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Blindsided : 4th revision


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Blindsided : 4th revision (v5.7.1.0)



Original released in 2012, nearly 5 years of getting 'Blindsided'!

 

Mission download here



attachment.php?attachmentid=155220&stc=1&d=1484487206

 

Co-operative mission supporting upto:



19 players (2-6 recommended default, 3-12 on difficult).

Flyable aircraft:

3xKa-50, 4xA-10C, 3xSU-25T, 2xSU-25A, 3xSU-27, 2xUH-1H, 2xMi-8

Limited munitions (Warehouse)

 

[briefing room]


 

We have not received any word back from the eastern patrol, since they reported hearing heavy vehicles in the pass. We can only assume the worst.

 

Twenty minutes ago we received confirmation that insurgent forces are attempting a surprise attack on the Batumi aerodrome. Be advised we have received reports that the insurgents are able to mount a credible anti-air threat, furthermore there are indications they may have the support of unknown airforces.

 

US Specops are right now sending ahead a two man TACP unit, designation 'Ferret', to provide coordination for a counter attack on an insurgent outpost located due east. Before we can rid ourselves of the outpost though, we must succesfully defend Batumi from the insurgent forces closing in. Be aware that we are facing at least two groups heading in from the outpost.

 

Local defense forces are engaged with light enemy units as I speak. Your aircraft have been fueled and armed, there is no time to waste, scramble!

 

 

Aimed at:

 

Pilots reasonably comfortable with the KA-50, A-10C, SU-25T, SU-25A, UH-1H, Mi-8 or SU-27 in combat tasks and start up, moderate difficulty level.

Pilots up for more challenge can enable higher difficulty at the beginning of the mission (Radio options, F10 Other).

 

Featuring:

 

* Co-op and single player support. Note: Difficulty higher for single player.

* Plenty of scripted events with radio traffic (text with audible notifier) and detailing.

* Combined operations of KA-50, A-10C, SU-25T, SU-25A, UH-1H, Mi-8 and SU-27, all playing important but not interdependent roles (Set higher difficuly for best effect).

* Adapting mission design: Air to ground, air to air and combat search and rescue operations are each an optional component of the mission.

All you need to do is fly the right aircraft and the mission commences.

* Dynamically generated randomized air to air threats for the entire duration of the mission. You can't be sure where the enemy air assets will strike from.

* Dynamically generated CSAR rescue operations for both stranded aircrews and vehicle crews.

* Up-to-date tasking can be requested even if a player enters the mission in the middle of it. No more guessing what state the mission is in.

* Choice of two difficulty levels.

* Some more aggressive, scripted AI behaviour.

* Limited resources of war through the warehouse functionality. It now matters to make that landing.

* On the move troop deployments.

* Airlifted JTAC available (but not necessary) for operations against the insurgent outpost.

* Optional AFAC available for the defense phase of the mission.

* Adapt to rapidly developing situations as you fight an enemy that fights back rather than passively waiting for you to attack.

* Be a part of a team where your actions truly matter to the outcome of the mission.



License:

 

Freeware, distribution allowed as is with all files and attributions intact.

All rights otherwise reserved, unless specifically agreed upon. (It's ok to ask.)



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Blindsided-Situation-R4.jpg.fac95cd48c90443fb14a6d24b3db7d09.jpg


Edited by DragonShadow
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Revision 4 changes:

 

- Fixed the mission up to be compatible with latest DCS versions again.

- Endless air to air war, scriptified randomized hostile air forces generation.

- Added CSAR helicopters with dynamically generated CSAR taskings, 2x UH-1H and 2xMi8.

- A-10C slots changed to 4, two new SU-25A slots added.

- Improved tasking logic ported over from Two-Pin Hedgehog.

- Re-balanced insurgent air forces for added variety and challenge. Bandit missile launch behaviour now more randomized as well.

- Fix for insurgent air forces failing to engage blue aircraft in latest DCS versions.

- Scriptified intro bombardment and various tests, leading to significantly less overhead from fewer conditionals.

- Fixed insurgent leader phases end triggers and positionings.

- Blue forces AWACS and tanker now enabled by default.

- Added spare AWACS for blue forces that takes off on destruction of the initial one.

- Updated weapon stores at both Batumi and Kobuleti to reflect mission changes.

- Fixed briefing images that had started showing up dark in latest DCS versions.

- Some skin changes for player aircraft for improved identifiability.

- Updated briefing texts to reflect changes to mission, fixed some typos.

- Added low civilian traffic for general paranoia and to keep players guessing on the missions last phase.

- Other miscallaneous small fixes.


Edited by DragonShadow
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Sounds neat, thanks for sharing! Rougy how long do you expect the mission to take?

 

Welcome, love the sim and the DCS community and am glad to have gotten the new version worked out now for people to play :).

 

It's a pretty extensive mission with lots of content. During the release test the mission ran in hard mode and all three stages approximately 3 hours with 10 people flying. It kind of depends on how focused you are on getting the mission goals done. I'd say maybe two and half hours with a smaller group and the easier difficulty setting (Default). You change difficulty settings from the F10 (Other) menu.


Edited by DragonShadow
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Awesome job, DragonShadow!

 

355th ran this tonight with 1 F-15s, 2 M-2000Cs, 3 A-10s, 2 UH-1Hs and an Mi-8. (tweaked the units and airfield ordnance a bit to suit our group)

 

 

 

We flew the mission twice though didn't quite finish the second time before folks had to go to bed.

 

On the first playthrough, someone selected "high difficulty" :music_whistling: and we got steamrolled at Batumi quite thoroughly. Found the Mirage to be a little lacking in ordnance for the CAP against multiple target groups but you didn't design the op for the Mirage so I can only blame myself. We held out for about an hour but were eventually overwhelmed and overextended trying to manage the SAMs at the harbor and the attack on Batumi.

 

On the second round, we took up 2 F-15Cs, 3 A-10Cs, a Su-25T and a Ka-50. We were able to successfully repel the attack on Batumi and sanitize the harbor before we had to call it a night.

 

Almost all of the CAP tasking appeared completely unique to each playthrough...not sure exactly how random it is, but really well done! We had a blast and are looking forward to running this one again.

 

 

 

 

 

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Awesome job, DragonShadow!

 

355th ran this tonight with 1 F-15s, 2 M-2000Cs, 3 A-10s, 2 UH-1Hs and an Mi-8. (tweaked the units and airfield ordnance a bit to suit our group)

 

Thanks! Great to hear back battle stories and how the mission might have been tweaked by the players.

 

Yeah, changing the aircraft types should work fine as long as the names either stay the same or get updated in scripts. Given the history some of them tie directly to the names or the units themselves still.

 

 

 

The higher difficulty mode poses a pretty nice challenge doesn't it? :) Worthwhile to hear your experiences in regards to running a Mirage in the mission as well, better idea on how to balance them if I use them later in some other mission. There's some constraints set on how many aggressor groups can be active at once, but it can get pretty busy with the hard mode to be sure.

 

 

 

2xUH-1H + Mi-8 is a bit unexpected arrangement. Admittedly the mission isn't quite built to that spec if it's taken out of other defenders. Was there enough for them to do as well though?

 

The CAP is a mix of handcrafted templates and randomization, so hopefully a best of both worlds style of a case.

 

 

 

Nice job on stopping the attack and clearing out the harbour by the way. It's a tough point. Plenty of interesting things to experience in the mission yet.

 

 

 

I'd be interested in seeing a first try TacView also if it's possible / not too much trouble. That would say a lot about how the mission comes across initially.

 

Maybe over sendspace.com or somesuch?


Edited by DragonShadow
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I'll ask my guys if any of them have TacViews...many of us have uninstalled it due to apparent compatibility issues with the comms program we use unfortunately.

 

I turned a couple of your Hips into Hueys, but suspected there may have been scripting involved (and I see I was right ;) ) so I did not alter client group names/unit names.

 

The SAR guys did report some issues both generating tasking (when "request tasking" was selected, nothing happened until about 20 or 30 minutes into the op, it just displayed current tasking on-screen) and with picking up the two ejected Su-24 pilots using the SAR script (assuming the guys there at the beginning are friendly.) The pilot who tried reported he reached the ejected pilots and they disappeared but nothing else happened seemed to happen.

 

Not sure if the SAR taskings popping up conincided with our Hip guy showing up, he was a late arrival. I'll fiddle around with it a bit more, and once again thanks for your efforts here! I missed this on your original publication and it has become an instant classic for our group, I think.

 

If I can scare up a TacView I'll send you a PM with a download link so that the rest of the internet doesn't see me get shot down by a MiG-23... :lol:

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Hehe, thanks and no worries if one can't be sourced - just quite curious as a mission designer :).

 

Ah, that's good feedback. Perhaps I should consider putting in some additional documentation in regards to the CSAR operations. The way the system works best is that people are already in the helos as things start happening. When some friendly unit ejects (or a ground unit gets destroyed there's a chance) a medevac mission is generated. So basically something needs to be destroyed for a CSAR task to be automatically generated.

 

The "Request taskings" option is for seeing what the current overall mission objectives are, not for generating taskings. Also, you don't get CSAR taskings that happened before you entered a CSAR copter I think. All functions relating to CSAR are under the 'MEDEVAC' option in the F10 menu.

 

When you find an ejected pilot or bailed crew and land next to them, they should run up to your helo and board it. You then get a bleeding out countdown for the injured pilot/crew (in the messages in the top right corner) in which time you have to fly back to Batumi FARP to successfully rescue them.

 

Lovely, I'm rather glad to hear your squadron is enjoying the mission so! Such things make the effort worth it.


Edited by DragonShadow
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Rog, not sure if you've been poking around but Cirbob has created an updated version of the Medevac script (now called CSAR) which has many of the same elements and a few extra bells and whistles.

https://github.com/ciribob/DCS-CSAR

 

Not sure if swapping this in would correct the elements such as the Su-24 pilots who disappeared or if you have some other custom work in there WRT the medevac missions.

 

A couple of my guys think they have TacViews so I should be able to get you one later this evening. :thumbup:

 

EDIT:

Unfortunately it looks like TacView didn't record for those of us that still had it running, sorry.

 

I can furnish a .TRK but not sure how much good it'll do you considering how wonky those have been lately. Let me know if you'd like me to send it.


Edited by feefifofum
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Cirbob has created an updated version of the Medevac script (now called CSAR) which has many of the same elements and a few extra bells and whistles.

https://github.com/ciribob/DCS-CSAR

 

Ah yes, the version used in the latest Blindsided release is that particular one. Though I think it's 6.2 which probably isn't the latest with it having taken a while between me updating the script and releasing the mission.

 

A couple of my guys think they have TacViews so I should be able to get you one later this evening. :thumbup:

Great, thanks for the one that you were able to provide in the end :). It's one of the few glimpses I've had so far into how things work out when I'm not flying in the mix myself in some form. In either case I've definitely been seeing a few interesting patterns in how people fly the mission. They're different from the way I had thought things through originally, but they work out well either way and give me some new thoughts for the future.

 

Happy to see that the new air to air battle looks to be working out pretty balanced too timing/challenge-wise.


Edited by DragonShadow
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As one of the guys that flew it Sunday with feefifofum, I just wanted to say i had a blast. It was utter chaos the first time we ran it, which I enjoyed, but the second time we got our act together. I love that you included an increased difficulty via the f10 menu. Props to you for making a great mission.

 

Hey BigSnow, great to hear you had fun! Hehe yeah, it can throw a lot at you. But seems like it was quite a transformation indeed between the two runs, a rather different approach on the latter.

 

I wanted the mission to scale for bigger groups as well, so I thought that would be a nice feature. Not to mention an added challenge once one beats the original one :). And thanks! Always good to hear feedback.


Edited by DragonShadow
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Hey again BigSnow, found the video you had uploaded on the two runs of the mission.



 

That was a lot of fun to watch, the three flight A-10C take-off with the Huey flying alongside looked downright cinematic. Was quite quite useful to hear the radio traffic, there was some priceless commantary thrown in which made me both laugh as well as cackle evilly at points :thumbup:. CBU's are too easy mode ;), makes for practice in more fun methods!

 

Makes me curious about what you'll think of the latter phases of the mission.


Edited by DragonShadow
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Would it be OK to fly this mission with choppers only?

 

Yep, it should be perfectly fine to fly it with choppers only. You'll want to have some heavier hitters like the KA-50 along though, namely something that can deal with well armored targets and air defenses.

 

As Feefifofum says air threats only appear if someone takes off with CAP aircraft, and they'll also get disabled after some while if CAP leaves the mission in the middle of it. Hope you have/had fun :).


Edited by DragonShadow
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