Ascorius

Operation Spartan Shield v 1.3 By Ascorius and Juvial Story: In a push to get total control of the Mediterranean Sea, NATO has decided to strike Stratis next. To eliminate the Iranian presence, an invasion is necessary. But since forces are stretched thin, command has decided they will insert a SEAL team first to eliminate certain Iranian assets to lower their fighting capability (Yeah not very inventive, we all have NATO invades Stratis stories now hehe). Objectives: Insert on the beach Destroy the southern and northern mortar teams Destroy the two attack helicopters Exfiltrate Optional: Kill the defector Description: The mission is set up as a search and destroy mission with focus on stealth. The enemy forces have a very high amount of reinforcements in case you try to kill them all (Do be aware that the reinforcements travel from logical locations instead of just spawning close to you). Most playthroughs will be very different, one playthrough might feel way too hard, but the next might feel easy (up to a point normally... thats how it is with randomized missions). Features: DAC Randomized objective locations, do recon to find them. Dynamic enemies. Varying number of enemy patrols, random patrol routes, and random enemy patrol strength and enemy skill. Mission starts at random time of day The mission makes use of most of Stratis Enemy forces ask for reinforcement, and they will converge on you quickly. Synched weather for multiplayer Notes: We wanted to make a mission using DAC that made use of most of Stratis, and this is what we ended up with. DAC actually functions very well with A3, but has some smaller issues, though other functions work better than they did in A2. Just don't try to engage everything you see unless you have a very organized group (Organized group thought it was easy in testing, unorganized group thought it was impossible). The mission probably has several issues (like most missions have), so please don't hesitate with calling them out, we will fix them :) One issue I know about is that you will end up with wrong time of day if you JIP, and I could add a script to synch it, but currently I am too tired after too much fun with the A3 editor. DL LINKS: http://rapidshare.com/files/2504992427/Co_08_SpartanShield_v1-3.Stratis.pbo , http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?151u6jr20e8ituf Changelog: Version 1.3: Fixed the mission so it works with the new alpha version. Tweaked AI behaviour again (Vehicles and vehicle patrols should act alot smarter now). Fixed a small bug with the defector. Tweaked number of patrols and areas they patrol. The radius of the artillery barrage is alot tighter now. Added minor polish here and there. Version 1.2: Added an optional objective to kill a defector (This can be a very hard task depending on randomization). Added an option to call in an artillery barrage through the radio menu. Changed the loadout of the group. Giving them more options (Long range scopes, suppressors, one member gets a marksman rifle etc). Further randomized the objective locations. Removed the static checkpoints and replaced them with randomized checkpoints. Randomized which bases/areas gets heavy fortifications. Tweaked the AI behaviour. Slightly changed some DAC zones. Moved the starting location a bit closer to the beach. Quickfix: Updated the DL links with a working version A youtube video of some guys playing through the 1.1 version of the mission:

I have gone back to doing stuff for A2 again for a while (Not alot to play around with in A3 yet), but I don't think there should be any new bugs in the mission because of newer alpha versions. Unless they have changed something like class names. But if you know about any specific bugs, I can fix them.

@Mindstorm: Correct, I have not made a revive version yet because I haven't found a satisfactory solution to revive in A3. But you can respawn as AI squadmembers that are still alive if you choose to play with AI activated. Meaning group respawn is activated now.

Just uploaded 1.3. I wanted to add more things to this version, but the new alpha version forced my hand (The cool stuff will have to wait until 1.4). Anyways, this version has alot better AI behaviour imo.

@Ekin06: Yeah, it got postponed, and I still need to iron out smaller bugs. But the AI behaviour is really improved in some ways in 1.3, the artillery barrage and other tweaks/bugfixes are also in place. @BigShot: Well, if you are having problems finding the mortars you can split into two teams and recce different areas. I can guarantee you the mortars are in the marked areas, though sometimes it will be harder to find than others. @Kommeikat: Yeah you can play it in SP with the AI :)

1.3 coming out later today. The revive version will be postponed though, I tried porting norrins revive, and it worked quite well except for one bug that I couldnt accept releasing it with. BTC revive will not be implemented as it does not have the features I want in a revive script for the mission.

Disabling respawn doesnt work I think. You will respawn when your timer runs out even if it is set to disabled. The player should die if the timer runs out, I think thats why people want to be able to disable respawn, so if no medic revives you, you are dead. I will take another look at the script, I might be wrong.

Expecting mission makers to create/update missions for a constantly changing dev build is silly imo. If you choose to use the dev build, you will ofcourse run into problems. But if you want to modify it to work on a devbuild server, just remember to go into the DAC folder, then the configs folder, open the unit conig and change the classnames of the ifrit so Ifrits are actually spawned :) Editing the mission.sqm will also be needed ofcourse.

Just be careful when modifying the mission. I have seen people make some mistakes while doing this. They set the start location of the group of the beach for example, but if you do this, the southern patrols will not activate because of the way it is set up. I have also seen some people add new slots or change a slot without naming the player units correctly... they need to be named s1, s2, s3 etc etc (If you dont do this, you can break the waypoint generation and you will get patrols that just stand still).

I never understood it either. But we cant complain really. Arma has always thrived on custom game modes, and if this is the fad, then so be it. I think alot of people enjoy wasteland, especially among new players, because they dont actually have to cooperate at a higher level to win. They can just do their own thing. Personally I dislike the game mode since I want missions that require very organized coop play, and even when people are trying to coop in wasteland it ends up with what I would classify as horrible gameplay. But you cant complain about people liking it. What annoys me are streamers/youtubers that make people think that wasteland is the epitome of coop play ... and these are videos from beginners that dont even know how to do a proper contact report (Sacriel *cough cough*), people that have no chance of even finishing a medium level coop mission. Hopefully more players will get steerded towards good, organized TvT or hard coop after a while. (Disclaimer: The design of wasteland is so well done, so I shouldnt really say anything ... I am just venting).

Awesome to hear that you guys love the mission, Ekin06. Comments like yours really make the effort of making missions worth it :)

Gah, proper organized, and good gameplay in arma has always been between groups that organize games. You just get shit gameplay on public servers anyways. And how the HELL can you organize leaderboards for a game that has an infinite amount of game modes? This idea isnt thought through.

Thanks for the feedback El_muerko. I will add a version with revive with the next version then. MIght not happen instantly, since I am trying to find someone to cooperate with on my next mission. But anyways, I love feedback in any form as long as its constructive.

Alot of people ask for revive now. Personally I dislike revive, but I can add it in a revive version I guess. But the design idea of the mission totally crashes with revive... and from personal experience revive only becomes fun if you are under constant fire. So would the people that want revive, want a version with revive and 2x or 3x more patrols? Or do you just want it to stay the same in the revive version.

Simple but good missions. Only concern is that I tried them in single player, and that they were quite easy. Coop 10-14 etc is too easy for these. I would recommend playing them with fewer players. EDIT: this does not go for all of the missions, some are quite hard. And props to Nkenny

I am working on a couple more no-respawn missions (highly randomized/dynamic like Operation Spartan Shield... though I dunno if there actually is a demand for missions like that), but as bootsy said, its hard... especially since things become boring quick if you have no assets to make something a bit unique. You can make soldiers/civs look quite unique by randomizing their loadout/clothing through scripting, but other than that...

There, released version 1.2. I edited the top post to show the changes. Should be alot more polished now, and even more randomization yeah, hehe. Download links are also updated.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I am working on an updated version right now. I will not add revive or respawn (Personally I think missions with revive just turn into cakewalks with no real challenge). But I am changing the loadout a bit, and I am also making the mission a bit easier by adding some support functions (You can call in a 120mm artillery barrage and Littlebird support).

Yeah I should probably get rid of the weather, in some cases it doesnt look very good. But I will make a new version with some updated DAC settings (certain functions only makes the a3 ai screwy).

I could add group respawn I guess (so you can respawn as AI squad members that are still alive), but I don't want to add other forms of respawn, since I prefer missions that make you fear dying somewhat.

Thank you for informing me. And you were right, for some weird reason it didnt show. But I uploaded a new pbo that I just triple checked, it should show up. The DL links are updated.

You are joking right? What would be the benefits? You already have the merge function ... you tell your friend to make certain aspects of the mission, then you make some other, afterwards you merge... voila. There you go multi person editor. For scripts its the same. Just give them to your friend or the other way around.

Use the setDamage command. An easy way would be to use a trigger, and to use setDamage 1 to any player that enters it. You can set a perimeter outside the "killfield" with another trigger that gives you a warning with hint, titletext or radio for example. That would be the easy way at least.

Might I be right when I guess that you dont have the scripts in your C:\Users\***\Documents\Arma 3 Alpha - Other Profiles\**my username**\MPmissions\**my mission name**" folder, and you try to start the mission from that? BTW you should never have to save scripts to the steam/main directory folder, that is for the PBO's you export.

I have just submitted it to armaholic