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MiG-21Bis Dynamic Campaign: Guardians of the Caucasus


MBot

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:shocking:

 

Love your work Mbot, can't wait to try this!

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How are you meant to finish the mission and progress if you eject? As soon as you eject you can't use the radio.

 

As mentioned in the first post, if you want to progress the campaign after ejection, you have to run the mission as a multiplayer session hosting your own server (even if you still play alone). That way you can re-spawn and access the radio. Otherwise hardcore rules apply in SP mode and you have to replay the mission after ejection/death.

 

It is the only real solution I could come up with given the current tools. I did not want to end the mission automatically after ejection, as the action (upon which campaign success/failure depends) is probably still ongoing and should first be let play out by the player.

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Love the premise, pleased that its not more A2G missions for this interceptor.

 

Question : I've tried this mission MP and SP and with the first mission that is intercept many turkish contacts ( 14-20 odd ). First of all the odds seem fairly steep against me ( I'm not a god at this game ). Is it not as one sided as it seems ? am I missing something ? Maybe I should wait until they are within the air defence range of the city to help me out ?

 

Secondly, only sometimes to friendly Mig 21's also spawn to help the fight but sometimes its only me, 1 Mig vs over 10 enemy contacts. Is this a random element by design or some bug ?

 

Not bashing on this camp at all, I've found it hard to find missions for the Mig MP and SP that fit its intended role.

 

Thanks for your hard work on this Camp.

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The missions are indeed highly randomized, both the amount of enemies, their start positions, the amount of friendlies as well as their take off time. Sometimes several MiG will already be in the air before you, sometimes you will be the first to lift off. I would not worry too much about the number of enemies, since you will usually only engage parts of the enemy force. With some experience it should be well possible to survive and rack up kills.

 

If you are worried about engaging the enemy alone you can try to join some of the AI MiG-21 flights that take off from the same base (you might need to wait a moment if they are late). If you have a lot of troubles you can stick close to the city and engage the enemy when he closes with the air defenses, though this approach will probably results in losses of SAMs to SEAD. After a couple of missions the SAMs will probably be neutralized if you do not defend them forward. Hit and run tactics are very useful if you meet strong enemy forces. Go in fast, shoot your missiles and then run like hell. Works just as well in this campaign as it did for MiGs over Vietnam. I would suggest to stay low and engage form below. Both the F-4 and the F-5 will not see you on their radars if you are below them, so it is possible to get into position unnoticed (and it will keep you safe from the Sparrows of the Phantoms). I also tend to not use radar at all (unless the mission is a night IFR intercept), since it is fairly useless and alerts the enemy on his RWR. With some experience in the campaign you might be able to recognize specific elements of the enemy strike force. Engaging the SEAD escorts is particularly fruitful, since the SAMs will then collect a lot of kills. Engaging the strike elements is the next best thing, since they will jettison their bombs to defend (=mission of protecting ground targets achieved). These are some general tips I can give. Once the Falcons show up things will get more difficult and when NATO deploys Eagles, prepare for a world of hurt :) But every kill will be a huge satisfaction and a step closer to eradicate that plague.

 

Generally, expect missions to be a huge chaos, with you having no situation awareness and everyone stumbling around like the blind in the knife factory. Because that is exactly how I think war in the air must feel like :)

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Thanks for you response and advice, I will try and put it into practice... <gulp>

 

Edit : Tried the down low tactic with my mate in coop tonight. Blind in a knife factory ? yup!

Twice both me and my mate caught sight of a hostile on our tail only to see him splashed by SAMs. No kills for us, terrible K/D ratio but we made it back alive and landed. HEAPS of fun. Thanks again.


Edited by LupinYonder
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These are some general tips I can give. Once the Falcons show up things will get more difficult and when NATO deploys Eagles, prepare for a world of hurt :) But every kill will be a huge satisfaction and a step closer to eradicate that plague.

 

Yes, I've made a few missions already. Can't say it's easy, but hit&run works well, even at middle altitudes. So far MiG seems quite equal to F-4's and superior to F-5's until you end up in a dogfight. But I am really NOT looking forward to having "fun" with F-15 once they appear. At least I sincerely hope they will be only coming with Sparrows, not AMRAAMs.

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After a few run throughs on my own, I love your work MBot.

 

It really truly is great work, and I hope ED are taking note for building this kind of functionality into DCS 2.x

 

I'm slowly coaxing the virtual pilots of C Coy of the 229th out of their Huey's for a break and into the MiG and I have you to thank for it because of this work!

 

Hope to see more of your work in the future.

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But I am really NOT looking forward to having "fun" with F-15 once they appear. At least I sincerely hope they will be only coming with Sparrows, not AMRAAMs.

 

Yes, no AMRAAMs for the F-15. Since this is a 1980 secnario, the Eagles will fly with AIM-7M (with DCS lacking an older Sparrow variant) and rear-aspect AIM-9P. Actually, by that time some F-15 units might already have been equipped with the new all-aspect AIM-9L, but I decided to go with the AIM-9P for better gameplay. While this was not a front-line USAF weapon, the similiarly limitted AIM-9J and AIM-9G were the widely used Sidewinders of that timeframe. Also the AIM-9P has been exported to the Turkish Air Force, so it would have been readily available to USAF units deployed to Turkey. In addition, the skill of all AI units is randomized as well, so unless you meet a veteran or expert, succesful dogfighting with Eagles is possible.

 

What makes the F-15 a killer is the Sparrow. The problem is actually the RWR of the MiG-21, since it will not indicate missile launches, only locks. Unfortunately AI in DCS has rather strange behaviour with radar use. Basically whenever you are in front and in range of an AI he will lock you up. So rather than having an idication that you are under attack or about to be attacked by being locked up, you will be under radar lock for pretty much the whole duration of the mission. Therfore your RWR doesn't provide any useful additional information. As soon as GCI reports you within range of a bogey, you have to expect to explode from a Sparrow hit at any second. Interrestingly the AI MiG-21 with their simplified RWR do not have a problem to detect missile launches and will easily dodge most AIM-7.

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Thanks for the heads-up! What makes matters somewhat worse is the look-down ability of the F-15 radar.

 

I've run quite a few skirmishes with F-4 w/ Sparrow, and a decent tactic there was a ~10* dive around 25km mark. It's the average distance when F-4 will launch missile and the dive will break the lock. On your end you can still track target and try get him with R-3R. It seems to be quite effective from the front aspect.

 

The terrain where most of the encounters takes place has quite a few hills. I guess with F-15s we'll have to make good use of EWR information and employ terrain masking to approach target. And then use Mk1 eyeballs and IR seekers to get them from behind and RUN!

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Fantastic, system - i have take a look into your script files during the weekend.

 

But one thing does concern me, your DC system works only for airrafts (and their Air2Air-Campaign) and for ground units in a static role.

 

If i like to cover an Air2Ground DC Campaign and the movement of the frontline, it will not work!?

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But one thing does concern me, your DC system works only for airrafts (and their Air2Air-Campaign) and for ground units in a static role.

 

If i like to cover an Air2Ground DC Campaign and the movement of the frontline, it will not work!?

 

No it won't. It is not by chance that this campaign looks exactly like that. To explore the concept of a dynamic campaign in DCS I have chosen a scenario to make a DC as simple as possible. The first step was to select a scenario without a ground war. Making a ground war is incredible complex, simply exlcuding it greatly simplifies the DC. History is full of air campaigns without direct ground involvement (North Vietnam, WW2 bomber offensive) and fortunately the present map supports a plausible scenario (even if the complete NATO territory is abstracted off-map). The next step was the decision that one side only attacks, the other only defends. And ultimately the MiG-21 and the intercept mission fit perfectly into this simplistic approach. The intercept mission is ad hoc and does not require a predefined route (which we can not change for client aircraft) and a complex briefing (for which we only have limited text-output when in cockpit). The MiG-21 doesn't have a navigation system with waypoints, which is great since we could not dynamically change them anyway.

 

I am very interested in developing this DC idea further, eventually including the air-ground element. I am currently exploring concepts and ideas, but there are several technical barriers that limit my current approach:

 

-Routes for the player cannot be dynamically adjusted in-mission. This is no problem for the intercept task (does not require a preplanned route) or simple aircraft like the MiG-21 (does not have a navigation system). But for example the A-10 would not have any waypoints stored.

-Briefing the player with text output at mission start is very limitting. Again no problem for simple intercepts, but a real problem for more complex missions. How to tell the player his flight plan, where the ground targets are etc.? I think it cannot be expected that the player would take note of coordinates and do his own flight plannning. A briefing needs maps with map graphics, which we cannot dynamically generate or show with the current system.

-Debriefing the player and especially doing campaign status reports is also very limitted with the current text output at mission end. If you have a ground war you would probably want to show frontlines, position of unts etc. Very difficult to show the player the campaign status with only some lines of text.

-As mentioned, a ground war itself is very complex and difficult to abstract in a believable way. Automatically position vehicles in terrain and telling them something to do is a major challenge if it should look realistic. Spawning aircraft on the other hand is realy quite easy.

 

In order to overcome some of these problems and improve the intergration of 3rd party DC solutions into DCS, I would suggest the following measures:

-Make data storange between missions possible without requiring users to modify game files.

-Give us a script hook into the mission before the game briefing screen loads, so that we can modify weather, time of day, game briefing texts, game briefing graphics, game briefing map and client aircraft routes.

-Make a debriefing screen that displays after ending the mission with LUA modifiable texts, graphics and a map, not just the mission log.

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Wow, this looks really good. I've downloaded it but will hold off until I learn a bit more about this new bird of mine. Quite a blast to fly and I really look forward to trying out your campaign (though not the F-15s!!)! Thanks for sharing. Salute!

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MBot, it is genius. ~3,5MB .miz file and it makes my life in virtual air happier!! Thanks a lot for the work and for sharing. I fought through the original single player campaign, which was well done, but ... just a standard campaign. But this made a dream come through, a big step closer to what I hope to see in the future. I've been through my first three missions (11 Days to go), I play it right out the Mission Editor and can't wait for the next assignment. I hope ED provides you with your interfaces needed, I tell you, wouldn't be the manual changes in the ME needed I would pay € 20,- right away for this dynamic scenario as it is. So I hope sooner or later you get the means to get an additional income from your great effort, in the meantime my rep for you!


Edited by KewlerMouh
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Fantastic job Mbot. Really its amazing that talented people like yourself have taken the existing tools and functionality provided by ED to new heights. Very very well done. Please design other campaigns..FC3 level aircraft...multiple aircraft options.. and definitely try out making it a payware campaign. Totally worth charging something for the time and effort you put in. :)

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Here is a little teaser on what I am currently working at. This was just too cool not to share :) I plan to adapt the campaign system to other aircraft. In order to do so I am rewriting several systems to be more generic and modular, so that they can be easily applied to different campaigns.

 

Here is a screen of my new route generator. Input was only start, land and target position. The rest of the route was generated automatically.

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=111142&stc=1&d=1420896839

 

Pretty sweet, isn't it :)

Screen_150110_142614.thumb.jpg.07879798d84fa38d07207b3692d95de2.jpg


Edited by MBot
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I wish I had half of your scripting expertise! It is indeed, very cool. Best of luck with it!

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