Last Thursday we spent some time working through issues with the Task Force Radio and ACE. I suspect that we will be doing the same this Thursday ... unless we get a huge turnout :-)

That being said I recommend the following downloads for testing purposes:

Task Force Radio

ACE3

Red Hammer Studios: both the AFRF (Russian) and USAF (US) mod packs

And check out the following link: Installing TFR and ACE

I'm up for some of that! After trying TFR, ACE3 and the RHS stuff for the first time online on near_blind's server yesterday all I have to say is WOW! Two thumbs up.

Here’s that AI driven helo extraction from the roof in near_blind’s mission which worked really well (except I didn't make it to da choppa ) ...

Sounds really good ... will download and see you Thurs !

I guess I'll sit out and wait when we play officially on the SimHQ server.

Not trying to exclude anyone but I know these mods are coming up in the SimHQ update and if there is not a large turnout, it might be an idea to help some people through the issues before we want to roll them out.

If there are more than a handful of people, we will probably do the SimHQ server and mission pool.

I just wanted to give people the opportunity if they wanted to take it.

I should be on to play a bit around 8pm central.

i should be around as well

Are we still running the SHQV3 pack alongside these mods?

it will probably depend on the numbers of people who arrive.

Looks like we have to iron out some Task Force Radio problems!

Reminds me of a little ditty called "Communication Breakdown".

Yeah. That last mission was with Meatshield's SimHQ mission template and it sounds like there is a rather particular way that you have to give everyone radios. The mission before that we did ok...

... but you are right. We need to work out how to use the radios in a coordinated manner. It's working with a small group because we are basically either talking locally or talking on the radio ... which is pretty much the system we have been using for the last few years :-). When we have anything approaching 2 full squads, we are having a more difficult time tying the two together.

We will probably go through some growing pains as we work that out.

yup that mission was a little borked, but i've just sent a, hopefully fixed, version to near blind for testing sometime.

It didnt really help that we didnt have SW radios and got split up which made anything coordinated kinda hard ... or me playing about with the ACE bondage stuff on nearblind

I wasn't there, but was it due to two separate fire teams cross talking, turning it into essentially everybody talk over the main TS channel we have now?

As I understand, this is where TFR can accommodate, but complexity grows. Each fire team would need to change to their own frequencies at mission start, with each team lead switching back and forth to a command frequency to talk to squad lead.

Or, all the short rage personal radios get set to the team frequency, and the team leader's backpack long range radio gets set to the command frequency, and he runs/talks over dual radios.

Anyway, the two missions we played last night were just great stuff. I had one major flub when I struggled with the scroll wheel and killed Klar instead of healing him (sorry Klar!). But two very well played missions.

In this case, Meatshield and I (and Ragtop, I believe) had the long range radios and were using those to talk between squads. TFR limited the range that the squads could talk amongst themselves (within the squad). That occurred as part of the template configuration mishap.

So, that left the squads at a disadvantage unless they stayed within a few meters of each other (10?). Outside if that, there was no way to talk to anyone without the long range radio.

In the mission before that, which did not use the new template, we did not have a problem talking within the squads. The problem there was that each squad was given a random radio frequency and we had no way, other than close range yelling, to get everyone on one channel. That wasn't so bad, however. After that, the coordination went pretty well.

Our biggest issue is going to be training squad and team leads in how they need to organize and distribute the fight. That's going to be the biggest hurdle. I think that we can work through that in the short term and come up with something, an operational pattern, that we can get used to. It does mean, however, that we need people to step up to leadership roles ... even if that means they might not get to fight as much as before.

I'm by no means trying to tell y'all what to do with the following, but just relaying what works for the group I coop with. We've been using TFAR for over a year now. We put the frequencies being used by the squads/fire teams as markers on the map so it is visible to everyone. This eliminates confusion trying to run around telling everyone what freq they're on. Every player gets a short range radio, with the SL getting both the long range and short range. In our particular group, we usually only have enough players for two fire teams, so we give the SL and FTL both the long range and short range radio. Each fire team has it's own short range freq, and the SL and FTL communicate via the long range. In the event of leader death, one person from the leaderless group will usually jump on the other fire teams short range freq to inform the SL or FTL what's going on. If you need to use the long range for that, you can just take that radio from the dead leader. It works for us. Also a couple tips. You can program freqs for different channels and switch between them. Ctrl+Tab will let you set the volume for direct speech, and it can be set to whisper, normal or yelling. Keeping it set on yelling works best in coop since your voice travels further (obviously), and you don't have to worry about the AI hearing you anyway.

So I don't see any need for "Frequency drama" in our gameplay.

Just decide what the permanent frequencies for Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta teams are as well as the permanent frequency for Long range radios are ahead of time.

Mission makers tune all radios in their missions to those frequencies at mission creation.

Post the permanent frequencies in the sticky doc at the top of the forum.

Here I will start -

Alpha - 444.1 mhz
Bravo - 444.2 mhz
Charlie - 444.3 mhz
Delta - 444.4 mhz

Long range - 50 mhz

(If these are not actual frequencies then substitute the correct ones since you get the idea. I have a long history of making elaborate points on topics I know nothing about)

If you get in game and your frequency is wrong tune it to the team you are in. No need to ask anyone. Why 444 and 50? Because they are easy to remember. In Bravo and want/need to talk to Charlie go up a frequency. Heck tune the the fire teams to presets before heading out.

The desirable gameplay that TFR adds is in the Long range radios in specified players loadouts locking the chatter out of the command net. Everything else should be standardized/simplified.

Well that and the no radio coms underwater. That's just fricking cool.

There really wasn't any freq drama on the human side, the radios however had a mind of their own! The short range radios kept changing freqs every time they were keyed up, rendering them useless. The long range radios were fine and we made do with lr and direct. This was specific to this one mission and I believe near_blind and Meatshield think they know what was going on and are working on a fix.

Exactly what Vamp said.

I do however agree that having predetermined frequencies is a good idea. This way picking up radios from other players etc (and any other unforseen circumstances) is made much easier because we'll all know exactly what to set them to.

I think that the intention of the template that Meatshield and Near_blind are working on is to have these frequencies all in a channel list: instead of entering specific frequencies for a squad, Alpha is on channel 2, Bravo is on channel 3, etc.

This will probably work better as different radios for different factions have, potentially, different frequency ranges.

And in this manner, you should just cycle through the channels instead of having to enter 3-5 digits properly ... which I, apparently, had problems doing :-)

Actually according to the TFR documentation all SR radios are 30-512 mhz and all LR radios are 30-87 mhz





Each faction uses their own encryption protocols however. You cannot tune into an opfor frequency and listen in.

You can capture an opfor radio however..