BSM Rank and Class System

[Ninja2dan]

Originally Posted by Chortles

Ninja2dan, thanks for answering my questions about the hypothetical spotter build. Basically I was referring to this:As such, I was wondering if there was a way to make it more viable, i.e. to make the squad more able to "spare" a person to act as a spotter. If I had six operators to work with in 7.62, I'd most likely set aside the best at sniping and close-quarters defense to act as my sniper/spotter pair, then try to get the other four to emulate a fire team... possibly swapping out one of the two 'regular' riflemen for a designated marksman. If I could spare someone or had more people to work with, I might even add a flanker to the sniper team, as mentioned in the link.

In any situation where you have a smaller "squad" or element, such as SpecOps units, managing a team and deciding what roles each will take on a mission is part of the challenge. This is why most SF operators are trained in a variety of skills, because they might be required to swap roles on different missions or even mid-mission. For example, while one operator might be acting as a sniper/observer for one mission, he might be taking part of the assault/entry team on the next mission.

The element size in 7.62 is pretty small, and the guys are closer to a SpecOps unit than your regular infantry squad. Because of this, I prefer to keep enough equipment available that I can outfit every character depending on the specific mission at hand and what role they will be required to take for that mission. I also like to cross-train the characters on similar skills, and buddy up as many as possible to increase effectiveness and survivability.

As you mentioned, it's usually a good idea to use a spotter in this game that is good at CQB, just in case their section is surprised or compromised. The sniper's slow but long-ranged weapon system can be used against enemies as they close in, while the spotter's rapid-fire short- or medium-ranged weapons are used to finish them off. Rarely would you need a spotter to actually take long-ranged shots, in most cases the only time I'd do that is if my sniper was dead/disabled or performing another critical task such as healing or reloading.


As for this "flanker", I've never seen any such role used in the US military by a member of the sniper team. The task that they described is usually performed by members of a nearby infantry/scout squad, or maybe even a light-armor unit. Snipers are also being deployed more often in clusters, multiple sniper teams deployed in the same AO to cover different sectors. By doing so they can provide cover for each other, and help ensure they have an entire area under the scopes.

In games like 7.62 though you shouldn't need a third character on your sniper team. If an enemy does happen to be spotted outside of the sniper's capabilities, then a member of your assault team should be able to take care of it. When no such enemies are known, that third member might be rotting away twiddling his thumbs instead of supporting the team better such as assisting with entry/assault or medical/support duties.

But everyone has their own methods, their own tactics, their own style of play. If that particular tactic works best for you, by all means go for it.

Kyle, I believe the term you were looking for is "digital" camouflage, or "digicam," though a more accurate term would be pixelated camouflage.

I haven't seen any vehicles painted in a digicam pattern, but I have seen a lot of oddball patterns since WWI. Back in the earlier wars they used to paint large circles on their tanks, polka-dotted armor was supposed to make them harder to spot. It wouldn't surprise me though if some nations were trying out a vehicle-based digital pattern, seeing all of the "hype" about those styles lately.

The reason digicam is supposed to work better than regular patterns is because the small "pixels" appear to blend together much smoother from a distance. Solid lines used in all previous patterns were often easier to spot than a broken-up pattern, and the digital patterns are also much harder to see using night vision devices or other electronic imaging.

R@S, personally I'd prefer a higher "hard cap" be possible in the new outsourcedconfig.INI, but 12 as a default cap sounds appropriate... both for manageability and because it's close in size to a modern Western infantry squad or section, as opposed to common video game references to a "squad" as 4 (more like a fire team) or 6 members. While I'd want the ability/option to "break the GUI" ... 12's definitely a good choice as a default/recommended, so you have my agreement on that much.

There are a few problems that I see with having that many characters on your team. The spawn areas are already too small, especially if you are using a vehicle, and adding more characters is only going to make spawning in even worse. Unless R@S or someone else can figure out how to enlarge those spawn points sufficiently enough to support the larger teams, you're just going to have a huge mess.

Another problem with it is that the element in 7.62/BSM is not intended to replicate a full-sized infantry squad. Your team is made up of mercs, and is intended to function more like a SpecOps element. If you planned to keep the element together as either a full squad or into two fireteams, then it wouldn't be so bad. But the maps aren't large enough to support such large elements.

Originally Posted by R@S

The reason for the low cap on team members isn,t just balance but the ability to play the game without frustration. I've been forced to lower it even more, the cap is now 11, because if the team is bigger than that, weird stuff happens, like team members leaving your team for no reason whatsoever. Of cource I want to give the player as much freedom as possible, but not at the expense of playability.

I remember finding a posting somewhere while playing the vanilla game, before I even knew about the mods, about how to "hack" the game and allow larger squad sizes. I tried it a few times, wanting to give myself better odds and just to see how it would work out. But it was horrible.

First, in order to select those team members you had to pan all over the map looking for them, and manually select them. Second, you had no clue as to their operational status without actively selecting that character. They could be shot, bleeding out, dead, or burnt out from running and you'd never know. It was a huge inconvenience, and I decided not to deal with it. I learned to just stick with the default squad size.


If it were possible to somehow alter the GUI to allow more characters, then I can see it being OK up to a point. But even if the bugs you mentioned above were fixed, the maps are still not large enough to support huge squads. Sure it would be fun to have 20 grunts armed with nothing but hand grenades and knives, running around like wild indians out for blood. But if you're trying to play the game seriously, it's just going to be too crowded.

Besides, with games like this I tend to prefer using smaller elements. When fighting using unconventional tactics, smaller teams tend to work better because they are harder to detect and have a little more freedom of movement and options. But if others want to run with 8-10 characters, and any bugs associated with using that many are fixed, then it's your call. Like you said, it's good to give people additional options that support their own style of play.