Ripcord

I think it is set default to 127.5, is it not? Try that. Just check the other allied flights in the ME to see if they are all on that same freq. JTAC freqs will be 131.0 or 132.0 if there is a second one, but I don't think that is what you are asking about. Ripcord

Guys, how to open *.MIZ files? What kind of editor are you using (I don't mean obviously the ME in game). I am wanting to learn what the proper syntax looks like for goals and triggers in missions, as I think that will carry over to the mission generator in DCS Warthog. Ripcord

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but during the last week or two, I have really been spending more time try to better understand this MG tool. I still do not see that it allows the user score points in its current form, it only gives little 'messages' when points are scored. The goals sections are still empty for both the blue side and the red side. But that is OK, I can see that this tool is not completed yet. I would like to hear more about the plans for this MG tool and what form it will take when released. Ripcord

I guess there are not any mission / campaign builders out there that are all that interested in this mission generator tool. The thing has a lot of potential, IMHO, but it just isn't completed yet. It really needs to place all those mission objects onto an existing mission, a template of sorts, that already has goals and triggers and a few objects. Then it would be a really powerful tool for building really big and robust campaigns. Wouldn't be exactly DC but it would good enough that it wouldn't really feel that far off. Ripcord

Well, I continue digging through all these lua files and I see now where the mission goals should go, or at least I think it should go there. Only I don't know the syntax to enter it in there. What I would like to do is put two goal in there, both of which refer to a trigger zone. Goal one will be called Blue Advance and the conditions are PART OF COALITION IN ZONE (BLUE). Point total will be 25 points or so. Goal two will be called Kill Zone and the conditions are ALL OF COALITION OUT OF ZONE (RED). Point total will be about the same. Of course the trigger zone will be set in a place where some red units are located, and some blue units will be advancing to. Of course I could go through and quickly add these goals in by hand, in each and every mission, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of having this mission generator, right? Ripcord

I agree it is probably too late now to create a real DC like in F4. Bolting it onto DCS won't work -- in fact, as one of you noted here, it would have to go the other way around: DCS would need to be inserted into the DC somehow. That isn't going to happen. All that we need is a way to tie the missions together in such as way that the player can influence the outcome and subsequent events/tasking in the next mission. -- If I bomb the warehouse, I don't want to see it there all shiny and new on the very next mission. That goes for EW sites, and major SAM sites as well. Track damage on FIXED structures. -- Have some kind of OOB that is coherent. What units are operating from where? -- If allies advance along the front in a particular sector, I want to see some evidence of that in the next mission. -- Allow for enough different kind of missions (BAI, CAS, CSAR, limited SEAD, interdiction, etc) to keep it interesting. -- Track logistics and supplies, even if it is only as simple as basic scoring system (Hey we blew up that transport plane and a column of trucks, so that reduces some enemy units along the front, etc). Just read/write mission data to a file at the start and at the end of each mission. That's it. Mission one loads, I fly it, and then when I am done, the campaign engine writes the data to a file. You cannot tell me I need a supercomputer for that. Look at the mission debrief screen we already have now. If you can build a mission in the ME, then load all that data into a mission and fly it, and then produce an extremely detailed chronological mission debrief -- who fired at whom right down to the second -- then already have the majority the data collected right there. Just dump all that data to a database file. Or not even all the data, just determine the relevant pieces of data to track, such as location of units, red/blue kill scores. At the end the campaign engine runs a quick check of the campaign objects, to just to see if one side as achieve victory, and allow the user to save the campaign before it moves on to the next mission. That's it. Don't need to devote huge resources for tracking anything IN FLIGHT that the sim isn't already doing. If the scope of the campaign engine will be BEFORE and AFTER the actual missions, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I see this as a minimum requirement for having a viable campaign engine that approaches dynamic. So how to account for events happening out there on the battlefield when we aren't flying? Use the data from the previous mission and make a few adjustments. Create some logic that makes some basic assumptions about force levels of units within a certain proximity of each other on the front, and also based on the outcome of our previous mission. Or hell, just split the map up into a couple hundred little sectors, village by village and town by town, mountain by mountain, and assign owners to each, red or blue. If we scored a marginal victory, we picked up one sector and our forces will occupy that area on our next mission. If we scored a crushing blow, then maybe a 2-3 sectors change hands. Or vice-versa. Randomly generated missions are cool, just gotta make them link together in a logical manner, so that the player A10C flight can influence the outcome. Again, I think the DCS crew is on the right track and you are halfway there now. Ripcord EDIT: I am mostly familiar with Janes FA-18 which had what is sometimes called a semi-dynamic campaign engine -- one could argue it wasn't truly dynamic at all, but one thing it did do is track campaign variables from mission to mission, and any of those variables could/would influence or determine which mission nodes came next. Interesting to note that the common thread in both sims is the producer Matt Wagner.

OK, nobody knows. More questions then, again related to this mission generator: Has anybody done any experimenting or playing round with the nodes? Seems not all of them will actually generate a mission - some will some won't. And in some case, those that won't can be moved to other locations where they WILL in fact generate a mission. My initial thoughts here are that there might be limitations in terms of terrian, altitude or distance from the enemy positions, but testing isn't really bearing this out, to be honest. Anybody got some input on this? EDIT: Figured it out -- I had the 'start from ramp' selected. If select 'start from air' or 'Random' then all node will generate. Just the mission generator doesn't like having the A10C airbase too far away from the action, so that's a limitation or at least work-around for any campaign builder to keep in mind.

I am interesting in exploring this mission generator tool a little more, possibly in the hopes of making a proper campaign with ample and adequate missions. I can see that the MG pulls from a template, or rather a handful of LUA files in the MISSIONGENERATOR/GENERATORDATA folder, to generate the mission -- and I noted that one of these files names OTHERS.lua includes the mission brief and basic scoring parameters, along with little message like 'good hit' and 'got him'. So I think I will probably revise a few of the messages to fit my own concept of what real A10C pilots would and wouldn't say on the radio during combat ('hog heaven' is clearly out), and I will also modify the mission brief somewhat, to allow for different types of missions. OK here is what I would like to do. I would like to provide some more specific mission goals - eg., kill GROUP X, or Defend GROUP A, or don't allow GROUP X to reach AREA Z. And I would like to add these into the template somewhere so that I don't have to go through each and every mission to add it in. Is that possible? I would think there is a way to do that probably by modifying one of these lua files. Ripcord

Really, you think so? How then did F4 do it back in the day? In mind, you are just tracking a number of variables from one mission to the next. First you start out with a map template and location of all your units, your order of battle (OOB). No different than creating a mission in your ME right now -- except at the start of the campaign, SOMETHING has to track all these units, their locations, their goals/objectives, and their status (dead/alive, etc). See in my view (oversimplied I realize), we is lacking isn't anything that needs to be running while the missions is actually being played. What is lacking is the ability to take the status/location/other variables for all these units at the end of the first mission and WRITE that to a file somewhere, which is then fed into a separate campaign program that takes those inputs, and continues to run the war simulation for a period of time until you once again brief for your next mission. So if you had a SU-27 over X and two companies of tanks and BTRs advancing on Y at the end of your LAST MISSION, then you should be able to see those units again in your NEXT MISSION -- well OK the Su-27 flight will have gone RTB by then but the simulation part of the game between missions will manage that. I kinda think that, in providing this mission generator, they have demonstrated their ability to WRITE units to the mission, based on an existing template. I suspect they could pretty easily TRACK unit locations and status, etc, without a lot of trouble -- hell, maybe they are already able to do this so that each missions dumps the data to th existing template, or at least modifies it. But the hard part, in my view, is developing that war simulator that keeps all the units moving and fighting and operating during the period of time in between missions. Pretty interesting stuff -- wish I was a programmer, would be an interesting project to tackle. Ripcord

I would not read too much in to that comment there, Fred -- you can see that this mission generator feature is a stepping stone to get to the next stage of development. The guys at DCS are well aware of what all the other sims were that came before, I think they will get it right. Just they can't do it all at once, they have to prioritize and good for them. Hey, they didn't have to even release a mission generator at all, but they did. I am glad for that, as it lets us see their progress. Ripcord

Don't agree with this 100%, but I think that is the route DCS is taking and that is fine, as it has advantages. I think F4 is a jet sim placed inside a war simulator, and clearly the DCS series is not going to be that -- and maybe that is a good thing, so that we will have more third party content and more theatres to fly in. As long as the eventual 'glorification' of the mission generator includes the ability to track enough relevant aspects of the ground war, we will have a damn good dynamic campaign. Relevant aspects should include damage tracking (at least for fixed objects like buildings and strutures and fixed air defenses and radars) and movement of units, and resupply. Just randomly generating a ton of missions isn't dynamic -- they need to tie together based on outcome and specific variables being tracked inside those missions. DCS is on the right track there, I think. Ripcord

There is considerable power in the campaign builder/system that comes with DCS: A10C, just nobody has used it yet to it full potential -- not even close in fact. You can, as a campaign builder, create a VERY compelling moving FLOT, peppered with random events and units. OK, you don't have damage tracking, or the ability to carry any data from one mission to the next (except just the previous mission score), so there are a some real limitations for building a true war-of-attrition campaign like in F4. However that could come in time, through use of lua and other methods of tracking mission variables and outcomes. I think the mission generator (which A10C has added, and FC2 did not have) is probably of a technical step in that direction. F4 is first and foremost a war simulator with a jet sim built into it, and it is pretty unique in that regard. You as the player get a little window of time to get in the jet and go participate in the simulated hostilies, but those events keep going before, during and after your flight, and the sim tracks them all, right down to individual force manning levels, supplies, movements, etc. No other sim does that, at least that I am aware of. EDIT -- one additional comment, something I just thought of -- how many add-on theaters in F4 actually have a viable campaign that works? 3 or 4, if that? Basically you got Korea and the Adriatic, and the rest are pretty lacking. The structure of that sim was not built to allow for expansion. So the beauty of what DCS will have, when it does finally offer something approaching a dynamic campaign, will be the ability to add theatres without porking your campaign engine. Personally I am just not super terribly excited about flying my warthog over Georgia, but Nevada is in the works (again, a training environment mostly) and I believe it won't be long before we have Afghanistan and possibly other places (imagine Korea), so for now Georgia is a good working existing theater in which to learn to fly this baby. And when those new theatres do come out, we will have a campaign system that functions properly. Ripcord

Tried installing the Beta 4 patch -- didn't help. Tried installing the full Beta 4 installation file and checked the 'setup 32bit files' box, and that did not help either. So I will go back to Beta 3 while I wait for Beta 5 and just pray for the best. Hopefully I am not alone here and ED will sort it out.

Ok this is probably relevant to my situation as well -- can you tell me more how you did this? Did I understand correctly that you had two different installations of the sim? Did you click the 'setup 32bit files' option when you ran the Beta4 installation setup.exe? I know that I did not. I run win7 64bit OS, so I assumed I was installing the 64bit beta. Appreciating any insights on this. Maybe I need to go research some other threads relating to this topic. Ripcord

Oh great, I can't be the only one. Ripcord

Beta 4 just simply would not work for me, and cannot figure out why. Tried to create a new lua file from scratch, then tried reinstalling with the newest DX file (whatever that little box is that can be checked upon installation). No joy. So had to just go back to Beta 3 and it worked just fine straight away. So something in Beta 4 was changed and I am very concerned now -- has anybody else been unable to export MFD in the new Beta 4? Ripcord

Well, that was the case yesterday when I first installed Beta 4. The DXGUI Binding thing took a little while before the game screen came on. But it is not the case after changing the resolution in options. It locks up and stays locked up. Let it sit for over an hour, nothing. Kinda lost on this -- guess I will have to go back to Beta 3. Hate to do that though. Ripcord

Kuky, thanks. I did that. I have to go in to options.lua mainly to change it back to something smaller than 1920x1080 so I can restart the game. BTW my set up is almost exactly like yours, in terms of position. Only you have a 1920x1200 main screen and mine is 1920x1080. One thing, the CTD might not be the correct term -- I get this DXGUI LUA BINDING screen, but windows 7 sees this as an application that has stopped responding. I guess I will just let it run for an hour or so, however long, just to see if it somehow works it self out that way. Ripcord

Neither can I. My main screen is 1920x1080, with two 800x600 8" screens located below the main screen - with Beta 3 I expanded the desktop down to the over the screens below. For whatever reason, I get CTD with any resolution that is not smaller than 1920x1080. Even if I set it to exactly 1920x1080 in the options.lua file, it still goes CTD. Ran great before. I went back and deleted all my old directory files and reinstalled Beta 4, no joy. Any ideas? Ripcord

I tried it with a Block 52 loaded with ALQ-131 ECM pod and a LANTIRN pod, just because that was one of the ready made load-outs, which included a pair of HARMS and a pair of MAVs, just like the FA-18C flight had. Resulted in a CTD. Nothing else in the mission was changed or altered. OK so then I just decided to remove the AGM-65 and the LANTIRN pod, and leave in the HARMs and the ECM pod. Threw in a couple rockeyes in place of the Mavericks, just to have a full load. This worked fine. Flight lead fired two HARMs at the mobile SAMs, just like the FA-18C did. Strange, but whatever works, I guess. Ripcord NOTE: I tried this in DCS: A10C mission editor, not FC2

Well, I am happy to believe that, Moa. Still a little strange though -- I just set up mission with FA-18C flying SEAD with AGM-88 and AGM-65, pretty much just like the block 52 F-16s I had been testing in my other mission. The F-16s would fire Mav's at the SA-15 but not the HARMs. However the Hornets would fire both. Ran them in at same altitude. Must be something else. Ripcord

Grimes, A couple questions on your test -- did you use the SEAD command for the tornado flight, or did you bomb/pinpoint target? Also, what target did they fire at? Did they target the radar only? Or did they fire at the launchers as well? I have heard that US jets with AGn-88 HARM will fire at SAM radars but not launchers -- is this the case? Ripcord

I just took one quick take off, just to play with my new flaps gauge and ADI, and didn't notice any slowdown. This Helios is the best thing to come out since those TM MFD cougars and DCS A10C.... OK those are pretty recent, but this is way beyond expectations. Can't wait to start using it in FSX as well.

Thanks, I didn't see that post. The search function used to be my friend, I wonder what happened. Ripcord

Just starting to get my creative juices flowing, while learning this mission editor. Might try to develop a campaign even (maybe), though I still need to devote a lot of time to learning to actually fly this thing :joystick: But the question is this -- what is the general feeling that a mission built today in Beta 3 will remain compatible in later versions of the sim? I have no reason to think it would not be, but I wanted to know if DCS had made any statements on this subject. Ripcord