Domination

Overall objective: bring back-and-forth symmetrical combat to domination, where dynamic command and movement with tactical intelligence is necessary to victory.

Changes:

The radio tower is no longer the massive obvious antenna, it’s now a small command truck. It’s also no longer marked on the map.

Reinforcements are now a real threat. There’s a firebase outside the AO somewhere with artillery and a small guard unit, this artillery will fire on you and then air assets will be deployed from elsewhere to bring in extra troops. These can either be paradropped from a plane or dropped in directly via a pair of Hind gunships. If you’re really unlucky they’ll paradrop some BMD-2’s in as well. The base defence system has an IDF radar and can help with locating the firebase.

You can now set up a patrol base like in insurgency, because sometimes the AO is really far away.

The enemy can actually hit back now, and properly too. They can attack, overrun and take the main base, and they’ll also make a play for the patrol base too. They do this using artillery if it’s in range and air assets to deploy infantry like with the reinforcements. If they attack the main base then respawn is turned off while enemies are within 500 meters, so while defending the base there’s no scummy respawning. Once the enemies are gone the respawn returns instantly. The patrol base is different, if enemies take that then it is deactivated and will need to either be reactivated or a new patrol base deployed from the main base. If you lose both bases and everyone dies, the mission fails. I’ve put this up for testing over the past couple of days and made some improvements there, they were attacking too often and this has since been fixed. I highly recommend setting up a patrol base ASAP when starting a mission, because if someone dies and the main base cannot facilitate respawn then it’s no fun for them.

The new CRAM will protect you somewhat from attacks launched at base (it fires on aircraft too), but it can malfunction and it can’t help much if the patrol base has incoming (though it will try and help if the targets are within range of the CRAM). The base also has other anti-air defences, but these can all be destroyed by enemy action. The IDF radar can also be destroyed (it's a big tower with a spinny thing on top) and if that’s gone then you won’t get any warning or detection of incoming artillery. Base attacks are fairly rare (I’m aiming for maybe 1 a night) but they are not to be underestimated.

Aircraft/armour system ported over from insurgency, with custom loadouts to suit domination. I wanted to go maverick or at least hellfire on the harrier but they’re useless and always hit just past the laser target since they can’t lock beyond minimum launch range for the speed, so I doubled up the GBU’s and added sidewinders alongside the CRV7 rockets instead since it’s a colder environment.

New section filling system. This looks at each infantry group when you spawn in as infantry and checks if there’s space there and if your own group has less than 4 people (or whatever the playercount is if it’s lower). If you join a new section and there’s space in the other section then it will block you unless 3 more people join your section or you reslot to the section that needs filling. If all the sections are full then it’ll let you join a new one with no issue. This is a fairly complicated system and there’s no way for me to test it without putting it on the server, so you might need to bear with me a bit and just let me know if there are any issues. A massive thanks to Freez for helping me test this yesterday, it would be broken completely if it wasn’t for him. There’s currently a load of debug messages active that you’ll see when you spawn, if you have something weird happen like being allowed to spawn in a lone section when there’s an open section already then please let me know ASAP with the last message that it gave you.

New faction, Polish EFP. I’ve recreated as best I can the Polish troops operating as part of the enhanced forward presence (EFP) currently holding against a potential russian assault. While making it I also made a desert version of them. They have access to T-72’s, BMP-1’s, Hinds and Mi-8’s, and if the group is populated the commanders can spawn a GAZ with a ZSU-23 on it. If it’s popular it’ll make its way to insurgency too, no reason not to once the section filling system gets bedded in. They’re also the only regular section to have access to anti air weaponry, with the AT rifleman being able to take an igla.

I forgot to mention we're testing a mini domination mission as well, on Bystrica. This is a single AO and will end itself if the server remains unpopulated for more than a day and a half, for when you want your war in a low-fat variety

Ref. Harrier - "since it’s a colder environment."

What do you mean by this/what timeframe is domination now set in?

The GR9's in afghanistan run half pylon loads because of the heat. From my past conversations with harrier pilots and engineers I believe it's about 60% of max load but it's been a while. For domi we spend more time in colder environments and for the desert stuff I'm sure noone will mind having extra ordnance.