(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[THobson]

Jee  and I thought I had nearly finished.  That is several new things now on the list of things to change.

My only comment on your progress is:  You got injured in the fjord!!

[tudders]

Totally agree with Mikero on the experience of the team.  I left all my squad at the hut and went to get the two groups of civilians and sergei.  Just picked up Sergei and all my group are experts with the exception of one who is a veteran.  

Total shots fired by my team = 0
Total bodies seen by my team = 0

And yet they are now a hardened bunch of killers    Is it possible to only give the team experience if they get within a certain radius of the dead bodies rather then levelling up based on what you've seen?  Or is this hard/too cpu intensive to be worth it?

Anyway thats my two cents and now im off to check the ladder  ;D

Oh, and how do you re-organise the team?  I bring up the menu and click on the list for a voice over but dont no how to do anything else.

[Mikero]

>injured in the fjord?

blush.

It's ALL YOUR FAULT. the bloody boat you provided me with so generously, moved away from shore, I nearly drowned, and what to you care, sob.

Secondly, that BLOODY LIGHTNING you so generously provided me with to light my way, blew me off my feet (well ok, I toppled backwards), and sprained an ankle or whatever. YOU try thinking romantic thoughts and schemes and plots and things with all that to contend with!

----------

2nd civils to Sergei (basically)

Sound of chopper as we leave lodge. Am using civil truck because it no longer has ghosts.

It's worth noting that I know of a safe route down to them, and the last person I'm going to tell is that bloody author, because we all know what he'd do.

It's a wonderful Pandora's box at this point in the game, because the vectors are Arudy/Larche to check things out, particularly the strength of your squad, and sheer curiosity about the nasties and what their border towns look like. The map, is very appealing. The other vector is to go back to LaP. But most players will have convinced themselves by now that the west-area is dead and dull having already been most of the way for the 1st civils. Arudy-> Houdan, or 2nd civils-> Houdan, is the most likely vector. Most will go to civils because there (should be by now) an expectation of a firefight, there, or close by.

It won't matter how many times I play this mission. This is the jump off point to make all sorts of different outcomes happen. I'm picking civils because I'm severely worried about my weapon count, I'm hoping to find a stash there, and, for sure, this single change Thob has made, has altered gameplay markedly. I hope the rest of the mission remains one desperate scramble to keep the weapon count up.

God damn, wet myself near the civilian hut. The wolves cut in. Shuddup yer buggers. Have a bone.

Cutscene happens while I recover. Info content is that Trinite is busy, and non-existent 3rd civlis I'm going to check T3, because we're so close.

Karl/Yuri; Experts

everyone else: Veterans,

Wolves stop. fps dropping to around 8 as we move into forest.

Wolves start up again on southern side of Trinite. FPS bad at 8. Run smack into the southron convoy as we move into town, take out what i can x 3 rpg, but it's all over.

restart.

snap Bradley. run away. Vulcan comes after us, pop  him. Irena gets lone grenade guy. 8 safe at lodge

all experts: except medic (veteran)

fps remains hovering around 8 throughout

get #7 to pickup ak+grenades (phew), order them all away behind boulders I crawl in a bit towards T3 and start taking out single loons as I can, rest of squad are lying prone behind boulder, Northron armour turns up 100 meters near them. Bradley's T80's vulcans, eeek! Get Irena to pick up an m16 near my position. I use up my last rpg against a vulcan, which draws other armor into me at T3,  pick up only other full rpg to be found, i double back and we scream out of there towards lodge. Running our fat little legs off. Stop halfway up, I just *know* that bloody author will have something circling above the ridge , not going home to base, too deadly.

Re-organise squad a bit to get strength up front and survey options. Love the voiceovers, never tire of them. Not fussed that there's a bit of jiggling and poking after you change squad order, it's mildly irritating, but nothing against the power of being able to do this. You just have to 'learn' to do this stuff in quiet times. Anytime else is suicide.

The fps are too low to go back to T3 so I decide on a walk towards Dourdan, away from the armour anyway.

fps drop to around 6 as we near Dourdan. I take out 2 patrol soldiers, another in tent. My squad take out remaining three as we rush in. Oddly, the lag isn't too bad. Wolves are howling again. My hunting rifle dangerously low in ammo now.

Get #2 armed with rpg, #3 with a precious PK and others a little better. flag goes up and we're now all experts. Voicover on dead bodies.

Race for truck, head out WEST. Thought so, bullets coming at us from east. we got away a few seconds safe.

Park up at mountain top and have a look at our weapon count, start to re-organise. I intend whacking Dourdan again when it's retaken, and move on to Houdan for the womens's promise.

My precious truck has the ammo we need, phew. We move overlooking Dourdan, a chopper changes our mind, we end up in Doudan, in time to take out three soldiers on the road east. Never encountered them this early before. They normally make an inconvenient appearance just after cutscene.

Cutscene. Sergei joins us.

A quick save and I want to check what else might be on that east road. No time to re-organise team.

Eek! Remnants of convoy are coming down from Dourdan, two trucks. Immediately hit them both with rpg. Very bad idea, one was an ammo truck, Retry, whack troop truck. That's a dozen loon or so that wont be troubling us. My people take out driver of ammo truck. CHRISTMAS. Board everyone in truck, i take ammo truck and we race to western beach then back up into mountain ridge overlooking Dourdan (damn I've given the author a 'safe' place) It wont be next version will it Thob.

Arm all my weaker people with M21, plus me. Give sergie an M60 to play with, and xmas presents all round. I don't know where 2nd troop truck went, maybe I took them all down in T3. But anyway, glorious sounds of pounded tanks, via chopper is happening T3 way.

Reorganise sergei up in my strong front and get the message to go to old lady hunting.

Suits me, just fine

Fps building to 12. Time 8:45am

Time for bed. I shall dream of marrying that old lady, after the pillz.

[tudders]

Arghh ctd when trying to load my retry point.  Generates this lovely looking error message:

Error 'No entry' at '/GameState/Variables/Item119/Data.value'

Looks like im not off to test the ladder, although i was looking for an excuse to restart as i let one of the troops guarding tatyana slip away    Nice to see they now have eyes though, they actually attacked me before i attacked them rather then standing around blinking as you hit the guynext to them as in v1.21.

[THobson]

tudders:
You have just been hit by the large savegame bug.  Are you running ECP or somesuch?

The solution to is this:
Rename your latest save game to protect it.  
Start the mission from the begining (don't worry it is not for long).  
Alt Tab out and rename the save game back to what it was
Restore or Load the save game depending on whether it is an autosave or a save file.

Better still avoid those big add ons with this mission

[KyleEasterly]

I encountered a problem with the latest version...

Went up the fjord, killed 3 soldiers in Tatyana house, talked to her, she runs out, gets shot. Kill 2 soldiers, grab AK from one of them and haul it, blazing past roadblocks and convoys until i reach the mountain lodge.

Join up with them, listen to radio, tells me to go to the house in DD47 i believe? (just down the road some). I go there, get the civilians in the truck (im pretty sure), and drive back to the lodge. Get out, and nothing happens, the civilans and armed man still follow me around, I tried getting back in the ural and back out, even driving out a bit and coming back in, and disembarking. Tried going inside the lodge (ruined building with radio), and nothing.

I reloaded and managed to crash the game, but that was DXDLL related, rebooting now and I'll try it again from my save (right before putting my group in the ural at the lodge)

[XCess]

Ural? I thought it was a Pv3s? DxDll related crash? huh?

[THobson]

Join up with them, listen to radio, tells me to go to the house in DD47 i believe? (just down the road some). I go there, get the civilians in the truck (im pretty sure), and drive back to the lodge. Get out, and nothing happens, the civilans and armed man still follow me around, I tried getting back in the ural and back out, even driving out a bit and coming back in, and disembarking. Tried going inside the lodge (ruined building with radio), and nothing.

This is totally weird.  Let me describe exactly what should have happened.  
-After listening to the radio at the lodge you drive off to the hut.  It is actually at Dd46, but that doesn't matter.  
-As you approach the hut you get a fade to black, and a cutscene with Alexi standing outside the hut.
-At the end of the scene the soldier and the civis in the hut start following you around.
-If you get in a truck then they will ask you to wait and then they will get in as well.
-Once they are all in they will tell you.
-You then drive to the lodge - on getting close you will get a fade to black and then you will get an overhead shot of the truck with people getting out.
-Then another cutscene will start during which the civis run off.
-At the end of the scene Yuri (the soldier from the hut) will join you.

So that is what should happen.  At what point does your experience diverge from this?  Did they tell you they were in the truck for example?

Did anything strange happen on the way back to the lodge (I am clutching at straws here - did you do a save and restore? exit the mission and come back in again?)

What is really puzzling about this problem is that the whole thing is done with one script, the code that gets them to follow you around is also the place where the check is made to see if you are near the lodge.

I will now go and ponder the code to see what could be happeneing.

What is DXDLL?  

EDIT:

Can you remember if the destroyed wooden building was still there?

[XCess]

What is DXDLL

Oh THobson tut tut... DxDll is Kegety's masterpiece! the greatest mod addon or whatever you want to call it for OFP. It adds postprocessing and reflection effects to OFP.
Very beautiful. I recommend you give it a try.

Search opFlash.org or ofp.info for the author or his masterpiece. You'll appreciate it muchly.

[THobson]

Ah,  this is the file Mikero sent me and I keep meaning to try.

I am steering clear of all of this sort of stuff at the moment.  I want to be absolutely sure that if there is a problem with my mission then it is not down to any addons I am using.

Does it correct the problem in standard OFP where the sun, the lens flare and the reflection of the sun on water do not line up?

[Mikero]

>dxdll
>Does it correct the problem in standard OFP

It uses the prepocessed buffer of the video card, the one , just about to be discarded, and re-inserts it back into the video stream. The effect of this smeared, but smooth, streaky NVG, *very* appealing, much more what nvg should look like, with smears of lights as you move around. Aurora Borealis stuff.

Same logic also allows for reflective water, which part way answers your question.

Because the already processed video image is re-inserted, there's less work for the cpu<>video to do, ie the card is not ready for another frame. Technically, the cpu isn't keeping up with newer patterns. Newer movements tend to be masked by older time-1 objects. But this generally reduces lag (in your mission true, in others, not so)

Only problem so far is with very high lod counts. As far as you are concerned though, you are quite right, it would be foolish for the author to include it.

[Mikero]

Dourdan Revisited

Moved my troop and ammo truck up closer to Dourdan, western side. Given the chance, I want to get that ammo truck back to the Lodge.

FPS around 9 and sluggy. No real enemy activity. I can only assume there's huge fights going on out of sight and sound.

Red squad of 5 with flag carrier on north east corner of Dourdan. Down they all go. Retry involved because I shot a 'red' soldier. You can guess who that was. (Interesting, my team did not shoot me). Beginning to think 'Resistance spy' might be a v good idea now. A very good idea and possibly only a minor tweak needed by Thob.

Flag changes back to us. Move into building.

BRILLIANT. Best scene so far Thob. A clever use of fade in here.

Pregnant woman fits perfect. There is no reason to move her anywhere (except possibly back to Larche). Explains lack of need for a medic, brilliant.

Had impression, previous dialogs, that this was an old woman?

What a GREAT wobbler. We've been shunted all over the map. Everywhere except the two huge camps, and now, another diagonal vector, keeping us away from them. Just brilliant.

Larche Map is perfect. I know exactly where this house is.

This means my little band will be moving our precious trucks up to the lodge.

FPS remains at 9 (sluggish)

Checked ladder again. Phew, THAT is clever Thob. Well done. Nothing more boring than you can't do something again simply because it would be inconvenient. THIS is perfect. It is so typical where you think outside the barrel in this mission of yours, it's filled with what's realistic, not, what's practical.

Immediately attacked by 7man redflag coming up road from Doudan. At 8fps, it was tough.

Picked up valuable AT from one of them, changed flag again, got in trucks, raced up road to T3, figuring there'd be no activity that direction. Headed into favorite boulders, 9 the medic having trouble with his driving licence, then calls out fuel low. Hobson! YOU #@(*U_@# . Disembark, because I figure it's time to at least check what T3 has. Spot Northron flag soldiers southern area of T3. hmmm, where are they going, or are they part of the convoy?

Several retries involved and terrible fps (6), took them down, (about 6). Spotted crippled, not destroyed, southron Troop truck which explains why war started i think.

Fps hovering at 6, another squad coming at us from north (st louis). Am going to ignore T3 and get away if I can, lag makes it unbearable.

Snuck back into forest in time to greet an Godzilla, a T72 a Bradley, AT LEAST!. Spent an hour in and around 2nd civil hut racing to various edges of forest to keep away from armour. Occaisional meet up with 2, or 3, northron loons, always hanging about T3 area. Just trying to keep away from them. Eventually took out the T72, ran Larche' ish, met 5 x Nothrons with flag coming at us (nowhere near Larche). Cobra giving us hell. Many resaves involved. Finally ended up at top of Larche, took 3 soliders out individually from town, who were very determined to get us. Made no attempt to get in Larche we were just keeping away from Cobra. I thought I was supposed to attack towns, not the other way round, sheesh. Eventually, two hours later, a T80 from Southrons arrives and machine guns the Cobra into the ground on Arudy side of mountains. Didn't have the heart to pop my remaining law into him. I figure he and Godzilla will keep each other company instead.

Staggery game play throughout at around 4 fps. Its the armour and chopper doing this i think.

Basically just tried to keep everyone alive and attempting to find somehwere, anywhere, to reduce lag. T3 as gameplay *always* does this, it's a deathtrap of lag for me. I can never enter that town, in force, till much later in game. not a complaint, a fact of life.

My precious trucks remain at boulders. The Godzilla loves them to death. I'm short on ammo, I want Larche, but to move the lag elsewhere I think I have to attack Arudy to cause a diversion. Apart from brief headlight flash in sky near LaP I have never encountered, seen, nor heard, any of the mosquito jeeps from either side.

Have just read these notes, and how immersive this mission is. The Dourdan woman and ladder seems like years ago, my plans have changed three times, I have no chance, no hope of basically just getting-to-next-objective (Larche) in a linear fashion. You can't follow the train tracks in this game, it takes over and manipulates you.

I have been pounded hounded splattered and hunt for two mission hours now. I have hit and been hit, and even now, not one single objective (a town takeover) is anywhere in sight. For a first time player (and indeed I now recall the feeling), you are blitzed, dazed, staggered. Most of the time just trying to clear your head from what's happening to you at this moment. Occaisonal brief spells of safety are spent with the pause button, trying desperatly to keep up with the changes to your situation. At this point in the game, thoughts of attacking either of the two major camps are hysterical, out the window, or a distant dream.

[Mikero]

AAAAAAAAARGH

savegame bug

Have *never* encountered it before. Goodbye dxdll

tried your method above Thobson, even cleaned out entire cfg files, everything. Crashed with both my autosave and my save, no matter what.

The only clue is the game did in fact freeze before all this.

Sigh

Hi Ho Hi Ho, it's up the cliff we go.

[THobson]

Mikero:
Sorry I didn't respond to your earlier post.  I was watch Live8

d**n I've given the author a 'safe' place) It wont be next version will it Thob.

Well its like this...  I have tried to put the loons where I think they should be, not where it would be convenient or inconvenient to the player.  But as I know you are aware, nowhere can be guaranteed to be safe.  If some loons know where you are other loons come looking.  For example:  Just east of Dourdan is a little valley where the road to the coast runs through a scattering of bushes and rocks.  Safe?  I had my group there while I started sniping Dourdan and we were taken out by an infantry group behind us that is they came from the coast side of us.

Did you notice a particular lack of any stuff in the ammo truck you captured?  Well done by the way.

Sergei has to stay red - it keeps the player on their toes.  That momentary hesitation caused by the ‘is this Sergei' thought can prove fatal. ;D

I am glad the Dourdan scene is working.  It was really frustrating for me knowing what you guys couldn't get at in the last version.  Glad you like it.  I am sure you remember everything she said.

Nothing more boring than you can't do something again simply because it would be inconvenient.

I agree.  It only cost a bit of logic, one sound file and it means I have not been able to delete the trigger - a small price considering the alternative.  Also for the XCesses amongst us: going there before you know about her is also possible, as Planck found.

I am really concerned about the lag you are reporting.

By the way Expert does not mean skill = 1.0.  But I do take your point about the skill level rising too quickly.  I will think about how I can link it to the number of kills without creating even more lag.  I want to avoid the normal role playing game approach that skill is only based on kills.  Being angry (seeing the dead bodies); feeling good (putting up the first flag, rescuing the civis etc.); just being together and watching others (passage of time) are all factors that drive skill levels up in this mission and I want to keep that.  I am using skill as a combination of morale, determination and experience.


EDIT:
Just read the latest one.  Damn.  Your saves don't work either!?  Double damn.

The freeze is another worry.  

EDIT EDIT:
Could you sendit the save file and let me have a try?

[THobson]

Results of some experimentation on skill levels:

Skill Levels are:
 < 0.25                                    Novice
 >= 0.25 and <= 0.45                 Rookie
 > 0.45 and <= 0.65                  Recruit
 > 0.65 and <= 0.85                  Veteran
 > 0.85                                    Expert


So once they are Experts they may still have some way to go.