(Review Completed) [SP] Guerilla

[gambla]

Hi,
finally got a beta for you guys ! 
I just finished my extensive testing and now your beta-testing is appreciated !
Please get the mission at:

http://www.gambla.de/guerilla.zip


REQUIRED AddOns :

editorupdate102   (05.02.04)   included !
BAS DeRa v1.55   (07.05.04)     @ http://www.gotf.net/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=26&func=fileinfo&id=7
JAM2                (04.10.03)      @ http://www.gotf.net/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=26&func=fileinfo&id=30


Please report me any bugs and feel free to give me your personal thoughts and suggestions
to improve it. Your corrections for a good and realistic English is also appreciated.
A little intro is in progress too.

Your role is a Ranger-Teamleader with the task to rescue 5 hostages from an enemy-base.
Sounds simple for you Veterans, doesn't it ?

Thank you in advance.

regards,
gambla

P.S.: If you like it, please see my other missions at ofpec.com when mission-database is back up and running (?)...


Edit: This mission has been reviewed and is available, with required addons, from the Missions Depot.

[bardosy]

Hi, you read my comment on official bistudio forum? Great! I downloaded your mission and I'll try it at home... But I'm not a Veteran...

[Cheetah]

Your corrections for a good and realistic English is also appreciated.
A little intro is in progress too.

Make a zip file with briefing, overview and stringtable (if you use this one) and attach it to a post in the recruitment depot. Ask if someone wants to correct it.

Downloaded the addons and installing them right now. Will try your mission later this day or tomorrow.

[bardosy]

I can't finish the mission yesterday, but I post here some comment:


1., No intro. If you have time, pls make intro/ourto. You mission could be much better with these.

2., Briefing. Good briefing, but:
2.a, Please insert more links in the briefing and detailed information to the map.
2.b, Not too clear (for me) the objectives with armors... I don't understand what is my primary objective: rescue the hostiges or destroy the armors.

Mission:
3., I start enclose to the obj1 and 2. In your mission are very long distances between objectives! I use timespeed, but regular players will bore while they runing in the countryside.
4., I decide I start the clear with obj 2. And when I destroyed the armours teher, I will liberate the hostiges. So I sneak to the base 2 (very good script! If I use SD weapon --> no alarm, if noicy weapon --> alarm). I clear the base and capture one of T-55 and destroy the other. One T-72 was comeing with a few BMP. I abandon the T-55 and they destroy it. We hurt the T-72 and destroy some BMP. Then we running to the base 1 for the hostiges. Fight in night. Lot of T-72. We have no more AP rocket. But we sneak into the base and kill all enemy personel.
5., Msg come: "No hostages in base anymore..." Damn! Is it the story or it's an alternate way? Can I save the hostiges or not?
6., We will run to the abandoned base for Mi-17. But I disunderstand the order and I forgot to get fuel and repair truck from base 2. Now I stoped here. Today's evening, I try to get back to fueltruck.

But please tell me: If I could start again, I can free the hostiges? Or is it impossible?

And one more advice: insert infantry patrol to the countryside. I walking a lot in your mission between objectives and I meet nobody. And I think they have a little bit too much armor (for me). But it's OK.

[Cheetah]

Guerilla

Addons
Had no problem with finding the addons or getting the mission to work properly so you did a good job.

Package
You could include some pictures in the package, for advertising purposes. It's always nice to get a sneak preview of the mission.

The readme is fine.

Overview
I'd use less capitals to make it look better. The picture with border is good, you might want to center the small amount of text you have.

Intro
None, I'm sure you can put together an intro for this mission. It's a mission where we have to rescue hostages, how do they get there? You can show this to us in the intro, you can show us some of the terrain. There's enough you can do in an intro, so I strongly advise that you make an intro.
I always like watching them.

Briefing
I'll start with the notes section, it's pretty good, you get some information on the enemy forces. Don't know if it's already in the Plan section. Group section is empty, which means that we're in a vehicle, to prevent this, move us into the vehicle when the mission starts and cover it with a black screen or small in-mission-intro.

Good that all of the objectives are on the first page. It makes a briefing much better in my opinion as you can oversee things without having to go to the second page. As bardosy suggested, you should add more links to markers, I'd say that every objective needs at least one. And in the mission details there should be more to make it easier for the player to go to all of the markers.

The detailed orders are well thought of and make the briefing better. What I missed was a paragraph about the supplies.
Onto the gear selection then. I remove all pistols and the binocular from the sniper. I give #4,5,6 AT weapons aswell as myself, we all get the M136 AT launcher with three rockets. The rest as per default, so M4A1 SOPMODs.

Ready to kick some ass right now.
Oh, one thing, I don't like the fifteen or so dots in the briefing.
Hmm, another thing, you didn't tell me if the hostages will be shot if I don't get to them in time, I'd like to know this.

Mission
I see that I have two radio commands at my disposal, you want to tell the player more about them. Like "if you use the extraction radio call you will be picked up 'here' by a PBR covered by two cobras. They take approx. five minutes to get to the beach...blablabla" The same for the second radio option as I can only guess now (pretty accurate  guess though) what they will do.

When we hit the beach you want to unload all of my teammates for me and I notice only now that a savegame option could be handy. Assuming that this mission could take a while if you want me to hit and run over and over again.

I try to get to the light in the west for about 20 seconds, but then start to move parallel to the coast to get to the first base. Using my binocular to scout after each 100 m. My team is in a line, on hold fire and engage.
Ahh good, there's (a) savepoint(s) in the mission.
A civil is moving on the road towards the northeast, I don't plan on taking it out as I don't want to give away my position to the enemy. You never know what intelligent AI scripts the mission maker is using.

I see a ship, enemy ship, lucky for me I'm moving parallel with the coast, but 200 m of shore. If I move west I will get into the forest east of the first base. That looks like a safe place to launch my attack(s) from. Hmm, now that I remember the base, I know that it's better to attack from the north as you get an uphill position. What I'm going to do is: get myself to the north of the base after setting up a defensive line on the eastern side. I will lure the enemy towards the east, where my teammates will kill the enemy when they run down the hill towards the east.

Okay, reached the forest towards the northeast of the base. Going to set up a defense now. Save the game before I do so. I order my squad to move towards the eastern side of the base while I wait to move out to the north. An enemy sniper is located as my team moves off towads their destination. Lose two guys, the enemy sniper is using his pistol? But he gets killed. Don't want this so load the game, the alarm goes off to early. Lucky me saved the game just before this .

Now moving with my team towards the north of the base. Planning a stealthy approach and attack. Spot a BMP, spot the hostages and a few crew members. Still 300 metres away from the base, going to move in closer. Now 150 metres, and there's a small patrol moving in front of me, 100 metres in front of me. Trying now to take them out, only if it's absolutely necessary. It's a two men patrol, not really worth attacking them already, I don't want to sound the alarm.

I wait for them to pass and crawl closer to the base with my team. Spot a BMP, T72 and about 15 units until now. The tank and BMP can be destroyed without harming the hostages. So I'll order #4,5,6 on the tanks while #2,3 are with my with killing the infantry guys. Now about 75 m away from the base, I'm in a pretty good shooting position. We all are.
Going to attack.

Moved a bit closer to get a better view on the other end of the base and spotted another T72. Will take it out myself then. Now I'm really going to attack. I try to attack from this position, which is pretty close but my teammates won't help me shoot even though I checked all of the targets. Damn had to do much of the killing all alone and got shot. Retry.

Trying this again, fire an AT missile at the camp where there's a lot of soldiers standing together. Manage to kill a lot of them. My teammates start to help me as I approach the camp, they give pretty good covering fire this time. After about 20 seconds it's all quiet. No gunshots, no tanks driving. This is how it should be, fast and clean. Only one casualty, #3 is down, my sniper.
I get myself into the base with covering fire of my squad. There were a few enemies remaining in the base it seems .
My squad reports T55s and I head back to my squad while ordering them to get to me and hold fire. No-one dies during this, but this is also true for the enemy forces. We move towards the west end of the base, where the large storage bunkers are and my teammates report a BMP and two T55s. We get into the base and I get into the T72 and manouver it into position. I annihilate the enemy tanks and BMP. After this I let my team wait near the T72 while I eliminate the threats in the base that are still there. There's a lot of soldiers in the base that are half in a building, quite hard to eliminate them. I think that I managed to kill all of the soldiers present in the base. But it's probably a last loon type objective, which means that I'll have to hunt for the last loon. First, I want to repair the tanks and use these to advance to the enemy. Trying to repair a T72 and a T55.

Damn helicopter is approaching, get into the BMP to try and blast it to pieces. Don't find it really save to move out when he's there to destroy me. Got the hind with my first HEAT shot, saved a T72 with two of my men by doing this. I'll let them wait while I try to clear the next base on my own. I'll take the T55 if I can repair it.

I get myself a RPG from the crates and move towards the T55 while my teammates handle any attacking forces. I take the repair truck with me. I repair the T55 and drive it to the base, my teammates start shooting at me so I have to get out. I'll take the BMP with me instead, it isn't registered as an enemy.
All of my teammates are wounded so I heal them, I repair the two T72s too. It's good that I can heal people two, with two medics everyone can be healed. Nice.

I'm about to leave the base with two T72s and a BMP and move towards the second base, but I'll continue later this day. Probably this evening.

[gambla]

Hi bardosy,
thanks for your testing.     Here my comments:

1) intro is work in progress, but only a little one

2a) when it makes sense, i will add more links, shouldn't be overloaded with too many

2b) main objective are the hostages, should be clear in the briefing, if you read the details
    - to destroy the armor is optional, but for realism, you need to destroy at least some of them to have a chance
      with your few men 

3) you're right, gonna change this

4) your way is a bit of kamikaze but ...that's the freedom of movement in OFP...

5) attention, that's called "spoiler" isn't it ? - sure you can save them, wait for Pape-Bear's instructions
   (btw:  you find the first hint in the briefing that they don't know how long the hostages are held at this base)

6) that's clearly stated in the new objective's details, and regarding the chopper, if at all, it's a tiny bit of
  realism ...

7) will add more patrols...

Sure you can save the hostages, that's the mission is all about, but it's no cake-walk/child's play... 
(i didn't want a kind of "open the door, get the hostages out, close the door and ride into the sunset" 


thank you and keep on testing ! 

regards

[Cheetah]

Okay, I'll resume the mission and can play it for 10-15 minutes now.

I move west in vee formation towards the 2nd base. My teammates reports a few soldiers and a jeep and take care of them while I take care of a two men patrol near the base. I move into the base and kill a sniper, who was trying to get his pistol to kill me. There's a fuel / repair truck here. Good job on this as there can happen accidents where you lose a truck to a tree or something. By adding these trucks you can assure that the player will have at least an unharmed truck to repair and refuel the chopper.

Going to move in wedge formation right now, to divert most of the fire to the T72s. Proceeding towards the abandoned base  right now.

Was suspecting enemy forces in the destroyed town along the road and watched everything carefully. Bang, an alarm sounded and I got into the gunner position. Could eliminate the enemy AT soldiers in time.
Got a retry position as I moved along the road.
There's noone in the enemy base so I order my two T72s to wait there and get one driver in my tank. We're going to driev back to the 2nd base to get the trucks.

Approached the choppers with my trucks and a savepoint kicked in. Going to refuel and repair a chopper right now.
The repair/refuel objective ticked off when I repaired the helicopter, hadn't refueled it. You might want to fix this. I miss links to markers of the two islands in the details of this objective.

The objectives of clear the 1st base and destroy all of the armour in the bases haven't been completed. Haven't seen any armour for 15 minutes or so. What I think is the problem is that I'm driving in the tanks that I had to destroy. As I read it's only an optional objective (you want to include the word optional in the objective itself) so I won't destroy them. Don't even have the resources to do this and I might have to use them later on. Might blow them with a few satchels I saw in the second base. Will do this later, towards the end. I can use the helicopter to transport me then.

I move all of my men into the cargo of the helicopter I prepared. Now that I think of, you'd better let the game save after the player has refueled and repaired the helicopter. That way he doesn't have to do that again if he gets himself killed.
There's no markers at the two islands north of Kolgujev, I'd at least include a question mark at each island.
About to take off, remembered that it enemy AA strength was unknown. Hmm, well I'll find out soon I guess.

Now that I think of it, wouldn't it be strange to have two choppers completely unguarded at a base?

After a few minutes in the air I approached the first island. A bug is that once I fly over the island all of the hostages join my group. You might want to check that they join me only when I'm not in the helicopter. I land and get all of my teammates out while I get the hostages in. We eliminate the threat outside the castle and I order everyone in the cargo of the helicopter, while covering the retreat myself.

I flew away as fast as I could to keep the Hind from attacking me. He didn't even come close to me. Now near the 2nd base to get some satchels. Damn, there were these satchels at the 1st base, hmm not in the mood to get these to blow the tanks. Don't even know if it would work. Getting towards the extraction zone now. Order the extraction now, because it will take about five minutes to get the boat at the site.
A retry kicks in before I even want to order the extraction. Land at the harbour and we get in the boat. I radio to get us out of here. Oh yeah, we're extraction. The mission ends, and yes had time to complete the mission.

Debriefing
1h30min, 10260 (one star), the mission is a total success.
Objectives:
(six total), 1st done, #2,3 not ticked off, #4,5,6 done.

Didn't destroy all of the armour and didn't take out everyone in the first base.
Hope this was useful to you. And yes I know that I did this mission in an unorthodox way, but OFP leaves things open huh .

[gambla]

@Cheetah

Thanks for testing.    And any way you get the people home is ok !

try to sum up your points:

1) "The repair/refuel objective ticked off": is correct, ticks off when you are at the chopper

2) markers for the islands: will add them

3) "destroy armor" objective: will change it as optional

4) "choppers unguarded": base is abandoned, so both choppers are set to nearly unuseable + no weapons/fuel,
   as well as you need to get fuel from somewhere - i would like to have the chopper as "must repair" but OFP lets
    you even fly it in any condition except "blown up" 

5) "hostages join group when flying over": don't know how to change this, but i think it's ok, as you can
    just land and let them get in - more realistic is to land the chopper behind the castle and take care of
    the enemys first

6) "hind didn't come close": thats ok, the hind only ensures that you don't take some days off on this beautiful
      island   - but later, it could unload some bad guys either...... 

!!  known problem "last loon": always a problem, especially when you attack and guys on roofs or towers fall into
    any house and are invisible to the player - afaik there's no real solution, the player may be tasked to blow up
    the few houses in the base with satchels to be found there    


again, thank you for testing my mission, hope you had some fun too !

[bardosy]

@gambla: sorry mate, yesterday my wife occupied the PC for an adventure game. OFP has no chance.

@cheetah: "choppers unguarded" In my country (Hungary) in the communism it was a usual view abandoned fighting vehicles. The russians are strange people, but they love the children and they think it's a good idea to transport out-of-work fighting vehicles to the playgrounds. When I was kid I played with abandoned Mig-21s. But - of course - there is no mechanic who could fix these wrancks. It's only possible in OFP.

[gambla]

@bardosy: strange, very strange, my PC doesn't run any .exe's anymore, except addon's for flashpoint... 

Hey, i think i can be pleased, so far, so good, no bugs were reported and the mission can be finished in different ways. But sure
i don't stop working on it until it's perfect.... 

I'm gonna wait some more days, maybe some guys are still currently testing...

[bardosy]

gambla, if you fix/modify what we said, please put the newer version to public. And we can test again... findig other bugs.

[gambla]

will do that when i'm back from a trip with my family till monday...
have a nice weekend 

[Mikero]

OFP1.96 cadetmode, bench 5685, no super ai

Packaging:

Great. Readme was fine. You do need a picture in there for site-advertising, wherever it's hosted.

Inclusion of small addons, such as editor102 is professional.

You might choose to replace it with Mikero's editor103 *solely* because ed103 contains foreign languages as well.

Overview:

Just fine.

Briefing:

A lot of work went in here. Only dissapointment was the lack of group information. I do like to see what you've given me, grunt wise.

Gear selection: Excellent. Nothing over the top.

Map: Very good. Totally non noisy. Considering the island wide mission, the whole thing was at-a-glance.

Notes: good, thematic, topical, relevent and brief!

Mission:

Well I just loved this.

It's a keeper for me. Few missions make that grade on my computer.

The time choice was perfect. Enemy, and us, were stumbling in the dark. Great.

Bas modelling reduces the intelligence of the ai (both friendly and enemy). The engine's working too hard elsewhere for the grunts to be smart. But, the time choice made up for it. It looked and felt realistic that no-one knew what they were doing.

The boat ride was excellent. It's that period of adjustment thing. The situaltional awareness stuff. You gave me time to look at my squad, check the map, and just generally get organised, 'aware'.

I initially didn't like the hint message about objective 1 complete. Thought that was thouroughly cheesy. However, as I got into this very complex, very difficult, mission, I appreciated being told I was doing something right! In that regard, you've got the all-essential feedback to player, just right (including, and especially, retries). Well done.

One problem you have is that you haven't accounted for player sneakiness. Anyone who's played ofp will NOT follow the train tracks. We just wont. And if you insist, we wont play the mission. Period.

So, I went direct overland to the 1st base, and it was boring. No encounters. I realised afterwards you wanted me to follow the road. It won't happen, unless you give me a reason for it to happen. So I ended up after a LONG AND BORING WALK, looking at base 1, and then a retry kicked in. That was a feedback to me, that I was, 'on track'. But you have to ambush me on the way, or, make me NOT head there directly. Or, move me closer. Of the options, and considering the wealth of movement and detail you've put on the roads, make me use the road. How, is up to you. The problem you have is, with all the 'activity' i can see down there, I'm not stupid enough to lead my squad into it.

I was completely overwhelmed / overrun / smacked and belted at the first objective. Got to the point where I didn't know where my backside was. I LOVE missions that challenge me.

Many saves and re-tries later, I managed to figure out what the hell I'd stumbled into. The rush of nasty things come from the forest, eg, the random nature of the BMP patrols, everything was what I love. CHAOS. T72's crushing me to death. aaaargh

You may not know this but that particular garrison fort is the hardest on the island to crack. It's geography makes it lethal.

Eventually got a strange radio message that it's confirmed the prisoners are not there. Sorry?, nothing's confirmed. I need to report that I can't find them. Nowhere is it suggested that they wont be there, hence confirm, is silly.

Occaisionally got a strange centred message about C2!


The timing for the abandoned base is a mess. I don't need to know anything about that until i hunt base 2. It made a large mess of the briefing as a result. I would scrap mentioning base 2 in the briefing UNTIL I discover no prisoners. Let the player think, my god, how much of this Island do I have to cover? Keep us off balance. Challenge us.


The use of ED102 objects in the bases was marvellous. Definitely best in it's class. It looked and felt like a thouroughly lived in area. You *might* have to reduce a bit, simply for the potential lag, but for me, just right.

Got sick of discovering more loons hiding in bushes and buildings. The briefing is messy. Base 1 and 2 objectives never got ticked, and importantly, never got a red cross on them either. I didnt know what I was supposed to do and got thouroughly tired of hunting loons. I had no reason to, yet thought I had to.

Base 2 presented no problems to me, relative to the hell of base 1. That is inspired mission making. A player needs to have a little ease up. A chance of lighter relief. Slugfest missions aren't fun. Battling the hordes from time to time IS fun.

Met only one small patrol going to abandoned helicopters. A little dissappointing in that regard. Shot one helicopter out, he was annoying.

3 bmp's remained around base 1 area, mincing about, but I'd tired of being there and left them alone. I would *not* have tired of them had I believed the mission wasn't buggy. The overall sense I got, which you did really really really well, was give me the impression, my god, this island is crawling with horrors.

By the time I got to abandoned choppers, the realisation of what the strategically placed repair and refuel stuff was all about. I knew anyway, but the positive re-inforecment to players of these mean something, and their persistent placement, was well done.

I wanted a fight at that base, sorry I didn't get one. I drove in with my trucks from base 2 incidentally.

Again, placement of wrecked vehicles in there, just plain excellent.

Checked the map, initial thought of no markers for the islands was an author mistake. The hell it was. This was another challenge to player. Read the briefing player (you did activate a hint to do so), TWO islands. Duh!

Another challenge, one hell of  a one, navigating north in the dark. Dissappointed my chopper had no ammo. (i know, you can't do that for strategic reasons)

Pig of a time landing on island, shot to pieces several times by enemy. What I'd prefer you to do is force me to a boat instead. Gives me a far better chance. Get me to fly, to a boat. Make the AA horrific (only needs one against an unarmed chopper) so that I cannot, fly there, but need a chopper to get a boat, sort of thing. Give me a chopper on the island, to get away quickly, and ARM IT.

Again, very messy trigger meesages around island. You've geared these zone triggers against a boat and a walk, I flew over !!!!

Enemy choppers had no effect.

Some marvellous stuff at exit point where cobras were clearly keeping the hinds away. But you did nothing to make player aware of the dog fight. Do something about that, make me feel 'supported'.

The persistent radio message about 0-0-6 was irritating. I hadn't done 0-0-5 !!!! (calling for extraction)

And the boat ride was BORING. I don't need, and you dont need, to drag the end of mission out to such a silly extent. Get in boat, move a little, mission complete. What you _could_ do here though is have a night time spectacular. A technicolor tracer extravaganza of Cobra's against Hinds in the distance while we sail away. After all, my team 'discovered' Russians were there, and Nato is doing something about that, as we run away...

----
Overall:

not tight enough.

The messages, general radio traffic, triggers, are sloppy and prone to errors. Biriefing is a mess after 1st base. Confusing further.

BUT, the mission is immersive. Frightening as hell. Savage. No one skill is going to beat this mission, you have to have wide experience of different game play to get trhough it.

Well done.

---
Suggestions.

Environ sounds, excellent. I think Jam also assisted.

This mission must have music, not stupid battle music in the middle of a god damn firefight, but there are passages, where music will just add total flavor to what's going on. Use triggers in non-combat areas to switch it on . off.

The team is badly organised. The medic is not required, and 4/5, NOT 4/6 should be AT guys. It is currently echelon biased. Leader needs protection on both sides.

Looking forward to the next update.

[gambla]

Thank you Mikero. Just great to read that you, as a player, discover all the little things and ideas that i liked to put in. Especially it's good to have feedback from you guys,  that the mission is basically well balanced and not too hard fighting a little army. That was my challenge and, as well, to build a little believable story around this operation. 

Will now go through your excellent feedback in detail. I come back with some comments and continue working on the mission...

 

 

[gambla]

@Mikero

try to sum up your points and my thoughts about it:

1) "group information" missing:   was not intended, try to fix it
2) "player sneakiness" :      totally agree with you, i don't like any "train tracks" either, but which
            did you discover in my mission ? the way you can approach the base(s) are    
            free, never thought of any special way to get close to them - Patrol's       
            control the whole area of base 1, so you may have been lucky...
3) "long walk" :         right, i need to change this, have to change the patrol-route of the enemy
            boat too, to avoid a contact while insertion runs
4) radio message "prisoners not there": gonna change this, have to find a better way...
5) "strange message about C2!" :   was for trigger-testing, forgot to delete it...
6) "timing for the abandoned base" :   gonna change this
7) "Base 1 and 2 objectives" :      please see my comment about the "last loon" from 08-16 , gonna try to ensure
            a reliable way to complete this objective
"one small patrol /abandoned helicopters" : gonna change this
9) "fight at abandoned base" :   gonna change this
10) "landing on island" :      need to check this, shouldn't be too hard when you land west of the castle
11)  "Again, very messy trigger meesages around island. You've geared these zone triggers against a boat and a walk,
I flew over !!!!" -       excuse my lack of english here, please explain what you mean
12)  "make player aware of dog fight":   gonna change this
13)  radio message 0-0-6 / 0-0-5 :   gonna change this
14)  music :         i think about it, but i prefer music only in intro/outro


Will try to have an update ready within this week.

thanks and regards!