Ripcord

OK, I thought it might be a known issue -- certainly not a super critical problem, but should be easy enough to resolve. Thank you for this heads-up, it is good to know.

Just got DCS World and CA, and.... no more Armed House. Kinda bummed, could have used those.

And some of the less common ground AI / structures might be missing in DCS World, such as Armed House... (this worked even as a JTAC in A-10C 1.1.1.1.). So if you had missions with some of these obscure units on your map, then it might not work.

OK found a couple of those old links -- would like to know whatever became of those projects. Afghanistan http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=45658&highlight=afghanistan Manchuria http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=50244&highlight=manchuria

Remember this "road map" annoucement from Wags (from Nov 2011): http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=81589&referrerid=65507 Certainly everything is subject to change, as Wags never fails to point out..... but it is interesting note here that the Nevada terrain will be compatible with A-10C and FC3. I'm kinda wondering if the Nevada terrain is pretty close to being ready to go now, and maybe they are in a holding pattern while they get FC3 up and going -- just to ensure that it is all compatible.

Sorry, I guess we got a little OT there, with the naval/carrier ops thing. I have looked at this wiki, but today I revisited it and there does seem to be some pretty good instructions here. I wouldn't think that the process would differ much, at least the initial part of the process, for setting up the terrain, DEM, etc. As several have pointed it, it is not clear how (or even if) a new terrain could be put into the game at this stage. And there was a couple groups that were working on other terrains for FC2 at one point -- one guy I remember had gotten pretty far with his afghanistan terrain. Another group was working on the Russian Far East - they called it Manchuria. Both had videos up at one point showing them flying around over their theater terrain. Maybe I can dig up some links

How awesome would that be? It would be one helluva an SDK tool, though, to allow a user to clip an area of terrain like this.

Hmmmm.... pretty sure there are some brown shirts in there. I think the White shirts are safety-related. I always thought the brown shirts where the crew chief/plane captains -- always seem them walking around on deck with their tie-down chains. Never was a carrier deck sailor, so I could be worng.

Set them on aircraft carrier with a delayed take off time -- make it at least 24 hours later Then you can use an area trigger to ACTIVATE GROUP. The carrier based AI flight should take off at that point. Same technique can be used for landbased aircraft as well - except remember if you do it this way, the aircraft won't be visible on the tarmac before hand. EDIT: here is how you can set up alert aircraft on the tarmac, which are visible at the outset of the mission, and make them take off later (when triggered). http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1255593#post1255593

Then probably it makes sense that ED has decided not to try to model infantry units at this stage for Combined Arms. Probably they would instead want to leave that task for later, and devote more energy/resources to it, for many of the reasons that we are citing in this thread.

Unless you had some friends over at Team SuperHornet. Would be cool to just pull the carrier ops portion out of Janes FA-18 and integrate that into DCS. You would NOT have all the animated deck crewmen or working elevators, but you would have the meatballs and LSO and case III recoveries and the marshall stack, etc. Certainly you'd need an improved/updated 3-d model. What is WSO? Thought those guys are in the USAF. Won't see any of those on the deck of a carrier, and they damn sure won't be wrestling munitions. You are thinking maybe of red shirts -- aviation ordnancemen. You'd also have your grapes (fuel guys) and plane captains in brown shirts, and aircraft handlers in yellow shirts. Can't remember the green shirts, but I think those guys handle the catapults and arresting cables. Man that would be a crap-load of work to model all those.

Hmmmm, that is interesting. So there is some balance there in terms of Russian offensive ASM and US Navy air defenses. Cool. I like to do this a lot myself -- probably why I never seem to get any missions built. Spending my time testing things like this out. Keep posting.

I suppose playing the infantry role would be cool in a number of pretty specific scenarios, particularly where one would use air assault infantry or special forces. However for me, the infantry would need to able to do a bit more than just stand there, shoot, move a little, lase targets and use radio comms. I would want some special forces capabilities and some ability to do other tasks that those in vehicles cannot. It wouldn't need to be like a full on first-person shooter, but I would want to be able to: -- ride in and deploy from helicopters -- radio for extraction, and get picked up from LZ in helicopters -- jump out of aircraft as a paratrooper -- RV with other figures, such as a downed pilot, or other infantry or insurgents. -- plant explosive charges/demolition -- gather intel -- call in artillery fire -- do everything that we see/hear an AI JTAC doing now, eg throw smoke, mark with WP, lase targets, etc. Again, not looking for a bullsh*t Call of Duty game here, but kinda hoping that the infantry unit, when modelled and integrated, would be capable of a little more, particularly given their limited ability to move on foot.

Definately the answer is just what Nate wrote -- adjust your skill levels if you want reduced awareness/detection capabilities. If you want to fly in and kick the sh*t out of the enemy like they are a bunch of Iraqi Revolutionary Guards, then load up with old tanks and old APCs and basic trucks and set your AAA/Manpads skill levels to low or at least average. I don't want to come off as another sell-proclaimed expert on this subject matter because I am not, so please consider this in a positive way. This is the modern Russian armed forces modelled here (not old Soviet era stuff), and we've not really trained to face them in a couple decades with (we train with them probably more often). So it's not all obselete hardware that you/we are going up against. OK, they aren't real good at maintaining their existing hardware/bases/ships/units over there -- I've seen that first hand -- but AFAIK they are still pretty engaged in the R&D game. All these NPOs and scientific development institutes are getting funding and busting their humps again, having been neglected for so long, and they are keen to retake their place in the world -- and win a few export contracts. They got the tech skills. Look no further than their Black Shark helo. Their S-300 system certainly doesn't suck, and we could probably all think of other good examples. So for me, this is the attaction of this sim -- it's a worthy adversary to go up against. I get shot out of the sky way more often than I make it back so each time I score an A-G kill, I feel like it was a small accomplishment because these guys are competent. Maybe we should get ED to implement a Vodka-slider, or a something that models the likehood that the rocket forces have distilled the rocket fuel and drank it over the weekend (this happens more than you might suspect), therefore leaving the SAM battery hungover and unable to launch half their weapons. Maybe that will be part of Combined Arms!! Ripcord

No such country as CIS. Ukraine and Russia still squabble over everything imaginable, including the Black Sea fleet assets. And this is exactly why there will never be a US Navy aircraft carrier in the Black Sea. Just too small and too close to them other guys with the big sticks. But I understand this is a test mission to check out effectiveness of weapons systems on both sides. That is cool, I like to do that a lot myself.

Question @ roiegat What are is your civilian ground traffic set at? I am using LOW civilian traffic, and I think I noticed that one of my tanks got delayed for a moment to let a car go past.

My thoughts as well, HJ. Special Forces units can be inserted far behind enemy lines, in places where a regular recon unit in couple of hummers could not reach without detection. And they would not hesitate to call in a pair of A-10s for support as needed. Opens up a lot of fun and realistic CAS mission scenarios in my mind.

Hmm, OK I see. Maybe it is more of a function of the size of the bridge (small) in relation to the size of the armor going across it (large). This would make sense in RL -- some of these little bridges might not support a full loaded main battle tank rolling over it. You could test that with different units, just to better understand the cause. Or are you just sending trucks in large convoys? It does look like those bridged up along the Abkhazian coast up to Sochi are all small bridges. Are there any bridges in particular where you are having the most trouble? I like Panzertard's suggestion of just sending units off road to cross these small rivers. EDIT: negative on the big tank - small bridge theory. I had a column of 8 or 9 T-80 main battle tanks cruise right thru downtown Pshap & Dranda over 3 bridges. So far not able to recreate your problem.

Hmmm -- OK good to know for missions builders. Can't assume units will make a smooth bridge crossing, each one must be tested. Good work-around solutions here as well, thanks.

I didn't think it would work but I tested it out anyway. Sure enough, the Armed House unit will serve just fine as a JTAC. Hell they even marked an APC with willy pete for me! Kinda pleasantly surprised, didn't expect that one to work. The manual says that it simply needs to be an armed unit, so there you go. I thought this might be a nice way to simulate working with special forces on the ground, who are on foot behind the lines..... say in a village somewhere. Heck, maybe I should go as far as testing the Infantry guys, with the M249 and the M4. Might be able to simulate a seal team or group or rangers or something. EDIT: Sure enough, the Infantry Troops will also serve just fine as a JTAC. Didn't mark my APC target like the Armed House did, but still did the job. Learned something today!

I am still learning this thing, pretty early in my development, and I really like this wiki page that the guys here put together. You might find some materials here that help you along. http://en.wiki.eagle.ru/wiki/DCS_A-10C_Guides,_Tutorials_and_Reference_Documents Just keep taking baby steps.

Very impressive, sir! Looking forward to more photos as you progress with this!

Cool - glad you got it working. In the test I did, the tu-160 was out over the black sea and my target was right on the coast, so I really can't comment on the terain-following radar on those things. There are lot of AI weapons systems to try here, I think.

Maybe experiment with different speeds? Or try multiple waypoints along the route? That's about all I can offer right now as far as ideas of possible solutions.

I was able to make it work on my second attempt -- just needed to get some serious standoff distance. Interesting flight profile those things have -- pretty much skim along the surface of the ocean (I targetted facilities in Poti), probably a bit like a tomahawk. Very cool.