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The CASEVAC that came for nobody
I called a casualty evacuation, and the Chinook landed and flew straight off again without him. Why it happened, and how fixing it gave the game the stretcher party it should have had all along.
Playing Zarghun, I called a CASEVAC for a man down, marked a landing zone, and watched the Chinook come in, touch down and lift straight off again. No casualty aboard, no message, nothing. He was still lying where he fell.
What was going on
A casualty evacuation in the game flies on its own Chinook with the MERT aboard, the Medical Emergency Response Team. When she lands, a stretcher party runs out, picks the casualty up and carries him aboard. But they only go so far from the aircraft, 26 tiles, about 35 metres, and nobody else in the game could move a casualty. If the landing zone you marked was further than that from him, or the pilot had to put down in a clearing further off, the MERT found nobody in reach, climbed straight back aboard, and she left. Silently.
The limit was right. The MERT isn't there to go hunting across the fields for a man; his own section gets him to the aircraft. What was missing was any way for his section to do it, and any word from the game about why she'd gone.
Saying so
First, the game tells you. When you mark the landing zone, the cursor says how far the casualty is from where she'll land, and warns you if that's past the MERT's reach. When you task her, the feed says it again. If she lands with nobody in reach and nobody being carried to her, she waits twenty seconds and says who's out of reach and to carry him in. And whenever she goes, her line on the panel says why: a casualty past the MERT's reach, a DShK opening up on her, the hits she's taken.
The stretcher party
Then the part that was missing: a new order, CARRY. Pick the section, choose CARRY, and click where he's going. Two of his section go to him, get him onto the stretcher and carry him there at a stretcher's pace, rifles slung, the rest of the section moving with them. It's never the medic or the section commander while there's anyone else to do it. Right-click him while a CASEVAC is on its way and they carry him straight to her landing zone, and she waits on the deck for a casualty who's being carried to her, the MERT at her ramp to take him.
It costs you, as it should. Two men carrying a stretcher aren't fighting. He goes on bleeding on the way, because nobody can work on him while he's moving. And if a bearer goes down, the casualty is put down where they are.
The other reason she leaves
Testing it turned up the other way a CASEVAC can fail, and that one is working as intended. If a DShK opens up on her, often the gun truck that turns up in Zarghun's fight, the pilot breaks off on the way in or lifts off the deck. On Zarghun's first day that happened in two of my three test runs. It's realistic, and the game now says it plainly, but whether it happens too often is a balance call, and it's one of the things I'll be watching in what players tell me.
Who makes this: Section Command: Helmand Ops is made by one person, Jack Mustard, who is the whole of Tactical Chicken Studios.