[SP Campaign] M.E.R.C.S. - mercenary expendable ruthless covert selfish

I love the campaign soo much! The focus on character is great and more work should be poured in it. E.g. the hero should basically hate everyone in the camp (he is in a terrible situation), hate himself for being forced to kill people for money, and it should show in the dialogues (BTW what you did with the presentation is amazing). Instead he is already a satisfied merc in the first mission - that's not very believable or interesting.

Great, thanks! Raif has been in terrible situations as long as he can think. It's not new for him and from a rational point of view he has no other options than to comply to achieve his goal - a new life. And sometimes I try to let some conscience shine through. However, I want the player to help me develop Raif by giving him possibilities and choices. I want the player to decide whether Raif becomes an asshole or good guy or one of the 1000 shades between. For now, the smaller chocies within missions usually gain you some money in the short term and might have no long-term consequences. I'm planning some more tough decisions but hell, it's a lot of development work to create several "campaign flows", and then most players probably just play it one time and never see the extra stuff.^^ But nontheless, I still want you to think before you act:

Economy: The prices are generally too cheap - you really get what you want way too soon. The enemies should only have very basic equipement - basic rifles, no fancy SMGs and things (Vector is beast, a bit OP - no recoil). The rest you should be forced to buy for horrendous prices to be forced to use the money. The prices should be really brought up - especially for equipement like sniper scopes, NVGs, thermos and the rest. It doesn't have to be realistic, it should be challenging. Selling looted equipement should bring you very low money. You should have a plan fot the economy - knowing lets say that after 5 missions I want the player to be able to have this and that, but not that... The backpacks should be either not aviable, or (ironically) far more exensive. The weight the player can carry could be decreased - that all will make the economy system more managable. The prices should be based on usefulness to the player rather than on real prices - the scopes, especially thermo, should be really expensive.

The prices in your version are - let's say - suited to Alpha, so you can achieve some stuff and have some fancy equipment (like the Glass system) during the Alpha phase already. With including the possibility to sell stuff most prices doubled or tripled. And I have to keep a good balance here. Challenging - yes, frustrating - no. Part of M.E.R.C.S. is also the possibility to play unfair. Take an advantage of your dead colleagues or of harmless civies. Rob, steal, murder, cheat whatever you can - but it might cost you some friends later on. Other than that I have an advanced shop system for the second part of the campaign in mind.

Finally, the first part of the campaign should let you build up a solid gear so you can proceed to new challenges in the second part.

The missions should require equipement, not just recommend it - than it will force the player to spend the money. A bit less freedom, a lot more challenging if done right.

That was my idea at first but I kicked it due to various reasons. There would be situations where a player ran out of money to buy necessary gear and other missions to gain lacking money and thus would be grounded in the hub - meh. And I also want the player to solve a mission how he likes, I want you to be creative in finding a solution even if you lack the recommended resources. There's always a way in M.E.R.C.S. I only try to provide you with ideas to solve a mission but how you do it in the end is your choice (in certain borders of course). ;) To sum up: it's a design decision that I think is necessary.

There should be a safety against robbing killed teammate - like their weapons confiscated on arrival in the camp.

Unlike in the real world, Arma's weapons don't have serial numbers, means I can't track them. I cannot say where a player got which item, it's impossible, there's no way to identify a specific item and distinct it from others. And as stated before: You want to rob from the dead? Your choice, they won't need it anyway!

So, I hope you had fun with it and I'll do my best to keep it that way and improve some stuff here and there! :)

Good evening!

I've been working on the second hub and just want to show some of the (WIP) camp enhancements. Players will be able to purchase these enhancements via shop system. Each enhancement offers some advantage. Most of them will increase the defensive capabilities and staff strength of the hub but there will be also a vehicle "garage" with cars, a helipad and a boat which will offer new means of insertion / support during missions. Below a few before/after shots:

Camp:

Checkpoint:

Helipad:

Overview Position:

Sea Defences:

Good evening!

Happy to present another dev report. Programming and editing of the second hub is completed for now. Maybe some details here and there and it should be fine. That's one big step towards Beta, but the real work begins now: Creating new playable content. I'm going back into my development cave and leave you with two new shots:

Good morning!

Happy to announce that I've just finished the latest mission "Cleanup". Time is the key in this mission if you don't want to get hammered by the AAF airforce. I won't say more and leave you with the two obligatory development shots:

Oh, and I'm trying to get the steam roll-out for M.E.R.C.S. working but it seems like the devbranch publisher tool still has some issues. I'll get back to that once it's fixed, then you will be able to retrieve this project via Steam which should simplify the distribution of updates. Stay tuned!

Hey Indeedpete, now that Zeelex has released her mod on alpha stage, you may another hostage rescue mission, this time with a happier ending ;)

Yes, I saw she's making good progress, amazing work so far. However, I'll wait for a stable version and I have to be extra picky on 3rd party content because of the MANW contest. But I see to it to include it in post-contest work.

Besides, there are no happy endings in M.E.R.C.S., just like in Germany vs. Brazil. Sorry, but I had to bring this one. Didn't even see the match, just heard people screaming every two minutes. :D

As we say down here, "Blitzkrieg on our arse is like cold soda to others" but I think it may have been lost in translation ;)

It was a much needed "Reality Shock" so people can turn their heads back to real problems now, Danke (Me and my girlfriend family were some of the few laughing and joking with that horror show, there´s still some critic sense under the tropics, ya know 8) =D

PS: we had a tsunami of memes joking this massacre, one of the best quote: "Not even Volkswaggen factories can deliver 6 goals - VW sells here a car named Goal/Gol - in less than 45 minutes" rofl

PS2: yeah, no need for a happier end, I want Female MERCS to challenge those testosterone fueled brutes lol

Ha, yes, I've stumbled across tons of Nazi-Memes since yesterday. Funny that people are never tired of Nazi jokes even if most of the old Nazis in Germany should be dead by now. oO Nontheless, I have a rather dark sense of humor and find most of these jokes "hitlarious". :D

Brazil has its problems, that's true. I've only read some articles in the news papers prior to the world cup and sometimes thought: What the hell are these people doing?! Even if your country is as football fanatic as Germany, doing the world cup there and spending bazillions of reais is a waste of money and people in my opinion. But politicians in Germany are also trying to put some unpopular laws through while everybody is busy watching the world cup. And I'd gladly pass up on seeing my beloved chancelorette cheering for the national team while there are more pressing mattters back home. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I will think of something to utilise female bodies once the mod is complete. I totally want to do something with CSAT. It's a great faction but you can't really do anything deeper with just !three! Iranian faces. xX During M.E.R.C.S, I have introduced a united European faction, two mercenary organisations, and some other minor factions. That's a good start for my own armaverse I'd say. Post-contest I want to bring some light to the totally underrated CSAT faction, turning them from the standard terrorist evil into a modern (mostly Islamic) union of states with their own goals and interests. And I want to do some advanced high command. I already have some ideas that don't quite fit M.E.R.C.S.

Maybe a medium-ranking, female CSAT officer with some mission on a totally different island (Altis is great, but I need some change...) climbing her way up? Just some rough ideas, we'll see. For now, I'll stick to what I call a "plan" and try to finish this project before 28th of Octobre.

Custom rank insignias implemented! I only wish it would be able to apply them on the right / both sides of a uniform.

In other news, Kydoimos published a free-to-use poster for the Health-Care-In-Danger-Award which I gladly put up in M.E.R.C.S. Good work, mate!

IndeedPete, you should add a poster of the Quadchampionship of German soccer team somewhere at the Ion base ;)

"We R Ze Champions" =D

And I aprove the CSAT Badass Female officer idea, looking forward it!

cheers!

Hm, that's actually a good idea. I could also make up some fan clothing texture for the German character. :D

---------- Post added at 03:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:51 AM ----------

I'm not much of a football fan but I think this occasion is special enough for a poster or billboard.

Good evening!

I'm happy to present you the latest dev report as I've finished work on one of the major story missions. I don't want to spoil too much ahead but "Force Recon" puts you under the command of Raif's good friend Ian McMillian. The duo has the task to scout out one of the research facilities. Enough said, two more shots:

In other news I've planned to release the steam version of M.E.R.C.S. with the Arma 3 update 1.24. Addon support for the publisher is working, however the game is not able of handling the campaign tag yet causing the campaign to not show up in the menu. I could do a workaround by making a proper addon from it but I've decided to be patient and wait for the fix which has been announced (more or less) by one of the devs here.

Lastly, Surfer has been as supportive as always and helped me big time with his rework of the awesome Deep Space Engineering (DSE) logo:

Again, all my appreciation and thanks for this great work! I hope to continue work with my "chief graphic designer" in exchange for providing him with my limited editing & scripting knowledge.

Stay tuned, guys!;)

Sounds great!

Good night!

I'd like to introduce you to the Dutch EUROFORCE fighter pilot "Captain Adriaan 'Bliksem' de Groot", callsign "Badass One" and his custom (WIP) A-164 WIPEOUT:

In the mission I'm currently working on I'd like to add some diversity to the rather infantry-based M.E.R.C.S. mission design by putting the player into a pilot seat (optional) while good old Raif is down on the ground lasing targets and providing BDA. I'm testing if the concept prooves to be both fun and challenging. So far, I've made the experience that I'm shitty at flying a plane hence I'd love to see a good tutorial for that... :D

Stay tuned for more intel!

P.S. Thanks again to Surfer for helping with the textures and providing creative support!

Great! Air missions - as optional, cus some guys hate flying - is a great addition and I´m really looking forward them! Hope to see more of this kind of experimentalism on your awesome campaign, IndeedPete!

Gosh, that flyboy is a Dutch fella, so we´ll have a real "Flying Dutchman" on this mission lol...

Oh hell, 'Flying Dutchman' is a way better nickname. How could I not think oft that one?! Thanks, great I didn't paint bis name on the plane yet. ;)

Flying will be totally optional. At the moment the player lases targets as he sees fit (provided he brought a Laserdesignator) which get saved for later. Then he calls in the CAS and after a small cutscene gets switched into the pilot seat. But players can switch back if they wish. However, some targets must be destroyed to complete the mission.

I still need to work out the details. But if it prooves to be fun I might add more vehicle missions in the future. Sadly, even the official BIS content features slim to none vehicle gameplay.

Thanks for making this, IndeedPete. I'm currently trying to do the "Checkpoint Charlie" mission, but it doesn't end.

I have restarted it twice, and here's what happens each time

Played with: campaign v0.54, ArmA 3 1.24, no mods used.

Hey Killswitch, I'm sorry but that's kind of a bug in this version. The problem is that two enemy AI guys in a car refuse to engage the checkpoint and drive to a certain point where they get stuck in like nine of ten cases. I've tried a thousand different things to get them moving to their waypoint to engage the checkpoint but they simply say 'F*** it!' and drive away. They're not really fleeing because they don't run away randomly (and fleeing is disabled anyway). Instead they move to the exact same point every time like a fly towards light. I think I'll simply remove them in the next version because, as you've noticed, it's kind of a game breaker as the mission is only completed once you've killed all FIA troops. Anyway, to let you progress try the following in the debug console (Esc) once you're stuck:

{
if (side _x == east) then {
	_x setDamage 1;
};
} forEach allUnits;

Or you can (in any contract mission) skip right back to the hub with:

["Hub01", true, true] call IP_fnc_endMission;

Hope you enjoy the rest of the campaign!

I am looking greatly forward to this campaign. I want to play it so bad as-is right now but I really want to wait until it's complete.

Glad to hear that, your interest is appreciated!

Of course I understand people who wish to wait until it's complete and I'm working on it on a daily basis. However, it really is like side job by now. Next to my regular side job and those little things called university and real life (*ugh* people :D) which should get most of my attention. :)

Doing my best to stay productive and finish at least the Beta before the contest deadline.

By the way, spoiler ahead!

---------- Post added at 02:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:01 AM ----------

Good news!

I've just finished my CAS mission "Badass One" and must say I'm positively surprised that it works and is fun to play both as pilot and as spotter. As usual the latest shots:

Furthermore, I've started to rework the weather / ppEffects because some players found the "Glow" was too strong. For now, I've limited this really bright effect to appear only when the weather is sunny. Below is a comparison of the same situation and time but with three different weather templates "Sunny", "Light Fog", "Rainstorm":

Lastly, because I really start to enjoy bombing the shit out of those poor Greenbacks a few additional shot of Flying Dutchman's "Badass One" in action:

Hi there!

Latest dev report: I've recently finished work on "Close Quarters Battle" which throws Raif right into an urban warzone. The task is to extract a covert CSAT operative from Kavala while FIA supported by EUROFORCE is moving into the city from the north and AAF forces trying a counterattack from the south, leaving only a small window of opportunity for the player if he doesn't want to get annihilated between the fronts.

Stay tuned!

Great, escort mission as fun, as long as the AI being escorted isn´t dumb enough to expose itself to enemy fire at every corner or at least have some "extra health" to endure some punishment before failing our escort mission - or else those are pretty damn hard missions to complete... but I trust your judgement and gameplay savy to make this a quite enjoyable mission ;)

cheers!

Well, let's say this CSAT officer has something on him which is worth more than his life. And the client just cares for that precious part. However, if the guy dies it might have some (not too big) impact on the story line. ;)

Enough said. But from a gameplay point of view, the AI tends to stuck or move insanely slow through cities which is kind of annoying. And then there's the poor performance in large cities. Around 100 AI in Kavala bring my rig down to its knees, but it's just a small laptop, not made for gaming. I hope you guys have better equipment than I do. Even unit caching is problematic on such small areas. And despite my efforts to make the city looking more alive, it's still like a ghost town because all houses are empty and I can't waste too much performance on ambient objects and civies etc. The huge a** battle I had in mind is just not feasible but the experience is geat so far, urban fighting is a good challenge after all.