Overview
[Not to be confused with official Vanilla+ Content made by Sofa]Ever wanted more asymmetry in Vanilla+ battles? Ever wanted to add some concrete flavour and story to your instant action matches?Want no more!Milkman’s Vanilla+ Divisions has guidelines for how to pit 8 unique divisions for each Vanilla+ faction, each with their own configured vehicle complement, fanmade backstory and emblem, against each other in Ravenfield’s Instant Action battles.
Intro
This guide has “instructions” of a sort to create personalised “divisions” for each faction, each of which has a specialisation and designation.
Currently included are (listed in left to right order below) the Union’s infantry focused 54th Air Special Operational Group, the well rounded 15th Alpine Special Operational Group, the heavy hitting 33rd Combined Operational Group, and the speedy 99th Mobile Operational Group, the Federation’s quick-to-deploy 45 Airborne Division, lighter yet potent 1 Mountain Division, slow and deadly 6 Armored Division, and the balanced 788 Infantry Division.
Keep reading to find out more about each unit.
Usage
To use these, follow the included tables, they should look something like this
Make sure you have the mods from this list downloaded, without the Standalones collection you won’t be able to assign tanks to other slots and etc.
[link]
The Divisions included here don’t come with turrets, boats or aircraft, those are (for now) up to you, though I reccommend just using the Vanilla+ defaults unless stated otherwise.
๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
Despite suffering from doctrinal stagnation for ages, the Federation continues as a bastion of hard military power on the globe. Yet politicians direct money away from any military programs until absolutely necessary, and what little does trickle into the Defence department’s pockets is cut in half by swindling generals and corrupt department staff. A divided public with conflicting opinions on foreign affairs turn the Federation’s focus elsewhere, with major political candidates shying away from supporting military buildup. But the upstart Union across the sea seeks to challenge the Federation’s consistent hegemony with some technological tricks of their own, the question is, can the Federation cement its reputation as the premiere power and show the Union who’s boss?
6 Armored Division
Emblem based off of the 3rd Motor Rifle Division
Among the different types of divisions fielded by the Federation, the Armored Divisions are the sharpest spear of them all. They field legions of Warrior MBTs, backed up with the best equipped Division level reconnaissance in the entire Federation military, and a smattering of infantry for good measure. 6 Armored is to be used as an offensive hammer in Federation doctrine, designed to probe for and then smash through the weakest parts of an Enemy’s defence to create the lauded breakthrough, something that Federation military thought has (perhaps sadly) revolved around for the last handful of decades.
The Armored division is easy to balance but requires you to be a little more hands-on. With the amount of small-crew vehicles they have, to properly get use out of them you should lower the bot count a little and shift the slider in the other team’s favour, since the intention is for all the Armored Div bots to be riding around in a tank or other.
788 Infantry Division
Emblem based off of the 144th Guards Motor Rifle Division
When it comes to consistent firepower and an ability to stack bodies on an objective, the Federation’s many Infantry divisions take centre stage. While packaged with a small amount of armour for their own uses, an Infantry division’s main tool is the swathes of mechanised infantry at its disposal, a truly multirole effective fighting force. 788 Infantry is no exception to this, being as standard as Infantry Divisions come. But, all this manpower comes at the cost of being unwieldy to maneuver on the modern battlefield, as the Federation has some famously outdated and bloated military organisation, which when coupled with the top-down command structure, reduces reaction times across the board and diminishes the ability and initiative of ground commanders to stray from orders.
This formation should be relatively balanced, but beware that it packs serious heat. Ravenfield is a little funny with how it calculates the accuracy of the cannons on the IFVs, so if they happen to be killing too much or if there are too many, it may be prudent to replace one of the IFV slots with an APC instead. If this division goes up against something too light like an airborne unit or mountain unit, it might be a good idea to put the slider slightly towards the other side or to give the other side more flags at the start of a match.
Reminder that 2 of the IFV slots are supposed to be taken by (ostensibly slower) tracked IFVs, which would help balance the unit out with the deduction in speed. Until then, try giving the other side more flags or giving this side less.
1 Mountain Division
Emblem based off of the 8th Guards Mountain Motor Rifle Brigade
Fighting in the mountains is a hard job, and one that in most cases, involves the learning and training of skills readily transferable to normal infantry warfare. As a result, 1 Mountain is one of the most proficient, elite units in the entirety of the Federation’s military. Being mountain infantry, their main focus is on alpine combat, but no matter the terrain, they will still be lethal in head-to-head and close quarters combat. This potency has gained them a reputation, which they happily show by donning their vehicles in mountain camouflage. However, whether or not it’s a good idea to have streaks of white on your vehicles in a green forest is probably still up for debate.
Not much to say here, but the stuff with camouflage is by no means necessary. Feel free to make em look how you like, although if you’re unhappy with the amount of jeeps spawning in your game, try tinkering with the vehicle selections.
45 Airborne Division
Emblem based off of the 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade
A white bouquet of parachutes escape from a plane, for those underneath, the flowers of death. 45 Airborne has long since been a crack quick-reaction unit, deployed to immediately exploit a good situation, or when nobody with heavier weaponry can get there faster. Among the Federation’s handful of Airborne divisions, 45 Airborne is one of the few that are also proficient in Arctic fighting, with their quick deployability enabling them to get to places in the North of the Federation where others are denied because of the lack of roads. Because of this, they are often seen on exercises wearing signature cold-weather all-white uniforms, though they aren’t stingy about changing to fit the environment.
Ideally you’d use this with the Eagle’s Dragoon transport helicopter or their Veles light transport, but they should work alright without them. The standalone helicopters can’t be assigned to land slots, so you may have to buff this division by replacing one of the Attack planes or Bomber plane slots with a helicopter. In addition, they should hopefully have marginally more infantry to make up for their lack of vehicles, so try playing with the slider being biased towards this team.
๐ง๐๐ ๐จ๐ก๐๐ข๐ก
Originally a coalition of states of little note to the inwardly focused Federation, the Union has attracted some unwanted attention thanks in part to its meteoric rise in economic status. The business and technologically focused policy of the Supreme Council has ensured that no matter what, private enterprise will always be the core of the Union. But it comes at the cost of worker freedoms, and on the military side, lots of unintentional bugs and mishaps. The Union military has long tried to rival that of the Federation’s, and now finally equipped with latest generation MBTs and new next generation communications equipment, it remains to be seen whether the Union can patch and hotfix its way to military supremacy, or if old tradition will triumph over new progress.
33rd Combined Operational Group
Emblem based off of the Norwegian Panserbataljonen (Armoured Battalion)
About a decade prior, the Council of Defense waved their hands and shouted for “modernisation” and those under them scrambled to translate that into action, the result being the Operational Group model which replaced previous divisions. The majority of Operational groups are the balanced Combined Operational Groups, with an optimally researchedโข and provenโข ratio of Mechanised Infantry to Armour. The 33rd COG is just one of the bunch, with a focus on armour and bringing ludicrous amounts of firepower to bear on the enemy, if a little slow to do so.
Despite having more tanks, it seems like this division would honestly do better with more IFVs instead, due to Ravenfield accuracy trickery. Again, do tinker around with how these guys do in combat, but I think they fill the role of tank and vehicle dudes pretty well for the Union. As far as the balance slider goes for these guys, the default amount is ideal.
Same tracked IFV reminder from before, a reduction in speed should help balance these guys more eventually, hopefully with some added firepower as well.
99th Mobile Operational Group
Emblem based off of the Norwegian Sambandsbataljonen (Signal Battalion)
For all intents and purposes the Combined Operational Groups are the most proficient in conventional combat. However, their main drawback is their speed, being the slowest of type to transport, giving the standard Combined Operational Groups very limited strategic mobility. Given that the only alternatives were the light and scarce Air Special Operational Groups, the Council of Defense had a concept put together for an Operational Group type which would make use solely of vehicles built on and around the Type-7 Caracal platform. The 99th MOG was one of the first created, and maintains its heritage as a fast moving force, though the ability to deploy quickly comes at the price of any heavy armour.
Even though they’re completely wheeled, the MOG does better in battles than you might think. Again, be sure to watch for any adjustments you’d like to see (especially with giving this team more infantry), but frankly they do alright stock. If you have the ability, use a class mutator or Lordaloa’s new weapon frequency mutator to increase the amount of infantry AT available to these guys, since they’re probably going to need it.
15th Alpine Special Operational Group
Emblem based off of the Norwegian Brigade Nord (Northern Brigade)
Despite not having too many mountains or northern territories, the Union nevertheless maintains a handful of Alpine Special Operational Groups, which fill the role of a fighting force both for domestic mountain ranges and those of a possible enemy’s, while remaining a proficient light infantry force. The 15th Alpine SOG had already been a northern-focused unit prior to the Operational Group system change, so following the reforms, the 15th Alpine SOG focused their attention on the heavily wooded boreal forests common in the north of the Union, being decked out in woodland geometric camouflage, and perhaps unique among mountain troops, equipped with MBTs due to the more forgiving terrain they fight in.
These should be balanced similarly to the Federation’s mountain troops, but besides that they’re quite close to how vanilla ravenfield has its vehicles set up. Same ‘please tinker with’ spiel as last time.
Oh and watch for an imbalance in infantry, try and keep it equal with these guys.
54th Air Special Operational Group
Emblem based off of the Norwegian 2. Bataljon (2nd Battalion)
During the Union’s many desert invasions “peacekeeping missions” in the less fortunate (and oil-rich) nations, it occurred to those heading the Council of Defense, that paratroopers, whose job was to excel at being light infantry, made pretty good fighters against GLF insurgents. Ostensibly, due mostly to their lack of a reliance on much fire support as opposed to their brothers in the Combined and Mobile Operational Groups, who’d gotten used to looking for roaming Squall TacBombers to task with a CAS mission the moment they got into contact. Consequently, the 54th Air SOG runs around in desert fatigues and camouflage, because they had been so good at fighting bandits in the desert that the Council of Defense kind of forgot that they could be used for anything else.
These guys are a little infantry anemic, so be sure to give them a little more if you can. Besides that, the desert camo thing isn’t exactly necessary, but there’s something funny about an elite infantry unit running around looking like french-fries in a dark green forest. Again, ideally you’d use these guys with the Raven’s Petrel transport helicopter or their Locust light transport.
Creation
Here’s some figures I used to help balance the divisions, they’re a total of all the ground vehicles across the bigger vanilla maps, and those of a few modders.
Tank
Group 1: |||||||| 8
Group 2: |||||||||||||| 15
Group 3: |||||||||||||||||||| 20
Group 4: ||||||||||||||||||||||| 22
APC
Group 1: |||||||||||||| 14
Group 2: ||||||||||| 11
Group 3: |||||| 6
Group 4: || 2
Quad
Group 1: ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 27
Group 2: |||||||||||||||||| 18
Group 3: ||||||||| 9
Group 4: || 2
Jeep
Group 1: | 1
Group 2: ||||||||| 9
Group 3: |||||||||||||||||| 18
Group 4: ||||||||||||||||| 17
Jeep MG
Group 1: ||||||||||||||||||| 19
Group 2: |||||||||||||||| 16
Group 3: ||||||||||||||||||||||| 23
Group 4: |||| 4
Group 1 Maps: Archipelago, Dustbowl, Mountain Range, Canyon, River delta, Coastline
Group 2 Maps: Wooded hills, Oblast Highway, Desert Coast, Arctic Island
Group 3 Maps: Breakout to Ludow, East Leersog, Descent Through Radetziy Pass, Ilast Valley
Group 4 Maps: Ilantro Estuary, Battle of Catra, Battle of Lochan
Collection with the above maps: [link]
The biggest thing I took away from these stats is the following:
– Jeeps are either commonplace or not present at all, on the workshop maps there’s a consistent amount but the larger vanilla ones have no jeeps at all
– MG Jeeps are very commonplace and are generally tied with tanks for the most common vehicles on a map. They also show up consistently
– Quads show up a lot or are barely present, depending on the map. Whatever you assign into the quad slot, you need to be ok with it being not present at all or present everywhere
– APCs are possibly one of the rarest vehicles on a map, but they’re consistently rare so put anything kind-of exotic here
– Tanks are on the same level as MG Jeeps, they show up in most places and are pretty consistent. You can use the MG Jeep and Tank slot as where you put the most common vehicles.
The Divisions in this guide are best used on these maps, but you’re free to use them on any. Just beware that they might not perform as intended, but this is a guide and not a configuration for a reason, Do adjust them to your preference.
Epilogue
In the future, I wish to add more divisions (including 16 for the 4 Kestrel Subfactions) and potentially replace the emblems with more creative ones, so if you have a suggestion for one, try commenting it and I’ll see what I can do. Or even try making it yourself, using info in the Creation section. If it’s good, i’ll add it here!
If you have a specific problem with one of the vehicle selections, also do comment! I’ll try my best to fix/replace stuff if they contribute to things like balance.
And lastly, I am not affiliated with Sofa, or any of the official Vanilla+ stuff. I’m doing this as a fan project, mainly for my fix of asymmetric battles, so please don’t bug him over something off with this, bug me instead, or better yet leave a comment with your critique.