Operation Sandtiger (OA)

[ViV 10]

Heya Arma 2 fans!

I'm here to proudly presents my newest and first release!

Operation Sandtiger

v0.3

Made with Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead

Description:You are a part of an important mission for the US. Army. You and your team will be inserted at an US Outpost, and are afterwards orderd to strike and village, where alot of OPFOR contact have been detected. Your only support will be an little fire-support team, who will help you in the strike of the little village. The village is a very important strongpoint for the US weapon convoy route. So capture it at all cost! After you've captured the village, you have to move any further to the west, and reach the neutral green-zone, for a pick-up by a friendly black hawk.

Features:

• You control a squad on 8 AI soldiers
  
• Civilians exist in the village too
  
• Alot of Action.
  
• A likely battlefield nowadays, no where to take cover, open field battle.
  
• First Aid modules
  

Download:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=11723

Version 0.3

Version 0.3.

Alright, I fixed up alot of stuff, and got some help from Dynamic Echo. Many thanks to you buddy! Tasks, Gramma, Enemies, FPS Drop has been fixed. I've added some new units at the outpost you land on, just for make it more realistic. The 2 A10s there pass by you in the start, will now be deleted when they reach their last waypoint, so they won't fly around and mess up stuff. Opfor groups now got cycle waypoints, just made it easier in Editor. when you reach the greenzone / The end of the mission, the scoreboard is fixed.

Constructive feedback could be good

Edited August 25, 2010 by ViV

[Jazzadazza 10]

sounds good mate, cant wait for this one.

[ViV 10]

Just waiting for Armaholic to accept :)

[Jazzadazza 10]

downloading now!!! will try out ASAP

[ViV 10]

great. please post some feedback when you done :-)

[Jazzadazza 10]

well i played it a few times havent finished it yet but i will get there...

The first thing, In this mission you play a marine yet im wearing an army uniform and using army stuff, its not much of a big deal but still worth thinking about. Another thing is when i do an object nothing tells me that i have, even in the briefing.

Apart from those two small issues the mission overall was great! Lots of action, people getting shot. One thing i might add is when i enter the village i get a large FPS drop i think it might be from those spawning units but i also noitced a lot of civlians maybe removing a few of them might help.....

Hope that all made sense and didnt sound to critcial.

Keep up the good work!

[ViV 10]

Thanks m8.. Think I'm gonna remove the civilians too, got some problems with them too.

But one thing.. What do you mean about the Marine, and wearing an army uniform... didn't understand :)

[Jazzadazza 10]

Ok so the army where the ACU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Combat_Uniform

where as the marines where MARPAT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARPAT

marines also wear a diffent type of helmet and i think a diffent type of body armour as well.

If you own the origanl ARMA 2 you will see a differnce.

[ViV 10]

I do.. and I understand what you mean now m8.. :)

But yea, you say something.. I didn't thought about it ;)

[Dynamic Echo 10]

I'll give it a go. There are mods which include desert Marine units, if you don't mind your mission requiring an addon they might be worth a go.

OK, I've had a wee look and there are some things which shouldn't be too hard to improve.

Firstly, the A10s which fly over in the beginning just fly off into the desert, it would be more elegant if you were to have their last of those movement waypoints with '{deleteVehicle _X} forEach (crew A10)+[A10]', replacing A10 with the names of the A10s in each case. This will, as you will probably have guessed, delete them.

Some of the HQ text chatter has some fairly large spelling and grammar areas. For example, one of them contains the sentence 'Thats a affirmative cheif', which should obviously read "That's an affirmative chief". Things like that can just be fixed using a spell checker.

The initial objective of dismounting and advancing never actually completed for me, so I had to manually assign the next task. I personally wouldn't bother with that objective at all. If you only put it in the reinforce to the player that they need to order their men to disembark then it would be more elegant to use a script to eject them. The following should work:

_group = _this select 0;
_vehicle = _this select 1;
{
unassignvehicle _x;
_x action ["EJECT", _vehicle];
sleep 0.5;
} foreach units _group;

Save that as an sqf and call it by using "_xhandle = [group1,chopper] execvm 'GetOut.sqf'", replacing group 1 with the name of the appropriate group, chopper with the name of the helicopter and GetOut with whatever you call the sqf.

If you feel like it (and have a mic) adding voice overs for the chatter you've put in isn't especially difficult, simply use audacity, save as a .ogg file, and add the following to the description.ext:

class CfgSounds
{

sounds[] = {whatever, sound2};


class whatever
{
	name = "whatever"; 
	sound[] = {\sound\whatever.ogg, db - 40, 1.0, 500};
	titles[] = {0, ""};
};
};

Then call it by having 'unitname say "whatever"' or similar, I think there is a command for having it play over the radio but I can't remember it off the top of my head.

Also, it would be quite nice to have a choice of weapons available, which you can select during the briefing. This is simply done by putting something like this into the description.ext:

class Weapons
{
 class SCAR_L_CQC_Holo       {count = 8;};
 class M4A1                  {count = 8;};
 class M16A2                 {count = 8;};
 class Colt1911              {count = 8;};	
 class M9                    {count = 8;};	
 };
class Magazines
{
 class 30Rnd_556x45_Stanag   {count = 100;};
 class HandGrenade_West      {count = 100;};
 class 20Rnd_762x51_B_SCAR   {count = 100;};
 class 7Rnd_45ACP_1911       {count = 100;};
 class 15Rnd_9x19_M9         {count = 100;};
};

Finally, it would be great if you could marry up the markers for the objectives with the briefing description - do this by putting the following into the briefing.sqf in the appropriate section:

<marker name=""MARKERNAME"">APPROPRIATE TEXT</marker>

Hope that helps :P

Edited August 15, 2010 by Dynamic Echo

[ViV 10]

Thanks m8 :)..

This will for sure help.. But about the addon, and the marines.. I Don't like the idea, I don't want people to install a hell mess of stuff...

- About the markers.. I were some confused when I should make the markers, and couldn't make the succes, failed etc. marker to work..

- About the grammar... thanks for the hint, will fix it. :).

and thanks for the post at all :) Will try to improve the mission with your feedback m8.

[Dynamic Echo 10]

That's OK, I've been having another look and it seems like you've set up patrols with epic numbers of move waypoints. It is more efficient to set up a patrol with a pair of move waypoints and a cycle waypoint, which will make them cycle between the last two move waypoints.

Additionally, if you want to set a trigger to go off when the player goes through it, I find it easier to set it to anybody then in the conditions box put "player in thisList;" - substitute player with the appropriate name (though I do believe just putting player does work, I normally put the actual name).

Also, I spotted that you have synched some triggers to move orders. For this to work properly the trigger type needs to be set to "switch".

As for mission objectives, you'll want to, firstly, set up a briefing html, which sets what will be displayed upon mission end. This should do:

<html>

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1250">

<title>Title</title>
</head>

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<! -----DEBRIEFING----->
<hr>
<br>
<h2><a name="Debriefing:End1"></a></h2>
<br>
<p>
<! ------victory------>
Well done, mission complete.
</p>
<br>

<hr>
<br>
<h2><a name="Debriefing:End2"></a></h2>
<br>
<p>
<! ------KIA------>
Failure.
</p>
<br>


<! -----DEBRIEFING END----->

</body>
</html>

Just stick that in your mission folder.

For the objectives themselves, I'll work out exactly what you need, won't be long.

OK, you'll need to create an appropriate objective trigger (say a 500m diameter OpFor not present trigger around the hostile area), with the following in the On Act box:

tskobj_1 setTaskState "SUCCEEDED"; player setCurrentTask tskobj_2; tskObj_2 setTaskState "Created"; tskObj_2 setTaskState "ASSIGNED"; obj_1 = true; publicVariable "obj_1"; Hint 'Exfiltrate';

For the mission end trigger change the type to end 1 and put in the condition box:

this && obj_1;

Of course, this won't work without some changes to the briefing.sqf, which if I were you I would change to:

//Notes

player createDiaryRecord ["Diary", ["Tactical Hints", "You can strike the village from any side."]];
player createDiaryRecord ["Diary", ["Red-Alert", "Good morning gentlemen!<br/><br/>I must inform you about this mission, before we begin. This is a high-risk mission, but we need the town secured so we can get our convoy through. There is no cover except a few wrecks out there so keep you're God-damned head down! We don't want to need caskets for any of you.<br/><br/>Our intels suggests that there is a lot of activity up there, so stay focused. Remember the RoE. There are known to be civilians out there. So watch your fire! But most importantly, watch your team's backs. Understood? Good luck Marine!"]];
player createDiaryRecord ["Diary", ["Support", "No support is currently availble for this mission."]];
player createDiaryRecord ["Diary", ["Mission", "Your mission is to clear out the small village east of the US outpost."]];
player createDiaryRecord ["Diary", ["Briefing", "You will be inserted via Black Hawk callsign "Butterfly" 1 click from the objective area. You and your team must advance to the small village East of the US outpost, and Eliminate any Opfor resistance you encounter.<br/><br/>The village is an important strongpoint for the US weapon convoy route. Neutralize all enemies at all costs, don't leave the area without having eliminated all hostiles.<br/><br/>The only available support is a fire-support team callsign "Swordsmen" will be there to assist you during the attack. Once you have cleared out the village, move East to the neutral green-zone, and wait for "Butterfly" to pick you up."]]; 

//Task 2

tskobj_2 = player createSimpleTask["Exfiltrate From Hostile Territory"];
tskobj_2 setSimpleTaskDescription ["Exfiltrate from hostile territory and link up with Butterfly 2-1. Make sure no one follows you. Don't endanger Butterfly 2-1.", "Exfiltrate From Hostile Territory", "Disengange"];
tskobj_2 setSimpleTaskDestination (getMarkerPos "mkrObj3");

//Task 1

tskobj_1 = player createSimpleTask["Neutralize Any Opfor Contact"];
tskobj_1 setSimpleTaskDescription [Advance to the village Hazar Bagh, west of your position and neutralize any opfor contact.", "Neutralize Any Opfor Contact", "Engage at will"];
tskobj_1 setSimpleTaskDestination (getMarkerPos "mkrObj2");

//Assignment
tskObj_1 setTaskState "Created";
tskObj_1 setTaskState "ASSIGNED";

player1 setCurrentTask tskObj_1;

I also worked in some spelling and grammar fixes to the briefing. Hope this helps.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Dynamic Echo

[ViV 10]

sup, tried to replace the tasks, in the briefing.sqf .. The ingame briefing is great.. but The tasks doesn't work.. They don't show up ingame

and can't get the eject script to work :S

[Dynamic Echo 10]

OK, I'll edit the mission and send you a version which should work (might need to do some fiddling). If you're anything like me having a working one there to pick apart is more useful anyway.

[ViV 10]

Alright, go for it m8..

- Btw, you have messenger or something? So we can chat easier?

[Dynamic Echo 10]

OK, I can't get the tasks to work either, and I don't know why. I've got everything else working, but not the tasks. I even just transplanted the tasks in from Hard Day and they didn't work. I have no idea.

Also no, I don't have messenger.

[ViV 10]

Alright... Let me take a look at it m8..

Could u send the version you worked on?

[Dynamic Echo 10]

Yeah sure here it is. The good news almost everything else works. For some reason the marker links in the briefing weren't working (it just stopped displaying that section), but everything else works well. Hope you have more luck than I with fixing it. I also fixed pretty much all the grammar and optimised the waypoints and triggers a bit, though there are some which seem to do nothing which you could probably remove.

Edited August 15, 2010 by Dynamic Echo

[ViV 10]

This is great! Thank you m8!

[ViV 10]

New Version guys.

[kurtz1 10]

Nice mission. It has a good balance. Could you put some gear crates at the base so we can select weapons?

[ViV 10]

Yea I'm thinking about that one too m8 :).. Thanks for the hint anyways

[Dynamic Echo 10]

An easier way of allowing the selection of weapons is to put them in the description.ext, then choose the gear option in the units tab of the briefing. If I remember correctly I added that functionality in that version I sent you ;)

[kurtz1 10]

Choosing gear in the units tab would be so much better.