(Review Completed) [SP] The Raid

[DarkAngel]

v1.08, Regular (Cadet) level

- Overview looks fine, good picture and clear text. Mission objective - defend the city - sounds simple, something tells me it's not going to be...

- Intro very strong and atmospheric - and the AI seems to work as you'd want! Just wondered whether a voice-over would be better than text, am sure someone could do it for you if you don't fancy doing it yourself!

- Briefing - short, and to the point - like a classic OFP briefing. Nice to have the lack of heli support explained. Loadout of the team looks fine although numbers 7 & 8 have 2 pairs of NV goggles for some reason.

MISSION
- Start next to two Humvees. Was thinking maybe a radio message from the town garrison might be good here? Not much of a sense of urgency.
- We hop in the Hummers and drive to town, as soon as we hear the sound of gunfire I stop the vehicle I'm driving and we disembark. Almost immediately the game saves. Up to this point not much has happened - wondered if maybe we could have started in the town itself, or perhaps some dialogue to cover the drive in and create a sense of anticipation over what's coming up?
- Just south of us a US squad is coming under fire, I get my guys in line formation and we engage a small SLA patrol. Using burst fire I manage to get through a whole clip in about 3 seconds, but we take the patrol out with no casualties.
- We then move south out of the town to the SpecOps team. Sound of vehicles in distance, no contact yet.
- Then I get on top of the rise to the right of the road and we see the armor coming in. One of our guys takes out one of the T-72s, but I miss the other one and it takes me down with its machine gun. Reload.

- This time as we clear out the SLA patrol in the woods we get a nice bit of radio from the other squad. It's cool, adds atmosphere.
- I take a hit - good to have a medic in the team for a change!
- I set my team up on the outskirts of the town; with 3 M136 launchers in the team we easily take out the first T-72 but I catch another damn bullet! Pull back to my medic and heal myself - again...
- I fix myself up and move back out to the line. No bad guys in sight but there's still the sound of armour somewhere behind the hill.
- We move up to the hill. The rest of the SLA armour is static south of the town. We leg it back to the line - I'm expecting them to push forward any moment.
- We take out the last of the armour and another team reports on the radio that they're taking artillery fire. I get my team together and we head East. Got to stop playing at the minute - will carry on asap. Enjoying the mission so far!

LATER:
- We head out east, following the line of the road, and take out the gate guards at the base.
- We head to the main base compound, and see the D-30s on the other side of it. Compound itself looks pretty quiet, so we move on through. Take out a BMP and a few grunts.
- The artillery target is very well defended and was a nightmare to attack frontally! Ended up borrowing an RPG-7 and the offroad truck in the base and driving round to the Northern flank, leaving my team in the base mopping up infantry. Shilka toasted, I snipe around at the G-30s. I think I've destroyed them all but nothing happens - then notice one last rather pointless man sitting behind a gun not doing anything. Waste him, and the mission moves on.
- Move back to base and call in Charlie, no problems. Maybe some chat when the guys arrive as well as on the radio would be good here?
- Hop in the truck and head South to meet the Abrams, after a couple of minutes a hint comes up saying they're ready. Should this be another radio message?
- Immediately after typing this I get blown up by something! Fortunately saved the game after the artillery objective, but it might be good to have an autosave here maybe?
- Try a different tack this time and move in down the road North of Cayo. We disembark the truck in the hills.
- I move closer on my own to scope out the area. Lots of infantry and a couple of tanks, but at least they're out in the open. The SCUD installation looks very foxy from 1k out! ;-) Wish I had a sniper rifle in this situation though...
- Its a small point, but from my recon position at EF69 I can see the installation, and the Abrams tanks. The Abrams aren't visible from the SCUD point I don't think, but there's a four-man patrol to the west just standing still, if they moved they'd see the tanks.
- I get my loons to hold fire and I set them up on the road to the North, ready to attack.
- Great twist - suddenly instead of victorious heroes we're running as fast as we can. I think about using one of the MG positions to try and take down the chopper, but given how slim the chances are I decide to keep running!
- Man, this is not a good day - when the RHIB goes up I get a proper feeling of, oh sh*t, I'm going to die. Then the message comes through to hold on for the A-10s. Is hope on the way?
- I call my medic to help me - and we cut to the ending cutscene. This looks great, AI again seeming to do what you want. I'd have liked to have had the opportunity to pay the Slags back a little more though!

- Outro - satisfying end to the mission's story. Camerawork very simple but effective!

OVERALL
- This is a classy mission, particularly in its use of reversals and hidden objectives. Just when you think you know what's going on, it switchbacks and you're in a whole new situation. My only slight gripes might be 1) savegames are applied inconsistently - maybe instead call them in after each objective? 2) I know you're working on this already, but it would be worth following through on voice acting for voice overs and radio transmissions throughout. Otherwise, already a very enjoyable, challenging and rewarding mission. Nice one mate!

[firecontrol]

Hey there! Thanks for the test! Appreciate the feedback, good stuff.

- Intro very strong and atmospheric - and the AI seems to work as you'd want! Just wondered whether a voice-over would be better than text, am sure someone could do it for you if you don't fancy doing it yourself!

I had pondered this, I think it would be a lot better. Anyone know that guy who does the movie trailer voice? Or, if anyone wants to do some voices for the intro/outro... (someone with a Sahrani accent?) I'd be much appreciative! European, Latin, or Slavic accent would do nicely methinks. Big shiny spot in the credits, and the starring role in the sequel to The Raid if you do!

- Briefing - short, and to the point - like a classic OFP briefing. Nice to have the lack of heli support explained. Loadout of the team looks fine although numbers 7 & 8 have 2 pairs of NV goggles for some reason.

Yes. I just noticed that in your mission as well, I never knew ArmA assigned NVGs to certain types and not others. Thanks for pointing that out! Of course I notice it in your mission and not my own! Lol.

- ...Almost immediately the game saves. Up to this point not much has happened - wondered if maybe we could have started in the town itself, or perhaps some dialogue to cover the drive in and create a sense of anticipation over what's coming up?

In the works. The savegame is there because it sucks to take all that time to outfit your squad with a custom weapons loadout just to get popped by some lucky SLA grunt as you drive by and have to do it all over again.

- This time as we clear out the SLA patrol in the woods we get a nice bit of radio from the other squad. It's cool, adds atmosphere.

Thanks. I cringe everytime I hear my horrible voices! Hahah.

- I take a hit - good to have a medic in the team for a change!

Indeed. A medic is a requirement as far as I'm concerned. I even help you out a bit later on if he dies.

Got to stop playing at the minute - will carry on asap. Enjoying the mission so far!

Cool. Thanks a lot for the effort and the feedback, hope you enjoy the rest of the mission. New version is in the works, too... changed a bit based on the past few posts. Hope 1.04 will be up this weekend.

EDIT:
Just noticed DarkAngel edited his last post! (I thought it was supposed to put a "new" marker by the topic?)

In any case, thanks DarkAngel! Quite helpful. Indeed I am adding quite a few voices/radio sounds to the mission all over the place. The savegames: I can modify them, sure. One after each objective sounds good, the one at the beginning stays though for people like me who spend too much time second guessing myself in equipping the squad.

For the G30's: I'm thinking that once any one crewman from a gun dies, then the other two will hop out and try to defend as infantry... since the gun should require a three+ man crew to be relatively efficient (reloaders, etc...)  Also, I'm going to optimize that script. As it is now, it could get stuck in an infinite "waitFor"....  The things you notice with a few beers. Heheh.

About the saveGame inbetween the arty and the SCUD: There should be one, at the same time the hint comes up that the Abrams are ready.... odd! (That hint will become a radio message, btw, thanks for that!)

Thanks again to all who've beta tested so far! Invaluable!

[mathias_eichinger]

Wow, what a piece of a mission...

Overview

Very good picture that was already a bit promising.

Intro

Superb camerawork, long cinematics and very good custom music. I loved the aspect that the story was told by an innocent civilian and the player would play another perspective, i.e. the Americans.

Briefing

Very good and to the point, nothing to improve here.

Mission

Started quite easy, I loaded my men into the 2 HMMVs and off we went to the city to defend. There was nothing to do for the immediate defense because the BLUFOR present held off the enemy quite well. But the battle ambience was great. Hearing reports about tanks I headed for the hills straight ahead and together with the ambush team managed to take the Tanks and BMP out. When I managed this, artillery started raining down on the city and I was ordered to find and destroy it. So I took my HMMVs and headed towards the old RACS training ground where the artillery was situated. Encountered a road block quite some distance ahead which was quite easily fought down.

But the artillery itself proved to be a different story. I was mauled by the infantry at the gate first, so I tried to sneak around the fence and take it on from behind. Not a good idea, because the guns are tremendously accurate in self defence. Then I tried again, crawled forward on my belly and my squad could kill all the infantry in the eastern part of the artillery barracks area. I took out a BMP, but the Shilka that was also active on my last try did not move. When I crossed the barracks, killing a few more enemies, I noticed a dead tank crew, that's probably the reason for it. Surprisingly, the artillery was dealt with suddenly, probably due to a few lucky shots from my squad and I had one less headache.

The shooting ground itself was a bit difficult as well, because it was hard to hit the MG gunners in their bunkers. But finally I made it and got reinforcements and a nice truck to drive. Again I was re-tasked to take out a SCUD far away in the south and drove my squad close to the road just north of it. We disembarked, crawled forward and called for the available tank support. Fortunately the tanks did most of the work and we just killed a squad of infantry. Then I discovered that there was no SCUD at all! It was a trap and we had to escape.
So what do you do in such situations? Just rush for the Exfil point.....which in this case was quite pointless because a Hokum chopper rocketed us on the way. Scary how good this works in ArmA 1.08 compared to OFP.

Ok - another try, running towards some ammo boxes I discovered on the map. Thankfully, there was a Strela SAM and I could down the heli. Now another dash towards the coast, fearing another nasty surprise as there were tank noises in the background, with me thinking "damn, should I have picked up an RPG launcher before running?". Then the boat finally arrived only to explode near the beach. At this point it REALY felt contrieved and a bit over the top regarding bad luck and mission design. But I did not have to face tanks as I feared but was greeted by a superb cutscene.

Outro

Great camerawork, music, storytelling and it explains the mysteriously exploding boat (just a trap). 

Conclusion

One of few missions which manage to keep the player on his toes with constant action without resorting to simply throwing endless waves of enemies at him. The only moments where I was not constantly on my guard was the necessary driving. Fair autosaves and voice acting are another plus (did not mention it under "mission"). Just a great mission.

Keep up the good work

Mathias

[firecontrol]

Thanks Mathias! Great stuff to hear.

I've got 1.04 lined up and near complete. Changed a bit of the small stuff that Cheetah, LCD, and others have mentioned, as well as adding a few more radio voices, sounds, etc.

Hoping to get this mission finished for good soon so I can start on my second mission. That one probably won't be released for a bit though, it seems like it might be a bit of work.

Thanks again for the time and effort!

EDIT: New version 1.04 available.

[LCD]

its been 2 long since dis got a test, specialy since u beta 4 every1   so heres da resaults 4 latest version

overview

1) i think u can change da wording of it a lil.... "da sla is throwin everything 2 rescue him. defend da city" (not exact qoute) seems 2 have a misin part

Intro

1) i still think u shud have da civie standin w/ hands on his head instead of layin on da ground

briefing

1) da notes part looks more like a diary now... mebe a date at da top of da page ?
2) i think u shud add a 2 more laws 2 da weapon selection (so i can have 3 laws 4 each launcher)

mision

1) da talk @ da start... (nice idea ) da 1st man 2 talk is da srg... nd he bets its not important... so u may wanna switch da person who talks 2 som1 else nd have da srg say da line hushin da 2 soldiers
2) it seems da tanks take even more time now 2 arrive 2 da city
3) da 3rd tank (tank comin from da west) just stays outside da town and waits till i shot him... it used 2 come into da city nd engage...
4) btw did u put less US troops in da city ? cuz da city seemed 2 get empty really fast... mebe have more pl arrivin 4 a constant feel of chaos
5) i still think da guards in da checkpoint shud at least move around a lil... right now i snipe em in da head nd dey dont move (u can get good snipin pos from da road... all u have 2 see is da top of deir helmet)
6) da second squad in da checkpoint (da suport) react really bad... mostly runnin near da gate while i stay outside nd take em off.. i think da gate is a lil prob 2 em, u may wanna search 4 a workaround
7) i hate da part w/ da arty pit... its realy hard  nd it seems da arty can hit me w/ amazin skill
mebe lock da offroad trucks ? cuz i just got into 1 of em nd drove 2 da pit nd da arty ignored me
9) u may wanna script da arty soldiers 2 get outta arty if da west side is 2 close... after i parked near him w/ da offroad truck he just shot his own sandbags nd died
10) did u change da layout in da arty pit ? i think dey reacted better last time i played
11) i think u shud add a closer ammo dump 2 da arty pit... going back 2 da enterance of da militart facility (da checkpoint) is 2 far
12) after we discover dat da scud is not dere u shud add a retreat WPs 4 da abrams as now dey r just waitin dere
13) is dere suposed 2 b a chase 2 da exfil point ? cuz it didnt do dat 4 me
14) da last part (were da A10 bombs a tank) still shows only smoke nd no explosions


overall

da mision is more or less ready... but stil some small fixes can b nice

LCD OUT

[firecontrol]

its been 2 long since dis got a test, specialy since u beta 4 every1   so heres da resaults 4 latest version

Well thanks very much! Really appreciate the effort. (I know I'm tired of playing this mission! hehe)

Intro
1) i still think u shud have da civie standin w/ hands on his head instead of layin on da ground

Indeed. I don't know why I didn't think to do that... in the first intro to this mission I had the SLA officer put his hands on his head. I guess "civilians can do that too" didn't transfer into my brain. On that note, civilians are a MOFO to control. I can't keep the guy standing. And in the new mission I'm working on, they do anything possible to defy me. Enraging.

briefing
1) da notes part looks more like a diary now... mebe a date at da top of da page ?
2) i think u shud add a 2 more laws 2 da weapon selection (so i can have 3 laws 4 each launcher)

1) Date at top sounds like a good idea.
2) I was trying to think what would "semi-realistically" fit into a couple of HMMWVs.... since that is all the squad has, and well, technically.. there are no M136 "magazines"... they're single use tubes... fire and toss them. But, I figured a launcher and two "magazines" each would fit without being "unrealistic" (notice the overuse of quotation marks, lol.) I suppose since I've already strayed a bit from the realistic side of things, 2 more couldn't hurt.

Any other beta testers have an opinion on this?

mision
1) da talk @ da start... (nice idea ) da 1st man 2 talk is da srg... nd he bets its not important... so u may wanna switch da person who talks 2 som1 else nd have da srg say da line hushin da 2 soldiers

Oh yeah! Crap, I rearanged some things and forgot to change it back to having #3 and #4 talking, then #2 piping up. Good catch!

2) it seems da tanks take even more time now 2 arrive 2 da city

Really?? Well hell, I actually moved them closer since 1.03, no idea why that is. I had to remove the BMP since he has a very high probability of flipping over before he can make it to the town... and checks like !(canMove) won't work either, since he's not damaged at all.

3) da 3rd tank (tank comin from da west) just stays outside da town and waits till i shot him... it used 2 come into da city nd engage...

Hmm. Buggy AI problems again? If any of the tanks get a hint of a BLUFOR, they go crazy running through the streets after them usually. It's all really random how these guys react.

4) btw did u put less US troops in da city ? cuz da city seemed 2 get empty really fast... mebe have more pl arrivin 4 a constant feel of chaos

I moved them out a bit to set a more realistic perimeter, but I agree it does detract from the experience... I'll probably move them back.

6) da second squad in da checkpoint (da suport) react really bad... mostly runnin near da gate while i stay outside nd take em off.. i think da gate is a lil prob 2 em, u may wanna search 4 a workaround

Yeah, I may end up knocking those fences down in an init-like file, I don't like them. That's gonna be some work though.

7) i hate da part w/ da arty pit... its realy hard  nd it seems da arty can hit me w/ amazin skill

This is really the only part of the mission that takes any form of tact. I like it. The arty pit is already adjusted dynamically in-game. i.e. If you have lost even 1 man by the time you get there, the shilka is removed. If you've lost 2 men, a machinegun is take out, 3 men, the other machinegun is gone. This is right on the "front-line," and a good defense should be expected (And actually, the arty shouldn't even be that close. I didn't want to make the player go a realistic distance to get to them. (An arty piece will actually shoot further than the entire length of the Sahrani island in reality.)

Maybe in the readme... or even a new file called hints.txt, I can put in some strategies for doing things.

mebe lock da offroad trucks ? cuz i just got into 1 of em nd drove 2 da pit nd da arty ignored me

Well, I've gotta say the offroads should be taken out. They serve no purpose.

9) u may wanna script da arty soldiers 2 get outta arty if da west side is 2 close... after i parked near him w/ da offroad truck he just shot his own sandbags nd died

Yeah, I still want to do this. Such that if any one of a three man crew is killed, the other two will get out and attack.

11) i think u shud add a closer ammo dump 2 da arty pit... going back 2 da enterance of da militart facility (da checkpoint) is 2 far

There is an SLA crate right there in the pit. It's got the camo netting "shed" over it. Can't miss it.

12) after we discover dat da scud is not dere u shud add a retreat WPs 4 da abrams as now dey r just waitin dere

Good idea, escaped my thoughts.

13) is dere suposed 2 b a chase 2 da exfil point ? cuz it didnt do dat 4 me

Yes, an "overwhelming force" does come. A Kamov will clean up any friendly armor, and there a plenty of T72s to give chase. Why they didn't? I have no idea. Will look into it.

14) da last part (were da A10 bombs a tank) still shows only smoke nd no explosions

All I can say is that this has to be part of the whole "pre-1.06/post-1.06" phenomenon that I'm looking into. I hope some people who had no other ArmA version prior to 1.06 from Atari can get in on this and try to duplicate. As it is now, on both of my computers, I always see an explosion. Tested this nearly 50 times I must say.

overall
da mision is more or less ready... but stil some small fixes can b nice

  Thanks LCD. Fixes will be made. Much appreciated!!

[johnnyboy]

Hey fireControl,

I just watched your new intro, and its very well done!  Good imagery using the statue and time lapse.

You mentioned in previous post that you were  having trouble making the civilians stand in the intro.  Unfortunately, civvies seem to ignore SETUNITPOS "UP" when they feel threatened.

One trick I've used is to make them the same side as their captors, then they don't react to the OPFOR by laying down.   This trick is only good in controlled situations (like cutscenes), as during gameplay you probably want civvies to consider opfor enemy.  It should work fine in your cutscene case.

Note that the civvies in your intro worked fine for me though (they stayed standing).

Will re-test the mission when I get more time.

[LCD]

noder thing dat shud do it is 2 set da resistance friendly 2 all... as u dont have nyy fightin in da intro it shudnt b problem... mebe also use da setfriend comand on da civie side (check da comref)

also i looked into ur code... it seems u count on da A10 2 shot in ur endin script ? (were i get only smoke...) heres an advice... never count on da AI 2 do nythin alone... dey just bad @ it... mebe create explosions dere or somin...

LCD OUT

[Nixer6]

Hi

Had a little time on my hands so I gave it a shot..... v1.04

I have the US Atari version, patched to 1.08. I also use the FDF sound mod and was abl;e to hear people in the vehicles.

Intro

Didn't work for me. All I got was the statue (cool BTW) and then the cam was on the pavement looking at the bottom of some phone booths......music played and it just sat there.

Did a quick look at the mission...death by T-72. 

Just wanted to let you know about the intro.

edit: Ok I reproduced the same thing in the intro.......4 times, with and without the sound mod. I see the statue, fade to black, some text and hear some music. The camera is like frozen on the bottom of the phone booths.


It's gotta be the Atari version. Atari  ........They should have stuck with Asteroids 

[firecontrol]

Thanks guys for the last few posts.

Nixer, just out of curiosity, how long did you see the phonebooths? Was is more than 10 seconds or so? I'm just asking since there is a bit of a delay in that scene before anything happens, should be a few seconds at most.

[Nixer6]

The music ended or changed. I watched it that long. At least 30 seconds one time.

I was eye level with the pavement BTW.

And we both have the US version..correct?

[firecontrol]

Yeah, my game was originally 1.06 from Atari. I haven't heard anyone else having a problem like that. Cheetah had a problem with a trigger not firing, but I think I've got that sorted.

This, on the other hand.... I'm just stumped. If you see the phone booths, the game's not waiting for anything, you should see some feet shortly.

  Anyone have any insight? I'll pour through the script again, see if I can't find something.

[Rellikki]

Been a while since I last time played this. I gave it a try to see if you added anything new...

Package
It has everything it needs.

Overview
The overview is good. It's also using my favorite format.

Intro
I see you updated the intro. It seems very interesting but it wouldn't go on after filming the phone boots, just
like person said.

Briefing
The briefing is fine. Interesting stuff in the details page.

Mission
I armed me and my team with all the M136's and SAW's that we had available. We headed to Somato, disembarked our
vehicles and engaged some infantry that already had came in the town. We took position in the bushes, south-east
of the town. The SF's ambush didn't quite work, they got shot by the T-72's. We managed to disable them anyway.
I got a radio message about the artillery fire, so now I headed to the artillery place with my team. It took me
a while to clear it because of the MG's. The cannons also tried to shoot us. I solved it by placing my team
in front of them so they could shoot some infantry from the camp while I flanked them and attacked from behind.
Once it was clear, we headed for the outpost, east of the camp, rearmed and boarded one of the urals. I then headed
for the SCUD with the new reinforcements that I called in.
We took position from the hills, north of the SCUD. I spotted some enemies for my team mates with my binoculars.
Once I was ready, I called in the abrams' and ordered my team to open fire. Ahhh, it surely sounded lovely when
all my 10 team mates were firing like crazy. Didn't take long until the whole place was cleared. I moved in to
the shed where the SCUD was supposed to be but it wasn't... Well, that was unexcepted. We then headed for the
excraction point but the boat was destroyed. Well, THAT, if anything, was unexcepted.
The cutscene with the A-10's and T-72's started. The A10's didn't manage to destroy the armor at the first fly-over,
so the camera kept following the tank for at least one minute. Otherwise it worked fine. Mission completed.

Debriefing
Nothing wrong here. Completed the mission with 34 infantry kills and 3 vehicles. Duration 53 minutes. No casualties
at all.

Outro
More unexcepted things! The outro was fine but some moving cameras would have been better.

Summary
This was a pretty good mission. It had lots of action to keep the player busy for at least one hour. Also, you had some very
nice ideas there. The only thing that really needs fixing is the intro.

Project Beta Approved

[firecontrol]

I've officially gone insane, just FYI. 

I have no idea how the intro gets all screwed up for you guys. Maybe if you guys can post your settings? As in terrain detail, post-processing level, etc. I can get a better idea of how to troubleshoot this.

On a side note, I made a video of the intro here so you can see it in it's whole. It's a little laggy since Fraps took up a bit of my resources, but it usually runs rather smoothly (no texture loading, etc.)

Thanks for the beta test again, Rellikki.

Version 1.05 is in the works now, and I'm trying to tweak the thing such that the intro/outro cutscenes work for everyone. It's odd that only a couple people (but more than one) get some serious errors. Makes me wonder about video settings...  But as it doesn't error for me, it's quite hard to troubleshoot a problem that I can't duplicate.

I do know that if I turn my view distance waaaay up, the intro doesn't run quite right... but it doesn't stop working. I figure that people have their settings set to a reasonable level based on their system.
FireControl = sad.

Oh, also.. what version of Windows are you guys using? XP, Vista?


EDIT:  I've posted v1.05 (see first post) which hopefully addresses some of the issues brought up recently. If the intro (and outro cutscene) is still buggy for some people, I'm about out of ideas. It's nearly impossible to troubleshoot this when it works so flawlessly on each of my computers here (running different settings, different operating systems, even different versions: with and without 1.08 hotfix.)

[Cheetah]

Can't download 1.05, some javascript error on the website?

EDIT: tried firefox and internet explorer