SP Mission: Gatekeeper

[JDog 11]

Newest, probably final, version of this mission is up. I hadn't messed with it in some time since I had a hard time finding some voices for it.

Changelog 9/18/2009:

• All dialogue is voiced-over now (was previously only 1 line), you can probably tell I had fun with a couple of the less-heard voices :P
  
• Added a medic to the squad
  
• Extended ending to directly lead into the start of Cobra team's follow-up mission (will be released soon)
  
• Added some stationary & roaming infantry to help make a previous area of silence a little more exciting
  
• Started including easter eggs at very end of my missions :P
  

___________________________________________

Brief:

Acting as leader of Force Recon team Cobra, your main objective is to find intel with the location of a Russian AA battery, which a friendly ship will proceed to eliminate. Furthermore, your team must secure and hold the town of Solnichniy before the landing parties arrive only a few short hours later.

• Player leads a 4-man Force Recon team
  
• Full briefing with Mission, Situation, Intel on BLUFOR and OPFOR
  
• Multiple debriefing outcomes, based on objectives completed.
  
• 3 Primary and 2 Secondary objectives, some created mid-mission
  
• Randomly placed first objective (you gotta look around for it!)
  
• New Action menu entry for dealing with certain objectives
  
• Character dialogue (currently only 1 with voice-over)
  
• Special scripted events/squadmate actions
  
• Guessing it will take around 40 minutes on first play through
  

Changelog 7/30/2009

• Fixed chance at end that mission is made unable to complete
  
• Added First Aid, so your teammates don't instantly die
  
• Added ability to select from a few different weapons at mission start
  
• Converted a few straggling SQS files into SQF
  
• General script improvements/contingencies added
  
• Fixed chance that squadmate does not have satchel to plant if accidentally removed by player
  
• Edited some dialogue, added a little more dialogue
  
• Eliminated chance that player damages self when using "Sabotage" action on objectives
  
• If a teammate dies, you will be notified and then reverted to the last autosave (you can load your own user save from there if it's more recent). This way you don't have to restart of go to main menu just to load a save.
  

___________________________________________

There is now only one version of this mission, which requires SchnapsdroSel's "Mercenaries and BlackOps" addon. Note: It requires the newest version (v3), which includes more units. You CAN play it with the original version, but you will only have a squad of 3.

SP: Gatekeeper (BlackOps version)

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6560

Mercenaries and BlackOps addon

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6471

Edited September 19, 2009 by JDog
updated to final version

[LiamK8 10]

Hi there,

I've installed the Black Ops addon to ARMA2-> @Mercs folder and run linebackers ARMA launcher.

The mission is in ARMA2 -> Missions

It's strange that a message comes up about BB_Blackops has been deleted.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong.

Many Thanks

Liam

[EBass 0]

I must say JDog I thorougly enjoyed this mission, I thought it was excellent, amazing for your first. I'm currently trying to learn a few things as well, could you point me in the direction of where you learnt all of it?

A couple of minor criticisms, this isn't a campaign. So if you want to make it mission failed if one of your team go down, at least give us the option of getting them back to their feet with first aid. (Though if that takes a lot of heavy scripting that you couldn't learn I'd understand)

Also I'd like a choice of other weapons in the boat, maybe its just in my game, but the weapon you get as default seems to kick up and to the right a HUGE amount, making the iron sights practically useless. Swapped it for an Ak as soon as I could.

Also what are "SADAMs" that take out the tanks? I'm guessing they are some sort of tomahawk like missiles launched from ships?

[subtee 0]

Nice mission so far.

one thing that im having trouble is, when the enemy tanks come in, i am suppose to get air support ? co's nothing happens, the tanks just roam around and no air support or missiles come in. After i loaded a save one of the tanks got hit by a missile, but another one just stood there and nothing happened, i managed to hit it with my rpg round (i had one left) but it wasnt enough, even the crew didnt bail, wich is what usually happens when you damage a tank.

Other than that, really good.

One suggestion would be that, if you could add that before the mission begins you could select different weapons for your squad, maybe some silenced weapons etc :)

edit: (i was playing without addons)

Edited July 28, 2009 by subtee

[JDog 11]

Thanks for the feedback guys :)

@LiamK8: You're sure the addon .pbo files are in "@Mercs > Addons"? They need to be in the addons folder inside the @Mercs folder, not just in the @Mercs folder.

@YouLookAtMe: Thanks! I have a little background with some programming so I understand syntax and stuff, just had to learn the ArmA commands. There's a ridiculous wealth of knowledge and helpful people in the Mission Editing and Scripting forum. I will PM you a list of links I find most helpful.

Weapons: I agree, the G36C, as awesome as it is (especially with the see-through magazine and depleting bullets) really does shoot quite high in relation to the crosshair. I will consider replacing them with M4s or otherwise allowing you to select different weapons.

Teammate Death: Sorry I didn't realize I had to incorporate the First Aid module for you to be able to bring back a wounded teammate, thought it was built in as standard. Will DEFINITELY work on getting that in the mission.

Tanks: Yes, as mentioned in my first post, the ending has that possible bug. It's due to the inability of the AI to reliably follow roads and reach waypoints on those roads. They are supposed to stop and hold their position outside the town, but sometimes pretty much say "screw you JDog I don't like this waypoint" and go roaming - resulting in only 1 or 0 of them getting destroyed by the SADARMs (anti-armor artillery). If they both stop on the road or even nearby each other there... I can pretty much guarantee they will both die. This is the biggest issue and will be resolved in the end, whether it get fixed or replaced.

Edited July 28, 2009 by JDog

[ericd 10]

one word to say "great!!!" ,i enjoyed very much playing that mission ,i didnt finished it yet ,but it will be done soon tonight,thx...

[trickster1982 10]

I havent managed to get too far in this one as those damn sneaky russians patrolling near the two BMP's early on keep getting me or my team mates!at first i thought the AI of my squad had gone pear shaped when the guy wanders off to plant the C4,then i realised you'd scripted it that way so its all good :)

Very atmospheric mission & what ive seen so far seems really well put together!Ive come across a couple of bugs though, one time when I started the mission it handed me an unsilenced version of the G36C for some reason, and also the guy in the boat at the beginning seems to get stuck sometimes once we've got out, but that doesnt ruin anything as we just wander off & leave him to it.

Would it be possible to edit so the rest of the team get silenced weapons as well though?

[subtee 0]

Hey is that G36C what you get if you play with the addons?

I play without the addons and the weapon i get is the default one from razor-campaign, the one with the shitty HOLO-sight. I hate that weapon :)

Just managed to play through this a second time from start to finish, maybe you could add some random enemy soldiers to the first part (before the apc and tanks) cos its pretty easy to blow up the weapons at the trainyard, get the first intel and disable the AA launchers. Theres only little resistance when doing those tasks.

[JDog 11]

@eric: Thanks! Glad to hear it.

@Trickster: Yea they can be sneaky :P As for the unsilenced weapon... I have no idea, maybe you just lagged that time while loading or somethin? It's not like it'll give you a random weapon. If the script executes you get a silenced G36C, if it doesnt, you get an M4 I think. But yes as I mentioned I am looking into allowing you to choose your loadout at the start if you don't like what you get. The boat issue, however... he isn't "supposed" to leave until you're a little ways away from him. If you walk up onto the hill towards the road and then go back you'll see he leaves (there was a bug where he would leave as soon as you got out and sometimes injure a teammate, since they don't walk too fast in water).

@Subtee: No the addons are only for the character models. You might be using it and didn't know it, because it too has the HOLO-sight. I don't like the HOLO either, and it shoots fairly high, so I will probably replace it or allow the player to. As for adding more resistance at the beginning... I might add a couple, but it isn't supposed to be too difficult. For story sake - it's a night op and the "war" hasn't started yet - it's not like you're expected. There's supposed to be little opposition, and then reinforcements. Anyway, glad to hear you got through the whole thing twice, hope that mission ending bug didn't get you.

[subtee 0]

As for adding more resistance at the beginning... I might add a couple, but it isn't supposed to be too difficult. For story sake - it's a night op and the "war" hasn't started yet - it's not like you're expected. There's supposed to be little opposition, and then reinforcements. Anyway, glad to hear you got through the whole thing twice, hope that mission ending bug didn't get you.

Oh, ok. If it's a story, and this is the beginning of it, it's fine that it is fairly easy.

Yep, no bug when playing through second time.

Well, i have nothing more to add, this is a great mission, and i'm waiting how this story continues :)

[LiamK8 10]

Thank you JDog,

I created addons directory and popped the files in there.

It's working fine. (I knew it was something I was doing wrong)

Very good mission by the way. One of my guys injured himself getting out of the boat!! Twisted ankle maybe?

:)

Thanks Again

[JDog 11]

Yea Liam glad I could help. I'll look into the boat issue some more I guess. Glad you liked it!

[chrissy-finger 10]

@jdog

i just finished playing your mission (twice ^^) and i also wanna say: you've done a great job here! i'm really excited to see your next mission online ;-)

by the way, there was one thing i've recognized: after activating the 'satchel'-script, my team member started running to the bmps (as far as normal), but when i assign an enemy to my squad at this time, the member just stops and goes for the enemy. when doing so, no bombs are placed and the secondary objective is not accomplishable anymore (except i collect a rocketlauncher and do it my way, but this feels unrealistic...) maybe you can prompt this in another script...

apart from that: thumbs up!!!

[JDog 11]

Thanks Chrissy.

And yea I kinda just hoped no one would interrupt that script running, it's the same near the end when one of your teammates shows you where the launcher is at. I don't know if I can actually disable commanding of a specific team member for a short time to work around that, unfortunately. It's something I will try in the future.

As for the problem... you can always command him to plant a satchel yourself :) F4 (select Will) -> 6 (bring up actions menu) and usually you gotta pretty 0 afterwards to bring up "more" and you'll see "Plant satchel".

[JDog 11]

Releasing a newer version. This version is 100% complete mission-wise and I do not believe there to be any bugs. Only thing left to be added are voice-overs when I get the chance to. All of the changes in this version are mostly small additions/requests and polishing work.

Changelog 7/30/2009

• Fixed chance at end that mission is made unable to complete
  
• Added First Aid, so your teammates don't instantly die
  
• Added ability to select from a few different weapons at mission start
  
• Converted a few straggling SQS files into SQF
  
• General script improvements/contingencies added
  
• Fixed chance that squadmate does not have satchel to plant if accidentally removed by player
  
• Edited some dialogue, added a little more dialogue
  
• Eliminated chance that player damages self when using "Sabotage" action on objectives
  
• If a teammate dies, you will be notified and then reverted to the last autosave (you can load your own user save from there if it's more recent). This way you don't have to restart of go to main menu just to load a save.
  

Edited September 18, 2009 by JDog
deleted old links

[kozzy420 21]

Awesome mission bud! I really enjoyed this one :D

It was pretty crazy to enter a building a few times on this mission, leaning around the corners only to see 3 enemies laying on the floor! haha, good job again!

Also if you need any help with voice work for future mods let me know! I have done some in the past and have a very deep voice (some say like Barry White hehe).

Edited August 5, 2009 by kozzy420

[froggyluv 2136]

Really enjoying this mission. Haven't completed it yet but I can tell you put a lot of little minutiae into it. Actually tried it before the patch but was getting spotted too easily but now it seems more balanced in that area. Gonna dl your newer version next.

[JDog 11]

That's great glad you guys are enjoying it. Yea my copy is now a little more recent... with more voice-overs in it. I've completed my second mission now too (which has a ridiculously awesome ending haha). Waiting to release the last version of this and my second mission until all the voices are done.

Need like 2 more character voices in the first and also a few more in the second.

[moosenoodles 0]

Since 1.03 update, no missions for me seem to be loading, it sudgests that there is a link errror with a static object, this goes for all missions ive tried from users.. and says to reload it in editor and resave..?

Now obviously one cant as its not a sqm file no more, sudgestions? or maybe you can look at this gatekeeper mission for 1.03 as I really want to try it out :D ta.

Ah seems biz screwed up again for everyone. here is a link so u can read about it a bit more.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=82867

Edited August 6, 2009 by moosenoodles

[kozzy420 21]

Since 1.03 update, no missions for me seem to be loading, it sudgests that there is a link errror with a static object, this goes for all missions ive tried from users.. and says to reload it in editor and resave..?

Now obviously one cant as its not a sqm file no more, sudgestions? or maybe you can look at this gatekeeper mission for 1.03 as I really want to try it out :D ta.

Ah seems biz screwed up again for everyone. here is a link so u can read about it a bit more.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=82867

Its been workign fine since the new update for me, tried maybe 5 user made missions yesterday and today and no issues.

[PhelanKA7 10]

Since 1.03 update, no missions for me seem to be loading, it sudgests that there is a link errror with a static object, this goes for all missions ive tried from users.. and says to reload it in editor and resave..?

Now obviously one cant as its not a sqm file no more, sudgestions? or maybe you can look at this gatekeeper mission for 1.03 as I really want to try it out :D ta.

Ah seems biz screwed up again for everyone. here is a link so u can read about it a bit more.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=82867

I had the same problem.

They way to fix it is to use the DePBO tool Eliteness, open up the PBO in your "Documents/Arma 2 (or "/Arma 2 Other Profiles/ProfileName/")/Missions/". Then open up the mission in the editor, click the save button, choose "Export to Single Missions", and save it. You should be able to play the missions then.

Serious pain in the arse though, I know :(

[moosenoodles 0]

what a mess of a site that eliteness place is lol, seriously non organised.

It wont even see the mission file to load it in the editor in the arma other profiles/missions folder :( ugh such biz lameness with these ID issues and waypoint balls ups.

Bah cant makePbo after fixing the mission file.. heck way to much trouble, "dePbo no file open" rubish I just had it open, and trying to put it back into a pbo so i get all the mission info briefings etc.... sigh. ill wait for the creator to fix it..

Edited August 6, 2009 by moosenoodles

[kozzy420 21]

Just sent you some voice work for your mods bud (:

Check your email (;

[JDog 11]

Yea Kozzy I got'em thanks! I like'em hah, some are good & funny, will def use them.

As for the mission... yea even I got that static object error or whatever earlier today. I'm gonna have to fix it and get the final version up... I'll try to get these last 2 voices done ASAP, but will be busy this weekend :(

[maturin 12]

Thank you so much for making all those Spetsnaz sitting around a camp fire. I killed every last one with a grenade. It was beautiful.