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SkullCollector

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About SkullCollector

  • Birthday March 25

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    /id/skullcollector
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    @SkullCollectorQ

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    Male
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    EU3

ArmA 3

  • ArmA 3 Player Name
    SkullCollector
  • ArmA 3 XML Remark
    Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit.

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    SkullCollector

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  1. F/A-18C Hornet Lots of A/G, less so A/A. Probably going to get the Typhoon day 1, though, for a slicker A/A platform. For PvE, I also enjoy dynamic and procedural missions, but lately I've been looking into pre-briefed operations gamenight-style with some people from a popular YouTuber's server. To coordinate strikes from different IPs but still hitting at the same time while the CAP kept us safe was very satisfying. Haven't done much PvP, but I can see it tickle me.
  2. The way this thread is going is grand. That's something to appreciate. From what I read, a good part of the dissatisfaction about the unit stemmed from the mission makers for the drop in AW players. I understand that and I think I can relate to the feelings involved. To slowly lead that into a suggestion, I would mention that I didn't play those missions because the themes didn't interest me. Vietnam is not my cup of tea, but I played a couple for the banter. Star Wars was three standard deviations removed from what I like, as was Halo. About Star Wars, at least, I let Siege know after a TS poke that it wasn't for me. I think a similar thing held true for other players, in that it just wasn't their interest. So my suggestion is to have regular polls and meetings. Have polls to gauge interests in future campaign ideas. If you are satisfied with the responses even if small, everyone involved can set their expectations correctly. If you're not, lead that into a discussion about why the interest is low and be open-minded to drop or adjust the idea. Similarly, in particular for staff, have regular meetings. Monthly. Most people avoid confrontation. That's natural and probably relatable. To foster constructive confrontations, the absolute best you can do is to foster a safe, supported platform for communication. Allow members of staff, perhaps even Vet-FA, to submit points for an agenda prior to the meeting, then go through them. If there's nothing, grand, you've spent a few minutes to leave the meeting in the knowledge that you're right as rain. In the vein of safe communication, foster good feedback philosophy. The gamenight debriefs are once again a marvellous illustration of that, but it can go further: Praise in public, criticise in private. People experienced in HR are rolling their eyes now. Over the years, I have been told that I don't look like staff, that I'm too nice. Good! That means you haven't been invited to a private chat by me. The rules only allow for so much direct action. You have your hackers and your teamkillers, but situations like the topic at hand are not rare, as uncomfortable as they are. The elephant in the room was difficult to navigate around, so I can wager it was easier to stay in one corner with the people already there. Artemis noted that the division was apparent long ago. Sadly, it wasn't to me. I was frustrated with some AWE decisions, which I aired, and I just reckoned that some animosity from the sidelines stemmed from a disagreement about creative directions. There was some pushback to an unconventional gamenight idea, plus the minor squabble about event sign-ups. The rest of it, the real of it, was not once brought to my attention besides a salient question by a dev in #mission-makers about using Discord Rich Presence of our own. A meeting could have cleared this up many months ago. What's done is done, but just perhaps that's something to take forward.
  3. For those who care about this already, it will be no secret that I was one of the admins playing somewhere else and reported to be recruiting for that place. One point in @Gambit's first post illustrates quite well how the situation was blown out of proportions based on falsehoods. The supposed multiple credible sources as stated in his post have conjectured an outside impression as fact. Frankly I would suspect this is the theme for most of the situation up to the report. No, you don't get admin or Zeus for collecting medals. From there, I would like to start identifying the crux of it. Several people have already duly pointed it out: Communication. I have been playing with that unit since the end of January. In these five months, I had had no points of communication from any other member of staff as to the nature of my stay there nor that I was to stop. It was a known secret from the start, but I had no qualms about it. I joined it during a phase of AW gamenights that did not interest me, such as Star Wars, and I had been itching to play larger-scale missions. My intention from the start was to enjoy one or two of those a month, having laid out a schedule for myself to play D&D on Sundays, clashing with the big missions there, and split myself for one event in both, here on AW and there. Here I will point out that the Discord Rich Presence mod was active twice in my case, when I had forgotten to disable it. At one point, I made good on a promise I had given a good friend to teach them about team leadership and tactics. I figured it's easier with a team to demonstrate with, so I invited others who have expressed interest in learning about it on their own accord. We did this on my local machine while on the AW TS. There was no affiliation with the other unit. Neither was there any semblance of milsim advocating besides trying to teach something proper, to pass on as playing by example like the AWE Veteran Programme already attempts to foster. Afterwards, I was told that an outside party was not happy with this. I figured they just wanted to be kept in the loop, so I noted that for next time, created a staff post asking what we think about trainings moving forward and closed that book. Had it been a big deal, I thought, I would have been approached about it. I was not. During all of this I was actively aiding the development of Frontlines spearheaded only by Dom and myself. Outreach under my lead was set to begin a new initiative of social engagement and even art commissions. I can say without qualms once again that my interests lay squarely with AW. Still a month before the report, I pinged Core Staff in a staff Discord channel in a rather inconsiderate manner to point out a lack of communication regarding AWE matters. This was minutes before an Outreach meeting and I was in voice chat with staff who were not in the other unit. Due to my frustration, I mentioned how refreshing it was to have good communication at the other place, naming it clearly in the knowledge it was already an open secret. I outlined their procedures and philosophy and held them in high regard during this. I still hope and stand by my opinion that we can discuss the accomplishments and shortfalls of other communities by virtue of example, without taking it as advocating for or against migrating. For several days surrounding this, but particularly a few days later, I noticed that a member of Core Staff was shadowing us on TS. When I switched channels, so did they, but they never spoke up. I had my TS set up to connect me to the Admin Atoll, because it is a better look than sitting in AFK-ish since I looked able to respond to inquiries. As soon as somebody else was in there with me, so was the member of CS. At one point thereafter, they sprang on the exact moment I was alone and started to interrogate me about supposed slandering of CS or recruiting for the other unit. This is recorded. This was the first time I had ever heard this was a concern. It was a decidedly dysfunctional way to begin the conversation. It was also the last time there was any attempt at communication prior to the report. I offered. I got no response. The report itself has been discussed at length in the thread. I don't know its contents or what incident it refers to. For me, none of this was ever a personal matter. It still isn't. The report was made with the right intentions and I will support it, because I have all faith that it was made from genuine concern. The report simply enabled a pervasive grudge working its way through the backstage to be brought to the foreground. When I resigned, I left an open letter to staff and in it mentioned in what light I came to see AhoyWorld. It's a place of mates. It's a place to meet new people, hear new voices and the stories they tell when you otherwise wouldn't. Most gaming communities get their people through active recruiting. Very few places live off their innate draw, yet AW does. You want to stay for the people, because AW is not competing as the best. It doesn't pretend to be either. When I realised I am serving as a wedge to drive people apart, I chose to leave. If there's a regret I have about this, it's that my wedge-like state wasn't communicated to me earlier for me to leave earlier. In the end, I would like to echo a sentiment from my resignation and I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up verbatim. When I first came back last year, could you imagine my delight when everyone stayed for the gamenight debrief? There was feedback, criticism, praise. Every single game turned into an opportunity to be better than the one before. If nothing else, I would ask to carry that spirit forward into more of what you do. Talk. Find common ground and define boundaries. Lift each other up through adversity and confrontation by knowing you will get through it when you realise you're rigging the same ship. There's my naval pun in an otherwise far too dry post.
  4. We're rallying for another mid-week bout of Frontlines! Mission Length ~2 hours, with a chance to carry on open-ended Leadership Sign-up https://forms.gle/uvz2mY3zaqAzjBgUA If you would like to lead, signing up will give us and you a chance to organise plans and manage expectations! Leader picks will be messaged ahead of time for a pre-brief. Every slot is still open and available for join-in-progress. Situation Mission Gain a foothold and fortify our position. Capture strategic objectives. Establish favourable relations with the local populace. Execution At CMD’s discretion. Section cohesion is of utmost importance. The enemy outnumbers us greatly and will not hesitate to exploit gaps in our situational awareness. Counter-attacks and a general resistance to our efforts will ask for quick shifts in our tactics. Admin / Logistics Reinforcements are unlimited and directed by CMD. Resupply is CMD’s prerogative. Enemy prisoners of war (POW) are to be treated well and brought to base for questioning. The Logistics team has full discretion as to the fortification of our FOB under CMD's guidance. If no other tasking, default to supply and POW escort. Command / Signal Operations and ground control lie solely with the Platoon Commander. The RTO handles air traffic and can supplement communications. Support unit slots are under Platoon Command's prerogative and can be asked to reconsider their slot, but never forced to give them up in favour of another player. All units must be tasked fairly. Squad leaders are responsible for the operational effectiveness of their teams.
  5. This is true and a good tip, I've added inverting the map tool to that line. The real purpose of the right-angle scale is for measuring towards a coordinate, not sub-graduation. When you are given an 8-digit (or 10-digit) grid, you would align the 0 in the top right with the south-west (bottom left) corner of the grid. Then you look at your figures, say: 0507 0445. Our maps go to 6-digits, so we can find grid 050 044 and put our 0 in the corner. Then we physically move the tool 7 minor tick marks along the easting to the right. Then we move it 5 minor tick marks upwards along the northing. Now our 0 is exactly on the location of our 8-digit figure. I didn't think going that deep would be useful, but I'll add it to the guide. The grid axes flipping, however, is hopefully a sign of rare bad map design and should not be taken as convention, so I won't include it in the guide. The awareness is good, though. 00 should always be in the south-west corner if it follows MGRS.
  6. Addendum: Keypad‽ When you need more precision than the 100 metres a 6-digit grid can provide, you have another option: Keypad, kp. If you play Squad or the old Project Reality, you might have encountered keypads already. The point to the keypad method is immediately apparent when you look down at your keyboard, at least if you have a numpad. Instead of further 10x10 grids for 8 digits, it divides a grid into 9 squares. That's still plenty accurate for navigation, and even for artillery. So why faff about with overlaying grids in the first place? The keypad is an elegant solution. It builds on familiarity with an every-day object. Its problem is as annoying as Apple refusing to use USB on their phones: mixed convention. In real-life orienteering, the convention is to use a phone keypad, because unlike us gamers, a soldier will more likely have a radio or sat phone than a keyboard. (It's also what the boy scouts taught me.) Their numbers start at 1 in the top left and end at 9 in the bottom right. Our numpad starts at 1 in the bottom left and ends at 9 in the top right. So is the flag marker in figures 103-047 kp2 or 103-047 kp8? For the very simple reason that we have a numpad in front of us at all times (unless you're tenkeyless, RIP), most games and gamers teaching gamers will default to the numpad order. When you do use this method, say your grid and numpad [n], instead of keypad. But you cannot be sure. I would advocate that we familiarise ourselves with the grid system and use 8-digit grids for precision. They feed directly into other gadgets we have available, such as the MicroDAGR. For artillery, being off by one or two grids at this scale will rarely change the outcome (because field cannon dispersion is about 30 metres). For navigation, you also orientate yourself by your surroundings and can use communication to pinpoint a location, so again, a couple grids won't do harm. In contrast, mixing up keypad 2 and keypad 8 can mean the other side of a town, topographic feature or minefield.
  7. Map Basics & Land Navigation --- --- ------ --- ------ --- ------ --- --- Military Grid Reference System Often, an easy place name is unavailable or a description is too ambiguous, or in fact the party you’re talking to is unfamiliar with the terrain. That’s when you can use grids as a common denominator. Every Arma map has them and they work the same way everywhere. Grids resolve smaller scales the more digits they have. They range from 2-digit, 10 km area grids to 6-digit, 100-metre-accurate positions on an unaided map. Using tools like the MicroDAGR GPS and Vector 21, you can go down to the metre with 10-digit grids, for those times you want to send a JDAM through a window. Most commonly, you will be giving the 6-digit figure. So how do you get there? “Along the corridor, up the stairs.” Your 0-0 point starts in the bottom left corner of the map. From there, you first move sideways to the right along the easting (conventionally bottom) edge to your desired location. This is your east-west position. Then you move up along the northing (or side) edge to finalise the point. This second half is your north-south position. You give this point as a series of digits, called figures. Our flag marker is in grid figures 103-047, but only just. For precision, you can imagine overlaying another grid on any 6-digit grid to get the 8-digit figures. That would put our flag in grid figures 1034-0479. --- --- --- Scale, Elevation & Contour Lines The forgotten bottom right of your map shows this: This dynamic hint adjusts to your map zoom level and hands you three pieces of info: Crucially: the contour interval, which tells you the elevation difference between adjacent contour lines (it's in CAPS, so you know it's important) The unit of elevation of the numbers you find scattered across the map A linear scale for measuring distances at each zoom level Using the second bit, we can find hills and valleys at their highest and lowest. You will often hear hills called out as “Hill 123”, which is your cue to look for this elevation number nearby. However, sometimes you need to know the elevation of a point not specified as such. This is where contour lines help you out. Mind our flag marker. To find out where it is, we first look around and find the nearest elevation number. Let’s say 44, east of it. Then we look at the surrounding elevation numbers and see in which direction they increase or decrease. In this case, they decrease towards the east, meaning east is downhill, and increase west where our marker is, so our flag is uphill from 44. Using the contour interval from our bottom right key, we can simply count the contour lines between 44 and the marker. At this zoom level, each line means we climb 2 metres in elevation. Everything enclosed by two lines is at the same elevation. There are two lines between our reference and the flag, so it’s at 48 metres MSL (= above sea level). The light grey building by the road is one more contour line up at 50 m, but then the next line is a darker colour. Every fifth contour line is higher-contrast, so at this scale, every dark line signals 10 metres of elevation difference from the last. If our scale were 5 m per contour line, each dark line would be 25 m. From here we can discover the second useful property of contour lines: slope gradients. The more space between each line, the gentler the slope. The tighter the lines are together, the steeper the slope. So we can tell: north-east from our flag is a mild downhill, but it becomes a steeper climb the further we go south. When you see a lot of dark lines packed closely, for example, you are looking at a sheer drop. --- --- --- Triangulation Triangulation is finding your position using two (or three) distinct points. Lacking GPS or local knowledge, triangulation is your quickest chance to get your literal bearings and create a reliable, ever-evolving foundation to navigate from. The tools you’re going to need: - Compass - Map - Map tools (ideally) Scenario 1: Stranded Scenario 2: Organising Support Map Tools: Bonus --- ------ ------ --- To see what silly things I might eventually do with formatting, here's the GDocs link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CvcM2uJ7ANaKmnalOIUOS3brFQNdRxg-Q-0jIRMhs8o/edit?usp=sharing
  8. This one is coming in fast and hot on the verge of overdue. The Frontlines don't wait! Mission Length ~2 hours, with a chance to carry on open-ended Leadership Sign-up https://forms.gle/UJYm3xaiyDFwDDJk9 If you would like to lead, signing up will give us and you a chance to organise plans and manage expectations! Leader picks will be messaged ahead of time for a pre-brief. Every slot is still open and available for join-in-progress. Situation Mission Gain a foothold and fortify our position. Capture strategic objectives. Establish favourable relations with the local populace. Execution At CMD’s discretion. Section cohesion is of utmost importance. The enemy outnumbers us greatly and will not hesitate to exploit gaps in our situational awareness. Counter-attacks and a general resistance to our efforts will ask for quick shifts in our tactics. Admin / Logistics Reinforcements are unlimited and directed by CMD. Resupply is CMD’s prerogative. Enemy prisoners of war (POW) are to be treated well and brought to base for questioning. The Logistics team has full discretion as to the fortification of our FOB under CMD's guidance. If no other tasking, default to supply and POW escort. Command / Signal Operations and ground control lie solely with the Platoon Commander. The RTO handles air traffic and can supplement communications. Support unit slots are under Platoon Command's prerogative and can be asked to reconsider their slot, but never forced to give them up in favour of another player. All units must be tasked fairly. Squad leaders are responsible for the operational effectiveness of their teams.
  9. The circumstances notwithstanding, a staggering number of people stayed on to complete the mission. That's the sort of spirit we love to see. Just so, let's carry it forward every week with Frontlines Wednesday. Here you can expect an established chain of command, fully supported by staff and with a fresh twist each time. Mission Length ~2 hours, with a chance to carry on open-ended Leadership Sign-up https://forms.gle/9658WHZkwnpTb8AT6 If you would like to lead, signing up will give us and you a chance to organise plans and manage expectations! Leader picks will be messaged ahead of time for a pre-brief. Every slot is still open and available for join-in-progress. Situation Mission Gain a foothold and fortify our position. Capture strategic objectives. Establish favourable relations with the local populace. Execution At CMD’s discretion. Section cohesion is of utmost importance. The enemy outnumbers us greatly and will not hesitate to exploit gaps in our situational awareness. Counter-attacks and a general resistance to our efforts will ask for quick shifts in our tactics. Admin / Logistics Reinforcements are unlimited and directed by CMD. Resupply is CMD’s prerogative. Enemy prisoners of war (POW) are to be treated well and brought to base for questioning. The Logistics team has full discretion as to the fortification of our FOB under CMD's guidance. If no other tasking, default to supply and POW escort. Command / Signal Operations and ground control lie solely with the Platoon Commander. The RTO handles air traffic and can supplement communications. Support unit slots are under Platoon Command's prerogative and can be asked to reconsider their slot, but never forced to give them up in favour of another player. All units must be tasked fairly. Squad leaders are responsible for the operational effectiveness of their teams.
  10. SkullCollector

    Critical Injury

    Part 1 in recreating Frontlines Friday. Oh boy.
  11. SkullCollector

    Uncomfortable Skies

    Part 2 of recreating Frontlines Friday. The Mighty Nain and HIP in the sky.
  12. SkullCollector

    Gimpy; "That one!"

    Part 3 of recreating Frontlines Friday. The Gimpy got some action that day.
  13. Thank you so much for the record-breaking 42 player turn-out on Frontlines Friday! This was unprecedented. It showcased what amazing things we can get rolling when we're all in the same groove. In that spirit, we will put our minds to the mission every week with Frontlines Day. Here you can expect an established chain of command, fully supported by staff and with a fresh twist each time. Mission Length ~2 hours, with a chance to carry on open-ended Leadership Sign-up https://forms.gle/FwN944kDCL8C6exL7 If you would like to lead, signing up will give us and you a chance to organise plans and manage expectations! Leader picks will be messaged ahead of time for a pre-brief. Every slot is still open and available for join-in-progress. Situation Mission Gain a foothold and fortify our position. Capture strategic objectives. Establish favourable relations with the local populace. Execution At CMD’s discretion. Section cohesion is of utmost importance. The enemy outnumbers us greatly and will not hesitate to exploit gaps in our situational awareness. Counter-attacks and a general resistance to our efforts will ask for quick shifts in our tactics. Admin / Logistics Reinforcements are unlimited and directed by CMD. Resupply is CMD’s prerogative. Enemy prisoners of war (POW) are to be treated well and brought to base for questioning. The Logistics team has full discretion as to the fortification of our FOB under CMD's guidance. If no other tasking, default to supply and POW escort. Command / Signal Operations and ground control lie solely with the Platoon Commander. The RTO handles air traffic and can supplement communications. Support unit slots are under Platoon Command's prerogative and can be asked to reconsider their slot, but never forced to give them up in favour of another player. All units must be tasked fairly. Squad leaders are responsible for the operational effectiveness of their teams.
  14. SkullCollector

    Frontlines.playlist

    Through boundaries towards Frontlines. Did you know we're creating themed Spotify playlists for all our cool stuff? Get pumped with this one. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3mYWF1Vala8S8sCBCDCdAh
  15. Accepted and going live on Frontlines Friday. STUI is still keyed, so you can swap DUI for STUI if you experience the FOV bug.
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