[Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

How we died (in the future)
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fer
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Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:16 am
Location: Emotional wreck

[Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by fer »

Missions:
  • Castell
  • Self Service
  • Black Island
  • 3-10 to Kavala
After-Party:
  • Racethunder XL (comrade Head wins)
  • Racethunder XL (comrade Head wins ... again)
  • Racethunder XL (comrade Draakon wins. At night.)
  • Infection (comrade Zitron last survivor)
As a session host, you know something went right when the after-party ends after midnight. Then again, it's good that something went right, because an awful lot went wrong too! But mostly in a funny way: because half-naked flying dead men are almost always funny. Unless they kill the living on contact. However, this has not been proven and official Party scientists deny the existence of such an issue.

Brigade peaked at 35 comrades, including some friendly guests from the 1Tac community (whose scientists are part of the F3 programme). All of the missions in the main part of the session used F3 v3-1-0 RC3, so thank you to everyone who came along tonight - not only for attending the session, but for helping us test the latest release candidate for F3. Session-sized tests are invaluable, so you have the gratitude of the F3 team as well as the Politburo.

The session began with new mission Castell, in which a CSAT mechanised column - under comrade CO Carson - with support from a tank (and later rotary-wing CAS), launched a devastating assault on the hilltop village of Oerokastro in North-West Altis. It was quite the meat-grinder: the shock-troops of Bravo encountering solid resistance despite an awesome display of shock-and-awe from the Bronegruppa. Alpha squad's teleport recon took - and lost - a castle, and one of Charlie's IFVs exploded on a mine (killing half of the reinforcements in one terrible moment); but eventually our tank was prowling the village streets whilst comrade Tigershark's Kajman orbited above.

Next up, adversarial mission and old favourite Self Service was slotted almost evenly, with CSAT (attacking) having only a minor advantage. The Party placed its faith in the superior competency of CSAT and was rewarded when the attacking force won. Afterwards, we played a brand new mission from comrade Zitron: Black Island. This co-operative mission saw our CSAT mechanised platoon sweep along a little peninsular to capture a heavily fortified NATO compound, before piling into a rag-tag collection of boats for a journey to the island of Makrynisi - to liberate comrade Aziz. Many questions required answers: where had comrade Aziz been all these years? Didn't he die in Takistan 30 years ago? Why was he being held by NATO? Unfortunately, comrade Aziz didn't have time to answer them - bleeding out in the arms of comrade Head after a botched rescue.

:colbert:

Finally, we returned for a second bite at comrade Wolfenswan's 3-10 to Kavala, a very interesting two-part mission that sees our rebel platoon launch an attack on a supply route and then - 7 hours later - ambush an enemy convoy. The initial clearing action was tough work, but a methodical sweep through the AO ensured we were able to set up for the ambush, hiding from the attack helicopters that over-fly the convoy route. Sadly, something went wrong with the convoy itself, so we had to call the mission there - but I'm sure we'll be detonating satchel charges under it someday soon.

As for the after-party ... it was the debut of comrade Head's Racethunder XL, in which many brave comrades were subjected to a sadistic course, Nitro-boosts of dubious utility, and the sheer barbarism of the race-track. Comrade Head kept winning, of course, until we made the race happen at night, and a brave Party official pushed him off the track.

:laugh:

As ever, please post your thoughts, feedback, screenshots and video here - comrade YouTube Hero SuperU's FA doesn't just produce our video idents, but provides leadership and guidance to propaganda artists. We also have a new YouTube channel that he manages so if you have any content you think should feature then let him know and he will sort you out, for more info check out this thread!; more guidance on video editing for Folk ARPS is provided by comrade Ferrard Carson. Posts in the AAR threads really help us (the hosts and mission makers), both with understanding how we can improve the experiences, and showing potential comrades what our sessions are like.

:v:

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boberro
Posts: 196
Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 10:27 pm

Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by boberro »

Castell
IFV3 Driver

Tankers rant:
Vehicle commanders, please keep this in mind, that with some vehicles driver can't turn out (CSAT machines) and with other driver can do it only if commander is turned out. Driver locked inside can't see a thing (fov of 20-25 degrees, with blind spot up to 4 meters in front of the machine). If driver says he can't see the place refed to, and has no gps (impossible to use when turned in, fix it already BI), don't tell him "find a spot so gunner can shoot" - you're the commander, it's your job, if I see that I'm able to do it, I volunteer (cuts inside chatter) but in many situations it's impossible.
I believe IFV4 had similar problems, because once they rammed us, even though they were in front of us, and turned my baby on it's side. T(h)anks for help with this one, tank!

Self Service
AAF, A1, AR

I'm not sure what were the conditions of CSAT win, as I believe A1 was still operational (and spraying bullets on anyone trying to get into the compound from the north) when CSAT won. Bt on the other hand I don't have overview of the whole situation there, as we were ones staying inside the compound and all I did was sending bullets in all directions, and reeducating enemy MG.

Black Island
B1 (not sure of that, under Ferrards command) AT

Black Island? As in 'Aziz is now black' Island? But idk, maybe in the future people will be of race they feel part of, not the one patriarchal society told them to be. Anyways.
Part 1, the easy stuff
Mission just started and there were vehicles charging on us already. Our AR died before I were able to see who it was, and I wasted my only rocket. On the way to the first base, we were able (or at least our new AR was able) to sink three incoming boats with small calibre weapons, yay! Attack on said base went really smooth, with virtually no casualties (am I right?) and we were able to move to part 2.
Part 2, the logistics
Our squad was issued with the attack boat, and I jumped on rear minigun. Few minutes later, and many bumps into the pier later, my gun was damaged and I couldn't move it. A minute later an order to abandon the shit was given. I jumped into the ice cold water, but it wasn't water, it was the concrete! Most of our crew was armad into the concrete, and died, but I was able to swim out of it, only to be hit by a boat a second after. I dropped onto the bottom and started to bleed (thanks SWS), Head even tried to save me, but it was too late...
Part 3, the rescue
I must say I didn't follow much of that mission after I died. Only thing I observed is that Aziz looks completely different than last time I saw him, but I guess that natural after 30 years. After 20 minutes or so, our forces moved into range that let them kill Aziz. Wait, wasn't they supposed to save him?
Conclusion
Maybe this mission should be 2 stage, just like 3-10 to Kavala? I know that this mission is of different kind than 3-10, but middle mission logistics is something we should keep away from. FA is terrible at logistics, and wont get better, we're too irregular for that (and we shouldn't change that, sir). Still that's a solid mission, and I like that two stage assault.

3-10 to Kavala
B1 AT

This time that one went pretty well. Our ftl Fer seems to have absolutely no trust in hist subordinates, but maybe it's a good thing? We all came out off it alive :D
First stage of the mission was all "keep low near that wall and let's clear that shed. And that went for nearly an hour, during which fighting was so sporadic, that it was almost personal. And it did hurt what remains of my pride when for this two times when we met the enemy ftl didn't believe/missed my reports :cry:
As for the second stage, I must say I didn't see a thing. I had a sudden framerate drop and then there was debriefing screen. I guess they went on a mine?

Afterparty
Fun stuff. Let's not do this ever again, ok?
Delete this marker please. You're scaring the tank.
My screenshots are being added using Steam Screenshots Sharing Script™. You'll need Tampermonkey (Chrome) or Greasemonkey (Firefox) On Opera should be good to go..

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Snippers
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Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by Snippers »

Thank you all for the game and for being accommodating. I enjoyed partaking in the session :). Overall the tactics, teamwork and missions were fantastic. A bit of different experience to what I am use to (ACRE), but really good fun!

Castell
Bravo (in Wolfenswan's fireteam).
This was quite a good mission,in which Bravo was mainly us moving towards the town in the valleys. Unforunately I only barely made it in the town, and a few us in the fireteam went down. The medic was having a hard-time reviving us, as he glitched in a dragging animation with me :/ (I believe as my body was trapped a bit in the floor of the building).

Self Service
AAF - Defenders -'Western' fireteam on the hill with the rocks. - AAR
My fireteam made contact with what was originally called in as a fireteam, I had a quick peek over the rocks and saw a fireteam and then peeked around to engage, and bullets promptly became acquainted with my face. It was quite funny as, immediately on entering spectator mode, it turned out that there were actually 14 attackers coming from that flank.

Black Island
Alpha (can't recall exactly, but was either A1 or A2) RAT
It was really good fun doing a combined arms assault on the FOB, and this time I survived until the end :D. I still think that this mission may have been a dream as the impossible happened (and Aziz never dies). The action was quite tense.

3-10 to Kavala
A1-FTL
I quite enjoyed being a FTL. We progressed through fields and foliage to the town, unfortunately for us there were quite a few lone soldiers in the fields to our north, which picked off two of my fire team members. Thanks to Bushcat, Alibambam and Nixy for for being good fireteam members, and I am sorry I didn't focus more on our northern flank. Unfortunately as we were preparing to setup the defences, I was killed due to a glitch (I am going to create a theory here and I think it was a spectator zoomed in really close ~3-4m, as when I later spectated, it appears that those 'naked' bodies drop a few meters before being reverted to their previous position, I suspect that during this falling period that they may be lethal). A few more unsuspecting victims walked near my body and died too. I think a total of 3-4 people died on that spot. I appreciate that these things do happen and are of course not intended to happen :). It was funny but a little saddening.

Afterparty - Karting
Driver, Kavala
This was extremely good fun and had a well designed route. The flip go-kart and nitro scripts were great additions! I think it was no surprise that there so many playthroughs.

I am sorry about being a noob and unintentionally cheating on the first race :(. I miss-interrupted the race track to be the main roads, and when I saw the first set of barriers (they were exactly perpendicular to the road and conveniently ~kart sized gaps) I interrupted them to be obstacles instead of the corner they actually were.
Discipline yourself to do the things you love to do when you don't feel like doing them. - Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama - Battlestar Galactica)

tired hippo
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2012 4:40 pm

Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by tired hippo »

Snippers wrote: The medic was having a hard-time reviving us, as he glitched in a dragging animation with me :/ (I believe as my body was trapped a bit in the floor of the building).
Yeah I was the medic here and couldn't stop dragging Snippers. Don't think it was because of the floor, that only happened after I'd dragged him around for a bit.

Also I healed myself a couple of times but the screen kept flashing red even after.

syrion
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 7:27 pm

Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by syrion »

Castell. I was AR in an Alpha FT (Alpha 3? I don't remember!), and we ended up taking the castle. We actually took relatively light casualties; we lost one man to vehicle fire from the town, but besides that were mostly okay. In this match I felt like we needed a bit better situational awareness, though, as several times I was ordered to "suppress" an area that was above me, or that I couldn't see at all. That wasn't great. I got hit once while traversing the side of a valley, and then again in a house as we approached Oreokastro; at least, I thought this latter was a hit, but later learned that all of the fire I'd heard was victory fire. I suspect that what happened was a dead person forced me into the floor of the house I was clearing, and I took damage, which coincided with the victory fire.

Self Service. I rode a truck up to a gas station, got out, and then marched up the hill. I unloaded my AR on an enemy contact and saw his spirit take wing! I swear it, comrades, it is true: I called the contact, then shot at him, and I saw his spirit leaving his body. Glory to the party! Unfortunately that's all that really happened for me until I mysteriously dropped dead of an aneurysm while preparing to storm the compound.

Black Island. Charlie Team! Comrade Roe promised to lead us to glory, and he did! We gloriously scouted the firebase, then gloriously rode a boat, and then gloriously died! Glory to the party! (This was a good mission, except that Aziz probably needs to be put into a shipping container or something a little more robust.)

Took a break, went to cut grass for an hour, came back to find that karts were beginning.

Karts. Those who use Nitro at the start of the race are traitors to the party. Also, if you use nitro to blast yourself up the embankment to the left of the church near the finish line, glorious things happen! :hist101:

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wolfenswan
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Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by wolfenswan »

Castell
B1 FTL

Ah yeah, the infamous ascent of doom. With little actual cover provided by the terrain and the IFVs only able to take out the enemy at the outskirts of town Bravo was quickly engulfed by enemy fire when cresting and taken out piecemeal. Judging by the number of AI around we probably should have either waited for Alpha or did require Charlie from the start. Some wrecks or other make-shift cover along the road approaching the town would also help the players as they could approach the town while still being covered from the IFVs. Also I'm not sure if reconnaissance failed us but we didn't have a lot of intel what we were expecting in town either, was the UAV taken out early?

Self Service
A1 FTL

Splitting up your squad when the win condition is "enemy outnumbers us in area x" is never the best idea. CSAT pulled of somewhat of a pincer movement and managed to get into the compound while avoiding an entire fireteam. What was left of A2 could provide little resistance against their approach from the NE which was hidden from A1's building. When we tried to move and defend the end trigger fired.

Black Island
Alpha Medic

I enjoyed the initial push which saw a lot of action, good maneuvering by Alpha's fireteams and support from the Marids. Not sure what happened as we tried to take the boats, maybe the abundance of selection confused us? I died later on Black Island when trying to sprint to bleeding Aziz, if by friendly or enemy bullets I don't know.

3-10 to Kavala
BSL

We made good progress to the killzone but took constant losses by sneaking AAF dudes. I'm always surprised how effective the AAF camo can be, compared to NATO or CSAT. Anyway, clearing the killzone took a good while (most of the mission I think) and unfortunately the convoy bugged out due to server load de-syncing and flipping a vehicle ( :roll: ). I'll probably split the mission in two in the next iteration or severely reduce the first part in size.

Afterparty

Fun was had, though obviously this needs civilians, powerups and loopings, CARMAGEDDON/N.I.C.E style

Aqarius
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Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by Aqarius »

Castell
CSAT B1 RAT
Moved up the hill and got shot. The medic got bugged, and I slowly bled out, accompanied by visions of some reeeealy ugly cherubs.
Reinforced as C2 FTL. After some confucion, C1 and C2 loaded up in two IFVs, and headed for the town. We were informed by CSL that our FT will be deposited "into a compound, so that you can safely OHFUCKEVERONEOUT*BOOM* " Moments later, I'm standing alone in the field, cleaning my charred uniform and waiting for C1 to catch up. We dismounted, and headed into the town. Just as we began clearing our sector, the end triggered.

Self Service
CSAT ASL/CO
Improvised a sort of pincer movement, with B1 and MMG coming in from the east, and Alpha from the west. INDFOR sent a detachment to take the western hill, but we quite literally overrun them, stroming the compound while MMG made a mess of things in the west.
Alpha's initial assault saw them charging towards a cliff overflown by... you guys heard about the 'Angels of Mons'? Well... that. :shock:

Black Island
CSAT(?) CO
The plan was to creep forward, get a better view of things, and if all else fails, just advance to the base covered by IFVs. Right off the bat, a patrol of enemy vehicles almost ran me over, and the whole platoon unloaded on them. Since all else failed, we just advanced covered by IFVs. We cleared the base with no major hickups, and comandeered a pair of speedboats.
Oh Jesus. :siiigh:
Here's the thing: by the looks of it, 'pier' and 'rock' are one and the same to A3, and while it may be possible to get into a boat from a pier, getting out will be problematic. So, when Bravo's boat got stuck, getting out could quite likely kill you. Same goes for zodiacs. For example, I got into the Bravo speedboat, got out and found myself underwater, stuck between the pier and the boat. I remounted, found myself as driver, and managed to get the boat unstuck. I however had to heal myself, and beached the boat. Then, coming towards the rubber dinghys, had to jump into one since it was too low to enter. The game gave me fall damage, I went into a coma, and bled out in the boat I was technically not "in".
This CAN work, but the boats have to be placed CAREFULLY, and board from a beach, eg. to the eastern end of the peninsula (noot too close, though, or they'll just get stuck on land).

3-10 to Kavala.
FIA BSL
A rather methodic sweep of the area, during which I was frustrated to find that not a single one of the troops AAF stationed there was issued with a launcher. I was sitting in cover, trying to figure out what to do when the two rockets we had left invariably miss, when we heard the convoy was called off.
[/allegedly]

zitron
Posts: 151
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Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by zitron »

I will change the placement of boats in black island. I saw first hand and was a victim of the problem. It will be better in the next version.

Also will there be a fix to the spectator script soon?

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fer
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Location: Emotional wreck

Re: [Sun] 01 Jun 2014 (I see dead people)

Post by fer »

zitron wrote:Also will there be a fix to the spectator script soon?
We'll let you know as soon as one becomes available.
boberro wrote:Vehicle commanders, please keep this in mind, that with some vehicles driver can't turn out (CSAT machines) and with other driver can do it only if commander is turned out. Driver locked inside can't see a thing (fov of 20-25 degrees, with blind spot up to 4 meters in front of the machine). If driver says he can't see the place refed to, and has no gps (impossible to use when turned in, fix it already BI), don't tell him "find a spot so gunner can shoot" - you're the commander, it's your job, if I see that I'm able to do it, I volunteer (cuts inside chatter) but in many situations it's impossible.
A valid criticism. Vehicle commanders, please remember you can always dismount and direct your crew from outside the vehicle. This is most useful when acting as a fire support element on high ground or with the vehicle in concealment. You're much harder for the enemy to spot: after you've located the target your vehicle can move up to a firing postion, fire and immediately withdraw. In Dark Island, comrade Draakon demonstrated another scenario for dismounting: directing the driver in detailed movements when traversing difficult terrain (or trying to get off an obstacle).
boberro wrote:FA is terrible at logistics, and wont get better, we're too irregular for that (and we shouldn't change that, sir).
Not entirely true - but like the issue you flagged with vehicle commanders, this is an issue of leadership. If the CO is confontred with a logistics task, the importance of specific instructions cannot be underestimated. In Dark Island, the CO could have been even tighter in assigning specific elements to specific boats. However, the position of the boats was the killer here: 10+ years of OFP/ArmA and we still can't get off a pier without fatalities!
boberro wrote:Our ftl Fer seems to have absolutely no trust in hist subordinates, but maybe it's a good thing? We all came out off it alive :D
An FT isn't a blob. I don't mind people adapting formations to make use of personal cover/concealment. However, if I'm in the lead and need others to react to my movement/stance/orientation, it's impossible if they're running ahead of me. We often had to clear compounds as a single 3-man fireteam, making it imperative that individuals dropped-off at key locations to cover buildings.
boberro wrote:Fun stuff. Let's not do this ever again, ok?
Never.
Snippers wrote:Thank you all for the game and for being accommodating. I enjoyed partaking in the session :). Overall the tactics, teamwork and missions were fantastic. A bit of different experience to what I am use to (ACRE), but really good fun!
Thanks for coming along - and for coping without ACRE. I know that can be a huge challenge for visitors from ACRE-using communities. Main thing is that we're all glad that you, F3rit and Nixy seemed to have a good time.
Snippers wrote:Unfortunately as we were preparing to setup the defences, I was killed due to a glitch (I am going to create a theory here and I think it was a spectator zoomed in really close ~3-4m, as when I later spectated, it appears that those 'naked' bodies drop a few meters before being reverted to their previous position, I suspect that during this falling period that they may be lethal). A few more unsuspecting victims walked near my body and died too. I think a total of 3-4 people died on that spot.
Sorry you had to experience that (on all levels!), but your sacrifice - and that of others - means the F3 Spectator Script will be improved.
wolfenswan wrote:Ah yeah, the infamous ascent of doom. With little actual cover provided by the terrain and the IFVs only able to take out the enemy at the outskirts of town Bravo was quickly engulfed by enemy fire when cresting and taken out piecemeal. Judging by the number of AI around we probably should have either waited for Alpha or did require Charlie from the start. Some wrecks or other make-shift cover along the road approaching the town would also help the players as they could approach the town while still being covered from the IFVs. Also I'm not sure if reconnaissance failed us but we didn't have a lot of intel what we were expecting in town either, was the UAV taken out early?
In hindsight, I should only have made Alpha a 1-FT element for the recon work, and given comrade Carson a much larger main force. I had been hoping our numbers would have allowed us to slot Charlie at the start, as having two squads and 2-4 IFVs in the main force would have given comrade Carson a better assaulting force. One thing that did surprise me was that Bravo squad wasn't sent in along the left flank.

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