SP CO/OA Steel Caskets (ACE)

[Rail82 10]

Steel Caskets is the first mission I am releasing to the public. Any and all feedback is welcome, criticism is welcome as long as your not too harsh. I am mostly concerned how the gameplay is received by the public, I am still tweaking some of the probabilities in the hostile zone. I think I struck a good balance but would like a larger sample size to look at, as far as feedback is concerned, so at this point, you will not find any fancy side chats, intros, cutscenes or voice acting in this mission. Some of these things are in the works, and if the mission is well received by the player base, will show up in later releases. I want to make sure the meat and potatoes are prepared well before I start adding the garnish if you know what I mean. With that said, I present to you, Steel Caskets: No Man Left Behind.

Description: A tank crew is trapped inside it's disabled M1A2 tank and Taki Forces are crawling all around the area. Your team has been assembled to insert into the area via Blackhawk and bring our boys home safely. The first extraction team was sent in via convoy, but due to a failed comms unit, extracted without one tank crew, leaving them stranded and helpless inside their steel casket... awaiting death, or a miracle... Your team is that miracle.

Required:

Operation Arrowhead

ACE2 core and extras

CBA

Download:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y9U9OXIE

Armaholic mirror:

- Steel Caskets: No Man Left Behind (@)

Notes:

This mission can be completed in around 30-40 minutes on average. Sometimes less, sometimes more depending on what kind of enemy AI spawns for you.

Right now, the Tank Commander is the only member of the stranded crew that you must get back to base alive. You can lose the other 2 members, but still complete the mission, but on the other hand, if the commander dies you can lose the mission regardless if the other 2 members are alive or not.

You are actually free to insert wherever you like, but I have marked a hot LZ and a clear LZ for use in the mission. Try to mapclick in the middle of the markers I put on the map, and zoom in close on the map to make sure your not sending your chopper into a tree or on a steep grade. The area of the map used for the mission is Shukurkalay, so their is a lot of mountains all around the area, making both LZ's a bit touchy at times. Most times I can insert without a problem, but on a few occasions I have crashed on inserting because I was on too steep of a grade, or because I was right on top of a tree. I have also flown into a mountain on my way to the clear LZ but this only happened one time. The hot LZ, while convenient as hell to get right into the action, can be impossible to land at depending on how, where and what types of units spawned in the engagement zone upon mission startup. It's a risky insert, but is pretty epic if everything goes right. This is the LZ I used for most of my run throughs, and I like it a hell of a lot more than the clear LZ, but sometimes you take the 5 minute chopper ride just to get lit up like a christmas tree before your even close to the ground. It's a big choice at the beginning of the mission and I wanted both LZ's to have advantages and disadvantages as part of the storyline.

To use the chopper, use the mouse scroll to access transport commands, then use mapclick on the map when prompted to set destination.

All friendly units in the engagement zone are marked with IR strobes. These can be hard to see flashing at distance, so take a good look at potential enemies before squeezing the trigger. Friendlies should be easy to spot with the strobes for the most part, but I have still fired on friendlies because I assumed since I saw no flash that it was an enemy soldier. You can only see the flash in NV, not in FLIR.

Radio Alpha makes the tank crew join your initial 5 man delta force team, Radio Bravo makes them join the 3 man "backup" team. You must order the tank crew to disembark and regroup to move them from the wreckage and have them follow you to extract. The tank crew IS NOT MARKED WITH IR STROBES.

Enemy units will use flares to light up suspected BLUFOR positions. This sometimes plays havoc with your NVG. adjusting their brightness with pgup and pgdn as you go along is vital.

To complete the mission move to the debriefing marker just south of the helipad at the HQ when you return to base with the tank crew.

Sometimes, when the stars align just right... you'll get a run where damn near every possible AI spawns on mission startup... if that happens, your damn near screwed... their will be way too many AI for you to overcome. The mission by nature has a great deal of randomness, sometimes only a few groups will be in the engagement zone, sometimes 10 or more groups will be their. I think I have the probabilities dialed in ok, as I have gotten a good mix of mission difficulties on my runs due to enemy force sizes. Only rarely have I gotten the MONSTER spawn where damn near everything popped.... When it did happen though it was a real meat grinder. On the flip side, I haven't had too many "easy" runs where I didn't get alot of AI. Their always seems to be atleast a fair amount of enemy AI.

Civilians might have a surprise in store for you.

Have fun guys.

Edited March 8, 2011 by Rail82

[ArmAriffic 10]

i'll test it tomorrow

[CameronMcDonald 146]

Hmm, is the BIS first aid module active in this mission?

It tends to cause the ACE wounding system to arse up.

[Rail82 10]

Can someone confirm whether or not your player has a satchel charge in inventory at the beginning of the mission?

In the editor he has it. but I played through for the first time out of the editor this morning and when I went to blow the tank I didn't have the charge, but the team leader of the second group did.

In the editor I gave them both 1 and they both have it. Not sure what's going on, but that'll really piss me off if it's not there, I played this mission so many times in order to make sure it played through consistently and to have an issue pop up after .pbo-ing it will not make me a happy camper.

And when I first made the mission I just used BIS first aid modules, last night I switched it to ace wounds. I may have forgot to remove FA. If it causes issues I'll change it for the next version after I have an idea of the things I need to tweak.

[Kommiekat 11]

Sorry guy, but no satchels.

Also, my chopper keeps crashing into mountains.

[ast65 10]

no satchels and the mission suddenly ended after ca. 10 min without apparent reason...

[Rail82 10]

hmmm I'm a little disappointed, it wasn't my intention to put out a flawed mission, I've been tweaking this damn thing for weeks and it was working perfectly in the editor. Give me a day or two, and I'll fix it. It played fine in the editor. But I copied and pasted some of the mission files together. I'm going to comb through them and see if there isn't a rogue command somewhere screwing things up.

As far as the heli insert goes, I didn't have many problems, but I guess since I made the mission I know the sweet spots for the inserts. I was thinking of using unitcapture to do the inserts, but I decided on mapclick because it was easier. I might need to rethink that, I might not have any choice but to go unitcapture. I have some time today and tomorrow.