Gianky

<Completely off topic and off international language!> Ma... ma.... sul profilo hai scritto Massa! O che, un carrarino che si fa passa' pe' massese? O 'un v'odiate a morte???? </Completely off topic and off international language!>

Thank you, cfrag, I'll ponder on your suggestions and study some more modules!

that's the attitude! IIRC, Liberation does exactly that: I happened to edit some of the missions before starting it and I took a look at the routes the packages take, they have all the necessary attributes generated by Liberation, like actions to take at the target waypoint. I guess that since you didn't RTFM you're playing Liberation missions from the "Mission" tab of the lobby in DCS, instead than from the Mission Editor as Liberation documentation suggest; you can check what I said (and that the targets have been correctly assigned by Liberation) by simply opening the liberation_nextturn.miz in the Mission Editor and take a look at the various packages waypoints. You can play the mission directly from the Mission Editor, using the "fly" option in the menu bar above the window (IIRC it's the third voice from the left). You're welcome, se 'un ci s'aiuta tra toscani....

Well, at least we got to the bottom of it. Have you tried playing around with the graphic settings to see if you can squeeze decent FPS without changing the resolution? This is not definitely a good period to buy a new video card...

Ciao Orion! As for the first issue, silly question: have you set the frontline stance to aggressive or breakthrough? IIRC the frontline advaces based on the result of the ground offensive, so if your ground forces are set to a defensive stance, they should not gain any terrain (always IIRC, of course... check the wiki on the Github page for that, it's pretty well done). As for the air assets, again IIRC, they'll only influence enemy economics and resources; any mission that has not be completed before you press the "exit" button should produce no results and so will missions that are affected by culling... as a matter of fact that's why I don't use culling, even though in some maps, like Syria, the first minutes of a mission resemble a slideshow on my PC. Don't know what to tell you about the wingmen, might be DCS AI, as always, it's been a while since I played with Liberation, but I seem to remember that they obey the Engage mission and rejoin/RTB command... (there's something else that's bothering me about AI behaviour in Liberation, but that would take another post, completely, I think unrelated). This one should be DCS fault: I'm assuming you're running the last OB, the one updated last Thursday; well the changelog had some items regarding AI behaviour on the ground, maybe they've not been all solved, maybe they created new ones, maybe it's just that Ramat David layout makes things even more difficult for AD (artificial deficency)... that's software for you!

@cfrag I need some help: I set up the mission mixing ME triggers and DML zones, probably something's wrong. I have 2 mission start triggers, one to load the DML modules (dcsCommon, cfxMX and cfxZones), one to create the ME flags I'm using. Then I have a Switched condition (Randomize Convoy) ---> part of coalition in zone (Blue, Spawn Convoy, Airplane) ---> Flag set random value (1, 1, 4) to randomize the convoy that it's being activated. Then for each convoy I created a Switched condition (Spawn Convoy X) ---> Flag equals (1, X) ---> Group activate (Convoy X) AND dev Zone_increment_size (Spawn conovy, -6069) AND message to coalition (Blue, "An enemy convoy just entered the killbox", 15, false, 0) AND Set flag value (1, 0) to activate convoy n. X of the four I created. Finally, there's a Repetitive action (Reset Convoy Spawn zone, ON DESTROY) ---> Group dead (Convoy 1) OR Group dead (Convoy 2) OR Group dead (Convoy 3) OR Group dead (Convoy 4) ---> dev Zone_increment_size (Spawn conovy, 6069) that reset the spawn area (or, more correctly, the trigger zone that activate the convoys) to its original size and allow the player to activate the next convoy. As for DML clone zones, I created the four convoys with their waypoints, then I put a zone over each of them, using the following attributes: cloner onStart ---> true (I know it's deprecated, but I didn't understand how to use the raiseFlag module for this) method ---> inc flag! ---> ActivateConvoyX clone? ---> ActivateConvoyX empty! ---> ActivateConvoyX Now, when I try the mission, modules appears to be load correctly (dcsCommon and cfxFlags, at least, cfxMX says something like "0 groups processed successfully"), passing through the "Spawn convoy" zone activates a random convoy and when I destroy it, the "Spawn convoy" zone is expanded again and I can activate the next convoy. Unfortunately, after all four have been activated and destroyed, passing once again throught the "Spawn convoy" zone triggers the message to coalition, but no convoy spawns; based on this, I'm afraid I didn't configure DML Clonezones correctly, can you tell me what to do? I swear I read the effing manual! (Pssst, maybe update the tutorial mission, getting rid of the deprecated functions! ) Thank you in advace for what'll you do!

Stupid question, just to check for the basics: can you click the cockpit in other full fidelity modules? Have you checked if the mouse pointer is visible in the cockpit? Is there any chance you disabled it inadvertently pressing LAlt + C?

Yeah, of course I was referring to that.

Thanks Nelson, as you can see above, I found the relevant part in the NATOPS; and, yeah, it looks like it has been corrected in 2.0.1.

The trouble with old manuals is that 99% of the time they are made of scanned images and cannot be searched... so I used the Hornet NATOPS as a reference (structure of the manual can't be changed that much, can it?) and I found the relevant section on the A-4E NATOPS to which I was referring above. Air to air refueling is in Section 4 (Flight characteristics and flight procedures), page 4-22 and it does say «if the drop tanks are to be fueled, the drop tanks switch must be positioned at FLIGHT REFUEL. Fuel flow will then be through the probe to the drop tanks, wing tank and fuselage tank simultaneously». If you look at figure 4-8 this subsection seems to be referred to buddy tanking, but I'm guessing the procedure for the receiving aircraft is the same regardless of what the tanker is. So, yeah, I'd say you're right, section one when describing the fuel transfer switch refers only to the hypothesis of wing fuel tank damage, though the wording might create some doubt if you don't know the whole NATOPS.

It'd be nice to have some news... Even though, considering the date, I think we'll have to wait for March 28th at this point...

I hadn't try it in 2.0.1, but that's how it worked in 2.0 and how the 2.0 manual tells you to do it. EDIT: NAVAIR 01-40AVC-1 (15 November 1968 edition, changed 1 March 1977), page 1-20, under the paragraph called "Fuel transfer bypass switch" says «Air refueling of the droptanks and fuselage fuel tank (bypassing the wing tanks) is possible by placing the DROP TANKS switch in the FLIGHT REFUEL position, in addition to placing the fuel transfer bypass switch in the FUEL TRANS BYPASS position». Not sure if that was the normal procedure to refuel the drop tanks, I didn't read the whole NATOPS, but I assumed it was, since it's the same that was reported in the A-4E-C 2.0 manual.

There are two switches you have to operate to refuel the drop tanks, one is the one you're referring to, on the left console, right behind the throttle; the second one, the "Fuel Trans" switch, is on the right console, near the end of the cockpit, behind the MCL controls: it's a two position switch, you have to put it in the forward "bypass" position; once you have the "Drop tank" switch in the "flight refuel" position and the "Fuel trans" switch in the bypass position, you can refuel the drop tanks.

What do you need that for? You have Wags' videos!

<Totally off topic!> The book! Read the book, guys, so much better! </Totally off topic!>

Thank you, plusnine, I usually bind only the real aircraft HOTAS functions when the module have a clickable cockpit, just added a few things for the A-4E (like the chaff/flare dispender), I updated Saturday and, so far, everything seems to be working normally.

Cfrag, thank you for your input, it looks like a very interesting idea and a really handy set of tools for mission design. I just downloaded everything, I'll give it a try, even though, I have to say, I don't know if learning Lua would be quicker than reading your nifty 319 pages manual!

Ok, thank you toutenglisse, I'll give Mist a try!

As luck would have it, just after posting I saw the newly uploaded video from Suntsag about trigger zone removals, so I think I got that part; as a matter of fact, when I tried the mission again all four group spawned as intended. On the other hand, after I destroyed them all, nothing more spawned, which bring me to this: I was convinced that the game actually spawns a new "clone" of the group after the first one is destroyed and the triggers reactivate, but I now realize that it just activates the group I created, once they're all destroyed, there's nothing more to spawn. So, is there no way for the program to "clone" the group, without using an external scripting language? Can I create a lua script inside the ME?

First of all, a necessary premise: I'm a total ME noob, learned a bit about it through editing other people's mission and just messing around, but never really systematically learned everythings there is to know about it. So, I have a training mission I use and I wanted to spawn random convoys; I created four of them, gave them waypoints that make them go in a roughly circular flow around Kobuleti, then I set up a trigger zone ("Spawn Convoy") with a 1 NM radius more or less in the center of this circle. Since i want to avoid triggering the zone while one convoy is active, I tried the following to inhibit the trigger zone unless no target is around: 1) Mission Start (Initialize Flags) ---> NO CONDITION ---> Set Flag value (1, 0); Set Flag value (100,1) // flag 1 randomize the convoy spawned, flag 100 is to inibhit the trigger zone 2) Repetitive action (Reset Convoy Control Flag, ON DESTROY) ---> Group dead (Convoy 1) OR Group dead (Convoy 2) OR Group dead (Convoy 3) OR Group dead (Convoy 4) --->Set Flag Value (100,1) // every time a target convoy group is destroyed, Flag 100 is reset to 1 and the trigger zone is active again 3) Switched condition (Randomize Convoy) ---> part of coalition in zone (Blue, Spawn Convoy, Airplane) AND Flag equals (100, 1) ---> Flag set random value (1, 1, 4) // if any blue aircraft is inside the Spawn convoy trigger zone and the control flag (100) is 1, then the program set a random value for flag 1, which is used to spawn a random convoy 4) Switched condition (Spawn Convoy 1) ---> Flag equals (1, 1) ---> Group activate (Convoy 1) AND Set flag value (100, 0) AND Set flag value (1, 0) // this instruction is repeated 4 times, one for each of the convoys, of course changing what has to be changed; if flag 1 as a value of 1, the first convoy is spawned and the control flag (100) is set to zero, so that if any blue aircraft, during the attack, passes through the trigger zone nothing happens, and the spawn flag (1) is set to zero, so that, after destroying the current target convoy, when a blue aircraft is passing through the trigger zone (which should be reactivated by the above instruction 2), the spawn flag is randomly reset to a value of 1 through 4 and can spawn a new convoy. The trouble is when i test the mission, after initially spawning as intended, after a while (usually after 3 convoys are dead) nothing happens anymore... I checked all the lines, I didn't spot any typo that might mess things up. So, the questions are: what am I doing wrong? Is there another way, possibly an easier way, I can achieve the same result?

Copy that, guys, thank you both! On to 2.0.1!

@plusnine is it still necessary to delete the input bindings when updating from 2.0? Is there a way to save the old bindings, despite deleting the files, so as not to have to bind everything again?

Thanks, it's just that I'm Italian and I want to see more Italian aircrafts in the simulator!

Thanks for your reply, Alpenwolf, I'll gladly give it another shot, even though no labels is a deal breaker for me (can't see squat without them in my Oculus CV1... can't really understand why people insist for not having them, it's not like DCS is comparable to reality vision-wise, not even at top resolution...).

I'd start with the A-4E, but, when you're comfortable in it, move on directly to the A-10C; yeah, it's complex, and it can be intimidating, but you don't have to learn all at once, on the contrary, you should "bite it in little chucks", digest them, then bite a little more. Pluse, the Hog is a finished module, stable and with a lot of content, both paid and free that'll give you plenty of choice. I'd say the only other module that can do the same, right now, it's the Hornet.