[SP] Dynamic Mission - Assault on Neochori

[rosentorf 12]

http://i.imgur.com/9dllnHP.jpg (323 kB)

This is a singleplayer mission. You must lead an assault squad into Neochori to destroy three equipment caches spread throughout town.

See briefing on how to play.

To win this mission you have to destroy three randomly placed caches and then return to base. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CLEAR THE TOWN!!! But you can if you want to!


Features:
- Challenging fire fights in the streets and backyards of Neochori
- AI skills adjusted for quick reaction times
- AI behaviour is controlled by UPSMON-Patrol-Scripts
- Fight the enemy in a burning city.


Quick overview of mission mechanics (more detailed description in briefing):

I put a lot of time into the mission engine: The map shows markers. These are capturable areas.

In the beginning those areas will be occupied by the enemy. The areas themselves are larger than the capture markers. You can get an idea if you check for the transparent grey markers around the capture markers. The defended areas are still a little bit larger. Just to keep you on your toes. These transparent markers indicate the area that triggers the enemy/friendly waves of units, if there are enemy AND friendly units present.

The spawning of waves will end if you can keep enough friendly units in within the capture marker until it turns blue. Then spawning will stop. Any wave that has been spawned will continue to the area and possibly restart the waves. Number of waves depends on the areas occupation settings.

Download-Link:

AssaultCity Neochori
AssaultCity Neochori - reduced clutter and destruction
Link to Steam Workshop:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=277569898

Armaholic mirror:
- Assault on Neochori v0.121 beta

If you play it...feedback would be much appreciated! I'll leave the "beta" in the name of the mission until more bugs have been found and fixed.

So far...
v12.1: reworked objectives: now you need to destroy ammo caches which will be randomly placed at the beginning of the mission.
v11: Fixed issue when stuck AI prevented spawning of new units. AI-Still gets stuck (Who knows why?) but won't prevent spawning of new units. Edited July 26, 2014 by rosentorf
updated

[rosentorf 12]

I added some markers for the friendly teams and made changes to the briefing to explain the mission mechanics a little better.

For link see steam workshop link in first post.

[old_painless 182]

Looks like an enjoyable mission - like the assault style and the moody weather. Thanks for making it, will try it sometime during the next week

[Brainbug 10]

would you mind uploading it elsewhere than the Steam Workshop? I'm probably not the only one harbouring objections against it for one or the other reason.

[rosentorf 12]

I was not aware of that. No problem though - I've added a download link so you can get it independently from steam.

Hope you like it.

[rosentorf 12]

Sorry, uploaded several versions today. I made it, that AA-Soldiers become AT-Soldiers because there are no choppers or planes in this mission. Should be a working version on steam and download link now.

[Brainbug 10]

Thanks, I've played it now. Not a bad concept at all, some points could perhaps be improved a bit however. The task "RTB" trigger when the team is back there but not the player, you should rather set the player as triggering element. The containers are at the harbor, so it is possible to destroy them from the other side of the bay, I'm not sure if that is something you intended. Perhaps scattering the containers all over the town would be more of a challenge so the player is actually forced to start a tough fight. And also maybe you can reduce the amount of fires and other stuff there so the FPS are a bit higher (it was quite unplayable for me, but I don't have a 6 GHz Haswell-E as most people seem to have, so I won't say too much).

[rosentorf 12]

Thank you Brainbug for your feedback.

The RTB task was intended to give the mission an ending with purpose. On the other hand I did not want to make the player run back to the "base" which is basically an empty soccer field. Therefore I made the trigger very large so the mission ends when heading towards the task marker, but a good several hundred meters afar from it. It also allowed me to focus on the mission without building a convincing base. If this mission catches on, I will extend on the outside of town.

The containers are actually part of the map, so I am not sure I can move them. But you are right about them. I tried to find objects that are destroyable and also fit into a destroyed town. All the placable containers are indestructible and cannot be used. I'll see that I find something I can randomly place in the town. Adds to replayability as well. This will probably have to wait till the weekend.

Okay, the fires...I feared it might be too much for some. I'll make you a version without them. Also I remove some of the cars. Different levels of fire and "clutter" shouldn't be a big problem with the merge function of the editor. Give me a couple days to get this done.

Thanks again for the feedback. This is a beta version and when this mission works technically, I will move it to a different place on the map. Just to keep it fresh. So some changes might come in the following mission.

Edited July 7, 2014 by rosentorf
typo

[Brainbug 10]

You could also place smaller crates into buildings that collapse over them for a nice show. They would be harder to spot and require close search instead of a standoff attack (which would also explain why this is done the hard way and not by an air raid). And you can place them randomly into house positions by a script (maybe look into Pilgrimage or ask Rydygier to learn how).

Concerning the FPS issue, I know my old comp isn't a proper reference (I really feel the need to upgrade^^). But mind that people will use addons like TPW or similar that also increase the CPU load with extra calculations (but also make for a much better gaming experience), so when everything adds up, it can become too much.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Brainbug

[rosentorf 12]

That is a good idea. I can move from the containers to a more random objective. Crates in buildings shouldn't be too hard to script.

[CSLALUKI 30]

Very good work on this SP mission (despite the small "bugs" mentioned by Brainbug). It's funny. :) Thanks!

Edited July 8, 2014 by [CSLA]LUKI

[rosentorf 12]

I added a "lighter" version of the mission. Less car wrecks and fires.

@Brainbug: Let me know if this runs better for you.

[Brainbug 10]

yes, much better, even with the addons running (the same as I used before, like TPW, TMR and a bunch of other stuff), thanks! It's now playable, about the same FPS as most other missions. And I think it still gives the impression of an active war zone *thumbsup*

EDIT: I played it through completely (i.e. not going of the obj asap), and I noticed that it was a very tough fight, getting harder and harder, I had to retreat a bit in order not to be overrun, but then eventually it ebbed off, both sides stopped their reinforcements. I had only 2 points at that time, but could take the rest of the points without any reinforcement waves, only a few stragglers were left running around in town. I don't know if this behaviour is intended or if the scripts stopped working somehow (maybe because of loading savegames? maybe because you didn't program unlimited numbers?).

Edited July 11, 2014 by Brainbug

[rosentorf 12]

It might be the savegame loading. Did you leave the game and reload? I had this issue once I believe but I thought it was something else.

It should not be a limit problem. The scripting takes care of the group and unit numbers. Empty groups and dead units get deleted and so on. The total number of groups is in this mission is defined by the location settings and they should be well below of any limit I know of.

Please let me know if you just reloaded a save game or if you left the game in between. I fear this might be the cause. And if so, I'll need some help because I don't know what I could do about that yet. Thank you for reporting this.

EDIT: It seems that it has nothing to do with savegames, which is good I guess. Or at least not in general.

It might be a problem at with a function preventing units being spawned on top of other units. I have noticed it once. If the spawning stops this theory could be proven by checking if there is a single unit at the "BeachHead"-marker. If you do see this, you could destroy this single unit and more should spawn.

Anyway this seems to be a more complicated problem. It is annoying, as it cannot be reproduced on the spot. I'll try to release a version that will write debugging info into the logfile this could help me fix the problem. But I need more time to do this.

Edited July 11, 2014 by rosentorf
update

[Brainbug 10]

no I didn't leave the game.

if the problem is "unit on top of other unit", then it should only hit one side, right? not both simultaneously.

[rosentorf 12]

Well in this mission script spawning is a queued process. Groups gets spawned one after another. Depending on the reason why the spawning stops it could mean that only one side has an actual problem but spawning will stop for both. I just mentioned it, because I have experienced myself. But I have to reproduce it first and then check the log files hoping they will have some info on the problem.

EDIT: Reproduced only one side getting stuck sometimes when AI decides to get stuck and wont move from the spawning position. This will halt the spawning for that side since the groups can't spawn on top of each other.

@Brainbug: You are right and this only should affect one side. On the other hand this can happen to both sides at the same time so maybe it did happen simultaneously.

This is the only spawning bug I can reproduce right now. I'll fix it and then hope the issue you experienced will be resolved.

Edited July 12, 2014 by rosentorf

[rosentorf 12]

Okay, I have uploaded a new version. Now the stopping of unit spawning should be fixed. The issue I could reproduce was that an AI-team got stuck in open ground and would not move. This could block spawn positions. Now this should be fixed. Unfortunately I cannot fix the AI-teams getting stuck. It takes a while for it to happen so reproduction is tedious. And there is a good chance that this might be a general Arma3 bug as in AI stops doing things and stops moving. I'll keep looking into it.

[rosentorf 12]

As was suggested by Brainbug I changed the objectives to randomly placed caches spread around town. This increases replayability of the mission.

[dr@gon 118]

Hi I really enjoy your mission.

Just a few personal points;

Excellent sense of atmosphere, I love the war torn city

I like the concept and it plays out well (destroy objectives and capture and hold)

I haven't been able to complete the mission after three tries because I keep getting slaughtered. Perhaps my tactics suck, I don't doubt it. I think the missions needs another AT guy lol.

Please make more imaginative missions like this one (maybe some a little easier for us wuss types lol). :)

Edited July 27, 2014 by Dr@gon

[rosentorf 12]

Glad you enjoy the mission.

I know it is a hard mission, this is why I added the ammo boxes and recruitment option. I'll look into the lack of AT-guys to recruit. Maybe adding an extra AT-guy to all friendly teams.

To everybody: if you feel the mission is too hard or un balanced: let me know. There are more than one ways to change difficulty. If the best ways are identified I can add those into the mission to choose for easy or hard gameplay or something.

[Brainbug 10]

I would take out even more of the wrecks or at least not let burn as many, I think that is what tears the FPS down.

And I think some enemies are spawning at weird places, I had a few behind me and there was no way they could have come around all the way, I assume they spawned there (they were between blue base and the edge of town). So maybe you can check if not maybe some redfor are spawned instead of blufor?

Also I have the impression that the blufor forces that come to defend and hold the area can't hold it, I always get overrun eventually. The red teams of each spot are helping each other so to say, but the first blufor team is alone, so maybe you should beef up the first and/or second team so that at least the first two points can be held properly just by the AI. In the same way you can make it harder to take the last points of red, but as you said, take the town completely is not even necessary. At the moment however, the starting phase is very difficult, but if you have most of the points, then taking everything is totally easy - at least I think so, I didn't manage it, only the one time when the spawn scripts stopped, as I wrote above. At the moment I usually give up at some point after taking the first two points because I can't leave them to get to the next ones, they get taken behind my back, and then I think the ordeal is not worth it and the FPS are too low anyway to have fun with it.

EDIT: One has to advance really slow, then it maybe to hold the first two points and only dash in the rest of the area for the caches. But it is still weird with the enemies behind me, I'm quite sure they spawn there and don't just flank me.

I've edited the mission for me to test a few small changes, which turned out to be not bad at all. I set the time to day, deleted most of burning the wrecks (I think half a handful were still in, still enough to let it look like a warzone city - imagine Gaza 2014, not Dresden 1945, it doesn't need to be a firestorm) which lifted the FPS quite a bit. And I deleted my squad completely (I hate to babysit them and then they die anyway) and instead put in a empty APC that I could use for inventory and to put up on a crossroads to hold that place. I would say the APC doesn't make it too easy, as the enemies have AT weapons, so I need to be careful, and I still have to go around on foot a lot. Also I'm using the TPW mod which makes CBQ quite brutal as the AI react and turn around quickly like a human player and just don't gaze dumbly if you are close to them, and it also adds civilians for more crazyness.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Brainbug

[rosentorf 12]

Yes the BLUFOR teams cannot necessarily hold a position. They are of very equal strength as the enemy. Sometimes the take an area and hold it for a while. The waves of groups will most likely not end.

Right now I am trying out selected spawning times for enemy/friendly waves. This will hopefully help with the enemy vehicles, as with reduced number of wrecks they get to you too quickly. Also increasing spawning times for certain zones will make it easier to hold and keep the areas. Also adjusting some upsmon settings may help. See Edit.

For this mission I have already made the AI react and turn around quicker. It is in specific skill sets. They do spot, turn and fire much quicker than vanilla. But I have reduced the accuracy of their fire. Maybe turn of the TPW-mod to check. It may not be compatible or have unwanted side effects. Especially if the mod is trying to add effects that are already in the mission itself.

It is very unlikely that spawning happens outside of the spawning areas. I do have witnessed "extreme" flanking when BLUFOR troops were on their way to there patrol area. They walked halfway around the town. I was impressed myself. But this is the AIs choice so I'll leave it at that. And similar things happened with OPFOR groups. So just be on your toes. They will try to get you!

Edit: It is very likely the upsmon setting of the first locations. I will change that so enemy teams will not follow you around and attack from behind.

Edited August 9, 2014 by rosentorf

[mathias_eichinger 64]

Wow, this is a very hectic mission!

 

I must admit that I did not really take my time to hold any markers, but rather rushed to the caches and blew them up. Thankfully, the mission ended after the 3rd one was destroyed so I did not need to RTB on foot - a feat that would have been pretty impossible due to enemy overrunning our position.

I noticed that the enemies are worse shots than I remember them to be, and they eat up alot more bullets. Normally I would hate this "dumbed-down" feature, but due to the volume of enemy troops here, it perfectly fits the mission. No idea though if it is script-based or the way ArmA3 is now with the 1.66 update out.