[SP] Punishment Battalion, scored 9/10 at Ofpec!

[leehunt27 1]

hey there folks,

I wanted to share my mission "Punishment Battalion" with the community. Scored 9/10 on Ofpec so hopefully you will enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it  

: Remember, not dying and not using any ArmA "gamey" tricks will only increase the suspense, fun and challenge!

Download link:

http://files.filefront.com/PB+Fina....fo.html

link to Ofpec review:

http://www.ofpec.com/mission....&cat=sp

Creating "PB" took nearly 6 months, 15 cutscenes, with over 50 scripts, dozens of voiceovers from about 10 different voice actors, and much help and inspiration from THobson's legendary Abandoned Armies mission.  

Description:

General Beria has put North Sahrani under martial law to exterminate a growing Resistance. Find and recruit the Resistance, rescue your girlfriend, destroy Beria's regime and bases. More details to follow. Choose your own strategy of guerrilla warfare as you go from not even a weapon to master of the Island. Your judgment and instinct on when to fight, when to run and what strategies to employ will make more of a difference than your marksmanship (though you'll need plenty of that too).

Any questions please email me at leehunt22@hotmail.com

[william1 0]

thanks ! i will try

[Wolfrug 0]

It's much suggested! Try it out, it's great fun.

Great job Lee!

Regards,

Wolfrug

[sparks50 0]

Sounds interesting, will give it a try

[impi 0]

Hi tried to load this with

a/6th sense mod

b/1.12 beta

but it keeps telling me that I don't have rlk urb sol ....but I definetly do in both my main add on directory and its also in 6th sense mod.

cheers, Impi

[leehunt27 1]

hi Impi,

I have not tried it with the a/6th sense mod. Did you have Armed Assault up and running and then insert the RLK addon into the folder? I have to restart ArmA completely. you can write me more at leehunt22@hotmail.com. It should work fine as over 100 people have played it so far... let me know how it goes

Lee

[StevenKilleen 0]

Played this back when it was BETA. It kept me from uninstalling ArmA from my hard drive for at least a few more weeks.

Abandoned Armies was my all-time favourite user-made mission and I hope Punishment Battalion will the first of many made for ArmA.

You have my thanks leehunt27

[leehunt27 1]

Thanks gentlemen! This link might be easier for downloading (also added at the beginning of the post):

http://files.filefront.com/PB+Fina....fo.html

Its not quite as good as Abandoned Armies, but you will find some similarities

[impi 0]

Thanks Lee,

I've tried it with the vanilla 1.08 combined with the AToW mod and it works fine. For some reason it does not seem to work with the 1.12 beta.

So far, having played the mission for about an hour my only criticism is that on my extensive travels I have not met any wondering enemy patrols who perhaps me and my little band (there's only three of us at the moment) could ambush. Also because of the lack of patrols I feel too comfortable ambling around the countryside.

Thanks for this great mission, Impi

[leehunt27 1]

From what I've heard it works with 1.12, but it must be something with the 6th sense mod and that. I'll check it out on my own.

As for patrols, yes the first hour is "easy"-- i try to start the player off without too much aggravation. Believe me you'll find plenty!

[impi 0]

Hi Lee

Does the mission contain anti armoured mines/and or trip wire claymores..?

If it doesn't this would be a great thing to have for ambushing patrols and quick reaction forces....just like real life guerilla/spec frce operations...

Impi

[thepiespy 2]

was great fun when i played it last night, but unfortunatly something with the save file got corrupted because every time i try and load it back up ArmA crashes and gives me an error message about how it cant find autosave.ArmASave

[leehunt27 1]

Hi thepiespy,

Do you have any backup saves? That's an ArmA problem unfortunately. I've played through the game over a dozen times and 100 people have betatested. The number of variables was reduced dramatically for the final version to allow saves to work. Did you check the save game folder as well and try renaming the file and "loading" it once in the mission?

Lee

[ericfr 0]

Very good job.

The AI don't shoot through the barbed wire easy to kill them.

Arma 1.12

[leehunt27 1]

thanks EricFr, glad you liked it!!!

Has anyone found the code word if you won the full victory?

[anc 0]

It seems to be a great mission, unfortunately i was able to play only 40 minutes.

After that i got an error, and couldn't play anymore =(

I posted the error here:

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=72807

Regards

[leehunt27 1]

Sorry your PC is having problems with it Anc.

The mission is large with quite a few OPFOR and other vehicles, and your PC might be having memory problems-- but I don't believe its the mission itself after 100 betatesters went through it and I played it over a dozen times, etc etc.  I've never seen that error-- maybe try reducing the graphics quality a bit?

I would also say try reloading an older save game (copy and paste backups to a separate folder if you can) as a couple people have tried that successfully.  Please let me know what happens further (either here or in PM)

[Taconic 0]

I've been playing the mission for the past few days. It's quite a bit like Abandoned Armies, which is a good thing. The bad thing is that it is that it is interfering with my finals... but it's much more fun than finals, so that's OK.

For reference, I'm playing on 1.12b.

Comments/issues (be warned--potential spoilers):

-The blackhawk pilot absolutely refused to do anything but stand regardless of combat posture. I don't know if there was a script running on him or not, but he ignored every order but "stay crouched" and "go prone." It made him a bit of a liability since I had to micromanage his posture when in combat.

-The pilot never evaced. He left my group, but he just stands next to the blackhawk (he's still there.) I haven't looked at the mission, so I don't know if this is intentional or not.

-Augustine just dropped his weapon. left my group, and ran at a T-72. It didn't end well for him. Is this an unavoidable thing? Is there a way to get him to rejoin? Same thing with the guy near the airbase, but in his case I just assumed that he was a traitor and took off.

As for general comments:

I like the fact that the island is not just crawling with soldiers behind every bush and building, but I'm finding it tough to find fights. I'm not quite ready to take on the main bases yet, but I have completed the other objectives and attacked the marked garrisons. I've been looking for patrols to ambush or garrisons to hit, but I'm only finding a handful of guys every hour or so (and none of them have AT weapons.)

If you ever update the mission, I'd suggest adding an ammo dump or something as an optional objective. That way people that find themselves in my situation would have a place to get some decent weapons.

Another suggestion would be to add some regular military traffic. I haven't seen any aside from the odd UAZ in the first hour or so of the mission. One of my favorite parts of AA was ambushing the big convoys. Sometimes you had to wait an hour for them, but it was worth it.

I'd also give the UAZ MGs hanging out in the passes fuel. Or just remove them altogether and add defensive emplacements/roadblocks instead. At first I figured they had just run out of fuel, but I found another group of them in another pass.

That's about all that I can think of. My biggest complaint is that things seem a bit sterile and quiet, but I've been having a lot of fun and it's definitely the best mission I've played in Arma.

You asked for feedback in the readme about a possible Punishment Battalion II. I say go for it. This is a great mission and I'd love to see more like it. I realize how much work they are to make, but they're something special. You've set the bar pretty high.

[leehunt27 1]

hi Kurayami,

Thanks for the feedback, glad you are enjoying it. I hope you enjoy the finale when you get to the end as well.

For those about to play, i made the first hour much quieter so the player wouldn't be overwhelmed.  But there are plenty of bad guys out there later-- see if you can avoid getting killed at all if you are up to really challenge yourself.  If you get surprised and killed even once by a patrol, then those patrols are tough by definition.

I tried not to give away too many AT weapons in the patrols you find, otherwise attacking the main base might be too easy.  A hint would be to use the Mando Mortar as much as possible....

The Blackhawk pilot not moving is ArmA AI unfortunately-- he actually has no orders and the squad control sometimes falls apart in this game unfortunately.  That may be why he didn't get on board the chopper- but it should not interfere with the mission overall.  

*** SPOILERS  ****

Augustin does run away - he gets combat shock and flees after you kill X number of OPFOR.

[Taconic 0]

The Blackhawk pilot not moving is ArmA AI unfortunately-- he actually has no orders and the squad control sometimes falls apart in this game unfortunately. That may be why he didn't get on board the chopper- but it should not interfere with the mission overall.

That must be it. I've noticed that my squad doesn't always return to formation and that a few of my members will occasionally ignore all move/return orders until I order them into something. The pilot was just an odd exception and I only mentioned it because I once wrote a rivercrossing script that did the same thing until I fixed it.

I've just recently moved over to Arma from OFP, so I'm still learning about the AI quirks this time around. It actually seems to have more than OFP.

Have you considered creating a mission like this with the CoC CE? I first had that idea 2-3 years ago and planned to act on it, but never got around to it (and as far as I can tell, nobody else has either.) I envisioned a mission where you pick up members of your squad in the same manner as your mission or AA, but also have the ability to recruit members for a couple of other squads to be controlled through the CE. I think it'd add another dimension to a guerilla style "campaign in a mission" like PB since it would enable multi-pronged attacks or the ability to encircle an objective. It'd be great for ambushing (hide an AT squad at a crossroad,) recon (the player wouldn't have to physically run all over the place to find enemies,) and diversions (one squad could draw away patrols from an objective, leaving it open for the player.)

Just an idle thought for you or anybody else reading. I know it would be a nightmare to get properly working/balanced, so I'm not holding my breath.

I guess I'll go get in another hour or so of play time before I have to head out to class. I'd much rather focus on finishing up the mission tonight, but school is expensive.

[leehunt27 1]

Thanks for the ideas on future missions. I'm probably going to wait until ArmA II to create another long mega mission, however, as this was a lot of work and time (though fun) and I think I'm going to wait....

[Snake Raper 0]

>>>>>>>>>>> Spoilers

I rather enjoyed the mission as it made me go into survival mode right off the start. I fell back on my OpFl Res days and began taking every weapon and ammo bit I could and stuffed them in vehicles. I found that by the time I attacked the armoury in Bagango, I really didn't need anything there.

I found that the clusters of 3 UAZ MGs scattered about were a little on the "fake" side as they were on each other or on another object and very unresponsive (maybe I was just real sneaky).

I spent large amounts of time wandering the roads in nothing more than a UAZ and was only engaged by a Heli once and a soldier once. The roads were very empty as I found that the QRF vehicles (M113, T-72, BMP etc) were driving across open ground and often overturning due to terrain. This meant that I didn't really have to fight them and only engaged a T-72 and BMP (other than the QRF that came to Bagango when I attacked the armoury) while on "patrol".

Once I had the BRDM AT, well it was over for any armour at Pita as this gave me the ability to get into the base and take the T-72 which ended the game (you can repair and rearm through the wall without exposing yourself to the tanks on the runway). Not sure if it was intentional but I would suggest moving them farther away so one cannot "exploit" them. By ending the game, I mean I just drove about and shot or squished everything I missed the first time through. Although I had several close calls in the BRDM with RPGs flying about.

Again, I really enjoyed the mission but it did feel a bit "sterile" at times. Thanks for your work and time spent.

[leehunt27 1]

hi Snake Rapper,

Glad you enjoyed it-- sorry bout the overturned vehicles! I had a hard time adapting scripts to fix that to ArmA unfortunately. But anyway glad you had fun with it!

[ThudBlunderQ8 0]

Back to the top...

I've a few days off work while my leg sorts itself out, so I thought I'd finally get around to giving this a try. The day has just flown by - this mission is very immersive to someone with my low skills; thoroughly enjoyable.

Had a real surprise when scouting around to see M113s operating alongside a ZSU23-4 - couldn't work that one out at all to begin with!

I found it immensely annoying during the 15 minutes as Carla to hear my alter-ego issuing all sorts of ridiculous orders to the group, some of which were tantamount to suicide. Not knowing ArmA all that well, is there some clever way (constantly team- switching doesn't work) to shut him up while I'm having my out-of-body experience?!

Am now complete on all but one of the sub-missions (grammar? that doesn't sound right...) and setting up for the final move on Pita. Tell me - the cluster of enemy in the village north of Pedro's group: did they have a task of their own? I encountered them during my scouting-around, destroyed the 3 armoured vehicles and killed the 3 Especas in/near the pub. The civvies all just stood around and watched; is there any way they could be co-opted into the guerilla group?

Despite suffering no casualties I'm getting quite low on manpower, as in addition to the combat-stress sufferer mentioned above I have one character who resolutely refuses to respond to any orders (including "get in" - ) - any way I can get back up to more than 10 men?

Anyway, many thanks for your excellent work and here's to some more lost hours tomorrow as I complete the task!

[leehunt27 1]

hi ThundBlunderQ8,

Glad you got a couple surprises and are enjoying the mission. It means a lot to me that people are having fun with PB because man it was a lot of work (though i liked it too).

I couldn't find the editing commands to turn off your alter-ego during the "Carla Phase" unfortunately.

The enemy vehicles north of Pablo are on GUARD mode-- meaning if you are spotted anywhere nearby they will rush to kill you. The Especas are just having a drink at the pub-- that is until you came along .

Those civilians are just regular civilians in Carmen, they have no orders or anything.

The game itself seems to have a bug with units not following your orders sometimes, very annoying to myself as well. About 10 men is all you can get-- this keeps the suspense level up a bit as you want to be careful not to lose them!

Let me know your progress and if you unlock the easter egg code word

Lee