Proper Smacktard Management (PSM)

[Wasteland]

Some thoughts on Proper Smacktard Management (PSM)

One of the major problems I see in-game is the high incidence of teams where smacktards seem to be in the majority. This is not fun for me, as I like to have a team that contributes, and I also like to fight against a worthy opponent. So I’ve decided to describe some things that can be done to reduce the negative impact of our newfound smacktard population. Hopefully other people will have ideas that they can contribute.

I’d like to note first that I have nothing against new players. I like that people are finding this mod, and wish them all the best in surviving their newfound addiction. But the fact remains that there a lot of people engaging in smacktarded behavior, and this behavior needs to be managed.

So please don’t see this as noob-bashing. Instead see it as an attempt to manage a poor, but nonetheless useable resource. The common smacktard.

1) Sometimes you will have one or more squads on your team composed entirely or almost entirely of smacktards. These squads tend to get wiped out a lot. If the squad leader even knows how to use rally points, he will sometimes place them in obvious places, or his squad members will make it obvious what direction they are attacking in, leaving the rally point easily found by OPFOR. When the smacktard squad (and if they have one, their rally point) is wiped out, they will usually spawn at the most forward spawn point. Smacktards are like water. They aren’t very substantial, but if you have a whole lot of them continuously flowing at a position, they’ll do some damage eventually. So for the sake of capping CPs, it’s worthwhile to make sure they’re able to keep throwing themselves at the enemy.

The forward spawn point is often an APC. For this reason, it is excellent PSM for vets to stay with APCs, keeping them close enough to the battlefield, but also out of the LOS of possible enemy attacks. APCs can also be used to protect likely corridors of OPFOR flanking at the same time as completing their primary role of spawn time maintenance.

It isn’t always prudent for vets to stay with the APC. Sometimes smacktards need an elite squad to act as the “tip of the spear”, or as a defensive squad. More on this later. If you don’t have enough vets to get key tasks done while dedicating two guys to an APC, you may feel it’s necessary to ditch the APC. You can, however, leave an APC in a safe location so that smacktards can continue to spawn on them. Unfortunately, like velociraptors learning to open door handles, the smacktards are learning how to request crewman kits and move the APC. Fortunately, if you move your APC far enough from your main base, they won’t be able to take a crewman kit. Smacktards aren’t organized enough to spawn at their main, request the crewman kit, and then take a hummer up to the APC and capture it.

2) Going commander is a very good way to direct smacktards. Some smacktards don’t know which flags to attack. There are many other threads where commanding strategies are discussed, so I won’t go too far into it here. But I will discuss a couple extra smacktard-specific strats.
- Take a look at the squad-based Tab screen. Hopefully you’ll be able to recognize which squads have players you know, and can identify the likely smacktard squads. It’s useful to know which ones these are, as you need to know who you can depend on and who you can’t.
- Sometimes the smacktards will be SLs. If this happens, they may not follow your orders. Even if you berate them over VOIP, they may not hear you or they may not care. For this reason, if they aren’t following orders, I find it useful to explain why they need to follow your orders over team-chat. That way their squad members see the orders you’re trying to give, and the SL may receive some pressure from them to comply.
- Smacktards (and many vets and mid-level players) don’t read the chat. Most people notice the yellow commander text though, so use it often.
- The more communicative and committed a commander you are, the more likely the smacktards are to respect your commands. Help them out over VOIP. They may not be used to this.
- Try to get everyone to join a squad.

3) Smacktards will often camp the main base. This is a much more attractive option for them when their other option is a long walk. So it’s useful to have a “taxi” or “trnsprt” squad. Especially if you have a commander. You can use LBs, hummers, and boats and ferry troops up to the front lines.

4) If you have a decent number of vets on your team, consider having each of them go SL and taking a bunch of smacktards under their wing in an attempt to teach them the finer points of PR.

5) Most smacktards have seen Blackhawk Down and similar movies. They do think there’s a certain “1337ness” to teamwork. Try to play off this. If you’re defending, then give them arcs of fire and really set up your defense. If they run off, order them back and tell them why it’s important that they not abandon their post.

If you are attacking, then make them stick together. Reward them with lots of teamwork-centric dialogue. If you tell them, by name or kit, what to do quite often and consistently, then they’ll see more utility in sticking close to you. If you are silent, they won’t see the point in sticking with you and will disobey your orders.

6) If you have 5 or 6 guys in your squad, feel free to kick people for not sticking with you. If you have 6, then kick people very liberally, allowing for a bit of turnover and rounding out your squad for the better. It will also put the fear of God into the smacktards considering showing their true smacktardedness.

7) Smacktards hate being called smacktards. There’s really no need to create acrimony in the ranks, so avoid it.

8 ) As insurgents on Al Basrah, it is worthwhile to start a spawn car management squad. Boring? Hell yes. Useful? ‘Fraid so. Especially midway through the game, when spawn cars are at a premium. If you have a fair number of spawn cars, but people keep driving them to stupid spots, then conduct retrieval operations. One person gets in a technical, while the others spawn in smacktardedly placed spawn cars. The people in spawn cars drive them out of harms way, and then get picked up by the technical. The guy in the technical keeps bringing squad members out to spawn cars to move them back. This can get boring, so most people probably won’t do it for very long. Any time you spend doing this is very useful though.

If you have very few spawn cars left, then your squad members should remain in the driver seats so that smacktards cannot drive them to smacktarded locations. This is even more boring, but even more useful.

9) Sometimes you need a vet squad. There are times when something just needs to be done, and smacktards just won’t help you enough. In these cases don’t feel guilty to make a “vets only” squad to get the job done.

10) When you’re squad leader, you should take note of what everybody else is doing. Go where the smacktards aren’t. This usually involves defense. But if everything is being defended adequately, then take your guys to where they’re needed most. This might mean attacking a mostly undefended flag. Or it might mean bolstering an existing smacktard assault.


That’s all I can think of for now. I may add more later. Hopefully others will add ideas of their own.

[DEDMON5811]

I had a smacktard spawn into my apc yesterday that i was using to defend NVCP on basrah. He then grabs a crewman kit and drives me right into the city the whole time I am yelling at him to stop. He continues to drive us right into about 20 rpg rounds. I hate smacktards, Do they not have any common sense?

[Wasteland]

I'm afraid not. But through the use of good PSM techniques, we can mitigate their effect on our gameplay .

[SteelRainFilms]

One aspect that can't be stressed enough is proper management of Insurgent spawn cars. For example, myself & Juniper while tanking yesterday were VBIED'd by at least 3 spawn cars, and that's 3 less spawn point's the Insurgents now have. Not to mention we blew up a few stationary car's as well. So Insurgent's manage your cars! Smacktards don't need to be driving them into MBT's & APC's.

[Skinwehr]

A work of brilliance, Mr. Wasteland. I suggest you post this in the Tutorial section. Or better yet, Format it like an army Field manual and make a .pdf.

[PARAMEDIC.CA]

7) Smacktards hate being called smacktards. There’s really no need to create acrimony in the ranks, so avoid it.

hahahha, not to take way from your good post, But I had the best laugh over this!!..... I can't wait to test your assumption at work tonight!
LOL

PMED

[Demio]

Haha, a true classic

Maybe you should refrain from calling newbies smacktards, but I agree that sometimes that's the only term to describe them...

Once I was in Basrah as insurgent and my squad was going to cap one of the flags. We had a spawn car with us (placed in a safe spot) when some retard spawned in it and drove away, promptly getting destroyed by an abrams.

[JuniperM40]

> If you have very few spawn cars left, then your squad members should remain in the driver seats so that smacktards cannot drive them to smacktarded locations. This is even more boring, but even more useful.

Hear hear! I have purpousely sat in a driver's seat in a Spawncar during a key battle at a key location, just so some BLUE GUY didnt drive off with it.

- JM40.

"Did I ever tell you I hate BLUE guys? Almost as much as I hate RED guys!" =)

Green guys are the best - or those with a number over their head who appear to have a nice group of blue guys around him. =)

[[-=IDSF=-]SykloAG]

Retarded annoying little kids with no patience or self-learning ability. Nice post, though personally, I would point them to the nearest VBF2 server. Unless, of course they are willing to be "taken under the wing" of a vet.

[Desertfox]

The smacktards who annoy me the most, are the ones who spawn in the most forward spawncar, which is also the best hidden one. They spawn in it and drive it STRAIGHT to the flag and get themselves killed literally 10 seconds after spawning in it.

[PlayPR!]

funny stuff, a better title for the post, imo, though would be Proper Management of Smacktards (PMS )

[[DVB]DirtyBeets]

4) If you have a decent number of vets on your team, consider having each of them go SL and taking a bunch of smacktards under their wing in an attempt to teach them the finer points of PR.

beautiful...we need to see more of this!!

[Vicktor Vauhn]

Nothing useful to add but I just wanted to say this is an awesome post.

Nice to see people addressing and coming up with solutions to problems like this rather then just complaining about them existing!

[Guerra]

Personally, I'm a no nonsense guy. If I have a smacktard who doesn't follow orders, I kick him from my squad.

But personally, I sometimes enjoy fighting smacktards, like I kill this one guy, and his entire team just runs in a big cluster. Too easy.

Or when someone places a rally point ontop of a hill so its the most obvious thing, I love it!

Aslong as its not happening in my squad...

[Sun Tzu]

This should be like the "Terms of Service" or something you need to read it and sign a document that says you wont be a smacktard then have it noterized before your allowed to play.

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

Smacktards are like water. They aren’t very substantial, but if you have a whole lot of them continuously flowing at a position, they’ll do some damage eventually
Unfortunately, like velociraptors learning to open door handles, the smacktards are learning how to request crewman kits and move the APC.
Most smacktards have seen Blackhawk Down and similar movies. They do think there’s a certain “1337ness” to teamwork. Try to play off this.
7) Smacktards hate being called smacktards. There’s really no need to create acrimony in the ranks, so avoid it.
Dude , you are on fire !
Sorry that I was too drunk and distracted as to not act like the above mentioned individuals.
I was really Laughing My As Off reading this !

[eggman]

This should be like the "Terms of Service" or something you need to read it and sign a document that says you wont be a smacktard then have it noterized before your allowed to play.

heh I think we should have soemthing like this in the liscencing agreement for the PR install haha.

Written in 1st person..

1. I will not drive APCs or spawn cars directly to the flag.

2. I will not...

etc..

And then say "well you did click 'I accept' when you installed it"

[ArmedDrunk&Angry]

L M F A Off
Now that is English understatement !

[Gyberg]

DirtyBeets']4) If you have a decent number of vets on your team, consider having each of them go SL and taking a bunch of smacktards under their wing in an attempt to teach them the finer points of PR.

beautiful...we need to see more of this!!

yeah, I sometimes create PRHELP squads.... gets alo of new people in it but all of them are willing to learn!

@egg That would be.... sorry I can't find the words to describe how great that would be!

[fuzzhead]

beautiful work wasteland!!! very fun to read and all very true information and valid tactics!

you may not be able to tame the smacktard, but you can predict his movements and therefore benefit from his death.