Hi

Another wall of Text

TL;DR
I suggest we use forums and websites to pass static information on Vanduul systems and Twitter #tags to pass real time tactical information


One questions that has been coming in up is how are we going to communicate. Team speak and Mumble are just fine for tactical coms for small teams but are limited and unless participants are very disciplined will walk on each other making communications impossible.

So how are we going to communicate to thousands let alone tens of thousands of "Forkers" ?

There are two ways to pass information. "Push" and "Pull".

Pull is where the end user goes looking for information when needed. As an example us checking the RSI web site to see the latest funding level

Push is where the information is given to you as it develops. As an example a emergency weather bulletin on TV.

I suggest we use both methods for Pitchfork operations.

As we scout Vanduul space we will update a map or a forum with the latest information on static points of interest in Vanduul space. Anyone can go to this site and see what they are and pull the information they need at their convenience

Once Pitchfork Kicks off we will use Twitter #tags to push real time tactical data between strike groups. Nice part about it is, Forkers will be able to just follow the #hash tags in their area of interest then change the tags they are following as their AO changes. This will act as a filter so no one is flooded with information

At this time we don't know what tools CIG is going to give us to coordinate, odd are they will be good, but not good enough to coordinate tens of thousands of players, so we need tools to augment them.

So I setup a twitter account for Pitchfork (@_sailor67), and we will be testing it during the DFM. Anyone who wants to follow me is welcome, fair warning I am not going to be twitting much until the DFM.

As with every idea please feel free to knock holes in it or otherwise comment

I suggest YouTube briefings on tactics.

Good idea we are talking about an aggressor squadron of scythes to train against, there are not a lot of them so you tube video's of what works and what does not would be helpful and multiply our effectiveness 

I personally dislike Twitter but this seems like one of the simplest ways to do this. Twitter will reach most people faster than posting the same information on the forums will.

One point to consider when it comes to communication is who needs the information.

Twitter is effective at getting word out to everyone and I see this as being especially useful for informing lone wolves.

For more organised groups only the commanders of groups really need the information. If this ends up being the case a dedicated command and control teamspeak or mumble server could be effective (depending on numbers) for distributing information quickly amongst the largest groups involved. For those who know Planetside 2 it could act something like the leader channel.

This may not be logistically feasible but I'm just putting it out there. Also I think the videos are a great idea.

Well the first briefing we can do is on the performance of the Scythe. It'll take the best of us a few weeks to get good enough to really even analyze *any* ship in a meaningful manner, so I guess we could get the first one out not much sooner than New Years'. Hmm, I wonder if we could do greenscreen/costume thing just to get it more attention. It'd be a while before we could do a follow-up, though.

I'd suggest that ship analysis briefings be a lower priority thing, with importance being placed on player/ship roles and how Pitchfork co-ordination will function.

Twitter is a great idea, but it could be too cumbersome for people unable to alt-tab out of the game (hoping windowed mode is manageable). Luckily MattK came to the rescue by reminding me can just pull up a smartphone and have it running on the desk next to us or something.

For communicating with the general particiants in Pitchfork, let me repost my idea of "rebroadcasters." We have a bunch of people communicating updates over TeamSpeak and collaborating with the various organisation / squadron leaders, who send updates to the rebroadcasters to simply spam over whatever proximity chat is available. Simple, easy, probably effective.

We also have a Teamspeak/Mumble thread going where some of these ideas have been floated. Check it out.

I have twitter, but never really use it. I might have to get it on my phone for this op, and a helper monkey to keep refreshing it for me.

We will certainly need a number of VERY large TS/Mumble servers. Does anyone know the max size those platforms can support?

512 I think, but I could really be wrong there, that said, that many people on one net, is problematic. The military does not put that many on one net. Communications discipline is very hard to develop, so I see TS and Mumble primarily as a tactical tool at the strike group level  

WOD and Christopher had an idea of using IRC, that has potential as a leaders net (See below)




Christopher   Enosh   
Posted: 4:33am Nov 3, 2013

    sailor67 | sailor67 said:


    I remember IRC, thing about twitter is the "Off PC" potential on tablets and smart phones, so no ALT tabbing needed..

Plenty of IRC clients that can be used on a second screen device, such as a tablet or phone. An advantage to IRC is the ability to create secure channels as well as moderated channels.

Christopher   Enosh   
Posted: 2:00pm Nov 3, 2013

    sailor67 | sailor67 said:


    Interesting we are seriously going to have to look at that

Take a look at AndroIRC (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.androirc) and TapChat (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tapchatapp.android) for Android as some examples. TapChat has the advantage of leveraging an agent running on a PC somewhere to allow you to maintain connectivity and receive push notifications from the IRC channel without killing the phone's battery.

Using IRC would also allow us to limit information flow from unreliable sources, unless I'm mistaken with twitter anyone could post to a tag. This may allow a faster com cycle, but makes it incredibly simple for people looking to harm the operation to introduce misinformation to disrupt us.

Very true.

agreed, which is a weakness in twitter, but preponderance of information should be good enough given our numbers. Plus factoring in the friend mechanic, we get a tweet that is bogus asking for help at X, no one knows him so can't get to his instance so would never move in that direction.. kind of a self correcting problem..
We may want to use IRC for leader net at the guild/strike team level.

On a side note it is early to talk about this and off topic to boot but a priority is going to be figuring out how to reinforce a specific instance..

 

I don't think IRC would be ideal. As a communications platform it's great and I love it, but it's a little more technically obtuse, it's easier to convolute information there and harder to actually process information from it.

Plus, sending out text updates via phone or tablet will be relatively laborious and attention consuming. If I have to do that, I'm going to alt tab instead.

With Twitter we could ditch the hashtag idea and simply only send out updates via an "official" Twitter account, like sailor's.

Strategic / leader communication should be done over voice chat. I agree with sailor in that only the people at the top and the various co-ordinating people need to be provided for; if participating groups want to have a server to communicate amongst themselves we can simply request other organisations to host them temporarily.

Very good points Harker.

Harker, there's only so much we can do at a time. We can get structure down now with modifications later, but after that, that's pretty much it until a month or two before the op. Might as well do what we can in the meantime to maintain interest.

I do like the idea of twitter as a means of communication for the masses. IRC is harder for me personally to follow, just because it often scrolls too fast for me to keep up during high-tempo moments in gaming or other activities.

Twitter has a couple of built in advantages. I think we need to clearly lay out these advantages and disadvantages so we can better compare them. I'll start, feel free to copy paste and modify it by including or subtracting (please use strikethrough for that) pertinent points.

Twitter-

• Pros:

• Compartmentalization. People can subscribe to tweeters and #hashtags.


• Brevity of information. With only 140 characters, people can't ramble on, it forces them to get to the point and stay there.


• Horizontal Data Dissemination. By using #hashtags, non-leaders can disseminate info to an entire relevant group at one time.


• Cross Platform Availability. You can knock out a tweet on your secondary device such as a phone or tablet quickly for those who have any of those available


• After Action Archive. Players waking up and joining or rejoining the fight can skim the tweets to see how the fight has gone


• Limits Sabotage. Someone trying to spread bad info is only going to be able to do it to one #hashtag group at a time, and if no one is following the saboteur, it gets even less exposure

• Cons:

• Info Overload. Not everyone will be interested in having to keep track of a twitter feed while playing.


• Info Navigation Induced Lag. Trying to figure out how to navigate all of the inbound tweets can slow some people's reactions to new developments down.

Feel free to riff off of this.[/list][/list][/list][/list]

Most people here seem to be in favour of Twitter. It would definitely be easier to use on a tablet or phone than IRC, and we don't really need private or moderated channels anyway.

Twitter would be good, but I think if we are using voice communication like TeamSpeak, we should try for layered communication levels. There would be four levels of access and three channel levels:

☺ Ordinary Pilots: Would only have access to only their instance's communications channels. They could speak, but would need to exercise communications discipline. They need to focus fully on combat, so would not have the burden of managing which TeamSpeak channel they are in or dealing with information overload.

☺ C&C Officers: Would have access to their instance's communications channels AND access to division channels. They would hear division communications, analyze, and use this information to adapt their orders to their instances. They could switch to speaking in the division channels when they need to give situation reports for their instance. We'd need divisions because it's possible we could fill up a channel with C&C officers even if only 3 from each instance participated. And even if not, it might be undesirably distracting for constant, live reports from every instance.

☺ Strategic Officers: Would have access to division channels and high command. This would be a very small minority of our players. There would be one strategic officer assigned to each division channel, and would report to their divisions as well as to high command. These guys are basically helping decide high-end strategy in the high command channel, and receiving reports as well as giving commands in the division channels.

☺ High Command: Only a very few people would ONLY have access to high command. They would focus their attention on absorbing all the reports given to them by strategic officers and making high-end strategic decisions.

We could have a main lobby with an admin in it, so as more Forkers show up, the admin could make extra pilot lobbies as they're filled up by people who have teamed up.

Kind of like a traffic cop.

@Knight, That could work

Ben: Yeah, we'd probably need something like that. In that case, the Strategic Officers would advise the traffic cops on which instances need more pilots, and what type (bomber, support, superiority, crew, etc.).

I don't know if we'd be able to direct them to specific instances that way, since we won't know where they are in the game world. But if we can direct them to shared communication they might group up with each other in game based on who they're talking to, as human nature is prone to compel. That might help quite a deal when it comes to getting the entire event organized in some manner.

Dealing with multiple voice channels can get very confusing, especially in the heat of battle.  I propose that at each step we alternate voice and text communication.  For example:

A Division and its CO - voice
Division COs and their Squadron CO - text
Squadron COs and their Fleet CO - voice
Fleet COs and High Command - text
High Command - voice

This way, everyone receives orders from his superiors via text, then relays those orders and conducts all other communications at that level through voice.  There will be no confusion over whether you're talking to a subordinate or a superior.  Everyone above the Division level will be able to simply type their orders, and know that they won't be misheard (as long as they watch for typos) or need to be repeated.

As far as what to use for text communication, there are many options.  IRC seems to be a popular idea.  I'm going to suggest something that may surprise you: GroupMe.  Believe it or not, my business actually uses it for some fairly important communications.  It's incredibly simple to setup (you don't need to be tech-savvy at all), it's near-instantaneous (faster than SMS), it comes in a flavor for just about any phone or tablet platform (Android, iOS, Windows Phone), and there's even a web client now.  You could easily have a device dedicated to it during the Op, and it could be anything from your phone to a Smart TV (incredibly useful if a group of COs have a LAN party).  Perhaps best of all, you don't need to set up a server and it costs nothing to use.

Twitter would probably be fine for updating the whole Op; I don't think it's a good choice for the people who are actually in combat.  Just my 2¢.

A command structure with more than two or three levels is a bad idea.

Preset instance commanders probably won't work (unless we can reliably get certain people into instances) and people are unlikely to follow their orders anyway. Any voice chat that involves general pilots probably won't be very useful (because there's no way you'll get a significant portion of players into the same server, let alone those in the same instance).