I will email all the Squad COs and XOs a reminder about what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to filling out the slots for their squad for that night.
Basically it all comes down to making arrangements to fly with a squad before the actual event (before 30 minutes coming into the SEA and looking for a slot).
A simple email, post in the BBS, or chat in the MA before hand suffices so that a person comes in looking for the squad they chatted with and are just looking to get the squad colors on.
There are many reasons for this but it all comes down to really two issues. First off the setup CM can not handle us also having an unlimited walkon aspect to the FSO. We would be asking him to do all he is doing now plus then also to try to keep track if the sides are balanced, parse walkons out to the one side or another to balance things, find a squad that has a slot and is willing to take a person they don't know, make sure he does not cause a squad to go over his numbers, and then brief a new person on the rules.
Then the squad that gets the walkon basically has to integrate the new person and hope and I do mean hope that the new person is going to ignore things and go fly off on their own or do something stupid like just shoot down allied pilots because killshooter is off.
Its very hard to setup a new person and brief them, get the sense of them, assign them, etc., etc. in 15 minutes or so while juggling everything else.
This is why we don't have CMs try to deal with walkons.
So why don't we increase things to another CM. Simply because we built FSO so that it can run every 3 out of 4 weeks and provide enough structure to allow us to crank things out such a short time table. Adding another CM basically adds more administrative overhead and forces the designer of the event to have built in fall back things in the design if the numbers get way out of wack because of walkons. And also clouds the issue about whether a squad is really making its committment levels or not .. and instead relies on walkons to fill things out (what if none come by) instead of actively recruiting to get people to consistently show up. Adding another CM to handle walkons would impact the time we could turn around and run another event and impact the time it takes to design these type of events (one of the reasons why scenarios that have walkons run once every 3 or 4 months).
The other issue is a trust issue. When a squad goes to the MA to find people they go looking for people they know and trust. Which is crucial .. because the actions of one person can severely damage their rep and actually effect the event (i.e. a person goes off on a wild hair and triggers the base under attack warnings along the route of a sneak attack .. way before the main force gets there).
So they go looking for people that they know they can trust and brief very quickly on what is expected of them and what the objectives are. Which is why we don't mind squads who are understrength going over to the MA looking for guys to fill out their ranks.
A completely newbie is an unknown and actually a disruption to both the setup CM and some squads to try to brief at the last minute before the event. And basically both are taking a risk on a person that they don't have to time to brief and settle in. Now if the event was left wide open we could end up getting not 1 or 2 asking for a slot but say 20 or more.
So very quickly that is why the event was designed not to allow walkons. We politely tell them no (as COs and XOs should) and tell them if they give us their contact info we can get them hooked up for the next frame.
I am also considering allowing them to gun buffs though. Discussing that pros and cons of that with the CM group. Basically we don't have to worry by side balancing, disruption problems by not having them fully briefed, and other issues if they just gun a buff .. but they do get a taste of the event.
I will send out an email reminder to all COs and XOs on this issue.
