Tactical Gamer - Blogs

Tactical Gamer - Blogs - Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/ Tactical Gamer is the PREMIERE mature online gaming community. We feature games such as PlanetSide 2, Battlefield 3, Armed Assault (ARMA2), Natural Selection 2, DayZ, and more. Our community is geared around teamwork, strategy and tactics in a mature environment. en Fri, 24 May 2013 12:11:32 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.tacticalgamer.com/images/styles/UndergroundStyle/misc/rss.jpg Tactical Gamer - Blogs - Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/ Copying Woof... http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/924-copying-woof.html Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:40:09 GMT ... who apparently copied me, although I think that was only in terms of using blog posts because they're the only things we can actually edit. So, I shall also be using this little blog post thing to document missions I'm making, etc. I'm mainly mission making for Bravo, although most missions are probably easily transferable to Alpha too, although likely lacking some nuances. Anyway!

_____CO34 Fish 'n' Chips_____
Still Testing

Basics
Zargabad patrol. Minimum Players: 13. Respawn, ACE wounds revive time, JIP friendly. Requires OA, ACE, ACRE. Recommended BAF expansion pack for textures.

Outline
British forces patrol the surrounding areas of Zargabad, then Zargabad itself. Hopefully a breadcrumb trail of hints and objectives, some of which are not required. Intended approach to Zargabad being clearing the surrounded areas as noted as areas of interest, then into the city itself. Support comes from 1 x Warrior 2, 3 x Jackals. Would like to impliment other aspects into gameplay, but some require sripts I don't have, or triggers I don't know how to use (yet).

Changes Made

Removed Warrior due to it being OP, reduced player count from 37 to 34.
Fixed some map markers that shouldn't be showing.
Fixed some triggers.
Removed one of the Jackals.
Added ammo and salvage vehicles.

Changes To Make

Add backpacks for Grenadiers.
Add earplugs.
Make higher playercount version?
Octavia almost killed the server.

22/03/2012: Thanks to the initial testers!
23/03/2012: I just want to say thank you to everyone who played. It feels absolutely awesome to see a mission you've made going perfectly. Even if the assault on the airfield wasn't intended - totally showed up the advantages and disadvantages of the AI. Very tense, especially given that almost all of the squad I was with had almost entirely run out of ammo, and I'd run out of morphene - we were scavenging enemy weapons. Anyway! Ended up with a full server, so I may or may not be making a larger version as well. (CO54?) ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/924-copying-woof.html AARs etc http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/915-aars-etc.html Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:43:18 GMT Just a place for Pepper to collect together various AARs from her attempts at squad leading etc. Chances are the lists of squad members willl be wrong, as I can't remember them half the time.

Date: 29th February, 2012
Mission: Chernarus Domination, Spec Ops sidemission, south-east of Vybor
Squad:

Dimitrius
Luke (Marksman)
Ghostdog
Mark (Medic)
Pvt Recrut
... and two/three other guys whose names I forgot. I'm sorry!

IIRC, the in-game time was about 8pm. To get to the objective, we took a truck from the base and drove south to Vybor, cutting cross country a bit to avoid the crossroads just north of the objective (in case it alerted the enemy, or worse got us shot at - the idea was to be stealthy and such). Most of us either had night vision optics, CQB / holo sights, or heat vision optics. Anyway, we stopped the truck just off the road to the west of the objective, using a hill and farm building to hide us from sight of the objective. We then moved around the hill to get a good look at said obj through thermal optics, aka HaktoSight. We left Luke on the little hill with his sniper waffle to provide overwatch if needed, or pick off enemies we (rest of thes quad) couldn't see as we moved up through a small line of trees, bounding between copses etc - we were moving in a slight trough, so it reduced our lines of sight a bit. Medic stayed at the back of the squad, out of the line of fire as much as possible. Anyway, we moved up to within 300m or so of the objective, and then I sprayed the objective with smoke grenades from my grenade launcher, purposefully landing them as close a I could to the main concentrations of enemy infantry, or between them and us. Given that they were meant to be Special Forces, they probably had night vision. Smoke stops night vision... it isn't so good at stopping TWS. Fish in a barrel. As the smoke covered the hill, we opened up on the poor guys on the hill, shooting at anything giving out body heat. Not long after opening fire it was over. No-one had been hit, and less than 5 shots had been heard fired by the enemy. Back to the truck, RTB.
Improvements: Honestly, I can't think of any way this could have possibly gone better as a mission. None of us were even grazed by bullets, and the enemy hardly even managed to get a shot off. Mark (medic) and Luke (marksman) were probably horribly bored. In terms of personal improvements, I need to learn to use proper radio discipline, prowords etc.

Date: 29th February, 2012
Mission: Chernarus Domination, radio tower sidemission, north of Staroye
Squad:

Dimitrius (AR)
Luke (Marksman)
Mark (Medic)
Pvt Recrut (AT)
gijoe
Quitsosidegamer
And some others I've forgotten. Sorry!

Flew the Merlin over to the mountain south of Staroye, by going East from base then along the coastline to the south, then zooming up north along a valley. Had to pause half way down the coast because the cat was head-butting my hands for attention – gently threw her off the sofa twice, but she didn’t give up. Eventually she just flopped on my lap and decided my knees needed acupuncture instead. Paused again at the junction just south of the planned LZ (LZ Banana) because I couldn’t see the clearing, and wondered if the road was a good idea. Wasn’t entirely sure if the AI had MANPADS or not – and whether or not they’d haxxor see through trees with them. Eventually touched down at Banana, and I did my typical ‘command’ thing of, “Do what you’re comfortable with, tactical blob, no specific formation, off we go along this road to the village.”
I suppose that in some ways this is an absolutely terrible way to lead because people sometimes actually want to be told what to do. After all, if you mess up doing something you were told to do by someone else, or it goes wrong through various unfortunate circumstances, it wasn’t your fault or your bad decision (which people can then beat themselves up over). It was the ‘fault’ (although people usually don’t point blame around) of the person that gave you the order. I guess this can cause an unwillingness for people to “do what they’re comfortable with” in case it turns out to be the wrong thing. Anyway, going off topic.
Dimitrius and Luke had mentioned that the side mission we were heading for was absolutely horrible to assault, being a single outcrop hill in the middle of a forest – uphill from every side, no way to gain the height advantage to assault it. My solution was sort of exploit-y like the last one – AI tend to chase after enemies. So instead of going in to attack them directly, we’d just make a lot of noise down in the village and draw them into us. Hopefully box them up nicely in a choke point then slaughter them from either side in an L-ambush thing. This being the case, none of us had silenced weapons. The original idea was to set up most of the squad in suitable locations with a height advantage on the town, then find a single enterable building. One or two people would run in the vague direction of the enemy objective (staying out of effective weapons range), make a lot of noise, then head back to the house and barricade them inside. When the AI came to visit, they’d get mowed down. Anyway, Luke suggested that he climb up the church tower and snipe in the direction of the enemy to get their attention, then duck back down – a nice defensible position, and he might even be able to make a kill or two.
Unfortunately this was not to be – turns out the church was locked, the valley containing the town was irritatingly flat, and there were trees all over the place that weren’t marked on the map. Fine, fine… so we moved further north towards the objective, and the northernmost buildings of the town. Terrain was still in our favour – that is, a little too far for the enemy to engage from their hill – with a large field of hay bales between us and the objective. Things were a bit too crowded for an 8-or-so man squad at the farmhouse, so I sent Dimitrius and… someone else, I think, off to find a nice position for a base of fire. Turned out the only decent place they could find was about 100-150m to the east behind some rocks. Actually, I think I might have sent him off on my own. Bad move, but at least no-one died from it. Personally always prefer splitting up squads like this (minus sending the AR on his own) in rural environments – something about eggs, baskets and high explosives.
Things were pretty much set for our passive aggressive assault, when it was decided that as part of luring out the enemy (which we still couldn’t see) we’d check if hay bales were bulletproof or not. Luke did the honours of shooting through one side while I peered at the other, waiting for a bullet to appear. Seems that hay bales are bullet proof – I guess they’d snare up a bullet pretty well, but not stop it entirely. Ho hum, not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, then we settled back to our positions, and Luke scuttled off to join Dimitrius – can’t remember if I asked him to or not, but it’s the choice I would have made personally – sticking the two weapons with longest range together. Not sure why this seems to make sense to me, but somehow it does. Anyway, as planned (love it when things do that!) the angry Russians came down from their hill to see who had so rudely interrupted their slumber party at the radio tower. Any that poked their heads near the treeline or attempted to cross the field got mowed down (Later on, crossing the field, I think I counted about seven of their dead). During this early stage Quitso took a small bullet graze while stationed at the farm house and scuttled back to Mark for treatment. Kept regularly checking up on overwatch team (team Rock) and the farm team (team Farm) – Dimitrius got shot, but I don’t think it was enough to put him onto lifetimer, as he was up again pretty quickly. Still, I scuttled back to the south of the Farm (keeping it between me and the enemies) and then through the southern treeline (and the other side of a slight hill) up to check on Rocks team. They were alright, so scuttled back to the Farm – I think some of the AI might have taken shots at me, but didn’t stay out in the open long enough. Quitso had to disappear at some point, so I stole his SMAW. So far only two wounded, only one seriously enough to lose consciousness.
After a while I ordered (god, saying ‘I ordered’ feels so wrong. Feels more like ‘I requested’) everyone to hold fire and listen – everything was completely silent. Checked the map looking for a crossing point to get over to the hill – pretty sure most of the Russians were dead, but can’t always be sure (they weren’t). Anyway, only good crossing point was actually over at Rock team (a copse of trees north of them, shortest area of open ground in the vicinity), so everyone from Farm packed up and scuttled over (terrain as cover, etc) to join Rock in a big “HE GRENADE HERE PLX” meeting. Some AI shot at us as we got close to the rock, and was promptly shot for his brave efforts.
At this point I sort of switched leading styles and started leading from the front (rather than behind the farmhouse as I had been), although that was mainly simply due to not wanting to have the BOF element bound across the open space first, and wanting to get to the other side with the first wave to assess the situation. Anyway, IIRC it was me, Gijoe and Pvt Recrut that went across first, leaving Mack with the BOF. Bound went well, settled to look to the north as Rock hopped up behind us. Farm bounced ahead again to the edge of the woodland at the base of the hill, at which point things got the most ‘hairy’ (for me, anyway) they had during the entire time. Apparently some of the AI were actually clever and hadn’t run out into the field to get slaughtered – they were waiting in the forest for us. Forest fights are never nice. Then again, given the corpses scattered across the field, it could have been a lot worse. There were only three of us in the forest, and I counted five or so contacts, all of which went down pretty quickly. Recrut took a bullet at some point, but not sure when – just heard him groaning. So three wounded during the assault, but only one enough to black out. Carefully scuttled up the hill clearing as we went (not much to clear, TBH). Recrut had the satchel charges, so I asked him to plant them as soon as we got to the top – Joe and I covered him while he did, set the timers to 1 minute (Joe found another satchel on a corpse and added that to the asplosion pile) and we legged it back through the woods to the south. Radio tower exploded, mission complete. Potential horrific slaughterfest in the forest avoided.
Improvements: Not sure how to improve on it. It'd be better if no-one had been shot, but doubt that could have been avoided in the circumstances. Probably should have taken more time to peer into the forest before making the final bound. As always, need to be more firm with orders ('requests'), keep my radio traffic to a minimum.

Sort of worried that these may count as exploiting weakness of the AI and going against SOP / TG Primer. "3) Support game play in a near-simulation environment. Where the focus of play would not be solely on doing what it takes to win, but doing so utilizing real-world combat strategy and tactics rather than leveraging exploits provided to players by the design of the game engine, regardless of the level of advantage, if any, it gives over the opposing team." ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/915-aars-etc.html TG Dog Tags http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/860-tg-dog-tags.html Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:34:22 GMT Just another one of my blog spams, 'cause TG allows me to edit my blogs but not my forum posts. So I'll use this to monitor my progress on the TG Dog Tags.

To Do
Poke Apophis re trademark status of Tactical Gamer name
Laser cut a prototype
Text setup and contents

Done
Prototype outline
Stencil for future tags

Pictures
[X] My toolbox at my workbench. The thing with the red tube is the blowtorch, which I won't be using.
[X] Some of the kit I'll be using to make the tags. Metal files and emery paper not included.
[X] A saw blade, by the ruler for comparison. This is a comparatively large saw blade.
[X] The piece of copper that will become the prototype tag, marked out for cutting.
[X] The piece of copper, now cut out and in dog tag shape. Just needs the thread hole and some words. And hours of cleaning.
[X] ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/860-tg-dog-tags.html Too Much ArmA When... http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/859-too-much-arma-when.html Mon, 05 Dec 2011 09:14:45 GMT Just a compilation of the replies from this post, because the forums won't let me edit it.

You know you play too much ArmA when...
... you shout out to your squad that you can hear a chopper, mashing Z to hit the deck. After spinning your character around a few times, you realise it's a chopper in real life.
... you only realised it was in real life because turning your character in-game couldn't locate the compass bearing of the sound.
... you start looking for ladders on the sides of buildings and sniping points.
... you view all stairwells as potential ambush sites.
... your pinky finger subconsciously extends for the PTT button, when your having an IRL conversation with someone.
... you're on a road trip and you're constantly scanning the horizon for hostiles.
... you're playing paintball/airsoft, and you think to yourself, "I wonder if there's CAS available for this mission... oh, wait."
... you are feeling sluggish or crappy and start thinking a reboot or defrag would make you feel better.
... you play a round of BF3 and go to revive a team-mate while spamming the ACE Interaction button and then can't figure out why you aren't getting them back up...yeah...that was a fun "moment".
... you enjoy walking to work 10 miles away.
... you suspect every pile of trash and dumpster is a possible IED.
... you try to mow your lawn with night vision goggles.
... you carry a compass around with you everywhere you go.
... you're out walking, and climb a small rocky outcrop. It overlooks a path down the valley. You think, "This would make a nice sniping position. The rock has nice cover, too... Shame about all the trees, though." Then realise you're not a sniper.
... you change your entire sleeping pattern so you can play with people in a different time zone.
... you're late for an interview because you spent 15 minutes at the trunk of your car making sure you have the exact brief case, pen and ink refills for the job.
... you perform a pace count around your house.
... you wish you had a friend to hold the line, while you flank around the mad shoppers to get your shopping and follow through.
... you methodically map out mentally an ingress and egress and the most effective avenues of approaches at the local super market to save time.
... you wish you had a recce unit to check ahead for traffic.
... you wish you had an interaction key to key cuff the ill mannered kids in public transport.
... you post in this thread.
... you play stalking games with your boy/girlfriend in a forest at night, and find yourself wishing you had a heat scope.
... you purposefully take a nap in the middle of the day to allow yourself to stay up to 4am playing ArmA with people in a different timezone.
... you are constantly over prepared for every possible situation.
... you wait for the chopper to come pick you up to transport you to your next transit point.
... you drive at "Q" speed when driving through small towns to keep your eyes open for IEDs and ambushers.
... too much ArmA when you get lost on the way home from uni in the middle of a strange city because you tried to avoid a broken down train, and don't panic in the slightest because you're not being shot at.
...you think of the territory you cover with your job as being roughly the size of Chernarus.
...you are performing a flanking maneuver on the cx (cx is short for customer) and are using bbm so they don't hear you direct (ie. "There is no way we are drilling out that tv outlet & wrapping their house....get out the 1" thick 2 foot long masonry bit & line it up on the baseboards and ask the cx if their shop vac will pick up water").
...you think the medivac helicopter landing at the nearby hospital needs a tail gunner.
...you have typed %appdata% into windows explorer this week and browsed your MPMissions cache..
...you are tired of people that don't have a clue they need a CLU.
...you will drive the atv from Rasman to Chak Chak (cross country) instead of mashing the respawn button because it will break your immersion.
...you are writing a work email and all words are made from the following keys W, S, A, D, X, C, F, E, Q, M, K & R - left click, left click, right click - blue in face... left click.
...you call a friend to pick you up from a train station because public transport is failing (gain) and think of it as "EVAC" / extraction. ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/859-too-much-arma-when.html Stop Bleeding! http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/858-stop-bleeding.html Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:14:02 GMT I just died in your arms tonight, Must have been something you did. You should have used bandages, Not a morphine shot. Then again, at least I can rest in the knowledge that my poor character probably died happily. In the sky. With diamonds. Most of last night’s PR match was spent hiding... I just died in your arms tonight,
Must have been something you did.
You should have used bandages,
Not a morphine shot.

Then again, at least I can rest in the knowledge that my poor character probably died happily. In the sky. With diamonds.

Most of last night’s PR match was spent hiding in and around the mine from angry British troops. I even managed to shoot two of them, but only because I accidentally walked into them as they tried to stealthily infiltrate the mine.

“Oh, hi there!” BLAM BLAM BLAM! “Sorry.”

I think they really hated me for it, considering the messages coming over the global chat. Or at least, one was embarrassed for being killed by a noob girl and, and the other just seemed to hate me. “kill the harry potter chick”. Not sure if I should be offended or flattered. Then again, maybe it’s because my voice is the easiest to recognise out of everyone on the server. Also got told to “get off side chat kid”, got the warm fuzzies when some of the guys I play with more regularly pointed out that I’m a 20 year old woman. Never thought of myself as a woman, to be honest. Female, but not a woman.

So! On to the highlights of the night…

• Getting killed in the explosion of an enemy mini-chopper that was shot down by our own team.
• Watching a two glitched out corpses warping about on a pile of rubble. Especially the dead British dude, who was sort of warp-humping a wall. He wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to loot him.
• Patching up two other guys with uber medic skills, before collapsing from blood loss myself on top of them. I’d kind of reached the critical limit of how much I could heal myself by then.
• Actually found a use for morphine in game for the first time ever.
• Sprinting madly away, getting caught in bits of side blast from mortars, getting to relative safety… and collapsing flat on my face from blood loss in a bush.
• Surviving a mortar blast (only just), calling medic. See medic coming (Patu, save me!), die mid treatment from blood loss.
• Survive being shot, run into building, close door… collapse in corner from blood loss. Sing Simon and Garfunkel until someone wanders past with field dressings.
• Take incredibly badly aimed pot-shots with a stolen sniper waffle at some British soldier running down a mountain side. Feel oddly gleeful as he zigzags around like a scalded rabbit.
• Keep a guy pinned down with fail sniper fire while a squad mate flanks him. Or I hope I helped pin him down, I only saw the guy once.
• Wasted three bullets into an enemy corpse on a hillside before realising it was dead.
• Take heavy damage, throw a smoke grenade at my feet… collapse from blood loss in the middle of the smokescreen.
• End up in a three man group constantly medic-ing each other each time one gets shot, while completely stranded from rest of group.
• Got ran over by a quad bike.
• Frantically running back to my last death point to loot my stolen British sniper rifle / grenade launcher and replace my fail LMG.
• Fail to find own corpse and sniper waffle, sift through British corpses, testing out each gun in turn.
• Watch a ‘friendly’ sniper warp and teleport around the sky.
• Get healed from bleeding out, look up hill, see British soldier popping over the brow of the hill. Die horribly in a hail of bullets.

To be honest, most of last night was spent bleeding out in the desert. Immersive, but I can’t help the feeling that I didn’t actually do that much good, apart from constantly healing everyone I could find. ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/858-stop-bleeding.html A Short Story Thing http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/856-short-story-thing.html Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:29:30 GMT Stuff
A write-up of a random skirmish on PR:ArmA, in prose form, from the character's point of view. Still working out how to write this sort of thing, or even if it's worth writing. Gotta say, this short story thing turned out to be pretty horrible (as in, horrible things happen), not really sure if it's the right message to be sending out about the stuff that goes on when I try to play.

Constructive criticism welcome, as well as compliments and so forth (even better if you can pinpoint the bit you liked, so I can remember and build on it for future reference). As I've never actually been in combat in real life, any advise or information from someone who has would be great. It hasn't got a title yet, and I don't think it ever will. Lack of names for characters is intentional - partially because I can't remember who was in the room with me at the time, and because if I kill a named character off, I then can't really use their name in later write-ups, because that'd be silly. Also, I suspect that the overall quality of the writing is lower than usual, as I'm not used to writing prose on a phone, and a small screan makes it hard to re-read what I've written to proof-check.

The Story Thing
Gunfire chattered outside the building, accompanied by the ping fwip noises as it hit the whitewashed walls. She crouched behind a rifleman whose name she didn't know, sweeping her rifle between the windows, for all the good it would do her. A sniper rifle really wasn't the best choice for this sort of situation. Then again, it wasn't meant to end up like this. The trucks had been happily rolling northwards on the road when the gunfire started, somewhere near the petrol station. Everyone who was able had got out of the cars and into the nearest cover: the buildings. That had been, what, two minutes ago? Not a long time in the grand scale of things, she reflected, but a long time when bullets are flying.

Groans of wounded men drifted through the air. She itched to get to them, patch them up, to save a life in this godawful mess... But that would be suicide. She had no idea where the enemy was or how many there were - running out would just add her to the growing list of wounded and dead.

It took a while to notice the gunfire had stopped. A dark part of her brain hissed that it was because everyone else was dead. Given that she no longer heard even pained moans, she suspected it was true. Maybe they - the enemy - were scanning the area for survivors. Survivors like the guy whose name she didn't even know, and her. They'd sweep the buildings soon, finishing off the unconcious with bullets to the head.

If they stayed put, they'd be flushed out. If they made a dash for it, they would probably be shot. Probably was better than certainly, but when to run? It made sense to wait a while, hopefully to time it with the enemies withdrawing from their firing positions... But if they waited too long, they'd be cornered.

In the end, the decision was made for her. Peeking out one more time, her fellow soldier dashed out of the door, heading across the courtyard.

She swore and scrambled forwards, almost skidding over on the plaster dust on the floor. Safety in numbers - if they crossed on their own, they'd be cut down. If they crossed together, there was a chance that the gunman might pause for a moment to pick a target. She sprinted forwards, a couple of meters behind the other soldier. Gunshots ran out behind her - she hunched her shoulders and cringed but continued running. Ahead, her fellow stumbled, a red mist puffing up on his left leg, causing him to veer away from the doorway ahead as his leg gave way. More shots, blossoms of red on his back, some slowed by body armour, some not.

The impacts threw him forwards, into the wall. She watched, still running forwards, as he slid down the wall to the floor, curling up slightly into a protective ball, for all the help it would do. Something hit her in the back, but she kept moving. Another impact on her right shoulder, and she was through the door, grabbing at the stair rail with her left nand and using her momentum to swing herself around and up the first steps of the stairs. Her ears picked up a clatter behind her, but she didn't stop to check what it was.

Adrenaline was keeping the pain at bay for now, pure panic keeping her from rationally realising that she'd been shot. Climbing the stairs was harder than it should be - breathing was awkward, as if she'd sprinted far further than the twenty odd meters across the courtyard. Still, she had to get up the stairs - a comparatively easily defended position.

But she never got there. Adrenaline can only counter so much - her foot slipped on a patch of plaster dust on the the last step, and her exhausted body could not correct its balance in time. She tried to reach out with her right arm to break her fall, noting with a vague sense of alarm that it not only failed to move, but was also not holding her rifle. Must have dropped it earlier. Then she fell flat on her face. It was almost funny, having come this far only to trip and fall. She chuckled darkly to herself, and then the pain hit.

It took away what little breath she had left, bringing tears of pain to her eyes. The suddenness of its assault induced a reflexive gasp of agony, which only made things worse. Somehow she retained the presence of mind required to keep herself from screaming, although shortness of breath may well have played a part as well. Shallow breaths came in ragged, hissing gasps as she lay face down on the floor, clenching and unclenching her left hand like a cat’s claw. Think, think. Identify the cause of the pain, find it, analyse it. Easier said than done – with the initial morbid thrill of flight now shattered, everything seemed to hurt equally.

Probably sensory overload, muttered the rational part of her brain. That part of her brain could always be relied upon to make some sort of useful contribution, although she didn’t always listen to it. It was probably also closely related to the nasty little pessimist voice, too. Logic had probably prevented her from screaming, maybe, possibly. They don’t know how badly you’re hurt. Any information she had that they didn’t was power to her. Information is power. No idea where she’d heard that from, but it was something she had clung to throughout her life… which didn’t look like it was going to last, if she was completely honest with herself. Still, if they didn’t know she was down, they might just assume she’d done as intended; set herself up, crouched under a window and training her sights onto the stairwell at head height. It might give them pause in coming to find her. They might even leave her alone entirely… or throw a grenade through the window.

Analyse the damage, where was she shot? Shortness of breath could suggest a broken rib, but it was probably worse. Maybe a punctured or collapsed lung. Treating other people was one thing, would it be possible to apply the needed pressure and angles to treat herself from the floor? In fact, were her medical supplies even still intact? Analyse the damage, her entire upper torso felt like it might as well be on fire, hard to focus. At least having something to focus on, some sort of procedure, seemed to be keeping the pain at bay. Or at least in the corner of her mind.

The medical pack. On her back, its weight pressing her into the floor. That wasn’t helping breathing at all, and it would make rolling over almost impossible. She tried to move her arms, but the right outright refused, complaining with another agonising jolt of pain: another stifled scream, coming out as a hiss like an enraged cat. Reflexively she tried to curl into a ball to make herself a smaller target which only made it worse. Shuddering, she fought to regain control over herself, eyes clenched shut as she forced her twitching muscles to relax again. Right arm out of action, then. Definitely no chance of being able to treat herself effectively one handed.

Wriggling her functioning arm around, she freed it from the shoulder strap of her pack, then reached awkwardly for the knife attached to said strap. Flopping about on the floor, she used it to saw through the shoulder strap on the right arm. Progress was painfully slow, literally. Each movement jerked her shredded shoulder, sending flashes of agony jolting around her body.

[Incomplete, will continue later] ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/856-short-story-thing.html Alpha Server and Irregulars http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/854-alpha-server-irregulars.html Sun, 27 Nov 2011 09:28:07 GMT Threw in an application for the Irregulars on... Thursday, maybe? I could scuttle around the forums to check, but I won't. Anyway, got my first game with these awesome guys yesterday on the ArmA Alpha server (after about two hours of using remote assistance to try to get Bravo working, which didn't happen because the recent PR patch was conflicting)., on the Domination 2 map, against AI.

Before I go into detail, I'd like to throw a huge thanks out to the following people (sorry if I forgot anyone!) for making me welcome and helping a confused newbie.
Unkl
Bad Blood
LowSpeed
ChiefBoats
AxiomGreen
=NATR= BODIE
shane

Anyway, first side mission involved driving somewhere in a tank, then LowSpeed and Bad Blood (I thnk it was them?) scuttled into a forest full of enemies (except Blood had killed most of them geurilla style before we got there). I was given the task of sitting on a hill and 'overwatching' for enemies ahead of them on the road. I immediately got lost in the hills, and spotted about one guy in the forest, and a rabbit. Then got to navigate the tank back to the base after the objective was secured ("You know the road you're on? You'll come to a T junction at the end, but go cross-country, where the road would have gone if it had still been straight.")

After this, some more people logged on. I think there was BODIE, Shane, Unkl and AxiomGreen. Oh, and some hacker. So we all loaded up into the chinook and woop wooped our way to the next side mission... and got shot out of the air on the way and all died. Rinse, repeat, get shot again... but this time don't explode, instead just sort of... gently hit the ground while vaguely controlled. This mission was to destroy some tanks, or something. I was in the AT fireteam with Unkl, BODIE and shane, if I remember correctly. Things started fairly well, then Bodie and shane got hit by something, and I managed to fail at throwing a smoke grenade (durr, spaghetti arms), then ran forwards to heal them anyway. At which point the bullets started flying, so I hid behind a rock. Fwip fwip, ping! Tracers zoomed to either side of the rock, so I sort of stayed down and made pathetic little noises to myself. Being pinned down is not a nice experience. Good for an adrenaline rush, though. Then some shots got around the rock, or something, and took me out. Someone picked me back up, and the AT squad ran back to the mobile base thing to re-arm. Returned to the front line, and shot at stuff. Or I assume they did, I hid in a bush, wishing I'd brought a sniper rifle. Eventually cleared the area, and scuttled down to blow up the tanks. Satchel charges are fun.

Then this little orange chain appeared, went red, and we were all booted off the server. Haxx! Haxx was dealt with, re-loaded server, and sat around waiting for a new side mission to pop up. Suring this time shane (I think) started dancing. I have no idea what this mod is, but I want it. My boyfriend (watching me play) and I for some reason almost died laughing. Somehow, a soldier in full combat gear dancing John Travolta is side-splittingly hillarious. On that topic, I'll drop in some links...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-dxzRjRU-E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3WWsygldsg

Anyway, next side mission was to assault what I assume was a AA battery or something on a mountaintop. Following a pattern here, we got shot at in the chopper again, and had to eject some 2m above the ground, resulting in wounds all around. After a long hike along the peaks, we saw the enemy. As the only person with a sniper waffle, I peered at the enemy. To the south of their group was some dude holding a gun with those little balancing leg things on the front and looking around (the wrong way, thankfully) with binoculars. Turned out he was the officer, and my target. So we shuffled forwards to the next bluff (I almost got lost along the way), and people formed up. Something allerted the AI to us, and the officer started running down hill. Shot once, missed. Shot again, killed him. Then some sort of mortar smacked the ground in front of my face and I shuffled backwards off the brow of the hill, and completely missed the rest of the fight while bandaging myself. An artillery strike was called in on the enemy possition, at which point we were told the mission had failed because "the target has died in a tragic accident". Y'know, because it matters whether or not he was dismembered by a mortar or tattoo'd with bullets.

Scuttle back to the chopper, return to base, go to bed.

Shot/kill ratio through that game? 2:1. Not counting that panicked moment where I sort of sprayed in the enemy's general direction during the second mission. Although I think that was about five shots before I realised there was no way I was going to hit the guy. ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/854-alpha-server-irregulars.html First PR:ArmA Game http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/852-first-pr-arma-game.html Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:58:59 GMT Played my first PR:ArmA game yesterday, and it was awesome. In a squad of pretty much three guys, and I think that for once I even managed to kill some enemies, although I think that was mainly due to getting lucky while I pathetically tried to spray bullets at some vague enemy location while one... Played my first PR:ArmA game yesterday, and it was awesome. In a squad of pretty much three guys, and I think that for once I even managed to kill some enemies, although I think that was mainly due to getting lucky while I pathetically tried to spray bullets at some vague enemy location while one of my squaddies that actually knew what he was going tried to flank... I think there was only one guy left by the time he got there. Good times. Later, I got myself cornered in a building surrounded by said enemy again, because I'm terrible at keeping up with my squad. I heard them saying something about dropping my weapon and surrendering, and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to do what they said. Never mind that I was actually in a pretty awesome possition (in hindsight) and the only thing that would have got me out would have been a rocket or a mortar - camping stairwells is good. Anyway, either they never intended to let me live, or it was because I forgot to un-equip my weapon - I walked out, mashed my surrender (Ctrl-S) and got promptly turned into swiss cheese.

Second PR:ArmA game was... not so good. At least, not until I switched sides later on. Pretty much no communication at all between people, and then got yelled at for talking (also in hindsight, I think that might be because the person yelling at me was trying to be stealthy somewhere). Spent my time generally seperated from the rest of my side, running around confused. Then died, went back to start base, and hopped in a tank that seemed to be driving off to join the rest of the guys. Half way across the desert they stopped and told me to get out. Alright, so I will... and they drove off, leaving me there.

So I walked around the desert a bit, then sat down by a bush and got stared at by the enemy team... which half an hour later I switched to and had an awesome time. And repeatedly died. ]]> Athanasa http://www.tacticalgamer.com/blogs/athanasa/852-first-pr-arma-game.html