Cebi

@[Luftwaffe]fr4q you look...damaged. Lets call repair specialist
To stay on topic:

 
Me explaining autorotation and vortex ring state to some dudes.
 
 

So this is the first single player game that has had me hooked since.... erm can't remember. Beautiful, scary, and a lot of fun.
 
Though it'd be a good place to put my playthrough vids and anyone elses if they are enjoying this gem of a game.

Part 1 through 5 below
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

AWC 301 Nyx can be sling-loaded under Huron.

*bump* 
 

Training for the IPSC/IAPS Dutch Open of 2017. Definitely not going to win, but the team's trying to get as high in the rankings as possible.

This guide will try to explain to you how to mark a sensible LZ.  This both for skilled and new pilot for missions ranging from pretty much safe to extremely heavy AA threads.  
This guide will not talk about how to land and only a bit about how to approach them.  The best way to do this is not explained here.  For this i'll refer to you Dslyecxis art of flight videos.  I recommend to watch all of them but you will only need the ones about transport pilot and landing for this guide.
 
1. What is an LZ
Before i start explaining how to mark sensible LZs let's first talk about what an LZ actually is.  LZ is short for Landing Zone.  If one goes to wikipedia and types in LZ you get this:
"In military terminology a landing zone (LZ) is an area where aircraft can land.
In the United States military, a landing zone is the actual point where aircraft, especially helicopters, land (equivalent to the commonwealth landing point.)
In commonwealth militaries, a landing zone is the cartographic (numeric) zone in which the landing is going to take place (e.g., a valley). ..."
 
For this guide an LZ is the place where a helicopter put it's wheels/skids on the ground.
 
2. Who marks an LZ
Before we get into where one should mark an LZ let's talk about who should mark it.  
Anyone can mark an LZ however the pilot of the aircraft will ALWAYS have the final word.  If a pilot at any point in time decides to wave of and/or divert to a different secondary, tertiary, ... LZ that is completely within his rights.
Ideally LZs are marked after a dialog between the pilot and the troops being flown to somewhere.  
 
3. Proper naming/colour of an LZ marker
Something else we need to talk about before we get into where an LZ should be marked is the naming and colour of an LZ.  
There is no best way to do this but there are some things that should never be done and i'll give some guidelines on how to name them.
Appearance of the marker:
Use a clear color.  Don't use white as it's not visible when using the topographic version of the map.  Avoid red as this is used for marking enemy positions.  Most used colors are blue and black.  Green, yellow, orange, purple, ...  also work but aren't commonly used Use a clear symbol.  Although a dot isn't bad i'd recommend using one of the following markers:
(todo: screenshot of symbols) Be consistent, don't use 3 different styles at the same mission. Naming:
Never ever even think about giving your LZ the name "LZ".  I often see 5 LZs simply named LZ.  Be original, give it a proper name. If you aren't original stick to names along the lines: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, ... or North, South, East, ... Make sure that the name you choose does not exist anywhere else on the map. Try to include some information in the LZ name: LZ fly low, LZ kiss the sea, LZ NOE, LZ risky, LZ dangeroes, LZ impossible, ...  All of these give some information about the LZ, either to fly in with a low approach (first 3) or how hot the LZ is (last 3).    
4. Reading the map
To mark a sensible LZ there are 2 really important things you need to be able to do.
First thing is to read the map (2nd thing will be explained further down).  If you cannot read the map you cannot mark a proper LZ.  
For those who don't really know how to read the map here is a small guide:
 
5. How hot is the area
This is the second thing you'll need to be able to tell.  You need to have some general idea of what threads you're facing when thinking about an LZ location.  If you have no clue whatsoever, pick the safe option, come in low and land far out.  In general it's better that infantry has to walk 1.5 km than that they never get there.
I won't discuss which threads are where, i'll refer to other guides and your own knowledge for this.
 
6. Environmental factors
Environmental factors will affect where you mark your LZ.  If it's a bright sunny day the pilot will not have a lot of trouble judging depth and distance.  At night with heavy rain he'll have a bloody hard time judging this quickly.  
Factors that influence depth and distance perception are: medium to heavy rain, fog (especially if it's a thick layer of fog just above the ground), time of day (using NVGs complicates depth perception but the most annoying thing is daybreak or nightfall as it is already too bright to use NVGs but too dim to properly judge depth), ...
All of these also influence the pilots abilities to spot objects like smaller trees, bigger rocks, wire fence, telephone/electricity wires, ...
These factors should all be thought of when marking an LZ.
 
7. Pilot skill
This is the key determining factor that will determine whether or not an LZ is sensible, doable.  Be a realist when judging skill, either for yourself or for the pilot who's flying you.  Being too optimistic will get you killed.  But also don't be overly pessimistic, after all nobody likes to walk.  (Don't mistake this that you can't let people walk.  You can't always get what you want.)
 
8. Placing down a sensible LZ - guidelines 
Right i'll start of by giving some guidelines on where you should mark an LZ.  In 9. i'll give examples of LZs.  
If the mission contains AAA (Anti-Air Artillery) and/or autocannons mark the LZ behind solid cover or proper concealment.  These weapon systems should never be allowed to get line of sight on the aircraft from the point it drops speed below 100 km/h onwards.    If the mission contains AA missiles threads mark an LZ that can be approached without exposing yourself to the AO (meaning that the AA can track and lock onto you because they have line of sight) for more than 2 seconds.  Especially not if you're flying at low speed. Make sure the immediate area around the LZ is clear of enemies.  If an enemy is up close to the LZ he'll be able to mow down any dismounting troops and possibly the pilot. 
Don't mistake this that you have to wave off if you take small arms fire at an LZ.  If it's inaccurate or sporadic you can land there just don't stay there for hours.  Get in, drop the troops, get out.  30 seconds and the job is done. If you can chose between a flat ground and a slope, chose the flat ground.  Doing drops on slopes is not impossible but they do always have more risks than landings on flat areas.  Minimize the risk as long as you don't compromise safety.   If you get faced with the choice of flying extremely low over land or over sea, choose flying over the sea (presuming this doesn't compromise safety).  On sea you'll hardly come across any obstacles.  On land there are houses, wires, poles, fences, rocks, terrain, ... that can all get in your way forcing you to slow down. Speed is your friend.  A faster target is harder to hit than a slow moving target, even for AI.  Just be sure to lose this speed before you put the heli on the ground.  So if you can chose between an LZ that you can approach with speed or one that you have to be flying slow for, pick the first one. If you get shot by AAA start flying erratically and keep the speed up.  Bullets don't track you, they are aimed at a point in front of your heli.  They also take time to fly to where you are going to be.  If you however change direction you won't be where the bullets are aimed at.  So don't fly in a predictable path.  Mark LZs in areas where it's possible to do these maneuvers.  If you get stuck in a narrow valley or between obstacles and AAA opens up on you, rest in peace. If you're getting shot at by AA missiles you have to do 2 things.  1: pop flares and 2: bank.  Be sure to keep your speed up while doing this.  If you do not bank there is a 90% chance the missile will still hit you even though you flared.  If you lose speed you'll let the enemy see you longer and thus shoot at you more increasing the chance that you will be hit.  Again mark LZs where this is possible whenever possible. Keep calm and carry on.  Nothing good has ever come from panicking.  If you're getting shot at do what has to be done, don't panic.  Panicking will get you killed.  Either commit to the marked LZ and land or wave of and get your bird out of there.  Again whenever possible mark LZs where this is possible Plan ahead.  When marking an LZ you don't only have to plan for getting there.  Also plan on how to get out.  Sometimes this is as easy as pulling a 180 and flying back the way you came.  Sometimes this will not be possible, keep this in mind when marking an LZ.  
9. Placing down a sensible LZ - examples
These examples will be in order of difficulty of the LZ.  I'll start of with the easy ones and end with the harder ones.
 
10. Some hint tips, tricks, ...
To close this off i'll give some additional hints tips and tricks in no particular order.
 
First of all:  people can walk.  It's better to make them walk than to try landing closer and killing everyone in the process.  Yes people will bitch about having to walk and they will bitch if you kill everyone.  Someone will always bitch about something.  Don't ignore what those people say but don't let it get to you either.
 
Another really important thing is to know your own (if you're the pilot) limitations.  Even a fairly new pilot can make several runs without dying ones. As long as he doesn't get into a situation (LZ) that he can't handle.  

Mark your LZ both in group and side-channel.  This way if people delete your LZ in side channel you still have the locations and can fairly easy remark them.
 
The priority anti air task is a serial killer.  It has a range of 5 km in which it is pinpoint accurate and will not run out of ammo.  It is possible to fly underneath it's coverage but it is highly recommended to keep your chopper on the ground as long as it's up.  Only attempt to fly under it if you have decent knowledge of the terrain and enough experience at nap of the earth flying.  
 
Credits:
todo:
add screenshots
make the text look pretty
add more examples in 9.
expend on the map guide
 

IonceWasATeddy was aware that there is situation going on as Scar contacted him.
 
But truth to be told this was the first time I witnessed something like this and at first, I was unsure what to do. It came back to me today on my morning commute and decided that I must write a forum post about what transpired yesterday and I found out there is already this discussion going on. Do these guys even sleep?
 
Edit:
To add to the discussion: First come - first serve is very common with rewards for pilots and I became used to it and never doubted the fairness of a "race" to get into that juicy AH-99, A-164 or Mi-48. Rarely any of the pilots really "deserved" that reward by active participation on completing side missions. So if somebody bested me I learned to stop whining that they will crash it in 5 minutes and instead provided helping tips how to survive around active AO and still be effective. And then I facepalmed as they crashed it or cheered for them as they landed at the base to rearm.
 
I think that current state is ok if we act like civilised people. But there may be another way.
 
We do have a point reward system tied to score. You can spend these points for various fire missions. What if completing side mission (namely interacting with the objective) awarded 1 special point that you could then spent at Reward NPC. After consuming the point the reward rolled from the pool will spawn next to reward NPC. The race for the reward will change to race for the objective. Of course, we might face a different set of problems with this :).
 
Just an idea.
 

@TheScar:
I understand your rage Scar. Actions of those players were intended to provoke you. To get rid of you with the perma ban. I don't know what you did to them or how you deserved their attention but they said it themselves on TS yesterday evening. 
 
@IOnceWasATeddy : Even if there is no proof. Those players were very much aware of what they are doing and announced their intent via TS to provoke SCAR to kill them. Off course you could not know that. When I typed to SCAR in an attempt to defuse the situation, they asked me to not contact him (basically shushed me). But can I ask you what passed through your head when you saw them perched on the hilltop away from AO (doing exactly nothing with that KUMA for at least 10 minutes) with SCAR at their back?
 
@ALL I am past the age that stigma of a snitch on the internet can bother me. I won't stand aside when somebody is trying to BULLY or PROVOKE others to get them banned from servers. In future cases with these MEMBERS please consider what I said in this post.
 
@SUPERLOVERs: I was disgusted by your lack of honour and respect to fellow player yesterday. I was used to dealing with this on PvP scene but we are on bloody COOP server. Can't you play nice with other kids?

Larger and much more detailed. Although some regions of the map are quite rocky and we all know how rocks in arma looks from the inside :).

Custom Faces and Sounds are no longer allowed on AWE. This is because they are effecting server performance.

I feel your pain, I used to be primarily a medic, though my gripe came from the change/nerf to the revive system where a lot more instakills happened.
 
You'll find there are a lot of people who don't know they even can be rievived and automatically hit respawn. Others see no medic is close by and respawn, some will see a medic 300m away and then see that distance meter not move at all, or start counting upwards and realise they are not getting revived, which can make them jaded.
 
The removal of being able to call for a medic when down has also meant people have no way of knowing if that medic even knows they are down.
 
So to help you can..
tell the downed soldier you are on your way. always try to make some effort to head towards a downed soldier so they see the distance closing and feel you are trying to get there. keep them updated, let them know you've stalled due to a tonk or something. Unfortunately if you go down on the way to help, you wont then be able to update them you're incapacitated (see below) AW hopefully can...
Re add chat when down (consider it the injured guy radioing for help). remove instakills even from tanks etc (no its not realistic but its more fun). If people know they dont die instantly it will catch on to hang around for a medic add clearer markers for downed soldiers (currently purple same as unidentified AI).
 

And here I thought that the most deaths are caused by lack of situational awareness and improper risk management (-:
 
Vegetation pop in has some known solutions. Do you need help with that?
 
What is your object draw distance set to? What is your terrain detail set to? Are you running 64bit executable? How much RAM do you have or/and do you run Arma from SSD? 

For this sort of close encounters with armoured species, I would recommend using smoke grenades. Obscuring vision of AI operated armour will give you far more options then blowing one of its tires with "enhanced" incendiary.
 
Also worth considering is the fact that to my knowledge no AT grenade is being manufactured right now and last was Russian RKG-3EM which was replaced in the 1970s by RPG-18.
 
As image (or video) is worth a thousand words here is some example, so we can all see what is being discussed.
 
 

So we've been saying this over the past 2 weeks now and we *finally* have something down to announce with a good week's notice!

Starting on the 12th of April, we're going to bring back dedicated Zeus ops to recreate the good ol' days when Luetin09 was here. Ops will begin around 8:30 pm GMT on Wednesdays and will go for a few hours, with 2-3 ops in mind for the evening. The map will be either on Tanoa or Altis (and we might even bring back Stratis for a day), so make sure you prep yourselves! We haven't decided which server will be used yet, but expect anywhere from 40-60 slots to be available to the public, first come first serve.
 
Any Spartan is allowed to be on the zeus interface and we're going to encourage multiple zeuses acting at once to deliver a good experience, so expect these ops to be pretty large scale! We will do our best to keep them simple, however, in order to accommodate for various player skill levels!

This brings us to our next point: above is a poll that i'd like people to answer regarding what type of ops they'd like to see on these nights. I'd also appreciate any feedback below!

And before you ask: Yes Scar, some ops will let you have tanks to use

We hope to hear from you all soon!

Regards,
-Wiwu and the Spartan team

Putting @Cebi's idea to good use...
 
 

I tried the F.O.O.D with a couple of friends and I am never gonna use anything else again!

I had used my sleepy brain and came up with idea which i would like to share with you all. You know that feeling, that after each side mission is complete you are hoping for some serious CAS vehicle to spawn? Well, you can stop hoping now becouse i have some Do It Yourself solution always available to you!
 

 
I present you my genious invention which i call Flying Offroad Ordonance Dispenser (FOOD for shorts ).
 
 
Step1: Get on teamspeak or form a squad to facilitate communications.
Step2: Increase your view distance in vehicle (so you can engage and lock far targets).
Step3: Take two (crazy) AT guys and loads of AT and AA missiles, which you shove in the trunk of an offroad.
Step4: Soar in the sky and rain down AT missiles from safe distance.
 
To be able to stand in the back with launcher ready to shoot i need to uneguip all weapons exept T-launcher, select turn out from action menu and then press "3".
 

I bought the bundle instantly. I will happily support the developers of the game that gave me so many happy hours.
 
Also, I just love the " features are free content is paid " policy.

No. (But I have a counteroffer)
 
That's my two cents right there. This won't work at all in the sense you're thinking @Eagle-Eye
 
Now, I don't mean to shoot the idea down harshly, but take it from a guy that does zeus work on a full time schedule. I've done this in the past, and only through VERY CAREFUL management does a PvP+E (Player Vs. player + Environment aka. AI) work. The zeus needs to make sure the enemy players are ABSOLUTLY CLEAR on their roles to do things, hence why even I do it so rarely. Applying that to a public server would be chaotic and I can assure you that it would be abused to hell. programming wise you'd also have to factor in different respawn points for CSAT at every main and side AO. Furthermore people come to I and A for casual ops. if they want PvP, they generally go somewhere else like king of the hill.
 
Now, let me break a few things down using zeus logic:
 
 
The AI will ALWAYS be dumb. Even with mods like VCOM and ASR_AI 3, the AI is trash, but a zeus can always do their best to adjust things. Granted, Achilles has many more tools for this, but with simple Ares, there are still things we can do here to improve the intelligence of the AI. If someone's sniping the AI from afar, call in a vehicle to come by the AI, remote it, then scan around with thermals and take pot shots at the sniper. If they don't react at all, shoot in front of them. if they really don't get it, kill them. If Ai are being dumb while their building is being breached, use the ungarrison command. trust me, it gets the players EVERY TIME, and I've been told that's one of the best things the players love to see when the AI do a small counterattack.
 

If you really want to bypass the AO limits, just spawn in units at a player's flank (within reason, we want the players to win, remember? :P) or take a vehicle on a patrol route and maneuver it around. Personally, I love to take an armed Quilin, load it with a fireteam, then drive it around and order the fireteam to assault the players from a flank. it keeps them on their toes, and the chain gun from the Quilin at a range past 100 meters is a great weapon for suppression, with a very low chance of actually killing the player.

Now, let me tackle some other points here...
 
 

You're going to want to increase the ratio significantly. I've done experiments with 40-60 players and, although it heavily depends on skill and communication, you generally want 8 Players to a single enemy player, so a ration here would be around 7-8 CSAT to 51-52 NATO. think about it. CSAT coordinating ambushes with explosives and grenades, using AA and AT to effectively take any armor and air out, they have a small group to keep themselves organized and comms clear, NATO gets WIPED if too many CSAT are on a team, regardless is NATO has a 3:1 force advantage. Seriously, the worst I've seen it is 4 CSAT players staying in a base STOMPING 50 FREAKING NATO PLAYERS FOR AN HOUR because their comms were on freaking point.

COUNTEROFFER:
I know Fabs and I have been talking about bringing back zeus days to Ahoyworld. We're still working on ideas but this could be one of the main themes we provide on those days. It would be interesting to see what Ahoyworld does with this gamemode...

 

Just a quick update on this topic ...
Soziopath took the heroic effort to recheck on this and corrected a few ,,,,,, in order to make the allowance of OP mentioned characters finally work!
We can now use äÄöÖüÜß and some more non english characters in the server without risking getting removed by BattlEye.
Good job,swedish godess,good job!

Nha that happens iff it gets marked as best answer    sry that we didnt responded earlier 
 
and We decided against the truck because people whould just run off with it  I think the canister system is much better in the long end 

Back in I&A2 we had little fuel trucks that could be lifted by most helicopters.
They were super useful for the (common) times when a pilot crash lands far away from base and needs to be refueled.
 
Currently the only options we have are:
 
1. Drive a fuel truck - Not practical when on the other side of the map, you can't expect a player to spend 30+ mins driving to you
 
2. Get a repair specialist to refuel - This is a script which very rarely works, it's a great idea but until it's fixed it isn't a reliable solution 
 
3. Sling a Huron fuel container - Requires a Huron since no other heli can lift it, so if the Huron pilot isn't responding or if it's the Huron that needs to be refueled, you're screwed. Also since it needs to be close to the heli to refuel, the pilot slinging it can end up hitting the downed heli's rotor in an attempt to drop it close (the fuel truck can be driven closer instead)
 
This should be pretty easy to add as we'd only need a couple of them at base. 

Please forget I ever mentioned ATGMs, just pretend the buzzard has only GBUs and AA missiles.
 
Would you mind elaborating on that?
 
 
I know what you mean about pilots trying to use the shitty cannon for CAS, but I'm not so sure about FF, the benefit of it being weak is that it's pretty hard to TK with as well!
 
You mean like this?
I have tried it out on the dev branch and it looks really promising, it's one of the reason I made this post. But nobody seems to be paying attention to this and are too hung up on "ATGMs OP!"...
 
I think the enemy jets have been changed to more more like how they were in I&A2, they will come in and stay on the map until shot down.
That said I still agree they aren't too dangerous to pilots, with our own jet however, enemy CAS could be turned up a few notches as well.

Ground vehicles, maybe but pilots aren't helpless.  A heli is way more maneuverable than a jet as long as the jet doesn't fire it's AA missiles (of which it only has 2 if i'm not mistaken) you can dodge its attacks rather easy.
 
Darters are more buggy than the greyhawks.  Sometimes the greyhawks indeed ignore every single thing you tell them to do but if you make them respawn that's usually fixed.
 
In the hands of a skillful pilot it can destroy most vehicles in an AO withing 15 minutes.  Simply use the ATGM to take out the tigresses, finish any stranglers off by dive-bombing them.  Rearm take out any other enemy armor and finish the ifrits/qilins off with the main gun.  And a laser is not really needed, i even find it harder to drop a GBU with a jet than with a UAV. 
 
Just my 2 cents, i really like the UAV op.

I used Repair specialist as vehicle crew in the past. I@A3 (and 3.1) is in my opinion more focused on infantry combat and this makes them a bit underused right now. But personally, I don't see that as a problem. If More FOBs are taken or side mission rewards roll some armour then those slots can be used by players that wish to operate armoured vehicles and give them more survivability. Limiting their choice of primary weapons would limit their use even more. I am happy about their current weapon limitations as they can function as a rifleman. I would rather welcome return of sling-able service containers and repair offroad. 
 
EOD squad had never seen much of use. Return of the minefields would be interesting as I was always amused by players running like headless chicken inside minefields and blowing their teammates (if I was not blown up myself).
 
My guess is that minefields were removed because so many players died in them. Even if you had mine detector, explosives and skill you often died because somebody killed you by setting off bounding mine. In the public server which in my eyes is designed as quick action cooperative FUN with low demands on the individual player experience in Arma, it is good they are gone.
 
What to do with EOD squad then? Limiting all placeable explosives to some roles seems like a good idea but it goes against the flexibility and mission flow. Let me explain this.
 
Now imagine that you crashed your bird and your main rotor is too close to an object. You need a vehicle to push it or demo to destroy it. You flipped your tank and you don't have a bobcat to flip it back. In these cases, you would need to pray that somebody capable took the slot and can land you helping kaboom so your asset can at least respawn, or hope that clearing script will eventually delete it.
 
To give and EOD more use you need to create a purpose for them to be used for their unique feature. In my opinion, that feature is not placing explosives bud disarming them.
 
Side missions where you need to disarm antiship mines in harbours or straits protected by an enemy patrol boats, or ambushing an ambush and clearing up IEDs after that, or defusing huge IED in the city which would detonate 10 minutes after players alerts enemy in the area (or more simple trigger that activates the bomb after players enter set radius around the objective). I will try to make these examples in EDEN and share them later.
 
@Noah_Hero The thing with increasing health is that GBU has more oomph than a satchel, so to reduce UAV effectivity by increasing RT HP (or limiting incoming damage by certain %) would force EOD to pack more satchels, which might, in turn, impact his combat effectivity (satchels are HEAVY).