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.