Ripcord

Sven listen I am not offended now -- only slightly when I first read the post, but I realized that maybe I didn't understand what you meant to say. Forums are sometimes not the most clear and efficient way to communicate our ideas, so this happens. Again, I am still learning to crawl. When I make my first basic script I will report in. No need to waste time on me until I learn the basics at least. Your tutorials are awesome though. I am working with your first one now about how to load the lua scripts into the missions.

This would be very interesting, a big step toward 'saving progress' from one mission to the next. Even if only a certain limited number of ground objects can be catalogued and their locations saved and read by a following mission, this would be a really big step forward for campaign builders. Alternatively we could save flags. This is really what I was hoping ED would implement eventually (my own wishful thinking only), something similar to what they did years back in another sim that Matt Wagner produced. If a mission file, inside a campaign, could save a list of flags activated when a mission ends, then any average mission builder could call those up in the subsequent mission and use that to place units, etc. As I write this, I thought of a third alternative -- can we save zones from mission to mission? Meaning we have a dozen blue zones and a dozen red zones, spread along a FLOT -- when a mission ends, catalogue the coordinates of those zones, based on mission outcome, and then call that data up in a subsequent mission. Then we could use scripts to spawn units within all those zones. I think this 'spawn within zone' functionality already exists, does it not? Whatever the case I need to learn the basics first, so this is just interesting theoretical discussion at this point. Pretty sure it is, actually, looking at all the templates you are posting on your site, giving us all step-by-step instructions how to replicate! Just kidding -- to me all these how-to examples are like taking music lessons, like learning little guitar riffs and techniques. Just because you learn a 'hammer-on' technique and use it is a song, it does not mean you are trying emulate Mr. Van Halen. Or if you like another example, it is like learning a cooking technique, a little twist which can be modified and incorporated into your own dish. Maybe that is a better analogy? Seriously, this statement at first offended me when I read it, although I am sure that was not your intent. I think we can all agree Read/writing unit locations is not some amazing groundbreaking idea that nobody ever thought of before. I believe it has been discussed here on these forums for years. The fact is that I did not think it was possible. So it piqued my curiosity when Hijack or somebody in another thread pointed out that it is being done and in fact somebody is hosting these missions on a server somewhere. If we can use moose to figure out a better way, then that is what we should do! But again, I need to learn to crawl first, then walk. After we can begin to run!

I am not jealous as much as I am just thankful -- that all this stuff is being driven by people passionate about this sim and all the potential that it holds. So what's up with Tonopah? Why no NAS Fallon?

Sven, so far I have never been sufficiently motivated to try to self-teach myself lua scripting, but what you have done here is impressive. I love the documentation and the step-by-step videos. Thank you. I am going to apply myself now, finally, after all these years. Question: Is MOOSE able to write group data to a file, which can be read later by another mission (in a campaign for example)? For instance, I want to log the locations of active ground units and record that data someplace, and then use that data to spawn units in the same locations in a subsequent mission. I heard that there are some servers that are doing this now.

Not asking for MIST or any of these super cool addons to be totally incorporated, but some of the basic blocking and tackling features could certainly be added. And nobody would argue that these additions would in any way outweigh the very obvious shortcomings with AI unit behavior. Damn good discussion in this thread.

OK then this is huge and I am keen to understand it. Thank you for pointing this out. Something like this should be incorporated into the ME and documented. Indeed there are a lot of cool LUA scripts out there that should be 'built in', and looking through the ME in the Nevada theatre, I wonder if maybe some of them actually HAVE been added.

Here is a drum that I keep beating (sorry for those that have read it before): Give us a mechanism by which we can persistent values/flags that carry from one mission to the next. Then we can build a dynamic campaign based on what the results of the fighting that is happening on the ground. We can have what, 999 different flags in a mission? Just develop a mechanism to allow those values to carry over inside a campaign! That's it! Seems like it would be easy enough to do -- the flags are already there, just allow them to be read and written somewhere. Probably one of their Russian interns could do it in a week during his smoke breaks. No doubt it isn't that simple -- I am sure there are some security concerns here, in terms of maintaining data integrity, that are entering into the picture. But it is worth spending some time on this. I would love to hear where ED's collective head is at on this subject, to understand what the hazards are, because it would change the way we look at playing CA, I think. Your unit placement would be read off those flags, and that folks, would mean having something very close to a moving FLOT.

I guess job 1 for ED right now is getting these two theatres married up under version 2.5 or whatever it will be. Right now it almost like they are trying to support not two sims (let's not exaggerate) but one and a half, maybe. Then I think we'll start to see this whole platform move forward - and CA will hopefully be a big part of those plans.

http://f-14association.com/squadron/f-14-tomcat-squadrons.html Maybe somebody can confirm, I though VF-31 used the callsign 'Felix'. Could be wrong. Others were Lion, Hunter, Rage, Diamond, Sundowner, Camelot, Victory, Gunfighter.... you will see them in the link above. EDIT: Ah I see my link essentially leads to the same squadron pages that the link posted by Aginor does. So no new info here from me : )

Yeah, that will get you ready to taxi out. Thanks for posting

Thank you for this. The other thing I hate is when people 'loose' something when they really mean 'lose' something. If you have loose security standards in your hangar, then you could potentially lose all the valuable hangers in your closets inside your hangar, and thus your jackets would be piled up someplace in a disorderly fashion. Not good.

One day I would like to try RTS/Commander against an opponent playing the other side as RTS commander. Air AI is still really weak, as it stands now in its current state, but if that could be improved, this would be really something like playing a modern tactical warfare version of chess/checkers -- damn cool!

Where is it in Texas? EDIT: Ah I see, up in Addison TX (DFW). I might have to take a ride up there one of these days.

Yes, but we want DCS quality hi-fi 'inoperability'. The flight model has to be advanced, even if it doesn't really fly.

Pretty sure he also talked about naval ops somewhere in one of those snippets of online interviews. But there is reason why his forum signatures states everything is subject to change! I think the real message is that a lot of things are possible (not that they are all planned and locked in with an operating budget and a target release date).

They are a bit busy right now, I think we can all agree. I don't think it isn't that CA isn't a priority or that it is not a huge success, but they have to focus on some areas to keep pushing the overall vision/effort/product line forward. IMHO, I would say the biggest thing for them was getting some third party aircraft developers up and running. Seems we have one or two dev groups now that can and have produced something tangible (other than discussion threads), so they have made that milestone. Now we have NTTR and two versions of the sim are co-existing. So I have to believe that getting both theatres up to speed with the new technology is the main focus now for ED. Then adding new theatres like Straits of Hormuz, and Normandy and so forth. At some point they need to lay the groundwork for third party devs to create new theaters. Can't do that without having all the technology and underpinnings in place. Maybe that effort is somehow linked to some plans for incremental improvements for CA, who can say at this point? Same probably goes for CA. Even if they do plan this overhaul, I would guess that it would have to come a bit later after we have all the theatres brought up to current version.

I play CA as tactical commander much like I used to love to play Jane's Fleet Command. It is like a tactical chess match (one that I am not good at). I agree that it is already quite good in this regard, and it only needs a few rounds of incremental improvements to really make it shine. That said it is fun to get into the tank or the APC to play some of the ground units that are involved at a critical juncture. Don't need dozens of players online, playing mega tank battles. A good mission can have small micro-conflict set inside a much larger battle on a macro level, where air is called in to support what is happening on the ground. The mission objective is happening there, and it is fun to be where that is happening in first person mode. As decisive as air power is, every war is ultimately won on the ground (that's where we all live at the end of the day), so the overall objective is almost always some function of defending your turf to repel an enemy attack, or to go take over some real estate from enemy. There can be and should be some critical pieces on the ground, such as JTAC and some forward recon guys that can be controlled better by a human than by an AI unit. The biggest downer is the poor AI behavior of air units when playing CA as a single player. Big disappointment there. Improve that and we have something. After that, I really think the biggest improvements lie in incorporating some things like Air mobile units and amphibious ops, as well as tactical command and control logic, particularly with air defenses and various types of radars. Also agree that there should be some command functionality to allow ground troops to enter, occupy and defend buildings.

Actually I get this. Two different creative visions often lead to nobody really in control. It might seem like having two people trying to drive the bus.

Using the existing scoring system? Or some new method of transferring flags or persistent data from one mission to the next? EDIT: Probably we should move some of this discussion to a new thread and stop hijacking this fellow's announcement thread (I am at fault here). I very much support what this guy is doing.

Anyway, for the author of this project, big respect and keep going. I might buy it anyway, just to support. Just would LOVE this thing (and would fly the hell out of it) if we could actually recreate a 1950's Korean theater.

I think we have the talent. There could be some additional features added to the mission builder engine to expand/improve scripts, etc. but we have some guys that are very good. I don't think that is our issue. Honestly, I believe that once we see third party devs start pumping out new maps/theatres then this platform is going to really going to go HUGE. And I think it is a question WHEN this happens, not if. I will say this about multiplayer campaign functionality. F4 is not going to be reborn here ever, but there is one small improvement that is simply BEGGING to be incorporated into these missions, and that is campaign persistent mission outcome flags. We have them now but the values are not persistent from mission to mission within a campaign, and so the values are not read by the following mission. As it is now, you can only use 'mission score' as the sole determinate of which mission is flown next. Needs more than that. If village A & B are overrun by BLUE, then red units in A & B would be scripted to not appear in villages A&B. Hell, a really ambitious mission builder could even script in a couple burnt out tanks or trucks in those two village, per that condition. That alone would allow us to have dozens and dozen of possible combinations of outcomes for each level of the campaign ladder, which would in turn allow a good builder to create a living moving FLOT on the battlefield. I promise folks would pay for that and it in fact, over time, it might become the standard by which add-on campaigns are measured. Right now all we have is "next mission selected by overall score of previous mission". That is adequate but nothing compared to what could be with just that one little improvement.

None of these artificial/arbitrary campaigns capture my interest without the local theater. If there was a way for third-party devs to create 'new maps' to fly over, then I'd be all over this. That is needed even more critically than are new aircraft to fly IMHO. Hopefully we will get there soon.

Agree with this. Really emphatically agree with this.

Will it have wing-flex? Oh wait, I'm on the wrong forums.... Actually, what munitions are planned for this? Have never heard of this HOT missile so that sounds intriguing.

put me down for a copy, sir.