I need a Campaign Tester

[Dusty Rhodes]

I need a person who has the time to go thru a 7 mission campaign that I made and give me in depth debriefing on how it worked, if it was fun, the total run down basically. Anyone interested. It is based on Turkey vs Insurgents.

Edited February 18, 2009 by Dusty Rhodes

[Rhino4]

I'd like to give it a shot, if that's cool by you...

[Dusty Rhodes]

OK, here it is. I want to hear the good bad and ugly of it all. Just unzip that file into your campaign folder of Black Shark and it should be listed in there. I didn't apply any points or anything so you will just go from one mission to the next. I haven't quite gotten a grasp on assigning points so you can advance to the next level. That is what I will work on next in my next small campaign.

Campaigns.zip

Edited February 18, 2009 by Dusty Rhodes

[195th_Moses]

The Good BS is pretty

 

The Bad your Still Ugly :)

[Dusty Rhodes]

And that my friend can never change. :)

[Dusty Rhodes]

Anyone have a chance to fly my small campaign? Really like to hear some feedback on it.

[Rhino4]

Edit: the 2nd mission is missing from your zip file. I only have 1,3,4,5,6, and 7. I'll still fly through them though to see if they're fun on their own...

 

Flying through 1st mission now...let you know how it goes when I'm done :)

 

UPDATE: 1st mission complete, I think...The lack of completion points gets a little confusing. Here are things I noticed:

-at the briefing screen-

1) There was no real briefing. Just a short description of the (political?) situation with no actual mission brief whatsoever. When I clicked fly I had absolutely no idea what I was going up against, where I was flying...What am I supposed to be doing in this mission?

2) No briefing photos (see 1.)

-jumping into the cockpit-

3) Ok right off the bat I noticed you put the FARP right next to some power lines. That is a big no-no in my book.

4) I like how I started with the cockpit cold and dark. Made me rack my brains trying to remember that startup procedure. I've been playing the other campaigns and you never start cold there.

-getting off the ground-

5) Once in the air I found flying through the mountain canyon to be quite fun. However, the waypoints you put into the pvi-800 would kill you if you tried to fly them on autopilot. I tested to see if I could get to the attack point with just autopilot...SMACK right into the side of a mountain...

-ingress-

6) I had no idea what I'm really supposed to be doing, so I checked the abris and saw two of my WPs listed as "attack" so I figured, "That must be where I'm supposed to go if I wanna blow stuff up." That's cool, but there's on real ingress point and with the canyon walls being so tight it was hard to get a good peek into the canyon where the first enemy convoy was without having missiles sent my way.

-several narrow dodges later-

7) I finally just fly up the canyon a bit and then drifted left letting each enemy vehicle come into sight one at a time and taking them out as I did so...Nice, but it would be better if they were actually moving somewhere...Perhaps to attack the friendly convoy that I flew over on the way here? That would add a time-crunch factor and motivate you to take them out early...And putting them in the canyon with you would certainly make it less of a hassle to engage them.

8) So now that I've taken out the first convoy I decided, "to hell with this stupid canyon. I'm going to climb over that ridge and fly to the next attack point with some cover. So, ignoring the designated waypoints entirely, I made my way to a handy ridge opposite the canyon entrance to attack point two. I rise over the ridge with my guns out looking for bear, and what do I find? Well, nothing really...There was nothing there. Is there some kind of flag you have to wait for?

-finding attack point 2 devoid of targets I...-

9) Oh, well, I guess I'll go on to the last waypoint and see what's there. I see on the map it's marked with bpsd (if I remember correctly. I probably don't). What does that mean. This is where the briefing would have come in handy...

10) Fly over the waypoint (at an airport) and nothing shoots at me soooo I guess I'll just land...Is that it?

-final impression-

Definitely needs ALOT more time and ALOT more polish. Either make the enemy convoy moving to intercept the friendly convoy or else turn it into an ambush and hide them in the trees on the mountain side. Do something about that second attack point. Streamline your waypoints so the don't get you killed flying them with autopilot. Move your FARP somewhere you won't run into powerlines if you're drunk. Fix the briefing. Add some radio calls. Even if you don't change the convoy to an ambush you may want to put some iglas in the trees in the left mountain face just to make it interesting...Maybe just some infantry with AKs...Add a trigger that activates SAMs if you fly outside of the canyon. Flying through the canyon is half the fun of the mission so make staying in the canyon vital to survival so they don't stray and do their own thing like I did.

 

I give this mission a 2 out of 5

Edited February 22, 2009 by Rhino4

[Dusty Rhodes]

Well damn, mission one was supposed to go as you guessed. Two enemy attacks that you had to thwart in time to let the convoys pass. I will get right on mission one and fix what you have pointed out. Thank you very much for your time.

 

EDIT: I just realized why there was no brief so there is no brief for ANY of the missions so stop flying this turkey and I'll go thru all the missions and fix them. I just realized some really bone headed, got in a hurry, stupid things that I did.

 

As for the FARP, it was tough finding a place to put it in Turkey so it will stay put. I will be adjusting waypoints though so AP can be used a little better but not total reliance :).

 

Man I am glad you gave such a good debrief or I would have never caught the problems. I'll have the improved campaign up by later today to start over and test out. As for knowing if you advanced or not, just do what the brief says. Once I figure out the points thing, I will be able to implement it.

[Dusty Rhodes]

OK, the briefing problem is fixed. I put the briefing in the Red side and you are playing the Blue side. Lil embarassing there. I also made some subtle changes to things I found in all the missions. I still can't get my pea brain wrapped around the math of scoring each mission, but I am close. Fly the missions per the briefing and you will know if you succeed if you do what the briefing says. My next campaign I am going to do with scoring but I want to get down the basics first. Delete your old campaign and insert this new one and then as you did before, tear me a new A-hole on what you find :)

Turkey vs Insurgents.zip

[Rhino4]

Should I refly mission 1 or skip ahead to 2?

[Dusty Rhodes]

Refly mission one if you would please.

[Rhino4]

Just re-flew it. Still has some major timing issues. The friendly convoy goes so slow you have moooore than enough time to take your time engaging the two enemy columns. Also: I thought I was supposed to be fighting insurgents and terrorists kicked out of iraq...Normally they don't operate with tanks...The first time your waypoints go zigzag is totally unnecessary. From 200m above the canyon floor, you can just fly straight. And once the enemy convoy hits your convoy's route, why does it just stop and sit there? Could you make it continue into the canyon and turn towards the friendly convoy?....The second mission still has no briefing. Once you complete the first mission in campaign more it says campaign completed. You have to fly each mission individually to fly them all...

[Dusty Rhodes]

Good suggestion on the Insurgents going further. I'll remake it so they turn into the convoys. As far as their weaponry, I am just using that which ED made it so we could use. I could include a blurb in the briefing where they got the tanks and such if that would help.

 

I'll look at the second mission but I think I already know what happened with it.

 

Why it just ends, I don't know. It may be that to build a campaign that progress' you have to use the point system. SInce it seems so, then I'll get to the point system right off. I just might as well learn the damn thing then putting it off.

 

Do me a favor and fly the rest of the missions, in order, and give me the same briefing/rundown. You are helping me a great deal. Thank you so much for your assistance.

 

Anyone else try the campaign and have feedback it would be more then welcome.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Mission 2 briefing fixed.

Turkey vs Insurgents 2.miz

[Dusty Rhodes]

Any more feedback on this or did you get tired of mucking with my mistakes and omissions?

[Vesperatus]

Dusty,

 

I'm just starting the official campaing. Would you say yours is easier ? If that is the case, I might be interested to try it and get more pratice.

[Dusty Rhodes]

I don't know if it is easier. I have not flown it as I am testing it to see what I did right and what I did wrong. I am hoping for an outside person to go thru the missions and then let me know the good the bad and the ugly. I have not flown it becuase I built the missions and know what is going to happen so I need someone with no knowledge to do it to get fair feedback.

[Vesperatus]

Allright. I'll be back home tonight. I'll try it. It will let you know what is the level of difficutly and how a complete beginner will find it ;)

 

Do you have an updated package with all the missions ? How do I "install" them ?

Edited March 1, 2009 by Vesperatus

[Dusty Rhodes]

Kewl, thanks very much. This campaign is very much experimental on my part as I learn how thing go and what everything does. Hopefully Rhino will return and fly the rest of the campaign and give me feedback.

[crazysundog]

Is this for the Russian/English version of BS?

[Dusty Rhodes]

English version.

[Vesperatus]

I installed and started the campaing. Got shot down a couple of times on the first mission and at some point It deceided I passed it anyway ?! Didnt kill any tanks !

 

 

Anyway, now, even if I do restart campaign, I cant do first mission.

 

any ideas ?

 

And is there a way to re-read the mission briefing from the game ?

 

Ho, and the fog is very nice on the first mission, but it was killing my fps until I reached an altitude of 200 meters.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Once you get shot down you can't restart the campaign until you change pilots. Then you should be able to restart the campaign no problem.

[Vesperatus]

What ? Why can't I reset the campaing ? It worked the first few times I did it.

 

With the default campaign, I keep dying and I dont have to change pilots or restart the campaign. Is that a win condition you have put in.

[Dusty Rhodes]

Oh no, I must have misunderstood you. I thought you said you couldn't play number one again so I suggested making a new pilot and that should solve the problem. If I was confused then accept my apologies.