[Sun] 02 Sep 2012 (What are the rules of-- )

[DMA]

I have to add in a bit on the AI and Chernarus discussion. First of all - spotting works OK for AI. Not flawlessly, but quite alright. It doesn't see through grass, it doesn't see through foliage, it doesn't see through buildings. However it is smart enough to estimate your position if you run out of their sight, which some players interpret as being seen through a wall or a bush.

Again, it doesn't work flawlessly and sometimes it will bug and see you through cover. But not as often as people think. Try it out in the editor.

Second, AI react strongly to different things than human players. They are for example very good at locating from where fire comes from. They also react well to movement. Generally if you just stay static or slow moving, and don't fire unless you have to, you can sneak up on the AI pretty good.

People give the AI in Arma2 crap, which in some cases is called for, and some cases not. I think what needs to be done when playing on Chernarus (in contrast to Takistan) is to recon more, and move slower so that those pesky woods can be properly threat assessed before you're getting shot up. I much prefer playing on Chernarus than Takistan because Chernarus is a bit more of a tactical challange.

Just my two cents.

[Black Mamba]

Amen to that. As for the so-called "sniper accuracy" of the AI, that is just plain wrong. It looks like deadly accuracy if you compare that to other games, that, yeah, but that's mainly cause you're not made of rock and titanium in arma, and so don't react that well to bullets travelling through your virtual body. But if you compare it to your own accuracy and speed, man, they suck big time. Of course that's only if you don't set their skillz to max out, in which case, if you force them to go prone and prevent them from moving (disableAI command) you get some serious death machines. Actually, the reason they can beat us is they don't really get suppressed. Meaning you can unload a full mag of M249 on an enemy patrol and still have them return fire as accurately as they would if you were shooting at them with a makarov 300m away.
I've been testing that extensively in the editor and multiplayer, especially cause i needed a strong AI sniper team that would be difficult to locate, flank and eliminate). You can even test their ability to track you if you place yourself under AI command and play in Normal mode (the red circle they use to designate targets is located where they think the enemy is).
Plus i've been testing that to compare vanilla and modded AI.

Suggestion: If we ever continue some modded sessions (ACRE for example), why not include serverside ASR_AI, TPWCAS and TPW_LOS. Those are a real game changer when it comes to AI: they do move in a more intellignet fashion, go crouch when they stop, prone to fire, they handle recoil whith ARs and MGs, they get suppressed (which makes the AR/MG a real important asset in the fireteam, and the use of the base of fire a necessity), and they are much quicker in close combat (in which you all noticed they're slow as hell). The advantage is, as long as there's not human controlled AI (who does behave differently anyway), clients don't need those addons, it's just server side.

We did have a picturesque landing, though. http://i.imgur.com/pcZ7G.jpg

Man that's what i call three sixty security. They should teach that in Arma schools.

[Ferrard Carson]

Ah, good points about the AI, DMA and Black Mamba, though I'd still say that the AI are too accurate (see Proctor getting shot through the wall); part of that is that Arma lets us be too accurate with our guns anyways. I shouldn't have been able to get half the kills I got on BlackFolk Down because I was either shooting with a bad stance (400+ meters at crouching) or right after running a fair distance. Scopes are hax. Also DMA, something ironic is that all those things you mentioned as being triggers for the AI to "notice" us? They're supposedly SOP for PvP - Achieve fire superiority through firing early and firing often, move in short and fast bursts, and keep the momentum up so that the enemy doesn't have time to think. Funny how AI works - it's like they want to make it hard for us

Anyways. That puppet-master stuff will continue to be a work-in-progress, I suppose. Onwards to the AAR!

BlackFolk Down
Deployed as Alpha 1-3, AAR
Alpha lands by the Airfield, Bravo lands on the other side of the Southern Objective, and Special Needs Charlie Squad approaches via paper-thin bullet-magnets up-armored, heavily-armed Humvees. After a masterful insertion by StrangLove onto the southern end of the Airfield, Alpha moved to assault our designated landing zone proper, with portions of Alpha cut up upon approach, including Mr. ASL and Mr. ASM. With some careful maneuvering (and careful abandonment of my battle-buddy >.>), Alpha pressed into the Southern Objective while I used my hax 4x scope to rack up a scary number of points. Upon approaching the southern objective where Alpha's chopper smoked and burned, I belatedly realized my battle-buddy was belly-up behind me, so I ran back and pilfered his SAW, after which, ironically, I didn't kill a damn thing. This mission was dominated by reasonably careful fire, slow element maneuvering, deadly-squadmate-eating stairwells, and extremely tight clustering of BLUFOR. At one point, I half expected our captured warlord to pull a grenade, scream praises to his deity, and detonate just about an entire squad all rubbing shoulders with him (Ferrard Carson in no way endorses or supports inclusion of any such delayed martyring functionality within this mission in order to teach people a lesson about clumping up )

Towards the end, our 360 security proved a little weak as we focused almost entirely upon the mosque we were surrounding. Several times, random warlord-sympathizers popped around corners and said hello. Meanwhile, Alpha provided security for Bravo as they died one by one around the corners of the mosque charged the warlord's chambers for the glory of the party. After good ol' 'Murrican application of overwhelming firepower, the Warlord within the mosque was captured, and using our newly discovered psychosomatic skills, the entirety of BLUFOR successfully extracted via teleportation.





Westside
Deployed as Alpha 1 FTL
We brave 'MURRICANS must defend our opium and PCP trade from interference from those pesky UNPROFOR monitors. The smurfs must die!

Well, apparently we didn't cut our armorer in on the trade, because we were stuck with freakin' silenced M9's ("effective range of five centimeters") while those dastardly smurfs had all sorts of fantastic long-ranged goodies and the audacity to leave behind their precious evidence. Our beloved CO made plans as though we had rifles, when it was, in fact, the opposite. As it turns out, all that Alpha 1's pistols were good for was a quick and timely exit as we committed suicide tried valiantly to battle UNPROFOR. Fortunately, by leaving behind their evidence, UNPROFOR allowed us to nick it and beat a hasty retreat, leaving just their word to impinge the honor of what few true patriotic 'MURRICANS remained.



Wideola
Deployed as Bravo 2 FTL
We have returned to the fateful grave of the First BAF Air Cav Platoon. After the slaughter of last week, the ex-Spetsnaz farmers were forcibly evicted and resettled on scattered DayZ servers where they shall terrorize Bean War veterans. The new residents? Simple farmers... who were conscripted in the 40th Soviet Army and had just returned fresh from Afghanistan, complete with their battle-kit. Evidently, this battle-kit included a heart-beat monitor captured from Rainbow Six, as Proctor found to his infinite displeasure on the other side of a freakin' wall.

The entire platoon landed in one spot (less our Mortar section), having ensured that Waffly never got his hands on a MMG ever again, and advanced into the first cache spot. The plan was simple. Search the spot, then retreat advance gloriously in the opposite direction back towards the LZ, where we would be ferried across the area of operations to a place that OpFor had abandoned. I had a bit of trouble coordinating just where the hell Bravo 2 was supposed to go because my virtual navigation skills are about a tenth of what they are in reality, and that blasted armorer had neglected to hand-hold us by handing us GPS's before we stepped onto the Chinooks and stepped off. Hence, me referencing a map just about every other step in order to figure out which direction I should lead a glory charge in.

Then Mike bit the dust, and we forgot about the "advance gloriously in the opposite direction" bit. By the time we realized this, Special Needs Charlie Squad was wiped, and Bravo got our orders. What we were supposed to do was to sneakily enter some forests and take a big, glorious bite out of the ass of all these Afghani veterans. What I actually did was I ordered my poor, poor fire-team to charge across a completely open hillside into OpFor infested trees. This ended about as predictably as you might imagine, with me getting shot through thick foliage by someone I hadn't seen. jRides bit the dust too, but somehow DMA and Ebass remained more or less functional for a whole ten and five minutes further respectively.

Sorry Bravo 2!



Rebound
Deployed as Alpha 1 FTL
"Light fog, you said?" This mission was actually a very satisfying exit for me, not the least because I got a handy-dandy GPS with which to coordinate everything! We spawned in, and Alpha 2 drew the short-straw of baby-sitting the paper-thin bullet magnet Glorious Eight-Cylinder Mobile Death-Dealing Monstrosity. This, of course, tossed the meticulous planning yours truly had done with the rest of my fire-team in order to lay out how we'd babysit it. Onward via our wee lil' footsies, comrades!

What's to say about this mission? I was working with a lot of familiar faces from earlier in the night (Wizz with the SAW, Proctor as his assistant, and Third as my AT dude), and we seemed to gel well, even if I need to learn to notice quicker when members of my team get dead (sorry Wizz!). Alpha advanced down the valley in a rough Vee formation, with A1 on the left, A3 on the right, and A2 behind and center with that lovely vehicle-mounted ma-deuce. We steadily pushed forward as Charlie and Bravo pincered from the sides in a beautiful show of coordination. I was briefly incapacitated by a random fellow with a FAL who totally would have been in my field-of-vision in real life (I really should get a TrackIR >.>), but was restored to health by a kidney punch from the comely nurse Proctor Eldritch. Afterwards, A3 reported that Alpha Squad Leader was down. So I stepped up.

I set about looking for a SitRep from A2 and A3 when suddenly the dulcet tones of Alpha Squad Lead asked A3 what the hell happened. A3 responded to Alpha Squad Leader's query by reporting that Alpha Squad Leader was down . What A3 meant to say, of course, was that Alpha 3 FTL was dead, but the report certainly jostled me. More on that later.

As we advanced to keep line with Bravo and Charlie, Proctor took a hit, and I was able to return his earlier favor. I positioned Alpha 1 on a rooftop and watched Alpha 2, Bravo 3, and Charlie Lead element repel an attack. At that point, I realized that I hadn't heard from Alpha Squad Lead for a while. A quick radio check and glance at TS3 told me that he was no longer of this plane of existence. So I took over as ASL - legit this time, and commanded Alpha to victory! (actually more like early graves, especially when I charged headlong into a defensive line and shot the only guy not drawing a bead on me... but Proctor was awesome, found a SAW, and was one of the few left at the end who completed the mission) Other highlights include every AT guy in the platoon (plus some) giving a T-55 what for, Fer pulling up at the front in a goddamn deuce-and-a-half to re-arm people, Fer stealing and repositioning a goddamn heavy machine-gun, and Proctor nailing Colonel Aziz's bodyguard through the eyeball with a burst of 5.56 NATO... after the bodyguard had halted IceRaiser's reign of terror.



All in all, a very very fun session!

~ Ferrard

[Black Mamba]

Sadly, Proctor got shot through that wall by a lucky burst. What he did was being spotted while looking through that door in the middle of the barn wall. When he started taking fire he moved through the doorway to his right and kept moving on that exact same path, same speed, towards the west end of the barn. As said before, just try in the editor to see how exactly the AI try and predict enemy movements. The Ai just assumed if he kept the same bearing and speed he would be there. And he was. If he just had stopped, or changed speed, he would probably still be alive (or would have been a few more minutes). Just rest assured the AI couldn't see him through the wall.
Point is, when you get under cover or concealment and fighting AI, keep changing your speed and bearing, double back, and so on. They will always be looking for you were you aren't. Problems start to arise when you replace it in a FT context, when even if you stop and double back, somebody is gonna continue on your trajectory and eat a bullet that was destined to you.

A few reminders/strange things about BlackfolkDown. First you shouldn't get any scopes. An error on my part, i guess, or maybe it happened when Wolf updated it. Another thing is, you've seen it, keeping track of that damn captured warlord is time consuming, knowing that he's pretty much running around like any PCP addict. That's why anytime a warlord is captured, he should be immediately transfered into a helicopter and extracted, so you don't have to worry about him anymore. Theorically the action to arrest the warlord stays even after he was effectively arrested, so that another group can take control of him. I might update it with a new constraint to prevent us from assaulting the city with a captive Warlord following us all the time. What would you think about having the enemy trying to kill him when arrested so that he doesn't give up any intel?
And as Fer said, be aware that killing 15 civies is gonna end the mission, so check your targets.

[mike]

I have to apologize for screwing up Wideola. I think the plan was decent, hit and run using the helos to keep the enemy off balance, but I should've paid more attention to our speed of execution (kinda a requirement for hit and run tactics huh?). So my slowness and the lack of security around my body really screwed this one up, and I think I set the record for quickest death of a CO.

Ohh yeah, about my death. I was supervising the platoon from 100m back while all of the sudden I heard someone say "hey, hey" on direct voip. I got out of the map screen and turned around and saw a guerrilla staring at me, and then there was a big explosion (he put a satchel charge next to me)...

I will get you next time wolfeninja

[fer]

BlackFolkDown

Charlie 2 FTL: xKilla
|- AR: Tink
|- AAR: Zitron
|- R(AT): Fer

Charlie, an under-strength squad of 2 fireteams, inserted by road, taking three HMMWVs of which two were the up-armoured variant with M2s. Initially, I was a passenger in C2's gun truck, staring happily out of my window until we were engaged by an enemy MG nest at the city's south-eastern approach, whereupon I woke up, leaped from the vehicle and scrambled for cover!

We dealt with the threats to our north, which over time increased to include at least one technical and various insurgents on rooftops. Then C2 was ordered to crew both gun-trucks, and I found myself in the cupola of one, with comrade Tink as my driver. We had not yet entered the city, so next our focus was upon crossing the riverbed and pushing on into the built-up area to our west. Slowly, and sometimes a little raggedly, we accomplished this, whilst facing moderate resistance from insurgents that had a habit of popping up alarmingly close to us!

As we listened to the other squads close in on the first (southern) objective, both of C2's gun trucks found themselves dominating an east-west road on the grid just south of the main mosque. We were right at the eastern end of this corridor, with a narrow field of fire - but it was still a deadly one for the enemy patrol that attempted to cross it further up the road.

Then we advanced down the same road, until we came to a junction with lines of sight to the south-east corner of the main mosque. At first we overshot by a few metres, then reversed frantically as I called out the contact: a technical by the mosque. Again we moved too far, so I urged my driver forward. We lurched ahead a few metres and I opened up on the technical. The gunner was killed and I'm sure the vehicle was made immobile, but we lingered too long. Enemy fire killed both of us in our still-not-armoured-enough HMMWV.

Westside

Charlie SL: Fer

I had two fireteams and a simple task: take the buildings north-easy of the northern police station. What could possibly go wrong?

As it happens, a lot. Beguiled by our play-throughs of Cholo, I thought our advance from the north (C2) and north-east (C1) would be uncontested. However, as I sent C1 in to capture the little compound immediately north-east of the target two-storey buildings that overlook the police station, two things happened: instead of being able to suppress the enemy from its position to the north, C2 started taking significant casualties; and C1 came under fire from close enough to effectively pin it at the little compound.

C1 was trapped, and C2 was becoming smaller by the minute. We could see the other squads were moving on the building site from the west. I told C1 to go firm and with C2 crossed the open ground to the north side of the building site, then slipped eastward until I had eyes on the two-storey building that had been Charlie's target all along. After shooting out the streetlight, I ordered Charlie 2 to cross into the shop/bar on the corner, and to then to clear the upper floors. Meanwhile, C1 had lost its FTL and was reporting itself pinned by effective enemy file from a building to the south.

C1 marked the map where the enemy position was, and the CO (comrade Bodge) directed a fireteam from Alpha to flank it. Just before that, C2 not only cleared the shop building, but managed to cross into the adjacent one on the rooftop, clearing down to the first floor. I heard C1 saying they'd found some smoke and were going to attempt to cross the road between our positions. And that was the last I heard from them.

The mission ended a few minutes later, with a victory for BLUFOR - though it was possibly because the UN troops had sent too many men to outlaying buildings, making it easier to clear the stations themselves (and fire the end trigger). Some tweaking to be done here!

Wideola

Mortar Gunner: Fer
|- Assistant: Wizz (?)

Set down in a field far to the north, the mortar team was fated to die alone.

The limited range of our mortar meant that even after a protracted run to the top of Green Mountain, and an aborted attempt to set up a firing position half way there, we could not support the platoon as intended. Abandoning our snug position in the compound at the base of the television tower, we set off through the woods, hoping to set up within sight of the main town.

In my bid to get as far forward as possible, I led my trusting assistant to a little clump of trees, bushes and rocks in a field to the north-west of the town, assuming that we could make this a mortar atoll. Unfortunately, I had done precisely that: stranding us in an ocean of open space, a position from which there was no feasible escape. When the AI opened up on us, first from the west, the the north, firing from hidden positions in the woods, we were pinned. My assistant was killed, and I couldn't even reach his body a few metres from me. I called out to the CO, informing him of my abject failure, and died moments later.

Rebound

Charlie 2 FTL: Ajax
|- AR: Bodge (?)
|- AAR: ???
|- R(AT): Fer

Great mission, but in hindsight, I owe people an apology here.

Just after Charlie's MTVR reached the drop-off point some community relations stuff came up and I had to go AFK for a period. Since it wasn't an emergency, I had time to tell my FTL, ensure I transfered my AT weapon to him, and left my in-game self in a safe location.

When I returned, the platoon was over a kilometre down the valley and nearing completion of its first objective (a town clearance). I hopped in the MTVR, told comrade Ajax I was coming back to the squad, and drove towards the sound of gunfire and explosions. Over comms, the emerging picture was a little unclear, but I picked up on the fact that the enemy was about to launch a counter-attack (which chimed with what I'd read in the briefing). Along the way, I passed an enemy roadblock and stopped to load its tripod-mounted KORD into my truck. I figured it might come in handy.

Upon reaching the town, it was clear that the enemy had begun its counter-attack. Getting a little swept-up in things, I failed to re-join my fireteam and instead set up the KORD on a roof-top. Because I was working without an assistant, I missed the party, so put the KORD back in the truck and drove up the road again, looking to re-connect with my squad. When I reached them, I deployed the KORD a little way up the hill, but again I was too late to be useful.

As the assault moved further up the valley I got back in the truck (with the KORD) and pushed up the road. Though I could see friendlies ahead, I'd clearly put myself in a danger zone, because an enemy round incapacitated me in the cab. Thankfully, comrade Bodge pulled me out and I was patched up. At that point, comrade Bodge was allowed to join me in operating the KORD, which was just in time - a T-55 had appeared on the road and we had mere seconds to grab the equipment from the truck and run for the hillside.

When we set up the KORD, it was on much higher ground, affording us a view of the penultimate enemy camp. As the T-55 made a re-appearance, I put plenty of rounds into it - though it was the 2-3 AT rockets from our infantry that killed it. I remained there, using the HMG on enemy infantry stragglers in the camp whilst comrade Bodge scrambled down the hillside to rejoin the squad.

Without really asking anyone, I dismantled the KORD and made several trips back and forth along the hillside, coming under fire from my own platoon at times because I had been stupid enough not to warn them I was up there. Eventually, I had re-assembled the KORD in a position above the last village, from which I was able to offer a little support (but less than you might think, thanks to the fog).

As I wrote above, in hindsight I'm a little ashamed of how I played this one out. Picking up the KORD might have been a stroke of initiative, and perhaps using it in the first counter-attack wasn't a bad idea. However, afterwards I was pretty much Rambo-ing it without having really obtained permission from my FTL, SL or CO - as evidenced by the fact that my own comrades mistook me for an enemy later on.

That was not a cool move on my part, and perhaps I didn't get called on it b/c I was the session host - but it was out of line, and I apologise to comrades Ajax and Mingmong in particular. Folk sessions are not MilSim, but neither are they pubbie-style, and in mission we all need to respect the chain of command and fulfil our roles until directed otherwise. Even Party officials. Sorry, comrades.

[Ferrard Carson]

Blackmamba - I still think it's a little absurd that he got lit up - a human trying to do that would be told either to stop wasting ammo or to light up the entire barn, since OpFor knew we were in there. It just doesn't jive with reality - we usually worry about running out of ammo or alerting the AI, so we tend not to shoot at anything that we can't confirm.

As for the BFD gear: Looks like all the AAR's and assistant attachment gunners are assigned SCARs with x4 red-dot optics. Also looks like medics and AT dudes are stuck with the crappy ironsight CQC SCARs that are given to vehicle crew as suicide weapons.

So yeah, as evidenced in the BlackFolk Down footage, x4 optics are hax. I should have had a bit more difficulty with those shots instead of second-bullet-on-target. My first two kills were headshots at half-a-kilometer. Total rounds expended: 10. I was glad when I picked up that SAW.

Also, the briefing tells us to extract the warlords to a Chinook

Mike - What's funny is, if you hadn't been schwacked by point-blank IED, then I'm fairly certain the plan would have worked. Looking at enemy dispositions after my death, they were all clustered in the north, and only 5 or so random 3-AI elements were guarding the entire swath of southern caches. There may have been one player-controlled set down there. The proof is in the pudding: what was left of our platoon landed and cleared two caches in the Southwest, and probably could have cleared at least two more before OpFor could respond properly.

Of course, now OpFor knows this and they'll be prepared for it next time. Not like they need a big huge schwerpunkt to kill us anyways

~ Ferrard

[Black Mamba]

Thanks, will update this ASAP then. Nobody should get to fire SCARs. Too damn accurate. The SCAR17 is probably the best assault rifle in the game, and even those "crappy" SCAR16 CQC are at least as efficient as their M4 counterpart. Now, if i'm not mistaken, red dots are not magnified optics (ACOG is an x4) so they shouldn't give that much of an advantage regarding medium range engagements. They just give you a better FOV than ironsights, which is nice in CQB.
As for the Chinook thing, that's cause there used to be a chinook there, but there was a trigger issue too, so it got removed. Not from the briefing apparently. I'm sorry about that, i missed every play of that mission so i couldn't notice any of those things.

[Ferrard Carson]

Yeah, most red-dots aren't magnified, but for some reason the rifle I had (item code "SCAR_L_STD_Mk4CQT") had a x4 scope that I used to get to 4th place on leaderboard by halfway through the mission. It felt dirty to use it. I much prefer red-dot/holo sights.

~ Ferrard

[inguef]

Thanks for recording the missions!