104th DCSW Server - Mission 'Final Dawn'

[104th_Maverick]

Which reminds me, what about a few missions where the aircraft are broken up into Blue vs Red in terms of Russian vs US aircraft? I lose quite a few aircraft due to not being sure if i'm looking at a threat or not.

 

 

We prefer to have US and Russian aircraft on both sides sir. The reason is for team balance, if lots of people join and keep selecting F-15C we can ask them to take a RED F-15C to balance the teams out and same with any other aircraft.

 

We have experimented in the past with only having Russians on Red and so on, although it can work very well (depending on the clients) generally what we end up seeing is a numerically superior BLUE side taking on the poor REDS, so we allow all aircraft to both sides where possible!

[RIPTIDE]

I lose quite a few aircraft due to not being sure if i'm looking at a threat or not.

THere is IFF... your radar screen tells you if something is friendly or not after ECM burn through.

[104th_Maverick]

ED Forums is not to be used for server disputes, if your friend wants to argue his case or you do for him he/you can do so at our forums www.104thphoenix.com

Edited February 21, 2013 by sobek
1.6

[sobek]

;1680830']

ED Forums is not to be used for server disputes, if your friend wants to argue his case or you do for him he/you can do so at our forums www.104thphoenix.com

 

Indeed, please keep this in mind when posting. I don't like cleaning up threads, it is a PITA doing so without destroying the valid discussions. ;)

Edited February 21, 2013 by sobek

[bn880]

;1680821']We prefer to have US and Russian aircraft on both sides sir. The reason is for team balance, if lots of people join and keep selecting F-15C we can ask them to take a RED F-15C to balance the teams out and same with any other aircraft.

 

We have experimented in the past with only having Russians on Red and so on, although it can work very well (depending on the clients) generally what we end up seeing is a numerically superior BLUE side taking on the poor REDS, so we allow all aircraft to both sides where possible!

 

Ok, maybe eventually, I thought the 33/29 etc would balance things out. Or maybe limited number of F16's.

 

 

IFF, yes I do need to check what's up with that, it was on my todo list. :p

 

Edit: "This panel is non-functional in this simulation." - A10-C manual

 

I'm talking about A10-C, Su25t, Ka-50

[Jona33]

You missed something.

 

;1680830']ED Forums is not to be used for server disputes' date=' if your friend wants to argue his case or you do for him he/you can do so at our forums www.104thphoenix.com

 

And you play on their server. You don't like the way it's done that's tough.

[pepin1234]

You missed something.

 

 

ok I see now. Then is end of debate

[bn880]

Objective status?

 

Hey, I was wondering, since it's technically not possible to be able to radio in the status of objectives in the missions, maybe have the objectives displayed on a timer every 5 or 10 minutes? This would greatly help people who join mid mission and nobody knows anymore which objective a side is on. And that's not great for people that don't have all that time to search everything every time they join.

 

I am attaching a template mission which outputs the status of 8 objectives, 4 Blue and 4 Red as an example. The timing is every 30s but can be adjusted.

 

It's very easy to copy, in the Report Status trigger just make sure to replace flag 10 with whatever flag is set on mission start. Then in the DO SCRIPT field replace the flag numbers 1-8 with whatever objectives your mission might have.

(note, be careful when copying script fields, to select the whole thing as it is auto scrolled, and possibly paste to Notepad first then recopy to avoid syntax errors)

 

Hope you know what I mean with the lack of Obj status being a bit of a PITA.

ObjStatusTemplate.miz

[HiJack]

This is the best mission I have seen! And it keeps getting better all the time :D

[HiJack]

I have played the red side plenty of times alreaddy and they have the same opportunities as the blue side. Or even better opportunities in some places in fact!

[RIPTIDE]

I like to say that the mission is Asymmetrically Balanced. :D Which means that for every perceived advantage one side might claim, I can counter claim another advantage the other side has somewhere else.

[RIPTIDE]

The same opportunities exist BTW for red at the base of Senaki-Kholki. It would not matter what AD we put at Senaki. A KA-50 in theory can fly <10m very easily and destroy the mightiest of sam systems. And some say the KA-50 has no place in a FC3 server. This shows how brilliant it can be.

Edited February 23, 2013 by sobek

[Grimes]

The same opportunities exist BTW for red at the base of Senaki-Kholki. It would not matter what AD we put at Senaki. A KA-50 in theory can fly <10m very easily and destroy the mightiest of sam systems.

 

To be fair the version of the mission that I got from a track is about a week old, however I like being devils advocate.... just stating there is a clear balance difference between what Ka-50s have to do to attack the enemy spawn as you are proposing.

 

First is the distance.

Red flight distance = 200 km

Blue flight distance = 150 km

 

Terrain:

Red flights quickest route is overall coastal/flat terrain. A route through valleys to bypass flying over coastal/flat terrain can by made, but it adds significant distance to the route.

Blue: Mostly mountainous terrain with some flat area between Beslan and mountains. Has several mountain routes accessible that bypass enemy ground threats.

 

Threats:

(Apparently Air defenses were added to both bases between Pepins post and the version of the mission I have)

Red: Direct route literally travels above or near enemy ground forces. Also a Buk threatens any accidental altitude gain and sits with 5km of direct route.

Blue: Can bypass main target area via taking a different valley route. Enemy S-300 not a threat due to likely terrain masking or you go out of the way to get to it.

 

Nearest Friendly Fighter Base from start:

Red: 122 km (Su-33) 210 km F-15/Su-27)

Blue: 45 km (F-15/Su-27)

 

Nearest alternative base if Beslan/Senaki under attack:

Red: None/ 500km away

Blue: Batumi 80km away (F-15C)

 

In other words blue Ka-50s have a shorted flight, better terrain to hide in, less threats to worry about, and friendly fighters are closer if help is needed. Furthermore if the base were under attack the Blue team have a MUCH closer base available to spawn at to try and repel the attack. Red have no practical alternative to repelling attacks on Beslan as the nearest spawn base is 500 km away.

 

 

 

P.S. Some of this might already be fixed, but this struck me as odd to say the least from a mission building/triggers perspective.

 

"Awacs retire" triggers should probably use group deactivate or set a stop orbit condition to true to make the aircraft RTB. You can also disable task of being an awacs by setting a stop waypoint. The trigger itself doesn't actually make sense as the unit would be exploded moments after it spawns in as it flies through the zone.

 

The Bombers related triggers will simply not work without an "or" condition, and the triggers will only run once. Change it to a switched condition and put an "or" between each condition.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2013 by sobek

[104th_Maverick]

@ Grimes

 

Due to the map being set on a real world area there is obvious limits to the amount of 'equality' to both sides, I'm sure you appreciate this as a mission builder. Riptide has tried to make it as even as possible given the restictions of the game.

Edited February 23, 2013 by sobek

[HiJack]

Great! When plying A2G on the blue side the Arty batteries going off on the fields is really killing FPS and I'm down from 45 to 5 in FPS when they go off. Can you reduce them in numbers or make the pause longer?

[RIPTIDE]

Great! When plying A2G on the blue side the Arty batteries going off on the fields is really killing FPS and I'm down from 45 to 5 in FPS when they go off. Can you reduce them in numbers or make the pause longer?

Already done in version 20/21. :D These GRAD batteries were there to replicate the GRAD batteries as they were used in 2008. So sad I had to remove them. /cry

[RIPTIDE]

Hey, I was wondering, since it's technically not possible to be able to radio in the status of objectives in the missions, maybe have the objectives displayed on a timer every 5 or 10 minutes? This would greatly help people who join mid mission and nobody knows anymore which objective a side is on. And that's not great for people that don't have all that time to search everything every time they join.

 

I am attaching a template mission which outputs the status of 8 objectives, 4 Blue and 4 Red as an example. The timing is every 30s but can be adjusted.

 

It's very easy to copy, in the Report Status trigger just make sure to replace flag 10 with whatever flag is set on mission start. Then in the DO SCRIPT field replace the flag numbers 1-8 with whatever objectives your mission might have.

(note, be careful when copying script fields, to select the whole thing as it is auto scrolled, and possibly paste to Notepad first then recopy to avoid syntax errors)

 

Hope you know what I mean with the lack of Obj status being a bit of a PITA.

Almost forgot about this.

 

Yep, it's becoming clear that we do need messages for target groups. Back in the day there would be always a few on each side strikers that would know what target area the map was on. Nowadays it's not always the case. SO yeah, we'll look into this.

 

And while I'm here thanks for all the constructive criticism so far, grimes, Hijack etc.

[Grimes]

;1682083']Due to the map being set on a real world area there is obvious limits to the amount of 'equality' to both sides' date=' I'm sure you appreciate this as a mission builder. [/quote']

 

Yes I get that, but balance should not always be striven for in terms of pure equality. A purely equal game simply isn't interesting for continued usage. Balance in my opinion is not about "blue gets 1 airbase at X with YZ aircraft" and "red gets 1 airbase equidistant from bullseye as the blue airbase at position W with YZ aircraft." Yes flight distance and spawn location play a factor in balance, but both of those items are not nearly as important as the types of aircraft available, the number of aircraft available, and the types and locations of objectives for either team.

 

The reason I bring it up and sort of rag on you guys about it a little bit is that at least in my opinion, the 104th and previously 169th had certain mission designs that were mostly unique to the group, but also highly formulaic and similar to other missions that are created. The 169th had a mostly air combat centric scenario with bases available over a massive area, but players would always use the two closest airbases. The air 2 ground missions consisted mostly of SEAD and trying to weaken defenses around the nearest enemy base in order to vulch. SAMs were literally everywhere in an attempt to form a ring of protection around spawn bases. I remember one scenario that had a couple dozen Oliver Perry class ships forming a nice blockade. Honestly that sort of mission would actually work fairly well with resource management enabled, but alas it wasn't a feature back then, and has so far gone mostly unused for anything more than restricting payloads.

 

Up to a few months after the release of FC2 the 104th server missions had remained mostly similar to the old 169th missions described above, afterall 104th was formed from people who left the 169th, as was 3 Sqn a year or 2 earlier. Eventually you guys started using triggers and other fun stuff for some simple but welcome changes. This progress as turned into the current overall 104th mission design. This design consists of aircraft selection that looks like this:

F-15C, Su-27, Mig-29S, Mig-29A/G, Su-25A, Su-25T, Ka-50, A-10C, A-10A

F-15C, Su-27, Mig-29S, Mig-29A/G, Su-25A, Su-25T, Ka-50, A-10C, Su-33

I get that having all aircraft available is great for appeasement and appearance of balance. Hell I sometimes put Israel on Red and Ukraine on blue just in case I decide to build the mission that way OR easily allow someone to modify the mission to be like that if they want to. But just because F-15C vs F-15C might be more fair than F-15C vs Mig-29A, doesn't mean F-15C vs Mig-29A + intelligent scenario design isn't a fair fight. Its the same reason why the "same race" matches are not always the most exciting games to watch in competitive RTS games.

 

Other common designs found in your missions are:

Su-33s will always start on a carrier and the carriers location is usually near a coast or perhaps another airbase. I realize that there might be one or 2 missions you have where its more than 50km off the coast, but I'm going off of memory here. But seriously, doesn't that invalidate the purpose of it being used on an aircraft carrier?

 

The air to ground target areas are of little consequence and are usually tucked away neatly in some corner of the battle area to more safely protect CAS assets by sheer distance from air threats. The targets consist of a box of targets, usually labeled "A", when the group gets destroyed a new target area "B" will spawn in relatively close to the previous group with a few more or different types of threats. This pattern will generally continue down the alphabet.

 

Occasionally an AI plane will spawn in with some sort objective that will probably only be completed if the player on either team intervenes. To your credit I actually like this type of objective, but its never clear how important or useful it would be if the objective were completed or if players actively decide they must purposefully attempt to achieve the objective. Granted a major issue with random events with FC3 aircraft is that they are FC3 aircraft with FC3 navigation capabilities.

 

 

Add it all up over the course of a couple missions and you start to notice the design patterns. Apologies if you do not like this analysis, its sort of an annoyance of mine that every time you guys announce a new mission, I read the briefings and look at the maps, and I realize that it looks pretty much like that last one you announced. Overall the problem is that it seems like you guys have mostly had the popular server, and in my opinion, don't take mission design risks BECAUSE you have a popular server.

 

I could get into squad servers running only their own "in-house" created missions, but that and the idea of "this is my mission, no sharing" is a whole other issue I don't really want to get into at this point. But TL;DR on that subject: The mission editor is Open Source, live with it.

 

 

In case you are curious I tend to analyze missions like that for everyone, including myself.

My problem with mission design is summed up with. "YAAAAAAAAAY Triggers!" However over the last year its turned into "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY SCRIPTS!"

I gotta build the insane missions that push the boundaries of what the simulator is capable of or to show off certain really awesome features I think more people should take advantage of *cough* learn the scripting engine.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2013 by sobek

[Case]

Mission building is a lot of hard work, hard work which doesn't get appreciated by the typical pilot flying them. Kudos to anyone building complex missions!

[104th_Maverick]

Grimes the patterns you describe in our mission s are there to encourage game play, this is tried and tested and is the result of taking lots of feedback from people of different skill levels.

 

There are lots of things we have tried to do in the past that simply don't work out, no matter how good an idea it is sometimes it just won't work on a public mission.

 

Your right about us having a popular server, that is why as you pointed out we are wary about taking design risks. We don't want to have missions that we enjoy as a squadron with a hand full of hardcore players on our server, we want missions that will be enjoyed by lots of people of different skill levels and result in the server being full.

 

This is why you see this pattern in our missions because experience has shown us this is the best way to have 'general' public missions set up.... might not be great for the hardcore and realism lovers but we have a sort of unofficial motto at the 104th.....

 

We'd rather have a full server running semi-realistic missions that are easy to understand than run a server with 6 people in it with hardcore realism missions.

 

I know there are many squadrons out there but there are very few who have as much experience as we do in MP hosting. Yes there may be some servers that have been hosted just as long as ours but you will struggle to find a comparison to our server for time hosted and volume of traffic, bar the 51st. What some people may think is best for a MP missions in fact ruins it, sadly!

 

We have tried to up the realism before in the past but it just doesn't work out no matter how motivated we are or the handful of people are that are asking us for it. In the long run they are just not popular with the general public.

 

We enjoy having the most popular server in DCSW and hope that it will continue long into the future, we will continue to add new missions and take on feedback such as your own.

 

But please understand, we didn't get the most popular server just because we are the 104th. We're the most popular MP server because of our missions and the way we run them, we take feedback from people and implement them into our missions to make them better.

 

So we are doing something right, despite the shortcomings you have pointed out, people still choose to fly 104th more than anywhere else, something we are very proud of and it's a good testament to prove what we are doing is working.

 

We can't please everyone unfortunately we'd love to have ultra realistic missions but they just wouldn't work out we have tried before in the past.

 

As I said our priority is server traffic not mission realism or changing the way missions are run for diversity. If our server is full everyday, then we see no need to change the layout of the missions.

 

Again to reiterate, we would rather have a full server with a familiar mission layout than a server with 5-10 hardcore clients in it who never know what is going to happen.

 

Thanks for your thoughts, some good idea's in there that we can take and will implement. I hope you understand a little more the thinking behind why we do what we do now

Edited February 23, 2013 by [Maverick]

[sobek]

Derail removed. Certain members would do good to familiarize themselves with forum rule 1.6.

 

If you want to discuss server banning policy applied to a certain case, please use the forum of the group that runs said server, ED forums are *not* an avenue to accomplish that.

 

Btw. an appeal to all the bystanders: If a discussion is clearly in contravention of forum rules, please report it and don't drag it on, it saves us the time of having to sieve through all the posts and verify if they make sense without the deleted posts. Thanks.

 

Edit: Just to avoid any confusion, laying out the policy of a server is no problem, but you can't discuss cases of banning or other disputes.

Edited February 23, 2013 by sobek

[Grimes]

Should we just make a different thread that is non server specific to discuss some of the finer points of multiplayer mission design that were removed with the actual multiplayer dispute posts?

[sobek]

Should we just make a different thread that is non server specific to discuss some of the finer points of multiplayer mission design that were removed with the actual multiplayer dispute posts?

 

If you wish, i don't care if you discuss it here either, as long as rule 1.6 is adhered to.

[HiJack]

ppl will not be coordinated to just wine in one thread ;)

[RIPTIDE]

Yes I get that, but balance should not always be striven for in terms of pure equality. A purely equal game simply isn't interesting for continued usage. Balance in my opinion is not about "blue gets 1 airbase at X with YZ aircraft" and "red gets 1 airbase equidistant from bullseye as the blue airbase at position W with YZ aircraft." Yes flight distance and spawn location play a factor in balance, but both of those items are not nearly as important as the types of aircraft available, the number of aircraft available, and the types and locations of objectives for either team.

I don't see how this mission contravenes this idea. In fact it reinforces it. You've pointed that out already actually. :D

The reason I bring it up and sort of rag on you guys about it a little bit is that at least in my opinion, the 104th and previously 169th had certain mission designs that were mostly unique to the group, but also highly formulaic and similar to other missions that are created. The 169th had a mostly air combat centric scenario with bases available over a massive area, but players would always use the two closest airbases. The air 2 ground missions consisted mostly of SEAD and trying to weaken defenses around the nearest enemy base in order to vulch. SAMs were literally everywhere in an attempt to form a ring of protection around spawn bases. I remember one scenario that had a couple dozen Oliver Perry class ships forming a nice blockade. Honestly that sort of mission would actually work fairly well with resource management enabled, but alas it wasn't a feature back then, and has so far gone mostly unused for anything more than restricting payloads.

You'll have to look no further than this thread. I give blue progressively difficult ground targets that I lovingly placed on the map. And they go and decide to deviate and attack Beslan instead. For shame. :D

Up to a few months after the release of FC2 the 104th server missions had remained mostly similar to the old 169th missions described above, afterall 104th was formed from people who left the 169th, as was 3 Sqn a year or 2 earlier. Eventually you guys started using triggers and other fun stuff for some simple but welcome changes. This progress as turned into the current overall 104th mission design. This design consists of aircraft selection that looks like this:

F-15C, Su-27, Mig-29S, Mig-29A/G, Su-25A, Su-25T, Ka-50, A-10C, A-10A

F-15C, Su-27, Mig-29S, Mig-29A/G, Su-25A, Su-25T, Ka-50, A-10C, Su-33

I get that having all aircraft available is great for appeasement and appearance of balance. Hell I sometimes put Israel on Red and Ukraine on blue just in case I decide to build the mission that way OR easily allow someone to modify the mission to be like that if they want to. But just because F-15C vs F-15C might be more fair than F-15C vs Mig-29A, doesn't mean F-15C vs Mig-29A + intelligent scenario design isn't a fair fight. Its the same reason why the "same race" matches are not always the most exciting games to watch in competitive RTS games.

Fair points, and again,... look at this mission and what my attempt at the above has caused in this thread.

Other common designs found in your missions are:

Su-33s will always start on a carrier and the carriers location is usually near a coast or perhaps another airbase. I realize that there might be one or 2 missions you have where its more than 50km off the coast, but I'm going off of memory here. But seriously, doesn't that invalidate the purpose of it being used on an aircraft carrier?

The client usable aircraft carrier in this game, the Kuznetsov is nothing more than fleet defence. Now... the scenario could involve the Kuz and her wing defending a bunch of Molnyias and Grishas from attack. But... THAT requires team play from a multi element A2A flight attacking with multi element A2G flight. Outside of proscribed tournaments, it remains difficult to have clients buddy up until you force the issue. Again... see this thread. They won't buddy up until they are forced.

The air to ground target areas are of little consequence and are usually tucked away neatly in some corner of the battle area to more safely protect CAS assets by sheer distance from air threats. The targets consist of a box of targets, usually labeled "A", when the group gets destroyed a new target area "B" will spawn in relatively close to the previous group with a few more or different types of threats. This pattern will generally continue down the alphabet.

Missions will vary on this.... since we are discussing this mission you'll agree that they are not exactly tucked away. Plenty of Dead Strikers will tell the story differently.

and in my opinion, don't take mission design risks BECAUSE you have a popular server.

It may not look like risks to you.... but again.... look at this thread and the reactions. lol

 

 

Listen.... the way I see it the clients enter every mission out there and expect a few same things. Change the paradigm too quickly too far and everyone is confused and the idea dies. I'm trying to start something here. As people get pushed into expecting something different slowly but surely, we can move everyone forward. As I said, this particular mission will evolve and evolve.... If we change the bar of what is being offered, people will then come to expect it and accept it.... you can continue changing the entire expectation of the community by doing this.