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Author Topic: (Review Completed) [SP] Village De-Pacification v4.3  (Read 25291 times)

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Offline savedbygrace

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #60 on: 27 Feb 2010, 16:16:56 »
I opened up your mission and looked through it but I could not see what would cause the freeze. So then I cleared it out and inserted about 3 armor groups for each side, 8 infantry groups for each side, 2 air groups foreach side and several medic tents and ammo crates along with myself. Everything played out great, no lag, no freezing, nothing. I am flabberghasted.

Offline RKurtzDmitriyev

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #61 on: 27 Feb 2010, 21:10:16 »
Well thanks SBG. This is both good and bad news at the same time. ???

Maybe I'll see if I can make a version which uses the exact same scripts etc but with vanilla units, and see if anyone reports freezing.
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Offline savedbygrace

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #62 on: 28 Feb 2010, 07:48:33 »
Before you go through that trouble. Let me test run it some more.
EDIT: I haven't forgotten you pal. I plan on conducting some more tests of this one this weekend. Hopefully we can find what the problem is.
« Last Edit: 27 Mar 2010, 14:18:46 by savedbygrace »

Offline RKurtzDmitriyev

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #63 on: 28 Mar 2010, 01:38:36 »
Thanks, hope it doesn't crash, or if it does, in a predictable manner. :P
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Offline savedbygrace

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #64 on: 31 Mar 2010, 21:50:10 »
After going through it several more times, each time produced a game freeze again. All of them were at different positions and under different circumstances so I wouldn't say that its predictable.

Do you spawn any units?
Have you checked spawn scripts to ensure that all class names are correct?
Are you certain that not too much spawns at once?

Perhaps it could be the amount of Helos in the air, combined with the tracer fire?

Before rebuilding this completely...maybe you could remove all helo action and have those units arrive in Urals.
Only as a process of elimination. If it doesn't crash then, you could insert helos one at a time.

I'll keep at it as well, tweaking things in the editor and exporting to try and locate the problem.

Offline RKurtzDmitriyev

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #65 on: 31 Mar 2010, 23:30:02 »
??? The only createunit commands should be at the ending cutscenes (massacre.sqs and celebrate.sqs).

Thanks for testing, will see what I can do.
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Offline savedbygrace

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #66 on: 04 Apr 2010, 08:56:57 »
I opened your mission up again in the editor(3.36). I replaced the WGL MI24's with BIS MI24's and then exported it to single player missions. I then played and replayed it several times with no freezes. Air vehicles place a higher demand on the engine anyways since there is more data to track while they are flying and I suspect that WGL helos added a bit more. In any case, I think we may have figured it out.

As it is now, the mission is too difficult. I think if you tweaked the balance some to level the playing field a bit, the chance of completion would increase. How you do it is really up to you but giving the option to retreat is not necessarily a good option since once you're pinned down into the city, it is impossible to escape. You may be able to provide the player with some mines to place here and there to help combat the amount of armor as well as space the second wave a bit more to allow more time to position his men. You also have a truck load of men dropped far to the east which then descend into the town from the direction that the player assaulted from, which seems to add much in the way of overwhelming odds, especially since by the time the player is able to widdle the armor down, the infantry is swarming and though I could play cat and mouse all day, they simply toss grenades into my buildings and take me out. They can also see through fallen trees and bushes which teeters the unfairness scale.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the challenge of discovering the perfect approach that would do the most damage(and I did) the first wave also became easy to defend against but the second wave left me frustrated because although I felt I was in a good defensive position and able to pick off infantry and armor as it responded to its allies falling, I felt cheated because they would see me through foliage of fallen trees. I realize that there is nothing you can do about that, but if you could beef up the defenses around that HQ area, by placing more sandbags and perhaps some antitank barbed wire fences to prevent them from smashing my sandbags, the player would have just a little more mobility within his defense and be able to use that surrounding to his advantage.

It may be a grand idea to add a radio trigger which allows the player to save his game as much as he wants. Or just insert another save game once the first wave has been taken care of.

Offline RKurtzDmitriyev

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #67 on: 04 Apr 2010, 14:03:20 »
Thank you for the constructive criticism.

Right now I'm working on a (completely different) multiplayer mission. When that's done hopefully I'll be able to put yet more work into this mission. Seems like one or more of the choppers might just have to go. :(

Yeah, this mission could probably use more work. Tbh I guess I got a little lazy because I was tired of editing the same mission over and over again. But now it's been a while, done some different projects, and I think I could be more productive now that I'm nice and fresh again.

I'm still puzzled because my computer is almost certainly inferior to yours, but yet freezing is not nearly as common for me, and the occasional freezes I get might be completely unrelated (one of my hard drives seems to be crapping out on me).

On the other hand, occasionally the multiplayer conversion I made for this seems to desync suddenly and massively, often crashing the server, and I can't help but wonder if that's not a co-incidence. Once, all three players, including me, all had our computers freeze at once. Maybe the server computer is experiencing the same problem as you? Who knows.... :dunno:

Thanks for all your help. :good:
« Last Edit: 04 Apr 2010, 14:07:42 by RKurtzDmitriyev »
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Offline savedbygrace

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #68 on: 04 Apr 2010, 18:57:56 »
I honestly think it has something to do with the WGL choppers. That explains why it was not a consistent freeze(happening in the same place every time). It would depend on the location of the choppers and what else was going on along with them.

I understand the problem of getting burned out on working on the same mission. I started Kolgujev Contract last January and worked on it for 7.5 months straight, let it go through testing for a month before completely redoing it which took another 6 months. Obviously, I am taking a break from it and have began a campaign for OFP among the many other things I am spread out on. I have one mission complete and ready for testing but since it requires quite a few addons, I am going to release it once I have more missions to test so that people don't have so much to download for just one mission.

In any case, take your time with the update. This mission has fantastic potential if you could get the balance just right.

Offline savedbygrace

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #69 on: 20 May 2010, 00:55:10 »
Bumping this one because I'd hate to see it's efforts fading into oblivion. Are you waiting to finish up your MP project first?

Offline RKurtzDmitriyev

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #70 on: 20 May 2010, 01:13:44 »
Hehe, that one's already mostly finished. I got distracted by yet another project, specifically I'm developing a script that will have AI observers "call in" CoC UA strikes as realistically as possible. But with your encouragement I'll have to bump this project up on my priorities. :P

EDIT:

So I'm planning how I'll revise this mission. The two main complaints are (a) lag/performance (to the point of crashing) and (b) excessive difficulty. These complaints, especially (a), apply to the multiplayer version as well.

Lag/Performance

The multiplayer version also has a habit of desyncing or even crashing the server (and many of the clients). My guess is that the client-side lag produced by too many objects is compounded by the need to synchronize the actions of those objects. This puts such a strain on people's computers, including the server, that stuff crashes. My theory is supported by the fact that the last major MP crash occurred exactly as a BMP exploded, throwing laggy particles everywhere.

The obvious way to remedy this is to reduce the number of objects. Moving armored vehicles and choppers are obvious culprits, but I'm getting a noticeable framerate decrease just from looking at the town of Larche. Perhaps all the sandbags and tents are lagging? I will have to investigate this further.

I really really do not want to completely remove or replace the WGL choppers. They're just...cool. I may simply reduce their number to one, or ensure that not much else is happening when they (it) takes off. I still don't understand how the mission could be at least playable (in SP mode) on my inferior computer while it crashes SBG's more powerful computer.

I plan to introduce a createunit script to ensure that as few objects as possible are out there at any given point. This ties in with....

Difficulty

I've decided that I want a more accurate simulation of hit-and-run guerrilla warfare. You see, one of the things that annoyed me about the BIS Resistance campaign was the fact that by the end, the "resistance" was launching full-frontal tank assaults against a superpower enemy. That's really not how it works in a real guerrilla war.

I plan to increase the gap between enemy counter-assaults, giving the player more room to retreat (or plan a very careful ambush). Also, to add replayability, I'm considering randomizing the content of each "wave." I may also add more endings. Players feel punished by the civilian massacre ending, even though staying in the town is often suicide.

I may even move the battle site from Larche to somewhere further from the airfield. (La Riviere seems appealing for some reason). Of course, by the time I do that, I'm essentially building a different mission. But even if I choose this route, the feedback from all of you has not been in vain, for my mission editing skills have profited greatly.

Any more suggestions on how I could further revise this mission? :)
« Last Edit: 20 May 2010, 15:40:12 by RKurtzDmitriyev »
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Offline savedbygrace

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #71 on: 21 May 2010, 12:47:37 »
First, the mission was not crashing, it was freezing. There is a difference. I have played missions where there are tons of objects that cause a FPS hit but yours did no such thing. In fact, other than tremendous difficulty in the last wave, your mission was fine once I removed that wgl helo. I honestly don't see the difference in them. When I played your mission before, I was running 2 4800 series HD crossfire cards and have since removed one of them from my system because it was giving me problems. If you can adjust the last wave difficulty, I'll give it another try with the WGL helos to see if it was that card causing the freezing. Though it makes no sense that the freezing was eliminated by removing those helos.

A few pointers on the difficulty.....
Increasing the response time of the last wave would definitely allow more time to prepare for it or run like heck.
You could also remove the group of infantry that you have circling the area in a truck and being dropped near the players start point...that would allow retreat without engagement.

In fact, the armor was not the difficult task. The infantry constantly circling the city and being able to spot the player through downed trees was playing a large part in the difficult process of elimination.

Offline RKurtzDmitriyev

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #72 on: 21 May 2010, 14:17:26 »
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First, the mission was not crashing, it was freezing. There is a difference. I have played missions where there are tons of objects that cause a FPS hit but yours did no such thing.

Ah yes. I was being a little loose with terminology there, wasn't I? :D

You're right, this probably shouldn't be viewed as a standard OFP lag issue. I was trying to tie your reports of freezing to the frequent lagging and crashing when playing on the multiplayer server I often play on. But these could be unrelated.

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If you can adjust the last wave difficulty, I'll give it another try with the WGL helos to see if it was that card causing the freezing. Though it makes no sense that the freezing was eliminated by removing those helos.

Thanks. And yes, it doesn't make any sense to me either. The WGL hinds seem to be using BIS models. The only modifications are different weapons and different AI behaviour.

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You could also remove the group of infantry that you have circling the area in a truck and being dropped near the players start point...that would allow retreat without engagement.

Yes, that's definitely too sadistical. I'll have to nerf the Spetsnaz or however you spell them. :P

Thanks for your feedback. :)
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Offline mboshell

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #73 on: 27 May 2010, 10:58:40 »
There are a ton of replies that I failed to read, so please forgive me if I repeat what others have already said.

Overview

Perfect, and beautiful with the mod format.

Briefing

Not sure if this is mispelled or not, depending on what your going for, but should Abel Squad be Able Squad?  Other than that, seemed like a perfect balance of having enough info, without boring the player to death as I have done...lol.

Intro

Short, simple, but nice.  Simple camera angles and zooming can do wonders for giving the player an imediate scope of the battlefield.  I wondered why it focused on the lady in the window and thought I might have missed something in the briefing.  The outro clarified this, though.

Mission

I was tasked with opening fire on the russians in a village, and radioing Beast Squad to assault the village and deciding whether to retreat or defend the village for multiple endings.  Sounds excellent!  At first try, I took a little too long and the counter attacks beat me to the village.  Because my waypoint marker still appeared, I thought I was supposed to enter the village as an objective.  My entire squad got annihilated.  On the next try, I decided to go around and flank the village from the right.  This would allow me to be closer to beast squad which I hoped would be to both of our benefit.  I triggered the alarm just before getting into position, so I radiod beast squad to go.  The APC in the town initially began engaging us and took down half my squad, but when beast squad got closer to the village, he went around to engage them.  My plan worked!  Here was my opening, I needed to take advantage.  I rushed toward the village at top speed toward the waypoint marker with my squad following behind and engaging when necessary.  I made it to the waypoint but became puzzled when an objective marker didn't tick off.  Then I checked the briefing and realized that I was to hold the town OR retreat.  Which meant I just murdered half my squad for nothing since there was no way on earth that I was combat effective enough to hold that town against the armored assault.  The waypoint kind of threw me for a loop there.  Maybe it shouldn't be there since it's optional to actually enter the town.  Anyway, after tha it was time for the enemy armored assault to begin, so I high tailed it out of the village traveling west, which was opposite the enemy armor.  I bypassed my squad, but the caught up to me.  The many hinds in the air never seemed to pose a threat.  Sure, they would spit a few rounds of fire every now and then but most of the time just flew right over our heads.  Some of my squad was injured, so it took forever to get them up the mountains to the western retreat point.  Eventually we made it and mission ended with no bugs.

Outro:

Because I chose to retreat rather than stay and defend the town, the outro I was shown was of the russians just outside of the town with civilians lined up.  The girl from the intro was present in this line.  The russians executed all of the lined up civilians by gunfire.  I then got a debriefing that said "Mission Complete?" and chastised me for allowing the slaughter to happen.  Very good stuff!

Overall

I really enjoyed this mission.  Pretty much everything about it.  The multiple endings definitely increase replay value.  I'm scratching my head wondering what I can nitpick about.  Maybe the fact that the choppers don't engage much, and they seemed to take unlimited small arms fire with no dammage.  I look forward to trying to hold the town, but those tanks are brutal!

Thanks for the fantastic mission!


Offline RKurtzDmitriyev

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Re: [SP] Village De-Pacification v.3.36 (1/26/10)
« Reply #74 on: 27 May 2010, 14:49:32 »
Thanks for testing mboshell. I'm glad you liked it. :)

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should Abel Squad be Able Squad?

It's supposed to be Abel Squad. My idea was that the resistance had come up with their own phonetic alphabet, and "Abel" is another name for Malden.

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The waypoint kind of threw me for a loop there.  Maybe it shouldn't be there since it's optional to actually enter the town.

I always play on Veterans mode (with no crosshairs or rifle bullet tracers!) so I didn't even notice that the waypoint was still there.

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The many hinds in the air never seemed to pose a threat.  Sure, they would spit a few rounds of fire every now and then but most of the time just flew right over our heads.

It really all depends on your luck. Sometimes the WGL choppers are brutal. The Apaches, at least, have the potential to annihilate a whole squad with their machine guns that make explosions like grenades.

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I look forward to trying to hold the town, but those tanks are brutal!

Yes, it's extremely difficult. Savedbygrace is the only person who has reported beating off everyone. Yes, that's right, I haven't actually gotten all the way through to the "good" end of this mission (without cheating). :D

The mission is in the process of being revised to make it less outrageously difficult to get a satisfying ending. I plan to add more endings and more randomness in the enemy waves, to make the mission seem less arcade-ish. Honestly I'm not sure if I'll consider it an extensive revision of the same mission or a completely different mission.

SBG reports that the mission keeps freezing up, which is disconcerting. None of us are quite sure what's going on. Tell us if you get any freezes. :cool2:
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However, in the event that it does speak, you are encouraged to heed its advice. ;)