Folk ARPS

Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/128 ... .Altis.pbo

Type: Cooperative, up to 58 (59 with Zeus slotted) (minimum recommended: about 25)

Description: Charlie Foxtrot is a mission about things going wrong. The protagonists are British paratroopers jumping, at dawn, into CSAT-occupied Altis to eliminate two threats to a NATO invasion that will begin within a couple of hours.

Known Issues:

• (Minor) Need to rename the param for "Safe Start" (this is actually a mission countdown timer)

Probably need to remove HMG and/or GMG from artillery guns

Also include a picture of the EMP truck in the briefing

I'd really advise to just handwave the improbabilty of fireteam-level clustering at the start. Having people land individually is way too taxing on the logistics side of things, and leaves everything understrength for way too long.

I think this is just going to be one of those missions that you hate or love. Sorry to let anyone down, but I'm not going to remove the crazy randomization of placement at the beginning. This is the whole theme of the mission ("Charlie Foxtrot" is slang for clusterfuck). (There may be other strategies the CO could employ than trying to have everyone rally up with their original elements).

It played out very closely to how I wanted it to. I think our downfall was that I did not see the objective truck at the compound my rag-tag element was assaulting (even though it was there), and we ultimately decided to skirt around it.

Copypasta from the AAR thread:

Unfortunately, it felt like a bad run of Altis-life to me.

All we have to do to turn this mission from Awful Administrivia into Something Awesome is to ensure that we are scattered by elements rather than by individual soldiers. If each Fire Team could have landed intact, then they could apply real tactics, and the Squad Leads and CO would be able to actually maneuver and plan things knowing they have intact elements who can work as a team, even if the fire-teams are miles away from one another. It'd be a ton of small assignments being done all across the AO to coordinate and cooperate, and that would be awesome. As it is, with scattered individuals, it becomes more a matter of gathering people into amorphous blobs rather than anything that can actually become useful.

Also, sprinkle more civilian vehicles around and get rid of the quad-bikes - those things are just dumb when you have more than 2 people in the game at the same time.

Ferrard Carson wrote: sprinkle more civilian vehicles around and get rid of the quad-bikes

This may very well be enough, given a logistically minded CO. The one moment when this all started making sense to me is when I somehow jacked an Ifrit and got A2 rolling. Otherwise it's just us being disorganized in an overly large AO.

As I FTL in this mission, I mainly tried to solve logistical issues and actual combat was secondary.

To other element leaders I suggest placing a map marker of a rally point for, let's say, A2 and all A2 guys would run to there and then tell the ASL that A2 is ready for tasking.

I agree with the notion to change ATV's to something with more space, and not to scatter A1 North and A2 South, but kind of together.. ~1km? if you must.

As for the EMP truck, make it black/red/pink/whatever, just so it is recognizable.

And yeah.. the arty pieces were too OP with their 50cal's and GMG's


In the end this felt more like a logistics simulator, so maybe let's do less of that and more of actual combat. I think all in all 20-30 minutes were wasted in this mission just by trying to get somewhere.

I quite enjoyed it, but my entire fireteam landed within 5 minutes of each other, so that helped – I think those who didn't enjoy it had a lot of walking to do, which is rather dull. The obvious solution being suggested is to group the fireteams together at spawn and/or add civilian vehicles, which does seem like it would work. But for me, I kind of like the “Fend for yourself, then find some friends and go on the offensive” idea and that would break it, so the question becomes, how do you implement it without risking the mission turning into walking simulator 2015?

Here is my suggestion. Start everyone ungrouped (But do define a CO), create defined rally points, and have the ability to create groups on the fly (I don’t know how this would work exactly mind). Everyone drops, figures out their nearest rally point and makes their way there. Once there, you and whoever else dropped near that spot are a fireteam. You could even split the fireteams into squads based on location, say a north squad and a south squad. . Anyone who ends up at a rally point with no friends figures out which rally point their nearest group is and makes their way. Yes, this means you will end up with a lot of smaller fireteams, but as they go about their tasks, they can join forces and make full fireteams.

Assuming everyone drops within 5 minutes of a rally point and the points are 5 minutes apart, after 10 minutes the commander will know what elements he has and where, and can make a plan of attack.

I didn't get the chance to play this mission but from what I gather it seems that having 2 zeus in it might be an efficient counter to the woes of randomization?

Element cohesion
I'd agree that individual elements should drop if not together than at least in a close enough radius. If you want to maintain the whole regrouping element, then you could script a solution which randomizes by squad within the entire AO and then within the squad in a smaller radius (300m or so).

I don't like the idea of everyone being ungrouped as it risk ending up without a clear structure of command (e.g. who's supposed to be on CC?) and we'll end up with a FFA mission where everyone does their thing with their buddies alone.

Vehicles
I'm not a big fan of zipping around in civilian vehicles or commandeered enemy vehicles. An idea would be FIA provided vehicles (primarily trucks), another having helicopters fly in vehicles by sling-shot. ZEUS can also air-drop vehicles easily.

Assuming everyone drops within 5 minutes of a rally point and the points are 5 minutes apart, after 10 minutes the commander will know what elements he has and where, and can make a plan of attack.

You DID play with us right? I'd say that's a very optimistic time window given our general competence and even if it would be right, that's at least 15 minutes of the mission where not much is happening.