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Author Topic: (Review completed) [SP] Operation Dawning Hope v.1.0 RC out!  (Read 11853 times)

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Offline Wolfrug

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.3 out-
« Reply #30 on: 10 Jan 2008, 01:06:22 »
Version 0.3 is out! Here's the quick version history:

Quote
0.3 BETA
-Completely reworked Squad Control System, now with many more functionalities, waypoint types and even synchronizing!
-Removed addon dependency of g85 editor upgrade & lowfly's editor upgrade 1.02
-hid radio option after engineers are finished
-reversed order of auxiliary 1/auxiliary 2 & added parenthesises after the name to explain their type (so it says Auxiliary 1 (Engineers) now)
-fixed various objectives not ticking off properly
-fixed certain radio sounds playing unnecessarily
-more effects on killing D-30s (smoke - taken from CSL's burning buildings script)
-Made primary objective slightly easier by disabling the D-30s ability to fire outside of the artillery attacks (on Easy and Hard difficulties)
-Made the max amount of Main Barrages 6
-Added more sounds (particularily to the artillery)!
-Added some easter eggs/cheats ^_^
-Added stuckcheck.sqf from LCD to the SCS, which will hopefully make units less likely to get stuck. :-/
-Added difficulty selector: Easy, Hard and Impossible are now selectable at mission start
-Changed to Version 1.5 RC of Jonny's Marines!

Remember to upgrade to the latest version of Jonny's Marines before testing. Enjoy!

Wolfrug out.
"When 900 years YOU reach, look as good you will not!"

Offline Manzilla

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.3 out-
« Reply #31 on: 10 Jan 2008, 07:13:41 »
EDIT:
Christ nevermind. Hasn't worked for 2 days. ??? Until now :weeping:

Wolfrug,

Well this sure came outta no where! :good:   It's great to see an update. I'm so damn excited to see one, I thought this mission was scraped. One of my all-time favorites. Thanks. :clap:
« Last Edit: 10 Jan 2008, 07:28:41 by Manzilla »

Offline Wolfrug

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.3 out-
« Reply #32 on: 14 Jan 2008, 20:31:25 »
Some bugs with the new V.0.3 that were noted when playing with the 1.09 BETA:

- The "SCS Menu" action multiplies a lot and isn't getting deleted  :dry: No idea why. I might have to solve it the dirty way for now by using a quick and dirty 'for "_i" 0 to 100 do {_unit removeAction _i}'. I'll see about a quickfix, but you can still access your other actions by just scrolling down.  :confused:
- This is not 1.09 specific, but: there's a UAZ parked near the first radar objective: if you get inside it and order your teammates inside, they'll immediately jump out again. Attempting to exit the vehicle apparently freezes ArmA. So: don't try to use that UAZ for now. It's entirely "vanilla", no eventhandlers or anything added to it, so I don't know what's causing it. Anyone else had this problem?

That's all for now. :)

Wolfrug out.
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Offline bert

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.3 out-
« Reply #33 on: 14 Jan 2008, 22:46:46 »
I had a quick play around with this mission yesterday. I had the SCS menu multiplication issue as well (using 10.9BETA), it took a heck of a long time to get to the bottom of the list.

I'll try and give it a proper play sometime during the week.

bert

Offline Wolfrug

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.31 out!-
« Reply #34 on: 14 Jan 2008, 23:36:21 »
Hey there!

I've released a "hotfix" v.0.31 which fixes the SCS menu bug and relocks the UAZ to prevent CTDs. It also adds SPON Status (default 'I') which should give you a good, quick overlook of your forces at any time. :)

Download the new version from the link on the first page! Version history also available there.

0.31 BETA
-Added SPON_Status to the mission! By default use 'I' to bring it up.
-Quickfix on UAZ-CTD bug (UAZ locked again)
-Fixed SCS-action spam (oops from my side).
-Changed: The harder the difficulty, the later in the day it is, which leaves you less time to complete the mission (Easy: 2h, Hard: 1,5h, Impossible: 1h)

Enjoy!

Edit 1: I've also noticed that in 1.09 BETA, the first short-distance comms won't die with a single M136 like it did before: I believe they've lowered the damage of the missiles by quite a lot. I think I'll make this a part of the difficulty as well: on Hard and Impossible, you might have to shoot more missiles/blow it with a satchel, whereas on Easy you should be able to kill it from afar with a single M136. :) If anyone has any opinions on that, feel free to express them.

Edit 2: Crap. The mission doesn't like loading from the missions screen very much. Causes unwanted SCS Menu proliferation, and disables SPON Status. Sooo...for the best experience, please play it through in one run? >_<
Also, I get a CTD no matter -what- vehicle I exit from -_- Faagh.

Edit 3: Version 0.32 out. Check out first page for download links

0.32 BETA
-Minor fixes with SPON Status and quitting/resuming games
-Found the cause for the UAZ/any vehicle CTD bug! Consequently fixed it (in stuckcheck.sqf)
-Added another cheat, and as an extra bonus you'll get a list of the cheats if you finish the mission ^_^
-In ArmA 1.09 BETA, the M136 missile has been made less effective, requiring two hits to take down the short-range comms. This has been incorporated so that in Easy difficulty, the radars will already be slightly damaged (necessitating only one shots, as in 1.08), whereas in Hard and Impossible they still need two shots minimum.

Wolfrug out.
« Last Edit: 16 Jan 2008, 22:50:03 by Wolfrug »
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Offline bert

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #35 on: 16 Jan 2008, 23:42:32 »
Just finished testing V.0.31, didn't notice that 0.32 was out :whistle:.

Package All good, nothing missing.

Overview No worries.

Intro Very good. Better than most and not overly long.

Briefing The briefing was pretty comprehensive. All objectives were clearly explained and labelled. Very comprehensive instructions for SCS, artillery etc. All in all, pretty well done.

Mission Played on Easy with the saves cheat activated.
In short this is a very good mission. 1st objectives were cleared quickly, but red team took casualties and got relegated to guard duty at the big mast.
I only shot one or two infantry at Estrella before the objective was completed, picked up the LD and moved off towards the camp area with reinforced blue team and green team. Few minor fights on the way. Left both below the hill near the tents and set the guns on some of the cannons. Called my team back and left green in an overwatch position before moving in on and clearing a gun position. Took out a few infantry and jeeps on the way.
After getting bombarded and taking 3 casualties I called the guns on 1 more gun position and used the last few on the base. Two more artillery positions were easily taken out. Once all of the enemy guns were down I moved on the base. The Mi-17 never got off the ground as its pilots got killed in a bombardment. Very few infantry were left at the base and were quickly taken out. I proceeded to satchel charge all of the equipment and investigated the graves. After getting one or two wounded patched up I took the walk back to Estrella. Job done :good:
Completed in 1hr 17 mns, score 11380 and 3 casualties.

I had the following bugs:
*I had a bit of SCS menu cloning. Max 4 clones.
*For some reason a random clone wouldn't work if selected, got the following error: Script Rug_SCS\dialogstart.sqs not found. After the error popped up the broken option didn't work. All of the others did though for some reason.
*I didn't get a CTD when exiting vehicles, the game locked up instead.
*No sign of the cobra.
*Some of my squad seemed to be warping around for some reason. Looked just like playing on a laggy mp server.
*Got some kind o script error when calling in gunfire, may be related to the altered LD from a mod of mine though. I'll post a screen shot if it shows up again. It didn't seem to have any effect though.

Outro Nothing wrong, all worked correctly. I think I vaguely remember the speech.

Summary All in all it was a very enjoyable mission. I'm going to give the new beta a try soon as I want to play it again. I never felt like I was taking on a whole army which was good. The only show stopper was the vehicle dismount bug, good to see that you have sorted fix for that one.

bert





Offline Wolfrug

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #36 on: 17 Jan 2008, 10:08:16 »
Hey bert! Thanks for this BETA, looks like it's finally possible to complete this mission without getting automatically plastered ;) If you want to see how it was to attack the D-30s while they could still shoot at you directly, try it on Impossible. Ooh, man. A D-30 shell is paaainfuuul.

Some questions:

Did reinforcements for Estrella ever show up? There's a BMP incoming, but I've messed so much with the poor thing's waypoints I wouldn't be surprised if it suddenly decided to do a no-show. Alternatively I suppose it might've simply gotten blown up beforehand by Alpha. :D There's a delicate balance there, see: on one hand, Alpha can take care of the infantry in town easily enough, but on the other, once artillery support arrives, it's bye-bye for them (unless they manage to take out the BMP).

What was the script error on the LD? I changed it slightly between v.0.2 and v.0.3 since it seemed to have a strange lag-delay when used the first time, but that didn't cause any errors for me at least. But I might've overlooked something. :)

How did you feel about the challenge in general? I designed Easy to be, well, easier, so it's not supposed to be incredibly hard, but did you feel you actually got to do something as well? Note that Hard and Impossible difficulties plop down a whole bunch of more units, a lot of which will attack you anywhere anytime, or take down the Engineers at the radar tower and deny you access to the artillery, or any other act of devilry that might hinder your progress. Not to mention slightly nastier artillery :D

And did you use SPON Status at all? It's a resource that pops up clicking the same button as you usually do you get your scores and such in MP - default 'I', and shows stuff like how many units are left alive in each group and such. At least for me it's extremely useful to quickly check out how the other groups are doing.

And as to the SCS itself: you surely used it at least for moving the teams around, so I'm guessing you understood those parts. But did you use any of the more "advanced" features such as synchronizing, changing waypoint types/behaviour/combat modes/formations (etc)? Did you use the Alt-click/action menu at all to for instance change between groups? I know I personally usually don't do more than shift-click in new waypoints and rely on the AI to change combat modes and the like, buuut...hey. Better more than less, no?

As to your bugs:

SCS Menu bugging: Yes...dammit. I personally blame the way Actions and addAction/removeaction works. It's a ridiculous and uncertain system that I just never get to work as I want to. I've noticed even the most professional of scripters still manage to get their actions to multiply. Problem is, each action is simply given a number as a return, and you're then supposed to be able to remove that specific number to remove the action. You can't just remove -all- actions, since that might mess with all kinds of things (like all the other actions you've also got assigned to yourself).  :confused: It be a mess. But I'll see if I can work some more on that. As to not finding the script...that's a bit weird O.o

Cobra sometimes crashes on its way out quite randomly, so that might be the problem (ArmA issue, sigh). However, did you use the radio menu to try to access it (Auxiliary 2, same way as the Engineers), since it doesn't by default come flying in over Estrella until you move its waypoint and such. The gunner is also made playable, so you can teamswitch into the chopper if you wanted. Might just be a matter of bad luck though. Note that the Cobra's Hellfires can be directed with the LD as well ;)

Squad warping around: this is due to the stuckcheck.sqf by LCD. Basically, what sometimes happens with the AI is that one of them gets stuck someplace for some weird reason, and then the whole group gets stuck and can't move. If you read some of the previous posts you'll see this is often a problem, groups getting stuck out in the open refusing to move and whatnot. >:( Anyway, the script simply checks to see if there's somewhere the group is supposed to be, and if they don't seem to be moving that way, setpos them slightly to the side to see if it can unstick them. Seems to have worked for me.
Anyway, I think I'll add a check to the script to see how close or far from the player the units are, or alternatively make the jumping a little less pronounced. I didn't myself notice any such jumping though. We'll see :)

The outro speech is indeed from the official campaign. Figured some war-mongering over the mass graves would be a good way to finish the mission (with some dead RACS soldiers close to an empty 5t truck. Hmm!). :D If only I could figure out how the Outro - Lose works, I could make something for that as well...ach well.

Thanks a ton for your beta test! Glad you liked it, and glad you managed to finish it with a minimum of bugs!

Wolfrug out.   

"When 900 years YOU reach, look as good you will not!"

Offline bert

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #37 on: 17 Jan 2008, 21:29:14 »
Right, I'll try and answer some of your questions.

I don't think the reinforcements turned up. At Estrella. Not sure if I saw any smoking wrecks either. I started playing the mission the night before and I seem to remember watching a bmp on the beach. Then sods law set in and some lightning set of our trip switch.

I've attached the arty error as a screen shot. I use NWD tank fcs which also replaces the stock LD, that may have had something to do with it. Didn't get to see the whole error though. Now that you mention it, my PC locked up briefly when I played with the arty at times. I wouldn't call the machine sluggish either.

I think difficulty was about right for an 'easy' difficulty level. I got killed once or twice by the arty. The fight with the BRDM/UAZ etc. near the start was quite intense as the visibility was restricted by all the trees. Past of the challenge was getting used to all of your command options. Got some nasty sniper fire around the guns and took a barrage right on one of their positions.

I used SPON Status once or twice, but to tell the truth I forgot about it early on.

SCS is great. I used it to move the squads, added and changed a few way point types. I took a fairly simple approach. I can imagine that the options could be pretty useful under certain situations. Take an ambush for example, you could achieve lots more with this than only a radio message to move to point x and another to open fire.

The ai warping wasn't massive. I never saw them move more than a body length. Looked odd and I only noticed it if things were quiet.

I didn't realise that you had to call the cobra, my mistake.

Like I said before, its a pretty good mission.
bert

Offline Wolfrug

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #38 on: 17 Jan 2008, 22:40:40 »
Thanks for the comments! And your attached image doesn't seem to have showed up, oh well. :D I'm guessing the tank FCS probably is the cause of it - lucky it didn't mess with the artillery otherwise though. If you have anything more to say regarding v.0.32/the other difficulty options, don't be afraid to express them.

Here's a question for you: would you play a campaign in which you lead a platoon of marines using the SCS in various missions over Sahrani? I'm not saying I'd do this immediately (if ever), but now that I -do- have a working system, I -could- showcase it in some other missions as well and such. :D And campaigns are fun! And it might allow people to actually use all the niceties of it, such as the synchronized get in/load for vehicles and whatnot. :)

Thanks again, bert!

Wolfrug out.
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Offline bert

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #39 on: 17 Jan 2008, 22:59:29 »
I must be tired. :whistle: Looks like I forgot to attach the image. I blame having to work an extra hour at work today or something like that. I'll try again.

An SCS campaign sounds smart, I'd play it. It would be a shame to only use the SCS once.

bert

Offline LeeHunt

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #40 on: 21 Jan 2008, 19:37:35 »
hi Wolfrug,

Alright, testing the latest version, so far so good  :good:  The pacing so far is good, especially with help and radio communications from outside your squad.  I really think that you did a good job on this part of the mission, which is hard to do-- some missions overkill on communication but this is just right. Always nice to have voiceovers of different people too.  The squad control system is much better.

1) I went up the hill through the woods to attack the comm tower.  Attacked the tower and got the engineers in (who were subsequently pummeled by artillery and enemy counterattacks).  Sent Green & Red squads to Estrella to help out Alpha squad, but half of them were wiped out and all but two of Alpha Squad survived (as i found out later).  The battle for the Comm Tower was good, not too hard but enough of a challenge with that searing artillery. I finally blew up the nearby artillery direction site with an RPG (switching to OPFOR weapons at this point) and pulled my squad out as the BRDM menaced the engineers. 

2) When I arrived in Estrella the town was total carnage, felt like a real serious battle happened there.  Cool gameplay atmosphere moment.  I found a few random loons hiding around (of course save/reload as they picked me off from their random hiding places) and cleared Estrella.  The laser markers were easier to find this time and i appreciate the "hintc" clue about their location and the player's status.  Sometimes you gotta stop the battle and make sure the player knows important information.  At this point i have an artillery barrage on call, and a Cobra headed in.  So its off to attack the main enemy base and D-30's. I'm hoping to do almost no firing on my own and let the heavy stuff finish teh job.

Only minor bug so far is when the player dies sometimes there is a "_this select 0 error" but it doesn't seem to matter cause the player's dead. Otherwise no issues, everything flowing smoothly.

Will let you know more as i finish this week...



ok after i finish this next try of Mandoble's Triple Blow....

Offline Wolfrug

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #41 on: 24 Jan 2008, 11:07:19 »
Hey there Lee - thanks for testing this mission yet again.  :D You should let me know how the mission ended though - if you've had time to finish it, that is.

As a random note: those of you who've had problems with filefront, there's now a megaupload mirror available as well!  :good: Check the front page.

I'll look into that _this select 0 error...probably has something to do with the custom death animation. :) It always was a hack job...

Wolfrug out.
"When 900 years YOU reach, look as good you will not!"

Offline LeeHunt

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #42 on: 27 Jan 2008, 04:03:32 »
hi Wolfrug,

Finished!!!!!!   

Took out the last D-30 near the RACS base with a long distance RPG.  Felt good and satisfied. Fortunately i'd picked off most of the patrols, so i was able to run out with the three survivors from my squad back to Estrella pretty easy. 


Mission got a bit more sluggish towards the end-- are you deleting all the used up triggers and variables = nil etc?  Could just be my PC today though too   :dunno:

Minor bug that doesn't change the game:

The laser marker-- when i point it at the enemy artillery and call in a barrage, if i don't click the mouse button to get teh diamond on the enemy, the artillery lands on me.  So maybe say "make sure you have the diamond focused on the enemy" etc.  Also there is some kind of _this select error 6 (i can't remember if it was 6, it went by fast) each time i called in the artillery barrage from the USS Poseidon. 

Did the Cobra disappear?  I never saw him or gave orders to him, even after wiping out teh Shilka and all of Estrella?

So some stuff to tidy up, but keep persevering, great mission, good fun and a good challenge!   :yes:


Offline Wolfrug

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #43 on: 01 Feb 2008, 08:59:21 »
Thanks for the run-through, Lee!  :good: I'm beginning to think I might wrap this one up soonish, which is something of a first :D

I'll try to find the player-death "_this select 0" error - probably a miss on my side. I might try to improve on the custom death animation anyway then - or maybe provide a slightly less messy solution than the one I have right now.  ;)

Artillery barrage: Argh! Damned _this select errors.  >:( Still, if it worked...I'll look into it. Also, the "artillery on your head" thing is rather amusing, but something that should be fixed, of course. It's strange, because the script looks for the closest "LaserTarget" to your location - finding nothing returns only your position, not ObjNull ([0,0,0] = out in the sea someplace)? If that is the case, it's quite a curious find. But yes: fixety fix.

Cobra: Sigh. :( Did you get anyone telling you that it had gone down? I'm guessing not. Also it should have a marker on the map like all the other groups under your command. Nothing there either? You -might- just have forgotten about him, since I don't have him fly in over the city any longer if I remember correctly. :) Maybe I should change that...

End-game lag: It's a pretty sluggish mission, especially towards the end yes (the units in Estrella don't spawn until you're close enough - I should make the same true for the units around the D-30s methinks), due to the huge amounts of units, the scripting surrounding particularly the Waypoint-moving (inefficieeent, I know. :( I is bad scripter), and the fact everything is probably burning or dead by that time. Also I added a little extra that works so-and-so to the very final Estrella trigger (just some Harriers overhead) - might be a contributing factor. Don't know if there's much I can do about it.

Random questions:

Any more specific comments on the SCS? Is it the bee's knees, or does it still need some functionality added? I'm thinking that if it's good enough, I might submit it to the Ed.Depot at some point, in case someone else might want to use it.  ;)
Difficulty level? Seemed about right? Looks like I'm the only one who prefers taking out the short-distance comms -before- engaging my troops in a fight with the radar's defenders :D Although that does make the fight pretty easy on the non-hard and impossible difficulty levels.
Happen to find any easter eggs/cheats? ^^ I'm guessing not, but, they're in there, they're in there...(look for traffic cones).

But excellent-cool. I'll see about wrapping this one up, as mentioned. Anyone else who has any comments or suggestions, feel free to voice them.  ;)

Wolfrug out.
"When 900 years YOU reach, look as good you will not!"

Offline LeeHunt

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Re: [SP] Operation Dawning Hope (BETA) -Version 0.32 out!-
« Reply #44 on: 02 Feb 2008, 15:50:14 »
hi Wolfrug,

Never saw the Cobra or heard about its death- easy to solve with an event handler i think though?  Maybe you place him under the player's direct command in teh squad instead of using the SCS waypoints etc?

As for the random errors i mentioned, while they may annoy you the designer they did not affect gameplay at all. It might knock your score by a mission reviewer slightly, but if its between that and 30 hours of bug hunting, well then i'd opt for a lower score because the mission is fine.  The laser artillery thing was strange but i think was because i did not left click and have the diamond focused on a target.

The SCS is good, and yes should definitely be submitted to the Resources Board (love to have it!).  The SCS has plenty of functionality, in fact i wonder if you could also make a 90% stripped down version that just has you move the waypoints and nothing else? (squad already set to wedge and combat forever, for example).  As commander i ended up just moving them around and not changing their behaviour etc.  So for me its just move them around.

I just kept forgetting about the comm tower before i hit the radar-- but i managed to get it eventually.  Also the difficulty on EASY was just right for me.

I heard the OPFOR on the radio, was that one easter egg?  Didn't find the other traffic cones, though planting easter eggs is always good! :)

Anyway, i think its about ready too.