Could use some help solving a problem with a missile trainer for a NTTR scenario

[remus77]

Hello all.  I have a scenario I'd like to run past you guys to see if you have some suggestions on how to tackle it.

USLANTCOM is about to run its yearly Red/Green Flag type event in the NTTR.  Last year we tried to use the FOX missile trainer script to simulate the missile hits without killing the pilot.  This, if you're familiar, is a little clumsy as some missiles would still get through if there was latency and kill the pilot.  Also, the other issue is that if it did work, a pilot would drain a SAM site of all its missiles as it egressed away from the launchers even though he was "dead", causing for some unrealistic situations and messing up the mission for the rest of the package.

I'm looking for a solution that would allow us to track missile hits while not destroying us (as in real-life), but that would also not drain the SAM battery or AI aircraft of missiles.  Would this simply be a set to invisible script once hit and an immortal status?  I feel like there should be a better way to do this and we had a hearty debate about solutions.  

We have like 40+ people participating in these, and so a solution that wouldn't require tedious scripting for each and every jet would be nice, but I'm willing to put the work in if that's the only way.  

I'd love to hear some suggestions from the community for this, so thanks ahead of time.

[cfrag]

If I read you correctly (i seldomly do ), you are facing two separate challenges:

• missile evasion (remove missiles before they hit and damage)
• drained SAM sites

I'm a bit reluctant to toot my own horn - maybe the 'GuardianAngel' module of DML may help with with missile evasion. And we can achieve re-stocking SAMs if you used the brand-spanking new clone zones for the SAMs with a pulser that refreshes every 30 minutes (by adding a pulser set to 30 minutes to re-spawn the SAMs, and setting the SAM cloner's "preWipe" to true, effectively spawning a fresh, fully stocked copy every 30 minutes). CloneZone's 'preWipe' flag isn't documented yet, but it's already pushed to GitHub.

If you want to adapt GuardianAngel to better interface with your scripts (callbacks etc), please let me know.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by cfrag

[cfrag]

Here's a proof of concept I threw together - jump into the red Su-25 and fly around Kolkhi. The SAM will attempt to kill you, Guardian Angel will protect you (only red/blue players). 

After 5 minutes, the SAM reloads automatically (pulser signals re-spawn to cloner every 300 seconds)

There's a red Su-27 (AI) "Dead Red Redemption" that's there to draw some fire (if you only watch from blue observer on the ground). It's not protected by Guardian Angel and will die, only to auto-respawn immediately (cloner is short-circuited on clone's death)

If all the diagnostic text annoys you, edit the two 'xxxConfig' zones (yellow) and change their "verbose" attributes to "no".

 

Hope this helps

 

protected red player and endless blue sams.miz

[remus77]

Toot away!  That's really awesome and hadn't heard about this. 

 

Couple questions.  Is the missile removal reliable?  I mentioned that w/ the Fox script, sometimes missiles would get through and kill you anyway.  I am not 100% opposed to setting our jets immortal to be safe, but then midairs, crashes, mistakes etc, then become an honor system thing and that's not exactly ideal.  

With the Sam refreshing, can you alter the time for reloading from 30 mins?  Also, if that SAM is destroyed in say a DEAD exercise, will it come back or will the destruction be meaningful and permanent?

[cfrag]

3 hours ago, remus77 said:

Is the missile removal reliable? 

It is, but even the best predictive calculations can be messed up with latency. I guess you will have to experiment. And leave the explosion option off, that is definitely unhealthy if you fly in close proximity to each other.

3 hours ago, remus77 said:

With the Sam refreshing, can you alter the time for reloading from 30 mins?

Yes, quite easily so. In DML, all settings are done with via the Trigger Zone's attributes. Simply open the pulser's Trigger Zone in ME, look for the "time" attribute and set it to 30 * 60 = 1800 . There's some documentation available, and the doc also covers all demo missions in detail. You should get the hang of how DML works quite quickly.

3 hours ago, remus77 said:

Also, if that SAM is destroyed in say a DEAD exercise, will it come back or will the destruction be meaningful and permanent

Well, that depends on how you set up the pulser and SAM. If you wire the SAM's 'empty+1' (all units destroyed) flag into the pulser's 'pause?' attribute, the pulser stops sending refresh signals after the 'paused' flag changed, and the SAM will no longer refresh. DML is a bit like a modular electronic kit in this regard. 

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by cfrag