fa3_c64_to_arms

[Ferrard Carson]

Say hello to the first mission I've made in quite a while. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope the 7-man Sections didn't throw you for too much of a loop!

Please let me know what you think! I can't promise I'll follow your suggestions, but I'll certainly savor them with a snifter of the finest capitalist tears.

~ Ferrard

[Raptoer]

Things I noticed:
Two of the enemy squads sat on the road until they died.
The medical truck is too big for the garage.
The enemies from the convoy seemed to be more spread out than one would expect.

It was very vague as to where the enemies were coming from, but the only enemies I ever heard about were those from the convoy.

I think we were expecting a counter attack, but once we got the truck to the garage the mission ended. The admin may have called it early though.

[boberro]

I managed to stumble upon few AI soldiers, that stood doing nothing, just looking directly north.

[Sparks]

Some things that came up while chatting after the mission:

• The sections are a bit confusing because we're all so used to the standard FolkARPS four-man fireteam. That's not bad, understand, it's just that it's different and will take a bit of getting used to. Personally, I think this would rock if we had more people to run the mission and a bit more practice for FTLs.
• If you have a CO, an ASL and two Alpha squads, then the FTLs are overworked and ASL is underworked. Again, that's not a mission failing, but something to keep in mind during slotting/hosting. ASL in that scenario struck us as being redundant.
• The mission briefing says the convoy was ambushed. The explosions at the immediate start of the mission and the briefing together give the impression that OPFOR is going to be at the road, under fire if not dead, and retrieving the truck is going to be a preliminary part, and the town defence the harder part of the mission. This does not adaquately prepare anyone for enemies being in the town itself. End result, we take the hill overlooking the convoy only to find there are enemies in the town to our south and east and west and we're basically surrounded. One line in the briefing to suggest that the enemies were already in the town when the ambush hit would not go astray and isn't really an unfair amount of intel to expect.
• The garage isn't big enough to drive the truck into and the courtyard isn't big enough to park the truck in (well, not in any way that wouldn't fail you on your driving test anyway).
• We noticed in spectator mode about seven or eight AIs sitting on the bottom of the ocean a few kilometres away from the action. Was there a submarine carrying reinforcements in the original plan?
• This mission rocks, but we need more people playing it I suspect.

TL;DR - Lots of fun, would play again. Mission creator is a sneaky bastard.

[Eagle_Eye]

I was playing as A1 Section leader, and it definitely struck me that when you have up to 3 sections, you can probably get by with just one co element. Really the section leaders are basically squad leaders commanding 2 3-men fireteams, so having an ASL in the middle of the chain of command can be a bit confusing. ( I wasnt sure was I meant to give my section orders, sit back and let ASL do it, do I just exist in order to relay orders from ASL to my section?)


Apart from that I really liked the mission. As people have mentioned the enemies were a bit spread out. My take on it from the briefing was that we would have a relatively light time of it getting to the truck, and then the main bulk of the enemies would appear after we had secured it. With that in mind I tried to get my section close to the road, so that we could quickly kill the convoy stragglers and get the truck. Cue us getting picked off from afar (and up close in the town) as I marched us all toward the convoy. If we had known that there would be a significant fight, then all well and good. Really it comes down to do you want to change the mission flow, or just explain it to the players better.

Also from a mission maker standpoint. I noticed while spectating that you had some of what I would call unnecessary garrisoning in some buildings, as well as some groups that were only 1 man strong. These building were sort of outside the AO, and only really serve as an annoyance. Personally there is nothing worse when fighting than taking fire from one enemy in a field somewhere, holding you back from the objective. Sort of clustering the enemies into a set of well defined points makes it a bit easier (and fun) to make a plan of attack and actually execute it. This is just something that I am coming to realise as I make more missions, and its entirely my own opinion, but something I think would benefit this mission.

[Ferrard Carson]

Thanks for the feedback, folks! An updated version will be made available Soon!

05-05-2015
- Added musical cues
- Expanded area of "Truck Checking" trigger
- Added hint for when the truck is within the "Truck Checking" trigger
- Added "well-commanded" to description of AAF forces
- Reduced size and spread of initial AAF contacts
- Delayed arrival of AAF reaction force
- Increased size and intensity of AAF reaction force

~ Ferrard

[Sparks]

- Increased size and intensity of AAF reaction force

*wibble*