Luggage~SPARTA~

There are lots of good ideas on the communications front, and I decided to not add to the previous thread that was ongoing as it was becoming 70 different views, none wrong and we weren't going to get anywhere! Now that we have a personage with some gravitas, (that's you Durka) providing a thought through process I would like to to try this, and tweak it as necessary to see whether it can move us forward. I know that there are some advocates of the use of ingame voice, but I found this difficult to work with as you ended up with sounds coming from two sources, with transmissions cutting across. Sticking with a simplex system is far safer than two simplex systems. You just end up needlessly having to repeat and that wastes airtime (just my opinion) Secondly I would like to throw in another possible key consideration. Do we need an 'All Stations' key for the commander to utilise for this stirring speeches, or more probably for the go-commands to all teams or just to advise that an evac zone has been setup. Lastly, if we can get 'key-setups' scripted is it better for the squad leader to whisper to both the commander and the own team? This means that his team don't go from hearing the squad leader in 90% of traffic, to suddenly hearing the commander and not hearing the squad leader responses..... or have I mis-understood.... again.... .......I'll get me coat

Always a pleasure, never a chore You did an excellent job at such short notice, and the whole point of playing on veteran mode is to remove all the comforts that we have become used to and not have a map light up with all the targets so easily. The SU25 attacking the mortar is also good, it adds to the difficultly of the action. Taking towns with limited support, limited intel is exactly how we will become a cohesive set of players. Once we have got people reliably able to map read we can consider splitting the comms and working to the Dai/Zeno approach of setting areas to reach, weapons yellow, and then engaging together and splitting the AI/Enemy focus. We know it works, Durka has taken us through some missions where overwhelming attack from stealth has produced excellent results. It doesn't work when a piecemeal, un-coordinated attack starts you just end up bleeding out your squads. p.s. I can always be relied upon to volunteer you Custard, have no fear on that score

Firstly, apologies to T1, who should be held up as an example of the patient player type I can only begin to emulate by 10%. Having come in and only used minimal comms to get up to speed, he was assigned to anti-air role just as the last chopper was taken down. Not only did he stick to that role for some 30 minutes, but he didn't complain that he was out of the action. I can only apologise once again T1. my pitiful excuse was that I was not organised with my normal piece of paper. Secondly an apology to the group for the first town in general. We were in trouble the moment we landed at the LZ, and it was far too frantic to try and get a plan. I wasn't then particularly happy with the approach that we had to make. We were essentially on a ridge, facing a higher ridge, and the zone to cross wasn't good. I then proceeded to dither and I should have taken us in another way. As mentioned by previous posters, we need an LZ that is further away. Young Mr Sneaky (hereafter/henceforth known as "Rangefinder 1:25000" (UK Joke and not verty funny)) seems to have a decent grasp of what the telephone and pub symbols mean on the map and brought us in nicely with cover for the subsequent towns. I vote he gets lumbered promoted to that task wherever possible, I personally struggle with single channel comms on that scale. I believe squads do need to chatter amongst themselves to some degree, and therefore control becomes difficult. When you are pushy like me it is easy to get a slot, but I know there is good information that could be passed up the line that probably gets missed. Dai and myself both have slightly different variants on a comms strategy, both of which involve setting up keys and 'stuff' on TS. If the numbers keep up I was wondering whether the senior members would consider some experimentation?

Watch this space, some advice given to Watchy and furious file movement is currently ensuing. an update to follow........

clearly those dells are possessed by the devil, as they failed the bobbing water test. BURN THEM ALL BEFORE IT'S TO LATE

Custard, stop being kind. We all know that Target needs help .

Thanks for allowing me to tag along last night. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Apologies for sticking with the default spawn weapon, it meant I was slightly ineffective for 3/4 of the game. My student observations for others intending to try this are: (Sparta can move onto the next post!) Squad movement is a challenge when you are trying to keep a regular free-look scan to all sides, and at the same time maintain a relative position in the formation. I am sure it is something that will come with time, but the tongue was definately peeking. The game changes completely on veteran mode in terms awareness of other squad member position's, relying purely on visual in heavy scrub becomes difficult. Encounter is at a much longer range. 2x scope is difficult. ACOG for me would have suited better. Time, time, we must have more time. You need to be prepared to commit 1-2 hours. This is how long some of these missions take to prep and complete. I probably ended up being more a burden than a help, but again thanks for letting me bring up the rear.

It was definately a team effort. It was a joy to play with people willing to take the boring tasks and go with the flow. Special thanks to Hoot - he plays with only one ear, so direction of fire etc is impossible for him to determine, but it doesn't stop him being lethal with the javelin. P under-rates himself, and obviously Custard and Dai are pretty solid. Maestro, well he isn't anything like an out-of-date car at launch, manufactured by BL. Thanks to all for a great evening. When can we do some PVP people?

Happy Birthday Zeno, hope the day brings you everything you want.

It is still an improvement on BPR administration. If we had done that: We wouldn't have realised we had shut it down We wouldn't notice it was down for 3-4 days anyway We wouldn't believe anyone who told us it was down in the meantime We wouldn't be able to find anyone able to restart it The server would do its weekly reboot for update application and restart anyway Joker would tell everyone there was no fault found when he checked it

In fairness to steam ( I have ARMA Retail surprisingly) the delay in patching is normally down to the original software company. It frustrates the hell out of steam that the software house seems to 'forget' about packaging the steam patch, and almost deals with it as an afterthought. Steam will always release it the moment they get it, it is in their interest after all. I personally don't understand it. Steam is a convenient money maker for the software houses. They don't have soak up money on packaging and printing, and they can make more margin than the retail version, but some software houses do seem to like biting the hand that feeds them. I know Steam/Valve are constantly trying to 'educate' the software houses, but it appears to be an uphill struggle. On the upside for steam, backup and restore for new builds is doddle and it has saved me sooomuch time in the past compared to the pile of DVD re-installs I have to do.

Hoot, as per Panic, I would focus on the graphics card upgrade. I went all out and did the 4870x2, which has been fantastic, but I reckon any of the above will make a major improvement. You should be ok CPU wise, check the box and I think you will find you are in the zone perfectly on that score.

Thanks everyone, I had a great day. A special thanks must go out to all the tolerant people who let me use them for Artillery practise in the Arma Server, frequently...

I thoroughly enjoyed last night. I don't envy a Commander, there is a lot of processing of information going on and it is most certainly overwhelming. As both a member of a squad and a Squad leader I can appreciate the effort that is required to keep everyone happy. People do seem to get bored/forget what they were told some 30 seconds earlier so there was a lot of squad movement when unnecessary but I am sure that this will improve with time. I was lucky enough to have a small squad for my Leader slot, 5/6 people, all with perfect hearing, a good spread of skills, a good spread of weaponry and patient to the core. The only trouble maker was Zeno (Only joking ) My thanks to everyone in my squad for making it a pleasure to play, and thanks to Sparta for their tolerance of all of the rest of us.

The comms thread I love these - personally I am a complete advocate of the squad channel, whisper keys and channel commander keys. Only way to go. In brief, whatever Zeno says goes....

If I could spell phenominal I would use it, but I guess I will have to stick with fantastic. Having spent a little time trying to get myhead around M119's I can only say they can decimate in Howizter mode. Having a couple at base will provide brilliant initial pounding cover. On holiday so I can't be with you Friday, but good luck with the new night chaps.

Still peeking over the wall with interest on this one. Unfortunately I am now on holiday in Scotland for two weeks and may miss the initial tentative steps, but would really like to get involved when I get back. As discussed I think that some people find the whole AI domination thing a bit too involved and frustrating on a public server. Getting some TvT/PvP together is definately the way to bring some lonely souls back into the mix. We need missions that take about an hour max to put together otherwise real life is going to intrude. Keep up the good work!

I certainly enjoyed it. Apparently the AI was at the lowest skill level, which still seemed to exceed my ability by about 10 points. I think a knowledge of how the AI is going to react is what is lacking in my gameplan. Having seen how they behaved yesterday I would liken them to the borg - if you don't fire they seem to ignore you and get on with assimilating the populace of the town. However once you upset them, generally by shooting one of the collective, then they seem to concentrate on making your life a misery. But it does prove that engagement avoidance is preferable to the assumption that you have to shoot everyone you meet. What became apparent is that you can creep betwen patrols and ignore AI, which in the real world would be impossible, but allows you to focus on the primary objective. And the last thing I learnt is that Panic looks mean with a big gun. He seems to like it a lot........ perhaps too much....... The way he was stroking the barrel was beginning to worry me.......

My flying style, I like to model myself on 'Mad Murdoch'.

Just a note to second Panic's post. Had a great time on the server last night. I was trying to break down all the elements that made it work, and I think it is the combination of sensible speed, good spread of skills, and knowing that you need more than just boots on the ground. The air support, and air drops are critical. I can see that also some time spent working a vehicle crew is essential. Whether that is tracked or rotor the time it takes to explain something when in the open is just too long, you are already dead. Watching the AI pull from behind a buildling, fire, and then reverse in less than 5 secconds is a lesson in how to acheive safe driving. More people, and spreading those people between all the skill groups will make that game uber. Thanks for letting us clog up your radio

Some of your cousins over in BPR have mistakenly ordered and installed (it must be the water) ARMA II. And Lo they have found it both intriguingly difficult, and at the same time frighteningly addictive. We were wondering whether more knowledgeable players could help us, unfortunately we couldn't find anybody fitting that description so we have been reduced to asking in here (only joking ) Currently we have 5 players with the game installed and there appears to be a movement for more to give it a go. Where are are lacking is anything resembling - planning tactics focus teamwork weapons knowledge ability to survive beyond 1 minute after invoking a firefight with the AI We have tried some TDM and CTF and that looks very much fun. So getting to the nub, could we consider some togetherness in a server somewhere to hone the clearly latent BPR skills that are just itching to get out - or is that just the crabs?