Operation Open Invite

[Gaia]

So, my first mission, Open Invite, was played for the first time today... I would very much like to hear your opinions on it.

Was it difficult? We didn't seem to take all that heavy of casualties during the mission, do we need more heavy forces?

And about the 3 enemy IFV's... I forgot to arm them. They had no weaponry, and thus, the enemy was under powered compared to Charlie.

Did you like the design of the mission.

I was thinking on adding a secondary objective to not damage the airbase, as NATO intends on using it to refuel evacuation birds. Does that sound like a good idea.

Any other feed back would also be approved of.

[Homercleese]

I was Bravo medic and I quite enjoyed it.

However, Bravo didn't seem to get much action despite proceed through very close to the centre of the green "active patrols" area. The outlying town... Ionnia (I only remember that because of Toppo's struggle with the name) could have done with being garrisoned, or possibly a reaction force from the petrol station.
Dance seemed to find some targets to shoot at, and I had to heal you once in Ionnia so evidently there were EI out there. And there was a lot of noise coming from Alpha's direction.

As a medic maybe I'm not the most appropriate person to comment on the level of frontline engagements but like I said, I enjoyed! A nice, straightforward infiltrate and assault mission.

Also the final assault on the airstrip was sufficiently grisly.

[Zergra]

Garrison the town, put some people in the houses. We in Alpha did not take any casualties before we pushed on the airfield.
Also puttuing something heavy on the big hill close to teh airfield might be good too

[fideldonson]

A2 lowly AAR grunt.
I really enjoyed the long haul through enemy territory. Keeping our heads down, running through the gullies, being shot at most of the time and still making it through relatively unharmed to the airfield. Ramping up defences too much would risk stopping our attack cold (as happened a few times last sunday). I think making the objectives on the airfield more heavly defended and hard to take seems sensible.

[Gaia]

Hmmm, I actually did garrison the town. I think that Bravo just dealt with them very quickly. And the reason there were no ambushes... Well, embarassingly, I forgot to give the ambushing IFV teams weaponry, so they would just run into your guns, unable to do anything.

I am certainly gonna fortify the airfield a bit more though. But I think merely forcing you to take the field, rather than destroy it, will make the final assault much harder.

[Aqarius]

Perhaps patrols would work. It the enemy is moving, whatever you do gets an element of time. Could make it a bit tenser.

[Ferrard Carson]

I did not take part in yesterday's session, but I did find the time to download and examine the mission, so here's some rough observations. First, let me say that for a first mission, it's not too shabby. Some QC is still needed, though, so I'd invite you to consider the following:

• The numbers - You have 55 BluFor slots and 2 Civvie slots for a total of 57, but the mission title says 67, and the entry on the "missions on the server" thread says 70. Consider fixing Fix that.
• The name - It's just a pet peeve of mine, but consider dropping "Operation" from the title. The word takes up 10 character spaces when you consider the extra underscore, and it doesn't add anything to the mission. And it's capitalized. We don't do capital letters in our mission titles, because capital letters remind us of capitalism, which is bad.
• 80-ish AI total - while the server would normally bless you for the eased performance load of a mere 80-ish AI, it appears that given Homer's comments above and Aquarius's comments in the AAR thread, it was quite possible for some players to move through the AO without having to fire their gun at all, and not because of sneakiness. In keeping with the traditional FA "we all die screaming" standard, 80 AI in the mission would be suitable for a squad, but not an entire platoon unless all 80 are involved in one or two giant firefights. The enemy "barely motorized" composition certainly doesn't warrant giving the players an IFV with thermals. Consider upping the enemy count and complexity.
• AI deployment - enemies are not deployed in a sensible fashion that promotes maneuvering of squads against enemy concentrations, and are instead evenly scattered across the AO in 4-man parcels on randomized patrols, save for 8-man village garrisons and the occasional (unarmed?) strider. The wide dispersion of patrol groups means that this mission likely offers more-or-less constant low-intensity contact, but from my experience, constant low-intensity contact tends to annoy players more than it enthralls them. As for what would be "sensible" deployment? Consider the following, then consider your AI positioning based on your answers:
  • 1) Why are these guys on patrol? What are they checking for and where are they checking for it?
    2) Who provides backup for the patrols if these four man groups run into, say, a platoon of NATO dudes?
    3) What will AAF Command do with the intelligence gathered by these patrols?
    4) What key terrain would any dolt with half a brain-cell instantly say, "We need to control that!"?
• End of mission - Your "victory" ending relies on a BIS trigger's properties to function properly. Consider calling Call the F3 Multiplayer End Broadcast script instead for reliable results with all triggers on all missions.

So there are some thoughts and suggestions to work with.

~ Ferrard

[wolfenswan]

80-ish AI total

Total AI-count on mission-start was 124, just for the record.

[Gaia]

The player count numbers were entirely up to me being bad at counting. They will be fixed in v2.

I am also going to do a big change on unit placement and armament. Seeing how FA engaged gave me ideas on how I could redo the mission more effectively. Now, currently, I am in test week in school, so I'll work on this over the weekend, and I'll see if I can make something that is more challenging, and, hopefully, more fun.

[wafflynumber]

Belated CO Input, but here it goes.

From my perspective, everything seemed to go very smoothly for much of the mission, contacts were dispersed and casualties were limited to the main assault on the airfield. We did not make use of the trucks, we started right next to the AO and hence did not need to drive anywhere.

The town fell too easily imo, it needed some kind of dangerous infantry/ifv combo to make the town a bit more of a target/threat, we were able to assault the town without much hassle.

The BLUFOR IFV was invaluable, seemed well balanced in the manner that it didn't explode almost immediately and also didn't completely dominate the mission, gave a mobile support platform and moving cover for the assault!

As for the airfield itself, may be some markers on the location of hangers/structures etc. It was not until we got withing visual range of the airfield was I aware of the scale of the base, I was of the impression that the two story building was the sole target.

Overall a very fun mission to command, sitting on the hill with the IFV, watching my plan unfold on the fields below gave me a very 1800's general feeling! The terrain of the area too was interesting, with the gullies and reeds proving key.