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     The level begins with the player's convoy driving through a mountainous desert area, where it is ambushed as they pass underneath a land bridge. This is the first event the player encounters in Sandstorm.

    There are several systems running in parallel to make this event happen. The first and most important one is a function that controls all NPCs involved in the fight. It separates all allied and enemy NPCs into two separate arrays, and then pairs them up to force them to focus their attention on each other - preventing the player from immediately dying from enemy fire. Then the function would enter a loop whereby it checks a series of flags to alter the event state and refresh the targets  and health of the NPC arrays.

    Another system used in the event was a function to check a series of triggers that the player could set off based on his movement. If the player tried to run out in the open (say, back where the convoy came from), a flag would get thrown and he would be shot at until he moved back into some cover. Another flag would be thrown when the player progresses through the level that would cease updating the enemy NPC health, thereby forcing the battle to a conclusion.

   Finally, a special effects and voice handler was added to provide ambient sounds and visual effects to the battle.