Freedom fighters......ends too soon.

[OMAC 254]

I have thought that the red x's mean that you did not complete the objectives before sunup, as the notes suggest. What I don't know at all is whether the mission can be completed in some fashion with debriefing if one or more red x's are present.

One of the objectives is "liberate villages" which is nearly impossible to complete before sunup, especially if one attempts to destroy the base before sunup. The notes mention that all enemies should be destroyed, but that is not one of the objectives.

The objectives of the mission obviously involve time. The 3 hour time limit is apparently still present, but I have never reached that limit (although I am SURE I have played it for more than 3 hours). I wish I knew what the level designer had in mind. Perhaps if red x's are present, the mission failed, but one is allowed to play forever if one wants?

It's probably a bug, so I think we are wasting our time with this, unless the mission designers can give us a clue as to what is expected, and what went wrong.

Edited March 25, 2011 by OMAC

[Hanzu 10]

In COOP 08 Armory failed Meta-Challenges give similar red X's and it will still complete successfully with Debriefing if point limit is reached before time limit. But then again it is totally different mission design and thus not very good for comparison.

What triggers sunup in that mission? In Dogs Of War it is possible to delay day and night change by not going to Skalisky island where day will be switched to night.

Have you tried to leave mission running and staying in some safe place? This would show what happens when 3 hours time limit is reached.

I also have wanted to have original mission designers comments on lots of things, but never got one with somedody taking credit of beeing the designer for some mission. I guess they are just too busy, too ashamed or just fear it would result a flood of questions from everyone. Also if some mission is 2 years old and they have done lots of other work after that, we can expect that they have forgotten lots of stuff already. Could also be something like companys rules that they are not allowed to reveal themselves, just a guess.

One thing I have now allowed myself when finding showstopper bugs in some missions, is to lower difficulty settings to minimum and make enemy AI as stupid as possible. This way doing some tests is a lot easier and faster.

[.kju 3239]

You guys are sure beyond crazy trying to complete these badly designed and

truly unfair scenario.

I gave it a go with cheats (beaming, kill all enemies in 500 radius, god mode).

So the conditions seems fine, if you make it in time.

My honest advice - let it go and move to far better missions and gameplay.

[Hanzu 10]

You guys are sure beyond crazy trying to complete these badly designed and

truly unfair scenario.

I gave it a go with cheats (beaming, kill all enemies in 500 radius, god mode).

So the conditions seems fine, if you make it in time.

My honest advice - let it go and move to far better missions and gameplay.

I have never even launched this mission. But call me crazy if I ever buy another game like Arma2 where after playing anything for 1 hour will result a need to spend 2 hours of bug reporting, repro stepping and arranging screenshots (when I'm one of those who wants to report bug when encountering one).

But anyway thanks for testing this mission PvPScene. So now we know Debfriefing works. I have one question however. Why is it showing "Duration: 2h, 54 min"? I can't believe it took than long with those cheats...

Edited March 25, 2011 by Hanzu

[.kju 3239]

I guess the time is not correct.

However I have used time acceleration to play at daytime.

[MissionCreep 12]

You guys are sure beyond crazy trying to complete these badly designed and

truly unfair scenario ......My honest advice - let it go and move to far better missions and gameplay.

I agree ... I have over 500 missions on my machine and play different ones at random. Some are great, some are lousy, most are somewhat entertaining but you can just move on if stuff is messed up. After a while, bugs and glitches become commonplace, you just play around them, or revert or quit and immerse youself in another mission, campaign or gameplay mode. Also you really don't feel so bad, because you know that every user-made mission, good or bad, is a labour of love. There are also many great campaigns out there if you like good storylines.

Edited March 25, 2011 by MissionCreep

[OMAC 254]

You guys are sure beyond crazy trying to complete these badly designed and

truly unfair scenario.

I gave it a go with cheats (beaming, kill all enemies in 500 radius, god mode).

So the conditions seems fine, if you make it in time.

My honest advice - let it go and move to far better missions and gameplay.

WOW! Thank you, PvP! Are you playing A2 1.08 or 1.09? You had captured the Elektro strongpoint, right? Very, very interesting. What was the local time when the mission ended? Looks like about 8:30am, right?

So, it looks like all villages must be taken, office blown, and possibly the checkpoints, before sunup. The base does NOT have to be destroyed. KEY INFORMATION!

You are, of course, absolutely correct about abandoning this crappy scenario and moving on. It's just in my DNA to finish and ace these damn things perfectly, despite bugs, bad objective design, and anything else.

It is also interesting that the debriefing mentions the base at Vyobor. Is anything going on up there near the airport in this scenario? Did you go up there?

Hanzu:

I was LAUGHING UP A STORM reading your last post concerning developer shame, etc. THAT WAS A GREAT POST! HA!!! :D

---------- Post added at 09:16 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:09 AM ----------

I agree ... I have over 500 missions on my machine and play different ones at random. Some are great, some are lousy, most are somewhat entertaining but you can just move on if stuff is messed up. After a while, bugs and glitches become commonplace, you just play around them, or revert or quit and immerse youself in another mission, campaign or gameplay mode. Also you really don't feel so bad, because you know that every user-made mission, good or bad, is a labour of love. There are also many great campaigns out there if you like good storylines.

MissionCreep,

Yes, but for official BIS missions and scenarios, I expect FLAWLESS, bug-free gameplay and excellent level design. Apparently that is too much to expect. Moving on from a user-designed mission is easy. Moving on from a BIS mission is not, at least for me.

I did find the A2 and OA campaigns very well done for the most part. OA was too short, though.

[OMAC 254]

In COOP 08 Armory failed Meta-Challenges give similar red X's and it will still complete successfully with Debriefing if point limit is reached before time limit. But then again it is totally different mission design and thus not very good for comparison.

What triggers sunup in that mission? In Dogs Of War it is possible to delay day and night change by not going to Skalisky island where day will be switched to night.

Have you tried to leave mission running and staying in some safe place? This would show what happens when 3 hours time limit is reached.

I also have wanted to have original mission designers comments on lots of things, but never got one with somedody taking credit of beeing the designer for some mission. I guess they are just too busy, too ashamed or just fear it would result a flood of questions from everyone. Also if some mission is 2 years old and they have done lots of other work after that, we can expect that they have forgotten lots of stuff already. Could also be something like companys rules that they are not allowed to reveal themselves, just a guess.

One thing I have now allowed myself when finding showstopper bugs in some missions, is to lower difficulty settings to minimum and make enemy AI as stupid as possible. This way doing some tests is a lot easier and faster.

It looks like gambia has played for so long it is the next evening (12 hrs +), and he apparently also did not reach the 3hr time limit. :confused:

[gambla 10]

It looks like gambia has played for so long it is the next evening (12 hrs +), and he apparently also did not reach the 3hr time limit. :confused:

First thing i did was changing the timelimit to three days. There's nothing more in missions i hate than timelimits. And a timelimit of three hours in this scenario is more than ridiculous. Imho TLs kills the fun always.

[.kju 3239]

@ OMAC

The mission ended when the east HQ was destroyed.

The reason its not marked as completed as it ended instantly and for task status the

mission is using a cycle with a "sleep 10;" - in other words they are check every 10

seconds for an update / change.

Now if you only need to destroy the east HQ or more I don't know, yet it would be easy

to find out by reading the scripts (if one is into scripting).

[OMAC 254]

I posted the scripts earlier in this thread. By "east base," which the scripts mention as key, do you mean the enemy base at Elektro with factories and HQ?

I guess that all 4 objectives (liberate villages, find/destroy base, destroy checkpoints, and blow office) MUST be completed before sunup. If one or more of those are not completed before sunup, it looks like the scenario will never end. Do you agree?

Thanks again for your input!!!!! :bounce3:

[.kju 3239]

I guess the scripts are somewhat readable to everyone:

//winConditions.sqf

//Check for the time deadine of 3 hours
if ((time > (3 * 3600)) && !BIS_timeUp) then {BIS_timeUp = true};

//mission.sqm

type="END1";
text="Eat this, Ivan!";
expCond="(BIS_captureCount == (count towns)) && BIS_WF_EastBaseDestroyed && !BIS_timeUp";
expActiv="activatekey ""BIS_SP04""; BIS_handle = execVM ""data\scripts\processEndTasks.sqf""; endMission ""END1""";

type="END2";
text="Marginal victory";
expCond="(BIS_captureCount >= ((count towns) / 2)) && BIS_timeUp";
expActiv="activatekey ""BIS_SP04""; BIS_handle = execVM ""data\scripts\processEndTasks.sqf""";

type="END3";
text="Maybe another day";
expCond="BIS_timeUp && (BIS_captureCount < ((count towns) / 2)) && !BIS_WF_EastBaseDestroyed";
expActiv="BIS_handle = execVM ""data\scripts\processEndTasks.sqf""";

type="END4";
text="Bloodshed";
expCond="BIS_WF_ResistanceBaseDestroyed || ((time > 2000) && (BIS_captureCountEast == (count towns)))";
expActiv="BIS_handle = execVM ""data\scripts\processEndTasks.sqf""";

processEndTasks.sqf

http://pastebin.jonasscholz.de/1356

[OMAC 254]

Thanks! The issue appears to be with sunup (6-6:30am?) and the red x's. Did you see anything in the scripts that are related to them?

[.kju 3239]

What problem?

If the mission starts at 5:20 am, it always ends at 8:20 am.

All objectives not done by then, become failed => red X.

Unless you have than half of the towns captures but already the base destroyed - in that case

you can continue to play until you have more then half of them.

When you have east still has all towns after 2000 seconds (~ 30 minutes), you have lost early.

Edit: Mission starts at 5:20 am.

Edited March 25, 2011 by .kju [PvPscene]

[OMAC 254]

What problem?

If the mission starts at 3:30 am, it always ends at 6:30 am.

All objectives not done by then, become failed => red X.

The mission starts at 5:20 am for me, not 3:30. So I only get about an hour to complete everything before the red x's appear. As I wrote before, that seems quite ridiculous, and almost impossible.

Edited March 25, 2011 by OMAC

[.kju 3239]

Ok the actual issue is quite obvious. Only the first end condition actually ends the mission.. :)

endMission "END1"

---------- Post added at 09:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 PM ----------

Can someone make a CIT ticket?

[OMAC 254]

Oh, man. You found it! Please shoot me now.

My first bug report:

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/18491

---------- Post added at 04:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:30 PM ----------

Also, the red x's appear at sunrise, around 6:30 or so, not 8:30! And the mission has NEVER ended for me because of the 3 hr time limit, or for any other condition. It goes on and on and on........ I even completed everything by about 8:30am, and it still didn't end.

Edited March 25, 2011 by OMAC

[MissionCreep 12]

MissionCreep,

Yes, but for official BIS missions and scenarios, I expect FLAWLESS, bug-free gameplay and excellent level design. Apparently that is too much to expect. Moving on from a user-designed mission is easy. Moving on from a BIS mission is not, at least for me.

I did find the A2 and OA campaigns very well done for the most part. OA was too short, though.

I think BIS tried to be too ambitious with the missions and campaigns and ended up dropping the ball due to resource shortages and deadlines. The collective of game/mission/mod makers have eclipsed what BIS can offer with vanilla Arma2. BIS should be happy that their platform is being extended and expanded to the degree that it is now only limited by the creativity and imagination of their customers. Things like Zeus AI, ACE, SLX and hundreds of other mods is testimony to this.

The BIS missions/campaigns to me are like the factory paintjob on a car. The manufacturer has done a credible job producing the engine and internals. The factory paintjob is OK, but if you want anything really cool, you need to customize and accessorize the exterior (which is the only thing people see).

Edited March 26, 2011 by MissionCreep

[gambla 10]

What problem?

If the mission starts at 5:20 am, it always ends at 8:20 am.

All objectives not done by then, become failed => red X.

That is what i don't understand. I changed the timelimit to 3 days but i got the red X after 3 hours anyway ? I checked all the scripts but couldn't find the reason. Is there any other "condition" like daylight / sun up ?

[.kju 3239]

gambla what did you change specifically?

[gambla 10]

...see this post:

You better hurry up and defeat the mission, it ends after 3 hrs. That was a serious buzz kill for me. I was finally making headway and actually taking some towns and all of sudden I got a "Time's up" message and the game ended.

I started the mission over and tweaked the time limit to be 2 days, not 3hrs.

If you want to do this open up the mission folder then data/scripts/winConditions.sqf.

Then change:

//Check for the time deadine of 3 hours
if ((time > (3 * 3600)) && !BIS_timeUp) then {BIS_timeUp = true};

to:

//Check for the time deadine of 3 hours
if ((time > (48 * 3600)) && !BIS_timeUp) then {BIS_timeUp = true};

[.kju 3239]

How did you make sure you played your modification and not the BI version?

Loaded from editor or renamed it?

[gambla 10]

I took out the original missions.pbo, unpbo'ed it, changed the script, repbo'ed it and put it back in the folder. That's no problem. You could doublecheck by unpboing it again and see if changes were saved.

[OMAC 254]

Guys,

As my bug report mentions, we have discovered two key issues.

The first, found by PvPscene, is the cause of the mission never ending (only END1 total success condition can end the scenario due to apparent omissions from the script of " endMission ""END1"" " for the other end conditions). Apparently BIS agrees that this is a bug.

The second, as gambla and I have experienced, is the mystery involving the appearance of the red x's for objectives about an hour after start, at sunrise around 6:30 am. The red x's mean FAIL and probably prevent END1 condition from being met. We should try and find out exactly when the red x's occur. Gambla said they occur after three hours. That is not my experience, but I will look into it. I do know that sunrise occurs WAY before 8:30 am. I think the red x's appear too soon after the start of the mission to be able to complete all of the objectives unless cheats are used.

There were many complaints (this thread) about the 3 hr time limit, so BIS may have eliminated mission termination from the end conditions other than END1.

[gambla 10]

Guys,

Gambla said they occur after three hours. .

No problem, but i only believe it was around 3 hours...

edit:

1) I just had a look in the editor, all End-Triggers have the "BIS timeup" as one of the conditions ? So it looks to me as the mission can only end when the 3 hours have passed. :confused: How could the player know that ? Are the 3 hours mentioned anywhere ?

2) Don't know if it was answered yet. Team Razor and Smugglers don't seem to have any value. The map shows nothing else than the units. Maybe it's in any script or something else ? Don't believe it.

Edited March 26, 2011 by gambla