Ebden~SPARTA~

I should'a added a smiley. An in-text yellow avatar is the closest thing to body language we've got.

Yeah, well, I agree with you 100%. So there.

Does this qualify as a political discussion? It sounds a little bit like EA and 1943 for PC.

3pm Pacific=7:30 Newfoundland. I should be on shortly after that time, what with the multiple demands of raising a slack-ass teenager who needs a tutor now.

Fish, I'm game if I have time tonight. What is your timezone, and when do you think you'll be on? Maybe we'll get that Ka-52 and destroy armor from clean across the map (successfull kills from 4000m)!

I intend to wait for some good reason before buying Vista or Win7; I hear too many program conflicts with our valuable games. I'll have a look at both bits of s/w later today, and I think I'll have to buy diskeeper now. I've been spoiled by automatic defrag. Edit: Diskeeper is on sale-$40US for 2 licences. Edit-to-the-Edit.-Installed diskeeper this AM on two computers at home. I saw a performace gain on my first restart, the greatest improvement on my 7-y/o Sony Vaio laptop.

How about King Nothing's Heroes of Chernarus for the lineup? It looks like a good one for JIP between objectives, like a scaled-back version of Dom? This may have an advantage over other missions to give room for JIP, but also rewarding those playing longer during the tactical evening by multiple opportunities in the same theatre. I haven't tried the mission, just a find on the BI forums at lunch.

Trying a vehicle drop the other day with JDMT, he noted (and I learned) that the C-130 blows up upon attempting to airdrop the M1A1. A week or two ago I tried the same with the M1A1 and I thought that time I had been shot by AA. Both times involved the M1A1. I can't remember if it was a Tusk the first time, but the second was a standard M1A1. Is this a tank-specific issue? Have other vehicles dropped successfully from the thing? The wrecks do not appear beneath the drop location, but at the extreme SW of the map, which is some sort of purgatory for wrecked vehicles. Ah, I remember one. During a casual moment a few weeks ago, I dropped a bicycle from the C-130 without incident. Does the glitch it have to do with both vehicles taking up the same in-game space for a moment as the tank drops, and they both explode as a solution to the glitch? If lighter vehicles, like the bike, cause less 'impact' damage, then the c130 can survive the drop (say, from a momentary physics violation when the bike I dropped also took up the same space as the c130.) Can you unload vehicles on the ground? say a full-flaps landing at either of the two other airports? Unless we can, then the biggest motivator for me to use the c-130 is on hold, which was the anticipation of getting heavy armor to remote parts of the map quickly. I'll experiment later today when home.

T1, I overlooked a specific thanks for your work as 2IC with the extra confusion during my first command with coms, FARP defense, a steady stream of JIPs, and all the other background coordination you handled without my oversight. I appreciate your patience and hard work, and I look forward to hearing your Scottish brogue in TS sometime soon.

I agree with T1 on this element. I played in several MP A2 and PR tournaments with a group that had sorted a successful approach to keybinds (their discussion on how to use TS is remarkably similar to the coms discussions on this forum). They provided a cheat-sheet (similar to D2s), and a downloadable .kbn file to ensure consistency with com practice for all players. The catch that made it work, one file for download, is that the .kbn included all keybinds that either a squad member or commander might need, you just had to press the right button (without chancom some of the keybinds didn't work, saving squad members from any mis-press comms). On a related note, when we went through my hurried reassignment of keybinds for commanding last round, I found, when looking at the TS window and using whisper, the numpad buttons produced an irascible beeping that only I could hear (I didn't hear the same beeping when in A2 and using the binds). To get the assault moving the other day I didn't complain, but meant to ask how to avoid it next time.

To use the lingo of my 13 y/o, it's a 'tight' map. I don't know what's so tight about it, seems pretty big to me I tried Panthera in the armory a few weeks ago and was thorougly impressed. The Panthera map has multiple extreme elevation changes, and reminds me of what it might be like to assault Vail, CO, in the summer. It would be great to put domination on Panthera, or some tactical missions, since the elevation makes for some epic sniper work and other long-range intel, and also gives a good reason to try playing in 10k viewdistance. The tight valleys will make helo insertion more tricky and vulnerable, and other air/artillery support will be limited in the narrow avenues. Actually, it may be an excellent infantry-focused map for tactical, since so much of the armored/air mobility afforded in Chernarus and Sahrani is not available in Panthera's dense forests and mountains. Given the uneven terrain, tight valleys (ah, 'tight', I get it now) and dense woods, this would be a good map for the fastrope addon. Set up a couple Mk40 mod 0s and snipers in the hills, and you can bombard the town in 7.62-style (but check your fire!!) I support any of Dx2's (Durka-Durka, for future reference) efforts to make whatever he likes on that map. Edit: I'm still having a blast with the Sahrani map as well, FYI. (Does Sahrani boast more enterable-buildings than Chernarus? Definitely some more interesting towns in the A1 map)

Pikey, It's been a week since your last update. How is your machine running ARMA 2, continued issues?

Woha! What's with the hostility? I don't recall posting anything that was any sort of passive-whatever toward your, or anyone else's, ideas. Like the rest of the regulars, I'm also trying to contribute, brainstorm ideas, etc, on this forum for the game, and I am sorry if something in a previous post offended you. Do you recall the bit of praise I singled you out for last week in another thread? I hope that is indication enough of respect for your time in the server. PM me if there's something in need of a more detailed apology, I certainly have no intention of building some spat here.

I agree with T1 about this. As long as the commander shares a channel with a squad and can be whispered, he will get crosscom errors. Much better to have people talk to who they need only, leaving as little room for scrabble as possible. It was also why I liked a greater degree of delegation.

...And I'm a corruptable adult, so all the more reason to pass the authority around! I approached my first command in ARMA II with the intention to get both squads to their LZs, give them their intended first contacts and special assignments (radiotower, draw fire, etc), and let the SLs take care of the rest. Once they were moving, I shared intel btwx squads from a good position on an opposing ridge, a little FARP defense. I even blew up a Shilka when the squads were working well. Once I spend time and sort out TS (lots of posts now on the topic, I just need to do it), then I look forward to command #2.

Despite a complete unpreparedness in my TS settings for my command, I think it still went well (Bravo's 1-time wipeout excepted). Note the unique experience from last night's assault with the current side mission in the SAME town. That meant double the defending forces, double the tanks, etc. I most appreciated having two squad leaders for delegation. If I had TS sorted properly and could live in a separate channel, then it may have gone more smoothly. Living in Alpha channel with their coms overlapping those of others trying to communicate with me was frustrating, so I spent lots of time swapping channels and switching in and out of ARMA. I hadn't recognized the double-defenses in the AO until after the battle, when wondering why the push to the radiotower took so long (it was right next to the side mission). In retrospect, it was unfair to task Bravo on the radiotower with Alpha drawing fire; I should have taken advantage of mortars, probably two, and ensured most heavy armor was down before crossing any squad into the AO. Good work both from Forrester and Medic keeping their squads in play, and for the pilots getting ammo when neeed. Alpha exhausted the supply of their first box before anyone crossed into the red zone. I'd prefer the 2IC be part of a squad to save them from boardom. FARP defense is certainly a concern, but not a priority given how easy it is to clean up and/or teleport out. Also, the 2IC doesn't need to be at the FARP to know someone is in their TS channel-if the person who joined says hello. Perhaps this could be a good solution-set up TS so the commander and 2IC can speak together (mimicking the same channel), but keep the 2nd in the team assignment room, the commander in his own. Next step is for the commander and 2IC to stick together on the map, probably from a covert vantage point near the AO. Continue battle from there, since the primary job of both is to delegate responsibility. I'll command again if needed, but only if I can delegate like I did yesterday.

Good, I'm confident to give it a try for a small beta mission at ofpec.com on non-tac nights, pending any different static IP advice here from that at portforward.com

I have an e8400 running oc'd to 3.6 with xp pro and 4(3.25g)mem. It's no server, but given your statement it may handle the work. This may be a real bastard living in NL. My web package advertises 10mbps down/512k up, but I haven't seen those speeds because I live on an island in the Atlantic ocean. Still, the last time I used speedtest, I think I ran about 1m down and 200-400kup. That should still be enough for 10 or less in MP? Would setting up a static IP via these instructions be helpful? I did the same for BF2v with a different system, provider, and modem, which seemed to help.

Right on, I didn't know that home computers could successfully host multiplayer, I thought servers were required. I'll try it out soon enough for an ad-hoc tactical mission.

I can implement LAN easily enough, but I meant I wanted to try missions with other people. The critical question is what MP-online hosting will do to my machine, the sort of demands I should anticipate (or avoid).

I noticed the 'host' option in the MP server list, and it appears I can use my home computer to host an online MP game. Is it brutal on the system to attempt hosting from a home computer? There are a number of beta and finished coop/mp missions I am eager to try, but without a server I'm left to beg for one on a tactical night (and personal scheduling's permitted my attendance only once anyway) or scrape around the public server list for someone else trying the same mission.

I think that fellow 'Cooper' might take the cake. Remember him from last week? Zeno told him he wasn't welcome after he wrecked every single air asset in a mostly-completed map in a span of 20 minutes, and contributed in TS via some sort of Vitamin-R enhanced tourettes (vit-R=ritalin, maybe he's a methkitty?). God he was annoying. I'm guilty of wreck-ditching as well though; the aav last night. I sheepishly wrecked it about a mile from the AO, then snuck to the sidemission channel instead of retrieving the wreck since my time was limited to play...

I know about the radio volume, but I'm 86.3% sure that it varies both the automatic radio and human radio volumes concurrently, so it doesn't solve that issue, unless I'm 13.7% wrong! Expanding use of the map would be good. I'm still not entirely pleased with the icon setup though, mostly because it was never clear how to sort through icons and colors from the start, and it isn't possible to set an arrow to a specific direction (for pricking efficiently). Again, all toward brevity, and implementing some sort of universal map relay code is best for tacdom nights, with everyone trying to keep coms at a minimum, shuffling duties to other game attributes. Since it isn't a standard form of communication on land, I suggest it use marine navigation techniques, mostly dead-reckoning. Adapted to what Arma2 permits, a mark would be a dot, color specific to the squad, with time, course, and speed (or travel method). Example, for 9:50pm moving directly SW from the main on foot a SL would enter after the dot "2150, 135, ground." There's no need to indicate true v compass heading, since we all use the same compass and the map is oriented with N-up (All of Chernarus is oriented compass/magnetic north). Edit: A simplification of this method, given the map scale, is to use general compass headings (for SW, just write SW. If you are between SW and W, then write SWW, which means Southwest-by-West. I don't imagine more precision is needed than that). For the travel mechanism, use whatever tight term fits your travel (foot/ground, tank, APC, helo, whatever, just so it's concise and we get the idea. We should all know roughly how fast each method travels). The purpose of the charting is two-fold: A)to keep the commander abreast of his squads' locations w/o asking; To give other squads a rough idea of who might be in their scope. It's the responsibility of all players to ID their target, but there's no harm in giving them a hint. Remember, by the time a sailor made his prick on the map he was already somewhere else. Navigation is about where you want to go, charting is about where you think you have been. Looking at your damn surroundings is how you tell where you are! Better yet, those high-command features, if available, would make it so much easier for the commander than teaching SLs how to use dead reckoning.

I like it as well, a tidy advert for their product, especially taking advantage of other global news in the sidebars. Perhaps those in charge @ BIS will take note of current global developments to enhance the consistency of their own storyline. I wonder if some addict, worse than us, will take the 'news' to heart?

Anybody seen this? http://www.aan-online.com/