Eroak

That almost sounded sexy.

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sc1ence

I think the deeper question here is if our community is best served by having locked squads for any reason. As someone that worries a good deal about being inclusive and friendly, I must say I agree with flatsix here. All locked squads leave a bad taste in my mouth. About a year ago locked squads were unheard of on TG 2142 for any reason other than IHS practice. Even then it was rare.

They have become accepted practice now, for better or for worse.

Pretty much every armor map the same few TG vets start a gunship, walker, apc or buggy squad. Out of respect for those people that are usually TG vets, that squad ends up with the asset regardless if the CO ordered them to monopolize the asset or not.

Not speaking as an admin here, but as a TG guy. I think the harm locked squads cause (hurt feelings at not being included, lack of fun due to less options because asset X is not available to a squad for even 5 mins of fun.) outweighs the advantages (more effective asset utilization).

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Eroak

Well, you do have a good debate point there sc1ence. Here's what I see when a gunship squad (usally made by a random pubbie) that doesn't lock the squad, always ends up with 6 people in it. Now as I said in the first post, that's a serious lack of teamwork. But it's filled with people who don't know better and then there is no way to teach them. It's keeping a serious server in order and keeping up the chain of command. It's keeping resources where they shoud be. In offective infantry squads. Now it's upon the SL alone on how the squad should be handled. We do allow for specialty squads, squads 4 or under that require smaller numbers. We as TG have the right to play tacticly while on our servers. That means is if your squads mission objective required you to tavel with fewer numbers, You as a SL can request that of his squad makeup. We are TG, As TG we are mature, we are friendly, we are educaters, but we are also tactical.

It's not often we need small squads in 2142. Most of us hove found our click with large assualt squads to be 90% of the winning force. I doubt that'll ever change. But there are them rounds where the lone engineer or walker are the true deciding factor in a seige of bottle necks and the sort. I want everyone to know if they want to atempt to make new tactics via smaller squads, they also have the right to do so. They might be forced to lock the squad out and not allow others in to test or play these tactics out.

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DaBrit

I spent a while trying to think about how to better phrase it, but then I had to go to class...I'm not sure there is a better way though

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TG-9th - By Any Means

Damonte

Ignoring the majority of the locked squad debate for the time being, here are Damonte's thoughts on locked asset squads:

Gunship: Two man locked squad is acceptable. Why? Because if there is a squad of more than two, where is the third man going to sit? How can the squad leader effectively 'lead' if the squad is not completely together and working as a unit? While Damonte isn't an enormous fan of the locked squad necessarily, he does understand that unless a gunship squad is locked at two, it will fill up with people looking for a squad to sit in so that they can avoid the squadless kick. The exception to this is when a side has two gunships and the two gunship teams need to work together. This has been demonstrated to be very effective having all four gunship team members in the same squad for VOIP communication purposes.

Tanks: Much of the same as gunships. A tank team can be very effective, but should be limited to the number of people IN tanks whom are coordinating. Crux and Damonte will go be a tank team from time to time, and with proper coordination and communication, the team can be very effective and live a long time.


Now, as to the comments about seeing a gunship squad die a lot... it's true. It happens. TG people are not always the only good gunship pilots out there. On Suez Canal, gunships can die from Walkers, ground-based AA, SAAW's, and other gunships. However, Damonte has been on gunship teams that have been critical in halting enemies attempting to capture the rear-ward flags in buggies, providing covering fire for infantry atempting to track down a beacon, and killing lots of unsuspecting armor. Anyone who plays the TG conquest server is probably aware of the high probability of earning a few deaths from gunships during any given round on Suez Canal.

Understand, that if in a particular battle there is a gunship team on both sides.... once one of the teams is victorious in the air, they have perhaps 20-25 seconds of relatively free airspace to engage infantry or armor before the enemy gunship respawns and becomes a threat again.

Damonte is tired of people who do not understand the gunship dynamics making broad and sweeping claims about the ineffectiveness of gunship pilot/gunner teams.

And again, to reiterate: Locked and named asset squads are informal and do not automatically earn 'rights' to any particular piece of equipment.

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Crux

Starting a squad named after an asset does not give anyone a RIGHT to that asset. HOPEFULLY, with good communication and teamwork it will get them the use of the asset in question but it is not nor should be any guarantee.

If you started an asset squad, make a point of POLITELY asking in your team's chat if you can use that asset, and point out that you have a squad for it. For example:

"Hey folks. We've got a Tank squad started. Could you please save one tank for us when the round starts?"

Unacceptable would be:
"That tank was ours *******. We started a TANK squad!"
Instead:
"Hey <insert player name here>. Could you leave us that tank next time? We've got a squad dedicated to using it."

The big thing to realize is that it is a game. We won't always get along with the people on our team. We won't always get the assets we want. At NO POINT does this give us the right to be rude and insulting to other players on the server. Even IF they are rude and/or insulting to us. If they are, reply politely (or don't reply at all) and report them to an admin. End of story.

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flatsix

Thank you. Finally.

Now, regarding the Buggy Squad. It was a harmless exercise on my part to see if people would leave a buggy at the uncaps. They didn't. Did it upset me? Of course not. Did it surprise me? No again. Did I run the squad correctly and convey to the whole team our intentions? Almost certainly not. Do I want the policy changed? No. Although I agree with everything sc1ence said above, I'm happy to defer to the rest of the TG admins when they say that locked asset squads are useful.

This has been an interesting learning experience. This thread was partly motivated by a private discussion that Eroak and I were having, in which I got schooled on what kind of behavior is okay on a TG server, and what kind isn't. The thread started with a bunch of guys saying how much they agreed with one another, and as soon as I posted it quickly turned into a nit-picky discussion about who said what and what so-and-so meant when they said this-and-that. In other words it became a waste of time. My apologies for contributing to that.

So, going forward: a) I will not call anyone a dirty name when they snap at someone else for taking their reserved asset, b) I will continue to think that gunships are retarded, c) I will continue to doubt the utility of any locked asset squad, but d) I will not say another word about it, and e) I will continue to waste money on mics that will never work correctly for me in 2142.

Cheers,
Jeff

Arithea

Have you checked the tech support forum? I know I had some issues with sound drivers when I first started trying to run VoIP and TS at the same time, and the tech support forum pointed me in the right direction.

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flatsix

Thanks. Yes, for the last 30 minutes or so, exhaustively. (I read a zillion of your posts .) I have several things to try when I get home.

rage4order

Excellent, dont hesitate to ask for help if you need any!

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|TG-8th|RAGE

Eroak

Azura is our tech support monkey. If you don't find a fix via the tech support forum, Shoot Azura a PM and he might be able to help you with a more personal fix.

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Augustus Gloop

Thread bump, because Eroak laid it down so well.

I've noticed some increased complaining about asset squads, and I wanted to make sure we're all able to share our toys.

Please read though at least the first post and be clear, named asset squads don't mean you don't have to share. That said, please consider your team's best interests before you solo steal an asset that has its own named squad.

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Uranium - 235

Gunships in 2142 are a hell of a lot more unstable in terms of flight, and a lot less lethal than helicopters in BF2.

Gunships, especially on banked turns, have a really bad habit of flipping completely upside down, and unless you have a lot of airspace, you're going to crash, very quickly and very lethally. Unless you carry the momentum, which isn't always possible, the only way to get out of inverted flight is to push the stick forward and climb out of it. Otherwise, you simply fall to the ground, and you fall *FAST*.

Gunship guided missiles are also a lot more difficult to use than they were in BF2 - they veer all over the place and can be ridiculously difficult to land on-target. The way the missiles worked in BF2 was far more intuitive, accurate, and easier to error-correct. Oversteering a missile in BF2142 will cause the missile to begin to spiral and juke all over the place, and it's damn-near impossible to hit anything at that point.

The pilot rockets are good anti-air weapons, but against anything else, they're extremely weak. The low damage means you have to land damn-near all of them to do some pain, which means you have to keep a linear, stable flight to do so, which makes you a very easy target. They do almost zero damage to infantry, and are only truly effective against the backside of a tank, and only if you fire all 20 or however many you have.

On the contrary, helicopters in BF2 would flip on occasion, but could be instantly and easily 'righted'. In fact in the first days of playing I'd simply roll the helicopter to bleed altitude quickly to evade a fighter. The pilot rockets in BF2 did an extremely large amount of damage, especially to infantry, meaning you could spam a handful at a flag and kill two or three people. They were brutally lethal, perhaps too lethal, but DICE is probably the WORST developer when it comes to balance - they did the opposite in 2142 - removed one of the most fun features (fighter aircraft) by replacing it with an extremely neutered VSTOL aircraft that is as realistically effective, reliable, and lethal as an Osprey.

The only thing that carried over from BF2 in terms of effectiveness is the gunner's actual gun.

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IOWarrior

Completely agreed. Flying was awesome in BF1942 DC, then toned down in BF2 with more grants given to the heli, BF Vietnam.. uhh.. no comment.. and now in BF2142.. flying was ruined. We're stuck with this crappy harrier version of a jet from DC. I'd even take the harrier from DC over these gunships.

Give me a Mig any day

Also you mentioned about flipping upside down, just let off the gas completely. After about 3-4 seconds you'll slow down to a halt and you can flip back over on a dime. You can do this at very low altitudes. Obviously, you need to have a little altitude, but you don't need much.

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Specterr

I actually find BF2142 to be well balanced to be honest, more so then BF2 in my opinion. Armor and aircraft are less powerful yes, but I think that helps that balance, not hinders it.

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