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

Thirith on 19/8/2024 at 14:23

Uh oh... I just checked the official Antistasi guide, and it mentions that you lose support in towns if enemies that surrender but don't want to join our ranks end up getting killed by accident. Not that we'd ever consider doing anything like that, but just FYI.

Thirith on 31/8/2024 at 17:42

Today's session was a mix of triumph (we took an outpost, a radio tower and a factory relatively easily, gathering a lot of loot in the process and unlocking some choice goodies) and despair (our tank that henke stole last time round? it got destroyed about 15 minutes into the session, as the enemy sent *two* tanks after us as we got started on our outing). Oh, and Jesh climbed a high tower from which to snipe enemy infantry, and then he got buried under the rubble when they took out that tower with mortars. We ended up going back to the airbase from last time, stealing some more hardware; Jesh got another MRAP with a grenade launcher and henke got another tank (albeit a smaller one), while Dema and I got killed because the only vehicle the others left behind for us to steal was a slow, cumbersome ammo truck. Still, it was a successful session, with some nice, exciting combat and the obligatory moments of silliness.

As I'm not around in two weeks, I'll run another session on Sunday (for once ) next week.

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Upcoming Antistasi session

Date: Sun, 8 September
Starting time: 3pm UK time / 16h in the Netherlands and Switzerland / 17h in Finland

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What's Antistasi?
It's a persistent whole-map mission in which we play a local resistance on a map where the local military is fighting an invading army, and we take on both of them. Doing small sorties and missions, we slowly gather resources to take on bigger and bigger targets and converting the island to our cause, town by town. Or we get shot to bits trying to race past a checkpoint in a battered old pickup truck. We'll see.

What will you need to join?
* An updated installation of Arma 3 (possibly including the APEX DLC, depending on which map we want to play on)
* An up-to-date TeamSpeak 3 client
* The mods in (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3148668505) this collection, all fully updated
* Here's (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2154094306) a list of optional mods tweaking your Arma 3 visuals and sound
On the days of the Antistasi sessions, I'll get the server for Arma 3 and TS3 started beforehand and will send everyone who'd like to join the IP and password at the beginning of the session. Looking forward to seeing a bunch of you ready and willing to liberate Altis/Stratis/Malden/Tanoa!

Thirith on 2/9/2024 at 09:17

By the way, I went and checked out that airbase on the southern coastline, and I'm thinking that with the armour we've liberated from up north we might have a chance of taking that one. We could send in two vehicles from two sides and then have the rest take in a squad to clean up and take the base. I'd save that particular mission up for when it's at least the four of us (henke, Dema, Jesh and myself), though.

Thirith on 8/9/2024 at 20:53

Piglick made his triumphant return to TTLG's Arma sessions today - but I suspect he hadn't expected it to be this gruelling. Antistasi has quite the learning curve, even if you're used to Arma, and so many of our assaults require us to throw ourselves at the objective repeatedly, including a number of respawns back at base.

Nonetheless, we prevailed with today's objective. In addition to Piglick, it was henke, Demagogue and myself who attacked a factory in enemy hands near one of the towns that had joined our side last time. I'd done a recce in between on my own, and it looked absolutely doable - but what I'd not considered was that the game scales the enemy numbers according to players, so instead of about a dozen enemy units there were at least three dozen, I'd say, and they were accompanied by two armored vehicles. At some point we'd cleared out the factory, but there were a number of enemy riflemen just outside the gate - which was less of a problem than the MRAP that had parked just outside the little house where I was hiding. I had AT weapons, but the moment I peeked out from hiding, they'd fire a few rounds of machine gun fire in my direction. Dema tried to come to my aid, but sadly his shot hit the vehicle in which we'd arrived ourselves... But then henke and Piglick came in like the cavalry, taking out the MRAP with some well-aimed shots, and we finally took the factory and repelled the enemy reinforcements sent in to retake it.

Up next time - if we dare: we take our first airbase.

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Upcoming Antistasi session

Date: Sat, 21 September
Starting time: 3pm UK time / 16h in the Netherlands and Switzerland / 17h in Finland

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demagogue on 9/9/2024 at 00:44

Totally unfair of that tank to park right behind our tank when they probably knew I'd be poking my head out and taking a shot in a hurry to avoid getting shot at! :mad:

Thirith on 9/9/2024 at 14:07

We should be able to repaint any captured vehicles, so there's no chance of mixing them up. It's already difficult enough to distinguish our own units and theirs on sight.

It's a bit scary how much my brain's been occupied with coming up with strategies for that assault on the airbase that I've been talking about. Especially when it's likely that two minutes into the assault the usual thing happens: three of us end up bleeding out on the ground, while Dema manages to hole up in a nearby hut, waiting for us to respawn and come back with reinforcements. :p

Thirith on 21/9/2024 at 16:59

Today's session started off with a glorious, and successful, assault on an airbase near our territory. Apparently, this is where Antistasi's end game begins. We did have some losses: henke and his valiant team went in with a tank, guns blazing, but a number of well-aimed RPGs took out that beautiful machine. Demagogue and Piglick aided the attack from the NE, but they too didn't survive - though they made it back to the airbase just in time for us taking it. Jesh took in some marksmen, but they were soon under attack by the base's mortar team. But the combo of AI squads and human resilience won the day - and much more quickly than expected. Where we'd sometimes taken over an hour to take a little outpost and deal with the counterattacks, here we pretty much took control of the airbase in about half an hour. Some AI anti-air trucks took care of the attacking jets that tried to strafe us, and after that the enemy had no appetite whatsoever for trying to take the base back.

Cocky from our big success, I suggested an attack on a nearby outpost with a radio tower, since these screw with our radio comms within a certain radius. My plan was to have everyone else attack the base on the hill, sniping them from far away, while I took an armoured vehicle to the nearby other base to keep them from mortaring us and calling for reinforcements. The problem was: I forgot to tell my gunners to hold fire until we were all prepared... so they opened fire on the few patrols on the hillside along the base, which in turn meant that a) the guys on the hillside took out my vehicle with a couple of rockets, b) the base called for reinforcements, and c) soon we had a bunch of angry enemy vehicles swarming us and blasting us to kingdom come with their grenades. Jesh made it up the hill, where he entered a cycle of taking out a few bad guys, getting shot, waiting to shake off the worst of it, shooting some more, getting shot etc.

But we did finally make it up the hill and took the base - at which point the enemy sent two more vehicles, and one of them decimated us. We weren't properly dead, but we were just about able to put one missile after another into that Gorgon... but it wouldn't die. Reinforcements arrived, which Jesh, Dema and me tried to fight off, but in the meantime the enemy took back the base, which meant we couldn't communicate properly. As the Gorgon circled the house Dema and I were in, we tried to find ammo for one of the launchers - which we finally did, and Dema blew up that Gorgon with one final shot - that took the house we were in with it.

I'd botched the second attack, but we succeeded anyway, after a gruelling fight - and at that point one of the nearby towns decided that we were so cool, they'd join us, just like that. And at this point we hold almost half of the map. May the endgame begin!

henke on 22/9/2024 at 08:06

Here's some clips from out 2024 sessions.

[video=youtube;TjNoAsgedBU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjNoAsgedBU[/video]

Thirith on 22/9/2024 at 08:51

Nice vid, henke! Yesterday, after my Strider had got blown up at the airbase and I was making my way back there with reinforcements, I heard you guys talking on the radio about seeing something cool happening there, so it's good to see some of what was going on at your end. Those anti-air trucks we'd positioned just north from the base were definitely worth their money.

Also, the next couple of Saturdays won't work for me, so I'd suggest a session on Sunday 6 October (possibly a shorter one; we're going away for a week the day after and may have some packing to do) and one on Sunday 20 October, to find a new place for our HQ and possibly mop up some of the smaller bases. Oh, and to get some more tanks, perhaps?

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Upcoming Antistasi sessions

Date: Sun, 6 October and Sun, 20 October
Starting time: 3pm UK time / 16h in the Netherlands and Switzerland / 17h in Finland

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Thirith on 26/9/2024 at 08:04

By the way, since some of the gang have asked about this (I think Dema brought it up at some point): it might be possible for people to add the Enhanced Movement mod client-side, which would allow them to climb onto and off of things, though windows etc. (There's similar functionality in ACE, but as we're not using that mod at the moment, it doesn't exactly help. :p)

(https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=333310405)

And here's an old video showing some of the functionality:
[video=youtube;AXB_N8YmTFo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXB_N8YmTFo[/video]

I'll try this out for next time we play, to see if it works as it says on the tin. I'm not sure I trust the whole client-side-only thing just yet.

Edit: Apparently there's a mod called Enhanced Movement Rework that addresses some issues, so I'll check that one out as well.