(Review Completed) [SP] The Sahrani Run V2.0 - An Epic Mission

[smoke52]

well i think i worded it wrong that the heli just hung around. the heli did follow me until i made it to the camp area near arcadia.

also ill check the sound in the heli ride again, maybe my music was turned down.

ill update my first post when i play more.

[Arkon]

Hi smoke52,

Thanks for getting back to us - re the music if u r playing with 3rd person switched off
then the heli sound is even louder so I probably need to turn the sound down a bit as well
as turning the music up.

EDIT

Hi smoke52

Only just noticed your updated post:

when the map first starts you start in the eyes of a troop for a split second

Fixed now (V1.05)

take the night vision off the players character when he talks to the officer then gets in the heli. he could grab them when he boards the heli

Yes, good idea!! (actually he's not the real player but a dummy one pretending to be the player)

something i forgot to mention and i dont know if it's intentional, but i can hear the enemy heli off in the distance

Moved him back now

at the end of the cutscene i was expecting to see draco driving away in his truck on the road, i think it would make it more dramatic if you see him driving away

Hmmm, it would only work if you were near the road - the cutscene is triggered even if you are far away from Arcadia

on the way out of town i saw a civilian just standing outside of the town

Well spotted - he is a gatecrasher, that i had not noticed!!

Thaks very much for spending your time playing and writing your post - would be great if you can do some more.

Anyways its best to use the latest Version now (1.05).

Regards

Arkon

[smoke52]

sorry, i had some comp troubles or i would have had more to add 

anyway its all fixed now, so heres some more testing:

Hmmm, it would only work if you were near the road - the cutscene is triggered even if you are far away from Arcadia

i was way up on the mountain looking down on arcadia and the sea, so i was able to see the road clearly. for those people like me that went around the high road it would add to the atmosphere, but its only a suggestion you dont have to do it

after playing a few times, loading from the arcadia area, the placement of the motorbike seems odd in the middle of the road. hide it near the radio beside a building. when i first came across the car and bike, i obviously went for the car, but it went up in flames, so i cautiously took the bike half expecting it to blow up when i drove a certain speed or something

anyway my first load i took the bike and drove near the car to set it off; the writing came up, but the car didnt explode.

next i drove to my usual spot and picked off the first set of guys i came across near the oil pumps. moved on to the gas station, but lost my bike hitting a rock while i was looking at my map so i bailed and sniped the guys at the gas station. the next thing i noticed wrong was the car beside the gas pumps was sunk in the ground.

moving on i decided to sneak around north and bypass the city with the tanks to go for the ammo. i retrieved some ammo but the objective didnt tick off, but thats not really important. next i made it to the buoy and lost my weapons swimming out there...i should have stored them in my jeep before i went out but now im stuck with the pistol going into the ambulance area. you should give a hint to the player to stash their weapons before swimming out, just have a trigger on the shore line. you could make a trigger along the shore to add the m24 with ammo or make a script that looks what they had then give it back because i had some satchels too. also it started getting lighter out once i lost my NVgoggles. im not sure if thats a game bug or did you make it so it gets lighter out while swimming out to the buoy?

another bug i found was leaving the saltzmen and draco stuff until making it to the buoy makes it so you cant remove it from your action menu. i dont know how many objectives you have but maybe you could do it all through the briefing.html? when the objective completes have a hidden one with something to click and take you to the information they recieved.

next i waited for awhile with 4x speed on and no ambulance came, i dont think i was detected because everyone is still standing. i couldnt wait any longer, so i decided to get my jeep and make a run for the border

i made it through somehow to the second wall. bailed out of my jeep and crawled under the second wall. killed two guards and made it to the finish area. i finished the mission with three things not ticked off; get ammo at the crate, hitch a ride, and meet colonel chantico objectives. maybe have the crate and hitch ride tick off when the player reaches the last end trigger.

last suggestion is have the screen fade to black when they complete the first part of the mission.

-------------

second mission
checked briefing and the first three were done (meet saltzer, go to buoy, cross border) and the meet colonel was still unfinished, so thats where i was going. i hit continue and to my surprise i started in a tank with no fuel, beside two others. one was running, so i grabbed that one and went towards the colonel, but the mission failed saying spec ops cant leave the area. im a little confused what to do here? it definitely needs a mini intro or something, if this is how its meant to play out.

i bailed from my tank and read the PIER message. it tells me to do the ambulance thing and get across the border....

ill test some more later when you tell me what supposed to happen

[Arkon]

Hi smoke52,

Thanks for the marathon feedback

the placement of the motorbike seems odd in the middle of the road

Moved!

the writing came up, but the car didnt explode

Hmmm wondering if this is a mission bug or summint to do with the save game object status - looking into

i retrieved some ammo but the objective didnt tick off

Ok... but this is not an objective

next i made it to the buoy and lost my weapons swimming out there

Hints & tips in the read me

another bug i found was leaving the saltzmen and draco stuff until making it to the buoy makes it so you cant remove it from your action menu.

Not sure what you mean here - You should be able to remove the saltzmen and draco text at any time - but the pier stuff is different (see below)

next i waited for awhile with 4x speed on and no ambulance came

How close to the base did you get? - you need to get within 150yds to set the trigger off - but been having some probs with this!

three things not ticked off; get ammo at the crate, hitch a ride, and meet colonel chantico objectives

Ammo (see above) hitch a ride is not an objective - Meet colonel chantico is not achieved until Part two (u ain't met him yet)

to my surprise i started in a tank with no fuel

How did you get this tank and the others?

but the mission failed saying spec ops cant leave the area

This happens if you try to head south (back into S. Sahrani) you need to head towards your next objective "Meet colonel chantico" as marked on your map (this is why you cannot remove the pier text until Part two).

Well, thank you very much for your mega test - you found lots of bits and pieces to sort out 

Hope you can find time to do some more.

Regards

Arkon2

[mathias_eichinger]

Hi, here`s my take on the mission:

Package

Complete with Promo Pic and Readme. Good job.

Intro

None.

Briefing

Was quite sketchy and secret and kept me wondering what I would be up against.

[bMission[/b]

Good ambience with the helicopter starting and with me receiving my secret orders in flight. This is an "action film feature" not seen very often in ArmA. After the cutscene I am paradropped on the beach and approach the marker on the map. The village is totally deserted which is not what I expected since the readme hinted an adventure type gameplay.

I need to state that I began the mission yesterday and hit exit just after I found my contact, the flare was fired and we were on the run to San Peregrino. Upon loading it today I got the error message "void is not a class"  and the civilian guy refused to run on. Luckily I remebered the next task (that I had to go to San Peregrino). Here I noticed the first flaw of the mission: All messages should update the Briefing or else the player would be forced to write them down if he doesn`t bring a whole day`s worth of playing time. Yes, that would force the player to comb trough many pages of notes, but that is quite normal for an adventure I think.

Despite my contact not being there I had a conversation with him  .
And then the objectives were updated with a really horrible (drum roll?) sound. For me, this sound needs to go, it is really ugly. So I had to make a mental note again about going to Arcadia and killing a guy with a red Skoda there.
When I was close to the village, a pitch-black cutscene kicked in which was completely useless because I could not see a thing. Well, not completely useless, because it told me that my target is about to leave.

When I entered Arcadia I had no clue what has happened before and I encountered a civilian whom I shot because it could have been my target that just had changed his mount. Finally I found the empty Skoda and nothing else happened in that deserted town. I took the motorcycle of the civilian and rode towards Dolores, past some enemies at the side of the road who did nothing to me. Dolores itself was a different matter, and I got shot there. So I took to the hills around Dolores to go to Geraldo beach.

I hopped off my motorcycle and shot the boat crew successfully after a few retries. The boat stranded conveniently at the beach, allowing me to hop in and investigate the buoy. There was much undocumented text about the difficulty to get into North Sahrani and that I needed to hitch an ambulance. "No problem" I thought, "I am in the boat and will simply race along the coast". But what happened? You made the boat stop working in the middle of the ocean. I was quite angry at that point because you denied me the most logical thing to do and forced me to stick to the mission plan.

Ok now, out of the boat and racing towards the ambulance base. Managed to sneak in and get into the ambulance M113. And then I experienced a Showstopper. The ambulance would go nowhere despite waiting 10 minutes in game. Heard some shooting in the distance and that was all.

Conclusions

Phew, where do I start?

*Get rid of that horrible sound that accompanies the Briefing update.
*The cutscene before Arcadia needs to have night vision
*Simply let me drive my boat along the coast
*Add every hint to the Briefing
*Look into the ambulance bug
*The map should be more alive (e.g. more civilians in villages, more patrols).

I hope I am not too harsh here, but while the idea itself is quite interesting and worth developing, it is lacking in the realisation at this stage.

Cheers

Mathias

[Arkon]

Hi mathias_eichinger,

Thanks for your feedback...

Are you using V 1.05?

Was quite sketchy and secret and kept me wondering what I would be up against

This is part of the story - time explains all 

The village is totally deserted which is not what I expected since the readme hinted an adventure type gameplay

Early days yet - this is a very long adventure and it needs to be paced correctly - as the overview sez the southern part of Sahrani is mostly deserted.

I got the error message "void is not a class"

Yes - someone else reported this - not sure what it is yet

All messages should update the Briefing or else the player would be forced to write them down if he doesn`t bring a whole day`s worth of playing time

Don't quite understand you here, are you saying that the Action menu notes are insurficient?

And then the objectives were updated with a really horrible (drum roll?) sound

Ok, I have to agree - it'l have to go!

When I was close to the village, a pitch-black cutscene kicked in which was completely useless because I could not see a thing

Don't know what happened to you here - you are the first to report this!

You made the boat stop working in the middle of the ocean

Well, it was not made to do this - it just ran out of gas! - it would be just to easy to skip Corazo in the boat so, to
do it you have to find some fuel first 

The ambulance would go nowhere despite waiting 10 minutes in game

Sorry, yup had a few problems with the ambulance - trying to sort it out now

Ok, you found quite a few things that you did not seem to happy with, some of which I have tried to answer. But, this is what Beta testing is all about - just sorry that you seemed to run into more problems than most.

Thanks again for your time - look forward to more feedback 

Regards

Arkon2
 

[smoke52]

i retrieved some ammo but the objective didnt tick off
Ok... but this is not an objective

yeah its not important but i think it would look better being ticked off, just to show you went there.

another bug i found was leaving the saltzmen and draco stuff until making it to the buoy makes it so you cant remove it from your action menu.
Not sure what you mean here - You should be able to remove the saltzmen and draco text at any time - but the pier stuff is different (see below)

for some reason it just wouldnt delete it from the action menu. probably from a save point bug because i hit two different save points before i decided to try and remove them. its one of those "once in a blue moon" bugs i guess

next i waited for awhile with 4x speed on and no ambulance came
How close to the base did you get? - you need to get within 150yds to set the trigger off - but been having some probs with this!

what happened was i was driving to the medical place and hit the save point, i made a quick left turn into the bushes, but i think i could of been spotted by the BMP. i bailed out and the first time i snuck around the back and went in the fence opening on foot. i didnt know where to go so i ran towards the tents and turned left around the building where i sat for awhile. i could of been spotted by an officer then because i saw him laying down and standing again. i thought i was spotted so i decided to get out of there but died.

next load i drove the jeep into the fence and made an opening in the north west area of the base than waited in the barracks, i dont think i was spotted unless, like im speculating, was spotted by the BMP just as i hit the save point.

three things not ticked off; get ammo at the crate, hitch a ride, and meet colonel chantico objectives
Ammo (see above) hitch a ride is not an objective - Meet colonel chantico is not achieved until Part two (u ain't met him yet)

i know, just thought i would let you know how it looks and plays out

to my surprise i started in a tank with no fuel
How did you get this tank and the others?

but the mission failed saying spec ops cant leave the area
This happens if you try to head south (back into S. Sahrani) you need to head towards your next objective "Meet colonel chantico" as marked on your map (this is why you cannot remove the pier text until Part two).

this is where it got wierd. see pic
[img=http://img34.imagevenue.com/loc1009/th_56748_route_122_1009lo.jpg]

i did that route in the pic and it said mission complete. it gave me the briefing book with my stats and stuff. i clicked continue and it said loading PART2, so when it loads im inside a tank with no fuel, one is running in front of me and a third is sitting there with no fuel. i said ok and tried driving but wouldnt go so i got in the tank that was running and drove towards the colonel. the map was emtpy, so i thought maybe this was a flashback in time and switching roles to guard corazol or something. the briefing had the same as the first level so i didnt know what was up and drove towards the mountain area where i was supposed to meet the colonel, but i hit that trigger saying i left the area.

theres probably an easy explaination though...i played your map to the buoy and quit to the main menu. then i downloaded v105 and installed that without closing ARMA and played the rest out, so that must have done something

[mathias_eichinger]

Don't quite understand you here, are you saying that the Action menu notes are insurficient?

Yes, I think so. For example, the mission in Arcadia is mentioned nowhere in the action menu notes, and while the Briefing tells me to hitch a ride in the Ambulance base, it is very easy to forget about the details (e.g. where is the hole in the fence). So, as this is a long mission, if I would have quit before Arcadia and left if alone a few days I could have easily forgotten that I need to go there, or if I would leave the mission alone just before the ambulance hitch it could have been harder because I might not remember to look for a hole in the fence.

Therefore I vote for the use of the Notes section in the Briefing. Anything else would overcrowd the action menu and force the player to constantly remove the hints.

Well, it was not made to do this - it just ran out of gas! - it would be just to easy to skip Corazo in the boat so, to
do it you have to find some fuel first 

Ok that`s a reason, but it still makes me doubt the Communist Common Sense of patrolling a harbor in a boat with only a few minutes worth of fuel 

Cheers

Mathias
 

[Arkon]

Hi smoke52,

Thanks for the feedback again

for some reason it just wouldnt delete it from the action menu

Yes, this because the player needs some of that information for Part 2 of the mission (it can be deleted in Part 2).

Sorted out the Ambulance stuff in V 1.06 - The ambulance is already at the base waiting for the player now.

The tank business was probably caused by updating whilst the program was still running...

If you have any more time and patience, I would be very happy to get some more feedback.

Thanks again

Regards

Arkon

[smoke52]

playing v106

briefing
theres a helicopter "laid on" at helipad 1

im not sure what that means (laid on). maybe change it to "waiting"?

in the notes area:
"no-one's"

"no one is" sound better

Mission
in the harry saltzman briefing when you reach the second ruined house, he says

"He now does their dirty work for them. You might find him..."

maybe change it to He does their dirty work for them and you might find him..."

in arcadia i jumped on the motorbike and rode close to the car. it gave an error about "_b1 = "m_ch29_at" #createvehicle _pos"

im in the ambulance area and i find it very difficult to get to the ambulance because everywhere you go theres someone looking where you have to run or crawl across to get to the ambulance. i like the barrels going up along the building but then what? theres a guy in the tent looking that way and a squad of guys at the front gate. how do you go that way? going the right side around theres an officer and two guards looking where you have to run across and no cover. i made a run for it and i was shot but still made it around to the ambulance. i think more cover to crawl behind would be cool for that area, like barrels, boxes, etc. maybe i wasnt patient enough to watch and see if they turn away, but it looked like they were static.

i sat in the ambulance with 4x speed on and a cutscene kinda kicked in (i would suggest having the cutscene kick in once the player enters the ambulance). it looks like the camera is looking towards the officer and its moving back and forth between two spots about 3mm apart. i cant hit ESC to get out of it and i think its stuck forever in that position until i reload. i let it sit for awhile thinking maybe the ambulance still went and would hit a trigger to end it but it didnt. something was broken  

second time i started from the beginning and this time at the ambulance area i rammed a hole in the fence with my jeep. it seems no one is alerted to me because all their backs are turned. only if they were like that my first time around

anyway it worked this time through and the cut scene was going good until it went to the camera that zooms in on the officers face. after the zoom you see the camera quickly move to a new position only a fraction away from the original camera making the camera jolt. then after that it turns to the ambulance turning left down a street but the camera stays where it is tracking the ambulance through a building for about a min. then the words come up that says "hmm..the hunter becomes the hunted." still tracking through the building. after some time the camera gets to a new position and does some more camera movements. it ended with a look at the parked ambulance and 3 tents where it sat for awhile until some troops showed up. again it sat for awhile longer and even more troops came (about 10)....i waited and waited but im pretty sure it was supposed to allow me to control my player by now, so i alt-tabbed and ended the program :\

[Wolfrug]

Hey there!

I've been playing and enjoying this mission a bit, and I'll give you a proper review once I've actually managed to finish it, but I thought I'd mention a little "cheat" I found with the Geraldo-buoy objective:

That boat that comes out of the mists when you arrive there? Judging by the way it explodes once you've killed all of its occupants, you're not really supposed to take it, right? Well, if you snipe JUST the driver, the two gunners will, due to the way the AI works, jump out of the boat after a while and start swimming. -> just swim out to the boat and drive it to shore, load it with weapons and off you go to the other side.

Also: why do you still have your weapon pool when you start the second part of the mission?  I mean, where exactly do you get to rearm, just barely out of Corazol? Suggestion: use clearWeaponPool to clear the old one, then use something like "pickWeaponPool" to transfer any new items you've got in i.e. your car. 

Anyway! Continuing to play this. Nice stuff, so far!

Wolfrug out.

[Arkon]

*SPOILER WARNING!*

Hi, smoke52

Thanks for the feedback,

I have taken note re your grammatical suggestions

in arcadia i jumped on the motorbike and rode close to the car. it gave an error about "_b1 = "m_ch29_at" #createvehicle _pos"

I have not been able to reproduce this error - still trying

im in the ambulance area and i find it very difficult to get to the ambulance

Yes, its not easy this part - but its not meant to be
You have the right idea though - creep along the barrels as far as you can then, dash for the wall immediately ahead of you. This shields you from the guards at the gate, don,t worry about the medic in the tent (he's busy stitching some guy together). Now, run for the far side of the ambulance (the side nearest the wall) again this shields you from the gate guards and the guards looking at the map. Its a piece of cake with a little practice (the auto-save just outside the base 
ensures multi-tries)

it looks like the camera is looking towards the officer and its moving back and forth etc

Erm.. never seen this happen before - perhaps you needed a reboot or summint - Arma can do some real weird things when it gets confused - sorry dunno what else to suggest here:(

Thanks again for your time - sorry things did not seem to go to well for you this time, seems like it was not much fun

Regards

Arkon

[Arkon]

Hi Wolfrug,

Thanks for the points you made...

What Version are you using?

That boat that comes out of the mists when you arrive there

Hmmm... that's ironic, as that is a left-over from the time before we discovered your script for transferring vehicles between missions. 
So we had to find crude methods to stop players taking vehicles with them. The boat explosion was one of them - its sorted now 

why do you still have your weapon pool when you start the second part of the mission?

Erm... I am not that familiar with weapon pools transfers from mission to mission - I have PM'd Louiscar who done most of the tricky scripty bits for an answer.

BTW...
We have recently realized what happens to the "states" of vehicles when you "restart" a campaign.
We found that if a vehicle was damaged when you moved from Part1 to Part2 this is reflected when you start Part2 as expected - but If you then restart Part1, when you reach Part2 the damage is "remembered" from the previous transition

Also not sure of the implications with a "Retry" - what stuff is remembered/forgotten etc.

Thanks again for the feedback

Hope you enjoy the campaign

Regards

Arkon

[Wolfrug]

Regarding "remembered" -> Yes. Sadly, whenever you save something using any of the "save" commands, they're saved until...well...forever (or rather until you delete the objects.sav in your Myprofile/saves/ca/campaignname). Which essentially means that if you revert back to a previous state of your campaign, all the saved variables will still be the same  I suppose the only way to prevent that is simply to tell people not to do it! I'll probably have to find a way to bypass it in my campaign at some point, we'll have to see...

Weaponpools -> they're governed by these commands: "pickWeaponPool", "putWeaponPool", "clearWeaponPool" and "addWeaponPool" / "addMagazinePool". Finally there's also "queryMagazinePool" and "queryWeaponPool".

For your mission, all you really need to do is to call "clearweaponpool" the start of the mission (not before the briefing though, a trigger with a 1 second delay is good) : that will make the weaponpool empty for the second mission. If you want to get smart, and involve i.e. the players' vehicle or somesuch, you can play around with "putweaponpool" and "pickweaponpool". Try it out. 

Oh, and I used the latest version, I think? 1.06 or somesuch?

Wolfrug out.

[megz]

Seems like a good mission. However, just past the petrol station on the way to the boi there is a patrol moving along the road, i think they are all set to careless cos they didnt do anything when i passed, so i went back and ran them over 1 by 1 lol. I was then on my way to the ambulance, i sneaked in and waited and waited on x4, nothing happened. so i reloaded from the auto save and tried it about 5 more times, still nothing. i tried to sneak past but cos its daytime its beyond me, to hard.

Looks like a really good mission just needs ironing out and more life, like empty cars, cars driving on the roads, responsive patrols and civies walkin about.

Megz