Why no walk on players

You may ask why no walk ons? Well basically it boils down to a administrative issue and trust issue. But first what is a walkon? A lot of people are confused about this. The definition below is what is used by the Squad Ops Team:

walk on:A walk on is an individual who has not made any previous arrangement of any sort to fly with a specific squad. It is an individual who is not known to a squad or have a relationship with a squad. And by this I do not mean he is a part of their squad in the MA. I mean the person is a stranger / unknown element to the squad.

Now that a common definition of a walk on has been established, let's delineate what is acceptable for getting a slot to a squad:

• contacted the squad via email, BBS post, or text or VOX chat in the MA, DA, TA, or SEA prior to the event about flying with the squad. The person could also ask non-disruptively during the event to fly with a squad the next week, but they cannot ask during the event or just prior to the event in the Special Events Arena if they can fly that frame.
• the squad has actually given a standing invitation too and is now taking them up on it. Best example of this is the person coming in an saying "Hey Nightmares where are you forming up at and do you have a free slot?" Ghost Dancer emails out to about 40+ people for the Nightmares and several people such as Stang have an open invitation to fly with their squad. Since Ghost Dancer knows him and trust him, he has an open invite and may fly.
• is recruited from the MA by squaddies you send out to fill out your ranks. This is acceptable because your guys are going out to scare up people you know and trust to fill out your ranks.

An example of what is not acceptable is:

• Comes into the SEA and says "Hey I want to fly with a squad tonight, prefer allies" shows that the person is not associated with a squad, is not familiar with the event, and/or is an unknown quantity.

So why all this talk about trust and a squad having a relationship of some sort with its pilots? Well because this event runs on trust. If trust is lost things can go very badly very quickly.

The CMs don't have the time or ability to place true walk ons. They can do it for maybe 1 or 2 people but remember for the most part in 30 minutes he is gearing up to deal with running the event and managing 200 people or so coming in. In the case of a walkon we would be asking the setup CM to assess which side needs the pilot (to keep the sides balance), be aware of which squads are under strength (for example maybe the allies have very few bombers but bombers are critical to their plan) and then assign the person, get an okay from a squad to take the person, brief the guy a little bit before handing him off, etc.

All of this is a bit of a tall order to do in 30 minutes, 15 minutes, or say 5 minutes before the event.

We could pass this off to the squads but then there is a danger of a little bit of bidding war happening. A squad that doesn't really need the pilot snatches him up or he ends up flying for a squad that has one of the premeire planes (1 of the 20 P51Bs that were assigned). Both examples can lead to hard feelings developing between squads.

Also in the above cited case (which happened) the CM told the person I am sorry but this is a no walk on event. The person then got signed anyway. Eroding the trust the CMs have to have with the squads that is so necessary to pull off the event (which requires decentralization).

Next lets look at another issue. If a true walk on .. who doesn't know the squad or the people he is flying with, no commitment to come back, no real briefing time except rapidly before the event .. flies for a squad. You, the squad, are putting your reputation on the line. If that person does anything out of line it reflects on you.

The CM team has personally experienced / seen a newbie up find out killshooter is off and start firing on and blowing up allied bombers. The allied bombers were allowed to reup but the plan for the night required very tight timing of strikes. The time delay wrecked the plan.

We have also seen newbies assume that since the fields opened that they could up again. Not realizing or not being told that they were open to give the Vals a second life. These newbies then upped and attack and sank an enemy ship. Sort of hard to undo that during the event since we didn't realize it until later.

In both cases they flew under somebodies colors and it reflected badly on those squads (even when it was determine it was not a malicious intent of the squad) and caused hard feelings (erosion of trust).

The point is when somebody flies with your squad you are vouching for them and their actions. This is why when squads go to the MA to find people to fill out their ranks they go looking for people they know. Because they trust that these guys will not go and purposely mess with things in the event because doing so will impact their relationship with that squad.

A true walk on has no relationship. They have nothing to lose by messing with things. They simply don't come back but if they behave badly they show mistrust and hard feelings that everyone has to live with afterwards for a while.

What the setup CM does and Squad Leadership should do is go .. "Hey its too late to fly in this event. But give me your contact info and we will hold a spot for you next week." The person can wait a week .. if he comes back he is really interested. It also gives the squad time to brief him and get him up to speed on the rules and all the particulars about the event (can't tell you how many have said .. what only one life?), etc. .. which is difficult to do just in minutes.