Fixed Base of Operation (FBO) Mission

Hi again,

just a quick question: For A2A "Fighter" missions, can I change the number of how many enemy fighters are spawned? Would it be possible to perhaps add a sub-menu where to chose the number of enemy fighters? (like A2A mission -> Fighter -> 1 fighter or 2 fighters or 4 fighters...).

This would be to balance the numbers on "my" side (in case I spawn also my wingman or as a squadron leader).

Thank you for consideration!

Milan

Hi Apollon01 - I think it "maybe" already does what you want. Open the communications menu pick F10 ( Other ). Then pick Preferences > Difficulty Settings.

Normal - is one target. On a Squadron Mission it s four targets

Challenging- is two targets. On a Squadron Mission it s eight targets

Hard- is three targets. On a Squadron Mission it s twelve targets

If you are flying a bomber with escort mission, the above settings are the bombers plus an escort for each bomber. So hard on a squadron mission would be twelve bombers and twelve fighters.

This setting works the same for ground targets . For a convoy mission, the number of tanks in the convoy is effected by the difficultly setting.

Hi sigmet and thank you for your reply.

Sorry for a dumb question above :huh:

I got just one MiG 31 when I set the difficulty on Challenging and Hard. Will try again :thumbup:

Milan

EDIT: Tried again and it works as intended. My bad, sorry. I have probably screwed something up before :thumbup:

No worries - glad its working as intended. When you restart the mission, it resets the difficulty. You can save the difficulty by editing the preferences trigger in the mission editor. Then it will always start on that difficulty setting.

Much thanks for the update Sigmet - Squadron dogfight works very well now, formation is kept untill player engages, and wingmen fight untill all enemy flight is down.

You've also included the new WWII assets thanks.

The only little "issue" I had was due to skins (but I don't know if something can be done for it ?) : Once, my flight was P51D with British skins and enemy flights were Ju88 with German skins and FW190A8 escort with British skins like my flight - A disturbance when closing my wounded target I thought I fired on team mate !

FW190D9 and BF109K4 seem to always have german skins on red side no issue here.

Thanks again great work.

Hi Toutenglisse - Thanks for the feedback. I simply picked skins that I liked for the mission. I realize now there isn't enough of a difference in some of the possible match ups. Especially the British skins used on the red side. In the next update, I will change the red skins so they are different enough from blue to avoid any confusion.

A beta update of FBO for DCS Super Carrier version can be downloaded here

• Caucasus
  
• Persian Gulf
  
• Normandy
  

If you don't own the Super Carrier you will spawn airborne for now.

:thumbup:

Another thing I forgot to mention : spawning in a Ka50 makes DCS crash.

Sorry I am Giving Up!

Sorry I have to remove the Ka-50 from the mission. I tried everything to get it to work. The problem is that if the Stennis or Tarawa are ever spawned in the mission a Ka-50 player spawn will crash the mission. The Tarawa spawns late activation when the mission starts to speed the activation when the player wants to spawn on it. This late activation spawn is what causes the initial crash when you pick the Ka-50.

If I spawn the Russian KUZNECOW or MOSCOW late activation at mission start instead of the Tarawa. Then a Ka-50 spawn will not crash the mission. However, if during game play you fly something off the Tarawa or Stennis then try to fly the Ka-50, it will crash the mission.

Very strange behavior that appears to be a DCS bug to me. I can't replicate it outside this mission to really be able to submit it. The Ka-50 is the only aircraft with this problem and all the aircraft in my mission use the exact same spawning routines regardless of type. A Ka-50 will spawn as a target or wingman with the Tarawa active. The only difference between a target,wingman and player in the spawning routines is Skill="Player"

Beta FBO for Syrian map located here

Feedback is encouraged.

Hi mate, great work on this mission, just what I've been looking for.

One quick question, would a 4 player MP version be possible for me and my flight to use as a hosted training aid?

I know I could just ad Client slots in the Editor but that causes script issues which are beyond my lowly capabilities to fix :helpsmilie:

No worries if not just would be handy.

Great job regardless, keep up the good work :clap_2:

Hey Dai-San,

I am glad you like the FBO mission and are getting value out of it.

Running the FBO mission as multiplayer just isn't going to work. I tried to port it a couple of months ago and abandoned it. The issue is because DCS to my knowledge won't let you dynamically spawn the Multi-players.

To that end I have been working on a completely rewritten and slightly different play style multiuser version A very early Caucasus multiuser beta version can be downloaded HERE. It still contains all the dynamic target spawning as the single user FBO.

You can play this MultiUser FBO mission in single user or host it as multiplayer. You modify the players aircraft in the mission editor. Add or delete any aircraft in the mission editor. Call them whatever you like and place them anywhere on the map. Basically, customize the aircraft type and location to your liking. You can even delete every aircraft I have added in this beta version and add your own.

The menu driven target selection follows the player aircraft groups you set up in the mission editor. So if you want a group of players to get messages that track the same target, add a single aircraft group and multiple units. If you want each player to have their own target selection, add a aircraft group with only one unit. You can also mix and match any single or multi-unit groups you want.

There are some user/host configurable settings you can edit in the mission editor to make the mission play to your own style. To change them, edit the mission triggers for the first trigger in the list called "User Config Mission Settings" . Edit the "do Script" value for each global variable:

• gLanguage = Language. Right now just English and Spanish ( taken from google translate )
   
  
• gDifficulty = How many targets spawn as default. Like the single user version normal = 1 , hard = 2 etc
   
  
• gFlightRange = mission default choice for how far away the players flight is to the target in meters.
   
  
• gDetectRange = mission default choice for how far away players are when target spawns in meters.
   
  
• gUnitsOfMeasure = if mission tells the player flight distances in kilometers or miles. Note - the altitude description of target matches the players aircraft altimeter type.
   
  
• gTargetRange = array for the distances of the gFlightRange choice in meters. For instance, you can make a "short" flight a distance of 10 meters or a far flight 900,000 meters, etc.
   
  
• gTargetDetectRange = array for the distances of gDetectRange choice in meters. This behaves like gTargetDetectRange except for how far away player is when the target spawns
   
  
• gTargetDestroyDelay = how long in minutes target remains on the map after the entire group dies or quits mission. If you want to keep flying over and over to the same target, set this to a big number or you can remove/comment out the variable altogether for infinity.
   
  
• gAllowWindSock = True or false if the players can put smoke on the closest airport so they can see the wind direction. This is helpful when landing at an unknown airport since we have no ATIS in DCS.
  

As always feedback is always encouraged.

Hi Sigmet,

Downloaded the Beta mission and ported it across to the Syria map.

Everything appears to work OK for myself as the host but yet to try it with my friends, I added a 2 man Group and a single man Group for testing purposes.

ATC is not working (all airports greyed out) but ATC can be a nightmare in MP anyway.

Targets seem to spawn and operate correctly, only thing I did notice was that in the original SP mission once I had destroyed the enemy units I automatically got guidance to the airport whereas I had to manually request it in the MP version.

Not a criticism just a heads up if this was unintended.

It would also be nice to have some of the other SP options back such as the Flight Training and Formation Training but again if these were omitted because they don't work in MP than that's fine.

Great work on this and even in it's current state it's ideal for what we wanted.

Many thanks

Bryan

Hi Dai-San - Thank you for testing the mission. I am curious what feedback you have playing as multiplayer I sort of tabled the development on this for the last few months. Your interest is giving me renewed incentive to work on it more in the coming weeks..

DS> ATC is not working (all airports greyed out) but ATC can be a nightmare in MP anyway.

ATC works for me in the Caucasus beta version I posted. If you are flying an aircraft with preset radio frequencies, add the tower frequency of the airport you flying to/from in the mission editor of the aircraft you add. For instance the F86 has a lot of available presets, but not all the airfields on Caucasus map are default listed in the presets when you add the aircraft in the mission editor.

DS> I automatically got guidance to the airport whereas I had to manually request it in the MP version.

Not sure if omitting that was "by design" or laziness on my part. The F10 radio choice gives you a vector to the closest friendly airfield. Whereas the single user version gives you a vector to your home airbase. I will look into adding the home base vector into the multiplayer.

DS> Flight Training and Formation Training but again if these were omitted because they don't work in MP than that's fine.

Sorry those training functions require a dynamic spawn of the players aircraft on approach, short final, at the tanker etc. Not possible in the multiplayer version since you spawn via aircraft you have added in the mission editor. I guess you could add your own aircraft lined up on final for instance and just keep spawing into it.

I will be working on this mission and will post an updated Syrian version next time too so you don't have to port it.

Thanks for the feedback !

Thanks for last update, I enjoy much the new mission options (lead or WM) and variety/aditions.

Best wishes

EDIT : I suppose it wouldn't be easy mod... but it 'd be great to have an option to choose the fixed base, choosing between 4 or 5 blue bases accross the map.

An option (to set targets as historical or not) is duplicated between "preferences" and "advanced".

When loadout is set in option to A/G, and player spawns in FW190A8, the plane (and wingmen) has no loadout (clean). OK with other aircraft types.

Hi sigmet, just a shout to you...

I came back to DCS after some time, fired up your FBO and had a blast :-) What an easy way to get some action.

Hi toutenglisse, 

I have already noticed that the FW190A8 doesn't spawn the loadouts.  I should have that fixed in the next release.  But thanks for the reminder. Keep them coming.

I will look into the ability to swap airfields. Thats a good suggestion and should be easy enough to accomplish.  In the meantime, you can move the starter aircraft to any airfield on the map in the mission editor.  You can also change the starter aircraft to any type except Ka-50 which is still bugged.   If you change the type, just make sure the group name and pilot name (unit) are exactly the same.  

Hello,

I noticed that you have to overfly ground targets to get them to spawn. This is an issue for attacking naval units and ground units with Harpoons, SLAMs, CM-802AKGs, and C-802AKs, as your aircraft might not ever get within the spawn range of the units.

Hi ohyeah2389,

That is by design with the ground targets.  I wrote this for WWII era play with ground targets in motion on a random heading.  I didn't want them to drive too far away from me or their spawn point.   You can hack their spawn distance to you by adding a final trigger in the mission editor.   No Condition, one action " Do Script" , Text is "DefaultTriggerDistance=X".  Where X is meters away from target you want to be when it spawns (note - in meters not kilometers).  The default is 10000 meters.

This limitation has been mentioned before. I will look into modifying the next release to include a ground target spawn range via the preferences. 

Hi @sigmet,

From your previous post (January 30) I can see that you made the FBO with the WWII in mind. Maybe that's why I can see certain patterns that are perhaps not ideal for the modern jet era

For example (FBO Caucasus v1.12):

- when on A-A BVR combat mission, the targets spawn quite close to player aircraft - only around 20 miles or so, which is pretty close for a BVR encounter  (Amraams have range of 30-40 miles)

- when intercepting a bomber, it spawns relatively low (even if player aircraft is spawned at 10000 ft; I would expect them to come at around 30000 ft and more)

- fighters also seem to spawn relatively low thus not allowing for a high-altitude combat

I will understand if you are not keen on changing the code of your FBO mission files. Though, is there a way how to tweak these settings on my end? (e.g. like you suggested in your previous post to ohyeah2389)

Also, could you please indicate what to change and where if I wish to change default variables, e.g. default spawn aircraft, default A-A mode to BVR, default distance to target...

Thanks again for your FBO missions, I am using them for fun and training!

Milan

EDIT: Using the suggestion in your previous reply, I managed to adjust the spawn distance by using "BVRTriggerDistance" and "DefaultTriggerDistance" and also managed to adjust the spawn altitude by editing the onetime.lua script.

Hi apollon01 - Sorry for the delay to respond.  I am now realizing I am no longer subscribed to additions to this thread after their format change. 

Thanks for the suggestion.  I looked at the code and it appears aircraft targets spawn at a random of altitude of between 3,000 to 7,000 feet MSL or 2,000 feet AGL when over the mountains.   Good job on finding where that code is and hacking the change into your mission.  This default setting is based entirely on WWII climb performance vs how much time I was willing to spend reaching that altitude.  

To make the suggestion work for all aircraft, I think I can take into account the "real world" operational altitude of each target type and use that to assign a more appropriate spawn altitude. 

However, I have shifted focus recently to finishing up a multiuser version of FBO,  With the exception of new aircraft and maps, I am not spending much time on the single user version anymore.  I will for sure add this suggestion into the multi user code and will look at working it into a future patch/update of the single user version.

On 5/21/2021 at 6:55 AM, apollon01 said:

Also, could you please indicate what to change and where if I wish to change default variables, e.g. default spawn aircraft, default A-A mode to BVR, default distance to target...

You can change the starting aircraft to any type you like in the mission editor.  Just make sure the name and group name match.  I looks like you fired out the other trigger distances.

Hi Sigmet

Enjoying the hell out of your Fixed Base Operation, and i have a question or two

I read the thread, and tried to get the two options 

• gTargetRange = array for the distances of the gFlightRange choice in meters. For instance, you can make a "short" flight a distance of 10 meters or a far flight 900,000 meters, etc.
   
• gTargetDetectRange = array for the distances of gDetectRange choice in meters. This behaves like gTargetDetectRange except for how far away player is when the target spawns

Into the mission. I'm using the Apache, so it would be quite helpfull to be able to set flightrange calls to meters.

I have tried to add it to the triggers where i thought it would fit, but to no avail (cannot find the global arrays in the script either). 

Using the latest version FBO-Fixed Base of Operations Map Bundle v1.16 ( AH-64D added )

Best regards

Mav

Just wanted to say a BIG THANK YOU. Loving your FBO series of missions. Great way to improve skills, learn planes and have fun.

One thing - I can never seem to get the tanker in refuel training to acknowledge 'intent to refuel'. 

Is this broken or is it me? I request refuel after spawning and it doesn't extend basket. 

Distance from tanker makes no difference either?

Thank you