The most realistic ofp experience ever!!!

[Blanco 0]

Splendid work, General.

I like the handsignals, shouting & the atmosphere...

But radio controls are not my cup of tea either, but I think it's was the best way to do it.

Dialogs are an option, but I don't know if it's possible to move or turn with a dialog on screen

(add)Actions on the other hand are too slow imho

I hope BIS will gave us a "bindkey" command in OFP2...:p

I have to practice...

Keep up the good work!

[General Barron 0]

Great idea on the smoke, Munk. I'll look into it! Also, thanks for the comments on having the squad shout and stuff during combat. I'm working on adding that in.

Also, I remember browsing some site a while back and seeing what looked like a really great 'nam mission, but I didn't download it. One of the things the mission said it had was a great "jungle sound engine" or something, which I assume would make lots of bug/snake/animal noises as you walk through the jungle, greatly increasing atmosphere. Now I want to use that in my mission (with permission and credit, of course), but I can't find the mission or site it was on! Anyone know what I'm talking about?

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I know the radio interface can be a bit clunky, especially when accessing submenus, but Blanco hit the nail on the head:

Quote[/b] ]Dialogs are an option, but I don't know if it's possible to move or turn with a dialog on screen

(add)Actions on the other hand are too slow imho

After a bit you can get pretty good at using the commands (I am pretty quick with them, having played the mission a bunch). I'm sure using BIS's menus to control your squad was pretty awkward when you first used it, too. But after a while you get used to it. I understand if it still ain't your cup of tea though

This couldn't be incorporated into the ECP, for a number of reasons; the main one being it uses the entire radio menu, which would overwrite the mission makers radio commands. However, I will make a sort of "template" when I'm done with the campaign. Basically it would be a mission that has the bare-bones units and scripts needed to make this work. The mission maker could then choose a new island, change the type of units used, and then go ahead and make a mission like normal.

Thanks again for the comments all! Be sure to let me know your stats when you finish the mission so I can work out a scoring system, such as men lost, civiis killed, pows taken, etc. Also any other notable things, like did you get the air support shot down, was your ammo found by the enemy, etc.

Thanks again!

[Munk 0]

Do the enemy use the same system? I was running through the jungle and kept hearing random shouts of 'ON ME!'

It'll take a little getting use to but when I have it'll be great. Its a shame the AI still cant keep the pace, I find myself stopping every 2 minutes so the can catch up

Is there away to get them to hold fire? I was going to have a look but forgot lol

[hellfish6 7]

Very, very cool system. I really liked the mission as well, easily one of the best OFP missions I've ever played. Especially scary when the AI call in artillery on you.

One problem I experience over and over again, though, is getting my radioman to follow me. I keep running into contacts and try to call in artillery only to find out that my radioman is 300m behind me where I last used my radio. It would be FANTASTIC if there was a way to make the radioman follow you no matter what (put him in a regular group with the player?). Or a way to equip yourself with a radio (my squad leaders always used their own radios). It's kind of cumbersome to order your squad to do something, then have to order your radioman to do the same thing.

Also, could the default location for the support marker be nearer to the firebase? Did you put it down by JJ99 on purpose?

[gunterlund 0]

cant seem to get the hand signal link to work. Any other locations?

[void_false 1]

Eh... well... the first problem..

i completed the first obj, then moved to the hill near second obj, called few artillery strikes 2 on village and 3 on forest with all those mortars. then with my squad went to the village. shot remaining soldiers (2 maybe 3). then went to forest, there were two men and they surrendered. the problem is that i dont resieve message "obj complete". i checked the whole area again(village + forest), and didnt find there anyone... dont know what to do ...

[drow 0]

This looks like exactly... or pretty close, to what Im planning to create for The Unsung campaign, I will have to check this out when I get home from work tonight... as I was reading through, I was so happy to hear it was set in nam, but i hate the Ia Drang island which i suspect its on... no matter will check it out tonight and give feedback.

I made an in-depth mission where the squad is not a squad like traditional ofp, theyre not in a squad at all, theyre all seperate soldiers, they all have seperate waypoints synronized and they move together etc. making them look far more realistic when moving, (tho not very functional, far too linear feeling, needs serious work) not all in gay default formations anyways, I wanted to do the hand signal thing a while back but a scripter told me that it wasnt worth it and noone would notice... but i was determined that it could be really good if implemented well, im happy to hear you made it and i cant wait to try it out.

I plan to make missions where youre positioned somewhere say in Ia Drang valley for instance, and you have your whole company holding a perimeter around an LZ, well i want it to be so realistic that you can go walk around the perimiter and see the whole company in their positions, but they are just spawned in as needed, so theres not hundreds of units in game at any one time, i know this can be done, im not a scripter tho so it will take alot of work and help.

Will get back to you with feedback, and maybe we can work together in the future. Im an able mission maker myself.

sincerly

Drow -

The Unsung Mod Leader

[Harkonin 0]

Still haven't finished that 1 Drow?

Love the Hide script btw.

[drow 0]

LOL Hark,

im not that obsessive , i quit working on that mission months ago, Im currently making the island to base our mod in, or part of it in. I got sick of feeling like i was wasting my time making single missions etc., good practice, but why not make the island, then a campaign for it, thus started this mod.

But that mission i made was my first attempt at a completed, somewhat dinamic mission (scripted surprises, sound design, radio voices, etc. though the mission premise was indeed very linear) and it had some ideas budding, thought i would mention that i had taken a stab at gameplay of this nature... though i never really sunk in with that stab yet.

(I think some blend between ThruYerStErNum's unscripted war and this with some other elements thrown in the mix could make for a whole new OFP experience for a campaign, but thats a whole other discussion.)

[General Barron 0]

Eh... well... the first problem..

i completed the first obj, then moved to the hill near second obj, called few artillery strikes  2 on village and 3 on forest with all those mortars. then with my squad went to the village. shot remaining soldiers (2 maybe 3). then went to forest, there were two men and they surrendered. the problem is that i dont resieve message "obj complete". i checked the whole area again(village + forest), and didnt find there anyone... dont know what to do ...

Yeah, that is a bug that I'm going to fix. See, turns out those guys who surrender mess up the trigger that is supposed to complete the objective. Just start bringing your POWs home, and when they get a few hundred meters from the village, the objective should complete. Or just kill 'em now if you can't wait  

  Oh, and by the way, nice job on killing all the civillians, jerk!  

 Lol, let me know your stats when you finish. When I work out a scoring system, I don't want people like you to get a good grade ;)

@Drow

Yeah, I have lots of issues with Ia Drang too, but I don't know of any better, completed islands (Ilo Ilo is too small). I remember seeing screens of your island, and it looked awesome! Is it finished? If so, I could move this mission over to it. Otherwise, I guess I'll stick with Ia Drang...

Now for some more blatant advertising:

If you are tired of the lame OFP formations, may I suggest an easier way than fiddling with waypoints? I made a custom formation script, which works pretty well, if I do say so myself. Grab it at ofpec here:

http://www.ofpec.com/editors/resource_view.php?id=433

[Jmaster33 0]

With the mortars, I'm a bit confused about how to do it, I call for mortar support but how do I actually choose where I want them to fire?

[drow 0]

@Drow

  Yeah, I have lots of issues with Ia Drang too, but I don't know of any better, completed islands (Ilo Ilo is too small). I remember seeing screens of your island, and it looked awesome! Is it finished? If so, I could move this mission over to it. Otherwise, I guess I'll stick with Ia Drang...

No the island is not complete yet, it needs more addons like bunkers and huts and dead trees and bushes and stuff like this, but it is starting to look quite promising.

There will be big mountains, rivers, forests of very tall trees and great grass (thanks to ThruYerStErNum), lots of bushes (eventually), and combined with our sky/water pack, ooowee its very nam'ish, just need some really good atmosphere sounds for it.

[bonko the sane 2]

With the mortars, I'm a bit confused about how to do it, I call for mortar support but how do I actually choose where I want them to fire?

Its in the read me...

u need to press shift+left click on map and a blue target appears , either that or u will be calling arty support over your own position

[Sinister-tnuC- 0]

With the mortars, I'm a bit confused about how to do it, I call for mortar support but how do I actually choose where I want them to fire?

Its in the read me...

u need to press shift+left click on map and a blue target appears , either that or u will be calling arty support over your own position  

...and heres my wondering why the VC are so accurate with their arty, DOH!!

great mission GB, going to restart now and not blow myself up

[dinger 1]

spawning in/out is overrated. You take CPU hit for each AI unit you spawn. AIs that aren't engaged don't take up much CPU space.

Okay, here's what I did:

I got an M79, my group, and I moved S to find this squad and nail them. I parked on the ridge, and had my RTO back. I spotted some dudes, called in artillery. I wandered about looking for more guys, and the bloody M60 opened up on someone outside of dispersion pack effective range. I heard the mortars firing and tried to retreat up the mountain, but the units were stuck in "COMBAT" and insisted on crawling/walking. So 5 guys got killed.

I decided that my squad was combat ineffective (well, they were combat ineffective before the mortar strike), so I left them behind, and went down, and located some targets, came back to the RTO, called in some artillery. Oh yeah, I saw some friendly mortar icons on the easy mode map (my fault, probably. I'll talk to angus about getting you some soviet mortars), so I called in a howitzer strike on each of the positions. Went back, killed the one survivor, then wandered around trying to find this squad. I found one Recon south, and pulled back -- waiting for him to show his hand -- was it one guy or a squad? He ran. I then saw a team of 4 moving down the facing slope, about 500m away. I ranged them with the M79 and blasted them. I think the last one was trying to surrender. I headed back, and spotted a group of about 6 VC, in circular defensive formation. I had no more M79 rounds, so I headed back up the hill, called in artillery (none came -- probably ran out of ammo), and got some more m79 rounds. Came back down, killed them all, or so I thought.

Now I got the squad, and patrolled the area -- basically, I walked (not run) south, and waited 20 minutes for the rest of them to catch up, then NW, the same, then back over to where I found the 6 VC -- an officer had survived and surrendered, then back to base. I waited 30 minutes for the squad and the others to show up at base. I think I succeeded in dropping off the officer, but I'm not sure. Then we moved to the hills overlooking the village. The strike ont he mortars had left a pile of bodies throughout the village. So I called in the gunship to scare up the enemy. It flew over. nothing. So I left the squad behind and approached one of the mortar pits.

Just then, the gunship sees the mortars too, and cuts loose with rockets.

Comments:

A) speaking as someone who's built his share of clunky interfaces, a screen-scrape dialog to take the place of your radio menu would be very easy to do.

B) The mortars are perhaps too accurate. Consider turning on bias error and making the VC adjust fire. Set Call Fire for an inadjust mission, and add this code:

[MyMortar, {_this call CoCfIFFireForEffect}] call CoCfIFMonitorMarker

C) on rally, you are first given the KIA total, then the team-by-team breakdown. The KIA total is one less than what it should be.

D) Fade in the music, or put it on a slight delay.

E) What are the conditions for Obj 1? I had squads running through there for an hour with no contacts, and yet it wouldn't trigger. (please don't say it's a "not present" trigger)

F) If the Helo called in for support starts taking fire from an MG or something, it should either attack the MG, or pull out of the area. Ignoring it is not an option. Come to think of it, a hit EH on the helo would be cool.

G) At one point early on, I saw a marine officer wandering down the road, yelling about being under attack. What's that all about?

[Baphomet 0]

Personally I don't mind a lack of realism in that department. Since I mostly play with AI, and the AI isn't perfectly human in it's abilities (looking through certain sprites/smoke,etc). I think that's a decent solution to the problem.

Even though I espouse realism to a greater degree because it allows for more strategic and thought driven gameplay. As well as requiring you to react a lot quicker than most games due to the severity of the consequences of inaction. I think taking realism to a exceptionally high degree isn't that fun.

An example is a flight sim way back during the days of the old 286 computers that I played which would actually quit the program and force you to run it again to simulate the finality of death... That's a bit extreme.

[General Barron 0]

@Drow,

  The island sounds incredible, but I'm afraid I want to finish this campaign as soon as I can, so I can't wait around X months for your island to be completed . I will release a 'template' mission when I'm done, so others can easily make missions using this system if they wish, so it should be easy for you (or maybe me) to make a mission like this on your island.

@Dinger

  Actually, no units are spawned in this mission. The condition for Obj. 1 is that all the units in the squad you are supposed to kill are dead. If some surrender, the objective will not complete until you take them captive. They start out pretty well hidden, so you're just not looking hard enough ;). However, the condition for obj 2 IS a 'not present' trigger, and so if you have POWs in the area, it WILL mess up the trigger until you get them to leave. I will fix this.

  I'm assuming the marine in the beginning was one of your squadmates, telling you that your squad has encountered the enemy. Couldn't be an officer though (since the player is the only one). I'll make your squad go into "aware" mode when you order them to hold fire, so that will fix the little fiasco you had with the enemy mortars. I'm also looking into ways to make the squad move faster as a whole.

  I suppose I could make a dialoge in addition to the radio menu (not in place of, since personally I think it would be way too annoying to use a dialog). But I still don't know how to make them yet, so I wouldn't hold your breath....

  Roger on the artillery. I was planning on improving the enemy arty, and telling you when your howis are out of rounds. I'm sure I'll be back on the CoC forums asking for help soon . I'll look into the rest of your suggestions as well.

  BTW, it seems like most people just call artillery on the village and the forest, without regard for the civillians that are there . Hey, thats cool I guess... collateral damage, right?

@Baphomet

  I know, this system ain't for everybody. Actually, I'm surprised it's recieved as warm a reception so far as it has. I expected most people to hate it . I think my biggest problem with leading a squad normally in OFP is that goddamn "birds-eye view" thing. It gives you SUCH a huge, unrealistic advantage (the AI sure can't look around and find enemys with it), and it isn't very hard to control a squad without it (like on MP servers with it disabled).

@Hellfish

Whoops, forgot to respond to you last post . Anyway, Any orders you give under the 'squad' menu will be given to all 3 fireteams, AND your RTO. I'm not going to let the player personally carry the radio. One of the themes I want to stress in these missions is relying on your squad as a whole to complete objectives, and trying to keep them alive in the same way you try to keep yourself alive. On that note, giving the radio to an AI gives you a big incentive to keep that AI alive. When I make a scoring system, you will also have an incentive there to keep your guys alive (unless you don't care about getting good points).

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Thanks for the comments everybody. Keep em coming!

[bonko the sane 2]

well, i didnt call arty on village, but if there were civies on the forest...tough luck.

They were consorting with the enemy

[hellfish6 7]

@Hellfish

  Whoops, forgot to respond to you last post . Anyway, Any orders you give under the 'squad' menu will be given to all 3 fireteams, AND your RTO. I'm not going to let the player personally carry the radio. One of the themes I want to stress in these missions is relying on your squad as a whole to complete objectives, and trying to keep them alive in the same way you try to keep yourself alive. On that note, giving the radio to an AI gives you a big incentive to keep that AI alive. When I make a scoring system, you will also have an incentive there to keep your guys alive (unless you don't care about getting good points).coming!  

Hm... any reason why my RTO doesn't follow me, then?

[dinger 1]

the spawn comment was at drow or someone, not you.

---

Well, like I said, I killed a team of 4, encountered another group of six, of which I killed 5 and took 1 hostage. Plus I killed 3 VC recon and a VC RTO. That's a squad. I don't care if there's one dude hiding there. I ain't spending a whole afternoon just to get one VC, who for all I know, may have switched to "Fleeing" and high-tailed it for the coast.

And I didn't mean to wipe out civilians with the artillery -- it was counter-battery fire. It just drifted too close to the village, that's all. Anyway, it's charlie's village, not mine.

It was a Marine Officer, and evidently not a member of my group.

[hellfish6 7]

Yeah, I saw that Marine officer too. He was just walking around or staring at me with his rifle on his back. I thought it was weird.

[General Barron 0]

Quote[/b] ]Hm... any reason why my RTO doesn't follow me, then?

Well, he should be following you... assuming you are ordering your whole squad to follow you, or are telling them to form a line or column. Also, remember that your guys tend to follow pretty slowly, so maybe your rto just lagged behind.

Or are you saying you used his radio, and then moved on without ordering him back into formation? That would be your problem, if it is the case. When you use the radio, your RTO halts and stops following you (that way he don't run off with the radio). So maybe that is the problem. If you are sure none of that is the case, then it could be a bug of some sort, in which case I would need some specifics in order to work it out.

Quote[/b] ]Well, like I said, I killed a team of 4, encountered another group of six, of which I killed 5 and took 1 hostage. Plus I killed 3 VC recon and a VC RTO. That's a squad.

Actually, that is part of a squad, and a patrol team. The recon&RTO are a patrol; the other six I assume are from the squad you are supposed to destroy. But there still are six more.

Quote[/b] ]I ain't spending a whole afternoon just to get one VC, who for all I know, may have switched to "Fleeing" and high-tailed it for the coast.

I've never had a problem with them fleeing, but you're right, that is a possiblity, and I'll fix it so if they flee the area then the objective is completed.

Quote[/b] ]It was a Marine Officer, and evidently not a member of my group.

Can you give me some more specifics on this please? Like where exactly where you, what did he do, where did he come from, etc. As far as I know there are only 2 officers in the mission, you and the Lt in the bunker, so I'm wondering what's up with this

[void_false 1]

General Barron

If u make scorring system in campaign and punishments (like in CWC) i wont be able to complete it

1) i never take hostages

2) VC villagers are not allowed to live

3) i always have huge casaulties in my squad

[hellfish6 7]

Can you give me some more specifics on this please? Like where exactly where you, what did he do, where did he come from, etc. As far as I know there are only 2 officers in the mission, you and the Lt in the bunker, so I'm wondering what's up with this  

Yeah, it was about 3-400m south of the base. He's usually walking along the trail, moving south. I'm wondering, maybe is he the lieutennant that greets you and he somehow got the group script attached to him? I'm thinking that maybe he's following me like the rest of the squad.

Quote[/b] ]

Quote[/b] ]Hm... any reason why my RTO doesn't follow me, then?

 Well, he should be following you... assuming you are ordering your whole squad to follow you, or are telling them to form a line or column. Also, remember that your guys tend to follow pretty slowly, so maybe your rto just lagged behind.

 Or are you saying you used his radio, and then moved on without ordering him back into formation? That would be your problem, if it is the case. When you use the radio, your RTO halts and stops following you (that way he don't run off with the radio). So maybe that is the problem. If you are sure none of that is the case, then it could be a bug of some sort, in which case I would need some specifics in order to work it out.

Yeah, that's the problem - I'm using the radio and he stays behind. I'll keep that in mind from now on.

[dinger 1]

I'll confirm what hellfish said, he's walking along the trail, with his gun on his back.  (or I find him dead along that trail).

If there is only one non-player marine officer in the mission, that's him.

Also, a message when you bring an EPW to the FB would be nice.  (Something like "Processing EPW", and have him automatically leave your group and go into a holding pen somewhere.)

And when the RTO stops because you're using the radio, maybe it would make sense to record what the RTO was doing, and with the "radio transmission broken off" message, restore him to that action.