Please post here with feedback for Tank Cutters.
The combination of having only armour attack us and us only having to defend a single stronghold instead of having to hold different defensive lines with fall back points made this mission extremely boring. Lots of moments reminded me of that old duck hunting game where the player would just shoot ducks from a stationary position. This would’ve been a lot better if we had the possibility of falling back to predetermined defensive lines whenever the enemy managed to get the upper hand over us and if more infantry had been thrown into the mix so non-AT players had something to worry about as well.
The base we had to defend was also a bit on the sh*t side as:
-The static AT guns were placed A. behind bushes, so we couldn’t see Jack shit and B. too close to the walls, resulting in the gunners being killed by back blast (I think, not 100% sure).
-The position of the encampment couldd’ve been better as it was pretty damn near impossible to set up around the camp, there were no rocks or foliage to hide behind, just open hills, MAT team may as well have carried protest signs saying "Please shoot us, we’re here!".
I came in late so maybe my opinion isnt fully valid. I entered at At the first reinsertion - Joined MAT Team and managed to get a little action by blowing up tanks from one kilometer off. Next tank that came headshotted me from 500 m off. I know I missed the Infantry element of the firefight but I didn’t enjoy the tank fighting. When I managed to reinsert Arty killed me and as far as I know tanks killed a huge chunk of the team, No infantry. I guess thats not really fun if you got a tin plated vehicle staring at you and you cant do jack shit to it. If the intention was to have a good tank fighting mission as the name suggests - perhaps give more AT. The arty made the launchers unusable due to the shrapnel.
As for the placement of the encampment - it was fine but the lack of real cover anywhere near us was the reason for such high casualties. Chris pretty much got it spot on IMO. Had a blast chilling with the guys in general. Not being overtly critical but this is my opinion.
The static AT gun was worse than useless, two people died due to bugs firing from it and it never hit anything (being very difficult to aim, too). The TOW was much better, but not having our own armour or massive amounts of decent AT meant it was a bit dull, at times.
Pros: Uniforms :3 And I liked the feeling of hugging cover whilst being bombarded. This sort of static gameplay would be good in future ops, but maybe in a more mobile, stretched out, hold the line style game.
Cons:
I didn’t like the artillery was too powerful and even finding cover didn’t protect us. Really hitting the dirt should be enough to protect us at distance, and finding cover between you and the mortar should protect you from from direct shelling. It’s kind of harsh to shell us when we literally cannot move. Almost everyone died as a result. It would have been nice to have had a defilade to retreat behind, but the only way out was up the hill which is suicide. I guess that was the point but our position was very compromised. I also thought non-AT had very little to do and there should have been more infantry. Would have been nicer if the defensive line was longer and was assaulted directly, or the ambush was a brief hit and run, followed by an easy retreat
As I said Im pretty sure this was due to BB killing them[quote user_id=“9116490” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/9116490/avatar/medium.1400145727.png” name=“Price”]Pros: Uniforms :3 And I liked the feeling of hugging cover whilst being bombarded. This sort of static gameplay would be good in future ops, but maybe in a more mobile, stretched out, hold the line style game.
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This static gameplay would be good if it was mobile? Wut?
I think this certainly was a well designed mission (setting / placement / editor wise). The placement of static weapons might have been a bit more strategic, but other than that - I can’t really complain.
Because (IMHO), arguments like "infantry didn’t have anything to shoot at", "there was no way to effectively retreat", are just not good ones. You’re essentially saying that the mission wasn’t a cookie-cutter shooting gallery for you. Is that how you want missions to be done? The whole point of Arma is the gameplay diversity - one mission will be stationary and "boring" (even though it wasn’t for me, even as an AT-less guy), just so you can have "non-boring" ones.
What if I make a vietnam war era base defense mission where you get overrun and killed in the end, with mission fail regardless of what you do? Will you also complain that it wasn’t fair because they had more guys, that you had nowhere to retreat, no extraction, no tanks or other big guns, …?
I’m just trying to point out that the goal shouldn’t be to provide feedback on how to make every mission exactly the same. 
I guess it would make much more sense if we weren’t US soldiers, but ie. Russian ones, given the equipment and the fighting tactic of "dig in and don’t let them pass, at any cost, no retreat". Presumably (lore-wise) there would be other defensive positions like ours set up in the area.
Zeus’ing was also well done (at least within the first half when I was there), Ryujin tried to flank us by sending a group of guys … well, from the flank. We couldn’t engage them well until they were right on us, though we managed in the end.
Maybe do a bit more of those, combined with some reasonably inaccurate mortar shells to mix things up a bit and break our defenses, so infantry gets something closer range to shoot at.
By the way, there’s no backblast on either the big AT gun or the static missile launchers. Just tested it thoroughly, must have been something else.
The big gun is indeed ineffective against heavy armor, but it takes a BTR out in two shots and a truck in one, which is still pretty good. The aiming wasn’t really a big issue for me after the first 3-4 shots, you can get used to it easily and estimate how much you need to aim up. It also had white phosphorus and HE rounds, which are mighty effective against anything soft. And a lot of rounds, unlike the very limited rockets.
The bugged vanilla supply crate was a bit unfortunate, though.
Just be careful with Howitzer rounds next time (if those were what hit us), their shrapnel pierces even building walls and flies much, much further than you would expect.
Anyway, just my 2 pennies.
Hi guys, thanks for the feedback! Since I wasn’t there it helps me a lot.
I don’t know about the form of the enemy since that was fully up to Ryujin so I won’t comment on that. Other than that I get what you mean by a lack of fallback points. I hoped that the "shorter" mission length would’ve been enough to make it interesting all the way through but I guess not.
Also can someone clarify these things for me please since I wasn’t there to see the problems:
Did you have 3 guided AT launchers and the D-30 (Big AT-gun) and was that still not enough?
What was the bug with the crate? Could you not use the mines?
Was the base too small for 18 people or were you going out of it for a better position?
Also you could move all 3 guided launchers with ACE interact. Was there a bug or should I have put that in the briefing?
I just want to know exactly what went wrong with mission design/bugs so I know it for the next time using the same assets. Thanks 
I was only there for the first 30mins or so and from what I saw I could see some work had gone into placeing the AT nest, it was unfortunate we had the ammo box bug so we couldn’t unload extra supplies.
Things I maybe would have done slightly differently if we are doing a purely armour defensive mission and we are supposed to be a specialised AT unit then don’t be afraid to forget about the Infantry elements and just lay down multiplie MAT teams to play as so no one is left feeling they can’t take on the enemy, I also noticed this was negated slightly with the use of supply boxes which had etc AT4 in so others could pickup.
I like the premise of the mission to inflict as much damage as possible and hold up the enemy just like AT teams used to in WW2 but unless the plan is for people to get overrun with nowhere to go then can I suggest we use built up areas on major cross roads as the urban environment provides cover in order to fall back and also just more cover to choose from. Or if want that outdoors feel then have us placed on the edge of a large wood block so there is an avenue of escape. But last stand missions are fun and pile on the pressure
The thing about artillery so if 105’s were being used against you they should be some way off your position,motors would have been best or even better why not use arty smoke rounds on your position in order for a new wave of armour to get really close to the nest in sure this would have been very tense with armour on top of your position once the smoke had cleared.
I also tested the big AT guns and it is not BB killing people it is the insane bug of not being able to zero if your target is quite low relative to the horizon and the crew has not used this weapon before, it is tempting to point right at it to gauge your first shot unfortunately these shot normally always fall very very short killing the crew.
Anyway I would like to thank Anders and Ryujin for the fun.
Regards,
Dachi
As I said Im pretty sure this was due to BB killing them[quote user_id=“9116490” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/9116490/avatar/medium.1400145727.png” name=“Price”]Pros: Uniforms :3 And I liked the feeling of hugging cover whilst being bombarded. This sort of static gameplay would be good in future ops, but maybe in a more mobile, stretched out, hold the line style game.
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This static gameplay would be good if it was mobile? Wut?[/quote]
I meant defense… holding a single locationg, but I wanted a bigger location to hold so you’d have to keep moving around and keep a skeleton guard on flanks not being attacked so they can hold until the bulk of you get there.
It would mean that the area would be less saturated and we stand less chance of losing everyone to artillery.
[quote user_id=“13633351” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/13633351/avatar/medium.1434890353.jpeg” name=“Freghar”]
Because (IMHO), arguments like "infantry didn’t have anything to shoot at", "there was no way to effectively retreat", are just not good ones. You’re essentially saying that the mission wasn’t a cookie-cutter shooting gallery for you. Is that how you want missions to be done? The whole point of Arma is the gameplay diversity - one mission will be stationary and "boring" (even though it wasn’t for me, even as an AT-less guy), just so you can have "non-boring" ones.
What if I make a vietnam war era base defense mission where you get overrun and killed in the end, with mission fail regardless of what you do? Will you also complain that it wasn’t fair because they had more guys, that you had nowhere to retreat, no extraction, no tanks or other big guns, …?
Anyway, just my 2 pennies.[/quote]
Sorry but aren’t we playing this for fun ??? If we have a majority of Inf without AT facing a tank platoon which btw has no inf support, it appears a little unrealistic and not at all fun. Everyone should have something to do in a mission. If you want to guard a sector for 2 hours and chill go join Milsim units. I can recommend many from my experience in them.
And in the Vietnam war mission - there will be plenty of inf. Not many tanks in a jungle. If we were to die then so be it. In the Jan campaign I ran, the first mission everyone was meant to die and that is precisely what happened - but not without getting a good amount of action.
I understand your point, that there should be diversity in the mission but IMHO Arguments like "infantry didn’t have anything to shoot at" are very good ones as they were not equipped for the job. And dont say in real life it can happen where people are unequipped because this is a game.
What? I really hope MMT doesn’t actually purposely make boring missions to make other ones more fun, and if they are it would be very much appreciated if you could tell us beforehand so I won’t have to bother showing up. You’ve created enough diversity by making a defense mission as the majority of the other ones are attack missions so purposely making it boring to boost diversity is unnecessary and a bit cheap. I don’t actually believe MMT does this though.
And Freghar, how is a mission based around defending one single location without moving back even once less of a shooting gallery than a defense mission with counter-attacks, retreats etc. ?
All this mission needed was more balanced friendly troops so everyone had a useful role and more diverse, even realistic enemy forces. No sane mane sends an armoured battalion to attack enemy positions without having infantry elements to support them and take out any enemy AT they can.
It’s not true that infantry didn’t have anything to do. At the base you had two fireteams and a MAT team. MAT had their own weapon, but infantry had two static weapons and a D-30 cannon to use. The rest of players who didn’t man the AT guns or spot for them, had enough to do with infantry that was transported with BTRs, and trucks.
The mission was to ambush enemy movement down south, they didn’t know about your location initially. They started off by sending scouts, then fast APCs carrying infantry followed by transport trucks. When they figured out they have been wiped out, they brought tanks to snipe you guys away. At that time I did not know you guys managed to destroy static weapons due to poor use of it (as Dachi pointed out, maybe a crash course on using them should have been organised).
When Freghar is speaking of "boring" missions, he’s referring to the well known effect in Arma; It is very rare that there is action for the whole duration of the mission and simultaneously everyone is having same amount of it. Arma, unlike COD and similar fast paced games, takes more time around preparation for action than being in action itself. Similarly, not everyone will have same amount of fun, depending on how situation develops.
At the second half of the mission I continued role playing as enemy and sent in some howitzers at "last known" location of your camp. I was hoping that shells would land far enough from your location not to kill anyone, but it seems like ACE makes howitzer rounds really powerful. I’ll be much more careful in future with howitzers.
In the end I tried to compensate for what some might see as unfair mission considering howitzers and two powerful tanks. I reinserted everyone from base with 4 new TOW missile launchers, and gave you enough time to spread them around. Then I’ve sent two 3-tank groups as a final push from the enemy. Unfortunately one of them took three TOW launchers with one shell.
Defense missions are always hardest to prepare and execute, but with the feedback you guys are providing to us next missions will be much better.
[quote user_id=“11585258” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/11585258/avatar/medium.1412003243.jpeg” name=“Chris”]
The base we had to defend was also a bit on the sh*t side as:
-The static AT guns were placed A. behind bushes, so we couldn’t see Jack shit and B. too close to the walls, resulting in the gunners being killed by back blast (I think, not 100% sure).
-The position of the encampment couldd’ve been better as it was pretty damn near impossible to set up around the camp, there were no rocks or foliage to hide behind, just open hills, MAT team may as well have carried protest signs saying "Please shoot us, we’re here!".[/quote]
Good points, although it was different and simple to get going as a mission which is important for short mission with a minimum of setup time required. It was a tricky place to defend and to withdraw from that’s for sure and really at the end I should have called for a fighting retreat to the east as soon as we lost all those guys and the new static AT at the end. Instead I asked you to kill about a hundred tanks! You got a lot of them but it was a bit much to ask.
With hindsight it might have been a better plan to put some of our reinforcement static AT up on the top of the hills with the windmills so a single HE round couldn’t kill our flank in a single shot. Then again I think tanks were already moving around our sides at that point and it was probably too late. As for other stuff I will be training on the D-30 AT gun as I couldn’t hit anything with it.
I would like to make it clear I didn’t find it a boring mission at all. There was a lot of scope for tactics to be improved as this was a different kind of battle than we are used to. I enjoy using all the static assets it’s just I need more practice.
Then how do you justify ie. guerrilla missions? Yes, it is a game. Yes, we play it for fun, but there are more ways to make a fun mission than to provide good equipment to the players and let them kill everything.
However my point wasn’t in the "didn’t have anything to shoot at" argument itself, it was in the solution. I simply wanted to point out that "throw more infantry in" isn’t the only one - you can give people more AT weapons, position them at different locations, use artillery crews, demolition specialists, etc.
Really the only reason I pointed it out was to have more diverse missions, to prevent even more of
- spend 30 minutes trying to get a convoy going
- get to AO, leave vehicles behind for enemy AI to use
- shoot stuff, take casualties
- shoot more stuff, reinforce
- kill civilians, hostages and other allied forces, reinforce
- complete the main objective, reinforce
- roll back home in glory, mission won
- reinforce
Not saying every mission is like this and I get that there need to be compromises due to the limited time (during mission making or gameplay), but I personally really, really enjoy missions which go beyond "go there, shoot stuff" and would like to promote the diversity in some way.
[quote user_id=“11585258” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/11585258/avatar/medium.1412003243.jpeg” name=“Chris”]What? I really hope MMT doesn’t actually purposely make boring missions to make other ones more fun, and if they are it would be very much appreciated if you could tell us beforehand so I won’t have to bother showing up. You’ve created enough diversity by making a defense mission as the majority of the other ones are attack missions so purposely making it boring to boost diversity is unnecessary and a bit cheap. I don’t actually believe MMT does this though.
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I used quotation marks to make it clear that I don’t actually mean boring, but maybe rather less intense, with less action. Not saying that it was the case with this mission and I do agree that it could be improved in some ways, just saying that in games like Arma, you don’t always get the action you want for your particular mood in that moment and if you did, the scenarios would be just too repetitive.
I played as infantry, without any AT weapon, and when I wasn’t dodging BTR machineguns, I was shooting at infantry 400-500m away and defending the position against infantry 50m away, so I also wouldn’t call the mission boring in the literal boring sense. Might have been bad luck, had some of that on past missions myself.
I created this mission in the hopes that it would work as a split between frontstage and backstage management. I really wanted a mission where some people would be on the front engaging and other people would make make sure the frontline were fueled and working. That’s why the big walls cut off the launchers and the "safezone" so to speak. I think this idea broke because of a few things. For example that you guys couldn’t load off supplies, didn’t find the Static metis AT launcher on the left side of the base, you didn’t move the launchers and the ACE ammo system for the launchers worked different than I first thought. All things that weren’t your fault. Also I think I should have waited with doing this mission to the advanced med sys was in use.
But thanks for the really good point Freghar. You’re right that everybody can’t have the same fun in every mission even though us in MMT fights hard to make it so. Sometimes people die for others amusement. As a medic it’s loads of fun to fix up a patient even if he dies but the patient might hate laying with a black screen for 10 min.
Also I must disagree with you Chris on the position of the nest. You can’t always have the best spot possible and sometimes you’ve got to work with things that aren’t pitch perfect. i’m of course taking it into consideration next time but I think there’s also some interesting things about not having everything. Also Chris and Sky please keep a healthy tone here. There’s no reason to tell someone to go play milsim or that you don’t want to join certain ops. It’s just gonna lower morale for people reading and if you care for this community I’d rather see you purely tell Freghar why you think that you’re argument was valid. That’s how we move forward.
I played AT position in this mission. It had its flaws (Weapon placement for example) as it has been discussed to some extent beforehand already. Still I think the main issue wasn’t the mission makers fault. The issue of TOW guys and rest came from bad work division by platoon commander. Every fireteam was given a TOW which ment 2 people max had an active job (Operator, spotter/ammo guy. Others had no binos). Then every fireteam had 2-3 limbo guys just watching waiting others to die or doing ineffective security whilst fireteam leader was split in where he should be.
Instead what should’ve happened was 1-2 fireteams should’ve manned the TOWs and other 2 provide security on flanks and destroy dismounted infantry. Everybody has a role and can operate as an unit. If you are worried detach 1-2 guys from security teams for AT reserve and give them binos to be spotters. Army units aren’t there just for show and breaking them up as they were broken made them ineffective in their multiple purposes of security, AT, infantry destruction.
This is correct, as the less effective AT gunner I thought I would chip in. The placement of the gun was fine and it did not blow up because of back blast or shooting the ground. Volken was much more effective than I and managed to hit targets. He was taken out my HMG or light cannon fire from vehicles that prioritised the AT gun when it was manned. Then I got in and had trouble ranging it correctly as I am useless and I got hit by the same fire. I think taking out targets at a greater range would have saved our lives.
There was an infantry attack on the western flank but of course you were on the other side of the line and you definitely had a more "tanky" experience. I guess it’s a question of realism you cannot expect infantry to manage to attack us all along the line when it is much more logical that they would attack from the west where they had a covered approach. I imagine MAT was actually halting a possible infantry attack from the east because you were doing such a good job. So yes this is a game but a game where we try and avoid having the enemy magically flank us. We could do this but I doubt most of us would enjoy it.[/quote]
It is a question of realism but not in the same manner as a "magical flank". What I meant was that whenever a tank squadron attacks, it has infantry support - in this case at least motorized or mechanized infantry support. That way Infantry Dismount and pin the MAT team by long range or medium range fire while the Tanks move up and finish us off. That would be logical and the correct way to go. My purpose for this is GM Feedback so that there is an overall better experience for everyone.