11-05-2009, 10:22 PM
It's been a while since I did one of my write-ups. But I thought last night's co-op session was particularly noteworthy.
It was FDF/BAS night, of course. We had a pretty good turnout, around 10 players at one point. First mission was Nikiller's "Dourdan Rescue."
This mission proved to be some pretty tough business. It's resistance vs. USA on Malden, and the objective is to liberate a captured officer held in Dourdan. We started on Hill 347 overlooking Arudy with Anguis in command. We noticed that we had a number of vehicles that the mission briefing never told us about--specifically a BMP, a UAZ, and a truck, as well as some ammo crates with the specially scripted capability to be "loaded" onto these vehicles. Well, why walk into enemy territory when you can drive?
We loaded into the BMP with Ninja as driver and I believe Viking as gunner, the rest of us in back. Ninja rocketed down the hill in the direction of Houdan (not Dourdan), with Anguis intending to loop all the way to the other side of the objective and attack it from the East. I guess we assumed that Houdan would be unoccupied and that this route would be safer. Oh, and did I forget to mention that our BMP was approximately 50% damaged to begin with at mission's start? When our vehicle zoomed into a town full of enemy troops and vehicles, the results were predictable. As I heard an M113's gun start to tear into our weakened APC, I panicked and hopped out. Then I realized I wasn't given permission to disembark, so I re-enterned. BOOM! BMP exploded at that instant. Should have panicked instead. All were killed except for Osku and I believe Misha, who had somehow escaped from the doomed transport. After a valiant firefight, they were killed by infantry.
We tried the mission again. This time we took all our vehicles, and I rode in the back of the truck. BMP led our little convoy, and we planned to pass in between Dourdan and Houdan. Once again, we set out confidently, and once again we drove right into the American kill zone. The BMP was nailed. The UAZ and truck crews were still alive, but we elected to restart mission.
The third time we changed plans yet again. Anguis marked out a route that would take us north of Dourdan instead of south. Furthermore, rather than boarding all in vehicles, a main force would advance as infantry with two of us following in a supporting BMP, and another followed in the truck. Delaney volunteered as BMP driver, and (after some confusion) I was picked for gunner. Zulu drove the truck, and ninja was the point man for the main squad.
This time we noticed that a NATO jeep w/ machine gun was buzzing around the road between Dourdan and Arudy. At first we ignored it, but it became clear that its patrol route overlapped with ours. Anguis ordered me to open fire. I hurled a HEAT shell at the jeep as he was paused near Arudy. The smoke cleared, and--ahh, still buzzing around! The jeep turned around and was headed dangerously close to our main squad. Gah, BMP shells don't reload fast enough! :o Just as my ammo indicator turned green, the enemy's MG started spitting glowing yellow tracers at the infantry. Then I sent him flying with a more accurate HEAT shot. Phew.Â
With that little episode over, we continued northeast to around FC40. We didn't meet any more enemy--I guess that jeep crew weren't much liked by their buds. La Trinite seemed clear of enemies, and our infantry moved within sight of Dourdan. They reported an M60 tank patrolling the town, but I couldn't see through the trees. I was nervous--any veteran OFP player knows who usually wins in a fight between BMP and M60. Fortunately the AI was not in a seeing-through-trees mood. Infantry moved further east and got a good look undetected at the infested town.
Finally Anguis gave Delaney a waypoint to move into combat. I switched to AT3 as we smooshed through the trees into view of the town, alerting the garrison. The M60 rolled out to meet us. Swooosh! AT3 didn't get a good hit. He shot at us a few times and missed--probably because Delaney kept the BMP as a moving target. I sent in a few HEAT shells in return, and our infantry opened fire as well. I probably got at least one good hit on him, but our RPG guy (Osku?) was the one who finally finished him off. Another phew.
Now, of course, the beehive of infantry guards started spilling out to meet us. Breathing a little easier, I shot them up with HEAT shells and MG. Sadly, my MG (or at least my aim of it) left a little to be desired, but I nabbed a few of those bloody yanks. ;D Our infantry was shredding up even more. I was about to complain that my MG was running low on ammo when--KABOOM! An A10 swooped down and obliterated Delaney and me with a Maverick. :o So much for our armor support. Well, now I could relax, and also use missile cam.
Fortunately, our squad was packing several Strela missile launchers with extra missiles in those ammo crates. I watched as we plucked two A10s out of the sky. I even saw Mikka take out the second one through missile cam. The key is to wait till the planes are flying away from you, after they swoop over you. Later, I ran some tests in the mission editor--a vanilla BIS Strela will almost surely miss an A10 if shot from its front or side. The missile just can't curve fast enough to meet the target. However, the same Strela fired from behind will easily take down an A10 going at full speed, and only one shot is required. (Now, WGL is a different story. WGL planes are darn near impossible even to hit with WGL AA missiles, and it looks like planes can keep right on flying even after a direct hit). Consistent with these results, our heroes dispatched 2 A10s handily by shooting Strelas up their tailpipes, though there was at least one miss.
By this time almost all of the enemy garrison was eradicated. The infantry advanced cautiously (Zulu had long since disembarked from his truck and joined with the main group). They picked off a few survivors. An M2 machine gun emplacement was facing away from us in the top floor of one of the buildings. After a few rifle shots at him, the building collapsed! That's some pretty flimsy construction--I would sue. After darting in and out of the buildings in Dourdan, Ninja and Zulu found the captured officer. They "freed" him via action menu and the whole squad retreated to the truck.
Just as our squad made it to the truck, an M167 Vulcan with infantry accompaniment showed up. Naturally, squad had to abandon the truck. They set up an ambush and wiped out the enemy handily, M167 gone in one shot and infantry cut to pieces. However, the initial plan of moving on in the truck was abandoned. Our heroes would have to make it to extraction on foot. It might have worked with just human players, but sadly the enemy had severely tortured our poor resistance officer by placing an AI in his brain. ;D
One of the effects of this torture was a bizarre refusal to pick up a weapon when ordered by Anguis. Unfortunately, one of the less realistic aspects of OFP is that maximum movement speed is roughly inversely proportional to the weight of the weapon carried. With no weapon, the AI's maximum speed was a leisurely stroll through bloodstained enemy territory. Most of the squad went ahead up the hill as Anguis stayed behind to babysit our mentally and physically slow AI comrade.
Well, a NATO squad managed to sneak up behind them. More accurately, they happened to trot up behind them, and of course they overtook slow-moving Anguis and the officer in his care. The enemy actually got up within around 20 meters before noticing them. The result was obvious. Officer and Anguis down, and the mission failed. After all that work! (And after all that typing about it!)
I feel as though I've typed enough, or rather a bit too much, for one sitting. Hope that this was another enjoyable read. Maybe I'll talk about our completed mission next. Now I need to go do stuff, my back is starting to hurt.
It was FDF/BAS night, of course. We had a pretty good turnout, around 10 players at one point. First mission was Nikiller's "Dourdan Rescue."
This mission proved to be some pretty tough business. It's resistance vs. USA on Malden, and the objective is to liberate a captured officer held in Dourdan. We started on Hill 347 overlooking Arudy with Anguis in command. We noticed that we had a number of vehicles that the mission briefing never told us about--specifically a BMP, a UAZ, and a truck, as well as some ammo crates with the specially scripted capability to be "loaded" onto these vehicles. Well, why walk into enemy territory when you can drive?
We loaded into the BMP with Ninja as driver and I believe Viking as gunner, the rest of us in back. Ninja rocketed down the hill in the direction of Houdan (not Dourdan), with Anguis intending to loop all the way to the other side of the objective and attack it from the East. I guess we assumed that Houdan would be unoccupied and that this route would be safer. Oh, and did I forget to mention that our BMP was approximately 50% damaged to begin with at mission's start? When our vehicle zoomed into a town full of enemy troops and vehicles, the results were predictable. As I heard an M113's gun start to tear into our weakened APC, I panicked and hopped out. Then I realized I wasn't given permission to disembark, so I re-enterned. BOOM! BMP exploded at that instant. Should have panicked instead. All were killed except for Osku and I believe Misha, who had somehow escaped from the doomed transport. After a valiant firefight, they were killed by infantry.
We tried the mission again. This time we took all our vehicles, and I rode in the back of the truck. BMP led our little convoy, and we planned to pass in between Dourdan and Houdan. Once again, we set out confidently, and once again we drove right into the American kill zone. The BMP was nailed. The UAZ and truck crews were still alive, but we elected to restart mission.
The third time we changed plans yet again. Anguis marked out a route that would take us north of Dourdan instead of south. Furthermore, rather than boarding all in vehicles, a main force would advance as infantry with two of us following in a supporting BMP, and another followed in the truck. Delaney volunteered as BMP driver, and (after some confusion) I was picked for gunner. Zulu drove the truck, and ninja was the point man for the main squad.
This time we noticed that a NATO jeep w/ machine gun was buzzing around the road between Dourdan and Arudy. At first we ignored it, but it became clear that its patrol route overlapped with ours. Anguis ordered me to open fire. I hurled a HEAT shell at the jeep as he was paused near Arudy. The smoke cleared, and--ahh, still buzzing around! The jeep turned around and was headed dangerously close to our main squad. Gah, BMP shells don't reload fast enough! :o Just as my ammo indicator turned green, the enemy's MG started spitting glowing yellow tracers at the infantry. Then I sent him flying with a more accurate HEAT shot. Phew.Â
With that little episode over, we continued northeast to around FC40. We didn't meet any more enemy--I guess that jeep crew weren't much liked by their buds. La Trinite seemed clear of enemies, and our infantry moved within sight of Dourdan. They reported an M60 tank patrolling the town, but I couldn't see through the trees. I was nervous--any veteran OFP player knows who usually wins in a fight between BMP and M60. Fortunately the AI was not in a seeing-through-trees mood. Infantry moved further east and got a good look undetected at the infested town.
Finally Anguis gave Delaney a waypoint to move into combat. I switched to AT3 as we smooshed through the trees into view of the town, alerting the garrison. The M60 rolled out to meet us. Swooosh! AT3 didn't get a good hit. He shot at us a few times and missed--probably because Delaney kept the BMP as a moving target. I sent in a few HEAT shells in return, and our infantry opened fire as well. I probably got at least one good hit on him, but our RPG guy (Osku?) was the one who finally finished him off. Another phew.
Now, of course, the beehive of infantry guards started spilling out to meet us. Breathing a little easier, I shot them up with HEAT shells and MG. Sadly, my MG (or at least my aim of it) left a little to be desired, but I nabbed a few of those bloody yanks. ;D Our infantry was shredding up even more. I was about to complain that my MG was running low on ammo when--KABOOM! An A10 swooped down and obliterated Delaney and me with a Maverick. :o So much for our armor support. Well, now I could relax, and also use missile cam.
Fortunately, our squad was packing several Strela missile launchers with extra missiles in those ammo crates. I watched as we plucked two A10s out of the sky. I even saw Mikka take out the second one through missile cam. The key is to wait till the planes are flying away from you, after they swoop over you. Later, I ran some tests in the mission editor--a vanilla BIS Strela will almost surely miss an A10 if shot from its front or side. The missile just can't curve fast enough to meet the target. However, the same Strela fired from behind will easily take down an A10 going at full speed, and only one shot is required. (Now, WGL is a different story. WGL planes are darn near impossible even to hit with WGL AA missiles, and it looks like planes can keep right on flying even after a direct hit). Consistent with these results, our heroes dispatched 2 A10s handily by shooting Strelas up their tailpipes, though there was at least one miss.
By this time almost all of the enemy garrison was eradicated. The infantry advanced cautiously (Zulu had long since disembarked from his truck and joined with the main group). They picked off a few survivors. An M2 machine gun emplacement was facing away from us in the top floor of one of the buildings. After a few rifle shots at him, the building collapsed! That's some pretty flimsy construction--I would sue. After darting in and out of the buildings in Dourdan, Ninja and Zulu found the captured officer. They "freed" him via action menu and the whole squad retreated to the truck.
Just as our squad made it to the truck, an M167 Vulcan with infantry accompaniment showed up. Naturally, squad had to abandon the truck. They set up an ambush and wiped out the enemy handily, M167 gone in one shot and infantry cut to pieces. However, the initial plan of moving on in the truck was abandoned. Our heroes would have to make it to extraction on foot. It might have worked with just human players, but sadly the enemy had severely tortured our poor resistance officer by placing an AI in his brain. ;D
One of the effects of this torture was a bizarre refusal to pick up a weapon when ordered by Anguis. Unfortunately, one of the less realistic aspects of OFP is that maximum movement speed is roughly inversely proportional to the weight of the weapon carried. With no weapon, the AI's maximum speed was a leisurely stroll through bloodstained enemy territory. Most of the squad went ahead up the hill as Anguis stayed behind to babysit our mentally and physically slow AI comrade.
Well, a NATO squad managed to sneak up behind them. More accurately, they happened to trot up behind them, and of course they overtook slow-moving Anguis and the officer in his care. The enemy actually got up within around 20 meters before noticing them. The result was obvious. Officer and Anguis down, and the mission failed. After all that work! (And after all that typing about it!)
I feel as though I've typed enough, or rather a bit too much, for one sitting. Hope that this was another enjoyable read. Maybe I'll talk about our completed mission next. Now I need to go do stuff, my back is starting to hurt.
R. Kurtz "Koortz" Dmitriyev
My methods have become "unsound."
My methods have become "unsound."