None taken...I just have more to do and no time to do it in...
I wish! Last night I thought I had discovered the solution. Instead of going to the the first waypoint, which appears to be a "trigger" for the drones, I flew south toward the "hanging" drones as advised in the semi-cheat I've seen elsewhere. Only this time instead of shooting them down as I've done in past attempts, I let them be and kept on going around them to the south and then east. Zooming the radar out to max, I thought I might pick up on their base and attack that first. I did find a bunch more drones just hanging in the sky, waiting for something to trigger them. I left them alone too and eventually found their base. I don't recall the direction, exactly, but I think it was east or southeast of Minsk. At any rate, I shot up the base, killed everything and everybody there including a bunch of nearby drones. I then get the message that the 'destroy the base' objective is accomplished. Plenty of time to visit the FARP and reload with stingers. So far so good, none of the nearby drones is moving and I've not gotten the dreaded message that 'the drones are attacking the high rises'. So I'm thinking all I gotta do is find the rest of the drones, maybe hit the waypoints, and I'm done. I find more hanging drones between me and Minsk and take them out. But just when it's looking like this is finally going to work, something triggers the ones from the south, the ones I'd bypassed originally and maybe others I hadn't found yet, for all I know - and they fly in, shoot up Minsk despite my chasing them around, and in about 30 seconds they've won again. Dang!!
Don't know what the trigger is that sends in the drones. Maybe you've gotta avoid all waypoints or something. It doesn't seem to matter if the drones "see" you - if you approach them from the front they'll fire missles at you but still won't move - so I doubt that's it. Next time I'll try attacking the base first, that seemed to work well; then go flying around the perimeter of the map with radar maxed out, and try to take out as many drones as I can find before they go on the move. Don't know if that'll work for sure. If anyone knows more about what triggers 'em, I'd sure like to hear about it.
Charger are you having any luck?
Wish I could help Rapid... I opened the map using some tools available here at Checkpointdelta and looked briefly at the events and win conditions:
There appears to be 4 sub goals labeled as critical for mission completion.
Minsk Residential Area is secured
Minsk Suburb is secured
Downtown Minsk is secured
Drone Control Facility is destroyed
To do each of these involves destroying all of the groups involved in the attacks of
these areas.
As to what 'triggers' the 'events' of the attacks... what you ask is quite complicated... There are about 50 events and almost as many waypoint lists in this map... and not one of them is labeled except with a number. Tracking them down and listing them here would take considerable time... and, in my humble opinion, ultimately undermine an 'honest' mission completion.
I will offer you this... that the drones are 'activated' to go into an attack pattern when some of the drones finally reach a certain point, while others are activated when a certain number of another group are destroyed....So....
You might think about leaving the stationary drones alone... and destroy the ones that must be destroyed anyway first... For some reason, the mission went much better when those first three groups I referred to in my first post were destroyed before their entry into the city, or very shortly thereafter.
Decide on which angle of attack is your most successful for shooting down the drones...get yourself there, and again, keep your cannon fire limited to very short bursts.
Keep trying... I don't know how many times I had to try that mission, but it was more times than I care to admit...
I hope this helps ! And if it doesn't - you can safely believe your experience eventually will.
Bluetiereign...did you say you actually complete this mission? I was wondering because it seems like a tuff mission and from what I saw from the designers events list was that his intentions wasn't to have you beat this mission, not easily anyway. I have been able to track down the initial trigger #8 that pretty much starts the ball rolling. It sits right in front of you and runs along the entire AO. Just as you hit player waypoint 1 you’re in it. I also noticed that if you destroy just a few drones in one group another group is initiated or redirected to the group your attacking waypoint list. Also if you target a group and another group is in the area the second group will turn green and come into the area and basically will target you, a pretty decent design. When a set of drones reaches the end of their waypoint list, and none of the waypoints loop, then they are directed to an opposite waypoints list using another drones waypoint list.
Its possible to head directly south and avoid most of the madness, and reach what I believe Rapid was describing. There are a few groups of drones there at their start point.
Most of the triggers are within the first boundaries of the mission. All the drones except for the two groups around the command center are located on the outside of the AO. It would be possible to take out a good cluster of drones by working your way around the outside. Its not going to matter if you destroy the command center first cause your still going to have to cross triggers to get the events to play out and get your mission complete. I know that all this seems a little like cheating but I’m not personally looking to cheat my way through this mission because its seems worth the effort to try and find the solution while playing it out. I got curious and decided to see what the events list looked like for myself.
Here’s a small explanation of the events list.
When player reaches area trigger # 8 four groups of drones are triggered. Which is event 42, this would be the initial event cause it’s the first thing you do, cross over into area trigger #8 to reach player waypoint 1, unless of course you fly around.
From there is goes into variables as to, if you destroy x units then the next set of drones are sent in or some of the four groups are redirected which gives them the random flight path so at this point you may not be able to build on a pattern from each time you play.
There are some 15 groups of drones and each group or set of groups are sent in depending on lost units and variations of area triggers you set off, so I will agree with one thing, that its going to take a lot of luck to beat this mission and more then a few times to do it in.
Unfortunately, I took your post as a challenge, and had to play the dang thing at least 7 or 8 more times to beat it. That last time it was 2:00 in the morning, I was dog tired, and was quite happy to see that final screen and mission score roll around....
Knowing your propensity to 'have a little fun'... I'm hesitant to post, but in the chance of genuine pursuit of mutual knowledge and accomplishment ... I'll go on... You know I've been at this less than two months...
Anyway, after further study of the makeup of the map, I did notice that the destruction of some of the groups turned other groups to the neutral side. I also noted that the author included some transporting... a technique Rüstinsk used thoroughly, and with very lethal effect, in one of his co-op maps... I didn't bother to trace what the author was moving, but the shear numbers of the drones and the difficulty in getting a lock on them alone is enough to be ovewhelming... Personally, I believe the map to be of co-op caliber... not a single mission map. Whoever wrote it knew their stuff and turned out a very challenging map.
Clearing out the that first wave and securing the Minsk Residential Area and subsequently getting to that FARP as quickly as possible is key. If that is accomplished you can get to the Suburb area before the drones and meet the groups before they part ways into those separate and apparently random flight patterns to which you refer. I hit the FARP again at this point. This is also true on the High Rise or Downtown objective -again, staying close the High Rises, and meeting the heaviest concentration of the drones head-on, leaving the stragglers for later. Aside from making the 'on the fly' decision of whether to spend more cannon shot or load a stinger... I know not much more that could help... for as you know by now, the communication's building is surrounded by mostly harmless drones that toss a few stingers and are lousy shots with their cannons.
One thing I did notice that I thought to be errant was something I discovered when programming planes into my own maps. You have to avoid flight patterns that actually put the vehicle close to a building if your 'waypoint z' is not programmed to be much higher than the structure. The vehicles ( in this case the drones) appear to pass through the building without effect and suddenly gain 100 or so feet in altitude. Hardly fair to the pursuing Comanche.
[Edited on 10-2-2002 by Bluetiereign]
This is a very intriguing mission to say the least and from a designer point of view is a good lesson in design, well worth scrutinizing. I found a few minor flaws or senseless design values but other wise then that they do not alter the outcome of the mission. With confidence I can say that this mission was not the work of one person and would be surprised to hear other wise. I guess my stance at this is the mechanics of the events list and not actual playing it because it is elaborate in its own design and does have a lot of elements that any dedicated designer might be interested in learning how to work these events out.
It’s complicated but yet fairly simple in that you have the basic structure for events. Player reaches trigger and drones come in. The actual pattern of the drones is left up to the player’s decision and how he maneuvers his Comanche through the map and how many targets he destroys in the journey. You did say that there was teleporting involved but the only teleporting I could decipher from the map was that of the teleporting of unarmed civilians to there prospective places in the city, at which point the drones will attack them and which is an actual event and has a sub goal placed to it.
I admire your dedication to completing this mission but was more of less looking for your view on how this mission played out if you had completed it. It wasn’t a challenge but nice job in beating it never the less. I actually use this sort of events listing but on a very small scale so in some ways it’s not that difficult to understand. The only thing I was hoping to find was the sequence in the events list to fallow the attack of the drones. The designer did not set any order to the list, something not uncommon in events listing.
Wow, you guys are waaaaaay above my level! I appreciate all the thoughtful advice. Actually the only reason I'm looking to "cheat" is because this mission seems impossible to complete honestly and I wanna get to those that follow it. However, it is apparent from what you say that a great many variables are involved, and maybe by stumbling around I'll eventually hit on the correct solution. All I know is, when the drones start attacking the city, the radar sure shows a lot of **** red triangles! And when they split up and go to zipping low between the high rises it's like trying to swat flies in a hot kitchen. I'll keep at it and report back. Thanks!
Urrgh. Me must KILL DRONES NOW!
I took a few minutes to try the map both ways... A couple things...
First of all, you are given instructions by 'DarkStar' to head to Waypoint 1. Not doing this outside of the 'gaming circle' would land someone in 'the brig' and offer them a chance to see a court marshal first hand.. Not to mention gounding the pilot for the entirety of their life. Of course, this is a game, but in a military format, so with this undefined boundry reinstated... on to the logistics of the programming...
Unlike my preference in AI programming, the author(s) did not have the first group of drones already assigned to a designated waypoint, you have to activate this event by actually following instructions and approaching waypoint 1. Personally, I prefer to have the activity of the map working independently of the 'players' (at the beginning)... However, though this might eliminate the errant player's navigation, it could possibly offset the timing to the point of giving the AI's an unfair advantage...
Also, I believe the changing of Groups between Green and Blue is so the yet activated drones are not shooting the buildings while hovering (waiting for activation) - not a switch to a neutral stance instead of the enemy.
Bypassing waypoint 1 fails the gameplayer twofold. Not only are you failing to follow instructions, your timely arrival at certain points on the map is altered, and your chances at success lessened. IMHO, as programming becomes more thorough, this will eventually count against the pilot, just as some of the additional programming used by some of the pilots (macros) to improve their chance of 'a kill'. Consider this carefully, for in the spirit of the Military Combat, we have civilians to worry about, and those extra stingers that are fired have got to go somewhere. A helicopter, unlike a fixed wing aircraft that relies on constant movement, is suited for precision placement of the arsenal it carries.
Back to the programming...The safeguard hinges on the destruction of a certain number of drones in a group. As you and Rapid are aware bypassing WP1 can bring you to the yet activated and hovering drones...Destroying them or eventually wondering into a 'trigger area' will stop this suspended animation in other groups... but you are off course doing this, and not in prime position to deal with it...
And yes, it is an excellent map for study... thoughtfully and carefully written... The lack of a single author's name... plus, from what I can ascertain, a rush to produce the CD version of the game also lead me to believe this map a team effort.
Edited to include: FYI... I am convinced of this timing issue being key, not luck or multitude of trys... due to the fact once you win the map, you can do it consistently without much effort.
[Edited on 10-3-2002 by Bluetiereign]
I did it! Finally bested the droneys. The trick was to fly around the perimeter as before, but this time not shoot down ALL the "hanging" drones I encountered but rather only about half of them (# was just guesswork). That avoided activating most of the others that were yet off-radar (at max zoom-out). While I was flying around looking for more, I did get a couple of waves of drones attacking the suburbs, but was able to deal with them before they did too much damage. Then I was able to resume looking for other inactivated ones and deal with them. Again, a couple of groups got triggered and headed for Minsk, but (maybe because I'd thinned their ranks earlier?) was able to shoot 'em all down before too much damage done. And my reward for finally getting past this bugger was - nothing, it was the last mission in that campaign. Hah!
congrats good job
realize legalize MMJ is ok
did it! Finally bested the droneys. The trick was to fly around the perimeter as before, but this time not shoot down ALL the "hanging" drones I encountered but rather only about half of them (# was just guesswork). That avoided activating most of the others that were yet off-radar (at max zoom-out). While I was flying around looking for more, I did get a couple of waves of drones attacking the suburbs, but was able to deal with them before they did too much damage. Then I was able to resume looking for other inactivated ones and deal with them. Again, a couple of groups got triggered and headed for Minsk, but (maybe because I'd thinned their ranks earlier?) was able to shoot 'em all down before too much damage done. And my reward for finally getting past this bugger was - nothing, it was the last mission in that campaign. Hah!
The only thing I can say is you didn't actually beat the mission fairly and by going around and killing the hangers wasn't what the author had in mind, maybe now you can go in and actually fight the little devils on their terms and see how far you get!
Rapid-
I read your post and while I was glad to see you continued to try and 'progressed' to the next stage... I cannot say that I agree with the way you managed to do it.
Another way to look at this Rapid - those 'hanging drones' - in an actual battle situation - would have not even been there... they would have likely been behind a very heavily guarded enemy line ...or aboard a ship surrounded by many others... Now imagine flying that Comanche in the middle of a fleet of ships with large numbers of stinger missles...and surviving to get back and destroy the drones that got by...
I can really appreciate your enthusiasm and persistance...If you are this dedicated to achieving your goal in everything... I'd be willing to bet, there is little you cannot do. I hope you will apply it winning the mission 'fair and square'.
Best Wishes...In the BlueTerrain
When squadrons of combat drones like these do become reality I doubt they will send in one helicopter to take them all out! The fact that Comanche 4 does shows its an arcade game and that its very unrealistic.those 'hanging drones' - in an actual battle situation - would have not even been there... they would have likely been behind a very heavily guarded enemy line ...or aboard a ship surrounded by many others.
In real life they would probably send up some F-16s, F-15s or F/A-18s to take out those drones from long range with air-air missiles!
[Edited on 22-10-2002 by HardcoreUproar]
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