Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

In this post, I am going to try and explain the concept for a Guerrilla mission that i personally think is going to be the foundation of a very grand and large scale coop mission. It is still at the conceptual stage where i brainstorm ideas, themes and details to form the framework of the level, i am looking for feedback and suggestions to improve it, thank you for reading....


This is going to be a guerrilla mission that revolves around scavenging for equipment. By default the FIA classe are poorly equipped, ineffective, weak and generally have the worst gear. The primary objective of the FIA rebels will be to assassinate a HVT officer who is inside a tank with many other tanks/armored vehicles escorting him. The players will start with low everything(ammo, weapons, gear) and have to acquire better weapons/tools/equipment before they can assault the officer and his escort.
The goal is to force players to conserve resources(bullets, grenades, health..) while wisely using what they have to increase their current resources. The leader will have to analyze his whole team's inventory and make tactical decisions on how to increase their firepower by stealing/scavenging from heavily armed enemies.
Guerrilla tactics like ambushes, Hit n Run raids, feigning assaults and whatever else will be absolutely necessary to complete the mission. However instead of deciding for the players where and how to attack as the mission designer, it will be like an open world experience where you are given a set of intel about locations/operations/activities on Altis and you decide where to attack and how to do it.
The convoy moves around the map in a set pattern as the officer "patrols" bases around the island in a big circle. The endgame will be to set up a huge ambush at any location you decide that can destroy all the tanks and kill the officer. I think makes for a more openworld experience instead of the mission maker deciding for you where to set up the ambush and how much time you have until the target arrives.

I intend for some roleplaying themes, so the players will start in a rebel base hidden deep inside a forest. You spawn with minimal AT equipment, 2 launchers with only a few rockets and some mines. Procuring AT weapons will be a top priority to complete this misson. According to the story: The FIA rebels are fighting the government of Altis but are under equipped so NATO sends in a small team of CTRG(4 players) to deliver them supplies(a few grenades and other things) and assist them with killing the HVT officer. CTRG has to go deep inside the forest to find the hidden rebel base and meet with the leader, while the fia wait at the base for supplies to arrive. While waiting at the base, there is a surprise attack on the base and the CTRG guys have to find and save them. When this first wave is over then the mission begins and all players move out. I thought it would be funny having a few high tech guys with pockets stuffed with awesome gear and weapons (gps, backpacks, rangefinder, helmets, DMRs, scopes, toolkits...) fighting alongside a large group of rebels with barebones weapons.

Locations to attack will be anything from supply bases, convoys, roadblocks... and they will have enemy resistance proportionate to the value of items they store. Eg: a titan launcher storage base will be more heavily guarded than an ammo warehouse. You can steal vehicles at depots that are the most heavily defended locations or defuse and grab the mines in a minefield(beggars) then run away before a fight starts to conserve ammo. Basically players are given a set of choices and you decide what to do in order to finish the final task.

I hope i have explained clearly enough for people to understand because it was quite a mouthful explaining the concepts and ideas so i might speak in incohesive language. The main problem i find with this mission is that it will be a LONG LONG game, more than 3 hours at least and people generally dont have an attention span that long for a single mission. So this is it guys, any ideas, suggestions about how to make this mission for 12 fia rebels and 4 CTRG soliders. I found the excellent location for a rebel base deep in the forest but thats it.

Heres the dyslexci video about guerilla warfare that should give you a very good amount of background knowledge about fighting as rebels. If you can find ways i can incorporate the principals into this mission include it in your suggestions

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(08-28-2014, 12:43 PM)Watchmen link Wrote: [ -> ]The main problem i find with this mission is that it will be a LONG LONG game, more than 3 hours at least and people generally dont have an attention span that long for a single mission.

I don't think that this has anything to do with attention span. 3 hours is a long time for a mission, especially if you plan ahead for three hours, because it will usually take longer.

The major problem with that length, though, is when someone dies after half an hour and has to sit it out. Basically, he can disconnect at this point because he will most likely not be playing again that evening.

Bottom line, I HIGHLY recommend against making a mission intentionally as long as that.

If its going to be long, I rather just split up the objectives into mini mission and make this a mini campaign instead. 3 hours is way too long for a coop night. Wait time for each coop night for hours isn't going to happen. For guerilla missions, I'd like some OFP resistance style stuff or just some hit and run Mission 1: Steal ammo or something. Mission 2: etc etc. Nevertheless, splitting it up to smaller parts are better than one GIANT huge mission like that. I can imagine the time spent walking aimlessly would be unbearable.

I see the mission is in spirit of OFP Resistance and that I like, but problem is as pointed what to do with such lengthy mission. Splitting it in shorter missions is ok, but then you lose some of excitement, like, you value your ingame life more if you know that getting killed means waiting few hours for another round. Plus, it would make weapons collecting not so important. I would play such mission but it's probably best to dedicate special night for it, where you have to accept that if you die you have to say goodbye.

Then how could you include so much content into a single level and keep it below three hours? Any ideas guys because this is a real problem and i dont want to compromise on the "no fixed objectives" part.

I think is a question you have to answer since you are the only one knowing what story you wanna tell.

Problem with long mission is that you really need to dedicate scripts to keep map clean of dropped objects, bodies, memory and any other things that can generate lag or conflicts like variables, IDs, vehicles... unless if you plan for a sandbox mission where you don't need too much consistency, you just want to have some particular type of objectives fixed or not, and after each objective you can clean up everything and basically reset the mission.

I think you have to decide for whom you want to make missions, people with experience, players with a lot of time to play, casual players so on ... and that would determine the length.

I, for instance, don't have too much time to play besides those 3-4 hours spent on CiA night and ideally a mission will take 1 hour at the maximum, is it something i tried to do with my missions but failed

For an 1 hour mission you have to be very selective about objectives, firefights, you need to take in consideration the number of players, distance between objectives, visibility... is something you learn in time i think, there is no an easy way out of this. Same goes for any duration.

How do you plan to test a 3 hour mission? Because i have a lot of surprises with my missions which supposedly should take 1 hour.
I do several types of tests:
- on my computer during editing
- hosting the mission
- on VforVictory dedicated server with several players
- on CiA server
And every time is different. I use a lot of timed events and it seems that number of players, mods and GOD knows what else makes that to differ from test to test, server to server in a noticeable way.

(08-29-2014, 06:52 AM)Watchmen link Wrote: [ -> ]Then how could you include so much content into a single level and keep it below three hours? Any ideas guys because this is a real problem and i dont want to compromise on the "no fixed objectives" part.

One suggestion. Don't bite more than you, the players, or Arma can chew. I'm afraid to say that it's just too ambitious, and will never work without respawn, which at least I, have no intentions on playing. Break it into chapters, to what would be a fine campaign.

Yeah....The feedback seems a little disappointing although sensible. I think something of this scale is really just to large to accomplish. Ill probably put this mission on hold and finish my others first before i come back to this one.

I don't think feedback is that bad, big and possibly only issue is mission length, so depending on how crucial is that for a mission you may call it bad feedback, but that's just few of us here who responded. Maybe there are out there people willing to play such mission. As I said, I wouldn't mind to play it, but I recognize it's difficult to fit it into our official coop nights structure.

Hmm ill consider that Misha, if the only problem is game length and people are interested in playing this i will try to work abound the problem and make the mission. I think i could try experimenting with the camping tent. Thanks for the feedback everyone