Announcements
Communications Center, United Task Force

This week we're issuing a small and minor SITREP with some updates and rebalancing on both the Fatigue and Tier systems. These updates have gone live. Some of these are bug fixes and some are new developments - in each case they are all contained here as they will make fundamental changes to both systems.

If you are new to UNITAF then welcome - this SITREP is a monthly/bi-monthly update from the Commanding Officer, with updates about UNITAFs development, minor SITREPs are infreqent and usually focus on a specific topic, wheras major SITREPs review each month and look forward to the next, and cover all areas.

Tier System - Practice Hours

It was raised to our attention recently that Practice Hours were being awarded to cross-over areas. A cross-over area (also known as derived roles/areas) is used to award like-for-like operation hours when a role constitutes experience in multiple areas. For example Anti-tank roles give like-for-like Core Infantry hours because the role is mostly being infantry, until a threat is located. This is supposed to only work with operation hours, but we located a bug whereby Anti-tank practices also gave Core Infantry practice hours, this was also the case with a few other derived areas.

This bug also concerns the following areas;

• Field Leadership
• Communications
• Core Infantry

You will see in the Tier Update of today (07/06/2021) that you may have been tiered backwards in one or more the above areas if you were allocated practice hours by this bug. If you acheived Tier II Core Infantry and were promoted due to this bug - for now we will not issue demotions so long as Tier II Core Infantry is achieved in reasonable time.

Combat Fatigue Balancing

With the successful launch of Combat Fatigue, a number of bugs and re-balancing items were reported, what follows is a summary of those changes.

• FTXs no longer give 60 second bonuses per FTX, instead they give 20 seconds bonus to fatigue per hour
• FTXs that cover multiple subjects will now correctly split the bonus over each area, instead of duplicating it
• FTXs no longer count towards fatigue, a reported bug showed that attending an FTX increased Core Infantry Fatigue, this is no longer the case.

New Combat Roles

A number of new Combat Roles have been introduced, to fill some areas we feel needed more specific ORBAT details.

• Combat Medic Medical Tier II - a command detached medic, usually used in specific cases where additional medical personnel are required (such as single squad operations or Logistical Teams, but not in the Squad or Platoon Command Elements.) Equal to a Squad Medic in ability.
   
• UAV Operator (Reconnaissance) Combat Support Tier III - to compliment it's attack counterpart, and SUAV smaller role, the UAV-OR is specifically for the reguarly used Global Hawk, high altitude model, denoting that it is a non-combative platform.
   
• Joint Fires Observer (JFO) Communications Tier IV - able to request, control, and adjust joint mortar, Field Artillery, Naval Fire Support, A-10, AC-130, and other Close Air Support (CAS) aircraft. Controlling multiple ground and air based fire support assets at the same time.
   
• Communications Specialist Communications Tier III - senior version of the Radio Operator, for use in scenarios where experienced RTOs are required, including Special Forces applications.
   
• Infantry Team Leader (ITL) Field Leadership Tier III - The Infantry Team Leader is a unqiue role utilised in non-SOP deployments whereby an Infantry team is operating in a non-standard team which is larger than a Fireteam but smaller than a standard Infantry Rifle Squad. Specific examples are in typically 8 man teams with either a single fireteam leader or none at all. ITLs can command either a Rifle Team or a Weapons Team, depending on the circumstances.

Miscellaneous Change-log

• T897 - Duration that a user has been procedure flagged for, has been added to MYCOC
• T1199 - Member activity status added to MYCOC
• T1193 - Combat Fatigue overview for subordinates added to MYCOC
• T1185 - Fixed Practice Hour duplication in Cross-over-areas
• T1181 - Combat Fatigue, added support for split SOP FTXs
• T1190 - Combat Fatigue, fixed bug causing FTXs to contribute to Infantry Fatigue
• T1207 - Mod size added to Operations Mod editor/views
• T1206 - FTX and Instructor slots can now be changed in the ORBAT editor for FTXs
• T1201 - L-Plate slots, fixed issue where it was possible to change an L-Plate slot to any other slot
• T1187 - Added the ability to make loadout change requests for non-existant loadouts
• T1189 - Fixed a bug to link MYCOC PCFs to user profiles

Roadmap Updates

Finally, now that the Fatigue system is bedding in, we'll be reviewing the Roadmap in the coming days and I would expect to see the Campaign Center, with intelligence, planning and building on the logistical side of campaigns to be brought back to the fore, so we look forward to providing that update soon.

As always, if you have any issues or questions with anything contained in this SITREP, please use the appropriate channels, be that ORGCOC or on Discord.

Major, James
Commanding Officer
UNITAF

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

This months MAJOR SITREP has some wide ranging updates to the ORBAT, Slot Allocation and Tier System, as has been discussed in recent SITREPs and Podcasts, for that reason we'll start with the perspective and return to the retrospective at the end.

Combat Fatigue System

This is perhaps the biggest update to the dynamic orbat system since the introduction of up-tiering, and follows our continual commitment since the introduction of P15-145 Policy: ORBAT Slot Allocation to increase the fairness and level playing field of slot supply and demand. While we've talked about this in previous SITREPs, it's important to understand the role of the system. Combat Fatigue has nothing to do with your ability to execute a role, and is therefore does not interfere with the Tier system at all. What Combat Fatigue does do, is change the availiblility of slots to individuals with the same Tier, by giving them different deployment button access times, based on factors such as behaviour, SOP adherance, and most importantly their recent activity in that role or role area.

Simply put, the more you play in an area the more Combat Fatigued you become, and the more the Combat Fatigue system will try to allocate that slot to other people who have the same tier as you first, but offering you easier access to other roles not related to that area.

Video Overview of the Combat Fatigue System

Goals of the Combat Fatigue System

Fatigue is designed to address the following primary unintended behaviours of the Dyanmic ORBAT System that will increase fairness;

1 - To give new members of UNITAF priority access to Core Infantry slots (by virtue of them being less fatigued)
2 - To spread wider access to specialist and lower supply slots by fatiguing regular deployees in favour of those at the same Tier/Experience
3 - Millisecond slot rushing on ORBAT release, by spreading slotting over the opening 15 minutes of an ORBAT.

Combat Fatigue does not address a number of other behaviours which we will come to update in the future (such as slot vacation / swapping).

How the Combat Fatigue System Works

Combat Fatigue balances slot allocation by adjusting the accessible time of different slots across Combat Deployment ORBATs based on an individuals past performance. Combat Fatigue is applied to each tier (combat area) seperately.

Each day at 0600 UTC, alongside the Tier Update, an individuals Combat Fatigue will be calculated and updated. Fatigue is calculated using the following formula;

Global Fatigue applies to all Combat Areas and is calculated as: (Reprimands in Last 30 days * 120 seconds)

Local Fatigue only applies to the Combat Area of the Applicable slot and is calculated as:
60 seconds for each ORBAT completed by the individual in this area in the last 30 days (60 days in the case of low supply slots, with less than 30 slots per month)
30 seconds for each SOP Correction Flag on this individuals dossier in this Combat Area
A bonus reduction in fatigue of 60 seconds per FTX/Practice attended in this combat area in the last 30 days (60 days for low supply slots)

Local Fatigue + Global Fatigue = Total Fatigue and this total number of seconds is applied to each slot on an ORBAT.

Where to locate your Combat Fatigue

You can view your own combat fatigue using the Dossier Practice Progression area of your Dossier. It will show the total fatigue for each Combat Area, broken down by Global and Local Fatigue factors. If you have any questions about specific parts of your Combat Fatigue (such as Reprimands or PCFs, you should speak to your Chain of Command). In line with Tiers, Combat Faitgue updates each day around 0600 UTC. Only you and the ORGCOC can see your Fatigue, and you can't see the Fatigue of others.

Combat Fatigue for ORBATs

When viewing an ORBAT before release and during the Fatigue period, the ORBAT will display instead the time in UTC in which the slot will be accessible to you based on your own Combat Fatigue.

Notes

Combat Fatigue cannot be negative and there is no maximum fatigue.
Combat Fatigue does not yet apply to the pre-slotting stage
Combat Fatigue applies to both ORBAT Release, 1UP and 2UP stages
Combat Fatigue does not yet apply to slots that have been recently vacated by someone else
 

When will it be implemented?

The combat fatigue system goes live with this SITREP, but your initial fatigue will not be calculated until the next day at 0600 - so you will be able to explore it and your current fatigue tomorrow and it will apply to all future ORBAT releases. We'll continue to monitor behaviours following this update and adjust as needed and in line with feedback.
This policy updates P15-145 Policy: ORBAT Slot Allocation

Changes to Tiering for the Recruit Rank

The Recruit rank as a probationary period is automatically ended when the holder completes Tier II in Core Infantry and has a clean service record. As an infantry first policy; Infantry is a vital part of operations and everyone must have an understanding of life on the ground and the implementation of UNITAF policies and procedures. This is especially important for those moving on to primarily deploy in supporting roles such as Aircrew, Calvarly and Mission Support, which integrate closely with but are not infantry roles.
 

Why is it being changed?

we're balancing policy to do two things:

- Give priority / make it easier for Recruits to access Core Infantry slots (through Combat Fatigue)
- Make it harder for Recruits to progress in specialist roles, before they complete probation
 

What is changing?

We have discussed the best way to approach this and we've decided that rather than restrict access to practices - Recruits will be welcome to attend any practice they are eligible for like any other member. Instead, we have added a Rank and Tier Requirement to all Tier II qualifications across all Combat Areas of Tier II in Core Infantry, and the Rank of Private (E-2).

This means that recruits can only advance non-infantry Tiers to Tier I maximum, allowing them to continue use the 1-UP and 2-UP systems to access Tier II and Tier III slots, but not allowing direct access to higher Tier slots before their probation ends. Recruits will naturally fill Core Infantry roles to fulfill this requirement, at the same time the Fatigue system will support them with priority access.

What happens to my current tiers?

Any recruit with non-infantry Tiers above Tier I will be re-calculated to Tier I in line with this update, but on your promotion to Private in the next daily update your Tiers will be re-calculated based on your total acitivity meaning that you may jump multiple tiers on your promotion.
 

When will it be implemented?

This goes live with this SITREP, but Tier rank and Tier requirements will not be factored into calculations until the next day at 0600.
This policy updates P15-145 Policy: ORBAT Slot Allocation

Learner Slots or 'L' Plates

Another new feature for our newer members, a learner slot is a unique ORBAT slot which allows an individual who has not yet been able to gain any combat experience in a combat area to do so. It allows individuals to get their first step on the ladder allowing them to access the up-tiering systems for a combat area. It does this by only allowing someone who has practice experience but no combat in experience in a specific combat area to slot without needing the usual Tier requirement. Learner slots function as follows;

- One Learner slot is permitted per ORBAT
- Learner slots can only be applied to Tier I roles
- Only someone with at least one FTX logged in the related combat area, but no combat operations in the area, can use the Learner Slot
- The field leader may choose to change any of the Tier I slots to a Learner slot at their discretion.
- To use 'L' Plate slots, you cannot have had Reprimands in the last 7 days, or any active PCFs in this Combat Area.

How to assign a Learner Slot

From the ORBAT editor, roles eligible for conversion will be shown with a blue cap icon. Should the slot not be claimed, the Field Leader can return here to conver the slot back to a regular slot.

Locating Learner Slots on ORBATs

Learner slots are easy to find on open ORBATs, denoted by their blue cap and blue deploy buttons.

Once the slot has been claimed it is again denoted with it's blue cap.

When will it be implemented?

This goes live with this SITREP.
This policy updates P15-145 Policy: ORBAT Slot Allocation

Loadout and SOP Editors and Mod Suggestions

This is a reminder from the Minor SITREP in April, that it is now possible to make Mod Suggestions through the website, as can changes to combat loadouts and SOP be suggested. Full details of these new systems and how to use them is detailed in this Minor SITREP.

Video Overview

UNITAF Mod Support for Joint ORBATs

In an exciting addition to the UNITAF mod, support will be added for linked ORBATs. The UNITAF framework is to receive an update allowing users to link ORBATs together, this will allow the framework to support the following;

- Multiple Practices on the same server with full loadout support
- Operations with overlapping start and end times, such as early starting recon teams, or extra long missions
- Missions with multiple ORBATs running at the same time, with different factions and loadouts, such as joint nation operations

When will it be implemented?

Testing is underway currently, we expect this update to be live and usable during June 2021, if you'd like to help with the Mod, or have Mod making or scripting experience, please let us know.

Activity and Recruitment

After some record months of growth, we see a minor sip in April for both attendance and TFS, although due to the nature of the new Induction program, there will be some variance. This is likely also impacted by the (hopefully good European weather) and easing of lockdown restrictions.

An aboslutely stellar effort from the entire ORGCOC in a record 40 deployments in May.

Server performance is still a concern, with a number of recent very large ORBATs on conventional missions accounting for some of this rating dip. Mission Support teams should be mindful of this.

Candidates and Candidate Inductions

In line with previous SITREPs, we are continuing with the Candidate Intake system, at present, doing around 2 intakes per month on average, with each intake averaging 6 Candidates. The most recent change is that Candidates are no longer members of UNITAF and they attend their Induction and Recruit training before they are given access to the website, or Discord servers. This is to allow the possibility of application rejection if required at any stage.

The next intake will be on June 5

TAFFCAST

Episode 4 on all major platforms, including Spotify here: https://anchor.fm/unitaf

Promotions

This month SSgt Cross and 1Lt Ben (Ret.) both retired from the ORGCOC, allowing a cascade of promotions throughout the ORGCOC. We welcome those joining us for the first time, and well done as well to those advancing in the ORGCOC too.

In an exciting turn of events we meet our first Master Specilist (informally dubbed leader of the E-4 mafia) MSP Luke, and a host of SPC and PFC promotions.
Well done of course to the Privates ending their probations as well.

Awards and Citations

Well done to all those recieving awards this period as well.

Update to Dossier Design

Finally, there has been a nice little update to the Dossier rank and awards area, which also works on mobile!

Notice to Medical Personnel

A SOP update may follow, but a reminder to all medics when dealing with MINIMAL patients that combat and area safety must be prioritised over 3rd party treatment. Medics should not instruct MINIMAL patients other than when requested by the patient or when giving medical advice. The role of a MINIMAL patient is first and foremost their combative role, which may even require them to instruct the medic. It is important that situational awareness and 360 security be maintained and this includes the proper triage of patients in accordance to SOP and factoring in any current threat.

Patreon

A special mention to those who have supported UNITAF on Pateron, please do let me know if you have, as I know some people have done it under a name not related to UNITAF, which makes it very hard to thank you personally. But it is nevertheless, much appreciated.

UNITAFs 2nd Birthday Celebration

In a slight update to my previous message UNITAFs Official 2nd Birthday will be Celebrated on June 16th 2021. We will look to plan a number of special events from June 16 to June 20 to celebrate this milestone.

Should you find any issues with the system updates found in this SITREP, please report them to the J10 channel, as soon as possible.

It's been another great month for UNITAF, please do let us know your feedback, including the new Podcast on Discord.

Major James
Headquarters
United Task Force

Recently we introduced the new Roles Center, as a precursor to upcoming changes to the Tier and Capability system.

Firstly let's look at the replacement to how suggestions are logged for;

• Mods
• SOP / Procedure Changes
• Loadouts

Which are no longer done via Discord.

Mod Management

In order to massively streamline the UNITAF mods suggestions, testing and approvals process the pending mods page now contains information relating to the status of mods that are under testing and that have been suggested.

 For those that have not been adopted, a reason code for the denial.

For those who are enlisted active members of UNITAF with a rank greater than Private (E-2) up to 3 active mod suggestions can also be made directly in the mods suggestion area.

The approvals process remains the same, with updates being provided in sequence with SITREPs about mod pack changes.

Standard Operating Procedures

In a simlar vein to Mods, the ability to request changes to Standard Operating Procedures is now possible. The feature is currently limited to those with the rank of Corporal (E-4) or greater, but will be tested and is expected to be rolled out wider in due course. There are two types of change requests;

Major - for content changes, removals or additions of practical SOP
Minor - for formatting, spelling and grammar or layout edits

Change requests can be raised from the procedure view.

When submitting a change request you'll need to provide a reason for the change, and the SOP will not accept further change requests until a response or action is made on any open change requests.

Loadouts

In line with Mods and Procedures, Loadouts now have front-end change requests. A new section of the Roles Center has been added which when viewing a specific role, allows you to navigate to the 'Loadouts' tab and view loadouts across all factions in UNITAF for this position. It also contains data on when the loadout was first and last used, and how many times it has been used, as well as it's approval status.

To open a change request for a loadout, you can navigate to that specific loadout from either the Roles Center or from any ORBAT containing that loadout using the existing Loadout Gear Icon. The feature is currently limited to those with the rank of Corporal (E-4) or greater, but will be tested and is expected to be rolled out wider in due course. 

From the loadout viewer if you have permission to open loadout change requests you'll see a new button, which will open the change request.

From here, you just need to import the loadout in game, make the required changes and then submit.

Roles Center

If you've yet to have the chance to check out the new Roles Center you can find tonnes of statistics over there about the most experienced members across the main combat areas and roles.

Summary

These changes will help to speed up the improvement of loadouts and procedures through crowdsourcing contributions. We'll continue to monitor it's usage and roll it out further as required.

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- TAFFCAST 3
- Activity and AAR Review
- Recruitment Policy Updates
- Promotions
- Awards and Citations + New Awards System
- Proposed changes to Recruit / Private Ranks
- A planned promotions policy
- Officers and UNISTAFF update
- Public Server update
- Daesh Dawn replacement
- Changes to 2ICs

As a special treat, you can listen to this audio version SITREP/10 if you like.

Activity and Recruitment

Firstly, let's talk statistics. By now the SITREPs must sound like a broken record, as we enter our 4th simultaneous month of attendance growth, month on month. Not just that, but if you look at Task Force Strength, it's now in it's 6th month on month in growth. Seeing the first period of a 100+ Total Force Strength; this is an important benchmark since it indicates not just our rostered size, but our active size, as there are always people in the process of becoming active or joining and those in the process of retiring or going inactive.

Obviously it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that a slot deployment of 850 slots in March, against a 108 total force is around 8.5 slots per active member in March, which to be honest - is a bit insane.
Another thing to remember here is that this entire graph now, from last April to this March is overshadowed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, so we don't even know what effect the easing of restrictions worldwide will have on our activity, but more on that a bit further down in the SITREP.

Next, let's look at deployments and as you can see - it speaks for itself, a heroic effort from our Mission Support and Field Leadership teams.
We do see a slight drop in Leadership and Communication ratings, I'm not 100% certain for the reason, but of course we'll continue to track it.

One thing I can pinpoint though is this nose dive in Server Performance, which continues into early April and I'm sure was noticeable. Some missions had been launched accidentally without Headless Client support, which has a big impact on server performance. This was fixed in mid-April. so we expect to see that back to normal, in SITREP/11.

Let's talk recruitment

For almost 2 years, UNITAF has operated a mostly open door recruitment policy, whereby the COC would induct and enlist applicants on a near constant basis. The last few months have seen two recruitment halts due to, let's call it "overcrowding". We have a great problem to have in UNITAF, that is more people want to join than we can support, and the people already wearing the patch want to play even more missions that we can provide. As we speak, we have something in the region of 30 applications pending.

This is a great problem to have, and for now our efforts are focused on the latter problem, how can we ensure we can support those wearing the patch today. So what does this mean for recruitment?

- Firstly, we're have set a hard limit on the rostered force of 120, this is the roster size that we'll aim to remain at for the time being.
- Secondly, we'll stop inducting and processing new recruits continuously, this will take the form of "Intakes" where 6-8 applicants are inducted and taken on within a 2-3 week period.
- The timing and size of intakes will be directed by the rostered size, so for example if the Roster size is 110, then an Intake of 10 will be planned.

We are in a very fortunate position, and we are content on using this to raise the bar with our new recruits, which we are finding to be much more attentive, dedicated and passionate as they have in some case waited nearly a month in order to be able to wear the patch.
We're also looking at some potential changes to the process of Candidate and Recruit ranks, which you can find in the Perspective section of this SITREP.

TAFFCAST

In this live episode of TAFFCAST, we discuss a brief update, plans for UNITAFs 2nd Birthday and move on to discuss how UNITAF started and what makes a good leader and how UNITAF chooses leaders for it's organisation. Followed by questions submitted by the live listeners. We were really happy with the engagement of the live broadcast and will look to carry this similar format forward - so expect to see more soon. We'd love to hear your ideas for topics too.

Or use this feed URL in iTunes and other Podcast players
https://feed.podbean.com/unitaf/feed.xml

Promotions

This SITREP is somewhat delayed, in that it's been 6 weeks or so since the last mainline SITREP, but here are some of the notable promotions since then. Most obvious is the promotion of Capt Kevin to Executive Officer, and 1Lt Ben to First Lieutenant. As we've talked about in previous SITREPs, the working model of the ORGCOC right now is in rules of two, with each post having two persons, so that there is full redundancy in the COC, and that also extends now to the Commanding Officer.

2Lt Mattjamco also took command of 2 Troop, and we added two new Corporals with Cpl WhiteWolf and Cpl LegacyStetson taking up the posts.

It's also great to see so many Specialists and PFCs, I'm also aware that we are mere hours away from our first Master Specialist Promotion!

There were of course, a large number of Pvt and Recruit promotions as well.

Awards and Citations

We recently saw a large update to our Awards System. Awards are now graded and can be given attachments to recognise outstanding achievements. Most all medals now either have stars or oak-leaf attachments in Bronze, Silver and Gold - allowing you to upgrade your medals over time, and show off as you collect them.

Example of the new JSAM with attachment variations.

With that, we also added a number of new medals. Specifically we wanted to ensure that we recognised the outstanding work that our Game Masters and Mission Support teams do on a daily basis.
With the addition of the Support Operations Service Medal - and a massive congratulations to those, as indicated below who have received it so far.

Next up, for those attending a large number of Practices, we have the Field Exercise Service Medal and those go to:

The Combat Operations Service Medal also gets an update, and it's great to see so many people having achieved it as well.

ORBAT Role Availability Feature

We also added a handy tool for ORBAT-wide role checking - to all ORBATs.

Candidate and Recruit Rank Changes - Recruit Training Changes

Earlier in the SITREP we discussed a more selective intake procedure. Along with that I'd like to share some current thinking surrounding the Candidate and Recruit ranks.

It's more than likely in the coming months, that the Recruit Training contents will change. The instructors are keen to remove some subjects and add some more. We expect this will take form of two sessions ;

- Recruit Core Infantry Training (for Candidate to Recruit promotions)
- Recruit Advanced Infantry Training (for Recruit to Private promotions)

This is not confirmed, but you'll see that the main difference here is that the current requirement for Private is Tier II in Core Infantry, which requires 2 Core Infantry FTXs, rather than do the same one twice, it's proposed that instead, Recruits do an advanced session as a requirement of becoming a Private, as well as Tier II in Core Infantry.

Discussions are ongoing on the above, and if you'd like to have some input - the best place to start would be j6-training-and-sop.

Promotion Policy

Following feedback from the ORGCOC, a full review of the ranks and promotions policy is underway. We want to ensure that the requirements and expectations of all ranks is really clear, and we don't think that these have been updated in line with other structural changes to UNITAF over the last 2 years.

We'll be updating the ranks section of the site with clear requirements for every rank, probably in time for the next SITREP.

In addition, we'll also publish a promotions policy, that clearly outlines the process to follow from one rank to the next, specifically when choosing between multiple applicants for a single promotion.

Officers and UNISTAFF

The Role of UNISTAFF has changed over the years, and currently we just wanted to make you aware that all UNISTAFF Meetings are and have been for the last 2 months Officer/UNISTAFF meetings. What this means is that the Officers in addition to UNISTAFF are having the majority of policy discussion. This group of 5-6 members of the Senior Staff meet on a weekly basis and officially every other week.

Public Server

A very quick note on the public server. It is currently not working but if anyone would like to work on fixing it, they are more than welcome and we'll put it back up as normal. That is the Liberation server, for anyone not versed.

Daesh Dawn Campaign Replacement

We are currently working on a new concept for a deployment, probably called a 'Patrol'. In the latest ORGCOC meeting we discussed having a non-Zeus driven server which is private and persistent, MSO style for anyone versed in Arma 2. The server would be it's own campaign, ran just like any other UNITAF deployment except that there would be no mission support roles by default. Using an automated persistent mission file, Field Leaders could plan and execute patrols in a insurgency style server storyline.

We feel this is a great way to increase the number of smaller ORBATs, specialist missions with Snipers, Aircraft and the like, without burning out our Game Masters.

Discussions and work are still underway - this was touched on in TAFFCAST 3 as well - and if youre interested please speak to Capt Kevin for more information.

Automatic Rifleman (2IC) - Second in Command - Policy Change

For a while now the ORGCOC have wanted to change the default 2IC policy away from the AR role. Effective from the issue of this SITREP, the 2IC role is now dynamic, and you can find the new policy in P3-3 Roles in the fireteam and as below.

Patreon

A special mention to those who have supported UNITAF on Pateron, please do let me know if you have, as I know some people have done it under a name not related to UNITAF, which makes it very hard to thank you personally. But it is nevertheless, much appreciated.

Slot Priority

A big topic from previous SITREPs has been the slot priority system. There has been a slight lack of progress on this front this month, but I do hope to have a rather substantial update in the coming weeks for that. Along with some unique tools such as a tool that will tell you who is "next in line" for a slot and so on. So keep your eyes peeled. That said a lot of work has been done in the background on this.

UNITAFs 2nd Birthday Celebration

UNITAFs Official 2nd Birthday will be Celebrated on June 1st 2021. We will look to plan a number of special events from June 1 to June 6 to celebrate this milestone.
Not withstanding the potential of seeing the following event!

None to report

It's been another great month for UNITAF, please do let us know your feedback, including the new Podcast on Discord.

Major James
Headquarters
United Task Force

Good afternoon all. This month with lots of little changes taking place to some key systems I wanted to issue a minor SITREP with updates to progress with the Tiering, Progression and Slot Allocation systems.

Aircrew

As planned, Aircrew has been split into fixed-wing and rotary-wing Tiers. Obviously this is a logical step forward - however this has given the opportunity to update our roles and SOP in these areas.

Changes in Tiers

Prior to the split, fixed-wing roles were considered the higher tier aircrew roles, but with fixed-wing gone, Rotary roles have been rebalanced. Attack helicopter roles were doubled in base tier requirement, but can be 2-UPed if needed from Tier 2 in Rotary.

• Rotary Pilot (General) base tier requirement increase from T-I to T-II
  • Pilots at a base level, should have observer experience before flying
     
• Rotary Weapon Systems Operator (Attack) base tier requirement increase from T-II to T-III
  • Weapon Operators of Attack Helicopters (Cobra/Apache) should have more experience than that of dumb-fire assets.
     
• Rotary Pilot (Attack) base tier requirement increase from T-II to T-IV
  • Pilots of Apaches/Cobras to have a higher base tier requirement than that of dumb-fire assets.

New Roles Introduced

Both aircrew tiers have received new roles to provide better guidance for ORBATs, but also more refined experience expectations.

• Rotary Observer (General) new role introduced at T-I
  • This role is a multi role, co-pilot/observer, to be used in assets such as the AH-6, MH-6, UH-60 and UH-1Y, the observer is learning how we use aircraft in combat, but also navigating, observing with optics and assisting the pilot. They may also fly as a co-pilot under instruction.
     
• Rotary Pilot (Multi) new role introduced at T-III
  • Classifying a AH-6 pilot and a AH-64 pilot in the same tier needed to be addressed, and now we make a distinct difference between 'Attack' helicopters or Gunships and 'Multi-role' or 'Multi' aircraft, which we will define as any aircraft with Pilot operated weapons rather than gunner operated weapons, and that are specifically dumb-fire. These pilots need more experience than un-armed pilots, and can perform a number of different roles in addition.
     

• Fixed-wing Pilot (CAP) new role introduced at T-II
  • Provides ORBAT clarity, in the Aircrew Review CAP is Junior to CAS
     
• Fixed-wing Weapons Systems Officer new role introduced at T-II
  • Similar to the Rotary Observer, junior member of the aircrew who can learn in a combat environment, while operating weapon systems or optics.
     
• Fixed-wing Pilot (Multi-role) new role introduced at T-IV
  • The highest tier for fixed-wing are now multi-role aircraft, i.e. dual CAS/CAP capability.

Special Forces / Minimum Rank Operations

Instead of rolling out our special operations orbats as PFC+, we've decided to take a Tier-led approach to this going forward. This has an added benefit of the ability to deploy special operations units on larger conventional ORBATs.
 

These roles belong to their respective combat areas, and are generally the highest tiers in them. We've also planned to make these 'Qualified Roles' more on that in the next section.

The following roles have been added:

• SF Commander (T-V Field Leadership)
• SF Team Leader (T-IV Field Leadership)
• SF Sapper (T-IV Combat Support)
• SF Medic (T-IV Medical)
• SF Missileman (T-IV Anti-vehicle)
• SF Marksman (T-IV Marksmanship)
• SF Operator (T-IV Core Infantry)

You can see these with full descriptions on the roles center.

Qualified Roles

The tier system is an experienced based system, not a capability based system. We'll soon start to phase in a capability based system which will track people who we deem capable of a role, even if they don't have the tier for it. 

Priority will always be given to those who have the most experience, but priority outside of that will be given to people who have the capability those will the experience and the capability are always first.

A number of roles (or role areas) in the future will have a mandatory capability requirement. The best way to look at this is like the Twitter verification tick. Roles like pilots, and field leaders will be verified at each tier by someone senior in that area to confirm they are competent in that role. 

These roles will be listed on the Roles Center, and ORBATs clearly, such as:
Tier IV Qualified instead of Tier IV

How would this effect ORBAT priority?

Priority is always highest tier first, and in the case of multiple persons with the same tier - then hours can be used to work out priority. In Tier Qualified roles the priority order is;

1. Tier+Qualification
2. 1UP+Qualification
3. 2UP+Qualification
4. Tier, no qualification
5. 1UP, no qualification
6. 2UP, no qualification

Please note that the 'Qualified roles' and they way it works with auto-up-tiering will not start immediately - but consider this a heads up of what to expect on that front. As with any of the requirements it is recursive, so all slots will always be filled with the next most experienced person, irrespective of whether anyone is qualified or not.

Slot Allocation Priority Update

Ensuring newer members of UNITAF have access to the first wrung of the progression ladder is important, and the following changes from SITREP/9 are upcoming in the next 1-2 weeks.

'L' Plate slots

Limited to 1-2 per ORBAT, 'L' plate slots only let someone with no combat hours slot into that role for that role area, they are limited to entry level roles in each combat area, and will ensure everyone gets a chance to build their Tier 1 hours across any area. They must have practice hours though, to use it. 

If the 'L' plate slot is not filled, then it will open as normal.

Penalty for Reprimands

If you receive a reprimand for a policy violation you currently loose UP-tier privileges for 7 days. We will extend this penalty to adding a delay to ORBAT releases, initially around 90 seconds will be added to give a time advantage to those with accounts in good standing.

Penalty for Activity

Some conversations have taken place about 'slot-hogging' and while we hope the 'L' plates will really help here, we will add small time penalties to someone who's been in a specific combat area slot for a large part of the last 30 days, to try to give a chance to those who haven't. This will be a minor time penalty and will only apply to the specific combat area. It won't effect the UP-tiering system since the penalty is seconds.

This only applies when your level of activity, exceeds the average of the entire active force, this is measured with something called the 'Activity Index'.

Manual Assignment Guidance

To better communicate when we have manually assigned someone to an ORBAT, ORBATs will now show the method of manual assignment. The valid MA reason codes are;

• MA - Manually Assigned (this person does not have the requirements of the role, but is under the instruction of a supervisor)
• MA-S - Manually Assigned Supervisor (this person is supervising someone else in their immediate ORBAT unit)
• NMQ - Next most qualified (this person doesn't have the role requirements, but is the next most qualified person, and has been slotted manually)

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- UNITAF completes a record breaking February

- More information on current and future slot allocation progress

- Updates on general recruitment

- Updates on ORGCOC / NCO recruitment status

- Two new campaigns and current campaign plans

- Forthcoming plans for UNITAFs 2nd Birthday and the Easter Special

-  Some updates on UNITAF Merch

- Numerous SOP changes and planned changes

Activity and Recruitment

The upward attendance trend continues into another record high in February, with close to 700 slots completed, with the total force strength holding steady at 94.

Deployment wise we see our second month running with over 30 deployments, again holding steady, and no significant movements in AARs.

TAFFCAST

TAFFCAST is back this month, and in a slightly tweaked format based on some feedback from the first episode. Each episode of TAFFCAST will carry a theme of some sort, and while it will touch on parts of the SITREP from the same month, we'll focus more on the theme and will also have a guest on relevant to that theme. This months guest is SFC Mattjamco, on-duty celebrity and long time Zeus turned Field Leader. We talk about Mission Development in UNITAF.

Upcoming episodes will touch on Leadership and another on the work thats involved in making the UNITAF machine work.
If you'd like to be a guest on TAFFCAST, or have questions you want to be addressed on it, fire them over to podcast cheif SFC Zero on Discord.

Or use this feed URL in iTunes and other Podcast players
https://feed.podbean.com/unitaf/feed.xml

Promotions

In the last 30 days or so, I was pleased to approve the following promotions. It see's some major movements in the ORGCOC, as we've been paving the way to double up seniority at every level, from Sections to Troops and very soon, the Task Force HQ as well.

Plenty of new joins have blessed us this month as well, and some really promising talent too.

A massive congratulations to all of the above, well deserved.

NCO Applications

As always we are always happy to hear from people who'd like to dedicate more time to UNITAF by joining the ORGCOC, speak to your COC to let them know your interested and they will try to point you in the right direction.

Changes to the Administration SOP and SOP on Leadership

The Code of Conduct has been moved to a new section of SOP under the 'administration' heading, this section houses SOP on all major functions of the ORGCOC, from the Code of Conduct to how the ORGCOC functions.
You can find this section here: https://unitedtaskforce.net/training/sop/administration

Alongside this, we've added a 'Principles' section which talks about what we expect from our Leadership, and what it means to be an effective leader in UNITAF, both in and outside of the game.

(P15-133) Principles: Introduction
(P15-134) Principles: Micromanagement
(P15-135) Principles: Chain of Command
(P15-136) Principles: Praise in Public, Correct in Private
(P15-137) Principles: Ownership
(P15-138) Principles: Relationships, trust and ego
(P15-139) Principles: Dealing with conflict
(P15-140) Principles: Summary
(P15-141) Advice for Leaders
 

you can find them here

Update to Mission Planning SOP

To make it clearer what is expected in the mission making process, the mission planning SOP under Field Leadership has been split into 4 new and updated SOPs - a useful read (or listen) for both mission developers and leaders;

(P1-84) Mission planning: Process
(P1-142) Mission planning: SMEAC
(P1-143) Mission planning: METT-TC
(P1-144) Mission planning: Making the Plan

you can find them here

A new ORBAT slot allocation policy

P15-145 Policy: ORBAT Slot Allocation condenses years of SITREP updates to the slot allocation system to provide a central policy and location. This is something that has been requested and we want to ensure that fairness and transparency is provided here. You can find the policy linked on all ORBATs and you can read or listen to it here.

ORBAT Release times

Release times typically have been 4 days exactly before an operation execution time, but this often resulted in ORBATs releasing during other missions, so by default this is now 90 minutes before the execution time. So many releases will now happen around 1730 UTC.

Annual Survey Results
 

While I won't go through the full rundown of the survey, I did want to share some of the responses from this years, compared to last years results.

(Below) 2021 Survey - Progression

(Below) 2020 Survey compared to 2021 - Personal Progression

2020

2021

(Above) These two demonstrate the work done over the last year to improve personal progression, work that is ongoing and we hope over this year, to improve this even further with a robust Advanced Core Infantry Training program.

(Below) 2020 Survey compared to 2021 - Progression Paths

2020

2021

(Above) It's promising to see that efforts to improve clarity in the progression paths with the tier system are bedding in, and result in a much more decisive opinion this year.

The general feedback this year, as with last year have been incredibly useful, and with a large focus on the slot allocation system we addressed last month, and so continue to expect work to be done on these systems going forward.

Slot Allocation

In March, we'll start to introduce the following planned changes to the ORBAT system;

- Aircrew will be split into Fixed / Rotary (and hours re-distributed)

- Reprimand Reports, No-shows will have a time penalty to Deployment buttons

- Additional formulas to give some time advantage (in seconds) to people who are less active than others in deployment release times

- 'L' Plate slot functionality, so that certain slots can be reserved for people who don't have the tiers yet.

New Campaigns

As mentioned last month Operation Eiche will commence shortly, a German campaign in Russian Invaded finland, using the popular BWMOD. 

We'll also deploy on Operation Typhoon, which is a USMC campaign in a Russian backed Coup of Jamaica

you can find more information about both, on the Campaign Center

UNITAFs 2nd Birthday and the Easter Special

On Easter Weekend, we'll have a Special Operation that's all about tanks, alongside our normal Sunday Operation. We'll also start to ramp up plans for UNITAFs second birthday in a couple of months time.

UNITAF Merch

As mentioned a little while ago, we expect to be in a position to launch the UNITAF Merch in the coming weeks (hopefully) 

Advanced Trainings and SOP

Alongside the upcoming changes to Aircrew, there is a desire to really beef out an advanced core infantry training to run every couple of weeks and so if this is something you think you can help with please get involved. The same can be said about some other areas, such as communication in relation to FAC/FO that could do with some SOP updates. A new training map on Altis is underway, and due to replace Malden soon also.

- External radio nets are now set automatically, but unlike before are not enabled by default as an additional channel

Special Mentions

Congratulations to Pvt Chelmy, who raised over £500 for Children with Cancer UK as part of a 24 hour live stream this month on TwitchTV. Part of which featured Operation Parabole, thank you to everyone who contributed with their support by donating, I understand that their employer will double the final amount, so great work.

Mods for Approval

A seperate update will follow in the coming days, dedicated to a Mod review, including suggestions.

None to report

It's been another great month for UNITAF, please do let us know your feedback, including the new Podcast on Discord.

Major James
Headquarters
United Task Force
 

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- UNITAF completes a record breaking December/January

- We address slot supply and demand plans for 2021

- We talk about the campaign center plans

- We launch TAFFCAST for the first time

- Liberation gets an Update with a new map, new faction

Activity and Recruitment

As we close out January we see some incredible levels of activity across the force with new records across the board, as of writing we are at 110 strong. All January figures below do not include today (January 31). 92 Members of the active force have deployed so far in January, at an average of 6.8 deployments per month. We will likely put a hold on recruitment in the coming month, if at least temporarily while we see how things balance out with operations.

We've continued the trend of over 25 deployments per month for the 4th month running, and for the first time ever, deployed more than once per day for the entire month of January 21.

Overall AAR ratings remain stable, with Operation Brimstone starting in the strong 90s for it's first few Sunday deployments.

TAFFCAST

Due to popular demand, and for the first time ever, we will be releasing a Podcast episode alongside each SITREP, the TAFFCAST is hosted by UNISTAFF members and will discuss in detail topics from the SITREP. In EP001 we discuss;

- What is UNISTAFF
- Slot Supply and Demand
- Training and Tier Systems
- Liberation Server
- Campaign Center
- Future Plans for the Podcast

Or use this feed URL in iTunes and other Podcast players
https://feed.podbean.com/unitaf/feed.xml

In future episodes we will be inviting guests on, and various other topics, it would be great to get your feedback on this new resource, on Discord. If you'd like to come on the podcast in a future episode, or have topics you want us to discuss, please for now at least, speak to SFC Zero.

Promotions

In the last 30 days or so, I was pleased to approve the following promotions. Some of these are related to the opening of 7 and 8 Section and the future 4 Troop.

Plenty of new joins have blessed us this month as well, and some really promising talent too.

A massive congratulations to all of the above, well deserved.

NCO Applications

The ORGCOC will continue to seek more NCOs in expectation of the opening of 4 Troop in the coming months, so we will consider all interested persons and help to develop those with potential as this process unfolds, what we're looking for is people with the ambition to lead, being in an NCO gives you basically, guaranteed Leadership time, and likewise for Instructing as well as a number of other things. We know we've got some great potential in our newer members who might even still be CDT, Recruit or Private, and we just encourage you to reach out to your COC with that ambition, as we're more than happy to fast track the right candidate - check out our ORGCOC Policy and speak to your Troop or Section Commanders for more information.

UNITAF Strategy
The Campaign Center

The CC takes a slight backstep in development due to the prioritisation of changes to the ORBAT system. The main framework changes have been completed, and the next modules to be released will be the POI and Intel Modules.

Contributors

We've recently added a new discord channel called #contributor-info which contains a whole host of information on how to get involved in pushing UNITAF forward, so I highly recommend checking that out. This month also sees some changes to Joint Task Groups (JTGs) and Staff Task Groups (STGs) which are detailed in that channel.

Operations Schedule and Campaigns

We've kicked off to a great start with Operation Brimstone, with Parabole returning eariler this month, and a number of well recieved Daesh Dawn deployments, as well as the return of our historicals in both December and January, Panther and Giantsbane. In February we will continue with Brimstone, Parabole and Daesh Dawn, but we look to new campaigns to bolster operations, and we welcome our talented mission developers and game masters to come forward to plug future schedule gaps. Active teams are looking at German campaigns, amongst others.

Liberation Server

Next week, the liberation server will be updated, this cycle will see us on Chernarus Winter, deployed as the Russian Forces.

Slot Supply and Demand

In TAFFCAST we discuss the fact that UNITAF has a much greater demand currently for slots than we have a supply of, hence the intent above to spin up additional campaigns as and when possible, as well as increasing the number of missions and their frequency across all campaigns. We will also make small interventions to the ORBAT system over the coming months, and it's important to note we will do this incrementally and each time communicate ahead each change, so we can monitor the effects, but our intent is to do the following;

- Introduce 'L' plate slots across some ORBATs, which are dedicated to those who have training, but no combat experience in a role, to make it easier to get your first foot on the ladder
- Introduce more operations with minimum and maximum ranks, for example Operations targeted at Recruits, with minimal Private+ slots will give Recruits access with less competion to other roles, contrasted with an equal number of the opposite, for example (Private+) operations, possiby run at the same time on the same day.
- Introduce alternative methods of role access based on capability, not experience, so newer members who are overly capable of a role, but lack the Tiering, still have a fair chance at accessing them, without making the tier redundant. In short, priority will be given to those with both, and then recurse from there.
- Split Aircrew into two Tiers, Rotary and Fixed, and move JTAC/FAC roles into Aircrew from Communications.
- Make the deployment buttons fairer, by factoring in how many times you've deployed in a role to give you an advantage if you've not been able to get one in the past - so long as you have the requirements of course.
- Introduce new ways of indicating your status on specific ORBATs, such as "100% Reserve" "Reserve Maybe" and collecting information about how many people would have attended an operation if they could have.

Mods for Approval

A seperate update will follow in the coming days, dedicated to a Mod review, including suggestions.

UNITAF Mod

The UNITAF Mod was released this month, and continues to be updated.

Remember that the UNITAF Annual Survey closes today at 23:59, so if you have not submitted it yet, please do so here
 

It's been another great month for UNITAF, please do let us know your feedback, including the new Podcast, and we look forward to reporting the Survey Results in SITREP/9 in a months time.

Major James
Headquarters
United Task Force
 

Believe it or not folks as we approach our 2nd Birthday it's time for the UNITAF annual survey.

UNITAF has a robust platform of feedback analysis, with over 3,500 After Action Reports submitted comprising of over 600 A4 pages of feedback.

Alongside the chain of command feedback channel, this will be our second annual survey. We are interested in understanding how you feel about the ongoing development of United Task Force.

This is an opportunity to feedback directly to the headquarters, top-level non-mission specific feedback and ideas to be considered for the Strategy for the 2021 period.

We greatly appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

The closing date for submissions is 00:01 UTC on Sunday January 31st.

Click here to take part.

We recently updated our Activity, Discharge & Participation Policy to Version 2. This policy controls how UNITAF classifies members into the Regular, Reserves and Inactive groups.

The main changes you'll find are;

• The default inactivity state is now Inactive (known as a standard Discharge)
• Discharge applies for members not active within 60+ days
• Reserves applies for members not active in operations for 30+ days (but who are contactable)
• Discharged members no longer retain access to Discord or the Website

We've added a new method for Inactive members to return to Regulars or Reserves called a re-induction. The re-induction is like a new member induction but for returning members.

We've added proper on-leave statuses to allow members who cannot be active for 60+ days to apply to have their accounts remain open.

We've added new guidance to the Retired state, the Retired state can now be applied for when you expect to go inactive. Retired members retain access to most all of UNITAFs services.

You can find the updated policy here: P15-125 Activity, Discharge & Participation Policy

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- Big changes to 1UPs (Up Tiering) and Tier Progression

- A New After Action Report System with Reputation

- Upcoming Contribution Center & Campaign Centers

- Our new Sunday Campaign

- A new Core Infantry Course to follow on from Recruit Training

- An update on the ORGCOC

Activity and Recruitment

Total attendance is, believe it or not up another 20% on October, setting yet another new record. That means on average 7.6 deployments per person in this period!

November was (unsuprisingly) a record month for Deployments, with 27 deployments, a record set to be beaten this December.

Total Force Strength is the best indicator of the health of the unit and is stable at 70, this is the result of some purging done by the ORGCOC, which also explains why the total force activity is higher (with the 7.6 deployments PM up from 6.6, and 4.3 pre-COVID)

Promotions

In the last 30 days or so, I was pleased to approve the following promotions. You'll notice a couple of Senior ORGCOC promotions, this is due to the On-Leave status of 2Lt Zero and SSgt Attackbee, which causes a ripple promotion effect. But some worthy candidates have joined the ORGCOC in recent weeks, and more will do so soon as well.

Plenty of new joins have blessed us this month as well, and some really promising talent too.

A massive congratulations to all of the above, well deserved.

NCO Applications

The ORGCOC is still seeking more NCOs in what will become more of a continuous process, what we're looking for is people with the ambition to lead, being in an NCO gives you basically, guaranteed Leadership time, and likewise for Instructing as well as a number of other things. We know we've got some great potential in our newer members who might even still be CDT, Recruit or Private, and we just encourage you to reach out to your COC with that ambition, as we're more than happy to fast track the right candidate - check out our ORGCOC Policy and speak to your Troop or Section Commanders for more information.

UNITAF Strategy
The Campaign Center

Those long-time members of UNITAF will note the campaign center has been planned for some time, it will better tie together campaign missions by providing a central place for mugshots of HVTs, intel feeds and imagery as well as logistics, finance and other matters. The intention is to launch this alongside the new Sunday campaign on January 10th, it will be a massive change for UNITAF towards our long term goals.

The Contribution Center

Probably a little known development, the contribution center aims to communicate what UNITAF is working on at any time, and better facilitate people joining our working teams that cover all of the key functions of UNITAF, again more information will be forthcoming, as it is released.

Operations Schedule and Campaigns

As mentioned previously, Vertex ends this Sunday, and we're kicking off 2021s first Sunday with a Operation Panther mission, on January 10th, we'll be deploying to our new Sunday campaign, which I'm really excited for, and an announcement will be forthcoming with details very soon.

Update: Minimum Rank Operations

You'll notice as promised in SITREP/6, and as part of the Quality Strategy that the minimum rank operations have been fully implemented, and all combat deployments now require a minimum rank of Recruit, as do all advanced Trainings, and you may occasionally see higher minimum requirements, such as for Special Forces deployments, or ORGCOC sessions.

Update: Reputation

Again, part of SITREP/6 and the Quality Strategy was the introduction of the Reputation system to extend the AARs. This Sunday, Vertex 14 will be the first deployment to issue the new AARs, while we're not doing anything with the Reputation system right now, we're going to monitor how it is used first, before we implement any systems around it's data. The purpose of the system is to identify anybody who needs correcting on mild policy or behavioural issues by using a crowd sourced reputation system, but also to use it for issuing the new Good Conduct medals too.

An example of the updated AAR system can be seen below, note that you can only rate people in your immediate team.

Update: Tier System and UP-tiering (1UP/2UPs)

Field Leaders in the past have been inundated with requests for 1UPs and the system has also not been the most fair either, to bring it in line with other UNITAF systems, you'll notice the Automatic UP-tiering system was recently released and is being used on a all upcoming deployments.

Here is the low down of how it works;

On ORBAT release, only those with the required tiers can slot into those roles, but they will see buttons which indicate when they will be able to 1UP or 2UP to a role, the ORBAT will tell you exactly when you will be able to 1UP or 2UP to a role.

24 Hours after initial release of an ORBAT (or 48 hours for 2UPs), having given enough time for qualified persons to deploy, the ORBAT will automatically seek those who are in the tier below for all roles, to help with this we've added two changes.
The first is a release time, so you know when the ORBAT was released, to the right hand side.

Next is a non-pinged message into mission-pings by the bot, which will inform everyone when 1UP and 2UPs are possible for any given operation.
In any case, when possible, the ORBAT will show you either a 1UP or 2UP button in place of the deploy button.

UP-tiering is a privilege though and not a right; so we've also added some further fallbacks to prevent UP-tiering in some circumstances;

- UP-tiering is not possible on FTXs
- You can't UP-tier if you've recieved a reprimand in the last 7 days (such as a no-show)
- You can't up-tier to a certain combat area if you've been flagged for not following a certain SOP in that area
- You can only UP-tier 2 levels in total
- You'll need to have attended at least 1 FTX in the respective area

In each case, you'll be given a warning, examples below;

Ability to Swap ORBAT positions without Cancelling a Deployment

Another nifty change you may have noticed above is the ability to swap your ORBAT position without having to cancel your current one first, this is especially useful for 1UPs, re-deploy buttons have an apt UNO-REVERSE icon so you know you are switching roles.

None to report.

UNITAF Mod

The UNITAF mod has been under regular testing in the last few weeks, and we intend to launch this alongside the new campaign on January 10th, again there will be a dedicated announcement when this happens, but we very much look forward to replacing the table with the tablet.

If you don't already have an avatar, check out this ping to find out how: https://discord.com/channels/573494917998051348/637195879375175681/780369912191123466

I'd like to especially thank this month SSgt Attackbee and 2Lt Zero for their service over the last 18 months, and we hope to see them deploying again soon.

It's been another great month for UNITAF, and I'm especially excited to see the UNITAF Mod and Campaign Center launched in early 2021.
 

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- This month, we're celebrating surpassing 10,000 hours of operations!

- New campaigns: Operation Parabole, Operation Panther, Operation Giantsbane

- Some new US Timezone Operations.

- Updates on the UNITAF Strategy for Player Quality and Medical

- Update on NCO Recruitment

- MERT Review

Activity and Recruitment

Total attendance is up 37% on September, setting a new record. That means on average 6.4 deployments per person in this period.

As anticipated last month, October sees an increase of over 30% in the number of deployments. This follows a number of Mission Support practices, and the launch of a number of new campaigns.

Total Force Strength is the best indicator of the health of the unit and is also up 15%, and is the start of another upwards spike going into November.

Promotions

This month, I was pleased to be able to approve the following promotions, including our first ever E-4 Specialist Promotion. 

Other promotions worthy of note are 1Lt Kevin, as 2 Troop adds it's 3rd SECTION and Cpl BigRed and Cpl Cross

A massive congratulations to all of the above, well deserved.

Changes to Promotions Ceremonial

Prior to SITREP 6, Promotions were usually authorized by the Commanding Officer on a Saturday, and announced on a Sunday. It's been decided that from November 2020, Promotions up to that of PFC will be Authorized and actioned by Troop Commanders as they desire, and announced by the Commanding Officer on Sundays. All promotions above PFC will still follow this process, but generally require approval from the Commanding Officer first.

Medal issue will likely move to monthly, as part of a medals update coming later this year.

NCO Applications

The ORGCOC is still seeking more NCOs in what will become more of a continuous process, what we're looking for is people with the ambition to lead, being in an NCO gives you basically, guaranteed Leadership time, and likewise for Instructing as well as a number of other things. We know we've got some great potential in our newer members who might even still be CDT, Recruit or Private, and we just encourage you to reach out to your COC with that ambition, as we're more than happy to fast track the right candidate - check out our ORGCOC Policy and speak to your Troop or Section Commanders for more information.

Medical Changes and MERT Review

The recent changes to the medical system have been overwhelmingly positive, and while we'll continue to make minor adjustments we are happy with progress, and the training that is underway. Furthermore, one other change to SOP is that the use of MERT, must be in accordance with METT-TC. In short, if ground vehicles are already deployed, the primary medical treatment off-field should be a medical MRAP or APC. MERT should be used in cases where ground based medical support is impractical, and when escorted by an Attack Helicopter or operating in non-threat AOs.

Acknowledgements

- A shout out to Pvt Mectus who built an entire campaign from his first Mission Support practice, Operation Parabole scored very highly on AARs too.

- Sgt Mattjamco for 2 incredible Halloween Operations

UNITAF Strategy

Our focus last month was medical, and this month we're shifting our focus to quality of membership. We already have some great tools for reviewing missions, and for dealing with conduct violations and SOP violations, but as we continue to grow, we're going to add some more features to give you options in relation to the quality of missions. These features will include roadmapped plans such as operations with a minimum rank requirement (i.e. Special Operations and NCO Ops) to systems that track specific player reputations, which I'll cover off more below.

Operations Schedule and Campaigns

I'm really pleased to announce, that alongside Op Herrick, Op Vertex and Op Daesh Dawn, we've just launched Op Parabole and today we're announcing the reactivation of Op Giantsbane and a new campaign, Op Panther. Both of which are part of a new operation type 'Historic'.

Finally, we're going to be scheduling some secondary objectives from our main campaigns into the primetime US timezones, around 0030hrs UTC, on Fridays (likely alternate weeks to Parabole).

Let's break this down a little;

Operation Vertex (Conventional US): Sundays 1800hrs UTC, Company sized
Operation Herrick (Insurgency BAF-RM): Alternate Tuesdays 1900hrs UTC, Squad/Platoon sized
Operation Daesh Dawn (Insurgency BAF-RM): Alternate Tuesdays 1900hrs UTC, Squad/Platoon sized
Operation Parabole (Direct action US JSOC): Alternate Fridays 1900hrs UTC, Squad sized
Operation Giantsbane (1944 Historic WW2): Every other month (alternate to Panther), uncapped
Operation Panther (1969 Historic Vietnam): Every other month (alternate to Giantsbane), uncapped

Quality Strategy: Minimum Rank Operations

As part of our focus on quality operations, one of the upcoming changes you will notice is the ability for field leaders to set a minimum rank requirement to an operation. This is something only currently possible for NCOs, as we occasionally deploy on NCO only deployments, in order to bring the leadership together, people who are often leading their own callsigns. I suspect this will be limited, as we do not want most operations to be capped, but you could see minimum ranks of Recruit being set on most deployments, and some smaller, specifically SPECOPS style missions starting at Private, or even PFC. Again, we're only able to do this due to the fact we're doing almost 30 deployments a month already.

Quality Strategy: Reputation

One of our latest observances is the lack of any method for you to indicate how deploying with specific people was for you. This is something we want to have an outlet for, bearing in mind how well After Action Reports work. We already have a great tool in MYCOC for NCOs to administrate through the ORGCOC, but we want to build on this by providing a way for you to, as part of your AAR, indicate what your experience was like with members of your team. This will be an anonymous system that will produce what is effectively a Reputation score which the ORGCOC will use to track any potential long-term issues. When this launches, there will be a specific report about how it works.

Suffice to say, we are comitted to tracking behavior and dealing with it, to ensure that everyone acts in accordance with our values and procedures.

Quality Strategy: Upcoming Tier System 2.0

A final focus of our quality strategy is an update to our Tier system. You'll notice as with Vertex 8 and 9, we've locked slots such as MBT Crews and A-10 pilots to those selected at a corresponding FTX. This is essentially because the Tier system is not a perfect assessment of someones ability, but it does demonstrate experience. Upcoming changes to expect are an alternate assessment based system, that will allow you to bypass the tier requirement for a rule by passing an optional assessment. Call it a fast track if you will, these methods will be intensive but thorough, and ensure that any holder of it is 100% capable of the role in question.

The tier system itself still remains the primary driver, and priority is still given to those with the tier, and even more so to those with both. Certain roles, such as pilots are specific to certain airframes, and so expect to see this used across the Aircrew role set, whereby being assessed in a certain aircraft may become a requirement for a given slot.

This is only a very basic indication of the direction of travel with the tier system, but there will be an entire update on this subject alone, when it comes around.

Recruitment

Recruitment is an ongoing process, but it's not something we're massively struggling with right now, but we are always looking for exceptional people, and while we're not aiming to grow right this second, we will continue our efforts to keep out current size - so if you have any friends who you'd think would be a great fit, why not send them an invite?

The medical settings have been finalized according to the last announcement.

Immerse

Currently under operational testing, Immerse essentially adds camera shake for explosions, and flash effects from your personal weapon, as well as some punchy animations for weapon kick.

While primarily a immersion mod, this will stop some of our more trigger happy ARs, and help people to stick to bursts per SOP.

It's settings are being tweaked and It's use will be reviewed prior to SITREP 7

Suppress

Currently under operational testing, Suppress is another example of a intent to build upon our medical system to provide a more obvious warning to being under fire, and to force a player under fire to take immediate action. Being shot at by a high caliber weapon will be an issue, even if you are not directly hit. As a result, we hope to see more thoughtful planning from junior leaders and senior leaders alike. As well as more realistic movement and usage of cover. It also provides a unique option to GMs.

It's settings are being tweaked and It's use will be reviewed prior to SITREP 7

The following mods were approved for use;

- Immerse
- Suppress
- BettIR
- MW3 NVG Effects
- Unsung
- Nam
- USAF Fighters

If you know anyone who you think would be a great fit for UNITAF, why not send them an invite?

It's been another great month for UNITAF, with some really exciting developments on the horizon, and a growing, happy force.
 

Following the Roadmapped announcement about "Make Medics Great Again!" with this being quite a core mechanic change we've had some further discussions within the ORGCOC today and we've updated those plans which we're going to deploy to Operation Vertex 5, here are all the important details. We'll review this from AARs from Vertex 5, for subsequent operations.

Background

This relates to Roadmap Item #47, Medical System Update the purpose of which is "To review the medical system to ensure it is challenging enough to players and rewarding enough for medics."

The initial proposed settings for Vertex 5 involved the reduction of access to medical equipment to non-medics both in loadouts and in the arsenal. This was assumed to be the easier path to take versus changing medical settings. On-review, this appears not to be the case and so further revision is needed. To be clear, no change will now be made to the arsenal, although loadouts will have minor changes.

Medical Settings (click for link to full settings)

• Wound Re-opening has been enabled and we've reduced the chance of this happening by 50% so we can monitor gradual changes. This means you'll need to see a medic at some point to deal with any wounds for a more permanent solution but that you can continue to bandage yourself to deal with it in the mean time. The most effective bandage for non-medics now is the QuickClot, so all default loadouts have been changed to this. Stitch kits are set as re-usable and are usable by both CLS and Squad/Platoon Medics who have one.
   
• Combat Lifesavers now have a defined function which takes up the majority of their core combat load, so to help with that and to give Squad and Platoon Medics a more defined function in addition to Personal Aid Kits, Combat Life Savers cannot administer IVs such as Blood, but Squad Medics can and Squad and Platoon Medics will carry the blood supply, while all personnel continue to carry Personal Aid Kits, the senior medics will carry a few spare.

Loadouts

• Replaced default loadouts which contained Elastic Bandages with QuickClots, they are more effective against reopening.
   
• Combat Lifesaver loadout is updated; (click for link to full loadout)
  • 6 White Smokes
  • 4-6 Purple Smokes
  • 60x QuickClots
  • 30x each specialist bandage type
  • 20x Morphine
  • 10x Epinephrine
  • 20x Splint
  • 1x Stitch Kit
  • 15x Tourniquet

• Senior (Squad/Platoon) Medic loadout is updated; (click for link to full loadout)
  • 6 White Smokes
  • 4-6 Purple Smokes
  • 10x 500ml IV
  • 5x 1000ml IV
  • 5x Personal Aid Kit
  • 30x QuickClots
  • 25x each specialist bandage type
  • 15x Morphine
  • 10x Epinephrine
  • 10x Splint
  • 1x Stitch Kit
  • 10x Tourniquet

ORBAT Changes

• Each infantry squad should have as a minimum 1 Squad Medic and 1 Combat Lifesaver, the Squad Medic can roam to service one of the fireteams as required, but if demand is there, or the Field Leader anticipates a requirement, a CLS can be in both teams, for a total of 3 Medics per Squad (1 SM, 2 CLS).

Summary

Summarised below, are the per-role differences. Which have the added benefit of interlocking with the current triage states, each level of medical ability aligns with a triage state.

• Non-medical personnel, no major change from normal but there is a chance that your wounds will now re-open; so without a medic to stitch them, you will use more medical supplies. QuickClot should be your all-rounder bandage unless you know which specific bandages to use. A combat lifesaver from your Fireteam or Squad will stitch you to stop wounds from re-opening.
  
  This means non medical personnel mostly deal with casualties in the MINIMAL triage state.
  For a breakdown of triage states click here
  
   
• Combat Lifesavers your primary function is to stop bleeding, using your advanced knowledge of the types of wounds and applying the most effective dressings to treat them, and then stitching the patient to prevent the re-opening of wounds. For immediate and delayed casualties, you also continue as before administer morphine and Epinephrine as required to resuscitate. You can no longer administer blood unless you are onboard medical vehicle or facility, so in the field you'll need the Squad or Platoon medic. So there is incentive to prevent blood loss. The space in your loadout used for blood previously, allows you to carry purple smokes to mark mass casualty sites, and plenty of bandages, splints and a stitch kit.
  
  This means Combat Lifesavers deal with casualties in the DELAYED+ triage state.
  For a breakdown of triage states click here
  
   
• Squad / Platoon Medics your new role is to provide IV to deal with heavy blood loss of IMMEDIATE and DELAYED casualties, you can also provide the same function as a CLS, meaning you'll also carry a stitch kit - and an assortment of bandages, as well as additional PAKs. As before, you'll be able to PAK patients at the medical facilities. You carry the sole blood supply for the Squad. Because the Senior Medic role includes the abilities of it's junior ones, when required, you can perform all other medical proceedures as needed.
  
  This means Medics deal with casualties in the IMMEDIATE- triage state.
  For a breakdown of triage states click here

Practices / Re-training

Medics for Vertex 5 and beyond will be briefed during the pre-deployment phase, and a Medical Practice will be forthcoming once the SOP is settled, as alterations may need to be made based on Summary of AARs. There is a minimal change, since we've been using Advanced Wounds for over 10 months, so switching your default bandage from Elastic to QuickClot negates the majority of this re-training once the Surgical Kit is used. However understanding which bandage to use, yeilds ultimate efficiency and so this is what we'll focus on.

Obviously, we've used this system before the ACE Update in January 2020, so it won't be new to most people, but some refreshers will be needed no doubt.

After Action Reports

Please ensure that you place a summary of this system in your After Action Report for Operation Vertex 5, if you are on the ORBAT. Alterations to this may be made for subsequent operations as required and based on AAR Summary from each.

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. The SITREP is a monthly to bi-monthly update which contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

This update is a week or so late, so I'll cover things such as this months Joint Operation, in next months SITREP.

UNITAF will be adjusting for Daylight Savings inline with the United Kingdom on Sunday
Operations from Sunday will be +1 hour than normal, if you're in the UK, UNITAF time becomes UK time, and if you're elsewhere you may have already adjusted and/or will adjust soon - you will see this take effect on the operations center already, if you look at the time for Vertex 5.

So without futher ado, let's get started. 

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- Acting on AAR feedback we are due to deploy some changes to the medical system to "Make Medics Great Again" starting around Vertex 5, and this includes reducing access to medical equipment for non-medics

- We're trying to hold stable at our current size without growing too quickly - we are looking internally for more Field Leaders

- We're in the need of Game Masters quite urgently to support the growing schedule

- We're happy with the T-GAG review, so it'll be staying for now

- We're going to be bringing future changes to the Tiering Progression System to address some issues with it

- Updates on the Progress of the Contribution and Campaign Centers

- We'll be adding a bunch more awards and medals soon

Activity and Recruitment

September saw a small decrease in total attendance, something we expect will bounce right back in October.

This was primarily due to the fact we depoloyed less in September than in August

Total Force Strength is the best indicator of the health of the unit, which is roughly stable in September, but is increasing rapidly in October.

In respect of overall after action reporting, we're seeing the start of a slight downward trend in September, which recovers in mid-October, due to primarily a double change in campaign and mod sets for Vertex and Herrick, typically once campaigns stabilise this will also.

Promotions

This month, I was pleased to be able to approve the following promotions, this month again see's some further ORGCOC promotions as we open 3 TROOP, as well as a large number of new Privates and Recruits.

This month we also changed the way that Recruits and Candidates are handled, which also effects privates, so we will generally have more of them at any one time than before, as the promotion is more difficult to achieve, in line with higher promotions.

A massive contgratulations to all of the above, well deserved.

The Schedule

In the last SITREP we were just announcing the first time we had a consecutive campaign and it's already looking like a third will be on the way, in terms of anchor days, Herrick and Daesh share alternate Tuesdays with Vertex firmly planted on Sundays in place of Ember, Vertex is generally un-capped wheras Daesh and Herrick sit at the 20-30 mark, in theory we're keen to look at a third anchor day for either a new campaign, part of a current one or even look at doing an alternate WW2 continuation for Operation Giantsbane, at least now that the mod has stabilised. Again, if you'd like to get involved with this, please contact me initially via the #j5-offical-op-planning channel on Discord.

Other things to look out for on the schedule will be Public Server nights, as well as some more Core Infantry trainings' which will be coming soon.

Game Masters

To keep on top of the schedule, we're going to need to expand our roster of Game Masters, we have some fantastic GM's across UNITAF, but supporting a growing schedule is going to be challenging, so similar to our approach with Leadership, we're reaching out to those interested in the fields of Mission Design, Zeus to get in touch or get involved. As long as you have the ambition, then even if you aren't sure how the systems work right now then that's something we can help with, and if you're a dab hand in Eden and Zeus then just getting your head around the Mission Support SOP might be all you need. 

NCO Applications

The ORGCOC is still seeking more NCOs in what will become more of a continious process, what we're looking for is people with the ambition to lead, being in an NCO gives you basically, guaranteed Leadership time, and likewise for Instructing as well as a number of other things. We know we've got some great potential in our newer members who might even still be CDT, Recruit or Private, and we just encourage you to reach out to your COC with that ambition, as we're more than happy to fast track the right candidate - check out our ORGCOC Policy and speak to your Troop or Section Commanders for more information.

T-GAG Review

The recent addition of the T-GAG and the threat of forced-push-to-talk from Ember 10 seems to have stemmed most but not all of our concerns on voice discipline, although we want everyone to continue to monitor it, and furthermore we think that DUI Squad Radars HUD features relating to voice and radio activations will help to identify any other issues on this front, so for now, we will leave it to a wider review in the future.

Acknowledgements

- This month saw a couple of NCOs step down due to other commitments, a massive thanks' goes to PFC Sharkhus and PFC J "Willy" Wilson for their time served in the ORGCOC as Corporals

- Pvt Milky for his delectable videos from Operation Herrick

UNITAF Strategy

Having just come out of a UNISTAFF meeting, our focus is very much on building and adapting our systems based on what we've now learnt from our current size, so we can be better prepared for a even busier schedule, so we're aiming to hold UNITAFs active force at it's current size, until we are comfortable we are able to support it fully. Those systems predominately relate to the Campaign and Contribution Centers, the recruitment of more Leaders and NCOs and Game Masters and finally, a review of the Training and Progression systems, and by extension the 1UP system.

Campaign Center

The campaign center has had to take a development back seat due to other items on the roadmap, but is still underway, and will likely fall into the Winter, after the Contribution Center is released.

Contribution Center

The contribution center is a new area of the website which will take all of the contribtion units from J1-J10 and break down the roadmap for each, showing everyone what's planned, and also detail out anything you can do to help UNITAF in any of those areas, it will also track contributions made by you similar to the Operation Tiers and also will replace the Discord Bot ?suggest, creating a better management and visibility of suggestions on the website. The CC should be live by the time the next SITREP goes out.

Tier and Progression System Changes

When we put the current tier system in replace of the old assessment system, we knew there would be some issues. Primarily that some people can be capable of something without having the experience, and some people can actually have the experience but still be not fully capable of a role. We have recently roadmapped changes to the Tier system which mean that in the future, we will seperate Experience and Capability systematiclly through the system, but building on the Tier system with a SOP coverage tool. Essentially this additional system will show you all the roles you have unlocked, and those which you haven't and why. It will mean that in some cases you can deploy to roles you don't have the tier for if you are deemed "Capable" and in other cases visa-versa.

This will be linked to the 1UP system, automatic 1UPs will prefer people that are deemed capable of a role even if they don't have the experience, although it prefers people that have both. All roles will have specific SOP attached to them, rather than the general area, and SOP coverage would be required to keep the role unlocked, especially when large SOP changes come due to game mechanics or mod changes.

What this means for you ultimately is we want to ensure always that capable people are in ORBAT roles at all times, and a full video will go out, with a detailed explaination when this change is realised, but with the development queue at the moment, that could be a month or so, so I'll just raise it here, and know that we'll be back with more information soon.

You can of course, discuss this in j6-training-and-sop.

Recruitment

Recruitment is an ongoing process, but it's not something we're massively struggling with right now, but we are always looking for exceptional people, and while we're not aiming to grow right this second, we will continue our efforts to keep out current size.

DUI Squad Radar

DUI has replaced STUI due to it's Discontinuation, we'll be refining it's settings over the next few operations, at the moment the only known issue is for those with Custom FOV settings.

"Make Medics Great AGAIN!"

We've been monitoring AARs for some time now to address the medical system, a consulation has been underway, and the results are that there will be, starting this week a 2 Phased change to the medical system.

Starting this week, we're going to start to reduce access to medical equipment to non-medics, what this means is if you are in a non-medical role, you will no longer have access to medical equipment in the arsenals or in LOGPAKs, the default loadouts will be revised in order to reduce the CCL (Core Combat Load) carrying down to a small number of medical items. 

Without any substantial changes to any settings, this change will make Combat Life Savers a valuable and useful asset to the fireteam, as the only person carrying medical supplies and hopefully result in them dealing with most things we would normally deal with ourselves, allowing us to maintain sectors of fire at all times.Squad, Platoon and MERT Medics maintain their useful stance.

Looking forward, we're going to monitor the first few operations on the above changes (the earliest is likely to be Vertex 5) and adapt as required, this is likely to involve the re-enagement of Advanced Wounds and bandages, as well as wound re-opening, but more on that, soon.

If you've not already checked out the new Medals and Citations area you can find it here, and we're about to add a whole bunch of new Medals to it, as it's looking a bit bare, but if you have any ideas for some, you can dump those into J10-website.

- Nothing to report/request

It's been another great month for UNITAF, with some really exciting developments on the horizon, and a growing, happy force.
 

Following the Forced PTT changes announced in the last SITREP, both NCOs and UNISTAFF have consulted with you and also the huge amount of feedback we recieved about PTT in AARs from Ember 10.

We've discussed all the alternate options and we have settled on the below solution, which we again will trial going forward and adapt as needed to achieve the required results. This has been added to the General Unit Policy (Version 7). Taking effect immediately.

If you have any questions, please use #j6-training-and-sop

Voice activation

In UNITAF, you can openly choose between using voice activation or push-to-talk during operations. Voice activation allows for free-flowing natural communication and for many people allows you to multi-task much better. However, sounds emitting from you; irrespective of whether they come from your mouth or from the ambient background must not be disruptive to operations. In order to maintain a great all-round experience, please adhere to the following guidelines

Guidelines

• When using voice-activation, set-up a "push-to-mute" key, so you are able to mute your microphone in the event of unexpected noises such as coughs/sneezes, eating or drinking, your neighbors chainsaw etc.
• Ensure you activate your push-to-mute when you go AFK, when you don't need to talk, during briefings and as required to avoid any unintended transmission or disruptions.
• Set your voice activation level appropriately so it picks up your voice and not background music, ambient noise, cutlery etc
• If you have a directional microphone, ensure it's pointed at your mouth, and not where it will pick up non-vocal sounds
• If your microphone has a pop-filter or sponge, ensure it does not rub against the microphone

Disruptive Communications

• Any noise coming from your microphone that is
  • not your voice
  • not understandable
  • not considered to be reasonably accidental
     
• Or any comment or communication you make that is;
  • not observing a BREAK COMMS or HOLD COMMS procedures
  • considered excessive in nature; such as shouting or repeated loud reactions or comments to battlefield events

Tactical Gag

Should you not follow the above guidelines, in order to preserve the immersive and structured nature of UNITAF operations, any UNITAF Officer, SNCO or NCO is able to apply a Tactical Gag (T-GAG) to you. A T-GAG will remove your ability to use voice activation immediately, and for the remainder of this operation you'll need to use push-to-talk in order to communicate.

• When on-deployment
  • You'll be verbally warned once by the Officer, SNCO or NCO to give you an opportunity to cease disruptive communications
  • It's the sole discretion of the Officer, SNCO or NCO in question as whether to apply a T-GAG or not
  • The T-GAG cannot be removed in the same operation by any other Officer, SNCO or NCO than the one that applied it
  • At the end of the operation and when out of game; you can ask the Officer, SNCO or NCO who applied the T-GAG if it can be removed and they will offer you advice and or guidance on how to avoid this in the future.
     
• Outside of deployment
  • An Officer, SNCO or NCO may additionally apply through the COC to have your T-GAG applied for up to 2 future operations
  • If you continue to violate the guidelines set here you'll either receive a permanent T-GAG, or further escalating action will be taken by your COC.

TFAR - How to update your Plugin Version

In other news, just a quick video to explain how to update your Teamspeak Plugin now that the teamspeak plugin to 326 from 325.

It's only been a few days since my last SITREP, but this month we've really got a substantial amount of activity going on, so this SITREP focuses on mostly operations and practices, wheras my last SITREP contained some pretty big strategic points.

So without futher ado, let's get started. 

Push to Talk (PTT)
Reason for change: to reduce unnecessary and unintended chatter.

As I mentioned in Ember 9 from tomorrow, operation for at least the next week (including Ember 10) will require you to use Push-to-talk (PTT) for local voice. I know many people including myself use voice activation or push-to-mute, but I'm sure we can all agree that between the bags of Quavers, screaming children and keyboard cats, this is only going to get worse in larger missions, and we as staff are comitted to giving it a go as well, to see what kind of positive impact this can have on operations. 

I'm sure for some this will be a mild inconvenience, but I hope we all reap the rewards of people thinking (and pressing) before speaking.
This is not yet confirmed as a permenant change, but like most things - we'll review this in a weeks time - so please use the After Action Report system to feed back your thoughts when you attend any of the operations using forced PTT in the coming week.

If you were like me, and wondering how you were going to hold 3 keys at the same time in order to transmit on your additional radio channel fear not - TFAR automatically activates your mic when you use your normal radio keys, so this key you setup is only required for talking off radio, personally I'll be using my current push to mute key as a push to talk.

If you have some sort of extreme fringe case reason why you can't comply with forced PTT, please talk to your chain of command.

Changes to the Candidate and Recruit Ranks
Reason for change: to provide more clarity between the difference between newer players

From today, applicants will be assigned to the Candidate rank from the point their application is made, right through to the completion of basic training, opposed to being promoted to recruit upon the completion of a induction. This will provide more clarity between Candidates, Recruits and Privates, we're also increasing the requirements for Recruits to be promoted to Private, from roughly 1 Practice and 1 Mission to 2 Practices and 6 Missions. Essentially (it'll make more sense once you've read the below) Recruits will need to achieve Core Infantry T-II before they are promoted further.

Removal of the Support Weapons Practice Area

Following the rebranding of Basic Infantry to Core Infantry Skills, we're also removing the Support Weapons area and merging it into the Core Infantry Grouping, so all SOP for this will be moved to Core Skills, as well as all hours you've achieved in both Operations and Practices. This is mostly due to the fact that support weapons itself, is something everyone should be able to do, and we consider it a 'Core Skill'

This change will happen in the coming days, and all your hours will be moved over automatically.

Not ONE but TWO new campaigns

With Ember 10 hitting it's grand finale this Sunday, we're really excited to announce that from next Tuesday, we'll be running two full Campaigns simultaneous alongside each other. The first will be Operation Herrick which will be campaign Lead by 2Lt Zero and most frequently Field Lead by SSgt Ben - it will take place on Alternate Tuesdays. Herrick will see UNITAF deploy to Eastern Afghanistan in a British Royal Marines and Royal Engineers counterinsurgency role, using 3CBs BAF units. Herrick will be an infantry focused campaign.

On Sundays, Operation Vertex will take over from Ember, Vertex will see UNITAF deploy to the Russian Finland border, in a snow capped valley with a range of grassland and rocky outcrops, the deployment will be lead by the US Army Rangers, and the US Air Force in a supporting role. This will be a conventional campaign, with frequent use of paradrops and littlebirds, with the possible appearance of heavy cargo aircraft.

- Don't forget to setup a Teamspeak Push to talk key

- Speak to your chain of command, if you have any issues with any of the above

Please note our general unit policy has been updated.

Version 6 / Updated Wed 09 Sep 2020
Addition - Code of Conduct

--- STARTS ---

In addition to the Discord Community Guidelines we expect you avoid the discussion or debate of the following topics on our services;

• race & culture
• religion or belief(s)
• sexuality
• politics (including geo-politics and gender politics)

If in doubt, don't say it and remember to respect everyone.

---- ENDS ----

You can read the full policy (version 6) here https://unitedtaskforce.net/training/sop/basic-infantry/unit-policy

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. This SITREP contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

So without futher ado, let's get started. 

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- Today we publish "Roadmap 2021" which contains the confirmed future plans for UNITAF

- We've made policy updates to the General Unit Policy

- We've made policy updates to the Organisational Chain of Command Policy (ORGCOC)

- Pvt Grezvany13 has made some outstanding updates to the UNITAF Mod, which we'll talk about below

- We've added the highly requested "other games feature" you can find it in your account settings

- We've added the requested "custom clientside mods" feature, you can also find it in your account settings

- We recently re-tiered the Field Leadership section, moving all roles up one tier, and introducing a Junior Team Leader role.

Activity and Recruitment

I'm happy to report August saw another, slightly increased 15% increase in active personnel (what we call the total active force) from 53 to 61 and another 25% increase in total slots deployed over the month. 

As I mentioned last month, I really concern myself with the Total Force Strength, which is the best indicator of the health of the unit, and it continues to show an upward trend, I'd just like to commend the ORGCOC, and all the recruiters for the work they are doing on this front. As you'll see from my SITREP, recruitment is a big focus for UNITAF .

The number of deployments, naturally increases with activity, I've been pushing the ORGCOC to ensure we have regular operations around the Sunday anchor, we're lucky to have many active and talented GMs and AGMs that have provided another 24 deployments in August (up from 20 deployments in July)

Moving over to After Action Reporting, I'm really pleased to report August as a all-time record for Field Leadership and Communication, with an average of 86% and 80% respectively across the 24 deployments.

Server performance, tactics and teamwork, also all see a rise from July.

Promotions

This month, I was pleased to be able to approve the following promotions, and if you've been in UNITAF for any period of time you'll know that this month see's some substantial promotions in the ORGCOC, as well as a large number of new Privates and PFCs.

I'll be touching on the ORGCOC movements later in this SITREP, but it's great to see such a large number of PFCs across the unit, and equally - the privates coming in under them. I'm looking forward to promoting our first Specialist (SPC), hopefully in the not too distant future.

A massive contgratulations to all of the above, well deserved.

August ORGCOC Changes

Obviously we saw some massive planned changes to the Organisational Chain of Command in August as I promoted 2 Officers, 3 Sergeants and 2 Corporals. As the Total Force grows, it's important we seek out new leadership to continue to propel UNITAF forward, and this is a process we will continue on our way to a Total Force of 120, seeing us double in size from the date of writing.

It's important that with UNITAFs current state, that we transition the control of the unit across the COC, and reduce all single points of failure, this has seen UNITAF decentralise Server Administration, Development, Recruitment, Training and now Operations. This de-centralisation and focus on the military chain of command, allows myself as Commanding Officer, and other members of my Staff and Troop Command, to focus on things like this, our future and strategy - as the day to day operations are covered by the rest of the ORGCOC, which in turn will expedite our progress further still.

Unit Policy Changes

Clarification was added to the Unit Policy about "multi-clanning", we allow multi-clannning but we've had cases of recruitment whereby members join the discord in order to DM members of the server. To avoid this we've now blocked access to members of the public to see you on Discord unless they are a Recruit (inducted) and we've also added a section to the policy about advertising or inviting UNITAF members to other servers or communities. If you're unsure, check with a member of the ORGCOC for clarification.

ORGCOC Policy Changes

We've made changes to the Organisational Chain of Command policy, that now means that ORGCOC Members (NCO, SNCO and Officer) are required to hold double the minimum activity requirement of regulars (2 instead of 1 operation per month) in order to hold their position. This is mostly to ensure that we have active and dedicated leadership. Secondly, it's now a requirement that ORGCOC members lead in their current grade around 50% of their deployed time. For example;

Corporals must lead teams or squads ~50% of the time
Sergeants must lead squads or platoons ~50% of the time 
Officers must lead Squads, Platoons or Companies ~50% of the time

Obviously this is not a hard fast rule, but it's purpose is not to make sure only ORGCOC members lead, rather to make sure that those that lead most often, are members of the ORGCOC. There's a real value to having our most invested members in leadership positions, as they are the most invested in what we are doing, and are bound by all of the required policy, that the wider membership are not.

NCO Applications

While there are no current vacancies, we continue to seek out future NCOs SNCOs and Officers, check out our ORGCOC Policy and speak to your Troop or Section Commanders for more information.

Leadership Tier Changes

All leadership positions have moved up one tier this month, so FTL is now T2, SL T3 and so on. We've added a new Junior Team Leader role at T1. This is because I believe leaders need more experience than the system allowed for, and because I prefer to limit the number of newer team leaders on larger operations, for a better balance.

I continue to review all areas of tiering, so there may be future changes.

Acknowledgements

There's so many people I'd like to thank this month;

- as we reach the end of Operation Ember, a big thanks must go to 2Lt Kevin and PFC Link

- Pvt Grezvany13 for his amazing work on the UNITAF mod, which will be coming soon

- Cpl Sharkhus for some outstanding Recruit Section recruitment and training

- Pvt Tipjay for his entertaining and paintstakingly edited videos, such as the below from Operation Ember 4

UNITAF Strategy

Roadmap 2021 is the culmination of a process spanning back to the 2019/2020 Annual Survey, and the last 3 UNISTAFF Meetings as well as combing through your suggestions and feedback. I like to think UNITAF does things differently, and our starting point for doing things here is usually to look at what other units do, and then just turn it upside down. One of the things that made us progress so far over the last year, was having a clear roadmap of where we are going and why, and one that stays true to the reason we started in the first place.

I'm happy to present the updated Roadmap, Roadmap 2021 - the content covered there is huge, so I won't repeat it here as you can head over there at your leisure and to see all the exciting things we're getting up to over the next 12 months, and what UNITAF will look like in a year from now. I'm excited to see much of it take form. 

Of course if you have more ideas, feel free to suggest them, or discuss them in the relevant channels.

You can view Roadmap 2021 here

Recruitment

Recruitment is a major focus in September, please do assist where you can, through streaming, Reddit, Discord and through word of mouth, you invite your friends and support us in these areas. Especially when helping to develop recruits.

UNITAF Mod

Pvt Grezvany13 has been doing some outstanding work with the UNITAF mod, which we should start to test over the next month or so, features include;

- Automatic setting of radio channels, buddy teams, colors, units and callsigns

- Replacing the table with a UNITAF Menu, easy access to loadouts, earplugs and nvgs

- In game OPORDs and ORBATs

- Completely replacing the UNITAF Mission Framework with a lightweight easy to use version, embedded into the mod

I'm really excited to see it soon, and I hope you enjoy it when it comes. We at this point, must have one of the most dynamic software systems in the entire MILSIM community, and I'm looking forward to see it progress further.

Tuesday Campaign (Operation Herrick)

2Lt Zero will be announcing Operation Herrick, earmarked for a Deployment at the end of September, which will tie in with the end of Operation Ember (on which note, I don't have details of our next Sunday Campaign just yet) Herrick will be a Afghanistan deployment with the 3CBs British Royal Marines under UNITAF, I'm really looking forward to seeing it, I just thought I'd steal his thunder and announce it here.

This will see UNITAF running similtaneous operations weekly on two seperate anchor days, Sunday and Tuesday.

The Campaign Center

I won't mention too much here, as the campaign center is covered on the Roadamap, but it is our intention to launch it for the start of Operation Herrick, and the to-be-named Sunday campaign. If you don't know, the Campaign center will be a place for centralised Intel, HVTs, images, and all elements of grouped operations in UNITAF, bringing much more lore back to our deployments and also re-integrating the logistics and assets system. 

- We're testing DUI in order to get around using ST Interface due to the colour reset issue

- Server issues over the last few weeks have been resolved

- Russian FSB Loadouts Faction Approved

- BAF 3CB Loadouts Faction Approved

- 3CB Mods Approved

- Alpha Gear (Russian) Mods Approved

- Nothing to report/request

It's been another green month for UNITAF, with some really exciting developments on the horizon, and a growing, happy force.
I look forward to seeing you on a deployment in September.

Welcome to this month’s monthly SITREP from Headquarters. If you're joining us in the last 30 days or so Welcome to UNITAF - I hope you're enjoying your time here so far. This SITREP contains a range of changes both past and upcoming as well as the discussions and focuses from up and down the chain of command, it's designed to keep everyone up to speed with the thoughts of the senior Chain of Command.

So without futher ado, let's get started. 

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- We are looking at changing 'Basic Infantry' to 'Core Skills' and to put a much greater focus on it.

- We are concerned about FPS on Operation Ember and are working hard on a solution

- There are open NCO positions and applications are currently open

- We reviewed the 2019/20 annual survey

- A 2020/21 roadmap will be published this month

- Changes are coming to the rank system, specifically around NCOs

- Changes are coming to the practice system

- We continue to support smaller mid-week operations

Activity and Recruitment

I'm happy to report July saw a 13% increase in active personnel and a 30% increase in total slots deployed. Which is encouraging to see as the world exits lockdown, as I mentioned in the last SITREP. Much of this great work can be attributed to 1 Section (SFC Kevin, Cpl Sharkhouse) as well as our dedicated GMs and Field Leaders for putting on another 20 great ORBATs in July. It reports a encouraging trend line (post COVID-Curve) of course.

Due to our unique ORBAT system, I tend to not look at per-mission attendance since the size of any given operation is not a good indicator of activity, below is the main metric I concern myself with when it comes to growth, which is to show how many unique personnel deploy in any given period, and will roughly correlate to the size of the active force, as seen on the live organisational Chain of Command. (Typically we'll deploy half of this number at most at any given time)

Promotions

This month, I was pleased to be able to order the following promotions:

There are a number of Private First Class, edging toward eligibility for Specialist, and I look forward to reviewing these soon.

NCO Applications

I'd also like to remind you all, that I have asked all Section Commanders to send recommendations for a number of NCO positions we are considering. Due to changes in SOP also addressed in this SITREP, there are likely to be NCO positions opening, please contact your Chain of Command to apply. Irrespective of whether you are a NCO already applying for a more senior position or a non-NCO applying to become one.

More information on the process can be found here: https://unitedtaskforce.net/training/sop/field-leadership/nco-unit-policies

After Action Review

With the exception of performance issues with Operation Ember, which I assure you we are working on, AARs throughout July have been on trend.

Acknowledgements

As I'd mentioned above, I'd really like to Acknowledge Sergeant First Class Kevin and Corporal Sharkus, for the outstanding work in 1 Section - as this has been a big focus of the Command Staff over the last 2 months, to ensure we continue to have enough boots on the ground for regular operations.

UNITAF Strategy

Recruitment while a major focus last time, takes a back seat this month, in August we will continue to keep our efforts on tick-over with NCOs managing multiple sources, and we expect to see a steady growth from this.

Roadmap 2020/21 I hoped to have more information on the roadmap for you this SITREP, but due to scheduling of UNISTAFF meetings this will likely happen in the next SITREP. Nevertheless, any of you who've been with us a while will be familiar with the Roadmap we published when UNITAF was born some 17 months ago, (you can find it here) suffice to say, I'm happy to report that we've achieved most everything we set out to do, and then some. Part of the Roadmap 2020/21 strategy is that we will be publishing a brand new roadmap over the next month or so, which all our plans and intentions for the next year at least. The roadmap will contain improvements across the board, from suggestions, the annual survey results as well as discussions at NCO and UNISTAFF meetings. Suffice to say, having a long-term roadmap is vitally important and doing it is what has catapulted our efforts over the last 17 months.

You can expect to see improvements and changes to Ranks, NCOs, FTX's & the Practice system as well as a raft of SOP improvements as part of a long-term strategy to provide better progression to more experienced members, as well as more effective leadership and organisation. Suffice to say we remain commited to being the best in class.

NCO Policy Changes - I have been discussing with the staff proposed changes to NCOs and the Organisational Chain of Command. In a nutshell, we look to solidify the NCO position to be looked at less as a rank in itself, and more of a position of responsibility. What I would like to happen is for those who are dedicated in game leaders to apply to and become NCOs, where their time commitments allow, and should NCOs not be able to lead any longer, that they return (either permanently or temporarily) to enlisted ranks - as I think those who put that little bit of extra time and effort in, really do produce the best operations and missions. This will result in most NCOs, SNCOs and Officers leading in their grade around 50% of the time. We'll continue to allow anyone with the applicable Training Requirements to lead in grade, but expect us to put a much bigger focus on NCOs leading, and there will be new guidance and SOP published soon on this. We expect that the roster of NCOs will change more frequently due to this and while at first this may seem odd this will I think naturally become a very healthy exercise, as we rotate leadership on a more frequent basis.

Standard Operating Procedures and FTXs while part of a longer-term exercise, perhaps the biggest takeaway from the annual survey was we must put a bigger focus on Core Skills, having our primary role category called 'Basic Infantry' is not representative of what I'd like to see over the next 12 months. Subjects like movement, team theory and CQC are vital core skills that must be practiced outside of 'Basic' training. We have already launched a more in-depth practice for CQC and you should expect to see a raft of T-II and T-III Core Skills SOP and FTX Updates over the coming months, hopefully forming the majority of Practices.

Casual Operations are taking a back-seat for now, I don't believe they have much of a place outside of special events, such as TvT or Special Occasions.

New Mission Development and Game Master SOP we a have begun the process of summarising the requirement to develop your own UNITAF campaigns and operations, as well as provide clear guidance to Game Masters, you can find that information here: https://unitedtaskforce.net/training/sop/mission-support - there is also a Mission Support FTX upcoming on the schedule, if you've not seen it already.

- LAMBs Danger.FSM remains in-core, we're happy with the difficulty but are monitoring FPS and will continue to test other options for difficulty and AI

- CUP Units, Vehicles and Weapons was approved for use

- We've lifted the lid on the mod set, and have a raft of mods pending approval (we'll do this in the minor SITREP later this month)

- All default loadouts have been switched to USMC-WD for Ember, and the M27 becomes the standard Rifle

- Cpl Wilson has produced a full framework for British Special Forces (BAF-SAS) which is approved for use on official operations

Nothing to report.

- Please ensure that if you can no longer attend a mission that you are on the ORBAT for, that you unslot as early as possible, or use the Reserve Feature. Note that we are now actively tracking all no-show instances and also any lateness. While we have no concrete responses to this in place, don't be surprised if your Section Commander get's in touch, or if 1UP requests are denied. Be considerate of others, we remain reasonable but this has been getting out of hand recently. I'd also like to add, that we will be changing the deployment system somewhat to allow operations to have dynamic closing times. For larger ORBATs, in the future expect that you can slot right up to the hour that it starts, but that pulling out of an ORBAT on the day of the deployment while possible, will automatically issue you with a no-show warning.

These tweaks are being discussed, but we want to ensure that operations are as smooth as possible.

- If you are interested the NCO positions as mentioned in this SITREP, then contact your Chain of Command.

All in all, a fantastic month with increases across the board, some great Deployments and it's always great to Welcome new blood. I look forward to providing future updates on the Roadmap as we look to our plans for 2021.

I never thought I'd say this, but my staff tell me I need to talk more - so welcome to the first in a series of monthly-to-bi-monthly SITREPs. Which I hope will be a welcome and informative endeavor. The aim of the SITREPs is to improve how we communicate major changes to all members and to communicate UNITAF's areas of focus, in and out of game.

 I expect these to be issued 1-2 times per month issued always on a Friday evening, which will coincide with the introduction of any major changes; roughly in the form of;

- A major one once a month
- A minor one once a month, offset by two weeks 

So without futher ado, let's get started. 

For more meat on the below summary, you'll find it further down in this SITREP.

- Today we're issuing an annual survey for 2019/20; please submit it here
- Operation Ember commences this July 19 - mods have been published
-Mod requests are addressed in the Perspective section of this report
- If you submit 'OK' or 'Poor' AARs you'll now be required to make comments
- We're putting a heavy focus on recruitment right now 
- We're addressing SOPs that are not being executed correctly with FTXs
- We're adding new SOPs for areas we feel need more structure

Activity and Recruitment

The last few weeks have seen a general decrease in the attendance of main-line official missions, we're keen to keep this above 30, but is expected as the world exits lock-down and returns to work and education. It's important though that we turn our hand to recruitment during this time in order to flatten the curve. You'll hopefully have noticed this effort already, and anything you can do to assist your COC with this is greatly appreciated.

Promotions

There are no current vacancies for NCOs, we do keep a constant eye on numbers and so anyone looking to pursue I'd advise you contact your Section commanders so they are aware for when vacancies do arise - they can also tell you what to do to get the best chance, as it is competitive. We do also have quite some PFCs who are edging towards eligibility to Specialist, but more practice hours are required before that is approved. Practices are something that I believe we must continue to do - it's evident in our performance that without consistent re-training and practice, standards cannot be maintained.

Acknowledgements

Especially given the timing of this SITREP I'd like to thank and acknowledge Cpl Mattjamco's contributions with Operation Pavise which is our #1 rated Campaign Deployment at 85% across it's 1273 man hours.
Pavise has been all around well received and houses some of UNITAFs standalone best rated deployments, with 5 of them being at or near 90% or above; including Dark Waters which achieved 100%

UNITAF Strategy

Recruitment is our main priority in the coming period, as I mentioned prior, the effects of lock-down will have an adverse affect on deployment scale, but it's a given that we remain dedicated to high-scoring and difficult operations being delivered to the schedule. We continue to believe that the more people that get to experience them the better, so quality and selective recruitment is key. If you think you can help with this effort, the best place to start is the #j1-recuiting channel on Discord.

Standard Operating Proceedures and the general improvement of our execution is our second priority. We've identified a number of weak spots in performance such as contact reporting, spacing, mission briefing which we are working on addressing in the coming weeks. This will come in the form of more targeted FTXs (hence the role preference center) and also revisions to and additional SOPs being added to cover blind spots.

Mod Requests we've received many a mod-request in the last month or so, and while there are many great mods we'd like to include, at the moment we're at our mod-limit using the current launcher-based system. We're looking closely at alternative options which will allow us to increase the number of mods used, and will as with anything consider all changes carefully. So please do keep sending them in, and be assured it is mostly for technical reasons that we have been yet unable to expand this list further. I would expect, some further news in the next SITREP regarding this.

- Marksman and Sniper loadouts have been expanded into 3 weight classes
- AT and AA Assistant roles have been added to the ORBAT system
- NVG Settings have been adjusted
- LAMBs Danger will be trialled again during Operation Ember, to increase enemy difficulty and lower enemy supidity
- We have and will continue to trial the use of specialised Weapons Squads in addition to Rifle Squads and in accordance with SOP
- All NCOs have been added as whitelisted Commanders on the Liberation Server.

Nothing to report.

The UNITAF Annual Survey 2019/20 submit it here

All in all, we've had some fantastic deployments over the last 1-2 weeks and I'm excited to see what Operation Ember brings as we ditch the Desert MARPAT and don the Woodland, a greater use of Naval, Air and Land assets should see Ember as being one of the most diversified Campaigns so far. Let's hope, as we embark on it we're joined by some new blood, and maybe some old blood too - who knows. Let's get to work and I'll see you in the next one.

Afternoon all, this is a brief update - each of the below updates do have actions for you to execute. I'll just add it's been a fantastic couple of weeks, and that we're excited to be moving on to our next campaign this month.

There's plenty in the works, and expect to see more updates soon.

Role Preference Center

This week we added a role preference function, including training/practice request to the roles directory and so long as you are logged in, if you just head over their by (clicking here) you'll see a new section, like below that explains more information about it. Please do update yours, when you have a moment to do so.

It's going to be a really useful tool for us in the long run, and something we'll likely add to the application process too.

New Campaign Inbound

As you'll know by now, Operation Pavise is steaming towards a finale in Bolobongo and while there are some special operations needed to wrap up operations in Africa, we are now targeting July 19 for re-deployment to our next campaign.

We'll be sharing more details about it soon, but as I'm sure you've heard - we're asking you to make sure you have set your DLC ownership in your account here on UTFN.

The new campaign we hope to use Apex, we also have some very kind members who have offered to gift copies of Apex DLC, so if you need this please contact SFC Kevin to discuss further.

• From the logged in profile dropdown
• Select account
• Scroll down, to see the DLCs
• Set owned/not owned as required

Recruiting and Retention

I recently asked the Sgts to recommend someone who could head up the Recruit side of the COC and this week promoted Pvt Sharkhouse to Cpl. This is part of a wider chain of command re-org where we are no longer assigning Recruits into the main chain of command until their have ended probation, and are promoted to Private.

This, I hope will hugely increase the retention of Recruits, as they get the specialist attention they need in the early days of membership.

I'd also like to congratulate Cpl Sharkhouse, since in his short time in UNITAF, he's become someone who is highly regarded across the board and is exceptional at handling new members.

This is part of a wider focus on recruitment that you'll see us starting in the coming weeks. If there is anything you can do to help with the wider recruitment effort, please get stuck in, #j1-recruiting on Discord, is the best place to start.

All the best, and I look forward to seeing you on deployment very soon.

Evening all,

What a fantastic week it's been, the public server has been massively popular and we're looking forward to hosting our first 'scheduled' public server night later today (Saturday June 13).

Over 25 of the active force have already tried it out and over 200 hours have been logged this week alone, with the Top 10 as below:

Liberation Updates

As you should know by now, the Liberation ongoings are reguarly posted in the #j11-liberation-server channel on Discord, and all of the suggestions have been collated over on our development site contribution center over at http://docs.unitedtaskforce.net/project/view/19/ - an update was rolled out in the week, but we will be putting out a further update today - prior to tonights session.

Please do keep the comments coming on Discord.

Public Server Night

As you should know, for Saturday night we've organised into the official schedule a Liberation session, this is a loose session with no ORBAT where we have advertised the start time and date, but we welcome anyone to join at any time over the course of the evening, so don't feel like you must join on the dot. 

We expect people to slot in the lobby and play the role as slotted, there are no restrictions and we also expect people to play in teams using general proceedures, but this should be no different to normal Liberation server options as I have seen it.

We're looking forward to seeing how it goes, and if it's well recieved then we will continue to schedule them to promote mass public server action - to hopefully pull in some new members too.

New Event Types

I always encourage the staff to promote and support activity like the above, so to properly support you with that, we've added a new Event type to the operations center. This event type sits alongside casual and official operations, but instead has no ORBAT, simply just a Coming / Not Coming toggle, so you can indicate your intent to rock up to these kind of events, as mentioned above.

Above you can see prior to me indicating my attendance, and below after - note it only shows the number of those who have RSVP'd

The eagle eyed among you will also notice it's being utilised for meetings, and it'll even tell you if you are required to attend and deal with excusions from mandatory meetings for the members of the COC, NCOs and Staff. If you're expected at a mandatory event it'll say 'I am required'

If not, it'll simply say 'I'm not required'!

Finally, if you'll recall a recent update where we added automatic calendar feed subscriptions for mobile devices etc, we've also added these new event types there too, so you can either get automatic notification of all events, or just of the ones that you're opted into!

If that sounds like you, then hit the green button below next time your over at the Operations Center, to set that up.

Thanks all, and I hope to see you later today on Liberation for our first scheduled public server session.
Please don't forget to head over and mark if you're coming, as per the above - head to the Operations Center (https://unitedtaskforce.net/operations/view/upcoming) and just click 'Mark as going' next to the event.

This update can be discussed in #j10-website and #j11-liberation-server on Discord.

As we enter our 1st anniversary year, 3 major projects are being worked on by many people, and focused on by the UNISTAFF team and I. Those are;

• A new campaign center with logistics and economy elements for official campaigns
• A new player experience improvement
• A public server

As always you can see the progress of all of these on the roadmap https://unitedtaskforce.net/roadmap

SSgt Zero has recently rolled out a Buddy System in line with #2, and developers are working away on #1, which we're really excited to roll out soon.

Liberation

We are currently testing a Liberation server 24/7 on ops.unitedtaskforce.net, port 2302.

We wanted to ensure that any public server we run for UNITAF has the same style of play, and unique elements that UNITAF has. Sgt Ben has worked very hard over the last 3 months to find a solution to this, and we have settled on Liberation.

• Uses the UNITAF base mods + Lythium
• Arsenals are limited similar to our operations, but there is much more equipment than normal, we plan to update this soon, so the higher your UNITAF rank the more equipment you get
• Vehicle access is restricted to UNITAF Regulars (deployed on official ops in the last 30 days)
• Currently the server admins are the 4 Members of UNISTAFF, but we will look to expand this.
• The server otherwise, uses the exact same settings as our operations

Liberation is a typical capture the island style of gameplay, but with a unique economy where you have to purchase equipment and earn resources, which fits well with our style of operations.

We hope that this will provide a nice platform for members to self organise mini-sessions, operations, patrols or even practices using Liberation and this is something that the staff team are happy to support.

We've got a dedicated channel on Discord for reporting issues, bugs called: j11-public-server https://discord.gg/by8TxY6 Please also use this if you need to request permissions for vehicles etc.

We'll work with regular players to publish a rules list for the server, but please;

• Do use the server to practice
• Do play as a team, and where suitable use SOP and normal structures
• Do represent UNITAF well, and report any issues with public players
• Do provide feedback and suggestions to the J11 channels

You can find an online guide to KP Liberation here: https://greuh-liberation.fandom.com/wiki/GREUH_Liberation_Wikia

I would encourage you all to give it a go, and we hope it will be a popular destination for players & we look forward to the feedback in the channel above.

As part of the phased introduction of the Tier system we introduced back in February we have now updated the ORBATs for official operations to allow anyone who has achieved the required Tier of any role to deploy to it without requesting a 1-UP when they don't exceed the previously required minimum rank.

This puts us into a slight hybrid state, where you can still over-ride the Tier requirement for official ORBATs IF you exceed a certain rank. For example, a Private First Class (PFC) can still deploy to a Anti-Tank Medium Role, even if they don't have the Tier, but a Private would need the Tier as they don't exceed the rank requirement.

This will lead us to a full switch over soon, where even if you have the rank, you will still require the Tier - which is the final goal, so please ensure you attend the FTXs for the roles you generally deploy to. We'll keep our finger on the pulse and make that change at a time that feels right.

Upgrade your own ORBAT role

One of the bonuses of this system is that you will be able to upgrade your own ORBAT role (within reason). We already allow people to request upgrading their ORBAT roles, so for example if your are T2 in Anti-vehicle, you can slot into a T1 (Light Anti-tank) role and then request that it be upgraded to a T2 or T3 role, i.e. Medium or Heavy.

A better example might be if you slot into a Rifleman role, is changing it to a more advanced Infantry role such as Grenadier.

Soon this will be automatic, allowing you to change loadouts or roles yourself (or via your Operational COC), based on your dossier, but for now you'll need to contact the Field Leader or your Operational chain of command.

Obviously, when this is released fully, it will depend on the role, we can't upgrade a T1 Aircrew role to T3 Fixed Wing, if it's not required. But for many roles, it's a nice thing to have. 

Future Balancing

Right now, we will monitor performance in roles but we do expect to balance roles or tiers in the future. For example we may feel that we would like Fireteam Leaders to have more experience, or Pilots to have less, and so on and so forth. Which may lead us to move roles to higher Tiers in order to achieve this - but as above, will be done with consideration at the right time. And with a particular avoidance to re-tiering the roles rather than the tiers.

I hope you enjoy a bit more freedom and reward for having practiced in any given area, as a result of this update.
If you'd like to discuss this, Training, SOP you can do so in #j6-training-and-sop on Discord

Good evening all,

Following a record turnout for Operation Diffidentia 6, I wanted to provide a general update on various areas with a bunch of really exciting developments that the UNISTAFF team, NCOs and contributors have been working on, with a focus on the new and proprietary UNITAF Integrated Mission Framework we recently completed.

Recruits and Promotions

We've had a influx of new recruits recently (welcome to you all) and this is a trend that we hope to continue at pace over the coming months - while this is probably in light of the global lockdown, the completion of the IMF succeeds a major part of our roadmap https://unitedtaskforce.net/roadmap which means we look to begin UNITAFs public launch in the very near future, which will see us pushing UNITAF into the eyes of the wider Arma community, as well as engaging with the BIS Community Team and Streamers etc. This will afford us more regular and sizeable operations.

Integrated Mission Framework (IMF)

I recently completed a 8 month long ambition of integrating our website here, with the game along with some help from some of our contributing friends - which now allows us to interact with the game from and using our website accounts. This already implements features such as:

• Injecting loadouts when you spawn/deploy based on the position you select here on UTFN
• Dynamically selecting your spawn position based on the ORBAT
• Setting rank patches and uniforms according to mission parameters
• Doing all this in real time, allowing us to change things on the fly

We're working on developing currently

• Buddy team support for ORBATs
• Automatic radio frequency setup based on ORBATs
• Automatic team assignment for STHUD/BFT based on ORBATs
• Loadout customisation via ORBATs
• Arsenal expansion based on Rank/Tier
• Additional Loadouts based on Rank/Tier

A note on the Lobby/Spawn Area

Please be reminded, that the servers using the IMF will be onlined at T-30 to allow Zeus, NCO's and Recruits to connect for the purposes of Planning, Set-up and testing. We ask all on the ORBAT to be joined by the mission start time, in time for the briefing at +5 minutes. You will not get access to any equipment before this time, so if you do join, please do not mess around in the spawn building, it is there to provide a smoother start to all missions.

Video Demo of the early release of the IMF

The framework will be published to our contributors for use across Practice, Casual and Official Operations, and afford us a unique angle not covered by any other platform that I'm aware of. This will speed up, massively load in and setup times for missions, utilising data we have already through UTFN.

Default Loadouts & Arsenals

With the IMF using the loadouts, we will be soon publishing the contents of all default loadouts, as well as that of the arsenals, so from the ORBAT you can see the default contents of loadouts. As mentioned above, this will also be customisable, and furthermore allow us to deploy as multiple factions, using the same system. As always, feedback for the Loadouts can be send either through the COC or via #j6-training-and-sop on Discord.

Upcoming Events

With something scheduled for almost every day this week, there's plenty going on, and we're due to deploy on Operation Pavise, East Africa from Sunday.

See you in the field!

Afternoon all,

This week we've rolled out some great quality of life features and I wanted to show you very briefly one that might help you when managing your mods for UNITAF, as well as save a lot of time for our administrators and mission developers.

I've kept this tied up in a short 4 minute video, which you can find below.

As always, if you'd like to discuss this, or have any questions feel free to put them here or in the assocciated contribution channel which is #j8-mods

This already happened, people living in the past.

Evening all,

Just a reminder that Daylight saving time (DST) kicks in from Sunday, 29 March which means the clocks are going forward by one hour for the UK. Other parts of the world have already done so.

For our UK friends that means we will be on British Summer Time (BST) one hour ahead of UNITAF time which will continue running on (UTC) until October. Sunday Operations will be at 1700hrs UTC or 1800hrs BST in the United Kingdom.

Irespective of where you are in the world, UTFN always shows operation times in your local time zone, so don't worry. Any questions, please fire them at your nearest NCO or Staff.

That'll be all.

As you may be aware from the Array of casual operations recently using TFAR (Beta!!!), we are comitted to testing it now in a official capacity, and the first planned operation with TFAR will be on Sunday March 8th.

Please refer to the correct mod on the workshop:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=894678801

Note that post install, you need to manually transfer the Teamspeak Plugin from the Mod Directory to the Teamspeak Plugins, it is not automatic.

If you need help setting this up, please do use #help on discord.

We will issue further information prior to Sunday 8th, as well as preparing our ORBATs, and mission frameworks to support TFAR.

In the last few moments, I pushed the biggest update to our website since launch, the bulk of which is outlined below, but many other things are included too.

Over the last month or so I've been fairly busy working away at the bulk contents of this announcement, but what I will cover in this update from UNISTAFF is the overhaul to the training/practice system we have released today and why we have done it.

Training/Practice Overhaul Background

This really is quite a substantial change to a system we invested heavily into, but it became apparent in late January that it was too complicated to understand and also overly convoluted. Further to making it simpler to understand, we also needed to double back on one of the things UNITAF is about, which is not doing things for the sake of doing them, and having a reason behind everything we do.

To that end, we have completely replaced the training checksystem, qualifications and schools system that has been implemented until now.

Part of the feedback on the old system was that it was too focused on getting people to pass, rather than actually or genuinely focusing on getting better at a role, or practicing some procedure.

What we've done

The old training schools view has been replaced with the new roles based view, it uses the same 11 role categories that the ORBAT and Roles directory uses, and so from this view, you can now see / link to all the roles, your progression in these areas, and to the SOP

Clicking on SOP on any one practice area will take you to the SOP view, instead of having SOP per role, SOP is now grouped entirely by practice area, and is generally (hopefully) easier to navigate, link to and to understand.

This is designed to act as a reference point, should you wish to read up on SOP, but it's not required. I'll come on to that in a moment.

Let's talk about progression

I mentioned before we've sacked the qualifications system, we've actually replaced it with something that was already there, the Tier system, before the Tiers worked on Positions only, and now we've moved them to work on Areas alone. In simple terms, to 'Tier Up' in an area, it takes a combination of hours playing in that area, and then hours practicing that area, the more you have, the higher the tier, the higher the Tier, the better roles you unlock (for official ORBATs anyway)

The roles directory splits roles into Tiers, as you can see here.

As a general rule, the higher tier you are in an area, the more specialist roles you can take, you'll also get to work in smaller detachments and take bigger guns, basically.

How do I know / see how I'm progressing?

Great question, you can do it two ways, either from the main practice view, and clicking on Progression on the area you want to look at, or via a new section of the Dossier called 'Practice Record' - which is neat, because it means you can spy on everyone else's progress too.

Here is my progress in each area - clicking on the progress button will take us over to detail on that area.

So below, we can see each relevant Tier, anything it requires, unlocks and your progress in it, as I said before we want people to get experience and practice in areas, and so the entire system is designed to reward time spend doing and time spend practicing.You can also see a log of where those hours have come from, be that from Operations or indeed Practice Operations.

You may notice that some areas have multiple roles that contribute to them, so for example, an hour spent in support weapons or anti-vehicle, automatically gives you an hour in basic infantry as well. Likewise, an hour in Field Leadership gives you an hour in Communications too. This is because they are so closely matched in experience (but not visa-versa)

Practice Operations / FTX / Field Training Exercises

Up till now, we've done 3 FTX's, and none for the last 8 months, an operation basically designed to get better at or practice something that would be difficult to do in a official operation, where we're focusing on objectives. We will commit to hosting 2 per month from now on, one will be specifically for the NCOs, which we've already hosted one recently, and also for people interested in becoming an NCO, and once per month also, which will be for all to attend.

A practice op format is basically that the first 45 minutes covers procedures, practicing of something specific without generally getting shot at, or rather in a rinse/repeat format. It will be followed by the normal duration of mission content, but instead the mission is designed specifically around the thing being practiced. In short, we're focusing on getting better, rather than on the objective. I'll talk a lot more about FTX's soon, but I hope you all attend them, we will do our utmost to make them as enjoyable as operations, and in actually doing them - operations will get better too.

Practice operations have a SOP / Training Order rather than an OPORD, it'll list out the Areas being Practiced and also the specific SOP being covered, useful so you can find out if it's of use to you.

Who can run FTX's?

FTX's are no different to any other operation, so long as a NCO is present, anyone can run an FTX, be it with 2 people or 20. You just need an NCO to set it up for you. Then it's just a case of picking the subjects, deciding how you’re going to practice them and then off you go. If you want to practice with a friend, that's fine too - this is very much a self-learning system, where we practice together, using the SOP as a reference.

A final note on SOP

I have spent the last month or so making sure ALL SOP for all roles, areas and possible scenarios is published, and that process is now complete, with very few exceptions (Zeus etc) we've also added more roles to the roles directory. 

Future Plans for Ranks/Promotions and Arsenals

While not finalised, coming very soon we will be able to confirm a few future plans that link into this update;

1. Your combo of op/hours and practice/hours will derive your promotion through ranks
2. Your rank, as it improves will (very soon) i.e. within weeks give you a better arsenal, 7.62 weapons, extra gear will be available if you are progressing the system

It's taken a lot of work to get to this point, I hope it's been worth the investment, and I want to thank everyone who contributed their concerns with the old system, but also who have helped design, test and implement the new one. We will of course keep tweaking to feedback, but for now - I hope to see you in a FTX soon.

While it's only been 2 days since I last issued a UNISTAFF update, we've been so busy I'm issuing another one to mention a some new shiney things.

New ORBAT Roles and in-game positions directory

In my recent update about ORBAT Locking (Phase 1) I said we would be releasing a new area to the Operations Center called the roles directory this was released yesterday and I hope it proves really useful to both new and existing members alike. Below I'll point out a few features of it, and then mention some future plans we have for it too.

You can find it via the Operations Menu first and foremost

Or in other handy places, like next to ORBAT positions or ORBAT skill areas, just click on them, and it'll take you to the role directory, and then land you on the role you clicked on

We also put it in other handy places you might see role names, like for example - on your past deployments page in your dossier.

The purpose of the Role Directory is to list every active role we can place on an ORBAT, grouped by skill area, so you can navigate the areas using the menu on the right hand side.

What's really great though, is we've written up a short bio for every role, so you can read up on the roles your interested in, and it'll really help to de-mystify some roles, and help you decide what roles you'd like to pursue (or avoid!) Some other things you'll find are:

• How many hours UNITAF members have spent in the role
• Who the most experienced member of UNITAF in that role is (by operation hours)
• What the minimum rank requirement for ORBAT locking is
• A list of any training qualifications related or required by that role
• A fancy picture (although we kind of rushed these out, so please send me some new ones if you can better any of the role images - let's have some competition!)

In the future the plan is to add loadouts to the roles directory, so you can see all the default loadouts we use, right here on UTFN - which we hope will help us improve those, too.

Obviously part of getting this out is heavily tied in with ORBAT Locking, we need to have a directory so you can look up the requirements for all the roles, right now - Qualification Requirements are not forced, but rank is. These aren't finalised, and we will re-balance the requirements according to feedback.

New Specialist Ranks

The eagle eyed among you will notice that some of the new roles in the roles directory require some new ranks, namely:

• Specialist 3rd Class (SP3)
• Specialist 2nd Class (SP2)
• Specialist 1st Class (SP1)
• Master Specialist (MSP)

You can find out more about these on the Ranks and Structure page by scrolling down to them, there are some basic descriptions of what we intend to use them for, the details will be finalised soon. I was conscious that we only had 2-3 ranks for non-leaders, and I wanted to bring some in so that in the long term, we have a more visible way of representing experience for non-leaders, and rewarding those for embarking on the future (coming soon) advanced trainings.

Do read about them on the link above, I will note though that all these new ranks irrespective of grade, are still out-ranked by Corporals in respect to the chain of command.

Chain of Command Update

Most of you are familiar with the way in which the COC works in UNITAF, if not you can head over to the COC intro to read up on it. Anyway, we realised that since most members are either inactive or active the rank distribution was slightly off, so we have re-issued the guidance on the number of subs each leader can take in the COC, Corporals are now 5-6 versus 6-10, and we've opened up a little breathing room to bring a new Corporal on board - which we need to do as we sometimes struggle for team leaders, so the NCOs are fielding candidates as we speak - so if your interested, speak to yours!

Promotions and Transfers

This week I also asked Sgt Kevin to step into a Cpl role - which was nonpunitive - I am conscious that Squad Leaders are few and far between, in doing so I promoted Cpl SoapyTarantula to Sergeant, to reflect both acitivity but the most likely candidates for these roles. Soapy has also Field Lead a few operations over the last few months, and I'm sure will continue to do so as we grow.

Activity / Inactivity Changes

Finally, we have updated the COC Charts and Roster Lists, by removing a bunch of members who have not played within 60 days, which is the upper limit for Reserves, this is mostly automatic, but I think all you should know is;

• Regular (active inside 30 days) we currently have 28
• Reserves (inside 30-60 days) we have 3
• Inactive (outside 60 days) - we've added a discord role for this, and (Inactive members are removed from the COC

That's all for now.

This week is the first time we have employed ORBAT Locking, this communication will explain simply what it is, why it's here and how it effects you.

If you'd like to discuss, the contribtion channel is #j6-training-and-sop on discord

What is ORBAT Locking?

When viewing a Order of Battle (ORBAT) which lists all the availible positions, UNITAF members are able to select which roles they wish to deploy to, ORBAT Locking refers to the restriction of the access to certain roles based on two primary restrictions; Rank and Training, this is now live and you may see some different functionality when looking at an ORBAT.

Rank Locking

The below image shows new functionality, whereby the role of Squad Leader requires the rank of Sgt (as shown in orange) as a minimum rank. In yellow the button reflects this requirement and disables your ability to deploy to this role. hovering over this button will display an explainantion. 

Rank locking above the rank of Private is currently only applied to Field Leadership Roles, recruits can access most fireteam roles, some - such as Combat Engineers, Grenadiers etc require you to be at least a Private.

We have added a 'Roles' directory to the operations center, where you'll be able to view the requirements of all roles outside of an ORBAT. It's accessable via Operations -> Roles or you can click here to open it

IETC (Initial Entry Training Course) Locking

When you make the rank of Private, it is assumed that you understand the core policies and SOP of UNITAF, but sometimes new SOP may be added to IETC, or you may be marked down for demonstrating a lack of understanding of basic SOP, in this case, you'll loose access to any role which requires any rank other than Recruit, as seen below, this shows my deployment screen based on my IETC having some red-checks on it, restricting me to some basic fireteam roles.

Note hovering over the button will explain the issue to me, clicking the button will take me right to my IETC profile, so I can identify the issue, speaking to an instructor or my COC will easily fix this.

We have added a 'Roles' directory to the operations center, where you'll be able to view the requirements of all roles outside of an ORBAT. It's accessable via Operations -> Roles or you can click here to open it

Future Training Locks

In the future, beyond the initial Phase 1 roll-out of ORBAT locking, we will add further requirements to advanced roles, expect to see this tie in with the training system for medics, pilots and special forces units, including marksmen, leaders, snipers and so on. We will monitor the effects of Phase 1, and keep everyone up to date on Phase 2 roll-outs.

Why ORBAT Locking

The primary purpose of ORBAT locking is to improve gameplay by ensuring that any person in a role is at least competant at it, it ensures brand new members can't automatically allocate critical mission roles and prioritises and rewards those whom have trained in a role to be able to access it before those who haven't. It's principle role is to promote and encourage the use of the training system, and the employment of SOP. In the future it will also be used to give a larger variety of weapons and gear to those who have progressed the training system too.

"One-upping" - Playing Roles you're locked out of

One-upping is a process of requesting to take a role you're not qualified for by contacting the leader (FL) of the operation and asking them. One-upping is encouraged task-force wide, it allows you to practice roles. Future fireteam leaders are encouraged to "One-up" in official operations, you can "one-up" into any role at any time by asking the ops FL.

The FL is not required to approve your "one-up", but as always, we will do our best to accomodate requests, the best way though is to work towards meeting the requirements of any role, which will mean you'll always have access to it.

Finally, One-upping allows us to make sure when new members are trying roles for the first time, that we can strategically place experienced members around them.

If you'd like to discuss, the contribtion channel is #j6-training-and-sop on discord

ACE Medical

Extensive testing has been underway over the last week or so and we've settled on what we feel to be a suitable group of settings bearing in mind the ACE changes that came with the last update. Two points to note:

• Morphine takes time to kick in now, don't overdose on it, and be sure to communicate with medical staff if you've injected yourself, so you can avoid overdosing, if you overdose on Morphine you will have to be MEDIVAC'd from the AO.
• To ensure we can prevent death (to force us to deal with casualties rather than respawns) it's possible for a casualty to get a large number of wounds (50) which would require the same number of bandages, for this reason, if a patient is unresponsive with a large number of wounds (20-25+) then the senior medic present can initiate a medical evacuation with the command element, the patient will be lifted by land or air to a field hospital where they will be dealt with and then re-inserted.
• The use of a Personal Aid Kit now requires a Doctor (Squad Medic) and a medical vehicle or a medical facility.

Mods & Modpack

• Diwako's ACE Ragdolling has been removed as of today, as it's no longer supported by ACE in light of the medical re-write and the developer has indicated that there are no plans to support it
• Simplex Support Services has been added, this will allow field leadership to utilise support and force multiplication units from the ACE interaction menu, and open up a wider variety of mission options.
• PPS (Player Persistant Statistics) following a further test we've removed PPS, but we have plans to assist the developer with making changes, so expect to see it back soon.

Default Loadout / Roles

• Corrected default uniform pattern
• Added 2 Variations of the AR Role, M249 Long and M249 Short versions
• Added 3 Variations of the Grenadier Role, M4, M16 and HK416 versions
• Added the HAT, Heavy Anti-Tank Role
• Removed old ACE Splints and Items
• Removed some MRE/Canteen Items
• Fixed some cases where roles wouldn't spawn a GPS

The Default Arsenal

• Added more variations of default assault rifles
• Added a larger / better variety of backpacks
• Added more variations of head protection
• Various other miscellaneous items have been added
• Removed the ability to set a patch, rank patches will be automatically applied (or Red Cross if your a medic)

It's been a little while since my last task-force wide update, so below are a bunch of important announcements rolled in. Please note I'll also likely not post updates textually via discord, rather just link to them here, since I am able to track who has read and acknowledged them.

Please ensure you take note of them, and indicate you have understood by clicking the Acknowledge button above. I would also appreciate it if you asked others to do so too, as I know people don't often read them, but there is important information below.

Operations, Mods Updates and Scheduling

We're pleased with the current progress, both operation turnout and ratings are generally ok or good, that's ok but not Excellent. We're working on some of the weaker points raised in many of your after action reports, and hope to see this reflected in them during weeks to come.

We are adding @CUP Terrains and @CUP Interiors to the presets for Operation Hammer from this Sunday December 8th onward. Please note this is a 3GB update for most. I have already added the Preset over on the Operations Center, so I suggest heading over there to import it to your launcher ASAP - if you need any help, use the #help channel on Discord.

This is primarly because we're changing Operation Hammer over to Bystrica, but also to give us better varitey for upcoming operations. Hammer will likely run on this stretch until mid-January at the earliest, especially now with the map change, but as always we'll gauge from after action reports how people feel about the current maps.

We will continue with weekly operations throughout the holidays, and plan to host a Christmas special on the 22nd, see https://unitedtaskforce.net/communications/topic/24 for suggestions, this will be confirmed soon, but will likely be a mix of COOP and PVP/Competative with a Christmas Twist. 

The New Members List

We've added a new members page over at https://unitedtaskforce.net/roster/list we hope this keeps you all better connected via Steam and also to promote members Twitch and Youtube content, we will be rolling out via UTFN a feature to hold twitch and youtube content right here on our site, very soon. 

I'd also like to encourage anyone that can, to stream or record sessions, and send these and any screenshots into Discord, as it will ultimately be very useful to us in the long run.

The second thing you'll notice, is we're showing who owns what DLC on this page, this is something you can personally edit by going to your account at the top right dropdown -> Account. Adding this is very helpful as it means we can plan our next campaign, which the running theory is will require Apex DLC.

After Action Reports

You'll likely know that we've added the MVP feature, and while no data from this will be released right now, we're going to monitor it and as and when we will make announcements, this is tied into the new Awards and Citations page on your dossier.

Please can I ask that you ensure that when you make AAR Comments, you indicate what we can do to get a better score from you. This is what they exist for and we've noted that at times this is not the case.

Website Avatars

We'd like everyone to have a custom avatar on the website, so if you don't happen to have one yet, just send it over to me on Discord, or if your not sure, or want some help taking one, just let us know as we're happy to leave the servers open after operations to facilitate this.

Recruitment and Staff and Contributions to UNITAF

I've been speaking to many recently about the current staff system and we're going to be shaking it up considerbly over the Chrismas period and beyond, we recognise that the model of a few people doing a lot won't work in the long run and we want to make it clearer to everyone how you can help UNITAF grow and prosper, by just doing your little bit, or as much as you want to support what we do.

Details about this will go out soon, but suffice to say we want as many people involved in recruitment, mission making, mission ideas and so on as possible, and our job really is to make it as easy and time short as we can, anybody recruiting just one person a month, designing or Zeusing one mission a month, or just coming up with ideas, at scale - we believe will be the key to growth into 2020.

That said, even before I get a chance to write up these changes, if you'd like to help, just drop me a message and I'd be happy to have a chat with you about it.

Finally, there have been literally hundreds of changes to the website here over the last month, and I can't detail them all here - you can view all the changes over on Change Log 4 on the UTFN Changelog here: https://unitedtaskforce.net/communications/topic/13#r37

Change List 4
02-12-2019

Changed/Improved

• Changed the ORBAT, OPORD and Preset buttons on the Upcoming Operations Center to be disabled if a preset, opord or orbat is not yet available
• A new version of the past operations page, which groups operations by campaign and shows campaign statistics
• New UTFN logo on all pages
• Customised the home page dependant on if the user was logged in or not, and customised the CTA buttons
• Made the communications (comms) page simplier by removing many of the unused categories
• Automated the change of user status between Regular and Reserve

Fixed

• An error in the way AAR ratings have been rounded, they are now more accurate
• A bug whereby a user could vote themselves as MVP
• An issue where the OPORD was hard coded for Operation Torrent

Added

• An hours in role and Tier indicator to upcoming ORBATs
• A LOA feature whereby a user can be set away to a certain date
• Global hours now shows on the website home page
• Finished version of the Awards and Citations module on user profiles, is now live
• Mod Preset button to Operations center, which downloads a Arma 3 Launcher Preset file
• Social Icons to User Dossiers (for Steam / Youtube and Twitch
• A new Full Member list page, shows a lot of information about members
• Added DLC's and Social accounts to the User Account page, user can add which DLC's they own, and social account links
• The ability to vote an MVP on operational AARs

It's all go this week, and about time that we provided an general update on things-going-on, what with the 4th HQ Staff meeting taking place last night, it seemed to me the ideal time to do so.

ORBATs
We have discussed and made some changes to 'standard ORBATs' used for missions, and have made some changes to specifically this Sunday's mission, to ensure all elements have a maximum of 2 radio channels either 1 down or lateral and one up.

Vehicle Crewman / Specialised Roles
In response to feedback and suggestions, dedicated vehicle crewman roles have been and will be used on ORBATs when required by said operation, we encourage you to try these roles and please do feedback to @Operations SNCOIC (S3) via the normal methods as your try this role, so we can tweak it's usage. The vehicle crews will act for now as an element under the same command as the Fires Support Group, which in turn will be under the command of the Platoon Leader. We've allowed specification of Driver/Gunner positions on the ORBAT, these elements while mobile with often be slightly back from the Infantry Frontline, but provide vital fire support and/or movement and mobility.

Training Sessions
We are looking into some more practical based non-mandatory training sessions to rinse/repeat operational scenarios in-game without using Operations as the space to do so, @Training Staff (S7) will advise in more detail in due course, but essentially the aim is to provide a more practical way to absorb unit SOP, or indeed improve ones skills. This is in addition to the other methods in place, such as the training checks and challenges.

Mod Changes
There have been some mod removals and additions, the appropriate staff team will announce the details ASAP. One notable addition is the ability to CPR a casualty (chance based) who is in cardiac arrest back to life via ACE Medical, and with a higher chance when using Defib Pads, we hope this will add another option for troops in frontline scenarios. Details to follow.

Database Driven Ops
As mentioned in the last ops briefing, we made a bit of a breakthrough in development this week, we now have the technical capability to insert game data to and from the website to the operations in real time, we intend to use this to persist map markers, vehicles, assets and managing these things using the website, and hopefully, to allow full management of loadouts on the website, and have them injected as you join the server on operations. We're excited to see where this goes, and how it will assist us going forward to do some pretty unique things.

I'm sure you'll agree there are plenty of exciting things on the radar, there are a number of other important announcements coming soon - to which the staff teams are currently working on and I / they will look forward to sharing them in due course.

Finally, as I did during the meeting, I'd like to re-iterate my thanks to all the staff and staff IC's for the outstanding work they are doing, and I'm sure you will all agree that it's very much appreciated, please do thank them, and of course should you like to get stuck in and help, contact the relevant staff head via the Structure -> Staff page here on UTFN, to find out how you can get stuck in.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this general update, please do comment directly here or via #general-chat on Discord.

Change List 3
28-08-2019

Added / New Features

• Avatars to Dossier Profiles
• Training Records to Dossier Profiles
• Advanced Training System
• Training Videos
• Training Challenges
• Training Requests
• Support for Training Schools
• Changed Instructor Lists on Qualifications to be Per School
• Discord Role and Nickname Management through UTFN, supporting Rank Changes
• Ability to 'Hide Green' checks on Qualification Check View
• UNITAF Roadmap Functionality
• Database Editors for Staff Teams
• Discord S3 Notifications on ORBAT Slotting Event
• 'Not Attending' View for NCOs to see who's not attending an ORBAT
• Statistics blocks for Deployments added to Dossier Views
• Logistics / Assets Finance System is now live, updating a midnight daily
• Mission Objectives injected automatically onto Opords
• Custom scrollbars for webkit browsers
• Chain of Command view for Personnel List

Changed / Improved

• Operation Status on Ops Center is now dynamic
• Homepage / Ops Center shows 'Live Now' when an operation is ongoing
• On training overviews member lists, changed score to % completed
• Added Tooltips to Roadmap items to make it clearer they are clickable
• Design of Assets/Stores View

Bugs Fixes

• AAR Ratings have been fixed / corrected, as they were calculated incorrectly
• Mobile Design of SOP Popups
• Double Scrollbar on Mobile devices

Removed

• Personnel List view

1. "Light up FOB" option can be used at any time near an FOB, but please only use it for your own sanity when an FOB is not already lit. Local effect only.
2. DAGOR variants added
3. M1045 added (Tow Humvee)
4. Changed some of the Medical/Engineer scripts
5. Updated CBA for some Boxloader and other functions
6. Modified 'flip vehicle' script so that people with a toolkit should be able to use it as well.
7. Updated Arsenal whitelist to include new Privates/Recruits (have not modified for other promotions, sorry).
8. Flatbed from Contact DLC added. Can load (small) vehicles, and the Huron containers with Boxloader mod.
9. Boxloader Bulldozer added. Can delete fauna, fences, sidewalks, and other junk.
10. Boxloader pallets added including ones that will work with ACE logistics if the ACE integration mod for boxloader is installed. Boxloader Regular pallets will fit in more vehicles as they are smaller.

BIG EXCITING CHANGES

Well, it's about time we took action on the form we sent out a few weeks ago. After some boring testing and researching we have enabled verified signatures on the server.

This means we now have control of what client side mods are used while in mission. This allows us to monitor and give everyone the best possible server performance. Please see below for all mods that are currently allowed on the server during mission. Please note the reason why some mods have not been allowed client side is due to either conflicts with other mods, outdated or are not needed.

You will notice that in the Arma 3 Launcher mods will be listed as numbers. This is just a way around the data limit steam have in place for the launcher, this is the only way around this when running so many mods and keys. In short, you can ignore this as it will enable the mods needed and not change anything locally on your system. Then if you scroll down you will see the optional mods that you can enable. 

Current base mods NEEDED;

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1796922002

Current OPTIONAL mods which are supported and allowed;

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1788445307

If we have missed your most favourite client side mod, please feel free to request here. We will look in to your request and test. https://forms.gle/v5eWUzWyV9Hnt5SQ8

Regards - Cpl Ben

New Changelog, version 019:

1. The FOB objects (The Cargo HQ) is now lit with lights.
Notes: Dismantling an FOB will not delete the lights at this point in time (unless you disconnect/reconnect). Also, ACE does not detect that they are proper light sources, so you will still need to use a flashlight near it at night.

2. "Make me a..." Scripts are removed.
All players have medic and engineer abilities. Allows players to switch roles faster without having to worry about another setting.

3. RHS USAF 0.49 Addtions.
Integrated some of the new vehicles/weapons from the 0.49 update. Includes:
Stryker (M2)
M1220 Crows Variants
M1238A1 M2
Mk17 (Scar) variants Incl ammo types and silencer
M249 Light

4. KP loadouts should work now.

5. Build radius issue fixed (should not crush you now).

6. Older RHS USAF items added:
Some foregrips
HIMARS

Altis and Tanoa versions have been updated to .019

Here are the changes:

1. Hunger/Thirst removed


2. Ranks Private and above are now a part of the Arsenal whitelist.


3. Arsenal Whitelist expanded to include more throw/put objects, as well as other objects such as Kestral, Agtrag.


4. Night and Silent scripts updated to include all Whitelisted weapons (if available).


5. Humanitarian missions have been polished up a bit.


6. Build circle around objects has been shrunk considerably.


7. More UNITAF have been added to logistic/commander whitelist.

Change List 2
03-08-2019

• Changed all countdown timers to refer to the users local timezone as detected by UTFN
• Changed all times to UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) and changed the UNITAF clock to UTC
• All times are now UTC and/or the users local timezone
• Added a 'Hide replies' toggle button to the Comms Center
• Adding spacings to the Comms area blocks
• Added database support for in-game statistics
• Added Discord Auth support, will be later used for login/role management
• Added Training System Support for Multiple Schools, ready for adding new Quals

Here are the big additions for a (working) ver 18:

Humanitarian Missions Depending on how low your reputation is, one of two Humanitarian Missions will spawn.

1. Refugees - Heal all of the refugees. Each refugee you heal will give you a certain amount of rep points.
2. Supply Truck - Deliver a truck to a city. Completing mission will give you 20 rep points. Each is on a hidden timer for 20 minutes. Once the timer is up, it checks to see if it was completed. Arsenal: Greatly expanded with more gear, weapons, etc.
    

The humanitarian missions are pretty simple because I wanted to get them working and all the ideas I had to make them pretty haven't worked out well so far. But I am continuing to improve. For instance, the Refugee mission spawns everyone in a tent, but sometimes they spawn in a mass of people.

My next version will actually build bed rolls for them to spawn on so they aren't clumped together.

Please note: @ACE_Ragdoll is being removed from the UNITAF Official Modpack due to a suspected conflict causing players not to be able to see/hear one another when death occurs/respawn.

We will add mods to this collection as and when changes are made, please favourite this collection and click 'subscribe to all'

We will make announcements as and when, you just need to open it and click 'subscribe to all' each time a change is made.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1796922002

This method is only so you can download mods ahead of operations, to avoid creating pre-sets you can still join the server from the launcher as normal.

UTFN (United Task Force Network) is the name for the software built and maintained for UNITAF at https://unitedtaskforce.net

The long term goal for UTFN is an immersive platform to extend the persistancy of in-game campaigns and operations by providing a platform to interact with and change the course of operations using UTFN. The platform also supports the growth and managment of UNITAF by way of automation and data management, supporting NCOs, Officers and staff with vital information.

Planned Features (Not yet implemented)

• Rank / Medals View showing requirements/prerequisites and showing the users whom have attained it
  
  
• Roles/Preffered Roles system showing requirements/prerequisites of roles both in and out of game, show the recruitment status of each role and allow transfer requests between roles
  
  
• Statistics system, to track in game events such as bullet fired, kills, casualties, ACE Medical, Vehicle interaction to provide stats per user such as most used weapons, ammo, # kills / deaths, average engagement distance, furtherst kill etc etc. Stats will be averaged over units for AAR purposes.
  
  
• Full Logistics simulation allowing S4 staff to manage the purchase, deployment of and maintenance of UNITAF assets. Finance system supports this, with political factors implicating the income.
  
  
• Qualification/Progression based ORBATs and UTFN controlled gear management: To control the availibility of in-game equipment based on UTFN databases, so more advanced / qualified members of UNITAF have access to equipment they are trained or positioned to use, promoting progression to newer members.
  
  

Below is a link to a playlist of Youtube Videos explaining certain features of UTFN, be aware that as development speed is quite high, the videos may show older interations of features.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRoNyQXQSKt1Z8sFHiboGmJIcLil84E4s

This page will be updated periodically as new ideas are confirmed either by the development team or from the UTFN suggestions page. Below will follow updates and changelogs.

We have a server up now, which will remain up for the next week, until the first Operation this Sunday.

Please be sure to follow the below guide, to setup everything as needed prior to this operation, as always we are on hand in #help if you need any assistance.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10RoopFKH4CodcFSQPdiAv0xdNVqwUK5pOfrsMs3uaJw/edit?usp=sharing

This post contains Day 1 information about what's happening from today (June 1) leading up to our first deployment on June 16. 

• We're launching www.unitedtaskforce.net to our pre-launch interest list members, to allow you to register accounts
• We're using this time to kill some bugs and get some feedback
• There are a lot of features which we have disabled during this launch period
• Features will be enabled on www.unitedtaskforce.net between June 1 and June 16

What we want you to do

1. Register on www.unitedtaskforce.net and follow the instructions to complete your application in full (it's imporant that you fill out all the sections, including the sections relating to your preferred roles)
   
   
2. Let us know when complete in #general-chat on Discord to get your account processed fully. Please include @Personnel Staff (S1) in your message so they don't miss it.
   
   
3. Download the Mods by following this guide (CLICK HERE) we will have some testing servers up next week.
   
   
4. As you know, you must confirm your slots for upcoming missions as early as possible. To slot yourself: Log in to unitedtaskforce.net > click on Operations, selecting one of the two confirmed mission dates that you can make and going to ORBAT > Descide your desired slot > Click Deploy
   
   

Feel free to ask any questions or report any issues directly here, or via Discord. We'll be providing futher updates in due course. If you have any issues at all, please use the #help channel on discord.

Please click Acknowledged at the top of this page once you have completed all the steps.