Reconquering Nogova: 10-mission Coop Campaign

[igor drukov 0]

UPDATE

See bottom of this post for details on the Hardcore Series

Hey there

Here is a bundle of 10 missions making up a sort of MP coop campaign for up to 15 players (16 in the last mission):

Reconquering Nogova (Coop Campaign)

<ul>[*]Why is it so big (3.66 Mo, ~500Ko/mission)?

Each mission uses Vektorboson's satellite, which contains images, and CoC's console, which contains a substantial set of sounds too.

<ul>[*]The Plot

Admittedly, it is very thin. The idea is that the "enemy" is occupying Nogova, and our side aims at kicking him out.

[*]Gaming Details

The fifteen playable slots go as such:

<ul>[*] one 3-officer group.

[*] three 4-man Fire-Teams.

Players start with no weapons at the beginning (except in some more advanced missions), but a large variety of toys is available at their starting base including:

<ul>[*]vektorboson's satellite at the Tactical Command Post

[*]artillery (usually either 105mm or 155mm)

[*]WGL mortars and deployable M2s

[*]AddOns Used

<ul>[*]WGL5.

[*]CoC Unified Artillery 1.1.

[*]OPTIONAL: Laser's Weapons Pack 3.00.

[*]OPTIONAL: General Barron's Handsignals Command System.

In the Multi-Player lobby, admins have the option to play with or without those last two addons. If they choose to play with Laser's weapons, an error message will pop up after someone picks one of them in the weapons crates. It's perfectly normal, it's because the pack is not listed in the addons section of the .sqm. At any rate, the missions will run seamlessly.

[*]Credits

<ul>[*]BIS.

[*]AddOn/Mod makers: WGL5, CoC, Laser, General Barron.

[*]Testers: most patient and long-time friend WindWalker for comprehensive testing, k1ng and Ricky, Vartan, Exel, Neill, Judge Rabbi, Deepak, and 23rd Ground Division Colton, Redhouse, Daniel and Smiley_Nick.

[*] Scripters: Smiley_Nick spared me the trouble of writing a few ammo scripts and laying out the crates and tents, vektorboson for his satellite, and KeyCat for his grouplink2 that I use in Part VII.

[*]A few ingame screenies

Part I (screenie taken by Smiley_Nick): getting the job done

Part II: enemy artillery

Part V: flare-traps

Part VII: our artillery

Part VIII: in the fields

Part X: a section of the map

The missions are meant to be immersive tactical riddles for the players who love to know why they are fighting, and should meet the standards of most serious squads. They contain extensive briefings, are plot-driven but a lot of factors are also randomised, and can be cracked in a lot of different ways. I dare say that some of them are even quite different, but that's for you to judge!

Bonus: as part of Sinews Of War WGL mission of the month, I released another mission: The Pass (10-player Coop).

============================================

The Hardcore Series

============================================

This is a version of the campaign which uses WGL weapons only, and has a different organization of playable slots based on the specifics of a Stryker Brigade Combat Team Infantry Rifle Platoon as described here.

<ul>[*]Gaming Details

Sixteen enlisted personnel have been detailed:

<ul>[*] The platoon Headquarters

<ul>[*]rifle platoon leader (PL)

[*]platoon sergeant (PSG)

[*]radiotelephone operator (RATELO)

[*]platoon medic.

[*]One Rifle Squad

(Organized into two 4-man fire teams).

<ul>[*]senior tactical leader (SL)

[*]team leader (TL)

[*]2*grenadiers (GRE)

[*]2*automatic riflemen (AR)

[*]antitank specialist (AT)

[*]designated marksman (DM).

[*]One Sniper Team

<ul>[*]Sniper w/. M24SWS

[*]Sniper w/. M82A1

[*]Spotter w/. M16/M203.

[*]How different from the original campaign?

<ul>[*]Soldiers have their individual, realistic load-outs from Second One.

[*]Only one medic present

[*]Only one friendly tube (a Carl Gustav)

[*]Only one radio-carrier (one other radio is available at the TAC)

[*]Laser-Designator works

[*]Download contains a template mission with the devices, description.ext and scripts I used for AI arty, CoC Network System + satellite, spawning AIs in towns, etc.

[*]Why you will (not! ) like it

The balance has been clearly tipped in favour of realism at the clear expense of gameplay to prevent ramboistic behaviours.

M21-toting, briefing-skipping, trigger-happy players WILL hate it.

Hopefully, others may like it because team-work has been rendered necessary...

---> Download Reconquering Nogova (Hardcore Series) <---

I hope you will enjoy this, and thank you again for your interest!

Regards,

Igor.

[mattxr 9]

looks good, will try and try with peeps

[igor drukov 0]

Hey Matt

Cool, let me know what you and your mates think!

Regards,

Igor.

[.kju 3244]

excellent stuff Igor

we will try to start the campaign tomorrow

mirror

Reconquering_Nogova.rar

it would be cool if you could post the mission in the wargames forum as well

linkage

[RedHouse 0]

yea a very good campaign, keep up the good work igor

[igor drukov 0]

Hello Q

Thank you for the mirror... But a tiny bug sneaked in in part VI, the top page has been updated with the fixed pack. Sorry about this.

Good luck for tomorrow, I hope you guys will have a lot of fun playing this... Thanks again!

@RedHouse

Thanks mate, see you on the battlefields...

[edit]

Q, I posted the campaign in your forums

[edit2]

See first post for update, thank you!

[.kju 3244]

updated the mirror

[terox 316]

zeus community would like to thankyou for the work

it's on our server (less the additional optional addons which we dont use)

[coma73 0]

looks great i knowme and the guys at zeus will be trying this out. it sounds like a fun time.!

[Nathan Bedford Forrest 0]

I think you should look up the merits of description.ext gear loadouts :P

AI + those missions with ammo crates -

[mazza 1]

Nice, hard tho to get AI to get weapons tho. Maybe tho it user error, also realise its meant to be more humans than AI in slots

The satellite effects is great. Gonna have fun with this ...thanks!!!

[.kju 3244]

haha some much fun

ary all the way

we played mission one and two so far. superb stuff

like the AI, like placements, like the story and mission layout, like UA 1.1, like the all the different weapons available, like the gameplay

my bro tries to add mapfact respawn tomorrow. maybe even harder, but more fun and good teamplay makes you almost infincible

yet like the other said. description.ext loadout very much suggested !

in the first mission AI isnt even able to get stuff from most crates as the hanger have buggy geo lods

again thanks a zillion Igor

[xawery 0]

Hi Igor,

I've had the chance to play a few missions on the Zeus server and I liked them very much. The CoC - WGL combo is great, and the satellite system is very nice too. I haven't used it before, but it adds a lot to the game!

My only gripe is with the weapon selection system. The most obvious problem is that the AI are unable to get the weapons. The other problem is that such a wide choice of weapons results in M21 totin', LAW packin' medics... Not very realistic. If you give the players such a wide choice of weapons, they will inevitably choose the best ones. In my opinion it's best to stick to standard loadouts, or give the leader the option to change them.

Other than that, great work!

Regards,

X.

[igor drukov 0]

Hello all

First off, let me apologise for not answering earlier on, but I had several RL issues to address that kept me away from my CPU.

Thank you very much for the positive feedback, it is extremely heart-warming, as you know how time-consuming and sometimes unrewarding mission-making can be.

As to the load-outs in description.ext, I ruled that out for several reasons:

<ul>[*]I had originally set out to make missions for 23rd Ground Division, which has a ritual for taking weapons from ammo crates.

[*]It left the choice between regular WGL weapons or Laser weapons.

[*]It seemed more realistic to me, regardless of how questionable that might be.

[*]It let players have the liberty to take whatever weapons they liked without having to go through the tedious wait for the leader to enquire and hand out the gear.

These are obviously arguable decisions. As to the AI, I didn't think some of us would consider playing with them...

All in all, these choices somehow reflect the style of play I'd like to promote... I have way more fun personnally using a WGL m16/m203 and a radio, and playing under the not-always-sound orders of a good mate, than roaming about Nogova on my own and rake up kills like I'm Rambo... but heh, that's just me!

Anyway, thank you for the feedback!

Regards,

Igor.

P.S.: going over the replies once more... ok, I'll just release a new version with the load-outs in the .ext in a few hours.

[Judge Rabbi 0]

Brutal stuff.

Evading enemy mortar and artillery, sneaking into enemy bases, attacking machine gun nests, ambushing tanks, setting up heavy weapons, playing spotter for a mortar team and many more things.

Tis a good set of co-op missions here Igor. Many thanks!

[Nathan Bedford Forrest 0]

It let players have the liberty to take whatever weapons they liked without having to go through the tedious wait for the leader to enquire and hand out the gear.

Start the players in groups by themselves then join them together in a big group when the mission starts. i.e. they assign their own gear.

[igor drukov 0]

Hello

It took me time to meet the requests about the load-outs at the beginning... I have to say I was quite embarrassed because they seemed to go against the sort of gameplay I am trying to advocate (based on team-work).

I eventually come up with a controversial answer:

---> The Hardcore Series <---

All details about them have been given at the bottom of my first post. You'll see that players now have a loadout based on realistic gear. All choices I've made here were made with a single idea in mind: make players work together.

I hope you will enjoy this... Thank you all again for your interest!

Regards,

Igor.

[igor drukov 0]

Hey there

This is to let you know that some progress has been made in the "Hardcore Series", the most interesting of which probably being the ability for Radio-Operators to intercept enemy communications with their laptops. Here's a little screenie of what it looks like:

This feature is soon to be released, and promises to be highly interesting, as key enemy movements are revealed, the knowledge of which sometimes being decisive for the success of the mission.

Now, if some of you are interested in playing this campaign in the hardcorest way with good mates and me, that is with "real" wgl loadouts, General Barron's Handsignals Command System and relative discipline, feel free to drop me a PM, as I have a private server that runs all this. If you are motivated, you are most welcome!

Take care,

Igor.

[456820 0]

Quote[/b] ]Download contains a template mission with the devices, description.ext and scripts I used for AI arty, CoC Network System + satellite, spawning AIs in towns, etc.

I downloaded the pack but did not find a template mission as said there is. Anychance of a different link for it?

Anyway i love these missions makes me want to re upload WGL onto our server to play these missions there great

[igor drukov 0]

Hello 456820

Thank you very much for the compliment.

The template was to be found at the bottom of the first post. It is actually included in the ---> Hardcore Series <--- package and it is called @wgl_ua_co16_hc_reconq_nogova_part0.noe. Don't ask me why I pbo-ed it, it's pretty dumb.

Regards,

Igor.

[456820 0]

Thanks alot.

Tried getting the AI to use arty however not sure if its working. Copied the triggers and the logics and such for the arty but what are the conditions that arty will be called in and how do i know its working.

Thanks.

[igor drukov 0]

Well the key-thing is really Chain of Command's inbuilt function, CoCfIFCallFire.

You can call enemy arty the way you want by using a line of code like that:

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">[NameOfTheAsset,[getpos Target],2,0,0,0,1] call CoCfIFCallFire

I'll cut a long story short, but the "2" stands for the type of ammo used, and the "1" for High Angle shots (useful when you get pounded from 3 kms and there's a mountain inbetween).

The way I do it: I've got a public variable, Callfire.

I call AI arty fire through a trigger activating when BLUFOR has been detected by REDFOR and Callfire is true. This way, I can easily "pretend" that FOs have actually called arty fire without having a ton of scripts looping in the background. The position of the target is obviously linked to the array listed in the detection trigger (thislist select 0).

Once the trigger activates, it sets Callfire on false. Another trigger, with Not Callfire as a condition, activates after a randomised countdown (from 4 to 8 minutes) and resets Callfire on true.

Et voilŕ!

Hope this was clear enough... Let me know if that wasn't the case.

Regards,

Igor.

[edit]

Messed up line of code

[/edit]

[456820 0]

Thanks alot works great. Was testing hte mission before and worked fine.

Thanks alot.

[HeyHiHello 0]

I try soon

[456820 0]

Been playing this quite alot on our WGL server and its great.

However with the arty coding you posted above is there a way to make this more heavier needed for a mission im doing but at the moment theres not a whole great deal of arty coming in each time so is there a way to make more shells being fired?

Cheers.