Quarter 3 2023 Update

This quarters update is late, so I am going to keep it simple and to the point. The Community Code of Conduct (CoC) update has been completed and will be posted for and be effective as of November 1, 2023. The USA is also ending Daylights Savings Time on November 5, 2023 at 2:00am local time. This means for those located outside of the USA, meeting and operations times will be adjusting by one hour.

Like we do at every community meeting, and in each quarterly updated, we would like to thank all those that continue to donate through Patreon or Discord Server Boosting. Our Patreon supporters: Aarius, aramova, Bushman, greg_nog, Oni, Razzun, ReapsD, Sivien21, Straker, TwoGreen, Zahraphim. Your continued support is greatly appreciated and is solely used to offset the costs of the Microsoft Azure servers that host all our communication tools and SCNet website.

Discord Server Boosting gives our Discord server a little extra flair from server banners to a custom join link. Our Discord Server Boosters: Ech0Whiskey, FallenHylian, Jeffon, MantisOlthoi, NeddieSeagoon, nomad, Scrub, Sivien21, Sportswirth, Straker_Atrella, ThePeachPanther, Razzun, Zahraphim. Your continued support is greatly appreciated in boosting our server and giving us the many cool features such as the custom join URL and more additional emojis!

Division Updates

In the last quarter, VVarSecServices has continued to quash bugs and get the best out of our aging platform. This quarter’s biggest accomplishment is the big campaign put on by OP Duckett. Taking notes and building a dynamic environment styled after the current war in Ukraine – our teams of mission makers, modders, and operations planning staff worked to pull from real world tactics & lessons learned in a campaign in a fictional sector. As a testament to the skills and professionalism of all involved, including our players, we watched as our gains and battle plans were mirrored in the live-feed. To accomplish all that we did we had to undergo several staffing changes and change some of the core of our mission making process. The details of those changes are too long to list in this update, but a full ORBAT, including AI units we can allocate during missions, is available in the Workspace Discord. As a final note: some of our members have been checking out Arma Reforger, an interim game meant to let the community get a head-start for Arma4. This new game, once released, will allow us to do a majority of things we do and require in our current gameplay without the need for external communications or script heavy mods. It all looks extremely promising and the future of the series looks brighter than ever.

– ‘Fix-it’ Ferris, Arma Division Chairman, Written September 2023

Alright, Quarter 3 for Planetside 2:

This entry is going to serve as a benchmark or pulse check for how much progress has been made towards the proposed changes established in the last Quarterly Newsletter, as well as the usual recaps and looks ahead. Let’s get into it.

Operation Structure Progress Update

Let’s start with reviewing the progress we’ve made regarding operation structure. The largest points of progress have been our shift towards Construction as a Fulcrum and Dedicated Logistics. We have been able to utilize Construction and multiple spawn points more frequently as a result of more folks focusing on logistics more frequently or for the first time. There have been far fewer instances of lack of spawns or necessary vehicles this past quarter which has been a good boost for operation morale. 

Some other goals that have been less realized are providing Proper Support and Slower Pacing. Some game states can make it difficult to maintain a slower pace or provide proper support for our members’ fireteams since these two goals can push against each other. In the pursuit of favorable combat scenarios, these goals can fall by the wayside as members need to regroup with each other or catch up to the main objectives. On the flip side, sometimes when we achieve these goals, the result can be relatively boring or lacking action based on where we are operating during a given operation. We will be continuing to work towards achieving these goals simultaneously by focusing more on reducing the number of objectives in play and some shifts in tactics and strategy from the leadership level in order to increase tactical victories from specific fireteams (some of these shifts have been successful lately, such as blockade formations). Overall, significant progress has been made in a relatively short period of time, and everyone should be commended for their effort as we continue to change and refine the rough edges.

New Schedule Reminder

In case some folks are still unaware, we changed our standard weekly operation schedule back at the end of August. The new schedule for the foreseeable future is Wednesday/Thursday/Saturday at 1700 pm PT / 2000 pm ET. This schedule will be followed as often as possible, with at least 2 Ops per week (exceptions aside), since some weeks it can be difficult to run all three days. The next time we’ll check in on changing this schedule will be Q1 2024 at the earliest.

Division-Level Efforts

It’s time to detail the remaining goals for 2023 going forward into Quarter 4 (in addition to those discussed above). First and foremost, we will be establishing a permanent role allocation system sometime within the next 6 weeks. The role allocation stuff was tacked on to the previous feedback survey with the intention of becoming its own dedicated system later. What form that will take is still being considered, but this will go live during the first half of Quarter 4. 

Second, we’ll be pushing for some more NCO promotions, including a combination of folks from the previous batch as well as a new batch of NCO who will be assembled in the coming weeks. The program can only move as fast as candidates and myself are able to meet and work together, so I will be bringing more people with promise into the program and checking in with the previous candidate roster to try and fill some positions before the end of the year.

Lastly, we will continue our recruitment efforts as previously stated in the last Quarterly Newsletter. It has been difficult to maintain recruitment efforts this past quarter with the dip in attendance we had in July/Early August, but with attendance on the rise again, we should be able to field quality Public Ops more frequently again. Also as previously stated, I do plan on consulting with other members of community leadership in order to figure out other methods of recruitment that are easy to upkeep alongside the current division workload.

Conclusion

That’s all for the PlanetSide 2 Division this time around folks. As per usual, your continued support is greatly appreciated. Let’s move on now to Star Citizen.

– Cannon, PS2 Division Flag Officer, Written September 2023

Greetings everyone! The last few months have been difficult for our Star Citizen division. A lengthy relative drought of new content through the 3.19 and 3.20 patches along with playability issues and outside IRL conflicts have pushed many active players away from the game recently. This isn’t solely affecting VVarMachine, our leadership has spoken with representatives from many other organizations who are facing the same issues. At the time of writing this update, we are testing version 3.21 in PTU and looking forward to Citizencon 2953, which is just days away!

Citizencon has historically been a major turning point for activity in-game during downtimes, sparking a re-interest amongst players as new game technology, features, locations, and ships are unveiled. This year, a few of our members are making the trip to Los Angeles to attend in person. We wish them safe travels, and we’re looking forward to seeing all the pictures and hearing their experiences from the event. Following Citizencon our fleet will be focused towards capitalizing on the increase of activity and engagement, hoping to bring new players into our community and generate regular gameplay activity throughout the holidays and into 2024.

During August and September of 2023 our Officer Corps worked on a proposed set of changes to our organization to better align our operational structure and supporting systems with our long-term goals and vision as a mobile expeditionary fleet, and to more effectively leverage our active member base to drive mission content, player engagement, and continued growth through a cellular/grass-roots approach. This proposal was shared with our members, who raised many concerns about how this change would adversely affect their sense of belonging to a collective fleet, and whether the timing was right for us to pursue such changes during times of record low activity.

We’re going to table this proposal and re-visit these kinds of changes in the future. The officer corps will look to leverage some of its components to address issues of efficiency and help to streamline our processes around training / member advancement and create a system where operational flexibility can be embraced to better enable our long-term vision. I’d like to thank all of the Officers who contributed so much time towards writing and refining the proposal, along with those members who engaged in discussions and gave their feedback.

For now, let’s enjoy Citizencon and be prepared to take advantage of the increased interest in the game it will undoubtedly bring. The holidays have always been a strong time for our fleet in terms of recruitment and growth, and I’m confident this year will be as well.

– Ech0Whiskey, SC Division Commanding Officer, Written October 19th, 2023

Final Thoughts

Our community continues to evolve and thrive, thanks to the active engagement and collaboration of its members. As the weather starts changing, remember to stay safe out in the real world.

See you online and see you around!