
PUNISHMENT BATTALION FINAL (updated version released November 2007) by Lee Hunt

Single Player mission for Armed Assault
4-24 hour mission in guerilla warfare strategy & perseverance

comments/feedback email: leehunt22@hotmail.com


REQUIREMENTS: ARMED ASSAULT 1.08, 
3 Add-on’s listed below but included in the download.  I also put them up on Filefront because I've experienced problems with add-on links before 
and wanted to be sure the files would be available.

Version: FINAL
Type: SP
Island: Sahrani
Installation: Put the Punishment Battalion PBO in your ArmA\Missions folder and the 3 Addon's in the Arma\AddOns folder. Don't forget to check out the very valuable PunishmentBattalionReadMe.txt document....

ADDONS (included in zip file):
1)  Rellikki’s SLA Urban Troops (5 MB) though included,
also available at:
http://www.armedassault.info/index.php?cat=addons&id=87
http://www.rellikki.armaholic.net/slaurban.htm
I put it up on filefront at: http://files.filefront.com/rlk+urban+solpbo/;8956322;/fileinfo.html

2) Solus’s SLX People (3 MB) though included,
also available at:
ftp://www.armedassault.info/armad/addons/SLX_People.rar
http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?s=ae426989dd2e7ba1d42a46230369a0f5;act=ST;f=70;t=61609
http://files.filefront.com/SLX+Peoplepbo/;8956361;/fileinfo.html

3) Editor Update 1.02 (added some nice building features etc to the game)
available in this download package. 
Also I put it on on filefront: http://files.filefront.com/EditorUpdate+v102pbo/;8956269;/fileinfo.html

Optional) The author recommends, though the mission does NOT require, Chammy's Sound Mod, available at:
http://www.armedassault.info/index.php?cat=addons&id=80
Instructions for installation of Chammy's Sound Mod are at the end of this Readme.


CONTENTS:

1)	Keyboard details
2)	Mission
3)	How to Win
4)	Things to keep in mind
5)	Creative & Technical background
6)	Realism 
7)	Characters
8)	Credits
9)	Other tips
10)     Chammy Sound Mod Installation instructions

1) KEYBOARD

The “Mando Mortar” within this mission locks up 3 keys, PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN (for raising and lowering the mortar elevation) and DELETE to fire.  Hopefully this is not a great inconvenience for most players and only a few should have to reconfigure their keyboards accordingly.  To use, press PAGEUP to elevate the mortar angle, PAGE DOWN to decrease the angle, and DELETE to fire.  An elevation of 59 degrees fires the mortar 400 meters, 75 degrees fires 200 meters, and 81 degrees fires 100 meters. It takes about 25 seconds for the shell to land. There is a 5 second reload time.

0-0-0 Saves your game (unlimited saves, you’ll need them!).  

2) MISSION

General Beria has put North Sahrani under martial law to exterminate a growing Resistance. Find and recruit the Resistance, rescue your girlfriend, destroy Beria's regime and bases.

The player has the freedom to choose his own path and strategies to win—and your brains will count for far more than your bullets. You can recruit your own squad, complete or ignore various “subquests” and generally fight on your own terms.  While there are over 60 scripts, the mission itself is not “scripted” and many players will fight the war in many different ways with different experiences.  In RPG (Role Playing Game) style, the mission begins slowly and the difficulty level should increase as you progress.

Punishment Battalion requires the player to come up with various guerilla warfare strategies to defeat Beria’s overwhelmingly superior army.  Your judgment on when to fight and when to run is crucial.  Well planned ambushes, hit & run attacks, sniping, and coordination with allies will make the difference.  Though there will be plenty of combat, there will also be gaps in the action for the player to reflect on his strategy.  If you are having trouble getting started, see the final section for some tips or email me at leehunt22@hotmail.com.

3) HOW TO WIN

You can win in two ways:

1-	Rescue your girlfriend, “deal” with Beria, and destroy 80% of the enemy around the two main bases- Bagango Arsenal and Pita.  Pita’s base spreads over part of the surrounding town.  The majority of Beria’s troops are not in the bases, but they won’t sit back and let you run over their comrades!  The game will let you know when you have “cleared” a base with a message and a notation on the map.

2-	Destroy 80% of Beria’s entire field & garrison army.  If anyone does this I will be really impressed. If you do, please email me with the code word that pops up when you win in this manner. So far one betatester, "The Head", succeeded.


4) THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

You will need to refer to the map often throughout the game for locations of the enemy bases, various characters (including Maria) and subquests.  You will also need to navigate using just a map and a compass at night.  
Also very importantly, new radio commands will pop up from time to time to allow the player more conversations or options.  For example, by pressing 0-0-8 the player can rest for 4 hours (if no enemies are within 200 meters). This option allows you to wait for the cover of darkness-- as many guerilla warfare groups would do in real life.  Press 0-0-0 to save your game.  If you want to see if you have any options currently available, press 0-0 and then see the numbers in the upper right of your screen.

This mission challenges you to think of various guerilla warfare strategies and to think ahead.  Attacking the enemy head on will be extremely difficult if not impossible—if you find yourself getting killed in the same situation again and again, back away and try a new battle elsewhere or a new angle.  There is some intentional fog of war- one cutscene in the dark may be hard to see, the ambush at the beginning of the mission is disorienting, etc.  Some objectives are given explicitly on the briefing and map, but not always, sometime you must choose whether or not an objective is even worth pursuing...

The black shaded borders on the map are mission boundaries- there is nothing past them for game purposes.  The mission takes place exclusively in North Sahrani and for the matter mostly in the central to northeastern sections of the island.  There are no boats.  



5) REALISM & PLAYABILITY

Realism— There are no snipers waiting behind every bush, or patrols set to automatically find you, or tanks waiting along the player’s probable path (in fact, every player will probably go a different way!). But there are snipers in towers at bases, and there are tanks working together to hunt down the Resistance, which you would expect in real life.  Units like pilots do not always have the loadout of weapons and gear that Bohemia gives them, in the real world no army ever seems to be at 100% readiness.  I tried to make the strategy and guerilla warfare part of the game as realistic as possible, and made sacrifices in other areas to make the game playable and enjoyable:

Playability-- There are many vehicles throughout the game so you should not have to walk too much.  At times you will want to hike through certain areas rather than risk being spotted.  So there’s more vehicles around than would be in real life, but there’s enough to make the game enjoyable and it does not compromise the still brutal guerilla warfare challenge. 

There are no real “cheats” for the AI in this mission, except for the refueling of their ground vehicles.  Since Sahrani is under Beria’s control, his vehicles can refuel at any town’s gas station.  You however must find sympathetic people with refuel trucks or steal your own.  His air force, however, can only refuel at the Aviation Fuel dump at the Pita Air Base.  If you destroy the truck at the fuel dump then eventually his choppers will fall to the ground.


6) CHARACTERS

For those Baldur’s Gate fans out there, you might remember the game characters commenting from time to time on anything, including the weather.  Marco & Floyd will have their opinions on various matters during the game.  

Many might wonder about the conversations between the American pilot and his HQ.  A friend of mine who was an Apache gunship pilot in Yugoslavia helped write those scenes and did the voiceover work for the pilot.  The conversations are realistic and approximate real military doctrine in those situations, even the part about the car and prom!!

Originally I was going to use the AA engine to remake Ernest Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (thus the choice of names like Robert Jordan, Pablo, Maria, Augustin etc) as a mission.  But just blowing up a bridge and escaping didn’t justify all this work! So I kept the Hemmingway names but created my own story. I do recommend the book however.

The overview quote is one of my favorites and was Ernest Shackleton’s newspaper advertisement to recruit explorers for his 1915 expedition to cross Antarctica.  Alfred Lansing’s book Endurance is a great read about their amazing journey.


The voiceover line said by the player to Beria is from Russian Cold War history.  General Zhukov said those words to Beria himself during Zhukov and Nikita Kruschev’s joint move to oust Beria during the Cold War.

7) CREATIVE & TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
============================= 
Like many other Operation Flashpoint players, I thoroughly enjoyed THobson's Abandoned Armies mission.  Here’s the link: (http://www.ofpec.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=36&topic=28454.0).  

Not only was the story and atmosphere fantastic, but the underlying game "engine" (running what was really a game within a game) was amazing.  I wanted to reconstruct a similar engine in Punishment Battalion, with a different story but the also the same challenging, against all odds guerilla warfare.  THobson was gracious enough to allow the use of his work (many scripts have his name in their title and description if you de-PBO the mission) and so many of the scripts will be recognizable to fellow Abandoned Armies fans.  I am also very grateful to everyone at Ofpec.com who patiently answered my questions and provided the tutorials and COMREF.  Since I am very new to writing code and scripts etc, I tried to incorporate the best material out there rather than re-invent the wheel. In some cases I was able to use scripts virtually verbatim (like weather.sqs), but of course many others required hours and hours of editing.  Creating this took many months!  

Using THobson’s lead, I also attempted to make this mission with the least amount of lag possible. Triggers are used sparingly and deleted after they are activated.  Only one trigger follows the player around for the Robert Jordan voiceovers.  Also many scripts only run once every few minutes or even once every 45 minutes.  I also used “exploding triggers” that arrive and then disappear to check various situations.  The endgame checks run every five minutes so there might be a short delay before the “finale” cutscene.


I used Fraps software (available at fraps.com) to get video screen captures to post on youtube (thanks Bardosy for the suggestion).

8) CREDITS

Thanks to my wife and friends for helping me create this adventure and lending their voices, time and feedback!  I am also thankful to God for the blessing to even have the time and money to play games!

Cast of Characters
Beria—Dave “Ironhawk” Quinn
Marco – Kurt Robbins
Captain Floyd – Geoff Webb
American HQ radio– Sarah Webb
Augustin – Ken Musante
Maria – Amanda Hunt
Robert Jordan – Lee Hunt
Carla – Megan Radcliffe Mills
Joel—Joel Mills
Pablo – Tony “Choco Thunder” Rose
Arnold – Christian Cherniawski
Soldiers –Ryan Duffy, Joel Mills, Christian Cherniawski, Lee Hunt

Technical credits (these people helped out directly or indirectly through their scripts, missions and comments on the ofpec forums, sorry if missed anyone)
Thobson 
Mandoble
Chris Henderson (the Script Editor is the best tool! A must download!)
SharkAttack
Bardosy
Cheetah
Macguba
Planck
Mr. Peanut
Johnnyboy
JasonO
Toadlife
The Head
Wolfrug
JohanGustafson
TrashCanMan
GeneralBarron
Lustypooh
Firecontrol
Myke13021
LCD

Pre-Betatesters
Firecontrol
Dave “Ironhawk” Quinn
Mark Shevlane

Betatesters
Rellikki
Igor7111
Shark Attack
Denz
Nixer6
Firecontrol
Cheetah
Mathias_eichinger
The Head
LCD
Paddy
Wolfrug
Variable
Megz


9) OTHER TIPS

If you’re having trouble getting going and frustrated by Beria’s army, try several of these tips:

Ambush an enemy patrol, then leave a satchel charge near one of the bodies.  When the Quick Reaction Forces arrive, wham!  Set off the charge and run.  A nasty trick.

Have one of your squadmates set to “Never Fire” and then hide them near a road junction.  
This squadmember can alert you to enemy patrols and convoys.  Sight the mortar at a particular road junction as well from a distance, or try sighting it on an enemy base.  

Make sure your “Expert” squad members are outfitted with the best equipment- the sniper rifles and RPG’s.  Sometimes its even better for you to stay back and command an ambush so you can judge more clearly when to keep attacking and when to run.

If you find yourself being killed in the same situation several times in a row, back away and look to attack Beria elsewhere from a different angle or with different squad settings.  Maybe your men are too close or too exposed, sometimes you have to position each one individually and then save before you start the ambush.


10) Installation of Chammy's Sound Mod, available at:

http://www.armedassault.info/index.php?cat=addons&id=80

This is the command line in the target AFTER the exe". If you have another Mod activated make sure you
stick a space after the command. You would put

 -mod=@CSM

example:  "C:\Program Files\Bohemia
Interactive\ArmA\arma.exe" -nosplash -mod=@Mapfact  
 -mod=@ArmAEffects -mod=@CSM

Thats it!

Make sure there is 1 space between command titles.

target:
"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA\arma.exe" -nosplash -mod=@Mapfact -mod=@ArmaAEffects -mod=@CSM

11) I am thinking of a Punishment Battalion II "Beria Strikes Back" with many of the same characters and some new ones, but would love to hear any suggestions/feedback.  
Also for those of you who've seen the movie "Children of Men", I thought it would be interesting to make a huge combat mission that the player could
survive and win WITHOUT using weapons, only his wits etc, as Clive Owen's character does in the movie.