[CO] co12 - Coastal Raid

[TangoCharlie 10]

Mission Title: COOP 12 Coastal Raid

Players: 1-12 (S/P also supported)

Developer: TangoCharlie (aka. TeeCee)

File Name: co12_Coastal_Raid.Chernarus.pbo

Latest version: 1.06

Mission Briefing:

• Objective:
  Coalition forces seek evidence of WMD's suspected to be being stockpiled at a factory in the destabilized former USSR state of Kazakhstan. They are tasked with returning with any evidence of this and disabling any immediate threat, whilst minimalizing civilian casualties.
  
• Situation:
  The suspect factory is located near a dense civilian population. An all-out airstrike has not been authorized due to the risk of civilian casualties, resulting biological agent leaks or the possibility of bad intel. The area offers no easy mainland insertion and heavy air defences are reported in the area.
  Two squads of Royal Marine Commandos will land by sea and are tasked with undertaking the main assault. They will be supported by a Special Boat Service specops unit responsible for sniper cover, recon, and CAS spotting.
  The area is defended by a garrison stationed at the port which must first be neutralised. AA defences are an early priority to facilitate opening of their airspace. A small command post has been erected at the nearby train station, which must be decommissioned to prevent early warning of our attack.
  This needs to be a swift operation, with units extracted before further forces can react from the city or nearby base.
  
• Location:
  The factory suspected of storing biological weapons is located near the coast close to Drakon Port, to the east of the city of Elektrozavodsk. Coalition forces have no base of operations in the area, and as such a British led coastal raid has been sanctioned. The operation will be undertaken just before daybreak, around 4am.

Features:

• Approx 30-45 min mission designed for small coop teams to enjoy.
  
• 2 distinct task lists for RMC and SBS teams offering standalone infantry and specop missions.
  
• Action orientated with no trecks across the entire island.
  
• Fully guided waypoint and task system to guide you through mission.
  
• Boat infiltration, helicopter extraction, A-10 CAS lasering.
  
• Script and addon light for easy accessibility.
  
• Mixture of night and day action, with the mission beginning before sunrise.
  
• Custom radio dialogue sounds and load screen.

Scripts Used:

• Revive Script 0.50 - Norrin
  
• MultiTask 0.1.4 - Deadfast
  
• AI Skill Script 1.0 - GeneralCarver

Required Addons:

NO CUSTOM ADDONS REQUIRED!

Built and tested with vanilla install of Arma2 + OA (1.57).

BAF DLC recommended (but not required) due to BAF player units and weapons.

Known Issues / Notes:

• Lighthouse island is not navigable by AI, and as such non-player specops units are AI disabled to prevent them self-drowning. They will be auto-relocated and awakended once objectives are met.
  
• The AI is not scripted to complete 'DESTROY' objectives (satchel static targets etc). You must complete this yourself or proceed with your task list to meet the ultimate objective.
  
• For the best experience, I would recommend a human player leads at least 1 squad. :)

Download:

Privately hosted server with direct download - link will be updated to reflect latest version (1.06).

CHANGE-LIST:

[b]V 1.01 [/b][i](added 1/1/11 8:30pm GMT)[/i]
[list][*]Fixed ability for SBS squad to bypass initial objectives unders certain conditions.
[*]Hopefully fixed chopper waiting for AI indefinately when they are stuck/AWOL - 30sec timer should kick in.
[*]Removed 'no opfor present' trigger at port camp and factory which was occasionally holding up mission progression.[/list]

[b]V 1.02 [/b][i](added 3/1/11 10:30pm GMT)[/i]
[list][*]Replaced all hints with radio chat dialogue.
[*]Added (admittedly amateurish) radio sounds for HQ dialogue.
[*]Amended some objective condition checks to stop early accidental triggers.
[*]Added TOW missile at factory for player use.[/list]

[b]V 1.03 [/b][i](added 5/1/11 6:30pm GMT)[/i]
[list][*]Ammo crate placement altered to feature more prominently at objectives.
[*]Added AI skill level selector script at lobby, allowing for player choice of difficulty.
[*]Altered behaviour of littlebird loading - only AI units are teleported aboard for transport now.
[*]Lighthouse shilka + comms target initial health correct to 1/4 (previously wrongly set to full).
[*]Extraction location moved to flatter and less treacherous terrain.
[*]Tweaked some reinforcement triggers to account for some scenarios.[/list]

[b]V 1.04 [/b][i](added 5/1/11 8:30pm GMT)[/i]
[list][*]Corrected coastal reinforcement APC not following waypoint.
[*]Removed objects blocking patrolling enemies at factory.
[*]Added additional patrol for SBS squad to encounter near dropoff point.
[*]Corrected a mistake in radio text/sound dialogue regarding reinforcement direction (NW -> SW).
[*]Added a friendly med-tent for forces to use at factory should SBS be only friendlies left.[/list]

[b]V 1.05 [/b][i](re-added 7/1/11 11:00pm GMT)[/i]
[list][*]Corrected helicopter extraction failing to land and load.
[*]Changed SBS littlebird despatch to radio trigger (0-0-1) on demand.
[*]Widened mission end trigger to account for sloppy pilots!
[*]Added enemy ambush firefight at extraction point.
[*]Added a few additional enemy units, patrols and another APC.
[*]Added flares to signal some early triggers during darkness.
[*]Fixed enemy units being destroyed during AI respawn due to bad respawn markers.
[*]Other minor waypoint changes and tweaks.[/list]

[b]V 1.06 [/b][i](added 1/2/11 10:00pm GMT)[/i]
[list][*]Improved helicopter extraction logic to cancel late boarders.
[*]Changed city reinforcement trigger and position (more time to man defences).
[*]Made the code more robust with publicvariable sync'ing.
[*]Prevented unwanted extra flares triggering.
[*]Added walls to prevent AI 'noclipping' through factory defences to mortar.
[*]Labelled the squads on character select screen.
[*]Tried to improve chopper AI flight reliability (but not much, a game bug...).
[*]Added intro credits.
[/list]

TODO:

• Any new bugfixes...:rolleyes: Hopefully nothing, as I wish that 1.06 is a final release.

Thanks for playing my 1st publically released mission for OFP/ARMA. I hope you enjoy, and feedback welcomed. Cheers, TC.

Edited February 2, 2011 by TangoCharlie
v1.06 released

[lNTRUDER 26]

Sounds cool TC :)

I haven't tried it yet but I will ask my clan buddies to join me in my effort :D

Good info as well, thanks.

/ ]NTRUDER

[TangoCharlie 10]

I've updated the mission with radio chat and audio dialogue to improve clarity of objectives. Apologies for the low quality voice acting (hint: it's me). An additional couple of trivial things were also corrected. Apologies that this makes the PBO file just shy of 4MB.

If anyone has played this and has feedback to give, good or bad, it would be very welcome. Thanks!

[maus 10]

I played through this with two friends a couple nights ago and it was really good!

I think we died the most moving from the docks to the trainyard - was hard to find all the enemies hiding in the brush.

Was able to steal a vodnik with a big gun which made the assault on the factory a lot easier.

I liked the dawn setting and the pacing of the mission was good too. Only time we really got stalled was trying to take down the radio tower, took us a little bit to find the satchel charges.

I'll try to get some people together to go through it again with this new version, will post again if I do.

Were there any particular parts you were worried about/wanted comments on? I just got the game a couple weeks ago and haven't played too many missions, but this seemed really polished to me.

[kdjac 19]

This is one of the best missions ever made for Arma, its genius.

Well done, few little bugs we having another go now will post up feedback and bugs, damn light house :(

Edited January 4, 2011 by kdjac

[Rogue Null 0]

Played this with 9/12 tonight, the group had a couple of comments.

One is that our squad was repeatedly teleported back to the beach - we suspected it may have been due to people connecting to the server or choosing to respawn, and it affecting the entire squad/team.

The second is that they felt the enemies, especially machinegunners, were far too accurate. I can't comment as I never really had that problem and suspect they were just being wimps.

The third is that it wasn't obvious where the AA and APC objectives were as part of the first task - we took out the Vodnik, Tunguska, and other vehicles around the port including the first counterattack but weren't able to trigger the objective for quite some time. Perhaps because of a single guy hiding in the grass? Could use a "captured by blufor" trigger instead of an "opfor not present".

Otherwise I really liked it. Right number of enemies and pacing of objectives.

[kdjac 19]

Finished it there with 4 lost 1 life between us, actually no real bugs as such.

i teleported from the lighthouse in an earlier play but didnt happen the 2nd time, what did happen was when we completed overwatch we teleported into the chopper as we had only 2 on the other team we wanted to provide more cover. Not exactly a bug, shilka on the island needs 4 satchels tho?

All tasks worked flawlessly took us a few goes to get our bearings on what each side needed to do and how best to approach it.

Only 2 suggestions i would make is more enemies we cleared with 4 players on veteran, think some people may have forgetten what Cherno is like with the grass.

2nd randomise it a bit once we got the idea into our heads what to do we hammered the enemy quite easily as a lot of the mission is scripted i would add in some random patrols both on foot and in vehicles.

Easily best mission of 2011 :D Seriously brilliant mission the seperate tasks and seperate squads actualy work and work very well. Well done.

[PogMoThoin 10]

+1 on Kdjacs thoughts, played as commando clearing the camps. Needs to be a little harder though. Extraction is in a mad place, why not a clearing instead of the side of a hill

[TangoCharlie 10]

Only time we really got stalled was trying to take down the radio tower, took us a little bit to find the satchel charges.

Yeah, 1 bit of feedback I already knew from my friends was that the weapon stashes need highlighting more clearly. I will work on that, but not sure cleanest way to do it without spamming more text, waypoints and clutter. Perhaps just better placement in a prominent position near the target in the open. I will experiment.

One is that our squad was repeatedly teleported back to the beach - we suspected it may have been due to people connecting to the server or choosing to respawn, and it affecting the entire squad/team.

Ooo poop. That sounds one seriously nasty bug. However, the guts of my mission file is actually quite horrendously basic, with very few complex script commands and zero external script files bar the externally sourced ones. My theory is either there is something wrong with Norrin revive script (but there is no other reports of this on his thread, and nor have I ever encountered this issue), OR, is it possible your server has some kind of conflicting addons like ACE etc? I dont have / use any of those so I have no idea if they may present an issue. Any suggestions welcome on this one, and of course if anyone else has experienced this show stopper.

The second is that they felt the enemies, especially machinegunners, were far too accurate.

I'm not sure if I should address that in my mission file or recommend you tone down your host's AI skill levels. During an early alpha build of this with a friend with stock game settings we died a total of 45 times running hapahazradly through the mission. I then turned my AI skill and precision settings down from 0.8 to 0.3, and in the next run we died about four times. This immediately got rid of those godlike laser-beam machinegunners and jeeps that headshot you 1st bullet across the map. Try it, it makes the game soo much more fun for me as bullets spray around your feet! :)

The third is ... weren't able to trigger the objective for quite some time.

Did you by chance download the 1st version before I could pull it off? I had a "NO OPFOR PRESENT" trigger as you describe, but this has since been removed as of 1.01 I think it was - it is now a simple MOVE waypoint and I've replaced the port waypoints into a more linear path. As long as you destroy the armour or kill the gunners, it is now a simple waltz over to the trainyard, clearing as you go.

i teleported from the lighthouse in an earlier play but didnt happen the 2nd time,...

Yeah, sorry this is a known issue / limitation at the moment. As per my 1st post notes, this is because I have to forcibly place any AI specops into the chopper to ferry them on due to disabled movement AI (they love to drown themselves on that island and cannot navigate it). I confess to not spending long looking into a solution, but I will try to find a way to detect which players are and aren't human controlled, and only move AI into the littlebird in the next version. It is a bit of a freedom and realism killer.

Not exactly a bug, shilka on the island needs 4 satchels tho?

It only takes 2 if you plant them on the rear of the Shilka at its weak point, and this is with the Shilka starting at 50% health. Annoying I know, but satchels just seem so ineffective. I will see if I can trim its starting health down lower or devise a way to make this less tedious.

Only 2 suggestions i would make is more enemies ... 2nd randomise it a bit.

Needs to be a little harder though.

Noted. Although some people have obviously found it hard already - I think this is going to differ wildly between gamers and what they want from the mission. If anything my preference will be towards the fun and easier side, rather than the realism, as my intention was to make this akin to a S/P action experience. Randomisation however.... yes, I will definately consider doing as a new feature.

Extraction is in a mad place, why not a clearing instead of the side of a hill

Good question. When starting out building the mission I was scoping out the terrain and with the waypoint plan I just settled on there as a midpoint between the RMC and SBS squad paths out of the way of any potential vehicles. However, I agree - it needs reviewing and is a little silly. I will maybe move it to the RMC forward respawn point (by the 2 x T72 laser ruins), or by the enemy specop camp on open level terrain.

I will maybe have a crack tonight and see if I can resolve these issues. Thanks a lot for taking the time to feedback bugs and ideas.

Hoping you enjoyed the break away from all the open-world realism missions, as I won't deny this has a more linear and hand-held feel to it with the tight waypointing.

Regards, TeeCee

[TangoCharlie 10]

Ok - a bundle of fixes to the above issues! :) v1.03 is out, with the summarised changelog in the OP. To address the above post, here's a little more detail:

- SATCHEL / AMMO CRATES: I've made the satchel charges more prominent at the trainstation (in the open and lit, near the objective and an ammo truck) and at the lighthouse (in addition to the boat, another at the comms truck in open).

- DIFFICULTY / ACCURACY: I've added a small difficulty select script allowing the host / server to determine the AI difficulty in the lobby. Values from 0.2 (easy) to 1.0 (elite). Have at it and play your own way!

- LITTLEBIRD TELEPORTING : Hopefully removed! I found the solution was very simple, and isPlayer is used to determine and teleport only AI specops units. My understanding of this command was wrong before. You can now remain on the island to snipe targets as long as you wish!

- SHILKA HEALTH / SATCHEL DAMAGE : I... ahem... found I had actually reverted the health during an old build by mistake to full... whoops. Health is now set to a lowly 0.2 for both island targets - 1 satchel will easily blow up each target now!

- EXTRACTION LOCATION : Moved from the rather treacherous hillside to the specops camp, north of the factory in an open and level field. No more hill climbs or iffy chopper landings!

Also, tweaked a couple of triggers to perform as desired. Enjoy! :)

[TangoCharlie 10]

And another quick edit for minor things... v1.04 is out, summarised in OP changelog.

These aren't showstoppers, but do correct a few minor issues I only just somehow spotted.

The mission seems to be in a pretty robust state now, so unless there are any major or glaring issues, I wont update it for a while so that people can test it with a synchronised and stable version. Download, play and feedback please! :)

[PogMoThoin 10]

3 of us cleared it on the highest difficulty last night, I think We each died once. Its improved but is still not hard enough, not enough enemies. Needs some randomisation as We know how it plays now.

We play on Veteran by the way

Edited January 6, 2011 by PogMoThoin

[VanhA-ICON 11]

A good mission should not be just rated with bodycount.

;)

I've played some classical missions without killing anyone but the mission atmosphere is the thing that keeps it solid til the end.

(I haven't had time to try this out yet.. maybe this weekend hopefully)

[kdjac 19]

A good mission should not be just rated with bodycount.

;)

I've played some classical missions without killing anyone but the mission atmosphere is the thing that keeps it solid til the end.

(I haven't had time to try this out yet.. maybe this weekend hopefully)

This is one of the best missions ever made, but if your playing try get 7 or 8 guys as you wont play it more than twice.

[TangoCharlie 10]

Heh thanks. The look and feel is important to me, as well as the overall perceived structure, pacing and enjoyment.

I can see the argument for making it more re-playable, which I still might investigate with randomised enemies at some point, but I'm more concerned with offering one or two really good experiences, than mindless repetition.

IMO it's still pretty challenging - back in the day of OFP and squad respawn (at best), even 1 death was failure and seagull-idle time. I think if even a veteran gamer is taking losses on his 2nd run through then it's certainly not a pushover. Additionally, at some point it would just get silly on the realism side of things if a 10 man assault team was sent in against an entire army.

This said, I do intend on adding in the near future:

- An enemy attack on the extraction point as the chopper lands

- A few more patrolling enemies at the mid point of the mission

- Perhaps 1 or more additional enemy APC's

- AND... some much-needed better radio sound recordings ;)

(these were semi-placeholders recorded late one night so excuse them!)

Edited January 7, 2011 by TangoCharlie

[kdjac 19]

Heh thanks. The look and feel is important to me, as well as the overall perceived structure, pacing and enjoyment.

I can see the argument for making it more re-playable, which I still might investigate with randomised enemies at some point, but I'm more concerned with offering one or two really good experiences, than mindless repetition.

I dont think its an argument really, you have created something that shouldnt work in this game, this is a linear mission in an unlinear game. But it works and it works well but its not really replayable not a bad thing but from pog amd myself point of view we played then told the rest of our group how great it was. But for us to play it again it didnt have the same feel.

I think it would be difficult to make this harder with randomisation as it would lose the pacing, people who play other games pay for missions and gameplay like this.

[TangoCharlie 10]

I think what frustrates me is that rewind back to 1998, the OFP cold war crisis campaign proved that an excellent single-player experience with linear playstyle could and did work really well. Open world play offered by the engine worked well to accentuate this and provide some freedoms, without devolving into "go here 2km away".

Since then the bundled campaigns and missions have been, to be blunt, awful for a professional studio release (in my opinion), and too much importance is placed on the dynamic scripted missions and open-world theatre. What I want to remind people is that a tight, linear and crafted mission can be just as fun as 'different every time you play' or 'island-wide-combat' offerings. If this makes people crack open their editors and return to some of the simple, non-scripted mission making, then this is a Good Thing [TM] to me.

There are some corking missions and campaigns out there, but they seem to get overshadowed by addons and uber-scripted dynamic missions.

Anyhoo, blog-esque post/rant over! ;)

Edited January 7, 2011 by TangoCharlie

[AlphaCentauri 10]

So I played this mission with three friends the other night. Everything worked fine and perfectly up until the point where the chopper was supposed to land. It didn't land.

We passed the mission anyway. Sniped the pilot, took the chopper which amazingly didn't get damaged in the crash and flew to where I remembered the mission had ended last time I played it.

[TangoCharlie 10]

Bummer. This happened once for me since I relocated the landing zone... so I will get cracking tonight on a fixed version, along with some of the proposed new things above. Shame it ended poorly for you, but ta for playing - and registering/commenting too :p

(seems the one saving grace is the little cheat I added to the chopper to repair any damage to full health every 3 secs, to prevent unforeseen consequences...)

Edited January 7, 2011 by TangoCharlie

[TangoCharlie 10]

Released v1.05. This most importantly fixes the helicopter extraction failing to land / load most of the time. It also add's a new firefight at the helicopter extraction as some additional units rush the LZ, to keep people on their toes. I've also added a few more units (but nothing major). This includes another APC, and upgrading another APC, as well as a couple more units / patrols. For atmosphere I've added some flares too, and corrected a long-standing bug with the coastal APC still not showing up as desired (tracked to AI respawn glitch). [EDIT: The littlebird calling / boarding behaviour for specops has been simplified / changed too - now radio it in when you require it (0-0-1). This provides more flexibility and less dependance on A-10's behaving themselves.]

At this point I have no gameplay 'todo's or any known bugs (but keep em coming). The only thing on my wish list is to make some decent radio recordings.

Now, for the newbie editors out there, a tip on vehicle boarding script syntax for what should be a pretty simple couple of routine commands...

For any other poor soul struggling and happens upon this in forum search it's: "{_x assignAsCargo heli; [_x] orderGetIn true;} forEach units grouptroops;"

- with emphasis on the use / absence of []'s... bleedin' thing. Not even sure what the difference is when the command is being fed a single unit / object and not an array anyway. Grah. Lesson learnt. :)

Edited January 7, 2011 by TangoCharlie

[kdjac 19]

At this point I have no gameplay 'todo's or any known bugs (but keep em coming). The only thing on my wish list is to make some decent radio recordings.

Fair play, you have my vote for mission of the year next year. Should have released it 17 hours earlier :D

[TangoCharlie 10]

Hehe, ta ... I think :-P Saying "best mission of the year" on 1/1/11 hadn't gone unnoticed, lol.

Unfortunately i just had to re-upload v1.05 due to a last second couple of issues (now also added to changelog). That realllly should be it now... please... hopefully!

[AlphaCentauri 10]

Sniping the helicopter pilot lead to us four people starting sniping it more on other missions... can say, we bugged many missions out by doing so. lol

And I dunno if this is true on the latest version, but in the abit older one, the entire sniper team died when the little bird was there to pick us up due to enemy snipers, and we respawned at the drop-off zone. This lead to a hilarious moment when the Little Bird bugged out and landed near the coast.

(Also, FYI, we like the mission enough to replay it over.. and.. over... again....)

[TangoCharlie 10]

Bloomin choppers! :p With the feedback from my buddy, I changed the littlebird to be "on demand" now via radio, so the specops snipers can make their own judgement call when it is safe to call him in. Hopefully that will negate the kind of crazy scenario you describe, so do update to the latest 1.05 download.

The respawn is auto-moved to the relocation drop zone at this point for safety should such an event occur, like dumbass pilots crashing or getting sniped. That bit is intentional to stop units being marooned.

Glad you guys are enjoying it. I've pepped up the ending a bit, so try it out! :)

[TangoCharlie 10]

Version 1.06 released to address a few minor bugs and tweaks I wanted to implement after numerous playthrough's. Changelog and download link in the OP.

I hope this is a final release of Coastal Raid. Enjoy!