(Review Completed) [SP] Abandoned Armies

[Mikero]

Backing up MaGuba, he's 100% right and Gung Ho doesn't work. Not that you did, but you'll have sediment around your gameplay which makes you think you should. Attacking a town and 'winning' isn't the objective. Attacking a town and surviving is. As in run like hell.

You don't say so directly, so I can 110% assure you that:

there are no respawns. troops dont just magically appear

there are no cheats (enemy homing in on you just coz you're there). tanks eg just happened to be on random patrol at let's say, and 'inconvenient' moment.

One wonderful aspect of this mission is, if you make a lot of noise, what would you expect to happen? (and attacking anything makes a lot of noise)

Your current lack of weaponry, while intentional design, is in fact your own fault. You rushed it trying to get game over rather than get into it. Hint, start at Vigny again, and take your time. Explore, explore, explore. Take the loons on, only on your terms or run like hell. That's the other marvellous aspect of this mission. the loons are savage, but, they wont hunt you to extinction.

@SpikeTennyson

THobsons mission (he is a long-time friend of mine

with this mission of his, he's no friend of ours!

[THobson]

Come on guys this is a mate of mine.  Way back in the mid 80's he and I were racing each other to finish a game called Omega.  For those of you too young to remember this was a game where you….

…wrote an ai program to control a tank and then let it loose on a battlefield against a computer controlled tank.  If your creation survived you got to the next level.  I can't remember who won.  It doesn't matter now but it did then (I remember the midnight phone calls telling me that the next level had been reached - and it wasn't by me!).  He has come back to Flashpoint because of conversations like:

So what are you doing now?:
Rise of Nations                  Flashpoint
Rome Total War                Flashpoint
Silent Hunter 3                  Flashpoint
Windsurfing                       Flashpoint
etc.                                 Flashpoint
etc. etc.                           Flashpoint
What's with this Flashpoint - I finished it years ago?  Err.. well actually I made a mission.  Yes I know I saw your missions years ago - err… naff.  
I think this might be different  - okay prove it.

So he downloaded it and can't get it to work.
I told him if he posted his problem here he would get some help so don't let me down.  He is getting an editor102 blah blah not found error. despite putting the editor upgrade in the addons folder and having a clean (no other addons) installation.

I am at a loss.

SpikeTennyson?? I'll have to think about that name.  Your inventiveness puts me to shame - just look at mine!!  The best I can do is have 42 save games - and even that is in the next version.

Bored_Onion:
I cannot say it better than macguba and Mikero, and I cannot say how pleased I was by what they said, it was exactly how I hoped people feel about it..  

The key is not to think about all the missions you have played before.  Instead think about what you would do if you were young and inexperienced but leading a group of keen but novice men (and woman) who are determined  but are up against two enormous armies.  macguba and mikero's comments really say it all - you run like hell…  

…Until you are strong enough not to.  

To help pace yourself:  I usually complete the mission a bit before midnight -  game time.  Some manage to finish before sunset.  At least one person has posted battle reports for day two!!

Take your time.  The objective for a lot of the time is simply to survive.

Best of luck.  

Mikero:

THobsons mission (he is a long-time friend of mine


with this mission of his, he's no friend of ours!

Gee it's great to be appreciated!

[Pilot]

@SpikeTennyson
I will try to help, I will give you step by step instructions.  Some of the steps you may already know, and then again you may not.  Just follow each step as I outline them:
1. Check your Addons folder, there should be a file called either editorupdate102.pbo or editorupgrade102.pbo.  If there is, delete it and go to step 2, if there isn't, go to step 2.
2. Now check Res\Addons, if the either of the two files listed above are there, delete them
3. Now, download General Barron's Editor Update
4. Unzip the file, there should be two files in the newely created folder, they are: GENB_EU_readme.txt and editorupdate102.pbo
5. Copy editorupdate102.pbo to your addons folder.  Only copy it to the addons folder, do not copy it to the Res\Addons folder.
6. The editor update should now be installed.  Load up OFP, play THobson's mission, and have a lot of fun.  His mission is the best I've played so far, and I still haven't finished it (yeah, yeah, yeah )

-Student Pilot

EDIT:
In case you are wondering, there are two editorupdates available and one editorupgrade.  They all do the same thing, but they are not compatible with each other.  I'm having you delete any existing file in case you downloaded and installed the wrong update.  General Barron's update is the most current (well, almost) and I believe it is now the most widely used as well as being backwards compatible with the other updates.

[SpikeTennyson]

Cheetah
I attached a 56k screenshot to my post, appears not to have worked; so yes you were missing something! Sorry.
Student Pilot
Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I have downloaded the Barron's editor update as THobson described in his introduction.  The problem seems to be that I have nowhere to put it!! I have an Addons folder under the Res directory (which does not contain an editorupdate file), but I do not have any other Addons folders. I even tried adding one within the OFP directory but that did not help!
I have a feeling that there is something I should have installed; but I do not know what!
With Cold War Crisis, Resistance and the 1.96 patch installed, my sub-directories are BIN, Campaigns, DTA, Missions, MPmissions, RES, SPTemplates, Templates and Worlds. Other than in RES, there is no Addons folder in which I can stick the editor update file.
Any advice gratefully received!

Thobson
I regret that my memory informs me that you won Omega!

[SpikeTennyson]

Update!
I re-installed everything and then, in the absence of an "Addons" folder, created one and added the designated editor update. Now it works!
Thanks for all the help and I look forward to contributing to the testing process.

[Pilot]

@SpikeTennyson
That's wierd, what version of CWC did you have?  Did you update to 1.46 before installing resistance?  I recall there was an early version of OFP that didn't have an addons folder, but that was fixed back in 1.2 or 1.3.

Anyway, I'm glad it worked, have a blast!

-Student Pilot

[bored_onion]

thanks for the advice. i particularly enjoyed macguba's "swear and try again tactic." well @#*"! me i am gonna try again. will report back later i hope.

[SpikeTennyson]

@Student Pilot
It was an install from the original Cold War Crisis disc, followed by an install of the original Resistance disc, followed by the 1.96 update patch. Perhaps it was one of the intermediate patches that installed the Addons directory.

Anyway, all sorted now so I can enjoy THobson's fiendish creation!

[bored_onion]

Crack Number 2

OK so I decided to play again for a bit to see if i could do any better this time. Reloaded in Larche and decided to have another couple of cracks at it. We do some shooting of guys and after some retries I end up crawling towards the town with the corpses of my 2 friends behind me. Not sure if scavenging a few weapons is worth a couple of my mates but curiousity draws me in. head in and start filling up a truck with bits and bobs and grab myself an RPG. can't seem to put this in the truck though. maybe im being dumb. anyways i hop in as things start to hot up and floor it out of the town. turns out this entire squad has wandered out of the town to where i was doing some poaching earlier so i run over a couple of them and give it some welly towards the lodge. only a bit of fire for a while but i do get injured and then a really friendly AT fella blew me up. scratch Larche for now, says I.

decide that I need some more men so I head up back to the lodge with my two guys and put 7 & 8 in my truck. i figure now that we are band of merry men my fellow AI dudes will be able to see through the rain just as well as the enemy. we set off for Arudy to see if a smaller village is any easier. we arrive and disembark down the road. throw a grenade amongst the tents and the guys start going ballistic. loons running to left and the right with some rifle grenades swinging about. keep getting nailed through the fog by these guys on a hill which i didnt even know existed. i spent about 8 retries coming in from various directions but each time we get mown down or grenaded (and of course ECP grenades make it harder for me to shoot). average life span after the first shot is fired: less than 15 seconds. however, the good news is that no armour has appeared (although i havent really managed to stay alive long enough yet). i will probably have another go at Arudy before i finally go somewhere else. beginning to think im just not up to this - i can't even complete my own campaign most days. nevertheless, those soldiers sure havent seen the last of me yet.

[macguba]

You're making too much noise.   You gotta play these early stages smart and quiet.  If you really had never fired an M16 before, and had two or three people you didn't know helping you, how would you attack Arudy?     I would leave the wagon a long way off, sneak up on my belly, hide in the E-W bushline south of the village and the tents and watch for a bit before shooting anybody.     You don't want anybody to detect you, not even if their death warrant is already zinging through the air.

I've just had a go at it straight from Vigny and cleared the place at the third attempt.  Only two bursts were fired at me: each one was fatal obviously.     The first time it was because I was cocky, stupid and lazy.  The second time I poked my head out of a bush and there were four of the bastards right in front of me.    ;D    

It varies each time, obviously, but there were ten bodies.  I fired 47 rounds of M16 ammo.   A good ratio but under the circumstances I don't shoot unless I'm going to hit.   If I'd had a grenade I'd have left it on my webbing.   At one stage I took the pistol back out although in the end I never used it.

I write this in such detail in the hope of providing encouragement and possible tips.    When making the Un-Impossible Mission I made detailed investigations of how good I was compared to the AI and other humans and I'm OK, but not a strong player.


@THobson - I keep forgetting to mention the clipping of the Vigny loon in the corner as you go in.   I always spot  him because his weapon is sticking through the wall.  Move him back a fraction:  you attempt to make him catch you by surprise fails because the clipping lets you down.    The bastards who shot Tatyana paused to laugh over her body which I haven't seen before and was a nice touch.

[THobson]

bored_onion:

Don't loose heart.  As mac suggests - think about what you would really do in a situation like that.  You would not expect to capture towns - not at first anyway, you would expect to kill a few soldiers and then try to run away before any other turn up.  If you manage to steal a few weapons and a bit of ammo in the meantime then that is a bonus.  Also I think someone in that situation might explore the island a bit.  Was there anything mentioned in the cutscenes that you are curious about?

When I play this mission during the early part of the fighting I cover huge distances on my stomach.  I also try to get everyone equipped with Bizons as soon as possible, we sneak around a lot and only attack when we can really cut them to pieces quickly.  I know we are in trouble if I get any return fire.  But as I believe I mentioned I don't usually finish until about 23:00 so I am not the quickest player.  In this mission slower is easier.

macguba:  Thanks - I must have spent months in Vigny and didn't notice the clipping - I was always focussing on other things.  Glad you like the laugh.  If you can actually see it, the guy kneels down to inspect her and then laughs.  Nasty bastard.

[XCess]

I'm back from my travels... I'll carry on testing in a day or two.

[THobson]

Welcome back.  I plan to up-load the next, and hopefully final, version tomorrow evening.  So if you are continuing from where you were that is fine.  If you will be restarting you might want to wait 24 hours or so.

[XCess]

i'l wait til next version if it dont take too long. I gotta sort out the comp anyways.

[Lean Bear]

@ bored_onion

Although it may sound boring - I find the best way to start is to play the wating game. Especially on my comp, its a lot less taxing for both myself and my machine after the sun breaks the sky, the fog begins to clear and the lag is less noticable

That's when I start going about my bussiness cause its so much easier to spot the enemy.

@ THobson

Remember that bug I was having where the guys in my squad would, for no reason, face the wrong way when not moving? Well, I noticed a couple of other things about it:

• When I give an order to face a particular direction, they don't respond at all.
• It seems to mainly happen when a chopper flies nearby or overhead (or maybe just when its behind me). I freakish coincidence? Perhaps.
• Its like they target the chopper (maybe just to check it out - I doubt to shoot at it ) and then get stuck like that.

On another note. Have you concidered making an addon for your mission. Just to store all the sound files and music etc. that won't change. I just thought it might help out some of us less cable-available people to playing the latest versions of your mission?