"PATROL BY FORCE": SP/MP mission for A-10C

03/28: Links are up:

Singleplayer

Multiplayer

"Patrol by Force" plays very well in both SP and MP. The mission is about target i/d, sorting and prosecution. In both versions, any client flight not chosen by the player will spawn as an AI flight with identical tasking. I've managed to discipline the AI flights to stick to their tasking and not poach the player's. If you want your AI wingman in SP to exercise similar discipline, make sure to use the F3 ("Attack with...) function so that he goes after targets at your SPI and not the other flight's targets.

Custom radio messages are extensive and tactical. They enable the player to track the progress of the British armored patrol he's supporting and they inform him of the ground-based SpecOps FAC he will need to contact for tasking.

The element I'm most pleased with is the SpecOps airborne assault, a Chinook with Apache escort which drops a security detail and three Humvees to close a back door escape route by which the mission's HVT (High Value Target) might otherwise escape. The HVT can also be targeted from the air within a narrow window of opportunity (again, custom radio messages supply tactical AI). The airborne assault is vulnerable to air defences whose positions are unknown at the beginning of the mission.

To fly the mission successfully, the player should be competent in the following procedures:

- cold start in < 10 min

- JTAC procedure

- UTM data entry into CDU from non-datalinked FAC

- GBU delivery

- Orientation via mission steerpoints ("Mission" option on Flt/Mark/Mission navigation rotary switch)

I hope you enjoy the mission. Please feel free to add comments on the DCS upload page, as this is very encouraging to a mission designer who has spent many, many hours testing and debugging his work.

Comments are also welcome on the briefing, attached here.

Patrol by Force_Briefing.pdf

Sounds great Bahger! Maybe too difficult for me but I will try it out, thank you.

Hey Sorin, if you can get on a TS server, I'd happily talk you through anything the mission requires that you have not mastered yet. It may sound advanced but it's all pretty simple, really.

Thank you Bahger, very generous of you to help a beginner.

But I am the stubborn kind that I like to learn by myself. Actually I enjoy the learning.

I will work on JTAC and CDU data entry and maybe I will ask some questions here.

In the meantime your mission is going to be available for download.

Awesome - another Bahger mission, and just in time for a weekend during which I might actually have time to fly!

Thanks for continuing to build and share these missions - we probably do not say it often enough, but your imagination, knowledge and hard work are great appreciated.

Thanks, Zenra. There is precious little feedback but I prefer to attribute this to people with busy lives rather than mass indifference.

(Bumping) Links are up, see first post.

Can't wait to play it in a few days when i'm free to do so, keep the missions coming bahger :)

Thanks, Quirk. And I really appreciate your help with some of the ME elements.

I'd love to know what you think. I'm proud of this mission, it plays out well and the AI task-separation prevents the thing from becoming a free-for-all, making the player responsible for targets in his own sector, mo matter which client flight he selects.

This may be my last .miz for a while.

Thanks, Quirk. And I really appreciate your help with some of the ME elements.

 

I'd love to know what you think. I'm proud of this mission, it plays out well and the AI task-separation prevents the thing from becoming a free-for-all, making the player responsible for targets in his own sector, mo matter which client flight he selects.

 

This may be my last .miz for a while.

Sounds like it'll be good! Will try it in a day or two.

I hear you on making a mission and taking a break. It takes so much time to make a mission, just for it to be over in an hour or so. I'm taking a small break myself now, would like to play game and other missions more than mission editor for a bit :D

Bahger i wil give is shot this weekend. Thanks for the efforts as usual.

Thanks, IADC, hope you enjoy it.

I've enjoyed your past missions and am looking forward to trying this one.

Flew SP as SPRINGFIELD today and had great fun. Don't have time to go into detail right now but wanted to say I really like the voice acting and it really help increase the immersion factor. Everything worked as advertised, and I made it back to Kutasi in one piece, despite a close encounter with one of the SA-9's.

The only glitch I experienced was the same one I have with all JTAC interaction since installing DCS World 1.2.3: I get the 9-line saying the target (tanks) is marked with Willie Pete, and a couple seconds later JTAC (call sign EYEBALL in this case) calls "No mark". Haven't seen a thing from ED on this issue despite several threads about it - sure hope they get it sorted.

Yeah, I'm absolutely sure that the JTAC "Mark" process has been borked since DCSW. Another doozie is the inability of the AI to call out the right callsigns; not once has either a controller or an AI wingman identified an Enfield or Springfield flight correctly. Luckily these are not dealbreakers, though; I'm very glad the mission played out as programmed (by me, anyway...)

Finally got around to playing it, enjoyed it Bahger. Very thorough briefing, tasking, assignments, etc. Voice overs worked great, help keep me on track of what to do.

I know how much effort it takes for the one mission like this being thorough and appreciate it! Good work!:thumbup:

Many thanks, Quirk, for playing it and for responding to my occasional ME queries. I'm taking a little time off mission design to play your mini campaign and will report back.

Please feel free to rate or comment on the mission download page (broken as of 04/5 11:15 PST) as this is probably the best way to get people to try it out.

Thanks again!

I have done the mission a couple of times, thank you Bahger!

5 stars in the mission download page from me.

By mistake I have put 5 stars on the multi player mission...

As I have done only the single player I have tried to rate 5 stars on the single but it does not work, the web page rating does not work (it does nothing when clicking on 5th star).

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/304018/

Always nice with new missions! Hardly fly the A-10 anymore but saved for a rainy day, thanks! :)

Thanks Sorin, for flying it and at least trying to add a rating. The DCS mission download site has been very eccentric lately, it's a pain. Very glad you enjoyed the mission and your response encourages me to make more.

5 stars

Bahger, Finally got to fly the mission. Played the SP version and it was great. I may have learned a thing or two about a balanced SP mission, I think my builds are in some cases too hard when converted to SP and from now on I will use your missions as bench mark for all future SP versions.

Mission progress went very well and was smooth. I think I left it a bit long before I called in Big Dog as he needed no support from SB to NB as I had killed everything after searching the AO for 30 minutes taking out what ever I could find.

Voice comms we precise and provided a good feel of being part of the team effort.

Great mission, please make some more.

I would like to build a joint mission with you if possible, a bit of your style mixed with mine would make for something interesting. PM with an email and we can arrange to hook up on TS to come up with some ideas for a build if you would like to do this.

Again thanks for your efforts...................

Hrey IADC, glad the mission went well for you, hitting everything in your sector before advising the convoy to proceed is a perfectly valid approach to the mission; the only downside is that it delays the convoy so that it can be a while before it reaches the town and gives you a "Mission Success" message in response to your success in accomplishing the briefed tasking. Since you flew ENFIELD, I hope SPRINGFIELD AI behaved itself and took out its briefed targets (the SA-9 launchers and then the vehicles guarding the HVT's escape route) without poaching your targets. Getting the AI to stick to its tasking is my biggest achievement with this mission. With your own wingman you need to use F3 "at my SPI" target prosecution orders to keep him focused on your AO, or he, too, will poach.

Yup, would be very happy to team up, it might make mission creation a little less time-consuming. I'll PM you in the next day or two and we'll brainstorm on TS.

We flew the missin tonight (me & my wingie)...

...for starters, with the SA-9 kills I accidentally nailed the JTAC with a GBU-38 in the head...

That somehow speedied up things... and the HVT collumn started rolling right away... with no-one telling us what exactly to do with em, we just desintegrated the Ladas... Mission complete... wtf?!??

Then we rolled a few gun runs on some APCs, ordered our group to move in, did some sight-seeing of the village and that's it... no Chinook, Apaches or anything...

Somehow, it was all over before it even started... it was like... WELL DONE, YOU SUCCESSFULLY VISITED OUR VILLAGE - MISSION COMPLETE! AND OH, YOU HIT BLUEFOR JTAC WITH GBU-38 IN THE FOREHEAD, THAT'S 20% LOSS FOR BLUE SIDE... :D

Love the radio messages, but that is just how it went... sorry... :cry:

I'm baffled re. how this could have ocurred, Aries, for the following reasons:

- No JTAC is close enough to a target to be in lethal range of a GBU accurately deployed against that target.

- The HVT column can only roll out 560 seconds (i.e. over 9 minutes) after OPFOR has taken its first loss. A voice message should tell you to intercept them.

- The Apaches will launch by timer 1200 sec from mission start. The Chinook will launch once the Apaches hit a trigger zone on their route. There are three ways that the airborne assault helos can be prevented from deploying at their LZ: they can be shot down by the SA-9s or MANPADS, or, as I suspect might have been the case here, by cannon fire from the APCs guarding the northern end of the town.

Maybe try it in singleplayer. However, none of the triggers except those that govern client a/c are different in SP vs. MP. I'm sorry if it did not seem to play out for you guys but it was very thoroughly playtested and I'm confident that the triggers and scripts are pretty robust.