[JamesT73J]

Hi All,

Played some fantastic custom MP maps recently, however there is a small trend I've noticed on a small number of maps concerning submarine playables.

In some cases, a playable will be some 30-40nm from it's objective. Consider that most MP games take place within a 2 hour timeframe, it can make life very difficult for some poor sub skipper to get into the action, and in the case of being tasked to transit an area, virtually impossible without going carelessly fast.
If you've got a half-decent helo or P3 driver on your side, the hapless sub player can end up with little chance to contribute anything.

It's hard to get right (I'm not a fan of knifefights), and I know it's not deliberate, as the maps I've seen have been very nicely put together. I suspect it's more a case of the designer not realising just how slowly paced sub-players tend to work.

Cheers



James

[Fish]

Yeah, I saw some maps like you say, 35 nm and more, in one with a 30 nm long island in between. :8

[Molon Labe]

I've been having this same issue myself. I try to make a mental note of which missions have ridiculously long transits for subs and avoid those missions...

As a rule of wrist, I try to create missions that last about 2 hours, with no subs able to detect each other at mission start and with first sub to sub contact taking place about half an hour in...although dynamic starting positions can alter this. If you've been having the "long transit" issue with any of mine, let me know by email or PM what mission and where your platform started the mission and I'll have a look. I'm in the middle of re-editing everything to make them NCHQ-scoring compliant anyways, so it's no trouble.

As a side note, I've also noticed a lot of players that get bored if there's no action within the first 5 minutes. Others use careful patrol speeds in cases when they ought to be transiting at a moderate cruise...they end up missing out on the action because of themselves, not the designer. Probably not you, James, but I thought I'd preempt the chorus.

[Cyklop]

This has been said many times in various places, but I feel it may help to point out some basic principles once again.

Dear authors, when you design MP missions please bear these in mind:

1. Provide every player with tasking and write at least a short mission brief.

It's really frustrating when you have to guess what the author had in mind.

2. Pay attention to the way that platforms are assigned to sides.

Otherwise "Message to side" communications is useless.

3. Make sure it will take us less than an hour to reach the operations area.

No problem for airborne platforms, but try to approach that convoy 60 nm away in a Kilo before other players fall asleep

Last, but not least, thank you for your missions!

[JamesT73J]

[MaHuJa]