[Tue] 05 May 2015 (Bareback)

[Aqarius]

21 brave comrades strong, the Third ventured out once again, only to find they managed to forget their AT ammo back home. our bacon (and other fine meat products) was saved, however, as this turned out to be the night AAF put to use their stocks of *cough*discount gasoline*cough*
Missions

• Armor graveyard
• Roomservice
• Intel RAID0
• Footloose

Afterparty

• Tank-U-Agios

[SuicideKing]

gqren and I will likely make good friends - but we should probably not be tank gunners!

Armo(u)r graveyard
Alpha 1 AR, BigMaster* was FTL

After much confusion as to who our FTL was thanks to slotting and connection issues, we were sent up a hill...where a hail of .50 cal rounds cut me and our FTL down, leaving Zenzosand Zitron to carry on.

But hey, at least we caught some good views from the spectator screen!



Roomservice
Alpha 2 FTL

I was the "Debuty" (still curious about the spelling). I think someone accidentally launched the mission, so we couldn't really discuss the plan on the briefing screen. Anyway, Alpha 2 ended up overshooting the cut to our insertion point, much to the displeasure of our Squad Leader. Apologies, I should have informed our navigator (gqren) more clearly that we would have to turn left off the main road to reach our assigned point of entry. Anyway, I think A3 made the same mistake, and we all basically approached the hotel from the same direction.

We were asked to engage at will, and I saw a head peaking at us from the second floor window, and opened fire (without properly telling the fire team what to do)...resulting in my getting wounded. Tigershark came to the rescue, and ran inside. Reppyboyo got shot near the South entrance, and I think I shot at one enemy dude before gqren asked for help a few meters away. I tried to drag him away but the game didn't give me an option, so I had to return fire first before I could treat him. Got shot, eventually witnessing gqren bleeding out and Tigershark getting shot on the stairs...before bleeding out myself.

I really couldn't tell who was police and who was mafia.

Intel RAID0
Bravo 1 AR, gqren was FTL

How the hell could the towers see the boats so far out? Anyway.

Bravo 1 was mostly doing guard duty as Bravo 2 got the intel. No casualties, and we shot a few dudes on the ridge and then towards the west. Bipod + AR = win. I got the impression I was talking too much though

The platoon kinda cheated at the end I think, and decided to boat the extract instead of fighting through the outposts on the way.

Tank-U-Agios
Tank 2 Gunner, AJAX was commander, Zitron was driving.

We began implementing Fer's plan of peek-a-boo, but unfortunately it got screwed up when I heard AJAX(?) say what I thought was "145, across the ridge line". Since we were already engaging someone on a ridge, I assumed this was another target, rotated clockwise from about 270 to 145...saw a tank with its turret pointing at us at very close range, and fired. I think I missed, but that tank returned fire. Then I spent a few seconds in confusion because it didn't look like a NATO tank. Then we both fired at each other, and died.

Zitron was obviously annoyed. Sorry Zitron.

Wasn't the best of nights, but I think I'm going to try FTL-ing coop missions on Tuesdays - can't handle adversarial ones yet.

*BigMaster uses a stylized name that I don't remember how to write.

EDIT:

Code: Select all

1.44 Changelog:
-> Removed: Obsolete backpacks containing parts of non-existing autonomous weapons
-> Fixed: Weapon attachments properly affect AI aiming

Yup, saw the effect of both of these, I think.

[Sparks]

One of the fairly rare frustrating sessions, this one
Started out well - the postman delivered my new headset (a Razer Blackshark) to replace my cable-tied juryrigged Sennheiser HD-280 plus clip-on microphone plus 3D printed point-tracker source (seriously, I look like I've fallen face-first into the rubbish heap out the back of Maplin when I wear that thing), and the hope is that it will reduce my cable tangle and give me better audio to boot. But then work ran late and I didn't make the first mission. And BI had an Arma update waiting for me once I did get home. And things kinda went downhill from there really. Nobody's fault by the way, it was just one of those days.

Roomservice
Alpha 1 policeman with Aquarius (Deputy), Fidel Donson (policeman) and Grumpy (policeman)



Our planning phase was cut off completely (accidental buttonpress?) after command laid down markers on the map but before any briefing could be given, so orders came in on the fly as we deployed, but as you'd expect with that, there was confusion and Alpha 2 wound up way out of position as a result, deploying with us on the far side of the map from where they were supposed to be. Command recovered on the fly and we approached stealthily from the north, getting eyes on the Bad Guys™ through the western windows as we approached. Aquarius led us up close and as the rest of the team stormed the door, I opened up on the bad guy covering the door they were heading for, unloading a full magazine through the window at him using both crosshairs and iron sights. However the window appeared to be made of bulletproof glass because not only was he still up after all that, he was active and shooting. This was rather deeply frustrating, but it was only getting started. I ran to the door, conscious that everyone now knew where I was, but I wasn't fast enough and down I went with some new 9mm holes. I think it was Aquarius who dragged my bleeding ass inside the building and patched me up, but I'm not sure - Arma was getting squirrely on me at that point and it was about to go full squirrel. ASL ordered everyone upstairs, I was last one up as I'd been mid-first-aid when the order came in, and I charged up the stairs watching corners as I went. We made it to the top floor, I followed the last of my team into the corridor, heard bad guys coming and lobbed a preparatory grenade and then my controls locked up, and I was frozen, looking down into the central core of the building but unable to move, turn or shoot. And then not one, but two bad guys came round the corner and crouch-walked right at me, as I wildly clicked on the mouse button for all I was worth and Arma just sat there and beeped the keyboard-buffer-full beep at me.

This was rather frustrating and terrifying. The first bad guy walked right past me in the corridor and went down the stairwell behind me; his buddy walked to within a metre of me, got suspicious, turned on his light at me and then Arma shot him. My finger wasn't on the button at the time, I'd given up, and then my client decided he wasn't a nice man and unloaded half a magazine into his head. As bugs go, that's not the worst one I've ever encountered.

I then got some control back, ran back down the corridor past the stairwell entrance and turned to cover it... and froze again. The bad guy's buddy came back to check on him, I'm madly clicking on the fire button, and Arma unfroze for a second or two, long enough to injure him, then froze again while I tried to shoot him in the head, unfroze again for a second and shot him, then froze for a third time while a new third bad guy came out of the stairwell and walked into my crosshairs for a second or two and then shot me in the head.

I was not feeling it for Arma at this stage.

I'd also lost track of my team and the rest of the squad, and they were being rapidly whittled down until all that was left was Fidel Donson, who'd fallen down an elevator shaft. Someone chucked a grenade down to keep him company and it was game over man...

So that wasn't a great start. But on we went.

Intel RAID0
Bravo 2 AT with Tigershark (FTL), Reppyboyo (AR?) and someone I've forgotten but possibly boberro as AAR - people were using new handles and I got confused

You'll notice there's no map here. That's because immediately after this mission, when I told MSI afterburner to stop recording (which closes and writes the file out), something went sideways and arma locked up fully and had to be three-finger-saluted, and that somehow corrupted the video footage past recovery as well. So no map, no video, and that's a shame because it was a genuinely funny comedy of errors.

The plan was very close to the plan from the last time we ran this mission. Alpha would insert to the south of the tower with the intel, Bravo to the immediate north of it on the little outspit of rocks. Alpha would assult the tower; Bravo would block the garrisoned outpost to the north of the tower. Then in a cunning twist (and no, I think this is perfectly valid and sensible), we'd all withdraw to our boats and head around the island and hit the extract point from the sea bypassing the enemies on land.

The initial approaches in the boats again saw the 50 cal on the tower engage us from over a kilometre away, and only the speed of the boat and our non-constant bearing approach kept us from premature perforation. We dove into shelter in the rocks, then found we had a short swim to get to the spit proper. Once regrouped, we recon'd and discovered a HMG strider overlooking the approach we'd have to take to get up to where we could block the overwatching outpost. No worries, Tigershark ranged it at 350m, an easy shot with an RPG-42 and I've been practicing with that thing, I pop out from behind the rock, line up on the target, hold breath and gently squeeze the trigger.

"Tigershark, do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"You've no rockets, do you?"
"Nope."
"What's the good news?"
"Well, this is going to make a very funny video"

Alas, Arma denied you all the side-splitting humour of that. Best guess? The Arma update released today broke the backpacks (didn't see one person in any mission all night long who had any backpack of any kind on). Limited AR ammo, no AT ammo at all, lots of missions just messed up as a result.

Given that we were now as effective against the strider as a chocolate toilet seat, we hunkered down while Tigershark prayed to Zeus for a miracle appearance of rockets, but it never came. Thankfully, the AAF had carelessly left the filler cap on their strider open and were smoking away next to it, one thing led to another and the strider was suddenly a burning wreck and we were able to get back in the fight.

Bravo 1 stayed where we were and provided a base of fire. Bravo 2 pushed around the beach to the west until we were due north of the outpost, then got in close and assaulted with grenades, bullets and words our mothers had not taught us. An unspotted enemy killed tigershark and wounded me; boberro killed him, revived me and went to revive Reppyboyo, who'd been injured storming a bunker to my immediate east. The two enemy in the bunker then shot bobbero as he tried to render first aid. I shot one in the head as payback, then tried sneaking around to get the other, but it's hard to sneak up on someone from their front, and I wound up diving for cover. I made my way around the other side of the bunker, snuck in and tried to come round the corner blazing away on full auto because the rest of the fireteam was about to bleed out and time was pressing; but the AI pulled some matrix-fu and dodged and shot me in the spleen.

ASL and his medic came in behind me, hosed down the AI, and revived me, but it was too late for my fireteam. Weeping quietly at the loss of their noble gallantry, I stole all their stuff and switched over to the AR, joined on ASL and extracted to the beach. Here another comedy of errors awaited as we tried to load up into the boats to extract, but with insufficient seats, I figured my place was with ASL to give us a fighting chance to push to the extract point overland. The now-full boat pushed off and headed for the extract point, and another boat tried really hard to either run over them or mate with them (it was dark, I couldn't tell for sure). This now apparently amorous boat (rhib'd for our pleasure?) came in to pick up me and ASL off the beach, but only had one seat free. ASL ordered me onto the boat. I wasn't happy at that, but orders is orders and ASL is remarkably handy with that Makarov of his, so in I got. And then the boat tried to mate with the beach and got stuck.



Out I get, along with the rest of the boat, while ASL did his best not to give up and go home, and then rescue arrived in the form of another boat. Everyone got back on that, Makarovs at our backs, and we headed away to the extract point. I settled in, checked my map while switching to vehicle channel (I wasn't joined on anyone in the boat), then put down my map and looked up to see rocks 50m in front and closing without anyone telling the driver about them. It took me a second to realise that they might not know the driver can't properly see out in front of the RHIB if there are people onboard; and another second to realise that as he wasn't turning, that was probably what was after happening and that I couldn't assume they were chatting on their private group channel; and then I started calling out that there were rocks ahead. And then calling that he should turn. And then that he should stop. And then we beached, 100m off the beach.

"Aquarius, do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"You beached the boat, didn't you?"
"Hey, I wasn't driving. And technically the beach is 100m away..."

A few minutes of confusion, repeated attempts to unfoobar the boat and general floostering took place, then yet another boat showed up, we all piled in and headed off to mission victory.

Honestly guys, this is why I prefer helicopters. At least when you die in those, it's fast and not as embarrassing...

Footloose
Alpha 2 AT with AJAX (FTL), Major Effort (AAR) and Grumpy (RAT)



Rather a fast mission this, normally; but this run was so fast it actually provoked quite a bit of debate about whether or not it had been entirely in keeping with the spirit of the mission.

Blufor was going to send Alpha 1 and 2 to mid-way points, with 1 looking for Opfor and 2 looking for Opfor's base for any activity there. Speed of motion and rapidness of deployment was repeatedly stressed by command as being vital to success in this plan.

We spawned and pulled off the least impressive rapid mechanised deployment since the last time new parents took their newborn twins on their first outing in the car. Seriously, it was utter confusion - fireteams split across vehicles, people were literally running in circles, it was downright funny. We finally sorted our stuff out, got mounted up and headed out, me pausing to ask the driver not to crash because by that point after control freezes, arma crashing and two boats beaching underneath me, I was one vehicle crash away from calling it a night.

But our driver was quite competent, we got to our OP without difficulty and got eyes on the Opfor base. Then A1 called contact, but by the time they'd given the call, Opfor's team was past them and barrelling down the road towards blufor base like someone had just announced that there was a free doughnuts and beer party there. A1 tried to give chase, and in the confusion I thought A2 was doing so as well and so wound up overlooking the Blufor base as the Opfor team found the intel and won the mission without much of a fight at all and a runtime of (I measured it) two minutes and eight seconds.

Was it a valid strategy to just charge the base like a demented ferret? Well, it's not banned in the mission spec, it obviously proved effective, it's not something you can't defend against, it could be a bundle of fun if you did defend against it, and given the size of the AO and the number of people, it seems to be a valid approach...
...but it did feel a little less fun than it could have been. I don't think anyone did anything wrong (other than me for mishearing the radio calls and leaving my fireteam), but it did feel a bit empty.


Tank-U-Agios
Tank 2 gunner with Aquarius (Commander) and Mabbot (driver)



I think our hearts weren't quite in it at this stage. Mine wasn't. But the new location for the tanks and the streamlined mission (minus the recon helos) was a welcome change and I think this could be a nice improvement on the mission. We just didn't quite meet its potential tonight is all.

Tanks 1 and 3 were to head north-east to their overwatch positions in case that Opfor went around the town to the north or to take the hill to the south; meanwhile Tank 2 got to glory-charge the main street in the town in case Opfor were taking a short vacation from sanity.

In the end though, Tank 2 had a quiet relaxing drive, parked for a while and chilled while Tanks 1 and 3 blew up two of the enemy tanks at very long range, and then Tank 3 died. Tank 1 remained on overwatch and Tank 2 drove off searching for targets but found nothing despite traipsing all over the southern half of the map. Then Fer told us by radio that something had gone sideways and we could call it. Not sure exactly what happened.

Then I discovered that not only had Arma mangled my video files, but my new mic was too close to my mouth the whole time and I had lots of fun with filtering to try to get rid of the VERY LOUD BREATHING all throughout my audio (thank feck MSI lets you record the mic on a seperate audio track from the game itself or it would have been a total loss).

So not the greatest evening in the annals of Folk I suspect. I guess they can't all be fonts of hilarity and irk-free fun, and there were still funny moments in there, but yeah, this one kinda got draining towards the end there. Oh well. Next time will be better tovarisch!

[Eagle_Eye]

Poor Sparks, and just when you start getting good framerates. At least it wasnt my fault the missions broke for once.

[Sparks]

Ach, it wasn't great, but there'll be other days.
Besides, Arma, pizza and sex. Even when they're bad, they're not really all that bad...




...though I'd still love to know what the hell was going on in Roomservice with that bulletproof window...

[Aqarius]

Did anyone else see Ice mark the map, give directions while marking it, and type "blu rdy" to chat, or was I halucinating again?

(The latter is a real possibility, I spent the 12h prior staring at a grainy CRT)

[Sparks]

Did anyone else see Ice mark the map, give directions while marking it, and type "blu rdy" to chat, or was I halucinating again?

I was actually head down when he typed that, responding to something someone had said a minute earlier, so I never saw it; but there wasn't any briefing before we kicked off. I've learned from hard surprising promotion to listen to the briefing before we spawn in case we accidentally explode half our command structure in the first ten seconds of the game because at least then I know which plan we're abandoning

Incidentally Aquarius, when I said it wasn't the best night ever but it wasn't anyone's fault, I was specifically thinking of the host, who didn't do anything wrong (and thanks for doing a rather thankless job by the way); we were just at the bottom of the hill that the BI sewage was flowing down. If Arma decides players are not allowed to have ammunition, there's not much anyone can do about it on the night. It really was just one of those days...

[Eagle_Eye]

It really was just one of those days...

Unfortunately with a sandbox game like arma this is a distinct possibility. Luckily the great days the rest of the time make up for it.

[Ferrard Carson]

If you're wondering what happened to the backpacks (and thus all our ammo and toolkits and medikits), It seems BIS mucked with the initialization order of paramters during the May 5 update, meaning that the loadout parameter can't be read during gear assignment. There was no time for us to fix it and we didn't even realize the problem existed until we stumbled upon it in the session.

Wolfenswan has already hacked together a messy, but working fix that is in place on the server, so the issue shouldn't crop up again. Our apologies to those of us who had a less than optimal evening; rest assured that the responsible parties have been sacked. Off the pier. In multiple pieces.

This has been a friendly PSA from the session hosts - you may return to your regular homicidal rampages once more with a full complement of ammo!

~ Ferrard

[Sparks]

Huzzah!