The Fighting TTLGers present: Arma 3 (a TTLG Coop Saturdays spin-off)

[Thirith]

In the meantime, here’s some Arma from from a YouTuber. The beginning goes on for too long, but I generally like the guy's sense of humour, and this video has a fun overall story:

[Thirith]

Nice session today (thanks to henke, Malf, Jeshibu, Sulphur, PigLick, Al_B and Lord Penney!), though we again fought tech problems - for the entire first hour. Every time someone dropped out because of a wobbly connection and rejoined, everyone would get a black screen, so we'd have to restart the mission from scratch. After that happened the third time, we gave up on that particular mission. :-/ At least Sulphu got in some quality time crawling all over the ammo box... on his butt. In a tuxedo. Classy.




The second mission didn't really work particularly well either, pretty much generating us a mission at random. Three tasks were immediately marked as "completed", whereas when we actually finished the fourth task - blowing up an enemy jeep at a nearby airfield - the game didn't register it. Good times.

Then we moved on to Downpour, though, a cool, atmospheric siege mission done by Lord Penney that had us defending a town against incoming enemies. Louie, our trusted helicopter pilot, finally came in after 10-15 minutes of us trying to stay alive, but he didn't make it... Actually, very few of us made it to the chopper, but in the end Malf piloted the handful of survivors out of there like a pro.

We ended on a simple attack mission, Firefight Frini, that had us clear out a village on Altis. The armoured vehicle that kept shelling us didn't exactly made it easy, especially since it zeroed in on AT soldier henke, but once he did manage to take it out, making the third shot count, it was just a matter of time until Frini was free. Hooray!

The next Arma session will take place in three weeks: Saturday 18 August at 3pm UK time. See you then!

[Sulphur]

Small correction: that was Jesh in the tux doing his best impression of someone in urgent need of deworming pills. I was the one mounting the ammo box while he scootched all over it. This is possibly too much information, but we're all about accuracy in this joint. Uh huh.

[Thirith]

You're absolutely right, of course, though in my defense you and Jesh did seem to be playing X-rated Twister on/with that ammo box at times. As E.A. Poe wrote: "Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"

[Sulphur]

It was a rather handsome ammo box, though. Be still my tell-tale heart!

[Thirith]

Yesterday's session was small-scale (we had five people, one of whom had to drop out after the first mission) but fun, even if we once again ran into some odd, even mission-breaking bugs.

The first mission, Point Insertion, had us first liberate a small base, then take out the AA vehicles at a nearby airfield. Part one worked pretty well and got us an armoured vehicle, but part two... Well, let's put it like this: all the vehicles we tried to take out simply wouldn't go down, not even after missile hits, mine blasts and the like. Most likely since the mission was created Bohemia tweaked the balancing, which meant that the equipment in the mission simply wasn't up to the task. In any case, we finally finished the mission by unloading everything we had into the AA and deciding that we'd won, whatever Arma said.

We then finished on a generated mission on Tanoa - great map, that one -, except again, bugs struck. Lord Penney had carefully selected mission objectives, but the mission then ignored those and had us go and steal two vehicles... which weren't even where the map indicated that they should be. I think that Malf and Lord Penney made it out of there after liberating a different set of vehicles in a nearby quarry, but Jeshibu got stuck trying to steal a truck that wouldn't go anywhere and I died in the squelching Tanoa mud. Good times!

Quick note concerning the coming sessions: due to private issues I'm not able to plan weeks in advance, so I'll announce the next session a few days before it happens, and I'll send the usual Steam messages to the gang. If anyone else is interested in joining, please either post something here or send me a PM. I'm hoping to run another Arma game in 2-3 weeks, though.

[Jeshibu]

Here's the end of the first mission:

Also I did steal a truck that ran, but I decided to try for one of those big quarry dump trucks but those were sadly static objects. Sad.

[Thirith]

The next Arma 3 coop session:

Date: Sat, 15 September 2018
Time: 3-6pm UK time

As always, I'll be online a bit before 3pm to set up the server and check who's on Steam.

I'll send around a bunch of Steam messages to make sure that everyone's informed.

[Thirith]

Okay, High Command just gave us the green light for the next session:

The next Arma 3 coop session:

Date: Sat, 6 October 2018
Time: 3-6pm UK time

As always, I'll be online a bit before 3pm to set up the server and check who's on Steam.

I'll send around a bunch of Steam messages to make sure that everyone's informed.

[Thirith]

Sadly I can't really say how today's game was, since I had audio problems and as a result couldn't hear any of the others on radio. I could still play, but it was a fairly surreal, unsettling experience. Which wasn't helped by the first mission crashing in a weird way, leaving all of us in our own individual pocket universes.

Things improved on the second mission, which tasked us with freeing hostages in Ghost Hotel. The firefights that ensued were intense as Team Blue and Team Red tried to clear the compound of enemies. One of the journalists who'd been taken hostage was killed in the fight, but the other was freed. I'm still not entirely clear on whether he actually made it to the safehouse with us, mind you.

We finished on a convoy through Takistan, which ended up with one truck, two humvees and four of us (henke, Malf, Al_B, Lord Penney) down. Jesh and I managed to take down the attackers and we made it to safety in the remaining truck, realising that the best way to deal with the situation would've been to floor it and race through all the ambushes.

What was the session like for those of you who actually heard the others?

[henke]

It was good! The journalist in the first mission wouldn't budge from his spot so we got on the boat and left without him. Somehow we completed the mission anyway.

I got out after the second mission to go make dinner, I guess you didn't even notice.

Hope you get your audio issues figured out before next time. If you need some help testing, let me know.

[Thirith]

Cheers! I found out what the problem was: apparently Windows 10 audio doesn't just have default devices for playback and recording, there's also such a thing as a default communications device, and that was set to my screen - even though my screen didn't actually play any sounds. Now that I've deactivated the screen as a possible output device (until the next Nvidia driver update... ), TS3's audio comes from my headphones, as God intended.

I'd suggest running the next Arma session on Saturday 20 October and will send Steam messages to that effect later this week.

The next Arma 3 coop session:

Date: Sat, 20 October 2018
Time: 3-6pm UK time

[Thirith]

Yesterday we had a fairly short, small-scale Arma session, as I had to leave early. The mission was Operation Jungle Dance, the place was the mountainous jungles of Tanoa, and even though we won in the end, we once again realised that jungle environments might look cool and be atmospheric, but they don't make for particularly fair fights. If I remember correctly, officially the AI doesn't see through foliage, but if they don't, then they have spidey senses to make up for it. Arma is not at its best when you repeatedly get killed by people you don't see and therefore can't really develop much of a strategy against.

Nonetheless, it was fun playing with the gang (henke, Jeshibu, Malf and late arrival Sulphur), it was fun blowing up shit, walking away from the explosions slowly and getting killed by the blast. It was also fun that Teamspeak 3 and the radio mod worked again on my side, because it meant I could both hear the others and talk to them. (The strong, silent type shtik from the previous session had not exactly been my cup of tea.)

Due to some family stuff going on at the moment, I can't yet say when the next session will be, but as always I'll post something here and I'll send around a message on Steam chat. Over and out!

[Thirith]

Okay, we're back on track to get shot to bits by omniscient AI!

The next Arma 3 coop session:

Date: Sat, 24 November 2018
Time: 3-6pm UK time

[Thirith]

Aaaand that's a wrap.

We played a proc-gen mission called Malden Insurrection - and hey, for once a procedurally generated mission actually worked pretty well! Sure, there were meatgrinder moments and scenes of sheer WTFery, but I enjoyed the session... minus perhaps the extended bit at the docks, where we were besieged by an army of enemy frogmen. My favourite moment, though, was the boat trip to the lighthouse, where the boat suddenly just vanished under our arses, so we swam to attack the frogman base - and won! The mission ended on another beautiful moment: Lord Penney called in a transport helicopter, which (unlike most of the ones we'd called in earlier) actually made it there in one piece. We got in - and promptly got blown up by the AI. Everyone died, except for Malf who was still back at base picking a gun. Fun times!

I'm thinking that I'll organise the next session in two weeks, but I'll confirm at a later date. Cheers, everyone!

[Sulphur]

Spending an entire day's worth of gametime on one map made for some great atmosphere.

*Malf's death by a civilian in a car gunning into the group was a pretty cinematic moment for ragdoll physics
*Who knew backing up then throttling a quadbike into a transport plane could make both vehicles explode? (sorry, guys)
*Lord Penney's extraction requests after completing the first objective (and we needed to get the hell out of dodge before being surrounded) turned out to be a reprise of that scene from Aliens where the transport crests a nearby hill and almost makes it to us just before blowing up
*We heard some fire at our backs so we turned around and saw someone in a gillie suit who henke immediately gunned down, then I shot him to make sure he was dead (sorry, Al)
*HALO jumping into the pitch black night, seeing the southern edge of the map unfurl below with a lighthouse sweeping gigantic spears of light across the entire landscape was a sight I don't think I'll forget soon
*At one point after we'd camped on the roof of a building near the shore and taken out some of the infinite army of frogmen, I got shot and respawned. I tooled around on a quadbike and wandered the edges of the base for a while, and came across multiple civilians crawling across the roads in the dark; I attempted to run over them, went upside down, and just about killed myself (sorry, me)
*And of course the magnificent boat ride where henke commandeered a boat that just blipped out on the way to the frogman base. All of us swimming in the black towards the objective, hearing nothing but water and muffled voices, the darkness momentarily parting as the lighthouse beams came around and lit our careening bodies up, then landing on that little spit of land and shooting the last frogman before sticking around to watch the day break across the shoreline

And really, I don't think we could have asked for a better way to end the session than all of us piling into a transport helicopter that promptly got exploded by friendly AI.

[Malf]

I captured the moment (although Shadowplay wasn't set to capture my mic, grrrr):

[Thirith]

There were a couple of moments yesterday where I could hardly breathe because of laughing at the weird shit that had just happened.

[Thirith]

So, I'm thinking I'll run another two sessions before the end of the year, namely one on 8 December and one on 22 December, in case anyone's still around then. Ho ho ho!

The next Arma 3 coop session:

Date: Sat, 8 December 2018
Time: 3-6pm UK time

As always, I'll be online a bit before 3pm to set up the server and check who's on Steam.

[PigLick]

just noticed a new update for Arma 3, Warlord mode? Is that any good for us to play at all.
I should be around on the 8th as I have a birthday party to go to, and will probly get back round midnight for me, probly in the mood for some shenanigans

[Thirith]

I definitely think it might be worth checking out Warlords mode, but whether it's fun or not, I cannot say. Some of these procedurally generated missions can feel extremely random and they sometimes rely on spamming the player group with infinite enemy spawns; on the other hand, a lot of the designed missions have buggy scripting or they've been screwed up by one of the many updates to the game. I'm thinking we'll check out Warlords at one of the missions to see if it's fun or if it's too much of a Bohemia Interactive meat grinder (which their proc-gen missions to date usually are).

Anyway, looking forward to catching up with you on the battlefield on 8/12!

[PigLick]

an interactive meat grinder is the best meat grinder

[Thirith]

Today's game started late, due to me not having kept my Arma server install up to date (my apologies...), but we - that is, henke, Malf, Piglick (for about half of it) and myself - then had a good four-player mission on Altis. For once we weren't constantly defending ourselves against unfair, omniscient AI but on top of the mission; it wasn't without challenge, but it was fun feeling that the game wasn't a PTSD sim, which it can sometimes feel like.

Thanks to everyone for joining the game - I'll run another session on 22 December, just before Christmas, for anyone who's around. Over and out!

The next Arma 3 coop session:

Date: Sat, 22 December 2018
Time: 3-6pm UK time

As always, I'll be online a bit before 3pm to set up the server and check who's on Steam.

[Thirith]

Thanks to henke and Malf for a silly pre-Christmas session. We got killed horribly and quickly in the first mission, then triumphed in the second, and went completely off the rails after that. My favourite moment? Zooming around an airfield trying to kill henke in an invisible jet and Malf in an invisible tank. They saw me flying around in an invisible helicopter, apparently.

It's been a fun year of Arma sessions. The game is still janky as hell and the user missions can be brilliant, horribly or broken beyond repair by the latest round of updates, but when the game works and when you've got a bunch of people working together but without taking themselves too seriously? It's magic.

P.S.: Gotta say, sometimes I really like how atmospheric this game can be. Other times it's visually mediocre and sometimes even stunningly ugly, but there are moments that are quite gorgeous.

[Tony_Tarantula]

Bah. Bad timing.

So...a lot's been going on. My old laptop couldn't handle Arma 3. I've gotten a new on that can. I've also been dealing with some massive crap in other areas of my life related to work that has led to me cutting out almost all recreation except meeting my warmachine group (which I only made time for because I needed to keep at least one non-networking source of social interaction open).

All that shit's sorted out. New job, new laptop, and ready to go. Can someone add me on Steam?