[SP/COOP] Operation Spark

[haroon 10]

Operation Spark

Stormy night in enemy territory, british S.A.S Operators are going to blow up AA assets in an enemy camp.

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NEW VERSION AVAILABLE! (8/4/2011 THU)

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Version :1.4 Uploaded

Enjoy!

Various MP issues fixed. Weired lighting effect is fixed. Players now carry normal weapons. (no HD weapons)

Gameplay time is set to 3:15 instead of 4:45.

Volumetric fog is further optimised. Background musics are added.

I can say there is huge change (for me, improvement) in gameplay, the added background music is really fun to me. And with that weired light effect removed, things are now much more realistic.

And good news to script diggers, I've added a "Re-usable Scripts" section in readme, which lists all re-usable scripts in the mission, and it also lists scripts that required some modification to use.

Although I realise MP is not that active today, I would like to get feedback of this mission from an MP play.

I want this mission to be flawless, perfect.

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Operation Spark

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Type : Single Player/ Coop (3 players)

Game: OFP Resistance

Game Version Required : 1.96

Addons Required : JAM3, EditorUpdate103

JAM3

Editor Update 103

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Mission Description

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Soviets have invaded Kolgujev and are now slowly setting up defenses along the west coast. KDF(Kolgujev Defense Forces) have been no match for them. US is too busy in Afghanistan to respond KDF's call for help.

This is where British came, S.A.S operators are sent to the island to disable Soviets' AA capabilities.

Doing so will allow friendly forces to land forces to gain a foothold that'll stand against all forms of counter-attack. (Of course, not including nuclear strike :D)

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FEATURES

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Major :

- JAM3 High-Dispersion Weapon System

- Can be played in CO-OP (3-players)

- Non-basic Intro.

- Stealth-based mission.

- Advanced Detection System.

- AI Chase script.

- Nearly all enemy patrol routes are randomized.

- Main objectives' positions are randomized.

- High Re-playability

- Volumetric fog (Optimized since v1.35)

- Random Weather

- Background Music

- Alternate extraction by boat.

Minor :

-Custom texts

-Several radio menu options. (like Toggle Random Weather)

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Known Issues

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- The helicopter sometimes rotate on the ground, due to the EngineOn script, and this is obvious if you are playing in 4X mode.

- Possible lag with volumetric fog on low-end machines. (There is an option in radio menu to turn VFog off ;) )

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Change Log

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v1.4 (Current Version)

Fixes

- Fixed : Second objective not get failed when detected

- Fixed : Overlapped tent at forward camp

- Removed : Dumb sniper in that tent

- Fixed : Various MP issues

[ - Second Objective only failing on Server

- Many scripts were not appropriately scripted for MP.

- Many other minor fixes. ]

- Fixed : One of the shilka position was at an odd place.

Changes

- Changed : Player units no longer equip high dispersion weapons

- Disabled : Music Player

- Removed : All MachineGun Nests to prevent the odd lighting effect on all over the base and outside areas.

- Tweaked : Detection script now gives players more time to maneuver with the situation.

- Tweaked : Volumetric fog execution

New

- Added : Background Musics

- New Scripts :

[ - playMusic.sqs - play the same bg music on all machines in MP

- StayUndetectedFAILED.sqs - make 2nd obj fail on all machine

- FOG_Camp.sqs - Fog at the enemy base

- FOG_FuelStation.sqs - Fog at the fuel station

- FOG_lz.sqs - Fog at landing zone

- Hrn_GetNearObjsFromArray.sqf - returns objs in array near to a certain obj

Pls open a script to see more detail about it. ]

v1.35

- Changed : Volumetric fog script. It is now much more performance friendly.

(Script will not create fog clouds if player unit is not near.)

- New : All units are now using JAM HD weapons. (Requires JAM3)

- Fixed : There were several dummy musics in Music Player.

- Tweaked : Fog placement.

- Several minor fixes.

v1.31

- New : keepEngineOn.sqs script to keep the extract heli's engine on.

- Added : betatesters to Credits list

- Added : A new small enemy encampment at the fuel-station west of main base.

- Added : Info about the new camp in "Notes" section of Briefing

- Fixed : Black Out not extending to the sides on large screens

- Fixed : A few grammar errors in briefing.

- Tweaked : Lone Ural is now moved further from base so that players will have much less chance to spot it.

- Removed : All songs except the one for intro. (to further reduce file size)

v1.3

- Fixed : Players were never able to stay undetected.

(It was caused by a minute mistake in one of the scripts.)

- Fixed : Ghost's position was used instead of group leader for domove commands in AI chase script

- Fixed : Shilkas should no longer *thump* at a certain position now.

- Fixed : Extraction by heli sometimes doesn't work, due to sloppy scripting.

- New : main.sqs, rewritten combined version of extractCheck.sqs and winCheck.sqs to make things clear and more organized as well as to improve performance.

- New : A few more scripts, like "Extraction_heli.sqs"

- Changed : Several name changes has been done to scripts.

- New : Some musics were added.

- New : Music Player, each player can listen any song they wish on his machine.

- Added : Music to intro.

- Tweaked : Camera angles and black outs in Intro to suit the music.

DOWNLOAD LINK

Operation Spark v1.4 PBO Version

Operation Spark v1.4 FOLDER Version

Regards,

Haroon1992

Edited April 7, 2011 by haroon
New Version!

[Ena 10]

Well done! Going to test this out right away. :P

[rellikki 7]

Addons Used : EditorUpdate103 (This is only needed for mission creators, the players don't need them

to be able to play the mission)

This is actually not true. Players will get a missing addon error if trying to play the mission without editor update:

http://img854.imageshack.us/i/errorq.jpg/

There is an editor update like you described, but the same thing won't work with Editor Update 103.

So after installing the Editor Update 103 and trying the mission out, I noticed this little glitch in the intro:

http://img163.imageshack.us/f/screenet.jpg/

This is probably because I'm using 16:9 monitor. You can probably avoid that by doing titleCut ["", "BLACK IN", -1] and adding the custom logos seperately on the top with titleRsc.

One of the Shilkas was placed in a bad position between the sandbags near a hut at the south side of the town and kept doing a weird *thump* *thump* noise that echoed to the other side of the island. At least that's what I think it was about, the sound got louder when I approached it:

http://img806.imageshack.us/i/shilka.jpg/

On my first try I could swear I got both Shilkas, but the objective didn't get completed. The shilkas were positioned near the hut in the south side of the town and in the south-east side of the town. I tried to replay the mission and that time it worked. I also noticed the Shilkas had random placement, that's a good feature.

I think the staying undetected objective is kinda impossible to accomplish. Not that there's a problem to stay hidden, but once you detonate the satchel charges, enemies will then know about you and the objective gets failed, even if you were perfectly hidden and away from the enemies. I think it should be made that the objective can't get failed after managing to destroy the Shilkas undetected, because that's when I failed that objective - I managed to destroy the Shilkas and both objectives got completed, staying undetected and destroying them, but after a few seconds the staying undetected objective then got failed.

I found it weird how the extraction chopper landed at the LZ and turned its engine off. Wasn't probably in a hurry to get away from there... I think you can make it so it lands and keeps the engine on with the land command.

Other than that I think it was a pretty good specop mission. I liked the fog script, I've been trying to make a similiar myself but I wasn't really satisfied with it. The town was also detailed, filled with lots of objects, which gave it a bit more life.

Edited March 21, 2011 by Rellikki

[haroon 10]

Thanks for your plentiful reply with images (they do the job much easier)

The shilkas were semi-randomized with Markers.

And I'll find and fix that thumpy-thumpy thing.

I managed to destroy the Shilkas and both objectives got completed, staying undetected and destroying them, but after a few seconds the staying undetected objective then got failed.

That was quite weired, I my-self have tested the mission several time. Since the test is mostly on the extraction, I blew all shilkas with setdammage at mission start, I didn't see the tick change to cross for the second obj.

Anyway, I'll just check it back and try to fix it.(Maybe something got into it in my last moment of edit, :D )

To say the truth, I spent more than 2 hours just to figure how to land the chopper properly and make it wait without using waypoint syncronizing with the player.

There were many ways but all of them failed at a certain "Preview" of the mission. (I tested at least 7 times for each method I found.)

And that was the best method I found which never seem to broke.Unfortunately, I have to use waypoints for the player, but then fortunately I found a way of setting the "Completion Radius" just like in ArmA 2, using triggers.

Oh and I did used the "land" command on the heli. (Without it, the heli would never land, even when synced with the getin WP of player.)

I think I could make the helicopter running with the "EngineOn" action command.

I'm already working on v1.3, which will have some new features and I've found some bugs in v1.25 (though not obvious ones)

Thanks for your glitch report too, I never knew this would happen. :bounce3:

Regards,

Haroon1992

[33BO11OF00 10]

Nice mission you have made. I've got to test it out. Can I use that daylight script in mission if I give you the credits about it?

[haroon 10]

wait, there's new version on OFPEC. Oh yes, the link will take you to OFPEC anyway.

I'm just waiting for a better file hosting site before I update this thread.

And you might be required to wait for about a minute before you download, it's the rule of that file hosting site.

Please advice me if you have found better sites.

The new version, v1.3 is quite different from v1.25, especially some possible showstoppers were fixed in v1.3.

Regards,

Haroon1992

[f00bar 10]

Hey Haroon1992,

I use Google Docs for free file hosting which is perfect for small files. You already have it if you have a gmail account.

***This is NOT an advertisement, just friendly advice to save you some time & frustration*** :)

Pros:

No: cost, download waits, limits, bandwidth quota

Cons:

* 1GB file & total space limit (but this should be overkill for sharing missions)

http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=37603

* Google Docs share links are ridiculously long so you will need to use URL shrinkers like:

http://bit.ly/

http://tinyurl.com/

etc., etc.

Good Luck!

[haroon 10]

Thanks I've once used gog docs, but I thought it can only be used to upload document type files.

It's great, thanks again for the info.

I'm now uploading the file.

I'll update this thread once the files are uploaded.

My files are only 12mb of space so it's not quite a problem with the 1gb limit.

:bounce3:

And yes, I already know gmail very well, and I use g-talk daily so this is no advertisement for me.

EDIT :

Okay the downloads are now available from GoogleDocs, for safety of you downloaders, I've provided the link to first preview the actual link before proceeding to the site.

(Let me know if this is frustrating.)

Regards,

Haroon1992

Edited March 30, 2011 by haroon

[f00bar 10]

To avoid problems with uploading non document files you can uncheck the "Convert documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and drawings to the corresponding Google Docs formats" box.

Good work on releasing this mission and I am looking forward to trying it out.

[haroon 10]

Hi guys , new version uploaded.

Please see changelog for info.

Regards,

Haroon1992

[33BO11OF00 10]

I have bug to report:

When I go to first way point. Way point changes to wait for others way point and it stays like that all the time.

Also got this strange ERROR MESSAGE:

No entry

config.bin/cfgvehicles.ED102_YardFenceDamaged

this error STOPS the intro from playing.

also this error:

config.bin/cfgvehicles.ED102_MashTent

[zulu1 145]

I think that is telling you that you need editor update 102 or have an incorrect version.

[stgn 39]

Played the 1.3 version. with the ww4BIS mod

The mission was not that hard I think you just have to be patient and move close to trees and bushes. To my surprise it was rather easy to eliminate enemy guard groups, hell I went Rambo on the most difficult shilka position taking out around ten soldiers in and around it even got shot at(and missed) with out getting detected, although it did cause some more activity as a T72 came.

Then I off cause made the classical mistake of relaxing after the missions was "over" so after blowing the shilkas up I got shot on the way back. luckily just before a save in a good position so it was not a big problem.

Pretty good mission!

STGN

[haroon 10]

@STGN

Have you played in Veteran?

If so, you must be a very good ofp player.

Thanks for playing.

Also, is this the new version (v1.31) ?

But there is minimal difference between v1.3 and v1.31. (Read ChangeLog for info)

Thanks for playing.

@33BO11OF00

You need EditorUPdate103 to view the intro.

Sorry it's my fault, but now I've posted the link in the required addons section on the first page.

(NOTE : You must removed ALL other editorupdates from the addons folder!)

About the waypoint

I never liked the idea to frame the players with waypoints. The waypoint is just used for the extraction. The waypoint will point you to the LZ, once you've completed the objectives.

I mean you just go there and blow the enemy's asses up, instead of waiting at the "Wait For Others" waypoint.

Thanks for all for playing my mission.

( Please also checkout the OFPEC forum thread for other peoples feedbacks too.:))

Any ideas/suggestion about the next version is warmly welcome.

I am think about adding some one or two secondary objectives, like rescue the prisoners or blow up the fuel station or retrieve the secret documents.

What do you think about that ?

Regards,

Haroon1992

Edited April 1, 2011 by haroon

[haroon 10]

Hi people, new version uploaded. Version 1.35

It includes major changes that'll alter gamplay.

From now on, I'll take a rest from editing this mission, except for bugs and probably showstoppers.

Meanwhile, I'll work on a sequel. And I 've planned to name it "Operation Fire"

since "Operation Spark" ignited the fire, so it makes sense.

Let me know if there is a mission with this name already or if you want to suggest a better name.

It's gonna like a clean-sweep mission in day time.

Regards,

Haroon1992