Ryko

This reminds me of my very first car accident - a minor fender bender, where I skidded into someone's rear bumper.
 
At the time, I was convinced I was in the right because the driver in front of me drove erratically and stopped very suddenly, giving me no time to react and creating the situation that led to our fender bender.  We drove out to the collision reporting center where we had to fill out a report form.
 
"Where's the box that says 'the other driver stopped too suddenly?'", I asked myself, and the officer I submitted the form to.  This guy clearly had heard this complaint a million times.  He calmly asked me how much space I was leaving between myself and the guy driving in front of me.  "Enough," I said.  "Plenty," I opined.  "If you gave yourself enough space, you wouldn't be here," he replied.
 
The point of the story is - it's up to you to create your own safe environment.  If you get shot down by a jet, that is obviously evidence that says the skies are not friendly right now and that's a threat that needs to be dealt with before you can try to get players back into the AO.  You are the captain of your own ship.  If other players are trying to get you to fly out when there are enemy planes in the air, or too much anti-air, or a SAM site, or WHATEVER, you have the authority to tell them no.  That they have to remove that threat before you will risk your life (and theirs) to transport them in. Air transportation is convenient, but it's not the only way into an AO.
 
Further, this is the reason we give you two airframes - everyone can get unlucky.  But we limit the amount of airframes to give everyone a chance at the highly-coveted role of pilot.  

Thank you all for providing your feedback.  I appreciate that you took the time and effort.
 
 
This is something we're consistently talking about: what are the desires of the average Ahoyworld Arma player, and is the mission a fun place for them to spend their time.
 
That said, trying to define the "average" player is an exercise in futility.  Generally, you have players that gravitate to the "milsim" style, where things are regimented and meticulous with a chain of command; on the other side, you have extremely casual players who want the exact opposite of this.  Trying to find a balance is particularly difficult.
 
I contend that you have to have some practical limits to what players can and cannot do for a very important reason; mission balance.  If you have a squad full of players armed with Titan launchers, machine guns and classed as medics and engineers, they can pretty much wipe out an entire AO from a hillside by themselves, and other players will complain that they just spend 30 minutes getting to the AO only to have it finish.  Over and over again.
 
Further, if a player can take any vehicle, then you run into situations where seven tanks are dismantling the AO.  And again, other players complain that these players are ruining the game.
 
It certainly isn't my intention to prevent players from playing with their friends, and I will gladly concede that the IA4 dynamic groups system, especially concerning custom groups, isn't currently friendly when it comes to making that happen.  It's one of the last things that needs to be refined and improved before launch - but it's also one of the things that has the most bugs, and those need to be fixed first.
 
This is a server difficulty setting that we can look at changing; right now, the setting is that the markers appear when the player's GUI is refreshed (for example, going to the map and then exiting it and then they fade over some seconds.  We could set it so that the task markers are constantly on the screen, but you will potentially have up to 7 task markers on the screen (primary and sub objectives - all clustered together, secondary mission, personal waypoint).
 
Feedback from previous beta tests is that this is overwhelming and that the fade model is preferred.  If a majority of players tell me that this is no longer the case, I'm certainly open to changing it.  The workaround for you would be to double-tap J, which will bring up tasks and send them away again, which will show your task markers in the game world.
 
 
You're all completely correct in what you've mentioned.  The challenge is to make a system which balances the usefulness of the asset and makes it fair for all players to have access to.
 
I think we can (as a baseline) agree that there is a distinction between pilots and non-pilots.  IA4 tries to make a further distinction by segregating heavy armor out from all other vehicles, purely because the vehicles have the capacity to completely wreck an AO, similarly to how a CAS airframe can do.
 
As another baseline I've put a hard limit on four heavy armored vehicles (ie., Marshall, Slammer) that can be used by the two dedicated armor groups.  If you don't think 4 of these vehicles is enough to tackle an AO then that's another conversation.  Early testing didn't have these limits and we say cases of 6+ heavy vics going into an AO and wiping it clean within 2-3 minutes.  So if we can start by agreeing that this isn't desirable behaviour, then we have to work backwards from that and decide how to regulate those vehicles.
 
What you're asking me to do in looking for a solo-vehicle scenario is create a situation where you can have groups you can exclude players from.  For jets and helis this isn't a problem because they are functionally solo vehicles.  But for tanks, which can (and probably should) accommodate up to 3 players, it seems you want a system where you can have a small group of players who are your friends, but also lock out players who are not your friends.  This is tricky because if you by definition want a casual play system, you can't then start creating barriers for these same casual players from playing.
 
This is made further complicated by situations where a player solo's a Slammer, gets it killed within 5 minutes, and is then chastised by the server for taking it out alone.
 
I welcome suggestions on what the perfect solution is on this front, because I hope you can see there are a number of issues at play here, and I haven't yet found a balanced solution which accommodates them all (at least, in the Gambler/Hitman context).  I could allow for something like the Armor Commander can lock the squad and prevent other players from joining (or allow the AC to invite other players specifically) but then we run into other issues as I've enumerated.
 
I've also heard it from players that they enjoy having goals to accumulate points towards, but I don't think there's a clear majority on this issue.  I could easily be persuaded that the default setting for EU1 is that all weapons and gear are essentially pre-purchased and available in the arsenal, but I think that touches on another discussion point - whether people are chafing at role-related restrictions ("why can't I have a machine gun as a medic").
 
 
IA4 is trying to be a lot of different things, and I think what we're trying to aim for is what the "general/casual" settings will be - this is an extremely important discussion and I welcome it
 
 
It's an interesting idea Pukamafin, but as you say there's going to be an issue if, say, we make the "Fine" 500 points and your infantry player comes into the role with 4,500 points.  If they accumulate points while flying, it could be over a dozen choppers have to get destroyed before they're forced to leave the role, and in an IA3 environment one of the things the mods love doing is having to tell inexperienced/bad pilots to leave the role.  This system automates that process.  I recognize that it is at times vastly unfair (arma physics, Tigris spawned underneath you, etc) but remember that the system is at its heart designed to accommodate the fact that the pilot role is one of the most popular, and we're trying to let every player have a fair shot at the role.  Plus, it's only a 30 minute timeout.

This reminds me of my very first car accident - a minor fender bender, where I skidded into someone's rear bumper.
 
At the time, I was convinced I was in the right because the driver in front of me drove erratically and stopped very suddenly, giving me no time to react and creating the situation that led to our fender bender.  We drove out to the collision reporting center where we had to fill out a report form.
 
"Where's the box that says 'the other driver stopped too suddenly?'", I asked myself, and the officer I submitted the form to.  This guy clearly had heard this complaint a million times.  He calmly asked me how much space I was leaving between myself and the guy driving in front of me.  "Enough," I said.  "Plenty," I opined.  "If you gave yourself enough space, you wouldn't be here," he replied.
 
The point of the story is - it's up to you to create your own safe environment.  If you get shot down by a jet, that is obviously evidence that says the skies are not friendly right now and that's a threat that needs to be dealt with before you can try to get players back into the AO.  You are the captain of your own ship.  If other players are trying to get you to fly out when there are enemy planes in the air, or too much anti-air, or a SAM site, or WHATEVER, you have the authority to tell them no.  That they have to remove that threat before you will risk your life (and theirs) to transport them in. Air transportation is convenient, but it's not the only way into an AO.
 
Further, this is the reason we give you two airframes - everyone can get unlucky.  But we limit the amount of airframes to give everyone a chance at the highly-coveted role of pilot.  

This reminds me of my very first car accident - a minor fender bender, where I skidded into someone's rear bumper.
 
At the time, I was convinced I was in the right because the driver in front of me drove erratically and stopped very suddenly, giving me no time to react and creating the situation that led to our fender bender.  We drove out to the collision reporting center where we had to fill out a report form.
 
"Where's the box that says 'the other driver stopped too suddenly?'", I asked myself, and the officer I submitted the form to.  This guy clearly had heard this complaint a million times.  He calmly asked me how much space I was leaving between myself and the guy driving in front of me.  "Enough," I said.  "Plenty," I opined.  "If you gave yourself enough space, you wouldn't be here," he replied.
 
The point of the story is - it's up to you to create your own safe environment.  If you get shot down by a jet, that is obviously evidence that says the skies are not friendly right now and that's a threat that needs to be dealt with before you can try to get players back into the AO.  You are the captain of your own ship.  If other players are trying to get you to fly out when there are enemy planes in the air, or too much anti-air, or a SAM site, or WHATEVER, you have the authority to tell them no.  That they have to remove that threat before you will risk your life (and theirs) to transport them in. Air transportation is convenient, but it's not the only way into an AO.
 
Further, this is the reason we give you two airframes - everyone can get unlucky.  But we limit the amount of airframes to give everyone a chance at the highly-coveted role of pilot.  

Hello members and guests,
 
  Starting on Monday the 28th, 2020 Ahoyworlds EU1 server will be switching over to I&A 4 for Beta tests. We hope to see you there and value your input which helps us steer this version in the right direction along with squashing the "features" that pop up.  If you have any ideas, questions or have found "features" here is a link to the feedback thread: 
  

Thank you all for providing your feedback.  I appreciate that you took the time and effort.
 
 
This is something we're consistently talking about: what are the desires of the average Ahoyworld Arma player, and is the mission a fun place for them to spend their time.
 
That said, trying to define the "average" player is an exercise in futility.  Generally, you have players that gravitate to the "milsim" style, where things are regimented and meticulous with a chain of command; on the other side, you have extremely casual players who want the exact opposite of this.  Trying to find a balance is particularly difficult.
 
I contend that you have to have some practical limits to what players can and cannot do for a very important reason; mission balance.  If you have a squad full of players armed with Titan launchers, machine guns and classed as medics and engineers, they can pretty much wipe out an entire AO from a hillside by themselves, and other players will complain that they just spend 30 minutes getting to the AO only to have it finish.  Over and over again.
 
Further, if a player can take any vehicle, then you run into situations where seven tanks are dismantling the AO.  And again, other players complain that these players are ruining the game.
 
It certainly isn't my intention to prevent players from playing with their friends, and I will gladly concede that the IA4 dynamic groups system, especially concerning custom groups, isn't currently friendly when it comes to making that happen.  It's one of the last things that needs to be refined and improved before launch - but it's also one of the things that has the most bugs, and those need to be fixed first.
 
This is a server difficulty setting that we can look at changing; right now, the setting is that the markers appear when the player's GUI is refreshed (for example, going to the map and then exiting it and then they fade over some seconds.  We could set it so that the task markers are constantly on the screen, but you will potentially have up to 7 task markers on the screen (primary and sub objectives - all clustered together, secondary mission, personal waypoint).
 
Feedback from previous beta tests is that this is overwhelming and that the fade model is preferred.  If a majority of players tell me that this is no longer the case, I'm certainly open to changing it.  The workaround for you would be to double-tap J, which will bring up tasks and send them away again, which will show your task markers in the game world.
 
 
You're all completely correct in what you've mentioned.  The challenge is to make a system which balances the usefulness of the asset and makes it fair for all players to have access to.
 
I think we can (as a baseline) agree that there is a distinction between pilots and non-pilots.  IA4 tries to make a further distinction by segregating heavy armor out from all other vehicles, purely because the vehicles have the capacity to completely wreck an AO, similarly to how a CAS airframe can do.
 
As another baseline I've put a hard limit on four heavy armored vehicles (ie., Marshall, Slammer) that can be used by the two dedicated armor groups.  If you don't think 4 of these vehicles is enough to tackle an AO then that's another conversation.  Early testing didn't have these limits and we say cases of 6+ heavy vics going into an AO and wiping it clean within 2-3 minutes.  So if we can start by agreeing that this isn't desirable behaviour, then we have to work backwards from that and decide how to regulate those vehicles.
 
What you're asking me to do in looking for a solo-vehicle scenario is create a situation where you can have groups you can exclude players from.  For jets and helis this isn't a problem because they are functionally solo vehicles.  But for tanks, which can (and probably should) accommodate up to 3 players, it seems you want a system where you can have a small group of players who are your friends, but also lock out players who are not your friends.  This is tricky because if you by definition want a casual play system, you can't then start creating barriers for these same casual players from playing.
 
This is made further complicated by situations where a player solo's a Slammer, gets it killed within 5 minutes, and is then chastised by the server for taking it out alone.
 
I welcome suggestions on what the perfect solution is on this front, because I hope you can see there are a number of issues at play here, and I haven't yet found a balanced solution which accommodates them all (at least, in the Gambler/Hitman context).  I could allow for something like the Armor Commander can lock the squad and prevent other players from joining (or allow the AC to invite other players specifically) but then we run into other issues as I've enumerated.
 
I've also heard it from players that they enjoy having goals to accumulate points towards, but I don't think there's a clear majority on this issue.  I could easily be persuaded that the default setting for EU1 is that all weapons and gear are essentially pre-purchased and available in the arsenal, but I think that touches on another discussion point - whether people are chafing at role-related restrictions ("why can't I have a machine gun as a medic").
 
 
IA4 is trying to be a lot of different things, and I think what we're trying to aim for is what the "general/casual" settings will be - this is an extremely important discussion and I welcome it
 
 
It's an interesting idea Pukamafin, but as you say there's going to be an issue if, say, we make the "Fine" 500 points and your infantry player comes into the role with 4,500 points.  If they accumulate points while flying, it could be over a dozen choppers have to get destroyed before they're forced to leave the role, and in an IA3 environment one of the things the mods love doing is having to tell inexperienced/bad pilots to leave the role.  This system automates that process.  I recognize that it is at times vastly unfair (arma physics, Tigris spawned underneath you, etc) but remember that the system is at its heart designed to accommodate the fact that the pilot role is one of the most popular, and we're trying to let every player have a fair shot at the role.  Plus, it's only a 30 minute timeout.

I took the grenadier role in a custom squad and the "Gear" part of the "U" menu was empty.  I don't know if that's a general bug, or because of the custom squad or shiz is really locked down.  If I selected "Show Restricted Gear" I saw it all.
 
FA Squad XML isn't working.
 
My opinion: The IR laser pointer should be in the arsenal and not a reward.  It's the closest thing we have to prevent blue-on-blue during night missions, I would even say it should be equipped by default.
 
 

Maybe have the "Drag" option not only on the shoulder side of players but on their legs or feet aswell. Would help if someone gets downed in a doorway with his head next to enemies so you don't have to walk infront of them in order to get your comrade out of the way.

Thank you all for providing your feedback.  I appreciate that you took the time and effort.
 
 
This is something we're consistently talking about: what are the desires of the average Ahoyworld Arma player, and is the mission a fun place for them to spend their time.
 
That said, trying to define the "average" player is an exercise in futility.  Generally, you have players that gravitate to the "milsim" style, where things are regimented and meticulous with a chain of command; on the other side, you have extremely casual players who want the exact opposite of this.  Trying to find a balance is particularly difficult.
 
I contend that you have to have some practical limits to what players can and cannot do for a very important reason; mission balance.  If you have a squad full of players armed with Titan launchers, machine guns and classed as medics and engineers, they can pretty much wipe out an entire AO from a hillside by themselves, and other players will complain that they just spend 30 minutes getting to the AO only to have it finish.  Over and over again.
 
Further, if a player can take any vehicle, then you run into situations where seven tanks are dismantling the AO.  And again, other players complain that these players are ruining the game.
 
It certainly isn't my intention to prevent players from playing with their friends, and I will gladly concede that the IA4 dynamic groups system, especially concerning custom groups, isn't currently friendly when it comes to making that happen.  It's one of the last things that needs to be refined and improved before launch - but it's also one of the things that has the most bugs, and those need to be fixed first.
 
This is a server difficulty setting that we can look at changing; right now, the setting is that the markers appear when the player's GUI is refreshed (for example, going to the map and then exiting it and then they fade over some seconds.  We could set it so that the task markers are constantly on the screen, but you will potentially have up to 7 task markers on the screen (primary and sub objectives - all clustered together, secondary mission, personal waypoint).
 
Feedback from previous beta tests is that this is overwhelming and that the fade model is preferred.  If a majority of players tell me that this is no longer the case, I'm certainly open to changing it.  The workaround for you would be to double-tap J, which will bring up tasks and send them away again, which will show your task markers in the game world.
 
 
You're all completely correct in what you've mentioned.  The challenge is to make a system which balances the usefulness of the asset and makes it fair for all players to have access to.
 
I think we can (as a baseline) agree that there is a distinction between pilots and non-pilots.  IA4 tries to make a further distinction by segregating heavy armor out from all other vehicles, purely because the vehicles have the capacity to completely wreck an AO, similarly to how a CAS airframe can do.
 
As another baseline I've put a hard limit on four heavy armored vehicles (ie., Marshall, Slammer) that can be used by the two dedicated armor groups.  If you don't think 4 of these vehicles is enough to tackle an AO then that's another conversation.  Early testing didn't have these limits and we say cases of 6+ heavy vics going into an AO and wiping it clean within 2-3 minutes.  So if we can start by agreeing that this isn't desirable behaviour, then we have to work backwards from that and decide how to regulate those vehicles.
 
What you're asking me to do in looking for a solo-vehicle scenario is create a situation where you can have groups you can exclude players from.  For jets and helis this isn't a problem because they are functionally solo vehicles.  But for tanks, which can (and probably should) accommodate up to 3 players, it seems you want a system where you can have a small group of players who are your friends, but also lock out players who are not your friends.  This is tricky because if you by definition want a casual play system, you can't then start creating barriers for these same casual players from playing.
 
This is made further complicated by situations where a player solo's a Slammer, gets it killed within 5 minutes, and is then chastised by the server for taking it out alone.
 
I welcome suggestions on what the perfect solution is on this front, because I hope you can see there are a number of issues at play here, and I haven't yet found a balanced solution which accommodates them all (at least, in the Gambler/Hitman context).  I could allow for something like the Armor Commander can lock the squad and prevent other players from joining (or allow the AC to invite other players specifically) but then we run into other issues as I've enumerated.
 
I've also heard it from players that they enjoy having goals to accumulate points towards, but I don't think there's a clear majority on this issue.  I could easily be persuaded that the default setting for EU1 is that all weapons and gear are essentially pre-purchased and available in the arsenal, but I think that touches on another discussion point - whether people are chafing at role-related restrictions ("why can't I have a machine gun as a medic").
 
 
IA4 is trying to be a lot of different things, and I think what we're trying to aim for is what the "general/casual" settings will be - this is an extremely important discussion and I welcome it
 
 
It's an interesting idea Pukamafin, but as you say there's going to be an issue if, say, we make the "Fine" 500 points and your infantry player comes into the role with 4,500 points.  If they accumulate points while flying, it could be over a dozen choppers have to get destroyed before they're forced to leave the role, and in an IA3 environment one of the things the mods love doing is having to tell inexperienced/bad pilots to leave the role.  This system automates that process.  I recognize that it is at times vastly unfair (arma physics, Tigris spawned underneath you, etc) but remember that the system is at its heart designed to accommodate the fact that the pilot role is one of the most popular, and we're trying to let every player have a fair shot at the role.  Plus, it's only a 30 minute timeout.

Tomorrow morning when the server restarts the beta test will be using version 087:
 
 

Probably next Monday.

Ahoy,
 
I thought now would be a suitable time for a community update, as the title suggests I have a major announcement to make, and the last community update was in March, so I think the time is right to give the community an update about the current situation at AW.
 
Xwatt Leaves Core Staff
As the title of this community update suggests, I will be stepping down from CS. The main reason for this is that my own personal schedule has been getting increasingly busy and with that, I feel that I cannot the devote the time to AW that it deserves, therefore the sensible decision would be to step down. @Ryko always puts it best, real life comes first and must be given priority. I'd like to thank @Mark T for giving me the opportunity to become a Core Staff member, and I would like to thank the current CS team, and the staff team for the support they have given me over the years. But most importantly, I would like to thank you, the community, for backing me and supporting the decisions I have made in the past few years in an effort to positively move this community forward.
 
On a brighter note, I would like to congratulate @MidnightRunner and @Norris, our new members to the Core Staff team. I have no doubt that these two will be able to make a positive impact to AW for years to come, and they have my full backing for any decision they will make. Midnight will be taking over the role of AWE manager, and Norris will be taking over the role of Public manager. I would like you all the congratulate these two, and I want you to support them wholly as you have supported myself.
 
I&A4
The development of I&A4 is now back into full swing, and masses of progress has been made in priming it for public release. Just under a week ago, we completed a full 100% run of the mission, highlighting the progress in stability and allowing for persistent mission progress over the span of a few days. Please continue to leave your feedback in the dedicated I&A4 feedback thread, it is immense help in aiding Ryko to develop the mission. Feedback can be anything from bugs and missing items, to your feedback in how you think mission should be played. All feedback is welcome, and ultimately will shape the end product for the mission.
 
 
AWE and Gamenights:
AWE has had a ton of progress since the last community update in March, and we will continue to support the growth and development of the server for the foreseeable future. Currently, the server is rotating maps and factions after every one run of Liberation, and this method is aiding in keeping player retention, compared to the two runs that we did in the past. Support has been mostly positive for the switch back to CUP and ACRE, and we will continue to listen to community feedback about how we can better improve the server. Be sure to attend our Liberation Sunday events, in which you can find information for that in the events section of the forum.
 
As for Midnights campaigns, we are currently in a transition period between moving towards a new campaign in both the Tuesday, and Friday operations. For the Tuesday campaign, this will be moving towards a zombie orientated mission, and the Friday campaign will be moving back to the PMC series, and more information about that can be found here:
 
 
Alongside Midnights missions, we have two gamenights from @BenjaminHL planned, keep an eye out on the events section of the forum for the dates of those missions.
 
Final Note:
As always I want to thank the community for helping us to move forward in a positive direction. I want to thank the donators for their continued support in keeping AW financially stable, even during a pandemic where peoples income may be reduced. Being a community powered by your donations is a portrayal of the support you have for our community, and we will continue to make the suggestions and needs of our community the focal point before any major decisions are made.
 
On a more personal note, I would like to thank all of you for the support you have given me as Core Staff for the past few years. I have absolutely loved it, and it is with regret that I have to step down, but I am in no doubt that this community will continue to live on and prosper, as it has done since it has been founded. I would like to give my personal congratulations to @MidnightRunner and @Norris, both of you have my full backing, and I am excited to see the progression of AW a few years down the line from now.
 
Thank you all,
Xwatt & The CoreStaff Team.
 

10 to 15 minutes? Sheesh.  I'm going to split the difference and go between 180 and 360 seconds.

Ammo crates dropped by vortex aren't being cleaned up: these 3 crates have been at the salt flats base since I logged on at least 2 hours ago now
 

 
 
Edit: Rewards are being unlocked twice and showing up in the (unordered) list twice:

I was playing as engineer using the SPAR-17 with a suppressor and a laser designator before and after relaunching the game I was engineer again now without the SPAR-17, the suppressor and the laser designator. So it wasn't bec of a different class selection. 

Thanks for your time in answering me, Ryko!

Hi Art3misZA,
 
Thanks for taking the time to write your thoughts down.
 
 
I think you're referring to the server difficulty changes which fade the task markers as opposed to a vanilla regular setting of keeping the task markers visible at all times.  There's a good argument to be made that they should remain on a casual server, and we could have faded markers on a more hard-core (EU2) server; I'll pop that question to our admin team for their thoughts.
 
My feeling was to go with the faded task markers to clear the HUD of clutter; If we went this way, it would mean that you would also see that secondary mission that's 18 kilometers away.
 
 
My intention here was to remove the godlike ability the player has to know where all enemy infantry are, and exactly where and how they are moving, by simply opening the map.  As well, it would force the player to perform some level of target acquisition and keep them in the game world rather than flipping back and forth to the magic map; the targeting functionality (while, admittedly, not perfect) is meant to bridge the gap, but clearly, it's not used enough to do so.  My hope was that this was just something that would be adopted over time.
 
The reason the markers fade over thirty seconds is because they are statically marked, and over time it becomes misleading to think there is infantry in a certain place when they would have moved away from where they have been marked.
 
It's hard to say whether this has resulted in more teamkills; my impression is that there is an equivalent amount between 3 and 4. 
 
 
I should note that EI do garrison in buildings.  The difference between 3 and 4 is that they will leave the building if they are shot at.  It makes no sense to glue the infantry to buildings when they are being attacked, and in addition, it has led to cases where players are absolutely certain they have cleared a town when they have not found that trio of enemy infantry that are stuck in a building.  This way, they will leave a building and engage, leading to a completion of the AO.
 
 
Infantry used to despawn, until there was some hue and cry about how unrealistic it was, especially when people where about to kill an EI and it would disappear in front of them.  Keeping them in the AO makes it a bit more challenging, especially as that EI now gets a move order to go to the next AO.
 
 
No amount of coding is going to stop that from happening, that's just Arma.  I have made some skill changes to the EI to be in line with difficulty settings present in IA3, and I have seen it result in cases where the AI gets into battles they clearly should have won, only to get shot by a player.  The logic I've seen with Arma is that if you're being shot at by an EI, it is time to reposition, as they will get more accurate over time.  You are literally dueling with an aimbot!
 
 
You're wise to ask this question, and it's a question I ask myself every beta test.  Nothing is set in stone, and changes are being made all the time to adjust to the majority of the player base; especially the parameter settings of the mission that will play on our flagship server (EU1) where casual play is the intention.
 
One of the hardest things is to decide what features are "too hard" for a casual player and should be removed, versus what features are too useful or good and you just want the players to adapt to it.
 
Again, thanks for your comments, and I welcome discussion on any of these points.

Double tapping V

10 to 15 minutes? Sheesh.  I'm going to split the difference and go between 180 and 360 seconds.

From the TS channel: people seem to feel that the arty (secondary objective, don't know about sub-obj mortars) have a bit of a too high fire rate.  They perceive it as being artied every minute. 

Side Mission Request:
 
Destroy EMP Device: The enemy have deployed a highly sophisticated EMP device capable of disabling vehicles and other pieces of equipment. This must be found and destroyed before the enemy can move it to the frontlines. Vehicles in the mission zone will shut down and devices such as nightvision will fail.
 
Not sure if something like this is possible? I was thinking in terms of vehicles, when they enter the zone, the vehicles run out of fuel or otherwise shut down and the weapon systems onboard cannot be used. Also not sure if nightvision can be made to not work when inside the mission zone.
 
Again, an ambitious and fun sounding mission I thought, but outside of mods, I'm unsure of how practical this could be?
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Sub Objective Request:
 
Destroy Enemy Scrambler: The enemy have deployed a highly sophisticated Scrambler in the AO which is scrambling our Bluforce Trackers. This must be found and destroyed!
 
Effectively for this, when it spawns, place a large and highly opaque black shape on the map in the sub objective area (size of your choice). This would effectively mean that the players would not be able to see targets that have been spotted in this area and would not be able to see the landscape of this area.
 
I think that could be fun because it adds a level of mystery to some AO's. Where a Scrambler is active, players are left in the dark of if there is any friendlies, enemies or landscape features in that area until it is destroyed.
 
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Let me know what you think. Again, the Side Mission may be a bit ambitious but the Sub Objective is something I see on quite a lot of I&A missions and I believe it could bring some interesting gameplay.

It'd be a post-release implementation and I'm not even sure it's possible. Aircraft can have customizable loadouts but it's not as easy with vehicles that don't have pylons.  There may be away to alter vehicle ammo loadouts.
 
 
Yep, I'm well aware of this issue.  Killing infantry is pretty straightforward as far as recording kills, but for vehicles Arma is a lot more tricky.  I have tried to implement some exception cases that track who "hit" the vehicle last when it died, so as to award the reward points to someone, but that doesn't seem to work reliably.  The larger problem is connecting a hit to a kill; there are cases where you can shoot a vehicle but not kill it, but then a second later it dies from arma physics.
 
The ideal way would be to intercept the score table and equate that back to reward points, as that system seems to work 100% effectively, but Arma has no commands that let you parse that data back out, as far as I'm aware.
 
 
That's not ideal behaviour, and all I can say is that I do go to some great lengths to try and spawn enemy units out of the reasonable visual range of players.  Enemies only spawn during the creation of an AO, or when they are spawned via ambient AI, but in both cases, logic is in place to choose infantry spawn locations that are at least 500m distant from any player.
 
That said, I can imagine a case where ambient spawns in response to a specific player, and that 500m parks in the vicinity of another player, but again, it's meant to avoid that scenario.
 
This is indeed by design and for that very reason, and it's carried over from I&A3.

I think in 4 there is an exemption for pilots who are flying; I will have a look, and if there isn't one, there will be. 

Hi folks,
 
Invade & Annex has a main objective to assault and secure an area of operation somewhere in the mission terrain; and when completed, it selects a new area and creates the next main objective there.  In the context of those main objectives there are usually sub-objectives, which add flavour to the main mission, which may also be mandatory to complete the main objective.  Further, there are also secondary objectives; side missions which are completely separate to the main objective.
 
The purpose of this thread is to document what these missions are, and to allow suggestions for new sub- and secondary- objectives.  We welcome your suggestions for new sub- and secondary objectives, in order to keep the game interesting.
 
There is a big caveat to these kinds of missions, however; ArmA does some things very well, and other things very poorly.  Anything that requires the AI to drive from one point to another is just asking for trouble, so your convoy missions, reinforcement missions, and even defense missions will likely not survive from the suggestion phase.   It's just too hard to figure out how to get the AI to cooperate with what you're asking them to do.
 
Secondary missions can fail; sub-objectives cannot.  Please feel free to add your ideas to this thread and we can discuss if they can be implemented.
 
So, without further ado, here is the list of sub-objectives:
 
 
and the list of secondary (side) missions:
 
 

Probably next Monday.