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The Debriefing Thread - Printable Version

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Re: The Debriefing Thread - Den - 11-17-2015

(11-16-2015, 06:37 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:I have to correct a certain speculation. Our team was not technically lost. It was a Tactical Combat Detour © and Den wanted to check situation at Point Uniform just to be sure : P  During this escapade at back seat of Humvee I finally understood the concept of alternate channel of TFAR radio after 3 months of coop nights.  Zen moment in winters darkness.


It was indeed a great and a fun mission. I hope my leading wasn't too shit. I misread the task as I was thinking about Point Uniform when it came up and I just glanced at it and assumed after a quick glance at the task that's what it was about. To be honest, I saw the Combat Operations HQ on GPS whilst driving past it but I thought "Nah friendlies are probably fine there" and didn't give the task a second thought. We tactically went to check for survivours at point Uniform  ??? .


I'm not too sure what happened at the start other than Alwarren, but by the time we got to the walls, Alpha was already down to 7 (Which I assume was caused by lack of vests) by the time we reached even the walls of the first objective and had 2 more casualties at the CO HQ.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Variable - 11-17-2015

Coop 13 Rite of Spring
(11-16-2015, 06:37 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:I have no idea how it was for infantry and CAS, but this wasn't one of my better missions.
I had an awesome experience flying the Hind in this mission. It was great cooperating with Etzu, the gunner, and the target relay from the ground team was perfect. We had several inspiring Arma moments when taking out long range targets using the Hind's Ataka missiles, suppression and elimination of infantry with the chin-gun, and wonderful and extremely gratifying rocket runs. However, it appears that it was at the expense of the ground team, we ate all their targets :/ It's hard to balance missions with CAS and ensuring everybody get their share of the fun. In light of the experience in this mission, we had an interesting discussion about CAS in missions in the Skype group chat, if all participants approve, I'll post it on the Mission Making boards.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - SPhoenix - 11-17-2015

Haven't followed the discussion, so I'd be interested to know what came of it!


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Variable - 11-17-2015

(11-17-2015, 02:15 PM)SPhoenix link Wrote:Haven't followed the discussion, so I'd be interested to know what came of it!
There you go. CAS in missions - Skype discussion on how to do it right.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Stagwine - 11-20-2015

FAC/CAS Mission in Sahrani

I had tons of fun spotting targets for Harriers. It is psychologically most gratifying to watch the results of your directed air attacks.

Couple of lessons from ground team

I think it might have been better to split the ground FACs to 3 teams, 2 operators/team. Divide target area to 3 sectors. Say..SECTOR WEST deals with Cayo, sector CENTER deals with the big town on center, and SECTOR EAST deals with everything east of that. Mark sectors with FHQ map draw. 1 team (2 operators) / sector. Every operator has his own LR radio so everyone can talk to aircraft if need be. Assign different SR channels to FAC teams, and save LR to comm with aircraft or critical info between teams.  Maybe even divide 2 jets / sector, so each sector has dedicated pilots and they know whose voices to listen.

- Mark targets with different colours in each sector. Change marker colour with shift-arrow keys (can't recall if was up/down or left/right).
- Delete marker from map as soon target is destroyed.
- Talk to pilots with their names (think of them as call signs).For example  'Air-ground: Target painted' can mean different things when there are 6 jets on the sky. 'Variable-Stag. Enemy shilka painted, NW of town, 400m from closest town building.' is more clear. Now jet knows whos talking to them and who does the message concern.
- Provide more BDA (Battle damage assesment) after the attack.  Example. 'Varible-Stag: BDA. Good gun run on enemy infantry, estimate 5 EKIAs. Over?' or 'Gun run missed, impacts 300m south, go around, over'
- ONE laser only / target area at a time. Communicate with your fellow FAC. Multiple dots are distracting to pilot, and I don't know how guided munitions reacts to multiple dots on target.  Also  check your weapon mounted laser is OFF when painting targets to aircraft.
- I repeat. Make sure your laser is OFF unless you paint target.  Now we had a damn close B-on-B gun run from Harrier. I only can think our laser was accidentally on, pointing on our feet or something.

Anecdote:

I was laying prone trying to find enemy infantry just south of us and had tunnel vision through my designator and didn't see anything outside scope. I heard jet engine, brrrrt, bangbangbang, and thought Harrier was strafing enemy  infantry away from us.  I thought that the noise was unusually loud but that's just CUP vehicles .

Varanon: Holy shit, what was that?!
Doveman: A gun run?
Lego: Yeah, just a gun run
Stag: Yeah, just a regular everyday neighbourhood gun run.
Varanon: Guys, that was gun run.... on US!

Harrier had strafed our quadbikes and narrowly missed us!


Re: The Debriefing Thread - doveman - 11-20-2015

Yeah it would have been much better if I'd divided us up into 3 teams. I guess I was thinking all the targets were going to be in the same area, so it would be better to keep us together both for all-round defence and so that we could paint multiple targets at once to destroy them quicker but that turned out to be impractical. If we had split up and been fairly far apart, maybe it would have been possible for each team to have a target painted at the same time and a different plane attacking it.

I'm not sure about the idea of communicating with specific pilots, as the ground team doesn't really know where the planes are and who's piloting them, so it's probably better to communicate with their leader and let him assign jobs to the pilots.

It's probably a good idea to let each team communicate directly with the air team leader though. As the ground team leader, I didn't necessarily have sight of the targets that were being painted by my squad and so had to wait for reports from those painting them before I could report back to Variable and it's better if that delay is eliminated so that the plane can quickly do another run if necessary. I didn't realise each operator had a LR but even if they don't, maybe they can communicate with the air team on the SR Alt channel, although I'm not sure if that will have the range.

Working as a two-man team, one person could search for targets for the air team and the other could mark them on the map, if that's practical (it might be quicker and easier if the person who spots them marks them) and when he's not marking targets he can keep an eye out for nearby threats. After reporting targets to the team leader, assuming we can only paint one at a time even if split up, then the team leader should decide which target has priority and tell the sub-team to change the colour of that marker and lase it and then the sub-team can communicate with the air-crew until the target is destroyed.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Outlawz7 - 11-21-2015

(11-16-2015, 06:37 PM)Stagwine link Wrote:I don't know how it was implemented, but it really looked like AI teams were really searching for us, and following our trail.


Sander style a.k.a. Guard waypoints.
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/2D_Editor:_Waypoints#Guard


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Outlawz7 - 11-23-2015

Approaching Kavala

Since there's issues with TFAR that only seem to happen on the first mission, let's make sure all our frequencies are synced, we had a LR freq switch at start that most didn't notice and Bravo had some of Alpha's members communicating on Bravo's channel, which was corrected but always causes unneeded confusion when it happens.

LR communication should always start with the receiver/sender thing and checking if the receiver can even listen, orders were relayed without observing neither of these two resulting in people not knowing if they're the ones being talked to and a lot of repeat requests.

I actually started thinking about having a group member act as a point man or RTO because leading and trying to talk at the same time got me killed in the end.

On the flip side, all communication needs to be confirmed, how hard is it to say one word to let know you've heard the message? Not everyone was at fault and sometimes people actually didn't receive the message (see TFAR above) but this isn't real life where I can see your body language to know you've heard and understood me.

Outpost Assault
I think these kind of missions are bad in that they're way too easy. It was basically a move to where tasks tell you and obliterate the enemy.

Spartan Assault
Good mission, sorry I managed to get Manuel killed, I stopped the car next to the enemy because I figured if they're here then they'll be ahead of us as well. I also have Eject action binded to a key so I can GTFO faster. :p








Re: The Debriefing Thread - SPhoenix - 11-23-2015

Did you guys finish Approaching Kavala?
Should I tone down the difficulty?


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Variable - 11-23-2015

Approaching Kavala
Good job taking the daunting task of leading this mission Den!
It started well and the initial push into the town was well executed. One comment: though: vehicles should NEVER be positioned on an elevated point without cover, or hulled down behind a terrain element. It was only a matter of time before the Marid was taken out. I think it was better to push it forward into the cover of the town right after the initial infantry push.
I want to discuss something that I feel essential. I know it's already hard to take the lead and I don't want to make it even harder on anyone, but I think that a leader should not try to "lead to win", a leader should "lead to fun" and by fun I mean the fun of the teams under his command. From all the tactical options that exist, those that yield the most fun for most player should be selected. The safest course of action is a lot of times the most boring one. For example, moving all the teams at the same route through the town might have been safest, but that meant the only the guys on point saw action. To maximize their enjoyment, other teams should have moved to scout other parts of the town, at least to let them feel useful and not just following a big March column. That context should also rule out keeping other teams waiting for too long, even if that is the wise thing to do, tactically. There's always something to do, even scout from another position by single units. Another example would be pulling back whenever there's a threat and letting CAS or fire missions remove the threat. Of course, it doesn't mean taking unnecessary risks and getting everybody killed on Rambo assaults, my intention is that fun factor should be balanced with safety of the team.
That also means taking care that players are not stuck forever in boring tasks such as driving a valuable asset at the back. These guys should be replaced and have that burden shared. Also, try allowing team leaders the most freedom within reasonable constraints, don't frustrate them by micromanaging every single move.
Mind you, I too struggle to balance between safety and fun and I'm not always making the right decision, but let's all keep this balance in mind when we lead.
One tactical comment: when crossing open terrain try to cover the movement by the elements that are kept at the back, especially when that many teams are available.
SPhownix, no, I think the mission difficulty is good as it is now. Looking forward to playing it again.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Phantom - 11-23-2015

I like Outlaw's idea of pointman and RTO if someone wants to do the job.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Alwarren - 11-23-2015

Approaching Kavala

I want to echo Outlawz's comments regarding comms. That was a regular mess.

First of all, I will need to fix the server side addon to also account for vehicle radios. So far, the vehicle radios are all left alone, and using the vehicle radio is the default. I'll see what I can do about it, maybe change the default to backpack, or adjust all non-locked vehicles of the player's side(s).

Secondly, though, radio messages must be CLEARLY directed at someone. Half of the time I was left wondering whether it was me or someone else that the order was for. To that extend, the message should ALWAYS start with

"You, this is me. Come in"

or

"You, me."

Here is a video that makes things quite clear:


Finally, I do not think it is a good idea to have the APC on top of a ridgeline with no cover. We had to completely cross over the ridge to see anything, and the result was we were completely exposed. In the future, I would propose to only give a "task" to the APC crew, not a specific point from which to engage.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - SPhoenix - 11-23-2015

The ridge is entirely exposed. I have never actually tried the survivability of this but given the IFV has thermal I would recommend using smoke walls from which the IFV can engage while the infantry clears the mines...?


Re: The Debriefing Thread - Variable - 11-23-2015

We didn't attack head on through the minefield as it seems suicidal and that approach failed several times in previous attempts. We moved to attack the exposed part of the town south west of our insertion point.


Re: The Debriefing Thread - SPhoenix - 11-23-2015

Hmm I might need to amend the mission based on this...