[SP Campaign] Hunter Six: Special Operations Unit

[lato1982 36]

Hi,

I'm happy to announce the first alpha release of HUNTER SIX: Special Operations Unit for the Make Arma not War contest.

I was inspired by:

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (2001)

ArmA 2 - Manhattan mission

Books by Howard E. Wasdin, Marcus Luttrell, Chris Kyle, Mark Owen and Brandon Webb.

so if you're a fan of these above, I believe you will find something interesting in my work.

Together with the Steam release I have prepared a small trailer video to narrow you the gameplay ideas. I'm sorry about the compression quality, I had a real struggle with the software and this was the best I could get this time.

Please remember this is an alpha release so it might contain some bugs.

Looking forward to all your questions and opinions about the scenario. Hope you will have some fun with it.

DOWNLOAD LINK:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=310594159

VOTE & SUPPORT

If you like the idea, please support the concept at:

http://makearmanotwar.com/entry/H9og7g41xW#.U-eTnmMVnwY

TRAILER:

Overview:

On the eve of civil war in Greece, a Navy Special Unit - HUNTER SIX is sent to Altis to locate and rescue two missing CIA agents, who were tracking the rebel separatist leader, that calls himself the Messiah.

Description:

Hunter Six: Special Operation Unit is a Single Player open map Campaign set in 2016 on Altis. The main idea is not to copy a linear Call of Duty campaign style, but instead to focus on the best features that ArmA series offers.

The campaign offers a fully randomized open map campaign with two main objectives: locate and rescue the hostages and locate and eliminate the leader of the rebels. The decisions how to reach the goals are fully up to the player. Each playthrough will also offer a different objectives path to collect the intel on the main targets locations. The content is packed within one dynamic SP mission.

Key Features

• open world, fully randomized mini campaign (each playthrough is a different scenario)
  
• teammates level up system increases their combat skill
  
• teammates individual perks have an actual influence on your team
  
• teammates fatigue system (operators need to get back to the base and rest)
  
• talk to your teammates to learn facts from their personal life
  
• teammates permadeath
  
• squad selection, medal & ribbon awards and a squad statistics screen
  
• a reputation system that verifies if the locals are going to help you or join the rebels
  
• dynamic day/night cycle with sleeping (skip time) option
  
• new Transport and Close Air Support system via radio
  
• interview the locals, gather intel and plan your next move against the rebels
  
• search bodies to collect intel
  

Player Decisions:

The player decides what kind of actions he takes to achieve his main target. For example, the player decides how to interrogate the locals. He can push them hard to get more valuable intel or even search the house, but if he’s too aggressive the reputation will drop and more locals will start joining the rebel forces, so the enemy patrols quantity will increase.

Hunter Six operators level up during the mission, so their skill statistics grow. It’s good to differ the squad selection for different tasks, so the younger operators can skill up. However, some operators may not like the idea to go for a dangerous mission with inexperienced teammates and this will have an influence on their skills.

Few individual perk examples:

Mentor -young squad members gain twice exp when he’s in squad

Motivator -all squad members endurance statistic increases

Speaker - team reputation rises when he’s in squad, helps to talk with the locals

Navigator - points team position on map, even if not equipped with a GPS

Cagey - operator loses some skill points when young team members are in squad

Body Tracker - points on map killed enemies, it helps to find the bodies for an Intel search

All perks are individual, so combined with a permadeath system, once you lose an operator during a mission, his talents will be gone forever.

Story Background:

The Greek Debt Crisis that has begun in 2009 is still ongoing. Big national budget cuts approved by the parliament in 2014 have led to huge demonstrations and riots all over the country.

In 2015, a separatist formation called Dorean Valkania has been established. Their main goal was to separate Greece from the European Union, the main source of their problems. The support for Dorean Valkania grows very fast among the frustrated Greek population and this leads to another riots and bloody clash with the police. When the Greek parliament decides to use a brutal military force to put down the rebellion, Dorean Valkania goes underground and declares an open war on the present authorities.

In 2016 the whole country is destabilized due to ongoing incidents and fights on the streets. Valkania is growing and the amount of bloody encounters increases month by month, so the Greek parliament officially ask the NATO forces for the assistance as they feel the situation is getting out of their hands.

In May 2016, CIA loses their contact with two of their agents on Altis, whose assignment was to track down the rebel leader - codename Messiah.

2 weeks later, a Navy Special Operations Unit - Hunter Six, led by Lt. John “Daddy†Barnes, has been sent into the operation area on Altis, with two main objectives:

locate and rescue the two missing CIA agents

track down and eliminate the rebel leader codename Messiah

Some pre-alpha screenshots:

[froggyluv 2136]

Wow sounds great, especially the various skilled teamates. Will give a go tonight and hopefully won't need to disable my humongous AI mod mishmash :o

[xrook 10]

wow, with all the features i see- it looks like an RPG shooter... i love it, will test it when i have time

---

keep it up, also make sure you actually play your own mission to test out bugs & issues that might appear

[lato1982 36]

Thanks, hope you will guys enjoy this :)

[Variable 322]

Looks wonderful, I will try this. Supported!

[Sonenn 10]

The mission is nice, but i was hoping that after june 3rd i would have my NVG's, but only my teammates do. Is that supposed to be this way?

[lato1982 36]

You should have the NVG as well, from my tests it worked well. Please check again if you don't have this in your inventory.

[Sonenn 10]

Ok, after some tries loading previous saves i have found out that you have to have enogh space in your inventory for the NVG, if not the case, NVG don't appear.

And this applies also for the teammates.

Edited September 9, 2014 by Sonenn

[lato1982 36]

Ok thanks for the info. I will have to make a small fix, to make sure the player gets the NVG always, or also add more NVGs to a box as well.

[Brainbug 10]

this linkItem NVGoggles ;)

[ataribaby 54]

Just played it. I loved ARMA 2 Razor campaign sandbox feel, especially Manhattan mission that you mentioned as inspiration. Very nice work I like it a lot. Some findings from my first play experience. Please can you make bodies disappear with little delay or if player go away a little from searched dead body? I want loot em and they imimediatly go six feet under. Kills immersion.

Next is please make check if player is on foot when you trigger bodies was searched. Not makes sense when I pass em in my armored car and they are marked as searched.

Last I don't know how to sleep in FOBs. Looking forward for next version very much! Thanks a lot for your work on this sandbox scenario. I love it as I loved Razor story in Arma 2.

BTW custom Hunter Six patch (that cool skull logo from your screenshots) on team shoulders will be extremely cool, but maybe it cant be done from mission archive and needs addon with custom patch. I will bear with that and if I want custom patches to show up I have to download and install small addon for it or leave it as it is without custom patch. Just idea for total immersion ;)

Also civilians in towns and villages will be great, see:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=25194

Supported and voted.

Edited September 9, 2014 by ataribaby

[lato1982 36]

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

These are really good points, I'll implement the fixes soon :)

EDIT:

theres a spot to sleep in FOBs very similar to the Olympus Base. It should appear on map, when youre within the FOB borders.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Lato1982

[kaelabospeec 11]

I ran into two issues. I eliminated the priest and got the notification saying that there was no link to Hunter Six and the assassination, but the task said I failed. The second was when I found the hostage locations I went to them, and as soon as I got close enough to where the units spawned (I was still on the other side of a mountain and far away) the enemy units killed the CIA agents as soon as they spawned in.

[Ch53dVet 10]

I am enjoying your mission(s) immensely. But, I was getting annoyed at the fact I was only getting 1 cas per game. I'd rtb and find the cas bird was missing from it's assigned lz. So, I'd go back out on a mission ask for cas support and again the request icon was placed on the map but the bird never shows up. I'd tell the bird to rtb and the request icon would disappear then I'd see a little red dot NE of the airbase with the word "Cerberus" next to it. So, I started a new game to see what was going on. I'd send Cerberus off to a cas mission to the fob with the grass airfield then I'd get in the little bird and follow it to the same location. Then I would get out and let the little bird go home, after a few minutes, I'd send Cerberus home. Then I'd request a rtb pickup, upon arriving, I saw that Cerberus was hovering 395 meters NE of the airfield and in Cerberus's lz was the ghost hawk that was parked in front of the hanger before I left. So, I moved the ghost hawk and told Cerberus to rtb and it did without hesitation. I started another game and did the same thing again, only this time, I remained to see if the ghost hawk would teleport or fly to Cerberus's lz, It didn't, of course, but Cerberus returned to the same exact spot and height and sat there till I gave it another rtb order and it landed without incident. It looks like Cerberus needs to be told twice to rtb otherwise it hovers in that spot until it runs out of fuel and crashes (never seen any wreckage in the area where it hovers but I never went over the spot thoroughly either) or just plain disappears.

[froggyluv 2136]

Navarro, Devil, Jax, Ghost all...dead :(

Man I'm loving this mission. Really like the RPG like stats though Im not sure they play out as strongly as they should. Best part is you really get attached to your AI squaddies as they as level up as I lost those 4 guys above as I was taking a forward scouting advance with Razer while having the other 4 placed strategically on a hill to cover us. I knew there was at least 1 gunman 2-300m ahead in the woods but felt it safe for those guys to jump in the truck and advance halfway to our position. As soon as I had them dismount an AT came from hell and killed them all as I shed tiny tears. :D

The only thing I would love to see is more civilian life as this is a "full sized map mission" so only seeing the lone civilian you need to talk to makes the world a little bleak. The chance for hostile/armed civilians would be great as well to keep you on guard especially if Rep is really low.

Overall, fantastic job!

[lato1982 36]

Thanks for all the feedback! I'll start working on some fixes soon.

BTW did you have any SAVE GAME issues? Many people on steam had some problems with loading the mission. I wonder what can cause this, as I didn't change anything in saving stuff, so I suppose it should work as any other regular Arma 3 mission?

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

Thanks for all the feedback! I'll start working on some fixes soon.

BTW did you have any SAVE GAME issues? Many people on steam had some problems with loading the mission. I wonder what can cause this, as I didn't change anything in saving stuff, so I suppose it should work as any other regular Arma 3 mission?

Lato, it seems that ALL steam hosted missions have a save issue, it saves and you could reload, but once you leave the mission and go for main menu, the save is lost... a temporary workaround is to find the mission .pbo (located at steam/userdata folder) and put it manually on missions folder on ArmA3 directory....

Loved your mission, the RPG elements are outstanding and it seems to be a lot more stable than other dynamic SP missions, such as Pilgrimage and WLA =)

Kudos and cheers!

[DenyWilCo 22]

The only thing that bothers me is the damned Steam workshop....Well actually all of Steam in general, but especially the workshop...

[lato1982 36]

;2772726']Lato' date=' it seems that ALL steam hosted missions have a save issue, it saves and you could reload, but once you leave the mission and go for main menu, the save is lost... a temporary workaround is to find the mission .pbo (located at steam/userdata folder) and put it manually on missions folder on ArmA3 directory....

Loved your mission, the RPG elements are outstanding and it seems to be a lot more stable than other dynamic SP missions, such as Pilgrimage and WLA =)

Kudos and cheers![/quote']

Thanks a lot for this tip. I shared it with the Steam users! :)

[lato1982 36]

Best part is you really get attached to your AI squaddies

Glad you brought that up, since this was one of my main goals for this project :) I'm really happy it worked.

[froggyluv 2136]

Glad you brought that up, since this was one of my main goals for this project :) I'm really happy it worked.

Well having some nice bios', distinct skills and the fact that they 'level up' the longer they play with you helps create that "we've been thru alot of sh*t together" feel.

This was a big mistake with the official campaign and some other user missions, they choose to make "Named" squad NPC's invincible as not to upset the story line if they died. Nothing kills immersion more than this decision imho, you need to feel that everyone's life is valuable and help protect each other. Fighting alongside Terminator just kills that..

[Wiki 1558]

Looks interesting indeed, but unfortunately I really didn't like the Manhattan mission in ArmA 2 - and all the "search-the-whole-map" kind of mission.

Wish you good luck though

[lato1982 36]

Well having some nice bios', distinct skills and the fact that they 'level up' the longer they play with you helps create that "we've been thru alot of sh*t together" feel.

This was a big mistake with the official campaign and some other user missions, they choose to make "Named" squad NPC's invincible as not to upset the story line if they died. Nothing kills immersion more than this decision imho, you need to feel that everyone's life is valuable and help protect each other. Fighting alongside Terminator just kills that..

I totally agree with you. This is exactly why my goal was to make the lives of the operators valuable :)

[zachtan1234 14]

I totally agree with you. This is exactly why my goal was to make the lives of the operators valuable :)

Hmm.... I don't know if it can be possible, but is it possible where you can retrieve the bodies of your fallen squadmates? Return them home?

[lato1982 36]

I had this option implemented and working where you had to park a special car near body to load it and then bring back to base. At the end I resigned to add this. Mostly because there is no draging or carring system in A3 yet and it was really frustrating when some companion died in place with hard access.