Cold War 1947 - 1991

Operation Arab-Israeli War - Round 2:

Red managed to capture and hold both Kiryat Shmona and Rosh Pina Airbases. The nuke crates weren't delivered, so no bombing was done. One nuke crate was still available.

Blue didn't complete any objective. They were mostly flying air-to-air. They managed to destroy a few EWR's and blind Red a bit though.

Overall, 28-36 players throughout the mission which ended after 2.5 hours.

18 minutes ago, Alpenwolf said:

The nuke crates weren't delivered, so no bombing was done. One nuke crate was still available.

There was another?

One in the wood was destroy in the first 10 minutes. Then the other two crates between two 57mm were destroyed in subsequent raids and BDA confirmed it. Unless there was a forth crate, or possibly desync, maybe?

13 minutes ago, Giskvoosk said:

There was another?

One in the wood was destroy in the first 10 minutes. Then the other two crates between two 57mm were destroyed in subsequent raids and BDA confirmed it. Unless there was a forth crate, or possibly desync, maybe?

I told you they spawn one a time if the first 3 are gone to prevent players from doing what you were doing

9 minutes ago, Alpenwolf said:

I told you they spawn one a time if the first 3 are gone to prevent players from doing what you were doing

Sorry i'm a bit lost here, neither did i pay enough attention in the intense gameplay. So there would spawn a 4th crate (or more?) if the Blue managed to destroy 3 crates which was suggested in the mission briefing?

3 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

Operation Arab-Israeli War - Round 2:

Red managed to capture and hold both Kiryat Shmona and Rosh Pina Airbases. The nuke crates weren't delivered, so no bombing was done. One nuke crate was still available.

Blue didn't complete any objective. They were mostly flying air-to-air. They managed to destroy a few EWR's and blind Red a bit though.

Overall, 28-36 players throughout the mission which ended after 2.5 hours.

For me, not an enjoyable mission in a Huey. Radar showing helos should be put back in. It's impossible for the Huey to defend itself in this mission and slinging crates made me a sitting duck. With missile carrying Hinds and MIGS buzzing around in what was really a fairly small battle zone, a slow moving, armament lacking, sling carrying Huey was easily seen and shot down. Get rid of the sling requirement at least. Crates would give us a better shot at succeeding. With two Hueys, I think we managed 3 or 4 crate deliveries to the first location only. Nothing more could be done after that. Defence at our FARP is really lacking and ineffective, too. Not looking forward to this again.

14 hours ago, Giskvoosk said:

Sorry i'm a bit lost here, neither did i pay enough attention in the intense gameplay. So there would spawn a 4th crate (or more?) if the Blue managed to destroy 3 crates which was suggested in the mission briefing?

Not exactly.

Look, it would've had been better if Blue stuck more to the objective rather than trying to "annoy" Red. I mean, we could send MiG's and with one rockets run all 10 ammo crates at the Blue FARP would be gone, which then would prevent any sling loading from happening and you wont have a maximum of 20 extra M60's.
There were far more Blue players than Red in the first 20-30 minutes and barely any striking took place which is the objective for Blue. Instead, a single F-5 was flying all over the map hunting EWR's and crates. Now, destroying the EWR's is part of the objective at the observation sites, but not the only thing to be destroyed. The bunkers among other assets were completely ignored, so it was obvious what was going on. You could argue that it's rather of an advantage to try and "annoy" the enemy like that and it is. But is it really necessary and the battle can't be won otherwise? And I wrote "annoy" because it is a game after all, and only because it's a game you get to read the whole briefing, and see what the enemy's objectives are when you actually shouldn't. Neither side should. For instance, as a Blue player you shouldn't even know there is a possible nuke striking mission coming in. But you know there is a chemical factory you MUST destroy, where nuke bombs were developed, so you could only speculate and put your CAP on high alert.

T-55's advancing on the two northern airbases is yet another matter Blue shouldn't have known about until T-55's were literally at their doorstep. It's not like invasions and their plans are announced to the enemy days prior to the attack, is it? There might be some tensions in the air and speculations or leaked information, but the whole picture is rarely complete.

Red planned their move on the two airbases, but shouldn't know about any ammo crates being sling loaded to rearm additional M60's that could join the battle. They only know that because they read the briefing and probably the enemy's objectives. See what I mean?

What could I do?! Add more air defences at the chemical factory? I could, but then striking the chemical factory itself becomes even harder than it is. So, Blue attacking the crates like that (when they shouldn't know much about their existence in the first place) could only lead to me adding more air defences to counter that which would then backfire on Blue. See what happens? Or, just make the crates immortal, right? And then Mi-8's could fly aerobatics if they wanted to because the crates wont be destroyed if the rope is cut due to wild maneuvers. They could simply pick the crate back up again and fly on.

These are the consequences of the way I design such missions, especially, when asymmetric objectives are assigned to the coalitions. I'm aware of that. It becomes more incentive to try and work harder on preventing the enemy from getting his job done. I understand that. We saw more or less the same in the limited editions, only there neither side had the ability to be that "annoying" due to differences in the missions' scenarios and their objectives. In this mission however, the battlefield is very small and things are very close to one another. That's the reality of the geography in that area, which makes it easier to "annoy". I do my part and try hard to make things as good as possible. Always have. And as I always say, it's up to the players what becomes of the missions. And I know it's risky when putting things in the hands of players like that, but there is no other way really, unless we want to go arcady and just kill stuff. The more assets players control and the more freedoms they have (up to a certain limit), the more dynamic things can be! And I've been receiving positive feedback in that regard since day one, so I can't be that wrong with that statement.
The tools at hand are very limited and I can only work with I have in the mission editor and some external lua scripts. We've had tons of intense and great sessions on the server throughout the years and others not so much or rather frustrating. Trust me, it always came down to what players were doing and how they approached the missions and the objectives. When things were rather frustrating you saw lots of complaints here on the forum of players talking about players who were rather doing "annoying" things. Bugs are yet another issue that I'm sometimes responsible for, but quite often they are just beyond me and part of the game itself and not the missions.

On a side note, when I say "annoying", I only mean the above as explained thoroughly. Nothing more or less, mate.

11 hours ago, Miccara said:

For me, not an enjoyable mission in a Huey. Radar showing helos should be put back in. It's impossible for the Huey to defend itself in this mission and slinging crates made me a sitting duck. With missile carrying Hinds and MIGS buzzing around in what was really a fairly small battle zone, a slow moving, armament lacking, sling carrying Huey was easily seen and shot down. Get rid of the sling requirement at least. Crates would give us a better shot at succeeding. With two Hueys, I think we managed 3 or 4 crate deliveries to the first location only. Nothing more could be done after that. Defence at our FARP is really lacking and ineffective, too. Not looking forward to this again.

The first round was a blast, you said. You managed to sling load quite a lot of crates and you guys even defended the airbases well. This time it's the other way around. Red had very aggressive tactics, pushed quickly with T-55's on Rosh Pina Airbase to prevent you from exactly doing what you wrote above and they succeeded at it. One T-55 held the airbase for 15-20 minutes (before troops were flown in) and not a single A-4 or F-5 bothered to take it out? You do that and you're back at it with deploying troops and sling loading crates. You guys destroyed lots of T-55's. The Gazelle in the beginning was very effective too.

Just checked out the tacview file. A total of 5 Hinds were shot down by F-5's. Not one Huey was shot down by any MiG! They were lost to T-55's and sometimes Hinds, nothing else.

I couldn't see my helicopters either. I mean, they're either at Kiryat Shmona ot Rosh Pina. Where else could they be?! Whenever they reported an F-5 roaming above them I sent some MiG's and that was it. In your case it's even easier. You're mostly flying between the FARP and Rosh Pina Airbase anyway.

Not a single MiG attacked your FARP. Some MiG's flew above the FARP chasing down an F-5 all the way to Ramat David to eventually get shot down by air defences. It doesn't mean they were coming after you.

Well the arabic force is fighting against rivals of IDF's caliber, the Red should expect israeli to conduct a strategic strike on the nuke crates when the photos of the target area are obtained. I always speak highly of our virtual IDF brothers in terms of strategic ISR. Prior to the first campaign, a 1:1 chemical-complex mock-up including the 3 identified nuclear weapon crates was built based off the photogenic intelligence. No less than 50 sorties were conducted should the nukes be eliminated in the first blow, which was expected to be within the first 15 minutes of the mission, turned out to be 22 minutes due to several human error from the sole striker F-5. By the way, a fail-safe plan was also discussed in case the nuke was delivered to Tha'lah.
Here I can share some early mission planning first scripted on 2nd March, now that the campaign is over:

Strike Package A demo:

ideal Blue EWR coverage & SAM ambush demo:

But why prioritize the denial of the third Red objective? The reason being deducted from available intel the Blue is at a disadvantage strategically:
A) Judging from the wargame simulated by our virtual IDF (again, prior to the first campaign), the aggression of the Hinds from either sides of the Bekaa Valley (both Naqoura and another FARP) can be hardly deterred effectively, not to mention the aggressing ground force and the presence of MiGs.  The Red was expected to have a upper hand over 2 bases in the valley in about 30~50 minutes earliest, however in the actual gameplay Mike Delta managed to stop that from happening despite the clear lack of F-5 CAP over the valley in the first hour of the first campaign.

B) The terrain masking provided by the mother nature greatly shorten the alert time against the nuke-striking MiG, should the MiG stay undetected by blue EWR until the final 25 mile sprint to Haifa industrial complex; furthermore a relatively low chance SAM interception is excepted even after it reaches west of Sea of Galilee. Later was verified via the mission file of the first campaign, Hawk site could neither managed to intercept nor even react to MiG-21 flying M1.1 NOE all the way towards the target, suffice to say it was one way ticket to Haifa .

On the other hand to effectively execute ground attack on 4 Red observatories, the Blue need to establish regional air superiority unfortunately that was not the case in the second campaign or the later half of the first one. The whole point of blinding the Red radar coverage is to conduct better fighter sweep in the AO for the ground pounders. For me as a striker/cap type of F-5 pylote there's absolutely no point of continuing the attack on observatories knowing the constant presence of 2 or more MiG over the Valley or near the Sea of Galilee, and the risk is too high to be justified. Nothing intended to "annoy" anyway although it might be perceived as such. There were way too much for the blue to handle, so desperate time desperate measure. Hope you could understand.

Hope to see the mission modified in a better form in regular rotation on the server.

IKEA 24-7

First of all, you put a smile on my face with this thoughtful type of planning! I like that. And that's exactly what these missions should push players to do. Kudos, mate, and those involved! rossmum also has an incredible plan for operation Eye For an Eye, that we'll roll out again one day. That's exactly what these missions are for. Also, check out Dawger's attack and defence plan for operation The Desert Has Eyes.

The idea behind sling loading the nuke crates is only to make it not too easy for Red to just grab the bombs and go for striking. The nukes could've had been transferred during the night with low visibility for any jet of that era if I had wanted nukes to be there instantly. Instead, I came up with this sling loading task to yet again give players the incentive to get something done. You know, "work hard and reward yourself". Pretty much like sling loading ammo crates to rearm (activate) MiG-29's/F-14's in other missions or complete your SEAD tasking in operation Eye For an Eye to go out on a nuke bombing mission. That's the idea behind it and not really for Blue to strike, otherwise I would've made it very clear for Blue to leave everything and go after the nuke crates. Not your fault though, you did what you had to do and saved the day from any nukes. That I must say. It's up to me to maybe change something or leave it as it is. I'll see what I can do and announce any changes.

Good flying yesterday, mate. You were very effective!

1 hour ago, Alpenwolf said:

First of all, you put a smile on my face with this thoughtful type of planning! I like that. And that's exactly what these missions should push players to do. Kudos, mate, and those involved! rossmum also has an incredible plan for operation Eye For an Eye, that we'll roll out again one day. That's exactly what these missions are for. Also, check out Dawger's attack and defence plan for operation The Desert Has Eyes.

The idea behind sling loading the nuke crates is only to make it not too easy for Red to just grab the bombs and go for striking. The nukes could've had been transferred during the night with low visibility for any jet of that era if I had wanted nukes to be there instantly. Instead, I came up with this sling loading task to yet again give players the incentive to get something done. You know, "work hard and reward yourself". Pretty much like sling loading ammo crates to rearm (activate) MiG-29's/F-14's in other missions or complete your SEAD tasking in operation Eye For an Eye to go out on a nuke bombing mission. That's the idea behind it and not really for Blue to strike, otherwise I would've made it very clear for Blue to leave everything and go after the nuke crates. Not your fault though, you did what you had to do and saved the day from any nukes. That I must say. It's up to me to maybe change something or leave it as it is. I'll see what I do and announce any changes.

Good flying yesterday, mate. You were very effective!

Just read through the post. Rossmum what a mad lad he was in that mission

Good job commanding the Redfor both yesterday and the previous weekend! From the opposing side I've been enjoying every minute of the missions.

I found the mission fairly frustrating due to very poor radar coverage for Blue.

To illustrate the point I created these radar Line of Sight images based upon the actual locations of the EWR antennas in the mission. They show radar line of sight at 100 feet AGL. The coverage at lower altitudes is significantly smaller but I think 100 AGL gives an adequate picture of the issue.

One would think Blue would have a few more strategically located EWR systems.

As you can see, there is a bit of a disparity.

2 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

I found the mission fairly frustrating due to very poor radar coverage for Blue.

To illustrate the point I created these radar Line of Sight images based upon the actual locations of the EWR antennas in the mission. They show radar line of sight at 100 feet AGL. The coverage at lower altitudes is significantly smaller but I think 100 AGL gives an adequate picture of the issue.

One would think Blue would have a few more strategically located EWR systems.

As you can see, there is a bit of a disparity.

 

EWR's in DCS don't work like that though. Your EWR's cover Blue areas and slightly further east. Red EWR's cover Red areas and slightly further west. Red areas are naturally larger than Blue areas. You're not flying around Red airbases or anywhere near them anyway. Most fights are across the borderline where the TA's are mostly found.

EWR's in DCS don't cover only the highlighted areas as displayed by you like that. They're not that perfect or accurate. They quite often ignore terrain obstacles. As someone who flies helicopters a lot like myself I can only assure you of that. I'd be hovering in a valley in the Ka-50 for instance, and still F-5's get the call and jump me. Happened way too often to say the least.

Red EWR's are the target. If lost, Red players are literally blind and are only dependent on a human GCI operator if that happens and it did happen in both rounds. That's when I barely had eyes in some areas and couldn't provide good BRAA's. Blue EWR however was up throughout the entire session. Same thing in round 1.

There is a reason why things are setup differently and assets are not distributed equally. I thought that was clear by now as it is the case in most missions, especially, when the objectives are the not the same.

3 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

EWR's in DCS don't work like that though. Your EWR's cover Blue areas and slightly further east. Red EWR's cover Red areas and slightly further west. Red areas are naturally larger than Blue areas. You're not flying around Red airbases or anywhere near them anyway. Most fights are across the borderline where the TA's are mostly found.

EWR's in DCS don't cover only the highlighted areas as displayed by you like that. They're not that perfect or accurate. They quite often ignore terrain obstacles. As someone who flies helicopters a lot like myself I can only assure you of that. I'd be hovering in a valley in the Ka-50 for instance, and still F-5's get the call and jump me. Happened way too often to say the least.

Red EWR's are the target. If lost, Red players are literally blind and are only dependent on a human GCI operator if that happens and it did happen in both rounds. That's when I barely had eyes in some areas and couldn't provide good BRAA's. Blue EWR however was up throughout the entire session. Same thing in round 1.

There is a reason why things are setup differently and assets are not distributed equally. I thought that was clear by now as it is the case in most missions, especially, when the objectives are the not the same.

The maps reflect my experience in the mission pretty closely, from flying several sorties and sitting in the JTAC slot for Blue.

Also, I have done these same sort of maps for several other missions and developed strike routes based on them. Flying those developed strike routes also closely matched the data created with maps like these, based upon what the RWR in the aircraft is indicating.

Terrain masking certainly works and LOS seems to be the primary factor at play in radar detection.

As an example, below is a map with a route I worked up for Into the Desert. You can see several spots along the route that cross red areas on the map. I flew the route in the server in the last two weeks. In those locations, the RWR indicated detection, outside of those areas the RWR was clean.

I am pretty confident in the accuracy of the maps.

44 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

The maps reflect my experience in the mission pretty closely, from flying several sorties and sitting in the JTAC slot for Blue.

Also, I have done these same sort of maps for several other missions and developed strike routes based on them. Flying those developed strike routes also closely matched the data created with maps like these, based upon what the RWR in the aircraft is indicating.

Terrain masking certainly works and LOS seems to be the primary factor at play in radar detection.

As an example, below is a map with a route I worked up for Into the Desert. You can see several spots along the route that cross red areas on the map. I flew the route in the server in the last two weeks. In those locations, the RWR indicated detection, outside of those areas the RWR was clean.

I am pretty confident in the accuracy of the maps.

It's the accuracy of the EWR I'm talking about. Not the map. Not sure what you mean by "the accuracy of the map" to be honest.

In yesterday's mission, the Blue EWR was there constantly and it's placed on top of a hill overlooking the entire eastern borderline. You really don't need more than that, although you do see further east as stated above.

"I found the mission fairly frustrating due to very poor radar coverage for Blue". Are you telling me the EWR was that bad it barely responded to any calls?! Didn't hear any complaints the first round or this round from anyone else. No one wrote anything during the mission in the chat window either.

How do you guys like the A-4?

I played around with it a bit, its a beautiful module. A nice little bomb truck with lots of flexibility.

Have to work on the ground handling to be honest. Any tips on that? 

3 hours ago, MMI_Grim said:

How do you guys like the A-4?

I played around with it a bit, its a beautiful module. A nice little bomb truck with lots of flexibility.

Have to work on the ground handling to be honest. Any tips on that? 

 

I only started it up, took off, flew around and landed it. I watched bits of rossmum's stream from the first round and he did some SEAD, striking and even CAP. Looked good, despite him having some issues with some key bindings.

5 hours ago, MMI_Grim said:

How do you guys like the A-4?

I played around with it a bit, its a beautiful module. A nice little bomb truck with lots of flexibility.

Have to work on the ground handling to be honest. Any tips on that? 

 

It has a brake-steering system similar to the MiG-21, but a with a lot more power to get going. I've found that 75% engine RPM is the best for taxiing around, but it still requires a bit of practice. Even if you align poorly with the catapult on the Forrestal, there is still a decently large margin where you can hook up and get the show on the road. 

10 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

It's the accuracy of the EWR I'm talking about. Not the map. Not sure what you mean by "the accuracy of the map" to be honest.

In yesterday's mission, the Blue EWR was there constantly and it's placed on top of a hill overlooking the entire eastern borderline. You really don't need more than that, although you do see further east as stated above.

"I found the mission fairly frustrating due to very poor radar coverage for Blue". Are you telling me the EWR was that bad it barely responded to any calls?! Didn't hear any complaints the first round or this round from anyone else. No one wrote anything during the mission in the chat window either.

By accuracy of the map, I mean the map matches what the EWR is "seeing". The map is radar line of sight at 100 ft AGL. That means that the radar will "see" an aircraft at 100 ft AGL in the colored areas and will not see aircraft at or below 100 ft AGL outside of the colored areas. 

We would get DCS GCI calls for aircraft departing King Hussein and Marj Ruhayyil and then the calls would stop as they descended to low level for ingress. We would get a few calls for aircraft on the eastern side of the border northwest of Rosh Pinar and then silence as they moved west or south.

My experience as GCI showed we had a huge radar hole at the southern half of the Sea of Galilee and south.

Mike Delta quite often had a clear scope while we were engaged in areas where I would have expected radar coverage, particularly on the northwest coast.

After a few sorties, I stayed high and west, once I figured out we had extremely limited low level radar coverage and I needed to pull the Migs off the deck.

We fly in VR so we don't type plus I doubt I would complain during a mission in any case. This is the appropriate forum for this sort of thing.

It was noticeable enough to me to prompt making the maps to see for myself if my suspicions were correct.

If the mission design requires limited low level radar coverage for Blue, then so be it.

I don't have to like the mission.

Guys, can we attempt to keep the personal disputes to a minimum please We don't need potential players coming in here and being scared off by watching us lay into each other.

As far as MD and helicopters go: there are ways to avoid getting hit. Don't directly overfly positions he has units in. Don't fly directly at his tanks, it makes you a very easy target. Fire from near max range and if you have more than one Hind available, have both run in from different directions. There's no need to resort to airing out frustrations in chat, just potential for learning measures that help keep you alive. You don't need to be flying perfectly straight for either Petrovich or a halfway decent human operator to make a hit, you just need to not make very abrupt changes, and your ATGMs can reach him at distances where his tanks will struggle to reach you. This isn't just limited to Hinds either - things like F-5s or Viggens flying directly at BMP-2s make easy targets to a CA player. Consider your target's possible firing arc and do what you can to either stay out of it, or be far enough away that you can dodge the incoming round.

If you get nailed in an area you didn't see any units in, it's a safe assumption he had something hidden nearby which you didn't see - so avoid that area, and scout it out from further back.

Most of all, I would recommend more of you pick up CA (yes, it's buggy and lacking in features, but it can be incredibly satisfying) and give it a go yourselves. You'll get a better appreciation of what CA players can or can't do, and we definitely need more possible tac commanders/GCIs on the server - those of us who do it already aren't always in the mood when we could be flying instead.

41 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

By accuracy of the map, I mean the map matches what the EWR is "seeing". The map is radar line of sight at 100 ft AGL. That means that the radar will "see" an aircraft at 100 ft AGL in the colored areas and will not see aircraft at or below 100 ft AGL outside of the colored areas. 

...

 

All that is good in theory or in real life, but EWR's in DCS don't work like that. That's all I meant to say. I don't mind adding one more EWR due north, but I fail to see how the mission as a whole is rather frustrating or not to your liking, as if it all came down to this EWR issue when neither MD nor anyone else said anything about it. After round one I had a quick debrief with a few players on TS, including MD and Micarra. I don't recall any complaints or disadvantages being highlighted concerning any matter. All of sudden and after round 2 it's frustrating. A bit confusing from my point of view.

While I'm here - regarding the objectives one side or the other shouldn't know about, that's the issue we get with DCS - we've all seen the briefing for both sides, we've all played some of these missions dozens or hundreds of times, we know exactly where everything is (including hidden objectives) and so the temptation to attack things like roadbases or supply crates can be quite high, especially if one team feels they're stacked against. The main thing to think about is - is this going to mildly inconvenience the other team, or is it going to make them too frustrated to play? If it's the latter, maybe don't do it, or at least wait until a few hours into the mission. Losing all EWR coverage in the first 20 mins of a 4+ hour mission is a great way to kill server population, and not all missions allow sling loading of new radar sites. Likewise, hobbling a team by blowing up all their special objective crates early on can really kill the fun of a mission. I get that it's a sound strategy, but we have to consider what is/isn't going to be fun and try to balance that against the desire for our team to win. I used to play on a PvP Space Engineers server that had a rule to deal with this sort of thing - "keep it funny and charming, not cruel and tragic".

Unless there's a way to randomise where those special objectives spawn, or where EWRs do, I don't know if there's really any other effective way of removing that extra situational awareness.

Just now, rossmum said:

While I'm here - regarding the objectives one side or the other shouldn't know about, that's the issue we get with DCS - we've all seen the briefing for both sides, we've all played some of these missions dozens or hundreds of times, we know exactly where everything is (including hidden objectives) and so the temptation to attack things like roadbases or supply crates can be quite high, especially if one team feels they're stacked against. The main thing to think about is - is this going to mildly inconvenience the other team, or is it going to make them too frustrated to play? If it's the latter, maybe don't do it, or at least wait until a few hours into the mission. Losing all EWR coverage in the first 20 mins of a 4+ hour mission is a great way to kill server population, and not all missions allow sling loading of new radar sites. Likewise, hobbling a team by blowing up all their special objective crates early on can really kill the fun of a mission. I get that it's a sound strategy, but we have to consider what is/isn't going to be fun and try to balance that against the desire for our team to win. I used to play on a PvP Space Engineers server that had a rule to deal with this sort of thing - "keep it funny and charming, not cruel and tragic".

Unless there's a way to randomise where those special objectives spawn, or where EWRs do, I don't know if there's really any other effective way of removing that extra situational awareness.

I've thought about it quite often and I always ended up submitting to having a little faith in players hoping for things to play out rather funny and charming, not cruel and tragic. That's why we had tons of intense and great sessions throughout the years and others not so much. So I say it again, it really comes down to what players do with the missions and how they play them.

The only way around this that I came up with is having players signing up for either Red or Blue after a mission is announced. All players get to read and study the situation of a mission while the objectives are sent via pm to each and every player accordingly. If you sign up for Red, you receive the complete briefing for Red only. Same with Blue. The only problem is, we get to play the mission once. After that everyone knows everything.

The way things work in DCS allow players to get their hands on the missions (.trk files) which is rather unfortunate. Every hidden detail, every trigger or flag that is only of importance for the mission designer himself to work around the many obstacles in the mission editor, becomes visible and known. Some players use that and exploit it for their own benefit which results in mysterious and incomprehensible advantages for the enemy. While everyone is wondering why something is not working properly in a mission, I know instantly what's going on and can only be sure that some player has figured out something and is doing things not as supposed to, yet gets the job done which confuses others even more. And that's the endless cat and mouse game I've had since day one of hosting with some players. In a way it shows me where I should improve things, however, it wouldn't be necessary if they wouldn't push me in the first place

6 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

All that is good in theory or in real life, but EWR's in DCS don't work like that. That's all I meant to say. I don't mind adding one more EWR due north, but I fail to see how the mission as a whole is rather frustrating or not to your liking, as if it all came down to this EWR issue when neither MD nor anyone else said anything about it. After round one I had a quick debrief with a few players on TS, including MD and Micarra. I don't recall any complaints or disadvantages being highlighted concerning any matter. All of sudden and after round 2 it's frustrating. A bit confusing from my point of view.

I wasn't available for Round One so this was my first go round for me or any of my group.

Also, with regard as to why this came up, its because on our first sortie we were directed towards the Sea of Galilee by GCI and had very sparse radar coverage in an area that should have been well covered by radar. Its a flat body of water, after all. I was jumped by a Mig southwest of the Sea of Galilee that was not called by the game GCI or our human GCI. After I died, I hopped into a JTAC slot and got a first hand look at what was going on. Enemy aircraft at low level were disappearing as they crossed into the southern portion of the Sea of Galilee.

Later engagements with no game GCI callouts or human GCI visibility of helicopters a few hundred feet off the ground between Naquora and Haifa told me their was no low level radar coverage there.

This is what prompted me to investigate further.

You have said twice now that "EWR's in DCS don't work like that". What exactly do you mean when you say that? Are you saying that line of sight from the antenna isn't relevant or is it something else you are referring to ?

16 minutes ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

I wasn't available for Round One so this was my first go round for me or any of my group.

Also, with regard as to why this came up, its because on our first sortie we were directed towards the Sea of Galilee by GCI and had very sparse radar coverage in an area that should have been well covered by radar. Its a flat body of water, after all. I was jumped by a Mig southwest of the Sea of Galilee that was not called by the game GCI or our human GCI. After I died, I hopped into a JTAC slot and got a first hand look at what was going on. Enemy aircraft at low level were disappearing as they crossed into the southern portion of the Sea of Galilee.

Later engagements with no game GCI callouts or human GCI visibility of helicopters a few hundred feet off the ground between Naquora and Haifa told me their was no low level radar coverage there.

This is what prompted me to investigate further.

You have said twice now that "EWR's in DCS don't work like that". What exactly do you mean when you say that? Are you saying that line of sight from the antenna isn't relevant or is it something else you are referring to ?

 

 

 

The LOS isn't always relevant.

Years ago I had AWACS planes in all missions on both sides. AWACS is not reliable and gives you constantly BRAA's regarding the enemy AWACS, so I had to look for an alternative. Imagine being in a dogfight or trying to find a nearby bandit and you keep getting BRAA's for the enemy AWACS at 150-200 km away. Not too convenient. That being said, I ran loads of EWR tests and had help from a few players who flew almost every day on the server back in the day. The results showed me that EWR's are way better, but have their own problems still. One problem is ignoring the LOS in some occasions. We flew both helicopters and jets in mountainous areas of the Caucasus while one guy (sometimes me) was monitoring the F10 map through the enemy's cmdr. You're mostly hidden, but sudden turns or maneuvers (even if still obscured and well hidden) would result in showing your aircraft on the map for a few seconds. I haven't noticed any fixing or updating for the EWR's ever since, so I take it it's still the same. And note that I do GCI quite often myself and spot UH-1's when I shouldn't, knowing the area they're flying in and pretty much everything about the mission setup.

Just west of Galilee you have your EWR on a hill overlooking the entire sea and areas around it. If the EWR was still not showing anything or rather poorly, then surely we're talking about a game issue. I said earlier above in one of the posts that I do my part and fix or work around what I can, but there are things that are game related and that is beyond me.

I'm sure the hill is actually a good place for the EWR, but I'll look around and try to find a better spot or spots.

If i may chime in, from my earlier mission planning I've been searching for ideal EWR deployment for the Blue. The one presented in the game play was actually tested then discarded. My conclusion is to place the radar down here for the optimal coverage. Shame Huey pilots all been busy transporting equipment to the two airbases.

images shared from early mission planning

22 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

The LOS isn't always relevant.

Years ago I had AWACS planes in all missions on both sides. AWACS is not reliable and gives you constantly BRAA's regarding the enemy AWACS, so I had to look for an alternative. Imagine being in a dogfight or trying to find a nearby bandit and you keep getting BRAA's for the enemy AWACS at 150-200 km away. Not too convenient. That being said, I ran loads of EWR tests and had help from a few players who flew almost every day on the server back in the day. The results showed me that EWR's are way better, but have their own problems still. One problem is ignoring the LOS in some occasions. We flew both helicopters and jets in mountainous areas of the Caucasus while one guy (sometimes me) was monitoring the F10 map through the enemy's cmdr. You're mostly hidden, but sudden turns or maneuvers (even if still obscured and well hidden) would result in showing your aircraft on the map for a few seconds. I haven't noticed any fixing or updating for the EWR's ever since, so I take it it's still the same. And note that I do GCI quite often myself and spot UH-1's when I shouldn't, knowing the area they're flying in and pretty much everything about the mission setup.

Just west of Galilee you have your EWR on a hill overlooking the entire sea and areas around it. If the EWR was still not showing anything or rather poorly, then surely we're talking about a game issue. I said earlier above in one of the posts that I do my part and fix or work around what I can, but there are things that are game related and that is beyond me.

I'm sure the hill is actually a good place for the EWR, but I'll look around and try to find a better spot or spots.

I will organize some testing of radar line of sight within my group to determine how closely the LOS maps from CombatFlite match what is displayed in game and report back my findings.

UPDATE: After doing a quick preliminary RWR flight, I recalculated the Blue 100 AGL radar coverage with the position of the EWR corrected a few meters south, which makes a substantial difference in coverage although it doesn't really expand the area, just shifts it. RWR results closely matched the new map. In the next few days I hope to do live Blue GCI and human pilot use of game GCI testing.