ACRE or TFAR

[JuX]

1 hour ago, SkullCollector said:

How is it easier? For complete beginners, I will argue TFAR is harder to learn.

 

ACRE: "You're a rifleman, you're in Alpha. Take a 343 and tune in to channel 2, use Capslock to talk."

TFAR: "You're a rifleman, you're in Alpha 2. Take an RF-7800S-TR but don't forget the MicroDAGR, you won't have a watch by the way. Enter 202 for the frequency but double-check your spelling. Alpha 1 is on 201, and Alpha as a whole is on 200. You can use an alternate channel and enter 200 so you can hear and talk to your SL. Frequencies below 30 and above 512 are invalid. Use Capslock to talk and T for your extra channel."

 

As long as they have their plugins and mods installed correctly, explaining someone ACRE is a matter of a couple minutes. So is TFAR, but I doubt it's actually easier like people make it out to be. The point of weird keybinds is moot, it takes another minute at most to guide a player through rebinding them, if they need to at all. I played with default ACRE keys for over 5 months and had no issues.

 

Cause it is simple. You install and are pretty much good to go and once you are in the server you are automatically at the correct squad freq. at least i always ended up in correct one. Issue was some people changed their squad freq for no reason and f*cked it up. Same thing applied in long ranges as well. Once you move to leadership positions or piloting, thats when you need to know the long-range setups.

 

Beaucracy behind ACRE to apply admission through forums to get TS access to be able to play in EU3 is so overly complicated approach that i gave up on EU3 in protest.

[Blue-958-]

@SkullCollector It was only that complicated because the radio hierarchy was set up differently, with ACRE it changed to all of Alpha on 2, all of LR on 1 etc, there's no reason for us to not keep that system if we were to revert to TFAR.

Also, was people mistyping 3 numbers really that much of a issue? And the watch 'problem' can be easily fixed in arsenal by swapping it once and saving, like we have to do with pretty much any repo update.

[Jochem]

42 minutes ago, JuX said:

Beaucracy behind ACRE to apply admission through forums to get TS access to be able to play in EU3 is so overly complicated approach that i gave up on EU3 in protest.

 

So, it is overly complicated to fill in 3 names on a form to get a password to a teamspeak channel, that you, god forbid, have to manually join?

[Mascant]

My 2 cent on the topic:

Tfar was a very stable platform. Easy to use radios for short and long range. Direct chat not on part with ACRE. 

 

ACRE had a rough start. Thou I personally don't experience any problems at this point, but I can see it still bugs out occasionally with other players. 

The direct chat is very nice and as a rifleman I hardly have to use the radio as long as the fireteam cohesion works. (the mandatory push to talk "annoys"  me more at this point tbo) 

I have all my loadouts saved without radio and just grab one from the radio box each time. 

 

Personally I prefer ACRE for its direct chat, but if a majority rather wants to go with Tfar it's fine for me too. 

 

I just wonder if we go back to Tfar,  how much work would it be to adapt gauntlet? And who would be in charge of it? 

 

 

[Johnson]

Most of the new players on EU#3 now have adapted or even started using ACRE, its so f*cking unnecessary to go back to TFAR IMO. I just dont see any benefits in switching when ACRE is already great and people are very well adapted to it.

 

Also on a personal notice I love the ACRE radios complexity of the longer range radios and the awesome interface and usability and features, so cool 

[Vlk]

Question/clarification: by acre have direct chat and tfar does not, u mean like typing or voice to voice

Sent from my iPhone using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[Mascant]

Direct voice is what I ment. Sorry for the confusion. 

Of course both tfar and acre have it. Personally I think the acre direct voice is a wee bit better. 

[Remixer]

I would say TFAR is more "realistic" and more fun to use, since it uses frequensies instead of channels. I have never seen a radio irl that uses channels. TFAR (From personal experience) Is just more satisfying and less buggy.

[Jochem]

55 minutes ago, Remixer said:

I would say TFAR is more "realistic" and more fun to use, since it uses frequensies instead of channels. I have never seen a radio irl that uses channels.

 

This is just not true, do some fact checking before posting. In fact you can set frequencies on the 148 and the 117F (in ACRE and rl), the 343 and 152 are preprogrammed with channels.

[Karate Pyjamas]

I'm all pro ACRE, then started leaning to TFAR after some good arguments, now leaning back to ACRE. Tbh,at this moment and time I think switching back is more of a hassle than keeping it the way it is. That and the outdated development of TFAR.

[Remixer]

2 hours ago, Jochem said:

 

This is just not true, do some fact checking before posting. In fact you can set frequencies on the 148 and the 117F (in ACRE and rl), the 343 and 152 are preprogrammed with channels.

If you read my post again, you can see that i wrote I WOULD SAY.

[GhostDragon]

One could argue that 152 and 343 are pre programmed in tfar too difference being that it allows for the user to change them with a external device(microdagr) if tfar is correctly set up when units spawn or the radios are spawned then they should have the correct frequencies and would not need to be Changed

[Pistolfreak]

Another guy from TF(A)R camp here. Please note that in this post I discuss about this topic in a respective manner towards everyone and try to point out few things that seem to have worried, or worse, maybe even scared some of players. I do not mean to post this writing as an attemption trying to advise anyone in anything nor set the current procedures in a bad light, know it!
 

 

I joined this gaming group last week and since then I've had several issues with ACRE and I've heard people swear around because of mystic errors in radio system's general functionality, without having environment based issues when in communications; I've had stuttering with a guy next to me, people have said that my voice in radio has been rubbish, mystic in-the-middle-of-a-game-pipe-errors etc. In addition to that the sound quality in ACRE is generally lower when compared to TFR. With this exact same system I've played with you guys, I've never had a problem with TFR.

 

Few thoughts I want to share with everyone without getting a single penny; 


 

Many have pointed out that on acre you simply choose a channel you need to go and stated the fact that you need to configure TFR's rifleman radios with mDagrs.

 

Point of view 1
Do the field ppl really have to have the rifleman versions of radio? In the group I've been playing for half a year, everyone's got a personal radio (the green Happis like, range in good conditions around 5-10km) if it's not against the idea of the mission (such in Vietnam missions, where nobody else than the squad leader have a long range (backpack one) radio).  Why is this?

In the group I've played most with, the Happis one (or similar) is used as the ''SR one of the radios'', it's just the habit. One of best sides of TFR: You can have an additional channel in one radio, which makes you able to communicate via two separate channels with one radio (two separate tangents). With my finnish team this is taken as an advantage: Every single one in teams is having a predefined channel in use for the TEAM communications and leaders can have an additional channel for command net (exactly the same deal as with two radios right now, but with one radio).





Point of view 2 

 

It would seem that some are worried that TFR involves a lot of frequency hazzle.

Worried and a very, possible statement: '' TFR.... It's purely based on manually putting in frequencies everytime you die or join the game. I don't ever want to have monkey business with a frequency fool.''

- Negative. When correctly set, you don't even have to touch the frequencies as a man standing in the line. On TFR radios' frequencies can be predefined for every mission for every faction, and the channel frequencies are set correctly when the mission starts. Just get to the correct channel by pressing numpad key of your channel. 

As an example of game starting and team / squad members having ''Happis''

Team / squad members' actions needed to be on team's net after (re)spawn, and without opening the radio UI.

*Press numpad [channel number defined for your team's net ]* -> *Optionally set stereo setting [CTRL+ arrow]* -> you're good to go.  No need to hazzle with frequencies. 

Squad leader's actions needed to be on the command net (squad leaders and higher ranked, net where squad leaders get the orders such as initiate a commands) AND team's net:

1. Setting additional channel: 
*Open radio UI* -> *press [numpad number of channel supposed to have as additional channel]* -> *press radio UI button that has tooltip ''set as additional''* ->*Set optional stereo setting [CTRL+arrow]* 

2. Setting main channel:

*press numpad [number of the channel intended to have as main channel]* -> *Set optional stereo setting [CTRL+arrow]*       -> Good to go again. No need to hazzle with frequencies.




I'd like to hear your thoughts, my mates, about this (yeah, this is a neutral suggestion, I wish that everyone would take a look at this, even from the opposite point of view) :  Advantages of this kind of setup are vast, such as getting information, threat announcements between the team members or commands from leader to everyone meant to hear it a lot faster. How would this exactly solve the net a bit?
By team's having own channel which would  only be for communication between team and the leader. This would remove ALL info traffic, high commands, traffic between leaders and assets from normal riflemens'  and team workers' radios. The chit chat of course is only in 3d speech when rock's not hitting the fan. Commands and infos would be read loud and clear for every team member. I have to admit, that I myself have had several issues when learning to understand comms, with one radio having both, team based and squad based traffic, and another radio between leaders and assets.  Team / Squad leaders could easily add the command net as an additional channel. Each channel can (naturally) be set a stereo setting of your wish, such as like team net on left ear, and command net on right ear, and you'd even have separate tangents for those nets (CAPS, T). The backpack radio wouldn't most likely be needed, since the personal radio models of TFR have at least good range as the 152's there are on the field at the moment. For those who still need to have a longer range, there's the backpack model, which can be integrated to specific vehicles ( such as choppers, armor, planes etc.).

If that sounds even a little inconvenient, the TFR is still easy to use for comms in the very same system of channels, as at the moment Please do doubt me if any reason given. Official apologies for a little messy post, I'm writing this in a hurry. See you all in the field!



 

[Ryko]

Quote

Do the field ppl really have to have the rifleman versions of radio?

 

We try to compartmentalize the radio communications as much as possible on EU3: if everyone had a 152 radio, then the Squad Leaders would have to hear everyone's local tactical communications as well as communicate with other teams and command, on the same radio.  A rule on the server is that radios are only supposed to be used for important conversation, but that generally doesn't stop people from spamming them.  Also: ACRE uses the half-duplex system, so if a rifleman is using the 152 to call out a target, he will hog the channel while Platoon Command wants to send information to the Squad Leader.

 

So, the 343 personal radios serve a valuable function for allowing teams to communicate their immediate tactical situation without clogging the long range communication.

 

- R

[Johnson]

So HybridRage brought up a good counterpoint during a operation on EU#3 (as he does not wish to comment on this post as he dosnt want to get involved in these discussions) saying "Why would people download 20 fucking gigs of mods and then say 'Ah it EU#3 uses ACRE, thats too complex for me, oh well".

This quote is in refrence to the points people are making about how newcomers are turned away from the idea of ACRE over TFAR, where as I said in a earlier post, most new players have joined fine in the use of ACRE.

[Ryko]

@J0hnsonI don't disagree that ACRE is a more "realistic" MOD.  But from an admin point of view TFAR is easier to implement, and more forgiving in usage.  Case in point: terrain interception will sometimes render radios useless, making some players believe they are not working when in fact this is intended behaviour.  Further, they will then resort to side chat which kills the immersion you're looking for.

 

If TFAR would add half-duplex operation, I think there would be a huge inclination to switch.

[Grezvany13]

14 hours ago, Pistolfreak said:

Point of view 1

Every single one in teams is having a predefined channel in use for the TEAM communications and leaders can have an additional channel for command net (exactly the same deal as with two radios right now, but with one radio).

Actually, I like the fact that there are 2 separate radios and I love the way how ACRE supports this.

Especially the fact that you can set a radio to either the left or right ear, instead of (always) both ears.

 

I've used this in the past by setting my squad radio to my left ear, and my platoon radio to my right ear (dominant side). This way I know exactly from which radio the information is coming, and the platoon radio is more "in the ear" since it's on my dominant side.

 

Even when I'm not in a commanding role (and if the CO allows it), I'll bring an extra 148 with me and set it to the platoon channel (especially useful as TL or Medic) to get the extra information when the SL is either unable to listen/reply or to help him with his duties (listen only).

 

 

Since I've not used TFAR yet, I don't know if it's possible to do the same (put one channel/radio in one ear, and another in another ear).

Besides that, I think that the different features of the radios (like the range) make it more useful to carry 2 radios instead of 1. Within a team/squad you never should be 300 meters away from each other, where another squad in the platoon should be more than that.

[Pistolfreak]

13 hours ago, Ryko said:

We try to compartmentalize the radio communications as much as possible on EU3: if everyone had a 152 radio, then the Squad Leaders would have to hear everyone's local tactical communications as well as communicate with other teams and command, on the same radio.

Ah yes, I guess I got a bit misunderstood. I meant to make phrase of ''rifleman radios'' to be connected to TFAR radio idea. Let's correct it a bit:  Would basic riflemen have to have exactly the rifleman version of radios, if TFAR was in use?

Channels could still be set up in same way, basic soldiers could be on ''SR'' net only (a channel as a replacement of 343), leaders could still have their company net normally (''152-like''). There would be the same separation of comms lines, as with two different radios at the moment.  On my question of rifleman radios, I definately did NOT mean that everyone on field should be having the same model radio AND being on the same channel. 

I do admit, that TFAR is more UNrealistic mod, by it's generally more better quality, especially when it comes to transmissions in environment, but is the quality of the sound and a quite limited range values of realism? I'm gonna be really realistic now: I've never seen a situation on basic op. field where everyone's got personal radios, if not having shiny buttons on your chest. Or unless you're a military police are taking over a building or special forces assaulting a boat.  But let's not be that realistic, huh? 



 

Quote

''Since I've not used TFAR yet, I don't know if it's possible to do the same (put one channel/radio in one ear, and another in another ear). 

Besides that, I think that the different features of the radios (like the range) make it more useful to carry 2 radios instead of 1. Within a team/squad you never should be 300 meters away from each other, where another squad in the platoon should be more than that.

With all the respect in the world, I wouldn't be stating it being possible in TFR to set the stereo setting to a specific ear, and for both channels, if I didn't know it for sure. I somehow don't find having to carry two radios, just by one's feature of having a very short range, handy. And yeah, squad should be operating inside that box but also, not all leaders check if someone needs to take a knee, which may lead team being on a more spread area. Also in case a leader gets a 40-mike to stomach, and nobody realizes to take the 152 and take over... that's when rocks hit the fan, if the next one in team / squad command cannot get current orders from company. Of course this will get it's true meaning better in TvT.




 

[Grezvany13]

1 hour ago, Pistolfreak said:

With all the respect in the world, I wouldn't be stating it being possible in TFR to set the stereo setting to a specific ear, and for both channels, if I didn't know it for sure.

Uhm... I said that, since I haven't played with TFAR yet, I don't know if it has the same features as ACRE like setting the stereo mode of the radios (or even channels).

 

However, since I'm a nice and curious person, I checked the documentation and will share it with the rest of the readers. I found out it is possible to set a single radio to a single (or both) ear. But I can't really figure out if this also applies to specific channels.

 

 

As for audio quality: I've listen some youtube videos to compare both systems (although some are rather old), and I have to say that I prefer the ACRE quality. Especially the 3D placement of direct chat seems more realistic, and the distance seems to fade "better".

 

Also the cracking in the radio transmissions feel more realistic in ACRE, even at lower distances.

[JuX]

3 hours ago, Grezvany13 said:

Actually, I like the fact that there are 2 separate radios and I love the way how ACRE supports this.

Especially the fact that you can set a radio to either the left or right ear, instead of (always) both ears.

 

I've used this in the past by setting my squad radio to my left ear, and my platoon radio to my right ear (dominant side). This way I know exactly from which radio the information is coming, and the platoon radio is more "in the ear" since it's on my dominant side.

 

Even when I'm not in a commanding role (and if the CO allows it), I'll bring an extra 148 with me and set it to the platoon channel (especially useful as TL or Medic) to get the extra information when the SL is either unable to listen/reply or to help him with his duties (listen only).

 

 

Since I've not used TFAR yet, I don't know if it's possible to do the same (put one channel/radio in one ear, and another in another ear).

Besides that, I think that the different features of the radios (like the range) make it more useful to carry 2 radios instead of 1. Within a team/squad you never should be 300 meters away from each other, where another squad in the platoon should be more than that.

 

Yes, yes you can do this with TFAR as well.

 

 

[SkullCollector]

Obviously I'm biased because I personally prefer ACRE, but I see no reason to switch back to TFAR when the current implementation already works well. I'd rather iron out the kinks (and looking at the possibility of EU6 with ACRE, it's mutually benefiting) than to switch now only to have another one of these discussions in a few months because AHOSEC players don't like using two systems in parallel. The last time I saw ACRE crap out on somebody on Gauntlet was last month, but that somebody loaded a kit with three identical radios. It took a quick abort-rejoin to get rid of the message and a good schooling so that it doesn't happen again, and everyone was good to go within the minute.

 

I've heard no recent complaints about ACRE, at least not during gameplay. Terrain obstruction and limited 343 range have been taken as given, as features not as a nuisance. In fact, I believe it encourages team coherence and enforces a radio structure when there's only one per squad with a line to CMD or support elements. We don't even need a rule or training for that, it's just there, it's again indirect pressure to think and adjust.

Some of the best fun I've had was as A2 TL trying to recover A1's 152 which he had previously picked up from ASL, while shelled by a BMP-2. It's an integral part of immersion, and if you can't find the 152, you're stranded in hostile territory. Find a civ car and head home, probably under fire. Actually have a mission go to shit and be surprised how much a radio mod can alter your experience once you can't go by the book any more.

If you're out of range of everything, then something went wrong and you have to deal with it, not the mod.

 

Regarding whether EU3 is a realism server or not, I can't tell. But I'm sure we can all agree that we're not here because we want easy, but because we want tough. ACRE doesn't hold your hand, and I love that.

[Pistolfreak]

Quote

1. Setting additional channel: 
*Open radio UI* -> *press [numpad number of channel supposed to have as additional channel]* -> *press radio UI button that has tooltip ''set as additional''* ->*Set optional stereo setting [CTRL+arrow]* 

2. Setting main channel:

*press numpad [number of the channel intended to have as main channel]* -> *Set optional stereo setting [CTRL+arrow]*       -> Good to go again. No need to hazzle with frequencies.
 

Yep, I did state the possibility of an optional stereo setting on my first post.


Acre doesn't hold ye hand though, thats true  I don't know for sure the range of rifleman radios on TFAR but fast googling led me to understand it's 2 clicks.



 

[Johnson]

14 hours ago, Ryko said:

@J0hnsonI don't disagree that ACRE is a more "realistic" MOD.  But from an admin point of view TFAR is easier to implement, and more forgiving in usage.  Case in point: terrain interception will sometimes render radios useless, making some players believe they are not working when in fact this is intended behaviour.  Further, they will then resort to side chat which kills the immersion you're looking for.

 

If TFAR would add half-duplex operation, I think there would be a huge inclination to switch.

Hmm rare be the use of side chat without punishment now, 90% of players know not to use it.

[duffyman]

Vehicles Radios 

[Bloo Flar3]

Just saying but when on earth did we get 80 people that play EU3.

At least half of them vote must be from eu1/eu2 people that most likely never touched EU3.