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Post by Hans1942 on Feb 25, 2013 10:20:07 GMT -8
I think I understand three of the biggest problems of our squad that I saw at FNO and I think really if we can resolve them we can become a much better squad.
1. Problem: We need to roll in waves. I think what happens is that we stay afloat for lengthy periods of time together at first (just like when we first hit Amerish) but after a while we get shot down and what not. I always feel like we never really get to go at full strength in waves. Because one of us a is down etc... We start to lose focus and I think our squad becomes pretty weak.
Solution: Every X minutes we regroup at a base. Only when we are all together do we go out. We will become a much more impressive squad if we can do this. I find that in PS2, air waves are incredibly important because we all have each others backs and the backs of the libbys that are flying.
2. Problem: We are the most mobile units in the platoon. We can go anywhere quickly. But many times we just hover over the empty point being capped.
Solution: When we are capping an empty base, we need to look at the map more and start ghost capping where possible. But only ghost capping. We did this on this FNO and we need to do it more often. The other parts of the platoon are less mobile. I think this should also be an individual decision. Look at the map and decide hey that place looks empty. Let me ghost cap it.
3. Problem: Talking with Prowler Pack. I think we need to communicate with prowler pack more often. Generally we should be supporting them the most since they are the ones who can support us the easiest. I just feel like we don't communicate with them enough.
Solution: Perhaps PP and Skywatch can merge teamspeak together. We can identify targets for each other and generally help each other out.
Tell me what you guys think?
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Post by magnifiscent on Feb 25, 2013 11:50:04 GMT -8
1. Grouping up is certainly a good idea. A modification I might suggest would be to sub-divide into "flights," however. It could be a problem to pull the entire air squad off the line to pick up one or two people who had been shot down. I'd leave the organization up to ATR, and obviously our participation numbers on the specific night would be a issue, but a suggestion would be 3-4 planes of similar mission (air superiority or ground attack). When you lose a flight-mate or get spread out, you can fall back to regroup and come back in force.
2. This is also a good idea, but we might want to limit this to people already tasked with ground attack. You wouldn't really want to suddenly lose air cover in an area because someone saw an opportunity to cap a target. Another idea is to leave this decision up to the squadron leader or a flight leader. When you are flying ground attack or air cover, your attention should be on that mission only. We don't want to have everyone in the squadron checking the map regularly and diverting attention. As keeping an eye on the map and larger situation is already a duty of the leader, it might be better to leave the decision to him as to when a player might initiate a ghost cap.
3. I would still recommended keeping the comms separate since we use them to call out target information; we definitely don't need to unnecessary radio chatter getting thrown in. It IS a good idea to coordinate closely with ground forces, especially when we are directly supporting them, but it should be handled at the squad leader level, imo.
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Post by Hans1942 on Feb 25, 2013 13:36:33 GMT -8
1. I would say we wouldn't be offline for too long. When we group up we should be offline for max a minute or two. But I think "flights" is a good idea as well. Perhaps this is something we need to experiment in.
2. Perhaps once we cap a point, the squad leader determine if the skies and grounds are clear enough and yell out to disperse to an empty territory and ghost hack it and come back to where we were. This is something that should be utilized more often.
3. I think we need to make use of the fact that we have squad chat and teamspeak. We could keep Squad chat for us while teamspeak would be about calling targets? I just feel like we have to chat systems that we could use that could make us more effective. I do understand the idea of unnecessary radio chatter though. I just feel like sometimes it’s too much for a squad leader and the result is nothing gets passed on.
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Post by magnifiscent on Feb 25, 2013 14:59:27 GMT -8
1. Agreed.
2. Agreed, it worked well Friday, and I would definitely be for leaving it up to whomever is leading at the time.
3. Honestly, I don't think it should take that much coordination to keep the two groups in the same area. It should take the PP leader a sentence to say "we're doing X" and the SW leader a sentence to say "we'll do X in support." From there ground attack pilots would be able to keep an eye on the ground situation and support the tanks with good execution of established doctrine (may be something we work out in training) and the air support would know to keep the skies clear over a certain area. There really isn't much need for us to be in the same channel; as a pilot I don't have much to say to a prowler gunner and certainly they don't care when I'm calling out incoming reavers or scythes to the blah blah blah.
In-game chat is something to explore, but the voice quality is so wonky, I tend to prefer TS for anything sensitive like targeting or orders. The set up we already have in TS3 allows the PP leader and SW leader to talk on the command channel and exchange the previously discussed info. It also puts them in touch with the Infantry leader and the Special forces leader as far as that goes.
It is something we can play with, but the more people we have running PP and SW, the worse it will be. Our recruitment is steady; expect the Skywatch and PP to start gaining members as we continue to recruit.
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Post by Caustic on Feb 25, 2013 19:17:24 GMT -8
1. I will have to agree with mag here. I think having a group of 3-4 pilots would be better than all being pulled off the front line to regroup. With that being said, I also think that an occasional regroup needs to be called more often so that we can have a show of force as you suggested Hans.
2. Ghost capping may be more of an issue now because you actually have to exit your vehicle to cap(and hope a random enemy doesn't happen across it and blow it up leaving you stranded). Once you flip the point you also run into the issue of a long slow cap while you get back in vehicle or stay on point to expedite the process. Again this is completely up to the squad leader/platoon lead.
3. I agree that we would benefit more by working more closely with prowler pack (ie; ammo sundy, skygaurd fall backs), plus we can help eliminate other ground vehicles for them with a focused fire sweep thus keeping them alive and allowing them to focus on protecting us more/killing infantry). The way I suggest we do so is very simple but more taxing on the squad lead: Squad lead needs to set up a whisper chat with the squad lead of prowler pack so they can send info to each other then relay them down to us. This removes the cross chatter and allows squad leader to discuss strategy at the same time.
Id like to propose a 4th problem:
4. Lack of experience as a team.
Solution: simply put we need to make an effort to get in the air with each other more often then just FNO. I understand conflicting schedules but this needs to happen for us to become true badasses of the sky. ATRgeist, Liltalent and I are a lethal force when we get into the air with one another because we have worked with each other on several occasions and have built good teamwork. I also believe Mag and myself are getting their too. When I want to run air i usually hop into the Skywatch channel on TS in the hopes someone will come down and join me. Flying is much, much funner when you got a couple of good wing-men.
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Post by magnifiscent on Feb 25, 2013 19:28:28 GMT -8
4. Lack of experience as a team. Solution: simply put we need to make an effort to get in the air with each other more often then just FNO. I understand conflicting schedules but this needs to happen for us to become true badasses of the sky. ATRgeist, Liltalent and I are a lethal force when we get into the air with one another because we have worked with each other on several occasions and have built good teamwork. I also believe Mag and myself are getting their too. When I want to run air i usually hop into the Skywatch channel on TS in the hopes someone will come down and join me. Flying is much, much funner when you got a couple of good wing-men. Yuuuuuup. |
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Post by Hans1942 on Feb 26, 2013 8:16:51 GMT -8
Caustic2. It is really meant for empty maps like Amerish and Esamir. And the idea is that we do not stay there. We ghost cap it if we see "No Activity" and get out. If the enemy takes it back thats fine. We weren't staying there to fight them. No Activity = No enemy troops If we ghost cap and are successful we have helped our forces. If we ghost cap and are not successful, we are still with our forces. This certainly should be up to Squad lead to decide when or if to implement. But it is helpful when we are capping a tower and we see territories around us with zero activity. 4. Ya I agree. Perhaps a solution to this is to have our own internal event for skywatch. We set a time and day to play. Heck we can even do what Spec ops does and create an event that people in skywatch sign up for.
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Post by Hereticus on Feb 28, 2013 21:32:00 GMT -8
I think you've brought up some decent issues but I wouldn't recognize these as core problems with the Skywatch, I would label core problems in a lack of basic doctrines. Under Atrgeist and a bit of the latter days of Caustics command Skywatch really pulled together as a effective unit, they were on the ball responding to whatever obstacle the platoon encountered but still you lack a basic fighting doctrine. Now I may be wrong in saying that because I'm not Skywatch, I haven't gotten to talk as much as I would like with Skywatch commanders but that's because of different issues like play-times but with that said, this is what I've seen as the core problems of Skywatch:
1). One Vision - Skywatch has been commanded by multiple Captains, ever since it's early days of conscription under Caustic it seems like to me it's been back and forth between Caustics and Atrgeists vision for what Skywatch is and what it does and once in flight every pilot seems to just do there own thing as long as they don't wander to far from the Platoon. When I first joined the Outfit I was conscripted into Skywatch as a Liberator pilot, I loved it, was a'lot of fun but for the most part everyone kind of wanders off and does there own thing, there's no structure, things may have changed since then now that Atrgeist has Captain but that's just what I've noticed.
2). Established Doctrine - A single Doctrine here on the Forums detailing what the Captain wants, expects, and demands of his Pilots would go a long way in giving Skywatch structure. Detailing what kind of specs and equipment the Captain wants to see in his A2A/A2G Mosquitos, Liberators, or Galaxy Gunships makes it far easier for the Captain to use his aircraft because he'll know what they all have equipped and are capable of.
Doctrine also details what Pilots should do in what situation and gives a anchor that Pilots can build off of and develop advanced tactics, for example: "Don't chase hostile ESF's beyond the facility your squadron has been assigned to or you risk being bated into Anti-Air traps." A'lot of pilots in TXR follow this as a rule of thumb but this should be written into a doctrine for all future TXR pilots to be aware of. Doctrine can also be expanded on as a form of the Captains single vision to direct Skywatch.
3). Ground forces and more specificly TXR Commanders need to be vocal of what they need and expect out of Skywatch, Speaking from Prowler Pack perspective when our Pack has had issues with Liberators, I asked and pleaded with Skywatch and Caustic & Atrgeist were on the ball about keeping our Tanks under a safe umbrella, by keeping our Prowlers safe, we in-turn kept the Infantry safe from hostile armor and thus our Outfit worked like a well oiled war-machine. Platoon Lead needs to be vocal about what he needs Skywatch to do, if there having air trouble demand A2A Mossies, if you're having serious ground trouble then demand Liberators, Pilots shouldn't be off behaving like lonewolfs. Tell them what you need and they will respond because it means easy points for them when you tell them where the hostiles are clustered at.
4). Ghost Capping as important of a act that is to Ninja enemy territory and also cause enemy zergs to disperse in response to securing blinking territory, this should not be a priority for Pilots. Pilots should be in there aircraft hitting criticly soft targets that ground forces can't reach with sustained wave like attacks, let the enemy nerdrage about your persistent air-raids, not the ghost capping of territory that has zero enemy activity, you need to be where the enemy is at and killing them.
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Post by Caustic on Mar 1, 2013 2:23:59 GMT -8
1. I agree with the fact that we need a structured vision for the future of Skywatch and this has failed due to two things. One: the fact that I was not only in charge of Skywatch but had other leader duties to the outfit which quite frankly took away my time and my passion for leading so recruiting suffered dramatically. Two: directly affected by the first one, we lack the members to really accomplish what I wanted. It is difficult to find good pilots and even more difficult to find pilots that want to STICK to piloting. I find many people "interested" only to be discouraged a couple days later because they can't hack it with all the AA. The members of Skywatch now are all AMAZING pilots who not only deal with all the AA and ESF nerfs but actually overcame the obstacles and still kick ass. We need more people that are like our current ones.
2. We originally did have a doctrine with our expectations but did not post it online. This was due to a decision between Indica and I that we would rather explain it to the person on a one to one before they joined that way they knew EXACTLY what we wanted and had no excuses such as "I didn't read it on the forums". Our members now know what we expect of them. I will agree with you however that we do tend to wander off and do our own thing a lot of the time. This is due to many factors such as:
-Air moves fast, and as such it is hard to keep track of everyone.
-Some may have to "bug out" because of lock on's or enemy AA.
-We have short attention spans and easily get distracted by a shiney and lonely lightning.
I believe all of those issues can be addressed by a more stern command style as well as your number 3 point.
3. That's EXACTLY what we need. Since we move so quickly and usually dispatch our enemies relatively quickly as well we are often without orders. In turn, since we have no orders, we tend to just do our own thing and provide cover when we see it or when we can. I originally tried being on the ball with this in the past but I personally get annoyed when i need to constantly be asking "where do you want us?" to command. I know they have a lot on their plate but at the same time they give all other squads orders constantly but not so much us. Another issue which makes it hard for us is the fact that as of lately the platoon is fighting DEEP in enemy territory making it extremely hard for air to cover. Because of that we have no fallback point or safe point to resupply/repair. It's basically a death sentence for air to cover camp connery with no adjacent safe points or airpads.
4. I agree, I personally don't like to ghost cap or even get out of my mossy personally, but that's up to command and should only be a last resort IMO.
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Post by magnifiscent on Mar 1, 2013 8:28:31 GMT -8
Agree 100% with Caustic.
1. The current state of air makes finding interested players pretty difficult. Our pilots are excellent, and we can certainly train other people to be excellent, but it takes a lot of will to fight through the initial frustration of the current aircraft meta.
2. I also feel that we could work on the discipline here. We're alright, but the nature of air (speed, degrees of freedom of movement) makes it difficult to stay together. You have to be REALLY on the ball. Most military combat flight training is all about how to stay together. I would love to see us adopt more professional tactical doctrine, but there is only so much you can do in a game before it stops being fun.
3. Fighting with no resupply point is not only difficult, but frustrating. Ground commanders typically just do not understand the needs of aircraft. It is really rough on pilots to feel like you're starting to make a dent in the air cover and then land to get more ammo and get hit by tank rounds or ground fire or killed by an infiltrator. Take last night, holding Freyr. We can't operate out of freyr proper while it is under attack. I was using Esamir munitions corp to resupply until it started getting ghost capped by an infiltrator who also ambushed me while I was repairing and then hacked turrets to kill my plane. When I asked for a few guys to clear it out, the ground commander declined because it wasn't that important to hold esamir from his perspective - I completely understand how he would conclude that, but it also meant an end to air cover and the slow encroachment of ground pounding scythes and liberators.
4. I'm the same here. There are times when it is appropriate, but fanning out to ghost cap a bunch of stuff is in direct conflict with what we're trying to accomplish with our tactical doctrine.
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Post by Hans1942 on Mar 2, 2013 11:49:45 GMT -8
As I watch more carefully FNO I have changed my mind in some areas and pretty much really agree 100% with Caustic. 1. Exactly. But its also something I love. You have to be good to stay in the air. It really requires skill and teamwork. Last night when we were over MAO and we were protecting our tower, holy crap did we dominate. I was in an AA turret and it was really beautiful. The only reason we lost the tower is because no one else backed us up at the tower. The enemy really noticed us and sent a bunch of vanguards, lightnings and LAs in our direction. And this kinda gave me an idea of a strategy. What if we create a fallback point. This is not a point where you repair and rearm. This is the place where you drag enemies to. Like a trap. The tower was a clear example, every time a reaver followed too far, there were Mossies and AA guns waiting to say hello. 2. Air has IMO a difficulty that other forces do not. We don't stay on the same altitude. And sometimes it really becomes incredibly hard to stay as a wingman as you lose sight of your teammates. However there are somethings we can do that can be incredibly fun that will put some tactics. Um lets call them "Air Calls" (shitty name. You guys can do better.  ) When Atr or whomever the leader is calls a certain formation we group up and create that formation. Examples: "Vulture": Fly in circles around waypoint. That was for jokes at J908 but I had alot of fun doing it. "1000 ft drop": We fly incredibly high to the ceiling and drop down like birds on our prey. I actually find that most enemy ESFs never fly at that altitude. This is also Super Effective against Liberators. There are certains "moves" we can do that can make enemies shit their pants. Heck perhaps PP can say they need a drop on X target. 3. Nothing more to add. 4. I am gonna do a slight U turn on this. I did it last night on Esamir as we ghost capped the entire continent. The one reason I found that I now really hate ghost capping is because A) ghost capping is soooo boring and I prefer to fly with my squad as a team and B) I tried to ghost cap and an enemy mined my mossy and I was reset to a timer. This happened 4 times. After that I firmly believe that it should be a last resort |
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Post by atrgeist on Mar 3, 2013 20:39:41 GMT -8
1. Yep, have to agree here. It takes one mistake and you'll probably have a downtime of 5 or so minutes, assuming you have resources left. Not only that, but there's a lot of things that can kill you really fast, from enemy ESFs to AA nests to vanguards shelling you from the ground. And given the current AA state, there's limits to your areas of operation, more-so on bigger ops that tend to draw people in. It's not terribly rewarding XP wise either. The main draw is withing doing the act itself.
2. Not just that they have to adjust alititude, but you can't be too close either, lest you risk crashing into other friendly aircraft and killing them. Ceiling flying is a pretty good idea, since it takes altitude out of the equation, and often lets you sneak up. Static formations aren't so hard (like the circling around a waypoint), but mobile ones are something we need to work on, more-so on how to break from them to engage targets, so we can get firepower out without risking collision.
3. This isn't something we can really fix other than informing commanders. Often we've had to resort to grounding so we can act as a rear guard, which is a little irritating. On the offense, frequently larger battles will turn into suicidal no-fly zones, or we'll extend way past allied territory, forcing us to either go somewhere else, or lose quite a bit of effectiveness.
4. Back-capping is more of just bothering to initiate the things, that's how I do it, it's on the point, flip, out. No sticking around to deal with the 3 people who bother to stop backhacks. Ghost capping is pretty slow, so I don't tend to stick around for the XP.
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