'Allied Flight Reports' and the RF Campaign

[Bunyap]

I mentioned this before under a big list of tips in another post but it is important enough it deserves its own topic. To make a long story short, I would highly recommend enabling the 'allied flight reports' option if you haven't tried it in a while.

 

A lot of work has gone into effective use of the ‘allied flight reports’ option in this campaign, both in the mission design and ED development side of things. These extra radio calls can be enabled under your gameplay options menu if desired and there are a few good reasons to do so for this campaign:

 

 

The developers were able to remove the old radio message queue system and allow all radio calls, especially those from AWACS, to come to the player in real-time. Before, all radio calls, however insignificant, stacked up in line and played one after another. Even simple missions were building up delays that could last several minutes. Interaction with a JTAC was severely hampered and calls from AWACS were rarely accurate. I had no idea how big a problem this really was until I started editing Tacview replays into videos and this updated system solves the vast majority of problems I had with accuracy and timeliness of information flow.

 

The allied flights that are audible and the amount of information they provide is totally in the hands of the mission designer. These missions are configured to make sure only the most essential calls are received by the player if the option is enabled. All flights will report the following until the package pushes into the target area from the marshal point:

 

- Airborne

- On station at marshal point

- Push from marshal point

 

Most flights switch to another frequency after the push, cutting down on the number of calls we will hear in the target area. SEAD aircraft, however, will remain on the player's frequency to call out locations of SAM and AAA threats and advise us when they are destroyed. Other flights performing strike missions will also provide radio calls if their mission is to be carried out in close coordination with the player.

 

The information they will provide includes:

 

- location of targets they have sighted limited to SAM, AAA, and other targets relevant to the mission

- what they are engaging and its location

- SAM launches and location (i.e. 'defending SAM')

- AAA fire and location (i.e. defending AAA')

- what they have destroyed and its location

- enemy air activity that disrupts their mission and their location (i.e. 'tally bandit', 'defending bandit', 'engaging bandit')

 

This gives us the ability to plot these locations in real-time on the maps that are provided for each mission and make more informed decisions about the exact route to take.

 

One technique to help keep track of what is going on is to enable F10 Map User Marks under your gameplay options. (I assume for this you have the map configured to ‘Map Only’ or 'My A/C', otherwise doing this is redundant.)

 

 

With this option enabled, you will be able to place marks on the F10 map at locations called out by other flights. The most useful of these calls will be locations and status of SAM or AAA sites called in from the SEAD package. For example, this screenshot shows that an F/A-18 is engaging a SAM site on a bearing of 193 from the Bullseye for a distance of 12 miles.

 

 

I can then use this information to plot the SAM site's location on the F10 map as shown here.

 

 

More and more calls will come in as the situation develops. Here, the F/A-18s call that they are attacking another SAM very near the first one, that the site is firing back, and that they have killed another site at a bearing of 196 degrees for 9 miles from the bullseye.

 

 

All those calls and more begin to paint a picture of the threat situation as they are plotted out. I know here that I must to avoid going left of the planned route and should seriously consider offsetting a few miles to the right and coming in from a different angle. That hilly terrain to the north looks like it would be really good for masking myself from the SAMs.

 

 

Of course, the F10 map is not my only option for keeping track of all this. The maps provided with the campaign can be marked up on the fly with any number of programs. These X's were added quickly using the stamp tool in Adobe Acrobat.

 

 

The changes to the radio system that eliminated the information backlog only happened a couple weeks ago with the 2.2 update but these missions went through testing a month or two before that. You are seeing the changes unfold as I am. I tried to plan ahead when setting the missions up but there are bound to be places where you get either too much information or not enough information thrown at you over the radio. That will all be smoothed out going forward but in the meantime, I would definitely recommend giving it a shot if you want to get the most out of the experience.

Edited January 6, 2018 by Bunyap

[Spudknocker]

wow I had no idea this was changed. That message backlog always annoyed me!

 

Does the new system cancel out old radio messages when new ones come over the air to eliminate the stacking?

[Rudel_chw]

This has to be the most useful thread I've read this year ... even if I still dont have this Campaign, I've learned here a lot of things I didnt knew about the Map and the Options, thanks a lot :)

 

 

PS: I really miss your YT channel ... any chance you could do a Test Flight series about the Harrier?

[Bunyap]

Hey Spudknocker, yeah, it seems to be a combination of messages cancelling each other out and messages playing on top of each other. I think (and I am probably remembering it wrong) that two calls from one originator cancel each other out. For example, if Springfield flight spots a SAM then spots another one two seconds later the first 'tally SAM' call stops and the second 'tally SAM' call begins. Of course, the text for both calls is displayed at the top left.

 

If the calls are from two originators they seem to play on top of each other. For example, if Springfield makes a 'tally SAM' call while AWACS makes a call about bandits, both the messages play out on top of each other. It is actually great for aircraft with two or three radios because you can then adjust the volume to give one frequency or the other priority.

 

I'm sure there will be kinks to work out but the old way simply did not work.

Edited January 6, 2018 by Bunyap

[Bunyap]

This has to be the most useful thread I've read this year ... even if I still dont have this Campaign, I've learned here a lot of things I didnt knew about the Map and the Options, thanks a lot :)

 

PS: I really miss your YT channel ... any chance you could do a Test Flight series about the Harrier?

 

Thanks man. :) Yeah, probably not anytime soon on the Harrier or anything else. There are lots of guys doing good work on videos right now and I think personally as a player, I would rather see more campaigns coming out to fly than anything else. This is a pretty good niche for now and I'm enjoying it.

[Rudel_chw]

... There are lots of guys doing good work on videos right now and I think personally as a player, I would rather see more campaigns coming out to fly than anything else. This is a pretty good niche for now and I'm enjoying it.

 

 

It's sad to see your channel stale, but I'm really glad that you seem happy with this new path ... three Campaigns in less than a year, you do seem to be enjoying it :D

 

 

... I already own your two previous ones, and probably will buy this one soon, I'm sure it will sell like hotcakes since there is so little content for the Viggen :)

 

 

Cheers!

[BritTorrent]

The developers were able to remove the old radio message queue system and allow all radio calls, especially those from AWACS, to come to the player in real-time. Before, all radio calls, however insignificant, stacked up in line and played one after another. Even simple missions were building up delays that could last several minutes. Interaction with a JTAC was severely hampered and calls from AWACS were rarely accurate. I had no idea how big a problem this really was until I started editing Tacview replays into videos and this updated system solves the vast majority of problems I had with accuracy and timeliness of information flow

 

Hi Bunyap,

 

Am I reading this right? Have they removed that queue system across the entire 2.2 client now, or only in your campaign? I've always wanted to play the other Red Flag campaigns but I didn't like how it was basically impossible to use the JTAC. Sounds like it should be a bit easier now?

[Bunyap]

Yeah, it was changed across the entire platform. I flew an A-10 mission a couple weeks ago when the change was made and it was a totally different experience. There was no delay and everything that came through was accurate.

 

The only catch is that most, if not all, other missions and campaigns are not set up to take advantage of all the different ways to filter radio traffic. You will get a non-stop litany of 'passing waypoint', 'tally armor', 'tally utility' type calls that do not really matter and clog up the radio. I was only able to set things up in this campaign to minimize that because I knew the change was coming. Even so, I still have some tweaking to do to make sure calls do not step on each other as much.

 

 

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Here are some notes on how to manage the radio calls now that it is on my mind again.

 

Four commands to filter traffic under advanced waypoint options:

 

'No Report Waypoint Pass'

- No radio calls when allied flights on your frequency pass a waypoint

 

'Silence'

- No radio calls at all from that flight.

- Set at wpt 0 if you want them silent all the time

- Set at a later waypoint if you want them silent at a certain point along their route.

 

'Set Frequency'

- Changes flight's radio freq so they still transmit, only on a different frequency.

- I haven't tried it yet but AI flights could be set to different frequencies after push like 'strike 1', 'strike 2', 'SEAD', 'CAP', etc, with the player able to switch to whatever they need to listen in on

 

'Invisible'

- used on ground units to prevent 'tally' radio calls from other flights

- for example, ground unit starts with 'invisible' set, CAP and SEAD flights pass over without making the 'tally' call, 'invisible' removed by a trigger, CAS units follow up and attack them

- this is the toughest one to manage and will probably require an assist from the developers to get a system that really works well