I think you’ll find if you set up AI with control of the mortars proper, you guys would immediately regret it, and beg for the sweet mercy of zeus controlled mortars.
Sry for the really childish, happy Dulabu cry… you may enjoy the shot much more if you mute the sound, i’m very very loud when happy 
[youtube]uP2jFrmOkbY[/youtube])
As a medic I liked the mortars very much. I bet Teddy is still bleeding. On a more serious note, I didn’t like the terrain or at least the steep slopes.
PS. Zcribe I didn’t die.
It’s very good of Zcribe to provide a video of Zeus PoV. It helps as it allows mission makers to have a discussion and players to see how a mission is run by Zeus. There are certainly different styles in Zeusing. I feel that (and perhaps I would be less keen if I was Alpha Squad Lead…) Zeus controlled mortars can be realistic but more forgiving than other methods. As far as I could see once the fire mission module failed (probably because they were RHS) Zcribe did the next best thing and what I would do. The sequence seemed to go like this:
- One of our bases has been attacked! They stopped reporting in and there is lots of gunfire!
- Can any of our other bases see what has happened?
- WTF! There are confusingly handsome guys in funny white uniforms swarming over that hill where our base used to be!
- Call in fire support!
- 10 minutes later… They are still there! Our mortars are taking a realistically long time to aim.
- Finally were are hitting those guys and fortunately they stayed in the same place for so long we have killed loads of them. That will teach em not to hang around in places that keep blowing up
.
Sometimes the mortars managed to very quickly target a new location but then sometimes it is difficult to keep track of everything.
Yeah that’s a good way to do it I think, but I think zeus can be a bit faster in raining down mortars on locations that are likely to be pre-dialed in, such as their own bases. Will teach us not to hang about!
In reply to [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/13633351/avatar/small.1434890353.jpeg” name=“Freghar”]13633351[/user]
I agree that when you expect army tactics and real life operations that makes sense. But I don’t agree with the use of Mortars dead onto teams because this is a game and everyone plays for fun. Like stated in this thread multiple times. Dying by a mortar round that lands dead on you, is no fun at all.
There are plenty of examples where this happened with all the frustration behind it. I rest my case here. I will never use mortars in that mater nor will I ever use mortars realistically if that is what you described.
If other people like it then they can go ahead but for me as a GM all that maters is providing good and fun content. Not content that makes people rage quit or pissed off.
[quote user_id=“3602631” avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/3602631/avatar/medium.1411590107.jpeg” name=“Shiny”]In reply to [user avatar=“https://assets-cloud.enjin.com/users/13633351/avatar/small.1434890353.jpeg” name=“Freghar”]13633351[/user]
I agree that when you expect army tactics and real life operations that makes sense. But I don’t agree with the use of Mortars dead onto teams because this is a game and everyone plays for fun. Like stated in this thread multiple times. Dying by a mortar round that lands dead on you, is no fun at all.
There are plenty of examples where this happened with all the frustration behind it. I rest my case here. I will never use mortars in that mater nor will I ever use mortars realistically if that is what you described.
If other people like it then they can go ahead but for me as a GM all that maters is providing good and fun content. Not content that makes people rage quit or pissed off.[/quote]
Ok, fair point.
I was just trying to get across that mortars are not really that special, because they can be planned around and/or reacted to and by doing so, by ie. eliminating an otherwise good infantry approach plan, force us into thinking more about the mission and possible approaches.
Say you want to assault a town surrounted by hills and the obvious approach would be heavy firepower from the hills, but you know about the presence of hidden mortars, so you might instead (via planning suggestions) launch a prior night-time mission or miniop to approach quietly from sea and disable them … or request UAV/HuntIR intel … or any aerial platform with thermals, … or try to sneak in force into the town … or launch dummy paratroopers (WW2 reference) to draw attention and observe where the mortar shells might be coming from, etc. Or just drive in up close using LAVs/MAVs as they are basically immune to mortars.
So many things we never do because just running in and shooting is generally the most effective solution and without something like mortars, we don’t really have a motivation to change it.
To start off this reply, I think the mission was good. A bit boring on the beginning(but it looked like something legit) but then again mixture of a nice map, terrain and well placed enemies(the numbers were kinda low but it was still intense) made it very fun for me. I don’t have anything descriptive about the mission TBH. Just a very nice shooty bang bang mission that wasn’t just "press W and LMB".
Someone said that they saw healing people under mortar fire in the forest. That would be me and Hadassa. I should’ve ran away from a logical point of view but she was badly wounded and I wanted to fix her legs so we can run up to a wall and it ended with me saving her by covering her from shrapnel with my body 
She’d be dead if I wasn’t the meat shield and even if she survived she might have passed out in a wrong place or just die. Huge sacrifice but I think it was her 2nd mission so I decided to do it.
About SL. I’m not the best SL, I figured that out but I like the role so I pick it up sometimes. Sometimes your mind might get clowdy or your options(or at least the ones you see) are so limited that you’re stuck there with people waiting for the right decisions that you don’t have. Suggesting things to SL is not a bad thing although it’s annoying sometimes.
About the shitstorm in this thread. I totally agree with Freghar and the others in favor of mortars. It’s just another thread on the battlefield, as Freghar says. Just because there’s an actual human controlling it doesn’t mean that they are not out there to kill you. Sorry but I know that GMs are afraid of using the mortars and a lot of the times I do technically risky stuff as medic or just continue shooting while mortars are dropping because I know there’s little to no chances to get hit AND EVEN IF!! you will get wounded and not die. If you make your position known expect to get blown up by direct fire from mortars. Same goes for pre-dialed positions like enemy bases after we take them. Those places take shorter time to aim at if the enemy expects to fall back or loose position. The thinking "Zeus shouldn’t drop a mortar shell on me just because it’d be unfair" is ridiculous. It leads to playstyle like my own where I stop even thinking about mortar fire which really saddens me. I’m the type of person that uses every hole in thinking/planning in video games. Besides you have ears… you hear a mortar shell and at this point you have few seconds to spread out. No hard cover? RUN AWAY and pray that shrapnel will be nice for you. I personally get more frustrated when I get shot. I’m in firefight, I get shot I’m like: FUCK! could have aimed better or taken cover after I received a fair amount of dust to my face from the wall I was hiding behind. When mortar hits me it’s… well… Okay I guess I/we had bad position, better think about it next time. I slightly agree that it’s not meant to be 100% realistic and therefore Zeus shouldn’t just sign death certificates on people with a click of a mouse but c’mon! mortar is there to kill not to scare! If you so badly want zeus to give you a chance after you made your position known and you’re sitting ducks like an idiot then I think zeus can aim like 2 shells at a place where you WILL take damage but you have fair chances of surviving. OFC if you don’t move then the next few shells will annihilate you. I kinda like when people get badly wounded. It’s fun for medic and it makes realistic situations where you just need to heal people, you lack in numbers after terrible fail in planning/movement. It stops the "press W and LMB" feeling from the mission. You can always abort mission or if you feel like you can make it but with the numbers available you need to change plans - do it! Don’t be a pussy!
I agree with Tropical, and I just wanted to add that our issues stem from the simple fact that there was a lot of standing around. The main problem is that once we cleared the first guard tower we stuck around, waiting. I evacuated Alpha 2 from the hilltop the second the mortars started flying, and then I regrouped with platoon hoping we’d continue on our merry way, but we stuck around for what must have been around 15 minutes without doing anything. Zcribe did a fine job GM-ing this mission and I don’t see too much of a problem regarding that.
And lastly the GM also has an important task which Price mentioned: Reducing the size of the can of whoopass the AI unleashes on the players, the AI has two modes of operation: Retard and Super Saiyan. In vehicles and arty vehicles they are merciless, so we have it kind of easy when the GM does his job.
There is a lot of things said yet, so I just add that the weather - fog and sunrise, snow uniforms and map choice together were greate made. It was very atmospheric, loved those combinations. Want say thanks for very nice mission .)
Hey guys was not on the OP but looking at the CNTR for it:
What happened here to DMT must have been a mortar right CNTR - Carpe Noctem Tactical Recap if it was a mortar the move away from everyone else took a long time.
CNTR - Carpe Noctem Tactical Recap here everyone is extremely bunched up I mean the whole platoon in the same place. Can I ask why when you took fire here you did not fix the enemy then flank them you kinda went full frontal uphill then split up and went in all kinds of directions, this then lead to a lot of small elements taking fire from lots of different directions. Maybe people would like a training on how to take fortified positions which would include hilltops, bunkers, trenches and buildings etc.
Either way the OP looked like fun lots of very hard positions on top of high features to take. Hope you all had fun and thanks to Zcribe for hosting the mission for us.
Regards,
Dachi