Anyone interested in some pre-TGIF training tonight?

[MDF]

If anyone is interested, I'd like to try some online small-unit practice sessions before TGIF this evening. Something involving a platoon of vehicles in total, or less. Practice bounding overwatch within the platoon, or even within a section. Perhaps even practicing with multi-crewed vehicles. I was thinking of using Mission 1 of the "Camp Hornfelt" series, but am certainly open to other suggestions.

Ideally, I'd like to do this with enemy AND FRIENDLY map updates OFF, but I won't insist

I'll be in the TS channel starting at 7:30 PM (US) Eastern Daylight Savings Time, which is GMT-4. (That's 2.5 hours prior to TGIF).

I should add that my TS name is PaladinSix, not MDF.

[MDF]

Thanks to everyone for participating in the session. I didn't realize there would be such a sizable turnout. It was a pleasant surprise.

Was not a good idea to try no-Blue-map-updates in a training session when participants (including myself) aren't used to that environment and haven't internalized the required techniques. Sure made for an interesting time trying to sort out vehicle assignments, though! Plus, there were other training objectives we needed to focus on without the extra hurdle. Crawl before walk. Anyway, I'll bear this in mind for the next time.

Also, did anyone notice any lag issues? I did not (and I didn't see any flashing "server overload" warnings), so it's encouraging that my 'net connection is good enough to host a session at or near the player limit for the the PE version.

[Rotareneg]

Seemed to be running just fine, didn't notice any problems at all.

No map updates is a whole different ball game, that's for sure. I remember the first TGIF I was on with no updates... now that was chaos.

[enigma6584]

Was not a good idea to try no-Blue-map-updates in a training session when participants (including myself) aren't used to that environment and haven't internalized the required techniques. Sure made for an interesting time trying to sort out vehicle assignments, though! Plus, there were other training objectives we needed to focus on without the extra hurdle. Crawl before walk. Anyway, I'll bear this in mind for the next time.

For those of us who have played a lot with the Russian vehicle set including the large number of TO&Es in missions, lessons have been learned in terms of map updates usage. When dealing with more than a platoon, it is best to use "own side updates" only. That way you retain fog of war with respect to spotting enemy yet easy to keep control of your own force. It gets way to difficult otherwise.

[MDF]

For those of us who have played a lot with the Russian vehicle set including the large number of TO&Es in missions, lessons have been learned in terms of map updates usage. When dealing with more than a platoon, it is best to use "own side updates" only. That way you retain fog of war with respect to spotting enemy yet easy to keep control of your own force. It gets way to difficult otherwise.

As much as I like the "no friendly updates" environment, I would agree with you -- if you're controlling more than a platoon [*], it just may not be workable. In fact, you might even say it detracts from realism.

I would go even further. If you are controlling a company or above, I would not even turn off enemy map updates, because you would be getting NO useful intelligence from your subordinate units (i.e., all you get are the "contact tanks west" oral reports....not particularly helpful!).

[*] Edit: I should have said, "If you're leading more than a platoon of AI-controlled vehicles, . . . ." If you're leading any number of human-controlled vehicles (or human-controlled, sections, platoons, companies, etc.), then no-friendly-updates is OK.

Edited March 16, 2014 by MDF

[12Alfa]

" keep control of your own force"

It takes practice but doable, after all this is how armies have operated for many years. Good situation reports from your units with human players is the key, and a detail map recce before the mission is how it done in RL:luxhello:

I will admit a "player only" map feature would remove some of the burden in the sim compared to just friendly only updates.

[MDF]

" keep control of your own force"

It takes practice but doable, after all this is how armies have operated for many years. Good situation reports from your units with human players is the key, and a detail map recce before the mission is how it done in RL:luxhello:

I will admit a "player only" map feature would remove some of the burden in the sim compared to just friendly only updates.

Don't get me wrong.....no friendly updates is the desired endstate for me. It's just that our impromptu session last night was not a good time to put it into effect. Ideally, you would have a relatively stable crew of players who have nailed down the techniques for closely-coordinated multiplayer missions -- things like enemy contacts reports, own SITREPs, etc. -- and then add no-friendly-updates as one of the last pieces of the puzzle. You're right, though -- the "update player only" option would be a useful intermediate stage (I actually requested this feature in my overlong post in the "wishlist" thread a couple of weeks back).

[Assassin 7]

Don't get me wrong.....no friendly updates is the desired endstate for me. It's just that our impromptu session last night was not a good time to put it into effect. Ideally, you would have a relatively stable crew of players who have nailed down the techniques for closely-coordinated multiplayer missions -- things like enemy contacts reports, own SITREPs, etc. -- and then add no-friendly-updates as one of the last pieces of the puzzle. You're right, though -- the "update player only" option would be a useful intermediate stage (I actually requested this feature in my overlong post in the "wishlist" thread a couple of weeks back).

You did nothing wrong. Maybe to make it a little easier, maybe you should have placed checkpoints and numbered the SBF's which we talked about. Good training with no map updates. Also you had good control of your forces and I would say that the mission was a success. walked out with 2 tanks immobile and 2 tanks fully operational out of the 4.

[MDF]

You did nothing wrong. Maybe to make it a little easier, maybe you should have placed checkpoints and numbered the SBF's which we talked about. Good training with no map updates. Also you had good control of your forces and I would say that the mission was a success. walked out with 2 tanks immobile and 2 tanks fully operational out of the 4.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I knew I should have numbered the ABFs, etc., but I had the guys sitting around so long waiting for me to get my graphics out to them, I decided to rush things at the end. Because I didn't know if anyone was even going to attend, or what mission everyone would want to try, I didn't prepare anything in advance. By the time you joined, we had already been puttering around for quite some time trying to get things organized.

And yeah, we didn't take too many casualties, but we did end the mission early and right before assaulting the objective -- which is loaded with T-80s!

[RedWardancer]

What exactly is the TGIF? Is this a rolling campaign? What background is this based? How long will it run? Who's in command and running the scenarios?

You can tell I'm new

[Lt DeFault]

TGIF = Weekly casual online match. All are welcome. See the "Online Play" link at the top of this page for more info.

[panzerde]

While I've owned and played SBPro PE for a couple of years now, I played my first online multiplayer game just last night. I'm pretty hooked now! I'm hoping to attend this week's TGIF, but if anyone decides to do training prior to that I'm all in.

[profevil]

I think UKA and or SVU have training nights tonight.

[MDF]

If anyone is interested in an online training mission or two prior to TGIF tonight, I'll be on Teamspeak at around 7:00pm (US) EDT / 2300 GMT. We can try some smaller missions, ideally one player per vehicle. Open to any suggestions.

:gun:

[RedWardancer]

That was massive. Fourteen total players.

I really need to fix my connection difficulties. I think it was my firewall the keeps shutting down the game. I may have fixed it this morning by opening up the game as allowed in both private and public. I'll log in early tonight to see if it works.

[FLEXCopMNPD]

Hate that you had connection issues WarDancer. It was a really fun session.

I am rendering the video of the pre-TGIF session with the awesome guys over at 3rd Armor (thanks for grabbing me in the TS channel) as well as the TGIF mission and will have them up on YouTube later today in 1080p no less

[Rotareneg]

Ah, cool, I'll be interesting to watch see another view of the same battle.

I finally got around to finishing editing my audio on my TGIF recording. I accidentally unchecked the push-to-talk setting in Dxtory, causing it to record an assortment of swears, curses, whines, groans, and other such things that I try to avoid sending over TeamSpeak.

257 minutes remaining on the 4.7 GB upload...