[Sun] 10 May 2015 (We're not in Kansas anymore)

[Ferrard Carson]

Missions:

• Low Tide
• Cordon BLU
• Mailman
• Inter IV
• Little Birdies (after-party)

This evening, 32 comrades set off into the darkness, confident in the knowledge that nothing could go wrong!

Nothing. At. All.

Low Tide began us with a straightforward infantry sweep supported by UGV and UAV, a mission that concluded swimmingly with a beautiful victory for all involved! There followed a brief moment of confusion when the server refused to let the host host, then a new run of Cordon BLU, where a team of CSAT Infiltrators slammed headfirst into NATO's Bravo Squad; the infiltrators evaporated under concentrated NATO firepower. Mailman saw some very dedicated kamikaze AI ram our lone chopper as it clawed for altitude out of the LZ, and all of NATO died on the ground. Afterwards, NetKev took the reins and marshaled us through a run of Inter IV where we discovered that our quartermaster was lying to us when he said he'd get us M-14's; we ended up with cheapo POS plastic Katibas instead. An afterparty run of Little Birdies helped everyone blow off steam by blowing up rebels, though, so all was well in the world.

As ever, please post your thoughts, feedback, screenshots and video here - comrade YouTube Hero SuperU 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.

Finally, some recommended reading for all comrades, new and old:

• The Folk ARPS leadership programme
• Comrade Head's new launcher / mod updater (Swifty)
• Folk ARPS tags

~ Ferrard

[Raptoer]

Low Tide AI seems to not be particularly responsive. I think Alpha managed to lose a man.

By the end of Mailman Kev had pulled out all the stops, 5 tanks and an artillery barrage managed to finish us off.

[SuicideKing]

Low Tide AI seems to not be particularly responsive. I think Alpha managed to lose a man.

By the end of Mailman Kev had pulled out all the stops, 5 tanks and an artillery barrage managed to finish us off.

Yeah, someone in ASL CO (Aquarius?) - I think - got shot at point blank by an AI soldier hiding in some ruins.
EDIT: Don't know about anyone in Alpha.

And...

[crustycuffs]

Sunday was my first time back after nearly a years absence... I really enjoyed Low Tide (didn't play the others as had to drop off) even if I spent most of it panic-searching for the rest of Bravo 3. Must watch comrades positions more closely

Storming the compound at the end was glorious.

Also I shot a man

[SuicideKing]

Why is there an excessive film grain-ish effect in Folk ARPS missions? It may be my own settings, though I don't find it so severe when I'm playing single player, or in the editor...anyway:

After Action Report

Just died once during the main missions (I'm considering Inter IV as an afterparty-ish mission because of player count and way it went ), but didn't get more than a kill. Still, things were achieved!

(BTW - Who writes the TeamSpeak descriptions? Found them quite entertaining!)

Workshop
I know workshops aren't included in AARs but I had been thinking about making a serious effort as FTL since last Tuesday's session - but only in coop missions for now. I had read some of the leadership materials published by The Party over the weekend, and ShackTac videos help of course - but wanted to put that stuff into practice. Ferrard Carson was kind enough to help me with that, along with Eagle_Eye, Leander and Lammhauer (I can't spell or pronounce his name, I'm sorry!). I had attended previous workshops organized by auidox before as well, so I could better grasp situations during bounding maneuvers this time. That, and some nice MOUT discussions gave the confidence to not fall to pieces as FTL.

BTW if I should post stuff like this under the corresponding workshop thread instead then let me know!

Low Tide (coop)
Alpha 2 FTL with Costno (AR), Abi79 (Asst. AR) and David (Grenadier)

I obviously chose to lead a Fire Team.

It was a slow walk up to the ridge, then some contacts here and there along the road - Alpha 2 didn't have much to do on the left flank. I spent the time talking to my mostly silent fire team, till eventually Costno realised he had a muted mic and Abi79 opened up - though by this time we were trying to engage an HMG tower at long range, along with Striders and a tank. David didn't talk for so long I thought he didn't have a mic, but ASL wanted rocket counts and I needed an answer - so David finally spoke . Turned out he was a grenadier (don't know why I hadn't realised that earlier - I just assumed AT).

I think either someone in ASL or CO was shot at point blank range by a hidden AI dude...I think it was CO (Aquarius?), because I remember NetKev being alive till the end (and something about "Oh noes now I'm the CO!").

Anyway, we spent some time hiding from a tank or something, and then heroically charged at the main base through awkwardly deployed smoke (at least, the angles were weird for me). To be frank, it was probably Alpha 1 (and Alpha 3?) carrying out most of the charge, we were sort of faffing about for lack of a good approach (I didn't find anything safe enough) - and after some hesitation I decided to support Alpha 1's charge by suppressing the HMG tower under a hail of grenades, LMG and rifle fire. One of the Alpha teams came under fire from a valley, so we moved to engage those contacts (which I couldn't see myself, but people were firing so...) and I saw NetKev running up slope ahead. I led my team behind him, then Abi79 and Costno spotted an HMG nest 150m away behind us, but with the AI soldier's back turned towards us - he was promptly shot. We continued to follow NetKev into the compound, but the mission ended in victory by then.

We also did some buddy team maneuvers during this final stage of the assault!

I just got one kill during the entire thing, but none of my guys died so I'm happy with that. Not sure how useful we were though!

Critical self evaluation mode: I think I need to improve my squad comms - I didn't follow that "ASL, Alpha 2 - bla bla bla" format, but was more informal, "NetKev, what should Alpha 2 do next?" or "Alpha 2 is at the T3 marker".

Cordon BLU (adversarial)
AR in what was most likely Alpha 2 with Zitron (FTL), Grumpy (Mine Expert) and Mort (Asst. AR)

I really just spent my time on a balcony around the center-forward part of town, and later prone on the roof of the same building. Mort was chilling in the balcony, and we were watching the south. Zitron was coordinating things from ground level, and Grumpy went "mining" and rejoined. I may have shot a single bullet towards either Alpha 1 or CO but we didn't have much to do.

Mailman (coop, Zeus)
Alpha 3 FTL with Raptoer (AR), David (Asst. AR?) and Mort (RAT?)

Of course I was FTL again! Not for long though.

I always get kinda nervous about being an FTL when more experienced players (hi Raptoer!) are under me because...well, it's intimidating

So anyway, after a slightly frantic deployment, we made our way to our assigned ridge (I got confused with the directions, so we were late). Raptoer had proceeded to cover the side of the hill pointing away from the crash site, I for some reason wanted to put Red Team overlooking the site. In hindsight I think it was a mistake, AR would be more effective looking outward, so I think Raptoer had made the right choice initially (apologies for that unnecessary movement).

Anyway, ASL wanted us to move west along the ridge, and I sort of missed the instructions, so I "radioed" back to clarify, when suddenly an AI dude popped up within 20m and shot my surprised arse back to the (drowned by helicopter noises) spectator screen. All I could manage to shout was "contacts!" on teamspeak (by accident).

Anyway, I found Sparks and Carson waiting in limbo, so I joined them to watch NetKev inventing new ways of killing people who don't have any realistic means of escape.

Inter IV (adversarial)
I was something in CSAT. Something was happening. We teleported to the center of town and promptly got slaughtered.

Little Birdies (coop funzies)
Originally was supposed to be a coop version of The Rundown, but then NetKev thought "HEY WHAT IF EVERYONE HAD ATTACK HELICOPTERS"

Zeus ascended and we all followed his lead into the sky, raining rockets on not-really oblivious virtual soldiers and their transports death traps.

--------------------------------------------

All in all, an excellent night!

[wolfenswan]

Why is there an excessive film grain-ish effect in Folk ARPS missions? It may be my own settings, though I don't find it so severe when I'm playing single player, or in the editor...anyway:

This is an effect that occasionally sticks after the "end mission" cinematic triggers. Try pressing ESC once in the new mission, that should get rid of it.

[SuicideKing]

Why is there an excessive film grain-ish effect in Folk ARPS missions? It may be my own settings, though I don't find it so severe when I'm playing single player, or in the editor...anyway:

This is an effect that occasionally sticks after the "end mission" cinematic triggers. Try pressing ESC once in the new mission, that should get rid of it.

Ah, thanks a lot! Will try that.

[madrak_the_red]

Was a bit late to this one, so missed the first mission

Cordon BLU

So I jumped in as AR in A1, under sparks. We ran around, got to our position and plonked down some mines. Shortly after that, we heard shooting a little ways to our south east and went to investigate. We hit close contact, the baddies hid in a house and ASL ordered us to fall back. Also the first time in ARMA that I saw an enemy grenade fly past my head and land just behind me, so that was fun and exciting. Bruised and beaten, we took up our old position, and then the shooting started. Someone went down to perfectly zeroed GP fire, so I couldn't revive them. I hid around the other corner of the house I'd set up in, heard footsteps, and had a point-blank shootout with Netkev, after which we were both dead.

Turns our he was the last OPFOR, so victory went to BLU.

Mailman

A2 FTL

Oh boy, this was an experience. The last time I played this mission I found myself in the eye of the storm, untouched by the chaos around me. This time, not so much. It all went off to a cracking start when we flew over the LZ, crew chief Ferrard said 'the LZ looks clear' and then the miniguns on the huron immediately opened up. Turns out the LZ might have been clear, but the surrounding areas were shit hot. We set down as bullets pinged off the side and the warning sirens began to blare, and ran away from the chopper, which then lifted and was apparently intercepted by a member of the japanese imperial army, who flew his hellcat straight into our Huron.

Our extract a pile of smoldering metal, we ran for our swiftly reorganised positions. A2 and A3 took position on the southern ridge, had some close contacts that were dealt with, and began trading fire with infantry moving in from the road. It all seemed to be going rather well, considering, we were whittling down the ei, taking light casulaties and even blew up a strider.

Then we were strafed the first time, which we survived thanks to rocks stopping minigun fire. The hellcat buzzed off, and we resumed shooting at ei, which had now appeared behind us to the north east. We were holding, until the hellcat came back and did a rocket run. Dan was the only member of my fireteam up after that, but managed to revive me and Tebz and we kept shooting at the ei to the north, and the ei too the south. It became clear, at that point, that we were surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. As I looked straight east, I saw 5 hellcat gunships flying in a line, heading straight for us.

'It has been an honour, gentlemen.'

Inter IV

Armed with our not-M14s, the 12 remaining die-hards teleported into the centre of town for a dust up. I shot a man, got stuck on a bush as I tried to run away and eagle-eye blasted me into oblivion. Good times.

Little Birdies

Two runs of this, one in which our zeus-gifted littlebirds did not arrive in time, and one where they did. I managed to fly over the target convoy at speed, decided that slowing down was for wimps and did a kamikaze run, emptying all the explosives I had into the convoy, including the helicopter filled with aircraft fuel. Luckily, I disabled the vehicles and killed a hefty chunk, allowing my fellow pilots to mop up, blow up even more trucks and fly into power lines. Jolly good fun. Next time, 40 littlebirds vs the world.

[Sparks]

Mailman's LZ was... interesting. I think the video's been garbled (I am rapidly rethinking using MSI afterburner to record video) but I need to check the machine tonight to be sure. But what happened, for anyone doing it in the future, was that three things went wrong for the helo crew in rapid succession. We had a decent approach plan based on the last few runs: an IP in the bay then a straight run-in between Anthrakia and Charkia to avoid the inevitable enemy units in those towns, a turning point before Rodopoli so the enemy in there couldn't get us either, then a short straight final approach to the LZ. Fairly insane audio cues aside (every time someone boarded, it sounded like we'd been hit by a large explosive round for some reason), we had an uneventful takeoff and ingress, thanking our tovarisches for their choice of time and weather every step of the way. We hit the IP without problems, we went feet-dry towards our turning point and still no problems (the IP to turning point run overland was where I was afraid Netkev might have stuck a sneaky HMG to cause us problems, but no), and then we turned on final approach to the LZ in the valley, going from ESE to west, all still according to plan.

So here's what I think went wrong (other opinions welcomed, learning moment required ):

1. During the approach to the LZ point, I lost visual on the LZ for a moment and right at that moment CO asked to be set down closer to the C130, which I didn't have visual on at all (those lovely green flares plus night vision don't mix well) and I was stupid and listened to him. So I got a bit overworked at precisely the wrong moment (damn you Murphy!) and we overflew the end of the valley and the LZ by about 200m or so before I had the Huron hauling around in a turn (have I ever commented on how spritely and nimble the Huron is? No? Well get used to that ). But that was survivable.
   Lesson learned: ignore requests from CO during approach to LZ unless gunfire is involved.
2. Then enemies behind us in Anthrakia or just north of it opened up on us. Not a major deal, we didn't take any real damage for a moment or two, but for some reason, I couldn't get the nose of the Huron down to accelerate away from them back towards the LZ. I have no idea why. I kept shoving the mouse forwards and nothing happened. Then the controls went a bit loopy and I only barely recovered before we all became a smoking wreck. This was the point where Madrak commented that he was a bit worried I'd have responded, but at the time I was actually working for a living But okay, we got it back, Ferrard was hosing down everything that moved anywhere he could see, I had the chopper dumping flares like it was going out of fashion in case someone had given lock-on weapons to the AI (looks askance at Netkev) and we got down in one piece, albiet with a few 50-calibre induced engine wiggles and a now utterly destroyed sling (damn, there goes our plan to skyhook the entire C-130...). So still survivable, if embarressing.
   Lesson learned: er, none really other than that Arma's weird sometimes
3. Then, once everyone had gotten out, we lifted as hard as we could to get away because we were the only way home for everyone else, so the idea was to get the hell away from the explodey things and after that we'd have set down somewhere far from the AO so that Ferrard could repair us for the extract. The Huron climbed vertically about 10-15 metres or so, and immediately started to take fire, I started popping flares again, and then as my framerate crashed to single digits, this big bright light came right at us and a Hellcat flew into the cockpit window at speed, maybe 30-40 metres up. That wasn't survivable. Or dodgeable really, we were too early in the lift to have any manoeuvrability. About the only good news was that we didn't land on anyone with our exploding helicopter and burning corpses...
   Lesson learned: Netkev is evil.

That first thing, that's all on me. The second thing, I honestly don't know what caused it. But that third thing ?




(full AAR to follow btw, I do have video of other stuff, including Tigershark's Got Talent...)

Oh, and by the way, just to point out - my perfect record in helos in Arma continues because my chalk got off without any losses before we were obliterated out of the sky in a beautifully cinematic moment...
(Sorry Ferrard, but after your last run of Mailman, you can't complain about feeling less important than the chalk )

[SuicideKing]

Next time, 40 littlebirds vs the world.

YES LET'S DO THIS