GDI - Cry Me A River (Single Player)

[nariac]

Hey guys, another mission for you. Matt did ask for me to "keep 'em coming" so I will!

I managed to work out how to have reinforced gunboats which shoot (yes, you read that correctly!), so of course I then had to come up with a mission to showcase this. And so, voila, Cry Me A River was born! It was originally called Crimea River, which I thought was exceptionally clever, but then I worried it might offend someone so I remade it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and I'll look forwards to seeing a slew of awesome naval missions from you guys! Hopefully.

Cry Me A River

Our spy plane has found a Nod R&D facility well hidden in an African river valley.

We're not sure what they're researching, and we need to find out, therefore it is

imperative that you capture the Tech Centre. The base is exceptionally well fortified,

but the river that Nod is using as coolant for their power stations is the weakness.

Destroy the turrets defending it, and our gunboats will tear the heart out of the base.

Changelog:

• The mission was far too hard, so made some adjustments
• Discovered CCMap has a charming habit of breaking the win trigger every time the mission is edited - fixed
• Added a "Reinforcements have arrived" alert for the gunboats
• Nod now actively tries to counter the gunboats by replacing shore artillery units and adding MRLS to defend the power plants

River_v.5.zip

Edited May 2, 2017 by nariac

[MattAttack]

Gunboats that shoot?!  Awesome!  IIRC, my problem is that they wouldn't attack anything if you reinforced so I'm intrigued.  Was able to play for a second and so far it looks very pleasing.  Heh, it's too bad you changed the name because "Crimea River" is top-level wordplay.  I'm gonna hopefully have time to mess with this later tonight but so far, I'm very impressed!

[nariac]

Gunboats that shoot?!  Awesome!  IIRC, my problem is that they wouldn't attack anything if you reinforced so I'm intrigued.  Was able to play for a second and so far it looks very pleasing.  Heh, it's too bad you changed the name because "Crimea River" is top-level wordplay.  I'm gonna hopefully have time to mess with this later tonight but so far, I'm very impressed!

 

Hope you like it, Matt! I must confess I used a disgusting method to make the gunboats work. Maybe even ... revolting. But since the player can never see it ... it's fine, right? Do remember to download version 3 though, the win trigger was broken in v.2. Although you can still play the mission fine, the lack of "Mission Accomplished" makes me sadface.

[MattAttack]

Unfortunately, they're cracking down at my work about screwing around on the computer so I couldn't play it, but I did have a chance to look at the .ini and the mission in the editor.  Lol, I see what you mean by "revolting,"  but to me, figuring out how to get reinforcing gunboats to attack is worth it.  And you're right-- the player doesn't see it anyways.. ha ha.  My only minor complaint (only because I'm so insanely particular) is that you probably don't hear "Reinforcements have arrived."  But I'm so impressed I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I "borrowed" your idea for one of my campaign missions

[nariac]

Unfortunately, they're cracking down at my work about screwing around on the computer so I couldn't play it, but I did have a chance to look at the .ini and the mission in the editor.  Lol, I see what you mean by "revolting,"  but to me, figuring out how to get reinforcing gunboats to attack is worth it.  And you're right-- the player doesn't see it anyways.. ha ha.  My only minor complaint (only because I'm so insanely particular) is that you probably don't hear "Reinforcements have arrived."  But I'm so impressed I was hoping you wouldn't mind if I "borrowed" your idea for one of my campaign missions

 

Sharing is caring! You're more than welcome to use anything I find. I'm guessing you're going to use it to remake the original "gunboats go up a river and get zapped by an obelisk" campaign mission in a more awesome form? Looking forwards to seeing it.

[MattAttack]

Sharing is caring! You're more than welcome to use anything I find. I'm guessing you're going to use it to remake the original "gunboats go up a river and get zapped by an obelisk" campaign mission in a more awesome form? Looking forwards to seeing it.

Well, needing to switch it up AND adhere to my strict set of rules, I think I'll actually flip it around.  You must expand your Nod defenses fast enough to defeat the fast approaching GDI "armada"  or so the idea is right now.  These concepts usually change about 20 times before I complete them.  Of course, that's 2 or 3 missions down the road.  Right now, I'm beginning the "defend your island from swarms of ORCAs and hovercraft" mission...   But thanks for the groundbreaking work!

[nariac]

Sharing is caring! You're more than welcome to use anything I find. I'm guessing you're going to use it to remake the original "gunboats go up a river and get zapped by an obelisk" campaign mission in a more awesome form? Looking forwards to seeing it.

Well, needing to switch it up AND adhere to my strict set of rules, I think I'll actually flip it around.  You must expand your Nod defenses fast enough to defeat the fast approaching GDI "armada"  or so the idea is right now.  These concepts usually change about 20 times before I complete them.  Of course, that's 2 or 3 missions down the road.  Right now, I'm beginning the "defend your island from swarms of ORCAs and hovercraft" mission...   But thanks for the groundbreaking work!

 

You know, just for you, I went ahead and found a way to add a "Reinforcements" alert for the Multi 5 gunboats when they turn up. Now not even minor complaints survive! (And to be fair the lack of an alert bugged me as well.)

[MattAttack]

HA! I was getting ideas of how to do that so I can't wait to see how... Helicopter/hovercraft going nowhere? 

[nariac]

HA! I was getting ideas of how to do that so I can't wait to see how... Helicopter/hovercraft going nowhere?

 

In this case it's a civilian being reinforced into a tiny inaccessible and unseeable area for each gunboat that arrives, triggered when the boat sails over a celltrigger. Usually I'd be worried in case that messes up the "all destroyed = lose" trigger - although I'm 90% sure you still lose if you only have civilians on the map, but in this case since you only "get" the civilians after you get the gunboats, and the nature of the mission means Nod can't kill the gunboats, I figured that if the players does lose everything they'll assume they haven't lost because the boats are still there, and not because "OMG I MUST HAVE INVISIBLE CIVILIANS!"

[MattAttack]

very clever... I'm not trying to encourage you to have a version 6, but I believe an empty Chinook heading to a waypoint that's on an impassable cell won't interfere with "all destroyed"  it's been a while since I tested, though.. either way, I like hearing someone else's workarounds for these crazy problems.  One of the reasons I like making missions to this archaic game is the critical thinking puzzles of tricking it into doing what I want!

[nariac]

very clever... I'm not trying to encourage you to have a version 6, but I believe an empty Chinook heading to a waypoint that's on an impassable cell won't interfere with "all destroyed"  it's been a while since I tested, though.. either way, I like hearing someone else's workarounds for these crazy problems.  One of the reasons I like making missions to this archaic game is the critical thinking puzzles of tricking it into doing what I want!

 

Oh, that would work too! Although the player might be confused if they see four chinooks flying straight across the map from east to west ... they might think they were blocking an LZ and have missed out on some commandos or something. I've made another version anyway, but that was only to make Nod seem more intelligent. They'll send new Artillery and MRLS vehicles to the beach to try to attack the gunboats instead of just taking it like a bitch.

[MattAttack]

Oh, that would work too! Although the player might be confused if they see four chinooks flying straight across the map from east to west ... they might think they were blocking an LZ and have missed out on some commandos or something.

well, the beauty of assigning them an inaccessible waypoint is that they shouldn't even enter the map (visibly, at least) or if an inaccessible waypoint doesn't work, first assign them one in an appropriate corner or something... Trust me, it's probably fine as it is but I just like talking about this stuff   It's just the one in a million nerds like me know that gunboats don't save you from an "all dest." trigger

 

[Jacko]

  It's just the one in a million nerds like me know that gunboats don't save you from an "all dest." trigger

 

And the people that read this thread

 

I'll test this mission soonish, when im next not busy.

[Darkstar387]

Thats good work! I'm happy to see people still breathing life into the single player aspect of the game, I think Nariac, Matt and myself are the only ones still actively developing missions, I haven't seen anybody else's stuff come across the wire lately. I will give this a go when I can... I've still got your other missions to play still!

[Chimas]

I consider myself active, but I'm not skilled to mass produce as you guys. I have one mission pending that will become a small MOD, once it alters some units. Besides that, I test missions and I keep that huge collection where I had to recover, remap and rebuilt dozens of missions, at least to make them playable and enjoyable, although not with the difficult level that you make. But I like the idea that players can find missions in all range of difficulties from the early ages til today. Right now, I'm having the classic "real life issues" striking harder than I anticipated and holding me back, but things will settle eventually, then I might be helpful again.

[Messiah]

Well done! That mission kept me busy for a while, so I needed 2 hours to crack that thing by using my usual SP tactic: just defending until Nod's harvesters come to me. 

Only thing, the artillery in the far south above the cliff just doesn't do anything.

 

 

Working gun boats already appeared in older missions (Like in GDI01), so whats new here?

But I remember it was quite easy to trick them: If they target an unit/building, they keep fixed on it unless it is destroyed, by ignoring any other possible target that time.

 

Nariac, did you look into the stuff I sent you some weeks ago?

[MattAttack]

Working gun boats already appeared in older missions (Like in GDI01), so whats new here?

Nariac, did you look into the stuff I sent you some weeks ago?

 

Well, the gunboat isn't reinforced in GDI 1 and when it is in GDI 9, i think, it doesn't attack anything.  Even if you select it and target stuff, it WILL NOT attack.  I  theorize they did that so there's no way around the Obelisk zapping your boat.  I believe that's also why, as Nyer has often stated, why an Obelisk will 1 shot kill a gunboat.

 

I've played this a couple of times and had my ass properly handed to me   I personally don't like starving the computer out and I'm determined to beat it the old-fashioned way.  So far though, it's a really good mission.  Almost every team consists of paper, rocks, and scissors!

[nariac]

Only thing, the artillery in the far south above the cliff just doesn't do anything.

 

That artillery shoots at your infantry and Humvees when you make a move to destroy the gun turrets on the south bank. it's always shot at my stuff when I've moved out from the landing zone. Not sure why it didn't shoot you!

 

 

I've played this a couple of times and had my ass properly handed to me   I personally don't like starving the computer out and I'm determined to beat it the old-fashioned way.  So far though, it's a really good mission.  Almost every team consists of paper, rocks, and scissors!

 

It's hard to strike the balance between too easy, too hard, or just brutally impossible. When making this mission I wanted to try to encourage the player not to turtle up too much, but also not to rush too hard. Striking a middle ground between these two strats might be the best way forwards. The faster you can get the gunboats to arrive, the easier it'll be, because they do a lot of damage to Nod and distract them. It may also be worth investing in Orcas to defend your base, since AGTs alone suffer against the things Nod sends ... however Nod will respond by calling in their own air support if you do go the helicopter route! That's my favourite strat to secure my location, anyway. I figure it's worth starting an air war because my helis will be more useful for me that Nod's are to them.

[cn2mc]

Nice one. Haven't finished it yet, but it is challenging and I too go the orca route.

 

But I'm posting for another reason. I don't have time to test it, but it might be possible to have 'reinforced' gunboats that fire without heli shenanigans, theoretically.

LKO (or someone) found out how to loop gunboats through waypoints, preventing them from going the full 9 yards of the map. If a team of gunboats is looped like this in open water, and then that team is destroyed by a trigger (turrets gone), the boats should start behaving as usual, i.e. E-W patrols. 'Reinforcements arrived' peeve still present though.

[nariac]

Nice one. Haven't finished it yet, but it is challenging and I too go the orca route.

 

But I'm posting for another reason. I don't have time to test it, but it might be possible to have 'reinforced' gunboats that fire without heli shenanigans, theoretically.

LKO (or someone) found out how to loop gunboats through waypoints, preventing them from going the full 9 yards of the map. If a team of gunboats is looped like this in open water, and then that team is destroyed by a trigger (turrets gone), the boats should start behaving as usual, i.e. E-W patrols. 'Reinforcements arrived' peeve still present though.

 

I tried doing that and it didn't work for me. The problem I encountered was that pre-placed gunboats will never follow waypoints, but can fire - while reinforced gunboats do follow waypoints but can't fire. This then meant that I couldn't "hide" gunboats at the side of the map with a looping waypoint, to "free" them later with Destroy Team, because they would resist any attempt to assign them to a team in the first place. I believe that gunboats reinforced by chinook, hovercraft, etc WILL follow waypoints, just like infantry reinforced by chinook do for AI attacks for example, but I have not yet tested it. If it works, it'll be a way to have reinforced gunboats which do shoot and do follow waypoints, which would be really cool for mission making.