(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[Henderson]

My first post here, I just had to register to tell you how great a mission this was. The atmosphere, (though it's kind of tough with the fog because the AI can see YOU but you can't see THEM ).

Everything was going great, I was advancing on Stampenov from the Saint Marie area of Chapoi, but it was late so I saved my game and closed it. I tried to load it today and I got the dreaded save game error! No! *cries* Was so close too. I'm going to give it another go though.  

[THobson]

Henderson:

Are you using ECP?  It would help me to know as I thought I had got the  mission to a state where it would not suffer from this problem on its own.

I believe you can get back to where you were.  I understand that if you rename your save file, then start a new mission, alt tab out, rename your save file back to what it was then then resume - I am told it works.  Though you might want to save a copy safely elsewhere just in case.

EDIT:

atmosphere, (though it's kind of tough with the fog because the AI can see YOU but you can't see THEM

I am coming to the conclusion that fog does effect AI, but rain doesn't, though I don't have a lot of data.  I have had AI lie down next to me when it is foggy and not notice me up to and including when I put a bullet in them.  Rain seems to pull visibility right down for the player - but I suspect (I don't have a lot of data on this) that it has a smaller (no?) impact on AI.

[Henderson]

Errrr, zapped my reply! I don't have ECP though.

What I was also going to say was, most of the time I got zapped through the fog it wasn't raining.

Edit: Tried what you advised, didn't know what save was which, so meh. No problems though, maybe I can get the northreners to live longer this time.

Last game when I tried to attack the fuel dump they kept coming and coming and coming, so I hurt them pretty bad. I was trying to play both sides against each other, slowly reducing their forces so my final attacks would be easier. Plan didn't work out though, I got pinned and had to fight it out, at one point being surrounded on three sides, then when things quieted down I withdrew to my fuel truck to get out of there, only to find that an armor squad was coming my way. Many retries later , I finally got out of there. Just in case someone asks, they were coming right from the fuel dump it seemed. No flanking, no nothing, they came straight down the road where I was holding on at. The guys from the South must of broken through because they were the ones that came out of nowhere and helped surround me.

Good fun, unscripted missions are my favorite, and I want more!  ;D

[THobson]

I don't have ECP though.

Oh dear!  I thought I had fixed that problem.  I am glad you are enjoying it though.  So which fuel station were you at when this happeneing?

[.pablo.]

18 pages  

     just started it yesterday, i'm enjoying it although i'm not sure what to do next...

     i won't bother telling everything i did, i'll just give my basic thoughts throughout

     great intro, although i agree that the island scene was a little ho-hum in comparison to what came before it; what i would do is have the scene take place at night with the family sitting around the campfire, as i think the contrast of their firey faces and the darkness around them would look moodier

     also, i had my viewdistance set to 500 when i watched the intro, so a lot of scenes had me looking at a wall of fog (i dont remember if the mission editor can adjust viewdistance, that might only be for mp)

     getting lost in the jeep was fun, and i like how your first group doesnt necessarily start out with the best weapons available to them (in the ammobox), it forces the player to customize (customization is fun)

     i thought it was kind of weird that the location of these three groups would be known so concretely, and i liked macguba's idea:

Perhaps when you rescue the first batch they tell you about the others

     i liked the rain/fog/lighting, it really added to the atmosphere, and it improved my fps (~12 instead of my normal ~3-8)

     anyway, i saved all the civies, and with my new army headed off to la trinite.  its a little weird to say the north and south are in a truce and trade with each other and then have them shoot each other on sight.  i would spend more time in cutscenes emphasizing the tenuousness of the truce; you could have the first guy you meet talk about how the truce actually only exists in the minds of the two leaders, and how the only thing keeping the two sides from erupting in warfare is the fact that the soldiers have been ordered to patrol areas well clear of the other side by their leaders (hence the "no man's land").  you could also explain how the "trade" in la trinite is more of a product of the leaders' desires than that of the soldiers, who are just following orders and would in fact prefer to be as far away from their enemy as possible, as they have no illusions about the state of the "truce".  this, i think, would make the soldiers' willingness to fight more rational to the player.

     i destroyed a convoy from the northerners heading into la trinite by placing an AP in the middle of the road just outside the N end of town, and then running behind them and placing an AP and AV on the road there, and getting lucky by having my first AP hit a LAW soldier and then having my AP and AV take out a BMP, and then dispatching a Ural and Vulcan with the BMP with my new LAWS.

     i was at a bit of a loss as to what to do next, but after reading the posts here i realize i have to start a war between the two.  i think you should have a cutscene after saving all the civilians, and have them give you an alternate mission to heading into la trinite, as attacking a convoy of that size as your first real combat mission was kind of like "ok, here's where we revert to standard ofp combat."

     maybe have the player asked by one of the rescued civies (in a cutscene that takes place in that broken down house/castle-thing) to go on a small rescue mission in a town in central malden (arudy popped into my head), which would allow the action to slowly build (and thus increase the suspense).  you could then have the player use this skirmish to build his arsenal for any larger fights he may have.  i left my squad behind when attacking the convoy in la trinite, simply because with their current weapons they would be useless.  the player should be given missions where his squad will help him, not hurt him.  and having the option of either rescuing the guy in arudy or messing around in la trinite could make things interesting.

     other issues of realism: if they have helicopters and enough fuel to have them just patrolling randomly, why don't they leave the island?  this issue doesn't necessarily mean you have to take out the choppers, but it should at least be taken into account with regards to the story.

i just loaded up the mission, and the reduction of fog with morning is dropping my fps to ~9-11

edit: down to ~6-7 fps, realized the frustration of being shot by a vulcan twice as far away from you as the wall of rain which blocks your view

[Dubieman]

Hey been out of it for a bit. Those damn anethesia docs, they don't know how much of that stuff to give, really! ;D

Anyways, I haven't played in a day or two. Just wanted to bring some things up.

-Bases are odd, if their was a way to make those guys who sit in wreckage do something instead of sit there (like the spec ops) and look at the ground.

-women on the road, had a few close calls, are they a joke?

-on fog, it'd be nice if towards the end, say when most of the manpower on both sides is depleted that you kind of keep the fog away or when the manpower is down on both sides plus their choppers (if its sunny you're dead in a vehicle... :'( ). Just a thought.

-I know my account is back a page or so, but when I found that vulcan + abrams in the desert, I kinda thought it wasn't right. I dunno if they patrol that area but they sat with backs to the south and were quite a ways away from the airport.

-base makeup? If its been mentioned before soz, but the northeron base needs some "bulky" defensive feel to it. Right now its spread out and anyone with  a M60, M21, or a rifle with lots of mags can eliminate infantry if they use the terrain. And the southeron base feels good, just a little cramped. :-\

-and for loons returning to base, I think once the troops are in desperate circumstances they should go to the nearest city or something and surrender unless by "random" chance they still decide to fight. Better than waiting for them to cross the country five times over.

[Fragorl]

Bugger. Made up my mind to try finish this mission this weekend , but I'm also getting the same savegame error as before. If I cant get it to work, this'll be my 4th restart.  :-\ D*mn! But I'll try what you've suggested, with the renaming the savegame and restarting etc. Hope it works! I really want to play this; i haven't even got to the action yet (apart from my run in with the convoy that once)  .

Btw i am using ECP; i started the mission using ECP also. The savegame thing is only happening when I retry *after* I've aborted your current mission afaik. Should it make any difference if i start the mission in normal ofp then switch to ecp and load my savegame? I'll try anyway.

EDIT: OMG I am an idjit! Just realised that i was in a different profile when i was trying to load the mision before. It seems to be working now... *slaps forehead*

[THobson]

.Pablo.

what i would do is have the scene take place at night with the family sitting around the campfire, as i think the contrast of their firey faces and the darkness around them would look moodier

That's a neat idea.

dont remember if the mission editor can adjust viewdistance

I can set it in the script that runs the intro.  What setting would you recommend - this is not something I ever change myself.

i would spend more time in cutscenes emphasizing the tenuousness of the truce; you could have the first guy you meet talk about how the truce actually only exists in the minds of the two leaders, and how the only thing keeping the two sides from erupting in warfare is the fact that the soldiers have been ordered to patrol areas well clear of the other side by their leaders (hence the "no man's land").  you could also explain how the "trade" in la trinite is more of a product of the leaders' desires than that of the soldiers, who are just following orders and would in fact prefer to be as far away from their enemy as possible, as they have no illusions about the state of the "truce".  this, i think, would make the soldiers' willingness to fight more rational to the player.

Good thoughts.  Perhaps for the version after next.

On the subject of giving the player mission, what I want to do is given them options then they can choose what to do and when. Good thought about a possible rescue mission in at one of the towns

GRK
I hope you are okay.

their was a way to make those guys who sit in wreckage do something

The problem is I don't put the wreckage there, there is largely unscripted battle and I leave the OFP engine to do what it wills.  Does it really look odd?

women on the road, had a few close calls, are they a joke?

I just gave a couple some random, and randomly moving, waypoints to see what would happen.

I am looking at the whole fog/weather model.

they sat with backs to the south and were quite a ways away from the airport.

It sound like they had returned from somewhere.

the northeron base needs some "bulky" defensive feel to it.

In hand but I am concerned about the large savegame bug and about lag.  It will be a balance, but I hear you.

they should go to the nearest city or something and surrender

The whole end game thing needs to be looked at.


Fragorl

I wish you success!


EDIT:
************************** This is a note to me ********************
Thread printed to this point - all 167 pages!!

[Henderson]

Oh dear!  I thought I had fixed that problem.  I am glad you are enjoying it though.  So which fuel station were you at when this happeneing?

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I was at the fuel station just below the Malden airfield. I presume that's where they were massing at.

[Dubieman]

I feel bad for your printer... :beat:

@ wreckage, I really didn't mean the wreckage is bad, the fact that spec ops are lying down in the base not doing anything is bad. (southern base) Its one of those common problems in some missions. Though I don't know if you have some purpose for those spec ops or something.

@me yeah I'm good.

@women, well they're kinda weird. But the only thing is for the final version you might want to take them out cause of how it might affect the story, I guess.

Or maybe the two sides are using them as messengers?


@tanks: well it was just odd that they had their back to me...  ;D
such easy targets....

@end: okay

@northern base: Well a fortress here and a little something there, small guardhouse that's it :-\

@comp specs(old comp is being used):
no ECP
v1.96
barely any lag unless serious armor battles come up
512mb RAM
64mb graphics card
2.4 ghz machine
playing with viewdistance around 2000 I think, doesn't really matter cause of the fog

Can't wait to get my new PC together, should be nooo lag at all ever! ;D Hopefully. :help:

[THobson]

the fuel station just below the Malden airfield

That certainly would attract a lot of attention

spec ops are lying down in the base not doing anything

They are Stamenov's body guard.  I think it will be more obvious with the changes I have made to the southern base.

I feel bad for your printer...

I did it at work.

[Dubieman]

I've waited a bit more. Then found out the last of the civvies on my team have died, now the last civ obj on my list is failed.

So I have a T80 and a M1A1 on the airfield. Figured out my command problem and all is well. We mowed down 2 big infantry groups. I then placed some mines where they came through the fence. I then went off to find that my lodge had been ransacked once more, that's the reason for my dead teammates... :'(

Grabbed oddles of weapons and took off in a BMP ambulance to support my stand at the airport. No contacts yets. I arrive and find I've missed some snipers in some bushes, crush them.

Then reboard my M1A1 and wait and wait. 5 min later its foggy as hell once more and then I hear 2 grenade sounds in the direction of my 2 AP mines. Yes, score one for me. ;D (well make that like 500 now, cause I've beat the crap out of both... ;D) I go to inspect and find another big infantry group all dead, in a bottleneck to get through the fence they hit the mines, not pretty, and they were made up of mostly AT weapons. Good thing I took them out, they would have gotten pretty close to me.

Still waiting, I haven't "defeated" either side yet. I might check the southeron base later.

@ the work printer:
Thobson's running up his expense account again with ink and paper...  

[THobson]

@GRK
I need to change the end game so that it is less tedious.  I do hope all your loons turn up.

well make that like 500 now

Well 450 to 500 is about what you have to deal with (it is random).


@ALL
Well I have been overwhelmed by the response.  I feel I have not done justice to the time and effort you have all put it on playing, thinking about and giving me feedback.  I have a tonne of stuff to be working on and it will be a while before I get back with an updated version so I thought I would give you all a progress report.

Already in the next version I have:
changed the background story line, with consequent changes to the text in the overview, briefing and intro.

changed the starting time and location.

removed the random starting locations

restructured both bases and the mountain lodge area to be more realistic.

changed the Vigny cut scene to have two soldiers arriving by foot and to help explain Tatyana's sudden rush out of the building

changed Stamenov's accommodation, changed the way the females with him work and made his bodyguard behave in a more realistic way

Created an addAction for the empty and damaged armour in each base that will now enable the player to re-arm them.

changed the mines so that: they can only be placed if you have an appropriate item in your inventory and that item is removed from inventory when you place the mine.  I am indebted to macguba for his code to do this.  I incorporated his ideas into my scripts, the need to ‘re-arm' the player is something I would never have spotted.

prevent a mine being placed when the player is in a vehicle

provided a disable mine action.

gave each side a flag, put a flag at each base, each field camp and on the lead vehicle of all vehicle groups.

removed most of the dead vehicles and wrecks from around La Trinite

reduced the civi groups from three to two and re-written the method by which the player finds out about each of them and interacts with them, there are now proper cut scenes at each of the civi locations.  Also, any one death of a civilian will now result in a red cross - even if it occurs after you have got them to safety at the lodge mac!.

killing Andropov and Stamenov are now separate objectives, distinct from destroying each side's army.

The sequence of the objectives in now more logical.

removed the hints.

removed the infinite save games.  The player now starts with a set number and then gets an additional one every 45 minutes or so.

compressed the two scenes at the mountain lodge into one.

fixed the bug that sent a base on alert even if a loon was killed by being run over by one of his own trucks.

changed the convoy and patrol monitoring code so that damage from simple collisions will not prevent them from working.  I believe this might have been the cause for several of the stuck southron convoys detected at La Trinite (I have run a few soak tests and did observe this happening), it certainly was the cause of some of the abandoned, but only slightly damaged, jeeps some of you found.  I believe it is also the reason that SEAL84 found a jeep that had run out of fuel (another jeep in the group was damaged, the crew got out and walked, the jeep SEAL84 found slowed down to wait for them and so ran out of fuel before getting back to base - that is speculation, but I have seen it happen).  Much of this was already dealt with, but I then restructured the scripts to avoid the large savegame bug and inadvertently disabled the relevant pieces of code.

force setTerrain detail to normal to prevent weird things happening at the lodge

removed all fires except two (Vigny and the mountain lodge).

ensured no cutscene would be watched through NV goggles even if the player happens to be wearing them when it starts.

removed the NV goggles from the officer in the group that attacks you in Vigny if you hang around after the cut scene.

removed the hard to find, and surprising if you do, little groups of tents.

Made some changes to the layout of the field camps so they each look a bit different.

trashed a few more towns and left evidence around of the criminality and indiscipline of Stamenov's army.

made the initial appearance of the choppers more realistic.

lost the two mad women that run up and down the island.  They may yet come back if the mission can bear the load of the extra units and the extra triggers etc. needed to make them interact with the player.

changed the markers used on the map.

changed the waypoints for the attack on the southron base by the northrons to reduce the likelihood of it getting stuck on the way.

very slightly reduced the strength of the northron group that attacks the southron base.  What was 1xAbrams, 2xT80 and 1xVulcan is now 1xAbrams, 1xT80, 1xT72 and 1xVulcan.

a lot of invisible stuff to streamline the code - fewer scripts and fewer variables to help move the mission away from the large savegame bug.

and of course I have updated the list of Beta testers!!

I think that is all but there may be other changes I have already made that I have forgotten to mention.


Still to do:
Re-look at the weather pattern.  Reducing the maximum intensity of the fog is easy.  The thing I am giving thought to is the pattern of change.  Some of you completed the mission in about 6 hours some took about 4x that amount of time.  I want a pattern that works for both extremes, and I already think the weather changes too quickly.  Also the way it currently works is that early in the mission both fog and overcast are low at the same time, giving a clear day.  As the mission progresses the fog and overcast get out of phase so the weather is never so good again (well obviously if left long enough they get back into phase eventually).  I think I will aim to have the first really good weather occur at about 13:00 to 15:00.

Change the ‘end game' logic so that waiting for the last loon is less of a problem.

Rework the ‘offshore island' part of the intro.

Re do the end cut scene - at least one of the locations shown no longer exists in the mission.

more customising of the field camps.

add a photograph of uncle Nikolay to the briefing to help the player identify him.

Re do all the voices and get the scenes working smoothly.  Hah - so easily said!!

getting it all polished - despite all the improvements above the current version is even less polished than the one posted!  It looks like it has gone backwards, but the fundamentals are better.

add more eye candy to the map once everything else is working.

re-read the whole thread again to see if I have missed anything

Still thinking about:
having a radio/tape player in the cab of some vehicles

having weather forecasts

adding one or more additional missionettes. like rescuing someone from a camp.

removing the empty, damaged armour units from each base.  Most of you picked up and got working, damaged
armour units that had been left around after the north/south battles.

having some soldiers remain at the field camps when the others go off to join the battle(s).

bringing back the mad women runners.

Indicating on the map the areas controlled by each side.  Without using the markers addon everything I have tried so far looks crap and/or puts the SW group of civilians into Stamenvo's area and/or puts Vigny into no-mans-land and/or uses a lot of markers, which means a lot of names which means the large savegame bug.  Given the choice I would rather use the names for the mines than for the markers.

forcing a specific view distance in the intro.

having an outro that shows the fate of any surviving soldiers.


If you have made any suggestions I have not covered then blame my failing memory.  When I think I am done I will re-read the whole thread again to see if I have missed anything.

Once again.  Thank you all I really do appreciate all the help.

[macguba]

I think you have done beta testers justice in responding to their comments.   Anyway, the best way to make beta testers feel good is to incorporate their suggestions in the next version. ;D

Sound files leave till the very end.   You can find yourself redoing the same cutscene several times.   It's a work in progress, we don't expect polish.

The list of changes made is excellent.   It's a much better mission already.

To do list.   I suggest linking the weather to the player's progress in the mission.    Objectives completed, player's score and so on.    This will mean you don't have to guess at what time to make the weather good.     The other to do things are all excellent ideas.

On the thinking about list obviously it would be great if the mad women came back, but that is of course resource dependant.    Having some loons stay at camps when the others go off is a good idea, but I appreciate it increases the number of groups.     You should definitely make it happen in at least a couple of places, to put doubt into the players mind and also reward him for taking the time to approach everywhere tactically.  

[THobson]

macguba:

Thanks, and thanks also for so many good ideas earlier on.

One thing that is on my 'To think about' list that I forgot to mention was your suggestion to provide the player with the option of re-ordering the team so that all the civis are on the outside.