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Missions Depot => Mission Discussion => OFP - Reviewed Missions => Topic started by: markb50k on 16 Nov 2005, 08:50:43

Title: (Review Completed) [SP] The Uprising v2.0
Post by: markb50k on 16 Nov 2005, 08:50:43
(http://galsim.nickersonm.com/the_uprising/overview2_small.jpg)

The Uprising
-----------------------------
Single Player
Veteran Mode
Everon
OFP 1.96
No addons
Size:  ~1.6MB

Rumors of an uprising on Everon have a history as old as the American occupation there.  But this time there may be something to it.  TAKE COMMAND of a Heavy/Light mixed Battalion and investigate the rumor, and if necessary put down any resistance.

You play the role of a Battalion Commander in charge of the U.S. forces occupying Everon.  

The mission is BIG and LONG.  It covers the entire scope of the island and really has two main phases.

Pre Uprising:  talk to the civilian populace to discover weapons caches and resistance leaders.  By doing enough of this you can actually prevent the uprising.

Uprising:  The civilian populace, largely dependant on how well you do in the Pre Uprising phase, will revolt and you will spend the rest of the mission fighting an island wide uprising using the assets at your disposal.

I have created a very simplified command engine that will allow you to move all of your forces around the island (move, embark, disembark, give status, and support functions, with markers for each unit updated realtime to show their locations)

Your battalion consists of a HQ Company (yourself, scouts, medics, repair, ammo, etc) plus a Mech Infantry Co, Armor Co, 2 x Light Infantry Co, and a helicopter Co.  Units are broken down to the squad/section level.

The AI will set objectives to take the entire island.

Again, this mission is pretty big and will take time to play, and IMO pretty hard, but if you are looking for a more grand scale type mission than this is just for you.

Intro/Outros included

Thanks again to whoever might try this one out.

Edit: This mission has been reviewed and is available from the Missions Depot (http://www.ofpec.com/missions_depot/index.php?action=details&id=170).

EDIT:  
Version 2.0
- Not sure what additional changes I made before the crash, but they are in here.  The mission was finished and up for review but it was lost.  Here is the v2.0.
- Small cutscene when the uprising begins.

Version 1.8
- FIXED BUG that had too many resistance recruits being created
- Adjusted info sharing script for AI to be more effective
- Added five new recordings for some of the major mission plot points
- Updated text on one mission objective to make it more clear
- Added brief mission description on overview.html
- Reorganized briefing information on briefing.html to ease navigation

Version 1.7
- NO BUG FIXES so if you are already playing 1.6 keep going, unless you would like to use these new features (all command engine related) in 1.7...
- if multiple unit markers are bunched close together on map, you can keep clicking to select the next unit in the 'stack' (boardgame term).
- you can now set the Behaviour of your units between SAFE, AWARE, and COMBAT
- you can now have your units FACE a specific direction by ALT-Clicking on a location on the map with the unit selected.  Similar to ordering them to MOVE (SHIFT-Click), they will face the location instead of moving to it.
- for HELICOPTERS, you can now order them to LAND (land and engine off), HOVER TO PICK UP, or HOVER TO DROP OFF.  These work perfectly for both AI groups and the player's group.
- CONTACT REPORTS:  Trigger logic had these reports getting fired for each bad guy detected at a town location.  This has been fixed so that only a single Contact Report will be broadcast for all the trigger hits for that town over a given time (basically gets rid off alot of repetitive radio chatter but still provides you with the knowledge that your troops are in combat).
- FRIENDLY LOSS REPORTS:  Old event handler logic would give you a separate radio message for each friendly lost.  Now these reports will be combined together over a given time period (20 sec.) and broadcast as 1 message saying "We lost X soldiers", etc.
- FRIENDLY VEHICLE LOSS REPORTS (NEW):  If you lose an actual vehicle you will be told of this (this is in addition to the personnel loss reports).  
- ENEMY KILLS REPORTS (NEW):  Similar to friendly loss reports, your units will now report enemy kills, combined over a time period (20 sec.) ("We just took out X enemy!!"), etc.

Version 1.6
- player now can choose the starting U.S. approval rating on Everon.  Recommend 60% if you want to easily prevent the uprising, or if you are a masochist, go ahead and start off at 10%!!
(I don't foresee me tweaking the mission anymore unless its a really good idea or a bug.  Now I am going to try beating it on Max Difficulty :)  )

Version 1.5
- on load of a resave, stationary civilians kept moving around a bit for a minute or so.  I didn't like that, so I fixed it.
- overhauled the command engine using CoC as inspiration.  After playing the war part a few times, I realized how hard it was to give units orders, so its now more streamlined including
- - now you can click on the unit markers to select it
- - after selecting a unit, just SHIFT-CLICK the map to get them to move
- - removed the "Get Status" option, now whenever you click a unit a status window shows the unit's strength down to fuel and damage levels (an improvement)
- - with this streamlined system, I have taken away the ability of giving commands to multiple groups at the same time.  Maybe I will add it in later, but the improvements in the command engine more than make up for it.

Version 1.4
- added more autosave points
- fixed bonehead bug that has user locked up at mission briefing

Version 1.3
- added opening cutscene to mission
- overhauled civilian processing.  now most civilians are stationary in realistic locations (standing in doorways, grouped at street corners, manning fuel stations, etc), and moving civilians stay in town in there movements.  
- added parked vehicles in realistic locations for atmosphere
- added random vehicular traffic.  You will encounter plenty of civilians driving around.
- if you capture a leader you will get an additional bit of info
- when a cache is revealed, if you move within 100m of it, it will appear.  So all you should have to do is look at the map once for its location then you can go to that vicinity and it should appear.
- fixed some bugs

Version 1.2
- reworked overview.html and briefing.html
- added fadeout in intro and changed standard "Get Ready"
- adjust skill level in player group and rearranged them to prevent game engine issue
- added a bit of gear choice
- added starting position marker
- added civilian surrender animation
- question/arrest actions always present (reduce drag on engine).  actions will always work on nearest civilian within 15m.  will give alert if no civilians in range.
- cleaned up processing at start of uprising (including removing SKIP TO UPRISING radio option at war start)
- caches now will be in sensible locations
- ammo box will appear when a cache is found (unusable)
- adjustment to one civilian feedback to ensure player knows the map has been marked
- shortened tag names on unit markers to make less busy.  adjusted starting locations of friendly forces.
- adjusted movement cycles of civilian units to make them stationary more often and to keep them close to their home towns.

Version 1.1
- beefed up the briefing with more detailed instructions on how to proceed with mission
- cleaned up markers showing too early

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.0
Post by: markb50k on 17 Nov 2005, 16:47:16
Forgive me, this is my first submission for beta testing, so I am not too sure what to expect in terms of feedback turnaround time.  

Has anyone tried it?  I know it could be a long mission, so I am just assuming people haven't finished it yet.  

Thanks.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.0
Post by: Conors on 17 Nov 2005, 18:54:38
on to it now, have patience my child.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.0
Post by: Cheetah on 17 Nov 2005, 20:57:50
I've tried you mission to check if it was something for me to play and I must say that it looks really promising. I didn't have much time, so I could only try it once, needless to say I failed very hard. The problem was that I didn't really knew how the command engine worked when I needed to know it, but I'll explain this later on. I'll start with with the beginning, comments about the briefing will follow and the overview etc. will be skipped, because I didn't take a real good look at those things.

Mission:
The first problem was where to f*ck I should start in this huge mission. Well, take the humvee and get to Levie, might find something there. I had a problem in the beginning, I didn't really know what to do. The mission is so huge, that you should guide the player a bit more in the briefing. You briefing should give a lot more detail, where could the player look first etc. In Abandoned Armies you start off small, here you start with all your forces, the whole island.

Therefore I'd like to ask you a big favour, please help / guide the player in the beginning. You could let him go to Levie, because the population there seems agressive or something. Right now, it's IMO a bit too open. A section in the briefing wouldn't hurt either, to tell the player where the major enemy positions could be or something like this. Also, make clear to the player that the question marks on the map are the points of interest for the player, or did I get this wrong? The question marks were there before the radio message came that the enemy positions were marked on the map (didn't see any new markers so I guess the question marks are the ones I need to look at).

Uhm where was I, oh after driving to Levie I saw some civilians and remembered I could ask several questions. The first wasn't really helpfull to me, the second one had to be arrested. He didn't really like the soldiers, immediately he dissappeared, pretty strange, can't you find a way to do this better? It would sure be better for the atmosphere / eyecandy to see a bit different approach on this.

After questioning about five civilians two were arrested and the hell broke loose, quite fast in my opinion. Especially if you haven't got really used to the mission and didn't take a look at the command engine. It seemed like the enemy forces attacked us. Towns fall very rapidly, I think that I lost 3/4 of the island (it looked like that on the radio) in two minutes, maybe in even less time. I tried commanding my troops to the positions I had to defend, but it didn't work, squads were lost and I decided that I would never be able to do a thing about it. There were maybe ten minutes passed in the mission before I quit the mission.

What I learned? That I needed to get a bit into the command interface before the war starts, what happened to me now was quite stupid.
I tried commanding a platoon to some position, but didn't notice that I had to do a few more things. Thought I could control entire platoons, oops, I had to do a bit more work than that.
What I prefer? A dialog in which I can do all things, so the whole command engine can be overseen in one dialog. Don't really know if you get me on this.

Not really much more to add, I know that my feedback is a bit negative. Don't think that your mission is worthless, it is very good, but if you've got these kind of ideas for your mission you must be prepared to spend a good deal of time in it. And in a huge mission, there's plenty of things to fix.
Good luck with it, I'll try the mission again sometime.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.0
Post by: markb50k on 17 Nov 2005, 23:16:20
Thanks for the feedback!

- Question Mark markers.  Yes, I should have them hidden until the initial message.  Will do.

- Give more info early on to give the player the lay of the land.  I was unsure what would be the proper amount of intel to give, but now I know to increase it up a good bit.  I just didn't want it "gamed" so to speak, and more of an open mission, but I will try to achieve a happy medium.  

- Arrests.  I was trying to do an animatic but couldn't find the right one for a Civilian to do.  Tried "FXStandSurUniv" and it wouldn't work.  I guess at the minimum I can hint that the guy has been taken into custody.  It's a bit abstract, I know, but didn't know what else to do there.

- Command Interface.  Would love to do a dialog but have never created one so I will look it up and see what I can do.

- Back to Arresting.  FYI you don't really need to arrest even if the guy is belligerent.  Sure, that loon will most likely join the resistance when it happens but by arresting him you bring the overall civilian morale down a tick, which IMO is a worse option.  I will try to explain a little more of this in the briefing, how the civilian morale is affected.

-Uprising happened quick.  Usually the uprising won't happen real early in the mission unless you kill civilians, so perhaps you hit the "SKIP TO UPRISING" entry on the radio.  And given that the uprising happened so early, it was most likely because the civilian morale got so low that they immediately rebelled (see the Arrest comment up top).

Thanks again for the feedback, I'll try to get in some improvements ASAP.

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: Mikero on 18 Nov 2005, 08:26:26
Hi MarkB :wave:

you're understandably impatient to get some feedback from us here, but also understand we have some whoppers in for beta testing, some of them campaigns, and they take a LOT of time.

I've quickly grabbed your animal to give you a quick response that we are on to it, but this little beast aint so little! Expect a delay, this thing's HUGE!!

Here's so far....
OFP 1.96 vetmode no superai, 5685

Package:

we need readmes. And, you need readme's. Some of the info on the overview, and some of the info provided on the forum first topic, should be in there. A little less detail should be provided in back pages of the mission briefing, imho. But, a readme, you need.

You need jpgs. To advertise this mission we need things we can throw up as eye candy. Start now, by editing your 1st topic and plunk a sexy picture in there. Small thing, big dividends.
--
Scanned your mission pbo and came up with an interesting result. It's missing bas opfor. You might want to remove it! In fact, it's not used at all, and the mission doesn't scream,  but, your mission thinks it's needed (addons[]=)
----

Overview:

Interesting Overview, a little bit jaggedy for me in the readability. Good to see author advertising, a revision number is always useful.

The picture unfortunately doesn't do it. For starters it's been skewed. That could be fixed by simply putting a border around it, picture postcard style. But I think really, that picture could be the dramatic frontpiece by killing all the blurb and just making it longer and larger. Have a look at pmc fury overview for an idea of what i mean, you're using non-standard vertical, and not taking advantage of vertical space. Think you can do better. Appeal, is everything (unfortunately)

Intro:

Damn excellent. Original, good camera work. It did the single most important thing. It told a story. And, it left many questions unanswered. Good one. Makes you want to play this doesn't it.

An unpleasant abrubt 'get ready'. Firstly, do a fade out, second, change get ready to something a tad more interesting. (please)

Forest was a teeny little too dark, and ending scene was a little too faded, washed out.

All niggles. The intro is a good one, no real need to touch it if you dont' want to (except that fade out)

Briefing:

Almost perfect in presentation / readability. Again, a little jarring to just have 3 links. Put a small sentence above them, just for effect.

Notes:

Excellent. Among the best I've read because they tell me, in a storyline way, what to expect. Don't like your signature at end, remember, ofp is about getting immersed. You pulled me back to nOv 2005 by placing your sig. Not a clever idea.

Gear selection none: A pity. You _could_ afford a bit of personal choice here even though i know I aint going to be a grunt, we like a bit of spice and flavor. Don't put the kitchen sink, but let me choose and swap a little.

Group:

Unhappy to see everyone is expert. I'm aware of ai issues but surely only tank commanders are experts.

General links

all well written and highly readable. No typos discoverd. The deeper I went, the more I realised this is a coc-style mission. I don't play them too well, so I skipped the important how-to instructions because this mission style tends to frustrate me. I lose patience, We shall see.

One glaring error.
You don't provide a 'start here' link. Could not care less what you call, care even less how you present it, but, have it, we must have. One slip of the mouse and it's all over, thank you for playing.

Mission:

good grief, checked the map and all those ? wow! I dont' even know if you can, but, if you can start us off in the breifing with compressed, not expanded, map, it's better. EG the impact you need to get over to player is this IS island wide, huge, detailed, enormous. No quick slugfest in and around hq.

Horrible: as soon as plan updated. the map became a mess.
1) use a smaller font
2) move the 'team' so that they aren't jumbled all over each other. Ok, so it wont last long if we move about individually, but, first impressions are everything, aren't they. Use shorter names if you have to.

I know what it is, I know the tagtexts are important, essential in fact, but you need to shrink 'em. It's noisy and bewildering around hq. If I, a player, make it bewildering by moving things around, that's my fault, but you aren't allowed to 8)
---
Once I got myself organised we get the typical engine "where are you's" Vehicles marked away when they're right next to me. The answer to that is to linearly progress the soldiers. Eg, my driver is #7, he needs to be #2 and so on, thru the various vehicles. It's a classic engine 'error'.
---

Phew! Marvellous. Brilliant to my mind.

This is going to take ages (good). As a player, i have my own severe learning curve to endure, B/1/2 and what it really means. It's all good stuff, but wow!

Just to hunt a town is long, to hunt all towns ??? Gee. Love it.

And all of that before I even start a fight.

Loved the hidden objective(s). Loved the progression.

Nasty stuff with delays to 'question civilian' I know the engine's working overtime here, please try and get it running faster snappier. I'm waiting on action delays, and then worse, I'm waiting on the delay to dissapear before I can move to next guy and so on. Again, unpleasant delay between action and text. Please try and quicken it's pace.

Made mistake of arresting anyone who didn't like me 8)

Eventually got an ammo crate info, and a leader thingo. Got confused with "ill show you' i followed the guy and shot whoever he 'showed me" didn't realise he was marking map, and, confusingly, you correctly state it for ammo stuff. Please sort that one out.

Eventually for a quick check, I used the option to start war. I had bags of time and learning curve needed to understand all the radio commands for moving tropps around. You did well here, and I will just have to knuckle under and get it all worked out by studying and experimenting. I think the keyword is experiment, because no-way, do you just hit the start button and expect mission complete sometime later.

More annoyances with delays due to engine workings, One notable one was 10 or so seconds between starting war and something actually happeing. Ie the engine was in a setup phase. Although not applicable to this sequence, you should consider using cutscenes to mask delays. Ie the engine will hapilly process some scripts while player is watching movies.

Nice one. but don't expect more, 'real soon now' because there are (my estimation) several days of learning involved in how to master this mission, let alone play it.

Edit:
although unlikely to be in final release, hide the option to start a war once it's triggered. I hit it several times ;)

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: markb50k on 18 Nov 2005, 17:13:22
@Mikero

thanks for all that feedback.  Its gonna take some time for me to digest all your input (which is good).

Re:  Waiting for actions to go away.  Actually you don't really need to wait for the actions to go away.  If you select Question Civilian it will ask whoever happens to be closest to you at that time, within a certain distance.  Perhaps what I should do for that is just leave the actions there all the time, perhaps change the action to "Question Nearest Civilian" something like that, and let you select it whenever you want.  If there is a civilian close by it will activate them, otherwise hint you feedback that "You shout but no one is close enough to hear you!", hehe.

As for the rest of the stuff, I'll get working on that ASAP.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: Conors on 18 Nov 2005, 19:47:55
One of the problems i found was that the civs walk away from the towns and from you, can you make them stay still its like they have ADHD also one thing (i'm not sure if this is possible) is the caches, is it possible to make them visable and in senseible locations, it said i had found one in the middle of the road, if you can have a look at that i would be grateful.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: markb50k on 18 Nov 2005, 22:15:09
@Conors

For the walking around civs, what I could do is have them stay within a certain distance from the unseen "town center".  I kind of love pure randomness where perhaps you would see some civs walking through the woods, etc.  but I understand for gameplay it could be pretty hard finding civs especially after a while in the game.  In addition I could have civs stay put between movements longer so they will be stationary most of the time.

As for caches, it would make the game too easy if they were visible, so I definitely want to keep them abstractly invisible and only signified by a location on the map.  But, I could see about, for each town, having a certain number of possible locations (like 10 or so) where the cache could be.  That would keep randomness with realism.  And I could make the cache become visible after you find it, simulating that you have moved away some shrubbery or camouflage.

EDIT:
@Mikero
Been going through this unit marker stuff and can't seem to find a way of getting the text on the markers to shrink.  The symbol can shrink but the text stays the same size.  If I can't get it to shrink, I'm thinking of just showing the labels units you have selected, basically some way of limiting which labels are showing up at a time.  I'll see if i can cut out the slashes (FYI:  B/1/2 means Bravo Company, 1st Platoon, 2nd Squad).  That will help a small bit

Thanks for the feedback


Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: Mikero on 19 Nov 2005, 02:27:10
>Fonts

 xenofane (http://www.ofpec.com/editors/resource_view.php?id=418)


apologies to GBarron i can't find his tute on same subject
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: Conors on 19 Nov 2005, 10:59:17
You could always make the civ surrender when you arrest them with a script or something.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: penguinman on 19 Nov 2005, 19:41:23
Ok i tried this one

on the campaign book, I selected the uprising and all it did was give me a "no entry" error involving the description. ext
and when I try to press start it goes back to main screen. theres not much more to it, everything else was fine

I hope you get it working
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: Mikero on 20 Nov 2005, 05:36:28
 8) 8) 8)It isn't a campaign 8) 8) 8)
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.1
Post by: penguinman on 20 Nov 2005, 05:48:22
oh god, im dumb, :-[

I cant even beta test sombodys mission

sorry for the trouble,

il have it properly tested and reported on tomorow.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.2
Post by: markb50k on 20 Nov 2005, 07:47:02
new version and new link on 1st post.  lots of little adjustments.

EDIT:

Oh and if a moderator could somehow removed the little attached file thingy from the first post.  It says the attached file doesn't exist even when I try to remove the attachment.  Its a little confusing for the reader.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.2
Post by: penguinman on 21 Nov 2005, 02:47:18
ok, thank you Mikero i got it working now.


Overview:
good,
pic: could be better, maby a real life photo of US troops at a checkpoint on the road or somthing.

INTRO: Great camera, nicely done, I thought it was odd that the resistance guy ran right into the US base without the gaurds even moving,  maby you could have them aim their guns at him and he walk up to them slowly and start talking to one of them before blacking out.

Briefing: It explained everything fine, I had no trouble understanding anything.

Mission: In the start I thought the player shud start near a building in the base(or in one) and have to run out to his waiting squad.

First place I visited was somwhere to the west of camp Patton. I found nothing there,

Moved on to another town even more to the west, I asked arround and sombody told me of a weapons cash. I thot that it might be gaurded so I had my APC's stay infront of me and somthing happend and I was accidentaly run over by one of them on the way. restart.

the next time I went to the same town where the Guy told me about the ammo dump, as I pulled into the town another incident happend. a villiger darted from behind a house into the road and was run over by my hummer. I got out but the ammo cash I could not find. I asked arround and when i spoted the villager who told me last time, he fled. I chased after him and after a long run I caught up to him and questioned him, he told me "to go to hell", I was so frusterated I shot him in the face with my berreta. on the way back I heard the civilians were acting suspicios and getting rialed up over the radio, I guess the civilians dint like the way I was treating them. I kept searching thru villages and found a few leaders and cashes but not a big haul.  villages started being attacked but I had fortified all the villages with my troops beforehand so none fell.

I drove around a little more but got bored and quit.

It is a nicely put together mission, most important you need to work on is keeping the civilians in the villages, alot of times I would arive in a village find it empty, and then find the ocupants frolicking in a nearby field.

I enjoyed testing it,

thank you
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.2
Post by: markb50k on 21 Nov 2005, 18:16:03
Thanks for the feedback.

I don't know which version you tested but v1.2 should help keeping the civs pretty close to the town.

Oh and don't worry about civs running around, thats just the AI making them run to their next doMove (i have them set to careless but they still run).

And in order to find the caches just use the map and you can see yourself ("HQ") moving and just make sure you move to the "CACHE" marker on the map.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.2
Post by: Conors on 21 Nov 2005, 21:06:32
what about adding some more life (dosnt have to be much just tthe odd civ car on the raod).
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.2
Post by: markb50k on 21 Nov 2005, 22:11:11
@conors

Yeah that sounds like a good idea.  Shouldn't have to adjust the civilian movement themes too much.  I'll look into it.  I'll have to handle them getting out of their cars should they be inclined to join the rebellion but that shouldn't be too bad.

I'm heading out on Thanksgiving vacation soon so a new update probably won't be done until a couple of days from now.

Thanks for the feedback.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.2
Post by: Mikero on 22 Nov 2005, 02:17:21
In summary I think you can see the two major squeals here are

ammoboxes

no one cares how you do it, but (ultimately) visible they must be. Don't forget the real and genuine fear of any player looking at a briefing during gameplay. Not only can they get shot, they can lose the briefing, permanently. CreateVehicle() when you have to, but make those things visible. In my case I did run HQ to 'the spot', nothing happened until my jeep came to same place! Not good. (but the idea is very fine indeed). Certainly be cheesy and plunk the thing inside a bush so player thinks the newly appearing ammo was just overlooked by him earlier.

moving civs

they're great, they're dynamic, and they always invetibly seem to be farming rather than sitting in the cafe's of the village. Whatever waypoints you've got for them, they bias towards the potato fields and beyond. You need to clamp 'em down in town. In almost all instances, the LAST place I looked for them was where they were supposed to be, in town.

>moving cars.

Really appreciate it if you DO put this in. Remember that you intended to have at least half this mission as a civilian scene. I'd reinforce that 'feeling' over and over and over again, with anything-civilian  flooding my screen. I'd certainly also include tractors. You could DeleteVehicle() half od this stuff when war starts. They wont be driving the roads anymore, will they 8)

You have a terrific mission here, and while all these are niggles, the mission itself deserves to be improved by fixing them.

Edit:

Thanksgiving

Your timing is badly off. In the real world, we celebrate it on the 4th July.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: markb50k on 04 Dec 2005, 17:32:47
NEW VERSION JUST UPLOADED (Dec 4).  Lots of significant changes to add a more realistic environment with overhauled civilian processing and added civilian VEHICLES.

Enjoy.  This one should be a nice improvement.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: LoTekK on 04 Dec 2005, 20:46:02
This sounds super nifty, but I'm getting an "unavailable" error from yousendit. Then again, being behind an ISP proxy, I typically have lots of trouble with yousendit and rapidshare. Any mirrors or alternatives?
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: Mikero on 05 Dec 2005, 01:01:52
@MarkB

I really like this mission, i've played it now a couple of times (which for a Beta tester with volumes to get thru, is already a statement in itself!)

But both your links at top page are broken. Please get rid of at least one of them as neither work!

looking forward to testing this newer 1.3 as soon as you can provide a stable link. :D
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: markb50k on 05 Dec 2005, 03:40:23
Thats really strange.  I upload it at yousendit and immediately by clicking the url it gives me, says its unavailable.

Drat.  I'll have to upload it to another site.

EDIT:  Added link to rapidshare on 1st Post. Use the LINK not the ATTACHMENT

Can a admin PLEASE remove the attachment from my first post. I cant get rid of it.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: LoTekK on 05 Dec 2005, 05:18:58
Anyone got a mirror? Rapidshare has worked for me a grand total of one time, a couple months ago. And yousendit has never worked for me. :(
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: markb50k on 05 Dec 2005, 13:15:47
@LoTekk:  I can email it to you if you would like.  Just let me know.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: LoTekK on 05 Dec 2005, 19:27:21
Mark, that would be ace. :)

teck at lotekk dot com

Looking forward to taking a crack at this. :)
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: markb50k on 05 Dec 2005, 22:09:13
@LoTekk:  Email sent.  Hope you enjoy it.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: MachoMan on 05 Dec 2005, 23:02:45
Can a admin PLEASE remove the attachment from my first post. I cant get rid of it.

I'm sorry, we can't, not cause we don't want to, just because Yabb doesnt let us.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.3
Post by: LoTekK on 06 Dec 2005, 06:18:57
Shiny. :) Thanks, mark, I'll see if I can find some time tonight to hammer away at this one.

Okay, this is weird. I can't get the mission to start up. The intro loads up fine, runs its course, and then the briefing shows up. And that's it. Flashpoint just sorta locks up at that point. I can tab out of the game, but that's about all.

I have no idea why this is happening. I initially chalked it up to my typical setup of ECP+DMA Army Pack+HiSky+Retextured Islands, but running it clean gave me the same lockup.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.4
Post by: markb50k on 08 Dec 2005, 05:18:34
Uploaded Version 1.4

I dont know if everyone had this problem but I was getting locked up at the mission briefing because of a disableUserInput call I made at the beginning of a cutscene that starts the mission.  I fixed it and a new version of the mission is on the first post.

Such a bonehead mistake... sorry.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.4
Post by: LoTekK on 08 Dec 2005, 06:30:23
Ah, so that's what it was. :p
Rapidshare decided to be nice to me this time round, so I managed to d/l 1.4. Will give it a shot later today. :)

edit:
Okay, took a crack at this tonight.
RES 1.96, vetmode, no superai, Benchmark 5338

Package
Not much to say here. Readme does its job.

Overview
I reckon the picture works well.

Intro
Nicely done. Simple, to the point, and as Mikero mentioned, it leaves questions in the air.

Briefing
Nice work on this one. It gave plenty of info, and retained a decent air of officiality. Definitely adds to the atmosphere and immersion. My only complaint, and it's a minor one, is that the linnk at the end of each report (S1, S2, S3) leads to the letter from your commander, instead of the main links page.

Notes
Nicely done, well written, good immersion/atmosphere.

Gear
Nice choice of weapons. Nothing over the top (though the M21 is arguably out of place).

Group
Why is my driver a Major? :p

Mission
Man, this thing was running a little choppy for some time. Figured it was alright, just all the activity needing to settle down. I hopped in the HMMWV and left everybody else behind, ordering the driver to the nearest town to the north (forget the name). Third guy I spoke to gave up a resistance leader in some godforsakenly far away town (I thought they were neighbours? :P).

So, Hop in the hummer again, and have my driver bring me there. Ask around some more, finally narrow down the leader and arrested him. So far so good, I have 49 minutes left. Manage to find another leader, and five caches.

Big shock came when I was some ways north of Montignac: "TWO! Fuel Low!" Wha? Already? Managed to run out of fuel not 200m from the gas pumps at the airbase. Not so happy about that. Anyways, since I was at the airbase, I thumbed a ride from Echo 1-1 to the next cache location, and was in Montignac when the uprising finally happened.

Wow. My framerate had sort of settled down over the past hour, but it went to hell in a handbasket once the uprising started. Anyways, managed to nail a number of resistance troops in Montignac (along with a couple friendlies in a hand grenade incident :P), but I lost most of the island in the space of about two minutes, at best guess. It was quite literally:
Uprising starts. We've lost <insert town name>! <town name> has been overrun! Contact at <town>. We've lost <town>.
Bam, bam, bam. Like dominos. And this was after nailing two resistance leaders and five caches, too. I'd hate to see how strong their forces are with a full complement.

Anyways, that was about as far as I got tonight. And I'll be starting over the next time I try since I stupidly double-clicked on the mission name in the notebook. ::)

What can I say. Pretty awesome mission you've got going here. Aside from the performance issues, which I'm guessing are mostly unavoidable, it's pretty darned amazing. The initial phase is pretty original in execution, though I'm curious if uncovering ammo caches and arresting leaders actually affects the uprising strength, other than culling it completely if the conditions are met (see my above comments).
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.5
Post by: markb50k on 09 Dec 2005, 23:14:47
Uploaded Version 1.5 to first post:

Major change - overhauled the command engine using CoC as inspiration.  After playing the war part a few times, I realized how hard it was to give units orders, so its now more streamlined including
- - now you can click on the unit markers to select it
- - after selecting a unit, just SHIFT-CLICK the map to get them to move
- - removed the "Get Status" option, now whenever you click a unit a status window shows the unit's strength down to fuel and damage levels (an improvement)
- - with this streamlined system, I have taken away the ability of giving commands to multiple groups at the same time.  Maybe I will add it in later, but the improvements in the command engine more than make up for it.

@LoTekk
Thanks for the feedback.  I would imagine the performance can drag a bit at certain points like war start, but it should improve a bit after that and the new scripts get going.

Hehe, my 2 is a Major so I could keep the group movements orderly, otherwise the game engine has them all screwed up.

The capturing of resistance leaders and caches are VITAL to winning this mission, as I am quickly learning more and more.

Arresting leaders improves the civilian morale and for each guy captured about 5% less rebels will be created at war start

Caches have a small improvement to morale also, but their main benefit is two fold:
1) any town that has its cache found will not produce rebels during the initial attack, any civilians wanting to rebel will have to go to a town that still hasn't had its cache discovered.  Using this knowledge you can create 'safe-zones' by finding all the caches on a portion of the island, that will be safe at least during the initial attack.
2) I dont know if people know this, but periodically the rebels will recruit more fighters from the towns and a found cache will decrease the amount of recruits by half, along with Western control, and Western presence in the town.  All of that together in a town can pretty much wipe-out any recruitment there.

Thanks for the kind words, and hopefully this version will be even better.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.5
Post by: LoTekK on 10 Dec 2005, 00:04:41
Rapidshare ain't biting. :(
Any chance I could get the file emailed over again? :-X
Looking forward to checking out the new version. The improvements sound excellent.

Oh. What about the HMMWV's inexplicably low fuel level? Now that I know it's not such a huge deal, since I can gas up on the way to Montignac, but it's a little odd that it runs out of juice so quickly.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.5
Post by: markb50k on 10 Dec 2005, 05:09:55
@LoTekk
I'll send you the file.

About the HMMWV, I dont know what the deal is with it.  Its completely full when you start off, but some reason the HMMWV drinks alot of fuel real quick.  Maybe a game error?
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.5
Post by: LoTekK on 10 Dec 2005, 09:23:12
Hmm, interesting. I'll just have to remember to gas up near Montignac then. :)

Got the email, thanks! :)
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.5
Post by: Mikero on 10 Dec 2005, 23:31:32
@Mark

this is an important mission, too good to miss out on. email me the file and I will host it on the beta forum site

mikero at norfolk dot nf

(you'll have to get past my spammer)

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: markb50k on 11 Dec 2005, 07:04:18
Uploaded Version 1.6
Sorry for all the updates but this should be the last tweak unless someone comes up with a great idea or there is a bug.  Now I am going to try to enjoy PLAYING the darn thing.

@Mikero

Sent you the file.  Thanks for deeming this mission worthy of being hosted.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: klavan on 11 Dec 2005, 12:34:48
Here's my few words.

PACKAGE
The readme is complete. The pics both for the ofpec and flashnews are missing but there's time for them.

OVERVIEW
Good pic. I would prefer to see the mission version number below it.

INTRO
Good idea the betrayer. But i would like to see more a close camera work while he speak, just to look at his face to see a more emotional behaviour. The music choice is fine but please make it fade out slowly: the sudden music stop detract from atmosphere and suspence.

BRIEFING
Absolutely complete. Well explained and professional. It adds immersion and put you in the mood the right way. I found only a typo (i supposed) in the order of battle section: Traspo Platoon -->Transport Platoon.
I removed the pistol from the inventory of my squadmates: i suffered some problems in the past, with my men that preferred to use their sidearm instead of their AR/MG.

MISSION
Love the possibility to set the difficult by dialog. I set the dificult to 60% in order to have a quite simple run to finish the mission as fast as i can before you release this stuff.  ;)
I began to experiment with the command interface before to start to interrogate the civilians and i found it's quite easy to use. No problem. found.
Next i began to talk with the civilians in order to gather info. I would like to hear them speaks and to move their lips instead of simple titletext. In addiction why not adding some female characters?
After a while i began to receive hints and with my hummer I ran here and there for weapons cache and rebels leaders. Finally i found 2 leaders and 4 caches.
Just a question: does the player's behaviour influence the civilian reaction? I mean: by having my AR on the back is more usefull for gathering infos insted of having it in my hands ready to fire?
I would like to see a more dynamic environment: why not built up a demonstration? Or to make the "hostile" civs runs away after the interrogation o similar?
Or just another idea: to set up occasional fights between the pro and the anti-americans civils (and if the player interferes the support would increase/decrease and the uprising would starts immediately).
Just  a question: i found difficult to move the troops to discover the weapon chaces (it's possible to do it?).

That's all for now: within 5 minutes the uprising will begins so i'm going to face the revolt. I will report the results later today or tomorrow.
At this point i can say that this is a very good mission and i like the general idea. Only try to make the investigation part more dynamic and interactive.
Bye.
Klavan  
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: OFPJunkie on 11 Dec 2005, 13:21:45
I anticipate this mission going to the pending pool...I smell a reviewing fight....... 8)
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: klavan on 11 Dec 2005, 14:49:28
OK, the uprising started.

The last minutes before it were full of tension and inquietude. From where they will came from? Wiil they will move directly to the cities or will they slowly crawls from the mountains and the forests? Will they attack in small groups or in relative big units? What about their morale: will they fight 'till death or maybe will they surrender after facing an Abram?  
 
In a attempt ot reduce intial losses due to confusion and uncertainty i had (where and when possible) gathered all the scattered troops triyng to form major groups even if this would had means to leave some potential targets under rebel's control without the need to fight our troops.

Then a moment after i calm myself down a little, by being sure that I've made all the possible initial steps to be prepared for the fights, the firsts  messages began to clung the radio network.
Spotting reports and firefights around Morton, Levie and even Camp Patton. Few minutes and Saint Philippe, the Naval Base and many other locations fell down to enemy control or were under attack.
This mayhem make me really nervous and first casulaties reports really don't helped me.

OK, Klavan, I said to my self, you can't avoid losses: this is a COC style mission and simply you cannot control everything!!!

Luckly I did the right choice: apart for a couple of isolated groups that were attacked by overwelming forces (at least i suppose so) our other units seemed to react very well and the attackers were defeated quite easily and rapidly.
At this point, realizing that from this moment the tide must change I began to organize multiple attacks against occupied cities and the combination of Abrams, Bradleys and Apaches proved to be the right medicine for these parasites.
Surprisingly none of our MBTs or AFVs were hitted by RPGs or ATGMs (are these weapons in rebel hands?).
Within 45 minutes the both the centarl and the southern parts of Everon fall back under our control and now we're heding toward north to take back the remaining cities.

I'm really enjoying this mission and I haven't found any real bugs but only few some small issues that i'm going to explain:

-The UH60s are quite difficult to handle: made 'em landing sometimes is tedious (they touch the ground and then they jump back in the air without give me the time to get in or out) and they tend to behave independently when they spot the enemy, forcing me to give 'em orders over orders to make 'em do what i want. I know the choppers are terrible in OFP.......In addiction if i'm embarked on one of 'em it's difficult to select their markers without selecting my own one. This is fastidious and time consuming. You could disable the clickable marker for the HQ unit.

-I passed most of the time looking with attention at the map and often i missed some radio messages.....I think the sounds for radio messages are very important in a COC style mission like this one, saving you from these potential problems.

-Sometimes units reports the same message (when they spot an enemy) two or three times within few seconds. I don't know if this is a bug but these message sometimes distracts me.

-I would like to have the possibility to set the behaviour of the units. In combat mode they move veeeerrrrrryyyyy sssslllooooowwwwwlllllyyyyy and if i need to move ground units by foot from a location to another i want they to be as fast as possible. I've noticed that moving infantry units through forest eventually cause the same units to remain blocked among the trees. Maybe an "aware" behaviour would solve this.

Again GOOD JOB!
Klavan



 
 


 



Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: markb50k on 11 Dec 2005, 17:44:15
@Klavan:

Thanks for the review.  Some definite ideas here.  I will take a look at your suggestions.

- holding your weapon or having it on your back doesnt affect civilian reaction.  I debated adding that in but since you don't have a whole lot of time before the  uprising to do all the things you need to do, i figured making the player keep switching stances would be tedious.

- I will look at a some way of making clicking of unit markers a little easier.

- AI has AT weapons, I'm surprised you didn't lose any vehicles.

- For the UH60s did you try the LAND option?  I know helicopters are really screwy in OFP, but I didn't have many issues with the LAND option.

- Setting your subunits behavior should be pretty easy for me to implement.  I'll try it out.

Thanks again, perhaps I will take out handguns from footsoldiers.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: Mikero on 12 Dec 2005, 04:43:30
This quite superb mission is STILL beta folks, but it is now hosted on the  beta hosting site  (http://andrew.nf/ofp/missions/) so that many many more of us can get stuck in and make a few <ahem> 'suggestions'.

the link above is to the page where some few missions are located, you'll have to trawl thru to locate this one as it's uploading while I scribble this.

  Uprising1v6.zip (http://www.andrew.nf/OFP/Missions/The_Uprising.Eden.zip) (1 meg)

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: Conors on 12 Dec 2005, 22:33:48
the hummer just guzzels petrol (i belive the amaricans call it 'gas') so you could replace it with a jeep or civ car, less realistic more economical petrol wise
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.6
Post by: lilwillie_WI on 13 Dec 2005, 16:34:52
wow, I lucked out in my getting to be back on

Downloaded and played this excellent mission some.

I used 80%(yes, I am weak) just to get a feel for the mission first off. How to use the Command engine and to better understand things. Which I can say was awesome.

Intro was great, I enjoyed the resistance soldier having a moral issue with what he was doing, gave it a realistic feel to the start.

Briefing and Overview where cool. Well laid out, didn't notice any spelling errors. Great military look to it.

Mission itself. Very fun. I jumped into a 'Hawk and flew south. Figured I would secure the south region to keep backdoor safe. Moved in some armor and air support incase things got hot. Southern three towns (there names escape me at the moment) where cleared and secured. Once I captured a leader I must have triggered something because the timer started. I used that time to get some caches under control and nab a few more resistance leaders. With a few minutes remaining I had my forces group into regional control in a safe zone. Covering, North airport, Naval base, Patton base, and a western location near the Gov's mansion. Timer hit zero and all hell broke loose. Only the Naval base seemed to take casualties. Some resistance where spotted at Patton, where I was. That is where I left off.

I also thought the radio messages where very well done. Good voice and written great.

This, as Abandoned Armies was, is the exact style of mission I truely enjoy. I hope more people follow this lead with ideas of thier own.

Very good job so far. Report back later with how the war goes.



Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: markb50k on 13 Dec 2005, 18:23:06
Uploaded Version 1.7 to first post

No BUG FIXES just some additional features in the command engine.  So keep playing 1.6 if you like and don't want to start over.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: sharkyjoe on 17 Dec 2005, 17:14:09
Ok things look fine got the Radio Commands but One thing
I cant move my troops >:(
Yes I read the Com intell
went back out of game and re-read Read me file
Even restarted my computer
Still when i select group the radio comes up with set combat mode and the likes but unable to move. In this mode I have Shift- clicked and they dont move
Could the latest Version have missed someting when up dated??
Everything else runs fine
What am I doing Wrong here.
Thanks Sharkyjoe ???
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: markb50k on 17 Dec 2005, 17:54:50
@SharkyJoe

The only thing I can think of is perhaps you need to click the LEFT shift button?  Or sometimes the mapclick functionality needs a nice solid click.

I have not heard of any complaints on this version with the shift click, so I am not sure what is going on.

also, the shift click only works on units that are not your unit.  the "HQ" unit can only be moved around through normal OFP engine means.  Maybe that is it?

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: LoTekK on 17 Dec 2005, 18:48:11
Haven't had a chance to play the most recent version, but in response to sharkyjoe, are you running with ECP? I recall some issues with ECP when using an addon or mission that makes extensive use of onmapclick, since ECP overrides that functionality somewhat.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: sharkyjoe on 20 Dec 2005, 03:00:07
Tried Looking for ECP and I'm pretty sure I dont have in the add-ons.

However, I have played it through with-out being able to map clicking the men where and when I need too.

I wish I could map shift-click it though.
Very Fun and Intresting.  :D
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: markb50k on 20 Dec 2005, 05:13:35
@SharkyJoe:  

Dang, I am pretty bummed that the map clicking is not working for you.  Is any of the clicking working?  Is the ALT click working for getting the units to target a direction?  Have you tried both shift keys?  Do you have the Shift keys mapped to something else?  I am stumped.

Has anyone else had this issue with 1.7?

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: wps on 21 Dec 2005, 06:22:41
I have played this game twice (In fact, I'm in the middle of second round), and have some questions and experiences which I'd like to share with all:

First time play:

I jumpped in HUMMV and went to south, found three caches in the southern three cities. Then uprising started. I did not manage all resources well, but barely keep the four main bases under control. Then I call one Heli, shot the pilot and gunner, and took the heli by myself with one of my man as gunner. Now I fly. Gradually I took over several towns back, but some towns seem have respawn enemies. I fought until mid-night (game time), the uprsing did not calm down as assumed from intro text that "one hour" will be ok. Is this a bug? When I was shooting in Latmine where heavy resistance exisited, the game suddenly finished with pop-up of "mission objective updated". Then failure text came, but I checked all four bases are still under my control. Why?

Second time play:

I found out about 12 caches and arested all four leaders, but the uprising still came. Why?

Also after discover about 12 caches, no more caches were marked even though civilians kept telling me new locations. Why?

Now I am in the middle of the second play. Still in Heli, for several hours already. Don't know when it will end, and how?

Anyway, this is an interesting mission. I enjoyed it.




Title: Re:The Uprising v1.7
Post by: markb50k on 21 Dec 2005, 08:14:32
@wps

Thanks for playing the mission!  Let me try to answer your questions...

What the objective states is this:

"With an major uprising underway, secure all critical locations:   All named towns on the map,  Camp Patton, the naval base, the airbase, and the Governor's mansion.  Hold all objectives for 1 hour and that should convince the population that we will not be thrown off this island."

...you need to control ALL the named towns PLUS the four bases for one hour straight to put down the uprising.  In other words, all flags on the map should be blue uninterrupted for one hour to win.  It seems you interpreted this objective to mean JUST the four bases.  I can see how it could read that way, so I will update the text a little to make sure people understand all 22 objectives need to be held for an hour.

The game SHOULD end in Failure 12 hours after the uprising if you haven't held all 22 objectives, but it seems that yours kept going until midnight which it shouldn't.  I will take a look at that.  EDIT:  Are you sure it was game time MIDNIGHT or NOON?  I looked at the code and it should end somewhere around 9 PM at the latest

Respawning:  Each town will periodically respawn enemies based on the following:

Each town has a max number of rebels they can produce every ten minutes or so, and each town has a different max, with BIG TOWNS like Morton, Montignac, Latemin, Saint Phillipe, etc. having the highest..

That number is the max possible and is reduced by certain things.  
- reduced by U.S. civilian support percentage (if U.S support is 80% at the time, the max is reduced by 80%)
- if U.S. controls town, reduced by another 50%
- if U.S. is present in town, reduced by another 50%
- if the cache in that town has been found (turned blue), reduced by another 50%

so if you have good support and occupy and control a town, even the biggest towns will be reduced sharply to probably one or two, and most towns won't produce any at all.

Now I KNOW version 1.7 has a bug in this logic that makes the towns produce more, and I plan on putting out a new version soon with that fix.  Probably right after I post this.

As for your second try where you found 12 caches and arrested 4 leaders...  The objective should have been updated to say that the way to prevent the uprising is to find all the remaining caches.  So you need to find all 22 caches before the uprising countdown expires (which IMO can only really be done when you start off at 40% U.S. Support or higher).

Finally, if you didn't see any more caches being revealed by the civilians even though they kept saying it, please recheck the map, there should be a RED cache marker still out there that hasn't been turned BLUE and the civilians keep pointing out that one.

Thank you so much for playing, and its players going deep into this mission that will help find any hidden bugs that I have not been able to find yet.

Title: Re:The Uprising v1.8
Post by: markb50k on 21 Dec 2005, 09:43:22
New version uploaded on first post

Not a whole lot of changes but one major BUG FIX that should make winning the war more achievable.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.8
Post by: wps on 24 Dec 2005, 23:29:29
Thanks for clarification. I think I did not read instructions clearly. And, yes, I check the ending time is about 9PM.

I may plpay it for third time.
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.8
Post by: sharkyjoe on 29 Dec 2005, 16:40:18
 Uprising v1.8  1st fully functoional test  

Overview- Good

Intro- Works fine.  I did have a problem with some of the words at the end of sentences dropping/trailing off. Some what hard to hear.  Other than that it works fine.

Briefing- Really Good Job here. Very nice orderly and able to get back to front page of plans.

Notes- fine

Gear- Ok

Group- Well that works  ;D

Mission- Hey I can click and move men around "YES!!".

Ok I already had a leg-up on what was going on by semi testing it before hand so I (set at 80%) move men and armor around a bit to key areas. I also made it so I could drive or fly to the areas that I need to assess the sit-rep on the ground with my own Eye-balls.

Time to find the Stock piles. No one will talk to me at the HQ Camp. I didnt find the cache this is going to be a tough nut to crack at the HQ Camp. Went South of here and started to question Civies.
Very Nice to have that question Civ or Arrest Civ. Well Done there. Every thing worked.

Some of them told Me bug off, while others told me good Intel. I found Several Caches of weapons and where One of the Leaders were. Now I didnt Arrest the leader that will come last but I did find 4 caches and then next thing I know is the count down began. So I hurry up and get to the HQ camp and start Command Movements from there. Survive the intial hits. Shuffle men and Armor around to heal, reapair and Ammo load out. Hummm its only been about 30 mins. I still have thirty more to go.
 
Check everything and go wacth a Comedy Show. Come back well after an Hour has passed checked. Every Key area is fine(lost a few men) check the Mission Objectives nothing new and the last one didnt check off.
Ok let it ride a while longer. Go eat dinner Mac & cheese with a Hot Dog. Come back still nothing.  I end it.

Score- *

Outro- *

My take- Wow!!   :o What you have here is really great. Command over a lot of troops and interaction with in game Civies. Able to fly and drive places Arrest people, find hidden Treasures(Weapons).
The Respawn rate is really out of step with the actual find and the Arrest of Leader. The men stiill kept coming even after I had taken the weapons away and the leader the area had been arrested. I realize that some would come but they were still coming after the Inital wave.
Why the count down so early?? maybe after a time/count of finding 50% of the Weapons stock piles. Due to Resist. leaders saying "Ok we need to do something or we'll not have weapons to fight with". Then count Down should start.

I thought the game is wonderful thought but the end just fizzled out for me.
 Really started to get boring and I didnt get into the game.
 Maybe get the Resist. Forces to come together and attack soome or all the bases.
 Have a West sniper/Scout team say they spotted(really do Spot) a Leader and then it is up to HQ to arrest them or take them out.
Dont give up on this Mission make it better because what you have here is a Dandy and has the potential to become Great. Keep working on it.  :)
Title: Re:The Uprising v1.8
Post by: markb50k on 30 Dec 2005, 06:04:15
Thanks, Sharkyjoe.

I definitely won't give up on improving the mission and I thank you for the feedback.

Just some information here.

- The countdown to the uprising is actually already underway when the mission starts, you just don't know it yet.  You only get wind of an actual countdown if you capture a leader.  Capturing a leader does not make the countdown begin, it just gives you a warning of a specific time that you wouldn't have gotten.  Its just a bonus to capturing a leader.

- Given that it seems you just let it run for a while after the war started and it never ends tells me that you did not have all the towns secured.  If you did, then after one hour of having all towns secured the mission will end.  You can tell if all are secured by looking at the map and seeing if any towns have either a RED FLAG (meaning enemy controlled) or a YELLOW QUESTION MARK (meaning no one controlled).  If you have any of these than the mission won't end in victory.  I see a couple of people are not fully understanding this so I think I may give the player an option of getting a war status that tells you how well you are doing to make it even more clear.

- You recommended that the Resist forces combine for an attack on a base, well they actually do that.  The AI will determine a target that is a priority, usually one of the american bases and will send all free troops there to attack.  The reason why you may not have noticed that is because you had the civilian support start at 80% which means if you capture a leader or two, you pretty much will have very little resistance forces attacking.  So for a challenge set it to 50% or so,  (I still haven't beaten it at 10% so try that for a tough one).

Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: Patrick Reckitt on 26 Jun 2007, 21:29:02
Does anyone have a copy of 1.8 they can upload. I can't find a live link.
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: burroughs on 28 Jun 2007, 20:33:37
I think I have an archive stored somewhere on a disc of mine, but dunno if it's the version you are asking for   :scratch: I'll try to find out if you are still interested - just let me know and get me a link to a site where I can upload it for you as I am not too fluent in terms of doing it. Actually I've been sticking to downloading only for all those years  ;) ... Therefore I've got the copy of the mission you're looking for and will help you if it's the right one ... I'll catch up with you later on.
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: Patrick Reckitt on 29 Jun 2007, 23:38:02
Right, cheers. Crapidshare will do fine.
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: markb50k on 10 Jul 2007, 22:15:59
Wow, what randomness that a few days after someone inquires about my mission, I log in and see it.

I just bought ArmA so am getting back into the franchise, but would definitely like to tie a bow in this mission and get it at least reviewed.  I'll find the 1.8 version and will try to post it up to get it officially reviewed.  The server crashed just after I put it for review last time. 

Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: OAM on 10 Jul 2007, 22:26:26
Ya do you have a link still around that works, I'd like to try this too.
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: Patrick Reckitt on 10 Jul 2007, 23:02:35
You can get 1.6 from mikero's beta hosting site, but I can't find a 1.8 one.
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: OAM on 11 Jul 2007, 00:20:53
Yes I found the 1.6, trying it, quite nice.  I'll give a report on it I guess, but after I get a bit into the rebellion.  Just one question, do all the ? marks have caches?
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: markb50k on 11 Jul 2007, 17:20:13
Every town DOES have a cache somewhere in its vicinity. 
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: OAM on 11 Jul 2007, 18:43:52
OK, here is the story so far.

For my basic idea, having exprience with command like this before, was to order all my units into big groups to ride out the storm as I was in transit to the various towns.  The main camps would be the four non-town locations.  I would try and secure the South.  Didn't get any info in Levie or whatever ir North of you, but the other three towns in the South I secure and nabed one leader right at the 45 minute mark.  By this time I have noticed some of the dismounted troops might not be able to make it to a nearby location, so I have a huge gather in Morton and a smaller one in Levie, and those are the two biggest unsecured places near my base.  Also a small gathering at the hospital and one fuel station in the East as they seemed to be out of the way.  Plus Some one unit by its lonesome in Regina and the very South town, as they really couldn't get anywhere I think.  Went up the east side of the island, secured the two towns there, by my driver said fuel low, I called a chopper from the airport to go to the naval base and we met up, no civies told me anything there.  Flew to Entre Duex or whatever it is.  Secured it, but time was running out.  Flew to the airport, but didn't find anything, so flew back to Camp Patton.  Searched and secured, should of done that first lol.  Got my attack helos in the air incase they got destroyed on the ground.  Uprising started.

Wasn't as bad as I expected.  Levie, despite not being secured, had very little rebels.  I quickly sent troops to secure Le Moule, the two east towns, and the two towns between base, Entre Duex, and the two towns North of Morton.  Sent Armor to Montigiac, with air suppot.  Went pretty well, but the forces near Le Moule suffered heavy losses and contine to do so.  My immediate goal is Laminatn, but I don't have enough forces in the area, the mansion is under attack too.  I'm also feeling inscure in the fact that the airport is under enough attack I shouldn't really move anything away, and there is a long section of rebel control from Graveta to the airport I can't really do anything about at the moment.

And that is how far I've played, will play more later.
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: Mikero on 12 Jul 2007, 16:10:01
This was one of the better missions I played. Good enough in fact to keep on my hard drive. I look forward to it being reviewed it deserves to be 'out there'.

I only have V1.7 here, and the readme does not say what version, only the Overview
Title: Re: The Uprising v1.8
Post by: markb50k on 12 Jul 2007, 19:35:06
OK, here is the story so far.


your experience written here is EXACTLY the kind of thing I was hoping to achieve with this mission.  Some victories, some challenges, some downright losses, but a tough fight that is ever changing and unpredictable, including each time you play.  Thanks a whole lot in describing the action so far.  I am definitely interested in seeing how it plays out, as I have yet to read of someone winning this mission.  Heck, I wrote the darn mission, and I have only beaten it twice, on very hard difficulty, that is.

Thanks again.
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: markb50k on 01 Jul 2008, 21:47:16
Wow, ok, finally got around to putting up the final version of this mission, 2.0.

First created in 2005, hasnt been changed since the latest version (posted just before the crash) in early 2006.

Hope you guys enjoy it.  Hopefully I can get it reviewed now.

Thanks
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: schuler on 03 Jul 2008, 00:08:06
Hi mark, just short of a year here hey? has it been beta tested lately anywhere else?  i remember playing this years ago! i will have a look at it again. this is a big long mission, requiring allot of skills from the player too  ;)  if i remember right a lot of reading for good game play too.  :yes:
cheers schuler
   
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: limmy3 on 03 Jul 2008, 04:08:25
Hi fellows,

what I can say so fare is ... wow.

But it is to early to give a mission report.

What I miss ... aren't there any females on Everon.

If not ... I would uprise, too ...   :-*

Female are the long-tongued ones.  :D

Regards limmy3



Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: markb50k on 03 Jul 2008, 04:30:51
Hi mark, just short of a year here hey? has it been beta tested lately anywhere else?  i remember playing this years ago! i will have a look at it again. this is a big long mission, requiring allot of skills from the player too  ;)  if i remember right a lot of reading for good game play too.  :yes:
cheers schuler
   

yeah, the mission briefing is a bit long, but I like that kind of stuff.  Hope you have fun playing.  It hasnt been seen/tested anywhere but good ol' OFPEC.

Thanks
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: limmy3 on 03 Jul 2008, 18:09:12
Hello markb50k,

this is my mission review played in GRAA 3.0 mod:

Overview  :good:
Short and very good.
A version number is there ... great.  :D

Intro  :good:
Very good and a short informative story.

Cutscenes  :good:

Outro
Didn't come that far yet.  :(

Briefing  :good:
Very informative and detailed.
I love such briefing where all information you need for your job are available.

Readme   :good:
Detailed with the Command Engine.
What I didn't realize at my first moves that you can't question the civilians during the step visit
to the troops. I noticed that after I read it in this threat.

Mission  :good:
Well, what I said the day before ... wow.

The first try I did was by car and I drove around to the locations of the companies and had my first inspections.
After that hour of sight seeing the meaning of life began.
I tried to locate all caches and leader by car and by playing it a while I decided to start all over again from the beginning.

This is my second try now.
After the sight seeing I decided to travel by helicopter which would be much faster than by car.
I managed to find 5 caches and one leader till the uprise began.
Unfortunately the helicopter pilot wouldn't always do what I wanted him to do.
Often when I ordered him to land her started again and I needed several tries to leave the heli.
And when I was on the ground the pilot decided to start and once again I had to tell him to land.
This cost me several minutes of course which I could have spend finding the caches or another leader.

The way this mission is build to just fantastic and very interesting.  :D  :clap: :good:

Even when I save the game ... and I do that quite often by placing a number in front of the safe.fps name.
This gives me the possibility to continue my testing ... and I died several death by now.

What I've written the day before with the females is meant in serious.  :yes:
Placing or changing some of the male units against females would bring another touch.
I notice that the civilian units are not placed randomly by an engine. This would make it easy to change a few males into females.
Rather than an operation them ...  ;)

After I have arrested one leader I was informed that in a certain time the uprising will begin.
Very good to know how much time is left to find another leader or cache. This won't make it easier but you can hurry up.
Unfortunately the time to find all things is not much and I've had to do a lot to come so far.

Summary  :good:
This mission will keep a player busy for a long time.
You have to think tactically and strategical. That makes this mission to a high light and the Game OFP to a real tactical simulation.
What was time costly that I had to change every company separately to a different behaviour.

So keep on going and finish this mission to perfection.  :D

Regards limmy3


Edit: Images lost in the crash of Nov '09
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: markb50k on 03 Jul 2008, 18:52:41
Thanks for the info.  Hopefully you can finish it to see the outtros, they are cool, i think.

- females.  I could replace some of the civilians with females, BUT, since every civilian COULD become a rebel, you may see that a female civilian turns into a male rebel!  If you don't mind that one bit of unrealistic behavior I wouldnt have a problem making some of the civvies female.

- finishing the mission.  It seems the greatest factor preventing this mission from being reviewed is people sticking with it enough to finish it.  Here are my hints/suggestions to completing it (from what I can remember, i havent played OFP in over a year).

NOTE:  THESE ARE HINTS THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED 'GAMING' THE MISSION, SO IF YOU DONT WANT TO GET THIS KIND OF INFO DONT READ IT.

- every civilian starts the game with a friendlyness towards the US, 1 to 100, randomly generated.  You can set the overall friendlyness to the US on the start of the mission.  once that overall number is generated, then based on that overall number and the individual number of each civilian, each civvie is now considered UNFRIENDLY, NEUTRAL, or FRIENDLY.  As you do bad things like kill civvies or arrest the wrong people, the overall number will go down, but each civilians friendliness rating will not change.  Same thing with if you do good things like finding weapons caches or arresting leaders.

- The only way a civilians individual number changes is when they talk to you.  remember that every time you talk to a civilian, that particular civilian becomes less likely to help you next time, their friendliness rating goes down.  For some really friendly civilians, you could probably ask them upwards of 10 times in a row before they become neutral towards you and wont give info.  So, the key is to try and get vital information (location of a weapons cache/ location of a leader) as early as possible when you talk to them.  So, I save before I talk to a civilian, almost everytime.  If the civilians answer is negative i move on, since that guy isnt going to help you anyway, and no use to make him more against you.  If the civilians answer is nuetral, then the civilian is POSSIBLY friendly to you, so you should reload and try again until they give you a piece of vital info.  If you save/reload several times and the answer is always neutral, then that civilian is probably NUETRAL already.

Once they give you a piece of info, immediately act on that info.  find the cache, or arrest the leader.  if the cache is close, after you find it, go BACK to that civilian and ask again, saving/reloading until you get another piece.  Using this method you can pump a few good pieces of info from the same person.

- Realize that for every city and base their is a hidden cache, but also realize that if the cache at a city is discovered, NO REBELS will ever be created there.  When the uprising begins, if a civilian is UNFRIENDLY to you, he will have to travel to the nearest cache before he becomes a rebel, so you can use some strategy of where you concentrate your efforts.  If you discover a bunch of caches but leave one undiscovered, most likely all civilians in the area who are trying to become rebels will travel to that spot, so you can follow them and wait to ambush them when they switch over to a rebel. 

I really hate to expose these secrets on how the inner workings of the code work, but I really want someone to finish it.  Even with following all of these suggestions and finding other strategies to take advantage of the game AI, the battle will still be very tough to beat.
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: limmy3 on 04 Jul 2008, 03:37:43
Hi markb50k,

Quote
- females.  I could replace some of the civilians with females, BUT, since every civilian COULD become a rebel, you may see that a female civilian turns into a male rebel!  If you don't mind that one bit of unrealistic behavior I wouldnt have a problem making some of the civvies female.
:no: I think that this unrealistic behaviour may turn realistic. You wouldn't notice the difference if the bullet which is send in your direction is from a male or female you would just try and stop him or her. And as combatants wear uniforms that is realistic. So may suggestion is to change a few males into females.
By the way it's unrealistic that an islands population is male only.  ;)

Quote
- finishing the mission.  It seems the greatest factor preventing this mission from being reviewed is people sticking with it enough to finish it.  Here are my hints/suggestions to completing it (from what I can remember, i havent played OFP in over a year).
:yes: I'll try both ways.  >:D

Quote
I really hate to expose these secrets on how the inner workings of the code work, but I really want someone to finish it.  Even with following all of these suggestions and finding other strategies to take advantage of the game AI, the battle will still be very tough to beat.
:yes: but sometimes it's necessary to find bugs or mistakes to come right to the end. I suggest to leave this for a week and then delete the hints.

Quote
(from what I can remember, i havent played OFP in over a year)
Don't you feel deprived of not playing OFP?  ???  :whistle:

Regards limmy3
 
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: limmy3 on 04 Jul 2008, 06:29:54
Hi again,

as I couldn't find all caches as said above I continued to fight the war.

And that is even fun.  :D :D :D


I must have played for two hours trying to repel the rebels. I got that much information at one time
that I wasn't even able to read half the radio speech.

I think that the towns fall to quickly into enemy hands. Or say it in other words. The rebels come up far to quickly
in every town.



I hope my thoughts are helpful for you.  :D

Regards limmy3






Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (Review Please)
Post by: Cheetah on 04 Jul 2008, 12:24:14
limmy please do not double post, but edit the previous one. People can see that you altered a post so you don't have to double post to draw the attention of more content added to a topic ;)
Title: Re: The Uprising v2.0 (under Review)
Post by: schuler on 11 Jul 2008, 22:37:05
hello i will take this one.
@Limmy thanks for the extra beta testing  :good:
cheers schuler
Title: Re: (Review completed) The Uprising v2.0
Post by: Denz on 13 Aug 2008, 02:03:54
This mission has been reviewed (http://www.ofpec.com/missions_depot/index.php?action=details&id=170) by schuler.