Mission: Manhattan

[JRD]

Sit down, grab your drink and a snack... it's gonna take a while to read...

I did this mission only once... took me 9 hours and 50 minutes to accomplish it, more than some FPS games out there lasts... 33 enemies down, 1 BMP, 1 T-72, 1 AA... used all my ammo, grabbed an AK-74 and a RPG... used all its ammo... searched dead bodies and rearmed to continue... begun during broad day light, finished in dark night... drove a Humvee till it runs out of fuel, then grabbed a civilian crappy car and drove it till it was finished as well... all tasks accomplished... that's some immersion  :-*

Political plot is more tense here.... Red Square is bombed during this mission, NAPA, the local guerilla, might be involved, the Russians are getting into it and the USMC presence is not desired....

You begin in a pre mission, named "one week latter"... you are to get a mountain bike and ride to a LZ some 500 meters away, and... that's it... petty dumb actually  :P

"Manhattan" begins as you fly to your Forward Operating Base (FOB) Manhattan.... disembark and meet capt Shaftoe uphill... he'll brief you on the many tasks assigned to Razor Team, that shall take place in a huge area

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Let's get to it then...
You are supposed to:

1 - Search Gorka for guerrilla's hidden weapons cache.
Didn't find any resistence in Gorka. There are three places to search... go for the church... the priest will try to convince you not to report your findings to the command... you have an option to do so. The role of the guerrillas is unknown (some of them support the legitimate government, some are separatists, but they all look the same) and I'm trying to do as many tasks as possible, so I reported... not sure what can come out of this, but anyway... task accomplished.  ;)

2 - Arrest a guy named Nikolayev, who is helping the insurgents... piece of cake... as you approach Khelm, the village where he lives east of FOB Manhattan, an explosion wipes out his house... he's dead, task accomplished

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3 - Arrest Antonia Lagushina, a nurse who is also helping the insurgents
She's in Krasnostav, to the north of FOB Manhattan.... according to intel, she'll be at the local church between 11:00 and 12:30 for the service... be there and arrest her... that's the easy part.
As you get her, you are then prompted to escort Lagushina to a LZ, SW of Krasnostav. Upon arrival, enemies will try to kill her to prevent her of giving away all she knows.

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If you drive, you'll be a sitting duck. Instead, walk through the woods... the small red circle is reported to have enemy activity... you'll find an enemy sentry post (other task) on the top of the hill and an enemy post with two jeeps that will attack you out as you wait in the LZ... take them out first and then move to the LZ... a CDF chopper will pick her up and you then move on.

4 - Find and destroy the weapons smugglers who are supplying the insurgents... they ride on a white off road pick-up... I met a few white pick-ups like this, but the one at Gvozdno, to the west of the place you escorted Lagushina, was the one... not sure if its random though. Only two guys with rifles on it... pretty easy.

5 - Find as many insurgents sentry post as possible and eliminate them using any means necessary.
I found three and got a "task accomplished" message
     - The southernmost of them is in Dubrovka.
     - Another one uphill of the area you killed the enemies who would attack Lagushina... they are in a castle ruin.
     - The northenmost is to the nortwest of Krasnostav, also on a hilltop.Intel report another one to the northeast of FOB Manhattan, but I found only some deserted tents by a radio antenna... been there at least three times and nothing.... save your time  ;)

6 - Find and destroy the insurgents main base. This can be anywhere if you are cluelessly looking for....... I found their base to the northwest of Krasnostav...
... that was a tough one (never found out how to call an airstrike on those bastards, but managed to kill them all and am very proud of it  ;D ;D ;D )
There is a BMP, a T-72, an AA, 3 machine guns nests, a field hospital and dozens of infantry defending the place.
MG nests, BMP and T-72 are ready for an attack from west. Clear the senty post close to it and move through the woods towards it, but be careful. enemies patrols the woods and the T-72 is extremely deadly, even if you are far into the trees.... man, I had to use a lot of flanking and snipe-and-run... after a long raid, I managed to hit the T-72 and could then kill enemies one by one... always from SE and hidden in the trees...............

7 - Find the insurgents leader..... he is in the main base, of course... it's your pal, Nikitin, the traitor... the one who delivered Mile's head to Lopotev on a silver tray.............. oh yeah  :-*
During your raid he'll be killed (by you, if you are a mean M.F.  ;D ;D )... search his body and get the "mission accomplished" message.

There are enemy armor and scattered patrols in the whole area, even where nothing special is to be found, so always be careful...
... didn't find anything at the Devil's Castle either...  :(

That's my experience playing this mission... looking forward to see how others play this one too.....
I must say its an uncommon long mission, maybe too long as I had a lot of driving and wandering in the woods with no action.... which broke the pace the game was making during the past missions.. however the plot is just great... next mission is more fast paced and might be more exciting  ;)

[PZ]

Excellent read Jrd!   :-X  I took your advice and grabbed a snack while reading - I think that I can almost envision your mission - your instructions were excellent.

[Art Blade]

indeed, did you take notes? like recalling names and locations... well done and executed. OUTSTANDING, without artillery! <pats JRD on the back> nice one  :) :-X

[JRD]

I did take notes for sure... wouldn't remember all those names and places.
You should see the face my wife made whan she found my scraps by the PC the other day...... "what are you woking on this time, dear?... and who's Antonia?"... to what I replied "Don't worry dear, Antonia is gone"  ;D ;D ;D

I think placing images in a post is sufficient for any member to be assisted in a particular mission.... what do you guys think?
I still want to try to make some clickable maps, but must admit I'm not doing my homework learning how to do so... too much things in my mind and I want to have some fun playing or spending some quality time with the wife.... not on the mood to study yet another piece of software  ::)

[Art Blade]

I think what you posted there is sufficient. If I were stuck somewhere in a mission I'd look up your post and look for things like

"I found their base to the northwest of Krasnostav" or

"I found three and got a "task accomplished" message
     - The southernmost of them is in Dubrovka.
     - Another one uphill of the area you killed the enemies who would attack Lagushina... they are in a castle ruin.
     - The northenmost is to the nortwest of Krasnostav, also on a hilltop."

Maybe put that in a different colour, so it would be easily recognised as a tip how to accomplish a mission or where to look for what. The screenies of the map are useful if POI (places of interest) are marked and labelled. I don't think I'd go to a general giant global map and click my way through it just to end up reading your post which might have been linked to a spot on the global map.

I think it's cool just as is now, maybe just add some colours to relevant passages :)  :-X

[PZ]

...... "what are you woking on this time, dear?... and who's Antonia?"... to what I replied "Don't worry dear, Antonia is gone"  ;D ;D ;D

ROFL!  :-X :-X :-X

I think you did a great job, and your instructions are more than sufficient - as to something click-able, I too would like to do something, but as you, have little time to do all the experimenting in games.  I'm now playing ARMA2, Medal of Honor; Airborne, Call of Duty 5, and FC2 of course.

[JRD]

@ Art... great advice... done  :-X

@PZ... wow... imagine when the wife is out ;)

[PZ]

The only thing I wonder is if we might use the articles so that the mission descriptions don't become lost in the posts.  It is still possible to post comments to the articles, much like you would reply to posts, but having a single place to go for ARMA2 mission descriptions would make finding the descriptions you need much quicker - I keep thinking that we're over 10,000 posts and searches don't always come up with what you need.  The ARMA2 SP board is still small, but when there are hundreds of posts spanning dozens of pages, finding the mission description might become quite a challenge.  Just a thought, however - everyone should still post in the way that they feel comfortable.

[Art Blade]

I would have done it just like JRD - as a post. I don't know why, but articles seem to be like something you read once, enjoy, and forget. Posts however seem to be more "up to date" and more alive. Replying with posts feels completely different from commenting since posts have this question&answer feeling, unlike comments, that are statements in itself, no follow ups.

I think JRD did what needs to be done, calling it "Mission:" - search results should contain it. Or just sort the board by subject... easily done ;)

[PZ]

Well, that's what we're all about at OWG - choice  ;)

[Art Blade]

absolutely :) We might still change stuff if we think it's time to think it over :)

[JRD]

I think PZ has a point... posts can get lost easily.
If they are arranged in a tidy manner, can be easier for users

But as articles it wouldn't show on "Unread" right?

Maybe place it somehow on a "SP Missions" or "Walkthrough" area... not sure where as we just discussed a new layour for the boards... thoughts?

[Art Blade]

That's why I supported you - because of the new layout, I'd leave it be until we really need to sort it out (if).

[PZ]

... But as articles it wouldn't show on "Unread" right?

Unfortunately that is correct.  This issue becomes a problem as the number of posts in the individual boards become numerous; posts become "lost" and we get many questions referring to the same original post.  In fact, it is already a problem for me and I am a regular visitor to the ARMA2 boards - I forget where (or even if) I have seen mention of the topic of which I am interested.

The question is how to organize the content so that it is easy to find answers.  I started an ARMA2 (everything you ever wanted to know about ARMA2" style article for mods, scripts, member-created missions, etc.  That might be an easy solution for mission descriptions.  The best of both worlds - being able to post in the forums, and having a single place to look for mission descriptions.

EDIT: OK, here's a possible solution to the problem of losing mission descriptions.  Check out this ARMA2 Missions Index

[JRD]

PZ... you are DA MAN... thats great...  :-X :-X

I think this can be a fine solution for those mission descriptions...

We can make a sticky "Missions descriptions" or "Mission walkthrough" post in the A2 board linking to that page...

OUTSTANDING w@&k MARINE...  ;D ;D ;D

[PZ]

Thanks soldier... there should be a sticky at the top of the list describing the mission index.  Then when someone asks about a mission, we can point them to that sticky.  In fact, it might not be a bad idea to restructure the Quick links box on the front page to point to these consolidation articles so that new users have a quick way to get to the most important content.

[wexer9]

Thank you, this helped a lot!

[JRD]

You are welcome, mate... I'm glad it helped!  :-X

So you are playing through the campaign!

May I ask you to post some impressions when you have some time? It's been a while since I last played A2 and I was pretty excited when I got this far into the game. Well... turns out that the game lost all appeal to me in the latter missions and I never actually finished it! Now I'm curious to see what others think about it!

One day I will... one day! ;)

[Art Blade]

Unlike JRD, I didn't even get that deep into campaigns. I lost interest way earlier. But indeed, I too would like to read your thoughts.

And yes.. maybe one day.. one day, maybe..  :)

[PZ]

Same here - I never did get too far into the game, but I sure did enjoy applying mods.  :-()

[Art Blade]

The only thing I do remember fondly is the Lone Sniper (custom) mission. Gee, that was cool, intense, and fun. :)

[JRD]

I was deep into this game untill I reach a mission where the game turns into a RTS game...  ????

I mean... isn't it a FPS/3PS game? Why the hell they decided I should start building barracks and manage resources and sending troops thiss way or that way? If I wanted a game  like that I'd taken Civ V for that matter  :-(

The concept of a nice war sim was ruined by a completely lost execution... they lost their focus on that one. It's pretty straightforward... a shooter is a shooter, that's what a player have in mind when buying that game. If it turns into something else during the way, they lose their point!

... and a freaking bugged game as well!  >:((

[Art Blade]

see, and I always thought "what a strange game of golf this is."