Alpenwolf

Server News: Operation Arab-Israeli War kicks off this Saturday, 02.04.2022, around 1800 zulu (note the recent clock change in many countries): A few changes in the mission: - Added an EWR on top of a mountain west of Kiryat Shmona Airbase for Blue. - Blue must destroy 2 out of 4 Observation Sites and NOT all 4 any more to complete the objective. Still, the Red Chemical Factory must be destroyed. - Some Blue ground units were redistributed as recommended by Mike-Delta, Merlin. - Advanced options for some ground units were adjusted. Note: Red's 3rd Observation Site by the Sea of Galilee is the closest and the easiest to get to for Blue. However, it's the one with most AA's and AAA's. The Observation Sites 1 and 4 are still not too far and should be easier to destroy than 3 and 2. The Red Chemical Factory might be the challenge.

It was never announced actually, but was planned. The recent Combined Arms bug makes things rather less enjoyable. On the other hand, I don't think it'll be fixed any time soon, so I'll launch the mission next Saturday. I'll announce it here officially and post the changes made in the mission.

Glad to hear. It's obviously not the missions themselves then. Might wanna post the issue over at the Huey forums.

Wait, you can't load them or they don't shoot?

In all missions?

Round 15 will kick off around the end of April or start of May. 104th_Maverick will be as usual the commentator and official streamer of the event and he should have more free time by then.

Server News: The warehouses in all Persian Gulf missions have been adjusted/fixed.

+1

I'm going through all warehouses anyway, so it'll take some time. The good old bug never stops haunting me, I guess. Can't live without me or something.

They're not intended. The latest DCS update messed up the warehouses a bit, and it's not just the L missiles. All Caucasus missions were fixed so far. Others will follow. Bear with me, please.

No. It was fixed yesterday.

Server News: - The warehouses in all Caucasus missions were adjusted. With the latest update a few things were changed, but shouldn't be noticeable for you. - Missions on other maps will follow. - Work on the MiG-15 vs F-86 mission has resumed. - Work on the Helicopters Tournament 15 has started. Important Note: The last 1-2 DCS updates have introduced some inconvenient bugs to the Combined Arms module. This will surely have effect on the ground warfare with players probably refraining from playing the module. This is a hard hit to the Cold War 1947 - 1991 server, as most missions happen to include the Combined Arms module, and completing some objectives is heavily dependant on it. Operation Arab-Israeli War is supposed to kick off next Saturday. I'm really not sure what to tell you. Without the Combined Arms players it'd be incomplete in a way. Sorry, folks. I'm just clueless here.

When the Su-25T was your worst enemy as a "fighter" with "BVR" capabilities back in the day

Last summer I started working on a mission by the name Close Air Support - Dynamic (see other Close Air Support missions here). It will feature the Ka-50, the Mi-24 and the Mi-8 on one side, vs the AH-64, the OH-58 and the UH-1 on the other. Ground units and Combined Arms will be heavily involved to keep things... well, dynamic. We all thought the Apache and the Kiowa were to be released by the end of 2021 or maybe even earlier in summer of last year, which is why I started working on that mission. Plans changed and things were postponed, but the mission will be made. It will be a 24/7 mission to say the least and might run for days until one side wins. Apart from that, there will be a Helicopters Tournament featuring the Apache. Will work on that soon. I hope.

Round 15 is being worked on. The Apache will be featured for sure! Stay tuned...

That'd be great. I have different missions on different maps, so I'll be checking it out over the upcoming days, and then I'll report back to you. Thanks for letting me know.

The LOS isn't always relevant. Years ago I had AWACS planes in all missions on both sides. AWACS is not reliable and gives you constantly BRAA's regarding the enemy AWACS, so I had to look for an alternative. Imagine being in a dogfight or trying to find a nearby bandit and you keep getting BRAA's for the enemy AWACS at 150-200 km away. Not too convenient. That being said, I ran loads of EWR tests and had help from a few players who flew almost every day on the server back in the day. The results showed me that EWR's are way better, but have their own problems still. One problem is ignoring the LOS in some occasions. We flew both helicopters and jets in mountainous areas of the Caucasus while one guy (sometimes me) was monitoring the F10 map through the enemy's cmdr. You're mostly hidden, but sudden turns or maneuvers (even if still obscured and well hidden) would result in showing your aircraft on the map for a few seconds. I haven't noticed any fixing or updating for the EWR's ever since, so I take it it's still the same. And note that I do GCI quite often myself and spot UH-1's when I shouldn't, knowing the area they're flying in and pretty much everything about the mission setup. Just west of Galilee you have your EWR on a hill overlooking the entire sea and areas around it. If the EWR was still not showing anything or rather poorly, then surely we're talking about a game issue. I said earlier above in one of the posts that I do my part and fix or work around what I can, but there are things that are game related and that is beyond me. I'm sure the hill is actually a good place for the EWR, but I'll look around and try to find a better spot or spots.

I've thought about it quite often and I always ended up submitting to having a little faith in players hoping for things to play out rather funny and charming, not cruel and tragic. That's why we had tons of intense and great sessions throughout the years and others not so much. So I say it again, it really comes down to what players do with the missions and how they play them. The only way around this that I came up with is having players signing up for either Red or Blue after a mission is announced. All players get to read and study the situation of a mission while the objectives are sent via pm to each and every player accordingly. If you sign up for Red, you receive the complete briefing for Red only. Same with Blue. The only problem is, we get to play the mission once. After that everyone knows everything. The way things work in DCS allow players to get their hands on the missions (.trk files) which is rather unfortunate. Every hidden detail, every trigger or flag that is only of importance for the mission designer himself to work around the many obstacles in the mission editor, becomes visible and known. Some players use that and exploit it for their own benefit which results in mysterious and incomprehensible advantages for the enemy. While everyone is wondering why something is not working properly in a mission, I know instantly what's going on and can only be sure that some player has figured out something and is doing things not as supposed to, yet gets the job done which confuses others even more. And that's the endless cat and mouse game I've had since day one of hosting with some players. In a way it shows me where I should improve things, however, it wouldn't be necessary if they wouldn't push me in the first place

All that is good in theory or in real life, but EWR's in DCS don't work like that. That's all I meant to say. I don't mind adding one more EWR due north, but I fail to see how the mission as a whole is rather frustrating or not to your liking, as if it all came down to this EWR issue when neither MD nor anyone else said anything about it. After round one I had a quick debrief with a few players on TS, including MD and Micarra. I don't recall any complaints or disadvantages being highlighted concerning any matter. All of sudden and after round 2 it's frustrating. A bit confusing from my point of view.

I only started it up, took off, flew around and landed it. I watched bits of rossmum's stream from the first round and he did some SEAD, striking and even CAP. Looked good, despite him having some issues with some key bindings.

It's the accuracy of the EWR I'm talking about. Not the map. Not sure what you mean by "the accuracy of the map" to be honest. In yesterday's mission, the Blue EWR was there constantly and it's placed on top of a hill overlooking the entire eastern borderline. You really don't need more than that, although you do see further east as stated above. "I found the mission fairly frustrating due to very poor radar coverage for Blue". Are you telling me the EWR was that bad it barely responded to any calls?! Didn't hear any complaints the first round or this round from anyone else. No one wrote anything during the mission in the chat window either.

EWR's in DCS don't work like that though. Your EWR's cover Blue areas and slightly further east. Red EWR's cover Red areas and slightly further west. Red areas are naturally larger than Blue areas. You're not flying around Red airbases or anywhere near them anyway. Most fights are across the borderline where the TA's are mostly found. EWR's in DCS don't cover only the highlighted areas as displayed by you like that. They're not that perfect or accurate. They quite often ignore terrain obstacles. As someone who flies helicopters a lot like myself I can only assure you of that. I'd be hovering in a valley in the Ka-50 for instance, and still F-5's get the call and jump me. Happened way too often to say the least. Red EWR's are the target. If lost, Red players are literally blind and are only dependent on a human GCI operator if that happens and it did happen in both rounds. That's when I barely had eyes in some areas and couldn't provide good BRAA's. Blue EWR however was up throughout the entire session. Same thing in round 1. There is a reason why things are setup differently and assets are not distributed equally. I thought that was clear by now as it is the case in most missions, especially, when the objectives are the not the same.

First of all, you put a smile on my face with this thoughtful type of planning! I like that. And that's exactly what these missions should push players to do. Kudos, mate, and those involved! rossmum also has an incredible plan for operation Eye For an Eye, that we'll roll out again one day. That's exactly what these missions are for. Also, check out Dawger's attack and defence plan for operation The Desert Has Eyes. The idea behind sling loading the nuke crates is only to make it not too easy for Red to just grab the bombs and go for striking. The nukes could've had been transferred during the night with low visibility for any jet of that era if I had wanted nukes to be there instantly. Instead, I came up with this sling loading task to yet again give players the incentive to get something done. You know, "work hard and reward yourself". Pretty much like sling loading ammo crates to rearm (activate) MiG-29's/F-14's in other missions or complete your SEAD tasking in operation Eye For an Eye to go out on a nuke bombing mission. That's the idea behind it and not really for Blue to strike, otherwise I would've made it very clear for Blue to leave everything and go after the nuke crates. Not your fault though, you did what you had to do and saved the day from any nukes. That I must say. It's up to me to maybe change something or leave it as it is. I'll see what I can do and announce any changes. Good flying yesterday, mate. You were very effective!

Not exactly. Look, it would've had been better if Blue stuck more to the objective rather than trying to "annoy" Red. I mean, we could send MiG's and with one rockets run all 10 ammo crates at the Blue FARP would be gone, which then would prevent any sling loading from happening and you wont have a maximum of 20 extra M60's. There were far more Blue players than Red in the first 20-30 minutes and barely any striking took place which is the objective for Blue. Instead, a single F-5 was flying all over the map hunting EWR's and crates. Now, destroying the EWR's is part of the objective at the observation sites, but not the only thing to be destroyed. The bunkers among other assets were completely ignored, so it was obvious what was going on. You could argue that it's rather of an advantage to try and "annoy" the enemy like that and it is. But is it really necessary and the battle can't be won otherwise? And I wrote "annoy" because it is a game after all, and only because it's a game you get to read the whole briefing, and see what the enemy's objectives are when you actually shouldn't. Neither side should. For instance, as a Blue player you shouldn't even know there is a possible nuke striking mission coming in. But you know there is a chemical factory you MUST destroy, where nuke bombs were developed, so you could only speculate and put your CAP on high alert. T-55's advancing on the two northern airbases is yet another matter Blue shouldn't have known about until T-55's were literally at their doorstep. It's not like invasions and their plans are announced to the enemy days prior to the attack, is it? There might be some tensions in the air and speculations or leaked information, but the whole picture is rarely complete. Red planned their move on the two airbases, but shouldn't know about any ammo crates being sling loaded to rearm additional M60's that could join the battle. They only know that because they read the briefing and probably the enemy's objectives. See what I mean? What could I do?! Add more air defences at the chemical factory? I could, but then striking the chemical factory itself becomes even harder than it is. So, Blue attacking the crates like that (when they shouldn't know much about their existence in the first place) could only lead to me adding more air defences to counter that which would then backfire on Blue. See what happens? Or, just make the crates immortal, right? And then Mi-8's could fly aerobatics if they wanted to because the crates wont be destroyed if the rope is cut due to wild maneuvers. They could simply pick the crate back up again and fly on. These are the consequences of the way I design such missions, especially, when asymmetric objectives are assigned to the coalitions. I'm aware of that. It becomes more incentive to try and work harder on preventing the enemy from getting his job done. I understand that. We saw more or less the same in the limited editions, only there neither side had the ability to be that "annoying" due to differences in the missions' scenarios and their objectives. In this mission however, the battlefield is very small and things are very close to one another. That's the reality of the geography in that area, which makes it easier to "annoy". I do my part and try hard to make things as good as possible. Always have. And as I always say, it's up to the players what becomes of the missions. And I know it's risky when putting things in the hands of players like that, but there is no other way really, unless we want to go arcady and just kill stuff. The more assets players control and the more freedoms they have (up to a certain limit), the more dynamic things can be! And I've been receiving positive feedback in that regard since day one, so I can't be that wrong with that statement. The tools at hand are very limited and I can only work with I have in the mission editor and some external lua scripts. We've had tons of intense and great sessions on the server throughout the years and others not so much or rather frustrating. Trust me, it always came down to what players were doing and how they approached the missions and the objectives. When things were rather frustrating you saw lots of complaints here on the forum of players talking about players who were rather doing "annoying" things. Bugs are yet another issue that I'm sometimes responsible for, but quite often they are just beyond me and part of the game itself and not the missions. On a side note, when I say "annoying", I only mean the above as explained thoroughly. Nothing more or less, mate. The first round was a blast, you said. You managed to sling load quite a lot of crates and you guys even defended the airbases well. This time it's the other way around. Red had very aggressive tactics, pushed quickly with T-55's on Rosh Pina Airbase to prevent you from exactly doing what you wrote above and they succeeded at it. One T-55 held the airbase for 15-20 minutes (before troops were flown in) and not a single A-4 or F-5 bothered to take it out? You do that and you're back at it with deploying troops and sling loading crates. You guys destroyed lots of T-55's. The Gazelle in the beginning was very effective too. Just checked out the tacview file. A total of 5 Hinds were shot down by F-5's. Not one Huey was shot down by any MiG! They were lost to T-55's and sometimes Hinds, nothing else. I couldn't see my helicopters either. I mean, they're either at Kiryat Shmona ot Rosh Pina. Where else could they be?! Whenever they reported an F-5 roaming above them I sent some MiG's and that was it. In your case it's even easier. You're mostly flying between the FARP and Rosh Pina Airbase anyway. Not a single MiG attacked your FARP. Some MiG's flew above the FARP chasing down an F-5 all the way to Ramat David to eventually get shot down by air defences. It doesn't mean they were coming after you.

I told you they spawn one a time if the first 3 are gone to prevent players from doing what you were doing