Cold War 1947 - 1991

[Red_Dragon]

I wonder how the guidance of fighters from the ground radar service will work? On one of the servers, I was disappointed by the information for pilots that was updated every few minutes about the position of enemy aircraft (and friendly aircraft). It literally didn't matter how low you were flying, 1000 meters above the ground or 1 meter. Everyone knows where you are anyway.

 

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, Alpenwolf said:

You both die, you both lose lives. Better fly with someone you can trust

Harsh

[Alpenwolf]

1 hour ago, Red_Dragon said:

I wonder how the guidance of fighters from the ground radar service will work? On one of the servers, I was disappointed by the information for pilots that was updated every few minutes about the position of enemy aircraft (and friendly aircraft). It literally didn't matter how low you were flying, 1000 meters above the ground or 1 meter. Everyone knows where you are anyway.

 

I've always relied on human GCI operators. No scripts at all. They see whatever friendly radars see. If you destroy enemy EWR's and maybe SAM batteries, they see less. Which is then an incentive for helicopter players to deploy EWR's and SAM batteries. The latter is not always available, depends on the mission's scenario. Dozens of missions = Dozens of scenarios. Obviously, the downside of that is when there's no human GCI. You end up relying on EWR calls. You do that by bringing up the radio menu and select bogey dope. Sometimes the EWR doesn't answer you, so you'll have to do that again and again. I find it rather "challenging" (although I don't think it's ED's intention) that you don't always receive immediate BRAA's for bandits. You'll have to "work" a bit with the EWR to get something proper out of it.

Another downside is when one team has a GCI operator and the other doesn't. Frustrates lots of players, I know. And yet again it's always been like that. The perfect scenario is when both teams have dedicated GCI operators who know what they're doing and call their assets off when necessary. We've had many sessions like that and that's why we've had a solid community throughout the years despite all the ups and downs and downsides of the server's settings and features.

The circumstances can't always be perfect. But when they are, you'll have loads of FUN! You could either stick around despite all odds or leave the server like some do and come back when it's better populated.

See you airborne

[F16wannabe]

Welcome back! 

[Mustang]

Great to see you back Alpenwolf!

[Enigma89]

One question about the credit accumulation. Will it be a lump sum delivered to each player at the 5 hour mark, or is it an even distribution of 50 credits across 5 hours? I just ask because the cadence of that distribution will be interesting in terms of how the ebb and flow of certain planes will appear in the server.

Edited June 4, 2024 by Enigma89

[Alpenwolf]

1 hour ago, Enigma89 said:

One question about the credit accumulation. Will it be a lump sum delivered to each player at the 5 hour mark, or is it an even distribution of 50 credits across 5 hours? I just ask because the cadence of that distribution will be interesting in terms of how the ebb and flow of certain planes will appear in the server.

 

There's a counter function for each player individually. The counter is for resetting lives and also for changing sides after 24 hours; For each player individually.

[reichenwald]

Great news! 

Will you force the realistic reticle in the Fishbed? I remember that it was allowed in the past but I’m not certain and it’s disabled on enigma as far as I know. 
And do you know if the Hinds will carry R60s?

Edited June 4, 2024 by reichenwald

[Alpenwolf]

12 hours ago, reichenwald said:

Great news! 

Will you force the realistic reticle in the Fishbed? I remember that it was allowed in the past but I’m not certain and it’s disabled on enigma as far as I know. 
And do you know if the Hinds will carry R60s?

 

It was never allowed, but disabling it didn't really work. Pretty much like some settings for Combined Arms. But all that should be okay now.

The Hind has access to R-60's. Just like the Gazelle has access to Mistrals. Also, the Kiowa! This beauty will have access to Stingers. Would be nice seeing it escorting the Huey or... the Chinook!

[Alpenwolf]

Server News:

I think the old one was a bit too harsh and players might end up losing their lives quickly, rendering them unable to fly for quite some time. Therefore, the new cost of lives is as follows:

12 lives - F-14
10 lives - MiG-29
  7 lives - F-4
  6 lives - MiG-21 / F-5 / F1 / AJS37 / A-4
  5 lives - MiG-19 / AH-64
  4 lives - MiG-15 / F-86 / Su-25 / A-10 / Ka-50
  3 lives - L-39 / C-101 / Mi-24 / SA342
  2 lives - Mi-8 / UH-1
  0 lives - Combined Arms

* Helicopters and Combined Arms remain all the same.

[Alpenwolf]

Just a heads-up so nobody is really surprised/frustrated on Friday:

There are 4 slots for the F-4 which is the case in most missions. In some missions, it's just 2 slots. That depends on each mission's scenario and the available aircraft in general. I know the F-4 is the hype train right now, but I can't go along with it for two reasons:

1- I must always figure out a way to keep teams balanced in numbers and flooding the missions with F-4 slots would do the exact opposite.
2- My missions have always had limited number of slots for any aircraft while keeping the MiG-21 and the F-5 as the main modules in most, and that's how I want to keep it.

I'm away till Friday.
Hope to see you airborne then.

[The_Tau]

1 hour ago, Alpenwolf said:

It was never allowed, but disabling it didn't really work. Pretty much like some settings for Combined Arms. But all that should be okay now.

 

How do you even enable/disable it on server side as mission host? I dont see option for that in ME...

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, The_Tau said:

How do you even enable/disable it on server side as mission host? I dont see option for that in ME...

I vaguely remember the ability to disable it per slot in the options tab for the aircraft (right of radio frequencies)

[The_Tau]

4 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

I vaguely remember the ability to disable it per slot in the options tab for the aircraft (right of radio frequencies)

nullThats the thing, i never seen option there

[=475FG= Dawger]

11 minutes ago, The_Tau said:

nullThats the thing, i never seen option there

Must be the special options tab and thus honor system. My bad. 

[reichenwald]

Must be the special options tab and thus honor system. My bad. 

Yeah it’s a special option but I still think that it’s forced on some servers


Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk

[The_Tau]

2 hours ago, reichenwald said:

Yeah it’s a special option but I still think that it’s forced on some servers


Gesendet von iPad mit Tapatalk

My question is how can you force it on servers

[Alpenwolf]

How Can I Know What Objectives Are Completed:

- Bring up the radio menu
- Select F10 for "Others"
- Select F1 for "Mission Info"
- There are 4 options:
   * Mission Status
   * Mission Time
   * Balance of Power
   * Combat Statistics

1- Mission Status:
This shows you what objectives were completed and what are still not

2- Mission Time:
Shows you how many hours, minutes and seconds left until the server restarts to save data before the mission continues

3- Balance of Power:
Shows you how many players are available per side

4- Combat Statistics:
A list of the aerial and ground units destroyed by players. In terms of aerial units it's PvP only as there are no aerial AI units except for some bombers in some missions.

 

[reichenwald]

Can you give a rough ETA already @Alpenwolf?

[Alpenwolf]

3 hours ago, reichenwald said:

Can you give a rough ETA already @Alpenwolf?

What do you mean? The server's been online for at least 4 hours if that's what you mean?

[reichenwald]

vor 7 Stunden schrieb Alpenwolf:

What do you mean? The server's been online for at least 4 hours if that's what you mean?

Wasn’t at the time I think. I was able to join shortly after and it was really fun. The SRS issue was just a little annoying. 

[Misi]

Nice to see you back Alpenwolf o7 

[TIGER]

On 6/3/2024 at 11:33 AM, Alpenwolf said:

The server will be back online on Friday, 07.06.2024, around 18:00 zulu.

 

Old vs New Features:

Limiting the number of available aircraft and weapons per side was one major feature of this server, and frankly made it what it was known for. However, and as many of you will still remember this didn't come at a low cost. I had to reedit the warehouses of all bases in all missions after almost every single DCS update. And that was no fun at all! just typing that had me sighing...

Limiting weapons will unfortunately no longer be an option. Limiting lives for each player on the other hand is the new feature to kind of replace the limiting of aircraft:

Each player starts with 50 lives that are restored every 5 hours (the numbers might change in the future if necessary). If all lives are lost before 5 hours have elapsed the player wont be able to fly until his lives are restored. However, that player will still have access to the Combined Arms module through the cmdr and JTAC slots. Note that the Combined Arms module has always been very vital in all missions! Each team can and should have a GCI operator (obviously, not easy to get) and/or a ground forces' commander. After all, most ground units can be controlled by players and many objectives are completed with the help of ground forces.

As mentioned above, each player starts with 50 lives. Different types of aircraft come with different costs. The following list shows how many lives the loss of an aircraft costs:

15 lives - F-14
12 lives - MiG-29
  9 lives - F-4
  7 lives - MiG-21 / F-5 / F1 / AJS37 / A-4
  6 lives - MiG-19
  5 lives - MiG-15 / F-86 / Su-25 / A-10 / AH-64
  4 lives - Ka-50
  3 lives - L-39 / C-101 / Mi-24 / SA342
  2 lives - Mi-8 / UH-1
  0 lives - Combined Arms

If you're wondering why modern helicopters are featured on a Cold War server check out FAQ-6 on the main page here.

 

Saving Mission's Progress:

We used to run a mission for an x amount of hours before the server rotated to a new one, regardless of whether the objectives were completed by either side or not. If the objectives weren't completed that was considered a draw, and we had loads of that. Also, that didn't give players who joined the server shortly before it was about to rotate to a new mission the incentive to contribute to the team, knowing it wasn't really going to matter much. Therefore, mission's progress will from now on be saved.
Every 8 hours the server restarts to save progress before the current mission is resumed. However, if one side completes all objectives in less than 8 hours the server loads a new mission. If not, it will remain online (restarting every 8 hours to save progress) for as long as it takes for one side to eventually get the job done. There are dozens of missions featuring different maps with different scenarios with a variety of objectives. Note that in some missions each side can even have different objectives (check here).

 

Choosing a Side:

Unlike before players are now asked to pick a side upon joining the server. Type -red or -blue to do so. This should prevent players from switching back and forth to spy on the other side and see where their ground units are or what objectives remain to be completed.

Every 24 hours each player is again asked to retype -red or -blue. This is in order to give players the chance to change sides in case they want to fly something else, balance the teams or for whatever reasons.

 

Weapons' Restrictions:

Basically, just like it used to be; Rear-aspect missiles for the most part...

Most of the air-to-ground weaponry is available. The nuke bombs are as of now available in one mission only. Check here.

Many air-to-air missiles are NOT available. IR missiles are restricted to rear-aspect ONLY! The only exception is the F-14. The F-14 doesn't carry any rear-aspect IR missiles, therefore, it has access to AIM-9L's, but only on the two outer pylons. That means it can carry up to 2 x AIM-9L's.

List of the available air-to-air missiles:

R-27R, R-3R, RS2US, R-60, R-13M1, R-13M, R-3S and R-55

AIM-7F, AIM-7E-2, AIM-9L, AIM-9P, AIM-9J, AIM-9B, R530F EM, R530F IR, R550 Magic 1, RB-24J, RB-24 and Mistral

 

F10 Map Restrictions:

Nothing has changed here. Players can't see their aircraft or any other friendly units on the F10 map. Use whatever navigation systems available onboard and contact your GCI operator if available. GCI and Combined Arms players have always been the backbone of the server and made it stand out and known for it. Get on comms! No more excuses for not using SRS! I've always relied on these things since day one (even when Combined Arms wasn't a thing back then) rather than some scripted AI GCI or the like to hopefully get the most out of DCS. In other words, it's up to us players. We could either fly solo, not be on comms and just go pew pew pew or play in teams.

Admittedly, we're not going to always have a GCI operator and there will always be players flying solo making it rather boring. But there will also be some sessions with the exact opposite of that and those are the FUN TIMES! Up... To... The... Players!

 

Special thanks to Yink for offering his help in translating my ideas into lua scripts. And special thanks to good old Apok for the various scripts he's been helping me with for quite a while. Two veterans of the game who have been around for as long as I can remember. Bless you both!

 

BEST SERVER COMES BACK S!
OHHHHHH YEEEEEAH

[Kocrachon]

Wasn't sure if this was the right place to bring this up, but..

I noticed that the Apaches, despite not having Longbow missiles, had inventory options to bring the Longbow radar. While I know it may seem pointless to bring the radar without the missiles, with the ability for the Pilot/CPG to slew the TADS over to radar spots, as well as having radar contacts on the HMD, it seems to make sense to remove Longbow radars from the Apaches. Not sure of the situation on all the servers, but I was on one of the PG missions and was noticing that.

Also, will there be more Kiowas added in the future slot wise? I don't want to throw the word balance or anything around, but the amount of Hinds with R-60s outweighs some of what the Bluefor gets, especially since the Apaches are limited to only inner pylon Laser Hellfires. I know the Gazelle L is there but... the Kiowa is cooler... I get the overall limit but just wondering.

[Alpenwolf]

46 minutes ago, Kocrachon said:

Wasn't sure if this was the right place to bring this up, but..

I noticed that the Apaches, despite not having Longbow missiles, had inventory options to bring the Longbow radar. While I know it may seem pointless to bring the radar without the missiles, with the ability for the Pilot/CPG to slew the TADS over to radar spots, as well as having radar contacts on the HMD, it seems to make sense to remove Longbow radars from the Apaches. Not sure of the situation on all the servers, but I was on one of the PG missions and was noticing that.

Also, will there be more Kiowas added in the future slot wise? I don't want to throw the word balance or anything around, but the amount of Hinds with R-60s outweighs some of what the Bluefor gets, especially since the Apaches are limited to only inner pylon Laser Hellfires. I know the Gazelle L is there but... the Kiowa is cooler... I get the overall limit but just wondering.

The Apache is limited to K Hellfires.

There will be more Kiowas than Apaches overall.