Pretense - Dynamic Campaign

[Dzsekeb]

Pretense is my second attempt at creating a persistent dynamic campaign for DCS.

If you've enjoyed my previous work, Foothold, you might enjoy this one as well.

Download

User manual

Trailer

Discord invite

Features:

• Dynamic AI tasking - available AI are sent where they are needed based on the state of the frontline
• Basic economy - every unit and building requires supplies to be deployed, AI runs supply lines, as well as intercepts supplies of the enemy.
• Persistence - as with Foothold, the campaign remembers where you left off
• Dynamic player missions - pick up missions from a mission board and complete them either alone or together with friends to earn XP and rise through the ranks
• Player logistics - deploy various infantry squads and extract them once they complete their mission, deliver supplies, rescue friendly pilots
• Built-in performance optimizations - activity is concentrated around the frontline and zones farther back automatically reduce the amount of unnecessary units

Edit: 
Pretense Syria Cold War now available!

Download

Edit 2:
Pretense Syria (Modern version) now available!
Download

Edited August 11, 2023 by Dzsekeb

[cfrag]

I've been awaiting this one even more eagerly than the F-15E! Thanks, @Dzsekeb!

[Roy35150]

Thank you...

[gunterlund]

nice we plan to give it a go... 

 

[edmuss]

Had a quick play and it all seems to work very nicely so far

[Oceandar]

Definitely gonna try it out today.

Thanks

[RedeyeStorm]

Hello @Dzsekeb,

I love these kind of missions but I prefer SP. Is there a possibility to add AI wingmen to the flights?

[edmuss]

4 hours ago, RedeyeStorm said:

Hello @Dzsekeb,

I love these kind of missions but I prefer SP. Is there a possibility to add AI wingmen to the flights?

Certainly on the Foothold missions you could edit the mission to add AI wingmen to whichever unit you wanted to, I did so at the start of Foothold because I play SP only and needed a bit of a helping hand/bullet screen

[Reccelow]

Excellent job on this, enjoying it a lot.  

I only fly SP and was able to test adding a carrier and Moose/Airboss. Both work, no issues.

Can I add a linked trigger zone in ME to the carrier then configure it to a Blue Command zone to accept missions on deck?  For now I'm launching, landing at Batumi, rearm & dial/accept a mission. 

[Reccelow]

Ok, figured a method to add carrier ops in for single player. I don't do multiplayer so cant say if this works or not for that.

1. Add in your Moose & Airboss script triggers as "Mission Start" item and at the top of the list

2. In ME, find the "Batumi" command trigger zone zone that covers the whole Batumi base area (not any of the smaller zones inside it).  It is a DCS "Quad Point" trigger zone. 

3.  Click "edit" to extend two sides of the zone out to an area that can cover your carrier placement.  I've used a distance of 180nm which gives my carrier a run of 40nm and dosent distort the stock area over Batumi too much, enough to cover a typical carrier cycle of about 30nm (I set my Airboss recovery windows for 1 hour which matches well) then the carrier will run back to its starting point to begin the second cycle still in the extended Batumi command zone.

4. Now when you spawn on deck, you can select and accept missions.

 

 

 

 

[Dzsekeb]

Over the past few days I've released updates v1.0.1 and v1.0.2 that contains fixes for the issues reported since release.

You can redownload the mission from userfiles to get the updated version.

Changelog can be found at the end of the user manual, here

[khaos0556]

Are there any future plans to make this new campaign available via the other maps (ie. PG, Sinai, Syria, etc etc)? I think having dynamic availability in all DCS maps would be amazing.

[Dzsekeb]

7 hours ago, khaos0556 said:

Are there any future plans to make this new campaign available via the other maps (ie. PG, Sinai, Syria, etc etc)? I think having dynamic availability in all DCS maps would be amazing.

Asside from bugfixing and polishing I'm currently taking a break from making anything new. This one took way too much time and effort.

[OldManMike]

Am 7.6.2023 um 06:36 schrieb Dzsekeb:

Pretense is my second attempt at creating a persistent dynamic campaign for DCS.

If you've enjoyed my previous work, Foothold, you might enjoy this one as well.

Download

User manual

Trailer

Discord invite

Features:

• Dynamic AI tasking - available AI are sent where they are needed based on the state of the frontline
• Basic economy - every unit and building requires supplies to be deployed, AI runs supply lines, as well as intercepts supplies of the enemy.
• Persistence - as with Foothold, the campaign remembers where you left off
• Dynamic player missions - pick up missions from a mission board and complete them either alone or together with friends to earn XP and rise through the ranks
• Player logistics - deploy various infantry squads and extract them once they complete their mission, deliver supplies, rescue friendly pilots
• Built-in performance optimizations - activity is concentrated around the frontline and zones farther back automatically reduce the amount of unnecessary units

 

Hi, i'm new to this game. Can you tell me where to put/install this .miz and .lua files? I can't find  anything about this in the github tutorial.
And i would like to play it as single player, so how can i command the KI to fly with me or to do other stuff? As i've the FC3 package and would like to fly the SU-27/33...

Edited June 12, 2023 by OldManMike

[edmuss]

Drop them into the missions folder in your saved games/DCS folder in windows explorer, they will then show up in the missions menu in DCS.

[HappyVoo]

First of all thanks to the author and again for a beautiful task~！

I ran into a problem. When performing missions, the frontline airfield is easily destroyed by the opposite SEAD team destroying the SAM position radar. The surface-to-air missile group radar is destroyed, so the air defense position of this airport will no longer exist. Can you add a repair, repair the destroyed radar to the SAM group, for example, consume 10k supplies to repair the SAM group (provided that at least the last group unit is still alive)
Just a suggestion, I respect your wishes, thanks again for a great task.

[Dzsekeb]

15 minutes ago, HappyVoo said:

First of all thanks to the author and again for a beautiful task~！

I ran into a problem. When performing missions, the frontline airfield is easily destroyed by the opposite SEAD team destroying the SAM position radar. The surface-to-air missile group radar is destroyed, so the air defense position of this airport will no longer exist. Can you add a repair, repair the destroyed radar to the SAM group, for example, consume 10k supplies to repair the SAM group (provided that at least the last group unit is still alive)
Just a suggestion, I respect your wishes, thanks again for a great task.

It does already get repaired, eventually. The zone just has to have time and resources, and will eventually pick the repair task, which costs half of the original cost of the group, but progress does get reset if the group is attacked again during this time. This is the same for both coalitions. 

[negrete]

Amazing Work thanks a lot your missions they are really incredible. Did a try yesterday with some friends and was great.

[edmuss]

I've not managed to spend any particular time flying (middle of a heatwave so >32°C just isn't that comfy to spend a long time in VR) but do the missions repeat after they've been dialled in once?  Say you dial in a mission to destroy 5 gound targets, it dissapears off the mission list, should it eventually repopulate onto the list?

[Dzsekeb]

18 minutes ago, edmuss said:

I've not managed to spend any particular time flying (middle of a heatwave so >32°C just isn't that comfy to spend a long time in VR) but do the missions repeat after they've been dialled in once?  Say you dial in a mission to destroy 5 gound targets, it dissapears off the mission list, should it eventually repopulate onto the list?

There are 16 types of missions, some of them have multiple variations. The mission board has a capacity of 10 missions at one time. When a mission is accepted, expires, or it is not possible to complete anymore due to changes in the battlefield it gets removed from the mission board, and replaced by a new one. 

New missions are generated depending on the objectives that can be completed at the time. So, for example, there needs to be an enemy zone with a radar in it for the SEAD mission to appear, or there needs to be an infantry squad ready to extract for the Extraction mission to show up.

There's one mission type that does not have dependencies, and can show up at any time. This is the CAS mission where the objective is to destroy X units. Technically the dependency is "X units exist on the map to destroy", but this occurs only at the very end of the campaign, and checking for it just seemed too costly and unnecessary.

Did that answer your question?

[edmuss]

Perfect thanks, due to the dynamic nature I figured it wouldn't be as simple as "here's a list of missions, once one is selected tick it off and don't show it again", if the easier missions will repeat (CAS takout out 3 ground targets for example) it will be nice to be able just jump in and spend 20 minutes hunting a convoy to help with the overall campaign without needing to invest lots of time in it all the time

[OldManMike]

Am 9.6.2023 um 13:20 schrieb edmuss:

Certainly on the Foothold missions you could edit the mission to add AI wingmen to whichever unit you wanted to, I did so at the start of Foothold because I play SP only and needed a bit of a helping hand/bullet screen

Hi, that sounds good! can anyone tell me exactly how to edit this mission for adding AI wingman?
 

Hello @Dzsekeb,

you did really a fantastic job - I admire that!
But is there a way to allocate the planes/vehicles to a party? For example, if fictionally I want to play Nato (blue) vs Russia (red), certain vehicles are assigned to a certain color. Because at the moment F-15 and SU-33 are flying for the same party, which is of course a bit unrealistic. Is there a way to edit this?

[Dzsekeb]

4 minutes ago, OldManMike said:

Hi, that sounds good! can anyone tell me exactly how to edit this mission for adding AI wingman?
 

Hello @Dzsekeb,

you did really a fantastic job - I admire that!
But is there a way to allocate the planes/vehicles to a party? For example, if fictionally I want to play Nato (blue) vs Russia (red), certain vehicles are assigned to a certain color. Because at the moment F-15 and SU-33 are flying for the same party, which is of course a bit unrealistic. Is there a way to edit this?

If you mean the client slots, you can edit them at will from the mission editor, but the campaign is not set up for pvp, and any players you set on the red side will have issues with anything done through the radio menu.

[Abburo]

Is anyone else experiencing problems with NASAMS being sort of inoperative? I found the nearby MANPADS being far more efficient getting down enemies than the NASAM itself... not to mention is totaly ignoring any incoming missile.

I'm pretty much sure is not about the mission but more with DCS itself. I'm just curios if is only on my side or is a general understanding?

[MadKreator]

21 minutes ago, Abburo said:

Is anyone else experiencing problems with NASAMS being sort of inoperative? I found the nearby MANPADS being far more efficient getting down enemies than the NASAM itself... not to mention is totaly ignoring any incoming missile.

I'm pretty much sure is not about the mission but more with DCS itself. I'm just curios if is only on my side or is a general understanding?

I think that is a dcs thing. They act the same way playing Liberation campaigns. Pretty erratic and never actually seem to hit anything