Games

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Yesterday was a reaal cork popper! I have seen and heard a lot of crap over the years but I have never been so disgusted and angry in my entire life (thus far). It just took the cake and a half man… new record levels. And I’ve even seen a door breached and ripped apart practically by hand lol. That being said, the incident yesterday did not involve my blood kin in any way.

Maybe it is as the numeral unno says, just a week where everyone gets under each others skin… all in all though I am glad that I can be utterly pissed the F’ off and still be able to think clearly. I really had to learn at an early age how to deal with intense anger, my family is *that good* at pushing peoples buttons, mine included lol. The closet door still bears holes and knuckle prints from my hot tempered youth. We’re a lot of hot headed, loud mouthed, stubborn mules: and whether genetically or environmentally, have even worse then both my parents in that regard (That’s like saying you’re descended from lava and hydrofluoric acid).

One of the things that separates me from my family and many other people on this earth, is I can control my temper before it gets the best of me.

I just tried fitting my knuckles into the dents in the closet door, and I am kind of proud how far I’ve come since then… both in stature and control. I don’t go nova, I’m not a violent person by nature: despite having developed a put two in the head and move on philosophy of logical problem solving lol. I am the single most rational person I know, and strongly value c;ear thinking over lashing out at others (but can’t say the same about the rest of my family).

Perhaps this is one time, that I should be thankful for my family…..

[SAS] Dept. of Agriculture map

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Last night I started working on a customized version of the department of agriculture map (SWAT4: TSS). Basically I want to make some ‘interesting’ changes but still keep it recognizable as the same building. My biggest interest of course, is in rigging a spawn point from outside and trying to use the fire escape outside the records room as a possible point of entry 🙂

I will also likely adjust the enemy spawn points and things and roll down the number of suspects so it is harder to figure out where you will make enemy contacts – and make it more realistic. The big question of course, unveil it as a training map or should the first unveiling be a Live Operation? Hehehe. I guess we will just have to see how much reimaging I have time to do.

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I’ve been working through SWAT 4 more lately then RvS, and when I am Element leader, more often setting the advanced plan of action — the [SAS] style plan of action.

My thoughts is to expose the younger members to more of these fluid, embedding, and flowing assault plans: and let them learn from it by sight and sound. I hope it will eventually trigger an evolution of their thinking, because my demostrations are in the direction they will be heading in a few months.

I rarely care for the “Immediate Action Plans” that some of my peers will occasionally employ; little more then a liquid element full of flashbangs with orders to neutralize everything that moves. It’s too simple and while it may reflect a common infantry problem of advancing into the unknown or opertional boondocks, however it does not reflect most of our SWAT 4 or Raven Shield environments significantly. 95% of the time we have intelligence enough to form a suitable Deliberate Action Plan and more then enough time to get it put together. Just assigning a liquid element IMHO is best done when any element formation (period) is unnecessary, or the effort of creating one far outweighs the value obtained from organization. Just doing it without the on the spot corrections or routine training sessions, is also not going to teach anyone how to better utilize their time in a liquid element. Most of the time I look at it as a stroke of laziness.

A fixed element has some advantages:

  1. It helps build that discipline you only seem to get with rigorous close order drills
  2. It is very simple, that’s why it is what Recruits are trained in
  3. That simplicity allows less experienced members to optimize their brains thinking around the static structure of the formation and how they will be able to perceive the environment around them

While a simple rigidness is its greatest asset—it can also become slow and unwieldy on tight contested grounds.

Having to drone on through overly verbose loadouts and duty assignments (usually >5min) are the finest sign of either of two things: the Element Leader is still in the learning stage or the plan is overly complicated. In my experience the former is understandable (Rct/Trp/LCpl are still mastering it) and the latter is doomed to failure (effective now is better then perfect later). Not the side effects of a fixed element, only the institutionalization of young minds around them. Fixed elements are very effective and require the least level of experience to employ them optimally; yet this still leaves much to be desired in many situations.

Liquid elements can be highly useful:

  1. It offloads most responsibility from leaders to subordinates
  2. It can quickly adapt to changes in the environment
  3. And it can be very smooth and effective when utilized by seasoned members who have trained long together

It is also like a tidal wave, liquid elements may crash down hard and obliterate all in its path—but it may just as easily wash away under its own weight.

Because it offloads so much down the chain of individual intelligence and experience, it creates a lot more mental over head for those who have yet to adjust fully to the ebb and flow of an element in a close quarters engagement. Everything that was static and rigidly unchanging is now dynamic and flexing every second of play; using it with newbies or the young in general, often results in watching newbies at work. I can only compare a liquid element formation to taking a section of fresh Privates and making them all commanders of Stoßtruppen units, then expecting success…. not gonna happen without the training and the experience. When the element members are up to the task it is highly effective but requires a driving will to keep the tidal wave always striking, and never fading in the wrong direction. To often I have seen liquid elements lead to “sloppy” actions, because of the inclusion of inexerpeicned members in the liquid formation or just a lack of directive!

An assault element must be both fixed in nature and free as a liquid—it must flow through the cracks like a fluid and overwhelm the enemy.

Fluid elements combine all of the mental-optimizational attributes of a fixed formations static nature, but frees operators minds to further-optimize their collective actions, much as they must do (or die) in a liquid element. Often times when working in a fixed formation, I’ve had those “Uh, this is so F’ing stupid, but I’ll do as the young one expects” moments that makes me cringe. It is generally the sign of one who is still learning being in the EL slot, one one whose brain was institutionalized at that level, and has failed to grow beyond it. Elements must have fluidity – that freedom to optimize things on the run that fixed elements drop on ELs alone, and lead to overly intricate plans (Yes, if you are reading this I and wondering if your included, I mean YOU). Professionals should have no need a rigidness or “liquid” way of doing things: instead a simply fluidness of action that comes with experience.

I find describing my point very difficult, beyond a simply exposing it to light through action. It keeps the circle jerking to a minimal.

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I’ve a haiku-inspired thought in my head, that applies to fixed / liquid / fluid elements… todo write it when I have a clear’er mind

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Today has been a fairly good day. Dreams not to bad and I only over slept by an hour… lol. Spent most of the day conducting training for our newest recruit. Personally, I find the long winded chatter of some of the trainings I do quite boring; so I always try to keep sessions MOVING, try to keep people focused and moving forward. Recruits learn better when they are focused and not just trying to stay awake o/. That’s also one of the reasons I try to do a lot of training that’s more hands on stick and throttle these days. Most of the time I do training, I usually think of a class room’ish and hands on sector, yet try to avoid breaking it up as such. The older I get at teaching CQB tactics the easier it gets.

The recruits very good to work with, and perhaps more dedicated then most I’ve seen enter the selection course over the years. Heh, it also makes me think back to the days when most of our senior NCOs were going through the selection course: they could be a bunch of rowdy pains in our neck but eventually learned xD. Since 2005 I have seen and done much in [SAS], but getting to teach I think is still one of my very most favorite parts of this team.

After the prolonged session (thanks to all the live fire, hehe) I also got to spend time with Walker. I gave it him the mission in a way he is not likely to be used to yet: I gave it to him [SAS] style, pro all the way. The kinda raids us members conduct periodically and love doing. Where it is nether set in stone nor left to chance, but sublimely tactical in nature.

I am quite happy with all of our Recruits at the moment, I haven’t spent most of the last couple months with my eyes focused on our senior RvS recruit for nothing hehe. I always tend to rotate and slide myself into where ever I can lend a hand in [SAS], to me that’s just how a team works. I also have always liked it, when I have the chance to become useful in many trades. Through my path, my teammates cover me and I cover them, and we all get it done sooner or later.

I don’t drink, but cheers to that b||b

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You know, SWAT 4: TSS is really starting to spoil me :-/.

You might have to shoot the stupid prick 6 or 9 times to take him down, but you can be sure the bullets are hitting where the gun is firing ^_^.

Since I tend to follow up with head shots in S4 more readily, it is even more comfortable lol.

A short rumble on RvS weapons design

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I think arguably one of my biggest beefs with Raven Shield is the aiming fundamentals.

In real life the muzzle represents where the bullet comes from, obviously; however in Raven Shield it is closer to the eyes or eyebrows, despite the animations — its the top of the head that must be “clear” of an object in order to shoot around or above or under it.

The level of accuracy you have has nothing to do with reticles or scopes, it is all about magifnication. If you fitted a snipers scope to an H&K MP5A4 you would be incredibly accurate compared to firing zoomed without scope from the same weapon. In real life, well obviously you would have a pretty darn good scope in such a scenario — but you would not be able to exceed the precision your weapon is mechanically capable of offering. Raven Shields precision is a factor of accuracy rate and magnification. In my experience the accuracy rate only reflects how much you must “feel” your point of impact, more so then what the weapons can do. Fit a sniper scope on a Mac 9/11, and you basically create a 9mm clip fed light machine gun xD. I should know, when I was in my skills “prime” as an [SAS] Trooper, I was able to score headshots at 30-50m using our double tapping training and a Mac 9/11+SD. I also wonder how Raven Shields accuracy is effected by changes in screen resolution; all of my game play has been done on 800×600 and 1024×768 resolutions, running respectively on 15″ and 19″ CRT displays.

Whether through game design of latency in the online game play (most of which in my experience does not have to much to do with PING time), often it is as if bullets never go where they are physically required to be going. Imagine looking down your rear sight, with your front sight not even within view… that’s what I sometimes feel; often times I make remarks about firing a potato gun. That is because what you are shooting at has no real connection to what you are hitting; I have even seen bullets land BEHIND where the tango was standing, only to be killed by said tango. Also just recently I enjoyed the experience of firing down a scoped M1 shotgun zoomed on the tangos upper chest (full run, straight at target) only to have the shotgun shells entire payload (buckshot) land 1/3 a metre to the targets right crus; effectively the lower right hand corner of the screen. While I reckon this is possible in real life, it doesn’t connect with the reticles in game; as I have often held the theory, the reticle spread does not actually reflect where you bullets can go — only where you are aiming. That’s also why I can use an H&K MP5A4 without attachments and no reticles, just using the on screen gun and reflexive shooting in RvS.

Raven Shields model of penetration, damage, and general ballistics is also screwed. Normally I fire 2-3 round bursts on fully automatic, but when having to shoot through a window I’ve developed the 1-2 punch. Use an initial trigger pull to shatter the window and the follow up (full) burst to drop the target. The initial bullet may or may not penetrate the glass and do meaningful damage to the threat, so it can not be relied upon. Using a 3-round burst can also be suicidal in some cases. Use of Jacketed Hollow Point ammunition especially exacerbate this problem. The only good thing(tm) about it, it only takes 1 bullet to completely break the glass; if the tango fires just after your first shot, well you are dead. I have often wondered why there seems to be so much bullshit surrounding the use of Sniper Rifles up close, being able to do more damage with a P228 pistol (9x19mm Para) round then a suppressed WA-2000 (7.62x67mm Magnum) round; at a range of less then 3 metres. Where in, damage is defined as the number of times my pistol has killed the tango in 1 hit, but the sniper rifle has required 2 hits. After some time, I have concluded that the FMJ/JHP problem in SWAT 4, which has to do with muzzle velocity, mass, range, and force needed to penetrate, appears to be the cause. Weapons like the M82A1 fire at such a high MV, that the bullet over penetrates the target without doing enough damage. After many weapon tests using both JHP/FMJ loads with and without a sound suppressor in Raven Shield, I have come to believe this is the case. I have also begun to think this may also explain why the FN P90/Five-Seven, after all we are talking about a muzzle velocity in real life that is nearly double an MP5s… lol.

And needless to say, when you have a weapon designed to deal a killing shot from over 800m away, having to hit them twice at 3m is kind of retarded if you are packing a gun big enough to kick the fucker on his ass, even if it doesn’t kill him (^_^)/.

I suppose I should just count myself lucky that RvS doesn’t screw up FMJ/JHP loadings as bad as SWAT 4 does.

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*sigh* after smashing my toe into a step on Saturday (The joys of working on your day off!), I think the nail dug into the side of the toe… which was almost properly healed: now everything is even more fuxor then it was previously! Just finished soaking it, this is beginning to piss me off, the only good thing I can say is that I ain’t lost the nail _yet_.

It’s probably a good thing that I wasn’t energetic enough for exercising this afternoon. I can’t really do anything that needs to put pressure on my larboard big toe, which rules out a lot without walking in sandals lol,

Spent most of the day in SWAT 4 playing with COT, Walker, Cara, and a few others. As long as I am on the EU proving grounds, I don’t seem to get to much bad lags in SWAT, kind of ironic when you consider that I am an American (^_^)/. I very much try to keep myself current in all fields of SAS gameplay, among others hehe. The onyl time I’ve saw fit to lax that, is during my tenor as SSM, in which I took care of RvS as my fellow SSM Rasa oversaw SWAT4, all the while with RSM Rouge being our direct superior. When I became RSM, the only thing I welcomed with the position was being able to return to equal-attention between both games.

I’ve always preferred SWAT 4 since SWAT 3 became historical interest, yet “back in the day”, it was more economical on time for me to complete the selection course though RvS, SWAT 4s had not even been developed yet lol. I think SSM Noer was our second recruit through SWAT, and the first of many Mighty Troopers.

I also have a habbit of being where ever the best recruitable material can be found ;).

Fun night on PG US (RvS)

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Had IE2-M and a bunch of noobers, had to kick two of them before they would settle down.

I put up with them blowing the mission for a while.
I tried giving them a hand in the part most find ‘sticky’

Then when everyone else died, while I was forcing the obj. to remain secure: I gritted my teeth to an ‘oy’ and went about clearing the entire map….

It was worth being patient, just to show that an [SAS] man can kick some ass 😉

Something I would do just for fun ;)

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Build a modernized Galaga like game, that is simple, fun, highly addictive, and could be played for countless hours until you forget what day of the week it is — without needing quarters xD. Most definitely one made for a fast pace and long-haul style of play, like old arcade games, hehe.

It would also be a fun way to learn a few libraries ^_^.