SP Breach and Clear

[-Snafu- 78]

Hi all

 

I'm currently working on a mission featuring STGN's great Abrams addon. The mission involves the player and the rest of the tank platoon breaching a defensive line and capturing a position.

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

ETA, when it's done (soon hopefully).

 

EDIT

 

Version 1.3 released.

 

Download - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_F3rXwcWPGpew3S2BN_AdJ35qTd7J1Qb/view?usp=sharing

 

ReadMe

Spoiler

Welcome to the readme for the Operation Flashpoint/ArmA: Cold War Assault created mission 'Breach and Clear'.

Version 1.3

INSTALLATION

Copy the mission pbo file into your missions folder, which is somewhere such as:

C:\Program Files\Codemasters\OperationFlashpoint\missions\

This is an unofficial mission - you know the drill!  Use at your own risk.

MISSION DETAILS

The mission was based on the scenario in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7tiNF4RwmQ

It features the player as a tank commander. The platoon the player is in is tasked with conducting a breach as part of a Mechanized Infantry and Armour Company Team.

Created in OFP v1.99 Mac port by -Snafu-.  Please contact me on the official forums or on the OFPEC forums if you have any questions, problems, comments or words of congratulation.

Official Forum thread:

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/202945-sp-breach-and-clear/

NOTES

Sometimes the AI tanks covering the breach move to engage infantry when they shouldn’t.

There are probably various other issues that will pop up when others play. I’ve been out of the mission editing game for a while, which means my skills are rusty. Not that I was ever great to begin with!

REQUIREMENTS

STGN’s M1A1 Abrams addon - https://forums.bistudio.com/forums/topic/200902-merry-abramas/

CHANGELOG

- Updated overview and readme
- Updated init script
- Added !canFire to mission triggers to avoid 'last loon' problem
- Fixed typo in radio chat
- Fixed mission.sqm errors
- Added saveGame once airport is cleared
- Increased duration of artillery bombardment

TO DO

N/A

CREDITS

STGN for his M1A1 Abrams addon
JdB for his help with the breach idea
Chris Henderson for his editor app.
The various people who have helped me with editing questions over the years.

21 May 2020

 

[Marc13Bautista 60]

cool

[-Snafu- 78]

The first version of this mission is ready for release, see the first post for details.

 

PS: I've been out of the editing game for some time now, so I'm very rusty. Not that I was ever that great to being with! Expect some issues and bugs. Hopefully they're not too bad and you still enjoy the mission.

[stgn 39]

I played the mission and its really enjoyable, though it would be nice if it where more challenging. maybe some time limits or the enemy gets more re enforcements, airstrike or t80 or something?

[-Snafu- 78]

Thanks!

 

I'm thinking about doing another mission with your addon, so I'll try and make that one more interesting/challenging.

[-Snafu- 78]

New version added, see first post.

[-Snafu- 78]

New version available, see first post - used lockdown time to correct a few minor issues.

[zwobot 22]

Thanks for the update. I've tried the version requiring STGN's addon, upon loading the mission is missing addons HYK_USSoldiers and HYK_OPFOR. I had to un-pbo the mission and clear the addons[] and addonsAuto[] attributes in the mission.sqm file for it to load properly.

In the briefing, CWA complained about missing addon "BMP2" - no clue why it did that it's the default BMP 2 addon from BIS, right? Nevertheless the mission started normally after that.

I still like the mission. It has the official missions' flair but in a more convincing framework: five paragraph order, mission executed with a proper company team and support assets instead of a rag tag force.
I would have liked an artillery barrage as part of the breach. The mission is not difficult until the counterattack, unless the AI really gets itself stuck it should not be a problem to complete the first objectives most of the time and that's fine because the player is not the platoon leader (or even company commander) the mission has to rely on the AI leaders to do their job.
There was a nice depression in the ground just a couple of meters NNW of the position where the platoon leader chose to face the counterattack. My crew could do some good shoot and scoot drills while the other vehicles of the platoon received a beating in the open. I reloaded my savegame from just before the counterattack a couple of times because of this.

There is no autosave if I haven't missed it?

Eventually I completed the mission with 4 HEAT rounds remaining.

[-Snafu- 78]

Hi zwobot,

 

Thanks for playing and pointing out the errors - I forgot about HYK's addon writing itself in the mission.sqm. I'll fix that. I'm not sure why the BMP2 one is showing up as it is indeed the standard BIS BMP2.

 

I'll double-check the autosave and artillery - I think I added them in at some point but they may not be triggering for whatever reason.

 

I'll have a think about the positioning of the tanks and see if I can place the AI into specific positions. Maybe I can force the tanks to move into specific positions through some commands or disband the group and do that. Open to ideas 🙂

[zwobot 22]

The missing BMP2 error might be a an isolated issue on my system. After one of the reloads I did during the mission there was a message about missing addon stgn... - clearly relating to STGN's M1 addon. Maybe those messages were caused by my wiping the addons sections in the mission file. I did not open the mission in the editor and save it, I played it straight from the extracted version in the missions directory.

 

Handling group of tanks is quite hard. If you doMove them into better positions they might be better covered from some angles but they might not be effective against a next wave of the counter attack advancing from a different direction. To make it worse, the group leader might order them to engage a target and they charge into their certain death.

 

I don't have any recommendations on how to better handle the AI tanks in the counter attack. I'd be happy to get some pointers myself for my own tank missions on how to increase AI tanks survivability 🙂 It would be nice if there was a command to order the AI into a battle position to assume a hull down posture in relation to another location (like in Steel Beasts). Also withdrawing vehicles (driving backwards) would be nice.

Not sure if those things are even supported in Arma3 these days (did the Tanks DLC improve something in those regards?).

[-Snafu- 78]

I'll double-check the .sqm errors anyway, can't hurt to make sure it's all good prior 🙂

 

doMove could be an option - I'm wondering if I could fix them in mutually supporting defensive positions with each tank covering a different sector using General Barron's good old cover script even if that was developed for infantry? Then, once the enemy reaches a certain point, I could have the tanks reverse to a new defensive point using this script I found on OFPEC (just thinking out loud here):

 

https://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=28596.msg195408#msg195408

 

Spoiler

;; Script to drive a vehicle in reverse over a certain distance in a straight line
;; Use only with driving over straight areas, hills may cause the vehicle to deviate from its path
;; [Car,300] exec "thisscript.sqs"

_veh = _this select 0
_s = _this select 1

_dir = getDir _veh
_pos = getPos _veh

;; A distance delta s
_d_s = 0.1

;; Find the ratio between x-axis and y-axis negative movement
_d_x = _d_s * -1 * (sin _dir)
_d_y = _d_s * -1 * (cos _dir)

;; Scalars
_m = 1
_d_m = 1

;; Distance already passed
_s_covered = 0

;; Old positions
_x_old = _pos select 0
_y_old = _pos select 1

#loop

@(unitReady _veh)

;; If the distance covered exceeds or is equal to the distance to be covered, stop the vehicle and exit
? _s_covered >= _s : _veh doMove getPos _veh; exit

;; Set a new position for the vehicle to move to
_x_new = _x_old + (_m * _d_x)
_y_new = _y_old + (_m * _d_y)

;; Put those new position coordinates in an array
_pos_new = [_x_new,_y_new,0]

;; Make the vehicle move to the new position
_veh doMove _pos_new

~0.1

@(speed _veh > 0 Or unitReady _veh Or not canMove _veh)

;; If the vehicle broke down, exit
? not canMove _veh : exit

;; If the vehicle actually moved over such a small distance, then leave the scalar _m at it's current value and continue the process till the end
? speed _veh > 0 : _x_old = _x_new; _y_old = _y_new; _s_covered = _s_covered + sqrt ((_x_old)^2 + (_y_old)^2); goto "loop"

;; If the vehicle didn't move at all, because it considered the distance to be not important, increase the _m scalar with a _d_m scalar and then
;; repeat the move
? unitReady _veh : _m = _m + _d_m; goto "loop"

 

 

As you mentioned Arma 3 I went back and had a look through the dev diary video for it but I didn't find any mention of AI changes.

[-Snafu- 78]

Update to 1.3 - check first post for link.

 

I added a saveGame after you clear the airfield and increased the duration of the bombardment so it lifts as you come into view of the defensive line.

 

I was going to experiment with having your AI tank commander set up better defensively but I'll save that for my next armour mission. 🙂