Endy

Su-27 yet again :)

The thing is there are no AI aircraft in the mission, so that's not the cause... Last mission was very similar in terms of unit setup, I have no idea what change causes the crashes now.

Makes sense I guess. Thought you destroyed the main target with bombs on the first pass 25 minutes into the mission but I guess not.

Exactly my point :) I think that the targets should be a bit more clear next time and easier to identify for you guys.

Actually, you were shot down once by an SA-18, once by a fighter and once by a SU-25T, thought you'd want to know :) Fighters were mostly busy with themselves and hardly interfered with what was going on in the area of operations.

I think the placement of blue objectives was a bit off. From what can be seen people have problems identifying proper targets. Also, it seems like more communication is needed on the blue side - proper targets for CAS need to be established and F15's have to try to support their A10 flights a bit more. While they were dogfighting us to the north the A10s were getting raped by Su25 for example. I also wonder why you guys thought raping an empty red FARP with CBUs was a good idea if it's wasn't a target of value, especially once you saw it was defended... Ground forces might be a bit unbalanced too. I'd go a bit less tanks like t80, t90, m1a1, and instead give both sides more IFV's. They can then be also killed easier by A10's using guns and without using excessive weaponry as currently doing gun runs on the aforementioned or dropping CBUs on a spread out tank squad doesn't work too well.

What mwd2 said. The packets from the client to server are not that big. If you set it to LAN it does not mean you'll kill your dorm internet as there isn't gonna be so much information going both ways anyway, but rather small game packets. Please set the connection to LAN as it just stabilizes the game, we don't know why but it's the only good setting in this game currently. Every other setting causes problems.

Great fun yesterday, some really intense fights in the air :) Does anyone have a Tacview file from yesterday, and if yes, can you please post it?

Actually Mega from what I read on the forums here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=96613 the only settings that worked well was LAN for everyone. Every other setting caused warping and lag on the server it seems so everyone should be set to LAN. Ah yeah, had 3 or 4 crashes yesterday, suddenly the game would freeze and had to kill it. It seems it affected our whole flight at the same time and some blue guys playing FC3 as well.

Yes Shapper, the latest test version has increased defences around the FARP, it was one of the points that had to be changed after last week :) Greg promised to protect you guys a bit more and I hope it works better today :)

That's why I suggested you think about perhaps accepting SAM's in the mission to make it more difficult. Anyway, the reality is that predicting the future from past two scenarios is sort of baseless, since in the first there were no fighters with BVR capabilities and in the second one they were close enough to be over the AO most of the time and neither side had strong advantage in the air. This will probably be different today and create a certain zone of comfort for one side at a time when air superiority is established. You simply do not take changes which i mentioned into account and base your assumptions on past conditions which aren't valid now. But I won't guess nor try to convince anymore. We will see what happens today and what you can do with what you got even with 6 mavs each if Greg allows it. Like Vaggos said, it's really not worth anybody's time arguing in the briefing thread. If we feel the need to we'll make a debriefing thread after the mission. See you in the air.

@LEto First you went into exagerration instead of normal discussion then accuse me of staging some "ban concert". You did not listen to what I had to say but instead you tried to strike it all down as senseless "ban weapons" stuff. And sure, it was a made up scenario to prove a point. Requires some cooperation which might not be realistic in the circumstances but easy to pull off by an organised group. If you can't pull it off then it's rather lack of communication and cooperation between flights, not because you don't have the means to do it. And yes, I fly DCS:A10c and if you're trying to say shooting mavs is difficult or that you can't destroy a column of tanks with them in one go then give me a break... It's funny how this discussion went. Here, I'm trying to balance the scenario because I know how it looks like and how many units there are and how well protected they are so believe me, I'm basing this on something more than assumptions.

as that's how it's designed now. That's why I was arguing against the use, or at least limiting of smart and too powerful weapons, not to make things too easy. If on the other hand, you had to attack the column in CCIP mode using unguided bombs it would at least take some effort other than slewing the cursor on mav screen and pressing release :) Sorry but that's my view on how the mission will progress. I may be wrong but if the cooperation is good on blue side, with such loadouts it will be a massacre. And you will eventually gain air superiority because the planes can't stay up forever and we will prolly see changes in balance then. And they won't be able to take off and get to the action very fast (10-12 minutes). I'd like to hear your point of view on the situation and why you think it is not unbalancing. I know it's realistic and fun to use such weapons but try to understand the mission and balance limitations as well...

Ok, let's discuss again shall we? :) My way of thinking is as follows: - you wait for F15s to get air superiority - I assume you will eventually - you take off, assume proper targets each - since each A10 has now 6 mavericks that means you can kill 6 tanks/armored vehicles each - times 10 A10 means you have ability to destroy 60 vehicles from standoff range very easily - since the tanks usually move in columns, when you have one targeted you can destroy all of it in one pass, takes several seconds for one plane - if you split the planes properly between targets you can attack and destroy a few columns at the same time - since total attacking armor strength is around that number you have a theoretical (of course depens a bit on other factors, means it will be more spread in time in reality) ability to destroy the majority of red force in one go - there are no proper SAM systems around so once your side gains upper hand in the air you've free reign for ground attacks for several minutes

Actually Greg I just checked. If you choose one of the default loadouts for the A10, not try to create a custom one, you can have more than 2 Mavs. You can choose as default one of the loadouts with 3 or 6 Mavs and let the A10 guys decide what to switch before the start, problem fixed. @Leto - I was discussing the issue of weapons in a normal fashion from the perspective of mission balance and fps and you try to attack me with arguments I don't appreciate. If you have something valuable to say about the mission loadouts and its estimated effect on the mission please do but don't behave like a child whose toys are being taken away from him. I think that the ability to destroy 60 tanks in under a minute is a bit overpowered considering that's most of the russian attacking force, so please think first about the effect of certain loadouts and not cry outrage.Thanks!

Ok, no problem, you might be right about changing too many things at once :) I guess we can check the tacview after the mission and see if the mavericks were overpowered or not, and change accordingly. By the way, like I mentioned, there will be changes today how fighters function so I hope the air balance will be okay today with the changed number of fighters, airbases being further away etc. (this is also to accomodate for removing 10 minute startup penalty which wasn't really realistic nor could be enforced in any way). And guys, this is just the third time the mission takes place so if something is wrong, balance is screwed etc, just write about it afterwards so we can all work to make it better.

Sorry for the rant but there was a lot of it. I'd like to hear about your ideas and I just hope we can make the missions more fun for everyone :) PS. I am not strictly opposed to having 6 mavericks per plane. We can see what happens I guess. If you guys think it's ok then it's ok. We can review the mission afterwards and modify accordingly. Though in this case, what do you guys think about more SAM systems on the map. Will that make it too difficult for A10's or the choppers or will it provide some good challenge and targets?

Mind you, there are no SAM systems on the map like SA-8, 9 or 19 for example. Also no long range SAMs like SA10 or 11. Pretty much all there is are shorter range AA, ZSU's and Manpads, but that comes at a cost to planes' loadout. I would like to hear your and other pilots' opinion on that. Whether there should be more SAM's or not. Whether there should be more standoff munitions or not - and say why you think so. Then how do you suggest to balance the gameplay between ground, A-A and A-G etc. Also, please understand I am not writing this as a SU-27 pilot but as someone who wants to get the mission better for every player, and will argue to modify it accordingly. I am not the original mission maker and don't make final decisions though I had some hand in testing and I can tell you I'm trying a lot of different things in the mission and I'm also trying to see everyone's point of view here and give advice on how to improve the scenario.

I am trying to make different suggestions and influence the mission to be fun for everyone, I hope you understand that. CBU's for example are banned in pretty much every serious MP mission due to fps effect on the server and the fact that one bomb, if aimed well, can take out a whole squad of tanks. Given the number of units on the map, in two hours you could probably wipe everything clean... So that's a double argument against their use in a mission. Same goes for other powerful standoff weapons. As for Mavs, sure, we can have some, but not 6 per plane. If it was so, A10's would wipe out the whole russian attacking force quite easily. Please bear in mind we can't have 300 units attacking and 300 defending as that would probably make the server unplayable. Hence we need to limit the A-G capabilities or the ground forces won't make any sense. With unguided bombs you can do a lot of damage to such a column as well, but it requires some more effort and you can't do it from 7 miles away.

So we are making this easier for A-G aircraft provided their air cover does well. Also notice there's probably going to be at least 4 fighters per side, so AA battles will be much more influential this time. If it proves unbalanced that might get changed in the next mission. This comes at a cost of a bit more boring gameplay for FC3 guys but we did it to protect A-G aircraft and choppers and we think it will make it more fun for them. If F15s wipe us out in the first engagement you'll have several minutes to complete your attacks on your objectives or armor columns, after that you can run away again under SAM cover at your base and rearm. Then you just wait for the outcome of next AA battle and go in again. Makes it more real and wll not have you constantly under threat if your sides gains superiority and you watch your RWR and spot incoming fighters.

Mate, I'm only discussing possibilities. As for your sarcasm about TGP, actually the creator of Bactria mission made one a'la Gulf war which is exactly that. Limited Mavs - i think 2-3 per plane, NO TGP, unguided bombs only - no LGB. That was the standard loadout for CAS then. But yeah, I just want an open discussion on the subject, no reason to get mad because of my arguments. The mission is constantly being modified, Greg, me and Trooph did a lot of testing to make it more fun. Mind you, we are experimenting all the time and what I think about certain weapon systems may get changed by Greg or the mission will be modified to accomodate those but at the same time something else will change not to make things trivial. For example, for today's mission we moved fighter bases further away from the AO - it's about 10-12 minute flight now. This makes air superiority much more important and removes "air Quake" and constant dogfighting aspect.

Fighter pilots sort of expect that so they shoot and run away and repeat until one side is dead, but A10 pilots would not even be aware of what's going on making them an even easier prey than they are now. Anyway, this is up for discussion, but I would argue against giving too powerful A-G weapons to A10's, Su25T or KA-50 (I don't know much about the latter so someone would have to say what they think is op there) for the sake of the missions being more interesting this way (exactly the same reason why CBU's have to be banned). Less easy tank kills, and less easy AA kills. Unless of course we agree to introducing a lot of SAM systems on the map, both radar and IR, making A10's job more difficult and Mavs would really become necessary then. Of course this is escalating it further and is not really easy to balance and make it challenging but still fun for everyone.

I think it's a bug, not something Greg did wrong. But anyway, I would think about limiting the number of Mavericks a bit anyway. At the current number of A10's imagine what would happen if all of them had at least 6 mavs each. That's 60 tanks gone in several seconds, land, rearm, rinse repeat. Not to mention the standoff capabilities, which with current level of AA defences is a bit too good. I would argue that since we're using sort of 80s loadout for F15 and Migs (no active radar missiles for either side), then we should seriously limit Mavs too. The A-A combat was not the only reason for removing these missiles. I guess A10 pilots would not be happy if they were getting shot from a long range in TWS radar mode which would give you no indication you're getting locked and shot at and only a very late warning when the missile radar goes active.

@ Ribis Be advised, we are only using semi active radar missiles and short range heaters in the campaign. No Aim120 on F15s or R77 on Migs, also no R27ET. So pretty much only using Aim7 and Aim9 for F15 and R27ER and R73 for the russians. Just for your information since you're new :)

You should be able to, yes. FARP contains missiles and other equipment so you can change loadout each time you are on the ground, ALT + ' as default unless you changed it of course :)