[FORK] F2 I44

[wolfenswan]

I've been working on a F2 fork for I44. It's feature complete but some work needs to be done on the ORBATs. Consult the issue tab on github for further info.

https://github.com/Wolfenswan/F2-I44
Discussion on the I44 forums

[SavageCDN]

Hey I finally found the place!!!

From I44 forums:

SavageCDN

Hi Wolf I'm having trouble posting on the I44 forums at the moment so I'm posting questions here.

Finally getting to the ORBATS for I44 starting with US Army. I'm trying 12 man teams instead of 14 (default) as we discussed with the following structure:

A Lead - SL, Medic
A1 Recon - FTL, SMG
A2 FT - FTL, Rifle, Gren, Rifle/Bazooka/FT, SMG
A3 Support - FTL, AR, Assisstant

I think I like this layout better than evening out A2 and A3 with 4 per squad but am open to suggestions.

I am somewhat new to the assign gear stuff and the unit naming scheme so just working through that.. what is the convention for the actual unit names in the editor? IE: UnitUS_A1_AR ... say I wanted to name the SMG unit in Recon A1 would it be UnitUS_A1_SMG? Basically I use the assign gear 'label' as the unit name like (nul = ["smg",this] call f_fnc_assignGear)?

Also what are your thoughts on the other factions? Should I attempt to keep the same squad layouts as US Army or use more 'accurate' ones (especially for ze Germans)?

Wolf

Hey Savage, I've got the some issue and was about to PM you here.

An option would be to have A1 and A3 with 3 each, as I don't know how much sense a 2-man fireteam makes gameplay-wise.
A1 could be all SMGs while A2 sports the rifles and A3 is the fire support. The naming suggestion sounds good. As long as they are coherent through the platoons it shouldn't be a problem.

I think the same layout should work for the British and Germans. Alternatively their MGs (BAR/MG42 or 34) could be removed from the squads themselves and the number of organic MG attachments increased by default.

Btw. I've uploaded a new version of F2-i44 to github, implementing some of the changes made in the regular F2 and further tweaking the loadouts (all backpacks and inventories should be full by default now).

[wolfenswan]

Hey savage! Did I forget to supply a link? my bad.

Your suggested naming scheme is fine. Basically it's TypeFaction_Fireteam_Class, while Type and Class are obviously abstract and not their ArmA2 Equivalents. As long as the names are coherent it's fine. No F2 script uses the unit names anywhere, it's more a convenience for mission makers that may need them somewhere (norrin's revive would be an example for that).

Anyway, I really like the idea of having fireteams of 3,5,4 for US, Brits and regular Germans (heer). Here's my suggestion:

SL, medic
|- FTL, SMG/Carbine, SMG/Carbine
|- FTL, Rifle, Gren, RAT, Marksman/Carbine/Smg
|- FTL, AR, AAR, Rifle/Carbine/Smg

If we agree on one variant of this layout F2 i44 would provide three "balanced" factions and there's no immediate need to tinker with the gear for an adversarial.
However, I'd like to change it a bit for Waffen SS and german Paratroopers, most importantly to bring the lovely MP43 and FG42 into play. They are a bit weak to have them as squad-level AR but also too powerful to hand them out like candy (i.e. I wouldn't want to replace the MP40 with the MP43).

Anyway, so far these are my suggested loadouts for US, Brits and Heer:
General
All units inventories are filled to the brim with their own magazines, regular grenades and few smokes (more for higher ranks/team leaders). Where possible units have a backpack, filled with more of the same. Assistants carry ammo for their buddies. All team leaders have Binoculars.

Squad-level
Rifleman - faction specific bolt action
SMG - Thompson, Bren, MP40
Gren-Rifle - bolt action w. gren launcher attachment (not sure if that exits for US/Brits, might have to use semi-automatic)
Carbine - M1 Carbine for US/Brits, G43 for Heer
AR - BAR, Bren, MG34
RAT - Bazooka for US/Brits (because the PIAT is just too awkward, weakest Panzerfaust for Germans

Organic attachments*
MMG - M11something for US, Brits either another Bren or same as US, MG42 for Germans
MAT - bazooka w. more rockets for US/Brits, bigger panzerfaust for Germans
HMG - deployable variants of MMG for US/Germans, Vickers for Brits
"HAT" (AT Gun) - faction specific AT gun, crewed by rifleman and commander
Mortar - faction specific deployable mortar
Flamethrower - faction specific flamethrower
Vehicle crews - pistols only, commanders get binocs.

*all assistants and HMG and Mortar Team leader carry bolt actions. Flamethrower assistant carries SMG.

[SavageCDN]

Hey savage! Did I forget to supply a link? my bad.

No you did supply one I am just an idiot

Your suggested naming scheme is fine. Basically it's TypeFaction_Fireteam_Class, while Type and Class are obviously abstract and not their ArmA2 Equivalents. As long as the names are coherent it's fine. No F2 script uses the unit names anywhere, it's more a convenience for mission makers that may need them somewhere (norrin's revive would be an example for that).

Ah thanks that was my main concern - breaking something else. I guess I'm still a bit of an F2 noob in that I haven't used all the features nor the gear assignment scripts before.

Anyway, I really like the idea of having fireteams of 3,5,4 for US, Brits and regular Germans (heer). Here's my suggestion:

SL, medic
|- FTL, SMG/Carbine, SMG/Carbine
|- FTL, Rifle, Gren, RAT, Marksman/Carbine/Smg
|- FTL, AR, AAR, Rifle/Carbine/Smg

If we agree on one variant of this layout F2 i44 would provide three "balanced" factions and there's no immediate need to tinker with the gear for an adversarial.
However, I'd like to change it a bit for Waffen SS and german Paratroopers, most importantly to bring the lovely MP43 and FG42 into play. They are a bit weak to have them as squad-level AR but also too powerful to hand them out like candy (i.e. I wouldn't want to replace the MP40 with the MP43).

Anyway, so far these are my suggested loadouts for US, Brits and Heer:
General
All units inventories are filled to the brim with their own magazines, regular grenades and few smokes (more for higher ranks/team leaders). Where possible units have a backpack, filled with more of the same. Assistants carry ammo for their buddies. All team leaders have Binoculars.

Squad-level
Rifleman - faction specific bolt action
SMG - Thompson, Bren, MP40
Gren-Rifle - bolt action w. gren launcher attachment (not sure if that exits for US/Brits, might have to use semi-automatic)
Carbine - M1 Carbine for US/Brits, G43 for Heer
AR - BAR, Bren, MG34
RAT - Bazooka for US/Brits (because the PIAT is just too awkward, weakest Panzerfaust for Germans

Organic attachments*
MMG - M11something for US, Brits either another Bren or same as US, MG42 for Germans
MAT - bazooka w. more rockets for US/Brits, bigger panzerfaust for Germans
HMG - deployable variants of MMG for US/Germans, Vickers for Brits
"HAT" (AT Gun) - faction specific AT gun, crewed by rifleman and commander
Mortar - faction specific deployable mortar
Flamethrower - faction specific flamethrower
Vehicle crews - pistols only, commanders get binocs.

*all assistants and HMG and Mortar Team leader carry bolt actions. Flamethrower assistant carries SMG.

This looks great I can't disagree with any of your points. For ze Germans here's a standard rifle squad TOE (probably 1941-ish):

Squad Leader (Unteroffizier; Kar 98k or MP40, if available), Assistant Squad Leader (Obergefreiter; Kar 98k), one rifle element with 4 riflemen (rifles) and a rifle grenadier (Kar 98k with schiessbecher, 10 HE and 10 AT grenades), and a machinegun element with a gunner (pistol), loader (pistol) and ammunition bearer (Kar 98k) manning a MG34 machinegun.

Since this is Invasion 1944 I can probably just add more MP43s.. did the SL usually carry this? FG42 can replace the MG34 in the Fallschirmjäger squads?

[wolfenswan]

Hm, so keeping the 3-5-4 structure for SS/Paratroopers but replacing the carbine with a MP43 for SS and the MP34 with a FG42 for Paratroopers?

I was thinking of removing most or all of the bolt actions for the paratroopers and replacing them with mostly smgs. Something similar could be done with the SS, but with more G43s instead of MP40s. Just an idea though.

Edit:
It just struck me that maybe that there could be more M1 Carbines for the US, as the M1903A3 was de-facto outdated in '44. The Brits could keep a stronger emphasis on bolt action.

Edit2:
How about using the M1 Garand as the regular rifle for US and M1 Carbine as Carbine.

Edit3:
Here are the ORBAT's I'd be favoring atm:

US
rifle - M1 Garand
carbine - M1 Carbine
grenrifle - M1 Garand + M7

SL (carbine), Medic (rifle)
A1 - FTL (carbine), smg, smg
A2 - FTL, Gren, RAT (rifle + bazooka), Carbine, Marksman
A3 - FTL, BAR, BAR Assistant (rifle), Carbine

Brit
rifle - Lee Enfield
carbine - M1 Carbine (not used)
grenrifle - Springfield + M7
SMG1 - Sten
SMG2 - Thompson

SL (smg2), Medic (rifle)
A1 - FTL (smg2 or rifle), smg, smg
A2 - FTL (rifle), Gren, RAT (rifle + bazooka), Rifleman, Marksman
A3 - FTL, BREN, BREN Assistant (rifle), Rifleman

WH
rifle - Kar
carbine - G43
grenrifle - Kar + Gren
smg - Mp40
smg2 - Mp43 (StG)

SL (carbine), Medic (rifle)
A1 - FTL (rifle), smg, smg
A2 - FTL, Gren, RAT (rifle + Pz60), Rifleman, Marksman
A3 - FTL, MG34, MG34 Assistant (rifle), Rifleman

SS
rifle - Kar
carbine - G43
grenrifle - Kar + Gren
smg - Mp40
smg2 - Mp43 (StG)

SL (carbine or StG), Medic (rifle)
A1 - FTL (carbine or StG), StG, StG
A2 - FTL, Gren, RAT (carbine + Pz60), carbine, Marksman
A3 - FTL, MG34, MG34 Assistant (carbine), carbine

Paras
rifle - Kar
carbine - G43
grenrifle - Kar + Gren
smg - Mp40
smg2 - Mp43 (StG)

SL (carbine or smg), Medic (rifle or smg)
A1 - FTL (carbine or smg), smg, smg
A2 - FTL, FG42 or Gren, RAT (rifle or smg + Pz60), smg, Marksman
A3 - FTL, FG42, AAR (spare ammo for FG42 & Pz60), smg

[SavageCDN]

Sorry for the delayed response.

I think we should start at least with the same layout for all factions (3-5-4) just to make it 'easier'

I also like your carbine idea... do you think the SS would have been issued G43s or MP44s?

Also is 2.7.0 out yet can I start rolling up my sleeves?

[wolfenswan]

The version on github is in synch with the current 2-7-0 dev built. As the mission.sqm won't be seeing any changes we can safely start editing it. I've already begun reordering the orbats but loadout and unitnames still need to be edited.

The Mp43 was a rare weapon, even in '44 so I wouldn't spread it too much. I think 2-3 are enough.

[SavageCDN]

ok thanks.. so if I was going to do some work on this over the weekend I should start with editor naming convention and loadouts?

[wolfenswan]

That should be it, I think. We can work out the minor details (e.g. whether the A1 FTL should have a smg or carbine) later.

Easiest way is probably to edit the mission.sqm directly instead of using the 2D editor.

Thanks for the help!

[SavageCDN]

Just wanted to apologize for not having this done for the 2.7 release. I will be working on it over the next few days and will have it completed by Thursday.