Communication & Fire Teams

[asch]

After playing AA for a few times, I've noticed there are a few things that I'm either not doing well at, the game doesn't provide a good mechanism for, or we're just not to that point with our players yet.

Me not knowing the maps is causing some difficulties. I don't know where the enemy approaches from, where things are located, where I'm currently at, where my teammates are at, etc. I've gotten so used to maps & mini-maps in games that I'm handicapped w/o them. So this may or may not affect my other points.

When it comes to fire teams, I never know where my fire team leader is or where the rest of my fire team is at. This also stems from players just running off in different directions. Who's back am I covering? Who's got my back? etc.

When it comes to communication, I've grown accustomed to the BF2 squad comm. We do have teamspeak, but I don't know if we're using it very well. Yes we have assault & defense channels, but what happens when we have 12 TGers on the same side? What happens to communicating with our fire teams and letting the fire team leaders communicate to the other FTLs?

I chalk a lot of this up to the newness of the game (for me anyway) and not knowing where to go. I think this is the same for quite a few players and maybe we're just not to the point yet where we can organize who goes where to defend / assault what, etc.

[Trooper]

actually thats something alot of us are thinking about...thats why its great to lock the server and let sloppy or magnum lead us around the maps so we can see what goes on....just jump on and ask in teamspeak...find either of those too and let them know and follow them. I know magnum kind of did a quick intro to the game the other day....

[Vulcan]

It would be good to get setup with teamspeak squad channels. They probably won't get used on regular days when there's pubbies, but it would be very good for passwrd times when it's all TG.

[Turbo]

I think once we all get use to the maps fire teams will work good. Most maps have multiple approaches to the objective so you could move in and rush or distract while the other teams moves in. I think if we have a Alpha and Bravo fire team for each channel we could try it some night to see how it works.

[Grunt 70]

Let me preface my post by saying I've only played significant time on the TG AA servers twice--so I may be assuming too little or too much.

I've been struggling with comm, ID and navigation issues in this game also. Your point of staying in contact with your buddy is a valid one and initially I wondered why they didn't add something in that does a better job identifying the players. To overcome that I've just been following who I think would be good soldier to follow.

Truth is that America's Army is a much more realistic approach to combat than BF2 and so I think that says alot about why the game is how it is. There aren't mini maps and personal hud's in the real world -- and the Army is well served by not including them in the game play I think. Personally I love the challenge this game offers over the arcade like BF2 (Nothing like a good round of BF2 though)

i think practice with a consistent group will overcome most of these issues and I plan to play more time in Americas Army on TG servers to accomplish this.

The thing about maps--Im lost too--but how many times does a US Army Special fordces Unit in real life get to go over the lay of the land before the mission--zero really. They might have the intel but no on the ground experience.

these are issues that are all part of the overall challenge and I'm really beggining to appreciate them. In real life you don't spawn in as an expert.

The idea of strong experienced SL's makes a difference. I'd love to have some practice ( as they do in real life) working with the same SL on some of these issues.

As yet there is no password night on the AA server , is that right?...I'd love to see it so we can gel as a unit. Im on track to be an SM in Mid December

(PS ever see that funny movie about the guy who is addicted to first person shooters...I think it's called "Boom-- Head shot". In the movie he says the Army is just like an FPS but only with better graphics and no spawn points-LMAO on that one!!)


Grunt70

[perry]

I think a big part of the problem is that everyone is lost! There's around 30+ maps in the game but I really only know about 2 or 3 of them, and I haven't played those at TG yet. Yea, realistic, but when we're playing against players that know the maps like the back of their hands it's kinda tough. It's painfully obvious when we're sticking together and one dude can flank us and take out half our team.

Last night on SF Artic I spent several rounds wondering through the hills trying to figure out what's what and where's where. Around the 3rd or 4th round I finally figured out where the enemy was coming from and what approaches were the best for them to use.

Right now we're all kinda learning the game (except for Magnum and Sloppy Joe.. put them on a team and they'd pwn the rest of us ) so it's a good time for everyone to get involved in helping to figure out what works and what doesn't. It's nice when the password is up and only 8 or so of us are on the server -- we're able to move slower and figure out what works and what doesn't. Once we, as a community, learn the game, I think the comm methods and such will work out on their own.

[|TG| B]

AA is like realism to the extreme... I am brand new to this game as well... Pressing the U button will let you and your guys to report in... I guess that is what the minimap would be...

Army wants us to experience Army life as realistic as possible... Minimap is not one of them...

I am also learning here... I am having big time problems with a lot of these things as well... Now everything is BF2 mindset... lol. We will get thru this right?

[Levi]

You can open up maps and use the fly and ghost commands to get the lay of what's what. I recommend doing that a good bit if you have the time, if nothing else it is useful for finding choke points, objective access areas, etc.

Go check out http://forum.americasarmy.com/viewtopic.php?t=127 this post and you can find several interesting commands for single player practice and binding.

[USN_Squid]

Perry you nailed it! The only way, well the surest way, to get good at this game is know the maps inside and out. Levi's suggestion of flying the maps is a good one. I had to do that on CSAR after a night of getting surprised at every corner! After flying through all routes from each spawn point just a few times I think I have a shred of a clue of what's going on in that map.

Check out this wiki like site for some good stratgies for each map: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/AASFTactics

Leejo! I said strategies!


edit:
Sorry, I have a real bad habit of posting off topic! I think we need to get very comfortable with the compass and the symbology there. That can help you keep track of your leaders. Just spin until you see the stripes and there he/she be. Up or down arrow shows they are on a different level. We always need to use the 'U' key to report our positions (and know what those positions mean) and report the locations of enemies as much as possible.

For those of you who have played Ghost Recon here, we can use the same sort of briefing and tactics we used there.

[SloppyJoe]

I think comms are very very very very very important!!!

But in my experience, multiple channels can become a nightmare to deal with especially when you are in a combat situation (not like your in a van looking through little cameras directing the squad).

If you look at my thread on Sloppy's keybinds, you'll be able to find in there somewhere that I have general comm binds to my numpad keys. I found it useful for almost all generic situations, from fall back to move out to enemy spotted with directions to move out with directions to cease fire your shooting a friendly and roger and negative etc....

I think the in game comms are great for the quick and dirty while voice comms should be focused on situations that require more verbosity, such as tactics, assignments, specific locations, and so on.

A mix of the two should suffice.

[Levi]

As for everyone being in the same TS channel for tactical ops just make sure that it's perfectly clear who is speaking and who you are speaking to. Ie: Call out to the fireteam leader, wait for acknowledgement, report whatever you need to say, over. Obviously in an immediate situation you can try yelling "Squidy behind you!" but it's usually too late by that point anyway.

I do support different channels, of course then for the fireteams to communicate they have to switch into the same channel, etc. Seperation of communications by command lines is only quasi-realistic.

[Turbo]

I think we should experiment with it later but for now we just need to learn the maps and get our keybinds setup.

[USN_Squid]

Originally Posted by Sloppy Joe

But in my experience, multiple channels can become a nightmare to deal with especially when you are in a combat situation (not like your in a van looking through little cameras directing the squad).

Especially when people come and go, I think it's a bit too complicated.

Originally Posted by Sloppy Joe

If you look at my thread on Sloppy's keybinds, you'll be able to find in there somewhere that I have general comm binds to my numpad keys. I found it useful for almost all generic situations, from fall back to move out to enemy spotted with directions to move out with directions to cease fire your shooting a friendly and roger and negative etc....

I've printed those out, they look very useful. Thanks for those.