Red Flag Online Mission Now Available

This is not supposed to be some shameless plug for my newly created mission, I'm simply bringing this to the attention of the DCS community because I would really like to see an interesting multiplayer mission available for DCS 2.0 that we can all enjoy playing. And one that is always available online, full of other players to engage with.

Right now, only a couple of servers (in 2.0) have any more than a handful of players, and I believe this is due to lack of hosted missions where pretty much anyone of any skill level can participate and enjoy themselves, no matter what they choose to fly or do within the mission.

I have designed 'Operation Red Flag' to cater to ALL types of players; serious and the not so serious. My aim was to create something where the more casual players could play without effecting those of us who prefer to take it more seriously.

First problem with 2.0 is that being set in NTTR, it doesn't lend itself to many different mission scenarios without breaking realism. What I mean by this is that we wouldn't (really) expect a full invasion of Russian forces to head straight to Vegas. A lot of 'these types' of missions feel very thrown together without a lot of thought to realism and even professionalism (no offence to anyone).

I wanted to create a mission of professional quality and one that was perfectly realistic. Exercise Red Flag was the obvious choice of scenario, and so I started working on the ultimate training mission, just a few weeks ago.

Other than the obvious benefits, the Red Flag scenario is especially appealing because of the use of simulated weapons. Putting this in game makes total sense - being blown out of the sky for making a small mistake and having to start up and taxi etc etc all over again, (after a while) would make me quit and do something else. It would be far more fun to be told that you have been hit and would have been fatal, but still be able to carry on and enjoy engaging with the mission.

So I made a custom script that detects when the player has been hit by the enemy and tells the player what type of unit hit them. I used the 'IMMORTAL' setting on all the player-controlled units (this prevents friendly fire too, obviously!). This allows the mission to act very much like the real Red Flag, and coupled with TacView recording, you pretty much have an identical Red Flag mission.

Another great thing about this mission is that after a while, the RED units will regenerate. This means the mission never ends, and people can drop in and out when they like and just enjoy the game however they want to, and always have an objective to pursue if they wish. I have done this intelligently though - Red Air respawn back at their own base and have to takeoff again, like in the real Red Flag, and Red ground units delete themselves and regenerate back in as long as no Blue units are in the vicinity. This makes for a flawless, smooth mission restart that doesn't interrupt gameplay.

I'm promising great fun to all who want to try this out, but we do need players for it to work. Of course, none of this really works with only a couple of participants - if we can have several squadrons in at the same time, this would make for a superb gaming experience.

I'm now hosting 'Operation Red Flag' on a top-spec machine and I will leave it running 24/7 in hope that after a few of you read this, you'll want to join in and start playing on the server regularly.

I will be adding more to this mission. There are things I'd like to add but it was important for me to get this out of the door as soon as possible to build up the interest.

IP is: 91.125.115.47:10308 or 89.197.85.84:10308

OR look for 'EXERCISE RED FLAG' server.

It would be great to have those of you across the pond to host a version too!

You can find the mission file here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2640527/

SW0RDF15H out!

Sounds like fun.....will check it out

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Excellent news! Looking forward to trying it out.

I'll check it out. Thanks

fun mission

Played for a while with 4 people total.

4 A10Cs so it was a little tough being chased down by aggressor f16s.

A2A is needed so a decent group of people is suggested.

Looking forward to changes you come up with.

This is exciting news

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Hi Swordf15h, nice red flag server, not many players yet....

I like playing yours F15c training missions to.

On your server does it need to have some mods or skin mods ? For exemple the f16 aggressors have for some the lizzard flanker camo (light sand, nato Brown, dark green) and others a strange grey camo (two tone grey usaf but with strange bugs) : does it mean we need a mod skin like agressor camos for f16 blk52 (with arctic aggressor, blue flanker and others)

Other thing with A10A (I only played 2 times with it but i'll come again with f15c) the autopilot modes don't work and the auto-stabilization when firing Gau-8 doesn't work to so the nose instantly goes up when firing.

A last note the aggressors are sometimes very aggressive and other times my RWR show them enlightning me from everywhere but they ignore me.

Have a nice day - bye !

(BobbySixKiller)

Hi Swordf15h, nice red flag server, not many players yet....

I like playing yours F15c training missions to.

On your server does it need to have some mods or skin mods ? For exemple the f16 aggressors have for some the lizzard flanker camo (light sand, nato Brown, dark green) and others a strange grey camo (two tone grey usaf but with strange bugs) : does it mean we need a mod skin like agressor camos for f16 blk52 (with arctic aggressor, blue flanker and others)

Other thing with A10A (I only played 2 times with it but i'll come again with f15c) the autopilot modes don't work and the auto-stabilization when firing Gau-8 doesn't work to so the nose instantly goes up when firing.

A last note the aggressors are sometimes very aggressive and other times my RWR show them enlightning me from everywhere but they ignore me.

Have a nice day - bye !

(BobbySixKiller)

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. It's very helpful for me. However, I'm not sure if I can help you with the issues you've described. I have no 'mods' installed so there should be no problem with aircraft skins. I did use the brown colour blk52 for a couple of the aggressor groups, just to keep things varied. The other F16As use the standard USAF skin. If you could post a screenshot of the 'bugs' you can see in the aircraft skins, I'd be very interested to see and find our more for you.

Also, I don't own the A10A or A10C modules, so I can assure you I haven't made any modifications to those aircraft. Is it only on my mission that you get the 'stabilization' bug?

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. I intend to keep the server running all the time and continue to build upon the mission. Will adjust the difficulty of the aggressors as a matter of priority. I would hope that with enough players, it wouldn't seem be so difficult anyway, so hopefully more people will join the server regularly and make this the ultimate multiplayer mission.

Cheers

Hi, the autopilot and Gau-8 auto-stabilization bugs happen with other servers I played. In single player custom mission there is no problem but in multi players the "bug" occures.

For the liverie bug here are two pictures : the 1 with a F16c usaf two tone grey camo in custom mission (all variants of usaf grey camo are the same with no bug) - and the 2 with a F16c with bugs in your mission (bugs between gun port/canopy - wings/fuselage)

Hi, the autopilot and Gau-8 auto-stabilization bugs happen with other servers I played. In single player custom mission there is no problem but in multi players the "bug" occures.

For the liverie bug here are two pictures : the 1 with a F16c usaf two tone grey camo in custom mission (all variants of usaf grey camo are the same with no bug) - and the 2 with a F16c with bugs in your mission (bugs between gun port/canopy - wings/fuselage)

Thanks very much for pointing those out. I have no idea why there are bugs with the F16s on my mission. If anyone knows what's causing this, please do let me know.

Will be playing on the Server this evening 6pm CET. Getting back into the A-10 Systems so this Mission seems to be perfect for this purpose! Thanks for Hosting this SW0RDF15H!

Hey SW0RDF15H ,

can you tell what happened to the server? Would love to play your mission for training purposes, ideally with others.

Best regards