I’m testing a new method of doing the situations like HVT’s and such. The enemies or whatever will spawn as usual, but you will not be immediately made aware of them. Instead, you will need to talk to civilians who will give you information on these situations, much like caches or IED’s. We’ve found in playtesting that people have the most enjoyment when they go from normal patrols to the occasional situation rather than situation every time, but having the situations be a clear gamelike objective that’s always in front of them means they always go for that first, so this should hopefully encourage the more patrol balanced playstyle. Strongholds will still be visible as usual, and the intel you receive will actually tell you what situation it is, rather than going to a mystery objective and then finding out you need something specific like a wolfhound for a vehicle recovery. Once you’ve completed an objective, it will then create a completed task to log your efforts in the region.

I’ve rebalanced strongholds slightly. I’ve trimmed away some of the infantry to cut down on the issue of 10-15 blokes sometimes being on a single roof, and in replacement there are now technicals that guard the roads leading into the stronghold. Destroying these grants extra points.

Insurgents now set up improvised checkpoints around the map. These consist of a technical and a small group of infantry guarding a road. Not a major objective by any means and they’re quite rare, just adding a bit of life to the roads.

I’ve changed civilian spawning so that there are always at least 5 civs in a town, unless it’s a stronghold.

I’ve changed enemy spawning in regular towns to spawn in a wider area, and they will start spawning from a slightly further distance than before. They will also roam around in this larger area. This is possible thanks to removing Kunduz, where a single player could trip multiple town spawns and kill performance even more than the bugs it had already. I noticed during play yesterday that larger or more spread out towns and villages only populated enemies in their central areas, this fixes that.

This does not change the behaviour where enemies will aggressively assault, surround and eliminate players that do not move fast enough, they’re set to seek out and hunt down the first players they see on their travels.

The bug where transport helis could not be spawned is now fixed.

There’s an issue with vehicle recovery, where if you get a soft top land rover and take the roof off it seems to become a different vehicle that the system can’t recognise. This is only a speculation because getting this vehicle as a recovery target is impossible unless a particular sequence of unlikely events happen, but just don’t take the roof off of soft top landys if they’re the recovery target. Putting the roof back on won’t fix it either.

I like the idea of the situation's being discoverable, as it makes a lot of sense if there are hostages, slaves, opium stockpiles, ied factories etc nearby..

But I think that some BLUEFOR centered situations should still be "announced". An example being the vehicle recovery. If a helicopter crashed or a vehicle failed to return from a patrol, people would realise pretty quickly and it would be flagged immediately. I understand why the change is made however.

I think the ideal situation would be a split of situations between OPFOR, CIVPOP and BLUEFOR.

-OPFOR situations are high risk medium reward e.g IED factory, drug bust etc and should happen when civ trust is high (They are helping us and giving good intel). Not time critical but can be "discovered" by chance, also discoverable through intel. Baseline probability (i.e at fresh mission) of 25%

-CIVPOP situations are medium risk, medium reward and should be the most common BUT NOT time critical. Discoverable by proximity or intel e.g Find my tractor, rescue my husband, take my ill son to hospital, bring us medical supplies, clear the roadblock etc etc. These sort of situations have the potential to add mission functionality for Logistics helicopters as well. 40% probability at baseline

-BLUEFOR situations are the kind which should be broadcast globally and immediately, but be time limited, high risk+reward. They should happen when enemy morale is high and enemy morale should be boosted for failing these. examples are IED ambushed vehicle, BLUEFOR POW in a stronghold, Downed helipilot, Captured BLUEFOR vehicle (occupied by OPFOR) etc etc. 25% probability at baseline

10% for no situation to fire

As insurgency is now far more centred on the situations and not the cache's, adding a more clear gameplay element to the situations will make it more immersive and dynamic.

If you want to split this off to a separate suggestion thread then I understand. I am going to make a list to propose new situations/situation ideas irrespective of the above

time limited situations don't work in practice unless it's in a dedicated event, civpop objectives are boring (who wants to spend their evening finding a tractor) and the more entertaining ones are used in events.

Play it yourself, you'll see it's no longer so heavily focussed on the situations

By time limited, I mean the objective appears on the map, stay for an hour then fails, but only occurs if BLUEFOR are online. How would that now work? Is it not a technically possibility or something else?

And the situations are the best part of the new insurgency as they provide things to happen mid patrol!

Time based situations have failed to work in the past in general play because people either don't feel like doing that particular task, are not close enough and don't have the transport, or any other factor that contributes to them failing without even being able to try.

Situations are still there, you just have to actually patrol to find them now, rather than inserting into everything and hopping around. For example, we were patrolling through a city today when freez noticed the telltale car of a HVT, so we set off toward it and dealt with it.

And I agree about them not all being there, but that isnt necessarily accurate for situations such as the vehicle ambush or a downed heli which you would know about when it's happening.

It's a little odd for a villager to turn around and say " by the way, in case you didnt know, there is a helicopter crashed outside the village"

I'm aware, I may be removing those situations in future and either confining them to events or figuring out a different method of letting the player know, probably checking players for ctabs and then sending them info that way, I don't like the task system. It's an early playtest atm.