Mission: Hold The Line !

Hello guys !

This mission started as a joke in our squadron, and was at first intended to let me toy around with the lua. I never, ever, wrote a single lua line before this, so please forgive the numerous syntax enormities, and the flaws in the structure of the file. Thing is, it works, et voilà !

It was heavily tested both offline and online, but this is a re-write of the tested version, which I could only test offline. I decided to go public because the first iteration went smoothly, and I could do with the extra feedback. You have been warned, this is for the braves ;)

The script is 100% re-usable, provided you stick with the naming scheme for the zones, the Huey's and the FAC, or you could also adjust the names in the beginning of the script.

Scenario : blue team has to defend a central zone against never-ending waves of enemies. The waves are getting bigger and stronger as the mission goes along.

Here are the key features of the mission:

• flyable aircrafts: A10, P51, Huey & Ka 50, four of each
  
• the enemies spawn only when one or more blue aircraft is in the main zone
  
• the enemy unit spawn at (pre-defined) random points
  
• the enemy groups composition is randomly generated each time a group spawn
  
• the number and power of red units is tied to the number and power of blue aircrafts in the "main zone" (1 Huey will spawn much less red units than 4 A10s and 2 Ka)
  
• the Huey's have the special ability to embark many kind of blue ground units: infantry, mortar, stryker (different types), HMMV's (different types)
  
• the Huey's can then drop those unit anywhere on the battlefield
  
• the Huey's can also re-embark the dropped units (provided they land close enough), and re-drop them somewhere else
  
• the FARP and visual NAV point to the zone are marked with a BLUE smoke
  
• the pickup zone is marked with a GREEN flare
  
• the spawning of red units are marked with a RED flare
  
• the pickup zone is a slope; this is intentional =þ
  
• the briefing picture has not enough detail ... well, sorry for that one
  
• a blue FAC exists at the beginning of the mission, and should it be ever destroyed, will be replaced after a fixed delay (120 sec default)
  
• the score of the blue team is tracked and displayed each time a red group spawn
  
• the score goes up for each red group destroyed, and down for each blue FAC destroyed
  
• the mission ends (and is lost) when the enemy reaches the center of the "main zone" (Kaspi in this instance of the mission)
  
• there is no way to win; just see how long you can survive =)
  

The original work on the script was made possible thanks this other script, which gave me the ideas for the rest.

The script uses the last version of MIST, whose authors can hardly be thanked enough for their astonishing work (Speed, a HUGE load of kudos to you, sir, for both Mist & the Slmod).

TRIVIA: the briefing and all the in-flight text output is in French; you probably realized by now that English's not my native language ...

DOWNLOAD: see attachments

Feedback would be MOST welcome. As I said, this is a rewrite of a tested mission. Everything was OK with the previous version, but I definitely expect problems to arise with this one. I WILL fix problems, provided they are reported.

Enjoy !

Best regards from Belgium :beer:

EDIT 1: uploaded a *.miz with a leftover debugging unit ... :doh:

EDIT 2: new version of the script: http://pastebin.com/bTHRYy9K

HoldTheLine.miz

Great job man!!! :thumbup:

I had the same idea (in the city of Gori) and had a same type of mission in my squadron a week ago but yours is really better due to the right scripts! :)

I tried to use some manual methods cause I didn't make it with some scripts but now this helps me a lot!

Thanks again :smilewink:

Operation Phalanx-The last stand.miz

Do this script break replay's of the recorded track?

@gregzagk: feel free to re-use part of or the whole script for your mission, it's very easily translated to another zone. You can also fairly easily change the type of red units, their strength, the quantity of spawning zones, and so on.

@HiJack: I have no idea, I don't even know what could make a script break a track. I'd be grateful if you'd gave me pointers to understand !

While searching for "script break track", I found this Mist update from Grimes: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=106234&highlight=script+break+track

This piece of code adds a new dynamic database: sct.DBs.dynGroupsAdded

I actually had to work around the fact that the Mist AliveUnits database does not keep track of the units I added manually (could not use it anyway, can also be me being stupid), so I will probably work with it for the future versions. It already gave me some ideas ^^

Edit: the Mist update was made by Grimes, not Speed as I originally stated ...

While searching for "script break track", I found this Mist update from Speed: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=106234&highlight=script+break+track

LOL that's my comments :music_whistling: that trigger the searc find, it was just a question on my side. I will test later this weekend.:thumbup:

As far as I can tell, the missions and its scripting environment are self-contained, so anyone (re)playing it should have no problem with missing functions.

However, as I realized while working on it, the mission environment may sometimes become inconsistent with itself, but that may as well be just me being a noob with scripting, so ... I guess your feedback will be much appreciated for track-related trouble !

Here's an updated version of the script: http://pastebin.com/bTHRYy9K

Yet another version.

List of changes (that I remember):

• theater change
  
• embarkable units list changed
  
• no more infantry on either side (too slow)
  
• MUCH more difficult
  
• blue units all start off the same airport, north of the main zone
  
• two FARPS for repair/embarking instead of one
  
• one little nasty surprise ^^
  

As for last time, feedback is most welcome, and feel free to do whatever you want with the files included

HoldTheLine_Pyatigorsk.miz

Sounds interesting, will give it a try soon. Inflight text is in french, oh well? Anyone care to translate?:)