The wonders of Raven Shield….

Ok, not so surprising I slice ’round the corner, spot the X-Ray on the top of the stairs -> squeeze off a shot from my M16A2 on 3-round burst. Ok, no effect not even a flinch so 1ce more… 2ce more…. POW he shoots me.

The evil thing?

Trigger pulls -> 3×9 rounds should have been fired
Magazine -> 23/31 rounds remaining (on HUD)
Score board -> 8 rounds fired

the guy should have a least 7 holes in him, 9 if I didn’t hit the rail below the POI by some work of magic… but 8 rounds on the score board, with 0 hits to a slow tango rofl!!!!!

And *now* I can pass out…. lol

I was like a zombie at work yesterday, by the time I got home it was a splitting headache and felt like someone had kicked my bodies equilibrium on its side. Like working until burned out, then re-burn the burn out and keep marching :. Crashed in front of the TV and went to bed early… work wasn’t so bad today. What pissed me off is being re-tasked to reconnoiter a new grocery store on the way home -> I freaking hate shopping! I also don’t appreciate being made late…

I just got though with a training session, kind of organized chaos I guess but that’s thanks to my shitty work schedule. I conducted a deeper level of stealth training then we usually go into, and I used Ghost Recon to do it; JB, Noer, (at end) Ghost, Ambu, Carter, Decapi, Hostile, and Chester. I tried to iron it out how issues of rules of engagement, positioning, observation, reporting, and coordination of movement/fire command could be used to make the most of covert actions. After we did the training scenarios (ambushes, infil, etc), we moved on to a “shoot your instructor” scenario; where they had to sneak up behind me with MP5SD’s and go for the CQ kill. The trick was, I was on patrol with an AK and weapons free to shoot at anyone I saw trying to sneak up the hill hehe. I was a little disappointed with how long it took (I scored 2 kills, but 1 was probably a glitch) but overall very impressed with their effort (especially JBs). It was very, very pleasing to see them complete that scenario so well.

What can I say, I borrowed that one from U.S. sniper training and simplified it for our gaming environment lol.

With how long it took between setup and intermissions (note to self: be more strict), we didn’t get time for the RvS or S4 portions, considering the big attendance maybe that can do for session 2 next week; whatever. Really I should have just laid down for a nap after work but it was a good 3 or 4 days prep into the session, and one of them days where almost everyone’s there at just the right time.

Right now, I ain’t moving until the foods on the table – unless I’m snoring on my feet in the process!!!

good news: I get to conduct some training sessions soon
bad news: I go back to work Tuesday 🙁

A night on burning sands

Nothings up, so I setup GR and ran though a mission: first map of Desert Siege with the Sabre Teams mod active.

Equipped myself with a Diemaco SFW-SD, basically a Canadian M4 with SD, Scope, and M203. Crept through the darkness slow and steady, moving taking it as I would actually do it; instead of running headless chicken. All went well, basically made it into the enemy encampments before I was detected and they hardly knew what hit’em hehe. All the way pro, until I was creeping into a small room and saw an X-Ray unawares behind the door; tried shooting him through the seam of the hinge, but no go. So I backed out FAST, shut the door and moved around to his other flank…. open door, lean out, and plugged a M203 bomblet close to him -> lights out turkey!

Normally I wouldn’t do that, but GR utterly sucks and blows for tactical aids…. lol. Scouted out the last encampment, looked good, made ready to drop one of the sentries when my M203 fires… lol. A mistake that wouldn’t happen in real life, because you can feel the difference in triggers; but very easy in game when memory and HUD is all you’ve got to go on instead of memory and tactile senses.

Bugged out and out flanked the enemy counter attack, then moved up like a sniper in the night; nearly lost my head paying more attention to Willow barking like a nut, then moving in on for the kill.

Almost secured the entire map night creeping around, but there was this one bastardo around the building…. searched around before going up, only to realize we must’ve been playing cat and mouse for the last 8 minutes -> as the 2nd to last X-Ray shot me in the back of the head lol.

when stuck playing alone, night ops and an SD rifle help even the odds lol.

Year of the Monkey

Been playing a Vietnam themed Ghost Recon mod that was mentioned on our forums, Year of the Monkey; so far this is an awesome mod lol. Being stuck in the middle of a jungle, well is a terrain type that feels more natural then desert missions ^_^. Moment I got to the intro and heard the mods music taste, I was hooked. YOTM does music and sounds more “in period”, some of which are songs that are more my style then oft’ found today. GR already has awesome sound effects, and YOTM don’t do a bad job there either hehe.

Launched the first map on elite, ordered the sniper to an overwatch position and the next thing I know, I’m laying flat with helmet to the grindstone as bullets are whizzing by our insertion! Ordered all teams to surpress and I put down a bit of frag cover in order to peel alpha & bravo out under sniper fire. Oh man, what a map. Tried circling around the flanks in groups (leaving our sniper as bait lol), only for Bravo to get pinned down; I’m moving, can’t see crap, bullet zips over my ear and I dived straight to the ground; Bravo opened fire on their positions. Looking over my shoulder confirmed my ears summery, the poor slept behind me had lost his head; crawling back to safer ground and moving across the stream, so I could regroup on Bravo for a tactical withdrawal (they had just moved out of cover when we took fire). Lo’ and behold, 3 bodies moving in the water about 35m to Bravos 4 o’clock.

“I don’t give a f*** what that is, let’s rock”

and Alpha went weapons free, next thing I know we’re picking shrapnel out of our asses from behind lol. Swithced to bravo team, to find 2 men down and one stuck in a tree, being shot at by an enemy 3 metres away….. little M60 fire and problem solved. Maybe the AI isn’t totally used to the terrain?

Eventually ended up with just the Sniper left, when I found a small area dug into the earth and covered over with camo — leading into a tunnel system going all over the map. Now that’s what I call attention to detail!!!!! managed to eventually find my way out, only to see the end of tunnel come up practically behind our insertion point! Stuck my head out, and lost it without even seeing a thing.

Loaded it on Multilayer again, sent re spawns to infinite, then kitted out for action. M60 General Purpose Machine Gun plus Frags. That was a crazy map. I went to search around the spawn point, next thing I know there are two X-Rays behind me: little bastards had a small encampment buried into the ground where I couldn’t see, came out and shot me lol. In attempts to attack the village position, met with heavy fire and got blown up by grenades several times; ended up using frags and M60 fire just to pepper then enough I could circle around between flanking positions.

A few lives later, managed to creep into the village undetected, passing up a kill – then lit up their world. Main problem was the tunnels and having to frag both sides of a T-Junction; killing the enemy or forcing them to take cover, then trying to engage before getting shot in the back lol. At least though, GR doesn’t seem to be capable of simulating booby traps… lol.

Played through several of the missions and it was just awesome; cook a few goons (I love setting ambushes), check your six, then move out, and next thing you know Charlie’s fried your ass.

One thing I love about Ghost Recon, is it has that feel to it, that feel that behind any rock or tree could be lurking a nasty surprise. That’s something that is sorely missing from war games set in urban environments, where you generally know where threats can come from, where they probably will be, and good cover is scarce.

Was playing a bit of Ghost Recons PlayStation 2 editiion, after so many years of CQ in [SAS], I really hate the AI more then I used to lol. One nice thing though, despite that it seems micro-management (barf!) or leaving by the wayside the Squad AI isn’t much use tactically beyond (very) simple fire and maneuver. One nice thing though, was scouting 20~40m ahead of the assault group when I spotted a sentry in a ditch; amazingly he didn’t notice me laying some 25 meters to his side, even with a tweedle dee and tweedle dumb giving away my snipers position 8=)

swapped fire teams and moved Alpha up, plugged a M203 into the ditch and then switched back to the sniper on Bravo to pick off anything fleeing from Alphas SAW.

Now if only the dipsticks didn’t cross my line of fire so often, lol. In terms of friendly AI, for what they are capable of GR has good squad AI, but sadly still needs baby sitting for anything beyond rules of engagement. I have no exposure to the AI community, but most video games have the “Artificial” part right, they just lack “Intelligence” to go with it.

A little DooM II: HR

Spawned in the middle of a field like area, heard of imps at the 12, and a wolf pack of Mancubus to the 9. Crazy critters flying about with big guns and arachno-things snipin’, pure madness. Took a couple of lives just to get into the “grove” of evading the shots lol. I forget what difficulty I have the game set to, but just looking at the things section in the wiki, goes to show the mixture of nasties on the map. So many baddies crawling around it was a dance between hit-and-run super shotgun, paint the plasma gun blue, and rocket frenzy lol, The hard part was the rocket launching critter around the one key.

By the time I got to MAP15: Gates to Hell (Hell Revealed), and managed to fight it down to just the imps on the wall… it got almost a chore to clear out survivors lol. DooM makes a great way to relax some brain cells though -> don’t care what the fuck that huge mother ****ing thing is called, but it’s getting a quartet of rockets shoved up it’s ass kind of moments lol.

note to self: finish the e-paper work on Carters big day

RvS action today

Todays RvS live op was a success, and I should be able to start work on the maps for the S4 op during the week. Spent most of the day between practicing in TG#1, did the LO, then we set it to Adversarial mode for some force on force drilling.

Rule #1, always get Nick first, haha!

I don’t care a great deal for survival / team survival mode, and I’m not terribly skilled at bomb mode; but I do love pilot mode and a full set of elements. Why, is because it makes you think rather then just kill stuff. Private Airport and Import-Export were especialyl fun maps. Nice to see though that the young troopers paid some attention to their training after all. Heh, that reminds me of a funny. We were on Team Survvial mode, off the banking house. I came ’round looking for some tangos, when I see someone laying prone with an AR in front of a n openning. Since we’re all on the same TS, I call out, “Hey whoevers laying prone …here… look behind you!”. The funny part, Hunter eventually got twitchy enough to do it, maybe felt me staring at him lol. So he stand sup toa crouch and turns around……. I squeeze off a solvo of Mac 9/11+SD into his helmet, but die leaving him gimped after Hunter opened up with his AR.

That’s when I learned, shoot them in the leg before they turn around, or just shoot them in the head 6-12 times instead of 4 xD

I also got to enjoy peaks, sniper fest and I was in the thick of it with my Walther WA-2000 magnum going head hunting. The sniper rifle is not something I use often in RvS, because I ___h_a_t_e___ having to fire 2ce to kill 1 tango at close range with a gun, designed to have a lethal knock down punch from hundreds of metres away! In the fighting on Peaks, I used 3 rounds per kill just to be sure lol. I always open fire and keep shooting the targets until they go down… and sometimes tempted to put two in the head before moving on, just to make sure we don’t get a frag rolling out after the fact.

Me and TF also went on a rampage in the Penthouse, 3vs2 and won hehe. Penthouse was always my favorite adversial map. Before I got into [SAS] stuff seriously, I spent over a year in adversarial play learning the trade. When I went back to Co-Op style, I embraced a more slow and methodical approuch until reaching the [SAS] Selection Course. These days, I know when to be slow, when the be fast, and when to shake, rattle, and roll.

Installed DF:BHD & patched it yesterday, to pass some boredom. About halfway to 2/3 through it, and I’ve noticed that it has become buggy as heck lol.

So far I’ve had…

  • Random crashes, maybe AI or Geometry related
  • Fell though a solid wall — wow
  • the shotgun has become a paper weight; give me a M9

One thing that both pleased, and pissed me off… in the mission to night-sneak into a building a few blocks down, without being detected. I kept perfect stealth until the AI decided to “take point”, walk into the light, and get us shot at lol.

The AI also can’t cover worth crap.

Two irksome things on one mission, about to drop down a hole and one of the NPC shouts, “think we should flash’em?”, and the PC replys, “Hell YES”. I had already dropped my flash before the exchange, and guess what — I drop down, the bang landed in their faces and nothing worked ^_^

The auto-reload on weapons dry, and auto-reload on ammo-box pick up is also as annoying as I remember. When the gun goes dry, ya don’t reload – you draw a pistol and keep movin’ but, I guess the developers never thought about that. Stumbling over an ammo-box and nearly dying, because you are suddenly stuck reloading a CAR-15 in a shoot-out ain’t nice either ^_^