Project Reality Forums

The_Admiral wrote:Nobody logs on to PR for....

The perils of the unqualified statement.

There is plenty of enjoyment and satisfaction to be had by supporting your team from a less glamorous position, provided one has the requisite patience and maturity.

I agree. While in theory mortars are devastating and can dominate a game in practice I have rarely seen them used to great effect. Dont discourage its use by nerfing them.

Used to be 3 rounds per ammo bag. IMHO mortars are only worth the bother if there is CO using the UAV for spotting and adjustments.

Trying to find the middle ground between too much and not enough.

I'm a big fan of the mortars, but I rarely use them for various reasons, most of which have been pointed out. They can be boring, and not everyone in a squad wants to do that.

Generally speaking, if and when I get mortars up, I am 1) an infantry squad first, 2) either defending or can no longer advance, 3) have a squad willing to do all of those boring jobs (i.e., I ask them), 4) there is not already a mortar squad named or in use.

I will then usually form fireteams, one to operate the mortars, and one to patrol the FOB and/or act as forward observers for the mortars.

If TRANS is on station and has no job, you will usually get plenty of crates without losing a guy to drive a truck.

My favorite use of the mortars is to decimate a FOB that our infantry is having trouble taking out. Put it up and take it down. It doesn't require a dedicated squad.

Things I hate about some mortar squads... The guy that constantly calls for targets over SL chat. I hate that guy more than friendly fire. You don't always need mortars. I can usually look at the map and tell if mortars are going to be needed.

Good Morning,

I second Firewall's post.

There is usually only 3 inf in a mortar squad. It's not that hard to go kill those 3 fast. Supply chain, HA, people spawn in and steal logi trucks, then trans tries to help and hovers right over the mortar right as your firing tk'ing everyone. Or, the crates are so spread out your running around the whole grid trying to get an ammo bag to refill the damn mortars.

I've really seen mortar usage go way down since 1.3.

CR8Z wrote:I'm a big fan of the mortars, but I rarely use them for various reasons, most of which have been pointed out. They can be boring, and not everyone in a squad wants to do that.

Generally speaking, if and when I get mortars up, I am 1) an infantry squad first, 2) either defending or can no longer advance, 3) have a squad willing to do all of those boring jobs (i.e., I ask them), 4) there is not already a mortar squad named or in use.

I will then usually form fireteams, one to operate the mortars, and one to patrol the FOB and/or act as forward observers for the mortars.

If TRANS is on station and has no job, you will usually get plenty of crates without losing a guy to drive a truck.

My favorite use of the mortars is to decimate a FOB that our infantry is having trouble taking out. Put it up and take it down. It doesn't require a dedicated squad.

Things I hate about some mortar squads... The guy that constantly calls for targets over SL chat. I hate that guy more than friendly fire. You don't always need mortars. I can usually look at the map and tell if mortars are going to be needed.

Everybody should consider doing that when there is no mortar squad. If mortars are not in use and you did set up a fob set up mortars when the frontlines harden. Its a powerful asset (if used right) and its stupid not to use it. Inform the team too which squad has access to mortars in case they need them or have a juicy target.

Fir3w411 wrote:Firstly, the commander & squad leaders:
Before v1.3 you had a commander every so often doing UAV. Of course, it was OP, so it had fuel added in v1.3. But with this addition came the problem of having nothing productive to do for the next twenty minutes once the fuel ran out; so the commander usually just resigns and joins inf or alt-f4s. That is if you ever even get a commander in the first place.

I am going slightly off topic here but there's something that bugs me about this. "20 minutes with nothing productive to do" is the mindset of a very very poor commander. The role of the commander in this game is not UAV Operator! The commander should be helping to coordinate the team as a whole, the commander should be doing his part to make squad to squad level teamwork occur. If your team has a commander and gets capped out as a result of no one defending a flag that's that commander's fault. If your team has a commander and squad after squad is vainly attacking a position one at a time that could easily be taken by two squads working together that's the commander's fault. The role of the commander is so much more than UAV Operator.

I'm under no illusion that commanding is easy, and furthermore not under the illusion that all squad leaders listen to the commander but what I've written above is much closer to what a CO should be doing with "20 minutes with nothing productive to do."