IC-ARMA. = Respawn
OFCRA = no respawn
OFCRA stands for “Organisation Francophone de Combats Réalistes sur ArmA”, i.e. French-speaking organization for realistic combats on Armed Assault.
We form a community whose members are in majority French and Belgian. As most of our functioning bases are now correctly set up, we wish to
open our gates to English-speaking players, at least to have them participating to our official missions.
What make us different from other ArmA leagues :
- Our
entirely dynamic campaign
- Up to 60 human players for
platoons-scale fighting
-
No respawn allowed
- Our organisation, management and
opportunities of career
The OFCRA association
The
OFCRA aims at creating the most realistic and immersive real-time combat environment ever, based on what Armed Assault, our staff and the community can provide. Our goal is to put our members in the best conditions they could think of, when it comes to real modern war operations, on section to company scales.
Another goal of the
OFCRA is to offer a friendly associative environment beside the combat missions: while we do not want to give much room for role-play, a clear frame has been defined for career management. The behavior and the successes in battles are taken into account, but our members also have to prove their abilities by taking qualification tests (on weapons, on vehicles, or their commanding skills…) if they want to be more than lowest-rank soldiers. Of course, learning sessions are associated to these tests.
A military-like hierarchy is used, primarily for the missions, but also for the overall functioning of the association. It provides organized means to always go forward (by cutting the work into smaller pieces, by knowing the skills of each one to exploit them at best…). However, we do not forget it must remain a hobby, so tolerance and open mind always prevail.
The points that could make some people stop their reading here
No respawn is allowed in our official missions, as it seems to us that the main drawback of most FPS is that not much consideration is given for the life of the played characters. We simply think that preserving his very own life has always been (and maybe becomes more and more actually) the most fundamental preoccupation of a soldier on the battlefront. This influences greatly the way he fights and by the way increases at global scale the realism of the confrontations.
Though we do not want in our ranks any Rambos running straight to the nearest MG nest, knowing that he will have other chances if he does not succeed at the first try, the “no respawn” rule is, for practicality and for fun, not applied in our training missions.
We do use AIs at our side, not only as enemies, both in training and official missions. This allows increasing considerably the number of units engaged in the operations, as the experience showed us that a rate of one to two AIs per human player is perfectly reasonable. Indeed an AI in Armed Assault, when its weaknesses are well known, can be a reliable and accurate fighter. Moreover, many members see an interest in learning the good way to use them (this is besides the object of dedicated training sessions and tests).
The roles
The new
OFCRA member has to choose his side when he is recruited:
BLUEFOR or
REDFOR. His career develops in his side and he is not supposed to change it often. This way, our members have the opportunity to acquire in-depth knowledge of the strategies, tactics and weapon systems of their side. Some switching may happen, but only at corner stones of our activities (end of a long-term campaign for example).
Each side is led by a few “Chefs de Camp” (CDC - side leaders). On each official mission, one of them takes the lead as commander in chief: he plans the strategy, has it tested in-game, allocates personals to groups, prepares the briefing, and finally coordinates his assets during the battle.
The CDC has some “Chefs de Groupe” (CDG - squad leaders) under its direct command. They lead the different groups in the battle. They are qualified soldiers in their specialty and have proven abilities to command on the field, understand the CDC’s intents, obey his orders, report clearly, take wise initiatives… They have to know how to use AIs too, as most of the time their group includes some. Before the missions, they are asked to prepare dedicated briefing and drills for their group.
The CDG has some soldiers under its direct command. Some soldiers are qualified on certain weapons or may have specialties, but it is not mandatory. Any soldier is offered the opportunity to participate to learning sessions and to take qualifications, but if he does not want to, or cannot, he can however always play the missions. The only requirements are that he must conform to our realistic combat style (no rambos…) and obeys the orders of his CDG.
For each official mission, one “Maître du Jeu” (MJ - Game Master) is chosen among the CDCs. He is responsible for preparing the mission, i.e. mainly to check and merge the templates prepared by the CDC of each side. During the battle, he sits and watches, only checking that the rules are respected: no respawn, rules particular to this mission (wait delay for aircraft to take off for example).
The achievements
The objective of the
OFCRA, to offer to its members a realistic and reliable combat environment without forgetting that it must remain a hobby, has been rather accomplished up to now. A community of enthusiastic, responsible and respectful people, skilled in their field and always desiring to improve the context of our activity already allowed us:
- To find the good way to go forward, as an association, in a visionary and open-minded spirit;
- To enhance the realism of the units and equipments we use in-game, to maintain a huge server and a great forum, to build training and qualification materials, to develop tools for mission making, to create and revise the mission rules, etc;
- To play a
large number of official missions, with up to 60 human players (100+ units on the map); besides, this number is going to increase with our new server;
- To launch a
dynamic campaign, with the necessity for the CDCs to manage a pool of units and equipments over several missions and to plan a long term strategy for the conquest of a vast territory.
'You can see it is two differents kind of gameplay between the IC Arma and the OFCRA, so it isn't intended for the same public. Each organisation have their own specificities. 
