Missions

I've had a bit of time to mull this one over and I think that some predefined mission types will help a lot as far as getting people talking to each other and learning how to work together.  This can be a challenge as many players have had bad experiences with pick up groups or "pugs" and try to limit the number of people that they play with to people they know or have worked with previously.  While I recognize that it can be frustrating to work with people who may have a different way of playing a game, it can be equally frustrating to be a new player in a game and have no one who is willing to play with you.  So the "pug" dynamic needs to work in such a way that players are able to find each other quickly and will have a good idea of what they are going to do.  So whoever decides to make a group for a given mission will be able to decide a few things from the beginning.  First of all will be the size of the element, ranging from 4 man all the way up to a company of 96, though depending on what rank of leadership there will be caps at 8 men for all non leader types, 16 men for a squad leader, 32 men for a platoon leader, and all 96 for the company commanders.  This will assure that players don't take on more responsibility than they are ready to handle.  Group leaders will also be able to set a timer that will determine when people need to be ready to go, which will be visible from the looking for group or LFG console.  This could range from as little as 15 seconds up to 5 minutes or possibly more if needed.  Group leaders will also be able to specify what classes they are looking for and how many.  Player will then be able to apply to groups at which point the group leader will be able to say yes or no.  Once the number of players are met then on the middle of the screen of each player will be a popup of "Are you ready?" with a 30 second timer and an OK button.  This will indicate that they are about to teleport and should conclude their business asap.  If all group members click ok then the map will come up and the group leader will be able to decide where the group will teleport to.  Once that decision is made all group members will teleport and off they go.  The waiting period will give the group leader a brief chance to elaborate on the mission before they all go into action.  So now to break down the mission types.

Search and Destroy

I feel this is self explanatory as the group will essentially be out looking for a fight.  It will be a good mission type for repelling lone wolfs and small groups that have come into the faction's territory and are harassing players.  It also could be for going into enemy territory and looking for vulnerable players.  At any rate this mission type says that the group is looking for combat asap.

Infiltration

As the title explains this one is for going deep into enemy territory.  This could be a group of scouts looking for unguarded structures or vehicles to hack, or trying to get an idea of how the enemy has set things up.  This mission could mean combat, though it's more likely that combat will only happen if absolutely necessary since that will draw attention and will mean not getting very far into enemy territory.

Resource gathering

This mission means that the group will be heading into the caves to look for building resources.  I imagine that there will be a lot of these missions as resource gathering will be essential to expanding territory and making better things all around.  These groups will still need all classes as a small group going into neutral or even enemy territory to get resources will be risky business.

Base attack

This is to signify a full on attack and will probably happen only at the platoon and company levels, though it is not unthinkable at lower levels.  The goal it to attack an enemy base in order to either disable or destroy it.

Base defense

This is a call to arms because a friendly base is being attacked by enemy forces.  While this may not actually take a group, by having everyone teleport at the same time there is a much increased chance of success.  Of course this is assuming everyone teleports before the teleporter gets taken down, which I imagine will be one of the first targets in an offensive.  Because of this I'm sure that players will make sure to have back up bases not too far away.

Base construction

This one area where coordination is extremely important.  There may be a few different ways that players want to go about this and for now it is sufficient to say that it is definitely going to be a group type.

Recon

This mission type may or may not be in enemy territory and will mainly deal with exploration.  This could be in the cave system looking for resources or just taking a look around to see what's out there.  This doesn't always require a group, but since everywhere could be a potential combat zone it doesn't hurt to take a friend or 3 along.

I think that if there was something else the players wanted to do that they could loosely fit it into these mission types, and if not well then I might just have a type your own field.  Because of the whole group needing to teleport together players will need to be in the main base in order to both create and join groups.  Players may leave groups at any time, though players who leave groups at inopportune times without explanation often find themselves with no one to play with very quickly.