PMC First Fight - Campaign

[Snake Man 407]

PMC First Fight

This is no addons required (no queens gambit required) user made campaign for ArmA. You take part in pure infantry combat in army squad leader, special forces squad leader and sniper roles.

v0.7 Sep 17th, 2009.

Please read the online manual at PMC addons/mods manuals: PMC First Fight.

Changelog

--- fixes v0.7
- added new final mission.
- tweaked final cutscene.
- swift sweep won't end, fixed.
- forward ending triggers wont activate (units building rooftops?), added briefing note.
- estrellas takes long time to finish after enemies are all dead, fixed.
- champagne does not end even all enemies dead, timeout 20min added to briefing, ie; fixed.
- night shift -> init_weaponpool.sqs not found error, fixed.
- airwave -> init_weaponpool.sqs not found error, fixed.
- saveStatus is for "PMC_army?" but unitnames are "PMC_a?" sigh. fixed.
- small trigger tweaks to champagne.

Official release topic at PMC Tactical Forums.

Note that unless critical bugs are reported, this will be the final release.

Download PMC_First_Fight_v0.7.rar - 150kb.

Edited July 19, 2012 by Snake Man

[klamacz 448]

great job!

it's short but it is so 'flashpointlike'

I recommend this campaign and waiting for more missions

[Snake Man 407]

great job!

I recommend this campaign and waiting for more missions

Thank you for the compliment.

Quote[/b] ]it's short but it is so 'flashpointlike'

Yes there is no fancy stuff, just pure basic infantry fighting with minimum of units. Should be easy, should be absolutely lag free (does anyone even know when ArmA hits "lag" on mission with too many units, I dont).

Its short because its under development, I want to cover the shole Sahrani and all vehicles and stuff. I'm actually quite excited to try out all the new goodies including the new scripting commands, multiple gunner stuff, swimming and so on.

Also I'm scared that this will be PMC Fury like campaign

[benus 0]

Just finished v0.1 and v0.2 is out

Quote[/b] ]Yes there is no fancy stuff, just pure basic infantry fighting with minimum of units.

That is the nice thing about these missions. BIS Campaigne has some nice missions and shows how the new features of ArmA can be used. but at the moment (ArmAs state and my Comp) it is hard to play them without probs.

=> PROBS in the first mission ... the AI (ArmA problem) had problems to board the boat ... then they began to swim and lost their rifles.

So far very nice ... keep the work up and INFANTRY (esepcially SF missions) are the best

regards benus

[Snake Man 407]

Quote[/b] ]Armaholic.com mirror updated.

Thanks, appreciated.

Quote[/b] ]I read in the readme what system you use for creating and playing this mission. At least now I know how I will run it until my new hardware arrives.

Heh yeah its quite funny to run ArmA on 800x600 resolution with *everything* set on Very Low (with exception that I  didn't disable blood and so), this brings back nostalgic memories for me as I started to create PMC Fury campaign for OFP v1.20 I believe it was (the version where Apache was just released I think).

So its kind of like back to the roots for me, very early version game with poor computer.

And I am no "graphics whore" as Lwlooz so nicely puts it, its all about gameplay for me, I can now turn the graphics down to a minimum as long as I know that some day in the next few months I'll walk into a computer store, put my money on the table and buy the most hardcore gaming rig there is available and THEN I can crank up the settings in ArmA to really start to enjoy the graphics whoring part

Also I think its kind of nice way to learn the basic engine features right now using these puny settings.

Anyways.

Quote[/b] ]That is the nice thing about these missions. BIS Campaigne has some nice missions and shows how the new features of ArmA can be used. but at the moment (ArmAs state and my Comp) it is hard to play them without probs.

Sometimes the small missions are very nice, gives you that man-to-man feeling more than some huge semi-laggy mission where you get assaulted by 150 enemy troops. You lose the touch and appreciation for you AI comrades on the large missions.

PMC First Fight starts with the small scale stuff, and then we slowly progress into the more deeper and high intensity / larger battles. As posted already, I'm really looking forward to use the new scripting features which make it possible to create large and very random/believable feeling enemy forces.

Quote[/b] ]PROBS in the first mission ... the AI (ArmA problem) had problems to board the boat ... then they began to swim and lost their rifles.

Yes indeed this is a problem. I'm seriously considering a compromise to limit the mission only to one island, it would be a big compromise as I wanted it to cover the two isles. But the AI has serious problems boarding the boat. Another option would be to add radio (0-0-1) command "Board boat!" which then would unrealisticly teleport your team onboard the boat.

Perhaps that is better choice than to make the AI swim to the other island and therefore lose the primary weapons.

Any ideas and feedback is very welcome.

Quote[/b] ]So far very nice ... keep the work up and INFANTRY (esepcially SF missions) are the best

You get more SF action on the v0.2, anyone who played PMC Hero's Path will find familiar stuff in there

Also to note, if anyone has good mission ideas or the whole campaign storyline ideas, feel free to post them here as I'm open to all suggestions. This campaign is work in progress and many things could be implemented.

Btw another mission that has serious AI boat problems is on the v0.2 new missions, you need to ride onboard the RHIB into Sahrani coastline, but the AI will drive the boat so slooooow you lose your mind sitting there with 4x time accelleration. Again I'm seriously considering doing some workaround for this, but I really really would like to keep the boat ops here because I like the new ArmA water system so much. You gotta appreciated the waterways in ArmA now since they were so "unusable" in OFP. In this mentioned mission, helo insertion is out of options due storyline (anti air) reasons. Hopefully BIS will fix the AI driven RHIB running speed on future patches (unless I did something wrong on the mission of course, which I very much doubt).

[benus 0]

Quote[/b] ]Yes indeed this is a problem. I'm seriously considering a compromise to limit the mission only to one island, it would be a big compromise as I wanted it to cover the two isles. But the AI has serious problems boarding the boat. Another option would be to add radio (0-0-1) command "Board boat!" which then would unrealisticly teleport your team onboard the boat.

Perhaps that is better choice than to make the AI swim to the other island and therefore lose the primary weapons.

Any ideas and feedback is very welcome.

What about this: Just let the player be driver of the boat?!! would be an easy way to solve the prob.

Another thing ... in V0.2 the players won't have his costum face anymore ... is that made because of the story and a main character? ...

overread this:

Quote[/b] ]- added identitys for soldiers so far in campaign; SF and regular.

another thing. I finished the TOWN CAPTURE mission and lost some man and died myself so I switched the soldiers. when I started the the next mission (first a cutscene) some of the soldiers and the PLAYER just died. no idea why.

The mission starts and you are dead... or lets say you are lyig at the ground as if you are but there is no ending ... you can change your soldier and go on playing.

[jantenner 0]

very nice campaign!

simple, yet convincing and fun to play (better than the original arma campaign)

but i encountered some bug after the clear town on ramadi mission, in the cutscene before the last ramadi mission, some soldiers immediately fall dead, including me. when mission starts, im dead on the ground and cant do anything. i tried campaign-cheat and reverted to that mission, but same problem, this time all soldiers were dead but one.

but since most of the annoyances are due to a bug in ai (cant go in boat wtf) and arma in general its excellent work very nice!

[Snake Man 407]

I discovered that player-dead-at-start one time, its because the new teamswitching done after you die. I'll try to rework somesort of workaround for it, until that here is quick fix: Dont get dead

[KiwisDoFly 0]

I just wanted to say that I played all the PMC campaigns and enjoyed every single one of them. Especially Fury

I really hope more mission makers will follow your lead and create single player campaigns/missions for ArmA.

[Seraph 0]

Hi Snake Man,

thank you for that campaign! Great work! Just one thing:

I don't know why, but everytime I "save" in Mission three

Arma crashed.

[twisted 128]

PMC Fury rates as perhaps my best ever enjoyed OFP campaign. Especially when modded to work with WGL or the marin addon from digital grenade website (can't remember the exact name think it was Suchey and Earle and more maybe?).

I realise you have just started this campaign, but it doesn't capture the same feel of being in a war zone/ operation. the boats (as mentioned already) are mind numbing - why not do a heli insertion? or just leave it as a cut scene and be done with it?

also i have only got to the airport recce stage, but so far it feels too casual and not stressed enough. with FURY the situation often felt desparate and tactical and believable (even if it wasn't it at least it felt that way). which was lovely.

I look forward to further releases from you.

[b1sh0p 0]

The only problem I've had so far is the boat... I don't know if this is the way it's supposed to be, but I've waited FOREVER and the boat NEVER came to pick me up so I could go to the second island. Eventually I decided to swim. Fortunately you must have thought about that, cause 3 seconds after I'd gotten up to my neck in the water, I and my squad were instantly transported to the next island. Fancy that.

I'm on the mission where you need to attack the town east of the airfield now. Tried a couple times last night unsuccessfully, but I was tired. I'll try again tonight.

Liking the campaign so far.

[b1sh0p 0]

Holy crap, finished that mission finally. Is it just me, or is that a terribly difficult mission? I'm talking about the one where you have to capture the town east of the airfield.

I played through it probably 7-8 times before I finally finished it tonight, and I finished it with only 2 squad members left.

Problem being: very little cover on the way in, and your AI team mates suck at town fighting. The little cover means that your AI's tend to get chewed up and spit out on the edge of town, and once IN town, they're not much better.

Plus, half of the time the BMP would kill my AT specialist before he could deal with it. I basically just restarted if my AT guy got killed before he took out the BMP.

By the end, it was down to just me and my SAW gunner. I had moved half my team up to the first bushline, and left my sniper, a rifleman or two, and my AT specialist back at the start, though with a good line of sight on the town. It was a very long, sustained fire fight, but eventually it was silent, and all that was left alive was me and my saw gunner. I took control of the saw gunner, and manually cleared the town, inch by inch. Took probably 45 minutes to clear it, slowly, methodically.

Worst part is, now on the next mission I only have those 2 guys!

Anyone have any tips for completing that mission easier? I wouldn't mind redoing it if I could get through it with more people, so I'm better prepared for the next mission.

[Silves 0]

Well Bishop, i finished that mission twice and i always leave the ai soldiers outside the urban area and do the cleaning by myself, not very realistic but it works.

Very nice missions Snake, thanks for the campaign!

[Snake Man 407]

Quote[/b] ]I played all the PMC campaigns and enjoyed every single one of them. Especially Fury

Thanks, I'm glad you like them. I had tons of fun editing them in wishing someone else finds them enjoyable.

Quote[/b] ]I really hope more mission makers will follow your lead and create single player campaigns/missions for ArmA.

I have the slight impression that most people think its cool to create multiplayer content, dunno if this is true. My early days were spend on PMC multiplayer on LAN mostly and then I did missions with simple stuff, so they worked both in SP and MP. Nowadays my internet connection sucks so bad AND I'm way too busy just editing, that I have indeed done almost only SP content. However I have absolutely NOTHING against MP stuff, in fact I'd love to play online with my friends but like I said, my adsl sucks.

So far the PMC First Fight missions all have been created with MP settings, so if someone unpacks the pbo and puts the missions to MP usage they work fine. At some point when I start to do those wild PMC nutcase missions there will most likely be scripting which dont work in MP, however again, I'm not planning something like that intentionally.

Hmm.

Quote[/b] ]thank you for that campaign! Great work!

everytime I "save" in Mission three Arma crashed.

Thanks appreciated.

I dont know what might be wrong there, so far the missions are very very simple and there should be nothing that could cause such crashes mission wise. Maybe its just unstable ArmA v1.01?

Quote[/b] ]PMC Fury rates as perhaps my best ever enjoyed OFP campaign.

Wow thanks

Quote[/b] ]the boats (as mentioned already) are mind numbing - why not do a heli insertion? or just leave it as a cut scene and be done with it?

I wanted it to be very quiet stealth insertion on dawn (yeah its not that dark, maybe I need to tweak the starting time to be almost dark), so if it would be helo insertion, the whole Rahmadi island would be awaken and the surprise element would be gone.

But definitely I'll try to work on some solution for this, the island-to-island change is very bad right now. If anyone have some good suggestions feel free to share.

Someone suggested that you drive the boat yourself, which kind of feels pretty good idea right now, I might use same to the first long range recon mission also.

Quote[/b] ]I realise you have just started this campaign, but it doesn't capture the same feel of being in a war zone/ operation.

but so far it feels too casual and not stressed enough. with FURY the situation often felt desparate and tactical and believable (even if it wasn't it at least it felt that way).

Hmm do you have any specific examples which might improve the feeling? Perhaps Fury started with complete darkness you all alone? Hmm dunno. I would definitely want to have you and others feeling more into the campaign, so please comment more what you'd like to see and changed etc.

Quote[/b] ]Is it just me, or is that a terribly difficult mission?   I'm talking about the one where you have to capture the town east of the airfield.

I dont think it should be too difficult, at least on force levels wise you commanding one AI team plus AI on as support. Perhaps the whole ArmA world/engine is so different that we/I cant think alike it was on OFP. Hmm gotta check that out.

Quote[/b] ]Worst part is, now on the next mission I only have those 2 guys!

Ouch. Hmm any suggestions to improve the odds that could fit the storyline of you guys just capturing the island before any additional and/or heavy backup arrives?

Adding third friendly AI squad might go to bit ovekill, hmm dunno. Wonder if UH60 with miniguns would even to odds, I havent tried yet if the helos get shot down quite as esily as in OFP.

Thank you all for the feedback, remember guys that posting feedback you can actually make a difference how the campaign progresses. I'm open to all suggestions, ideas and storyline stuff etc along with fixing anything thats broken/unplayable.

[kickback98 0]

Hi Snake Man,

Thanks for this very enjoyable mini campaign. It's much more enjoyable that the campaign BIS cam up with.

Keep up the good work!

[Greg147 0]

Hi,

Campaign is pretty good so far, especially for me as my computer is around the minimum settings level, and so these small scale battles are good.

One bug (other than the dead at start one), I've noticed in the mission where you move onto Sahrani, the boat moves very very slowly. Takes about 15 minutes to get there on x4 speed.

Other than that its coming along well.

[jantenner 0]

I discovered that player-dead-at-start one time, its because the new teamswitching done after you die. I'll try to rework somesort of workaround for it, until that here is quick fix: Dont get dead

now i finally made it without dying! i like that swift sweep mission very much, as it always turns out a little different untill the cleanup part of remaining prone guys comes up. this time i tossed grenades everywhere and knew where they hide. 3 AI of my squad dying bcs of stupidity.

but after that clean run on next mission cutscene ALL soldiers fall dead, this time without any damage texture on.. so the problem is still there for me.

if you say now i have to make that mission without anyone dying.. i dont think i can do it - but this one is my personal fav already, played it about 20 times, and was not bored, so maybe ill make it:)

[Seraph 0]

Snake Man,

as you said, it's totally unstable ... other user made missions

crashed too.

Edit: My system is just one year old and I bought it to play

too. I minimized the graphic options for Arma totally but it

doesn't really help. Since I bought it on 30.11. I installed it

three times ...

[mr burns 131]

Holy crap, finished that mission finally. Is it just me, or is that a terribly difficult mission? I'm talking about the one where you have to capture the town east of the airfield.

It´s not only you .. needed about 4 tries to get it done and in the end it was only me running circles around the town with my trusty SVD and one AI Teamleader hiding behind the destroyed BMP just some meters out of town.

The biggest problem i recognized was that the AI did´nt move anymore, they just lay down somewhere and wait for you to get into their field of view, and bang *your dead*

Also shortly before killing the last of the AI´s i´ve recognized that he was able to sense me through the wall.

He just lay there and followed every step of mine, thank god i had some grenades left, otherwise i wouldn´t have had a chance

[Snake Man 407]

Quote[/b] ]mission where you move onto Sahrani, the boat moves very very slowly. Takes about 15 minutes to get there on x4 speed.

Thats the one thing I hate about ArmA the boat moves so slowly. I think I'll have to skip the AI driver and give the boat just as empty to the player, he can then run the boat to the Sahrani coastline.

This will happen most likely on v0.3 release.

Quote[/b] ]after that clean run on next mission cutscene ALL soldiers fall dead, this time without any damage texture on.. so the problem is still there for me.

I am not sure but this might be that if you reverted back to try the mission again, ArmA just keeps on loading the old saveStatus (not savegame but status) for the soldiers, this happened many times on OFP with saveStatus. Dunno.

Quote[/b] ]needed about 4 tries to get it done and in the end it was only me running circles around the town with my trusty SVD and one AI Teamleader hiding behind the destroyed BMP just some meters out of town.

Okay so it seems mostly everyone is having problems with the mission, so I'll make some sort of level adjustments for it. I'll hope to fix it so its enjoyable.

Quote[/b] ]The biggest problem i recognized was that the AI did´nt move anymore

Yes the enemy knows you took the airstrip, they know you come to the town next, they sit and wait for you in defensive positions. I wanted to make some sort of mini street battles on the town streets, apparently it came through as too difficult

Quote[/b] ]i´ve recognized that he was able to sense me through the wall.

Ah the good old OFP "feature" of AI seeing you long time after you disappear behind the wall, even if you zig-zag back and forth, gee how they quess your movements so excatly. Hehe.

Too bad they didn't fix that for ArmA.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'll try to tweak the boat and super deadly town mission for v0.3 now. If you got any other suggestions like how the initial assault for Sahrani would happen, where and with what troop composition, please let me know... you can make a difference on the storyline, all feedback is very very welcome!

[impi 0]

hi snakeman

the problem I have is with the AI.Perhaps I'm doing something wrong. For example I'll go to squad leader of team A and move them into position in stealth hold fire mode.Then I go to squad B and start to move them into position but before they get there squad A have opened up and got themselves killed. Are there any COC squad control methods where I maneovre a squad without having to become that squad's team leader

impi

[jammydodger 0]

Yeah nice work, I also got stuck on the capture the town mission for a while.

Guys just to let you know, you can submit you missions to our database HERE

Cheers

[b1sh0p 0]

My suggestion for that town mission would be to remove some of the defenders from the inside of the town, or at least make it so that more of them come out to defend outside the town instead of staying inside.  

Close quarters fights are fun in multiplayer, and coop, when you have people who KNOW CQB tactics, but our friendly AI's DON'T know CQB tactics, and just end up dead.   Personally I didn't find it too enjoyable sneaking around the small town for half an hour hunting down enemies who just stand still. Maybe you could somehow give them waypoints in the town streets, but keep them from leaving the town itself. That way I think it would be a little easier. Seems like a stationary AI will almost always win a battle against a moving AI, as the stationary AI almost always sees, and fires on the moving AI first. If the guys inside the town had a set of waypoints they had to patrol, it'd even it up some.

Overall, very fun campaign, but that mission is the low point, in my opinion.

[Cirap 0]

this campaign is awesome!

I'm on the night-patrol mission, and maybe it's bugged? After a while a few soldiers come crawling a few hundred meters away, they are easily dealt with, a few minutes after that a hind comes and flies around for about four minutes, then another hind comes and circles the area. After almost 10 minutes I got so borded I sped things up to 4x speed, and after about two minutes in 4x (8 game minutes) I was killed by a group of soldiers near the small city

Are things supposed to take this long?