New, full-featured SP Mission: "Midnight Run"

[Mirtma]

@ Mirtma: I do now what can have happened to your download, I just downloaded it myself and there are just 3 files, as intended, bith .miz files (runway and ramp starts) and the readme. The .ogg files are part of the .miz files and should not be broken out. You just put the .miz files in C:\user\saved games\dcs Warthog\missions. Try redownloading as this sounds very anomalous.

 

Yesterday I've downloaded it few times always with same result. Just now I've downloaded it again and now it's OK. Strange. Tnx.

[Rainmaker]

Well, this is an anomaly. As I said, the JTAC lased the SAM by mistake when I placed it in the same village but after I moved it a long way out of the JTAC's LOS, it never happened again in multiple playthroughs. There's no way it's an intended function; in the JTAC menu in the ME you select a specific target for lasing (in this case the bunker) and the JTAC lases it every time as long as he has LOS. I hope there are not too many players experiencing this.

 

 

Like I say, not too much of a suprise as I have seen it before...all in different missions, so it's difinetly not anything you did wrong. Although it was a snag, the mission still played through.

[Avatar72]

Ok, I take off, set my radio to 140.00 and contact JTAC and they tell me no tasking is available. The directions say to contact before reaching WP4 so I contact them after reaching WP3 and this is what I get.

I also tried much earlier and got the same result.

What could I possibly be missing?

[Bahger]

@Avatar72: You have the wrong frequency.

 

JTAC Warrior is 30.00FM

 

140.00AM is Vaziani ATC.

 

It's all in the briefing.

 

Call Warrior at 30nm from your primary on ingress. You can call him any time but 30nm will give you enough time to get all the data and line up for the laser cue without having to orbit at the IP.

[Avatar72]

@Avatar72: You have the wrong frequency.

 

JTAC Warrior is 30.00FM

 

140.00AM is Vaziani ATC.

 

It's all in the briefing.

 

Call Warrior at 30nm from your primary on ingress. You can call him any time but 30nm will give you enough time to get all the data and line up for the laser cue without having to orbit at the IP.

 

Hmmmm. Looking at the ingame briefing, it said to contact AFAC Dodge 2 on the frequency I listed earlier. I dont see anything on the ingame briefing for 30.00FM

 

 

....ok...This is amusing. Your mission is called Midnight Run. I knew that loading the game. I went to missions and clicked the first Midnight mission I saw....Midnight Train to Georgia...:)

[Druid_]

Hey Badger, looking forward to trying out your mission, havent got the time atm due to work. Just a thought on messaging which is true to life.

 

Rather than just display the message after an event (e.g. unit/group destroyed), display something like "Hawg_XX message/tasking ready to copy?". Add a line to your F10 radio menu along the lines of "Hawg_xx, go ahead", 200 where 200 is the flag set when used. You can then go ahead on flag set and clear the radio menu and display/ogg the message.

 

Could also add a "Hawg_xx say again" to get him to repeat last message along with maybe an "Hawg_xx copied" which when used allows you to clear all radio calls in F10 and any messages/flags etc.

 

Anyway, just a thought. Keep up the good work.

[Bahger]

Excellent idea, Druid, I will definitely do it that way next time. Thanks!

 

And let me know what you think of the .miz if you get a moment.

Edited April 14, 2011 by Bahger

[dne48]

I love this mission. Now have changed the time of day and next will add some weather affects. A variety of options to keep this one exciting. Thanks

[Bahger]

I love this mission. Now have changed the time of day and next will add some weather affects. A variety of options to keep this one exciting. Thanks

 

Great! I thought about setting some challenging weather but after hours and hours of testing timings and triggers decided to push it out the door.

 

Would you send me your amended versions? Only when they're ready, no hurry.

[dne48]

Great! I thought about setting some challenging weather but after hours and hours of testing timings and triggers decided to push it out the door.

 

Would you send me your amended versions? Only when they're ready, no hurry.

 

I have only changed the time once and also the weather. Each time is done through the mission editor and when saved, I just overwrite the previous one and keep your orignal mission on my hard drive. I've not edited anything else so its just a matter of those small changes. A busy weekend for me but next week if I find a setting (weather and time of day) that I think you might be interested in, I will save it and get it to you. Thanks again

[Zenra]

I finally had time to try this mission over the weekend and just wanted to come back and thank Bahger again for creating an interesting and immersive mission. I had a lot of fun flying it, even though I have yet to complete it successfully (due to my own mistakes).

 

I took the approach Bahger outlined in his hints post earlier in this thread of lasing the primary myself. I want to try it again and see if I really need to do this, or if the laser spot from the ground team is sufficient in the sim to guide my bomb on to the bunker. Has anybody tried this yet?

 

Banger, I really liked the voice work and the way the mission developed. Very nice use of triggers to make the player feel part of something dynamic. I liked the realistic feeling of the mission, too. The backdrop was very believable and the mission setting and time were perfect for drawing me in and keeping me immersed. I am learning the ME bit by bit myself and hope to one day be able to contribute stuff like this, but I do hope you will continue to produce more like this one, especially SP.

 

I highly recommend this mission to anybody looking for a good SP experience. Way to go Bahger!

[Bahger]

Thanks so much for the encouraging response, Zenra. It's much appreciated, as mission-making is deceptively time consuming, it's probably about 100+ hours per .miz to get it right!

 

Did you do the ramp start? It's a bit challenging in total darkness and the only available parking spot is a complex taxi to the runway. I don't know which targets you were assigned, but as I mentioned in the notes, it takes at least two playthroughs to be assigned all available targets.

 

My next .miz is slightly simpler, I wanted to do A-10s in their "traditional" role, supporting a set-piece daytime assault by an armored task force on a town. I make missions partly to improve my own specific flying/fighting skills and this .miz will be the opposite of MR: low level, mixing it up with SA-19s, not for the faint of heart but very do-able.

 

Thanks again, and post here if you have any questions or suggestions.

[Zenra]

Yes, I did the ramp start and it was somewhat challenging getting all the lights the way I liked them. The taxi was indeed a challenge and I took off probably 8 minutes or so late. I made up a little time on the way in and probably was over the target 5 minutes late.

 

I was assigned a group of tanks to start and then an APC with infantry. My wingmen took out an SA-9 but was later hit by another and didn't make it out. I plan to try the mission again, several times in fact, to see if I can arrive on target on time and see what other targets become available.

 

I would rate this mission somewhat challenging technically, but not too challenging from a threat perspective (although my wingmen might beg to differ...). You definitely need to know the A-10 and it's systems, but for me that's a lot of the fun and so this is just the kind of mission I look for. Thanks again for putting it together.

 

Supporting an armored attack on a town sounds fun. It's fun using the TGP to scope out targets hidden among buildings and trees, so my request would be to make your next mission challenging in that way. Finding targets "AFAC style" is a very fun part of DCS, IMO - I just wish I could mark targets with WP and then direct my wingmen, or even better other friendly assets, to attack such marks.

[Bahger]

Zenra, ideally you should leave the SA-9s alone. They are no threat if your flight stays at or above Angels 20. If you use "Attack with..." and "Missiles", you will --usually -- keep your wingman above the SAM envelope. Also, when attacking those APCs, if you direct him to attack "Armor" he should go for the BTR rather than the air defenses, or you can go for the BTR and he can be ordered to "Attack utility vehicles" as the remainder of the convoy consists of trucks carrying troops, not APCs.

[Zenra]

I just had another go at this one and while I had a lot of fun hitting targets I could not get JTAC Warrior to respond while inbound to the primary (I had FM tuned to 30.000). I tried checking in early, even before reaching the Fence In waypoint in fact - could it be that I checked in too early? All I ever got were the options to check in for the usual 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes. It wasn't until I had overflown the Primary and made it to Deniro that JTAC called back, and then it was to direct me to a group of T-55s.

 

The track is really long since I flew around so much trying to get on the primary again. I was able to still get the TGP on the bunker using LSS so the ground team was doing their job, but it seemed I was never communicating with them.

 

I am sure I am doing something wrong, but any ideas?

Edited April 23, 2011 by Zenra
Tried uploading track - over 11Mb though so too big :(

[Bahger]

That's very odd, I'll have to take a look. I have never experienced this but feel there may be aspects of how the JTAC routines are programmed that might be affected by individual users' systems.

 

I cannot think of any reason at all why a JTAC would direct you to the tanks, because the SpecOps team which tasks that target is a customised, "virtual" JTAC; no JTAC unit in-game is associated with that target, let alone has LOS to it.

 

Hmm, very mysterious. I always check in with Warrior 30nm out, select 30 minutes and always get the response tasking the bunker, as fragged.

 

I'll post here when I replay it for myself.

[Zenra]

Thanks for the quick reply, Bahger. I am going to try it again as well and try to keep it shorter so I can post a track if I have an issue again.

 

One question, though: When you say you always check in with Warrior 30 NM out, do you mean 30 NM from the Primary?

[Bahger]

Yes, 30nm from the bunker WP. I always get guidance to the bunker, "Marked by laser".

[BBQ]

Great work Bahger--i'm having a blast flying this one over and over again. Thanks for the fantastic effort--look forward to more.

 

+1

Edited April 23, 2011 by BBQ
plus one

[Zenra]

Yes, 30nm from the bunker WP. I always get guidance to the bunker, "Marked by laser".

I just tried again using the runway start and JTAC responded just as advertised - maybe the issue is with the ramp start? I will go back and try it from the ramp again and let you know what I find.

 

This mission is a blast! Thanks again for building it!

[Bahger]

I just tried again using the runway start and JTAC responded just as advertised - maybe the issue is with the ramp start? I will go back and try it from the ramp again and let you know what I find.

 

This mission is a blast! Thanks again for building it!

 

That's a relief. Yeah start conditions seem to cause the oddest anomalies, one of which is that on ground starts (ramp or runway) you cannot get your AI wingman to "Attack with" "At my SPI" whereas on air starts it works perfectly. I have had to use Tigerrr's Mod to address this.

 

Let me know what you find out.

[Bahger]

Great work Bahger--i'm having a blast flying this one over and over again. Thanks for the fantastic effort--look forward to more.

 

+1

 

Thanks BBQ, I appreciate the encouragement and am very glad you enjoyed the .miz.

[BBQ]

make sure net id and group id are BOTH set to 01--otherwise data won't show up on TAD

[Zenra]

Yep, I use Tigerrrr's AI Mod, too - definitely recommend it as it helps keep your wingmen alive and doesn't have any noticeable downside.

 

I just ran the mission again using the ramp start and everything went fine with JTAC on the primary. I think the problems I experienced earlier must be related to checking in too early. I've flown it a couple of times successfully now, both from the ramp and on the runway, and as long as I check in with WARRIOR around 30 NM out the tasking and talk-on all goes well.

 

I also wanted to report that there is no need to lase the bunker using your TGP - the GBU-12 guides onto the target nicely from FL200 with just the guidance of the ground team's laser. The only thing you have to do with the GBU in the DSMS is set for CCRP. Call LASER ON and SPOT on the way in, and release as normal. I'm not even convinced you need to initiate a laser spot search. Both times, when I got the red diamond on the TAD, hooked it and made it SPI, then slew all to SPI, pressing the LSS button didn't seem to do anything - the TGP didn't move but the bomb hit each time.

 

Still really liking this mission and plan to fly it many more times.

[Bahger]

Thanks, Zenra. FYI, the TGP will not shift its LOS to the laser-designated target if there is a SPI set by a previous method (i.e. hooking the datalink triangle). To address this, I always hook the triangle to get the general location of the bunker in my TGP then, with TGP as SOI, before engaging LSS, I shift the TGP's FOV very slightly with the mini-stick. This enables LSS to shift the TGP to the bunker being lased.