Ripcord

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.

Might be that you need some pretty good standoff range. My simple little test wasn't successful either, Grimes. EDIT: What did they have in mind here when they list range as 3.000 KM? Oftentimes Russians use , with numbers when we use . and vice versa. Does this suggest that this thing has a range of 3,000 klicks? Damn. Name: Kh-65 (AS-15B 'Kent') Type: Long-range, inertial-guided, nuclear cruise missile Developed: Raduga NPO, Russia TNT equivalent, kT: 200 Guidance: inertial and terrain comparison Weight, kg: 1700 G limit: 16 Length, m: 6.04 Body diameter, m: 0.770 Range, km: 3.000 Maximum Mach number: 0.77

I've tried this every which way now and the trigger for "mission score" just does not seem to be very reliable. I wonder if you simply cannot achieve a score of exactly 100 -- in that case, there is nothing to worry about here. Would be good to see some ED folks confirm or invalid this. EDIT: Mission Score that is tracked by the trigger is evidently the total of points achieved by hitting MISSION GOALS. It is not the player debrief score. Nor is it a combination or sum of the two. The next Campaign mission, however, does seem to be taken ONLY from the "mission score" point total and NOT just the player score in the debrief. UNLESS there are no MISSION GOALS, then it seems to use the player score from the debrief. Would be more than happy for somebody else to test this, in order to prove it or disprove it. So far my hypothesis is holding up.

Male 43 American -- also speak fluent Russian if you need that.

Hmmm, I dunno. These are not mobile objects, they are structures. So not sure if you can activate them, the way you can a GROUP or a UNIT. In fact, I don't think you can, just looking at the ME.

The forum is called DCS Wishlist -- let the man wish. Not like he derailed a thread or went way OT. For my part, I'm wishing the same thing. What you guy say is true, but damn there are plenty of threads stating all that ad naseum. It does seem like that Nevada terrain with the EDGE is a bit of a bottleneck for 3rd parties interested in doing other corners of the world. But in the meantime, at least we have our wishlist forum, right?

Hmmm - this is proving to be harder than I thought. In order to add points on to a mission score, you have to use a Mission Objective. There isn't a trigger action that will adjust the score on it's own. Mission objectives don't seem to trigger by mission score or by a flag getting set -- they will add points for units getting killed, etc. Haven't quite got it sorted - yet. EDIT: Hey wait, maybe these Mission Goal adjustments simply will not work for a score of 100 or greater. It did seem to work OK for scores up to 100, but I'd need to test that further to be sure. I may have to RTFM briefly.... Edit #2: OK I read the freaking manual. Not that there was much to read. See page 91 under the Mission Goals section: "TYPE drop down field. Using this drop down, you can set the condition by which the Goal is accomplished." Back to testing my hypotheses....

A-10C

The first mission at the very start of a campaign seems to always start with one that has a previous mission score of 100. Did anybody else find this out, or is this already common knowledge? Or am I just insane (very plausible)...? At first I was thinking that the campaign engine would select a mission that has a previous score of 50, or one within a range that includes 50. That turned out to be wrong, but I kept getting the same mission as my starting mission each time -- this is because I only had 3 missions in my mini-test-campaign, with no overlap on the score range. OK, so then it must be Zero, I thought. So I set my campaign that way, with just one mission that would be called if the so-called 'previous score' is zero. Still kept getting the same result, another mission, every time. Then I tested the theory that it assumes the previous score to be 100 on the first mission. And that seems to be it. Each time I restart the campaign I get that same mission. So this is good, that means I can now plan on having a dedicated starting mission, or a series of them, by simply designating the desired first mission(s) in the range of 100 to 100. Then I can ensure that this mission -- or these missions -- never replay again, or at least I think I can. I should be able to accomplish that by using a mission objective or a trigger/flag of some sort, in all subsequent missions, in the campaign rounds above/below the initial round, that fires when the mission score = 100, and causing some other event to happen that adds another 1 or 2 points to the score. Still testing this but the idea is to get it so that it is literally impossible to ever have a score of exactly 100, but I think it's achievable. This way, we can have an initial mission that never gets replayed. And if you can manage that, then you have the ability to use at least one first mission to create an intro scenario -- maybe the final run-up to hostilities, whatever your mission/campaign creative imagination allows. I'm kinda fired up about this -- probably it is not a new idea, but so far I hadn't been able to figure it out. :joystick: Ripcord