Support Fire Training: Cowardly Strykers

[sheldonh]

I just got CM:SF, and it's my first experience of the CM series.

So I figured I better start with the training campaign, having read most of the manual.

I'm having trouble with the second battle, "Fire Support Training". I understand I'm supposed to acquire a visual on the tanks from the ICV, then call in an artillery strike.

However, as soon as the ICV acquires visual, the crew freak out about enemy tanks, pop smoke and reverse out of visual contact.

Whether or not I cancel the evasive action, they repeat the behaviour every time I bring them within visual range of the tanks.

How do I prevent this behaviour, so that I can maintain visual long enough to effectively spot for the artillery?

Thanks,

Sheldon.

[ChrisND]

Sounds like smart drivers...

I haven't played the tutorial in a quite a while, but I would use my dismounts to call it in.

[sheldonh]

Point. :-)

The manual says my best bet is to use a "FIST/FO in a FS3 vehicle". So I figured if I dismounted, I'd lose the advantage of the comms equipment in the vehicle.

Thanks,

Sheldon.

[Yair Iny]

Just revisited this campaign showing it to my little brother. You are right, the strykers pop smoke when they see the tanks and you have to work around that, by driving them to new points and really just waiting until they run out of smoke. Or you could use dismounts, but the FO is faster when inside the FIST vehicle. At any rate the smoke DOES run out and then you can proceed with plenty of time to finish. This mission was built for 1.0 and the more realistic stryker behaviour was added a fair deal later. I reckon this mission wasn't re-built to work with the new behaviour after the patch.

Cheers

[Huntarr]

Exactly.

With all the new behavior changes that training mission didn't get an update on it map.

What it needs is a small berm in front of the Strykers so they are not in direct contact front with the tanks. This would allow the "student/player" to move his Strykers up in a hull down down disposition to spot the tanks and call for CAS/Fire Mission

[sheldonh]

Okay, as long as there are opportunities to call strikes in from the vehicle in the real campaign, I think I'll be fine.

Pity the devs aren't paying more attention to the tutorial experience -- it's likely to make the first impression for new players.

Thanks for the confirmation and reassurance. Dismounts did the job. On to the next one. :-)

Ciao,

Sheldon.

[Lanzfeld]

Speaking of new players....

any ETA on a 1.10 demo for some of my interested friends?

[sheldonh]

Nevermind that, young man, what about this parrot?

Ahem. I mean nevermind that, what about a 1.10 patch for non-Marines licensees? :-)