Ghost Recon - Island Thunder campaign

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

I must say that the trailer for this is bad-ass! Definitely downloading and giving a try.

(As an off-topic sidenote, if anyone wants to play the official Live-Action version of Ghost Recon, that is found at warfighters.co.uk I've been there. It was a blast of a day. Dave Thatcher is a great host with a hilarious sense of humor. /off-topic)

A question about "The Making of..." this campaign. Did you have to do some mission-tweaking to make the missions conform to this island's layout, or was Lingor made especially for this campaign? From the trailer it looks like you've "fogged-in" the view-distance to make it more like GR?

MAYBE UbiSoft will notice your work and consider making a "niche-market" game, once again. I'll promote this at the Frag Dolls forum. I used to game with the UK Frag Dolls. It made for some very polite and enjoyable sessions in R6 and GR.

[kdjac 19]

Something wrong with the AI, they are useless, miss from close range and generally dont do anything other than run away.

[fruity_rudy 16]

Thx for the first 3 Missions so far. We played with 5 ppl on extreme setting, and it was nice. The intentional fog looks so god damn epic on ice's island. The mission+island are just awesome.

The problems we've had in first or second mission, somebody died and immediately respawned in or on his dead body. That was a bit strange. And the end of the tower-guard mission didn't work, but it may was caused by jip, cause one guy took the place of ai later on.

We stopped at the foggy swamp airfield yesterday, and that looked epic again.I think you picked a good balance regarding difficulty, amount of ai & stuff. But everybody should play on extreme setting, to increase the teamwork.

Question:

On extreme setting, every squadmember can revive once(not the medic) and leader can only die once? Haven't read all posts sorry..btw. there is no need for cinematics, maybe talking guards at a tower on hill or sth. , with trigger at close range..

Hello mate,

2. Mission 1 I use copy my stance addon (yeh I know you dont support

Copy my stance? Can you give a link for that , sounds interesing..

FR

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Great campaign. I experienced absolutly no flaws yet.

The atmosphere is really intense, which is funny since your missions have no cutscenes, no big dialog and I never played the original Island Thunder.

Besides Sick1 Delta Force, this is the best Campaign I played so far.

When I read this then the months of preparing these is all worth it. Thanks.

I only have to suggestions:

1. Give the player the opportunity to choose his weapon. As far as I know, you always could select your weapons at the beginning of the missions in the original Ghost-Recon.

2. Why not make an addon-based version beside this one? For example use Aduke Helo-Pack, so the Team gets to the AO in some black 160th SOAR MH-60. Or replace the Vanilla Force Recon Soldiers with ardvarkdb TF86 Navy SEALs.

It wouldn't bother me at all, if you don't want to implent this, since both ideas are just details but I don't think it's not much work to do this. I think it would give your brilliant campaign a little bit more "spice".

Now I can't wait for a Desert Siege Campaign

Ok well I'm not adverse to any of these ideas but I will give some explanation.

First up, it was really important for me to make sure that the Class selection which was so important in GR was maintained here because choosing the right men was critical to success of the mission. If you can just kit every team member out with any type of weapon then you lose that importance of class. If I can limit what each class has then I would go with that.

It was really important for this first release to make sure it was vanilla so it could touch more ppl and they could get a feel for what I make when I create missions. The more addons, the more fiddly and possibly the smaller the audience. Now you know what I make then in future you might trust me and get the addons that I decide to use.

I did actually have a guy who offered to make all the GR characters and skins but he just disappeared - but I never banked on him coming through and was prepared for the current option.

I will do another campaign but not Desert Siege, instead I will be hoping that a particular map due to be released soon will provide the backdrop for me to create the Original Ghost Recon based on the Georgia.

---------- Post added at 10:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:03 PM ----------

I must say that the trailer for this is bad-ass! Definitely downloading and giving a try.

A question about "The Making of..." this campaign. Did you have to do some mission-tweaking to make the missions conform to this island's layout, or was Lingor made especially for this campaign? From the trailer it looks like you've "fogged-in" the view-distance to make it more like GR?

Thanx re: the trailer, a mate of mine from GhostRecon.net has helped me out a couple of times with these - make a gr8 teaser for the missions.

In terms of the island, I got an early look in to the island from Icebreakr bcoz the moment I saw the screenshots I knew the potential. I did have to find suitable locations to make the missions fit and indeed I did make a request for some ploughed farmland which was added to the extra island (whether that was for my benefit Im not sure) but Icebreakr makes such good islands that I was going to make it work on Lingor.

---------- Post added at 10:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:09 PM ----------

Thx for the first 3 Missions so far. We played with 5 ppl on extreme setting, and it was nice. The intentional fog looks so god damn epic on ice's island. The mission+island are just awesome.

The problems we've had in first or second mission, somebody died and immediately respawned in or on his dead body. That was a bit strange. And the end of the tower-guard mission didn't work, but it may was caused by jip, cause one guy took the place of ai later on.

I will have a look at this issue and hopefully figure it out and I really have to make sure JIP is switched off bcoz it can screw things up. sorry about that but glad you're enjoying so far.

---------- Post added at 10:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:11 PM ----------

Someone was having difficulty installing - this is what I told him:

Get all the Lingor files - Lingor Island 1.1 and LIngor Units 1.0 from Icebreakrs website. Place Lingor Island in top level of Arma2 folder so it looks like : Arma2 > @Lingor.

Place all the Lingor Units stuff inside the appropriate addons or serverkeys folders which are sitting inside the @Lingor folder.

Now my missions - if you play SP then place the pbo files into the Missions folder which sits at top level of Arma2: Arma2 > Missions.

If you play MP then you want to place the mission files in: My Documents/Arm2 Other Profiles/Lightspeed (your username here not mine ;) ) / MPMissions folder.

Hope that helps,

Lighty.

[sig 10]

Where are the downed pilots that you have to rescue in the 3rd mission? They're not at the antenna dish or any where around?

Also, when completing each mission the mission tab doesnt go green?

[mrcash2009 0]

No time to play, but its installed, as soon as I get time, I will be on this like fat kid on cake :)

Although thanks and congrats with release.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Where are the downed pilots that you have to rescue in the 3rd mission? They're not at the antenna dish or any where around?

briefing says head to high ground and look around - i would suggest heading to the radar and getting out your binoculars then have a really good look around. they are within 100-150 meters of you. ;)

---------- Post added at 07:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:31 AM ----------

Also, when completing each mission the mission tab doesnt go green?

what do you mean by this? every task should turn green as you complete it, what's missing that i havent done?

[nettrucker 142]

Hi Lightspeed aust

Have completed the first 3 missions so far. Having tons of fun. Have lost a lot of time until I located the pilots in mission 3, but I've found them. Not withstanding that I read the briefing carefully I have been put on the wrong track, thought that they would been hold prisoners in one of the buildings. Scanning with the binos at the first try, near the radar was unsuccessful due to the fact that I was in quite a bad position, so I didn't see them.

I even searched Los Peligron and the nearby base. was a ghost town. In case the player should close on the town (Los Peligron) it would be great if some units would be spawned there. Just a humble suggestion. Can you also adjust the score settings a bit. No matter how many enemies I kill I always get only 1 star. It's a pity that there are no Intro's - outro's which would definitely add atmosphere to these well done missions. Furthermore I would like to see it as real campaign rather than single missions, but that's just my opinion. I have enjoyed these missions very much so far. I gonna complete them this weekend, unfortunately gotta leave for a business trip tomorrow.

keep up the good work.

kind regards

p.s. Haven't lost 1 single member of my team so far.:D

[Uziyahu--IDF 0]

I found single-player extremely difficult in Mission 1, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a group already playing these missions with a low ping-time.

Completed Mission 2 & 3. The helo insertion in Mission 3 was pretty treacherous and I didn't find the pilots until after searching the buildings and seeing a waypoint marker and going to it. Then I saw some friendly diamonds and thought they were other players. Turned out that 2 of them were pilots.

It was a great couple of missions. The jungle makes it hard to get a clear line of sight and with Zeus' A.I. (used on the server I visited) the OPFOR A.I. fired blindly enough to keep our heads down.

The reason the above player might be having troubles with the friendly A.I. hitting anything is that ArmA 2 A.I. seems to have trouble judging elevation in aiming when standing at a different altitude than their target.

Also, if you make the original GR campaign, make sure the enemy A.I. shoots from a still, standing position most of the time. You should have a hard time differentiating them from the trees. (One of my big gripes about the early GR.) Of course, now, if you go back and replay GR, you've become so accustomed to more clutter that you can probably pick them out.

I would also like to see Desert Siege. Desert terrains just make for better play, whether PvP or Vs. ArmA A.I. ("The A.I. cheats" is the complaint when there are bushes.)

[lightspeed_aust 681]

I even searched Los Peligron and the nearby base. was a ghost town. In case the player should close on the town (Los Peligron) it would be great if some units would be spawned there. Just a humble suggestion.

yes thats a good idea and i think i will have to move those pilots to where they can be found more easily.

when i update these to get out any bugs that may be found i will tweak everything again for replayability.

i also have some stuff in mind for my next missions and ones that i have made in the past will get a revamp but are the essence of GR already - stay tuned for those - they may even become Desert Siege.

[domokun 515]

In case the player should close on the town (Los Peligron) it would be great if some units would be spawned there. Just a humble suggestion.

I dunno about others but I HATE spawning. A2 is a milsim. People don't spawn in real-life. So how about having some units there right from the start? Spawning seems like a cheap arse trick, reserved for the likes of CoD.

[VanhA-ICON 11]

I dunno about others but I HATE spawning. A2 is a milsim. People don't spawn in real-life. So how about having some units there right from the start? Spawning seems like a cheap arse trick, reserved for the likes of CoD.

If it's done right, you won't notice the difference.

Main purpose for that method is simply to save mission resources thus making the playing smoother.

Going to try this pack. I also liked the original GR very much.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

I dunno about others but I HATE spawning. A2 is a milsim. People don't spawn in real-life. So how about having some units there right from the start? Spawning seems like a cheap arse trick, reserved for the likes of CoD.

chill domokun :)

i would have them there from the start - i dont like spawn in either.

[Hanzu 10]

If it's done right, you won't notice the difference.

Main purpose for that method is simply to save mission resources thus making the playing smoother.

Going to try this pack. I also liked the original GR very much.

Judging from his reaction, he still noticed it. If it is done right, then enemy should never appear to a place you have already cleared (unless it is a Vietname war where they come from underground hatches).

I hate spawning too, but games where AI enemies will not spawn after game start are really few, but I can mention some like Rainbow Six from Rainbow Six 3 Athena Sword, in that game there were always maximum of 40 enemies and when game started they were there and no more were added.

As VanhA-ICON said respawn is commonly used to save mission resources. It depends on the game and I don't know how Arma2 handles it, but in some old games 5 AI enemies consumed as much bandwith as one human player, because you had to send data about their movement and behaviour or even places where their dead body is. This is why many games use spawning. Often more AI enemies also consume more hardware power.

If you go for full realism. There should be no respawn and instead less enemies that are so well positioned, armed, armored and scripted that no more enemies need to spawn.

In original GR firefight missions enemy did not spawn but in GR mods like Harntrox, I just hated when enemies spawned next to me or to area where what was considered cleared.

As original GR fan and as someone who has cooped through all GR Island Thunder missions with no-respawn and hardest difficulty settings, I'm eager to test this mod some day when I've had it with official missions.

Edited February 15, 2011 by Hanzu
typo

[SuperRobotJesus 10]

I never post here but thought I should say thank you for this awesome campaign! Absolutely loving it. With the performance issues with Arma and Arma 2 I've only just been able to get it running nicely thanks to the beta patches - so it's been years since I've had a good mil-sim. Only just getting into the mods available, so this campaign was my first experience with Lingor too; what a way to get back into it!

The only difficulties I'm having are with the A.I. really. I play single player as I don't have a clan to play with (boo) and I'm finding my squad pretty useless to the point where I'm having to keep all six of them in formation and relying only on myself. Is this an elevation issue as mentioned earlier in this thread? I'd love to be able to send of my second squad to another objective without having them all wiped out within minutes.

It's more of an issue in some missions rather than others, and on the protect the poll centre mission, the AI are useless - is there a way to improve their performance in an urban environment or is this just one of those things with the arma engine that AI + urban = death?

Thanks again! Great work!

[MissionCreep 12]

If it is done right, then enemy should never appear to a place you have already cleared (unless it is a Vietname war where they come from underground hatches).

Don't play GITS Evolution then, because just as you think you've cleared the area, enemy paratroopers drop from the skies! Insurgencies are notoriously hard to clear. The insurgents turn into civilians when the heat gets turned up and then turn back into insurgents when the occupiers let down their guard. The Red Army also did this to the Germans during WWII. It is true that it should be much harder for a standing army with all its equipment and gear to infiltrate and remain undetected behind enemy lines for long.

Edited February 16, 2011 by MissionCreep

[lightspeed_aust 681]

this doesnt need to become a thread about spawning - ive already said i wont use that on any of my missions because it wont affect performance having a few more opfor and i also dont like the risk associated with opfor spawning on something you thought you cleared.

[domokun 515]

Thanks for all your replies. I hadn't considered the performance aspects of this debate. I appreciate your feedback, particularly when it's so objective, informative and civil.

Lightspeed: can't wait to see your updates. I'm dying to try this one. There are so few co-op campaigns. Fewer still of this quality!

[2nd ranger 282]

Mission 6 - The rebels are still able to cause mission failure by

blowing up the polling center

even after the 'Defend Polling Center' objective is complete.

If this is intentional, it should probably be made clearer that you need to defend the polling center at all times, particularly since the objective has already been completed.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

noted 2nd Ranger - i will fix that issue although i did actually always leave 2 AI at the Polling Center just in case.

but not fair to fail you on the objective after i have already said you succeeded - i will delete the fail trigger and the appropriate time during the mission.

i want to enhance this mission for next release - i think it could do with a little more development during the mission.

[lightspeed_aust 681]

just so you have an idea of what will change -

i will swap the FR out with Special Forces.

The helo will change to one of ADukes.

I will be using FastRoping on at least one mission.

Enemy numbers will be tweaked, as well as, probability of presence.

More weapons will be available during the insertion phase - about a minute or 2 while the chopper inserts fex to allow players to change several weapons - there will be a choice of 3 RPG styles, a few rifles, a couple of heavy machineguns, more smoke n frags, a few sniper rifles etc. This should mean the classes should still remain fairly in tact but you can still do some customisation.

Medic to be fixed - not giving multiple heals in MP from what i am hearing.

What else?

Oh yeh, general feeling in SP that you are along for the ride bcoz your AI spot the enemy b4 you see them bcoz AI see through grass. Similar problem in MP whereby you are getting sniped at by AI that you cant see through the grass. This is an engine limitation and may result in me removing grass completely which I tested and does not really reduce the immersion factor but does mean you can see them when they can see you - its a fair fight.

More things to do but this is a list so far.

[ricnunes 0]

Well this pack of missions really looks great and it definitly brings me back the memories of the old Ghost Recon game which at the time was my favourite tactical shooter game (together with Op. Flashpoint CWC) and in these missions I had some of the greatest "short-range" firefights experiences that I had in the ArmA series!

But neverthess I noticed so far these bugs, while playing these mission in a dedicated server:

-> Mission 2: The extraction helicopters (after all objectives were completed) never arrived and thus this mission never ended.

-> Mission 3: Both downed pilots and the codebook weren't present in the map and thus these objectives could never be completed.

-> Mission 4: The Destroying the air assests objective never appears as completed after destroying the aircraft (both An-2 present in the hangar). Also the Ammo cache doesn't seem to be present in the map.

I really like these missions very much, unfortunally it's a petty that all missions except the first one (which run flawessly) seem to have some severe bugs... I hope these bugs get fixed.

This one is a sugestion (at least for an alternative version of these missions):

1- Remove the enemy spawns

2- Reduce the number of enemy soldiers and remove the Revive script and replace it with the BIS First Aid module - This way it will look more like the original Ghost Recon, since in this game had no respawn (making a very realistic experience).

[2nd ranger 282]

-> Mission 4: The Destroying the air assests objective never appears as completed after destroying the aircraft (both An-2 present in the hangar). Also the Ammo cache doesn't seem to be present in the map.

You have to destroy the radar tower as well. It took me a while to find the ammo cache as well but it's there - I may suggest giving players a bit more of a clue about its location, because I know I'm not alone when I say I find it tedious in missions when you have to search for something and have been given very little idea where it is.

remove the Revive script and replace it with the BIS First Aid module - This way it will look more like the original Ghost Recon, since in this game had no respawn (making a very realistic experience).

I agree with this, but mostly because I find the revive script irritating. Personally I don't think it offers anything better than the FA Module. I know it has alot more features but most mission makers only use the basic functions, making the script sort of redundant. I also found it quite buggy in SP - AI would disappear from my squad bar for a few minutes at a time, even if they were healed. The smoke marker thing was annoying me as well because it kept blocking my view of the enemy, and you can only babysit the friendly AI so much.

Also Lightspeed - this is a minor point but I looked at some of the missions in the editor and there are a few holdovers from other missions present on the map, like bases you've built and a few triggers. It probably doesn't affect performance or anything that much, just wasn't sure if you knew.

Edited February 20, 2011 by 2nd Ranger

[mrcash2009 0]

Just to add mission 2 I can still hear the heli waiting far away (prob sound-mod issue) but again maybe have that go very far away and take off map and re spawn later on mission end?

Probably already noted buy the "?" markers for ammo cases in mission one should maybe change to a tick or a relevant green marker to show its been found from looking at the map, so far they just stay the same.

I did find on mission 1 that after inserting 3 groups seems to already go into danger and were searching pretty fast over the hills, do you have it so enemy on ground are "switched off from detecting" until after heli pulls away?

I also agree about revive script, I like the call part, but its just allot of fancy things for basicly calling a medic.

I also found it quite buggy in SP - AI would disappear from my squad bar for a few minutes at a time, even if they were healed. The smoke marker thing was annoying me as well because it kept blocking my view of the enemy, and you can only babysit the friendly AI so much.

After playing I found all points true 2nd ranger, im sure it clashes with copy my stance too but that's a different thing. Is there a "light" version of auto heal medic script without all the fancy stuff and camera / menu space jazz?

I also spotted a red oval marker showing on mission 2 top left of map that's not related to mission area, guess that's a rouge marker left over :)

Still great updated though, enjoying it.

Edited February 20, 2011 by mrcash2009

[lightspeed_aust 681]

But neverthess I noticed so far these bugs, while playing these mission in a dedicated server:

-> Mission 2: The extraction helicopters (after all objectives were completed) never arrived and thus this mission never ended.

-> Mission 3: Both downed pilots and the codebook weren't present in the map and thus these objectives could never be completed.

-> Mission 4: The Destroying the air assests objective never appears as completed after destroying the aircraft (both An-2 present in the hangar). Also the Ammo cache doesn't seem to be present in the map.

I really like these missions very much, unfortunally it's a petty that all missions except the first one (which run flawessly) seem to have some severe bugs... I hope these bugs get fixed.

This one is a sugestion (at least for an alternative version of these missions):

1- Remove the enemy spawns

2- Reduce the number of enemy soldiers and remove the Revive script and replace it with the BIS First Aid module - This way it will look more like the original Ghost Recon, since in this game had no respawn (making a very realistic experience).

ok here we go -

Mission2 I will check to see why Chopper dint show up - someone else has this issue.

Mission 3 - Pilots and Book are always present in the map - you have to look around - check the plane carefully for Book. And Pilots will pop smoke in future editions and should generally be easier to find.

Mission 4 - the Briefing says destroy all Air Assets and the Radio Tower doesn't it? But I will change that to make it easier (just destroy planes) in future edition. The Weapons Cache is always there but again you have to look for it - try the road - look around that general area - will fix for 1.1.

The Revive is kinda pissing me off too - so I will continue to look for a better option.

Enemy Spawns? Not sure what you mean - no enemy spawns into map it is all there on the ground.

If I remove Revive, I will cut back on AI numbers so its not as difficult.

I will move chopper further away for Mission 2.

I keep the material from previous missions on the map - takes hours to add it and you never know if you will use it again - has no effect on the other missions or fps.

Those markers not changing colour - I will think about that - should be easy to sort out.

And red oval marker - oops lol