Domination and Evolution : Someone pls explain !

[longers 10]

Hi

can someone explain to me exactly what the co-op modes domination and evolution are ?

i just assumed co-op was co-op... ie : you had a mission and you went and did it. I had no idea there were 2 different types of co-op (or are there more ???).

If someone could explain what domination is and also what evolution is then i would really appreciate it.

I wish the manual included stuff like this, the manual is so disappointing, it missed out so many important things which noobs need to know !

[Nowyoudie 0]

Domination was one of the more popular gamemodes where you are assigned random missions to do all over the island/land and Evolution was more of a capture the town, one next town after the next until there was nothing left to capture on the island. Then you get to dance at the end... lol.

[Windexglow 10]

The game's loading screen should have had

A: Gametype info. What the servers gametype is, and what it means. Most people in public servers can barely tell who the hell an enemy is. Hell, I've had a friendly look at me for several seconds than shoot me. He apologized and didn't see him tk again, but still.

B: The objective. What each side is doing. The first time I played online I had no idea what to do - What town to assault, what the enemy had, ect. It didn't help that 3 people on our team were tking spawns and those who escaped that went off in different directions.

[sirex 0]

one point to note, the manual cant contain info on this, as evo and domination are made by the community.

Thats one of the joys of arma, the ability for nearly everything in the game to be made and altered by third parties. The downside is people blame the game for bugs that arnt the game, but the mission.

[Wynthorpe 10]

Evo = RUBBISH!

[Balgorg 10]

Domination is when you pin someone and shout at them, evolution is darwinian.

[Thirdup 0]

I had no idea there were 2 different types of co-op (or are there more ???).

Many more, limited only to the imagination of the mission designers.

Another very popular co-op is "WACO" (a variant of the Warefare design). WACO is a "capture the island" scenario with two opposing sides and bases fighting a third local resistance faction at the same time. Each team allocates resources (gained from capture and salvage) and builds what it can afford to put into battle. WACO hasn't made it into ARMA2 yet, as far as I know.

I wish the manual included stuff like this, the manual is so disappointing, it missed out so many important things which noobs need to know !

These games (missions) have so many various custom scripts, user interfaces, controls, etc....there is no way it would fit into one manual. But these are player-made missions running player-designed scripts....not really from BIS (thus not in the game manual).

[kylania 568]

Domination is pretty nice I think.

tl;dr = teamwork!, attack cities in order, teleport to MHQ, never touch a helo.

You're assigned a city to attack (red circle on the map) and both a primary (clear all defenders) and secondary (usually an assassinate the Governor or something mission inside the city) goals. Reinforcements will keep arriving till the radio tower in the town is blown up by two satchels.

Along with this are side missions that you can do optionally that give your side bonus vehicles to use.

The most important thing to remember is that vehicles aren't toys. Also, teamwork wins. There are many ways of getting to the cities you're supposed to attack but the Mobile HQ (MHQ or sometimes LKW) is the most important one. It's a vehicle anyone (sadly...) can drive. The point of the Domination game is to get this vehicle to near the front lines at which point soldiers can use the Flag Pole in base to teleport to it. This vehicle should be kept safe and not driven into combat. It's not someone's taxi.

Neither are the helicopters. Vehicles won't respawn back to base if they are left in the field, which means when someone takes a helicopter to fly to an area and leaves it in a field and dies, someone else needs to go pick that helo back up and return it to base. Helicopters can also pick up vehicles (such as the MHQ) and airlift them. Don't fly too close to the target zone or anti-aircraft will get you. There is one specific helo which should never be flown by anyone at all which can be used to bring wrecks of vehicles back to base to restore them. Usually pub players will just fly the new A-10 into the ground and forget about. Be team minded and clean up your messes! :)

The MHQ also allows you to use a menu on it to create a mountain bike or motorcycle if the only safe spot is too far to reasonably walk from the combat zone. Also the same flag pole allows you to parachute anywhere on the map. So remember, there's never a reason to use a vehicle unless you know what you're doing. Along those same lines, public servers aren't the place to learn to fly. Do that in the editor.

So basically in Domination, let an experienced driver get the MHQ into place, then teleport to it and support the assault on the current city. Once resolved, repair (if you're an engineer) vehicles and move on to the next city. While doing this people will often do side missions as well.

Evolution is similar in scope, but it's a series of city assaults (along with destroying the radio towers) however many servers are "ranked", meaning until you gain points (1pt per kill, 10pts if you're in the city when it's taken) and gain rank you can't use many weapons or vehicles. Bugs and stupid players often lead to the few anyone-can-use vehicles being lost early. There is an MHQ + HALO + teleport options for getting into combat in this game mode as well.

Rather than gaining bonus vehicles in Evolution the 'nice' vehicles are limited to those with high scores. You can also do personal side missions and recruit AI to fight in your squad as well. Though both of these options (and also attacking a different city instead of the current city) often lead to bad lag on the server.

In each of the game modes people have specific roles, like Medic, Engineer, Sniper, Artillery and so on. Each has things they can do that others can't. So if you're a Medic, please watch for people that need healing and help them out. If you're an Engineer you'll often have to spend a lot of time recovering vehicles or repairing them, so PLEASE never play as an engineer unless you're willing to do that. In some game modes you can set up MG bunkers or AT launchers depending on your profession as well.

Both games have either a Show Status window or a press-T-to-access-it window that gives information and options for your game. Explore those options.

Both games can be a very very rewarding experience if everyone works as a team, cooperates and plays their role. Team killing, ignorant players, noobie pilots and other such disruptions can lead to these being the most annoying of game modes as well, so find a nice server with nice people and cherish it. :)

Edited July 1, 2009 by kylania
tl;dr

[Surge72 10]

Thanks soooo much for that post kylania. Its about time someone explained with some effort what was involved in each of these kind of missions.

I, like the OP, was completely lost when I first went online (so haven't really ventured back yet), and I must say that the Arma 2 online community (in pubs anyway) is not very community-esque, if you know what I mean. No one seems to bother helping anyone who asks questions.

[RoccoDW 10]

Agree! Thanks for the post kylania. It makes things a lot easier if we know what's expected from players on servers.

[Arasaka 10]

I just wanted to chime in with thanks to kylania as well!

I had worked out some the hard way, but that very helpful post filled in a few more of the blanks for me.

[Murklor 10]

The most important thing to remember is that vehicles aren't toys. Also, teamwork wins. There are many ways of getting to the cities you're supposed to attack but the Mobile HQ (MHQ or sometimes LKW) is the most important one. It's a vehicle anyone (sadly...) can drive. The point of the Domination game is to get this vehicle to near the front lines at which point soldiers can use the Flag Pole in base to teleport to it. This vehicle should be kept safe and not driven into combat. It's not someone's taxi.

That's pretty nice to know, considering it isnt explained at all ingame, bleh. Both gameplay modes are really far too complicated to just "go ahead and join".

[Emberwolf 0]

Domination has two mobile respawns, which are LAV-HQs. These can load ammo boxes at base, and drop them when they're situated near the misson area. Also, anybody can spawn a motorcycle or a mountain bike from an MHQ, although depending on server settings there may be a time limit before you can make another. Spawning a personal vehicle can be useful, especially since the LAV-HQs can only hold two people. LAV-HQs can be hauled around by Lift Choppers (all non-Wreck Blackhawks).

The optimal setup is to place an MHQ near the main mission area, and one MHQ near the side mission. When a placed MHQ is to be moved, it can reload it's dropped ammo box.

Blackhawks can load and place ammo boxes as well.

When a Domination main mission area is cleared, a flag pole is spawned in the town (indicated on the map) which will allow you to parajump anywhere on the map. (While efficient and helpful, I've found that Evo is better regarding a finished town regardless of a lack of a teleport out since it has MV-22's available and the extraction is a little more exciting, but that's what I've personally seen so far.)

The wreck chopper should be placed near the wreck pad away from the main spawn, to keep random people from using it as a transport. The wreck chopper should only be used to fetch wrecks, and there's only one of them. From what I've seen in public servers, people get really insanely bitchy and whiny about the wreck chopper, even if you're playing a very tight, efficient dedicated wreck hauling/repairing role. :j: I guess they don't want you to recover the useful vehicles, they just want their toy back that takes forever to repair and gets shot down 15 seconds after taking off every damn time.

I don't know if it's the server settings or what, but my experience with Domination is that there are just frigging assloads of Tungs patrolling the map, which just makes it more aggravating when someone monopolizes the wreck pad with aircraft that don't actually accomplish anything the whole session by constantly getting shot down.

[twisted 128]

one question about show status for comination. i was told i could switch on freindly tags so i could ID a temamte rather than killing them by mistake (not used to some of the newer uniforms for arma2 yet).

but i could not figure it out. any one help on how to switch on friendly tags via show status?

[Murklor 10]

When a Domination main mission area is cleared, a flag pole is spawned in the town (indicated on the map) which will allow you to parajump anywhere on the map. (While efficient and helpful, I've found that Evo is better regarding a finished town regardless of a lack of a teleport out since it has MV-22's available and the extraction is a little more exciting, but that's what I've personally seen so far.)

I noticed that... And it required 10 points to allow a paradrop. I had 9 :rolleyes:

I'm a complete noob at both modes, having only played them for a couple of days and my main question is:

Why dont they join forces and make a singular, simple and rich gameplay mode combining the best features of them? Having two modes, that are sort of similar yet different is incredibly confusing. For example Domination can airlift vehicles, afaik Evolution cannot. Yet people run around in Evolution yelling for airlifts. Ranks appear to be working much better in Evo than Dom. A ton of minor things.

I'd rather have a single mode with 2 different map paths than 2 different gameplay modes that are nearly the same.

[Thirdup 0]

Why dont they join forces and make a singular, simple and rich gameplay mode combining the best features of them?

Different mod designers with different visions. There's nothing to stop someone else from doing what you suggest (but nothing is going to appeal to everyone). Clans will tweek EVO and DOMI missions to suit thier playstyles. Things that you see as "best features" may not be something that another clan sees as even viable. Different strokes...

ymmv

[bwc153 10]

Evo = RUBBISH!

Apparently you havent played the correct evolution servers... i play on a server that is team speak mandetory and we have teamwork 95% of the time, unless were testing something with the server host/mission maker. All people who join to TK all the good members of the server have access to be admin to get rid of them, often they turn cheats on for them selves to kill the TKer till he leaves, but sometimes they just kick them. The server for all people who dont know is "ULTIMATE COMBAT"

[jonneymendoza 10]

what is the rts type of mission?

[galzohar 31]

what is the rts type of mission?

cti/warfare, neither of which is the topic of this thread though.