even MORE so that, effectively, it's the lamp you are attracted to.

BUG

speech volume is suddenly turned down, muffled. Llater in the mission proper, I get blasted out of my chair by the speakers! Please fix that.


Terrorist: says

NOPE. you dont need his moniker, others yes, but no need for the initial labelling, it detracts.

Final comment, very good situational awareness in initial scene with the continual flicking back to the focal point.

Briefing:

Plan:

typo

IN the Barents Sea

typo

no comma required.

suggestion.

because you mention the time, i would reword it to

wakeup. You are aboard.....

I think you trapped yourself there. I would have used "2am" to give myself some leverage as to when we actually do kick off.

additionals:

slightly misleading

"the chopper we rode in on", well, yes, in the intro, but it contradicts the zodiac and jarrs.

HA!

"make a note of it" I sure did! with a quadruple double click <grin>

Friendly forces

I would not mention Bravo again in later paragraph, i would say "this team". The impression is, it's another team, and not the bravo who did the power station.

"without much worry"

you meant to imply

"without retaliation"


"please not" = please note. And, I would drop the please.

----

the best briefing I've encountered. A story and mission in itself. Richness in detail, easy on the eyes, and well laid out. Some minorest of missing commas not worth mentioning.


Notes:

beautifully presented. I agree with the sentiment, but, it doesn't ring true that ANY government would NOT attempt a sas style mission for it's citizens. It would be foremost, and often dismissed, but, I bet, everyone out there has 'contignency plans' it's part of Special forces (substitute sas for the equivalent) raison d'etre


1 minor niggle that, because it reads well regardless.
----

Gear:

I'm not familiar with any of this stuff so I always assume the author has equipped me 'reasonably'. if not, it's an -endmission

Group:

surprised we aren't listed. I like to see the skill factor.

Map;

Nasty, very cleverly done.

Niggle:

I needed to see target markers on (most of) the objectives. I think you DELIBERATELY removed them to force us to read the details. In which case, you are forgiven and blessed.

selection tabs.

u have to be careful with short burst clicks, audio prodigy's in particular are notorious and produce the blue screen of death.


Mission:

Eek! NVG immediately.

BUG

Zodiac is too high out of water.

Lovely use of snow. Fantastic.

BUGish

occaisonal, unexplained 'stop swimming' action.

Distance.

you MUST reword your 'briefing' to make player aware that this WILL be a very, very, long swim, elsewise, we think it's a bug.

suggestion only

"Infiltrate the Island" objective = "Swim a very long way (to Island)"

suggestion:

if you want to make it a tuff one, remove the x4 ability

BUGish

i tell my sqaud to disembark, they remain in 'disembarking' mode during swim. Perhaps cripple this ability for the swim


Immensely relieved to have feet on land, that god damn island just wasn't getting closer. very well done.


Have plenty of time to observe brighter lights, M2 nest?. (I came in slightly SW)

Offensive language:

Overdone, and, offensive. It's supposed to be humorous. It isn't.


Turns out I landed exactly square on, cia guy is in front.

BUGgy

I expected a conversation trigger when i met him. It was a bit full on before him. Quite a bit missed from 'traffic' noise.

Suggestion: echo is ready after i get very close to cia?

Annoyance:

although I 'agree' no objective markers on breifing, i think I deserve them on the map.

I get the squad to hold fire while there's traffic about, a BTR and possibly something else

I don't know if six auto loaded a radio, but i get others to drop their breathers.

Minor irritation. put / on off diving mask?

I give #2 a law, but he can't get more than one, he gets stuck.

Tower

nicely done, hidden tent stuff. I have a few retries here becuase I'm in beta search mode, not sneak mode. Am surprised by the innacuracy of this weapon, and, the need to hit three times the kevlar armour of the enemy.

I like savegames as a feedback to player. Their use as retry's are secondary.

Just before the savehame, echo (snipers) tells me of a runner on the beach. This surprises me, there's nothing I can do about it I'm too far away. I check back on briefing to see who echo are and where they might be.

This is dangerous stuff because looking at notes during fights mean you lose the notes forever if killed. Really need an 'echo' on the map please.

Ok, so the snipers are overloooking st pierre, this makes me decide to go flush that town out before doing much further 'objectives'.

As i head towards St Pierre there's more msg about tanky things arriving in other village. I hit a savegame to test the tower again. Seems like this 'runner' is a zone trigger if I approach tower.

I get to st pierre in time to see a brdm? moving it's way north. So , nothing really I can do about this. I would have had to knock the 'runner' off, before heading to my tower objective.


we start taking out a few nasties running about St P. The noises from my SILENCED? guns astonish me.

The enemy ai doesn't seem very bright, and later, they appear to turn very nasty indeed.

A few retries involved while I rummage around. There's a T72 mincing about, and I decide that since some sort of alarm has happened (armour in other village) I might as well open up.

retry. splattered by m2nest lighthouse side of town.

retry. splattered by brdm on lighthouse side, #2 is hopeless with rpg

retry. splattered by 2 nasties in road near lighthouse


BUG?

i can heal, none of my team can.

retry. splattered at castle.

found ammo crates, is this why #2 can't load from beach? engine is confused?

All round, nasties in unexpected areas of map, are great.

I get overlooking St pierre, there's a T72 attcking it's own buildings which suit me. A general indication that reinforements are coming from west.

various retries as I knock off m2 nests, and that damn nast AA flak gun.

BUG

div zero error when I ran back towards lighthouse and scoped a brdm

even more retries.

a great msg from snipers saying 2 loons are on their way to castle.

I retry from tower again. This time, I clear castle and come down into woods, I hold fire until we see a lot of things, in the meantime radioing bravo to get on with it.


a squad of nasties come at us in forest, 9 o'clock. savage cheatsaves involved


#5 says he's out of ammo. I check, and this is THE FIRST TIME, a squad member is, truly out of ammo. Did you script fix that engine bug???


possible BUG

because he's out of ammo, i can also get him to medic himself. First time i can to a wounded squaddie.


plenty of flares going off as Bravo start zapping tanks

BUG

anohter div zero error.

I zap a tank and eventually meet up with Bravo, I shoot one of them because they are same uniform, or very close to, the Resistance. In the dark, tuff to discern. Because of that I pretty much lose interest in the mission as being too tricky, too cute.

Kill the brat accidentally of course, nice voiceover, get the last AA gun, call in chopper who doesn't in fact have much to do. The crates that i could have got more rpg from are suddenly unavailable.

Noticed the barn with bodies.

Appreciated the considerable time for events to happen. Nothing more yawning that radio something and it all just starts. 4 mins is nice

Liked the feedback radio stuff as far as where choppers were and would go. This mitigates the lack of info on the map.

call in evac, and off we go.


OVerall

MAN this is a tough mission to play AND test. I had about an hours gametime enjoyment here.

the same uniform Bravo pretty much spoilt it for me though, it was quite tough enough thanks.


Personal Rating?

A definite 8+ when some small irrirations are fixed up.

[Mikero]

 More 'undocumented features'

i gave this another run through. This time, a far far easier time of it. basically took out the lighthouse, tower, castle, rpg'd the two artillery pieces and then called in the cobra.

bugz

the cobra inexplicably decided to land behind buildings, north and just stayed there humming it's engines. (all armour destroyed)

From a savegame after tower (I think), there was NO presense of the reinforcement armour,  despite radio msgs to the contrary. They simply never appeard.

Outro

loved it, plus the best choice of limited music. Not sure about using courier on that, your choice of course.

typo

THE guys at ofpec

I would add the word "how do you rate our 'allies'"

meaning these spetz (of course) are our friends this time round. Not obvious, you have to delve into the briefing a bit

Unless there's a technical reason to do so, putting Spetz as a moniker to their conversation is overkill (not so HQ of course)

[The-Architect]

Jeez, that's a lot to get through. A lot of valid point though. I'm gonna get right on it. You know, there is an option to skip the swim. Although its only highlighted to you in Cadet mode.  

You said "u have to be careful with short burst clicks, audio prodigy's in particular are notorious and produce the blue screen of death."

I have no idea what that means. Please elaborate.

The alarms will go off if you are detected. if you were seen near the beach then reinforcments will be called for. If the radio tower is down then someone will have to drive to get reinforcments. If both runners are killed then reinforcments won't arrive at all. They automatically come down once you've lifted the hostage though.

There's so much to reply to I think I'll just stop here and get on with the fixes instead. Bear with me.  :-\

[bedges]

few other points.

the loon hidden on the radio tower remains in crouch position when shot. this happens in pretty much every animated loon dispatch.

shot whomever was in the aagun, error message - '_gunner = _units select _closestUnit|#|':Error Zero divisor. this popped up a few times afterwards.

i checked out the alarm raising thing - it was all down to me stumbling about   frankly i think you could get away with being a bit more ruthless about the stealth - there's the report globalchat inside the apc, so if it's being asked to report, perhaps it's not that much of a stretch to imagine that each time the apc goes up to (for example) the castle ruins, the driver will expect a wave from one of the guards.

i went through it nice and carefully, the whole village was cleared and both runners were eliminated, and yet the reinforcements arrived on calling the evac choppers. that doesn't beggar belief, just unexpected is all. it's fair to expect at least one of the enemy would get word out. and i've just re-read your last post, so that'll be why

i took out the AA gun in saint pierre, but the 'destroy aa gun' objective didn't check off. you may wish to make it more clear that it's the second (hidden) aa gun that the objective refers to.

on the guards, they're standing about outside, there's light snow, some - the tower guards - are in the middle of nowhere... i realise you're limited by the game to some extent, but perhaps they could be listening to music, drinking - might fit in with the briefing line explaining that they're not all that well trained nor disciplined. just a thought. otherwise the constant movement of patrols and occasional animations are pretty cool - why not make use of the smoking script again? didn't see anyone else toking...

had a look at the intro and outros in the editor - it wasn't flashpoint catching up. the car is out of shot as it fades in. having looked at cameraI.sqs, i notice you don't fully black out before fading in again. this may have something to do with it, dunno, but again, the shots last a good 4 seconds too long imo, well after the vehicle has left the shot.

the outros are both very well done, although i confess i was a wee bit confused as to why the russians were moving in after the fact. there was one shot in the winning outro, the chopper dropping the parachutes, that lasted a bit long too. but aye, nice shots, nice light. there are priests in the 'farmland people' addon you might want to look at, but otherwise the guy in white does the trick nicely. poignant

good stuff.

[Mikero]

@bedges

apologies. My comment that "typos wern't worth mentioning" applied to AFTER all your fixes.

@arch

>jeez that's a lot to get through.

that's a compliment to me that I did my job properly.

> you can skip the swim

yes, i knew and I don't want you to allow that. Just make it blitheringly obvious it will be a LONG swim. if you can't, start me closer. It took AGES even from the first land visual. This is as tough and as good as you want to make it, but you have to let player know that it's not one of those start in boat and get out things, it's a long, long, very long, swim. Player must pay attention to his compass, if not. Tough.

>short burst clicks.

some sound cards, on some cpus, resent this (diary selection tabs). Your short clicks to each page can cause cpu crash.

@bedges again.

I 'forgot' to remember that. The guard, top of tower remained at attention, it was only the savegame cutting in that told me he was dead !

>area triggers

I had no issue with it, i 'discovered' the two loons at top of castle later on, it would be 'obvious' to me, they would shout a warning if they saw anything.

[456820]

okay then now ive been bothered to download the addons so heres my review

Overview
Very nice work here i love this overview.

Briefing
Well its fine apart from i wish there were a few links to markers becasue i didnt know where everything was.

Mission
Very good all the sounds work i got up to the hill near the castle ruins and started to take out resistance in Saite Pierre until some men came out of no where still dont know where they came from and wasted my whole squad then me.
Anyway all sounds seem to work there were a few missiong words from the text on the screen something to work on maybe but it doesn matter much

Overall
This is a great mission as it is just needs some very slight modification like the links to markers would serously help becasue i didnt know what objective i was heading to.
And i didnt know that there were more than just us 6 in the mission then i relise about bravo and ech i think and i wondered what they were doing they just said they were in place to attack attack what? the town the flak cannons the radio tower

[Quang Tri]

Sounds like this is really shaping up to somthing really good cant wait to try out the final keep up the good work

[The-Architect]

LATEST VERSION RIGHT HERE

Got the new version ready to go. You can get it at the same place as the last version. Here's a link.

http://www.freewebs.com/thekillingground/docs.htm

The file is called "Deep Water"
Read my first post for details.

I have changed quite a bit.
Addon list reads,

Super Cobra - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=5906
      Seal Divers Pack + Needed Addons - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=7151
      Nacho's Zodiac - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=4121
      Extraction's Seahawk Pack - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=7617
      2cm Flak cannon - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=8152
      NoRSu's BTR-60 - http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=4836


As always, Freewebs is a bitch, so a mirror would be greatly appreciated.
Enjoy.

[Acecombat]

I suggest you look out for the new Super cobra being made by VIT/Puremassavre its much better then this one by NZX shadow.  

[The-Architect]

I might update it at a later date if the addon is released sooner rather than later. For now though I'll stick to this one.
Also, they'll have to make sure "Marines" isn't written backwards on one side.  

[Acecombat]

Hehe pure fixed that in his textures , you havent seen the latest pics have you?
Go here an check them out:
http://forums.opflashpoint.org/viewtopic.php?t=18005
 

And someone plz put up a new mirror freewebs sucks i cant d/ld this from there  .

[Mikero]

yep. I'll have to hold off too. Can't handle a 2 hour download, sigh.

@architect

you do mention (as you should) where the latest 'n greatest is, but could I suggest putting all of this inside 1st topic? It's grown biigger than u expected hasn't it

[Hawkins]

Here you go lads:
http://ofptf.net/users/Hawkins/DeepWater.zip

[Hawkins]

And, the review.

In the intro, when Hawkin is at the barn with the rebel leader, he doesn't have his "own face". At least on the last two struckdowns he has the default OFP face.
Now, the next suggestion is totally up to you, but here goes. When Loud briefs his men, they all have their weapons. Now, IMO, they shouldn't have them. The camo's are cool, but the weapons IMO shouldn't be there. This is just a small cosmetic thing, so I'll leave it up to you.
Liked the intro very much, was better than last time. Not so long blackouts.
The AI (especially at the radio tower) was more responsive than last time, which was good. No problem there though, took them all out before they could even blink.
I cleared the castle this time, boy did I surprise them. Then I had a report of two guys coming up the road to the castle. Do they come there even though I don't clear the place? Took them out as well.
The AA guns, I killed the gunners on them but still I didn't get that objective done. I don't like blowing them up since last time I took a few friendlies with it. Also a small issue, the important thing is that I get out alive and accomplish the mission.
When we were seen, Echo reported that someone was running towards the beach and probably was a runner. Ok, I'll take him out. Then my guy started  reporting that there was a US 100m from the town. How on earth did he get past us? I didn't get any reports of him leaving town or anything. It's cool though, he must've been one sneaky bastard. ;D We got the hostage and tanks rolled in. I hauled ass to the church and waited for the choppers to take them out. I had some issues with 6 (he was stuck, or at least that's what he thought), but that's OFP's fault.
I loved the outro, the credits are spot on, maybe they could've been displayed at once, like:
Testers,
name
name
name...
and so on, but it's ok as it is.

Really an improvement over the last version. The AI is more reactive, but not too reactive so the player can remain stealthy as long as he needs. Great work!

[Acecombat]

Cheers Hawkins , d/lding now.

[The-Architect]

Hawkins, did you add the hostage faces addon from the addon folder supplied?

[Hawkins]

Hmm, I thought I did, but it seemed like they went into their own AddOns folder inside my AddOns folder. My bad, I guess I was too eager to play the mission that I didn't have time to double check things. ;D

[MrN]

Had a bash at this.

So far it's all gone a bit pear-shaped, but in a good way! Completely my fault  ;D

I saw a jeep drive away just after I started shooting at the radio tower and the whole missions gone fubar! Should have read the brief…

Speaking of which, the briefing is very well done indeed. Nice job. A lot to read as first but as I've found out, it's worth paying attention.

I've completely avoided the castle and my last savegame is currently sitting in the woods to the south-west of Saint Pierre watching the whole place fill up with bad guys. I've been smacked down hard 3 times in a row by the machine guns and my whole squad is getting slaughtered by hunters in the woods.  :-X

So far so good but I think a restart is in order  

To be continued…

By the way, the mission called for an "HH60J" which I found here:
http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=5282

[Mikero]

thank you again Hawkins, you're back on my xmas card list

summary:

no bugz detected.

no wierd stuff detected (except 1 noted below).

Overview: Touche

The following are impressions:

Intro: Loved it just as much. This and the outro are in the best category. You appear to have removed the tester list, or whatever list you did have in the intro. I was dissappointed by this *only* because it had such a powerful impact. You have removed it for your own reasons. However, it's a style I hope others copy, one minute you're watching the scene, next the text, next the scene, etc...

I appeared to have started a little closer to land. The peninunsula of sand was visible to me from the start.

The boat remains out of the water, but, I was watching for it and it's not as noticeably 'wrong'.

Despite any hard work you may have done behind the scenes, the impression of the mission itself is that there were no drastic changes. It all flowed as before. Not a criticism btw. This looks very much like a final road test before release.

The sentry at 1st objective dropped from tower this time (good). One loon ran away and did not affect 'objective complete' (good).

The tank busting chopper did not land this time (good) and took out all the armour without help from us (good)

Further impressions were that there were less nasties around town and that Beta squad were deadlier, smarter, faster off the mark. Both comments may be wrong because of playing before and basically not getting in the wrong place at the right time.

The outro was wonderful, again, and that was very kind to mention me, thank you for being that considerate.

The fire scripts in the outro were not evident during game play (bad)

I did not test the emergency evac via bravo. Nor did i implement your 'faces'. I had two ofp crashes during gameplay which I put down to a new memory stick.

One wierd happened after I used an rpg, i was stuck in a slow walk as if carrying a handgun, or sighting thru rifle. A reload fixed this.

Some, not all, but some enemy loons were mere target practice. They made no attempt to do much even when I ran over them. It did not effect game play, as in hunt the last loon bug, because it wasn't a required objective.

As far as I'm able to tell, this mission is complete and ready for public consumption.

Oh yes, forgot to mention, this mission's bloody good.

[The-Architect]

Cool thing guys I'll fix the bug with the burning scipt for the AA guns and then I'll re-arrange the addons I supply with the mission so you just have to drag and drop the whole chunk together I think that would be better.

I really suggest that you guys use the faces. The hostage will appear in various different states of disrepair if you do. He even gets a running nosebleed in one scene.

I'll fix all that and then I'll run through one more time myself and then I'll start to think about release time.
Cheers guys.  

[bedges]

just downloaded, i'll give it a more complete whirl later. first impressions -

intro -

that nosebleed is class
the vehicles are all nicely in-shot now.
some text needs looking at vis a vis timing of the audio speech - specifically at the senator's house when they tell him his son's missing - it disappears pretty fast, before the audio is complete.

you might also want to separate that last sentence - "oh and General..." end of shot; new shot (close up of general looking "cynic" or "angry") "...kill those sons of b*tch*s!" maybe a bit ott and cheesy, but the line sort of cries out for it

briefing -

wasn't much wrong to begin with, so it's still excellent. one thing i'd look at (and it is a very picky point) is the border around the images. there's a nice drop shadow in there, but the paper colour is just that wee bit lighter than the page. goes for the overview also. no biggie, just cosmetic.

mission -

haven't progressed further than the radio tower - one oddity - i dropped the guards around the fire, turned my scope on the loon up the tower and he was nowhere to be seen. on jogging up closer, i discovered him lying dead at the foot of the radio mast. he evidently got so excited he fell off...  

fine thus far. i think apart from the aa-gun fiasco in the town the mission was pretty much a finished version last time around, so i'll report any bugs if i come across them.

two questions, btw - where'd the intro music come from, and how'd you do the nosebleed? i see the various stages in the zip folder, so is it just a fast-ish setface loop?

[The-Architect]

Cheers man, I'll look into those points.
The intro music comes from a game called "X2 the Threat" or something. I never played it, I just found a huge amount of readily accessible sound files on the disk.
The nosebleed was just a cycle through some faces I edited. I must add that I couldn't have done it without you though man, seeing as how you supplied me with that file full of the BIS ones. Chers for that.  ;D

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