Switching weapons was a scripting strategy. Reviewing taped sessions in slow motion has helped me discover important clues in meeting other goals, so I've started taping practice sessions for study. I was taping Vigilante missions to see where I might save some time, but in response to a question I was also using different weapons. The Uzi proved to be more useful upon review than my initial impressions, but it is akward to grab during the mission so I kept it as the starting weapon anyway.
Another thing I was looking for was how often I was switching police cars. The vigilante vampire vehicle health from kills is still in effect, so sometimes the car is much more healthy than it appears. But missing doors can get Toni busted in a hurry, and I like to replace the car while it can still be used in case everything is locked. I added a Cars stat tracking the number of Police cars used to the video, but I didn't want to clutter the screen with a better description. I'm worried this might be confused with a vehicles destroyed tally, or completely overlooked.
The locked Police car bit is really annoying. I'm starting to suspect that they are more likely to be locked when Toni doesn't have a wanted level, but I don't have good data on this yet. The lone cop car at the donut shop south of the Callahan Bridge is locked so frequently that I don't consider it while playing. I know it's often there, and if I'm desparate I'll try it, but I'm much more likely jack a vehicle and make a run to the station, or stir up a quick wanted level so the cops bring me a new car, than try for the donut shop car.
To reduce the risk of failing the mission due to locked police cars I started leaving a set up car. I will grab a Police vehicle before the mission and take a short drive so the game is sure that car belongs to Toni, then park it near the Ambulance spawn with the door open and grab a new car to start with. For some reason the pre-mission vehicle will remain in place despite frequent vehicle changes. Usually I only grab this car if all the spawns are locked, and my current vehicle is useless, but in the video I grab it early or I may not get to use it before level 12. BTW, I also have a Police car stored in the garage, just in case I'm stranded on that side of town.
Anyway, back to weapons, strategy, and scripting. I've been wanting to do a vigilante video for a while, but I know from experience that its difficult to get people to download large files or watch long movies. I was making a test video to see what I could do with time compression of the chase scenes, including weapon demonstrations to answer a specific question, and looking for other things that would be interesting to include. Part of my original strategy was to switch from the Micro-SMG to the MP5 when the targets start to drop them around level 7 or 8, so adding the other weapons wasn't much of a leap. The extra weapons improved my chances of surviving the mission because fewer levels were completed with the MP5. That gun is dangerous. It's hard to tell from video because of the time compression but there are several flaming vehicles rolling around after the fights threatening to blow up Toni's car. These chain explosions seem much less likely to occur using the Micro-SMG despite how much care I use while aiming and firing the MP5.
The weapons were effectively covered in Portland Vigilante, now I think I'll stick with the Micro-SMG. There is some confusion over the names of the machine guns, so I hope the FAQ I used for reference was accurate. The video also showed several kill strategies fairly well. But 3/4 of the time is spent in pursuit, and the time compression makes it very difficult to watch the radar without getting lost. The radar doesn't show up well on the small versions, so I worked to get a large resolution video online. The chase is a very important aspect of Vigilante, but I'm not sure how to cover it properly.
Portland Vigilante did not make the point I intended with the management of the wanted level. Usually I am content to run with 2 stars and don't worry about bribes until I need them. A 2 star wanted level pretty much assures that Toni won't need to look far for another car. But for the video I was hoping to show as many bribe locations as possible and was grabbing them sooner than I would normally. The convienent bribes just after kills helped keep the overall wanted level during Portland Vigilante much lower than normal, so there wasn't a need to grab several easy bribes. Now I'm not sure what to recommend. It really helped not to fight off the cops, there wasn't a shortage of bribes, but the bribes just happened to be close so I didn't waste any time tracking them down. I think I just got lucky on that mission.
I've put a lot of emphasis on time, but this is more of a factor for an interesting video than completing the mission. I need to pack a lot of action into a little time or people will loose interest quickly, but time was never a factor for completing a level. A more important factor would be control. The chase is short because Toni follows a good route and doesn't crash into things. The kills are quick because he waits until they are trapped and finishes the kill once it is started.
I thought I had a pretty good recording for Portland Vigilante, until I discovered the tape error which breaks the continuity of the mission. But I put together the test video anyway figuring I could get at least one person to download it and offer feedback. Despite the limited comments, there have been more downloads than expected for such a large file. So now I'm wondering if a sequel might be useful, but I'm stuck again on what to cover. Weapon swapping gave the Portland Vigilante video structure and purpose; I'm not what to replace it with.
I only put the siren on during the dialog message for demonstration purposes. I find it causes more problems that is solves. I am familiar with the driving patterns of the traffic and can navigate more cleanly without them weaving all over the road trying to avoid the siren. Besides, I use audio clues to time transitions and the siren would mask the wave form. Also, I suspect people would quickly close a window with a triple speed siren running for 10 minutes. The audio quality is a little disappointing. I keep recording strange pops and haven't been able to track down the source. I recently got permissions for some music to use in my videos, but this might cover other important clues such as engine pitch and rate of fire.
Someday i will get there, and try it out. Im a slow player, i like to enjoy everything i do and do it to the best of my ability, too bad there isn't enough time in the day.
