xxbbcc

Kronzky, I know that the current version is 0.13, but I'd still like to report the city bug for 0.12, since you mentioned that this should be fixed. I uploaded a saved game archve with two saved games from 0.12 where Ortego and Dolores are immediately cleared when I enter them. It happens whther I enter the cities on foot or by tank or truck; I haven't tried choppers. (.19 is the actual save with the problem, .18 is for 7 minutes earlier.) Here is the link for the save games: Link I'll try to play 0.13 and see if I still get this problem. I'm sorry for the false report if this is already fixed; if not, I hope it'll help fixing it. Thanks, xxbbcc PS: I used the ModWarSound addon, you might need it to load the games.

Kronzky, I must say your SP mission really made ArmA a good experience for me. The latest version (I think I still have 10.1, I'll DL the real latest tonight) is very good and playable. It's a shame that you had to jump through hoops to work around ArmA, but hopefully BIS will take care of the problems. Thanks again for this one.

Kronzky, Thank you very much for this mission, it's very good! And with the savegame issue (mostly) gone, I can actually try clearing the first town.

I think many people who mention "stop complaining and go play coop" forget that that may not be an option. I'm a software engineer and lead a development team, so my work day is ~10 hours long. After that I most definitely have no time/motivation for coop - I simply want to shoot up a few things (not Quake-style, but OFP/ArmA style) and then be done with it. With the current 1.08 version that's almost impossible, because I cannot save most missions (I can but reload is as good as nonexistent.) The bad AI makes playing frustrating, etc, etc, etc. All in all, I find Arma (as I stated before) a huge letdown. It helps me not that the coop might be working. What W0lle said about BIS having multiple teams for the different things they do might be true, but I agree that they do seem quite lost in the woods. I'm not saying that that's the case, but it sure looks like that. It'd be nice to see a release/bugfix schedule so that everyone has at least an idea as to how much to wait.

So far I tried to keep a positive attitude towards this game, but frankly, I've yet to see an AI implementation as thoroughly worthless, incompetent and effed up as in ArmA. I started with 1.06, and with 1.08, it's still pretty much like playing a proof-of-concept. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must've been like for those who started with 1.0. I promise to BIS that I will not buy any expansions for this game until all AI-related and wall-hack problems are fully fixed, to my satisfaction. This game is almost next to unplayable in SP mode, because enemy AI can shoot through walls (not fences but entire buildings, for God's sake! ), while friendly AI cannot find their way through a bridge as wide as the entire island of Nogova. Reloading a saved game is - for all practical reasons - a nonexistent feature. I could go on with all the problems, but there is no point. I find it absolutely unacceptable and insulting that mission makers like Kronzky, MrN, etc. invest a lot of time in making good missions and then the incomplete game engine destroys them. I really, really wanted to love Arma (and still want to, as much as I love OFP), but I flat out refuse to support this kind of a ripoff. I really hope that BIS management reads these messages and they fully realize what kind of a strategic mistake it would be to send an expansion to manufacturing before fixing the game, because again: I refuse to support this. Over time (and maybe after another 5-6 1GB patches) I might change my mind, but right now, I beginning to really hate this game.

Kronzky, Very nice mission, thank you for making it! The code system is good, too, I already got to the point where the cannot be loaded back but the code at least made it possible to not have to restart from the very start. I'd also like to ask for a new feature: the ability to select time of day (from the radio menu, maybe.) The reason for this is that most SP missions out there are played during the night and I'd like to be able to play at least some missions during daytime, as I find that more interesting. So being able to set the time (like morning, noon, afternoon, night) would be nice. Thanks again for this mission!

I noticed this, too. On 1.06, the game was running smooth, but not it definitely feels sluggish, on the same graphics settings. My computer is running a lot more louder, so the fans have to kick in a lot more, meaning that the processor/video card is running a lot more, to generate ghe same visual output. (I haven't seen any graphical improvements in 1.08 as compared to 1.06.)

I tend to think that BIS did the right thing by releasing the game as it was. (I must admit that I never had the very original problems, since I got the US version, which was already at 1.06.) I can easily see the decision they faced: release it, buggy as it was or drop the project. I'm a software engineer and I saw the same situation a few times in the past, and BIS (and people at BIS) has bills to pay - there is no good choice in a case like that. Of course, I'm somewhat disappointed by seeing the bugs that are there in the game, but I also have faith in BIS, that they're working on them. (And I expect them, too, since now they have the income they needed.) And having it this way is still better than scrapping the whole thing, due to uninterest from big publishers. (Who, by that way, don't publish anything even remotely risky anymore. EA, anyone?) I feel very sorry for those who still have all kinds of problems (I would be very frustrated if it happened to me) - I guess I'm lucky with my rig, but I don't feel cheated at all with ArmA so far. I ask you to think about this: would you be happier if the entire game was dropped? At least now you still have a chance of getting it working. And to make it clear: I still expect BIS guys to keep fixing things - it's one thing that I'm not angry about the stunt they pulled to get money coming in, but of course I still want a well working game with features as advertised and expected. (And extra content, too. ) But for now, I think they did a good job, even if others don't agree.

MrN, For the manual/automatic mission selection, couldn't you add a window with two buttons at teh beginning of the mission and then save the selected value? If a user selected then manual mission selection, then you simply put up the same dialog with the buttons that you have in your current release. I'm only voting for the manual style, because then I can always select the mission type that I want. (I don't mind replaying similar types, if they're good.) And anyway, I already earned manual mission selection: I had a hero rating of 1438 when I stopped playing. The enemy had a morale of -76. As for ammo restocking: I agree with you on being conservative on ammo use, but having some resupply options would help anyway. I don't mind if a mission is long, just want to have a minimal chance of winning. (I didn't really want to give up the long mission, but because of the too many enemies, I had no choice.) Having a resupply option would make it more realistic, imo - it'd help with longer missions (or with ones with many enemies.) Overall, I like your mission a lot and wouldn't mind seeing a lot of extra mission types. Good job - looking forward to the new version after the patch.

I'd vote for keeping the manual mission selection and removing the focus/relax/bullet cam menus (or at least having an option of removing them.) They look neat at first, but it's very annoying that they're at the top of the action menu and all, much more important items can only be accessed after scrolling. Bulletcam is also useless during an actual fight, since it distracts from the targets and the situation. Also, having a lot more open vehicles (trucks/buses) all over the island would help a lot - when I played the mission (which I finally gave up because of the unending flow of enemy soldiers) I got sent to locations all over the map and I had to walk to everywhere. I found a bus in one of the locations but that got shot very soon and I couldn't find anything else. Also, having some ammo crates around would be nice (although, of course weapons can be taken from enemy soldiers), but it's a pain, since most missions are so enemy-intensive, that the original loadout doesn't last through 1/4-th of the mission. This is waaay unrealistic. Having ammo crates (or callable support trucks/helos) would help a lot with this. In the assault mission type, the location for assault changes without warning/notification: the original mission was in one town ad then later on when I opened the map, the marker was on a different town (on the opposite edge of the island.) This is more of a bug, since it makes for very unrealistic missions, where a small squad has to fight the entire island without any supplies, any medical help (if the medic is shot, there is no way to replace him. Maybe the player could go back to the US base, but that's so far away without vehicles, that it's not really an option.) When the mission target area changes, it'd be nice to have a notification about that and to make sure that the new location is within a certain distance from the original one - this would give the feeling that the enemy is indeed localized to a certain area. All in all, this is a nice mission, but I feel that it could benefit from a few tweaks. Being a free mission, still many thanks to MrN for working on it.

It also crashes very frequently in 1.06 when trying to reload the game. Also, enemy soldiers seem to be generated randomly, out of thin air. I got into an "ambush" in an already cleared area, where more than 200+ appeared already (coming from all directions, almost evenly distributed) and my entire team finally got killed because everyone ran out of ammo. (By this time everyone on the team was using AK-s, because everyone ran out of original ammo long before.) The enemy soldiers still kept coming, from all directions. The mission didn't end, even though I cleared 11 locations - when I try calling the evac chopper, nothing happens. (I think I selected assault.) This seems like a bug.

Kronzky, Thanks for the changes, now it works fine in 1.06! xxbbcc

I agee with RangerX3X that this mission is cr@p. I blew up the convoy even before the town and the chopper was shot down very far out, over the water, when I couldn't even see it without binoculars. The shots came from a large distance and I'm using 1.06, in which tanks don't engage choppers, I think.) Also, the chopper crashed on its own so many times that I lost count. And it's not cr@ppy intel, its cr@ppy mission design, really - see my previous post in this thread about the enemy soldiers placed exactly around the landing zone, facing the player's only possible approach direction. Such design makes for unrealistic missions. Kronzky's version is a *lot* better - the original BIS mission is almost unplayable.

I agree, it is very annoying and it happens very frequently. It's sometimes very hard to target because the sight covers up the view.

Well, my point was that you wait till you see the rest of the campaign. I'm willing to bet you won't find this particular mission that much unrealistic if you see the rest. With the AI as of now, I think in many cases having a group in SP missions is more of a hindrance than any help. If the AI gets better, this will change, but I didn't mind that it was a solo mission. And come on, where did you find any immersion in the official campaign to begin with? I sure didn't.

At first, you have an empty gun and 5 satchel charges. You need the charges to blow up the bridge anyway, so put those down quickly and then you can sprint to the ammo crate to rearm. THere are a few weapons there and ammo, too. I didn't feel this particular mission so unrealistic. Wait till you do more...

I did this Rambo-style: ordered all my men to go prone and wait for me in the camp site. I then ran ahead a bit to the edge of the clearing in front of the camp, hid behind a tree and sniped down all enemy soldiers as they appeared. The few that got closer to the camp got shot down by my men. I got shot many times, of course, but finally pulled it of. Trying to use any kind of tactics was so futile - the friendly AI is so weak that they were shredded in seconds. Of course, the enemy AI tracking doesn't help, either. Hopefully the AI will be much better in 1.07 and later patches.

Snake Man, I have the same problems on the shilka mission: I blew up the shilkas (using RPGs), killed the enemy squads around the sites), yet the mission doesn't end. The objectives are not checked (neither of them.) Can you please take a look and see if you can wrangle it a bit to behave? I really like your campaign and would like to finish it. I have the 1.06 version, if that helps. Thanks for the missions!

I'm sorry, I didn't know that. I tend to only play SP missions, there I didn't see any changes.

I also have the crash when hitting the 2nd standing soldier. I try to reproduce it to see if it's consistent. I'm using the 1.06 US version and copied all files to the mission folder. Edit: I get consistent crashes when (or after) the 2nd human target is hit. I can hit any number of the red targets, but hitting the 2nd human (or the 3rd) causes a crash. When hitting a human target, I don't see a death animation - the target simply disappears. The crash happens when the target is down (humans seem to take 2 shots to go down), but is still on the screen. The unit's stance (standing/kneeling/prone) doesn't seem to matter.

I think it's actually good that the squad command interface hasn't changed - that was a pain to learn it in OFP and I'm glad I don't have to do it again. And - even though I agree that the campaign sucks @ss - I still like ArmA. Hopefully, the bugs get fixed soon, though - I seriously hope those are the things that are being worked on. You can, however, download user-made SP missions for ArmA - some of them are good. I did the same thing after completing the campaign, since it was short and uninspired.

Dual-core support would be really nice. All of my computers are dual core, and a game like ArmA should really take advantage of it. And, of course, bug fixes.

Yes, that would be very nice. The English sounds in the US release SUCK.

I decided to compile this list of problems that I found in the US version, hoping that it'll help BIS to fix them sooner. I must say that I'm a bit disappointed by the campaign and the SP missions: they seem to be much shorter than the missions were in OFP. (I must admit, that I played OFP:GOTY, so I had multiple campaigns right away, but I finished all ArmA-included missions in 4 days.) I primarily play SP missions and the built-in SP campaign feels like a letdown. Anyway, here are the problems that I found: 1. Map scrolling Scrolling the map with the mouse doesn't work well - I was never able to scroll the map upward and frequently had problems scrolling sideways or down. The crosshair follows the mouse, but when it gets close to the screen edge, it breaks down and stops. Scrolling with the keyboard or right-clicking the map seems to work fine. 2. Script error in SP:Blood, Sweat & Tears Happened when I got into the chopper to shoot up the enemy base. I also reported it here. Here is the error: <table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE">_actual = _allteams |#| select _n; if(canstand _actual) then {[... Error Zero Divisor 3. Mission can proceed only if stepping on waypoint markers This is not really a bug and the ability to temporarily showing the markers helps a bit, but I find it very annoying and unrealistic. It happened several times that I accidentally passed the required spot and had to run back. 4. Mission briefing The text is frequently clipped on the right egde in mission briefing on the Plan/Notes pages. It's still readable (mostly a single letter is missing), but it looks bad. 5. Mission briefing - Notes This one is not an actual bug, but it takes a lot away from the mood. The mission notes are really mixed - on one of the campaing missions, I found an entry from OFP, signed by David. Some of the notes are actually instructions/hints to the player and some of them seem to be like personal logs of the main character. The end result is a mess - I stopped reading them completely, since they seem to have little relevance to the game (if any.) In OFP, they added a lot. Also, some of the sentences seem weird, not very English-like. I'm not 100% sure, since I'm not a native English speaker. 6. Enemies don't die when blown up This one I consider a very serious bug and I got killed because of it several times. An enemy soldier is standing next to a truck/UAZ (very close, less than 1-3m distance.) When the vehicle is shot with an RPG, it blows up right away, however, the enemy soldier survives the attack and is able to fire. This happened to me at least 5 times and I always got shot by the soldier right away. On the other hand, when I was hiding behind a vehicle that was blown up, I died. 7. Team member got stuck on open road It happened in the campaing mission where 3 M1A1 tanks attack two enemy bases. When I reached the first base, I ordered my team out of the tanks and one of them got stuck on the road, not being able to move away. He also cannot stand up. I have a saved game with this problem. 8. AI driving The AI would need a bit of work to be able to drive in any reasonable way. In the mission where two HMMWVs are used to hunt down two enemy transport trucks, the cars have to pass a narrow bridge - this is something that the AI driver couldn't do after ~30 tries. I finally gave up on it and did the entire mission without team members. AI drivers also frequently hit friendlies. (I don't mind it if an enemy driver does that to his teammates, though. ) 9. Weapon sights This is not a bug, but it'd be nice to have darker weapon sights. The current one are so light, that it's very frequently impossible to aim, because the sight is just not visible against the background. It's not a problem with my brightness/gamma setting, because the rest of the image is fine. 10. Convoy Ambush SP mission extraction problem It still happens in the US version - I had to try (reload) at least 20-30 times before the helicopter finally landed (away from the landing zone.) As far as I know, the area was clear of enemies, still it was shot down by something several times. On a few occasions, it landed and the pilot got out immediately. 11. Super-aware AI As mentioned by others, enemy units seems to have exact knowledge of the player's location, no matter what. I'm not sure if this is a bug or I got this feeling because of my inability to hide properly, but it seems strange when I get shot by a soldier far away when I'm standing in the middle of a bush. 12. Super-targeting AI It seems like enemy units can deliver exact shots from large distances on a regular basis, including frequent immediate hits with RPGs, machine guns, etc. This becomes extremely annoying, because - combined with #11 - it makes hiding impossible. Lowering the enemySkill value in the config file seem to have helped a bit. Maybe this is not a bug. Edit: posted accidentally, before being finished.

Thank you for that link, I didn't know about it! I'll take a look and see if these are already there.