Ripcord

We are seriously lacking in available callsigns for air units. I am quite pleased with the selection we have for JTAC units and AWACS-type call signs. But with all the tactical jets we have, there is really not enough callsigns there. I want to ask DCS to seriously consider adding more (doubling the number). Hopefully we can still get access to the same voice actors that did the first batch.

How do they look when they shoot their approach to a FARP? Any different?

Slow your approach and make a gradual decent by adding more waypoints. It has been a while since I have messed with the AI helos but that might help reduce the sucking your monkey's package.

In the meantime, work on understanding the campaign engine, test some scoring outcomes and just be sure that your next mission in the campaign will be the one you expected and planned for, based on the mission outcome. In short there is a LOT of testing to be done, just of all the little individual parts, before moving on to the big enchilada.

Ability to create 'template units' on the map, for use in campaigns. Meaning there should be something that checks the previous mission results to verify the status of specific units. Need Damage Tracking that is persistent throughout a campaign. You could do this several ways. USER DEFINED -- In the ME, you could create a check box for each unit and give it a logical name such as 'campaign unit' or 'template' unit or 'unit status tracking' or 'damage tracking'. So those units would again show up on future missions in the same campaign series. This way they could be moved slightly. AUTOMATIC -- Just do this automatically based on the type of unit., eg fixed SAM sites, radar/EW sites and naval units, along with fortifications and fixed structures, etc. If you set that Patriot Battery and FARP in mission one, then allow the sim to track the damage to that same FARP and Patriot Battery in missions 2, 3 and so on. If it gets killed, then it's still there, just it is a burned out wreckage. Of course naval units would be sunk, so nothing there but perhaps an oil slick or somethng. WORKAROUND SOLUTION -- just let us do it ourselves manually as Mission Builders, guys. Give us the ability to write STATUS or write some kind of variable, even a 0 or 1, that can be read by subsequent missions. How hard is that? Even just something like save FLAG value on Exit or something, so that we can set units in campaigns to appear based on some previously written FLAG value. We really should already have this by now.

At somepoint, yes, I think I can share your vision. New terrain has to come before this, along with the ability for third party devs to create even more new terrain. Driving/flying around Georgia and Abkhazia/Osetia is OK, it is a nice testbed sandbox to play in, but at some point in the foreseeable future, I think I'm done shelling out cash for various new study-sim quality aircraft (increasing spread out across an operational era spanning over 60 years) without some more content in the form of a semi-compelling region to fight/fly in. And Edge technology has to come before new terrain. So maybe the new edge technology will indirectly support this. It would be nice to see what Nevada shakes out to be, and to what extent it might support the level of detail that you are referring to here. Might it be enough? What I like best about DCS is that they have found a way forward and remained on track. They did the Black Shark thing and moved on to the A-10C thing and then the FC2 thing and finally managed to add Combined Arms. Now we've got aircraft from other eras in the P-51 and the UH-1, and we have third party devs hard at work on a range of other projects. One project manages to finance the next (or at least we can assume that to be the case) and keep the ball rolling forward. And FC3 and DCS Next Fighter and all that.... so it is happening. The one thing I hope and pray for is that DCS stays alive and continues to make wise decisions that allow for improvements in technology and does not go all MS ACES STUDIOS on us. So far so good. I think if that remains the case then we will get there. But we will have to see the new terrains to really know for sure. Right now we drive/shoot thru trees, but who can say right now what the battlefield might be like when EGDE (Nevada) finally sees the light of day?

Just read Wags update for 1.2.4.... now this sounds interesting: "Advanced options waypoint that allows air unit to fly to an assigned ground unit." What might this mean in practical terms? Sending helos to pick up or drop off units? Or sending them to provide CAS?

Yeah I have long wanted to roll up my sleeves and really bust out a major campaign, but I keep watching you, B, and others, and I keep coming to the conclusion that it's just not quite baked yet. Getting closer, but still not quite there.

Or we need 'blank' FARPs that are essentially little more than start points. Basically it would be just a plain flat area, with no landing pad or anything in terms of visible scenery. We could call it an LZ instead of a FARP, but it should behave more or less the same. This would be good because it would also allow for the ME to track the LZ as an objective that could potentially be captured by enemy forces, as well as function as a good place for AI helicopters to land and take off.

Grimes, please digress -- if Bagher doesn't mind. I'd like to hear that idea for yet antoher AI enhancement script. Bagher, I think your work-around solution is actually not bad. OK not elegant but still functional and not something that the player might otherwise notice either. Another method might be holding them somewhere behind a hill otherwise out of LOS, until the conditions are met and they are ready to move out into firing position and open fire. Of course all that depends on the terrain, I realize.

This is a really really good post for anybody building missions in the ME. Probably this explains a lot of wierd AI behavior in missions that many of us are working on, or have been working on.

By eccentric, do you mean wearing those funky-cool checkered ascots while flying? Only thing that I can even think of here that MIGHT be even remotely useful would be the speeds of the Mudhen flights at the various altitudes. Maybe they are having trouble hitting the speeds being assigned, at the assigned altitudes, or maybe the opposite is true -- maybe they want to go faster and cannot and therefore act wierd.

Matt Wagner was the producer for Janes F/A-18. He knows what carrier ops is supposed to look/feel like.

Remember also the forefathers of the naval security group, or crypotologists, who broke the Japanese code at Midway. Radio transmissions, callsigns, simple sitreps, all of those things are very minor but the sum total, when analyzed, can tell you a lot -- just like electronic emissions intelligence or sonar signatures can ID a platform. All of that is of course super crazy classified stuff, of course -- for obvious reasons. Still today that is the only 'sensor' onboard any ship or aircraft that can tell a commander what a potential adversary intends to do next or in the immediate future.

Something like an LCAC even? We need some naval infantry/amphib capabilities. LHA / LHD class helo carriers would be super.

It does help in fact, thanks. I will be sure I am getting the most out of my arty, going forward. Damn sure will keep the armor in reserve a little longer, until the arty has done their thing, along with the air assets.

+1 I also made the same observation -- although I'm still learning how to play this, so I thought perhaps I wasn't using my arty correctly. Maybe my fire radius was too wide or too narrow. Usually I start with myself before I immediately get critical of something. But sure enough -- those T-80 tanks didn't bother to reposition at all when under arty fire, even when the MRLS barrage came and I actually killed a couple of them.

Gee, thanks for that helpful insight Nick. You know, mate, I am pretty sure nobody here made the statement that the M1 tank is somehow superior to the Russian armor. Some struggle with the concept that it is really that much inferior to the Russian armor of any kind or of any era. Thought I would offer up that brief synopsis for you, in order to save you the time of actually reading the thread.

I recently played a CA scenario where 4 M-1s rolled up behind some BMPs and surprise attacked them. Still 3 of the 4 Abrams got waxed. Again it was ATGMs that got them. Pretty unbelievable. For me it's almost like the US armor is a liability in CA engagements. You just want to move them and hide them until you can work over the area with artillery and air assets.

Open a ground unit and see where it is says 1 of 1 unit. Click on that second box and make it one of 2 or one 3. That's how you add units to the same group -- and no, they do not have to be the same kind of unit. In fact you can even mix armor, artillery, and unarmed, etc, in the same unit. They do have to be from the same country. On to the triggers question -- you can set up a trigger to fire when a group is ALIVE LESS THAN X %. Use this if you need the fire for just some of the units in the group getting KIA. Otherwise, if you want ALL units to be KIA for hte trigger to fire, then you use GROUP DEAD.

Yes, I would like to have a handful of different patterns, for example. Then I could mix and match them. Gotta think this would be a really simple thing to implement.

Yeah, that is right -- these landmines are useful too. They need to be added to the "mobile" unit list as 'fortifications', similar how to armed house, blockpost and watchtower were implemented. They won't move, obviously, but they can be grouped that way on your ME map -- and they can be activated & deactivated, etc. Hadn't thought of this, but it would allow a mission builder to simulate army sappers/engineers going out there and setting and/or clearing minefields, to allow or prevent troops from passing thru, and so forth. This probably needs to be added to the wishlist for CA.

Hmmm, I can see that, yes. But still I didn't know about the LAND command. Actually I did see it there in ME, but I thought that meant go land at airfield/FARP and not just set down on a point. Another thing to test and play around with, which is cool.

Yes Seil, can you believe it? Wow! Boy am I ever a big dumb-dumb. There you have it. Already I know I was not the only one here using this CG thing from Comcast, so maybe this thread this helps somebody else.

I wonder if Russians do much of this sort of helo air-mobile troop insertion kind of thing...? I would imagine so, particularly the VDV airborne units.