(Review Completed) [SP] Moondark

[DarkAngel]

Mission ready for review

Thanks LCD, bugs fixed and mission re-posted here.

Once again a whole ammo crate load of thanks to everyone who helped Beta test this mission. I've been working on finishing it off, adding voice acting (thanks Johnnyboy) and making sure the gameplay is up to scratch. Hopefully this is now ready for the community at large - so am posting it for review. Thanks again guys, and happy hunting.

DarkAngel

EDIT Mission reposted with 1 more bug fix & medic script for AI team members.

Review can be found here

[firecontrol]

Disclaimer: I don't like night missions with rain, I especially don't like night missions with rain and fog. Just for the simple fact that the enemy AI can see me as if there was no fog or rain, but I can't see 100 meters out. Personal preference here is all.

Package

Could use a readme file. The guys here like to see a picture or two as well, to advertise the mission, if you will.


Overview

No problems. The large square picture seems to dominate a little; again, personal preference. I like the way BIS made theirs... 155x95.


Intro

At the very beginning it seems like the camera takes a bit to load, and it jumps through some scenes rapidly. Maybe add a sleep 2 or something along with a "black in"?  Other than that, the camera work was OK. Only problems were AI related... and boy do I feel your pain. Near the end, the SU34 flies overhead, but ignores the APCs... a short while later we see them burning.
Another little thing I noticed is that you're not making use of the camPreloaded feature. Everytime your camera changed locations, the terrain needed to load up... looks weird when trees, grass, etc. are all popping into resolution randomly. It's not a big deal, but is semi-easily avoided.


Briefing

Good. Really have to dig to find out what those exclamation point (danger) markers refer to though. The notes section leads to more detailed info, almost like a real SITREP. Only thing I see is in the weapons selection: Russian grenades instead of M67s. (Use "HandGrenadeTimed" instead of "HandGrenade")
Also, the ARs don't have any night vision. (#2 and #6) Apparently the standard loadout gives NVGs to certain types of units, and not others... annoying. Something I need to fix in my mission as well.


Mission

Well, I decided to go ahead and NOT do the stealthy approach since I took a bunch of unsuppressed weaponry. This was a bad idea. I'll explain later.

1) Maybe remove the markers from the map after an objective is complete? "markerName" setMarkerType "EMPTY"

2) After I killed the North Shilka, the South Shilka drove all the way across the mission to see what was happening. Not sure if you meant for that to happen. Actually, a whole bunch of infantry came too... easy pickins with the way I had my squad arranged. Mowed everything down, and the walk to the base was quite barren.

3) Can there be a way to stop the flares from continuously firing? It sucks as it ruins the night vision, like a strobe, when you get in close to the base. I was looking for something/someone that was launching them so I could stop it. Alas, it's just scripted. Personal preference again. Heheh.

4) Here's where I'll explain later, now. Since I decided to go ahead and do an overt approach... the base was overrun with BMPs and hordes of infantry. Every single one could see me from 300+ meters out the second any of us fired a round. No matter what I did, or how I did it, the entire SLA army would rain down thousands of rounds from an entire 180 degree arc. Not to mention the grenades... good Lord. I thought you might have scripted some kind of mortar squad the way I was being carpet bombed. The heavy fog and rain made it impossible to get a feel of how to approach or where the enemy was (well, they were everywhere really,) so I decided to give it up. I'll try a stealthy approach next time I give it a try. I'm not a bad player I don't think, and my tactics are usually quite sound, but I fear this was an excercise in futility, to try to clear the base of enemies. Just plain outgunned.


Outro/Debriefing

Unknown


Summary

I like your ideas, and it's got some great potential. I do like the way you scripted sentries (that sniper on the outpost in the base for one) to look at different things at different times. Really nifty idea! Keep up the good work man.

[DarkAngel]

Thanks for that! Fair enough on the rain, fog issue - I do quite like it in terms of atmosphere, but it creates big problems with the AI - it's hardly fair if they can see you, but you can't see them! I might compromise a little and slightly reduce the amount of weather going on...

Readme file - noted. Will sort one out for the next release, as well as pictures.

Overview - will think about making the pic a bit smaller.

Intro - I think the problem is at the moment I'm still using old, OFP camera commands that aren't quite as efficient. Need to do a fair bit of work on this.

Briefing - glad you liked the detail. Good point about the danger markers - I'll try to work them in a bit earlier in the briefing, maybe even on the main page below objectives. Will sort the grenade and NVG issues out.

Mission -
- Marker idea's a good one.
- The South Shilka really shouldn't head all the way up to you there - it's an AA defense, after all. Think I'll stick it on a "Hold" objective. Think it's quite good if patrols come toward you in this situation though - they're responding to the blowing up of the Shilka after all. The general feel of the mission should be that the SLA have no idea what on earth's going on, so they're sending infantry and (eventually) mechanised units to respond.
- The flares - there is actually a unit linked in with the script, so that if you kill him, the flares stop. He's standing by the "Barracks" building next to the hangars. The idea is that they are supposed to mess with your NVGs - giving more of an advantage to the defense and less to you. But I think you're right that giving him more or less infinite, constantly repeating flares is a little bit unfair!
- The BMPs and infantry - yeah. The concept for the mission is basically that it gets harder to complete the longer you're detected in the mission area. So there's a spawn script in the barracks building creating about 30 guys, and a BMP response script that kicks in after 5 minutes + a random part of another 5. I think I need to make the minimum response time a few minutes longer - say 7-8 or even 10 minutes. Above all, the secondary objectives need to be just that - the player should aim for the planes and hope to hit the Shilkas on the way out. This needs to be made much clearer at the briefing stage.

- New version added to top of post.

[LCD]

yesterday dey repainted my workplace and i spent 10 hrs inhaling all da paint fumes and stuuf    so i came back home really dizzy... so i didnt play da whole mission but i did take a look at da intro+briefing and got couple of comments

intro

at da start of da intro... u may wanna put dis line

cutText ["","black faded"]

and den fade in... dis way u shud lose da player at da start of da mision

in some of da shots i just get 2 see grass  and nothing else...im sure i didnt see SU flying...

also try using more cuts and less long camera moves... specialy if theres nothnig dat happens during da camera movemnt....

Brieifng

da second page is nice.... but its important 2 have a short briefing @ da 1st page....

mision

i think we get inserted a littl 2 close 2 one of da objectives... but i cud have told u more if i cud do anything in da mission... right now it seems i have a very good and big team dat just killes anybody b4 i even get 2 see him....

LCD OUT

[DarkAngel]

Thanks LCD, should shortly be able to re-upload the mission with a much better intro and a new insertion/extraction point...hope you've recovered from the fumes 

[Cheetah]

Moondark

All problems marked in bold are bugs that should look into. Don't feel bad if the report sounds as if it's a bad mission - it isn't. Beta reports tend to be mostly negative.

Package

The image included could be improved. If possible, include a screenshot used for advertising purposes. The one you've included right now will be used when the mission's review will be published (in the future..).

Overview

Picture lacks a border and can be improved (other image). Also, the title of the mission is lacking on top of the review. Right now it's in a small front below the picture. I suggest that you take a look at dePBOed (official missions) on what to include in the overview.html

Intro

Bug: the player can be seen the 1st second of the intro before the intro.sqs (or how you called it) is in action.

Please adjust the scenes where the camera is in the grass and I'm looking at nothing - but grass. Later it's the same, but I get to look at a few bushes and a tree - a second after suddenly a M113 gets destroyed. Don't know if it's supposed to be, but I could see the M113 getting blown up (setdammage?).  Didn't look nice.

Also, take a look at the long camera moves you have included. You might want to make these camera position changes direct (0 seconds) in order to prevent a camera moving to the other side of the island in 3 seconds causing a lot of lag).

Briefing

Team selection: we're all sergeants. Skill level is fine.
Weapon selection: no M203 HE grenades (extra supply)

Objectives and map are alright - maybe add a few marker descriptions.

Plan and notes section are alright concerning content. But I prefer having some text above my objectives - possible all the links you now have included in the notes section. The notes section is something most people won't read. Better is to link to one page with additional info from the plan section and on that page include links to extra - extra information. For the notes page-  something else could do. Notes on how to tackle the mission for example.

However, feel free to do what you want to .

Mission

Moved to the northern shilka, at the end of the runway first. First tried taking the three guards down with my SD pistol. A success, but the shilka now spotted me and raised the alarm. Would have prefered the crew outside of the shilka, moving in when under attack. That way I have a change to disable the AA beast without raising the alarm.

Problem. Fog adds to the atmosphere, but is sometimes a bit too dense for my liking. Can't see the enemy while they see me. That is probably at max. fog, below that it's alright and good for the atmosphere.

Problem. I miss a medic in my squad, or a medikit, or a hospital (field). Why did you put my men into two fireteams by the way (two color codes). Can't use them, if I could it would be good. So I say, leave it in, but remember that I can't use them (as far as I know ).

Damn, that is a lot of soldiers to take care of after raising the alarm bell (damn shilka as mentioned before). Luckily my teammates are pretty good shooters and the enemy are running like hell for the planes. However, a minute or so later, they counter attack and I actually start losing teammates, after some saving/loading I manage to survive and lose only two teammates - which is okay.

As the fighting will be hard, I decide to go on on my own. I move my team to the insertion zone and move to the fuel station near the hangar unnoticed. From there, I start picking of the large amounts of soldiers on the runway. Luckily my M4 ACOG M203 has a zoom and grenade function - helps with these odds . Problem is that most soldiers start doing nothing, if they would have come in en masse - I would have been toast. So please give them some WPs to scout or whatever. Just don't let them be static at the runway, looks bad in my opinion.

Damn, this takes a lot of time with men coming up at my rear (lots of save/loading). After a while I have to move away - most enemies got killed - only about 1 to 2 squads remaining spread over the perimeter. As I don't have more than 1 rocket left - I'll have to find myself some AT weapons from the SLA. However, before doing so I'm going into survival mode. There are still enough enemies around the hangars for me to feel safe. And I've got no more than 7 rounds for my M4, down to 1 magazine for my pistol. Ouch .

After a while I manage to kill the enemies bothering me with hit and run tactics, destroy the planes (2nd shilka destroyed on my way to the fuel station - half a minute before arriving at station) and get to the insertion point to rally with my team. Lost two more of them by the way, when they were retreating to the insertion point. They kinda covered my stealthy way to the fuel station.

Had some trouble reaching the extraction zone, I suggest increasing the ending trigger to make sure players don't run into trouble at this point in the mission. Spent 5 minutes ending the mission (couldn't find the trigger - GPS turned off ).

Outro

None.

Overall

It was enjoyable, there are a few things that should be fixed. Other than that, this is a fun mission and probably doesn't need to much fixing .

[DarkAngel]

Cheetah, thanks a bunch for all that. New version uploaded taking into account your comments (details at top of post).

Incidentally it is possible to use fireteams in ArmA. If loons are divided into teams, holding shift and selecting one of your guys will select all of the team that he's in. So in the version of Moondark you've tested, shift+f5 will select all of the second fireteam. This all comes in handy when using the "Quick Command" system with the spacebar. In this mission though, I've decided to lose the second fireteam, just to help make it a bit more challenging!

Thanks again to everyone for the tests so far. Think this is getting nearly ready for review - I hope...

[firecontrol]

Howdy again.
I'm doing this from work at the moment, and I'll play the new version once I get home.

Running through your mission folder and scripts, I did notice some small probs:

Code: [Select]

INIT.SQS

; M136 Launchers - Player

p addweapon "M136"                                         <------- move this
p AddMagazine "M136"                                                         |
p AddMagazine "M136"                                                         |
p AddMagazine "M136"                                                         |
                                                                             <------ here
; Machine Gunners Q - Number 2

removeAllWeapons q
q AddWeapon "M249"                                          <------ move this
q AddMagazine "200Rnd_556x45_M249"                                  |
q AddMagazine "200Rnd_556x45_M249"                                  |
q AddMagazine "200Rnd_556x45_M249"                                  |
q AddMagazine "200Rnd_556x45_M249"                                  |
q AddMagazine "200Rnd_556x45_M249"                                  |
q AddMagazine "200Rnd_556x45_M249"                                  |
                                                                             <------ here


q AddWeapon "M9SD"                                            <-------- move this
q AddMagazine "15Rnd_9x19_M9SD"                                      |
q AddMagazine "15Rnd_9x19_M9SD"                                      |
q AddMagazine "15Rnd_9x19_M9SD"                                      |
q AddMagazine "15Rnd_9x19_M9SD"                                      |
q AddMagazine "15Rnd_9x19_M9SD"                                      |
                                                                              <----- here

As a rule of thumb, always add magazines BEFORE you add weapons.... otherwise the weapon will be empty upon start-up and you'll have to reload before you can use it.

I'll update more as I get through them.


EDIT: Played Beta3.

Well, what can I say. In my opinion: Much better than the last time I played!!!

ArmA v1.08 (Original: Atari v1.06), Veteran Mode, using Modern War Sound Mod.

Overview

Same as last time. Maybe add a version number?


Intro

I like this one a lot better! The SU-34 bombing scene was spectacular! Nicely scripted. THere was one instance of an "underwater scene" which I'm not sure you meant to have in there. All I saw was ocean, beneath the waves. Would've been cool of there was a submarine! Hehehe. I liked this intro.


Briefing

About the same, much thanks for putting the links to the "danger" markers on the front page tho!
Good weapons selection.
SitRep still says something about an 8-man squad....
#3 and #4 have 2 night vision goggles each.


Mission

No showstoppers, no errors, good good.
Yowsa. I enjoyed this one. Not near as much fog, thank you! See attached pics! First, some "bugs":
   - North Shilka crew sat there whilst I ate them alive. Didn't attempt to flee or get into shilka.
   - North Shilka is unlocked! I resisted the urge to take it. (Did you at least remove fuel and/or ammo?)
   - Near the end, if you sound the alarm, some OpFor seem to 'appear' out of thin air. Kinda breaks the immersion, were  they supposed to be coming out of buildings? If so, that may be it. I didn't see them until they were already running.

This time, the stealthy approach! I took all silenced weaponry for the whole fireteam, two of us had 3 satchels each, other two had M136s.
 
I gave my fireteam a good peptalk, set everyone on hold-fire, and off we went toward the Northern Shilka. Three crew ate lead, and no one was the wiser. A pesky UAZ drove by to check on them, but didn't notice anything amiss. I set a satchel, but didn't detonate just yet. Don't want to announce myself.

Headed through the woods to the town, all clear. I can hear the BMPs out to the south a little further, but let them be. Keep on heading toward the base, and find a nice overlook to reconnoiter from. I swap ammo/etc. with teammates such that I have 4 satchels with me.

I leave my squad in three different positions south of the town on the top of a little slope which seems to be made for overlooking the base. Each of the three have excellent firing positions should all hell break loose while I go in to plant some satchels.

I decide that the South Shilka is a juicy target here, so I make my way over there and ice the sole crewman I see. Leave a tasty surprise on the Shilka's tracks (again, don't detonate just yet,) and make my way back to the hangars. On my belly the whole time I manage to put a satchel each by the SU-34s on the runway and take the long-way back to the south-eastern hangar. That damned UAZ just about drove over me once, gave me some brown-trousers I might add.

Off I go, sneak into the closest hangar. Plant satchel. I notice four infantry just standing there in between the hangars, so I decide.. what the hell. My team's got good sectors, let's do some damage. I move myself out of the hangar and around the corner. BOOM! Both Shilkas and 3 SU-34s go up. I get a whole mess of soundless radio chatter here, and a savegame (I think 2 in a row actually? Not sure, kinda wierd really.) Give my team the open fire command and they start raining down fire on the frantic enemy.

Chaos ensues. Hehehe, really fun actually. I tell one of my guys to watch the west from up on his hill, one to keep watching the base, and one with an M136 to come to me. After some more carnage, I tell the teammate w/ the M136 to drop it for me so that I can remove that last pesky SU-34 from the hangar. Makes a great bonfire, let me tell you.

Another savegame, and some more soundless radio chatter. I think we've cleared most of the infantry out, but I hear the BMPs rolling in. We escape to the coast and follow it all the way to our boat. Off we go, one teammate didn't make it, not sure what got him, but there was no time to bury him. (Wish we could fireman-carry him with us tho, poor bastard.)

End.


Outro

None.


Summary

Much, much better, in my opinion. Some good polishing, and it'll be good to go as far as I'm concerned. An enjoyable mission, mostly due to the chaos there at the end that got my blood pumping. (I'm not much of a spec-ops @ night, sneaking around doing the ninja thing,  type of player.) But it was a lot of fun.

Glad to see that after I/we killed a certain someone (not sure which it was) that the flares stopped!

Good work man!

[mathias_eichinger]

Hi, just tried this mission "Rambo Style".

Overview

If there would be no text I would definitely not know what I am looking at the picture. Very representive of bad weather conditions.

Intro

I liked the music, it gave the scenes a kind of "asthetic" appearance that is hard to describe.

Briefing

Very detailed and extensive, as your weapons selection (AT, rifle with grenadelauncher) suggested a "non-discrete" approach.

Mission

 I tried it with killing the northern Shilka first. Advanced towards the airfield, and I must say you created a formidable response which I was not able to beat. Will try to beat the mission seriously next time.
But it looks good so far...

Greetings

Mathias

[mathias_eichinger]

Now for my second, stealthy try:

Picked a silenced weapon and 4 Satchels at the Gear selection and avoided the first shilka. I had to leg quite some distance to avoid the Pita garrison and the mountain-base Mech platoon. Then I was behind the airfield and was able to slip in trough a hole in the fence. I must say that I kept my squad in "Hold Fire" mode to avoid drawing too much attention on me. In the base I saw a bunch of enemies on the apron, just before the hangars. They were just standing around and I managed to kill them all. Afterwards it was a walk in the park...I just kept sure to be on my belly and planted all the Satchels. Extracted trough the same hole and I crawled with my squad eastwards to reach the coast. Unfortunately, one of my soldiers drowned. I run at the waterline towards the extraction point, hopped in the boat, drove out to the sea and that was it.

Conclusion

You did a tremendous challenge for the non-stealthy approach, but the stealthy one is a bit lacking. I would like to see the soldiers at the airfield patrolling it and a few more patrols on egress which are either to be avoided or dealt with.

Cheers

Mathias

Project Beta Approved

[LeeHunt]

this is not my first betatest but my first Project Beta review, here goes:

OverviewBriefing

Very good, seemed like maybe the player knows too much about the enemy reinforcements though?  Maybe some guess work and randomization of where the reinforcements come from?  But the Briefing was clear and concise and the Notes were good.

 Intro

I like the intro and think it creates a story that could be continued with more missions.  Also the Intro motivates the player to destroy the jets, as the dire plight of his army is made clear.  Sometimes its hard for the player to "want" to complete the objectives, in Moondark I definitely wanted to fight back.  It was also action packed and engaging right from the start.
 

MissionI liked:
The first aid kit
Bad weather
Reinforcements moved to smart locations
Difficulty was good

Things to consider:ConclusionProject Beta Approved

[DarkAngel]

Guys, thanks a bunch for those comments and sorry not to have replied sooner - have been away with work. Hoping to get a final, pre-release beta up and running very soon. I'm glad to see that it seems to have improved a lot since the last Beta version.
EDIT Making these changes took a lot less time than I thought so v0.4 is now posted at the top of this post!

@firecontrol - thanks for the comment about weapon scripting, duly changed for v0.4. The briefing has also been changed. No idea what's going on with the NV goggles but I'll try to sort it out.
Shilka situation - oops! Will lock the Shilka and see why my loons aren't boarding the Shilka - probably 'cause I was lazy and just used a trigger instead of scripting it. The spawned loons are supposed to be running from the barracks building as marked on the briefing map - they do appear there, honest! But they seem to have trouble getting through the fence, so they come through the back way. Go figure.
Overall, sounds like the mission went more or less as I intended it too - after Lee and Matthias' postings I might add some more little surprises, but it's good that it seemed to work more or less properly this way. Personally, I like a bit of sneaking around but I'm always keen to have a massive firefight in a mission!

@Mathias_eichinger - thanks for trying it both ways. I think you're right that it's just a little too straightforward if you're stealthy - I wanted to reward the stealthy approach but I'll add a couple more patrols to up the difficulty level a bit, particularly to the South of the base - looks like there's a big hole in the defenses there!
@Lee - glad you enjoyed the mission mate. Thanks for the positive comments about the intro - usually my camera work is rubbish and I really wanted to do something a bit special this time around. You're a sneaky fellow attacking the Pita base - I've added a few surprises to make sure no-one gets away with that particular trick. It's supposed to be a key SLA installation, it's a bit too easy if players can just blow it up! ;-p You're absolutely right about the savegames - will change that straight away. And I'm working on a funky outro (there'll be a mockup of it in v0.4 and a final version in time for release). It's a good point about the player's intel being very good, but I want to keep it that way - this is all of NATO coming in against the by all standards pretty useless SLA army and I want the player to have the sense of surprise fully on the friendly side. Hopefully this means that later on in this series of missions, intel can be bad and as a result the player can be led into some traps.

Thanks again everyone, v0.4 is very close!

[smoke52]

intro:
 

briefing
detailed. doesnt need changing.
mission
so far i havent read the above comments, so im sorry if they are already mentioned. anyway first time through i ran along the beach to the first shilka, i tried to shoot the crew from a distance but they jumped in so i had to blow them up with the rocket launcher. next i followed the beach the whole way to the other shilka and blew that one with a satchel. definitely add a delay after the shilkas blow up for the save games. next i fought a whole bunch of soldiers  but eventually died. so on reload at the second shilka i died about ten times trying to kill the hundreds of troops that come at me, and the constant bell ringing, so i gave up.

ill give it another shot tomorrow.

EDIT:
played the newest version 0.5 and it took me awhile but i finally beat it. everything worked like it should, there wasnt endless waves of guys coming, like it felt last version.

i started off following the coast and blew up the first shilka, i tried taking out the crew (i changed to all silenced weapons), but they managed to get inside so i used an rpg. next i moved up towards the road and followed it to the place where the BMP's were. i sneaked up close and blew them up with RPG's. one BMP managed to escape but i eventually died. reloaded and followed the coast to the second shilka and blew that up. for some reason i kept thinking i only needed to blow up the 2 jets in the hangers so i didnt save my ammo for the jets. next i tried about ten times to get close enough to get inside the hangers to plant satchels, but that failed so i stood back and decided to kill off as much as i could. 

with everything planted i was well away from the hangers and triggered the detonator. objective didnt complete so i checked the briefing and had to turn back for the last two jets. i died to a BMP

next i started over and did the same thing, but this time when i was hanging back a UAZ came. i killed the crew and stole it then gunned the rest down so i could plant the satchels. after a bunch of tries i finally managed to beat the mission. all my squad was dead and i was wounded. i got about 20 kills and a shilka, 17500 points, team dead.

during the mission i found the fuel and ammo trucks with the rpgs inside down by the ocean base. i also tried to kill everyone around the barracks to get that bell to stop ringing, but one time it didnt stop. maybe he was hiding somewhere though. i died going in there to look for him close range, so i cant say for sure.

outro
outro was good, more explosions or BMP's getting blown up would add to it. i cant wait for the next mission

Summary
I liked it, but it was quite hard for me. have less guys start in the airfield and have all the reinforcements come in the BMPs and UAZ patrols. other then those suggestions, i think its a finished mission 

[DarkAngel]

Thanks smoke52. I've added a pause before the savegames now on all the mission objectives, reposting the mission now at start of this thread.

[DarkAngel]

Think this is finally ready for review - as I've said at the top of the thread, thanks again for testing the mission everyone - hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed designing it!

DarkAngel doMove getpos Kettle
[DarkAngel] exec "MakeACupOfTea.sqs"