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Author Topic: Campaign idea and AI tactics for a mission: help much appreciated...  (Read 1437 times)

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Ade

  • Guest
How's it going, all?

In between gardening, travelling for work and assembling Ikea stuff for the Mrs, I've come up with a rather nice campaign idea.  The story is that after the 1985 crisis, the Malden Islands are unified under a democratic government.  Everything is OK for a while but then the government starts to reduce the armed forces, who stage a coup.  The prologue to the campaign has the player joining the Malden Marines (represented by the Taiga camouflage MVD addon, cos I like their berets) who are still loyal to the government.

Mission 1 is a cutscene that I've finished, that sets up the story.

Mission 2 is about 60% done.  It starts on Everon.  The last few marines are holed up in Lamentin with some civvy refugees, waiting for boats to get them out.  Your patrol was sent to find one that went missing.  The missing patrol turns up dead and you are ordered to take their APC (a BTR 80 from the VITAPC addon) back to Lamentin, pausing to raid a camp in Le Moule for some RPGs).  Up to here the mission works pretty well.  I used General Barron's AI script and this makes the several patrols and the guards at the camp co-ordinate well enough for it to be quite a challenge.

The second part of the mission starts when you get back to Lamentin.  You must hold off enemy tanks and troops long enough to allow the civvies, your comrades and finally, yourself to escape.  Here is where it is much tougher to make the mission seem convincing.  The player is supposed to keep to the south-west corner of the map and I've put in some triggers to tell him/her off should they stray.  So any attack needs to come from north or north-east of Lamentin to make sense.  The current version has two lorry-loads of troops and three T-72s with waypoints synched to a trigger on top of Lamenin.  When the player arrives, the troops and tanks rumble up the hill and attack.  This is OK as it goes but is far too easy and I would like to know how best to stage this sort of attack - I don't want to end up using weight of numbers because the mission will be laggy on top of all those AI scripts.  How can I best position the attack forces so that they will not be seen early by the player or AI allies, yet will not take too long to arrive?  And what sort of tactics would a soviet-stylee army use to flush some infantry and LAV's out of a village?

As for the story, after this mission, the action will move to present day Nogova, where the newly-rich Nogovians have struck oil.  A US and a British official are chatting - the Brit is explaining that NATO forces have been in Nogova for a while to protect against the armed forces of Malden, which has now gone a bit North Korea and armed itself to the teeth.  The Brit goes on to say that because Malden hasn't actually done anything *really* bad yet, the NATO allies are muttering about withdrawing troops.  The American replies that something should happen soon to convince NATO that they really are needed.  Shortly after this, a massive bomb devastates Nogova's biggest oil refinery.  Cue the player, leader of a crack Nogovian counter-insurgency team.  The next mission involves chasing the bombers - and then a trail of evidence emerges, linking them to a shadowy US agency.  Is everything what it seems?  Can war be averted?  Will England ever win a penalty shoot out?

If you like the sound of that, let me know.

Ta,

Ade  :D

AnarCHy

  • Guest
Quote
This is OK as it goes but is far too easy and I would like to know how best to stage this sort of attack - I don't want to end up using weight of numbers because the mission will be laggy on top of all those AI scripts.

Well, I did not really get a sense of what you were saying but here goes...

If you have an attack (such as just tanks + infantry) you need to either span it out so that when you are busy with the north you will find yourself stuck between what would seem like two different attacks.  So you would have let's say a tank and a load of inf come up over the hill(right?) and then when you are about 1/2 or 2/3 way done with that have the remaining two tanks come up around with 2(?) more loads of infantry and you would find yourself in a crossfire.  Makes it a lot harder to concentrate on one part of the fight and if you stand up your dead.
This would, however, require you time it precisely and accurately with just the right amount of time between the north attack and the north-east or you will have a very predictable battle.
If you want to have a larger battle that is about along these lines you could use camCreate, to create units as they are needed (much less lag).
Helped?
You also might want to put the "east's" skill up a bit

Ade

  • Guest
Sounds cool:  Sorry if my post was too long and didn't make sense!  :P Your answer is very useful and just what I was looking for.    I can camCreate the two attack groups somewhere out of sight and use trial and error to synchronise the two attacks - I guess if they arrive a bit early or late, this will be realistic, because forces on a real battlefield would never co-ordinate perfectly.

I think I'm beginning to get the hang of this...

 :)

Ade

BronzeEagle

  • Guest
I'd use the CSLA mod so things like a counter attack seam plausible.  They actually have a radio man in the squad.  

AnarCHy

  • Guest
Is this just an idea for a campaign?  Or did it mutate into a project?

If it is a project delete this thread, start a new one discussing it, and put information into the recruitment depot.

I would like to hepl with the campaign.  (im an all-around mission maker)

Anyways it sounds like it is fun already! :)

Ade

  • Guest
I have two clear mission ideas, and the beginning and middle of a campaign story.

I have begun building the first mission need some advice on mission tactics for AI, but I would be very happy if anyone wanted to join me:  it sounds like I should move the thread.

I'm not very experienced on the forums so I'm happy to take direction where to put a thread from a moderator or member.

Cheers!   :)

Ade

Dubieman

  • Guest
Talk abot your ideas here. But you can put a query into the recruitment depot and make it like a mission editor to work with you on a campaign.

By the way I like your idea. Its a better then any counter terrorism/war thign I've ever heard. Good luck. ;)

Ade

  • Guest
All,

Thanks for the encouragement :D - I hope that I can do the idea justice.  Nothing worse now than if I mess it up with some shoddy missions  ;)

Need to have a quick think about how to pull it off (and the Mrs wants the internet).

Cheers,

Adrian