I would also appreciate some pdf-manuals and miz-example for all the scripting stuff for us "un-luaed" people. ;)
This really depends on the mission type you like to design.
Since the release of the UH-1 I have created almost about 10 missions.
These are all coop-missions for A10+Ka50+Uh1 (counter-insurgency scenario: CAS, AFAC, combat rescue, CSAR, recce, Search ->"infiltrate" & Destroy ;), etc.)
After flying bms over a year now I have seen that such small scenarios are best what DCS can because you dont need a large hostile "enviroment".
So I stopped thinking about large missions with thousands fo triggers, units and randomizations.
For sure these missions are not bad. I remeber I had a lot of fun flying missions like OnStation in the A10. But designing smiliar missions for A10+Uh1+Ka-50 is almost impossible.
And also on these large missions -> its always the same and the locations are the same.
So I created now small missions (based on a mission template created before 1.2.4). Duration about 1-2hours.
There are not many enemies and clients have to fly "long" ingresses (15-25 minutes). And I also use as less triggers as possible. (e.g. I do not trigger if a group is destroyed or a LZ is clear. Clients have to decide this alone.)
You also dont have much action there and no voice overs / radio chatter but coop factor is very immense and with tars immersion is good enough.
Problem is: they wouldnt work well on public servers because the clients have to start the mission at the same time and they have to be in teamspeak.
On the other side: Almost every week a mission is done (maybe same mission story but just a different target area with small changes) and repitition factor is very low because you do not fly the same mission at the same place over and over again.
Phew. Lot of text just for a small example that (some) mission design does not need necessarily much time. :D