Need ideas for Multiplayer mission making.. lets hear them please!

Hog pilots please help me...

Somewhat accidentally i have undertaken a mammoth task..(due to a slight miscalculation in trigger logic & some insomnia) i have a mission template that randomly picks 1 or 14 possible scenarios at the mission launch. (it was meant to be 1 in 8..)..

So i need some ideas to fill these possible scenarios with unique main mission tasks and potentially numerous side missions..

It initially has 8 multiplayer slots. (this can always change)

The obvious.. and rather generic ideas:

• CAS role in defence
  
• CAS role supporting attack
  
• Precision strike
  
• Area Patrol
  
• ??
  
• ??
  

Detailed ideas under the obvious above would be very much appreciated. I'll probably have several scenarios under each.

Lets hear your ideas..any ideas.. big or small would all be greatly appreciated.

:helpsmilie:

P.S.. cannot have any boat/sea scenarios.. as it is based along way inland. (attempting to help fps issues)

Thanks.

:pilotfly:

Of course once completed i post this multi-mission on these forums!

(p.s moderators.. i hope this topic can remain in the main Hog forum.. and not get lost in the generic multiplayer one... as this is where i believe it should live!, thanks)

Depends on how deep you want it to go really. Considering I've been working on the same basic mission idea with "On-Station" I'll refrain from commenting to much on mission ideas. -_- But if you have trigger queries I'll be more than happy to help.

Grimes.. no problem with trigger usage.. just lacking diversity of ideas really. Thanks anyway.

How about SAR? Or interdiction? Also AFAC with laser mark or smoke?

How about SAR? Or interdiction?

Can you elaborate on an interdiction scenario please.. and what is SAR? :doh:

Also AFAC with laser mark or smoke?

Unfortunately JTAC/FAC only works in single player or for the server host, so i'm not planning on adding this at this time, as this is planned for MP only and I/we (my community) plan to use it on a dedicated server.

Unashamed bump.. any ideas out there?

(I'll bump this once and i'll let it die if there is no interest.)

SAR = Search and Rescue.

I suppose you could program the mission like you being the CAS for an inbound SAR flight, keeping the area secure of any enemy ground forces until the SAR has recovered the target.

Effectively a CAS missions of course, but in a different 'flavor'.

Browse the net and look for reports about A-10 missions. That way you''ll get an understanding of how the platform is used in real missions.

Of course, just for fun you could venture into the fictitious roles and just dream up scenarios. A lot of action movies involving military aircraft are also full of errors, but are still fun to watch. If you don't mind having a less- or even unrealistic mission you can go awol in the mission editor!

The A-10 is actually often used as the SAR coordinator. I'm pretty sure I read that both (?) SAR operations carried out in Operation Allied Force were lead by an A-10. Of course, that's only one slot in a multiplayer mission.

Depending on how much you trust the players that might work well with a human coordinator. Sounds like you're primarily building this for your squad, so you could probably set up a pretty complex situation requiring one (or even two?) pilots to provide AFAC/control for the operation, and the additional players need to protect the site from incoming ground units (as directed by the coordinators).

There's a SAR coordinator mission (CSAR.miz) that comes with the game, not sure if it's working in the current beta, but you might like to look at it for ideas you could implement in MP.

How about a mission like 'Overwatch' where one (or more?) allied supply convoys are moving through hostile territory, and your team members need to coordinate to provide a clear passage. You could have an additional force pursuing the convoy (perhaps with heavy AD to discourage the obvious) to increase the tempo - gotta keep the convoy moving! You could use this to force coordinated multi-pass strikes on enemy positions, i.e. first aircraft goes in for recon by fire, another follows watching for tracers/launches and puts his ordinance on that position, another follows him, etc - forcing effective teamwork in order to succeed.

Thanks gents i like the ideas.

I'm personally not at all concerned about realistic roles / missions. I really just want to make scenarios that are testing and fun. Unfortunately realism really means boring & safe, what you want in the real world.. but not what i want in my leisure time.

SAR defiantly has some legs.. thanks.

I have thought about missions also but since I don't have the time to put it all together... I'll share with you some views on subject.

Good MP missions to me require teamwork, period. If its a mission you could do reasonably well alone, then its not fun to me.

For example, your airbase is being threatened by two (or more) sizable groups of enemy converging from different directions at the same time, thus you need two or more A-10C to:

- either tackle one group at time, land, rearm, and then tackle the other OR

- each A-10C (or each A-10C element) targets one group at the same time.

Another mission could involve only one A-10C having the TGP and smoke rockets, as a FAC, and the other Hogs have only dumb bombs and Mavericks, thus "enforcing" cooperation. Not realistic obviously, but anyways.

Now extending the SAR idea above, I had an idea now of the following scenario:

- There are three enemy groups in combat with our forces, each one spaced by a large distance (like 50 miles). You are initially tasked to attrit one of those, while the others are being attacked by other friendly aircraft. Now if one friendly aircraft is shot down (this could be random or be actually triggered by a friendly loss), you are redirected by a fictitious Air Command to conduct a SAR there, with a set time. Meanwhile enemy groups are activated and start converging into the ejected pilot, if they reach there and stay for a certain amount of time, he is captured and the mission is lost. Otherwise, if you get there and clean up the area, you save the pilot and is tasked back to your original mission, and it goes on...

Something like a kill box arty hunt from the first Gulf War. The key though is making a random spawn point for the arty site. But basically have a "puppy paw" artillery site somewhere with some AAA around it.

Pilots need to fly to the kill box, find it, and take it out. Maybe have some random soft targets around as well.

Scud hunt. Do I need say more?

 

For example, your airbase is being threatened by two (or more) sizable groups of enemy converging from different directions at the same time, thus you need two or more A-10C to

Works reasonably well as a "fresh mission" with people in pit ready to go as the server starts. Its severely effected by time and success. In other words players have to be spot on with their targeting in order for the base to not be overran, then its game-over.

Another mission could involve only one A-10C having the TGP and smoke rockets, as a FAC, and the other Hogs have only dumb bombs and Mavericks, thus "enforcing" cooperation. Not realistic obviously, but anyways.

To bad players can just change loadouts at will when at a base. Other than that it is kinda fun. It depends alot on your target and threats. It is a pretty fun scenario to play though, makes you rethink alot of your tactics and how you'd approach a target.

My goal is to try and make a MP mission that is somewhat similar to how I think Falcon 4 is. For example...

Building_x is placed behind enemy lines, and enemy Convoy_x leaves the position of Building_x towards it's targets.

If Convoy_x is destroyed and Building_x is alive, Convoy_x's group is re-activated at Building_x and moves towards it's targets again.

If Building_x is destroyed and Convoy_x is destroyed, Convoy_x is no longer able to re-activate and the reinforcement loop is broken.

I'm not sure how many entities DCS can handle, but if it was many you could sort of create a large mission that would take hours and require many players to complete. You could also do this for airports, sea ports, FARPs, etc. The next step would be adding random positions for the reinforments to go to so you don't allways expect them to go to the same locations. Time is limited for me but maybe someone with time can do this :)

Perhaps supporting a deliberate attack by a Battle Group.

The fire plan would require the A-10's to neutralize a section of a defended position (AI SEAD & CAP would be needed). Bombs and Mav's take out bunkers, tanks in run up positions, etc...

Then they would either land & re-arm or the next flight would take on the counter-attack force of tanks and IFV's. Mav's & guns.

If the MP group is large enough you could have a flight take out a couple of point targets like a bridge/dam/roads... to delay reinforcements. Bombs and Mav's.

like real life

How about a road with enemy vehicles approaching, infantry across a field east of the road hunkered down in a ditch, a dirt road to the south of their position, have the enemy vehicles turning down the dirt road going toward our guys.

have enemy infantry spread in a north to south line heading from the N/S road walking slowly eastward across the big field heading toward our troops.

Have mountain behind our troops to the east cutting off their escape that direction.

Cause us to get in danger close and see if we can kill the advancing enemy before they kill our troops and not accidentally kill our troops with friendly fire.

You could always limit munitions and locations. In fact good idea gonna pound it out and see where it takes me. If it works, ill share, but gonna take a few to get it in the ground

I've read a load of books on the Warthog researching for a campaign I'm building...broadly speaking this is what the Warthog has done in real life that I came across....

Airborne alert CAS (eg on patrol and reacting)

Ground alert CAS

Preplanned CAS

CSAR

Scud/weapons hunt

Patrol 'kill boxes' for armour/artillery etc

Battlefield interdiction

Strike

SEAD/DEAD ( sounds crazy to me but they sent Warthog's after SA-6s in Desert Storm)

Overwatch/escort

'battlefield preparation' eg. Clearing armour/fortified positions ahead of an attack

The best multiplayer mission i have flown (cant remember the server) was where you first had to clear an airfield of its tanks and SAM sites. Once this was done a friendly armoured convoy would come in and clear the airfield of all that was left (personnel, light armour etc). After the friendly convoy cleared the airfield you could rearm there and after 10 minutes or so youll get a message that there was an enemy convoy trying to retake the airfield. So you had to be fast to rearm and refuell and take out that convoy (which was hard because off the Mi24' gunships, SA15/19 etc).

It was a fun mission because it was different of other missions which usually had objectives like: 'Destroy everything at WP1, and when you're done everything will just respawn' for example. The missions that generate a little bit of 'stress' are imo the most fun missions.

Great thread! Love to see different ideas.

Good MP missions to me require teamwork, period. If its a mission you could do reasonably well alone, then its not fun to me.

I think the same way. There are places for SP missions (and I'm hanging out for Raven One!) - but likewise I enjoy a good MP mission - and my idea of a good MP mission is one where people need to work together, not a whole lot of single players just playing on the same server doing their own thing.

I'm playing around with designing a mission I'm using with just a few mates at the moment. I'm not much of a mission designer (don't think it's anywhere near good enough for uploading into the file section), but the idea is to have a variety of different tasks - a moving storyline so to speak, so you go complete one task, equip and prepare for the next, etc that gives a lot of different options for loadouts and different experience than just one task.

I don't know or understand lua, so the missions are pretty basic - but I try and make them interesting enough with a storyline, and a bit of uniqueness. I would love to have the experience to make them more dynamic.

I don't have the A-10 and rather are using FA-18's, but without knowing much about A-10's the ideas could possibly work for them as well?

What I've put into the mission so far:

CAS to support ground troops defend an area. Enemy has more troops as well as incoming air. The idea is to make us work as a team, some engaging ground troops while others defend from the air so everyone is part of a team and needed.

Next is going and rescuing a downed pilots from a F14 crash. The pilots have been picked up and are prisoners of enemy. They have a convoy (which one of the enemy units is a bus, and the rest of the units is a combination of tanks, APC's, A/A, etc). There are multiple covoys in the area (but only the POW one has the bus), so FLIR/Litening pod is needed to check out which one contains a bus and identify the right one from a safe altitude. Convoy includes A/A - so the rest of the units need to be taken out while not blowing up the bus. (Other 'random' things may happen such as incoming Air attack while this is going on, or SAM sites just randomly coming online, etc to keep players on their toes).

After that is a 60nm+ low flight through canyons towards the other end of the map. The idea is that there are lots of enemy aircraft on the ground at a few remote airports. (Enough to completely overwhelm the players). If players fly up there and are detected they will take off.

But - if they fly through the canyons and keep a low AGL - the enemy doesn't start their engines until within 20nm or so when their 'radar' first detects the incoming flights. (If you break AGL they detect much further out, meaning lots of planes will get airborne and overwhelm). So the idea is to get there at low altitude through the canyons, and attack the units while they're still on the ground and before they can get airborne and overwhelm.

Like the previous mission - other aircraft will take off from another airbase and be airborne, meaning that teamwork is required - some to take out the fighters before they get airborne, while others defend other incoming fighters.

I use smoke signals to guide the way. (With a storyline is basically local underground lighting fires to guide the way - I kinda shamelessly stole the idea off the Grim Reapers Canyon Run Competition and made it into a mission and storyline, but I have no disillusions that I'm not that imaginative - but I can stand on the shoulders of giants :))

Since teamwork is required, all fly through the canyon together for the run - makes for a bit of fun, and a few laughs.

I also had ideas of grandure about units within an area that had fuel tanks all around, and that precision strikes were required without blowing up the units, or using airshow crowd as 'human shields' so that precision strikes were also required - but haven't been able to get it to work well yet in the mission editor.

For me - I find a good mission has a storyline behind it to kind of immerse players into the role, and keeps that storyline going. I try and continue the storyline so when the POW's are rescued they'll respond shortly with some sort of thanks message - with a bit of humour or otherwise (randomised so that the game is different each time).

Not sure if these interest anyone else - or if they're even workable with the A10 but just throwing in some ideas.