Eagle-Eye

Not really. Chopper service is far away from infantry spawn for a reason. Seeing how some fly with a fully functional helicopter, I wouldn't like seeing them approach the helipads with e.g. a broken tail rotor... They might crash into your Hunter just after you finished loading up. Personally, not sure about removing the quads. Right now, they're indeed mainly used to get from spawn to helicopter or boats, which is not really what they're there for, but I doubt there would be a change in mentality after they're removed. I fear it'll just shift the problem as they'll take the Hunters, Prowlers or HEMTTs instead. As Spartan, I'd rather just delete a few abandoned quads, than have to call an admin because the server is suffering from all the spawned and equally abandoned Hunters.

Agree on a limit. I came online some time ago, and noticed this: Think the servers would also benefit from a general cleanup script every few hours. I notice a lot that the map is cluttered with abandoned vehicles and nobody's nearby, so for server performance, I always delete them as soon as I join (it's actually not that bad in this screenshot, I've seen it a lot worse already, especially on EU1):

Not relevant to the discussion itself, but on EU2, some AO's start with Independent forces (militia) as well. Map indicators aren't 100% correct most of the time, so use them with care. If someone can keep him in his sights, the map marker will update in real time, but once visual contact is lost, it will present last known or estimated position. It could easily be off by a few hundred meters. What I don't understand however, is why a grenade launcher makes you think someone is hacking? Blue, Red and Green all have Grenadiers, so I don't know why it's so special? Did you by any chance mean something else, but the message got lost in translation?

Looks nice, Stan. With some final touch-ups it should be ready to deploy from. Only point of criticism, if you can call it that, is that it's on an FOB. I've also made a few base suggestions, and FOB locations were apparently a big no-go in the current I&A version. Personally, I don't think a single entry-exit point is a bad thing to have. Despite the occasional monkeying around, it's not supposed to be a zoo but a military base. You aren't meant to get in just like that, and should ideally be easy to defend. Funnelling does that perfectly. As for people being run over, I assume they will be smart enough to not run in front of a vehicle, or learn after doing it once. In fact, if you only need to watch 1 location where vehicles can come from or move to, it should (theoretically) make it even easier to avoid getting run over... Helipads look good too, though from time to time, you do get the pilot that can't distinguish left from right, so just to be safe, I would also suggest using smaller light posts between helipads and heli spawn to make sure you don't lose your MROT, or worse, there.

I used to play it years ago, but after a while, playing alone wasn't that much fun anymore. Still have the original and Stetchkov Syndicate DLC disks lying around, though, so might just give it another go.

EU2 indeed spawns an Infantry Transport Blackfish at the main airport FOB (Terminus), but it's not often used. I think there are three reasons: - Player count usually doesn't require the capacity of the Blackfish. A Vehicle Transport wouldn't make that much difference either until FOB Bravo is active, because only that one has a Marshall. Other vehicles can be lifted by Ghosthawks, or not at all. - For whatever reason, FOB's don't seem to activate on EU2 much. When they do, most people don't know about it. - Personal opinion, but I feel Tanao isn't large enough for an aircraft like the Blackfish. By the time you've reached a decent speed, you need to reduce again for landing, or if you want to do a HALO/HAHO, you need to fly in circles to get a good altitude without overflying AO. EU1 would benefit from it more, given the player count and distances, but one problem I see there is that not everyone on EU1 has Apex, so they wouldn't be able to fly it... Also not sure if it could prohibit people from joining, like we had with Cryo's event recently, where it blocked people without Apex because of a single Qilin somewhere on the map?

As a pilot, you're moving a lot faster than infantry, so all these textures need to be loaded faster and more often. Once loaded, they'll be put in your RAM, because your computer would need too much time to retrieve them from your HDD/SSD every single time. Also, because you move faster and have access to long range weapons, you need a longer view distance. Instead of all objects in a 1500m radius (infantry setting), it has to render and texture all objects in a 5000m radius (pilot setting). This is not a linear, but an exponential increase in objects, especially around dense areas (bigger cities or forests). Quite easy to run out of memory like that...

There have been multiple topics on this already. IIRC, it's not really possible to create a black- or whitelist for a specific role (too time-consuming mainly), nor is it really what AW wants to do with EU #1 and #2. When you see a bad pilot on, you can always give him tips and tricks (instead of the usual messages that appear on chat after a crash). Maybe even have another pilot take him aside for a moment to give a quick run-through of the basics. If that doesn't help, you can ask him to leave the slot for someone more experienced, and suggest he first trains offline. Finally, if he doesn't (want to) leave, you can try to get a hold of an admin to assess the situation, but I don't think I've ever seen a pilot being kicked for bad flying. As for the overall quality, I'm sure we can arrange trainings more often, similar to what we had with Cryo's event. If there's an interest, I'm willing to spend some time organising another one.

Posted on TS forums 2 days ago: http://forum.teamspeak.com/threads/128756-TeamSpeak-3-Client-3-1-0-released-Staged

Teamspeak has been 3.1 for nearly a month, apparently. I too only noticed it yesterday, though.

Came to think of something today. Before I connected yesterday, I disabled the indicated option. It may or may not be a factor, but as I didn't have as much problems yesterday, my guess would be that with the option enabled, TS3 3D position information (wherever it gets it from) adds to / conflicts with those of TFAR or ACE.

I had the same problem when I logged in as regular Rifleman and Ast. Autorifleman. Oddly enough, even putting my TS output up to the max (+20dB, I believe) didn't give me any noticeable difference in-game, but when someone actually talked through TS, it was extremely loud. According to what I could find with a quick Google search, it may have something to do with ACE hearing (as said by others, helmets and earplugs muffling the sounds), but couldn't find a fix so far. EDIT: Connected again today. Didn't have the issue at all. Weird... :/

A few assumptions in this reply, but reading through this topic, I understand the current theoretical chain of command is like this: Cannon fodder < Fire Team < Squad < Platoon Command Cannon fodder just follows orders given by 1 Fire Team Leader. One Squad Leader controls 2 FTL. Platoon Command directs however many SL there are plus the "special purpose teams" (pilots, FSG, AT, ...). In practice, however, it happens quite often that Alpha Squad Leader needs to control Bravo Squad plus the SPTs, effectively becoming Platoon Command. As such, isn't the simplest solution that once Alpha is full, Bravo Squad Leader is the first that needs to be filled, if necessary, by someone transferring from Alpha, or by someone in another Bravo squad slot taking up field command until the Squad Leader arrives on scene? It would seem odd to me that an entire squad could operate without command, so having their own leader should be a PRIO 1 necessity. Also, if Alpha Squad Leader at one point becomes saturated, he has Bravo Squad Leader to fall back upon and delegate responsibilities to. Also, assuming the above is correct, I would think the SPTs are in fact on the same level as squads, supervised by Platoon Command? In such a case, SPTs wouldn't need so much controlling (top-down = "you go there") as they require coordination (sideways = "request you go there") with other squads. In theory anyway, if assistance from the SPTs is required, a Squad Leader should only have to ask "request X at location Y", and the SPT should be able to continue on their own from there. Of course, the Squad Leader making the request could add extra vital information (at time Z, caution 1, suggest you avoid 2, ...) but it's in no way necessary. Could be wrong, but despite being a more tactical server, there doesn't appear to be much live training, aside from bringing what you know and learning as you go. (unfortunately, this is often the best way to learn things the bad way) Maybe that's also part of why it's hard to command a larger team? I'd put emphasis especially on radio discipline, since it is something that usually doesn't come naturally and needs to be taught, while saturated or stepped-on comms is often the main reason why commanders start losing situational awareness, and a FUBAR develops. That being said, as it's vital in any two-way radio communication that you keep the frequency clear, chatter is filled with specific phraseology to convey as much information in as short a time as possible, but if you don't know the lingo, it's all just a bunch of words thrown at you. I'm not sure if brevity is being used on AWE, but so far, I haven't been able to find an actual brevity guide (if there is one, could you please send me a link?). In my opinion, such a manual could be very useful, especially for new guys, and if there is none available already, I'd vote for creating one. For example, instead of "I've got eyes on an enemy T-72 driving towards us, bearing 304, distance now 853 meters" (quote similar to what I often see or hear on public servers), you could just say "tally tank, northwest, far, hot". It's a bit less precise, but it gets everyone looking in the right direction and assessing the situation much faster, and if necessary, you can still request/give more precise information later.

When I'm on and see that the AO would benefit from it, and indeed for a bit of variety, I will sometimes spawn 1-2 Hummingbirds on EU2. Depending on how long I can stay, I'll make it so that they can or can't respawn. Probably that's what you experienced.

What are the requirements to be a flight instructor? Also, when will this event take place (approximately)?

Having only connected to EU3 for the first time ever yesterday, I don't have much weight to put into the balance, but for whatever it's worth ... That depends on what your intention is with the server. If it is to have a more tactical environment than what EU1/2 generally offers, then you have to accept that some people will not be able or willing to make the cut and are thus "not allowed" to connect. This will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the size of your player base, but if those that are in are all like-minded and you get the atmosphere you were aiming for, you have achieved success. Quality over quantity... Because of my lack of experience, this may be a bit too simplified, but easiest possibility imo: dynamically disperse tasks, and proper communication. If the ASL is task-saturated, he should assign someone else to take over a certain task for as long as necessary. E.g. if ASL needs a few minutes to do *insert an ASL task here*, other tasks can be taken over by a TL until he is done. If that means that ATL has to temporarily *insert an ASL task ATL would not need to do under normal conditions*, so be it... (the task dispersion) And then it's up to the ATL to know what ASL needs to know, and what would be nice for him to know, and what he doesn't need to know at all... (the proper communication)

Off-topic to initial post, but AFAIK, adding silencer = longer barrel = higher bullet speed, which improves range and accuracy. Can't remember if it also changes impact and stopping power. Also, the bullet will still "crack" (the supersonic boom you hear) when it passes you, but by dissipating the sound and smoke/flash at the gun barrel, it will be harder to find the point of origin.

I mainly use the Zeus interface to change weather, actually, and have generally done so without asking first... My reason is explained by what I just tried on EU2, with approximately 15 players on (myself not included)... I asked if anyone was interested in something different than clear sunny skies. Over the course of 5 minutes: 2 replied they liked it as it is and didn't want weather to change 1 said he didn't care, as long as it didn't hit his FPS None of the others seemed to care enough to even bother with answering As a result, weather is still CAVOK right now...

When I first got on this morning (around 0900GMT, I reckon), I tried @TheScar's suggestion of setting clear weather and time acceleration to 0, to see if it had an impact. You not experiencing any (noticeable) fog throughout your entire playtime seems to confirm that fog is indeed linked to time of day then... The time did still appear to be going forward very slowly, though. I'm not sure about the actual rate, but I "paused" it at 08.40 and I later saw it at 08.59, so I'm curious to see if fog does at one point return.

Though I don't think it ever hit the 60 like EU1, I&A2.x on Tanao had plenty of days with at least 30, and often even 40-50 players on simultaneously, so that can't be the reason. Unless I&A3 made them ask for an Apex refund, of course...

According to Gametracker, the average amount of players over a month dropped from 15 to 7, but I have the impression activity seems to be picking up again, with 3 consecutive days (past week) gathering approximately 25 players at the same time. We also have more pilots nowadays, in some cases even recreating the "issue" we had in I&A2 that pilots outnumbered infantry. I too have noticed a few bugs with AI. A lot of them seem to be glitching, either: - standing completely still despite there being a designated waypoint, or under direct fire - jumping front and back, as if they're lagging immensely - being stuck inside buildings or rocks The only way I've found to fix this so far is to select, copy, delete and paste them. What do you think is wrong with the artillery mission? Aside from the task showing as completed from the moment it spawns, and the long time for it to actually despawn once the Sochors are destroyed, I don't think I've noticed anything odd about it?

Thanks for the feedback so far. So as I suspected, transport and accessibility are the main problems then? Though I have no say in the matter, I like the idea of paradropping in (more realistic than teleporting poles, which I thought about too as a temporary solution) but wouldn't that require that everyone takes a chute instead of a backpack? If there aren't any pilots to bring in supplies or take you back to base, you'll run out of bullets pretty quickly and you'll have to respawn just to get rearmed. Doesn't seem very fun either... In the past week, I've made 4 bases and some adjustments to make Tanoa as a whole more lively, which I then suggested to / discussed with @BACONMOP. Initial response was positive imo, so I'm now waiting for news on if / how / when he'll use them in a public release. I can say already that St. George Airport is a no-go, though, because FOB Fin is already there.

I know we have this topic to talk about I&A3 in general, but seeing how EU2 really seems to be struggling nowadays, I think it deserves its own topic to hopefully find out why it has become so deserted. If not, admins/mods are free to join the topics, or remove this one entirely. In order to knows what's going on, as many as possible should write here why they can't, don't want or maybe even refuse to connect to EU2 anymore, and if possible, what and how you would change to make EU2 more crowded again. Doesn't matter if you have already replied in the mentioned topic above. You can repeat or quote what you said there, here, to gather it all in one place. To give you a few examples of what you could comment about: - Tanoa: Lost interest in the map, is the high amount of objects causing performance issues, ...? - Server: Ping too high, server load causing performance issues, ...? - Base: Wrong design or location, does it not have certain things you'd expect there, ...? - Missions: Too hard AI, not enough difference between different AO's, ...? - Environment: Too much fog, too often nighttime when you want to/can play, ...? - Players*: Don't play as you'd like them to enough, annoying / TK'ing too much, ...? - Spartans / admins: Not doing enough to enhance gameplay, often not or too present, ...? - ... * Small note about a "special case", in my opinion: Absence of players, while a valid reason in itself, is a chicken-or-egg situation, in my opinion. Someone has to be the first to connect and stay there for a minimum amount of time to allow others to notice someone's on, so if that's your main reason for not logging on, I do hope you change your mind soon. To start off, the problem according to me: Personally, I think it's in large part because of the base location. The current situation is that the base is in one the corners of the map on a disconnected island, while it used to be almost smack-down the middle of the map, on the main island. As a result, having a pilot has become almost a must to get to any AO after the first 3 or 4. It seems that for some reason people aren't as eager to take the pilot slot anymore (I don't see why, it wasn't uncommon before to see 1 or 2 rookie pilots online in the past. Maybe because we only have a Ghosthawk to fly now?), meaning you're in for a pretty long boat trip + drive (if you actually manage to find a vehicle) instead. Add to that, that AI has become more lethal (especially when enemy artillery is active) and it isn't too uncommon to get the feeling you're spending more time ferrying than fighting. This results in a low fun factor, and if the server is up for a long time, the AO's are further out, which makes the problem even worse. Possible fix: - I'm working on a few ideas for alternative bases, which I will present to the powers that be once I have something worth showing. - As Spartan, I'm not a wishing well that will grant your every request, but if I'm online and you need something, ask nicely and I may be able to help you out. Now, on to you.