What's the most important aspect of good mil-sim?

[Bad Karma]

Agreed, Adam.

Midcaps still require substantial reloading efforts, still require you to plan your shots and focus on ammo conservation, and still maintain a certain level of realism.

I get that the object of milsim is to be as accurate as possible to the real deal, but, as Adam pointed out, a 5.56 round isn't stopped by a bleeding leaf. When you level your sights onto a target, the bullet goes into that target. With airsoft, we all know that replicas are oftentimes too inaccurate for one shot/one kill shooting. It might take 3-4 rounds into the general vicinity of your target to actually hit something worthwhile.

[Ryu Arcturian]

Which is why for outdoor play, I think midcaps > low/real caps

indoors, you better be able to do 1 shot 1 kill play, or your inability to hit a target cannot be blamed on your replica, lol

[Deliverator]

Even with 160 round midcaps which I carry, I have to reload quite often. You have to fire in bursts to get any kind of effective fire through brush. Real steel takes one shot to go through a bush, airsoft takes several. When the bush is infront of you its easier to hit people past it than if the bush is infront of your target. With real steel all the bush would do is obstruct vision, not your fire.

[Ryu Arcturian]

Depending on your firearm it won't obstruct your vision for much longer

M249 weed whacker

[Bad Karma]

Which is why for outdoor play, I think midcaps > low/real caps

indoors, you better be able to do 1 shot 1 kill play, or your inability to hit a target cannot be blamed on your replica, lol

CQC is totally different, and I completely agree that indoors, magazines should be at real capacity. If you can't hit something at 20 ft, you need to either fix your gun or fix your eyes.

[Martin.]

Command Structure: Small unit leadership is all you need for excellent milsim

Uniform Requirements: Uniforms dont make milsim, the violence of action does

Real Capacity Magazines: not when the last 4 bb's, on average, don't load

Excellent Backstory: shoot people, the end?

Vehicles, Props & Pyro: helps, but it's all about location. you can have all of the above and cover up the fact that you're playing at some po-dunk meth farm, or you can have the time of your life fighting house to house, room to room, clocktower to basement, similarly to rilea

[Osmo]

There's a huge difference in what kind of experience I'm looking for between skirmishes and milsim OPs. I appreciate both kinds of events, but I hate it when events advertised as milsim are nothing more than glorfied skirms.

The perfect "mil-sim" experience isn't really centered around any of these things listed in the poll, although all are important.

Milsim is:
Like-minded players who care about more than just "trigger time"
Lots of hiking, not a lot of shooting
A chain of command and objectives that are clear, simple, and realistic
Vehicles, props, and/or actors (usable or not)

Menu # 10: Chili and Macaroni. Also, small bottles of Tabasco.


Milsim is NOT:
Airsofting at paintball fields
Keeping track of your kills and deaths
People talking after they're dead

Terrible impressions (unrealistically mismatched loadouts, long hair, etc...)
Players under 17 (except maybe civilians or child-soldiers...)
Liberal medic rules
M4s in WWII, Thompsons in Afghanistan, or any clear plastic replicas
Blaze orange tips
Team arm bands

I understand that some will say that compromises must be made in order to attract a decent turnout. Orange tips or arm bands aren't the end of the world, but I just don't think they belong in a "mil-sim" environment.

When I was in high school, I used to resent players who advocated age-restricted games. As I grew older, I realized that as a group, younger players are more trouble than they're worth. Whether it's their shrill voices, rampant hot mic-ing, hacking, or attitude problems, they detract from the overall experience.

I'll be the first to admit that it's nerdy as hell, but the roleplaying aspect of airsoft is something I value a lot. I'm the kind of player who enjoys walking half a mile before engaging the enemy. It makes the contact that much more important and exciting. I'll call myself out if a teammate mistakenly TKs me, even if no enemies were nearby. Heck, my favorite moments airsofting don't even involve me shooting.

(BTW, I voted uniform requirements, because that's the single biggest deal-breaker for me.)

[LettuceHead]

I voted "Uniform Requirements", assuming that uniform means not just your BDU/ clothing but your replica, load bearing equipment, etc.

I think keeping strict requirements on this is the first and most important step to weeding out those not ready or willing to step up to the plate. Anyone willing to invest the time and money for an unbending loadout benchmark should already have the desire for realistic command structure, mag capacity, backstory and location.

[BigmanZ]

Mindset.

You get the player that craves milsim and everything else will fall into place automatically.

[Haloeclipse]

I voted command structure. Having small units actually rolling as squads, with a commander that can adequately keep track of and use them will make the day. Even for the big splat action games, you can tell the difference between an area held by a cohesive team and a gaggle of guys that happen to be wearing the same uniform that day.

While at first I wanted to dismiss props, but I saw it mentioned, when your tasked to blow a bunker and the bunker is simply trees with engineer tape...kinda kills the immersion. I also like knowing what Im looking for in a prop. If a game says defend the com tower and nobody knows what the hell the comm tower looks like...well, its hard to defend (The first conflict europe game, we were holding at that crappy blue tarp for the longest time because so many people thought it was the comm tower lol)
Its not essential, but it can really heighten the experience.

As far as uniforms go, Im fine with that but it depends on how nitpicky people are getting. I do want to see actual uniforms for teams. Magazine restrictions seem to go hand in hand with this. Real/low cap indoors,mids outdoors

Location is really important but the rest of the stuff can have a bigger impact if you plan around your location.

Story I dont see as important at all. From what I remember Enduring horizon had no overall story (if it did I dont remember) but it was definetly milsim. Im perfectly fine with a day of scattered missions with no story. But if the game has a story great.

[Shorty]

*another vote for all of the above*

but I have to go with Command Structure, with a change of Medic rules, because respawn is a command structures worst enemy

Ditto and maybe more relistic medic numbers like 1 for each squad instead af four for an entire army.

[Martin.]

I voted command structure. Having small units actually rolling as squads, with a commander that can adequately keep track of and use them will make the day. Even for the big splat action games, you can tell the difference between an area held by a cohesive team and a gaggle of guys that happen to be wearing the same uniform that day.

i agree that command structure is important, but from all my airsoft experiences 9 times out of 10 it will completely break down to the small unit level. cohesive units are the only groups that actually impact the game. in my opinion, the actual command from the top doesn't have anything to do with the success of the game, it's the teams who provisionally work together that decide the outcome.

i think that a host can put as much emphasis onto command structure as possible, but without regimented units with cohesive SOP's it's pretty pointless.

as far as i'm concerned, ad hoc commanders are a waste of resources, and emphasis should be placed at the squad/fireteam level only.

[Ivan Daylovich™]

Command structure isn't limited to the commander it's the entire structure, from top level down to grunts.

[McNair]

more balls.

[Martin.]

Command structure isn't limited to the commander it's the entire structure, from top level down to grunts.

i guess what i was trying to say is that the structure is unsound 9 outta 10 times. it's always the foundation that lasts a whole event.