Bug or police corruption? SPOILER for BSM mission

[beepbeep]

I've got a question about the BSM mission where you have to give Smuggler Miguel over to the prison authorities and are stopped by the smugglers in the prison battle map.

-

Long intro into explaining how I got into the situation:

Personally I found the smugglers too many to take on in an open map (got surrounded and destroyed too easily with only 2 team-members) even though that's my preferred kind of engagements - long distance so my guys can pick enemy off with Nagants, so I entered the prison compound to find/created a choke-point.

The first choice were the gates, but those turned out a bad idea because eventually the smugglers came in through the tunnels and got behind my back (keep in mind I only had two team-members and Miguel's health was still less than half from an earlier ambush, so I didn't want to risk him; which means it was impossible to the gate with a single member and secure the back with the other member) and because for some reason my characters have a hard time looking through the wire fence... :confused:

When that tactic failed because of the afore-mentioned problem and because I have only a two-man team (cgl 2 currently - am starting from the beginning), I put Miguel into prison proper and later gave him an MP5-SDW of one of the killed enemies. Anyway, then I'd just put my two guys at the end of the long hallway from the Commandant to the prison cells and watch for the entry into the hallway. Had my two guys crouch, set their guns to burst mode and had them ready their guns for immediate use. Then it was duck-shooting time! :cool: :-)

That way killed most of them except for a couple of confused ones that forgot to go into the tunnels (more on them lower down below) and 3 or 4 that kept standing around doing nothing, 50m away from the wall in the jungle.

Then it was looting time and so much loot I had to store some in the boxes in the compound.

-

Now to the topic of this post:

I noticed something that made me both baffled and upset at the same time... the damn prison guards didn't do anything when smugglers attacked their prison, nor did the smugglers shoot at the guards. And to think I relied on their support at defeating the numerous enemy...

Even more than that, when eventually the smugglers used grenades and killed a guard, the guards started shooting at ME instead of at the smuggler!!! :confused: :confused: :mad:

In fact, when I put one of my guys on the steps of the prison building and the smugglers attacked from behind (a few got confused, forgot to enter the tunnels and wanted to get into the compound by running into the compound walls...), and the bullets started flying around, the guard that stood next to the steps, just kept standing there and looking around, not reacting even when the bullets hit nearby. When they hit him, he again opened with automatic fire at my guy...

Is that a bug in the game or is that only part of the police corruption the log later talked about?


-

Another few questions:

1. looking through windows: if you put a character in front of a window the view field (when you turn it on) doesn't go through the window and outside... as if the window is a wall.

When experimenting with the gate as a choke point I at one stage put one character in the 2nd floor, at a window on top of a bed to look through and provide sniper overwatch. That character didn't see enemies even though they came through the gate directly in front of him. Could that be a game bug or just the prison windows being like that? I haven't had the opportunity to try this with normal buildings and windows, so don't know if it's the same there.

2. how is it that the smugglers knew EXACTLY where on the battle map Miguel was? I mean, I put him into the prison building and then they're storming that exact building, heading for his exact location. Even though that fact helped me immensely when I cut them down like dogs I can't help but be curious. Is it that corruption (Miguel having a tracker or something)?

------
------

In the end, while it was definitely a worthy and challenging mission (full kudos to R@S), with the many retries and reloads I had to endure (and one or two CTDs), I was a little sorry I didn't use the opportunity in Santa Maria to start shouting he's resisting arrest and shot him. :-)

[R@S]

1. Does this happen when you've shot out the glass? It's what I always do when I expect company:) But it could be a game engine limitation you've stumbled on there.

2. It's another game limitation issue, but I might be able to circumvent it. As it is now, the Smugglers are friends with Miguel, and since Miguel is part of your team you'll inherit that friendship. That's why the guards started shooting at you when the smugglers threw nades at them.

The issue with the enemy knowing where you are, and in this case Miguel especially, is one of the weaker points of the AI. If just one of the enemies sees you, they all know where you are. And in the Miguel case, he's their friend and they then know exactly where he is. But I might be able to fix it by removing that friendship, but then the previous missions might get screwed up. I'll have to check this out a bit and see what can be done.

Don't you just love this game? It's when it's the most challenging and frustrating that you get your biggest kicks. Well, at least when you overcome them:D

[beepbeep]

1. Does this happen when you've shot out the glass? It's what I always do when I expect company:) But it could be a game engine limitation you've stumbled on there.

I could shoot out the window, but the guy had to be standing (even though the bed he was on was high enough to allow him to shoot while crouched) and he could shoot only at enemies the other guy saw, he didn't see any himself. And the glass didn't shatter no many how many times he shot through it. :-)

2. It's another game limitation issue, but I might be able to circumvent it. As it is now, the Smugglers are friends with Miguel, and since Miguel is part of your team you'll inherit that friendship. That's why the guards started shooting at you when the smugglers threw nades at them.

But if we're friends, why do they still fire whenever they see me?

Don't you just love this game? It's when it's the most challenging and frustrating that you get your biggest kicks. Well, at least when you overcome them:D

True, for example in Operation Flashpoint my now-favorite missions are some of the ones I had most problems with (except for the mission "Guardian" - I still hate that one), but it's a witch to beat them at first.

[Ninja2dan]

Wasn't that the mission where as soon as you get to the entry gate and talk to the guards to hand him over, the enemy attacks you in force from the West?

If so, I had similar problems with that map as well. There was a problem where if I tried to enter the prison, even just inside the gates, the guards would turn hostile towards me. I don't recall if the guards would turn hostile if they were shot by the enemy, the two methods I used on that map never really permitted me to test it.


The first time I did that map I had my entire team line up along the side of the road facing the direction the enemy comes in from, in the prone with weapons at the ready. I was doing fairly well, but before long the enemy just overwhelms my team by firepower domination. I kept losing men that way, and couldn't drop the enemy faster than they were moving into range to shoot back.

Then I tried a new tactic. I had my guys all run into the little guard building right outside the gates. Half of my team ran into the room off to the side, and the others waited at the far end of the hallway right outside the door to that room. This meant that my team was not visible to the guards, and we weren't technically inside the base, so I never took fire from the guards with that method. The enemy rushed the building, and would send in 2-4 guys at a time through the entry but they just got mowed down by my own 2-3 waiting at the end of the hall. When the enemy stopped coming in, I'd creep a trooper down the hallway inch by inch until I could finally see them hiding outside. Then I'd rip off a few rounds, and sneak back in. I was able to take them all out that way without much injury.



As for the enemy shooting at you on the mission, their hostility towards you is higher than their friendship level. Let's say it's put into numbers. Their friendship with Miguel is +20, and since he is part of your group that adds +5 friendship. But their hostility towards you is also -20, making their overall hostility towards you -15. But that +5 friendship might still be seen by the guards, so when they are injured they become hostile to anyone on friendly terms with the enemy. That's just a hunch of how it works, I could be way off. But that's what it sounds like.

[R@S]

When I player that mission last week to test it I only had 2 guys escorting Miguel. Miguel was unarmed and I left him proned near the prison gate. My main merc had an UPM40 while Paquito had a Type 59 carbine he I'd gotten from a random encounter. I had around 40 cartridges for the carbine and Paquito had a shotgun as a backup weapon.

I placed my avatar at the edge of the elevated road facing west, aimed-at point so that I would be ready for the first enemy I knew would appear around the corner of the prison wall. I placed Paquito similarly, but a bit further from the gate and aiming at the other side of the passage. It dint take long before they appeared, and with some luck, and choosing the right target at the right time, I got away with only a few scratches. What a glorious battle that was, I wished I could award medal to my troops:D

The whole friendship/relationship system is very complex, and it has it's flaws. Since I can't do it better I shouldn't really complain, only try to find ways around the most obvious errors.

In this case it's a bit hard to fix. I checked the code and found that if I remove the friendship tie between Miguel and his friends, his friends wont turn hostile if I shoot him the first time I see him. The only thing I can do is make them hostile after he's been killed, and then we have some other things I haven't checked closer, the revenge and ambush back at Sagrada. But I'll continue to try and fix it.