Wolf Pack Operating Procedures

allquixotic

Commander
Jun 12, 2016
9
42
100
RSI Handle
Tiyuk
Wolf Pack Operating Procedures Proposal



Goal: Develop an efficient set of procedures for organizing parties for small scale PvE/PvP groups.

Designed for:
  • 4 to 8 players.
  • Supports multi-person ships.
  • Designed to fully man every turret on multi-person ships.
  • FAST setup and organization of groups.
  • PvE and PvP supported.

Roles

No prior experience or position of authority within TEST is required for any role.

  • Alpha: Coordinates the wolf pack.
  • Beta: Part of the wolf pack. Pilots a ship with at least one turret.
  • Gamma: Part of the wolf pack. Pilots a one-seater ship OR mans a turret.

The Process

Stage One: Assemble Group

This stage can be as simple as hopping on Discord and shouting out in General, "Hey, does anyone want to form a wolf pack?" Or any other way you want to get a group together.

Once the group is assembled, go into a separate voice channel in Discord that only contains the wolf pack's members.

Stage Two: Pick an Alpha

Figure out who's going to be the Alpha. Recommended capabilities for a good Alpha include:

  • Loud, clear microphone.
  • Stable Internet.
  • No technical issues that would interfere with fast and easy alt-tabbing between Discord and SC, or has two monitors so you can always see Discord while playing.
  • Decently high-end gaming rig (so they're not the last person loading).
  • Ability to dedicate at least a couple hours to the game with very low chance of disruption (switching alphas can be very disruptive to a wolf pack).
  • Lots of patience.

Picking a good Alpha is very important, but in the spirit of TEST, this guide has no advice on how to pick the Alpha. Each group will have to discuss it among themselves and come to a consensus.

Stage Three: Contact List and Party Formation

Members of the Pack may add each other to their contacts lists as they wish, but it is ESSENTIAL that the Alpha add every pack member as their friend, and that everyone adds the Alpha as their friend.

Do this in the game by launching Star Citizen, then from the Main Menu click Universe, then type in the box at the top of the "CONTACTS" list that displays, the RSI Tag of the Alpha, then click Add.

To refresh the status of a friend's online/offline status, you must exit out to the "MAIN MENU" screen of SC. No need to restart the game or launcher. They will appear offline until you have both friended each other!

Once everyone can see the Alpha as online, the Alpha will form the party (max 8 players as of 2.4).

At this stage, every member of the pack should be sitting at the SC "MAIN MENU" screen and should NOT enter the game.

Stage Four: Pick Ships

I know people like to chit-chat, but this stage goes a lot quicker if everyone keeps quiet and lets the Alpha direct the process until the ships are decided. Your cooperation is appreciated!

BEFORE joining an instance of Port O, decide which ships the team is going to use.

The Alpha is responsible for approving each ship. This is intended to ensure that there are enough turret gunners to max out the turrets on every ship. The only exception to this is if the Alpha or a Beta feels strongly that a particular turret is underpowered (balance issues) and should not be used.

To decide which ships to requisition, the Alpha will go into Discord and, in an order of their choosing, let each member call out the ship they would prefer to pilot, or say "gunner" if they want to man a turret.

Each member who requests to pilot a ship must state the total number of people who can man that ship as either a pilot or turret gunner. So for example, for an Aurora it would be "Aurora one". For the two-seater Super Hornet you'd say "Super Hornet two". This prevents the Alpha from having to memorize how many seats there are in each ship.

Once the Alpha has heard from everybody, they will decide which ships get requisitioned and who will pilot them. The Alpha's decision is final, end of story.

Here's an example of how an Alpha can decide the ship complement...

The pack consists of 8 players, "A" through "H". Here's what they each say on TS:

  • A: "Starfarer Gemini four!"
  • B: "Cutlass Black two!"
  • C: "Connie Andromeda three!"
  • D: "Gunner!"
  • E: "Gunner!"
  • F: "Aurora LX one!"
  • G: "Super Hornet two!"
  • H: "Gunner!"

Now, Alpha, the total number of "fighting seats" (seats with a turret OR the pilot seat) in the requested ships is 4+2+3+1+2=12, but you only have 8 people.
So you need to reduce the ship pool until the number of fighting seats exactly equals the number of players in the wolf pack, unless one of the turrets is badly underpowered or every member of the group is an extraordinary pilot.

One way to do that for this example would be for Alpha to answer:

  • "A, Starfarer, gunners D, E, F!" (that accounts for 4 people)
  • "B, Cutlass, gunner C!"
  • "G, Super Hornet, gunner H!"

As you can see, all the fighting seats in all three ships are full, and all eight people have a seat in either a turret or piloting a ship.

Benefits of minimizing the number of ships include reduced incidence of collision, less congestion on landing pads (at Covalex and other stations where you land on a pad), and maximum effectiveness of each ship.

However, the Alpha can also suggest increasing the number of ships. If 6 out of 8 people requested to be turret gunners, he could say "F, pick a ship!" for example.

Stage Five: Instancing

The Alpha or a designee will Quick Join an instance, or if they have a friend who's in an instance with low player count, they can join that one.

Once this designated individual joins an instance, the remainder of the wolf pack is to join Port Olisar on the same instance as the person who has picked an instance.

It may take several attempts of exiting and rejoining to find an instance with enough available slots. If it's a tight fit, you can take an instance that's nearly full and let people keep re-trying over and over (Join -> see "Instance full" message -> try again) until they get in. That works too. But this method may take a long time if you have 7 people trying to get into a 24/24 instance.

Stage Six: Boarding

If you're a gunner, immediately put on your space suit once you load in, and go out onto a landing pad (any pad). Then fall off the edge and EVA up a few meters with the space bar, so you can see the top of the building associated with your strut. This makes it much easier to navigate and find your ship once it's been announced. You don't have to wait for your pilot to start doing this.

Each pilot pulls the ship they were assigned by the Alpha in Stage Four. One at a time, without talking over each other, each pilot calls out the strut letter and number of their ship. Also state your RSI handle when you call out the ship.

For example: "CosmicTrader, Freelancer, pad Alpha 10."

If you're a gunner, once your pilot calls out your pad, EVA to your ship and man a turret.

Each pilot (not gunners) will tell the Alpha, over Discord, when all gunners for their ship have come aboard. They will say something like:

"Montoya, Super Hornet, all aboard."

If you're a pilot of a single-seater or you have no gunners, just call your all aboard as soon as you get in the pilot's seat.

Stage Seven: Mission

Once the Alpha has heard an "all aboard" from every pilot, the pack can discuss free-form which missions to undertake or where to go to look for PvP.

It's important to let the Alpha make the final decision. This helps keep the pack organized. Everyone can say what they want to do, but the Alpha, once they decide, will call out a jump point for everyone to go to.

Stage Eight: Play!

This stage is pretty much unchanged from what people naturally do in these circumstances. You've got your team, you've got your ships, and you know what to do, so it's time to get down to the business of doing it. Happy TESTing!


Feedback

Feedback on this proposal is welcome. A few points first, though:

  • Use of this organizational strategy is voluntary. You don't HAVE to belong to a wolf pack, and you can do party-based grouping using other methods than this.
  • I'm posting this just in the hopes that it's useful, not to try and restrict what people can do. I'm giving an option of what a group of people can choose to do together, IF they want to.
  • If you like this idea but have suggestions for improving it, they are very welcome. However, it's possible we may not come to agreement, in which case, you are free to post your alternative as another option for people to use when they group together. However, if you do this, please title it something different, so people don't get confused.
  • I don't claim any kind of trademark or rights over the name "wolf pack", but if this term already has another use within TEST, please let me know so I can change the name.
 
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