New Guy Questions on Fire Support in Flashpoint Campaigns Player Edition

[edmuel]

Hello,

I've run through the tutorial scenario a second time now, as NATO, and I was curious to see how the FSCC handled fire support. So I checked that box up front and let it ride. The effect seemed to be no effect: there was no artillery or mortar fire (that I could see) for multiple cycles (and there were plenty of targets and threats).

Then I tried assigning artillery to direct support--again, no fires resulted.

During these periods, there were no notices of fire support assetts displacing or doing counterbattery.

I finally shrugged and just kept scrolling through the mortars and artillery and assigning barrages, which worked (so it wasn't that the fire support units weren't available or responsive). I could see, however, that clicking through all the fire support could become unmanageable.

So, my questions are:
1.What does direct support actually do in game terms (the manual is vague on this)?
2. Other than assigning a fire support assett to provide direct support to a particular unit, is there some other step that I'm missing?
3. What are the signs that the FSCC is handling fires? (Is there someplace that I can review the FS que?).
4. Am I missing an in-game step of some kind that needs to be done to prompt fires when the FSCC control box is ticked?

Thanks,
Ed M

[CapnDarwin]

1. If an arty unit is placed in Direct Support of a given unit, it will be on call for a rapid response to any target that DS unit calls in. The downside is the arty unit is not available for anyone else.
2. In most cases, you are not going to want to set arty to a DS setup. It would be situational such as DS for a recon unit at the start of a battle.
3. There will be messages that pop up saying unit X firing on location Y from FSCC or something like that.
4. Not really. Requests get generated by units on the map that spot enemies and those requests go through an evaluation that decides if and how a target is going to be fired on. The tutorial is a weird setup and the smaller number of units in many cases generally falls below an engagement threshold. The tutorial in many cases sees the OpFor get hammered by tanks and infantry before the arty get any clear juicy targets. In those cases, it's better to do your own plotting of fires. In bigger scenarios with more air and arty (and targets, lots of targets) the FSCC really does its job.

[edmuel]

Got it, thanks. I played another scenario and saw the automated fire support kick in.

Best,
Ed M

[CapnDarwin]

If you have any other questions, let us know. [8D]