Pretense - Dynamic Campaign

[zildac]

The mission info gives you either coordinates, or a zone name if its location specific. If you do not get location info in the description then the mission can be completed anywhere.
Waypoints are set for each zone for convenience. Kneeboard contains cards, listing positions of each zone in alphabetical order, together with their waypoints.

Thanks for clarifying.

[4eyes]

I am playing Single Player.

I deleted the DCS. Log File.

I have run DCS BETA fix twice. (Check & Repair all files)

I have re-installed your software twice. Down loaded two separate times on two different days.

The error message is still there.

Frustrated.........

[Abburo]

On 7/22/2023 at 11:08 PM, JCae2798 said:

g my own aircraft I had the missions freeze up after adding additional slots.  Testing this further i see i had to name the aircrafts a very specific way i believe.  Is this a requirement?  I see F18 were missing so was trying to add this and the Apache into the mix...  I also assume we need to add it to all respective Airports, correct?

Additionally we should NOT replace existing placements of client aircrafts?

That file is overwritten after each DCS update. You need to change it again!

[Dzsekeb]

3 hours ago, 4eyes said:

I am playing Single Player.

I deleted the DCS. Log File.

I have run DCS BETA fix twice. (Check & Repair all files)

I have re-installed your software twice. Down loaded two separate times on two different days.

The error message is still there.

Frustrated.........

The changes get undone with dcs updates or with running a repair.

The Persistence Disabled message happens only if the MissionScripting.lua was not edited correctly, specifically if the lfs and io modules are not made available to the mission environment by commenting out the mentioned lines.

 

[MarvK]

Hey Dzsekeb, 

Loving your Caucasus and Syria pretense missions!

Note on the Syria mission, Unless I missed them, I noticed there are no A-10C II Aircraft in the mission editor. I did swap out the A-10C’s for the A-10C II’s No problem, but I noticed that the group names for the A-10C’s are named for the A-4E’s?

If I rename the group names to the correct aircraft is that going to mess up the scripting And create any scripting errors?

Thanks for all the work on the missions they are awesome!

[Dzsekeb]

7 hours ago, MarvK said:

Hey Dzsekeb, 

Loving your Caucasus and Syria pretense missions!

Note on the Syria mission, Unless I missed them, I noticed there are no A-10C II Aircraft in the mission editor. I did swap out the A-10C’s for the A-10C II’s No problem, but I noticed that the group names for the A-10C’s are named for the A-4E’s?

If I rename the group names to the correct aircraft is that going to mess up the scripting And create any scripting errors?

Thanks for all the work on the missions they are awesome!

There are no A-10Cs in the syria mission. Its mid coldwar era. Modern weapons and aircraft are out of place for it

[4eyes]

19 hours ago, Dzsekeb said:

The Persistence Disabled message happens only if the MissionScripting.lua was not edited correctly, specifically if the lfs and io modules are not made available to the mission environment by commenting out the mentioned lines.

Now I am really confused.   I tried again. I re-set everything. I still get the error message.

Frustrated.

[Dzsekeb]

12 minutes ago, 4eyes said:

Now I am really confused.   I tried again. I re-set everything. I still get the error message.

Frustrated.

I dont know what else to tell you. It seems to work for everyone else, as far as I know.

[zildac]

21 minutes ago, 4eyes said:

Now I am really confused.   I tried again. I re-set everything. I still get the error message.

Frustrated.

Complete Hail Mary, but have you tried running DCS as administrator?

Loving this so far, but incredibly challenging SAM and AA wise as a single AV8 pilot Would be great if there was a way to spwan in CAP and SEAD flights, but I guess that's not the point here, right? That's a job for TTI for example. But I much prefer the mechanics of your approach.

Edited July 26, 2023 by zildac

[zildac]

I just tried adding AV8 slots to the Syria mission, simply changed an existing F16 client to an AV8 and the mission crashed when I select the slot. Is there more than that required, and is there a reason there are no AV8s on the Syria version?

[Dzsekeb]

25 minutes ago, zildac said:

I just tried adding AV8 slots to the Syria mission, simply changed an existing F16 client to an AV8 and the mission crashed when I select the slot. Is there more than that required, and is there a reason there are no AV8s on the Syria version?

I don't know where you found an f16 slot considering its a coldwar era mission and ive only put modules that were apropriate to that era. 

[zildac]

5 minutes ago, Dzsekeb said:

I don't know where you found an f16 slot considering its a coldwar era mission and ive only put modules that were apropriate to that era. 

OK, perhaps I was mistaken re the original client. But, fair enough, thanks for clarifying.

[SlipHavoc]

Hey, just wanted to say I just tried out both Pretense campaigns a few days ago and I've been having a lot of fun with them so far.  I've done both single player and MP with a friend and it's been great.  Good challenge, no significant bugs that we've noticed, and a good sense of progression and stuff going on around the entire battlefield.  Great work!

I have one bit of feedback so far, that I thought about while trying some different settings and planes: Could the persistent save game be saved with a filename that is the same as the filename of the Pretense mission file itself, and then only loaded by that same mission file?  Or is there some other way to have multiple saves without having to manually swap save files around?  My thinking is that we could have one copy of the mission file (and save file) for MP, and one for SP, with different names, or copies of the mission file with different planes changed, different starting time or weather selected, etc.

Anyway, thanks again!

 

Edit: After some messing around in the script file, I wasn't able to get Lua to output the name of the script file it's running from.  I'm guessing because it's actually embedded in other scripts and then running inside the game environment.  I was using basically a variation of this:

local fullpath = debug.getinfo(1,"S").source:sub(2)

Maybe someone who knows more Lua than I do could come up with something that works.  However I think I did find a workaround, which is to add a little bit of logic in init.lua and pretense_compiled.lua, replacing this line:

local dir = lfs.writedir()..'Missions/Saves/'

With this:

local saveFolder = 'Missions/Saves/'
if Config.saveFolder then
	saveFolder = saveFolder..Config.saveFolder..'/'
end
local dir = lfs.writedir()..saveFolder

Now you can make copies of that mission file, named whatever you want, edit them however you want, and in each mission, in the editor, add a Do Script at the top of the Mission Start trigger with the following:

Config = Config or {}
Config.saveFolder = 'MyPretenseSaveFolder'

Then it will save and load all the persistence into Missions/Saves/MyPretenseSaveFolder, or whatever folder you specify.

Edited August 1, 2023 by SlipHavoc

[wowbagger]

Would anyone happen to know if auto-waypoints can be disabled by commenting out/removing lines in the lua somewhere?

Cheers

[Dzsekeb]

1 minute ago, wowbagger said:

Would anyone happen to know if auto-waypoints can be disabled by commenting out/removing lines in the lua somewhere?

Cheers

Autowaypoints? 

[wowbagger]

Sorry, I mean the waypoints for every zone which get put into the players' aircraft database automatically. Some aircraft can't delete waypoints and it makes the HSD difficult/impossible to use effectively.

[Dzsekeb]

4 minutes ago, wowbagger said:

Sorry, I mean the waypoints for every zone which get put into the players' aircraft database automatically. Some aircraft can't delete waypoints and it makes the HSD difficult/impossible to use effectively.

You can delete them from the mission editor, or find the template aircraft near batumi, delete its waypoints and run the mission through my MassWaypointEdit app(look it up on my github) 

Edited July 29, 2023 by Dzsekeb

[wowbagger]

9 minutes ago, Dzsekeb said:

You can delete them from the mission editor, or find the template aircraft near batumi, delete its waypoints and run the mission through my MassWaypointEdit app(look it up on my github)

Awesome! Thanks very much.

And thank you for the fantastic missions. Pretense really increases the enjoyment of playing DCS. I know you've put a ton of work into this and it's really appreciated. It's frankly a bit shocking that ED didn't add something similar to this to the base game years ago.

[wowbagger]

On 7/29/2023 at 12:08 PM, Dzsekeb said:

... run the mission through my MassWaypointEdit app(look it up on my github)

That worked perfectly. Thanks again!

[4eyes]

About 5 days ago I was able to get Pretense running correctly. I really like it!   I am a single player. I have been playing Pretense and Retribution daily, comparing the two. I prefer the Pretense approach of capturing sections of the map verses Retributions moving front lines. However, comparing the two using the same map (Syria), I have been getting 90-110 fps for Retribution, but only 38-44 fps with Pretense?  With Pretense, I also get some jittering and lag. If you can improve the fps to 60 or above, without dropping settings, then it would really be something!  

[ww3231]

Would it be possible to make ammo depots a bit easier to blow up? Currently most "destroy structures at x" are impossible on helos since hellfires dont even scratch them. Same for command centers.

[Abburo]

Use 

2 minutes ago, ww3231 said:

Would it be possible to make ammo depots a bit easier to blow up? Currently most "destroy structures at x" are impossible on helos since hellfires dont even scratch them. Same for command centers.

In this situation you have  to use the Sabotage Squad with helis... plan your attack accordingly. 

[Dzsekeb]

5 minutes ago, ww3231 said:

Would it be possible to make ammo depots a bit easier to blow up? Currently most "destroy structures at x" are impossible on helos since hellfires dont even scratch them. Same for command centers.

No.

Hellfires are tiny. You cant expect to be able to take out heavily fortified structures with them. You need to use heavier bombs, preferably penetrators.

Also weapon damage is completely handled by DCS, not by the mission.

[ww3231]

1 hour ago, Abburo said:

Use 

In this situation you have  to use the Sabotage Squad with helis... plan your attack accordingly. 

Oh I am a newb, didnt realize I could command AI

[Dzsekeb]

14 minutes ago, ww3231 said:

Oh I am a newb, didnt realize I could command AI

You dont. 

You can deploy specialized infantry squads with transport helicopters/hercules mod.