Cold War 1947 - 1991

[rossmum]

Looks like the server's hanging when it goes to cycle missions, first time after Desert Has Eyes earlier and then it was stuck at 3:59:59 on Two Towns. Not sure what's causing it

Server should be back up, but I may not be awake by the next time it needs manual encouragement.

[Alpenwolf]

@rossmum

Looks like LotATC is causing these things to happen. Enigma seems to have the same issue -> Check here.

Still at work and should be back home in about 6 hours. I'll have a look later in case it's still bugged by then.

[Boosterdog]

Yet to ventrure in to DCS multiplayer but It will be the cold war severs where I will eventually go. Just to say I really appreaciate the dedication, attention to detail, skill, and co-operation that the server admins and their teams put into all of this. 

And congratulations on the little one @Alpenwolf

[Enigma89]

3 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

@rossmum

Looks like LotATC is causing these things to happen. Enigma seems to have the same issue -> Check here.

Still at work and should be back home in about 6 hours. I'll have a look later in case it's still bugged by then.

We never ran into that problem of it hanging between mission resets. The only thing that happened is when changes were made to the settings in LOTATC they applied at mission reset. So not sure what your issue may be, then again we do not change maps and only rotate between two missions (summer and winter) so maybe there is an issue with it changing entire maps (ie Syria to PG). There are some settings where you have to enable some maps within LOTATC. Not sure.

The owner of LotATC has a discord and is very active and easy to reach to, he may be able to help more. I would love to help more but LOTATC is brand new for our server as well and our system admin is in europe on vacation so we are sort of not fumbling around with it anymore until he gets back.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Enigma89

[Alpenwolf]

3 hours ago, Enigma89 said:

We never ran into that problem of it hanging between mission resets. The only thing that happened is when changes were made to the settings in LOTATC they applied at mission reset. So not sure what your issue may be, then again we do not change maps and only rotate between two missions (summer and winter) so maybe there is an issue with it changing entire maps (ie Syria to PG). There are some settings where you have to enable some maps within LOTATC. Not sure.

The owner of LotATC has a discord and is very active and easy to reach to, he may be able to help more. I would love to help more but LOTATC is brand new for our server as well and our system admin is in europe on vacation so we are sort of not fumbling around with it anymore until he gets back.

 

I sent the LotATC owner a message yesterday on the forums, but I think he's only active on Discord these days. Maybe rossmum can reach out to him in the upcoming days since he has a Discord account/name already. We'll see. It'd be shame to shut it down completely as I really want to move the GCI work to LotATC only. And yes, I noticed that it often occurred when rotating between the missions, especially, when it's a whole different map.

[Count von Altibar]

Loving the changes and so very glad to see the server up and running again, you don't know what you've got till it's gone applies. 

[Alpenwolf]

Server News:

Currently working on updating Open Range and Two Towns.

- More markers on the map will be added.
- More beacons and TACAN's to encourage using the navigation systems onboard and obviously help with better navigation.
- Setting AAA's skills to good or high, but not excellent any more. At excellent they're literally sharpshooters when they shouldn't be in real life, I guess.
- Adjusting the warehouses.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Alpenwolf

[rogorogo]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb MMI_Grim:

Server down again?

Enjoyed it very much yesterday. 

Would it maybe be possible to add some Hind slots with rolling starts and landings? Totally for the realism, not because I have a hard time hovering the beast.

I'd like to second that.

For clarification.
The module still has several ... "odd" issues. Fe a trimlock bug fo many people, or a necessity to trim-reset to have stick input.. or input lags that are not actually lags.
Thus sometimes people have to transition into a hover, trim perfectly for that hover.. and only then they can land on a pad. 
Not only because the module decides to "flip" behaviour stated once the doppler comes on.. but also you can repeat a landing under the same conditions with "holding cyclic only" vs "holding cycling from trim center pos state" and have a soft landing (latter case) or explode for no reason (former case).
And that is before you raise your eyebrow to suddenly different VSI indications, actual behaviour of the airframe and different threshold between the two scnearios mentioned.
Again - unbeknownst to most and most will manage because they just "play" and will do what is necessary, they do not really know about or look at the fidelity gradient of the module.

Esp in heavy conditions that can be very odd... especially when you can also encounter random bulding up oscillations with zero inputs on the cyclic or collective.

Of course all of this has been reported properly by a few people here and there.. but this is not very on-the-nose.. and Eagle is.. well.. Eagle. Let us leave it at that.
Thus sometimes a rolling start is quite a resolve for some (or if you want to do the "Afghan nosewheel" on Persian Gulf or Syria).

As much as people affected by this bug - and those are unbeknownst to most - should sometimes divert to an airfield instead of a FARP/FOB on the return leg.

Example: Flaps 1-3 randomly crashed while we were just flying on PG in a random plain because he had a trimlock (that bug result in no inputs from the cyclic but only the coolie hat until you press trim reset).

Edited December 12, 2021 by rogorogo

[Alpenwolf]

21 hours ago, GeneralMav24 said:

Is there a folder somewhere with the briefing maps for all the missions? would be nice to have so while playing as GCI can see where the targets location is and draw them in LOTATC or to have on a second monitor. if not it isnt that big of a deal.

Of course there will be a file like that with all briefing images included. Obviously, a huge file and I'll only start working on it once updating the missions is finished. That's why I took the briefings out of the second post of this thread. They also require some updating and adjustments.

[rogorogo]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Alpenwolf:

I sent the LotATC owner a message yesterday on the forums, but I think he's only active on Discord these days. Maybe rossmum can reach out to him in the upcoming days since he has a Discord account/name already. We'll see. It'd be shame to shut it down completely as I really want to move the GCI work to LotATC only. And yes, I noticed that it often occurred when rotating between the missions, especially, when it's a whole different map.

but so it also did before the LotATC testing here and there.
If the server is a virtual node, would it not be (for many reasons) feasible to just have a restart script for the whole node?
Of course this only is feasible for a virtual node, not for actual physical hardware (aka only if the server is virtualized even when running on an actual single box/pc/server on its own, not in a cluster)

[Alpenwolf]

13 hours ago, MMI_Grim said:

Server down again?

Enjoyed it very much yesterday. 

Would it maybe be possible to add some Hind slots with rolling starts and landings? Totally for the realism, not because I have a hard time hovering the beast.

Take the mission Open Range as an example. Red operates from Mineralnye Vody Airbase and the TA's are about 100 km west of it, if not more. Would you rather start at an airbase far away or a FARP, but way closer to the action? Same thing with The Desert Has Eyes. All airbases are way too far from the TA's.

You know what, while writing this I had an idea of placing the single helipads around a road to which the helicopters could taxi and take off from there if they choose to. I'll do it in the mission The Desert Has Eyes when it's its turn for updating and see if I can do that in other missions too.

Lots of things to do, folks. Bear with me, please. In time though... Real life is also demanding

Just now, rogorogo said:

but so it also did before the LotATC testing here and there.
If the server is a virtual node, would it not be (for many reasons) feasible to just have a restart script for the whole node?
Of course this only is feasible for a virtual node, not for actual physical hardware (aka only if the server is virtualized even when running on an actual single box/pc/server on its own, not in a cluster)

It never happened prior to installing LotATC or very very rarely to be honest.

[=475FG= Dawger]

With LotATC on its way for all the mission, I thought I would start on a little project to provide a little orientation map for each mission for future LotATC controllers.

Here is the first one. Very simple but provides the controller with an idea of what is going on so he can set up his scope.

 

Anyone else who wants to produce these things, please feel free. I feel no special attachment to doing this.

Fight island v002.pdf

Edited December 12, 2021 by =475FG= Dawger
Updated file to version 002

[Miccara]

3 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

- Setting AAA's skills to good or high, but not excellent any more. At excellent they're literally sharpshooters when they shouldn't be in real life, I guess.
 

 

You got that right. That has been a frustration!

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Miccara

[Ian Boys UK]

Really nice having an NDB at the FARP now. Good move, thanks.

[rossmum]

Some of the custom-made FARPs are laid out in a way that you can use to do short rolling takeoffs, from memory. I don't think all of them are though. The one on Swedish Delivery (from memory it's that mission, anyway) is relatively claustrophobic and can be a little daunting if you're heavily loaded and not confident with hovering. It's also not really suited to rolling landings as it's fully enclosed while most other missions' FARPs have open spaces you can taxi through after landing nearby.

The other thing I sometimes use to get out of tight FARPs is lifting in a direction where I have a little clearance in front of me, so I can stay just above the ground and use ground effect to keep me from smashing the belly while I build some speed up. You can pull the wheels in and climb out once you've got a little forward motion going, and it's still an option when the actual FARP itself is too physically constrained or too uneven to do a rolling takeoff.

Edited December 13, 2021 by rossmum

[rossmum]

Server restarted on Last Man Standing. Cheers to Dawger for the heads-up.

[MMI_Grim]

14 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

Take the mission Open Range as an example. Red operates from Mineralnye Vody Airbase and the TA's are about 100 km west of it, if not more. Would you rather start at an airbase far away or a FARP, but way closer to the action? Same thing with The Desert Has Eyes. All airbases are way too far from the TA's.

You know what, while writing this I had an idea of placing the single helipads around a road to which the helicopters could taxi and take off from there if they choose to. I'll do it in the mission The Desert Has Eyes when it's its turn for updating and see if I can do that in other missions too.

Lots of things to do, folks. Bear with me, please. In time though... Real life is also demanding

It never happened prior to installing LotATC or very very rarely to be honest.

The roadbase solution would be great. If we could rearm on the street, near to a pad, it would also minimise the risk of spawn accidents.

No stress from my side, I wait as long as it needs. Thx for considering my proposal.

9 hours ago, rossmum said:

Some of the custom-made FARPs are laid out in a way that you can use to do short rolling takeoffs, from memory. I don't think all of them are though. The one on Swedish Delivery (from memory it's that mission, anyway) is relatively claustrophobic and can be a little daunting if you're heavily loaded and not confident with hovering. It's also not really suited to rolling landings as it's fully enclosed while most other missions' FARPs have open spaces you can taxi through after landing nearby.

The other thing I sometimes use to get out of tight FARPs is lifting in a direction where I have a little clearance in front of me, so I can stay just above the ground and use ground effect to keep me from smashing the belly while I build some speed up. You can pull the wheels in and climb out once you've got a little forward motion going, and it's still an option when the actual FARP itself is too physically constrained or too uneven to do a rolling takeoff.

 

Getting the bird up isnt my problem, bringing her back down on the pad is where I struggle.

Edited December 13, 2021 by MMI_Grim

[Alpenwolf]

27 minutes ago, MMI_Grim said:

The roadbase solution would be great. If we could rearm on the street, near to a pad, it would also minimise the risk of spawn accidents.

No stress from my side, I wait as long as it needs. Thx for considering my proposal.

Getting the bird up isnt my problem, bringing her back down on the pad is where I struggle.

 

Road bases have been included in the missions for years. They're mainly for airplanes and quite often L-39's or AJS37's/C-101's to spawn there right away, but also for other airplanes to use. FARP's are quite often close enough to action, hence the absence of a forward base for rearming and refueling.
I know that Red helicopters are way faster and carry more (cough... AH-1, please... cough...), but that's why you see Blue FARP's in some missions closer to the TA's by roughly 25-33% than Red ones.

On a side note, and I don't like to boast or anything (that's why I didn't write this in my other responses to you), but since you brought it up again, I really never needed a rolling takeoff or landing in the Mi-24. I know she's tougher to land than the Mi-8 or the Ka-50, but with a bit of practice you'll figure out a way to do it. In my case, I hit a quick Mi-24 PG mission and started landing on rooftops. I did that for 1-2 hours until I got the hang of it. In time I've gotten better. It's still tough to land nonetheless. It's the MiG-21 among the helis

Also, check out what rossmum said and I know quite a few Mi-24 players who do the same. You can roll out on the terrain next to your helipad.
I'll do what I said I'll do and try to move some FARP's next to roads where they could have it easier. Bear with me, please. The to-do list is a bit long.

[rogorogo]

again.. of course you can.. but as I tried to explain earlier.. an unlucky few (to some point also me) get hit by state-bugs.. which for them has the option to make a landing take 4-6 times longer to establish a perfect hover in trim state, then never be allowed to go beyond -1,5 on the VSI...
..or risk random events like a perfect soft landing.. just to blow up nonetheless, or shut down the engine and the tail breaks off (no damage state) and just weird things.

This is bugrelated, all of it reported, some of it even acknowleded, at some point in time it will not be an issue. And those who are not affected by this have an entirely different experience (things working as intended).


But for those affected even a supercontrolled crab can mean doom.
For those even rolling on terrain is not an option - because it will result in the same events.

That is why a rolling landing on a suitable surface within the services radii can just help to bring return touchdowns back into combat landing time for now.

Edited December 13, 2021 by rogorogo

[Alpenwolf]

Server News:

LotATC is currently disabled. The rotation from one mission to another or from a map to another seems to cause the server to crash or pause. LotATC is causing the problem and the owner of LotATC has no clue what's causing it, but he's working on it.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Alpenwolf

[rogorogo]

Just out of interest.. would it not again - and not solely because of the LotATC issue - be feasible to virtualize the node (if something like VMS is available) and reset the entire server via script for a map mission change?

This would ease maintenance a lot and normally results in a performance gain from the 20 years I had experiences singled and clustered arrays, down to the point where I virtualized even single boxes not standing around in a datacenter but at random infrastructure points.
Also the cycling tended to be insanely quick.
This would not only make LotATC available independently from a proprietary solution being found but also reset all connections, clear all caches and generally increase performance threshold for every mission, especially when the map is changed. 
Most of all since any exception catcher triggered in a prior mission would be reset just by the services being completely restarted.

[Alpenwolf]

Server News:

A quick reminder about the changes for the MiG-15's radio in case some didn't catch that:

SRS and The MiG-15 Comms' Issue:

Poor MiG-15 pilots have always been working alone on their radio frequency while being unable to contact any other pilots due to differences in the radio systems. I could enable the radio expansion for all to operate freely and I did that once, but that caused a bit of chaos and players ended up operating of different frequencies. Therefore, the radio expansion will only be enabled for MiG-15 players only. However, that requires the players themselves to do the following:

- Go to Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Mods\Services\DCS-SRS\Scripts path.
- Find the DCS-SimpleRadioStandalone.lua file and save a backup somewhere.
- Copy and paste the file below to your Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Mods\Services\DCS-SRS\Scripts path.
- Do NOT change the filename.

You should now have a Virtual Radio (Expansion Radio) available in SRS when flying the MiG-15. This radio can be tuned to all frequencies between 116.000 and 399.975 in the VHF and UHF Band.

Here's the file you'd need for that purpose:
DCS-SimpleRadioStandalone.lua

* Note that every time ED releases an update for DCS, the file is overwritten and you'll have to repeat the procedure of copying and pasting the file again.

[Alpenwolf]

Server News:

The missions When The Mountains Cry and Open Range have been updated and here's the change log that will apply to all missions in the upcoming weeks:

- Added more NDB's and TACAN's wherever is needed.
- Added more frequencies to the briefings to help with better comms and better navigation.
- Added marks (orange circles) on the F10 map to highlight specific TA's, bases, etc.
- Mi-24P: Removed the info boxes for the pilot's AI menu -> Petrovich. You should only see the cursor now.
- A-10's can carry up to 2 x AIM-9P5's to counter the Su-25's 2 x R-60M's.
- Crates for Mi-8's/UH-1's are limited in numbers. Note that 1 infantry squad counts as 1 crate.
- MANPAD's are always part of the infantry squad and not a single crate on their own.
- Setting Shilkas'/Vulcans' skills' level to high, sometimes good, in all missions.
- Setting AAA emplacements' and APCs' skills' level to good.
- IR SAM's and MANPAD's remain set to excellent. The only exception is in the mission Into The Desert due to the rainy weather, where MANPAD's can't see good enough -> Skill: Good.

The goal was to make all aerial units hidden on the F10 map, so that GCI is done solely through the LotATC tool. Unfortunately, and with so many missions and maps involved, LotATC seems to cause problems to the server upon rotating from one mission to another. Once that's figured out, Combined Arms will no longer be used for GCI any more. It's way too powerful and sees too much to say the least in terms of GCI. Other than that, the Combined Arms module will still be involved in the missions to mix things up for strikers and helicopters.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Alpenwolf

[Alpenwolf]

Server News:

Operation Two Towns has been updated. Here's the change log that will also apply to all missions.

In addition to the main change log, here are a few more changes:
- Added 1 road base for each side: L-39's and C-101's.
- Added more tanks at the towns (more tanks to destroy to complete the objective).
- Briefing corrected. Frequencies added.
- The 2 x helipads for Mi-24's were moved closer to a nearby road for those who want to perform a rolling takeoff/landing.

 

[MMI_Grim]

Thank you