[Sun] 16 Sep 2012 (Joint session: Tier 1)

[SuperU]

Vanguard

[wolfenswan]

(I'd really like to get approximate AI-unit-numbers for Wideola and Vanguard, since my machine hums along in Wideola but volunteers for mining in the Urals rather than to play Vanguard.)

The difference is quite significant because Wideola relies on player-controlled AI. Also Zargabad is notorious for FPS problems, even if the mission is situated in the outskirts.

[SuperU]

As promised, tigersharks pre-game story!

[Issus]

Wideola SE

Bravo 1 AAR

With Bravo landing at the southernmost point of a three-pronged assault, Bravo 1 found itself at the vanguard pushing up some wooded slopes towards the first cache. I was trying to keep some eyes out east in the woods between Bravo and Alpha when I heard ConcreteOtter shout that he had been engaged. Peeking out from behind my tree I could see about 5 EI less than 50m away, but thankfully too busy concentrating on my stricken squad mates to see that I'd managed to flank them. I took out most of them with the first burst and the rest soon followed. Some patching up was required, but the incessantly demanding StrangLove willed our perforated and bloody bodies onwards towards the cache, which was duly smoten.

Bravo were then sent to help out the remains of Alpha when we next hit contact. It seemed to be smaller groups of EI than we'd encountered previously, but over the next ten minutes we were flanked from every point of the compass and very much pinned down. Strang found his powers of motivation lacking when it came to convincing enemy bullets not to strike his fragile body, and ConcreteOtter had the unenviable task of trying to keep us moving in the face of ghost-like enemies with perfect aim. In the ensuing confusion I ended up healing the medic and a couple of others (sometimes unsuccessfully -- sorry Ghandi), and trying to lay down suppressive fire alongside Black Mamba. I'd been shot twice, yet (seemingly) miraculously recovered, but the third time it was not to be, and my body joined the rest of my squad scattered over a surprisingly small area of woodland.

Despite my futile death, I think this was my most successful mission yet. A decent number of kills, some good awareness and a few important revives. I also got to see the glorious last stands of both audiox and Tier1. Not too shabby at all.

Vanguard

Charlie 2 AAR

I'm always surprised when I survive the initial run toward the factory in Vanguard, and it happened again, thanks to some coordinated bounding and the Charlie IFV making short work of the few EI that were in our way. I spotted an enemy FT trying to flank to the north and managed to take them out, before we all moved into the compound itself.

Once there, everything stalled for a bit. There was an enemy technical to the north which took out CSL, and we lost our AT guy to a disconnect, leaving us with the willing-yet-slightly-dim Private Artie Ficialintelligence.

Charlie 2 pressed on ahead along the rise to the northwest to provide fire support for the Alpha and Bravo assault on the strongholds. At one point it was just myself and my FTL (Lwlooz) staring down a 6-man patrol, before the rest of Charlie caught up and helped us dispatch them in a coordinated volley. Artie was sent on a solo Search and Destroy mission for an enemy technical, while we pestered a roof mounted ZU-23 which predictably took offence and replied in kind. Luckily, we'd all had our faces shot off enough times in the past to position ourselves near cover, so hopefully we took some of the heat off the other squads.

We charged and cleared the final compound, killed the resident SPG team, and went solid in the buildings while enemy tanks roamed outside. Being at the far edge of the compound, I couldn't see much other than Private Artie setting off on a suicide mission with his remaining RPG (one of the few left in the entire squad). Brought a tear to this old soldier's eye, it did *sniff*.

The order to charge came, and apparently everyone else died in the most glorious fashion. We headed down the road but our FTL caught a burst from one of the roving tanks and had to be patched up. I think he was having voice-comms problems, as requests for info from Mumble went unanswered, and I had to reply that we were still up and moving. After trying to access the SPG, we went back down the road hoping to attack the final enemy positions from the rear. Sadly, we walked out in front of a SPG technical which sent my FTL into orbit. I tried to run around, firing my grenade launcher to no avail. "That looked painful", someone said in side chat, after I'd tried to stop a rocket with my face. Curiously enough, I didn't feel a thing.

Cholo (I want my, I want my, I want my PCP)

Charlie

Issus: "Excuse me officer, but do you perhaps know the way to the nearest pharmaceutical dispensary? I fear I am in urgent need of some phencyclidine, and cannot afford to tarry in my task."

Policeman: *shotgun to the face*


Cholo 2: Electric Boogaloo

Issus: "I'm sorry, I'm afraid you may have misunderstood my previous request. I was merely..."

Policeman: *shotgun to the groin*

[mort]

I like Banshee's suggestion of having the ASR mod on the server to tone down the superhuman accuracy of the AI. It could help to prolong firefights and help SLs and FTLs to really try to sort out coordinated fire and manoeuvre. Another bonus might be less of the dying in the first 2 mins of an hour long coop problem which is never great fun.
I hate using the word realism but toning down superhuman accuracy might simulate the military reality of ppl firing cheap mil spec ammo out of weapons with sloppy chamber tolerances and wornout barrels!

[Ferrard Carson]

My apologies for the extremely late AAR and videos. This past week was cah-raaaaayzeee. So, without further ado:

Wideola, Take 3
Deployed as Alpha 1 FTL
Tier 1 joined us as the elite American SpecOps troops that they are, and promptly went off elsewhere to be effective whilst we provided a gruesome distraction for the entire populace of enraged ex-Ukrainian infantry. The Afghani war vets from last week have been deported to some random island in Greece. Probably won't ever cause any trouble ever again, I'm sure of it.

With little fanfare, Alpha and Bravo landed widely spaced out across the south of the search area. Alpha 1 was on the extreme left flank of the entire formation, separated from our comrades in A2 and 3 by some hundred-odd meters of dinner-plate lovely, open meadow. There came a point where our next waypoint demanded we advance into an opaque line of pine trees. Given our track-record on this mission, it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what came next. At least I actually saw confirmed enemies before an AI performed a 360 no-scope on my delicate brain tissues.

At least Tier 1 did a fairly good job of evading all the atmospheric RPGs landing all around them at a safe distance. Until the locals outed themselves to be freakin' terminators, dedicated to nothing but the complete eradication of all human sentience in spite of their puppet-master's desperate pleas to show even an ounce of mercy.



Vanguard
Deployed as Alpha Squad Leader
Talk about a lengthy mission. New to starting as squad command, I did my level best to keep everyone moving in roughly the right direction and shooting roughly the right uniformed people and staying more or less alive (for certain definitions of alive). Our cardboard box on treads Glorious Gift of M113 From the Ever Gracious Party decided to get track'd not five minutes into the mission, so I merged them with the MMG team. About the time they formed up in a cohesive group, I received the news for a second time that Platoon Command had overslept on the day that the colonel gave us the Dodging 101 lecture, and 5 minutes after the fact, I took over as Platoon Command in addition to Squad Command. What did that mean? Well mostly that instead of spending 50% of my time staring at a map screen, I was spending more like 75%. At least The Party was kind enough to provide us with GPS's.

We were able to seize the outlying encampments easily enough. Alpha straight-up charged ours, Charlie covered Bravo into theirs, and then charged their own encampment to the northeast. At that point, the tanks came out of the woodwork, and the AT ran out awful fast. Much to our dismay, the enemy had gotten their hands on freakin' finger-print secured mounted weaponry. Every attempt of ours to crew abandoned weaponry resulted in the most infuriatingly patient error message read out by an imam at maximum volume.

Eventually, I figured out that the outer camps weren't the final objective (Note to the map-maker - may want to outline that with an actual marker as opposed to the note reference) and I also figured that we were pretty much combat ineffective, especially given our lack of AT. Since we'd been going about this mission for over an hour at this point, my orders became extremely simple. "See that marker on the map? Draw a straight line between you and it. Charge."



Cholo
DRUGSDRUGSDRUGS
GOT MAH DRUGS, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS

Cholo Redux
DRUGSDRUGSDRUGS
OTHER BATCH MADE ME THROW UP. HAD TO GET MORE DRUGS. GOT MORE DRUGS. YEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!

Bonus
Witness below, as an unnamed Comrade demonstrates the proper use of ULAT (Ultra-Light-Anti-Tank) assets, now deployed with all our brave comrades-in-arms. Using this capability in combination with Comrade Tink's prototype Anti-Armor-Pistol, it is estimated that over a million rubles can be saved on RPG-18 production over the next two years.



~ Ferrard