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StrongHarm

Close Air Support - Day 1

Mission Feedback  

94 members have voted

  1. 1. Mission Feedback

    • I liked this mission! I'll fly it again!
      81
    • It's decent.
      7
    • It needs a lot of work...
      4
    • This mission was anti-good.. what are you smoking?
      1


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Yeah, the download is on my personal server. Any future updates will see the file replaced on my server, so you can just re-use the link in the first post of this thread. I'll also alert Armaholic each time so they'll update their mirror. They said they've done that for this iteration.

http://www.strongharm.com/files/Combat_Air_Support.Stratis.zip

ok. can you post a link to the BIS download?

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Niiiiiice work StrongHarm!

I thoroughly enjoyed this mission. With my flying in Arma 3 limited to stuffing about in the editor, this mission is a fantastic way to improve your piloting skills.

As others have said, the atmosphere is great. I think you've struck the right balance between authentic military feel (with the voice acting, nine-line calls, smoke on target, FARP set up) and plain old fun of raining death down upon the enemy.

If I had to make some suggestions for improvement, I'd say perhaps vary the missions a little? I realise CAS is what it is, but perhaps some varients could work? For example covering/clearing an LZ for an MH-9 to insert/extract some troops, protecting/escorting a friendly convoy, interdicting an enemy convoy, perhaps even duking it out with an enemy chopper? Perhaps CAS could be just some of the missions the player is tasked with?

I got this error at start up a few times. Didn't seem to effect the mission at all though.

th_caserror_zps9a943b78.jpg

Also, here's a screenie of my score. What's your best?

th_casscore_zps0542cb2c.jpg

Cheers mate

Chops

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Thanks! Those are fuel barrels and ammo crates. Do you think I should remove them all together or reposition them?

They absolutely make sense being there but it's their layout which seems a bit strange. Perhaps you could reposition them to one dedicated fueling area and put some bigger crates on the other side so it doesn't look like the barrels create an arena :D

Thanks again mate!

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StrongHarm! Outstanding mission!

I greatly look forward to this mission on Altis once it's released!

I have ONE request though. Can you make it so that you can request smoke and other JTAC requests as soon as the JTAC on the ground spots you? I kept having to do flybys first before they would pop smoke, so my first flyover was always wasted.

I'm not a pilot and I don't fly very often in ArmA, but this mission was absolutely outstanding:

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One of the most enjoyable SP missions I have ever played in Arma. Really, bang on. Look forward to more of your work.

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McScottie, thanks for the great video and feedback. Concerning JTAC providing smoke, you're missing an important aspect. It seems like your radio volume is down as you're not hearing the JTAC give you the 9line. At the moments in the video when you're trying to request smoke from the JTAC, he is talking to you over the radio. Once he finishes speaking he will give you smoke when you need it. Also, take note that you only have to go back to Stratis Air Base if you need medical or aircraft repairs. If you want to rearm/refuel there are three other FARPs out on the island. Go into your journal and make one of the FARP locations active and you'll get a location waypoint. This mission has some features that are outside of the norm, so give the mission briefing a thorough read and it's much more enjoyable. Concerning flying, I use a joystick/pedals/TrackIR, so I don't know what the keys are for the rudder pedals, but they're critical. Your pedals should be moving at all times unless you're traveling from one point to another.. the more rudder pedal the more you'll get from your helo.

Thanks again!

---------- Post added at 03:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 AM ----------

One of the most enjoyable SP missions I have ever played in Arma. Really, bang on. Look forward to more of your work.

Thanks! YOU my friend, have an awesome avatar!

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Concerning JTAC providing smoke, you're missing an important aspect. It seems like your radio volume is down as you're not hearing the JTAC give you the 9line. At the moments in the video when you're trying to request smoke from the JTAC, he is talking to you over the radio.

Ahhhh okay. I have radio down because I play a LOT of AI missions and I got tired of hearing them talking around 2 years ago :p

Concerning rudder controls, I do have keys set-up for rudders. I don't have the budget for the full set-up yet. "Soon"â„¢

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Really nice mission. Sometimes an error message appears but I guess it's because of the alpha. Just add autosaves and it will be perfect. Can't wait to see more stuff from you, maybe this kind of mission on Altis :-)

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Had fun playing this! Seems very authentic and looks to have had good amount of work put into it! Good job!

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Thanks for the positive feedback and suggestions everyone! Yes it was time consuming. I'd say close to 300 hours believe it or not. A lot of the key features I incorporated aren't inherent in Arma3.. plus it was my first serious mission, so there was a lot of research and trial and error involved. Can you believe that after all that work.. I called it 'COMBAT Air Support' instead of 'CLOSE Air Support'?! ROFL!.. I have no idea what was going through my head. Day 2 will most likely be much larger and will correct the mistakes I made in Day1.

Had fun playing this! Seems very authentic and looks to have had good amount of work put into it! Good job!

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Wow, Day 2 is coming? You have something amazing here. Thanks and much praise for your contribution.

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Finalizing and testing changes and fixes to deal with last patch. I should have the updated mission up in the next day or two.

Highlights:

*Changed everything from COMBAT Air Support to CLOSE Air Support.. still don't know how I made that mistake hahah

*Fixed errors on launch caused by latest patch

*Fixed script errors on spawn of AO

*Fixed smoke delay

*Fixed SAB pad layout

*Now spawning 40mm smoke cans at 50ft instead of on the ground to simulate drop after being fired from a 203

If there are any other changes or additions you'd like to see before I finalize 1.3, please tell me ASAP.

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Yes it is. My dilemma was that the maintenance crew that interacts with the helo when you land at Stratis is calibrated to size and shape of the AH9. I did originally have the KA80 in the mission, then decided to give a nod to the all important aircrewmen by making them part of the mission and adding animation to the repairs.

My choices are:

1. Add a type condition to the maintenance script to find the helo type, then create maintenance animations for the KA80

2. Add a type condition to the maintenance script to find the helo type, have no maintenance animations if it's KA80

On one hand, I don't want to have a hole in the attention to detail of the mission by not adding maintenance animations to the KA80, on the other hand you probably won't be able to see the animations from the KA80 like you can from the AH9.

Another aspect that halted the KA80 being in the mission was maintaining level of authenticity. The pilot is US, and the KA80 would probably never be deployed by the US.

Keep in mind that this mission is only day1 and I will be doing several missions in this series, to include OPFOR SP / choice sided SP / multiplayer / coop missions in subsequent Day:N missions.

Any suggestions?

Edited by StrongHarm

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Like the concept of this mission to be honest, and from a brief test it seemed to be set up well. Can't play this any further personally as my ArmA3 has some really hard performance issues somehow. Reminds me I need to upgrade to an i5 soon.

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Tryteyker: reduce your view distance to about 1/4 of the bar.. if you haven't already. It makes a world of difference.

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StrongHarm, excellent mission. Although I must say that my piloting skills are lacking somewhat, when compared to your video in the first post. Just out of curiousity, how do you make the helicopter "circlestrafe" like that at 6:20? Is there any quick tip you could share ?

Cheers,

OP

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I liked the mission, although I had little FPS lag. :D

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old_painless: I haven't created any tutorials for Arma3 yet, but I plan on it. The maneuver is called a Tunnel maneuver. You might check out dslyecxi's youtube channel. He makes some great Arma and air tutorials.

jankus22: The mission code makes everything on the map deactivate except for the AO that you're currently active on. So the max amount of troops on the map at any given time is like 20-50. You might try decreasing your visibility slider.

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NEW VERSION:

20130531: v1.3 - Made following changes:

*Changed everything from COMBAT Air Support to CLOSE Air Support.. still don't know how I made that mistake <boggle!>

*Fixed errors on launch caused by latest patch

*Fixed script errors on spawn of AO

*Fixed smoke delay

*Fixed SAB pad layout

*Now spawning 40mm smoke cans at 50ft instead of on the ground to simulate drop after being fired from a 203 by JTAC

*Changed fuel cans at repair pad at the request of a very anal end user.. you were right it does look better.. thanks for the attention to detail!

*Closed size of triggers that deactivate AIs that aren't visible to increase performance a bit

INSTALL:

Unzip to your "X:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Arma 3\Missions" folder. Start from "Scenarios" in Arma3.

DOWNLOAD:

See URL in original post.

!!THE DOWNLOAD IN THE ORIGINAL POST WILL ALWAYS BE THE LATEST VERSION!!

NOTE: These notes are in the original post as well.

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Thanks StrongHarm. Love the feel of the airbase. I find the CAS missions take a bit longer and are more challenging in this version, which I much prefer.

Keep it up, I love Heli missions!

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