Are you new to Mike Force? Tips for newbies.

[Booze_Rooster]

Planning a somewhat long-winded post here. Think of it as less of a chore to read and a good "Warm and Fuzzy" finder for new players.

First of all, I'm a casual gamer at best. I'm also all thumbs when it comes to keyboard and mouse interaction with a game containing a myriad of less-than-ergonomic keybinds.

I got into the new Vietnam DLC. I tried the campaign missions and without investing too much effort I nearly said "well that was cool, but I'll play something else."

And then I discovered Mike Force Servers.

Holy crap. Game changer. This is what I thought Arma would be like when I got into it. Its what Warlords felt like it was going to be until you played it for more than an hour.

And in this first confusing hour, I had NO IDEA what the hell I was doing.

I went back and read the Prairie Fire Field Manual entries. They provided some useful information, but it left massive gaps in my understanding.

After a few solid weeks of playing every night, I have gotten the hang of much of the game mode. I do however see a lot of the same new guy questions and often feel obligated to stop an attack, go prone and go into blue chat to answer a question- because brother, I was there two weeks ago and was just as frustrated as you.

I played with friends, met and made a few more in the lobby I found to be my most enjoyable experience. Kind of a think-tank emerged in the chat as guys who knew this or that answered questions, but then asked how to do that or this that others could answer. As a result we are getting a pretty good composite picture of the game.

So without further ado, my tips, tricks and orientation guide will appear in a subsequent post.

[Booze_Rooster]

First time loading in you'll notice some subtle changes to the usual HUD.

Primarily this is the addition of Hunger and Hydration status bars. The longer you stay alive and the more active you are in the game, the more these will deplete. I haven't gotten to the point where either one has run out (except snake bites, which I'll cover later) so I can't confirm what happens, but if its like the aforementioned snake bite, you'll be stuck in a 'zombie walk' unable to play normally.

These bars are kept topped up by consuming food and water that you will keep in your inventory. I'll cover inventory suggestions further down.

Now, to break down a lot of game mode in a concise Barney Style fashion,

There are three factions (or "units") to belong to. You can change to any faction at any point regardless of score, kill count, participation or even skill.

The first is MIKE FORCE. This "unit" is the classic ground pounding, gear-humping grunt role. Their primary role is to attack, secure and defend the RED hexagonal Areas of Operation (AO) on the map. They are limited to the vehicles present at their base which is the "Mike Force Base". These are a handful of M151 MUTT "jeeps" in a few variants. Mike Force players will see each other on the ground marked by white hexagons like allied players in normal Arma. They speak to each other on their green team chat and can talk to pilots and ACAV with text typed into blue chat. (As well as direct comm channel and vehicle channels obviously)

The second is ARMORED CAVALRY, known in the game as ACAV. They are basically the engineers of the game, however their gear isn't limited in any way so they are free to pound the ground as much as Mike Force- with the added bonus of being able to utilize vehicles from the motorpool of their specific base, ACAV Base. They have use of the M41A1 Walker Bulldog light tank, up-armored gun trucks, AA trucks and various fuel, supply and repair trucks. However along with this great power comes great responsibility- They have the ability to do the "building" work in the game. As areas are captured, they risk sometimes very heavy and overwhelming counterattack. The construction of bunkers, trenches, towers, helipads and FOBS to house forward resupply points for both infantry and vehicle crews becomes game-critical later on. They will see each other with white hexagons, talk to each other in green chat and contact pilots and MIKE FORCE by typed blue chat. They will not appear marked to Mike Force, so if on the ground with the grunts, you do risk friendly fire if you fight dismounted. A large component of a good ACAV player is knowing when to load up an unarmed and unarmored truck with a few palletized loads of ammo, meds, food, building supplies, repair parts, sandbags etc and to forego the glory of a helicopter sling load and to simply just haul a$$ in a transport truck to a nearby FOB.

The third and last (for now) are the GREEN HORNETS. These are the pilots of the game. They are based out of Pleiku Airbase in the center of the map. Their role is to man the plethora of rotary and fixed wing aircraft that makes it possible to transport men and equipment across the map rapidly to the objective. Once an objective is in the process of being taken- a defining factor is effectiveness of air support. Since Green Hornets don't see ACAV and Mike Force friendlies marked as white hexagons, they have to rely on quick and frequent glances at their maps, maintain good situational awareness and communication with the ground. Failure to do so will often result in a very large teamkill if a bored pilot decides to just dump his ordinance on a treeline without seeing where friendlies are. They will see each other on both the ground and sky marked with white hexagons, will chat in green and text the other two teams on blue channel.

A fourth unit SPIKE TEAM is currently unreleased, however its base is fully functioning and located just off the west end of the Pleiku runway.
======================================================================

So those are the factions. How do you join and play them you ask?

At each base you'll see an NPC soldier standing near a large easel holding up a map.

This is the DUTY OFFICER. Upon spawning, walk up to him an press the "H" key.
This will bring up a manila folder that acts as your team interface for support, requests and also your current affiliation. In the upper left hand corner you will see a skull symbol in a circle printed in black ink. Next to it is a full-color insignia of your current unit.

If you click on this colored insignia, you will see the pages in the folder change, allowing you to see the other symbols of the other factions. Click the one you want, click "ACCEPT" and you will see the insignia in your paperwork has changed. You are now a member of that faction. Your green chat is talking to everyone else on your team, blue contacts the others in text, so on and so on. You may only change factions within a few feet of the DUTY OFFICER. It can be any one of the four in the map. One is located at each unit base in an identical layout.

Now before you leave that DUTY OFFICER, press"6". That key will bring up a menu of specializations. Now that you're on that team, you may specialize in a role. I'm unsure of the specifics on most, but my understanding so far is that every faction may have an RTO, who if equipped with a radio backpack in his loadout has the use of calling in air strikes and artillery from off-map NPC controlled planes and guns. This allows very powerful tools to be utilized by the ground independently of the Green Hornets. Any faction can have this RTO and I believe three can be on the ground at any time.

Another specialization is Medic, which allows you to significantly reduce the use of first aid kits on the ground as you can equip a large medkit and revive downed teammates.

A must have for ACAV players is the Engineer specialization. This allows you to open the build menu and construct buildings, bunkers, tents, foxholes, trenches and so on on the map. In order to achieve this, you also need to have a SHOVEL equipped as your secondary weapon.





SO, In order to effectively play, I recommend the following procedure.


Hop into a lobby, any lobby.

Spawn in and without messing with factions or gear, go to the Arsenal. Each base has one by the DUTY OFFICER and MAPBOARD.

Open the arsenal and go to secondary weapons. Add a SHOVEL and AXE to your inventory. Make sure it isn't the E-TOOL, as this doesn't seem to work like the regular shovel. Save the kit as something simple like "tools".

***EDIT: The AXE does not work as a demolition tool. At least it doesn't in the lobby I typically play. I tried it in game last night and while you can equip it, the only effect it has at the moment is to make your character emit the noises of a very bad adult entertainment actress...

This is because the items are not available in virtual arsenal, however a saved kit will allow you to access them while building kits.

Now back out of that lobby and stop bothering those people...

Hop into your VIRTUAL ARSENAL. This can be accessed in the Prairie Fire menu under the TUTORIALS option.

Now here's the magic.

Before you start deciding what to carry, what to wear and testing out your favorite weapons to build your dream Vietnam themed kit, you will want to simply build a blank slate that will work for any class.

First, choose your ideal uniform, vest and backpack.

Equip your desired headgear, facewear etc.

Be sure to have a map, compass, radio and instead of BINOCULARS, I HIGHLY recommend the Starlight NVG optic as your choice for that slot, as MIKE FORCE has a full day/night cycle. You will be in the woods at night a lot. The Starlight has a day and night mode so you can still scan the map in any light.

Now that you have a character wearing the gear you like, this is my recommended setup based on what I have seen in Mike Force gameplay. I only recommend this as a good starting point until you get a good warm and fuzzy feeling on how the game mode works.

IN YOUR CLOTHING:
be sure to add FOUR first aid kits. The green one, not the yellow base game one. The green ones are slightly lighter and do the same thing. FOUR will be an important number later, so be sure to have at least this many.

Add one bottle of ANTIVENOM. This can be found under the "all magazines" tab. Scroll down and its in the mess of food and beverage items. You only need one. It can be used multiple times. SNAKES NOW BITE in this Arma expansion, and there are a whole butt load of them slithering around. If you stand still too long or lay prone too long, or even have the bad luck of lying wounded in the jungle too long, a snake will just bite you. It won't kill you but it will drain your Hunger/Hydration bars and limit you to walking along gasping and moaning with blurred vision.

Add a single LRRP ration. I used to carry more, but I find I'm seldom alive long enough to need a week's worth of food. If you get hungry, you can eat it and it restores the bulk of your hunger bar.

EDIT: I have found that the "Can of Peaches" is a much better ration to carry. It both hydrates and fills your hunger bar most of the way when consumed. Carry a few oranges to top up the bars if they start to get low, or to fully fill them if the Peaches dont do it. The LRRP ration is heavier and only seems to fill the hunger bar. Certain meals, like the Chicken and Noodles will drain your hydration bar on consumption. I recommend the peaches.

Add a single "2 Liter" (2 Quart) canteen. The smaller bottles and canteens are lighter, but can't refill your hydration bar most of the way.

EDIT: I have found that the standard .75L canteeen (1 Quart...) Is more than sufficient and weighs far less than the 2 Quart.

Finally, cram a bunch of ORANGES, yes the fruit, into your clothes to finish off the ensemble. These fill both bars and weigh next to nothing. They are an excellent emergency top up item if your bars start to get low or you are recovering from a snake bite. I personally carry 12. Sometimes I like sneaking them into buddies' backpacks when they're busy shooting. Its fun.

I recommend putting all of this into your clothes because of both the limited cargo capacity of the clothing slot, and it allows you to retain your food and water in the event of needing to quickly strip a vest off of a dead ally or enemy in a fight if you run out of ammo. I used to keep food stashed all around and in the heat of the moment would either get killed trying to fit it all back into my gear, or end up leaving some of it behind. Some long FOB sieges or long range low-crawl-behind-enemy-lines type scenarios, you will need this stash of food and water...or should you have the misfortune of a snake bite.



Do you remember that "tools" kit I asked you to make and save in game? Save your current kit, and go load that bad larry. Drop your shovel on the ground. Now load the kit you just started making.

IN YOUR BACKPACK:
Add the shovel. You won't always need it, but trust me, there will be times you or a teammate will need one and having it will save the day. You can always discard it on spawning if you don't need it or edit it out of the kit later. Keeping it in your backpack allows you to still carry a secondary weapon. Don't worry, its not ridiculously heavy.

Add FOUR MORE first aid kits. Again, later FOUR of them will be a handy number so at minimum, add another four.

EDIT: I recommend SIX first aid kits in your backpack in addition to the four in your clothing. This allows for two full "Withstands" and two opportunities to patch up slight wounds.

Optional but recommended: Add 2-4 breaching charges or a single satchel. In order to pacify an enemy AO several objectives must be located and destroyed. WP grenades can take out the smaller ones like AA guns or mortars, but supply stashes might take 2 or more satchels. Too often I hear "does anyone have explosives" as we take an objective. Always have some. It also comes in handy to destroy wrecks on the ground either to get them to respawn, or to fully destroy them so that they may be packaged and recovered for a fresh spawn.

The satchels have a long timer and are very heavy. They deal excellent splash damage and can usually destroy the three piles of supplies at an HQ in one shot. However only carrying one can limit your ability to tackle multiple objectives.

EDIT: In addition to breaching charges, I HIGHLY recommend the M14 Incendiary grenade. They can be used to destroy objectives on flat ground with a well aimed throw, or more importantly- to SILENTLY destroy a target. The explosions of charges going off will soon eliminate any plans of stealth you had. The M14's burn hot and quietly and will typically burn out an AA gun or mortar tube in a few seconds. THEY ARE HEAVIER THAN BREACHING CHARGES i have found out, so bear that in mind.

Add your desired grenades. Unlike other Arma game modes, smoke grenades are more useful than ever. If you have a very enthusiastic pilot with an itchy trigger finger overhead you can mark your position or the enemy position with colored smoke to avert a friendly fire incident, or to ensure ordinance lands on target. Always carry one, and again, you can always discard it on spawning if you don't see a use for it later.

EDIT: Using the support menu provides "pink" smoke on your designated point. I stopped carrying smoke grenades a long time ago in favor of more M34's and V40s.


I recommend a couple of regular fragmentation grenades and a couple of white phosphorous grenades. The latter has a very potent anti-materiel capability and can be used to destroy some enemy equipment.

EDIT: V40s are where its at. They don't have a lot of concussive force, but the shrapnel can devastate targets. The bonus is being able to carry about 50% more grenades for the same weight.

EDIT: ***k the flares. I hate them. Carry an M72 LAW and you can destroy vehicles and objectives from a safe distance. Flares are overused by people who want to see targets. Every time a flare goes up, (if your server has detection meters enabled) you'll see that even prone in the jungle, your detection meter will show in the red. It also ruins your "night vision" as once the flare burns out everything will seem much darker. If you don't shoot off flares, your night vision remains pretty good. If you hot dog roll or crawl prone towards an objective at night you will live a lot longer by staying quiet, using the dark to hide and listening for enemies.

For some reason the LAW tends to save into kits as unloaded. If you have a LAW equipped from the Virtual Arsenal, make a habit of opening the launcher options in the in-game arsenal and re-selecting the LAW. No idea why this happens but if I load a kit without manually adding the launcher, I'll just get an empty tube strapped to my pack.

Okay, got all that? now SAVE this kit as a "TEMPLATE"

Now that you have the template, you can go back and add the weapons and magazines you wish to this kit and you'll always have food, water, flares, a shovel, antivenom, first aid kits and clothes all built and stocked. Either it cuts down your time at the arsenal in game while pilots and other guys sit and wait for you to finish perfecting your clown costume, or it gives you a good base point to build multiple kits for the plethora of new weapons in the game. Just keep starting with the template, save as new. Guess what, an hour in virtual arsenal and you'll have more loadouts with identical and useful gear than you could ever hope to use.

IF YOU ARE IN A SERVER WITH A FULL ARSENAL- DO NOT DRESS IN VC GEAR. YOU WILL EITHER GET TK'd or you will cause CONFUSION among teammates. Don't be that guy.

As for what to carry for weapons I only have some minor suggestions:

Suppressors are king. At night muzzle flashes and muzzle report seem to draw waves of enemies to you. If you like to sneak and creep into an AO by yourself as I enjoy doing, a suppressor on at least your pistol is highly desirable. My personal favorite is the HD(S) pistol as a secondary on almost every kit. Its an integrally-suppressed .22 that has enough stopping power to put guys down in one or two well aimed shots. I carry seven magazines and when low crawling into an AO to knock out AA or Arty, I think of it as a primary. The sights are phenomenal, the range is outstanding and it seems to be inaudible to enemies beyond a few feet. (AA gunners technically have "armor" while in the gun. Typically 3-4 rounds with the HD(S) will kill them. Do not attempt to kill an AA gunner with a Welrod, as by the time you have the second round chambered, that gunner will have those four 23mm barrels cranked around and pointed right at you and your buddies.)

You will expend far more ammo in this map than any of the open country hillside plink-duels you did with CSAT on the island maps. I pretty much gave up on sprint ability due to the often abundant cover in the game. Depending on the weapon I carry 15-20 reserve magazines with at least six spares for my sidearm. Unless the Green Hornets or ACAV are on the ball with regular ammo resupply to a fob or your chosen rooftop or shell crater, your 5-10 magazines typically won't last you.

EDIT: you can REPACK magazines by opening your inventory and double clicking with LMB on the magazine. A dropdown option "REPACK" will appear. Click that and ALL magazines of that type will consolidate into as many full magazines as your ammo supply allows. If you are carrying more than one type of magazine you will have to repack each type.


***FURTHER EDIT: I completely neglected to point out that most vanilla servers have a progression system that requires you to play the server for awhile to unlock most gear. I personally detest this and have been sticking with a "FULL ARSENAL" set server.

[Booze_Rooster]

NEW MECHANICS:

FOOD AND WATER:
So you have food and water in your inventory and you notice you are getting hungry or thirsty.

To eat or drink, open inventory- double click LMB on it and you have an option to eat or drink.

You do sometimes have an option to drink from rivers in the game, though I don't choose to do it as I see there's malaria meds in the arsenal as well. I still haven't shaken my malaria fears from FarCry 2 so I leave that mess alone.

NEW WOUND SYSTEM:

Unless its a fatal shot to the head or torso, generally in Mike Force games you get wounded and knocked down like the base game awaiting a revive- except you have about five full minutes before bleeding out, and during that time (and without rhyme or reason) you can usually roll back onto your stomach and shoot your rifle and pistol with very shaky aim. You can throw grenades, but you are "too injured" to crawl to a body and open its inventory.

You can roll onto your stomach to fight, where enemies will actively engage you, or you can opt to roll onto your back again and they will not engage you but often stand directly over you and will instantly 360-no-scope you if you try to get back on your stomach to fight.

During this "last stand" where you can crawl an continue the fight, you will occasionally black out, and have to restart the laborious process of pulling out your rifle to return fire. Eventually, you will get a blue text prompt saying "Hold Space to Withstand". THIS is where those medkits in multiples of four are important. It takes a full four FAK's to revive yourself now, and sometimes you still have injuries to heal upon getting up. It does however afford you the ability to get back into cover while shooting and treat yourself to get back into the fight. Minimum of four first aid kits on your person, plus extras to heal teammates, minor injuries etc.

If a teammate makes it to you, they now have the ability to drag you or carry you while firing their weapon. Pretty cool, though if you get dragged you get the old glory hole perspective of your rescuer's crotch. Sometimes I just wish they'd leave me in the open.

Once they treat you, it begins a two step process. The first step is simply to "STABILIZE" which stops the countdown on you bleeding out. It leaves you stuck in the prone, but you can fight pretty well if you get to cover.

The second step is to "RESUSCITATE" which gets you back on your feet and fighting like before. To my knowledge this only takes your rescuer two first aid kits instead of the four you"d use to withstand.

Though in a bind, you can simply stabilize a teammate with the last first aid kit you have, then when you've got smoke, CAS or team covering fire, you could carry them a little faster than they can crawl back to a safer position for someone else to resuscitate them.

Same thing works for wounded people in a helicopter, though upon landing you will have to approach the bird and hold the action button to "UNLOAD CASUALTIES" which then allows you to treat them. I have heard, but haven't experienced that getting wounded while in a flying helicopter or vehicle- you may Withstand in your seat if you have the first aid kits. I'm not sure if you have the "strength" to open the vehicle inventory to pilfer more FAK's if you need them.

[Booze_Rooster]

BUILDING:

You can build simple structures as any faction, though you will need a shovel in your hand to "finish" them. To my knowledge, but not my experience, non ACAV must have a shovel and engineer training to construct foxholes and such.

Everything else must be an engineer trained ACAV member with a shovel in hand.

To build, you open the build menu with "N". Select your desired building or object from the list and click "BUILD"

This will now put the "ghost image" of your construction in front of you. Cycling LMB/RMB will rotate through POSITION, ROTATION and HEIGHT.

It's a very clunky build system that takes some getting used to. Because the items don't "snap" to locations it can be tricky to get them placed properly. As a result, hasty building can lead to some nasty clipping or floating issues that make the fortifications difficult to navigate for allies. Take your time, get a feeling for it building on a captured AO near the airfield and then you can pull it off under fire.


So you want to build a FOB?

First of all, you'll need that shovel. The axe I mentioned a few posts above acts as your "delete tool" though its very clunky.

Once you have all of that, you'll need building supplies. Anyone familiar with the game Rust will understand the decay mechanic. To those who are not, you can build it, sure. It will go up, but if it is not stocked with supplies or "finished" with a shovel it won't fully complete or remain up for more than a few minutes if you walk away.

BUILDING SUPPLIES can be obtained from what are basically SUPPLY OFFICERS at each base. They will appear in green text in your HUD when you look at them simply as "copilot"

Go up to him and click "6". This will open a small green wheel and allow you to select the supply type. When you select an item, it will appear on the ground nearby. Pallets and conexes of supplies can either be sling loaded by helicopters or carried by a player to a vehicle and loaded into the "LOGISTICS INVENTORY". Helicopters can take small internal loads in addition to sling loading, but where the sling load can be "yeeted" into a FOB without landing, the internal logisitical storage must me physically unloaded by ground personnel upon the bird landing.

If a bird doesn't come to pick up the supplies you spawned, you can use the MAPBOARD (interact "6") to fast travel to the ACAV base if you're not already there. The supplyl officer is standing in the motorpool area by some large blue conexes.

To load into a vehicle, drive the truck up to the entrance to the motorpool, leave it unlocked and running. Pick up the spawned supplies (small building supplies have a value of 200, and the basic transport truck can transport 600)

Interact with the pallet by looking at it and selecting the "PICKUP ITEM" prompt when it appears. Walk towards the truck with the pallet floating before you and upon looking at the bed of the truck it will prompt you "PLACE IN VEHICLE". Hitting action should stow it. Load the truck up with as much as you can fit and drive to your build site.

When you get there, unload the truck and place the pallets on the ground. Move the truck to a spot out of the way (or use the headlights as worklights if its dark)

=====

Your first order of business for your standard large FOB is a "SITUATION ROOM". Use "N" to open the build menu and select the Situation Room from the list. Again Rust players, think of this as your TC. Its basically going to be the supply container for everything within a few hundred feet of it. Stocking the Situation Room with supplies will keep the whole FOB maintained as long as the supplies hold out. To stow the building supplies, pick up and place the supply pallets near the Situation Room. Press "6" to open the round action wheel menu. The lower left option will say in TINY text "RESUPPLY WITH CRATE". When you click it, the crates will stow one at a time. Repeat until all crates are stocked in the Situation Room.

If you wish to make a quick build you can individually supply constructions with supplies. A good example of this is the SPAWN CHECKPOINT. A small wooden hut that poops soldiers into the fight.

No, but seriously, its a respawn point. Many FOBs fail to include a respawn point until late into the game, by which time helicopter pilots are being flooded with requests for CAS, transport and supply runs all while trying to also recover wrecks of downed aircraft from enemy fire. If you're building a FOB, put a darn respawn down. If you're assaulting an objective, get a helicopter to sling load a large building supply crate and be an ACAV engineer with a shovel. When you hit the ground at HLZ HARAMBE II: ELECTRIC GORILLA BOOGALOO on the map, let the grunts secure the place, then you get your ACAV a$$ into the build menu and throw up a respawn point in the treeline (be sure the door isn't blocked) and immediately stow the supply crate in it. Bingo. Now helicopters can focus on just bringing in the last of the guys, then ammo and vehicles, or focus just on CAS instead of making laborious milk runs back to the airfield to pick up another load of fresh respawns.

When laying out a fortification- build only what you need- how you need. If that makes sense. If you're out at Leghorn getting pounded by mortars, you can throw up three small bunkers and ring them in with trench walls. Keeps you alive for a shelling and that's all you need. Run away later and let it decay. That's fine.

Its the sprawling mega-fobs that often confuse or frustrate a coordinated defense. They often block roads or have claustrophobic helipad locations that force pilots to make slow vertical descents between crooked and clipped towers. If you plan to have helicopters landing troops, leave some space so they can maneuver under fire and get on the ground. Put the Situation Room near the helipad. Many FOBs get choked with piles of dropped pallets near the helipad but nobody wants to or can get away from the perimeter to carry them through narrow rows of bunkers, tents and sandbags to the Situation Room on the far side.

Building a FOB in the middle of a town? Don't fully block the roads in and out. If you want to prevent enemy fire coming in, build a chicane or "serpentine" of sandbags. Trucks, tanks and jeeps can still pass through later on, but it prevents bullets from flying in unfettered. Any idiot with a rifle or MG can cover an entrance like that as good as a 10 foot high dirt wall you can't climb because its floating 3" off the ground.

Avoid decoration. Framerate is already pretty darn awful in some of the larger firefights. No, we don't need oil lamps and books on the map tables in the tents. Keep it functional and navigable.

When you build something, it will appear as a half-finished pile. Whip out that shovel and walk up to it. You'll see a small info pane appear bottom center screen saying its "0% Status: Decaying". (Toggle this pane with "7" as any faction will see it in a FOB) Hit it with your shovel a few times until it reads "100%" If you make a mistake, a few clunky swings of the AXE tool should destroy it. If the object or a nearby Situation Room is stocked with supplies it should no longer say "Decaying" but give you a time estimate until decay starts. "5 hrs 20 mins" or so. If you want that FOB extant in six hours time, be sure to get on the horn to Green Hornets or another ACAV guy to get you supplies.

How do you do that? Stay tuned for my next post.

[Booze_Rooster]

RESUPPLY:

Too often the green chat is loaded with guys yelling at pilots for ammo. If you are ACAV or MIKE FORCE and you are transmitting on green, they can't hear you.

Also too often you will see blue chat loaded with "green hornets we need ammo at FOB"

Pilots caught up in frequent flights to and from the airfield or focusing on lining up a sling load won't see this, let alone have free hands to type back that they can do it or how long it might take them.

A helpful tool in the field is the "H" key.

It brings up the same manila folder from the faction change, but the little boxes in the middle of the left hand side contain a "REQUEST SUPPORT TASK" title.

Depending on your faction it will determine what you can call for, to whom. Click that and the right side page will change to the list of support task options.

MIKE FORCE members typically have the most options. It will range from "Request Ammo Resupply" to "Request CAS"

If you're out in the boonies under fire and you need ammo, get in cover and click "H". Bring up the support task list and select "Request Ammo Resupply"

You then have the other two factions to send the request to. If you want a helicopter pilot to sling load ammo, select "Green Hornets".

You will now see an option to "Select Location on Map". Click it and it will bring up a smaller version of the in game map. Scroll to where you want the delivery and click the point.

Finalize it by clicking "Request Support Task" at the bottom and you will see an info pane in the upper right hand corner saying "Support Task Created".

Guess what? Now the pilots will see an icon on their HUD showing the task, its location and a distance. Now they can hook on a load at the airfield, take off and fly towards the marker and get an idea of how far away they are. When they get close they will see the marker on the ground and know where to put it.

Makes life easier for everyone.


A good rule of thumb- if you fast travel to or respawn at the airfield and no supply crates are visible by the revetment wall where the helicopters spawn, run over to the supply officer and request a few supply crates of different types. That way helicopter pilots don't have to land and request crates then take off and line up to sling them. Keep a few on the ground ready to go at all times and supplies can make it out to the field faster.

Another neat function is the ability to request special ammo crates that can be loaded with specific magazines and explosives. When you request one, you can open an Arsenal-like menu that lets you load quantities of the desired items.

A standard ammo crate will have basic magazines for basic US weapons, a mess of grenades and flares etc. If you have a FOB full of weirdos who insist on their odd collection of weapons, need satchel charges, flares etc, you can load a crate to order based on what they need instead of sending them an appetizer tray that wastes inventory on spare Welrod magazines, white smoke and 12g buckshot.


=====
CAS:
The same "H" button menu system works wonders for CAS. Instead of trying to type to pilots where you need air support, you can simply request it from the task menu like a resupply. It will mark the ground where the pilots are to attack which leaves any miscommunication or errors in transmission out of the equation. Works wonders when you're laying prone in the jungle at night and half a regiment of NVA goes sprinting by. You can mark the location they will be at and exfil the area while a willing pilot performs high-explosive miracles with FFARs.


===
EXTRACTION:
Yes, we've all needed one. Sometimes its great to throw a smoke grenade when the bird is close and run out into a clearing to pile onto the chopper, fight for the door gun and ride off into safety with the 60s blazing.

But sometimes your requests either fall on deaf ears or leave the pilot wondering exactly where you are as he nears.

No fear, open the "H" support menu again and request a pickup. It adds a task and HUD marker for the pilot and as an added effect, the exact location you selected on the map will now have a burning pink smoke grenade to denote your HLZ.

[Bleepie]

unless you already have done so, you should make this into a guide

[Booze_Rooster]

Originally posted by Bleepie:

unless you already have done so, you should make this into a guide

I don't know what that entails. The goal of this paragraph monster was just to get it out there for new guys to read because I had a hell of a time figuring out how to properly play and its a blast.

[Booze_Rooster]

THE CHIPMUNK VOICES / AI COMMAND SPAM FIX:

It doesn't happen much in my preferred server anymore but occasionally there will be a CONSTANT stream of AI commands coming through either in ultra slow motion or chipmunk voices. Its infuriating and almost incessant.

Easy fix:

Go into general audio settings and turn your radio all the way down. Boom. Fixed. No more chipmunk spam.

If you're in a bind and cant trust opening menus because you're in combat, just open your inventory and toss your radio away.

[CalicoJack]

can you make this an audio book please

[Dionis]

Thank you for the informative posts.
Please add them as a guide or the knowledge will be lost in the depths of Steam forums.

[Cigarette]

I heavily suggest to limit your role to specific needs. You won't have good gear as soon as you start, but none the less its decent. Food and water don't go down much, and often people run constant missions to resuply with medical, ammo, and/or food.

[Booze_Rooster]

Originally posted by fury1ord:

Thank you for the informative posts.
Please add them as a guide or the knowledge will be lost in the depths of Steam forums.

Unsure of how to do that. The knowledge will remain in this post and can be accessed through the search function. It might not be as visible, but the knowledge remains.

Originally posted by Sir. Vapenation:

I heavily suggest to limit your role to specific needs. You won't have good gear as soon as you start, but none the less its decent. Food and water don't go down much, and often people run constant missions to resuply with medical, ammo, and/or food.

I agree, but snakebites do happen, especially to new players who aren't on the lookout. Having enough food and water in your inventory to refill your bars after treating a bite can be a lifesaver in game. Like my arsenal suggestions of having a shovel and breaching charges in your kit, if it is saved, you'll always have them when first loading your saved gear. If you decide you want to be lighter or won't be needing the gear you can discard it on the ground or dump it into the inventory of the vehicle that is transporting you to the combat zone.

[Booze_Rooster]

UPDATE:

The Axe does work as a demolition tool- However if you use it to knock down a badly placed object, you'll see that it takes three or four hits to take down about a fifth of a building supply point- and these come directly from the cumulative store of building supplies in the Situation Room. It basically will take the whole team swinging away with axes for hours to destroy one object and it takes all of the FOB supplies with it.

========================================================================

UNIFORMS:

A big hazard in the game is friendly fire. As dangerous as careless pilots and fire missions can be, teammates only see members of their faction highlighted in their HUD within about 100m distance. After that, everyone looks like a potential enemy. The more recognizable your kit, the less chance you stand of a trigger happy teammate taking you out.

I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH how stupid it is to build a kit with NVA gear. Every lobby seems to have that one guy for one reason or another who decides to dress in full NVA gear and ride into battle with the guys. If you do this, you are asking for a team kill, or at the very least will be sewing confusion on the ground.

You will be team killed. Guys in black SOG fatigues with boonie hats and Type 56's can look an awful lot like enemy soldiers at a distance- and as most weapons in this game have AWFUL sight pictures, it doesn't make identification any easier.

Wear gear that makes you look like a team member at any distance.



======================================================================

"SPEEDBALL" AMMO CRATES:

There are two different types of ammo crates in the game.

Standard Ammo Crates can be spawned from the Supply Officer at any of the main bases to be sling loaded, packed into vehicles or even carried (at a very, very, very slow walking pace) into the field. These come stocked with a mess of US weapon magazines and explosives. They don't really contain enough ammunition to be valuable to a group of guys all using the same weapons. Its a wide variety of gear in limited quantity. These will not despawn and will remain where they are placed.

The second type is what I refer to as a "Speedball". Much like what we packed for combat operations in Afghanistan- a "speedball" was a Skedco litter packed with water, food, ammunition etc. It could be rapidly packed with a wide variety of needed gear, quickly loaded into a helicopter or truck and be easily carried or dragged to a patrol base, OP or bivouac to be broken down and used up as needed.

In this game, you can go up to a large static ammo crate next to the Supply Officer and a prompt will appear to "SPAWN AMMO CRATE". Hold the action button, and upon filling the progress dial, you will get a large menu just like the base game supply crate content overlay. You will be able to choose just about any weapon, clothing item, magazine, explosive or piece of equipment in any quantity (up to the ammo crate's weight limit).

Once packed with the desired gear, it cannot be carried- but DRAGGED to a waiting truck or helicopter.

These are highly useful for the amount of specialized gear and equipment that you can add, however once on the ground, they despawn in a matter of minutes.

As such, if you load it up with hundreds of magazines to keep a FOB resupplied for a counterattack, unless everybody cleans the pallet out immediately- that large stockpile of gear will vanish quickly, even if it isn't empty.

It is especially useful for packing with static weapon base backpacks and their corresponding weapon system backpacks, allowing a single pallet to supply a FOB with multiple mortars, .50 caliber and 7.62mm machine gun mounts to assemble and carry into towers, bunkers and choke points.

If you pack these for a specific use, don't leave them lying around as pilots or truck drivers who are in a rush to load up a requested resupply might accidentally take them. If you pack it, drag it to a waiting vehicle and get it to its destination. I believe they won't despawn from a vehicle's Logistics Inventory, however I have not tested the theory.

[Booze_Rooster]

FOB BUILDING:

Had another great night of walking guys through the basics of FOB building. All the common mistakes that lead to a lot of wasted gear- followed by choking up the ACAV channel with long-winded explanations to help guys get a FOB built instead of listening for voices in the jungle.


So- a few helpful tips and procedures I recommend for you to chew over:

SANDBAGS- act like building supplies if Building Supply Crates were $100 bills, sandbags act more like pennies. However they weigh next to nothing. If you carry 10 sandbags in your backpack it weighs less than a loaded pistol magazine and can allow a group of guys to carry a very limited number of building supplies into the field without having to wait for helicopters to carry in loads.

Fortifications can be individually stocked. If you are engineer trained and have a shovel and sandbags, you can construct many small and simple fortifications that can make a messy firefight in poor terrain survivable. If everyone in your group carries 10 sandbags as well, the group can stock these fortifications and build up a respectable amount of supply points.

This can make things like small bunkers, sandbag walls and foxholes viable in the short term without degrading.

It will also allow you to quickly throw up a Respawn Checkpoint immediately upon hitting the ground at an LZ. If an engineer can quickly throw up a checkpoint at the LZ tucked in the treeline and everybody throws 10 sandbags in, you can get a good number of fresh respawns right back out into the field instead of clogging up Pleiku Airfield waiting on a ride.

Each time a respawn is used at a checkpoint, it costs building supplies. A heavily used checkpoint will quickly chew through its points, but you can keep more teammates in the fight early on.

======================================================================

Upon hitting the ground and setting up an LZ, (and naturally after fighting to name the LZ on the map with a catchy and off-color name) , ACAV engineers will want to start constructing a FOB.

MUST HAVES:

Situation Room
Checkpoint
Perimeter fortifications
Helipad

The Helipad will not only give a good visual indication to incoming pilots of a good landing site, but will prevent other engineers who march to a different beat from carelessly filling the empty space with an unnecessary bunker, wall, pillbox or wastefully pile up supply crates blocking aircraft from landing.

It also provides the pilot of a landing helicopter to manually unload an onboard supply crate (seems to be more of an exception than a rule).

You want your Situation Room near to the helipad. That way unloaded building supplies can be quickly transferred from the helicopters to the Situation Room to keep the FOB stocked up. IF THE SITUATION ROOM IS FULL- store extra supply crates neatly alongside it. As the FOB chews through points, regularly checking the Situation Room and topping up the supplies can keep its respawn points functional and its objects from despawning.

Avoid large towers, tall bunkers and walls around the helipad. You don't want incoming pilots to have to make a slow vertical descent into a tight area of your FOB. Leave them room. They'll be able to come in, unload and leave more efficiently and with less time in the air exposed to fire.

If you have spare room around your Helipad, once the AO begins to calm down and helicopters come under little to no antiaircraft fire- think about adding a refueling station, repair supplies and ammo resupply points near the helipad. If you've done this, mark on the map by double clicking and typing below the FOB name that there are refuel, repair and rearm facilities active- which will allow helicopters to pick up guys respawning there while being able to repair, rearm and refuel faster than flying all the way back to Pleiku.

Again, keep decorative stuff to a minimum. Keep it free of clutter. Don't try a million different types of bunkers, walls, tents, hooches and towers. Find a few items that work well together an provide a solid perimeter. These can be added to your "FAVORITES" in your build menu (N) by clicking the gray star symbol on the object's page.

I highly recommend the 20m trench half wall. Face the sloped surface inward so troops may climb it easily, peek over the top and fire, but easily crawl, roll or walk back down in the event of enemy fire.

These link BEAUTIFULLY with TRENCH BUNKER (MG) bunkers on the corners or when joining two trench wall sections together.

If you plan to operate mortars, the MORTAR PIT fortification provides a clean and smooth surface to place the weapon systems in.

If you still have active enemy mortars in the area, the LARGE BUNKERs can be a lifesaver, allowing everyone to pile inside during incoming fire and rapidly get back out to defend the walls.

I'm a big fan of the large rusty blue ARMY TOWER (CLASSIC) with the walls at the top reinforced with small sandbag walls. Perched on the roof of a LARGE BUNKER it can provide unparalleled views of the surrounding area, allowing accurate coordination of CAS, spotting for your mortars, sniping, calling for fire with the radioman skill or even holding out as the last man alive. A .50 machine gun mount can be carried up and
FIRST AID POSTS are large green tents. I am unsure of their function-proper, but on occasion I have seemed to have walked through them and found that I could heal up minor injuries without a First Aid Kit. I typically carry first aid resupply pallets into them and place them on the floor inside, along with food resupply pallets as well.

Finally we come to the vaunted VEHICLE WORKSHOP. This rather large building will often choke up the breathing space of a compact FOB. If you leave enough room to place one, it is critical that the area it is placed on consists of flat ground with as few obstructions that might clip through its walls. If the FOB is stocked properly, as built it can be used to spawn machine gun turrets for the FOB bunkers, armored M151A1 MUTTs and even M54 transport trucks. This can give you a decisive edge on moving to your next AO. Unused ammo pallets and other supplies can be loaded into a few trucks and personnel can pile into the heavily armed 151s to drive to a nearby AO instead of waiting on a mess of helicopters. Since the items spawn inside or nearby the outside walls, its important that this building be treated like a bomb. Give it plenty of space on flat ground, otherwise vehicles might explode on spawning or start doing strange Arma Physics and kill your team as they fly erratically.



Finally I found out that the "Can of Peaches" ration is superb at filling both your hunger and thirst bars at once. placed for a very effective anti-personnel weapon at range.

[Booze_Rooster]

New tidbit to add.

Found out from one of the admins on the server I typically play that the enemy have a "breadcrumb script"

If you try to sneak into an AO and locate the mortars and AA without starting a massive firefight, you'll often find your cover blown.

Anything above the "walking pace" will generate enough sound for the enemy to home in on. It feels laborious, but if you work with another guy or two and stay in a crouch in the slow walking pace you can often sneak right by groups of patrolling enemies. If you have a server with the "detectability" icons in the upper right hand of the HUD, you'll see when you're visible or audible to enemies.

One thing to note is that at night, if someone shoots up a flare, your visibility goes right to red meaning you're pretty much in plain sight to enemies. If you are trying to get sneaky, avoid shooting up flares or 40mm illum rounds. Darkness can be your friend, and too often its ruined by spammed flares.

I started carrying the "Toepopper" mines. They're light as hell and as such you can carry upwards of a dozen of them if you haven't loaded your kit up with too many grenades or magazines. If you have more room, the trip flares or grenade traps are well worth it.

If I'm sneaking into enemy territory, once I start hearing their voices around me in the dark I start laying down the toe poppers. Enemies make a nasty habit of tracking your trail. Ive been shot in the back more than once at night thinking I was in the clear. The toepoppers are almost never fatal, however they let off one hell of a bang and can alert you to NVA on your trail.

Trip flares are seldom used, but if doing FOB or Patrol Base defense, a few on the major trails leading towards it can certainly tip off teammates on the perimeter.

[Hawggy]

I'm so sorry if missed this in your post(s) above.... But how in the heck do you pop those temporary yellow markers down to let everyone know of enemy troops?