Airfield Capture

[gmangnall]

My understanding of airfield capture was that if one side had a unit on the zone then they owned the airfield and vice verse whilst if both teams has units present it was neutral. That is not the case. It seems that their is some sort of heirarchy where if say bluefor have an IFV in the zone and redfor send in infantry or a truck - there is no change of owner. Only if a more powerful (or equal) vehicle e.g. a tank enters does it become neutral.

 

Does anyone have precise details of how this works and the unit heirarchy?

Edited November 6, 2023 by gmangnall

[cfrag]

There is a 2km 'capture' zone around the center of the airfield. Note that the exact center of the airfield is difficult to tell for many airfields, so you may want to resort to scripting to exactly find out if you are interested in the exact location.

When one non-neutral side is the only side that has placed ground troops inside that zone, that side captures the airfield, and the owner switches to that faction (1 for red, 2 for blue).

So the owner can be 0 (neutral), 1 (red) or 2 (blue).

For some time now, there is a new mechanic that when red or blue holds an airfield, and the other warring faction (except neutral) places ground troops inside the 2 km zone, the owner becomes '3' - contested, which may be what you are referring to as 'neutral' (internally, the owner isn't neutral (0), but 3, a faction that does not (yet) exist).
Note also that there is an API accessible through Lua that allows you to turn off base capture mechanics for individual bases, and can force the ownership of a base to a faction (see here).

Ownership resolution happens after the highlander-rule: "there can only be one". Once that there are only ground forces from one faction (red or blue) remaining in the 2km zone, the airfield is then owned by that faction. Note that neither dead units, living static objects nor aircraft count, so a base filled with blue aircraft, dead blue ground units and living blue statics can be captured with a single red ground unit. Neutral units also don't count, and they can't capture bases.

I've seen some situations that seemingly contradict above rules, but mostly they were traced to some erroneous assumptions as to where the 2km zone actually is located, or falsely identified statics that were assumed to be active or dead units that were assumed alive. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong, so if you have examples, I'd love to see them and try to further my insight into this important, yet somewhat under-documented topic.

Edited November 7, 2023 by cfrag

[gmangnall]

Thanks but that's not really what I was after. It sems that its only contested when an equal or more powerful unit appears. So if a Red tanks holds a base and blue infantry arrive it's not contested. If red infantry hold the base and blue infantry arrive it IS contested so there is a heirarchy......I was looking to find out what that heriarchy is.

[cfrag]

6 hours ago, gmangnall said:

It sems that its only contested when an equal or more powerful unit appears.

That would indeed be important to know and interesting if it is implemented. I'll see if I can confirm that there is a more complex algorithm at work behind the scenes that will make an airfield transition from red/blue to contested. I believe that I have seen situations that would indeed suggest something like that, but for the life of me I wasn't able to positively confirm it. Maybe @Grimes has more insight into this?

[Grimes]

Last I tested it the only thing that mattered was any enemy coalition unit in the area caused it to be contested. It even applied to static objects. If there is a hierarchy or more going on then that would be a fairly recent change. More annoyingly it would be an undocumented change. 

 

Thankfully we do now have a way to turn it off via https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_func_autoCapture and to force a specific coalition to own a base via https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_func_setCoalition for instances where you don't like the rules that DCS dictates for ownership. 

[RenegadeMech40]

Asking here, as it seems the best place at the moment. I want to have an airbase that is red with red ground units such as SAM sites and tanks on the airfield. Blue fighters come in and destroy all red and the base flips to blue and only then do you see blue fighters show up in the list of approved starting points.. so basically work your way up a map, destroying red base after red base and once its flipped, you can now spawn there. Before its flipped, you cannot. I don't even want that spawn to show up in the list. Currently its still showing up as an option but you get the "Your flight is delayed" message. I don't even want it to be an option. 

[razo+r]

28 minutes ago, RenegadeMech40 said:

Asking here, as it seems the best place at the moment. I want to have an airbase that is red with red ground units such as SAM sites and tanks on the airfield. Blue fighters come in and destroy all red and the base flips to blue and only then do you see blue fighters show up in the list of approved starting points.. so basically work your way up a map, destroying red base after red base and once its flipped, you can now spawn there. Before its flipped, you cannot. I don't even want that spawn to show up in the list. Currently its still showing up as an option but you get the "Your flight is delayed" message. I don't even want it to be an option. 

So, what exactly is your question?

Besides that:

You need a script for blocking slots, but that won't prevent the slots from being visible in the slot selection. It just prevents from people to use the slots before a condition. For example: 

 

Other possible way would be to set a password for the slots that should not be used before a condition. This way it will prevent players without the password from spawning there and it also hides the slot.

Those are the two options I can think of right now.

[RenegadeMech40]

24 minutes ago, razo+r said:

So, what exactly is your question?

Besides that:

You need a script for blocking slots, but that won't prevent the slots from being visible in the slot selection. It just prevents from people to use the slots before a condition. For example: 

 

Other possible way would be to set a password for the slots that should not be used before a condition. This way it will prevent players without the password from spawning there and it also hides the slot.

Those are the two options I can think of right now.

Thanks, thats what I wanted to know. So it doesnt seem possible to hide slots until an airfield is captured. Thats fine. I dont want to start messing with scripts yet. Its just a map me and one friend like to fly on that we've built together. We'll just know that if the base isnt captured, you cant launch from there and your flight will "be delayed". Thanks

 

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

@Grimes

 

I had seen some behaviors in the past that made me suspect there is a hierarchy.

There is some kind of GetThreatLevel API that returns a number or something isn't there?  I suspect they are getting that number and doing rock-paper-scissors.

 

I made a test with FARPs.  

ME ownership neutral with various combinations of units in the capture range (ROE Hold fire so they don't immediately die).

Here is what I saw.  Test miz attached.

Blue vs Red = winner
----------------------
tank vs tank = contested
tank vs infantry = Blue
tank vs truck = Blue
truck no enemy = Blue
infantry no enemy = Blue
scout HMMWV vs lots infantry = Blue
infantry vs more infantry = contested

additional test not in screenshot:

truck vs static container = contested
infantry vs static container =  contested
static container no enemy = Blue

truck vs static FARP Tent = contested
infantry vs static FARP Tent = contested
FARP Test vs no enemy = Blue

truck vs static Bunker 2 = Red
infantry vs static Bunker 2 = Red

null

 

capture_test.miz

Edited November 28, 2023 by [HOUNDS] CptTrips

[cfrag]

12 hours ago, [HOUNDS] CptTrips said:

I made a test with FARPs.  

That is an EXCELLENT test case mission, thank you so much! And so much simpler than what I tried to come up with. I'll see if I can make some more sense of it.

[[HOUNDS] CptTrips]

5 hours ago, cfrag said:

That is an EXCELLENT test case mission, thank you so much! And so much simpler than what I tried to come up with. I'll see if I can make some more sense of it.

Thanks.  Glad I could help.

In general it seems

1. Something beats nothing obviously.  I even had a situation where a marker tyre I had forgot to set to neutral owner was capturing a FARP when no other units in range.  Quite unexpected.

2.  Armor beats infantry

3.  Armed beats unarmed

4. Count doesn't seem to matter.  one infantry against 10 infantry is still evenly contested.

 

Some surprising edge cases..

Unarmed static shipping containers and canvas tents seem to have magical powers that defend against even armed infantry.

An orca whale static will capture a FARP.  I guess that IS a killer whale after all.

Or even an aggressive cow set to a coalition.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by [HOUNDS] CptTrips

[gmangnall]

@Grimes If only I knew how to do LUA coding. I can occasionally bodge something is there is examples to plagiarise...but "nothing Airbase.autoCapture(Class Self , boolean setting )" might as well be in chinese