scriptdone _atk-Cutscene for Mogilevka task displayed a car spawningSeems like a nice mission, I played all side tasks except the supply depot since I didnt have AT-soldier to destroy the guarding BMP. I returned to base, but realised that I cant talk to the character (to begin that airport task) before completing all the previous objectives.That's strange. The talk option is not dependent of the side tasks, these are completely optional. In fact you could start the airport task right after you arrive in the camp. Are you sure you talked to the correct person?
The intro looked great, only fallback was slow texture loading while the camera jumped between locations. There is some commands to preload location for camera, but I havent succeeded with those yet. Still those would make the great intro look even better.I am already using the preload camera in the intro. I can try to tweak it a bit, but as there are so many scenes at all corners of the map, I don't know if it will become much better.
When the first enemy group was met in forest in dense fog (with only less than 100m distance betwen the groups), both sides tryed to see who is ahead with binoculars.Haha epic! The AI loves it's binoculars. :D
Else the tasks worked without problem except the "boar hunt"-task which I forgot to enable by talking to the guerilla leader. I ended up searching an empty forest first. After talking to the leader finally, it looked quite funny that suddently the forest was full of the boars with insurgents escording them. Still a good task, but maybe there could be less boars and more far, to make it more believable. Also the enemies could be also just in places where player would go if he get lost.That's a good point. In fact, I too forgot to talk to him several times and was wondering why the forest is so empty. :whistle: I think I will increase the area and change the movement of the enemy group. Maybe I'll remove the requirement to talk to the guerilla guy after the cutscene and let the task start straight away.
After the rest tasks became available, the nice atmosphere went down slightly. I think there could be more ambient life and different other details while driving to each task.
Also the task cutscenes could be improved with some extra dialog and varying cameras. Many of the cutscenes ended with far shot of the task area or target that feeled quite leftovers or purposeless. Some extra close ups, expanded dialog and maybe some animations and living background would build up the atmosphere nicely to even better heights. The mission is good already, but I think there is much room for extra decoration.I have to admit, the world is quite empty and some areas have an unfinished feel. To be honest, they are unfinished. I had a lot of ideas I wanted to include into the mission, like more side tasks, ambient life, random events, small conversations between the main characters etc. But at some point I simply ran out of time to get the mission finished for the MEC. The task cutscenes are pretty much quickly thrown together without much love for detail. And after I had submitted my mission I didn't want to add any new features anymore. It felt wrong, kinda like cheating. I don't know, probably it's just me and I should include all my ideas for everyone to enjoy.
Dialog could go faster (in the guerilla task cutscene)That's funny. One of my testers complained that they were too fast.^^ I too am quite slow when reading english text. I guess it's better to have slower dialogs so everyone can read them, instead of to fast and some people miss half of it. Especially as there are no voice overs.
Cutscene for Mogilevka task displayed a car spawningYes, I believe this is a common problem with cutscenes and the SILVIE module. Maybe I can avoid this by using the preloadCamera command? Going to try it.
After escorting civilians to Elektrozavodsk, there could be AT-soldier added in team to help completing nearby "Supply Depot"-taskAlso a good point. However, I don't want to give gifts to the player. A RPG is way to valuable in this mission to give it away for free. :P But I already have an idea to hide a small weapon cache somewhere in the town.
There was a strange blood effect displayed for multiple minutes when I was returning back to base from Elektrozavodsk. Looked nice, but I didnt know the meaning.That's supposed to be a disease effect when the player enters an area where he isn't supposed to be. (The huge orange/red marker on the map, indicating where the nuke went down.)
OverviewHehe, well, some time ago someone said to me something along the lines of "Puff is part of the trade". It's all part of the show, sometimes you have to read between the lines. On the other hand - I think the mission, especially the end, leaves some room for interpretation. Of course you can take it as "happy end". You won the war, the bad guy is dead, your men return home and the guerillas live peacefully in Chernarus and everybody is happy. Or you start asking yourself questions like "What awaits the men when they arrive at home?" "What does a guerilla army do in Chernarus?" ...I don't want to tell the player what to think, it's all up to your imagination. ;)
The overview is great. The image was intriguing and the first line of text would certainly sum the mission up well enough but you went a little further and elaborated a bit more. It wasn't necessary but it did highlight some of the primary challenges. After playing it through, I have to admit that I never felt that I viewed into the darkest depths of the human soul.
IntroUhm... I haven't changed the intro since the very first version of the mission (MEC entry). Only a few lines of code have been changed to work with the latest 1.60 patch. But I did not add any new scenes to the intro.
I remember the Intro being short, sweet and to the point in the last version I played which allowed the player to get right to work. I also remember it leaving more to the imagination but it seems you have lengthened the cinema quite a bit since my last play test and even though it explains a little more of what happened, it does not build the immersion any more than the previous cinema did with the players imagination. The slow loading models and textures that plagued nearly every scene actually made the intro worse in my opinion because it only highlighted the pitfalls of cinema building with BIS content and demonstrated a lack of care on the authors part to take that extra step, find a better angle and improve the scene overall. However, some of the scenes that did not contain that drawback were quite good actually and the music was spectacular.
I encountered a guy who was in a camo uniform inside the garage, with a gun, facing the door. I shot him of course...several times but he did not die. I then realized that he was wearing the same uniform as I was. DUH. I think you should let them die if the player accidentally kills them. It's the player's fault after all.Now that you mention it, I totally agree. The guerilla leader and the two russian soldiers are invincible during the first objective because they are important for the further mission. At least the guerilla guy must survive at all costs. I will add a check if the player kills any of these units and if so, the mission will be lost.
The fuel was low and so I would stop whenever I crossed another vehicle on the side of the road, wishing that you had implemented a way to siphon fuel from those vehicles to restore fuel to the players vehicle. Would have been a very cool feature.Something similar was suggested in the BI forums and I am already working on it. Will be included in the next update.
Radio TowerOuch! I guess pretty much everything that ever could go wrong went wrong. Don't know if I should laugh about the convoy of reinforcements or cry about the complete failure of my scripting. :blink:
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What went wrong
First Guerrilla camp (Boar hunt)I have already reworked the complete objective including a new position for the guerilla camp. This way it's less likely that the guerillas get dragged into a firefight with one of the random patrols.
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Southern AirstripYes, the shilka is very powerful. Maybe too powerful? After all the supply vehicles are already a big reward for this objective. I'm considering relocating the shilka and creating a new objective around it.
Once I grabbed that Shilka, there was no stopping me. It is definitely a powerful tool to add to the player's inventory. After capturing a couple of BRDM's I became a convoy of shredding projectiles. I cleared the airport, and harbor with ease.
I would recommend separating the harbor and airstrip into two objectives or make the harbor optional without being part of the objective, since it is so far away and offers little other than additional NVG.The harbor contains a small weapons cache in one of the containers. It's an alternative to the much better guarded supply depot.
I would also suggest to immobilize the Shilka until the player can capture the eastern portion of the airstrip to attain the support trucks to bring them back to it. That would certainly increase the challenge in the area. Of course, I remember it being far more challenging in the previous version since I didn't draw all the forces away from their posts.
Eastern guerrilla campThat's a good point. Never lost any of the vehicles so I never encountered this issue. Will be fixed.
Abandoned my Shilka temporarily while I helped these guys out. All went great until we encountered an enemy group halfway to the destination. All but the leader and one other guerrilla was killed. Once I got to the destination, the cinema showed the pickup which we had abandoned. It was then setpositioned afterwards with the dead guy in it along with the transport truck. I would slice that cinema to not include the vehicles. Then just delete the refugees. No harm in doing it simple.
TravelAI convoy handling is terrible since the last patch. Not that it ever was really good, but I doubt it could ever get any worse than the current situation. Hopefully it will get fixed soon.
At this point, I was sure that I had cleared out the southern part of the map with my little duck hunt at the radio tower and patrols were no where to be found. This made travel boring and uneventful. The biggest challenge I had now was waiting on the slow AI to drive the roads back to the main guerrilla camp with our new found equipment. It takes them so long that I seriously contemplated giving the equipment up. It wasn't worth the frustration of gathering it.
Airport assaultTo be honest, I never expected anyone to try it the stealthy way. That indeed is a great letdown, rendering the complete mission pretty much obsolete. I have to admit that the airport objective is not very polished at all. I will definitely rework the objective, find a better spot for the bad guy and make sure he is guarded properly.
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Hmm, Had I known it would only take two shots to end the war, I would have abandoned my endeavors to scavenge the world to it's end.
Thank you for not destroying or locking every spawned vehicleThe status of all the vehicles is random, including damage, fuel and if they are locked. However, you are able to unlock any locked car / truck by shooting its windows. ;)
I spot one group idle, on the road behind a compound. A small truck with MG and a transport behind it. I also see some support trucks, parked inside some sandbags near the idle trucks and next to that access road. I crawl across the field toward the compound to attempt to glass the cargo hold of the transport to see how many troopers are in it(none)That was actually meant to be one of the convoys. Due to the pathfinding issues they simply refuse to move at some point. I guess I'll have to come up with a temporarily workaround. ???
I would consider increasing the numbers of guerrilla fighters that the player acquires to make the tasks worth the trouble. You don't even have to give the player those fighters until the conditions are met, for example: Once the guerrilla families are safe, the player can acquire the rest of the guerrilla fighters from the camp they started from. OR by the time he is done hunting, more have returned from scouting expeditions.That's a great idea. I will definitely include this.
On a side note: I did encounter many randomized patrols and checkpoints in the last version but absolutely nothing in this one.The enemy convoys are meant to secure a constant supply of enemy units. The trucks bring captives from Chernogorsk to the northern airport. The player can ambush these convoys and recruit the captives for his own army. Once a convoy reaches the airport, a new enemy group is created with goes on patrol somewhere on the map.
You could also create firefights in distant towns with sounds. When or if the player goes in that direction, he can find either a fleeing civilian truck full of assumed guerrillas who have won, pilfered and fled with dead enemy and destruction in the town OR he could stumble across enemy occupants walking around dead guerrilla cadavers.Yes, something similar was actually one of my ideas and is at the top end of my todo list.
I think the best part when creating missions is just the final tweaking (that could continue months).Indeed. Especially when you finally have a computer that can actually handle your own mission. :D