[SP/Coop PVE] Foothold - Persistent Dynamic Sandbox

[HungryCoyote]

Really enjoying the Caucasus Foothold. Very impressive work. I like playing Commander and ordering armor units to intercept convoys/attack zones. Just curious, how hard would it be to add ai helos that could be used in a similar way?

[josche]

Is it possible to add the new BS III ?

Thank you for the mission

[cfrag]

15 hours ago, josche said:

Is it possible to add the new BS III ?

If you know how to use the mission editor, that will take roughly 2 minutes of your time: 

• open foothold
• copy the Ka-50
• paste it to a location close to the one you copied
• change the type to Ka-50 III
• Change the load-out from now empty to something you like

Rinse and repeat for all locations that hosts the Ka-50

Note that your version of Foothold must include the newest version of ZoneCommander to recognize the III for logistic missions (carry supplies), or you'll need to change line 2827 in the mission from  

LogisticCommander.allowedTypes['Ka-50'] = true

to

LogisticCommander.allowedTypes['Ka-50_3'] = true

(you can also simply add above line after line 2827.)

Personally, I didn't much like the fact that attack helicopters can carry supplies, so I welcomed that the III can't carry supplies, and also removed this ability from the II, Gazelle and Apache (leaving only the Huey, Hind and Hip as possible cargo helos). And I'm really looking forward to the Herc's full release, as that plane (currently Anubis' version, and the Blackhawk) are already enabled in the original Foothold code. So nice!

Note that you can use the above procedure to add player aircraft to any airfield. I did this to make the fantastic Foothold Syria more "accessible" (easier) to my group of players, and it works well. 

Note also that all helicopters must be single-unit groups (as they are now). 

If you can't do this yourself, and @Dzsekeb (as holder of this mission's IP) doesn't object, I can PM you the "Ka-50 III" patched version.

Edited January 2, 2023 by cfrag

[josche]

Hi cfrag, first of all thanks for your help. I've done it the way you said: copied the Ka50 from Anapa and placed it on another pitch. If I now (on the right side Editor) want to change the Ka50 for the type (dropdown button), I only see the Ka 50 and no Ka50 III. I don't get the option to select the Ka 50 III at all.

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, josche said:

I don't get the option to select the Ka 50 III at all.

That is strange. As always, please ensure that the historical filter (the watch icon at the bottom) is turned off (but that should not make a difference here). 

To ensure that your version of DCS is current (i.e. updated after Dec 20), create a new Mission and place a Ka-50 III with skill=client. If you can't do that, there's a good likelihood that you need to update your version of DCS first (also please be advised: I'm running open beta; I don't know if the BS III is available on stable yet).

Edited January 2, 2023 by cfrag

[josche]

Hi Cfrag, I'm on Steam open beta, I've created small test missions for myself to test the Ka 50 III. everything should actually fit. What's also strange is that I can't select the "Combined Joint Task Forces" in "Nation" , only USA Russland etc.either. Nevertheless, thank you very much for your help. Best Regards

[cfrag]

32 minutes ago, josche said:

I can't select the "Combined Joint Task Forces

Please re-check that your historical filter is off. Not being able to select CJTF is usually a dead giveaway that it is active

[josche]

Damn cfrag you're right it was the historical filter oh man. Everything works now. I thank you very much for your effort.

Best Regards

[dertien]

Hello,

Loved your mission, so I made a red faction version for the Rotorheads among us and those who enjoy the Su-25T.

Playable airframes:

- Ka-50 (BS2)
- Ka-50 Hokum III (BS3)
- Mi-8 Hip
- Mi-24 Hind
- Su-25 Rook (Frogfoot)

Short Sitrep

The mission is functional, you might run into minor errors. Nothing gamebreaking I am sure. I am not a coder, but I can tinker quite a bit.

so:

Briefings and images updated.

Selecting a COLD aircraft will require you to start it up.
Selecting a HOT aircraft will skip the startup sequence, take off and play.
Selecting a DUO aircraft gives you an AI wingman, SOLO aircraft is for the lone wolves.

ECHO base is the RSR (Red Star Rotors) main startup FARP in the beginning of the mission. Supplies can be picked up from here and this is also a place to rearm and refuel. Recommended you start from here unless you want to fly the Rook (Frogfoot), which is available at Krasondar Airfield.
Alternatively you can pick a Hip, Hind, Hokum at Krasonodar Airfield. Unfortunately I have not been able to provide this base with supplies that you can take to neutral points in order to reinforce.

Changes to the vanilla version include but are not limited to:
 

- Redfor has 3 bases (Krasondar, Factory and Echo) and needs to conquer all zones westward. These include neutral and enemy zones.
- Random mission spawns have been switched to blue side.
- I removed the Cruise Missile and the Bluefor Carrier group, allowing only sailboats.
- You can request reinforcements and air support, CAS, Fighter Sweep, etc... via the F-10 menu they will be performed by Redfor Aircraft and vehicles.
- REMOVED capability to transport supplies (800Kg) For both Hokums (Ka-50). Only Hip and Hind can carry supplies.
- 'Credits' to purchase things in mission were replaced by 'Command Points' - 'Credits' felt weird, so changed that to CP - The function is still the same as in vanilla Foothold, but instead of having 'credits' you have 'Command Points' to 'purchase' stuff. Seems more military.
- Reinforcements called in using Command Points if you have Combined Arms have been updated to reflect faction and increased in strength -

e.g.
instead of receiving 4 vehicles for armor (T-90, BTR-82, etc) you get 6 Vehicles, and one of them is a SAM.
instead of getting one SAM vehicle you get a platoon of 3 different SAMs. They should now have both IR and Radar acquisition capabilities.

These vehicles (if you own Combined Arms) can be driven now, not just moved around with the mouse.
- AI SAMs on both sides have been changed to proper faction SAM's, so no longer will you see Russian hardware on Bluefor bases, if the AI decides to upgrade their zones.
- Added or changed vanilla AI flights. This mission is now mod-free. The UH-60L (although it is a great mod) is no longer needed to play the mission, nor is the AI using it.
- Changed AI flight behavior of enemy and friendly Helo and Aircraft ingame to be more specific with their mission targets. If all is well, only the A-10 Warthog and the Su-25 will attack helicopters on CAS missions. Fighters sweep aircraft, and should leave the rotary wing alone - as is in real life. The primary concern of a combat helo pilot is being shot down by Sams and ground units, not by aircraft and certainly not by other combat helicopters, despite the fact that we got Iglas for the Ka-50 III.
- Changed Su-25 Flight altitudes, they fly lower now.

-In contrast sams are now deadly and their skill has been set to excellent. No more muppets at the controls there, fly NOE and use the trees or a 'dune' as cover. Keep an eye out for A-10's as well.

BLUFOR:

F-16 / F-18 / F-15
A-10
AH-64 / UH-60A / CH-47

REDFOR

Su-27/Su-34/Su-30
Su-25
MI-28/MI-8

- Added atmospheric smoke and fire (picked this up from the Blades of Steel Syria mission), and haze/dust, this is a warzone after all, and have not seen any FPS drops in VR using this as of yet.

Installation/gameplay

Same as with original Foothold mission, copy into

c:\<username>\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Missions\Dynamic\Foothold

start up DCS and find the file in Missions - My missions
 

How does one save the progress?

Unless you are playing the entire campaign in one go, the mission saves your progress automatically if you do the following

Edit  file MissionScripting.lua in the folder DCS install folder with notepad++ or regular notepad:
c:\EagleDynamics\DCS World Openbeta\scripts changing the appropriate lines so that your mission is saved as such:

do
	sanitizeModule('os')
	--sanitizeModule('io')
	--sanitizeModule('lfs')
	_G['require'] = nil
	_G['loadlib'] = nil
	_G['package'] = nil
end

inserting two pairs of dashes (--) to comment out both sanitizeModule entries and save.

To restart a mission from scratch (with persistence on for single player) you need to delete the foothold_1.4.lua file found in:

c:\<username>\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Missions\Saves folder.

Enjoy.

All credits to the original author.

Edit: Latest Version uploaded on January 18 2023 at 6:34 AM UTC.

Known issues

- I cannot seem to make a supply zone out of Krasnodar. So you cannot pick up supplies there as you could on Anapa with regular Foothold mission
- After the purchase of the SEAD and Ground Attack missions, the zones shown are all friendly zones. I changed the code but the menu still shows friendly zones instead of enemy ones. Here is the code that I think is responsible for this, but I cannot see the error.
help and directions appreciated.

Group.getByName('sead1'):destroy()
local casTargetMenu = nil
bc:registerShopItem('cas', 'Su-25T Ground Attack', 400, function(sender) 
	local gr = Group.getByName('cas1')
	if Utils.isGroupActive(gr) then 
		return 'Ground attack mission still in progress'
	end
	
	mist.respawnGroup('cas1', true)
	
	if casTargetMenu then
		return 'Choose target zone from F10 menu'
	end
	
	local launchAttack = function(target)
		if casTargetMenu then
			if Group.getByName('cas1') then
				local err = bc:engageZone(target, 'cas1')
				if err then
					return err
				end
				
				trigger.action.outTextForCoalition(1, 'Su-25T Flight engaging groups at '..target, 15)
			else
				trigger.action.outTextForCoalition(1, 'Group has left the area or has been destroyed', 15)
			end
			
			casTargetMenu = nil
		end
	end
	
	casTargetMenu = bc:showTargetZoneMenu(1, 'Su-25T Flight Target', launchAttack, 1)
	
	trigger.action.outTextForCoalition(1, 'Su-25T on route. Choose target zone from F10 menu', 15)
end,
function (sender, params)
	if params.zone and params.zone.side == 2 then
		local gr = Group.getByName('cas1')
		if Utils.isGroupActive(gr) then 
			return 'Ground attack mission still in progress'
		end
		
		mist.respawnGroup('cas1', true)
		mist.scheduleFunction(function(target)
			if Group.getByName('cas1') then
				local err = bc:engageZone(target, 'cas1')
				if err then
					return err
				end
				
				trigger.action.outTextForCoalition(1, 'Su-25T Flight engaging groups at '..target, 15)
			end
		end,{params.zone.zone},timer.getTime()+1)
	else
		return 'Can only target enemy zone'
	end
end)

What would be great is to have this in PVP so both commanders on either side can use CP and have human players dish it out, unfortunately AFAIK, the functionality is only programmed for 1 Commander, not 2.

Update 21 January 2023

- Solved the problem with Krasnodar, which can now load supplies. Remember only the Hind and the Hip are transport helicopters. The Ka-50 cannot load supplies.

- Added an unarmed Hip for medevac duties, for those who are into SAR operations. They can be found either on Krasnodar airfield and Echo FARP, and eventually when conquered on Krymsk as well.

- 'support' menu changes from vanilla:

- Removed purchase ability to spawn smoke on enemy positions
- Removed SEAD and CAS and JTAC call ins.
 - Added 3 extra CA options - using the map you send them onto enemy groups as long as DCS Combined Arms is installed:

- A flight of 2 Su-25's: Ground attack without HARM (no Fantasmagoria pod, so not meant for SEAD and Sam destruction: that's your job with the Ka-50, Hind or Su-25). These spawn at Krasnodar Central, and need to take off. Make sure to give them a target before they did their pattern, or they will land and you lose your CP.
- A flight group consisting of 2 Hinds. They start cold, so you have enough time to set a wayoint and a target. Don't forget to set speed and altitude as well.
- A flight group consisting of 2 Black Sharks. They start cold, so you have enough time to set a wayoint and a target. Don't forget to set speed and altitude as well.

Both helicopter groups can be spawned at all your captured zones including the airfield of Krasondar at the start. The Su-25 jets oviously in DCS need a runway.

Sorry, that is the best I could do since I cannot seem to find why the code up here which is set to attack side 2 (blue in this case) does not seem to want to do its thing.

Made a winter and a summer version.

The summer version is the easy setting with all labels on.
The winter version is much more atmospheric, and will require anti-icing ops and also a better eye since all labels are neutral.

- Both missions have their own savegame in the folder I mentioned above, so no more will it overwrite the vanilla version if you want to play that too.

The savegame files are called: RedstarRotors_1.4.2_summer.lua and RedstarRotors_1.4.2_winter.lua

Hope you all likes.

I did not upload this anywhere else as per original author's request, also I take no credit for the 'tinkering'. If the original author  Dzsekeb wishes to change or adopt this mission and add it to the collection, that's all good for me. I say, sharing is caring. Have a good flight.

Thank you's

A big thank you to Dzsekeb, for the creation of this mission. I have been looking high and low for something that floats my boat. Although there are a lot of dynamic missions out there, this one seems to hit that mark, alongside SAR missions like 'Haifa dispatch', 'TOOTALL' and Blades Of Steel to name just a few.
The framework of this could be reused to upgrade TOOTALL which does not reward you for accomplishing missions.

Anyways, great work and thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foothold_1.4.2_Red_Star_Rotors_winter.miz Foothold_1.4.2_Red_Star_Rotors_summer.miz

Edited January 21, 2023 by dertien

[dertien]

 

 

 

[Slav]

Thanks!  Haven't tried yet , but seems more balanced (for me). And also interesting for Su 30 mod.

[Shadeslayers09]

Is there a way to make it so that the points auto collect and the pilot doesn't have to land?

[Dzsekeb]

I've released a small update to both missions to integrate the new api function we received with todays update.

Zones will now clear wreckage around them every time they spawn AI groups.

Should fix the longstanding issue where repaired groups spawn inside their previous wreckage.

You can redownload the missions from userfiles to get the new version, or if you have a custom zoneCommander based mission you can get the latest version from github and drop it in your mission file.

 

Edit: I've disabled the wreckage cleaner for now, I've got reports of crashing while its turned on

Edited May 5, 2023 by Dzsekeb

[Dzsekeb]

The test server is up again.
It will be running a beta test of my new mission for 1-2 months, depending how well testing is going, followed by a release of the mission on userfiles.

If you join expect some instability while i'm ironing out the bugs.

Server name: Pretense Beta Test
WebGCI: http://95.216.247.227:18080/ 
User manual for the mission: https://github.com/Dzsek/pretense

Edit:

I'm happy to announce that Pretense is now released

Test server will go offline this upcoming weekend as it served its purpose

Edited June 7, 2023 by Dzsekeb

[alek321]

What this stand for, and what are acceptable values in the saves file "zonePersistance['difficultyModifier'] = 0"?

[Dzsekeb]

6 hours ago, alek321 said:

What this stand for, and what are acceptable values in the saves file "zonePersistance['difficultyModifier'] = 0"?

Its just a leftover from an attempt to make dynamic difficulty adjustment. The code is disabled in the script so its not in use. It didnt work out like I expected. 

[Recluse]

@Dzsekeb  Not sure if you saw this, but the latest DCS 2.9 Open Beta update broke some of the scripting. Points are no longer being allocated to players for their unit kills. There is not even a message on landing.

 

More info in the Patch Notes Thread:

 

 

 

[Dzsekeb]

All will be fixed... In time. 

For now my pc is distributed among various boxes as im in the middle of moving houses... 

[Recluse]

Just now, Dzsekeb said:

All will be fixed... In time. 

For now my pc is distributed among various boxes as im in the middle of moving houses... 

Thanks! Just wanted to know you were aware. Good luck with the move. Thanks for the hours and hours of fun your creation has provided. We'll just have to fly for free for a while  (except for the occasional "wire transfer" to the SAVE file 

 

[J3ST3R]

Hi all,

 

I was playing the syria 1.0.6 version of foothold yetserday and keep getting this error message pop up. Anyone know what it its about and how top fix it?

[Recluse]

I believe it is related to the scripting change introduced with the latest Open Beta.  See my link above to the Patch Notes thread on this.  Foothold seems to work OK except for this occasional error getting thrown and the broken Credit mechanic for gaining points.

[Recluse]

9 hours ago, Spanker79 said:

Is there a way to show marks when a mission is hosted as multiplayer?
For SP the marks on F-10 map are working just fine!

They seem to work ok for US in MP. We use them to mark our targets and all the players seem to see them OK.  Since the latest Open beta we have been flying Obi's mod for Foothold Marianas and it works there. PREVIOUSLY it also worked in the other Foothold maps, but haven't tried that since the latest Open Beta. Note this is a Player Hosted MP not a dedicated server, so it may work differently.

[Spanker79]

3 hours ago, Recluse said:

They seem to work ok for US in MP. We use them to mark our targets and all the players seem to see them OK.  Since the latest Open beta we have been flying Obi's mod for Foothold Marianas and it works there. PREVIOUSLY it also worked in the other Foothold maps, but haven't tried that since the latest Open Beta. Note this is a Player Hosted MP not a dedicated server, so it may work differently.

Sorry, wrong thread..That question was ment to go for Liberation..Thanks for your answer though!

[Recluse]

On 11/17/2023 at 2:29 PM, Dzsekeb said:

All will be fixed... In time. 

For now my pc is distributed among various boxes as im in the middle of moving houses... 

And all is fixed now! THANK YOU @Dzsekeb!!

[Donnie98]

Hey! Amazing mission.

Just a quick question, Is it possible to change the supply threshold to lower amount so that capture squads can be picked up from a point even if it has like 1k supplies?

 

And thank you for making this, its a lot of fun