Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

Comrades of CiA,

Very glad that some of you will be able to join us again on Sunday 27th November at 19:30 UK (20:30 CET)! The details are the same as at our first joint session, but I'll re-quote them here:

Quote:Comrades of CiA,

Your comrades at Folk and ARPS invite you to join us in the struggle for socialist agrarian utopia (and some ArmA2: Combined Operations too). Here's what you need to know:

The session begins at Sunday at 19:30 UK Time (20:30 CET), but we ask that you join TS3 around 19:25 UK so we can slot quickly for the first mission. Sessions last 2 hours and usually feature 3-4 missions (a mixture of coop and adversarial). Missions almost never use respawn or revive.

Teamspeak 3
Address: server.herosquad.org:9988
Password: freedom

Arma 2: Combined Operations
Address: server.herosquad.org
Port: 2402
Password: freedom

Addons
Folk plays vanilla and the server does not require any addons. You can install and use clientside addons as you wish (exluding ACE2 and ACRE). Folk sessions often have at least one adversarial mission, so please be sensible with mods that could unfairly enhance your performance.

About the Folk sessions
Folk is not a group - it's just a regular session - so we don't have members (everyone is a guest), ranks or rules. However, there are some aspects of the sessions that you may want to know about in advance:

[*]At the slotting screen please de-slot and then wait for instructions from the session host before re-slotting; everyone gets a chance to lead or take special roles, but we don't slot in a free-for-all.

[*]At the briefing screen please clear voice comms for the commander to think/outline her/his plan - for banter and jokes please use sideChat. The commander will allow questions, but we don't plan by committee.

[*]During the briefing and mission please respect the chain of command; you never have to call anyone 'sir', salute or do anything MilSim, but for that mission we ask that you follow orders. You can always be a leader in the next mission!

[*]Teamspeak is for command level or emergency communication; within your element (fireteam) please try to use in-game VON.

[*]When you die, please don't announce it. You can stay (silently) in the active Teamspeak channel, or move to the 'dead' channel and talk to other dead people. Well, they're not actually dead, just ... well, you know what we mean.

Above all, the Folk sessions are (we hope) about tactical play that is never too serious or MilSim. We enjoy playing in an organised way, but only in so far as required to make an ArmA2 mission enjoyable - we're not pretend soldiers, and we're not striving to be elite. Actually, we are frequently quite far from elite. Some might even say incompetent. But know that if you accidentally drop a handgrenade in the middle of your fireteam, the only thing we'll worry about is whether someone managed to FRAPS it.  Actually, you can see some of our videos on YouTube here:

www.youtube.com/user/thisisfolk

If you're brave enough to point a rusty AK at a materially superior enemy, that's all we ask. Although we can't guarantee to have enough AKs to go around, so you may be asked to share.

We're really looking forward to seeing you on Sunday.

- Fer

Thank you fer! Looking forward to this.

I should be able to get to this too.

My flight was postponed so I will be able to participate for sure. I won't be able to get to the Joint op with LDDK though, unless the flight will be postponed again (not unlikely around here).

I'll try to join you for the first time. The whole planning looks very attractive.

(11-26-2011, 01:52 PM)Inlesco link Wrote: [ -> ]I'll try to join you for the first time. The whole planning looks very attractive.

Welcome Inlesco. Let us know if you have any questions.

It's gonna be a tight fit time-wise for me I think since the F1 race in Brazil will last from 5 to 7pm(CEST), and the post-show (F1 Forum) will last until 8pm, so I'm gonna have to hurry up eating my dinner

Anyhow, since Folk is public now are there more strict rules about client-side addons, because I would prefer to play with my own addons (which lack signatures atm)?

(11-27-2011, 05:46 AM)mikey link Wrote: [ -> ]Anyhow, since Folk is public now are there more strict rules about client-side addons, because I would prefer to play with my own addons (which lack signatures atm)?

The rules about addons were relaxed to permit client-side addons like STHUD and various sound mods. If your addons are client-side only, you should be fine. However, please do not use anything that will give you an unfair advantage in adversarial missions. Please do NOT connect with ACRE or ACE2 loaded.

Sorry guys, my ArmA had a strange crash...there were 10 error messages saying all the same stuff and ArmA was opened 3 times...is it even possible that i accidenty opened it that many times ?
Anyway, i think playing with that many players is a bit too big for me, not really my style of ArmA so i hope to join a ~ 12 player CiA Coop soon again. 

(11-27-2011, 11:01 PM)Wiggum link Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry guys, my ArmA had a strange crash...there were 10 error messages saying all the same stuff and ArmA was opened 3 times...is it even possible that i accidenty opened it that many times ?
Anyway, i think playing with that many players is a bit too big for me, not really my style of ArmA so i hope to join a ~ 12 player CiA Coop soon again. 

I hear you Wiggum. While I can enjoy those massive battles from time to time, I do prefer playing on smaller teams, where each fighter is crucial, and the whole atmosphere is more intimate.
Are are you sure those multi-instances are Arma related?

Yeh, dealing with 40 people in 1 channel/server can be a bit overwhelming, but it's fun once in a while. I didn't have a lot of luck last night, I always got shot at by people I didn't see, but I did get to shoot fer in the face  8)


There was a big difference with the amount of TS traffic compared to the previous session though, the command net was pretty much in constant use. Is it ok if I mute my TS next time when I'm not leading, or is everyone expected to be 100% present on ts?

I agree, during the second mission communications were almost unbearable to listen. On the top that, mission, at least for me, was quite uneventful. Sometimes being part of huge war machine just isn't fun enough when you don't know exactly what is going on and have no important role in all of that. Adversarial missions were fun, thou, especially the last one.

(11-28-2011, 02:30 PM)Misha link Wrote: [ -> ]Sometimes being part of huge war machine just isn't fun enough when you don't know exactly what is going on and have no important role in all of that.

Yeah. Not that fun for the grunts, but maybe extremely fun for the leaders? That reminds me of a conversation I had with zwobot about missions on that include multiple teams, allowing to play huge battles with humans leading AI fighters. We wanted to map the missions that provide this setup but never really got to do it...
If you guys like the sound of it we can discuss it on a new topic.

Being teamleader in the second mission (the coop) was fun for me. Sometimes it was not clear to me who really was in charge of the platoon and it happened that we were sent somewhere to support or screen just to be called back a minute later. The 'organized chaos' in such large scale missions is stressfull and enjoyable at the same time for me.


I was unlucky in the first mission and was hit early. In contrast, I was very successful in the last mission. Maybe we could have been more successful and quicker if we would have managed to concentrate our forces in the final phase of the attack instead of moving to the objective piecemeal so that our counterparts could decimate us in small groups. But I know this is very hard to coordinate and Stoops did a good job as platoon leader and was open to suggestions.


I was suprised again that this heterogenous group of players (Folk regulars and CiA) worked together relatively well. I'm looking forward to volume three of Folk/CiA joint Op

Hello comrades, thank you to all who came along last night - I know the Folk/ARPS comrades really enjoyed playing alongside CiA for a second time, and hope we'll have an opportunity to do it again soon.

An AAR thread has been started on the Folk forum (and we'd be happy to cross-post items from here):

(11-28-2011, 02:23 PM)mikey link Wrote: [ -> ]I did get to shoot fer in the face  8)

Heh heh, were you the one that executed me in the last mission?

(11-28-2011, 02:23 PM)mikey link Wrote: [ -> ]There was a big difference with the amount of TS traffic compared to the previous session though, the command net was pretty much in constant use. Is it ok if I mute my TS next time when I'm not leading, or is everyone expected to be 100% present on ts?

We had probably our largest ever playercount last night, and the second mission in particular demonstrated that the single-TS channel approach has its limitations. We do have a multi-channel approach that uses channel commander (see end of OP), and that might have to get used in future sessions.

(11-28-2011, 02:30 PM)Misha link Wrote: [ -> ]Sometimes being part of huge war machine just isn't fun enough when you don't know exactly what is going on and have no important role in all of that.

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy the coop as much, but I totally understand. One of the reasons we don't often have combined arms in Folk missions is because it's hard to create an even experience for everyone; in any future joint session I'd be keen to return to more infantry-based coops - or limit supporting assets to transport/small-scale CAS.

As mentioned earlier, I think the Folk/ARPS comrades would love to see a third joint session, so please let us know your thoughts. I hope to see you all on the battlefield again soon.

Especialy you, comrade mikey