Better informants for insurgent commander

[Bufl4x]

As far as i know, the idea behind waypoint markers on insurgency is to simulate a network or informants on the streets passing on intel.
It must be an unpopular job, as a commander can only have 7(8?) of these very useful informants at any time.

I suggest increasing the number of markers and their range while decreasing the number of enemies needed to trigger the informant. If it's possible to indicate direction of movement in any way, do that too.

They way i figure if i was a real life ins CO, i would send guys to most intersecions with a cell phone and just have them keep an eye on blufor. It is my city after all, i'm sure i could easily track a large invading force. The modeling of this process in PR is a bit lacking and could be greatly improved with a little work.

Unless you plan to add some visual surveillance to the insurgents, like an rc chopper or a deployable camera, i suggest improving the current waypoint system with these small changes.


A more complicated version would be to have an informant waypoint automagically appear at a position if a civi is staying around for more than x minutes. The marker would stay there for y minutes after civi leaves.
Or give him a rally point that all civies can use and acts as an informant marker as well.
Blufor have to actually knife civi rallies, they cant be overrun.

edit: oh yea and add objectives like outpost on korengal was. Capturing these objectives would allow/disallow civi rallies/informant markers in x hundred meters.

[Maverick]

Actually, that RC Helicopter sounds like an interesting suggestion

[Spec]

That's actually the role of the collaborator kit if people would not just shoot them on sight :/

[Maverick]

That's actually the role of the collaborator kit if people would not just shoot them on sight :/

Well, you can't mod players, but people need to learn to control their dang trigger. Getting tired of people having a MW2 mentality of "shooting everything that moves" This is where the punishment system comes into play. But that is for another topic. Oh, on a side note, if there was a harsher punishment, more people would play collaborator. This is where the Catch 22 comes in. The Collaborators need to act like collaborators. Okay getting off topic. My bust

[killonsight95]

i really like the rally point idea, if possible of course if not a simple up int he amount of marker will simulate there being civilians helping the insurgency.

[calstifer]

This is what the Americans - and the world - dont understand about insurgents.

Insurgents don't get intelligence that an american convoy is coming down this road, so they setup an ambush. No, these people wait weeks for the right 'look'. when they see the 'look' they blow up the IED. This is why there are lots of civi vechels blown up by insurgents. The people look military, and so they blow up. Its not a matter of that the commander has to get more intelligence, the people just have to be patient.

[killonsight95]

This is what the Americans - and the world - dont understand about insurgents.

Insurgents don't get intelligence that an american convoy is coming down this road, so they setup an ambush. No, these people wait weeks for the right 'look'. when they see the 'look' they blow up the IED. This is why there are lots of civi vechels blown up by insurgents. The people look military, and so they blow up. Its not a matter of that the commander has to get more intelligence, the people just have to be patient.

source on this? can you show me proof that they wait for weeks? during attacks on cities and cache searchs i don't think that they wouldn't not have have people giving them information on enemy movements... unless you're a Taliban commander, in which case you can give us all your gold!
Anyway we can only uess as to what they'd be doing/do in a situation and my opinion would be that they'd want as much information on enemy movements so they could divert men to that area during a attack, we're not talking about oh ambush one convoy there and another there kind of thing because we can't really simulate that in PR due to the size of maps and the fact that convoy's etc. don't happen to oftern.

[Dev1200]

"Informants" are invisible AI civis, technically. TBH if you have 8 markers down you can put them on most main locations of the map, plus any extra civis on the map can call in enemy locations as well.

Although objectives were fun, it did require more insurgents to defend the objectives, instead of defending the caches.

[Johncro]

Well, you can't mod players, but people need to learn to control their dang trigger. Getting tired of people having a MW2 mentality of "shooting everything that moves" This is where the punishment system comes into play. But that is for another topic. Oh, on a side note, if there was a harsher punishment, more people would play collaborator. This is where the Catch 22 comes in. The Collaborators need to act like collaborators. Okay getting off topic. My bust

The main reason i shoot collabs are because they sneak up on me. Or i think i see them using epipens or somethings.

But i believe a lot of collaborators do deserve what they get taunting and the such, distractions tactics usually end with me going and changing my pants.

[Dev1200]

The main reason i shoot collabs are because they sneak up on me. Or i think i see them using epipens or somethings.

But i believe a lot of collaborators do deserve what they get taunting and the such, distractions tactics usually end with me going and changing my pants.

That's what good civis do. Killing one civi = 10 more enemies have to be killed for intel. Follow a tank around that has no clue what he is doing, as civi, = Blufor never finds cache.

[mat552]

The oft repeated counter is a simple and true one.

One careless or lazy RPG, RPK, or Al Quids

Is directly equal to

Infinite Dead Collaborators

In addition, Collaborators playing hopscotch on a tank are breaking their end of the immersion barrier and will be put down.

OP, I think your suggestion is a good one, but I also think the game would benefit from more than one kind of informant. Some variants on speed of deployment versus size of enemy required to trip it would be nice.

eg. You can have an informant appear instantly, but he won't trip unless 20 or more Coalition troops pass him. You could have that same informant appear in 20 minutes, but he'd be able to report back with as few as 2 or 3 troops nearby.

[ComradeHX]

In addition, Collaborators playing hopscotch on a tank are breaking their end of the immersion barrier and will be put down.

The innocent civilians were just trying to sell the tank crew some medical supplies and local minerals.

If a tank is parked in a combat zone then it deserves to get climbed on and fail.

[BenHamish]

The oft repeated counter is a simple and true one.

One careless or lazy RPG, RPK, or Al Quids

Is directly equal to

Infinite Dead Collaborators

In addition, Collaborators playing hopscotch on a tank are breaking their end of the immersion barrier and will be put down.

OP, I think your suggestion is a good one, but I also think the game would benefit from more than one kind of informant. Some variants on speed of deployment versus size of enemy required to trip it would be nice.

eg. You can have an informant appear instantly, but he won't trip unless 20 or more Coalition troops pass him. You could have that same informant appear in 20 minutes, but he'd be able to report back with as few as 2 or 3 troops nearby.

Not a pleasant thing to watch, but it is worth noting that the Civilians threw rocks, one climbed on the tank. Two were shot.

(It's the 2005 Sept 19th video of the fire-bombed Warrior in the crowd. Five men were in the Warrior, one of them had serious burns, the others relitievly minor from what I am aware of).

BBC Report (Sfw but still not 'nice'..)

Basrah.

[Bufl4x]

Hey i wrote you a long post but the interwebs ate it.

Basically, there is a proper objective that can only be captured by civilians. Once capped, these civies can **** out invisible squad rallypoints that are actually fixed iphones with a UAV app which streams videos or pictures to the CO's laptop looking command post back to main, which only spawns if certain conditions are met when placing a civie rally. Like distance from cache, distance from civie capped objective, number of players in the squad, number of civi SLs near, number of blufor civi kills, etc.

If you can make the current UAV stay still on the ground and look down a street, you can do this.

I swear there were excellent arguments and gameplay vs. real life analysis in my original post, but for now just imagine a guy recording a video with his cellphone and sending it to his buddy.
Sounds pretty realistic right?

Also a Hind

[Sgt. Mahi]

Sounds pretty realistic right?

Not really I'm afraid. Well maybe on Al Basrah and other insurgency maps with bigger cities but I strongly doubt there's any sort of phone connections in the mountains that could support video streaming without waiting at least half an hour to be able to watch the video.

I agree that the insurgent CO should get some more love concerning his intels. It was a big improvement they reduced the time for the CO for actually getting the intel. Before it was 2 minutes, which was absolutely ridiculous.

I agree that it could be awesome if there was a way to give intel about which direction the enemy are moving but I doubt it can be done without visual intel and any form of UAV for insurgents are pretty unrealistic.
But maybe we could at least get intel about what kind of enemy it is, like is it a tank?... or just a lone wolf soldier?... etc. etc....

Since I've also always thought about the waypoints as spotters it would be natural to assume that very detailed informations would be given to the CO. At least numbers and type of the enemy.

Also I think intelligence should be transmitted to the CO right away without any delay since real insurgents mostly use radios when spotting from mountains.
To compensate for that for the bluefor they should get a message like: "Insurgent spotter intercepted on radio network. Stay frosty!". This way bluefor will know they are being watched... Just like in real life

[Bufl4x]

I strongly doubt there's any sort of phone connections in the mountains that could support video streaming without waiting at least half an hour to be able to watch the video.

I'm not sure about that.

In Afghanistan, cellphone use rising - USATODAY.com
Calling From Afghanistan
Etisalat Afghanistan - Networkmap
Coverage
MTN :: Afghanistan

Also
Iraqi insurgents hacked Predator drone feeds, U.S. official indicates - CNN

There also is evidence that unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) feeds also have been hacked in Afghanistan

I'm sure they can at least send pictures to each other.

[Bringerof_D]

This is what the Americans - and the world - dont understand about insurgents.

Insurgents don't get intelligence that an american convoy is coming down this road, so they setup an ambush. No, these people wait weeks for the right 'look'. when they see the 'look' they blow up the IED. This is why there are lots of civi vechels blown up by insurgents. The people look military, and so they blow up. Its not a matter of that the commander has to get more intelligence, the people just have to be patient.

they also place guys with cell phones several kilometers up the road. other wise the guy on the trigger might be on a piss break when the blufor pass by. insurgents aren't stupid. the reason so many civy vehicles blow up is to the victim operated devices. command operated ones rarely ever go off on the wrong target.

the insurgency unlike what you children are told are intelligent and crafty people. They know how to use the internet, and Afghanistan does in fact have internet. they have phones. they also have a vast pool of intelligence to work with due to their recruiting. they can set up relay stations for phone signals with parts ordered on the internet or built by themselves. a bit of google would yield results on how to build such devices. do not be mistaken, they are not simple backwards sand people. if that were so we would have won years ago.

Bufl4x provides the evidence above. they have hackers, engineers, and even chemists amongst them. they would not be able to manage their cave hideouts and powerful IEDs otherwise

[Rudd]

would be kinda cool if civilians and rallies could be combined somehow like you say...

insurgent rallies that have to be knifed, I wouldn't really want tbh, I kinda hated finding rallies hidden under rocks etc, however I would like rallies returned to insurgents a bit, but in a different way to blufor, and certainly with a smaller overrun distance.

[stealth420]

Heres why people always shoot civis and what it always comes down to







Life or Death



Would you rather kill that target if it has a weapon or not or would you rather the target kill you.


This is the mentality of most players in PR, trying to stay alive as long as possible, id rather kill that civi rather than let him spot me and go get his hidden kit around the corner and come at me with a gun and kill me.


So we shoot them because we want to survive.


More than once the above has happened to me



CROUCHING CIVI HIDDEN KIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hitman.2.5]

that RC Helicopter)

Bad company 2