Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

It's time for a new mission release!
I havent been able to test it and balance it properly, so it may be too difficult or too easy.

This is a difficult mission that requires teamwork.
The mission have no respawn, but it have ACE3 medical system and revive.


Briefing:
A powerful and professional military terrorist group have taken control over Chernogorsk.
Most of the city have been destroyed and civilians have fled the city. The terrorist group is now using it as main base. Earlier attempts to bring them down have failed, and our officers have been captured and held hostage. The government is desperate and this is a delicate matter.

You are tasked to rescue our officers held hostage inside the terrorist groups base.
The terrorists main base is heavily armed. Satellite imagery reveals armed vehicles, large number of armed troops, snipers, HMGs, GMGs and mortars. 
They also have a huge searchlight spotting all activity in the area. It's not possible to take that out.


Important:
As soon you are spotted, or engage the enemy, the terrorist will prepare the executions of the hostages. 
Then we have 30 minutes before the first hostage is killed. After that, they will kill one hostage every 5 minutes.
At least ONE hostage must survive. Choose your strategy well. Unfortunately we don't expect it's possible to save them all.

Mods required:
ACE3
Cup Terrains


Features:

• A huge searchlight at the base. When detected by the searchlight, your position will be revealed and the searchlight will follow you until you can hide. Stay hidden when attacking or entering the base.
  
• High firepower. You will have Mortars, AT and UGV. But choose your strategy well. If  you are easier to detect, it means you have little time to save the hostages.
  
• Dynamic difficulty. More players means harder mission.
  
• Atmospheric sunset and night.
  

Thanks to:
Gruppe-adler.de for getting me started with the searching flood light.
FHQ Task Tracker
Mindstorm for the counter



Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=783715106

Download: [attachment=652]

Sounds great! I hope we will get the chance to play it tonight. Uploaded!

(10-20-2016, 07:08 PM)Variable Wrote: [ -> ]Sounds great! I hope we will get the chance to play it tonight. Uploaded!

Looking forward to that. Or some other night! 

Hey Nano. Nice mission, but I would spawn in the AIs as needed when the players are closer or else the frames rate would lower way too much.

Tried the mission, here's some things we noticed:

• There were too many enemies. I think over 300 is not doable. That made the frame rate very very low, borderline unplayable.
  
• Personally, I do not like the ppEffect, I'd make it optional.
  
• Do you use UPSMON? If so, that will cause a big framerate impact.
  
• Upon loading the next mission, both Variable and myself got an "Out of memory" error. I have 16 GB, so that was... weird.
  
• I would separate out the sniper team, and make the UAV operator someone who's not the team leader.
  

Other than that, I really look forward to try this one again!

[quote pid='37492' dateline='1477863553']

• There were too many enemies. I think over 300 is not doable. That made the frame rate very very low, borderline unplayable.
  
•  Personally, I do not like the ppEffect, I'd make it optional.
  
•  Do you use UPSMON? If so, that will cause a big framerate impact.
  
•  Upon loading the next mission, both Variable and myself got an "Out of memory" error. I have 16 GB, so that was... weird.
  
•  I would separate out the sniper team, and make the UAV operator someone who's not the team leader.
  

[/quote]

Thank you guys. This is very valuable feedback!

I found out what caused the huge lag and amount of enemies. Its a little script that is spawning a team with 10 random AIs for every player that is connected. And they get random waypoints. With 12 players we have 120 AIs on top of the ones already on the map. I guess that was a little (huge) glitch that I forgot to change on release. I never tested it with more than 3 players 

I will look into the ppEffect and the sniper team/UAV.

Question: Did you guys ever reach the base with the searchlight?

No, we got slaughtered by the T34 statue. By the way, is that your doing?

Jeez. That one stupid script messed up for sure. I will fix the mission as soon as possible. Hopefully you will give the mission a second chance.

Yeah, that T-34 statue was my doing. By default it was a communication tower there. But i removed it so it wouldn't be confused with the actual com tower in the city.

Good call, that's the first place I wanted to search for the comms tower. If there was one there, we would have destroyed it for sure.

I have done some major changes to the mission. Bugs are now crushed and the difficulty is more balanced, so you wont meet a horde of AIs in the woods, or elsewhere.
Download link is updated.

Changelog:

- Rebalanced AI skills. 
- Major changes to the main base with the search light. 
- Crushed an annoying bug that spawned 10 random AIs for each connected player(!). 
- Removed ppEffect during daylight. 
- Reskinned the enemy, so they look like terrorists, not military forces. 
- Seperated out the Sniper Team, so they are an own group.
- The UAV operator is not the team leader anymore.
- Optimized the mission for better framerate.

Thanks! Updated on the server