homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation DCS World Eno's Firehouse and Crew's Hollo Pointe Server Lounge

Upon reconsideration it occurs to me that I encountered the SA15 by trying to take a short cut back to Gudauta and strayed into a taboo area rather than because I hit the wrong target. I was okay until I made a beeline for Gudauta while Pipe stayed safe in the target area. Recon photos would be a benefit as I was never exactly sure what the specific targets were apart from the comms tower. Let me know if you plan another trial run.

Eh Blooze. Thanks to your considerable patience and multiple runs I was able to conjure up some new ideas about the mission. I'm giving better description of the target, actually completing the communications for the tankers (north and south)... as well as adding some emergency SEAD / CAP for that moment where you do screw up. Sure, we're not supposed to be there- but they can't let ALL of us get waxed just because we suck.

I've polished off a bit of the logic so that things only happen when they're supposed to happen. The general idea is that so long as you stick to the waypoints and don't wander off too far during your orbits... your RWR will be chirping- but generally as long as you keep your minimum altitude AGL... everything goes swimmingly. If you drop on the wrong (active) target... or stray into sensitive "unknown" zones... things will get tense- but my hint to everyone going through this mission now and into the future: Keep your cool!

I'm going to post photos of the target structures you're looking for- however the idea is that if you find a convoy with transports, follow them with your TGP. Eventually they visit all of the "potential" targets. Once you get lucky so to speak- you'll see that they stop for a period of time... giving you a chance to check out the area... look at the warehouses... look for a bunker with big radio antennas... if you see them and they're heavilly defended- bombs away!


I've also needed to keep in mind that there is a particular formula to the development of AI Logic. For example- in the mission I have it that you start getting stern warning messages if you don't hit all the targets within a certain amount of time. Time ticks down to a certain point and you get scolded... radars go on... enemy cap comes out en-masse... you get slaughtered. But what happens if you DO kill the targets? Well, the triggers don't automatically know that... so how do you stop the cavalry from coming in if you destroy them between one message to the other?

Well- a flag of course. So once you accomplish the mission and all targets are destroyed, you turn a flag on. In the conditions area where you're setting up your massive inflow of enemy activity on the account of your incompetence (if you do in fact fail)... you simply add a "flag" (that you've numbered) = false.

If that flag isn't off / false, then not all the conditions to release the cloons have been reached and the action doesn't happen. Instead, if everyone is out of the zone (flag 1111 up when "all coalition is out of zone") and everyone is killed (flag 2222 when "group dead")... then you have mission success instead. Flag 1111 / flag 2222 is true then the action is the win message and perhaps a flag of its own (3333) so you can start a countdown to mission end.

If flag 1111 is false (everyone is not clear) but flag 2222 is true (everyone is dead)... and the time since 2222 has passed X amount of time- then you can drop another flag (4444) to start counting down the end of the mission going the failure route.

The problem comes up where you have something set... but nothing to stop it from happening if conditions change. You need to remember if you want something to happen- it'll happen if the conditions that you say need to be in order actually happen.

During some situations, you can really... REALLY think yourself into a hole and this is where a proper numbering convention for your flags as crew has described (or one of your own) is so important.

Crew, I played the bay of hogs mission last nite. Cool concept, never played a mission that focused on a-10s killing ships. Funny, the ships took so many mavericks to sink, I thought I was shooting duds. Would be nice if ED added some kind of partial hit animation on ships besides that below the waterline splash. It seems the ships will start burning to let you know that 1 or 2 more hits will kill it.

Eno,

Five-digit flags

Red flags get a leading '1' through '4'
Red Main & Aircraft Groups: 1
Red Helicopter Groups: 2
Red Vehicle Groups: 3
Red Ship Groups: 4

Blue flags get a leading '5' through '8'
Blue Main & Aircraft Groups: 5
Blue Helicopter Groups: 6
Blue Vehicle Groups: 7
Blue Ship Groups: 8

Group numbers are the second & third digits.
Unit numbers are the fourth digit.

The State is the fifth digit:
0: Count (use for Flag Increment and Decrement)
1: Dead, or Lost
2: Alive, or Won
3: Attack
4: Broadcast; enables a repeating message with Condition = Time Since Flag (Flag x), and Action = Flag On (Flag x) & Message
5: Zone Clear or Occupied Friendly
6: Delay
7: Zone Invaded by Enemy
8: Zone Captured by Enemy
9: Deactivated vs Dead


I do use Flags 10-20 for initializing stuff, like Flag 10 for the Repeating Message. Sometimes I'll use 12, 14, ... but not very often.

Flags 50-60 are for victory conditions. 60 is the Load Mission Flag. 50, 51, and 52 are used, when applicable, for Blue Wins, Red Wins and Timeout. A countdown on these 50 series flags with appropriate Win/Loss/Timeout messages lets folks know the mission is over and will reset in x minutes. These messages should be no more than 5 minute intervals so folks know what is going to happen as it is the end of the mission and there is really not time to begin a Cold Start or long ingress.

I do not use any other two-digit flags; all other flags are using the five-digit scheme.

You do it this way ^^^ and you'll be able to look at a flag and pretty well know what coalition, group and unit are involved. The last digit can have flexibility depending upon what you need to indicate, but I stay with the above definitions as best I can.

Thanks, Scoop,
Glad you liked it. The Bay Of Hogs has been gathering dust for two years(!) waiting for ships to be viable targets again (they crashed the game in the previous two versions).

Molasses was also in and went to the K(?) series Mavs for more punch.

I joined late, as the last few ships and subs were being taken out. There was a bug at the end that messed up the victory condition but that is fixed now (I had to be there to see it ;-)

There is a new Health Bar in the F10 View for ground vehicles but it is not implemented for ships.

Bay Of Hogs has always been a battle of attrition.

WC

I have an idea for a mission i need t start planning it out first,

It will have some inspiration from the Highway though

Sounds like you can logic your self "to the monster at the end of this book" Eno...LOL... Lovable furry old Grover would be very proud. lol

Mission editing sounds way more complicated than I thought. I wouldn't mind dabling with creating missions but there is way too many options... I have enough problems flying... lol

I like creating missions where lines of trucks are going up a road and when they get to the end they all congregate and twittle their thumbs in big bunches and you can CBU the heck out of them. LOL

Where did I get the quote "anything more complicated than a toaster doesn't work, and it doesn't work a lot." Well wherever it was it certainly applies to my mission building! But when things aren't happening- (or ARE happening ie gun runs by migs 10 minutes in) I am learning how to fix and where to look for trouble.

Sorry Eno ... I will explain it next time we fly together...

Sorry- I'm caught in mission building loop lol.

^^^ Hee hee See you in a few days, Eno!

Yeah, Im prolly gonna spend the weekend writing a mission too... need to start now, might be done by fall, lol.

Crew do you use the mist functions at all in your new stuff?

I think I can guess what those DIYs are referring to, and that's due to lighting and exposure differing from shot to shot in real life video material. No need to do deal with it while recording DCS since it will all look the way it normally does on your screen. My video was captured in Fraps and no special filters were required to make it look uniform. Sure enough it can be pretty tricky to grab the right bits, but with a bit of creative editing you can make it work . All the clips I used were actually from three separate (kinda random) recordings, that I cut together to create a continuous story.



Thanks, glad if I can make it look good - though I can't say there wouldn't be more for me to learn still . I think we'll both cringe less if you can manage not to, heh. I've been flying a bit more than a year now, on and off and mostly self learning. So I might have a bit of a headstart on her, but I also don't tend to mind sharing of what I've learned, if I end up flying together with her at some point. Perhaps she's got the most important bits then indeed if she managed all that .

We're definitely looking forward to flying together again soon... now that I'm home I suspect this weekend we'll be up together working through some missions.

I have put up a new version of Operation Snapshot... I have it locked up with the following password:

fire safety


I have applied some MIST commands and used some SLMOD functionality to allow for some advanced triggers etc... I'm going to go in and fly around it and make sure that things are at least SORT of working properly lol

DO NOT drop on ANYTHING until that communications tower- the right one- is destroyed. I'm going to get some photos of the actual area (during the day) and post it in the briefing.

No, not yet. I have not dug into it, but do think I have a use or three.

I'd love to see an example of how you use it.

WC

Hmmm, had my first server crash on the new v123, last night.

I looked at the crash log and did not see anything significant, like what is being reported on DCS Forums.

WC

Ha! This IP address is now in our Ban file. The name associated with it is just as bad as the server name was on the day I posted the above.

I shoulda thought to include it in the Ban file at the time. The idiot must have come into Eno's Firehouse, cause that's where he got on the list.

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If anyone has constant Connection Interrupted attempts to Join on Eno's Firehouse and or Hollo Pointe, them PM me or Eno and we can check to see if you got on the list. There are a couple of names I do wonder about - how did they get on the list?

But I'm not going to try to chase these guys down. They have to come to us and plead their case.

There are 20 entries.

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Something else - Eno and I are NOT going to allow offensive names in our servers. If someone joins with a name that we think is offensive - on the Ban list they will go. It takes a pretty offensive name for that to happen, but rest assured it will.

WC

It's almost Friday, and should be snow-bound for the weekend - yea!

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The Hollo Pointe server will host two new missions this weekend -

104th_Moa's Pirates Of The Crimean - soo looking forward to flying this; updated for v123. Added more Moon shine. Bring NVGs. AaaarrrRRRRR!


A-10C tracers -


A pirate gunboat -




Bay Of Hogs - "swing away, Merrill"; it is a mission of attrition. I like taking the low road from Novo to Gelen - pop and Mav, and hard right to the coast behind the ridge, another hard right to stay on the beach back to Novo and another run. Mol, there are gunboats at the end of the mission now to gun down. Don't let the Pyotr get close. Lot's of eye-candy.

Wish this jet was flyable now -






The Pirates mission will start about 20130308T1800 MST (GMT -7).

WC

i be on tonight and week end,whats cooking on the server,which one to go on wiil there be two servers