Are we the baddies?

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Jim
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Are we the baddies?

Post by Jim »

When making a coop mission, regardless of player faction chosen are we always 'BLUFOR' and the Opposing Force OPFOR or is NATO always BLUE on map, East RED and Independent Green?

I ask because I've seen people criticised for marking friendly movements in red.

It makes sense that if you're a Russian in 1986 you'd call NATO OPFOR and mark them in Blue because their logo is blue and Mother Russia is Red and by golly we're not giving the capitalists our colour palette! But should we mark them in red for the blood they will shed and us blue because of an FMT training that I really should have done by now?

Then say you're making a mission with the players set to FIA - BLUFOR easy. But should the OPPOSING FORCE, AAF be marked as OPFOR or INDEPENDENT?
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Rodi
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by Rodi »

How can you oppose yourself?

And regarding AAF/INDI:
It´s more convenient to use Greenfor, since AAF is already a preexisting faction for Greenfor. It makes using potentional loadout scripts for AI more sensible f.e..
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Jim
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by Jim »

Re: how can you oppose yourself: exactly - so we're always BLUFOR and always blue markers?
Eagle-Eye
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by Eagle-Eye »

Isn’t it a matter of consistency? Most people on ARMA know NATO (BLUFOR) as the default faction, so they take blue for their own markers and OPFOR (historically, the communists from Soviet Russia, China, ...) as red. No idea if Russia would use red to mark their own positions, but for ArmA, if you play as OPFOR one day, BLUFOR the next and GREENFOR the day after, or even in following missions on GN, and change colour associations each time, without a doubt you’ll suddenly come into a situation where you mark or see something in a certain colour and someone will interpret it incorrectly...


Generally speaking about colours though, red is also associated with danger and warnings in our daily life, so using it to mark enemies makes sense. Blue on the other hand is considered a soft, light colour, thus associated with safety, comfort, friendlies. As such, it makes sense on more than just the historical element.
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by StRiKeR »

Eagle-Eye wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 11:31 am Generally speaking about colours though, red is also associated with danger and warnings in our daily life, so using it to mark enemies makes sense. Blue on the other hand is considered a soft, light colour, thus associated with safety, comfort, friendlies. As such, it makes sense on more than just the historical element.
This. Let's keep this as standard because I do not want to rely on people wrapping their heads around associating a different color than blue with their own side, as strange as that sounds. Too much potential for big fuck-ups.
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Wombat
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by Wombat »

Best practice for mission developer placed map markers is to always use the NATO standardised markers regardless of player faction. So NATO forces are always designated with BLUFOR markers and Russian forces are always designated with REDFOR markers even if players are on the Russian side with US as enemy.

On the other hand, best practice for in-mission map marking by players is to always use blue coloured markers for friendly positions and manoeuvres while enemy positions and manoeuvres are always marked in red.

This may sound contradictory but it's actually the best method to avoid confusion.
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Jim
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by Jim »

Wombat I think you've nailed it. Thank you
lucius
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by lucius »

Its a fair question Jim but I fear it provides more satisfaction to mission makers (and a small number of us who may run to the more retentive side of ARMA play) than it provides gameplay/capability benefit to the wider community.

I consider it far simpler to maintain a 'Red = Danger' system. I would also point out that given the tendency of some to underestimate force threat the physiological factor of red standing out on the retina and providing a conceptually larger image in the minds eye holds some value when having to make swift instinctive decisions based on map intel (be it mission maker or player added).

If we wanted to complicate and move away from it we could start using NATO markers and definition when playing as any NATO associated forces and then switching to Soviet or AFRF (period dependent) symbols and definition when play as them. The question would then be who is digging up old Republican Guard manuals when we are playing as Iraqi forces on Diyala? what would we do as forces who use no real standardisation? or why would less well funded independent forces have Blue Force-style GPS tracking? (Though arguably forces receiving certain covert support would have access to such things and some organisations are independently wealthy enough to construct/purchase their own systems and rent/buy the satellite time.)

I applaud the assessment of the concepts behind the system we use however personally (as someone who is a compulsive over-complicator) I would encourage maintaining a simple consistent approach. :)
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by lawman »

On a similar note, do we follow the same procedure for smoke grenades?

Should I be giving Squad/Team leads blue smoke regardless of side?
Fine from the players point of view...but then do I give the enemy units red smoke, even if they're NATO?

Why would hostile units carry redFor smoke if they are bluFor to themselves?

And then what happens in Adversarial gameplay?


Admittedly coloured smoke isn't used as much as you might think, but I am in the habit of giving team and squad leaders coloured smoke in case they do decide to use them when calling in CAS or something.

Typically I will give smoke grenades (hand deployed) for marking friendly positions and 40mm GL for enemy...since you'd hope the enemy aren't within throwing distance of yourselves when you're calling CAS on them or pointing them out to another squad.
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Thor
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Re: Are we the baddies?

Post by Thor »

hi! i'd sign Wombat's statement before, and for the smokes i'd use a general table:

Green or Blue = Friendly position.(maybe blue for blufor and green for indi and redfor)

Red = Enemy posiition/target indication.

Purple = Mass Casualties

White = concealment

Any other colour = Miscellaneous use (always use good comms, e.g. "Supply DZ at orange smoke!", "This is Alpha 2-3, reinforcement LZ on white smoke!" (maybe as rifleman you don't own coloured smoke, but need to des an LZ now, etc...)
So, except the first four, do not worry too much about that^^

a sidenote: in A&D you could use same setup, it goes down to comms. or you could use yellow smoke for one side, red for the next and orange for the third party as enemy markers... depends.. but using side-specific smoke colours is kinda bad since it can give away a rough (*~upto 500m) position straight away without comms
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