Games

Old razor, still sharp.

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Decided to join the action on Proving Grounds EU tonight, for a little Raven Shield ;). It’s been about two months or more, since I really bothered playing RvS, but went pretty slick. I breezed through the first few maps with the skill you would expect a WO1 to display, and survived until the clock ran out on staying up late 8=).

Even more comforting, is that I’m not rusty, even though I play without an aiming reticle lol. Then again, if I expect to be shooting beyond ~10 metres fairly often, I generally will equip my weapon with a scope: as opposed to using the CQ style employed throughout RvS.

I just find it more natural and instinctive without the aiming reticle, and usually my reaction times are elevated, since I’m engaging the target in a fluid motion; there’s no point of reference from the centre pip.

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Man I gotta lay off the [SAS] dynamic room clearing. It’s like bam, bam, bam, bam bam bam – 2 story building with 30-40 contacts clear in the blink of an eye.

I feel like doing back flips, lol

The glory of Raven Shield / Unreal Engine 2….

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OS: Windows XP 5.1 (Build: 2600)
CPU: GenuineIntel Unknown processor @ 3003 MHz with 2045MB RAM
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS  (8250)

Assertion failed: Actor->ColLocation == Actor->ColLocation [File:.UnOctree.cpp] [Line: 1703]

History: FCollisionOctree::RemoveActor <- ULevel::MoveActor <- NormalSubUzi37  <- UObject::ProcessEvent <- (R6TMilitant04 Alpines.R6TMilitant31, Function R6Engine.R6Pawn.SpawnRagDoll) <- AR6Pawn::UpdateMovementAnimation <- AActor::Tick <- TickAllActors <- ULevel::Tick <- (NetMode=3) <- TickLevel <- UGameEngine::Tick <- UpdateWorld <- MainLoop

Both Raven Shield and SWAT 4 display crash messages like these, so perhaps it is an Unreal Engine 2 thing rather then specific to RvS/S4, but if it is, I would assume there is a way to turn it off. My feelings: This is good stuff to see if you are one of the games developers or testers—but should _never_ be seen by retail customers! Not only is it Martian to regular people, since we can’t go edit and recompile code ourselves, all it does is display information that we didn’t need to know. If I was going to do something like that for crash handling in a *release* product, I would probably make it said “Programmer fuck up, please sue the company for idiocy” 🙂 This seems to remind me, of one time I was on the website of a large north-american company, when for doing nothing at all but routine, their website gave me the most interesting error messages…. telling me enough data to find out several server side paths, there otherwise hidden implementation language, and enough data to clue in on what “stuffs” were being used to make the whole show go. I nearly died laughing lol. Maybe I’m a freak, but I don’t think user should be allowed to see developer information in a closed product like that.

post script: this was my 1500th journal entry

Rolling an idea into an operation!

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Well, my live operation is all but completely setup for Sunday; all I have to do is zip up & attach the intel photos, get the map files ready to rock, etc. I think I’ve taken about eight to ten hours in prep for it :-/. It takes me all of like, five minutes to come up with an idea for a live operation, then I spend time cooking up more details and brain storming…. once them creative juices get flowing, watch out! You just never know where we’ll end up before zero hour lol. As stressful as it can get when Murphy leaps out of no where, I really do love LOs in SAS.

I posted a short message in the LO forum on SAS this afternoon, and spent parts of the afternoon / morning working on the details, including an OPORD. This one is going to have two maps to it, assuming the element doesn’t die two minutes after insertion or fall down a vent shaft, haha! I am very tired of how many delays we often bump into with the start of a LO lately, so this time out, I’ve enacted a stricture—you come late, you sit this one out in the TOC or can go buzz off. This live ops beginning strictly on time, if I’ve gotta grease the wheels and push; considering that I’ve given everyone ~48 hours notice of the launch window, and will be tapping the assault team at least 15 minutes early for setup / briefing; there are no excuses!!! I think the assault team is going to have an interesting feeling, if they make it to the end of the first map, muhuahauhauahuhaaua!!!!

You know, I could make a fortune if people would pay me to think of contingency plans and potential attack vectors, just look at my service record with the EVR lol.

Personal Training Cycle, 2009-10-02

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Map 0: Meat Packing Plan 1, RvS Mission
Kit: Medium vest, MP5SD5+Scp, P228+HCM, 3 Bangs, 3 Gas
Results: Bullcrapped twice during clearing but aced it on the third go. Snuck in covertly until I was forced to cap a sentry through a window; no alarms were raised. Proceeded to secure the building room by room, penetrating into the upstairs ands ecuring my backdoor. Normally in server, we usually take the easy hostage first with bangs then go for the hard ones; for me, not so! I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel it is realistic to bang the downstairs kitchen, then creep into position upstairs ^_^. I setup an ambush on the catwalk; downed the guards with my H&K before they could raise an alarm – pick and choose your angles carefully. Moved the catwalk hostage into the hall for safe keeping, then I hit the gas pedal—full dynamic mode: blew through the next office with a flashbang, snatched the hostage, then moved them both to the next assaulting point. Dropped them off, plunked a pair of aces in the next hole, then stormed through with my H&K leaving nothing but the third hostage alive. Collected all three hostages, then moved out for egress by a different route then my ingress; taking it cautiously but expidetiously through the facility. Extracted the two hostages, then went and capped the last tango who was wondering around trying to follow me lol.

Map 1: Penthouse, RvS Mission
Kit: Medium vest, MP5SD+Scp, P228+HCm, 3 Bangs, 3 Gas
Results: Failed the first run do to being a moron, got spotted on the second go when the office door jammed on me. Third run was like clock work… Solid Snake couldn’t be more of a sneaky son of a bitch. A lot of people use Heart Beat Sensors and Smoke grenades to clear the Penthouse mission in RvS, me… I don’t believe in it for training purposes, it should be hard ^_^. I went in using no tactical aids, just two eyes and a beady little brain to sneak through undetected.

Map 2: (MP) Presideo, RvS Terrorist Hunt
Kit: Medium vest, MP5A4, P228, 6 Bangs
Results: Crept into a suitable place to light the fireworks, then moved swiftly at a controlled pace, securing the entire building. Got shot in the right shoulder, after getting “Overly zealous” on a dynamic entry but the poor tangos were too unprepaired to stand a chance. Had to track down the last terroristm, who was probably on my heals the entire map but just to slow to keep pace; hit’em with a flash bang and a semi-auto shot to the head.

All engagements were done fully automatic with the H&Ks, except for the very last tango which had to strong cover to warrent the chance at that distance (I had no scope).

If dinner wasn’t ready, I’d go for the SWAT 4 portion of my cycle, but it will have to wait until tomorrow :-(.

Fresnal Melee, SAS style

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It was the last round planned for most of us, and I got elected as Element Leader… so I called for something totally insane!

I ordered everyone to sling their weapons and skip the tac aids – none would be used. We then inserted into Fresnal station and made it half way through one of the largest maps before taking any causalities. Cara died by enemy shotgun shell, after weaving into my line-of-melee, then COT died by the same suspects 12g, when the guy fired while being beaten to death by two SWAT officers lol.

Walker and I then moved on and continued to clear the map…. the suspects never knew what hit them. I made it until being killed in a lag spike, sigh. In RvS at least when you lag out, you’re hard to kill, in SWAT you just become bullet-bait.

If it wasn’t for Walker firing one LTL Bean Bag round into a suspect about to flee the map, we would’ve completed the entire map with NO weapons or tactical aids what so ever. And if it wasn’t for extenuating sircumstances, no one on our team would have died most likely!

Perhaps we are crazy as lunes, or just enjoy a challenge. With no weapons, one has to move fast, and SWAT 4 doesn’t lend itself to unarmed combat as readily as real life does; slow punching but 2m distance is not a good trade off. The real key to it, is mastering the angles involved in the confortation—and beating the enemy senseless. It’s even possible to take 2-3 suspects at once given the right stuff. Until Cara stopped exploiting the angles, it was an interesting 5-vs-1 pistols to fists fight for a moment on the next map lol.

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I’ve spent the last few hours playing SWAT, ended it with a bit of Barricaded Suspects (VIP servers virtually empty :'(). I don’t really care much for SWAT 4s player versus player modes, since *at its best*, it basically boils down to forming a 2-3 man team: one with a big gun and the rest with 40mm baton cannon and cobras, arresting everyone in sight lol. I twas however a nice refreshing change – switch off the brain, run around, blow stuff up. Quake would have been a better choice.

Woke up around 0930Q, having dreamed something acline to the The Blackhole. I remember specifically a swirling blue-style blackhole, with balls of fire (like the asteroids in the film) flying form it, trying to escape but in the end, being sucked back into the event horrizion. Not to mention a lovely army of robots and an evil dictator, lol. The second dream, I don’t remember anything of at this point, it faded away a few minutes after I awoke – to tasks to tend to :-(.

Haven’t been in much of a good mood most of the day, this lack of sleep is driving me crackers. Still the same problems, sigh.

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It’s been a long and tiresome day.

Played some Urban Terror to pass the time, hoping that SWAT 4 would pick up some steam. I found a funny server running a Simpsons inspired CTF map. After getting tired of the “LMG Battleship” approach of going for the flag, and timing between the waves; I took up a picket position with an eye on the enemies secondary advance-point to our flag. As such, I was the only mook using solid cover, but hey, I was head huntin’ them blues 😉

Swapped my Minimi and flak jacket for a helmet and a G36, tap-tap at the enemies centre mass and follow up until clipin’ their heads resulted in fatal damages. Whenever necessary, I’d just move around cover in order to fire at the enemies primary and thirdary avenues of advance; leaving my sector to the run & gunners on my own team, and an occasional smoke grenade hehe.

Once I closed the game, I noticed that Duke, COT, and Filter had finally gathered, so I made ready to join the fray. I find the wolf in an ant-hill a good way to let off steam, but it’s ever so more relaxing to have a decent game with friends, especially SAS style games!

Shortly after Duke called it a night, it was time for me to make a beeline to dinner, exercising plan A. I stuffed my face with my usual zeal—I’ve always been an expedient eater lol. The Undefeated was on tonight, which I enjoyed. It’s especially nice to see, after so many years of brother against brother, ex union and confederate troops can still get along (and brawl) like brothers! Something that sadly, was quite a bit rarer in the post war years :/. Then again, between the pissing contest, Sherman, and the carpetbaggers, who can blame people for not getting along?

I also got to enjoy a nice 10~15 minute nap, and all this time, my laptop has been compiling updates; practically since I got home lool.

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Been playing more of Quake 4, and enjoying the storm of heavy strogg; a company of tactical transfers backed up with a platoon of Iron Maiden, Light Tank, and Gladiator units for all intents and purposes.

I’ve noticed that Quake 4, kind of like DooM of old has a “Flinch” like pain chance for different kinds of enemies. You hit them, they feel “Pain”, and are momentarily stunned; typically causing a pause in their movement and potentionally curbing their attack rate.

It has made fighting the Light Tank much easier actually, keep just outside punching distance but to close for its other weapons to be practical, and hose the thing with the Hyperblaster until it goes down. Especially since light tanks in Q4 love to try close in and use their brute force, it is a very effective technique when terrain permits; IMHO someone must’ve been thinking/watching Judge Dredd when they designed that Strogg. Also during the network node segment, I was pinned to the wall by a light tank…. but it went down before I did, due to pouring massive amounts of plasma into it lol.

Those Iron Maidens however seem to have a much lower pain chance, the lighting gun and hyperblaster are useful simply for their fire rate, although I wouldn’t suggest bringing the lighting gun to bear versus more then one Iron Maiden lol. The hyperblasters use is purely due to damage rate, it won’t cause enough pain to prevent them from shoving a rocket down your throat. The best weapon to deal with those things seems to be the trusty old rocket launcher, fire a salvo rapid fire and bingo—its lights out. Up close and personal, the shotgun also seems to be very effective when combined with double taps hehe.

Generally I’m not a fan of the Mega-hero with at least ten guns, more ammo then a dump truck can carry, and hordes of enemies that can each suck up as much fire as an Abrams school of game design, but Quake 4 has a nice balance. Most threats can be easily neutralized with suitable kit, Iron Maiden, Light Tank, and Gunners are not hard to bring down; a Gladiator on the other hand will warrant a big freaking gun! The real danger comes with numbers and terrain, plus like most games in the “Classic” style of level design: you will get loaded up with supplies before the real big nasty fights happen. Of course, this is almost always so close to the build-up to a pulse pounding, kick a hole in the wall, and pass the shotgun shells kind of brawl , that it ruins the suspense. Some games however can keep that suspense factor going, by shaking things up, so you really won’t know what is coming up, unless you play the game a lot or have a good memory (I do) for such things. I actually liked how in F.E.A.R. the replica troops that make up most of the games enemies are very easy to neutralize, almost realistically so; and there are only a few threats that are “Heavy” enough to make you nervous.

That being said though, a boss fight should always be expected to be worth a speed run and challenge you to complete it successfully, hehehe.

recent Q4 fun

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Been playing through Quake 4 again, very fun single player campaign; just started marching into Iron Maiden country on the last nexus tower tour.

Some how, being crammed into a tin can and shot down the throat of a strogg facility brings back memories of Quake II, lol. Personally I can’t fathom the one-man pods having any practical military value in such an environment. When comparing a group drop ship to a one man pod, I reckon with how unlikely you are to get a squadron of ships through without losing a lot of them, the one man pods would be more economical—less grunts lost per ship downed. On the other hand, unless the one-man pods land in closely grouped clusters, it effectively does nothing more then injecting a lone marine into their own personal ant hill! Which is arguably, what folk who grew up or thrive on the production of games like DooM and Quake, relish as a staple of game+level design ^_^. Although IMHO it would have been better to get a group landing (ala Halo) and either cut the player (+ a few cannon fodder) off from the team.

The suicidal crash landings used in Q4, combined with military history of paratroopers being employed en masse, shows that you can expect to get shafted often enough lol.

The levels are about to get more interesting, since now the Iron Maidens become more of a threat. So far, the only big bruisers have been the Gladiator and “Tank” types. Most of the enemies are pretty easy to deal with; bit o’scattergun action or some hyperblaster deals with most strogg, and I love to plug out grenades whenever there is suitable cover to constrict their movement, whilst protecting me from hostile fires hehe.

Back in Quake II, the Enforcers could really rip you a new one with their machiengun arms; on the upside though you could usually dance about outside punchin’ range and cook them super shotgun style before it got to dangerous ;). I haven’t really encountered anything comparable to them in Quake 4, or equally annoying found lurking around a corner! The seem to have been replaced by the Grunts, which are little more then Berserker Junior Grades in my book 8=). Because like the Berserkers, get close, shoot the monster with some shells, back off before it impales you, then pelt it some more. A shame though that you usually encounter Grunts as lone wolfs (unlike Berserkers). With how bulky the things are, it would be an awesome thing to cause some monster infighting DooM style with; not to mention an interesting exercise in level design, to use them to heard the player into the line of fire of worse monsters or even into traps!

Whenever I’ve bumped into a shield packing Gladiator, I’ve always plugged it using rockets, grenades, and slugs; I think I’ve only encountered one light tank so far, so there hasn’t been anything really durable yet. If memory serves, light tanks in Quake 4 are a heck of a lot more rare then the Tanks of Quake II were… and no where near as nasty. The Quake II tanks, oi; first time I met one, the sucker soaked up nearly every bit of ammunition I had—before leaving me bare in country riddled with Gladiators, Enforcers, and Gunners!

The Gunners in Q4 are actually not as mean as I remember them being in Q2, feels like they spend less time spamming grenades your way; but they are still awfully fun to nuke on the run :-). Going CQ with them using the shotgun or a rapid fire weapon like the hypberblaster & nailgun is especially more interesting then shoving a few rockets or slugs up their keesters from a far. I think in one spot, it was a ring around the rosey like game: using grenades on the former grenade masters lol.

The only enemies in Quake 4 that worry me are those bloody Iron Maidens; you can’t get much worse then a ticked off cyber.itch wielding a rocket launcher and shrieking your ears off—unless it starts to teleport around, and takes a lickin’ and keeps on shootin’ at you xD.

I reckon the tower hopping war and nexus hub could probably be compared to MDK and the end of DooM. I can’t help but wonder though, what are the odds that the ‘new’ Makron was built using the nameless marine from Quake II? After all, the guy did survive as virtually the last survivor of a failed drop, kick the strogg in the teeth, and deep six their leader…. wouldn’t that be a twisted end? But assuming the hero of Quake II lived to tell the tale, one could argue that he was more effective then Quake 4s Matthew Kane – who ended up part Strogg in the process of one upping a John Doe!!!