Re: Arma 2 Scenarios
Christopher Caldera
Hi all. Here is my problem: My campaign seems to save my progress just fine. However, when it comes to Scenarios, for some reason Arma 3 no longer gives me a check mark (for mission complete), nor does it allow me to resume saved games. No matter how many times I save, when I go to play the scenario again, it simply has the option to "play". I have been using the same mods that I always have JSRS2.0, Blastcore, and CBA. This has been an issue for me for months and I am finally sick of it. Can anyone please help or give any advice? Thanks.
Hi Gunter: I use play with six for those mods, and I have turned each and all of them off to no avail. I was away from Arma 3 for a few months, and ever since coming back to it, the User Made Steam Workshops scenarios simply will not save nor give me options to resume, etc, even with mods off. Any ideas what could be doing it?
Gunter: So I guess it is more of an issue with the Steam Workshop missions than anything else. I tried without playwithsix and it still won't work. I have even tried re-installing the game. So, I guess I need to open up a ticket then. Thanks for the advice.
Worse example: You are dead in a scenario and are presented with the choice to select a savegame - but one Escape-click too much and you are back in the (scenario) lobby and you cannot continue the scenario, but have to start from the beginning.
I love discovering fun, challenging scenarios in ArmA 3. This fabulous war simulation is the onlyshooter game really worth considering. Having played the franchise since Operation Flashpoint, I found its uncompromising realism to bean excellent form of meditation, especially after a long day of work full of IT buzzwords.
One mission that drew me in recently is Terrorist Hunt -Factory, by Fin Soldier, a remake of the Rainbow Six Vegas TH gamemode. In this mission, you and upto three other human players are pitted against 28 AI enemy soldiers at a factory plant. Sounds simple,but typically, you end up outnumbered, and a relatively simple premise becomes a very tricky, difficultobjective. As I learned to perfect it, I realized something. I was mimicking the real combat tacticsused by professional soldiers. Follow me.
Usually, I would play this with one other human player, and we would end up outnumbered 14 to 1,which is not a good number if you're going on an offensive (or even being on a defensive). The map isdesigned with multiple buildings, with enemies spawned randomly, and yet with pretty much every squarecentimeter of the mission area covered by several shooters at once. So if you think you can just makelinear progress, you soon learn that it's not so trivial.
You also get one respawn ticket per player, but if all of you are out of action at the same time -and with only two players, it's quite easy for this to happen - then the mission ends up in a failure.When you consider you have a maze of 9m cargo containers to cover, numerous houses and garages withsoldiers lurking inside, plus an odd man on patrol here and there, death is far more likely than you'dexpect. So you end up playing the scenario over and over again, slowly learning from yourmistakes.
Close Quarter Battle (CQB) missions aren't that common in ArmA 3. Like all of the games in thefranchise, it's designed to be played over massive, open terrain, with supporting fire, artillery andvehicles. You don't typically end up fighting in an urban setting. And since you have none of thestandard arcade-mode stuff like bunnyhopping and puck physics, this becomes a hard, often frustratingexercise.
This makes the Terrorist Hunt - Factory mission such a delightful departure from the usualengagements, and in the CQB environment, you really have to be slow, careful and methodical. You alsoget to look and dress however you like, as the scenario comes with the Virtual Arsenal, so if you wantto be a UN reporter, an orthodox priest or perhaps a Go Kart racer, you can. Kind of turns thesuffering of having to repeat the scenario over and over somewhat easier.
At first, we would kit ourselves out with a light-caliber rifle, typically with a sound suppressor,lots of grenades, both RGO and little golf-ball-sized RGN, and then go about clearing the buildings.Door, open, nade, rush in, try not to get killed. As hard as we tried we would usually end up dyingafter a while, and sometimes with only one or two enemy soldiers left. We'd sometimes succeed too, butthe going was never easy. The big problem was that you can't always scan and cover all the angles, andsome of the buildings are in the center of the map, in the crosshairs from all directions. The AI inthe map typically stays put, bunkered and ready, and they don't often venture out (some do, just tokeep you on your toes), so you have to brave it. And then you get shot at from five different angles.And then you die, and you end up spectating your friend trying to finish the mission.
We spent a lot of time trying to beat the scenario. We added grenade launchers into the equation.Then tried Saiga. Then, machine guns. But the results were pretty much the same. However, the VirtualArsenal does give you access to a vast array of weapons, and with about a dozen mods that I'm using,this also meant the entire inventory of the US, Russian, British, and German forces, in addition to theNATO and CSAT stuff. One of the items in this cross-OFP-ArmA arsenal is the 60mm mortar. The weaponcomes in two parts, tube and plate, so with two human players, you both carry one piece in thebackpack. This significantly reduces the amount of ammo and nades you can carry, but then you also haveawesome firepower at your disposal.
So we started practicing. One would act as the artilleryman and the other as a spotter. The secondmember of the team would wander out, trying to keep as close to the fringes of the map area as possibleto reduce the number of attack vectors the enemy would have, and then, if he saw the soldiers, he wouldguide the mortar strikes.
This turned out to be a delightful - and successful - strategy. With 40 mortar shells available, wewould have a tremendous amount of firepower, and usually it would take two or three rounds to flatten abuilding, with everyone inside. We'd sometimes dispose of three or even five enemy AI at once. Butthen, some of the buildings were of the indestructible type, and we would still have to move in byfoot, nade and prayer beads in hand.
We decided to optimize our strategy even further. One of the launchers available in the game is theCarl Gustaf recoilless rifle, an 84mm anti-tank weapon. In the game, it carries the US Army destinationMAAWS, and it comes with relatively lightweight ammunition. The standard carryall backpack can store2-8 rounds, based on their type (the bigger tandem HEAT rounds weigh more, the lighter HE/frag onesless).
We came up with an idea of carrying these with us, in addition to M4 rifles with M203 launchers,plus hand grenades. Thus armed - rifle with 6-8 clips and a dozen 40mm HEDP grenades, half a dozen RGOand RGN frags, plus MAAWS with typically 5-6 rounds, we wandered into the factory and tried our newapproach.
We were quite burdened with our weapons load, so it took a while making progress at first, but weadapted a pretty standard cleanup tactic. One of us would always cover with the rifle. If he spotted anenemy, he'd try to shoot. If the enemy was hiding, he'd lob a 40mm grenade. Meanwhile, the other onewould hoist the MAAWS onto their shoulder and then fire the launcher.
In the game (as in life), the Carl Gustaf has a pretty awesome kick. The rounds have a fast, almostflat trajectory, so you end with almost instantaneous hits, which makes it perfect for exactly thiskind of engagements. The accuracy allowed us to target every windows or doorway, including theindestructible buildings. While previously we'd have less than perfect accuracy with other weapons,including the underslung grenade launchers, with MAAWS, we would always hit spot on, bringing muchrejoicing to our mission as the count of the number of enemy AI left dropped.
Soon enough, we were even more effective than using the mortars. With the former, we were limited tothe buildings that could be damaged and open spaces, but now, we could hit everywhere. As we madeprogress, there would always be some enemy left inside. So we perfected the cleanup routine here,too. Open, the door, toss a nade in. Step back. Fire MAAWS through the door toward a wall corner orceiling. The blast effect would then kill the enemy inside, or at least thin them down, so we stood amuch better chance of completing the mission.
We enjoyed similar success with the garages - they have vehicles parked inside, which will explodeif exposed to too much damage. One or two MAAWS rockets fired through the tiny windows in the tinstructures would trigger a series of explosion inside, and even though we couldn't really destroy thesemost of the time, everyone inside would be kaput.
I was happy that we have come up with a successful and fun formula for finishing the mission - afterall, that's what ArmA 3 is all about, lots of shooting and explosions and serious, responsible adultmerriment. But I also realized that we had adopted tactics that aren't that different from how it'sdone for real.
Just recently, I've finished reading the book called 1968 Hue, by Mark Bowden, about the TetOffensive in the Vietnam War, and the urban fighting in the city of Hue. Long story short, smallgroups of marines were sent to clear the city of the Vietnamese forces, and they would end up indifficult battles against a motivated, entrenched enemy, firing from bunkers and hardened positions. Inthe first days of fighting, the US forces racked a large number of casualties, and made little advancefrom their base in the south of the city. Several officers improvised tactics long forgotten since theKorean War and used them to slowly recapture the city.
In essence, they used tanks to screen the infantry, Ontos vehicles with 106mm recoilless rifles toblast holes through walls and buildings, had Dusters with quad 12.7mm machine gun batteriesproviding suppressive fire, and after a while, they also ended up with artillery support. It was theone way they found to be effective against overwhelming odds.
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