[SP] Flashpoint: Takistan - Dynamic Mission

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

I ordered up Command/Objective, reached the Objective point numerous time, without anything occurring.

Eventually got killed. Respawned as a SF squad leader. Played for .45 min. (maybe?) then CTD. Here's the report:

http://www.mediafire.com/?wmvgezkvdt62qfr

Terrific work. I love how you can preview the unit one's about to jump into, and enable NVDs to see the night time environment better before hopping into a body that's about to get flattened. Like the "Who Got Me?" feature, amongst MANY others. Very cool work here, and I can't wait to see what else you have up your sleeve.

Thank you for it!

[humvee28 10]

It would be nice to see some randomly generated Missions and Sidemissions as Objectives like Domination has (Clear and Sweep Cities or Airfields, Secure Chopper / Aircraft Crashsite and search / rescue the Crew, destroy Weapon Logistics / Caches, destroy AA Tank Placements etc.)

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

It would be nice to see some randomly generated Missions and Sidemissions as Objectives

I like Humvee28's proposal.

It would also be nice if the Player could order up an "end battle" stopping point, and what I mean by that is if the Player so desires, he can order a battle to end, which freezes all respawning, so that the only units left active are those that are on the battlefield. Once one side has won, the mission ends with a victor being declared based on performance.

It feels more satisfying to conclude something rather than just letting it "hang" there forever.

[thomsonb 3]

I ordered up Command/Objective, reached the Objective point numerous time, without anything occurring.

Hi Kyle_K_ski

Thanks for the bug report, not sure what caused the crash, I have had 1crash while testing the latest version, im working on narrowing down the cause, of course if anyone can find a way of reliably recreating the crash it would be a great help!

RE the objective bug, right now the objective system is just a basic placeholder that i developed over a year ago for Flashpoint: Chernarus. I have not removed it since it does no harm, but is not very interesting i know!

I am currently working on a much improved random objectives system, along the lines of some of the ideas you guys have posted here... Hope you can wait a while, maybe a proof of concept simple version will be released soon :)

B

---------- Post added at 10:49 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:43 AM ----------

"end battle" stopping point, which freezes all respawning. Once one side has won, the mission ends

That is a great idea Kyle!

Ideas about what the command should be called please....

maybe "End Battle" or "Fix Forces" or something?

This should be easy to implement, only problem might be a "last loon" situation where remaining weak forces dont encounter each other for ages...

Il get onto this asap

B

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

Ideas about what the command should be called please....

maybe "End Battle" or "Fix Forces" or something?

I'm happy that you liked my suggestion. How about something obvious, like...

"Finalize forces and objectives..."

or

"I'm tired. Let's end this thing!" ;-D

[thomsonb 3]

Sounds good...

- idea:

In order to make a "last stand" or "final battle" feel;

When the end battle is activated, maybe all combat groups could have their waypoints "squeezed" in toward the players position, or towards a nearby location, like a town if theres one nearby (EDIT: or a location chosen by the player?)?

:)

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

Sounds good...

- idea:

In order to make a "last stand" or "final battle" feel;

When the end battle is activated, maybe all combat groups could have their waypoints "squeezed" in toward the players position, or towards a nearby location, like a town if theres one nearby (EDIT: or a location chosen by the player?)?

:)

If it's not too much trouble, perhaps once the "Finalize forces and objectives" option is selected by the Player he would be presented with two last options:

Evolve battle's end near player

and

Select final battleground

I have to say, thomsonb, that one of the most important aspects of your Flashpoint series is the amount of customization that's permitted to the Player, while keeping the all-important dynamic aspect of it working as well. You've got a keen mind to be able to make magic like this work so well, and part of that is due to your willingness to seriously consider a lot of the suggestions that are presented to you from the players.

The whole aspect with the bunny rabbit is just pretty staggering alone (one of the coolest things I've ever experienced in a game happened when I switched to first person view, and then ran through the tall grass--I was amazed by what rabbits have to contend with that I had never thought of before!).

I'm really impressed and very grateful for all that you've done for this community. :notworthy:

[thomsonb 3]

The whole aspect with the bunny rabbit is just pretty staggering alone (one of the coolest things I've ever experienced in a game happened when I switched to first person view, and then ran through the tall grass--I was amazed by what rabbits have to contend with that I had never thought of before!).

The rabbit is great fun, my inspiration for that came from BIS, the good old seagull death mode from Operation Flashpoint multi-player! i can't take all the credit

Thanks for your thoughts Kyle, the work involved in developing and releasing the project seems worthwhile when I get positive feedback from the community :)

P.S. maybe a rabbit life simulator would be popular? :D

[thomsonb 3]

Hi guys

An update for you

Please download latest version 1.14 from here:

Flashpoint: Takistan / Zargabad / Shapur v1.14 download page

Main new feature is Ambient animals (my own performance friendly system)

also some fixes and tweaks

enjoy :)

Edited June 30, 2011 by thomsonb

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

An update for you

Thank you!

Also, I've noticed that it doesn't look like you've updated Sahrani since ver. 1.11. Is there a reason for that? I'm guessing that it's enough work just keeping two versions of Flashpoint going, let alone three.

And a rabbit life simulator could be very stimulating if hawks and eagles were around, along with a wolf and a fox or two. Seriously, charging through the grass in your mod really makes me appreciate why rabbits are so d@mned nervous! They can't see crap!

[thomsonb 3]

I'm guessing that it's enough work just keeping two versions of Flashpoint going, let alone three

Thats exactly right :)

well actually its 5 versions, as each has some unique scripts and settings, its very easy to break one version when updating all at the same time!

I will do a big update to Sahrani asap

[humvee28 10]

Main new feature is Ambient animals (my own performance friendly system)

Thank you, thomson!

That brings a little bit more Life into the Flashpoint Mission. Very appreciated.

It would be very,very cool if you can do something like this for Civilian Life in the Future. A great Scenario: You have to Fight against your Opponents, but you have to aim and shoot carefully, because Civilians are in the Areas (especially Towns) also. If you shoot any Civilians, your Mission is aborted.

Then it would be a great Mission for Newbies too, who have Problems to Identify Persons the Way you need, fast and accurate. Well, something like that is possible in the Mission by now, of course (FF). But it gives you only Penalties in Form of negative Scores. It would be nice to see an Option in Form of a Setting (Mission aborted by killing Friendlys / Civs) in the Future. Negative Points hurt a little Bit, but it would be better (in my Eyes, of course) to see, that killing Friendlies or (eventually in the Future) Civilians is an absolutely no go, to keep the Excitement and the Behavior of the Player more up.

I know, more spawning Objects mean decrease in Performance, and build in Civilian Life in a Mission isn´t that easy, but if you could do something that would match in the old Story, Performance vs. Playable Mission, that would be, as i said, great imho. :cool:

Greets

PS : Ambient Life in the Mission gives me the Feeling, that i didn´t Fight on the Moon anymore. I hope, you got me way it means.:D

Edited June 29, 2011 by Humvee28

[thomsonb 3]

I will work on a simple civilian script soon as I can... the BIS ALICE module has too much performance hit on this mission, at least on my computer setup.

You're right it does add a realistic feeling to a mission... :)

The animals I put in are not everywhere, they are quite random, sometimes you might not notice them, other times you may see them a lot, I wanted to keep the dynamic random feeling in the missions...

B

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

In response to the suggestions of adding civilians, I'd like for the following to be considered...

Scatter around some terrified AI civilians, and add some rare encounters with domesticated animals. That would add a lot of ambiance, deepen the immersion factor, and potentially act as a penalty for the player, such as...

...dropping his currency counter by 6 (an unlucky number) and...

...bumping up the next spawn of enemy infantry by 6 for every civilian killed beforehand!

This would simulate the consequences of killing civilians, chiefly that of driving the locals that one's supposedly supporting right into the arms of the enemy.

From: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1953084&highlight=civilian#post1953084

At the above link are a bunch of other suggestions that I made in dmos' thread on his great Deep Sandbox dynamic mission.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the end, thomsonb decides to add a couple of "Civilian" columns to the Mission Startup GUI, perhaps allowing the Player to decide how large a mass of civilians there'll be, and the percentage chance of encountering them. Unless he can cook up some amazing performance scripts, by default I'd set each category to 0% and just leave it to the players as to whether or not they'd want to take a performance hit. I'd certainly be willing to suffer a degree of it for such a feature.

That said, it would be quite immersive to have most civilians scurrying around settlements, but also quite stunning to see columns of civilians acting as refugees, loaded up on the backs of slow moving trucks, with people walking behind the vehicles, trying to safely leave the center of the conflict, perhaps with some groups temporarily camping near the roads. Civilians would be especially challenging at night, with the limitations of NVDs. I can imagine how hard it would be not to open up on an old Ural packed with bodies, as most of the time those Urals are transporting infantry, but what if it was moving civilians? Makes my stomach tighten up just thinking about it.

thomsonb, if you're open to setting up potential armies to duke it out, I'd like to suggest offering up German units as friend/foe. One could roleplay out a WW III scenario if one so desired, with either the Germans acting as BLUFOR or OPFOR. It would be nice to see the Chinese forces added in there as well. I'm sure that you probably already have SJB's great UK units setup, but I'd urge some caution with using them, as there sadly seems to be an issue with the units and/or the UK weapons pack. A good chunk of people seem to be experiencing CTD events when those units are present.

[warleader6 10]

First of all,

this is a great mod, that is just plain awsome to play. The randomness and on going battles makes it superior to other mods in my opinion. so, great job.

I noticed, one of my squad members was badly injured, so i used the manage team to remove him from my squad. seconds later I came under fierce attack, so I decided to add him back. when I did this, he ws fully healed and not injured. I tested this a few other times, and it appears re-adding dropped members, heals them. Now, I could be mistaken perhaps, and if not, this would only be a minor bug. Is it a feature or a bug? thanks

[Kyle_K_ski 1]

Is it a feature or a bug?

I'd call that a FEATURE. lol

Having experienced injured teammates in Deep Sandbox, they are a chore to deal with, unless a strong and sensible support system is integrated into the mission. I mentioned in the Deep Sandbox thread about setting up a field hospital manned by a couple of "doctors" who could do major and full healings. The catch is that the worse the teammate/yourself are wounded, the longer it takes for the surgery to be finished, and the same would apply to recovery time from wooziness (which would impact one's ability to aim and navigate). Perhaps 1 min. surgery/0 min. recovery for light injuries, 2 min./1 min. for medium harm, and 3 min./2 min. for severe damage. During this time, the Player would have to defend the field hospital.

I also suggested periodic civilian "Red Cross/Red Crescent" ambulance trips near the perimeter of the action. The catch would be that these civilian ambulances would be accessible to ALL sides, so one never knows what one's going to find when they race to the flashing emergency lights! The ambulance would stay at a location for 10-15 min. before moving on someplace else to render services. Destroying the ambulance/harming the crew would lead to BIG penalties, such as boosted AI spawn numbers and perhaps a refusal of future services.

[thomsonb 3]

one of my squad members was badly injured, so i remove him from my squad. I decided to add him back. he ws fully healed and not injured. Is it a feature or a bug?

Hi warleader6

It is not a feature. It could be a good idea to add a healing system in the future I'l consider it.....

Its not really a bug either, what happens is the new team members show up as green icons when they join because you do not know about their status.

They are still injured, and if you ask their status by radio 5-5, they will call injured and show up red again.... it is a feature/bug of the game engine I guess.

Let me know if this happens for you or maybe I have missed the point?!

Well spotted, and thanks for your kind words, glad you like the mission!

B

[warleader6 10]

that is exactly whats happening. So thats fine by me, all good.

[Kieck 10]

-snip- Wrong thread.

Edited August 5, 2011 by Kieck

[JuggernautOfWar 1]

Great mission, but it'd be great to see the ability to use aircraft. Currently when you press "respawn" to change to another unit you may not select any aircraft, even directly above you.

[mrcash2009 0]

A good point, I would like to see ability to spawn to air.

[nodlew 10]

These missions are really great, tremendous fun to play. Thank you for making them.

[nodlew 10]

For those who have posted regarding wanting things like artillery and the ability to use aircraft--have you tried Loki's "Lost Key" mod in combination with Flashpoint: Takistan? With the Lost Key mod, you can do almost anything. Fly choppers, use any weapon you have available in the Editor, or any unit, or any vehicle. It is mind-boggling. You can call in massive artillery strikes, air strikes, etc.

[orcinus 121]

@thomsonb RE: healing system

I'm just trying out Gunter Severloh's updating of SLX for CO with this very mission - seems to run OK. Smartens the AI somewhat as well. See the thread

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=125806

Gunter has also cleaned up SLX for A2.

And many thanks for this, and for your other great Flashpoint missions. I have them all & play them often :)

BR

Orcinus

[kot1k 13]

Fantastic mission, but it REALLY lacks multiplayer support. At least a possibility to play it with a couple of friends.