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New MP Coop 8 Mission,"Kashuri CAS"


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Mission link:

http://forums.eagle.ru/attachment.php?attachmentid=54063&d=1311347525

 

I'm finally releasing a mission I've been working on for quite a while. Primary features:

 

Parallel tasking system: Tasks are added to a list that can be viewed and queried any time the player needs it. Coordinates for moving ground forces are updated and and current.

 

Dynamic battlefield: not only are enemy forces attacking and moving, but friendly forces will retreat and regroup if certain conditions are met. If even more losses are taken, friendly forces will go into full retreat!

 

The battlefield is not just dynamic on the ground. Listen to AWACs on 130 MHz to keep appraised of the enemy air situation. While you have friendly F-15Es overhead (Mudhen model so they will appear on your TAD), they can be overwhelmed or distracted. Watch your TAD! Listen to AWACs! Furthermore, friendly aircraft will share SPI on enemy fighters they are engaging. You'd better pay attention!

 

Automatic CAS calls for help: When friendly forces spot enemy armor and start engaging, they will call for CAS and provide the actual, real-time, coordinates of the enemies they see.

 

Automatic artillery engagement: Both friendly and enemy artillery will automatically select and engage targets, even leading moving targets. No longer is DCS artillery useless on a dynamic battlefield!

 

"Radio" chatter: through use of Audacity and a MATLAB-based sound editor that I created, I've made some reasonably realistic-sounding radio messages, though some of the voice acting/voice cadence could still be improved. Maybe in a future version!

 

BE ADVISED: This mission does not work just off-the-shelf with servman. That will come in the second version of this mission. However, it will still work with servman after a small mod to your servman_server.lua file. If anyone out there wants to run this mission with servman, send me a PM and I will send you the necessary file that makes this mission compatible with servman.

 

Nominally, I intend this to be a night mission, but I am including a day mission version too.

 

 

Briefing:

 

 

**To get a list of the current tasks, say "SHOW TASK LIST" (with no quotes).** The first tasks will be added between between 17 and 20 minutes after mission start.

 

**To get an update on a specific task, say "TASK # GET UPDATE", where "#" is the task number from the task list.**

 

 

 

Situation:

JSTARS aircraft have detected a three-pronged Russian attack towards our defensive line at Kashuri. A armored battalion minus is all that stands in the way. Prevent Russian forces from taking Kashuri!

 

Friendly armored battalion minus info:

 

Battalion Commander Callsign: STEEL 6

 

Apache Company: 5X M1 Abrams 3X M2 Bradleys

Company Commander Callsign: APACHE 6

 

Banshee Company: 6X M1 Abrams 4X M2 Bradleys

Company Commander Callsign: BANSHEE 6

 

Comanche Company: 6X M1 Abrams 4X M2 Bradleys

Company Commander Callsign: COMANCHE 6

 

These comanpies are deploying to these three points:

 

Apache Company is setting up a hasty defense at point ALAMO.

 

Banshee Company is setting up a hasty defense at point BASTION.

 

Comanche Company is setting up a hasty defense at point CASTLE.

 

If losses become to great, then STEEL 6 may order friendly forces to regroup at point FORTRESS, marked on your briefing images. Should we be overwhelmed, STEEL 6 may order a retreat to point GOLF, Gori.

 

 

 

Execution:

DARKSTAR will provide tasking and position of enemy units. HINT: If a task is "Very High Priority" that means you should do it ASAP.

 

**To get a list of the current tasks, say "SHOW TASK LIST" (with no quotes).** The first tasks will be added between between 17 and 20 minutes after mission start.

 

**To get an update on a specific task, say "TASK # GET UPDATE", where "#" is the task number from the task list.**

 

Additonally, STEEL 6 may specifically ask for air support.

 

F-15Cs are CAPing over the battlefield to intercept any Russian fighters, but BE PREPARED TO RETREAT TO SOUTH OF WAYPOINT 1 (GORI) SHOULD THEY BE OVERWHELMED! Monitor the situation on your TAD, AND TUNE YOUR VHF AM RADIO TO 130 MHz TO LISTEN TO AWACS!!

 

Additionally, six F-16Cs will attempt to clear the battlefield of SAMs before you arrive. DO NOT EXPECT THEM TO CLEAR ALL SAMs, SO STAY ABOVE 23 THOUSAND FEET, FIND AND KILL ENEMY SAMS FIRST, OR LOB MAVERICKS FROM A DISTANCE. Two F-16Cs are currently scheduled to take off in 46 minutes with a load of Mavericks. They are ordered to kill whatever remains of enemy SAMs, before using their Mavericks against tanks. It will PROBABLY be safe to descend below 23 thousand feet after these aircraft finish with the target area, at around 1 hour after mission start.

 

Finally, four F-16Cs loaded for air-to-air are on alert and ready to scramble should it become necessary.

 

 

 

Comms:

 

AWACS, DARKSTAR, on 130MHz VHF AM

 

STEEL 6- Battalion commander, in charge of the ground war

 

APACHE 6- Apache company commander

 

Banshee 6- Banshee company commander

 

Comanche 6- Comanche company commander

 

Bullseye: Kashuri

 

Homplate: Vasiani

 

Armament:

6X AGM-65D

2X CBU-97

2X CBU-105

6X GBU-12

1X ALQ

65% fuel

 

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attachment.php?attachmentid=51785&stc=1&d=1306264664

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Edited by Speed
  • Like 1

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wow that loooks like areal mission!

How long do you think one needs to fly in order to get the best out of it?

Is there a clear achievement that make you realize that you did win it or not?

 

thanks Speed, that is great!

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wow that loooks like areal mission!

How long do you think one needs to fly in order to get the best out of it?

Is there a clear achievement that make you realize that you did win it or not?

 

thanks Speed, that is great!

 

It's about a 2 hour mission.

 

It's pretty tough to win (though it's easy to survive if you follow the briefing), it probably still needs some balancing. Four experienced, proficient pilots have a chance at pulling it off with at least a "Partial Success" rating. If you get "lucky" and the central road enemy armor bugs out as happens rarely (and doesn't move), then you can complete it much more easily :noexpression:

 

When you complete all the tasks (there's up to 13 IIRC, but you will most likely only see 10, IIRC), it evaluates whether the mission was won or not:

 

Overwhelming success: All tasks complete with all friendly armor companies at ~70% strength or higher

 

Success: All tasks complete without any friendly armor companies having to retreat

 

Partial Success: All tasks complete without friendly forces having to retreat to point Fortress, but not point Golf (in other words, they hold Kashuri)

 

Failure: All tasks complete with friendly forces retreating to Gori, with at least one friendly company equal to or greater than ~30% strength

 

Catastrophic Failure: All tasks complete with friendly forces retreating to Gori, with no friendly companies above ~30% strength.

 

BTW, there's five enemy arty platoons, each with 4 2S19 pieces. A CBU-97/105 set to 2600 ft burst will often take all four out. If you want to beat this mission, I would highly advise that you assign 2-3 people to wipe out the artillery ASAP... should only take a few minutes. Get enemy arty down to 20% strength or less quickly, before they expend alot of shells. If you ignore enemy arty, they are going to eviscerate friendly forces. They can even, rarely, force friendly forces to retreat all by themselves, before the enemy armor even makes contact!

 

Oh and finally, another tip for this mission... I nearly named it "Kashuri Scramble". Don't f*** around at the airbase. If you know how to scramble-start, using your GPS for INS alignment, then do it. GET AIRBORNE AND GET OVER THERE FAST! The clock is ticking!


Edited by Speed

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HI! SPEED

 

I need your help because I dont understand how to interact with the mission... Yesterday I printed everything and put my bird in the air towards the mission, making sure all the systems were up and running but I realized that I dont understand how to get the info??? I heard some voic saying : new tasking available... but where do I see it? I looked at all radio menus, incoming messages on MFCD, etc... no luck

 

And when you say :

**To get a list of the current tasks, say "SHOW TASK LIST" (with no quotes).** The first tasks will be added between between 17 and 20 minutes after mission start.

 

**To get an update on a specific task, say "TASK # GET UPDATE", where "#" is the task number from the task list.**

 

What do you mean? How can one SAY something with or without quotes? Do I have to say it in a microphone, type it somewhere? I dont understand how to get the tasking, :(:(:(

 

Thanks for clarifying

 

JF

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In DCS I fly jets with thousands of pounds of thrust...

In real life I fly a humble Cessna Hawx XP II with 210 HP :D

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OK

sorry, that was really stupid...

I realized that this is not a SP mission but a MP mission.

Then

In MP, you TYPE what you want to SAY... (in chat)

Will give it a try later, there seems to be some people there already!

 

thanks

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

In DCS I fly jets with thousands of pounds of thrust...

In real life I fly a humble Cessna Hawx XP II with 210 HP :D

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OK

sorry, that was really stupid...

I realized that this is not a SP mission but a MP mission.

Then

In MP, you TYPE what you want to SAY... (in chat)

Will give it a try later, there seems to be some people there already!

 

thanks

 

It's always amazing what I forget to say and assume someone will understand when I make instructions for something. That's the hard part about making instructions, you know something so well that you sometimes don't even realize you are leaving out vital information.

 

But yea, this mission is totally, 100%, multiplayer. But that doesn't mean you can't fly it by yourself, but you are guaranteed to lose if you do. If you DO want to fly it by yourself, just set up a passworded or LAN (or passworded AND LAN) server and do it by yourself.

 

Another thing that I take for granted- the mission may CTD at 45 seconds the first time you run it due to a small mod installation. There is an in-game message about it, warning about it because people have the right to know that modifications are being made to their files (even if testing has shown no negative side effects) but I forgot to include that in the briefing.


Edited by Speed

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Speed, appreciate the effort & work.

 

We tried this.. and to be honest we found it's pace a little over the top. I think we had approx. 6 tasks being 'screamed' at us before we were even airborne. With the flashing text & constant voice overs it was somewhat annoying.

 

Sorry to give negative feedback, but i hope you take it as intended, grateful for the mission but as a group we just found the pace of tasks too much.

 

The concept and scripting seemed excellent.

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Thanks Speed, appreciate the effort & work.

 

We tried this.. and to be honest we found it's pace a little over the top. I think we had approx. 6 tasks being 'screamed' at us before we were even airborne. With the flashing text & constant voice overs it was somewhat annoying.

 

Sorry to give negative feedback, but i hope you take it as intended, grateful for the mission but as a group we just found the pace of tasks too much.

 

The concept and scripting seemed excellent.

 

I donno if this is working properly in 1.1.0.8 yet, as I am still away on vacation... should be back tomorrow night.

 

The mission is indeed a little intense, and if it took you that long to get airborne (the first tasks don't come till 20-22 minutes after mission start!!!!), you're probably going to lose. It's supposed to be a sort of "scramble" mission. Try the day version instead if it's taking too long to get set up at night.

 

Sorry, but it's intended to be a hard mission with a high pilot work load. I will eventually get around to making the mission a bit easier, but for now, you need at least four proficient and experienced A-10 pilots to win the mission. You can still fly it, and lose, I find that fun a lot of fun too.

 

It's a parallel tasking system, and all tasks can be reviewed by saying "SHOW TASK LIST" and then following the instructions. No need to write them down when the come up. If you are working a task and another comes up, just check it out to see if it's a high priority, and if not, just ignore it till you're done with the one you're on. Is it really that hard to ignore a chat message on the top of the screen? Just curious.

 

The tasks only show on screen when they are first assigned, after that, you have request an update on them. The whole point of a parallel tasking system is so that all pilots are not stuck on a single task- you are supposed to do a sort of "divide an conquer" on the tasks. One A-10 takes out one artillery group, another A-10 takes out another arty group, one A-10 goes after the south armor on the road, etc- as assigned by a mission commander. Pick a task, work it (you don't even have to complete it), then move on to another. As a group of pilots flying the mission, you have to have some discipline by dividing and assigning tasks.

 

And there's no way to get rid of the flashing other than a game mod to everyone's system. The problem is, a chat message only shows for 5 seconds, so the message has to be repeated over and over if you want to get an effective chat message life of say, 40 seconds.

 

I'm surprised you don't like the radio chatter and voice overs. The whole problem with A-10 is that it's way too stale, and you'd be the first person who I've talked to that wants less of the voice overs and radio chatter. I guess you can't please everybody.

 

One thing I do intend to do is put in some friendly Apaches doing CAS down low, that should make the mission a little easier.

 

How would YOU suggest I change the mission? Should I give the tasks starting at minute 5 instead of minute 22? I could easily spread them out over more time, but I prefer the more rapid-fire method where you get the first 8 tasks (out of 11) right in the span of minute 22-30. That way, you get to review them, assign them out to pilots, and start working on them, rather than uselessly waiting for the next to show up.

 

Again, though, for all I know, this mission could be malfunctioning severely in this latest patch. They seem to have made some major AI changes, which could be a major curse.


Edited by Speed

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I've just loaded this up and got the 25 second message but then it just carries on. So I'm just restarting the server and will go check it out now.

 

Great level of detail given for the mission and briefing too.

 

You may have hosted a mission that had the mod in it before. If it still says 25 seconds though, that is an error, I believe it should be 45 seconds. It used to be 25 seconds, but I changed it. I may have forgotten to update the text to reflect that fact.

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There were 3 of use.. all flying from day one of the beta, all capable of getting airborne as fast as anyone, being dark makes no difference. However, if i recall one of us had a technical problem so we waited for him to get back online. There is no need to assume we are cretins. :(

 

Is it really that hard to ignore a chat message on the top of the screen? Just curious.

Yes it is, as you naturally assume these tasks should be done asap, You receive the 1st task.. you start setting your flight up to take on that task, before you have a chance to do that task you receive another, and this pattern repeats itself several times, then you receive a priority tasking... 8 task in 8 minutes.. if i understand your explanation correctly.. to be honest, by this time we were all thoroughly cheesed off with the barrage or messages and voice overs.

 

I'm surprised you don't like the radio chatter and voice overs. The whole problem with A-10 is that it's way too stale, and you'd be the first person who I've talked to that wants less of the voice overs and radio chatter. I guess you can't please everybody.

 

I never said I didn't like radio chatter and voice overs, i only said the pace was too frantic, 8 tasks in 8 minutes was certainly not to our liking, we prefer to work together on taskings, we don't fly solo. Your 'system' of assigning one pilot to each task and going off solo never occurred to us, and it simply would not appeal. Flying as a group using teamwork is what appeals to us and why we fly multiplayer.

 

How would YOU suggest I change the mission? Should I give the tasks starting at minute 5 instead of minute 22? I could easily spread them out over more time, but I prefer the more rapid-fire method where you get the first 8 tasks (out of 11) right in the span of minute 22-30. That way, you get to review them, assign them out to pilots, and start working on them, rather than uselessly waiting for the next to show up.

 

I certainly like tough missions.. i'm not saying it should be dumbed down. Personally i would assign a new mission when the previous one had been completed, no need to be waiting around. Having 2 or 3 mission running in parallel is cool, 8 or so is not so, in my personal opinion. I have no military experience.. but i don't believe this was a realistic scenario regarding orders & taskings, it all just seemed over the top.

 

I'm sorry if you only wanted positive feedback, i hoped you would not react as you seemingly have. I was speaking frankly on how we found the mission flying it for the 1st time. (without the knowledge of making the mission or flying it numerous times). You clearly have put alot of effort into this mission, and i am grateful for that, but feedback should be honest.. i could have posted nothing, but personally i'd much prefer the negative feedback to a mission i'd made than have folks who did not enjoy it simply not posting at all. As you said you can't expect to please everyone.


Edited by MadTommy

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Ah ok cool that explains it.

 

MISSION SUCCESS

Daytime mission just flown in 3 hours 6 minutes with 3 pilots of the VRA team.

All worked perfectly and we managed to sort out the high priority tasks quickly and save our guys, although as MadTommy said, the rapid fire was good but with 3 planes, not a chance to get to them all, however we called off of normal tasking and went to high priority tasking, 2 planes leaving the other to carry on with his tasking.

This seemed to work for us, but having more planes in the air is better of course.

I think if you work in pairs and there are 8 flying, it would work, with less planes, maybe a little adjustment needed, but hey we succeeded in the end!!

 

Screen_110605_020434.jpg

 

Caviat to mission success is 2 pilots lost 2 planes each to SAM's but punched out and survived, 1 pilot had no damage whatsoever (RED1, that's why he's the boss) and 1 pilot had extensive damage on last RTB with right engine flame out and fire (extinguished).

 

Next challenge for us is day mission with no losses whatsoever, then night mission (flying that at 11pm to 2.30am is hard on the eyes).

 

We all thoroughly enjoyed flying this mission and will be flying it again many many times, with more of our team as they get DCS:A-10.

 

Great job to everyone involved!!!

 

Now for me to go collapse into my bed as I've flown for over 12 hours with Smokey's mission twice and this one.

 

If you have any more like these, please send me links on PM, as we love to challenge ourselves.


Edited by Ells228
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Interesting mission and discussion. Sadly I haven't had a chance to fly it yet, living out of my laptop without a joystick kinda ruins any attempt to do so. That said I've taken abit of a look at it in the editor, and knowing DCS, Speed, and this sort of mission I can certainly understand where MadTommy is coming from for the basis of his opinion. If anything this mission is a perfect example of a scenario that is limited by the interface available in DCS multiplayer. Suffice to say there is a severe lack of flexibility when it comes to the messaging within the sim and the workarounds Speed created certainly have their trade-offs. The main trade-off being you get accurate and up-to-date info on where targets are, however, the message display time cannot be decided by the mission builder. Also, the messages are placed where players would typically have servman votes or in-game chat, rather than in a separate box in which players are accustomed to getting gameplay information from.

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Originally Posted by MadTommy

There were 3 of use.. all flying from day one of the beta, all capable of getting airborne as fast as anyone, being dark makes no difference. However, if i recall one of us had a technical problem so we waited for him to get back online. There is no need to assume we are cretins.

I said you need four highly proficient pilots, and the mission will still be tough. What I failed to also mention is that you need the right strategy. And also what I fail to see in my reply to you is where I "assumed [you were] cretins". In the 16th, we have often flown this mission during development with something like 2 very proficient pilots and 2 moderately proficient pilots (not everyone has endless hours to devote to learning A-10, so many of our pilots are still learning), and with these numbers, we usually lose the mission, narrowly. So I say that the requirements are four highly proficient pilots or the equivalent in moderately proficient pilots

 

You also said you had "six before we were even airborne" meaning, no one got airborne till nearly half an hour into the mission. That is highly unusual, at least in my experience, (unless you're just waiting around for someone) so to someone who never flew the mission, just reading your post they would think that tasks were assigned very early in the mission, which is not the case at all. It would be a misrepresentation to what actually happens in the mission to not respond to that. What you, IMO, should have said instead would have been "we were delayed nearly half an hour getting airborne and already had six tasks once we were". At least you should have realized that I had to respond to that. If you're just waiting around on the ground for like 15 minutes for someone's internet to settle down, it's not fair to criticize my mission on the basis that tasks were given to you while still on the ground.

 

It is also indicative that you did not know that this was a scramble mission, where you can't wait around on the ground doing nothing because friendly forces are dying as you do so. This is most probably my fault for not stating this clearly. So if someone had internet connection issues or something like that, and you're just sitting around waiting on them, you probably need to either pause the mission or restart it. Perhaps I DO need to name the second version of this mission, "Kashuri Scramble" just to drive the point home. Or better yet, go back and make the mission not start until someone takes off. I had never planned on this mission growing to such a monstrous size when I first started it, and that's why such a thing is not in place.

 

Yes it is, as you naturally assume these tasks should be done asap, You receive the 1st task.. you start setting your flight up to take on that task, before you have a chance to do that task you receive another, and this pattern repeats itself several times, then you receive a priority tasking... 8 task in 8 minutes.. if i understand your explanation correctly.. to be honest, by this time we were all thoroughly cheesed off with the barrage or messages and voice overs.

 

I never said I didn't like radio chatter and voice overs, i only said the pace was too frantic, 8 tasks in 8 minutes was certainly not to our liking, we prefer to work together on taskings, we don't fly solo. Your 'system' of assigning one pilot to each task and going off solo never occurred to us, and it simply would not appeal. Flying as a group using teamwork is what appeals to us and why we fly multiplayer.

 

Actually, I don't find it natural to assume that all tasks are supposed done ASAP, not when every task is given a priority rating.

 

This mission is obviously much different than anything else out there. I understand that many people like serial, one-at-a-time tasks, but as this mission grew (I never intended to spend so much time on it), I realized that that just won't work out in this mission. Tasks HAD to be given in parallel. I made an assumption that since tasks were given rapidly and had a priority attached to them, that players would understand that they were supposed to pick one, work it, move on to another. Obviously, I need to more explicitly state this.

 

Here's how we work this mission in the 16th if we only have five or less: take off as fast as possible, head for the target area. When the tasks start arriving, we start assigning them off- "OK Mojo, you get task 1, and task 4, I'll get task 2 and 5, Hollywood you get task 3 and then work on task 6". Besides the stated strategies in the mission briefing, that's the strategy if you want to win the mission. Eventually, you do get a lot of working together (real multiplayer) once the arty is down, but at first, you merely have to coordinate with each other and get separate tasks.

 

Finally, you've got to understand that you are playing an 8 player, time-critical multiplayer mission, and you are severely under-strength with just 3 players. You can't be flying as a group when doing so, not at first at least, because when raw killing is required in a minimal amount of time, just flying on your flight lead wing and watching him bomb is NOT an efficient use of time.

 

Now, if you had had eight players, it would be totally fine to break off into four groups of two. If you have six pilots, break off into three groups of two. But overall, you really need at least three separate groups killing stuff at any one time- which means if you're attempting this mission with just your three pilots, each needs to act as a single ship, doing a separate task. That's why I recommend 8 players!

 

So yea, if you only have three pilots currently available, and you like flying formation and acting as a three-ship all the time and abhor the notion of breaking off to handle separate tasks over the same battlefield area, then this is not the mission you should be flying.

 

But it's not "my 'system' of assigning one pilot to each task and going off solo". That's something you have to do because there are so few of you in an 8 player mission.

 

Now, actually, you could just fly this mission as you see fit, so if you have three pilots, and you really just want to stick together the whole time, then pick two or three arty tasks, do them, then focus on southern or central road enemy armor (should be tasks 6 or 7). You won't win probably, but it can still be fun.

I certainly like tough missions.. i'm not saying it should be dumbed down. Personally i would assign a new mission when the previous one had been completed, no need to be waiting around. Having 2 or 3 mission running in parallel is cool, 8 or so is not so, in my personal opinion. I have no military experience.. but i don't believe this was a realistic scenario regarding orders & taskings, it all just seemed over the top.

As far as not being realistic, quite possibly. But don't you think that war is a little frantic and over the top? Basically, I just served up the entire battlefield of valid targets up to you, because, if I had say, just given the arty first, then people would fart around and make sure they got every single arty gun dead before moving on to the next task. OK, so what if I had some kind of logic so that the current tasks moved on to the enemy armor columns when they became a truly high priority? Then people would get ticked off that their arty task just got cancelled. Basically, you get all the valid enemy positions, and YOU have to decide as to what is most necessary to take out.

 

I'm sorry if you only wanted positive feedback, i hoped you would not react as you seemingly have. I was speaking frankly on how we found the mission flying it for the 1st time. (without the knowledge of making the mission or flying it numerous times). You clearly have put alot of effort into this mission, and i am grateful for that, but feedback should be honest.. i could have posted nothing, but personally i'd much prefer the negative feedback to a mission i'd made than have folks who did not enjoy it simply not posting at all. As you said you can't expect to please everyone.

I'm all for positive and negative feedback, and I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was severely ticked off at you. Truth be told, I was a little ticked off, but I tried to now let it show. You see, it was the way you gave negative feedback. You said that "we had tasks screamed at us". You are overstating the negative, and yea, that kind of feedback is usually not received as polite. I remember one time that a similar situation to this was reversed... I'm not one to preach, so certainly no hard feelings on my part against you at least, and I'm sorry if you took my post as overly negative towards you... I was a little ticked off at your overstating the negative and perhaps that showed through even if I didn't really intend it.

.


Edited by Speed

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Interesting mission and discussion. Sadly I haven't had a chance to fly it yet, living out of my laptop without a joystick kinda ruins any attempt to do so. That said I've taken abit of a look at it in the editor, and knowing DCS, Speed, and this sort of mission I can certainly understand where MadTommy is coming from for the basis of his opinion. If anything this mission is a perfect example of a scenario that is limited by the interface available in DCS multiplayer. Suffice to say there is a severe lack of flexibility when it comes to the messaging within the sim and the workarounds Speed created certainly have their trade-offs. The main trade-off being you get accurate and up-to-date info on where targets are, however, the message display time cannot be decided by the mission builder. Also, the messages are placed where players would typically have servman votes or in-game chat, rather than in a separate box in which players are accustomed to getting gameplay information from.

 

Yup, the flashing text, as a multiplayer message, has its problems but it's the only way to generate dynamic, real-time messages. I keep hoping one day, we can get a "radio message on frequency" lua function, and a "sound on frequency" lua function.

 

As far as players not being habituated to seeing any kind of vital information in the chat window, I haven't noticed that as a problem yet- have you? Certainly, if it is a problem, at this rate, it should become less of a problem soon. People tend to notice that they are receiving a chat message, and it doesn't take but two seconds for them to realize that it's not really a chat message... The bigger problems arise in the confusion that currently, I don't have a way of sending chat messages only to certain people (this may be rectified eventually), that the message has to flash (no way to rectify this that I have found, unfortunately), and that multiple messages loops can be playing at one time (which definitely gets confusing).


Edited by Speed

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I actually like the chat message. Unlike the trigger you can expand the chat to get the message if you missed it. I have not had any complaints so far. In fact its been the other way. People like it. They love the UTM format.

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Ah ok cool....

 

I guess I'll find out tomorrow night when I get back from vacation, but did everything appear to work? In particular,

1) Did you ever see enemy artillery firing?

2) Did any of the enemy armor columns get stuck?

 

I ask 1) because of the problems Bahger is reporting, and I ask 2) because that's still a somewhat rare issue that I may have rectified but possibly not. You can also get enemy armor stuck if you bomb them in the right areas, though that may be a valid strategy rather than a bug.

 

Also, some issues have been reported with SEAD aircraft in this latest patch. Did you:

3) Get any "Kill SA-15" tasks

4) Other than the 2S6 escorting the SA-11 group, did you see any live 2S6s after about 1 hour into the mission?

 

I ask 3) because you should NEVER get any "Kill SA-15" tasks unless there is some highly unusual or buggy behavior by the F-16 SEAD packages, and I ask 4) because after the first wave of enemy MiGs, another wave of F-16s arrive that are supposed to all but eliminate the enemy SAM threat over the battle area.

 

Anyway, I'll find out what the behavior is for this mission in 1.1.0.8 tomorrow when I finally get home from vacation, but if you can provide any kind of feedback on this, it will add an extra data point to my sample, so to speak.

 

Certainly good job on the mission, you got the highest second highest possible victory, quite impressive.


Edited by Speed
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Intelligent discourse can only begin with the honest admission of your own fallibility.

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I guess I'll find out tomorrow night when I get back from vacation, but did everything appear to work? In particular,

1) Did you ever see enemy artillery firing?

2) Did any of the enemy armor columns get stuck?

 

I ask 1) because of the problems Bahger is reporting, and I ask 2) because that's still a somewhat rare issue that I may have rectified but possibly not. You can also get enemy armor stuck if you bomb them in the right areas, though that may be a valid strategy rather than a bug.

 

Also, some issues have been reported with SEAD aircraft in this latest patch. Did you:

3) Get any "Kill SA-15" tasks

4) Other than the 2S6 escorting the SA-11 group, did you see any live 2S6s after about 1 hour into the mission?

 

I ask 3) because you should NEVER get any "Kill SA-15" tasks unless there is some highly unusual or buggy behavior by the F-16 SEAD packages, and I ask 4) because after the first wave of enemy MiGs, another wave of F-16s arrive that are supposed to all but eliminate the enemy SAM threat over the battle area.

 

Anyway, I'll find out what the behavior is for this mission in 1.1.0.8 tomorrow when I finally get home from vacation, but if you can provide any kind of feedback on this, it will add an extra data point to my sample, so to speak.

 

Certainly good job on the mission, you got the highest second highest possible victory, quite impressive.

 

1. Yes I'm pretty sure the enemy Arty were firing, there were lots of hits close to our forces and some losses. And when I loaded up the night mission just to watch the fireworks, there were certainly some lol

If they weren't firing then we had a pretty easy mission just taking targets out, may be why we succeded so well and got ahigh score with 3 planes.

I'll have to do a fly over and watch the battle to test it out.

 

2. There was a column in the valley LM883644:2448 (I think that was it) that I think got stuck, but then any moving columns we always take the first guy out to stop them moving.

 

3. Yes we got a high priority task to take out the moving column of SAMs, that's when i lost 2 planes. Although honestly I don't recall if 6's or not, was pretty tired and didn't record on it my sheet of 20+ coordinates scribbles. Must get more organised lol

 

4. No, I'm pretty sure the SEAD group took out the remaining SAMs after an hour. RED1 reported lots of strikes on them and then we were clear.

RED1 got caught up in air battle after getting priority1 SAM column and egressed PDQ, after that the airspace was clear for a while until the second wave which the 16's took out. His comment of "damn I should listen to the AWACS more" made me laugh.

 

I had no problem with the chat and think that system works well, but we don't have servman running.

 

May be a future version could have audio for the call outs, but I understand that's limited to the coordinate read outs.

 

Is it possible to add text on completed tasks (rather than nothing) that states tasking complete, or add to the briefing notes that no response = task complete?

 

We were very organised in our approach in a pre-flight breifing, 1 takes task 1, 2 2, 3 3, 1 4, 2 5, 3 6 etc. and then we call if taking priority tasks based on ordinance left and closest proximity as we all entered the co-ords in the CDU. At one point I had 10 tasks in my CDU named task1 to task10. If enroute back from an RTB we'd call to see if assistance was needed but mostly had at least two planes over battle area all the time on a turn around.

 

This mission needs a fair bit of planning and organisation which adds to the realism for us. We are a naturally organised team (have to be for close formation aerobatic flying) and we just naturally did it this way.

 

I have to agree with you Speed, one of our pilots was playing with his jet on the ramp whilst the other two of us were airbourne, i told him to stop dicking around with his CDU and get airbourne as people are dying out there and this is a scamble mission. I thought you made that pretty clear in the briefing notes. Sitting on a ramp for even 10 minutes will cause chaos before you even reach WP1. Of course things will happen, but you need CAP cover up there right away, even if it's 2 planes.

 

Anywho, if it turns out we had an easy ride cause it's broken, it's still the best 4 hours we've had flying DCS:A-10 so far and bravo on a great thought out mission.

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Speed, I'm sure the arty still fires, and it might even fire on the correct target -- let's hope -- but I'm certain that arty programmed in 1.0.0.8 will only fire on LOS targets that it sees and will ignore player-set "Fire at Point" orders.

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