[Co-Op][SP/MP] Campaign: The Echo Diary (1-6)

[massasster 1]

A 6 Part Single/Cooperative Campaign following a select group of soldiers dubbed ECHO team. Designed for the hard core player, no respawns, no hand holding and no virtual ammo loadouts. Play in selectable EASY, MED, or HARD modes via Parameters.

DOWNLOAD HERE v 1.2

Armaholic mirror:

- Campaign : The Echo Diary

OR stay up to date on steam workshop

http://steamcommunity.com/id/massasster/myworkshopfiles/?appid=107410

Edited November 10, 2013 by MassAsster

[SD_BOB 10]

Hey man, just thought i'd pop in and give a little feedback on the first two missions. Firstly let me just say, a very good effort so far, what we've played were very enjoyable.

Part 1:-

Bugs: Extraction trigger did not appear to go off. I'm guessing the hovering helicopter near the power station is supposed to come in and extract you. But alas no extraction...

Just out of curiosity is there an "all group present" trigger to initiate the extract? We didnt have the squad leader slotted, which would explain that one if that's the case.

Suggestions: If we missed them then fair enough, but if not it might be worth adding a few impromptu checkpoints on the roads going the power station. Just a couple of Ifrits or something parked up, with a few guys.

The buggers with suppressors in building windows in the town, were a real pain in the arse but good fun trying to move around, works well. Possibly make it more like a group of them in a few buildings rather than individual guys. So it looks like a small team has taken over a building. Or use a house patrol script on a group...

Part 2:-

No bugs really noted just a small thing, you might want to put a little delay after the target is killed before the trigger ends the mission, just seems a bit sudden when it ends.

Suggestions: Knock the available arty down, atm it a little bit too much... I think maybe just 2 mortars available, call it maybe, resistance forces have a couple to support you in the briefing. That way the focus is on a good ambush not just getting a good arty strike.

Will let you know as we play more, not sure when this will be but rest assured we'll get on em soon.

[massasster 1]

Shadow.D

Thank you kindly for the feedback!

yes, you are the 2nd person to report the trigger failure, I am going to go ahead and re-work this as apparently this is dependent on a squad leader, and many people have not used this position.

The route headed to the extraction zone is randomized patrols - you may have simply gotten lucky and not encountered much resistance on your run. The run we did a little bit ago went so foul it wasn't funny within 500-600 meters of the end... very disheartening

The house patrol units - I've had to sacrifice a few things to performance - It was a choice of less city coverage with more units in a building, or more city coverage with less units. The placement is random with the units- so the hope was you might end up caught between a few well placed units and have a really good firefight. Next on my list of things to do is randomize the FOB location.

Convoy - yeah I can add a delay on the end of that one - I think you are correct on the arty as well, maybe leave the team with one good strike. Arty , for me at least, is rather hard to time on moving targets. Once you disable a unit to stop the convoy they are out rather fast to defend the rest so I wanted to leave the option open to at least have one call for support.

It's a work in progress and already I've had to make some changes to resolve some small issues - but thanks to yours and others feedback I think it's getting better and better by the suggestions being made.

Thanks again!

[Variable 322]

A 6 Part Single/Cooperative Campaign following a select group of soldiers dubbed ECHO team. Designed for the hard core player, no respawns, no hand holding and no virtual ammo loadouts. Play in selectable EASY, MED, or HARD modes via Parameters.

Finally, finally, finally a true hard core non apologetic campaign. Will be hosted on the Comrades in Arms coop server!

Have you tested it on a dedicated server environment?

Thanks a lot for this, I hope it will set an example for more mission makers.

[massasster 1]

We have run it a few times on our dedicated box - everything was designed to function both on dedicated and local.

By default there is a damage/revive system active - but you can disable either in parameters or perm if you want to unpack the PBO files and edit the description.ext to your preferred default settings-

[massasster 1]

Updated: 1.1

Change log

Part1:

Randomized F.O.B Location so players cannot just skip attempting to locate a map.

Edited ending trigger to not require the entire group present.

Part2:

Lowered request-able Arty strikes to only one single strike

Part3:

Resolved a typo in a call for sound "winit"

Part4:

Locked civilian vehicle to resolve an issue with OPFOR not attacking team

Part6:

Major changes to how OPFOR deals damage to the tank

added a damage check to the tank (simply walk up to it)

Added a damage check to players (added to the scroll options, requires team leader)

All parts:

Redeployed backpacks

Added a delay to the ending of missions

[thenach 10]

Thanks for this pack!!! I'm testing it to use it with the ARMA group I'm member of.

Is really good to have finally a mission that is Hardcore.

Thanks.

[massasster 1]

Updated: 1.2

Change log

Part1:

Handling of OPFOR patrols edited

Atmosphere added: Civilians run the town, OPFOR propaganda signs, ECT.

Part2:

no change

Part3:

Revamped hostage script (as suggested by Prathios) to correct errors with hostage re-joining the team. Should prevent UN-resolvable missions due to hostage rescue errors

Part4:

Helicopter patrols added to the borders

Part6:

Edits to group sizes and troop movements

Edits to OPFOR and damages to the tank

All parts:

Added a load next mission notice to the endings of missions

[Variable 322]

Damn I gotta try this campaign... Problem is, we are always too many for it. I'll get to it eventually... :)

[massasster 1]

Update 1.3

a critical update was applied to the last mission that allows vehicles accuracy to scale with the difficulty setting.

Why is this important?

Due to the nature of the last mission, an urban combat defend the objective type mission, the accuracy of the AI vehicles plays the most critical role in the success of the mission. The default accuracy of Arma 3 allows vehicles to almost instantly aim and fire at a target with little chance of the player being able to take any evasive action to avoid being killed. Due to the high number of armed vehicles present in this mission, it was critical to the playability that the player(s) be given a higher chance to

take action to avoid being hit by vehicle fire. This update applied a much greater chance that players are able to processes they are being shot at, and maneuver out of harms way of vehicles.

*Note: The default difficulty setting for this mission remains medium presenting a increased difficulty level over the standard "easy" setting of the rest of the missions. As always, admins and hosts are able to edit the settings via the Parameters.

Edited November 17, 2013 by MassAsster

[Variable 322]

We are just playing the first episode on a dedicated server. We reached the FOB, found an unarmed officer, but couldn't find any documents. not on the officer, not in the vehicles. We saw some docs and folders on the ground but couldn't pick anything. Are we missing something? Great mission thus far!

[massasster 1]

I wonder if the recent update had any effect on the "documents", I did note some thing about red file being removed...

I will look into that ASAP - I am really sorry if that slipped by me!

---------- Post added at 00:48 ---------- Previous post was at 23:20 ----------

just to be cautious - updated the mission to replace "documents" with "laptop". Pushed the update to the steam workshop, working on a new package for downloading, should be ready tomorrow .

[Variable 322]

Thanks! Nonetheless, the mission was accomplished when we reached the Electrical Factory.

I suspect the problem has something to do with locality handling on dedicated servers...

[massasster 1]

DOWNLOAD HERE v 1.3

updated for latest release of Arma 3

[Variable 322]

Uploading to the CiA server. Thanks!

[papanowel 120]

Thank you, we will give it a try this weekend, I'll give you our feedback once we played it.

[Variable 322]

Has this version been tested on a dedicated server?

Edited April 8, 2014 by Variable

[massasster 1]

Yes - works on dedicated as well as hosted.

[Variable 322]

Completed episode 2. We attacked the convoy, soldiers disembarked from the Ifrits. they were completely empty when we destroyed them but the objective was completed nonetheless. I think it will be better off to actually have to kill an officer as the briefing suggests. I would also make the background music at the start a lot shorter, hard to communicate with it even if music volume is low.

Cool mission though, looking forward for the next in line :)

[massasster 1]

Completed episode 2. We attacked the convoy, soldiers disembarked from the Ifrits. they were completely empty when we destroyed them but the objective was completed nonetheless. I think it will be better off to actually have to kill an officer as the briefing suggests. I would also make the background music at the start a lot shorter, hard to communicate with it even if music volume is low.

Cool mission though, looking forward for the next in line :)

Yeah, that's a really good point, I'll probably change that up to load in a "VIP" into one of the convoy vehicles :)

[massasster 1]

Updated files, both on steam workshop and for download

DOWNLOAD HERE v1.4

[aliascartoons 182]

Hey MassAsster,

Echo Diary is one of the best campaign i played so far. As i told you before on armaholic only Part 6 has issues, it gets very laggy. I didn't try the last version of it tho maybe you already optimized, in this case nevermind.

I made some videos based on your campaign.

[massasster 1]

well done man! Really enjoyed the videos, it helps to see how you play so that future missions can be laid out better. This was a first go around back when alpha/beta were released and it's been updated slowly as patches and such dictate. Performance was always an issue on the 5th and 6th mission - I think the last updated I pushed out really knocked down some "intensity" but it was required to hold a decent FPS during the game play.

As I said, really enjoyed the videos and thank you for sharing!

[aliascartoons 182]

As I said, really enjoyed the videos and thank you for sharing!

Thank you for your work, few months ago your campaign was the trigger for my video editing adventure :)

I was curious to know about the music you used in missions? They are royality free, copyrighted? I tried not to use it in my videos to avoid Youtube banning me.

[massasster 1]

Yeah, they are selections from various songs - EDM (Electronic Dance Music)

I've changed them up over time, but I've used/am using:

Borgore & DJ Carnage - Incredible (Original Mix)

Eminem - Love The Way You Lie ft. Rihanna

John Legend - Made to Love

Kid Cudi ft Collie Buddz - Day N Nite Remix / Kid Cudi vs. Crookers - Day 'n' Night

Knife Party - LRAD

Showtek & Justin Prime - Cannonball (Original Mix) HQ

Skorge - Sail (AWOLNATION DUBSTEP RMX)

Skrillex - Recess with Kill the Noise, Fatman Scoop, and Michael Angelakos [AUDIO]

Steve Aoki & Chris Lake & Tujamo - Boneless (Original Mix)

Edited May 27, 2014 by MassAsster