Cold War 1947 - 1991

[reichenwald]

Search and destroy was really fun last time i played it. But I noticed L39s can only carry R3s. Wouldn't it make sense to allow R60Ms considering the Tomcats are around and they are more difficult to fire anyways on the 39?

[Apok]

Swedish delivery. Red farp Mi24 cant use/mount ATGMS.

Also blue farp has landing pads so it cant be bombed, while red still can be blown up.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Apok

[rogorogo]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb Apok:

Swedish delivery. Red farp Mi24 cant use/mount ATGMS.

Also blue farp has landing pads so it cant be bombed, while red still can be blown up.

 

can confirm @Alpenwolf & @rossmum swedish deluvery - RED FARP Shpora has no ATMGs, no AAMs, no pods.
This seems very much not intentional but a bug. 
Hinds can't do anything on this mission until fixed, we tried several times to do something with mi8 deployed assets.. but between that, the sniper aI, how frag dmg is (not) modelled,  the wip DM and the frankly bizare DM of FC3 assets and the myriad of other issues on ED would have influence over... it really is a little beyond impossible  

Edited January 5, 2022 by rogorogo

[Miccara]

Swedish delivery. Blue farp. @Alpenwolf @rossmum
No Hueys at all.
No ground vehicles anywhere.

[Alpenwolf]

11 hours ago, reichenwald said:

Search and destroy was really fun last time i played it. But I noticed L39s can only carry R3s. Wouldn't it make sense to allow R60Ms considering the Tomcats are around and they are more difficult to fire anyways on the 39?

Yeah, good idea. I'll do the same for the C-101's.

5 hours ago, Miccara said:

Swedish delivery. Blue farp. @Alpenwolf @rossmum
No Hueys at all.
No ground vehicles anywhere.

As you know, Swedish Delivery has been causing some issues. I even deleted the single helipads and added new ones to make sure everything's fine and still no success.

@Apok:
Blue helicopters seem to be unable to take any loadout when operating from hidden single helipads in some missions. It's the same in Two Towns and Open Range. That's why it's normal single helipads there recently instead of hidden ones. In When The Mountains Cry however, Blue helicopters don't have any issues with the hidden single helipads. It's a very weird bug to say the least and I found nothing in the log files that could help me find the problem.

I ran some tests the other day with Miccara and Mike-Delta and we tried all types of helipads with different settings to eventually find out that normal single helipads (not the hidden ones) seem to work just fine. I then added UH-1's and SA342's to the Red side and they were able to carry weapons from hidden single helipads. So, does that mean Red hidden single helipads work, but not Blue hidden single helipads?! What's that got to do with Red or Blue?! I don't know, but these were the results of testing.

As I said, very weird. I'll try one more thing in Swedish Delivery and see if it works. The rest of the missions seems to be fine in that regard.

[rogorogo]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb Alpenwolf:

 

As you know, Swedish Delivery has been causing some issues. I even deleted the single helipads and added new ones to make sure everything's fine and still no success.

@Apok:
 So, does that mean Red hidden single helipads work, but not Blue hidden single helipads?! What's that got to do with Red or Blue?! I don't know, but these were the results of testing.

As I said, very weird. I'll try one more thing in Swedish Delivery and see if it works. The rest of the missions seems to be fine in that regard.

Well... as there were primary weapons missing, completely missing (no ATGMS, no AAMs, no gungpods, only S8 rockets), for everyone and from the beginning it may be that they do not work in this mission for some reason not matter on which faction side (aka on the red side not either, unless it is a warehouse count bug or a typo).

If the admins (aka @Alpenwolfand @rossmum) find time for any additional tests and debugs (real life comes first!) - please could you also adjust the Petrovich-crosshair (aka the minimized one without the superfluous and unnecessary boxes clogging visibility).
That was an extreme improvement where it was already implemented via serverside setting.

And an unrelated question - is it too early to ask for the MI-24 to be allowed to carry and deploy infantry and/or a jtac-infantry squad? 

[rossmum]

Not sure they need to be given the ability to do that as well as clean up ground targets... it'd put the Mi-8s out of a job and doubtless blue already have enough Hind headaches as it is. It was also almost never done in practice, as the helicopter is already overweight with almost any weapon load and defuelled to 70% fuel load. Adding a bunch of paratroopers and their equipment will just degrade performance even further and put the helicopter (plus the infantry) at risk.

[Apok]

10 hours ago, Miccara said:

Swedish delivery. Blue farp. @Alpenwolf @rossmum
No Hueys at all.
No ground vehicles anywhere.

There were ground units. Vulcans,trucks, chaparral...

You got on maybe when they got destroyed?

[rogorogo]

well, @rossmum, tradeoffs, a conscious choice of more munitions (pew pew) or have an asset that can be deployed in the AO - would not detriment to further  layer gameplay loops (not that it would change anything for me, I tend to find something that evaporates me anyway, even if I fly a detour akin to sightseeing far away from the AO  ).

Also simply a question of numbers - the Mi-8s are not that plentifull in the skies to not be tasked with heavier loads the entire time.. and at least when I participated the two airframes tried to work together.. and an extra infantry-squad (that is either a jtac or at least has a single Igla in it) would have often helped a lot.

I can't see that many headaches the Shaitan-Arba is causing... teamwork aka the spontaneous self-organization of chaotic system - while pleasant and suprisingly intense here and there - overall is not that nuanced that the usual swarm of Tigers would not be vectored on any Crocodile and Hip by someone in a CA JTac slot, or someone hopping into a Tiger from a JTac slot (something which in the end only Eagle could adress, like the ominiscient team-table, like the ominiscient role-table - and all of it is as likely to happen as is World Peace).

It is also not really about "paratroopers" - the Hind is an assault helicopter - it in fact did (in its early iterations) more often than popculture has us all believe deploy squads in an AO via an LZ-drop (although technically the infantry deployed belonged to paratrooper regiments most of the time - red tape, literally in this case).
So by that alone there is another tradeoff. 
And again - the Hips I encounter are overburdened all the time and some of them even raised the very issue on SRS (before all of us inevitably blew up midair  )

In the end there is no right and wrong answer, no good and bad anything. It is a choice of the admins and the serverrunner, and either decision taken or not taken will be suitable in the overall picture.

It is just something I - on my personal cellular level - keep noticing as missing. Especially since with the upcoming Apache (which is a D!) we will have another chopper flying around that will be made era-suitable (A++) by loadout, while still flying around with is post-era avionics, optics, system upgrades (like the AJS made AJ via pylon restrictions, which btw take the pylon wiring issue of the AJ/AJS not into account, not that I get to fail in my smoerebröd, as numbers do not really permit it, so I shall stay even more inept in it than in other modules...). 

But again, it is up to the admins that have to balance and take the overall picture into consideration, including the Tigers' wrong RWR array, the Fishbeds' overperforming radar (that underperforms for others due to once again core Eagle issues, not 3rd party module issues), the weird missile issues with the very same type performing differently with different modules, aso aso aso, all of it.
A humongous task in which server-runners and admins are pretty much left abandoned by the product provider anyway.

But the compartment is there, it may even receive proper inner render modeling at some time (the outer render already shows the benches fe), it was used, so why not use it (since the server is in the correct era on top), limited to a period correct, fidelic and suitable "haul"?

Edited January 6, 2022 by rogorogo

[Alpenwolf]

4 hours ago, rossmum said:

Not sure they need to be given the ability to do that as well as clean up ground targets... it'd put the Mi-8s out of a job and doubtless blue already have enough Hind headaches as it is. It was also almost never done in practice, as the helicopter is already overweight with almost any weapon load and defuelled to 70% fuel load. Adding a bunch of paratroopers and their equipment will just degrade performance even further and put the helicopter (plus the infantry) at risk.

Exactly this.

We still see Blue struggling to keep up with Red helicopters, so allowing more Red helicopters to carry and deploy assets would make it even harder on Blue. The removal of Ka-50's and adding some Tanks to Blue in the mission Search & Destroy allowed us to play the mission for quite a while, rather than having Red winning it within 2 hours as it had been the case often enough. The point is, Blue lacks proper helicopters like the AH-1 and a better transport helicopter like the UH-60 or CH-47. Unless developers are cooking something in the dark without us knowing it, it'd probably be years before we see any Cold War Blue helicopter.

 

Server News:

- Operation Search & Destroy kicks off tomorrow, Friday, 07.01.2022, around 1900 zulu.
- Operation Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed kicks off this Saturday, 08.01.2022, around 1900 zulu.
- Operation Prince of Persia kicks off this Sunday, 09.01.2022, around 1900 zulu.

[Miccara]

2 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

"We still see Blue struggling to keep up with Red helicopters, so allowing more Red helicopters to carry and deploy assets would make it even harder on Blue."

 

 

This is a balancing point which allows the game to be both challenging AND fun. The Huey's are much slower, way more fragile, less potent, and its only navigation is a compass. The Gazelle is slow & fragile, extremely difficult to fly with fine finesse, requires you to hover, then change seats to fire (I believe these are some of the reasons it lacks players that choose to fly it often). Too many subtractions and additions risk what made the Cold War server popular to begin with. Challenging without the fun isn't going to make for popularity, and it's a busy server that makes the game fun & challenging. It's still the best place to be in my opinion. Nice to work with the team mentality and some real decent people.

About the only thing I truly dislike now is the limiting of the number of crates I can put out. Worse when there are three or four Hueys. The kinds of crates are highly limited in most missions anyway, and when I'm prevented from putting out what is available to help in the defense of a base or FARP or the attacking of an enemy base or FARP, then the fun has ended for me, and mission can still go on for a couple of hours easily. Let's not forget it's a game. If it stops being that, then it stops being fun and people leave. 

[Miccara]

And I can't spawn at FARP London in Open Range. Slot is disabled. I have to make the 40 mile sling trip to free up F14's first, before I can work defense at the FARP?

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by Miccara

[Alpenwolf]

4 hours ago, Miccara said:

This is a balancing point which allows the game to be both challenging AND fun. The Huey's are much slower, way more fragile, less potent, and its only navigation is a compass. The Gazelle is slow & fragile, extremely difficult to fly with fine finesse, requires you to hover, then change seats to fire (I believe these are some of the reasons it lacks players that choose to fly it often). Too many subtractions and additions risk what made the Cold War server popular to begin with. Challenging without the fun isn't going to make for popularity, and it's a busy server that makes the game fun & challenging. It's still the best place to be in my opinion. Nice to work with the team mentality and some real decent people.

About the only thing I truly dislike now is the limiting of the number of crates I can put out. Worse when there are three or four Hueys. The kinds of crates are highly limited in most missions anyway, and when I'm prevented from putting out what is available to help in the defense of a base or FARP or the attacking of an enemy base or FARP, then the fun has ended for me, and mission can still go on for a couple of hours easily. Let's not forget it's a game. If it stops being that, then it stops being fun and people leave. 

Most of the things I change are quite often as a result of what some players do. And it's quite often a handful of players. Any restrictions, any annoying rules or limitations regarding anything are quite often the result of some individuals either exploiting bugs or playing within the rules and fairly, but take it a bit too far.

It is known to players that when you and Mike-Delta are online (and you make a very good and challenging duo, and I can only hope to have a replica of you for the Red side) sometimes air-to-ground missions become a bit frustrating for Red. And because it is a game and we're here to have fun as we all agree on that, I had to start limiting the amount of crates transport helicopters can deploy.
Take the mission The Desert Has Eyes as one example. I was in the Hind once with rossmum in the front seat. We went out on a strike mission to finish the job at the Blue second and last remaining EWR station. Turned out you guys (probably mainly you ) were deploying Avengers nonstop. I believe there were about 15 Avengers around that EWR station deployed by UH-1's. That's insane, mate While you were playing fairly and within the given settings of the mission trying to protect your assets (and rightfully so), one could argue it was rather a bit too much. In other words, when the challenge becomes rather fulsome or excessively challenging, the fun part of it (which is why we're all here) goes away. Quite some players reached out to me about that over the last weeks and months, and here I am once again trying to react and not overreact to something that seems to frustrate some. Limiting the crates is realistic, since aircraft and weapons are limited in the missions anyway, right? It would only make more sense while following the same protocol so to speak, regarding the limiting of things. Did I push it too far though? Maybe. Maybe I should not limit the crates that much. Perhaps I did overract there. I'll see what I can do.

About realism while maintaining fun:
It's a very tough challenge to say the least. We know that Mi-8's and especially UH-1's don't just sling load APC's or tanks around like that. On the other hand, infantries are still not very reliable in DCS, so we work with what we have and pretend a bit... You must've noticed that I've been removing some crates from the CTLD list, so we don't have to pretend too much. Strelas and Avengers are being removed from the crates' list while MANPAD's are being added as part of an infantry squad (1 x MANPAD, 2 x MG's and 2 x RPG's). I recently did that in the mission The Desert Has Eyes after updating it. I wouldn't mind adding the amount of crates to compensate for the lack of Strelas and Avengers, I guess. I thought I did well there, but you are kind of giving me the impression that I exaggerated a bit I'll try and check it tomorrow when I'm back home.

3 hours ago, Miccara said:

And I can't spawn at FARP London in Open Range. Slot is disabled. I have to make the 40 mile sling trip to free up F14's first, before I can work defense at the FARP?

 

 

I'm at work right now, so if rossmum is around, ask him to restart the server or just the mission Open Range itself by clicking on the mission itself. He'll know what to do.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Alpenwolf

[=475FG= Dawger]

The Desert Has Eyes: Is no fuel tanks for Mig-19's at Havadarya intentional?

Thanks in advance.

[Miccara]

6 hours ago, Alpenwolf said:

 I believe there were about 15 Avengers around that EWR station deployed by UH-1's.

 

 

I assure you I've never done that. I have put 4 or 5 around something if I've nothing else to do. Must of been guys not on comm because we (Mike-Delta, I) would never really let someone do that intentionally.  Usually, I'm focused on replacing what you guys destroy   or getting vehicles out for Mike, but if you guys ended up destroying it then... what did it matter?

[Alpenwolf]

8 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

The Desert Has Eyes: Is no fuel tanks for Mig-19's at Havadarya intentional?

Thanks in advance.

It is intentional due to the short distances a MiG-19 has to travel in that mission. Nevertheless, I just added some.

5 hours ago, Miccara said:

I assure you I've never done that. I have put 4 or 5 around something if I've nothing else to do. Must of been guys not on comm because we (Mike-Delta, I) would never really let someone do that intentionally.  Usually, I'm focused on replacing what you guys destroy   or getting vehicles out for Mike, but if you guys ended up destroying it then... what did it matter?

I just added 10 more crates to The Desert Has Eyes. So now it's a total of 30 instead of 20. I'll see what I can do about other missions.

 

Server News:

The server has been restarted in case the recent malfunctions were caused by a long and nonstop time of running it.

[rossmum]

The main issue with 'printing' as it's become known, is that it can cause missions to drag on for hours with little perceived progress. While MD and I will sit there and fight until the last unit, it often results in frustration for one or both teams and quite often the server is nearly emptied out by the time the mission finally times out or one team finally spots the last hidden unit. It's not to say anyone is doing anything bad or intentionally stagnating gameplay - rather that stagnant gameplay becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy when you end up with a couple of stubborn ground commanders and a large mission involving capturing and holding areas of the map.

Since I'm not always on the forums, if the server goes down or a mission needs to be changed over, I can be reached on Discord at rossmum#9419. Sooner or later I'll probably either make an official one or see about merging one with Kirk's, just so people who want more immediate news or discussion can use that, but I'd like to try design one so it doesn't get too rowdy since I don't have enough time to moderate it much and it should mostly be focused on organising play on the server.

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, rossmum said:

The main issue with 'printing' as it's become known, is that it can cause missions to drag on for hours with little perceived progress. While MD and I will sit there and fight until the last unit, it often results in frustration for one or both teams and quite often the server is nearly emptied out by the time the mission finally times out or one team finally spots the last hidden unit. It's not to say anyone is doing anything bad or intentionally stagnating gameplay - rather that stagnant gameplay becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy when you end up with a couple of stubborn ground commanders and a large mission involving capturing and holding areas of the map.

Since I'm not always on the forums, if the server goes down or a mission needs to be changed over, I can be reached on Discord at rossmum#9419. Sooner or later I'll probably either make an official one or see about merging one with Kirk's, just so people who want more immediate news or discussion can use that, but I'd like to try design one so it doesn't get too rowdy since I don't have enough time to moderate it much and it should mostly be focused on organising play on the server.

That is more of an issue with the “capture” mechanic than anything else. The requirement to root out the very last unit in hiding is not very realistic. 

[rossmum]

Yeah, coupled with most trigger zones for capture (IIRC, it's been a while since I checked) being a radius from airfield centre rather than a polygon actually within the airfield fence. Having a mechanic where whoever has more units in the zone owns it would be more ideal, but not sure how feasible that is with the way DCS does things - Alpen would know best since he's the one who built the missions anyway. You'd still be able to get a lot done by one-manning but it wouldn't be a sure thing anymore.

[Alpenwolf]

5 hours ago, rossmum said:

The main issue with 'printing' as it's become known, is that it can cause missions to drag on for hours with little perceived progress. While MD and I will sit there and fight until the last unit, it often results in frustration for one or both teams and quite often the server is nearly emptied out by the time the mission finally times out or one team finally spots the last hidden unit. It's not to say anyone is doing anything bad or intentionally stagnating gameplay - rather that stagnant gameplay becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy when you end up with a couple of stubborn ground commanders and a large mission involving capturing and holding areas of the map.

Since I'm not always on the forums, if the server goes down or a mission needs to be changed over, I can be reached on Discord at rossmum#9419. Sooner or later I'll probably either make an official one or see about merging one with Kirk's, just so people who want more immediate news or discussion can use that, but I'd like to try design one so it doesn't get too rowdy since I don't have enough time to moderate it much and it should mostly be focused on organising play on the server.

If such a thing as a Discord channel is what you're referring to for the server, and since you're an admin now and can call the shots anyhow you see fit, I'd happily welcome it and announce it here officially. The unofficial Discord server is the hard and independent work of a few (bless them for their efforts by the way), but an official one would probably be better. Yeah, I'm not the Discord guy, but I wouldn't mind you doing it or "hiring" someone to do it or help you with it. Just remember one thing, mate, this whole thing must never stress us out, otherwise we're doing something very wrong here. It's a hobby and the last thing we need for it is to make us grow sick of it. Therefore, and only if you're willing and have the time for it. Just don't push yourself, mate.

4 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

That is more of an issue with the “capture” mechanic than anything else. The requirement to root out the very last unit in hiding is not very realistic. 

Couldn't agree more! I had a mission back in the day (Command & Conquer - A very old mission and would require some remaking from scratch) where I had loads of flags and triggers to get something done in that regard. If one coalition outnumbers the other by 4:1 (or 3:1 was it?) then that zone/FARP/airbase is captured. Believe it or not, I got it to work properly, but it was a silly load of triggers. Obviously, lua scripting is the way, and since we're at it, I'd ask of you to see what you can do and I'll do the same

 

By the way, has Darts reached out to any of you two about LotATC yet?

[=475FG= Dawger]

36 minutes ago, Alpenwolf said:

If such a thing as a Discord channel is what you're referring to for the server, and since you're an admin now and can call the shots anyhow you see fit, I'd happily welcome it and announce it here officially. The unofficial Discord server is the hard and independent work of a few (bless them for their efforts by the way), but an official one would probably be better. Yeah, I'm not the Discord guy, but I wouldn't mind you doing it or "hiring" someone to do it or help you with it. Just remember one thing, mate, this whole thing must never stress us out, otherwise we're doing something very wrong here. It's a hobby and the last thing we need for it is to make us grow sick of it. Therefore, and only if you're willing and have the time for it. Just don't push yourself, mate.

Couldn't agree more! I had a mission back in the day (Command & Conquer - A very old mission and would require some remaking from scratch) where I had loads of flags and triggers to get something done in that regard. If one coalition outnumbers the other by 4:1 (or 3:1 was it?) then that zone/FARP/airbase is captured. Believe it or not, I got it to work properly, but it was a silly load of triggers. Obviously, lua scripting is the way, and since we're at it, I'd ask of you to see what you can do and I'll do the same

 

By the way, has Darts reached out to any of you two about LotATC yet?

@rossmumI am happy to help with the Discord. The easiest way to prevent it from becoming rancidly toxic is to not allow anyone to post unless they meet established criteria (I would suggest they be required to identify themselves using their ED Forum name and possibly DCS UCID)

@Alpenwolf You saved me a bunch of typing  If you would identify a particular mission that could use a revised capture metric I can get started on working up an alternate method. 

WRT LotATC, I have not had any news from DArt but I did ping him yesterday. He did release a Beta yesterday. I would suggest that, since rossmum is back in town, maybe you update LotATC and turn it back on for another test, if only to try to isolate the cause.

 

[Alpenwolf]

Server News:

Operation Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed and Operation Fight Island have been updated. Here's the change log.

Operation Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed goes online tonight around 1900 zulu.

 

I just found this in case you're behind everyone else on things like me :

 

Can't wait to add this beauty to the server! And it's going to be Blue.

[Get_Lo]

On 1/8/2022 at 10:18 AM, Alpenwolf said:

Server News:

Operation Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed and Operation Fight Island have been updated. Here's the change log.

Operation Battle Over Sukhumi Unleashed goes online tonight around 1900 zulu.

 

I just found this in case you're behind everyone else on things like me :

 

Can't wait to add this beauty to the server! And it's going to be Blue.

So many roles, so many weapons! Options unlimited!

[cicimicikiller]

Hey guys,

can somebody please share an invite to unofficial discord server? The ones I found in this thread are expired. Thanks!

[rogorogo]

Am 7.1.2022 um 18:11 schrieb =475FG= Dawger:

@rossmumI am happy to help with the Discord. The easiest way to prevent it from becoming rancidly toxic is to not allow anyone to post unless they meet established criteria (I would suggest they be required to identify themselves using their ED Forum name and possibly DCS UCID)

While I am in no position to raise my voice there are nonetheless some things coming to mind I would like to submit for additional consideration.
As recently stated the serverrunners and admins stress that real life comes first and the Cold War Server is a hobby - an extremely healthy and for the fidelic topic almost solely suitable motivation.

Nonetheless from my outside point of view the seeming lack of a structured, ansynchronous colaboration space (fe asana.com ) to apply time and energy when available and being able to track items in a structured fashions seems to have caused additional nuisance (or simply waste of precious free time and energy) detracting from bringing things forward or simply maintenance.
Same goes for the humurous mirror of core Eagle in there being no structured channel to submit issues.

Now if there was an official discord to be gestated (social media, oh dear..., and before giving away UCIDs, there is a discord script where players can add a randomly discord-generated unique ID to add on their profile page that then fully automated greenlights them for rights and adds roles an even ensure their local discord name matches up with their profile moniker [in the absence of the ingame moniker being part of their profile information]) for whatever reason, maybe this could also solve these issues.

A "Troubleshooting" channel could be added and I know of a discord script that automatically generates a ticket-thread in the channel (by type command like fe "-new" or "-create" or "-ticket", with the channel still being available for normal exchanges), only visible to the submitting ID and the "admins" (or roles/persons chose) unless set otherwise for reasons of wider information submission fe.
These threads can then be used to track both issues submitted and simply generated internally, with the threads being able to be added to and eventually closed when the issue is resolved or the time found to implement whatever their topic was.
It would also encourage submissions as they are no longer subject to opinionation while structuring them in a rigid thus workable upcom channeling.

This imho would solve the issue of asynced time, timezones and energy as well as availability while also solving the issue to mentally keep track or look up issues and to-dos in an unstructured fashion in multiple sources or this forum thread.

The automation would not only raise the level of collaboration and reduce chaotic (in the technical terminology) maintenance allocation imo but free up time and energy that could be focused on the actual core tasks.

As for discord itself the "threat" of further erosion to proper coms (in-game "voice chat", SRS - which btw might or might not be able to cross-integrate btw) for a "gamified" discord-voicing is naturally something that would also need carefull consideration.

But again - I am in no position to raise (well, type actually) my voice (well, thoughts actually).. but reading this while just glancing for general news in eventuality had this spring to my mind.