Mission: Flexible Defense (SP/MP)

[MBot]

Provide air support to a battalion sized defensive operation. Includes singleplayer and multiplayer versions. The mission features custom made radio calls of the ground forces, make sure to listen what they have to say about the situation on the ground. The size of your operation area gives room for different approaches and the mission features several ways how the battle can unfold. This should offer some pretty good replayability.

 

http://cid-f33d8b1019e6f4ac.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/FlexibleDefense.zip

(File updated on 7. Feb with some small fixes)

 

I am quite happy how this mission turned out. The custom radio calls are better this time around, although you should not expect professional quality. I can change my voice only so much and my accent just doesn't want to go away :) Speaking those samples is actually really difficult. I guess I said each of them around 20 times...

 

I hope you enjoy the mission and suggestions are as always welcome.

 

 

 

 

Sitrep:

Your squadron of the 45th Helicopter Regiment has been deployed to support the operations of the 413th Mechanized Rifle Regiment, 4th Guards Tank Division. You are currently stationed at Krymsk AB.

 

This morning the 1st US Marine Division begun their breakout from their bridghead at Kerch strait. Because of the swiftness of the operation, our resistance has only been light until now. A battalion task force of the 413th Mechanized Rifle Regiment has been ordered to delay the enemy advance in the Utash-Ivanov sector to buy time for the division to organize the main defensive effort around Krymsk.

 

Mission:

You are tasked to lead a flight of 2 Ka-50 to provide air support to the defensive operation of the battalion task force in the Utash-Ivanov sector. Engage enemy armor within the boundaries of your operations area as indicated on the map to minimize friendly losses and prevent the enemy from crossing phase line (PL) BROWN and PL ORANGE. Monitor the battalion radio command net for the latest recon reports.

 

The following units are operating in your OA:

KEEPER - Battalion HQ

FALCON 1 - Recon section guarding PL YELLOW.

FALCON 2 - Recon section guarding PL GREEN.

FALCON 3 - Recon section guarding PL BLUE.

TIGER - Company team holding the hills N-E of Dzhiginka. Will fall back to alternate position at PL BROWN.

LION - Company team holding the height S-E of Utash. Will fall back to alternate position at PL ORANGE.

BEAR - Company team holding PL BROWN and ORANGE.

RHINO - 152mm artillery battery provides indirect fire support.

 

Expected threats are M1 tanks and LAV-25 IFV. Avenger and Stinger SAM are reported west of PL YELLOW, GREEN and BLUE. A Hawk SAM site has deployed at the coast, remain at low altitude.

Edited February 7, 2009 by MBot

[Dusty Rhodes]

Downloaded and will try tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for your efforts

[S7_Viper]

I cant wait to play this.... Thank you for taking the time to make it!!

[Kurtz]

Yeah thx again, keep up the good work :)

[EvilBivol-1]

Looking forward to playing this, as usual.

 

Think I caught a few typos/errors in the briefing.

[MBot]

Think I caught a few typos/errors in the briefing.

 

Go ahead with them.

[MrReynolds]

I'm getting a corrupted file......

:huh:

 

EDIT: Downloading fine now. :music_whistling:

Edited February 6, 2009 by MrReynolds

[Sunjah]

I'm getting a corrupted file......

:huh:

 

This might be one that downloads as a *.zip, you have to rename it to a *.miz file. Maybe that will sove it. I'm trying it now.

[MBot]

No, it is actually a real zip file (includes 2 missions, SP and MP).

 

I just watched 4 friends play the mission in multiplayer, and there seem to be issues. Radio calls are not in sync or not heard by all. Also the mission balancing gets thrown off with so much fire power. Please note that the mission is designed for single player and wprks best as such. The MP version is just a quick conversion without further re-balancing.

[Sunjah]

Yup, I started her up in Single Player and it worked fine. I would download again if it is still saying corruption.

[miguez]

Played it last night in SP. I am still learning my strategies, even though I can handle the helo and weapons, so it didn't take long to get shot down.

 

The radio calls were very well done, MBot, nice voice and accent! I made my way to the OA waypoint (WP 3 in the PVI), then proceeded pretty much on a 270 heading at slower pace, with the Shkval in scan mode.

 

I ended up close to what I believe was Falcon 2, while TIGER was on the radio taking fire and retreating. The enemy forces seemed to be crossing PL BLUE first, and afetr getting a couple of shots out at what looked to be an M1 Abrams as well as an M1097 Avenger, I was hit without warning (my wingman had gone West on a recce and got shot down).

 

It turns out I was hit once by another M1097 Avenger as well as a manpad.

 

As I said before, I am still trying to develop battle techniques. It seems I am still getting too close to the enemy, something that seems easy to do if not paying attention.

 

All in all, very imersive, and I am looking forward to playing again and trying to win it!

 

Best regards, and thanks for the great work,

[EvilBivol-1]

Go ahead with them.

I don't mean to nitpick.

You are tasked to lead a flight of 2 Ka-50 to provide air support to the defenisve operation of the battalion task force in the Utash-Ivanov sector. Engage enemy armor within the boundaris of your operations area as idicated on the map...

[MBot]

Ok, thanks. For the next mission I might give it to someone for prove reading. I have a hard time finding errors in my own texts (brain always already knows what is supposed to be written there).

[uhoh7]

Nice one Mbot.

 

Love the terrain---thought it was all flat out there, but you have those very low rolling hills and nice farm land.

 

Nice touch on take off, just about hit that monster.

 

I had no issue with Sams but stayed very low. My wingman was all over the abrahms, which looked great appearing at fairly close range--he even survived the mission.

 

Also nice fire mission.

 

My only suggestion would be to add a second threat triggered by success against first perhaps on northern flank.

 

Thanks so much for another very fun mission.

[TX-Kingsnake]

I noticed missions with audio often trigger at the wrong times or all at once. This may have something to do with multiplayer triggers or flags. It is not just your missions. Trav hosted this mission for multiplayer and had a system freeze twice. It may be a setting on his machine.

[MadTommy]

Thanks for this mission, good work.

 

The radio voices were very quite for me.. but they were nice touch and i got the gist.."run away, run away!!"

[MBot]

I noticed missions with audio often trigger at the wrong times or all at once. This may have something to do with multiplayer triggers or flags. It is not just your missions. Trav hosted this mission for multiplayer and had a system freeze twice. It may be a setting on his machine.

 

My suspicion is that everyone activates his own flags and that 'time since flag' is then different for each one. On this mission the initiation of the ground operation could be done by any of the helos. On my previous missions I had only the lead helo being able to initaite the operation and those seemed to work in sync in multiplayer for everyone. Downside of course is that the mission doesn't work without lead helo.

 

I think I will upload a updated version with above changes, which sound like a reasonable compromise until the patch. I will also include the corrections of the briefing and possibly a fix for the Hawk SAM (I must have done a change at the end of creating the mission that reduces their effect on gameplay that was not intended).

 

 

uhoh7, if you play the mission some more times you will see that the ground battle can develop differently ;)

[TX-Kingsnake]

Trav changed a graphics setting and the mission didn't freeze. I agree, everyone activates his own flags. Nice work.

[MBot]

I updated the download in the first post with a new version. The multiplayer mission should work in sync now (hopefully). Be aware though that the first helo (with lowest number) must cross the Initial Point for the mission to work correctly.

 

If you are only interested in single player, I would say it is not worth to re-download (although I included some small fixes to the briefing and the Hawk SAM).

[EtherealN]

If you have issues trying to use your own one voice to get several people talking on the radion I would recommend using MorphVOX. It's basically a real-time voice changer that even allows you to "simulate" believable voices of the opposite sex. (I cringe at the thought of how many times that feature have been used on Ventrilo servers out there... :D )

 

Payware unfortunately (40 dollars US) but there is a trial version of some sort out there: http://www.screamingbee.com/product/morphvox.aspx

 

Been thinking of reinstalling it myself if I end up making some properly advanced missions for DCS.

[EvilBivol-1]

Finally had a chance to run this in MP last night. Enjoyed your carefully positioned units and movements, as always. Battle comms are also good and helped with SA.

 

The only significant suggestion I can offer for improvement is to better encode your audio files to minimize the mission file size. If you notice, ED's Deployment campaign features a lot of recorded radio messages, but most missions are hardly a megabyte in size.

 

ED's recommendation for recording radio comms samples: use the equalizer in a sound editing program to reduce the sample to phone frequency range, i.e. cut out everythin below 300 and above 3000 Hz. Add some noise (presets or custom), normalize. To minimize size, render in mono.

 

I also found your audio to be much quieter than the simulation.

 

Otherwise another great mission. Thanks and looking forward to the next.

[MBot]

ED's recommendation for recording radio comms samples: use the equalizer in a sound editing program to reduce the sample to phone frequency range, i.e. cut out everythin below 300 and above 3000 Hz. Add some noise (presets or custom), normalize. To minimize size, render in mono.

 

 

Thanks, those tips are appreciated. Should I also go for .ogg files instead of .wav?

[TX-Kingsnake]

Thanks, those tips are appreciated. Should I also go for .ogg files instead of .wav?

 

I tried ogg and ended up with a pretty big file. It may be that I am more familliar with wav files and can get the missions down to just over 1 meg now. I prefer the volume level you used in your missions over loud white noise. I keep the audio out of the red zone and into the yellow so people can understand the audio and not be annoyed by volume which could be harmful. 16 or 8 bit 22khz mono makes it sound closer to a radio and limits the file size.

[EvilBivol-1]

Thanks, those tips are appreciated. Should I also go for .ogg files instead of .wav?

Off the top of my head, one file type tends to be larger, while the other tends to cause a more noticeable stutter in-game at the beginning of playback. I just don't remember which is which. Will get back to you with that...

[AlphaInfinity]

How many multiplayer slots are there? I am looking for MP maps with up to 12 MP slots(and the mission is designed for 10 MP aircraft). 10 would be perfect.