Suggestions for Operation Arrowhead Domination

[SirSmokalot]

To start off, a cool feature in OA that's carried over from ACE is the fact of mobilizing Static's into backpacks and 2 man teams at least.

 

Well currently the TOW launcher at base is the only one avaialbe and technically used by base defenses. You can "disassemble launcher" and then it splits into two backpacks, a "tripod pack" (Tripod_Bag) and a "TOW Tripod pack" (TOW_TriPod_US_Bag_EP1). Slightly misleading yes, but appears as stated

 

Now a great idea would be to add them to an ammo crates inventory or special one for that matter...or even for that matter in the inventory of the Ammo Truck as the trucks would respawn if destroyed and there's two in the mission. Other statics would be nice as well.

 

If you wanted to take that idea further add the tow and mortar bags (M252_US_Bag_EP1) of each and 1 tripod bag limiting both in use, (exchange one for the other). There for making an interesting Spec ops vehicle, namely the "LandRover_Special_CZ_EP1"!

 

This will encourage light wheeled vehicle convoy's like we had the other night with 3 vehicles...what a blast!

 

Hope this helps making it more fun!

Edited July 5, 2010 by SirSmokalot

[GooniversalSoldier~SPARTA~]

The convoy was epic. I think i will start another tonight if we have the bodies...i mean people!

[Grizzly]

Bring on the pain

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

Just because you can do something doesnt mean you should.

 

The Javelin is better than the TOW and is man portable

The TOW HMMMVs already take care of transporting that weapon system.

 

The Ammo box does not have unlimited capacity and I need to reduce whats in it, not add to it

[SirSmokalot]

Actually TOW has 6 missles with it, Jav....takes up persnal ammo slots.

 

Plus can you parachute a TOW humvee? Or if wanting to go as infantry you can carry it and not rely on vehicle transport etc. I'm saying it would be nice for a vehicle to carry it as a bonus. Stuff it in the Ammo trucks if its an ammo box problem, job done.

 

Asking mainly because it could have come in handy, and a few of us wouldnt mind using the static tripod bags since its in the vanilla game, is it such a problem?

 

I doubt it would hurt to have a couple statics around to carry if we wanted to. And its not a case of "just because you can do something".....it actually is for infantry reasons and mobility they have the statics. Not to mention it encourages teamwork. I'm sorry you don't agree with that.

Edited July 7, 2010 by SirSmokalot

[DaiSan]

I only have one suggestion... Make the damn thing harder, this is like telly tubby ArmA. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving the environment, the weapons etc etc but the only thing from stopping one man taking every AO alone is ammo, not difficulty.

[GooniversalSoldier~SPARTA~]

We need some ACE AI up this thing to show us whats up

[DaiSan]

We need some ACE AI up this thing to show us whats up

 

Personally I would rather leave ACE out of OA, i think it has all the bells and whistles it needs without the constant updates and bugs, I just think we need to put the server on Veteran or Expert.

[MH6~SPARTA~]

Personally I would rather leave ACE out of OA, i think it has all the bells and whistles it needs without the constant updates and bugs, I just think we need to put the server on Veteran or Expert.

 

I agree. ACE did nothing for me with regular ArmA, and it won't do anything with Operation Arrowhead. Maybe a few months down the line it will, when OA is stale--but for now I'd rather do without ACE.

 

But if ya'll feel it adds that much to the game then who am I to refute it.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

I only have one suggestion... Make the damn thing harder, this is like telly tubby ArmA. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving the environment, the weapons etc etc but the only thing from stopping one man taking every AO alone is ammo, not difficulty.

 

Have we changed over Kal's domination to OA yet, with the general on the Red team?

 

And I gotta agree about ACE, at least with ArmaII. It was nice to have the four wheelers and a couple other weapons, but I honestly enjoyed the regular play.

[OrcFace_McStompYou]

Durka, a lot of the weapons and vehicles, including the ATVs, from ACE are standard in OA now. A couple of ACE features made it in too, like sight adjustment and backpacks.

 

The only ACE features I miss are the ability to use bipods/weapon resting and the SMAW nerf. As it is now the SMAW/MAAWS is so damn good that 1 guy can take out several tanks. The ACE nerf to that launcher forced more team play and coordinated assets to destroy armor. 1 soldier should not be taking out 2 T-34s and a Shilka without re-arming, but that's what I did last night. Vanilla MAAWS is easy-mode.

 

I will say I definitely DON'T miss passing out because my fat-ass lazy medic gets tired carrying all those MAAWS rockets.

 

As for suggestions for Dom, I'd like to see the AI bumped up a little. I'd really love to see some hellish counter-attacks. Take an AO and defend from multiple waves of fast attack vehicles with tons of infantry. Another idea Goon and I were kicking around is a scripted way to disable base attacks. Right now most people turn it off because it gets annoying. It'd be cool if there was a small OPFOR forward base or 'terrorist training camp' near the base. Take it out and base attacks cease.

 

Finally, last night several people, myself included, were wondering when the laser-equipped satanic unicorn ponies would be enabled. Please advise.

Edited July 7, 2010 by OrcFace_McStompYou

[custard~SPARTA~]

As much as I think Ace adds to the game balance it's a complete red herring as we will only use a stable version and I don't think we are any were near that.

 

Veteran would help for a start IMO and so would giving the AI more NVG (is this possible), isn't it true that in the real world NVG are finding there way to the Taliban?

[KalXen~SPARTA~]

I haven't ported the opfor Dom to AO, as my preference is to rewrite pieces of it and focus on the storyboard Dom concept instead.

 

That aside though, there are easy ways to quickly tweak the Dom map to add some difficulty, not sure how it will affect performance however. 1) use Vet mode, 2) tweak the spawning code to put units into Combat mode on spawn instead of Safe - this may stop them from walking out of the AO, 3) tweak the unit types to spawn more elites than farmers , tweak the base AI difficulty for spawns to 0.8 instead of the likely .05.

[GooniversalSoldier~SPARTA~]

some sort of IED script for the AI would be pretty bad ass

[MH6~SPARTA~]

Yeah I think the biggest reason Domination is so easy at the moment is because 90% of the enemy forces in each AO vacate the premises while friendly troops are en route.

 

It's almost like fighting the Iraqi army.

[evilducky]

I think we need to add in some civilian life to these towns. That way its not just shoot everything that moves but you have to take your time. Also have it, if possible, killing civilians means some harsh consequences like a long spawn time or time spent in a time out box =P *I remember this was in one of the game modes for arma 2. You killed a team mate or something, and when you respawned, you were in a time out box for xx time.* I think that would make the game little more interesting.

[Caleb]

The side missions need some major tweaking, you can do most of them without firing a shot in anger. On the subject of side missions it would be cool to have a capture the officer one where he is in a convoy of suv's that required you to hunt down the convoy and disable the targets suv before capturing him. Also maybe a pop-up range at the main base to test new guns? And the ability to flip atv's?

 

thanks for putting up these servers they are the best in the business for the casual player.

[JackSeven]

Last night BigWorm and I used the M249 Saw w/TWS and we obsolutley loved it. I jumped into the server today and noticed it was no longer in the ammo box, if you could please put that particular weapon back into the game, it would be much appreciated. Thanks

 

J-7

[Lightspeed~SPARTA~]

without having played the game yet ( i will this weekend dont worry) i think that this different environment needs to be customised to fit with what you would expect to see in Afghanistan / Iraq. You won't see much armor, you will see lots of civilians, you will experience IED attacks and RPG attacks and small pockets of resistance. It's very unlikely that you woould be cruising around with much AT bcoz you know you aren't going to see much armor.

 

i think we need to match the situation we would expect to see over in the sandbox.

 

my two cents.

[Denny]

It would be intresting to have enemy combatants hiding in more buildings like the third floor penthouses that seem to be in every town.

Other than that, I'm enjoying O.A.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

I do agree with the majority of these comments.

 

I specially support Lightspeed opinion to make the environment similar to what we would expect on Iraq / Afganistan scenarios.

 

Adding some more civillians, reducing the amount of armors and infantry should not bring performance issues, because the objects would be balanced anyway.

 

Tweaking the opportunity to have insurgents hiding inside buildings and possibly using higher floors to ambush / snipe would be amazing if possible.

 

An extra idea, coming from the BF2 Project reality, it would be nice to have a script for hidden bombs and / or car or truck bombs. in PR there was a sort of suicide truck that was charging frindly installements exploding on contact with a pretty bad destruction radius.

 

It would be great if possible to add a sort of "action" to engeneers to identify and defuse rudimental explosives.

 

Am I dreaming too much ??

[SirSmokalot]

Here's something that might be of help in all missions that seems like it maybe a cool effect:

 

Slight Sand Blowing effect script-

 

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=11105

 

Usage:

Place the following code in your init or in the initialization box in a unit

nul = [unitname,radiusofeffect] execVM rollingsand.sqf

 

Place the following code in a text document called "rollingsand.sqf"

_obj = _this select 0;
_radius = _this select 1;
_pos = position _obj;

//--- Sand blowing
_velocity = [1.0,1.0,0.0];
_color = [1.0, 0.9, 0.8];
_alpha = 0.02 + random 0.02;
_ps = "#particlesource" createVehicleLocal _pos;  
_ps setParticleParams [["\Ca\Data\ParticleEffects\Universal\universal.p3d", 16, 12, 48], "",
"Billboard", 5, 3, [0, 0, -6], _velocity, 1, 1.275, 0.9, 15, [9], [_color + [0],
_color + [_alpha], _color + [0]], [0.01], 1, 0, "", "", _obj];
_ps setParticleRandom [3, [30, 30, 0], [0, 0, 0], 1, 0, [0, 0, 0, 0.01], 0, 0];
_ps setParticleCircle [_radius, [0, 0, 0]];
_ps setDropInterval 0.001;

 

Version 1.2 - Same method as above, changed the color of the dust to make it more prominent.

_obj = _this select 0;
_radius = _this select 1;
_pos = position _obj;

//--- Dust
_velocity = [1.0,1.0,0.0];
_ps = "#particlesource" createVehicleLocal _pos;  
_ps setParticleParams [["\Ca\Data\ParticleEffects\Universal\universal.p3d", 16, 12, 48], "",
"Billboard", 5, 3, [0, 0, -6], _velocity, 1, 1.275, 0.9, 15, [9], [[0.9, 0.9, 0.9 ,0.0],
[224/255, 208/255, 127/255, 0.1],[0.8, 0.8, 0.8, 0.0]], [0.01], 1, 0, "", "", _obj];
_ps setParticleRandom [3, [30, 30, 0], [0, 0, 0], 1, 0, [0, 0, 0, 0.01], 0, 0];
_ps setParticleCircle [_radius, [0, 0, 0]];
_ps setDropInterval 0.001;

Edited July 8, 2010 by SirSmokalot

[SirSmokalot]

Those are some great ideas Batwing and Lightspeed.

 

As far as the lack of armor, I'd like to see some personally since this adds to game play....the only thing is if there's not going to be OPFOR armor, then there's no need for unlocking armor and light wheel vehicles might be sufficient with some slightly heavier support like the Stykers. In addition it would do away with the need of the Attack helicopters and maybe only incorporate Scout type helo's like the AH-6J or possibly Kiowa if it gets incoporated into the Sparta package at a later time.

 

On that note "the hardest working little helicopter in the US Army" (Kiowa Warrior) would be a welcome addition since there's a current version that incorporates all the OpA bits like Thermal imaging and other functions like flares etc. An incoporation into the package like the little bird's with the ArmA 2 Sparta package is a definate want by not only myself but a few others.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

without having played the game yet ( i will this weekend dont worry) i think that this different environment needs to be customised to fit with what you would expect to see in Afghanistan / Iraq. You won't see much armor, you will see lots of civilians, you will experience IED attacks and RPG attacks and small pockets of resistance. It's very unlikely that you woould be cruising around with much AT bcoz you know you aren't going to see much armor.

 

i think we need to match the situation we would expect to see over in the sandbox.

 

my two cents.

 

I agree with this. The taliban use ambush tactics, as well as assault, but they don't use vehicles except trucks to transport them around the battlefield. Heavy weapons they use are RPGs, lots of mortars with spotters, IEDs, DsHKs (both on tripod and mounted on some trucks, but mostly on a tripod to cover mountain passes). They will pull an ambush inside a mountain pass, or between a hill or wadi and a town, usually using IEDs as the catalyst, followed up by RPGs and various small arms. They will make sure they have the high ground, and will make sure they can retreat back across the mountain easily.

 

They will pull assaults in somewhat the same way. They will use a VBIED (car bomb) every now and then to start the fight, but usually use a large mortar assault, followed up by RBGs and lots and lots of small arms fire. They like to assault the lone outposts that house a squad or two of infantry looking over a town, and will use lots of cover fire while trying to get within grenade range.

 

 

I don't have the game either, but that up there is pretty much how things are done. If I were going to make a Domination map for OA, mirroring the situation in Afghanistan, I would create small outposts (5-15 capacity)just outside of very small villages, and have people take those and hold them. Once taken, I would expect a large counter attack to appear with mortars and RPGs, and small arms. I would create a scenario where, once taken, reinforcements would spawn at base and travel to that outpost. The team would have to hold that outpost/town until the reinforcements arrive, enduring a counter attack in the process. Some reinforcements could be quick with a helo drop, and others could be longer as a ground convoy comes along. I would only have about one or two large towns/cities to take, with old russian APCs and maybe even a couple tanks just for the fun of it. (A stolen T-72 isn't out of the realm of possibility)

 

If, again, I were mirroring Astan, I would create lots of convoy side missions, where you have to deliver engineering equipment to areas, reinforce outposts, have a few pilot rescue and close air support missions, and maybe even a search mission in the mountains for HVTs, or High Value targets. One side mission I think would be cool is to insert in an area undetected and ambush an enemy squad, like a few stories I've heard over the years.

 

Some food for thought. Whether it can be made possible, I have no clue. Of course, if things haven't changed since the last time I played ArmaII and people love flying around and blowing things up with tanks rather than an infantry-centric game, this might be a useless post.

[Durka-Durka~SPARTA~]

Just another thought, I have no idea if any of those situations could be made by us, or would need to go through Xeno, but in my opinion, that would be the best type of domination for an Afghanistan map. Either way, maybe one or two of those ideas could help a mission maker, if not a Domination scripter.