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

[Bahger]

In this mission you will lead a flight of A-10s to strike an Insurgent command-and-control bunker at night before providing Close Air Support to an allied ground force tasked with sweeping a village in the Caucasus mountains.

 

A full briefing and map screens are supplied with the mission, plus notes to the player in the readme text doc.

 

This mission contains extensive customised voice comms and a full complement of battlefield support including JTACs, SpecOp recon teams and CAOC (Combined Air Operations Center) CAS coordination.

 

Randomisation of CAS tasking invites at least two play-throughs of the mission in order to receive all available target assignments.

 

Perceptions of mission difficuty may vary but I believe this to be an intermediate-to-advanced level scenario which, depending on specific targets assigned, will require competence in the following areas:

 

i. Target i/d and prosecution via JTAC LSS laser guidance

 

ii. Target i/d and prosecution via CDU input of L/L coordinates given in-flight

 

iii. Target i/d and prosecution via TAD "Mark" for locations given by reference to a flightplan waypoint (WPs are all at nav altitudes and not suitable for target i/d)

 

iv. Target i/d and prosecution of a moving convoy from altitude using all available resources.

 

This is a tactical, procedural mission designed to reflect the reality of US military operations against a well-equipped militia, not the Russian or Chinese armies in full cry. It is therefore an asymmetrical scenario in which you have extensive battlefield support and are unlikely to get yourself killed unless you screw up. This is not a mission for gamers who like to fly Rambo against a wall of SAMs. The object is to complete all target assignments (your primary plus two randomly selected on-call CAS targets) and to RTB to Vaziani with both flight members in one piece. Clearance to RTB and a safe landing constitute victory in this .miz, as they do IRL.

 

A hefty thank you to Apples and Panther for the voice-over radio files and to Grimes, who schooled me in the black arts of randomisation in the ME with enormous patience.

 

I hope you enjoy the mission, which is the product of many hours of hand-crafting, playtesting and teeth-grinding. Comments are very welcome (in fact, encouraged). Not many people seem to be making missions for SP, so if you like it, say so and I will make more.

 

The attached "Midnight Run" file contains the readme and adjusted versions of the .miz for both ramp and runway starts. Needless to say, I recommend the ramp start.

 

 

 

Edit: Here is a link to the page for "Midnight Run" at the DCS User Files/Download site. Please feel free to comment there, or to rate the mission, the feedback is helpful and encouraging.

Midnight Run.rar

Edited April 15, 2011 by Bahger

[Zenra]

Banger - sounds great! Will download tonight and give it a try - just the kind of thing I was looking for - thanks!

[winz]

Sounds great :) Looks like my kind of mission. Will definitely try this once I got time :)

[Rainmaker]

Downloaded and ran this one tonight. Aside from losing my wingy to a SAM, all went well. One thing I would have liked to have seen was an option to repeat higher HQ messages or a prepatory warning letting me know one was coming. I was well in the middle of an attact run when one came over the radio. I missed a call for a secondary target and only cought the tail end of it. An earlier call letting me know that one was coming or maybe a key command in the F10 screen to allow me to repeat the talk-on would have helped greatly. Just a thought if you decide to expand on this one or for when you make further ones like this.

 

I had one issue with targeting, but I think this was the fault of DCS and not the mission as I have seen it before. The spec ops FAC called in a lase on the primary target, however when I entered LSS, the target pod slew over to one of the SA-9's perched on the hill. In the end, I had to do the laser work myself to get a hit on the primary.

 

Outside of that, I do have another question as it relates to this. I am not that familiar with victory conditions and how they are set in DCS. Are we supposed to get a message or see something in the debrief letting me know a success or failure? All I could see was the scoring, which was a 73 or there close to.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Rainmaker

[Madman777]

This mission looks hardcore! Trying it out tonight for sure.

[Zenra]

Arrggg! - the wife picked last night to invite the neighbors for a cookout, so no chance for me to fly! (I need to get my priorities straight, I think...)

 

I had one issue with targeting, but I think this was the fault of DCS and not the mission as I have seen it before. The spec ops FAC called in a lase on the primary target, however when I entered LSS, the target pod slew over to one of the SA-9's perched on the hill. In the end, I had to do the laser work myself to get a hit on the primary.

 

Rainmaker, glad you had a chance to try the mission, though - I am definitely looking froward to trying it myself, but that will have to wait for the weekend now, I suspect :(

 

I've experience the problem you describe, but have since decided that it was due to my own misunderstanding of how to use LSS properly, so just want to offer the following:

 

For LSS to work you need to point the TGP toward the general area of the target being designated by the other entity, otherwise it seems to slew on its own to someplace else (maybe the current SPI?). Only then should you initiate the search pattern by pressing DMS RIGHT LONG. This seems to work, but only if I have the TGP field of view showing only the intended target area without other potential targets. I would be interested in other people's experience with this feature in DCS A-10C.

[dne48]

Thanks Bahger. This is going to be a winner. I can just feel it. Downloading and will be trying later today or tomorrow. Let's see some screenshots guys. Also, nice to see that you have some supporting actors. Great to get involvement

[MagnumHB]

I'll probably give this a shot tonight if I have time. Looks...educational.

[kam]

Excellent, will give it a shot at the weekend hopefully, thanks!

[Bahger]

Thanks for the comments, guys. In response to the "issues" raised above:

 

- Tasking messages should not conflict. For each tasking assignment I set a Flag to become true on destruction of the assigned target and until that flag is true and the "target destroyed" message received, no new assignments can be given. Also, target assignments can only be given when the player is in the vicinity of the "Deniro" anchor point. I'm not saying you didn't have this experience, I'd just be intrested to learn if it's repeatable. However: Messages that can, and do conflict, because there is absolutely no way to stop this, are when custom radio messages step on JTAC "Chevy" BRA calls and vice versa. Remember, these are advisories, to assist with pilot SA, they are not specific tasking orders. I kind of feel the occasional conflicts qualify as "fog of war" and recreate the task saturation that any single-seat attack pilot has to deal with in battle. Push the BRA calls to the back of your head and pay attention to the specific tasking.

 

- Information overload: Only one message requires the player to write down information (a L/L coordinate) and I put that up on the screen in text form in the mission in case you were unable to copy it from the SAS bloke giving it over the radio. You may not have received this assignment yet. With all other assignments, I'm sorry if the information seems to be coming at you a bit fast but, as in r/l instrument flying, the key is to have the airplane trimmed and stable, maybe in an easy orbit using A/P ""Altitude Hold", so you can concentrate on what's being said for ten seconds without distraction. Basically you only need the "gist" in each case, i.e. which town the target is at (and which of your WPs it corresponds with), or where a convoy is coming from, where it's going and its direction of travel. But I apologise if you missed stuff, as the mission is a little task-intensive.

 

- LSS: Yup, very occasionally the laser picks out the wrong object. However, this has not happened to me in literally hundreds of playthroughs since moving the SA-9s further away from the intended object. There are a few other quirks with LSS target acquisition so, in case it is helpful, here is the procedure that works for me every time:

 

- Check in with "Warrior" at 30nm out. There's no need to refine targeting while in an orbit if you prepare far enough ahead on ingress.

 

- You should be navigating towards the target WP "Primary" but since the Fence In, IP and primary WPs are all aligned, the correct course should not be a problem.

 

- When you receive the datalink triangle from Warrior, make it your SPI and steer towards it.

 

- With the TGP as SOI, slave it to the datalink SPI.

 

- Important: Unslave the TGP by moving the cursor very slightly off its slaved point, as, I have found, the LSS will not "take" if the TGP is still slaved to the datalink. This will mean that your TGP will still be ground-stabilised on the wider target location but not locked until you use the LSS for the lock. Make the village your TGP FOV, no wider.

 

- Make sure your GBU-12 is set in the HUD, weps ON, armed, laser ON, latch ON (TGP "Settings"), autolase ON (DSMS/GBU-12 profile) if you are going to use it, 10 sec or so entered in the "Time to Lase" field (DSMS GBU profile) if you are going to autolase.

 

- Call "Laser On" at 10.5nm out according to the TGP. On hearing "Lasing", hit DMS right/LONG. It will find its target if the TGP field of view is properly set, as above, not slaved, and not zoomed too widely out.

 

- When the lase detects the target, go TGP Narrow FOV and zoom in to confirm that it has found the bunker but there is no need to hit TMS Up short or long to ground-stab or slave any further. The LSS appears to provide all the bomb guidance you need.

 

- Refine steering to get the ASL over the segmented steering line that represents the line to the lased location. I autolase at 10 seconds from impact, latch ON.

 

- There is no "Victory" notification, I avoided this as redundant once the player is cleared to RTB, because he won't get that clearance without having hit his primary and the two secondary on-call CAS targets selected by the sim for him. I tried to make this clear in the briefing but maybe I should have put up a text message. Anyway, when the female CAOC says "Thanks for the work, boys" that's your cue to fly back to Vaziani for a cold one, mission accomplished.

 

Hope this helps.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Bahger

[mtuckner]

I am really looking forward to playing this one Bagher. Keep the missions coming.

[Bahger]

Thanks, mt, I look forward to hearing how it plays for you.

[Mirtma]

Looking great! Going to try it.

[andysim]

:)looks good =)

[Mirtma]

Is there any procedure to install? I can't find mission file, nor doc you were talking. only ogg, jpg, & mission and options files without extention.

[Zenra]

Thanks for the additional tips, Bahger, I am sure they will be helpful to many.

 

I do wish to clarify one point, though: the steps you mention to set up your TGP laser for latch and auto lase should not be necessary, unless you decide you need to lase the primary yourself for some reason, correct? My understanding is that you have the mission set up such that the special forces troops should be the ones lasing the primary, so as the hog driver what's needed is to get the TGP FOV on the village and initiate Laser Spot Search (DMS RIGHT LONG) at the right time. If the TGP picks up the laser from the ground team then there is no Ned to lase the target from the TPG.

 

Please tell me if I have this wrong or am missing something here.

 

Thanks again for the mission - it really looks great.

[JimMack]

Hi Bahger

 

Will you be uploading this mission to "User Files"?

[Rainmaker]

I've experience the problem you describe, but have since decided that it was due to my own misunderstanding of how to use LSS properly, so just want to offer the following:

 

For LSS to work you need to point the TGP toward the general area of the target being designated by the other entity, otherwise it seems to slew on its own to someplace else (maybe the current SPI?). Only then should you initiate the search pattern by pressing DMS RIGHT LONG. This seems to work, but only if I have the TGP field of view showing only the intended target area without other potential targets. I would be interested in other people's experience with this feature in DCS A-10C.

 

 

The JTACS coords were spot on, I was maybe only 6 meters off the primary target...so was his target ID. The issue was where the laser spot put me. The primary was already the SPI and the posd was already slewed and in a very small FOV at the time I went into LSS. This was not the issue. The issue was that the laser spot was put onto one of the threats that he called out in the brief. I tried and reverified the target, and even reinitiated the JTAC request, he still had the SA-9 targeted. I went ahead and used the laser spot to drop on the SA-9, but had to lase the bunker myself in order to get a GBU on it. I have had this happen before when targeting moving vehicles and the spot has been either off or pointed at the side of a mountain.

[Bahger]

@ 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.

 

@ Zenra: You may be right. If the player wants to do the terminal lase as I describe above, he should re-set the laser code (the laser illumination code, not the LSS code) to another value, and reset the bomb's code to match. This would deconflict the codes being used for LSS and terminal. The problem is that you cannot change the default laser code for the FAC, so his spot code is also the terminal code unless the player changes the terminal code. If you see what I mean.

 

@ JimMack I'd be happy to upload the mission to "User Files" but I must be missing something simple as I cannot find this location here. Do you mean on the DCS site? I'll look. I should probably link it to there anyway as I am close to my upload limit here in the forum, with just 3 .miz files and will be unable to upload more unless I take one off. Can you advise?

[Rainmaker]

Messages that can, and do conflict, because there is absolutely no way to stop this, are when custom radio messages step on JTAC "Chevy" BRA calls and vice versa. Remember, these are advisories, to assist with pilot SA, they are not specific tasking orders. I kind of feel the occasional conflicts qualify as "fog of war" and recreate the task saturation that any single-seat attack pilot has to deal with in battle. Push the BRA calls to the back of your head and pay attention to the specific tasking

 

 

I mentioned that as just a suggestion. Even in real combat, you can atleast verify the call, or have it repeated. I understand the task saturation and prioritization of targets. The issue I encountered at the time was that the comms stepped on each other(and I mean literally stepped on each other as they both were talking at the same time) and there wasn't a way to have the call repeated...

 

 

Information overload: Only one message requires the player to write down information (a L/L coordinate) and I put that up on the screen in text form in the mission in case you were unable to copy it from the SAS bloke giving it over the radio. You may not have received this assignment yet. With all other assignments, I'm sorry if the information seems to be coming at you a bit fast but, as in r/l instrument flying, the key is to have the airplane trimmed and stable, maybe in an easy orbit using A/P ""Altitude Hold", so you can concentrate on what's being said for ten seconds without distraction. Basically you only need the "gist" in each case, i.e. which town the target is at (and which of your WPs it corresponds with), or where a convoy is coming from, where it's going and its direction of travel. But I apologise if you missed stuff, as the mission is a little task-intensive.

 

 

As stated above, the "information overload" was not the issue. I could have probably worded my post a little better to discern what I was talking about. The comms literally stepped on one another and the speech was overlayed and not discernable.

 

 

 

LSS: Yup, very occasionally the laser picks out the wrong object. However, this has not happened to me in literally hundreds of playthroughs since moving the SA-9s further away from the intended object. There are a few other quirks with LSS target acquisition so, in case it is helpful, here is the procedure that works for me every time:

 

This is apparently still an issue within the JTAC targeting. I tried doing this twice and had the same result both times...as well as resetting the target pod and searching in LSS multiple times. It isn't just this mission I have seen it happen however.

 

 

 

There is no "Victory" notification, I avoided this as redundant once the player is cleared to RTB, because he won't get that clearance without having hit his primary and the two secondary on-call CAS targets selected by the sim for him. I tried to make this clear in the briefing but maybe I should have put up a text message. Anyway, when the female CAOC says "Thanks for the work, boys" that's your cue to fly back to Vaziani for a cold one, mission accomplished.

 

 

I was cleared off by JTAC and returned back to a holding pattern. I tried contacting the JTAC again but i was just cleared off again without a taregeting assignement. I don't remember getting another higher HQ message saying anything, so maybe I didn't complete it completely, I am not sure. I did expend all my munitions so it didn't do me much good to hang around anyway. So, on that, I am unsure where I stopped at...hence my question of seeing a victory condition.

[JimMack]

[quote=Bahger;1172632

@ JimMack I'd be happy to upload the mission to "User Files" but I must be missing something simple as I cannot find this location here. Do you mean on the DCS site? I'll look. I should probably link it to there anyway as I am close to my upload limit here in the forum, with just 3 .miz files and will be unable to upload more unless I take one off. Can you advise?

 

Here is the link: http://files.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/add.php

 

To all mission creators, modders etc - please upload here if you wish, as it will create a great resource for the community. I think many are not aware of this resource, as they probably bypass the main DCS site and have bookmarked the forum.

[Bahger]

JimMack: Done.

Edited April 15, 2011 by Bahger

[Zenra]

The JTACS coords were spot on, I was maybe only 6 meters off the primary target...so was his target ID. The issue was where the laser spot put me. The primary was already the SPI and the posd was already slewed and in a very small FOV at the time I went into LSS. This was not the issue. The issue was that the laser spot was put onto one of the threats that he called out in the brief. I tried and reverified the target, and even reinitiated the JTAC request, he still had the SA-9 targeted. I went ahead and used the laser spot to drop on the SA-9, but had to lase the bunker myself in order to get a GBU on it. I have had this happen before when targeting moving vehicles and the spot has been either off or pointed at the side of a mountain.

 

Ah - I see - very interesting. Do you think this is a case of the ground team selecting some other target to designate? I haven't played around with that part of the ME (indeed, what Bahger and some of the others are doing with the ME looks like Black Magic to me - but I sure am glad they're doing it! :D ), so maybe the AI has some chance of selecting another target from the one the mission creator intended?

[Rainmaker]

Ah - I see - very interesting. Do you think this is a case of the ground team selecting some other target to designate? I haven't played around with that part of the ME (indeed, what Bahger and some of the others are doing with the ME looks like Black Magic to me - but I sure am glad they're doing it! :D ), so maybe the AI has some chance of selecting another target from the one the mission creator intended?

 

 

No, as the response I got was still the same as the 9 line brief. The target was ID'd as the bunker. I did this twice as well as aborting the CAS and reinitiating contact with the JTAC again to get the 9 line all over again. Same result, target was still "bunker" but the laser marker was pointed at one of the briefed threats in the JTACS 9 line. If they are selecting an alternate target as possibly an immediate priority, they aren't saying this in the brief.

 

I have also seen the marker get pointed to the terrain as well, so I am not sure what was going on. I have seen it pointed at a hillside before(possibly LOS issues from JTAC to target) and I had a JTAC lase about 200 meters short one time as well(also maybe LOS issues because of terrrain???)

[Bahger]

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.