[CAMP] Lions of Kandahar

[h34dup 148]

docbrown is right in that I play Arma2 on Windows, and Kommiekat is right in that I use Photoshop on Mac OS for things like the loadscreens or cropping screenshots, I don't edit the screenshots unless there's like a crosshair or UI element in there that gets in the way.

I'm thinking a USB keypad might be perfect, that way it won't take up too much space either... we'll see, I'm going to power through getting the missions in order then do more intros.

Mission 12 is already almost complete, it's a simple scenario that lets you accomplish the three tasks in any order, but depending on the order you choose, there are trade-offs. A new comrade joins you with each task, waiting to address one task means more enemies will be there later. There is a cool atmosphere created by the fact that the entire village at the foot of the hill has been destroyed by the AC-130 support you control the night before. You will walk through the destruction but you have to stay alert...

Mission 13 comes next, the enemy makes his final assault, but this time you have backup from the 10th Mtn Div.'s Commanche Company (motor infantry and Howitzers), another ODA, an AH-64 and a pair of F-18's.

[Kommiekat 11]

Is it difficult for you guys to get extended keyboards for Windows OS?

Dudes! I live in Hong Kong. Just let me know ya need. I've got one that has all LED keys in blue. I Rick Rolling coolio!

[Wiki 1558]

what mod do the F-18 come from?

can you give me a link?

[h34dup 148]

Is it difficult for you guys to get extended keyboards for Windows OS?

Dudes! I live in Hong Kong. Just let me know ya need. I've got one that has all LED keys in blue. I Rick Rolling coolio!

I don't know, I haven't looked yet :P

Since I live in NYC everything is bound to be like 10x what you would pay in HK but shipping would make up for some of that I imagine...unless maybe I gather the bravery to venture into Chinatown.

what mod do the F-18 come from?

can you give me a link?

Heh, well, you're not gonna like it but they're actually F35B's (for now). There is an F/A-18 mod I bet you are already aware of ( http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=14861 ). The players will have to use their imagination, it's not like they're all that easy to discern at a minimum of 800m distance. I wish there was an F/A-18 to replace the F35B's (esp since they aren't even used in Afghanistan as you say), but even more so, I wish I had a RAF Nimrod XV230, instead I had to just use a generic C130J, I don't think a Nimrod addon even exists. Not ideal, but with the only other option being to tack on another addon for what is essentially just a set-piece, or simply not having them, I'd just go for it.

[Wiki 1558]

I like the ones from Meatball, unfortunately there are 2 major problem that he hasn't fixed yet:

no RWR and no flares...

[folgore_airborne 1]

what about this: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?97730-F-15-Eagle-Strike-Eagle

Eagles are surely used in A-Stan..

[spotter001 82]

yup, i'd like to try those f-15Es...didn't know about that mod before at all.

[h34dup 148]

Well, I'm afraid as of now neither the F-15 nor F/A-18 will be added to the required addons list, they don't play an important enough role in the campaign.

Anyway, I've laid the foundation for the last two levels this weekend, so now all missions are in place and in-progress to some extent. Now I just have to finish them all and bring 'er on home. Easier said than done.

M13 - The Dragon's Back - The Taliban are making a final all-out assault on the Dragon's Back, the collection of hills (including Sperwan Ghar) held by your team, now reinforced by the 10th Mtn Division's Comanche company. The enemy has already secured a foothold to the south at Zangabar Ghar, you need to dislodge them, and then cut a path to relieve Bruce, who along with 2 of his men and 20 ANA soldiers, was cut off in no-man's land and attacked relentlessly by the Taliban. This is the pitched finale, there will be nearly 300 of the enemy in your AO hitting from many directions. Fortunately, you will have artillery and Apache support, along with the reinforced defenses set up along the ridge. Comanche Co is also sweeping southwest on their primary objective, but they are further north. Still, this is going to be a challenge.

M14 - Epilogue - Two months after the end of the Battle of Sperwan Ghar, the mission has shifted to recapturing the hearts-and-minds of the people. As Sgt. Bill, you will help the people in the villages devastated by the fighting, but just because Op. Medusa is over doesn't mean it's not still dangerous. You start at a checkpoint on the outskirts of "Kandahar" and will return to Sperwan Ghar, which is now an ISAF firebase.

I'm beginning to approach the home stretch, not there yet, but I'm moving along at a healthy pace. More voice acting will be needed, but I need to finalize the scripts (and speak to people I haven't heard from) before that commences again. Those who have submitted voice stuff to me will get a PM soon too. If anyone is interested in voice acting, there may be a few cameos coming up so stay tuned!

[Kommiekat 11]

More voice acting will be needed, but I need to finalize the scripts (and speak to people I haven't heard from) before that commences again.

There's a sh##t load of voices I sure would love to hear in-game.

How about asking:

W0lle

Klynia

Twirley

Jedra

tonic

Stagler

kingnothing

saved by grace

and more

Go over to the Editing section. I'd love to hear some of those guys who are helping others with script problems.

But yeah, ask W0lle first. You never know.....

[h34dup 148]

Minor emergency: my laptop's battery has gone black, the computer shuts off at random even when plugged in, and I can't get Windows to load without this happening. Fortunately, I have these missions backed up in the cloud, and I have an appointment to get it fixed under extended warranty today. If all goes as planned I'll have the battery, or something more replaced today and it'll be back to business. If not, however, I'm not exactly sure what the plan will be...

Mission 14 - Epilogue is underway now, you play as Sgt. Bill, working on the recovery effort 2 months after the battle. Already life is returning to re-populate the abandoned villages, you'll see Ishfaaq beginning to come back to life with a thriving marketplace and a few homes restored. You'll speak to the village elder and he'll ask for your help with a few tasks. Then you'll get the option of visiting the various firebases that have been established in the old AO-- Firebase Sperwan Ghar (CDN/US), Firebase Masum Ghar (CDN), both are being modelled after what info I can find on the real things.

Edited October 25, 2012 by h34dup

[Wiki 1558]

damn, that's bad news.

i hope it will be fixed soon.

"bon courage" anyway

[h34dup 148]

Thanks Wiki!

I got my laptop's battery replaced under warranty today and everything appears to be back to normal. No clue why my battery went kaput like that, but the problem appears to be fixed and the project will not see any unnecessary delays.

Good news...

[Harzach 2517]

Heh - you're probably just a couple of miles from me, I would have lent you a laptop if necessary! Good to hear you're up and running.

[h34dup 148]

I appreciate that offer Harzach.

The structure for Mission 13 is largely in-place, you will go up against a daunting enemy force, but the support options at your disposal will devastate them if applied properly. You have to make sure that both you and your squad aren't getting bogged down in the larger battle, you have a specific objective and the longer you wait, the more bad guys will have arrived by the time you get there. The mix of ANA, 10th Mtn Div and ODA 331 feels cool as the AO evolves over the course of the Campaign.

The Epilogue is going to be a non-combat intensive (may not feature combat at all) show-case style experience where you drive around the former AO two months after the Battle of Panjwayi. You will visit a village that laid in ruins coming back to life, an enemy strongpoint that has been converted to an ISAF Firebase, the Canadian OP that is now an FOB, and more. I was originally struggling with the morality of how I depict the end of Lions of Kandahar, based on the book, but I think I have it figured out. I'll save the spoilers for release...

Edited October 27, 2012 by h34dup

[lightspeed_aust 681]

Very clever way to close it out with non combative view of life post campaign

[Kommiekat 11]

The Epilogue is going to be a non-combat intensive ...

Dude, no more talk. Finish the Camp tonight. Tonight! You hear me? Tonight. No more excuses about Laptop batteries and such. That's an order, soldier.

[spotter001 82]

yay, i agree. been playing MOH Warfighter....it's more or less dissapointing. but am sure the LoK will be the real deal.

[h34dup 148]

Ha well with this hurricane hitting us on the east coast and my office closing tomorrow, I will likely have some substantial time to work on it.

Thanks for the words of encouragement guys! I'll keep the updates coming, new screens as well. Stay tuned!

[h34dup 148]

Update: I survived Hurricane Sandy, and although I've been working from home and checking on friends and loved ones, I've had time to work on getting together a final checklist of all the elements that need to be present for the beta, so I can rely on that plan.

Mission 5 - The Notebook

is now a more collaborative effort between Damian Teo and myself, we made a hand-off this past weekend and I'll be taking it over the finish line from here. That means all missions for the core campaign are in-place and at some level on their way to 100% completion.

I also received some voice acting from SavageCDN, excited to get that in soon, sounds very convincing as a Canadian CSOR operator on a stealth mission.

Finally, I got to spend the most of my time working on LoK focusing on the briefings.

Now that all missions are established, I can make sure each Briefing is consistent, informative, and most importantly, interesting to pick through. Initially, I planned to stick closer to the traditional "super-brief" BIS-vanilla-style briefing format. However, I feel like one thing that has resonated about my work with players is the painstaking detail that goes into the 5-paragraph format I used in Tora Bora. While not as detailed as a real 5-paragraph order, it is based on the real model for WARNORDs in NATO military options. Some missions that don't involve contact will not need or use this format for the briefing, but it is useful in others. In other cases, I have written journal entries or fictional correspondances from some of the characters to help flesh out the story even further for those who want full-immersion, sometimes quoting or referencing events from the book.

For the Epilogue "sandbox" I am trying to build renditions of the real-world firebases, but decent imagery of them is hard to come-by. I'm forced to refer to whatever can be made out in the background of a photo from a press release, but nonetheless, I feel like there will be authenticity throughout.

The gloom of autumn in the Epilogue provides some interesting contrast to the warmth of sweltering late-summer during the rest of the Campaign.

Starting to think about how my modding obsession has come full-circle with this project.

It started in 2001 and was my favorite creative outlet until around 2005 or 2006, when I shifted to other hobbies and now, since getting into Arma 2 (late) in 2011, I have been tempted back into modding and editing - coming up with ideas out of the blue and investing this kind of time into seeing it realized. Needless to say, this release will be a milestone, and it will deepen the mystery of why I can't resist the chance to play with ideas and inspiring stories like this.

[kapitanbasa 1]

im itching to dive in and play...so im reading the novel right now!

[h34dup 148]

im itching to dive in and play...so im reading the novel right now!

Good stuff! You'll get more out of this if you read the book, either before (preferably) or after.

Still working on the briefings, it's going to probably end up having taken about 12 hours to get everything in there. I also plan to be adding some extra details to the briefings like photographs. It's a good thing I'm tackling all briefing files at one time to ensure the story is cohesive, and I've read back through the book at least a half-dozen times now (though I'm sure I'll miss things that observant readers like you might end up pointing out).

Once briefings are together, I can ensure the mission skeletons and tasks/objectives are working correctly, add and finalize the voice acting and dialogue script once and for all, and then work on my intros/outros. Finally, I will run an audit on the whole thing and it will be ready to go.

[Kommiekat 11]

I think, with all the suspense, it's best you upload a copy of your missions progression each night before bed as a safety measure to a public server.

If you pass on to another plane of existence, your mission will go with you.

That would be a shame. I don't mean you dying, I mean the mission dying with you. (j/k)

So, give 5 people here you trust with a part of your password. When you pass on, we will gather with our password codes you secreted to us, download the mission, finish it for you, upload it here and play the hell out of it.

What yu say?

[h34dup 148]

I am trying to back things up semi-regularly on Dropbox from now on, so I could always share those folders with others. I'd rather do my updates by development milestone-- so I'm on track to finally get the meat of all the briefings finished, I'll back er up then.

As for giving the password to some faithful stewards, maybe I can advance things just a little bit more, that way the stewards could also serve as pre-beta testers.

[Wiki 1558]

so, do you have now a more accurate ETA of release for this campaign?

I think a lot of people here are waiting very much to test it!

(I am jealous, I don't have the feeling that my missions are expected that much lol ^^)

[h34dup 148]

Great news - this past weekend has been highly productive and I was able to get over the hump with Missions 2 and 5. Two missions I was kind of worried about are now two that I'm excited about.

Mission 2 - Bingo Red One

You play as a private in the Afghan National Army (ANA) undergoing training and qualification for the 3rd Kandak at Firebase Maholic. Two different training activities outlined in the book have been recreated in this mission - a shooting course involving moving to different points of cover and hitting a series of targets (complete with some badass training music), and a long-distance run, an exercise in patience and taking in the scenery. You'll run in full kit past a bustling marketplace and a few friendly vehicles, there to ensure no one dies of heat stroke. The dialogue still needs to be implemented but it will help set the stage.

Mission 5 - The Notebook

This one was originally going to be done by Damian, but school and social life got too hectic, so I've sort of picked up where he left off...well, I had to re-do a bunch of things using techniques I'm familiar with, but now the mission has been completely re-done and works from start to finish (with placeholder hints for dialogue), just need to add some more details. You'll get to rock a cool-looking night ops kit as Sgt. Bill (Rusty's 2nd-in-command) as you and medic Greg creep around at dusk. You have the option to pursue more information from a local Kuchi tribesman who was helpful in revealing the three possible enemy locations. Talking to the tribesman or clearing a specific one of these three locations opens up an optional objective to secure an IED in the area. When you have completed the recon mission, the perspective switches to Rusty as he and his team advance on a suspicious compound only to find a valuable piece of intel.

At this point, in terms of mission structure, I only have a few details to finalize in a couple of missions. This means that the missions themselves are almost ready for beta release. The other substantial project would be Intros/Outros, which would be next on the list, and then of course, the voice stuff.

Screenshots will be on the way fairly soon, maybe in the next day or two. I have a lot of progress to show -- Mission 2, Mission 5, Mission 12, Mission 13, and the Epilogue.

so, do you have now a more accurate ETA of release for this campaign?

I think a lot of people here are waiting very much to test it!

(I am jealous, I don't have the feeling that my missions are expected that much lol ^^)

My goal is to have this CAMP out as a beta before the end of the year, possibly sooner. It depends on how long it takes me to do these intros/outros and get the voice acting scripted, out, back in, and inserted into the game.