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Zipper5

[CAMP] Operation Cobalt

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I just finished the campaign. I like the simple, yet effective storytelling, thought there are some issues which could be improved:

  • You're using tasks (which is great, didn't see them in many community missions), but sometimes they're quite clumsy - like task "Follow your orders", which is basically task for task. "Hold the position" or something similar would be more useful. Tasks should be help for players who missed the conversation or you're not sure what to do. Don't forget to update them.
  • Double-clicking on tasks can also move map to their position, which you're not using. Simply set setSimpleTaskDestination or use optional last parameter in MP Framework's rCREATETASKSET.
  • Watch for too strong fog. It causes visual artefacts on objects in background (notice they're white).
  • In several missions you're using postprocess effects (making them more atmospheric), but not in all of them. Design decision or bug?
  • Villages in first few missions looks like ghost towns. I recommend to at least use Ambient Vehicles modules.
  • Even when there's no dubbing, tt can be better to use sideradio with all sentences defined in description.ext instead of plain sidechat. Because even empty sideradio plays beep sound, helping player to notice new message appeared. Nevermind, looked into files and you're actually using this. I don't remember hearing beeping sounds, probably ear bug though :)
  • I'm not sure if this campaign is somehow parallel to offical one (it certainly looks so). If it's supposed to be, it takes place in different time (I noticed 15th September, while Harvest Red starts 9th October). Ignore it if it's by design.
  • In Operation Cobalt mission, when I find documents on one place, tasks about searching other places should be cancelled, not succeeded.
  • In some cutscenes, you're pointing camera at close objects, which are blurred (camera have trouble autofocusing them; I noticed that for example in burial scene before 'Unlikely Allies' mission). I recommend to use camPrepareFocus command.
  • In 'It's Down To This' mission, BMP available at the beginning have crew positions only for your squad, but not for additional person you have to capture. Small, yet annoying detail.
  • When A-Head is released, check bis_fnc_dynamicText function. You may find it useful for effective Rsc effects (like larger text, onscreen pictures etc, without need to define all of it in description.ext)
  • Had a scripting error in last mission when I killed the person (http://temp.moricky.com/bug_cobalt.jpg). Also when I finally delivered him (alive; after load), russian chopper started engines, but after few seconds pilots disembarked and did nothing. Just cosmetic bug, mission finished properly.
  • Last mission looked too ... open for me. Ambient Combat is too random to be centerpoint of whole mission (didn't encounter single enemy created by ACM) and without specific tasks, player may feel lost. Mentioning civilian sources in briefing could help (bitchslap for me if it's there and I didn't notice). If you'll favor simple scenarios over large-scale mission in future, I'm definitely going to play them ;)

What I really liked:

  • Mission locations. You have great feeling for where mission should take place (Stary Sobor assault, russian forest battle, assault at traitor near the lake), making small thing the big things.
  • How Prizrak was eliminated.
  • Instant First Aid (saved me several times)

... and the American Mark Reynolds.

Wonder where did you find this name :)

Edited by Moricky

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I'm not sure if this campaign is somehow parallel to offical one (it certainly looks so). If it's supposed to be, it takes place in different time (I noticed 15th September, while Harvest Red starts 9th October). Ignore it if it's by design.

I noticed that too. I also noticed that in your Campaign the Americans had one Week to withdraw from the Country, in Harvest Red they had only 24 Hours.

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I noticed that too. I also noticed that in your Campaign the Americans had one Week to withdraw from the Country, in Harvest Red they had only 24 Hours.

I'm not sure about this, in the Harvest Red campaign, Americans stay 1 week before to leave:if i remember well, Between the mission where Miles dead and Manhattan, we got the message "one week later".

Regards

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Wow, thanks for the huge amount of feedback, Gaia. You found some things I hadn't even taken into consideration, like the BMP not being able to hold enough people. I did actually use setSimpleTaskDestination but I found that it seems to bug sometimes when you use it after the mission has started. In some missions I didn't use it because you weren't the leader and I didn't want to clutter the screen. In that case I used just normal markers with links in the task description. I'll look in to possibly improving that area.

I'll change it so that the objectives are canceled rather than succeeded, and thanks for the error report. I've found it already and fixed it. I agree that the last mission is a bit too open and that the ACM doesn't really spawn the amount I wanted it to despite it's intensity being set to 1. I'm already looking in to redesigning it, as well as the ending. I had similar issues with the ending that you did, but I thought I fixed them. Guess not. :(

In terms of the story... Well... I kind of had the idea that it would be a parallel to the Harvest Red story to a point, but then would be my own telling of the story, which is why some things don't fit into place. If it was a parallel of the Harvest Red story then certain things would not have involved the CDF in the campaign,

such as the CDF capturing Lopotev, whereas Razor Team did so in Harvest Red.

But it ended up turning out exactly how I wanted it, story-wise.

I'm very happy to see that you enjoyed it, Gaia. Your creations have always been of such high standards that I must say I am rather... Shocked to see you liking one of mine. Hopefully I'll be able to maintain this standard. :p

Oh, and about the Mark Reynolds thing... It was just a random name I came up with that sounded American, heh. Is there some significance to it? I Google'd it and it came up with a baseball player, but that's really it...

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Oh, and about the Mark Reynolds thing... It was just a random name I came up with that sounded American, heh.

Probably coinsidence. I used the name for CIA officer in one of my OFP mission and have plans to use it again ;)

(bitchslap for me if it's there and I didn't notice)

I just noticed it can be added via radio. Ouch.

BTW: I also liked selectable weapons during briefing. SVD, baby!

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I have completed this outstanding Campaign

by the Ending I guess you will make a new campaign for OA?

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I liked it, found it was a less serious campaign ...

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hi. just tried this campaign from scratch and stuck right at the blooming begining!

i took a truck with fellow soldiers to anoher area of our base and got off teh truck and followed the yellow marker onscreen. i then go towards the same group of soldiers now standing in line facing another guy and so i stood beside them but nothing happens??

no indication of what to do next or anything?

i notice the other soldiers are standing with the arms folded at the back. do i need to stand like that too? if so how? whats the default key?

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jonneymendoza: It's the training mission on Utes, right? That happened once for me as well, try restarting it, it should work then.

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jonneymendoza: It's the training mission on Utes, right? That happened once for me as well, try restarting it, it should work then.

yea right at the begining. You mean to say restart the whole campaign again? And yea im in Utes in some training camp

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I think you just have to restart the mission, not the campaign.

It's odd how I never had that issue before, but I'll look for ways to fix it in the next version.

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Thanks i just started the campaign again seeing as it happens right at the begining. It worked! Now time to enjoy this campaign. cheers

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Zipper,

I just wanted to thank you for making this campaign. One of the few that I enjoyed as much at the start as I did at the end. Just quality and great pacing all the way through. Absolutely wonderful. Thank you for your efforts. Greatly appreciated.

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Great work Zipper5 !

I played 7 of the 8 missions until now and so far i like what i see.

The intro and the cutscenes are very good but the first missions (CDF missions and first russian mission) are a bit too "simple" (dont know if this is the right english word) for my taste.

The firefights are good but i miss something.

Someone already mentioned the ghost towns. Thats one point.

Maybe you can put some more objects on the map the give the hole scene more live (like in your cutscenes).

More complex tasks would also be cool.

Go there and kill them is fun but a bit more can make a huge difference.

Thats just my thoughts, a bit much critism maybe but i think feedback is always good.

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How do i call a team mate to heal me? their was one poitn where i had to restart a mission as i had to crawl to the other side of town to complete the mission :(

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Provided your team's medic(s) are still alive, you should be able to call them by pressing 5 > 4 (Status > Injured). If they're dead, you should have the ability to apply a field dressing to yourself via the action menu which should automatically heal you, but you can only use this once. If you don't have any of these, then you're screwed.

Welcome to Arma 2. :p

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Great work Zipper5, can't wait for any more work from you!

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hi. just tried this campaign from scratch and stuck right at the blooming begining!

i took a truck with fellow soldiers to anoher area of our base and got off teh truck and followed the yellow marker onscreen. i then go towards the same group of soldiers now standing in line facing another guy and so i stood beside them but nothing happens??

no indication of what to do next or anything?

i notice the other soldiers are standing with the arms folded at the back. do i need to stand like that too? if so how? whats the default key?

You need to wait near the truck until all soldiers line up before the sergeant

and only then you join them.

Happnes all the time.

Now I keep dying fighting NARPA in this caslte :D

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Provided your team's medic(s) are still alive, you should be able to call them by pressing 5 > 4 (Status > Injured). If they're dead, you should have the ability to apply a field dressing to yourself via the action menu which should automatically heal you, but you can only use this once. If you don't have any of these, then you're screwed.

Welcome to Arma 2. :p

Cool ok i will try that. what i was doing was pressing teh space bar next to a medic and choosing "heal" or something along those lines and the medic diddnt do a thing

You need to wait near the truck until all soldiers line up before the sergeant

and only then you join them.

Happnes all the time.

Now I keep dying fighting NARPA in this caslte :D

Yea i just restarted it and it worked.

Anyways i just did the mission where you have to clear out enemies in a castle and there was a few bugs. first bug i encountered was that after we cleared out the enemies in the hill filled with trees, the whole friendly AI teams just stood there! i went off on my own to attack the castle up the hill and noticed how none of the enemies were attacking me!

once i cleared it, the american ai's came along to the castle and the mission was finished

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Alright guys, v1.01 is on the way, but there's something I really want this version to have:

Voices.

  • There are Chernarussian (Czech), Russian and American characters in the campaign, and I'm looking for voice actors who can speak said languages.
  • At least one of the Czech and Russian voice actors must also speak English.

If you're interested in lending your voice to the campaign, please send me a PM. I'm open to any and all who wish to voice act provided they meet the above criteria. Thanks guys! :D

Edit: Here's a list of the different characters and the languages they speak:

Chernarussian (Czech):

- *Peter Novak - Chernarussian main character

- *Gregori "Akula" Lopotev - Main enemy of the campaign, same person from Harvest Red

- *Matthew Christopher - Peter Novak's squad's leader

- *Tomas Nvodny - Matthew Christopher's second in command

- *HQ (Headquarters) - Self-explanatory

- CDF soldier #1 - Generic soldier who makes some chatter

- CDF soldier #2 - Generic soldier who makes some chatter

- CDF soldier #3 - Generic soldier who makes some chatter

Russian:

- *Vasilly Derevenko- Russian main character

- *Pavel Ivanov - Vasilly Derevenko's squad's leader

- *HQ (Headquarters) - Self-explanatory

- Chedaki officer - Cooperates with Vasilly Derevenko's squad in one mission

- Spetsnaz Operative - Self-explanatory, appears in only one scene

- Russian soldier #1 - Generic soldier who makes some chatter

- Russian soldier #2 - Generic soldier who makes some chatter

American:

- *Mark Reynolds - American main character

- *HQ (Headquarters) - Self-explanatory Filled

* means that I they are of highest priority and I need a different voice actor for each. You can have one of these roles, and one or more of the non * roles, if you choose.

Edited by Zipper5
American HQ role filled

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Must say, well done zipper. This is good work that you've done here. Looking forward to seeing the next version :)

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Count me in for an American voice (although I'm British, but the state BIS voices are in might not matter :P)

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Added a list of characters to the initial post, and changed it so you must send me a PM, do not post in this thread. In the PM, please include the language(s) you speak and the character(s) you wish to portray. Thanks again! :)

Edited by Zipper5

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