To Area Attack or not to Area Attack, that is the question

[RAWSwampFox]

Good Morning,

Ok, wanted to start a thread about area attacks. It appears that the vast majority of PR players are not fully aware of the game changing impact this can have. As a commander, I have been chewed out more times than not for using an area attack on something that didn't meet a few opinionated SL's.

Let's talk tactics, the timer for area attacks varies from map to map it seems these days. For example, some are as high as an hour before they are available and others, only 15 minutes (Fallujah). Being aware of which maps get or do not get area attacks is very important as well. Back when I was a kid, area attacks came in two types, JDAM and Artillery. JDAM was always an hour and Artillery was always 40 minutes. Some maps never had area attacks now most do. Would love to see some consistency on this but, so it goes. The placement of the area attack is huge. I usually offset mine from the target to allow for more direct coverage on the target. Most of the time when I place the area attack directly on the target, it never gets hit. Lastly, make sure you have line of sight as area attacks do not work like marking targets. My method is to set the target marker with my binocs to make sure it is correct, then **without moving**, switch to my radio/phone to call it in.

Let's start the list of maps with area attacks and their timers. I will list a few to get it started.

Fallujah - opfor/15minutes blufor/40minutes (I think)
Karbala - opfor/none blufor/40minutes (I think)
Al Basrah - opfor/none blufor/40minutes (I think)

Let me know if I'm wrong here and provide more information please.

-SwampFox

[Rabbit]

Most maps can be found here, they show if they have area attack for each layer and timer for them to be loaded/reloaded.

Project Reality: BF2 Map Gallery

[Jutsch]

Why exactly did the JDAMs get removed?

[PatrickLA_CA]

I think it's because they were useless most of the times because if it falls under an angle, anything under it survives, so it's a wasted area attack.

[Rhino]

Why exactly did the JDAMs get removed?

I think it's because they were useless most of the times because if it falls under an angle, anything under it survives, so it's a wasted area attack.

ye, that and we much prefer to have them though player controlled planes dropping them, which 2000lb bombs now being in PR: Laser-guided, state-of-the-art! - Project Reality Forums

[Cassius]

Well depends on what you want. If you want the area attack to support an objective, like taking a flag, do make sure there are squads nearby to take advantage of it. If you see a juicy target though just do it for the kills why not.

[ComradeHX]

Drop Area attack 30 seconds after start of enemy's Area Attack at same spot -> profit.

[RAWSwampFox]

Good Afternoon,

Well, checked out the link but did not see Shikotan Island. AAS appears to not get area attack, been playing for 30 minutes on a 2 hour round starting at 1:05 and it is now 39m left and no area attack.

-SwampFox

[RAWSwampFox]

Good Afternoon,

I looked at the link Rabbit in more detail and found that Fallujah doesn't list area attack. I'm assuming that the area attack is the arty piece at the bottom and the number beside it is the number of minutes for it to load correct? If this is the case, this list hasn't been updated in awhile because I think that Kokan is one hour not the 30 minutes listed.

-SwampFox

[Rabbit]

Yeah, Fallujah isn't listing its mortar area attack, I will look into that. Shikotan does not have an area attack. Kokans artillery is correct, it is 30 minutes unless it is experiencing a bug.

[Yrkidding]

If you want the area attack to support an objective, like taking a flag, do make sure there are squads nearby to take advantage of it.

This should happen more often.

[Nate.]

Area Attack is very cool if used correctly:


Sometimes, some things go terribly wrong though ..

[RAWSwampFox]

Good morning,

Karabala last doesn't list area attack for ins but they do get one and it charges every 15 or 20m.

-SwampFox

[Rhino]

If you really want to find out what area attack is on what layer, how many of them there are and what their recharge time is, your going to have to open up the GPO.con files for each layer and look as there is no full documentation for the most part on it.

[RAWSwampFox]

Good Morning,

Thank you for your reply Rhino. I will look at that file.

-SwampFox

[RAWSwampFox]

Good Morning,

Ok, I looked at the Fallujah file because I knew that it had an area attack every 15 minutes. 15 minutes equals 900 seconds so I found the following 3 times listed in the gpo.con file. Is this what I'm looking for as I go through each "64" gpo.con file?

rem [ObjectSpawnerTemplate: cpname_fallujah_west_insurgency64_us_mortar_1]
ObjectTemplate.create ObjectSpawner cpname_fallujah_west_insurgency64_us_mortar_1
ObjectTemplate.activeSafe ObjectSpawner cpname_fallujah_west_insurgency64_us_mortar_1
ObjectTemplate.modifiedByUser "Hans"
ObjectTemplate.isNotSaveable 1
ObjectTemplate.hasMobilePhysics 0
ObjectTemplate.setObjectTemplate 2 mortar_team2
ObjectTemplate.minSpawnDelay 900
ObjectTemplate.maxSpawnDelay 900
ObjectTemplate.TimeToLive 99999
ObjectTemplate.team 2
ObjectTemplate.teamOnVehicle 1

-SwampFox

[Rhino]

Yes "mortar_team2" is one of the mortar area attack spawners for the US side on that map.

[UTurista]

Well... If you have an android device you can always install the PRSPY app and see in the map gallery if a certain map/layer has area attack, including the delay time and if it's available from the beginning

[MikeDude]

Goooo Turista!