[SP] Lost v 4.0 - Like a mash-up of 'Dogs of War' and 'Manhattan' (without the bugs)!

[Aegon 1]

Similar to the mission addon is how you add islands to your game

Make a folder called the island name or whatever you want. Example. @lingor

Create a @lingor/Addons directory and put all the pbos you downloaded into it

Add the mod folder name to your shortcut command line remember to separate multiple mod folders with semicolons. Example. -mod=@lingor;@lost

Run the game

For a better explanation google arma 2 mod folder tutorial

Thanks, I'll do some exploring.

Edited May 11, 2012 by Aegon

[heklos 0]

markb50k,

Another map suggestion Emita City It would be just like Fallujah, but smaller and I think be better in the performance realm as its a bit more tight and not as spread out.

[markb50k 1]

markb50k,

Another map suggestion Emita City It would be just like Fallujah, but smaller and I think be better in the performance realm as its a bit more tight and not as spread out.

Thanks, will check it out!

[sunray 10]

Just wanted to say again, I appreciate your work on this, immensely. This will probably go down in history as my best (single player) game experience, since hiding in the forests of Everon ten tears ago. I believe it brings that strangely elusive existential potential of the game to life. At least for me. The chaos theory nature is allowed to organically live its own life. Tortology. You know what I mean. I don't get into high command stuff because I've not really learned how, and for me staying in the first person is the single most important element to immersiveness. Like turning off external views in Silent Hunter. Makes it immediate somehow. Going outside the body makes it like that old game, something about mining for water on a planet and building and pitting units against each other, from a bird's eye view. Can't remember the name. Didn't intend to ramble, saying all the stuff I said in my last post. But it's so good! Thanks again. Still playing an early version on Chernarus, 4.4 holed up in Devil's Castle with a burning oil drum and some lads. Truly awesome.

Edited May 12, 2012 by Sunray

[markb50k 1]

Thanks man. Yeah with all the tweaks I'm still running my original 4.2+ version game on chernarus and it's really a pleasure to play, to enhance for you guys, and to hear the kind feedback. Made my night

[tourist 617]

Hey markb50k,

I enjoy your awesome mission since some of the 3-ish versions and man, this IS the best game of the world further enhanced! ZERO was a really great experience and I would still recommend that one if you want at least some remotely possible idea of the playing duration. Your masterpiece however offers unpreceded freedom of action. What a lot of shooters or even RPG titles claim to have, only to epically fail in delivering if you play them, is actually possible in BIS great game engine-wise, but to see that one needs talented mission designers like you.

Fuel siphoning, scavenging, searching houses for supplies/reinforcements, hit-and-run-tactics- this is as close as it gets to "fighting a guerilla war" without leaving your comfy chair. And unlike some other game developers, both BIS and it's mission maker community just keep on improving on the good stuff already delivered. Especially you, markb50k, have showed that there is still room for even more immersive features, and once I played with them, I couldn't understand how I could get along previously without them ;)

Playing with ACE, COSLX and ASR AI as well as ASR Appendix, the game is hard, but very fair. For example, since ASR Appendix enables ACE wounding in all SP missions if you want that, now you need ACE medical supplies in LOST. And if I wouln't have picked the "SP Medic" option in ACE, I would also need a medic AI teammate or a M.A.S.H. for full healing. But SF like Force Recon have some pretty extensive field medic training, so... it's fair. The medical supplies are added by ASR Appendix to AI medics,including filled backpacks, and to certain vehicle types (ground or air), which works in LOST as I can confirm (already found a downed Seahawk chopper crammed full with all kinds of the ACE medical stuff - sometimes you need a little luck...).

I had such a great start with 4.91 on Chernarus that I will keep that game and play some more. Right at the start, I found a Vodnik near some fortification in the north, including barrels for refuelling. Some of them were burning, which i extinguished. Also, my first weapons and ammo could be scavenged there. Loaded the stuff hectically into the vodnik (it was in broad daylight, man!) and then I fled into the woods north of Krasnotav - which is THE place to be an insurgent according to official "Chernarus lore" from BIS homepage. I had set friendly groups to 10 at mission start like in a previous game, but this time there was no "last stand of the CDF". Instead, they had retreated south and broke contact with the enemy even before I took over via HC. This way, I had 75 men for starters, only the whole map full of enemies was between us...

So at first I started to terrorize the enemy around Krasnostav aided by four insurgents spawned from a house in that nice little village. First, I did some daring daytime raids with my Vodnik used to run over a patrol of six men like, driving-reversing-pursuing around the corner:rage: Those stupid fuckers had no AT weapon Muahahaa!

Here in Germany all men are gelded by the law and we are not allowed to carry weapons, not even telescopic batons, but we are a car driving nation and therefor like modern centaurs ride into "battle" each morning, swearing at the other commuters, sometimes there is road rage to be seen... And we know how to aptly use the only powerful weapon we have at our free disposal, the ridiculously overpowered cars we invest our wages into.

To tell it in more detail: I had driven to Krasnostav to check houses when a big APC showed up. I dismounted and hid my trusty Vodnik behind the pig farm to pick the enemies dismounting from the APC off one by one with the M4A1 ACOG. Well, that APC emptied all of its ammo only to still miss my exact position within the pig farm by a mere inches. Then I shot four of the dismounted men, forcing the rest to retreat into the village. I decided to bluff and jumped back into the Vodnik, which has a pretty impressive top speed even offroads by the way, and quickly got behind the big APC. I switched to front gunner and shot it's tires, also a few rounds on the turret/optics area - that was too much for them, and without ammo to fight back, they were fleeing, constantly getting rammed by me in hope to make it flip over...:crazy_o: That didn't work due to the Vodnik fighting in a smaller weight class, but I think you get the picture...

Then I drove into that Krasnostav village and flattened the remaining six enemies with my secret german combat driving skills. After collecting their equipment and some intel about a M.A.S.H. location, I checked some more houses and bingo! four insurgents joined up! We decided that it was a hard days work we had done, so back to my forest base it was.

Did I already say that your time skipping script is a great feature? If I have NVG and the enemies mostly don't within an ASR AI game, I can use a small force to fight larger patrols at night. Still, since my insurgents had none, four of them eventually died in a series of fierce firefights at night. But the enemy had lost 17 men (according to "statistics") to the player character alone by that time (I am not sure if the guys killed "by Vodnik" are even counted into that kill statistic) and some more killed by my small team, plus once we had taken AT weaponry from a dead enemy, I ambushed a BRDM in Krasnostav and annihilated it. Grrreat action, but now I have to collect my men from the south.

I am very glad to have missed the 4.93 with the high command bug. Running 4.91 on Chernarus, I got the units under my command as soon as I had found the Vodnik. I reorganized them and made them recon their surroundings, finding an immobilized CDF T72 and the aforementioned seahawk. What will happen if I update this with 4.95? Will I keep High Command functionality since I did not previously use 4.93?

And how can I switch teams on HC exactly? I mean what is the difference between "make HC leader switchable" and "make squad leaders switchable"? I used the latter option to control my recon teams for closer inspection of the two vehicles, but after switching back to my main char, two of the OTHER HC teams stopped following movement orders while the rest had chosen to march on their own ways towards north where the HC leader was... I could gain control back over these moving teams, but the two teams who weren't responsive kept that way... Also,what does "clear ownership" do? If I use that, will the vehicle get a cool resistance paint job? And if I don't use the feature, will the enemy choppers think I am one of their comrades?

But of course, I keep backup of 4.91 just in case. Hope you don't mind this monster post, but my experience is pure awesomeness so far and I wanted to share some stories here to say thank you for the gift that your mission is to me.

touristo

[markb50k 1]

Version 4.96

- island : CLAfghan

- new addon : MARKB50K_Config_Chechen (gives you option to have Chechen's as OPFOR)

- faction : Iran Forces Mod (Iran is INDEPENDENT so they are treated as ally in game, BUT read on....)

- faction : National Liberation Army from Iran Forces Mod (NLA is OPFOR, BUT read on...)

- new addon : MARKB50K_Config_Iran (gives you option to have Iran as OPFOR and NLA as ally. If you run this addon you can technically have these faction on both sides of the battle)

- faction : Icewindo's Post Apocalypse factions (Resistance and Scavengers)

- new : on Faction Selection screen, you can see the included Vehicle names as well, for Friendly, Enemy, and Civilian factions

---------- Post added at 23:20 ---------- Previous post was at 23:07 ----------

touristo

FYI, the 4.93 HC bug was only an issue if you started a game with that version. It didnt give the player the ability to command HC. Games started prior/since that version arent affected, so you dont have anything to worry about.

Thank you very much for the stories and the great feedback. It is really cool to see you really experiencing all the strategy, surprises, and action this mission can provide. Its a pleasure to read how you are tackling this monster of a mission!

The "make HC leader switchable" basically is the opposite of the "make SLs switchable". It makes the SLs no longer switchable.

I tell you, i dont actually use the team switch too much with High Command simply for the reasons you noted. They start acting wonky.

If a group stops moving, its a bug with team switching in HC, you can try a fix i put into the comms menu under 0-8-6 (General). It will clear their current waypoint so they start moving again. You can also try absorbing their group into your group then creating a new group out of them again.

Clear Ownership - in order to get your teams to embark on vehicles, which is something HC doesnt do, i basically use the "AddVehicle" command (ex: _group AddVehicle _veh) which makes the group know that this vehicle is theirs, and they will start using it to travel to waypoints. Clear ownership is just a way of making sure no group THINKS that vehicle belongs to them. Its mostly something i was using to debug some stuff but i left it in, but Its seldom necessary to use if you are using the "Assign Vehicle" and "Unassign Vehicle" options in the menu correctly on your groups.

[xxbbcc 6]

I just stumbled upon your mission and didn't have a chance to play through it but I already started with 4.95 so I have a few feature requests if you don't mind:

• Recognize McNool's Tier 1 Operators if loaded
  
• Add time of day at start - all the islands are beautiful and it'd be nice to be able to play in daylight instead of always playing at night. (Unless time is randomized.)
  

Thanks for this mission, BTW, it looks very promising.

Edit: did you leave out the Chernarus .pbo from the 4.96 version on purpose or by mistake?

Edited May 13, 2012 by xxbbcc

[markb50k 1]

I left out the chernarus pbo by mistake. Sorry. Zip file link updated in first post

I'll look into the tier one operators. Should be an easy add

As for time of day I provide a skip 1 hr option on the COMMS menu. Either under general or mission. Just use that to bring the sun up.

Thanks for the feedback!

[heklos 0]

New suggestion after tooling around in the newest version. I've seen this before on mission with a saved weapon loadout like domination could we have something like that but not for a weapon loadout, but for your favorite factions setup?

Also I have meant to ask, I didn't check the mission pbo's themselves, but do you have it forcing a certain view distance?

[sparks50 0]

Thanks for this brilliant mission, made my week.

Edited May 13, 2012 by sparks50

[markb50k 1]

New suggestion after tooling around in the newest version. I've seen this before on mission with a saved weapon loadout like domination could we have something like that but not for a weapon loadout, but for your favorite factions setup?

Also I have meant to ask, I didn't check the mission pbo's themselves, but do you have it forcing a certain view distance?

Saved faction setup : hmm, ill have to look into that

Viewdistance : no, i dont force it in my code... I saw in another thread where someone thinks a particular island is forcing the viewdistance where the slider is stuck at one place. Check out This thread

[Snake_61 10]

Very interesting thing about the viewdistance!

I'ld like to increase it a bit...but how?

Should it be possible via Video / options within the ArmA-Menu?

Got it there at 5000m, but Chernarous is very "foggy" :)

[xxbbcc 6]

I'm pretty sure the mission is forcing 500m view distance - that was the same as Zero. I'm playing on Celle 2 and I have fog starting at 250m and nothing is rendered beyond 500m. (My normal VD is 2000m.) On Celle 2 this makes approaching most towns (at least close to starting positions) impossible.

The AI also seems to be extremely skilled - I tried playing this several times and there wasn't a single firefight yet - either I killed them on first shot or the AI killed me with first shot, usually well beyond 200m and mostly among vegetation. Not one exception. I'd expect a ragtag army of various survivors to be somewhat randomly skilled - all the ones I encountered so far were very much like snipers. The only times I didn't die on first shot was when they had no direct line of sight (they still fired countless bullets at my location but the they were blocked).

On one occasion, I just started the mission, managed to get close to a town and searched a few houses and ran into a BMP. I ran into the forest but the BMP kept following me, shooting into the forest constantly. I switched into commanding view and saw that no matter what I did, the BMP had its turret pointed at me at all times.

I find these very unfair, especially in this mission, since the odds are so much against the player. It'd be ok if the houses give away rough location information but giving out the exact location isn't right. The same with enemy units 'detecting' the player, regardless how well the player is hidden, especially with their god-like skill to shoot without aiming time or without missing. It's not the fact that they do but the distance and extent of their detection ability is what I find problematic.

This mission has tremendous potential - just like Clay's Zero, this one is very reminiscent of Abandoned Armies (old OFP mission) but with these problems I wouldn't recommend playing it. I hope markb50k considers changing these because it's obvious he put a lot of work into this mission. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect an easy mission - I do, however, expect a fair one.

[deltafiveone 11]

I find these very unfair, especially in this mission, since the odds are so much against the player. It'd be ok if the houses give away rough location information but giving out the exact location isn't right. The same with enemy units 'detecting' the player, regardless how well the player is hidden, especially with their god-like skill to shoot without aiming time or without missing. It's not the fact that they do but the distance and extent of their detection ability is what I find problematic.

Markb50k,

I have to agree with xxbbcc about the enemy knowing exactly (and I mean EXACTLY) where you're at after a house search, if possible could a rough location be given to that attacking unit instead? For that reason alone I unfortunately never search houses because it pretty much means instant death as the AI homes in on me from every distance away. They only see me. I ONLY search houses when the partisans wave me over and even then that rarely happens, that'd be nice if that event would happen in each town we come up on. We're just so outnumbered as is ya know? Other than that and the custom script/'High Command' lag after resuming a loaded mission which still seems to be happening a lot (still don't know wth is causing that, drives me CRAZY at times. I thought that the new beta "[92582] Fixed: AI detection after load" would fix this but unfortunately that didn't solve it). Everything else seems great though, I'm lovin' it!

Edited May 14, 2012 by DeltaFiveOne
Elaboration

[Kommiekat 11]

The AI also seems to be extremely skilled.

I agree with you. The mission is hard as hell. I might try this time like DeltFiveOne and not search houses.

Anyways, if you go to this thread, post #20, shows you how to set up your default skills in your (yournamehere.ArmaOAProfile) profile found in you PC's Documents folder.

Seems to have helped me alot.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?107526-ASR-AI-Skills/page4&highlight=ASR_AI

[markb50k 1]

People have been playing this for months now, living with the parameters set in the code, including myself, and at no point did I ever consider this something to "not recommend" playing it. I think that is a bit harsh.

But, i could look at setting the reveal to a lower number which should only make the enemy realize there is something there, not a full reveal. Will investigate.

---------- Post added at 02:25 ---------- Previous post was at 02:07 ----------

oh and I'll look at the enemy skills. by no means is every soldier set to super AI. In fact, only those with rank Colonel, which there might be like 2 or 3 on a map, even have the chance of having a 1 in skill.

as for viewdistance, again, no effect from my mission, however there is fog set to around 0.5 in the mission file. Is that too high? I could look at reducing it.

But overall, i play this mission extensively, and to put it bluntly, after the first couple of hours where you do have to really be careful about what you are doing, the game gets pretty easy.

Edited May 14, 2012 by markb50k

[xxbbcc 6]

markb50k, I didn't mean to be harsh and I did give your mission at least 5 hours and several retries, thinking that I was playing it wrong. I want to like your mission exactly because it has qualities of Abandoned Armies and I really hope you drive it all the way.

With that said, here's what made me critical of it: on every retry, the friendly army was wiped out within 10 minutes of starting the mission. (Actually, on my first try, they were gone by the time I finished reading the notes, etc. on the map screen.) That left me with no choice - I must've searched houses to find friendly units to join. I played with fairly high settings since I was looking for a challenge: lots of vehicle patrols, units, etc.

So on the first few tries, I tried getting to towns, search houses to find some friendlies which I did. The problem is, that none of them ever had any heavy weapons but once the first shot is fired (which is soon, since the enemy knows minutes before I reach town), all kinds of vehicles show up. (Fewest I had on a try was 5.) At that point it's impossible to finish the mission.

Of course, it could be bad strategy to go to towns but then I must be missing something here:

• There are no friendlies left that I can link up with.
  
• I can't approach towns because then give away my location (and keep doing so) but that's the only place to find more friendlies. The AI knew when I crawled from one room to another inside an already searched house!
  
• Unless I allow no vehicles, most fights end up with enenmy vehicles swarming around with the player having no chance to fight them or to escape them (they know the player's location).
  
• Even with vehicles off, the view distance (or fog) forces the player to go very close to places - at 400m most details are not rendered anymore so the player cannot observe towns, camps, etc. from afar. Once you go close enough to see things (even with binocs), the enemy detects you easily.
  

About AI skill: I did a test (several times) - I approached a town the first time (when the door search hint pops up) so I'd get a marker for the door at 200m. I checked to make sure that the door is truly the closest building to my then-current position. Now I started moving towards the building and watched when the AI would notice me - I never reached 100m. Usually when I reach 105-110m, I'm dead (single shot). So if the house gives away my position, it does so at more than 100m and the info is given to the AI immediately who also shoot right away. It also updates this info all the time - I couldn't move in town without the AI knowing about it.

I'd suggest that houses only give out a rough location (depending on distance and the number of unsearched houses; 5-10m would be the finest resolution) and only update that information maybe once every minute or two. That'd keep pressure on the player but it'd also be fairer, since the player would have a chance to react: move away, search more houses, etc.

AI should also not have the player's exact location unless they learn it through actions of the player. An AI team leader shouldn't be able to shoot at the player at 300m when the player is in the woods and the AI is in town. Again, a rough location (a lot rougher than with houses) would work better.

If you think I'm playing the mission wrong, feel free to say so, I don't mind re-thinking my approach but I already tried 6 or 7 times. I don't consider myself a particularly skilled player but I did manage to get through a few tough missions so I believe there are some things that could use some tweaking in yours.

Don't take this the wrong way, I know you put a lot of work into it - it shows. As I said, I really want to like your mission, it has great qualities but I think it'd be a lot better if it treated the player more fairly.

Edited May 14, 2012 by xxbbcc
Typo.

[kiberkiller 10]

Since we're discussing core mechanics here now, I'll add my 10c as well.

First of all, Town Vision makes player visible to all enemy forces within 400m if the Town reported you (and it will in the beginning when it's got 0 reputation).

Second, to get more reputation with the Town (to stop reporting you) you have to kill enemies in that Town.

Since most Towns don't have any enemy forces inside it, the logically best strategy to play is to go into Town and wait there for the enemy. When enemies from 400m got there and you kill them, the Town will no longer report you but the enemy will most likely send several patrols from across the map to get you (last killed unit position), meaning that you will most likely have to retreat.

The result of that will be that, you will have gained a small amount of supplies from the Town, gained it's reputation and now you can't visit that Town for a while, since it's occupied by enemy forces, and you probably won't want to visit a town after you "captured" it, because there's nothing more to be gained there, so technically, whole reputation thing is meaningless and serves a very specific purpose for when you defend inside that town, most likely once per game (per town).

Here is my suggestion for how I would remake that mechanic. I'm not saying this is the perfect way or that you should definitely do like I say. This is just some food for thought.

My suggestions would be to base the mechanics around a few core principles. For example:

1) Towns should be a source of supplies.

2) Enemy Towns should be dangerous.

3) Towns should be a valuable asset.

Those are the core principles I'd pick for this amazing map. Extrapolating from that, we can design a few core rules.

1) You should be able to find supplies (weapons, squad mates, vehicles, etc) inside Towns.

2) When lurking around an un-Allied Town you should meet enemy resistance.

3) Towns should give you supplied even after you have captured it.

After that we can come up with several mechanics that would follow those rules. For example:

When you get into an unoccupied Town you should gain "reputation" automatically, seizing the Town.

When a Town is allied yo you, you should be able to get (maybe purchase?) supplied from that Town even after you have captured it (whenever you want or at certain intervals?).

Enemy Towns should contain a small force that would defend the Town, giving the players a risk/reward situation.

The "base building" idea from my earlier post fits perfectly into that. For example, whenever you loot enemy soldiers and camps, you could get "supplies" or "money". That money can be used to buy gear (and maybe more guerrillas?) from Towns and build different structures in that Town, but only in allied Towns.

That way, the players would achieve more and more with each captured Town. His squad would get bigger with each captured Town, he would get more equipment, etc etc etc.

Looking at the map to see what Towns you have captured already could also give you a general idea of how far you're into defeating the enemy.

That's some "Game Design 101" from me and of course, that's just my vision of what I would like this mission to be, you might have a different view.

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

Edited May 14, 2012 by kiberkiller

[markb50k 1]

will be putting these in next update:

- friendly troops will not be 'sighted' by civilian house within the town they chosen as a rally point. this should help survivability of the initial western forces. But overall, they are not supposed to survive long under normal circumstances. Remember, your side has lost the war. Anything to get from them is a bonus. And I know its very likely that some will survive the initial onslaught. Remember get to a radio as fast as possible and immediately order them to disperse into the treelines.

- for the special reveal that the houses provide, i have lowered it to a reveal of 1 instead of 4 where it was originally. A value of 1 doesnt even specify the side of the unit so the enemy will have to move closer and evaluate the sighting, and shouldnt just be opening up on you from large distances.

- greatly lowered the skill settings on AI. now privates will have generally skills in the range of .3, corporals .4, and the highest colonel's will be .9. This is a significant reduction from the prior skill settings.

I like that Kiberkiller has a clear thought out set of rules for the mission, but in my opinion, you can get that from any of the Warfare game modes out there. I'm not a big fan on the ability to build forces in the game, so I dont see me converting this mission over to something like that.

Now i will let you in on some of my thinking, that I am considering a follow-on mission to Lost that is a more fair fight between two armies, will two large AI forces battling across the map and you are a small part of it. So some of these ideas will surely influence how I proceed with that.

[kiberkiller 10]

I like that Kiberkiller has a clear thought out set of rules for the mission, but in my opinion, you can get that from any of the Warfare game modes out there. I'm not a big fan on the ability to build forces in the game, so I dont see me converting this mission over to something like that.

Now i will let you in on some of my thinking, that I am considering a follow-on mission to Lost that is a more fair fight between two armies, will two large AI forces battling across the map and you are a small part of it. So some of these ideas will surely influence how I proceed with that.

Thanks. :)

I have many years of hobby game design experience, so that comes in handy when I'm giving feedback to mod developers.

Personally, what I play "Lost" for is for the sense of progression, that I've been talking about a lot now.

To start off as a lone wolf and slowly build up your forces to tackle a bigger threat. Like a Singleplayer ARMA MMORPG, if that analogy makes any sense to you. That and the sense of survival in open-world environment.

My problem with normal missions and Warfare is that you kind of get everything from the start, and Warfare starts large-scale, as well. I don't get to collect resources and set up make-shift bases out of stray items in Warfare.

Some kind of post-apocalyptic open-world survival mission would've been perfect for my needs but no one thought of making that yet.

Well, that's my 10c again.

Thanks for taking my thoughts into consideration and I'm definitely looking forward to your next project.

[markb50k 1]

Yeah i see LOST and the new mission to kind of both work from different angles for players.

I like the progression thing too, obviously, since the mission type captured my imagination and I produced Lost out of it. I am into the Bethesda RPGs like Fallout and Oblivion and my mods in those games go toward the grand strategic gameplay I like, while staying tactical for the player.

As such, I am definitely open to hearing what features help in that feeling of progression and accomplishment that you can get from Lost as you slowly start wresting control of areas from the enemy. My only issue with the criticism was when it was implied that the game was unplayable because of the detection/ai. I just can't agree with that, in the many iterations i have played of the mission, and from the majority of the post showing players experiences, i havent seen that the game is unplayable. I appreciate opinions that ask for tweaks and give me some ideas, i just wish people would understand that a prospective player considering the mission can get a very wrong conclusion from certain comments. Anyway, i dont have a big deal with it, and I am a big enough person to take the ideas in consideration and see what i can do to find some common ground.

As for the Warfare comment, I see the difference between your ideas and the basic Warfare setup, but alot of your wishes seem to mesh very well with what Warfare delivers.

As for the new scenario, I also know that other people would just love a large war scenario where they can see their favorite mods battle eachother in a full setting. Thus the draw of my other mission idea.

I think they both have a place, and I am drawn to both.

[heklos 0]

I like it the way it is.

This mission in my opinion shows exactly how it would be if you were against a numerically superior and equipped enemy. The whole point of the mission is to use strategy and tactics to wear down that enemy, to bleed them of equipment and personnel in order to gain the upper hand and be able to control territory. From the posts previously I can see that there is one flaw, you are playing as if you have backup, a larger force to help contain the enemy and a bunch of territory that you control. In this mission you do not.

I spend very little time in the towns and cities, I hit them hard and quick, killing everything that moves scooping up as much equipment and vehicles I can then I GTFO before the reinforcements arrive. I hide in the mountains or forests away from the main roads, I re-arm, re-equip and heal up my men and myself and then consult the map on my next move. You need to exercise patience for this mission. Planing, Timing and Execution are critical in the first part of the game. You are not holding territory, you are merely trying to bleed the opponent of men and material to allow you to take territory at a later date. I cannot stress that enough, using the static tactics and strategy of holding land will just get you surrounded by enemy vehicles and dead. Hit and Run, hit that truck with a RPG and machine gun the survivors, grab their stuff and RUN! You only need to seek specialty weapons otherwise you just need Ammo. Stop collecting stuff and just get what you need, doing that ensures that you are in and out of a town quickly and you can easily adapt to new threats when you have space and the means too. Wading into the town like its COD and trying to go toe to toe with 5 to 6 enemy squads will get you dead, even though you may have killed the infantry you forgot that the Gunships are on their way, you forgot that the Tanks and APC's are coming to help their brothers and that is when you get in the position of feeling like you cant go or do anything without getting surrounded.

Try tactics like that and then come back and say it needs to be changed to what is already available in hundreds of other missions available for Arma2. I don't think you will.

[Kommiekat 11]

I spend very little time in the towns and cities, I hit them hard and quick, killing everything that moves scooping up as much equipment and vehicles I can then I GTFO before the reinforcements arrive. ...... Wading into the town like its COD and trying to go toe to toe with 5 to 6 enemy squads will get you dead, even though you may have killed the infantry you forgot that the Gunships are on their way, you forgot that the Tanks and APC's are coming to help their brothers and that is when you get in the position of feeling like you cant go or do anything without getting surrounded.

I think that pretty much says it all. Now I've got a better idea of what to do.

Before I'd try to knock out the first town by literally knocking on ALL doors thinking I'd get brownie points only to find myself getting surrounded and dead.

Think I'll go guerrilla on the enemy this time and knock only on few doors until I can get a few men to join the team.

[xxbbcc 6]

I like the progression thing too, obviously, since the mission type captured my imagination and I produced Lost out of it. I am into the Bethesda RPGs like Fallout and Oblivion and my mods in those games go toward the grand strategic gameplay I like, while staying tactical for the player.

If you make your mission into a combination of Abandoned Armies & Fallout (with side tasks & storyline), I'll buy you a six pack.

---------- Post added at 12:45 ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 ----------

I spend very little time in the towns and cities, I hit them hard and quick, killing everything that moves scooping up as much equipment and vehicles I can then I GTFO before the reinforcements arrive. I hide in the mountains or forests away from the main roads, I re-arm, re-equip and heal up my men and myself and then consult the map on my next move. You need to exercise patience for this mission. Planing, Timing and Execution are critical in the first part of the game. You are not holding territory, you are merely trying to bleed the opponent of men and material to allow you to take territory at a later date. I cannot stress that enough, using the static tactics and strategy of holding land will just get you surrounded by enemy vehicles and dead.

I wonder if we played the same mission? I tried similar tactics but all towns I encountered had enemy patrols around them and I couldn't get to any buildings without getting shot at, even though I tried moving both slowly and quickly. Once I got to buildings in towns, I was pretty much stuck - there's no way leaving because there's a lot of open areas and the AI can snipe me off at 300-400m, where they aren't even rendered anymore. Even when I made it into the forest, it didn't matter because they killed me anyway, even though I already put more than 400m between them and me. (Plus there were trees in between - in any realistic setting, there was no way they could've known where I was.

My approach may have had mistakes, but I don't see how people finish this mission as it is. I even tried using JTD's Hide addon and they detected me through that, too. Anyway, markb50k is making changes, I'll give it another try.