Operation Black Spire - Nevada PvE Playground

Snowfox and Clear Field the map view is allies only to simulate a real environment.

Quick question. When assigned a task on Snowfox or Clear Field, do they show up on the map? Just curious how one would use JDAM's? Or are exact coordinates given?

Thanks again for the mission. Starting to make a dent in Blackspire. Found if I dispatch SEAD as well as fighters (even if no SEAD is needed) it helps stem the tide of enemy CAPS. Very fun. :)

Quick question. When assigned a task on Snowfox or Clear Field, do they show up on the map? Just curious how one would use JDAM's? Or are exact coordinates given?

 

Thanks again for the mission. Starting to make a dent in Blackspire. Found if I dispatch SEAD as well as fighters (even if no SEAD is needed) it helps stem the tide of enemy CAPS. Very fun. :)

I highly suggest you go through all the radio options. Target report will give you the coordinates of the first unit in a group in 3 flavours of coords, one of which is precise.

I highly suggest you go through all the radio options. Target report will give you the coordinates of the first unit in a group in 3 flavours of coords, one of which is precise.

Excellent! Top notch missions good sir!

v103 is up

Changelog v103

- Critical fix in mission target status script

Thanks for the quick update!

Another question, sorry I have had a lot lately, do you think I’d mess anything up by switching out the Huey with the Gazelle at Nellis and Cheech?

Thanks for the quick update!

 

Another question, sorry I have had a lot lately, do you think I’d mess anything up by switching out the Huey with the Gazelle at Nellis and Cheech?

Easiest would be to do a copy and paste from the Huey or Mi-8 instead, and change the new flight to Gazelle's. :thumbup:

I don't own the Gazelle hence never remember to put it in :music_whistling:

Easiest would be to do a copy and paste from the Huey or Mi-8 instead, and change the new flight to Gazelle's. :thumbup:

 

I don't own the Gazelle hence never remember to put it in :music_whistling:

ah. good call!

hey Surrexen!

Does adding a random unit wreck anything? I am clearing the Nevada map of red, but there is 2x MPAD infantry on the bridge by the Hoover Dam. I've cleared every unit around the area but I just can't get rid of these guys. I've tried missiles, rockets, jdams. They always miss. As a bit of a completionist and to make it kinda part of the story, I want to send in a tank or two to clear out the last remnants of the enemy holding the damn.

So if I plop a Abrams on the bridge in the mission editor to kill these two last units that i can't get from the air, will things be cool?

Thanks!

hey Surrexen!

 

Does adding a random unit wreck anything? I am clearing the Nevada map of red, but there is 2x MPAD infantry on the bridge by the Hoover Dam. I've cleared every unit around the area but I just can't get rid of these guys. I've tried missiles, rockets, jdams. They always miss. As a bit of a completionist and to make it kinda part of the story, I want to send in a tank or two to clear out the last remnants of the enemy holding the damn.

 

So if I plop a Abrams on the bridge in the mission editor to kill these two last units that i can't get from the air, will things be cool?

 

Thanks!

This made me spit my coffee all over the place when I read it :lol:

First of all, there are 4 of them in total, 2 on the Hoover Dam wall, and 2 on the bridge looking over towards the dam.

Just pop a few flares as you are on your attack run, and/or when you see them launch on you. Or call in CAS on the Hoover Dam and they'll do it for you.

However ... if you absolutely must ... yes you can add in a random tank to deal with them ;)

For maximum fun, don't attack them at all, and fly in between the bridge and the dam wall and dodge all the rockets using flares :thumbup:

I dropped bombs on them lol. Big bomb squishy mens lol

I dropped bombs on them lol. Big bomb squishy mens lol

That's the spirit!

I can also highly recommend a good sized dosage of BRRRRRRRRT :thumbup:

v104 is up

Changelog v104:

- Radio option to smoke the current objective added, to avoid the potential for smoke spamming on skip mission etc, the smoke is on a 5 minute cooldown

- Persistency script changed to not explode statics, just cleanly remove them

Surrexen,

I've been playing around with the spawn timers and am seeing some odd behavior. Here's what I've tried:

	--////RED CAP SQUADRON EXECUTION
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCap( "Alpha", CAPZoneRed1, 2500, 11000, 750, 900, 800, 1200, "BARO" )
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCapInterval( "Alpha", 1, 900, 1200, 1)
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCap( "Beta", CAPZoneRed2, 2500, 11000, 750, 900, 800, 1200, "BARO" )
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCapInterval( "Beta", 1, 900, 1200, 1)
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCap( "Gamma", CAPZoneRed3, 2500, 11000, 750, 900, 800, 1200, "BARO" )
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCapInterval( "Gamma", 1, 900, 1200, 1)

I've changed these settings under Multi and Single Player sections. The odd behavior is that I'm seeing cap groups spawn well before 900s has passed since that groups last death. Also, what determines the initial spawn time? I'm seeing new units pop up at the 2min mark sometimes. And finally, I see in the Moose documentation that the probability value isn't in use, do you know if that's still true?

Thanks!

Surrexen,

 

I've been playing around with the spawn timers and am seeing some odd behavior. Here's what I've tried:

 

	--////RED CAP SQUADRON EXECUTION
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCap( "Alpha", CAPZoneRed1, 2500, 11000, 750, 900, 800, 1200, "BARO" )
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCapInterval( "Alpha", 1, 900, 1200, 1)
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCap( "Beta", CAPZoneRed2, 2500, 11000, 750, 900, 800, 1200, "BARO" )
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCapInterval( "Beta", 1, 900, 1200, 1)
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCap( "Gamma", CAPZoneRed3, 2500, 11000, 750, 900, 800, 1200, "BARO" )
REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCapInterval( "Gamma", 1, 900, 1200, 1)

 

I've changed these settings under Multi and Single Player sections. The odd behavior is that I'm seeing cap groups spawn well before 900s has passed since that groups last death. Also, what determines the initial spawn time? I'm seeing new units pop up at the 2min mark sometimes. And finally, I see in the Moose documentation that the probability value isn't in use, do you know if that's still true?

 

Thanks!

Absolutely no idea, but I have a feeling that the minimum time doesn't work properly, only the maximum time seems to be reliable. To be honest if ED had a respawn function, I would be seriously considering dropping Moose altogether and re-write everything to function without it.

Absolutely no idea, but I have a feeling that the minimum time doesn't work properly, only the maximum time seems to be reliable. To be honest if ED had a respawn function, I would be seriously considering dropping Moose altogether and re-write everything to function without it.

I guess that makes me feel better in that I'm actually understanding how Moose is supposed to work. Does MIST have a similar function? I haven't gotten deep enough into either Moose or MIST yet to know what works and what doesn't.

I guess that makes me feel better in that I'm actually understanding how Moose is supposed to work. Does MIST have a similar function? I haven't gotten deep enough into either Moose or MIST yet to know what works and what doesn't.

I had made the decision very early on that I didn't want to run both MIST and MOOSE in the same mission, and decided to go with MOOSE because of the AI A2A Dispatcher methods for the way it can handle the randomisation of the squadron makeups and respawns. I never really looked into MIST because of that.

The other big one is how sets of groups and units is really easy to do with MOOSE, this was pretty much what allowed me to implement persistence into the mission.

The downside to both MIST and MOOSE is that dynamically spawned planes do not get counted towards the pilots logbook. If ED did have a respawn function that allowed the spawned planes to count towards logbook then yes, perhaps given the time, I would find a way to drop MOOSE entirely since I don't really use that many of it's functions. Also I am sort of stuck now with a slightly customised version of an older Moose version from August last year as I don't really like how the planes behave in versions newer than that, this is not a complaint about Moose, just a personal preference on how they behave.

Of course, re-writing everything would be a major rework, and is not something that is realistically going to happen. As it stands right now, I have spent a massive amount of time and effort to get my missions working to the level that they are now. I think I have finally ironed out all the major bugs in my scripts and the current versions of my code are stable enough that I effectively call it done (at least for now).

Also I know that there are several servers/groups out there that have taken what I have done and added MIST to it to provide things like CTLD etc to their liking. I can't really make Snowfox or Clear Field any bigger than they are now anyway as I kind of feel they are at their limits for what the engine can provide me. Perhaps when Vulkan gets added some of those limitations might be alleviated ... but who really knows.

Anyway, I figure with what I have now, I can at least whack together the same system into any further maps that get released without too much hassle. I am looking forward to putting something together for the Mariana's map ... and when the time comes ... Syria. I am not sure at this stage whether I will make one for the upcoming channel map or not.

Long story short, anything you want to do in terms of mission design, and scripting, ends up being a compromise based on limitations you run into along the way. You guys have only really seen the bits that I have tried out and decided are 'ok'. What you haven't seen is the countless ideas on the drawing board that only got so far before something didn't work out quite right and the idea would have to be scrapped. Anyway, with 3000+ combined downloads on my missions I must have gotten at least something right :thumbup:

We definitely appreciate all the hard work!

Surrexen,

Any chance the mission scripting lua changes can be enabled/enacted via the Saved Games folder (or some other option)?

Also, I assume it will not hurt to delete any client flights? I am modifying the mission a bit for our group's use and am considering all the slow movers starting at Creech and most of the faster movers starting at Nellis. I understand the diff you set up for ramp vs. hot (changing all to hot).

Thx!

Surrexen,

Any chance the mission scripting lua changes can be enabled/enacted via the Saved Games folder (or some other option)?

 

Also, I assume it will not hurt to delete any client flights? I am modifying the mission a bit for our group's use and am considering all the slow movers starting at Creech and most of the faster movers starting at Nellis. I understand the diff you set up for ramp vs. hot (changing all to hot).

 

Thx!

As in the stuff to enable the persistence? No unfortunately there is no other way than to make the edit to the MissionScripting.lua file after each update or repair.

I'll pull you up here before you make any changes because I will be putting out an update but it's not fully tested yet and there are major changes. See the Snowfox thread for details on where things are up to.

Editing client slots should not break anything.

Thank you sir! Understood. My changes are simple and easy to replicate so no big deal; we need a good mission to tide us over until ED get the 2.5.6 carrier thing fixed. I will check out Snowfox thread!

EDIT: read the end of Snowfox. It seems they got us with 2.5.6! Maybe we will just play without persistence for now.

Thank you sir! Understood. My changes are simple and easy to replicate so no big deal; we need a good mission to tide us over until ED get the 2.5.6 carrier thing fixed. I will check out Snowfox thread!

 

EDIT: read the end of Snowfox. It seems they got us with 2.5.6! Maybe we will just play without persistence for now.

Well the things that didn't spawn are actually spawning now, so it'll probably be ok ... but definately don't use ground starts for AI ...

v105 is up

IMPORTANT: If you are using persistence, you MUST remove your BlackSpireUnitInterment.lua and BlackSpireStaticInterment.lua files from your DCS World installation folder before starting the mission so new lists can be generated as many group and unit prefixes have changed!!! You will only need to do this once!

Changelog v105

1. A 2.5.6 compatible Moose version has been added

2. Group/Unit/Static prefixes for certain sectors have been revised so that pinpoint strikes will work on all targets in a sector

3. Infantry units have been set to not disperse under fire so they don't go hiding in trees etc

4. Target report clearview added to the text output to help alleviate the issue in the note below.

5. Various script adjustments

Note: For busy multiplayer servers, an issue has been identified where the target report can take up a lot of space in VR (for example when a flight of 4 is full of players and the report is given to the whole group). To get around this issue, it may be best to change the client slot groups to single planes only and duplicate the single planes so that instead of one group of 4 planes, you have 4 groups of 1 plane each. This way the target report will only come out once per player and not take up their whole screen.

Extra Note: Turns out the NTTR airfield ID's are kind of messed up with Moose still, so if you use ground AI starts ... interesting things will happen like red air taking off from North Las Vegas instead of Pahute Mesa. So basically leave it in GameMode 0 for air starts until I can get an updated Moose etc etc.

Updates for Operation Snowfox and Operation Clear Field will likely be out tomorrow.

Nice, thank you sir!

v106 is out to remove the clearview on the target report.

OK, grabbed it and made the mods for our group. This is the only error I see in the server log for loading the misasion, safe to ignore?

2020-02-25 20:50:51.566 ERROR FLIGHT: Unknown runway side 12L of beacon I-HWG at airdrome NorthLasVegasAirport

2020-02-25 20:50:52.033 WARNING LOG: 1 duplicate message(s) skipped.