Cold War 1947 - 1991

[Mordants]

Server News:

 

Rewriting the briefing of every mission and possibly adding more briefing images has started today.

This should help avoiding confusion and newcomers understand their objectives better.

This might take a while so bear with me, please.

 

Bugger, I've only just managed to source, sort and collate 59 pages of the last briefings so I can follow the missions Rossmum plays, and that's only if he lets slip which mission it actually is. I'm not quiet there just yet at automatically guessing which one he is on.

 

 

[m4ti140]

 

Bugger, I've only just managed to source, sort and collate 59 pages of the last briefings so I can follow the missions Rossmum plays, and that's only if he lets slip which mission it actually is. I'm not quiet there just yet at automatically guessing which one he is on.

 

 

What?

[Mordants]

 

What?

 

See attached Cold War 1947 - 1991.pdf

[Hiromachi]

Server News:

Especially with the effort players pour into their gameplay trying to complete the objectives to then have the server crash every 10-20 hours.

 

I think the first step would be shortening missions. 8 - 10 hours long mission is just too long. Its not very rewarding when you fly 4 - 5 hours and focus on objectives but you just cant observe results. I mean, I know that there are not so rarely days when missions are done in 3 - 4 hours but any longer than that and most of the people just cant trace it. You fly 1 - 2 - 3 hours and thats it. So more frequent mission changes and restarts could also help out with those server crashes.

[Alpenwolf]

 

Bugger, I've only just managed to source, sort and collate 59 pages of the last briefings so I can follow the missions Rossmum plays, and that's only if he lets slip which mission it actually is. I'm not quiet there just yet at automatically guessing which one he is on.

 

 

The briefings in the second and third posts of this thread (which is what you have in the pdf document) will remain as they are. They will be called "short missions' briefings" as to give players an idea about the missions but only when they're online and flying a mission they'll have access to a more detailed briefing and briefing images.

By rewriting the briefing I simply meant providing more clarification and details to help understand the objectives better. It doesn't mean the objectives will be changed or something. Not one bit. So no worries there, mate.

[Alpenwolf]

 

I think the first step would be shortening missions. 8 - 10 hours long mission is just too long. Its not very rewarding when you fly 4 - 5 hours and focus on objectives but you just cant observe results. I mean, I know that there are not so rarely days when missions are done in 3 - 4 hours but any longer than that and most of the people just cant trace it. You fly 1 - 2 - 3 hours and thats it. So more frequent mission changes and restarts could also help out with those server crashes.

 

It crashed multiple times in missions like Phone booth, Two Towns, Behind Enemy Lines, etc. and all run for 4-5 hours max. The bug is not mission or map related. Whether the server's crowded or empty I had crashes in various times of the day (night). Something else's is up.

[Mustang]

 

It crashed multiple times in missions like Phone booth, Two Towns, Behind Enemy Lines, etc. and all run for 4-5 hours max. The bug is not mission or map related. Whether the server's crowded or empty I had crashes in various times of the day (night). Something else's is up.

 

The past few openbeta versions have been a definite regression despite notes of crash fixes, for weeks/months it's been pretty solid but since the last two updates something is really wrong.

[Volator]

 

I think the first step would be shortening missions. 8 - 10 hours long mission is just too long. Its not very rewarding when you fly 4 - 5 hours and focus on objectives but you just cant observe results. I mean, I know that there are not so rarely days when missions are done in 3 - 4 hours but any longer than that and most of the people just cant trace it. You fly 1 - 2 - 3 hours and thats it. So more frequent mission changes and restarts could also help out with those server crashes.

 

It might not improve server stability, but it certainly helps players. From the helicopter pilot perspective, we normally fly 20-30 minutes to the mission targets far away just to drop a single tank, then 20-30 minutes back to the FARP to load up for the next mission goal-related flight. This combined with the many mission goals and the long hours of the mission and not many people flying helicopters (and not many slots available, sometimes only four). It's as Hiromachi described, normally we never see the end of the mission, and after having flown a lot in the last two weeks I feel like I'm wasting my life away; there's no sense of achievement. I wonder how many missions are actually won by red or blue and how many missions just run down the clock. Sure, for the fighter jocks it might be nice to jump into a 10-hours mission at the very last hour to have some dogfighting at bulls, but for the helicopter pilot or ground commander there is no real incentive to work for the mission goal at that point because it can't be achieved anyway.

 

I do realize however that Alpenwolf probably wants to stretch the battlefield by that, so that we don't have massive furballs at one or two mission targets only. Maybe there's a way in between though.

[TinKicker]

Sorry if this has been answered but I did search and couldn't see it. Is the server LotATC enabled, I don't have a Cold War era module at moment (next sale) but happy to GCI for people and it feels like the era before everyone has datalink is where GCI is most useful.

[Bladigan]

Will F-14A be added to the server?

[Alpenwolf]

Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed and Prince of Persia are the toughest to win due to the vast distances helicopter pilots need to cover, plus the number of airbases/FARP's need to be captured. You're right and I'm aware of that. I've noticed that myself while running the ground forces. They can be won and quite often they were, but it can be quite stressful at times. Therefore, the 2 missions are as of now offline for probably a long time until they are maybe missed again.

 

"Middle-size" missions like Five Points Unleashed, Hold The Line and maybe Search & Destroy are quicker to finish and are often won by a side rather than calling it a draw after long 8 hours. Still, at times they can be a bit too much.

 

The 3 Syria missions run for 4-5 hours and winner is he who holds the airbase/s till the end of the mission, except for the mission Street fight where the winner is the coalition holding all 6 towns. 10 minutes after that the server rotates. So it doesn't really matter if you miss the first 2 or maybe 3 hours as long as you pour enough effort into the last 1-2 hours to turn the tide and see the end of the story before you call it a night. That type of missions seems better with FARP's being not too far from the bullseye.

 

The new mission I'm working on is also in Syria and similar to the other 3. In addition, Viggen pilots are tasked with striking 6 road outposts and a comm centre. Red is also tasked with destroying 2 comm centres. So it's not just ground forces mainly. Upcoming missions will have a mix of both; Just like Open Range where Combined Arms is included (the 2 FARP's battle), plus strike missions on water stations and a Red factory. Also the interception of the B-52's for Red. And the mission runs for 5 hours only.

 

Some rework of some missions is needed (almost doen), plus rewriting the briefings (finished rewriting the briefing of 1 mission yesterday) and also the new mission.

 

Thanks for all the feedback as it always helps :thumbup:

 

 

LotAtc:

As cool as the tool is, I had my problems with trying to implement it and frankly I'm OK with that. Because players can have it running on their laptop or second PC, etc. while flying on the server. And no doubt we'll always have at least 1 or 2 players doing that if not more. Besides, it wont replace Combined Arms because players will always need to have access to their ground units, otherwise the ground units would be stationary and sitting ducks all day long.

The whole dynamics of the battles would change radically. Just yesterday's session in Prince of Persia demonstrated once more how important CA is. At some point 3 Abrams came out of nowhere and approached Dubai airbase from the east. I started hiding Strelas and Shilkas everywhere while giving T-72's waypoints to try and flank them. Same thing happened only 1 hour after that at Sharjah airbase. A MiG-21 had to grab rockets and provide CAS quickly to stop the last remaining Abrams before I had to risk losing the T-72's. After that I took the Su-25T and was searching for Avengers in Dubai town. And they were only in the town because the enemy CA operator put them there. Took me a while to destroy 1 Avenger out of 3 or 4 placed in Dubai. Then there was that JTAC unit driving fast trying to get some cover between the buildings but I managed to stop it. These 2 only kills in that sortie worth all the possible 16 Vikhr kills you might get in the Su-25T in a mission lacking CA while having stationary "dumb" ground units waiting to get destroyed.

So adding LotAtc wont stop players from using CA and they'd probably rather do their GCI work though CA because they see more than they should (and that's the annoying part of CA) so why give that up and do it through LotAtc while the enemy might be doing it through CA seeing more things on the map?

If only we had the option of turning off the "seeing missiles" thing while showing units with a bit of delay or in an unsteady flight path to simulate a GCI radar. I think I added a wish like that in the CA forums section some time ago.

[Alpenwolf]

Will F-14A be added to the server?

 

Yes, and It will replace the F-14B.

[Volator]

Just yesterday's session in Prince of Persia demonstrated once more how important CA is. At some point 3 Abrams came out of nowhere and approached Dubai airbase from the east. I started hiding Strelas and Shilkas everywhere while giving T-72's waypoints to try and flank them.

 

:gun_smilie: Yes, we two were head to head in the ground war there yesterday.

 

The not-so-cool thing in DCS is that you have to hunt down every single of the airport-spawned units even if they are not remotely close to the airport anymore, otherwise you can't take over the airport (or a FARP in other missions), and it wasn't fun to send my tanks into the suburbs to find your Strelas and Shilkas. Eventually I failed, as I am still a noob in CA and ground warfare.

 

And here's another thing: Once any side has taken control of an airport in Prince of Persia, it's extremely difficult for the other side to attack and take control of that airport, because common rule is an attacker needs a force about three times larger than the defenders to have a realistic chance of winning. Yet here it's not possible to get together an attack force that large. You can just let three tanks roll from any airbase you own, and helicopters can - by hard work and much time effort, if there are any pilots willing to do that- add single tanks. No way you are going to overwhelm a defending force of three well-placed T-72 + Shilkas + Strelas in an urban area with that force.

 

***Edit*** That's without air support. Yesterday I didn't have any of that. So maybe with CAS I might have had a chance if an A-10/Viggen/Gazelle had paved the way for me, but only if they had hit them BEFORE the units strayed into the surrounding urban areas.

[Hiromachi]

Damn, I actually like Prince of Persia. It was vast and as a helo pilot I could actually do something that benefits fighter pilots. I think solution would be time reduction, not complete removal.

 

As for toughest to win missions... From mainly RED player standpoint (this might change with F-14A and later F-8J) the toughest to win is by far Behind Enemy Lines. Its extremely unbalanced in favor of Blue. From my observations few days ago to such a situation where Blue does not have to do anything and ground units marching at Minakh will still capture it, while RED absolutely has to stop attackers on Minakh but also has to support ground attack on Hatay as RED ground units wont get there by themselves.

This became rather obvious when I looked into tacview:

A dozen of T-55s defending against 16 Leclerc tanks. Furthermore Blue have fairly good SAM umbrella as four Avengers can provide good cover for advancing tanks.

 

On the opposite side of the map is Hatay:

Hatay is defended by 12 Challenger 2 tanks and some air defenses. RED attackers have around 10 or more T-80U tanks and three T-55 tanks. RED side can count on SA-13s, which are somewhat less capable than Avengers (engagement range primarily), and have to stick close to attacking tanks to provide any cover. I joined 30 min after mission start and three out of four were already removed.

 

Point is that Blue enjoys very formidable force in attack and defense, while RED has only capable attacking units. But that is still not as capable as defenders, since T-55 is nowhere near the capabilities of Challenger and if you remove those, you're left with less T-80s than Challengers.

And my expectation was fully realized few hours later when despite sincere attempts, RED could not stop advancing Blue tanks. Minakh was in fact captured without a single Blue aircraft delivering ordnance. Some Blue CAP distracted or straight shot down Su-25s and KA-50s, which forced more RED fighters to stay there. In the meantime RED attacking force was continuously getting destroyed by A-10 and F-5s, which could dominate the area (by also landing on Hatay) due to last SA-13 not having range to cover any of the tanks. By the end of the mission RED had three T-80s left, while Blue lost only three Challenger 2s. RED tried to cover them but could not simultaneously be at Minakh and Hatay. There are of course other factors like the fact that Blue this days has one or two dedicated commanders playing every evening, while RED has one person trying to conduct ground warfare, GCI and fly jets. But thats more about player behavior than mission design, so I dont factor those. If removed from equation, mission result would still be the same. I think this mission needs not a mere rework but complete overhaul.

[m4ti140]

^this. Alpen, there's an easy way to test missions like those - let it run with AI only a couple times and check the result. A balanced mission will have win ratio of roughly half for each side without player intervention. The setup above would quite possibly end up in blue win 100% of the time on the other hand.

[Volator]

 

As for toughest to win missions... From mainly RED player standpoint (this might change with F-14A and later F-8J) the toughest to win is by far Behind Enemy Lines. Its extremely unbalanced in favor of Blue. From my observations few days ago to such a situation where Blue does not have to do anything and ground units marching at Minakh will still capture it, while RED absolutely has to stop attackers on Minakh but also has to support ground attack on Hatay as RED ground units wont get there by themselves.

(...)

A dozen of T-55s defending against 16 Leclerc tanks. Furthermore Blue have fairly good SAM umbrella as four Avengers can provide good cover for advancing tanks.

(...)

Hatay is defended by 12 Challenger 2 tanks and some air defenses. RED attackers have around 10 or more T-80U tanks and three T-55 tanks. RED side can count on SA-13s, which are somewhat less capable than Avengers (engagement range primarily), and have to stick close to attacking tanks to provide any cover. I joined 30 min after mission start and three out of four were already removed.

 

Point is that Blue enjoys very formidable force in attack and defense, while RED has only capable attacking units. But that is still not as capable as defenders, since T-55 is nowhere near the capabilities of Challenger and if you remove those, you're left with less T-80s than Challengers.

And my expectation was fully realized few hours later when despite sincere attempts, RED could not stop advancing Blue tanks. Minakh was in fact captured without a single Blue aircraft delivering ordnance. Some Blue CAP distracted or straight shot down Su-25s and KA-50s, which forced more RED fighters to stay there. In the meantime RED attacking force was continuously getting destroyed by A-10 and F-5s, which could dominate the area (by also landing on Hatay) due to last SA-13 not having range to cover any of the tanks. By the end of the mission RED had three T-80s left, while Blue lost only three Challenger 2s. RED tried to cover them but could not simultaneously be at Minakh and Hatay. There are of course other factors like the fact that Blue this days has one or two dedicated commanders playing every evening, while RED has one person trying to conduct ground warfare, GCI and fly jets. But thats more about player behavior than mission design, so I dont factor those. If removed from equation, mission result would still be the same. I think this mission needs not a mere rework but complete overhaul.

 

I was blue ground commander in that mission. Red has Ka-50 and Su-25T, both excellent tank killers with long-range anti-tank missiles (nothing compared to the Gazelle that has to go against missile-lobbing T-72/T-80 that can outrange it). Against the Su-25T, those four Avengers were pretty useless, and there were two Su-25Ts continuously harrassing my tanks and killed three of the four Avengers without being hit by dozens of Stingers fired at them. They were not as successful against the Leclercs because after the attack I hid most of them, but in the open they were able to get a few.

 

Now for a serious offensive force this forces ratio would be acceptable for an attack, nothing less. If a red ground commander had hid the T-55 in defensive positions, they would have killed more of my tanks I guess.

 

As for the defense of Hatay, what worked in my favour was that Red sent the tanks one by one, not in a serious tank rush. With help from Mi-8 and Ka-50/Su-25T, there would have been a serious chance they would have won, altough I give it to you that the ratio there is not in favour of a red ground offensive. As I wrote before, for an attack the ratio should be three to one in order to have a real chance.

 

[Hiromachi]

Cool but you still dont get the point. Has, If, With ... it all means RED needs to involve air assets on BOTH sides of map. BLUE does not have to, especially in Minakh advance.

[m4ti140]

@Pilot Ike 1. You don't fly anyway, so you have no clue about capability of any of them

2. Blue has 10 strikers in this mission, 4xA-10 and 6xViggen. And you don't really need to use any of them, you can just grab 100% fighters and deny airspace to the grand total of 6 red strikers - as if it was not already denied by shorads, until those are destroyed red only has 2 usable strikers, because you need the 25Ts to clean those up. And it's easier said then done in this environment. Meanwhile blue can get Viggens to Minakh without EVER getting spotted by going through the valleys to the north, fire off mavs and run with impunity.

[Volator]

Cool but you still dont get the point. Has, If, With ... it all means RED needs to involve air assets on BOTH sides of map. BLUE does not have to, especially in Minakh advance.

 

That applies to other missions too where red is favoured, but you don't seem to mind there, that's the point you don't get.

 

 

[Volator]

1. You don't fly anyway, so you have no clue about capability of any of them.

Oh, I do and I do.

 

2. Blue has 10 strikers in this mission, 4xA-10 and 6xViggen. And you don't really need to use any of them, you can just grab 100% fighters and deny airspace to the grand total of 6 red strikers - as if it was not already denied by shorads - until those are destroyed red only has 2 usable strikers, because you need the 25Ts to clean those up. And it's easier said then done in this environment. Meanwhile blue can get Viggens to Minakh without EVER getting spotted by going through the valleys to the north, fire off mavs and run with impunity.

 

Right. Has, if, with... as Hiromachi would say. Red can deny airspace too and allow Ka-50 and Su-25T a perfect day at the range, or the fast Mi-8 some nice cargo trips to support the ground troops.

 

 

 

 

[Alpenwolf]

@Pilot Ike

Actually, it is doable. And you don't need to destroy all ground units at an airbase to capture it. Only the units within 2 km of the blue circle with white line crossing through it as seen on the F10 map -> The symbol placed on each airbase to mark it on the map. So Dubai airbase for instance has a radius of 4-5 km. That means if the enemy units are hiding further than 2 km between houses around the airbase or even on the runway itself, and you move in with your ground unit the airbase becomes yours.

And yes, you can kill 'em all with 1 tank only :smilewink:

 

@Hiromachi

Couldn't agree more. Which made it even more confusing to me when we started talking about removing the Tor and even adding The Rapier or the Roland for Blue, especially and as I have stated that Red won that mission only 1 time so far. Which is why I also stated that a rework is needed but surely not a complete overhaul. That's a bit exaggerated. I'll either add more Red units or replace all T-55's with T-80's. Or maybe a balanced mixture of both and/or put the units at hopefully better locations.

 

The thing is, when I designed the mission I thought Su-25's covered by a KUB site, a Tor and 2 Strela units at Minakh (AAA's and tanks as well) will easily/safely perform CAS which led me to put 8 T-55's only. In one of the first sessions of the mission I took a Su-25 and managed to destroy 6 Leclerc tanks in 1 sortie. I went out on a second sortie and scored 4-5 more kills before I had to run from incoming bandits. I saw blue were doing well anyways and with that I thought it to be well balanced due to the Su-25's CAS capabilities. And now we even have the Su-25T so imagine that. I will not mention the Ka-50 because flying low in Syria while trying to detect tanks between all the trees and buildings is really tough.

 

If we take the player out of the equation however, then it is heavily unbalanced and Blue are clearly at a high advantage. You're right about that. However, the tacview image is inaccurate because at mission's start there are 12 T-55's and 8 T-80's southeast of Hatay. If it's 1 cmdr player vs 1 cmdr player I'd take the 20 Red tanks against the 12 Challenger 2 tanks any day. But it's not, because Viggens and A-10's are blasting the lives out of Red tanks.

 

I still do believe that Red can win with the current situation but if I remember correctly we didn't have an organised team in that mission ever since I put it online. Not once. And that's the measure I'd rather stick with than balancing the units. Nevertheless, I'll do some changes because having an organised team is not a frequent thing in DCS.

[Hiromachi]

 

That applies to other missions too where red is favoured, but you don't seem to mind there, that's the point you don't get.

 

 

Which missions ? Name them. I mentioned one mission. You consider other unbalanced or in favor of RED ? Name it. But dont imply I'm ok with something, because its only your assumption.

[ustio]

 

most airfield in russia(north of caucacus) doesn't have TACAN. Which makes it difficult for blue plane to Navigate if you don't know the map.

 

Adding portable TACAN would help a bit

 

true but i don't want to use every single brain cell after work and just have some fun :lol:

[rossmum]

Blue's biggest asset in Behind Enemy Lines is Hatay being available from the start. All you need is a handful of F-5s basing out of there and you can at very least force red to use valuable slots to bring MiGs in to try create a diversion, at best totally deny them the airspace. My average sortie time on that mission when flying the F-5 must be scarcely over two minutes, you get airborne, fire your two missiles, then straight back to land. There's no real incentive to stay airborne longer and try for guns, nor do you need to waste time going all the way back to Incirlik, nor do you even need to worry about fuel except maybe on every third or fourth turn-around. I've flown the mission a couple of times, usually on blue though due to red being stacked when I join.

 

On my first time flying as red in a Su-25T, blue must've been undermanned or just uncoordinated, as Hatay was already close to being captured when I joined. We had me plus a Ka-50 plus tanks to work with and it went reasonably well, we captured the airfield. Minakh was held only because blue were piecemealing tanks in one at a time, probably being driven directly, and I was just loitering overhead and waiting for the rooster tails to appear. We had perhaps a single Shilka left on the airfield (it may even have gone neutral a few times, I don't recall exactly) and had I failed to spot one of those Leclercs we would've lost it. Thankfully whoever was controlling them wasn't aware just how easy it was to spot the rooster tails from the air and they didn't think to just send a stack of units in simultaneously. Even if they'd come in as a group, I doubt I could've stopped them. If they'd come in from different directions simultaneously, it would've been over. Eventually the server emptied out and so we ended with what I guess qualifies as a red victory.

 

I don't generally fly any ground attack at all when I'm on blue for this mission, but I've done slinging and CAP/wild weasel duty. Blue's FARP is reasonably well protected and has a nice, safe route through the mountains to a good overwatch site for SAMs or artillery/tanks, but blue also has to make more trips with a slower helicopter to actually utilise it, which is fine. Viggens and A-10s I can't really comment on, but I would imagine they have a reasonably good time on the mission as they can loiter behind or over the mountains until needed and then zip across the valley. I don't know if bringing the Gazelle up in comparison to the Ka-50 makes much sense, as blue ground forces in this mission don't actually need much help knocking out red's tanks to begin with, and A-10s usually take care of whatever's left. From the F-5 side, it is trivially easy to establish total air superiority over the entire valley, particularly in conjunction with Avengers to clean up low-flying MiGs without warning, and a Hawk or two to discourage swooping MiG-19s. As bad as the Hawk is, if you don't attempt to defend it, it will still kill you and thus requires action. Meanwhile, AI Strelas will attempt to gain a radar lock before firing, which lights up our RWR like a Christmas tree, we can mentally map out red's entire air defence network based on our RWR, and finding EWRs and sniping them off is easy due to both the better RWR and the impostor spotting issues (single glowing white pixel on top of a hill? There's only one thing that's going to be). F-5s can just zoom around the valley spotting and gunning any Strelas that go active, and any incoming aircraft are fairly easily intercepted. The only time I saw red make any headway on my blue runs was if they sent 3-4+ aircraft in at once, and even then they had a hard time.

 

This is also not factoring in that as far as I can tell, the average blue player rarely (if ever) turns their radar on and doesn't realise how absolutely goddamn amazing the F-5's radar is, to the point where it's arguably too easy to sort contacts out of ground clutter and the fact weight-on-wheels isn't modelled meant I was aquiring and locking targets while on my takeoff roll the other day.

 

For red counterparts, really the closest I can think of is Phone Booth, but I don't really know if I'd even consider that an equivalent - it usually turns into a draw because we mount an impenetrable defence over Beslan while not really being able to project enough power to recapture Nalchik. One of my favourite missions, actually. Good balance of insane furball action over the involved airfields, or longer, more thought-out flights as you try and sneak ground units into place to capture the other field.

[CrazyGman]

Is the server still down? it's not showing up on the multiplayer list, and hasn't for anytime i've been on in the last 2 days