Charlie Mike - Vietnam '65

[Winters 1]

Hi all,

I am making a mission that re-creates the opening salvo of the battle for the Ia Drang Valley. I am seeking some testers and a couple of people to do a bit of voice work for me.

If your interested in testing or doing a voice send me a PM.

Meanwhile here are some screenies to wet your appetite, i will post a trailer vid tonight when i get home.

[Winters 1]

Here is a link to the beta mission:

Charlie Mike beta

I am particularly interested in finding out about lag.

these are the addons your going to need:

SEB Nam Pack 2

A1 Skyraider by Footmunch

M60 A1 by Inquisitor

M113/M163 by Inquisitor

NVA Pack by Remo

CoC Unified Artillery

And CoC mines which are included in SEB NP2.

Thanks for the help  

[SEAL84 0]

Grabbing...testing tomorrow afternoon, after I hand in the last of my finals papers

Looks like it's going to be a glorious end to a week of pain and anguish

[Silent Pro 0]

Well i tried to play the mission tonight, and im afraid i will be forced to scale back my Graphic detail options in order to get reasonable playability out of this mission. Everything is fine until the NVA start spawning everywhere.

It's sad but i have to concede to this power hungry mission that my respectable rig cannot handle the demands that it carries without scaling back on the goodies.

I'll post more when i get a chance to tweak my settings appropriately for this very taxing mission.

So far this mission carry's a lot of ambition with it, and it feels good so far...i just need better than slide show frame rates to enjoy it

[Winters 1]

I am able to scale down the enemy spawn times and i will also search around for a way to make the remove bodies script work with the spawned enemies this way there wont be piles of bodies lagging the mission.

Thanks for the input, i get good performance out of my system (P4 3.0ghz, 1GB DDR RAM, FX5200 128MB) so its important to get this type of feedback.

[Silent Pro 0]

Im running an AMD Barton 3200+ /512MB DDR/ ATI 9700 Pro and your mission kinda made my rig choke a bit but i also kept my high gfx settings on while i was playing. I had dxdll on and thought that perhaps that was a factor and it actually didnt change anything very much...so that pretty much says my CPU and RAM are not the bottlneck...so im sure if i change my control panel setting and OFP settings that i will see definite performance inscreases.

I suppose the first thing i will disable is AA/AF and TA...from there i'll try mipmap and texture quality, and then lastly OFP LOD and detail settings if it comes to that.

[Billabong81 0]

Grabbing...testing tomorrow afternoon, after I hand in the last of my finals papers

Looks like it's going to be a glorious end to a week of pain and anguish

Sums up my words exactly (FINALS SUCK!!! )

[Winters 1]

Here's a video i made, i have a smaller and larger resolution version.

320x240 = 11MB

Charlie Mike Small

640x480 = 25MB

Charlie Mike Big

[Silent Pro 0]

After tuning down my settings i dont think anything short of reducing screen resolution and dropping things down to low, low detail will result in nominal framerates above 30fps.

Winters, is your framerate similar to what is seen in the video?

If that is true well, i guess this mission wasnt meant to be played the way i was trying...shooting, moving, calling in CAS, Arty and directing my men all at the same time....watching your vid made me realize that my task is mainly to command the support elements at hand.

[SEAL84 0]

Grabbing...testing tomorrow afternoon, after I hand in the last of my finals papers

Looks like it's going to be a glorious end to a week of pain and anguish

Sums up my words exactly (FINALS SUCK!!! )

Hah, I ran out of printer paper while printing the LAST assignment for this semester...and I had three pages left to print Looks like I'll be up early tomorrow foraging for paper...

Anyhow, just wanted to warn you that if Silent Pro's computer had trouble with this mission, mine is going to have a coronary [and therefore might not be the best judge of its lagginess, considering it's hardly a gaming rig]...but plans to test tomorrow are a GO!

[Placebo 28]

This thread is about Winter's mission not about finals, stay on topic please.

[Silent Pro 0]

Cracking the whip eh placebo?

Regarding the mission, i am going to try the ATI Cat 4.12 driverset as it is reported that some performance increases are to be expected with this release. I will report back my results tommorrow,  after my exam.

[Winters 1]

After tuning down my settings i dont think anything short of reducing screen resolution and dropping things down to low, low detail will result in nominal framerates above 30fps.

Winters, is your framerate similar to what is seen in the video?

If that is true well, i guess this mission wasnt meant to be played the way i was trying...shooting, moving, calling in CAS, Arty and directing my men all at the same time....watching your vid made me realize that my task is mainly to command the support elements at hand.

The video gets about 7-8 fps and when im not shooting the video it jumps up a lot higher. I guess thats due to FRAPS, i do have a couple of ideas and i will make a post as well in ME & S to see if i can get a solution.

I will prolly have a new version tonight when i get home.

[Billabong81 0]

Ok, just had a few minutes to play.  Intro would not load because it said I needed a JJR soldier addon.  I am to lazy to re-download them & all .  I will look at the intro later tonight after grabbing JJR's soldiers.  (EDIT: I just realized i have the PBO it was asking for ...don't know why it said I didn't)

The mission started fine, great song choice!  I love Fortunate One .  Unfortunately I was getting FPS's of 3-6 once the chopper reached the base .  It was unplayable.  I had terrain detail at normal, view distance at 1,100, and reolution was 1280x1024.  Here are my system specs:

- 2.53GHz P4

- 512mb Ram

- BFG FX5500 256mb

If I can't handle it, then you probably need to make the mission a little less intricate.  I know a lot of people who will be getting FPS of like 1-3.

NOTE: DXDLL was on...I'll try without DXDLL and see if that helps. | EDIT: Tried with DXDLL off, no help. Still getting below 5 FPS's. Sorry man .

[Winters 1]

No worries, i already know i need to fix the lag problem, there are too many units on the map at missions start, i also need to make the killed event handler work with the units that will spawn in later.

I have no idea what JJR soldiers are i definetly did not use any addons other than whats been listed.

Thanks for the feedback, i kinda knew ahead of time ii would lag a bit for people but its nothing thats not fixable.

[cornhelium 0]

Hi Winters,

The JJR Soldiers would be those nice US units released by John J.Rambo back in September, IIRC.

Cheers,

Cornhelium

[Winters 1]

Thanks but there is no mention of JJR soldiers in the addons used lists of the mission.sqm

[deathsai 0]

Downloading now.

I have a mean rig, AMD Athlon 3200+ 2.2 Ghz Processor, Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB, 1 gig of RAM, so we'll see how it does on my computer.

From what I can see, though, it may not run too well. However, don't butcher the mission completely. I get bored with only squad vs. squad action. The lack of long firefights in OFP, the stupidity of the AI, and the lack of cover (even if there was cover, the AI wouldn't use it on it's own) makes small unit action really boring, since everybody dies so fast.

So, some advice-if you have to, release a "Lite" version for the people who won't be able to run it.

[Winters 1]

Oh, i wont be butchering the mission, just adjusting the AI spawn and making it work with the killed eventhandler. Right now the eventhandler calls a remove bodies script but its only attached to the units that are initially placed on the map.

I will now make it work with the units that spawn in and that should do the trick. I have already added a trigger that will deletevehicle all the objects/units (except for the squads that re-enforce you) that get left behind at the airfield shortly after you leave.

[Winters 1]

NEW VERSION AVAILABLE, LINK UPDATED

I added CoC Ai On Demand and now it runs soooo much smoother, tell me what you think.

I also removed the arctic T55 from the kegnoecain pack that snuck into the mission and i added the T-55 from remo new nam pack.

Just check my first post for links.

[Billabong81 0]

Re-tested it. I get 8-12 FPS, but it is playable . I defended the base, but the mission did not end. I sat there for 5-8min runnign around in the area around the base and couldn't find any NVA/VC. The artillery system works VERY well. Good job on that. I used the M60A1's at the base to repel the T55 NVA tanks. Overall good mission. I would give it 7/10. The intro still gives me that missing addon: jjr_a.pbo problem (and I have the freaking PBO installed too ). Still a little laggy when you first arrive as well. Good job though .

[Winters 1]

Thanks for the input, i will look into why it wouldnt end, i think it may be some NVA are hiding someplace nearby, soz instead of an end trigger that detects the presence of east units being present i think i will make it a timed trigger so you have to hold the base for a pre-determined amount of time.

I think the lag when you get to the base is due to the soldiers who are guarding the base and your arriving along with more men and the NVA are attacking, maybe i should delay the attack about 5 minutes to give you a chance to set up your defense, this will prolly allow for a smoother landing at the base.

Since you only had some lag at the base when you started i am guessing that the AI on demand did its thing and helped reduce the overall lag. Since you actually place the units on the map and it holds them in stasis and not kills them i can use the killed eventhandler on them.

[bonko the sane 2]

u get missing addon jjr_a.pbo precisely because u have it installed, its one of those addons that needs fixing.

i just played this mission and i think the main problem is the fps, i had an average 12 fps, which makes the mission loose a lot of quality as its in fact a very good mission indeed.

Also, make it harder    

i finished it at first try thanks to the two m60's and the almighty hand of CoC arty. The only CAS i called was the skyraiders, for aesthetics sake, as most enemy was dead by then.

1 script error halfway through mission:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">'_minepos = getpos _mine|#|': Error getpos: Type String, expected Object

My personal gripes: plz add HE grenade ammo bags and remington ammo to crates (my two favorites in SebNam), add enemy APC's or something, to add difficulty, maybe a preemptive mortar strike?

I know its not realistic, but maybe a dead body eraser script will solve some of the lag?

Anyway, txs for the mission  

[Winters 1]

I sometimes get that error myself, it has to do with the mines themselves as i followed the instructions on how to use them to the letter but it still pops up once in a while.

I already have a remove dead bodies script, if i didnt you wouldnt be able to play it for very long  

I already added those mags to the ammo crates as the remington and also the mosin are 2 of my favs. I usually grab one of them and then head to the tower with the M2 to call in arty strikes and snipe some NVA (the m2 is manned in your version but i not in the latest one i have.)

I want to add more to the mission but again its a matter of getting it to be playable for others. While adding more apc's/infantry may make it more difficult it could also make it less playable.

Thanks for the input, one thing though Bonko can you post what your comps specs are? this would really help me out a lot if i know the specs of the comps. people are using to help me test.

Thanks  

[bonko the sane 2]

lol, thats precisely what i did, i sent the tanks N and S repectively, had the leftover infantry guy face S with a LAW and went up the tower with my trusty Remington

pc specs:

AMD Semptron 2800+ (2022MHz\166FSB)

1gb ddr @333

Via KT400 motherboard

Chaintech GFfx5600 ultra

Creative SB Audigy Platinum