MP COOP mission "1-6 The Retrievers" Final Release (Under Review)

[laggy]

Hi all again.

This is hopefully the very final version of this mission. I put alot of effort into it. My wish is that you think it's fun, playable, replayable, huge, varied and has a sence of realistic "life" to it. The file size is still big due to sound and Rsc images. I added an intro and several changes that were commented on by betatesters.

Info:

Players: 1-6
Island: Sahrani
Version: 1.09
Addons: QG
Missiontype: Covert Insertion and Rescue
Time: Night
Weather: Bad and windy
Missionwork: Story based, huge areas, custom sounds, playability, variation and sence of "real world".

Fixed since last release:

Added intro.
Added one more group member to players group. Mission was quite hard.
Added weaponcargo to MI17, so the players can change gear during the ride.
Changed heli "jump zone" radio message to trigger instead of waypoint, which failed alot.
Made MI17 flyinheight higher to make it easier to pass mountains.
Moved enemy MI17 far away to avoid players using it.
Moved reporter to different house position.
Made time limit a little bit tighter.
Fixed: intro movie parameters. Yes or No.
Fixed: radio Alpha and Bravo triggers to make stolen MI17 take off failed if group leader was also server. Added a PublicVariable to fix this.
Fixed: Typos in messages and briefing. All hopefully.

Hope you enjoy it, but please still feel free to critique this mission. Even though I think it's finished... you never know... right?
Thanks to all of you who tested it. Especially "Nominesine", "Shark Attack" and "Denz". Your opinions were really constructive.

Cheers

Laggy

[sharkattack]

just to confirm ..

you want this reviewing  or beta testing first ?   

[laggy]

Hello.

Just beta testing and suggestions for improvements would be appreciated, since I haven't added intros/cutscenes etc yet. Just want to find bugs and other annoyances that I haven't found and fixed myself.

Thanks

Laggy

[sharkattack]

ok mate

i played this and enjoyed it .. however a few things were commented on

having to make the flight to the insertion point was ok the first time .. but after the third and fourth times it began to get a bit boring .. the first 10 mins of the mission are a non event all the player can do is watch .. perhaps add the weapons to the chopper to give the player something to do to kill the time when in flight or maybe start the units in the chopper above the drop zone ..

missing a message to tell all players to jump ..  first time we stayed in the chopper not realizing we were at the drop zone .. got a message from the pilot saying taking her up to 1500ft  but nothing to tell us to jump..

once we did jump we drifted towards the enemy camp .. one of the lads ended up in the sea  and left the session ..

we recced the camp and noticed a hind and its crew along with a couple of guards .. a uaz had crashed into a building ..
we  decided on a plan of action  "steal the chopper" which we managed to do easily could hear a bmp buzzing around but never seen it ..

we landed the chopper in the flat ground due south of Eponia and moved north
towards the town .. we noticed a static patrol standing at ease  just short of
Steve s position maybe have them switched on or patrolling the area  .. we removed the patrol and ran to the building  .. found steve  half in half out of a room upstairs .. recieved an action to save him  and he joined the group .. made a mad dash for the chopper .. had a few probs with steve staying in formation but he made it eventually .. all boarded the chopper and flew back to saftey ..

our team had 19 kills to our credit and the mission lasted 39 mins

i m not sure the chopper was intended for our use  as when we were flying i could see a load of ground contacts  both civillian and hostile on the radar
however they would not engage us in the hind  and the flight home was uneventfull

id also try hoz s do follow script for steve instead of him joining the group
works a treat  and saves having to give him loads of orders to keep him in formation

an enjoyable mission .. would be more of a challenge without the Hind
also it is a huge file  lots of custom sounds which we didnt get to hear because we spent most of the mission in the hind

keep up the good work mate 

[laggy]

Thanks alot for your opinions.

Will look into the changes as soon as I can. The missing message that should have informed you about the dropzone position was weird, since it is activated with a waypoint. Same solution as the 1500 feet message. I wonder if it could be that sometimes the chopper doesn't exactly make the waypoint and then the message is lost. A vehicle present trigger might be a better solution.

The hind was not intended to be used, but I kind of like flexibility and surprises like that. Might activate some heavy enemy air forces if that happens.

I'll also check out the follow script.

Until next time. Cheers

Laggy

[sharkattack]

youre welcome mate

has the makings of a great mission .. dont give up 

[laggy]

Hi shark attack.

Quick question: Did your MP team not have any troubles with the stolen Mi17 being able to leave the starting area when you activated the radio triggers?
I played the mission myself with a friend a couple of days ago, and the Mi17 got stuck hoovering in the air just where it started. It refused to leave the area.
Could this be an ArmA MP bug, or is it a mission design error? It has never happened before, but now it constantly happened even though I restarted the mission several times.

Cheers

Laggy

[sharkattack]

hi mate ..
we encountered no problems with the stolen hind ..
it flew us to our selected drop off point without any probs..

[Denz]

Hey laggy - (btw, great name for an MP mission maker  )
Just tried this as a single player with my pc running as a dedi.
I should explain that I rarely play MP games - most people I know play in the early evenings. There are pubs open at that time y'know
Although lan games happen every so often - we just bring the alcohol with us then
Anyway,

Briefing
Pretty good explanation. Couple of typos though.
collegue > colleague -- unless collegue is a US spelling 
This one is really minor and picky on my part 
"before they are coming for him" should be "before they come for him"

Mission
Seeing as you have added those ammunition crates, how about putting some extra SD magazines in? Just a thought.
The Mi17 took off fine and left the island.
Typos in radio messages (happens for either route)
Allright > Alright
"LET'S SE" > Let's see
I ran into problems when the Mi17 couldn't cross the mountains. It just kept circling over that little forest base thingy.
The South West (SW?) route faired a little better, giving me hope but the helo still refused to cross the mountains.
So couldn't continue. I tried to disembark the squad but the Mi17 crashed killing all aboard.

Summary
Tried it three times and I didn't get far enough into it to have any definite conclusions. But I do like the premise of this mission.
With a few additions it would make a fine single player mission.

[sharkattack]

the same happened with us ... with the hind not proceeding ...
eventually we figured it was the drop zone  and bailed out .. then the hind went on its way ..  could really do with a prompt  to tell us we have arrived at the drop zone ..

[Denz]

oh that's the drop zone. I was going by the map markers which are further to the west.

[laggy]

Hi again.

Thanks all of you for your input. I've done alot of changes, but won't release the mission again until I've added pictures and intro etc. I'm also working on other missions as well.

So far I have:
Changed the dropzone message activation from waypoint (which seemed to fail alot) to vehicle present trigger.
Deleted alot of sounds that were not really needed, to make filesize smaller.
Moved the enemy Mi17 far away, so it can't be used by the player team. Even though it could be cool to use it, it makes the extraction phase less stressful and too easy.
Changed house position of the reporter, so he's not halfway through a wall when you meet him, hopefully... this seems to be hard to accomplish in OFP and ArmA.

I will definetly also check the spelling and might change the ammocrates to filling the hind with weapons, to make the flight less boring after the first try.

I also tried to find hoz s dofollow script with no luck, where can I find it? A problem would be if that script doesn't support entering vehicles.

Thanks again.

Laggy

[sharkattack]

hoz s dofollow  link

http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=28711.0

follower will enter vehicles with leader a nice script

[laggy]

Sorry.

Found some last stuff. Will update thread again. For you who downloaded "Final review"... don't play it. Wait for update

Laggy

[laggy]

Hi all.

This is it. All should now be perfect. Please download zip file from top of this thread.

Laggy