Operation Rescue

[JJ173]

Operation Rescue

Feedback Thread
Feel free to post any thoughts about this mission or suggestions of what you'd like to see changed or improved. Link to the recent changes can be found in this post: viewtopic.php?f=78&t=13626&p=140165#p140165

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Info:

• Author: JJ173
• Designed for 1 - 4 Players
• Faction: UEF
• Description: UEF Scientists have been trapped by a Cybran Commander. The Cybran created a long-range Jammer that has blocked our communications to the group of scientists. Luckily, we were able to pinpoint their location. You will gate in and rescue our scientists and their research.

There are a few hidden surprises in this map, so watch your back at all times.

Latest download for testing: https://mega.nz/#!U8cVEDpb!J0k9DiO_Zrq5 ... mpTOCgXw6g

Spoiler: show

[PhilipJFry]

played the mission a few times now
some things i noticed:
NW base builds loads of land units that stand in front of the base (i assume they should get dropped somewhere but they don't

ForgedAlliance_2017-12-20_19-44-16.png (96.25 KiB) Viewed 7867 times

the Monkeylords may start shooting stuff they can't hit and thus don't move on

ForgedAlliance_2017-12-20_19-44-39.png (521.47 KiB) Viewed 7867 times

not completing the objective to destroy the Soothsayer (2nd objective) doesn't seem to fail the mission - log is in the attachment
played in coop with a 2nd player

[JJ173]

Thanks Phil,

In regards to the final point of your review, the timer isn't supposed to fail the mission. It starts a sequence that builds up to failing the mission, which should go smoothly.

[OxideIon]

I failed to defend the science lab. Game didn't end but all cybran forces stopped hostilities. Bug?

Edit: I lost the lab a second time and then the mission ended, odd.

[OxideIon]

So I just realised that the soothsayer location is random, which I dislike a lot. When it's in the bottom base it's a lot easier to destroy (some t1 arty to hammer down a few pds and the shield while something else tanks the remaining pds) thus making it easier to complete. The top base doesn't really offer quick solution, unless if one can sneak in air units/transports through the flak, since that soothsayer isn't shielded. And on top of that the top base is further away.

Like PhilipJFry mentioned, the top base stacks units at the entrance, same also happens at the bottom base. Also, entering the bottom base is quite akward due to the plateau entrance being just on the map edge.

I'm not sure what exactly you want to do if one fails to kill the soothsayer, since the mission doesn't end when the objective is failed. I thought that the mission might still be completable, even though the objective failed. It was quite disappointing that after I killed those monkeylords and finally destroyed the soothsayer, nothing happened.

By the way, the targeting on the monkeylords is completely bonkers, they didn't seem to care that my acu was there. They went for all the other units first.

[OxideIon]

I managed to get kill the soothsayer and thought I was in a reasonable position to kill the monkeylord and get the trucks to the evac zone. Yeah no.

The t3 air is total overkill. The asfs slaughter all inties and then the bombers and gunships have free reign over anything that isn't covered in flak, which isn't all that bad actually, but the strat bombers... You just can't deal with them at that time, flak is ineffective, inties are dead, and sams can't keep up while advancing to the evac. I guess t3 maa could be useful but the strats still do a lot of damage and I would rather build percies to combat the brick drops and provide extra firepower against the monkeylord.

Another thing is the telerporting mazer com. Like seriously, wtf? From what I've observed the locations it goes to seem to be pretty random, so it has the capacity to f*** over everything, if one is unlucky, imo not really great design.

Imo you can either give more time in the second phase so one can prepare better for the total fuckfest of phase three, or tune down the attacks in the third phase (especially the air ones). Could also do both. Also, would be nice if the objective said how many trucks need to survive.

[JJ173]

OxideIon, thanks for your feedback. The Cybran Commander's ability to teleport has been moved to a later part of the mission (it's also no longer random, so just watch your back.) I was recently thinking about what I need to do to fix the mission if the player manages to kill off all of the end-game Spider's (perhaps I'll add more units or have the mission advance once they die). In regards to the ASF, I may downgrade those to Combat Fighters or Ints to prevent the easy transport snipe. Bear in mind also that this mission is coded to really test you on hard, so if you want to retry, give it a go on a lower difficulty. I'm making occasional updates to fix most of these little issues that people are raising.

[OxideIon]

I completed the mission (not the last secondary objective though, I noped out after that one surprise). It is quite a bit better now. The extra five minutes in the second phase help a lot. One thing I disliked was the fact that the enemy gunship and bomber attacks start almost immediately, they cause quite a bit of damage and make rebuilding fairly difficult. Then again, it might be justified for hard difficulty.

There was more variety in the land attacks coming from the right side of the map, which was nice. Units from the NW base no longer stack at the base entrance, but units from the southern base do stack at the entrance (I think some of the transports went beyond the map edge, see replay). There is also a significant drop in land attacks after the jammer is destroyed, not sure if the NW base sends any.

Making the first couple waves of air units not have t3 after the jammer is destroyed is a good solution imo, since it gives some extra time to get t3 air or aa.

Final note, the left side of the map has very few units. Outside of the monkeylord and its escort, there's only like a couple bricks. Maybe adding something there is a good idea, idk. Good job on the mission!

Oh btw, one of the messages was shown twice, something about bravery and the scientists I think, it was somewhere near the end of the mission.

[OxideIon]

Found a major bug. The enemy com (Jarex) can't die. Found out about it after he teleported on my com to stop me from leaving. He didn't stay around though just started immediately walking back to his base.

A side note, completing the secondary objective is really easy since he teleports on you after the quantum gateway is finished. Standard teleport defense obliterates him thus one doesn't need to go through all the bases and experimentals to get to him.

[rkrempel]

1 play-through, 3 player coop

-player colors colors are bad, hard to tell who is who
-AI colors are bad, too hard to see on this map
-it would make sense if the AI bases where stealthed (how else can they get there unnoticed?, say 2 stealthfields per base)
-there is no specific objective to keep the transports alive

Oh, and above all, we need high quality voice acting. I hear Mark Hamill is done with Star Wars, see if he's available.