New Character Question.

[PFC. Joey Toniatti]

Now I've been looking to make a Character in a paratrooper division for a while now and I've decided to ask everyone if it would be possible to make a character in the 101st just for the neutral purpose. It's not like he'll drop into every single battle but i'd love to be able to make the 101st down the road if possible. So what are the odds of this being possible?

~Adam

[Nathan Whyte]

Well, you can make him, you can say he's in the 101st, BUT, he won't actually be in any division, so you're limited in what NPC's you can have.

[PFC. Joey Toniatti]

Well I plan on trying to make the 101st a division on here Nate.

~Adam

[PuNk! ™]

Hey Adam, just thought I would have my say on this character idea, because since the beginning of IO, paratroopers (ironic enough, the 101st Airbourne Division) has been a hot topic with quite a few members. Particularly American patriots who've either seen Band of Brothers or know of the 101st campaign during the war and so forth, wish to create the airbourne division or have the airbourne division on this site.

So from the beginning, it's been a tricky discussion and debate amongst the staff on how we could even allow paratroopers to be a part of this site. There are numerous accounts we have to take into consideration and we have discussed it many times in the past, but the schemes are always foggy and unclear.

Just to highlight a few areas of concern are:

• Members dropping into a battle (airbourne style). First of all, we've discussed NPC automated aircrafts dropping members and NPC soldiers into a battle, but then we have the problem of, well, if you can have automated NPC aircrafts doing the job, then that puts pilots at a redudancy and poor advantage.
  
  The next area of concern is, well, if member pilots could drop paratroopers into battle, then we lack a quantity of pilots already and besides, pilots in an airbourne division is a no-go. They could certainly be support for any division, regardless, but either way you look at it, how do paratroopers get dropped into a battle without concequences on either side of the scale.
  
  Following? To top that, this also rules out the paratrooper scheme of dropping behind enemy lines. Usually, in most cases, paratroopers were dropped in designated locations miles from their targets. How would this work in a battle? In other words, we couldn't simply allow paratroopers to drop straight on the enemy's head in every battle, not only would paratroopers be completely murdered during their drop, but the target zones during a battle (being miles away) would be uncanny to put into a hostile thread, because battle maps are MILES in terrain, other than the exception for campaign battles now and again.
  
  So overall, there's a lot of problems with that.
  Do we allow paratroopers to drop straight into a battle? How do they drop into the battle - member or NPC aircrafts? Is it even worth them dropping into a battle, considering drop zones were primarily miles from their objectives? So you'd end up "walking" into the battle anyway?
  
  
• Another area of concern is the NPCs.
  It's easy enough to suggest units and bring them to the table, but how do you outfit a paratrooper differently to any other soldier? Also, their costs would be significantly higher, because of their special training and even equipment.
  
  So getting an airbourne division off the ground would be a long winded battle within it's self. We couldn't simply price the standard paratrooper soldier the same as an ordinary grunt, because of their significant expertise differences. Both were soldiers, obviously, but with different training and so forth.
  
  So the NPC scale would be tricky to get right. Without pricing the paratroopers with a taxing effect that meant they would be difficult to attain, whilst giving them the fighting bonuses that made them a special soldier capable of handling real heated situations. Paratroopers were trained to be surrounded by the enemy and hence forth, making them a more expertised and skilled soldier within certain situations.
  
  
• So overall, there's a lot to take into consideration and we all find ourselves asking the same questions after all the debating...
  
  - Is it worth adding these units? If technically, 90% of the battles would just conclude having the paratroopers walking to their objectives (on here, during battle), because skirmish maps are significantly smaller and primarily of the hotzone where the battle will take place.
  
  - Will this put the pilots at a bad disadvantage? They're limited in numbers already and without member piloting aircrafts for the drop, the paratrooper members would want an alternative to replace the lack of pilots with an NPC piloted aircraft.
  
  Which then, not only puts pilots out of work, but also knocks the worth of all transport aircrafts, if you could simply purhcase an NPC drop into battle, rather than risk your own aircrafts and member pilots' lives.
  
  - Is it worth going to all this trouble...?
  
  So there's a lot of areas to take into concern. It's not just easy to add a whole new aspect of soldier and their specialities onto the site, without taking everything into consideration. Right now, there doesn't seem to be any point in adding paratroopers, when battles are mainly fought on a foot-basis on the battlefield and there's a lack of any major battles occuring, that paratrooper support isn't required.
  
  Epic Campaigns - well, they could test this whole paratrooper idea out. I'm willing to start something in time to come, testing these areas out, to see whether it's worth adding. Right now, paratroopers are completely pointless for the site's current occuring battles and overall, have too many issues and problems tied with them; when we could instead develop another speciality of soldier in it's place.
  
  Hope that shows some of the problems with paratroopers at the moment and why, us staff, aren't so eager to have them developed with all their tied problems.
  ~Danny
  

[PFC. Joey Toniatti]

Well the Paratrooper thing would be more or less for the Neutral background purpose. If one were to say they dropped into battle they're first introductory post would consist of the character and they're soldiers dropping in before the skirmish and walking into the battle(or the objective) and fighting from there.

Now for the equipment of Paratroopers(Allied at least) I believe the paratrooper would be the same except for the regular M1 rifle would be swapped out for an M1 Carbine and that would be the only difference I can see.

Lastly, I'd like to just add in that if one were to make a paratrooper they would not drop into every battle(Probably wouldn't drop into any battle) and the fact that they are a paratrooper is the same as a member of the 3ID is that of an infantry soldier.

I would gladly do the research and make this a project of mine if the staff wanted me to as I am the one that wants to see this happen. I'm glad to take the initiative to get this started if the staff would welcome this into the site. Once again a paratrooper would have to meet certain specs like having a more advanced application perhaps? Or even limit the amount if you feel everyone is becoming a paratrooper to get the M1 carbine. Your choice PuNk, I'm just offering to help.

~Adam

[Mac Bargett]

A while ago, I had some ideas about how to implement paratroopers here, but I don't think I told anyone, I guess I'll give the suggestions now.

1. Actual member pilots would fly transports to bring in NPC paratroopers to become reinforcements under the control of their ally on the ground. NPC pilots would bring in member paratroopers, or maybe only fly transports with member troopers.

2. Paratroopers could distinguish themselves from other reinforcements by arriving faster. Say, paratroopers would arrive the posting round after being called in, mobile infantry take 2, footsoldiers take 3, tanks take 4.

3. Paratroopers would counter their greater skills (if any) and speed with exchanging their ammo packs for parachutes. Then ammo caches are dropped with them, forcing them to stay in one general area, and not fight the entire battle. Also, gliders would count as ammo caches.

There you go, they aren't completely realistic, but like you said PuNk!, realism would be putting them behind enemy lines. They are just ideas I wrote down when there were rumors about having to start air division, take them or leave them.