Independence Day
"All possibilities which can happen, do happen." ~Data
<<July 4, 1998>>
You run the checklist you memorized through your head again. That should be everything . . . .
"You know, this was a really stupid idea," your teammate standing next to you says as he slips on his left glove.
"Awww," you chant mockingly (in good humor, of course), "is little Isaac afraid?"
Actually, it probably was a really stupid idea. But what the heck, it was Independence Day . . .
"All right," your commander begins as he turns to face your unit, his voice muffled by the mask, "remember, we're all wearing totally fireproof suits and we're being soaked with water anyway. YOU DON'T NEED TO DODGE THE SPARKS!!!"
You sigh, the sound hidden by your own mask. You had been through this talk already . . . THREE TIMES!! You never really believed small fireworks to be very dangerous anyway.
You look out across the dark battlefield, lit only by the summer's ever-present twilight . . . . for the moment. You wouldn't have thought a large parking lot could look so eerie, but tons of large metal barrels had been moved in and stacked to create bases and field fortifications, just so the battlefield wasn't clear and flat. And you knew that it also had "state-of-the-art" . . .
"SO," your commander continues loudly, startling you out of your thoughts, "you all know your duties, and I expect you to perform them!"
He pushes a button on his remote telling the CPU hooked up for this battle (and protected by barrels, of course) that he was ready. Apparently being later than your opponents, the CPU immediately played the sound of a loud booming voice: "BEGIN!!!"
As silent as possible, you and another 5 of your team's 10 members move out in pairs to find the enemy base and attack. You hadn't gone 10 meters before two sparkling, crackling firework fountains start going off (one to either side) and five ground flowers shoot out of a nearby barrel. A moment later, sparkles go off on barrels all over the battlefield as the proximity-triggered fireworks are armed and the timed ones begin going off.
Seeing a couple of shadows silhouetted against another fountain and sparkler closer than you would have liked, you raise your XP 110 (already dripping with the water put on before the battle for safety) and begin to fire. One of the sparklers fizzles and goes out as your water stream strikes it, and you hear the resounding sound of your water striking the side of a metal barrel. Glancing around yourself, you see another several ground flowers begin shooting off, lighting the immediate area with a faint underglow. You can see a boot near one of the nearby barrels, only a few meters away, but your partner is no where in sight.
Wanting to call out but recalling that at any reasonable distance no one could hear you through your mask, you take aim again and prepare to fire . . . .
The brilliant light of 15 "Devil's Delight" fountains blaze up all around the battlefield, creating just enough light that everything else turns black. Your aim spoiled, you duck behind three barrels knowing that you have only several seconds before your foes' eyes adjust again. Quickly deciding on a course of action, you . . . . .
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Stay low provide a makeshift ambush, look out for your enemy and shoot him or her the instant you see it. Next check on your missing comrade. If it looks like you are outnumbered kick some of their fireworks and use their weapons against them and retreat firing to help protect yourself.
~Chris Jones
I'm not totally sure I understand. What did you mean by " . . . and use their weapons against them . . ."? How do you plan to get their weapons? There may be fireworks going off left and right, but they're just incidental, they're not weapons.
As for the ambush, its probably a good idea . . . . might be a little difficult, no major strengths or weaknesses.
I figure to try a fairly simple plan of action but a classic one nonetheless. The simple answer to the problem is this: fire the XP 110 at a barrel a significant distance away, preferably to the right of where you lost sight of the enemy. Then look through the gaps between the barrels and watch the paths of the enemies emerging from hiding after hearing the shot. If there are multiple troops, they would most likely head towards the barrels in the hopes of eliminating the person there.
"The barrels"? That doesn't mean anything on this battlefield.
Then, simply roll out and let em have it. On the other hand, if it were only one troop, he would most likely run away from the potential army massed behind the barrels. As he ran, you would simply have to shoot him in the back. In either case, after the gun is fired, someone is dead and as Homer would say, "Scream like a woman until they turn away in disgust then Run like He**".
~Mike
With this fire-resistant outfit on, no one can hear your screams . . . . . . . muhahahahahahaha . . . . . . . . . .
All right, most barrels you'd be able to look through the cracks between them, and that's a good idea. Your predictions of enemy actions are far from reliable, and I wouldn't count on them.
As for the idea of shooting another barrel, I'm afraid that'll do more harm than good. You're obviously not going to be shooting at the barrel where you are, so shooting a second place may allow your opponents to triangulate your position -- it certainly wouldn't throw them off.
...run toward the boot and fire at it. When the boot gets pulled back you realize that you have the upper hand. Then you laugh as he is soaked.
~B. Wallace
What if there's two of them? Or three? Or five?
What if they've got CPS 1000s? 2000s?? 3000s???
In addition, with all those ground flowers, they'll be able to see you easier than you can see them -- if you run forward before firing, you give them the chance to fire first, and you're under far less cover if you miss or they've got backup.
First, I'd kick each and every barrel down one by one, fully prepared to see my opponent behind them. There's no way these barrels are impossible to push over and nowhere was it stated in the POW that this action was illegal. That would let me know where they are hiding and give me the upper hand cause I'd have full view of the lot. I'm positive that the barrels are hollow because otherwise they'd weigh over 300lbs each, and being hollow, they would make a loud bang when contacting asphalt at falling speed. So, that would HAVE to alert my teammates that something was going on. So they'd probably look for where the banging sounds were coming from, inevitably finding me. We, as a force, would search out and destroy anything confirmed to be human.
~King Cobra
You're forgetting one little, minor thing: your opponents will react to this as well. It's not as if you've got a grand total of 2 enemies cowering, completely defenseless, behind one of the barrels; you've got two armed and dangerous enemies actively hunting you down and most or all of your teammates engaged elsewhere.
I DO have a point to get to, and that's that the first people to react when you knock over a barrel are going to be those opponents, and its not going to be by coming to your aid. In addition, by knocking down these barrels you're also eliminating your own cover.
Okay, I know you'll probably yell at me, like you do everyone else, but here' goes....
Yell? Did somebody manage to sneak a .wav file onto this page without my knowing? :)
I know that I have a 50 - 50 chance of my enemy being spread out.
Would you mind letting me know how you arrived at that conclusion? To my knowledge, there is no way to calculate the probability of troop formations with that little information.
So what I must do is make sure I can kill all the enemy units not in the base (of course living is first priority). I would leave my area as fast but as quietly as possible, and hope another team member doesn't kill me. I am going to guess there is an even # of enemy units in the field. And probably more that 2, more than 4, and I think 6 is still out numbered out of 10(us), so I am willing to go with 8, 10, or maybe 12. The barrels are metal so they probably reflect so if I see any tiny, yet bright little sparkler box thingies I shall put them out by stepping on them, so I don't waste water - hell, if I am in a suit that fire doesn't hurt - so be it.
"bright little sparkler box thingies" . . . . . is that the technical term?
Yah, I know what your going to say, the enemy will notice them go down quick - if I am out of there ASAP, I can probably get into a different, not hidden, but different location. Now, how must I take out the guys? Lets see, we have XP110s. That's it - I full 110. So I REALLY GOTTA CONSERVE WATER. I need to make sure I hit, so my only conclusion is I must see them soooo.......I must use the fireworks to my advantage, so I can see the enemy so I shall shoot as soon as a spark fountain box thing pops up, I step on mine and start firing into silhouettes (is that correct spelling??)
(it is now)
and hope its not my own guy. This is very misleading. I know I have made a lot of mistakes, but, oh well....this is ONLY A POW......! So I need a signal to see if its my guy or not. I cannot communicate verbally, so I must find a marking on their outfits. I am guessing its color. SO.....if my allies are wearing blue and my enemies are wearing red that would help a bit but the metal reflections can be a BAD thing, when determining colors. I will try to take as many guys as I can, I don't know if I'll last. I am not good at these POWs, but I had to post. I am willing to say there are only 8 guys....am I right? Or do you not know?
~Kupan Kupek
Congratulations, you're the first person to decide to do anything other than try to deal directly with your most recent two assailants!
Actually, I can't think of anything directly bad about that particular plan -- it could go either way, but its not critically flawed.
Well, you don't know much about the enemy arsenal, so it's difficult to come up with an exact plan. But I know that I have very little chance of winning this alone.
"You and the other 5 of your team's 10 members?" Unless I'm five people, that doesn't make sense.
Sorry, that should have read "You and another 5 of your team's 10 members". It has been corrected.
So I would simply run away, firing like mad and trying to go through fireworks to create a distraction.
~Nathan M G Hannon
You make up fully 10% of your side's personnel. That means that if you become useless in any way (ie you stop fighting, are eliminated by whatever rules are in effect, or whatever) your side is suddenly down 10%, which is pretty significant for this early in the battle.
Besides, if you wanted to create a DISTRACTION, you should go for the domino effect with the barrels <wicken grin>.
I'd take a used up and dead firework and throw it as a diversion
By all rights, especially in this situation, that trick ought to work -- but my experience is that the chances of success for that type of distraction (throwing something over to a place where you aren't) are practically nill.
and then I'd go to the left, run and strafe as i go along. I'd then duck behind some cover assuming there is any. I'd then look for my partner with my remaining time and then use the ambush shown in "Flash Flood" if I find him. (ambush: I Hide behind a barrel and my partner goes on the other side of the barrel and lures the enemies to go past me while I give chase and pick them off).
Flash Flood singles that ambush out enough for you to call it "THE ambush shown in 'Flash Flood'"? I think I'd better have a small, tactical chat with that webmaster . . . . .
Not all that impressive a plan, most notably marked for failure by the fact that its generally very easy to tell that someone WANTS you to follow them, even if they try to conceal it. Besides, they couldn't follow at any reasonable speed anyway, between the ever-dimming twilight and the apparent obstacle course of barrels littering the battlefield.
If I cant find my partner I will use a standard ambush on my enemy's base.
"Standard ambush"? The day any such classification can exist is the day not even the best tactics in the world could make a waterfight interesting. Where are you getting this stuff?
If all went wrong I'd retreat as quickly and stealthly to my base as possible.
~Chris "Weasel" Biesele
Now THERE'S a practical idea! No matter how appealing the idea of some heroic deed is (such as saving the day for the attack on the enemy base by coming at them from another side), such unplanned acts of teamwork are usually doomed to failure. Returning to base to help with the defense (which could undoubtedly be easily reorganized to allow for another defender) is a good idea.
However, there's the tradeoff of your teammates probably still expecting to get SOME help from you . . . . . .