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

Looking fwd to the new mission Eno! I'm going to try and play some more now that we are getting settled in the place somewhat. And yeah it was crazy, they probably were 15-20 high at the highest column. Just look at the shadow!

I've since reported it over in the bugs section in AI. It's been a long standing problem- but thanks for the photo... that helps.

If that was from tonight I'll submit that track if it's asked for from the server.

It was from tonight, June 22. Happy to help!!

Thanks Eno

Holy cow Eno that mission sounds like a lot of fun. While the huey doesn't have a huge assortment of offensive capabilities nautical recon sounds great!

I think it should be fun Peally. My only issue with the concept right now is that ship graphics moving through the water from certain angles are a little off-putting... so I'm trying to put them in play as it's still dark and a bit dreary. I'm hoping you guys will get a real early morning feel for it.

E-Day is running right now, ready for its maiden flight (I'd like to be in on it, but "sadly" given that we're moving next month we're trying to get as much sailing in as possible so we're going to be gone again this upcoming weekend). I think the briefing covers what is SUPPOSED to happen. I did a few dry runs in single player to make sure that everything that was SUPPOSED to be activated by trigger was actually set to "Late Activation," so now I think that's cleaned up. A couple of things to watch out for:

1) You will get an announcement when the various invasion units (freighter / speedboat (landing craft) / Mi-8) enter a 30 mile perimeter from the beach. This helps to keep people informed as to the fact that yes, there are vessels out there- if you're looking for them. The vessels have a rather lengthy transition time but are intended to have a staggered arrival so there is always something going on.

2) 3 landing forces of different sizes will assemble on the beach on arrival and will hold a defensive position until all units are on land. Once the 3 ground forces (varying in size and strength but obviously more vehicles land with the freighter than with the helicopters), they begin heading off to their objectives. Generally this objective will be the nearest airbase. If after a certain time a group is still waiting for an element, they will ALL leave anyway (assuming that the delivery vehicles have been destroyed and those forces will not be arriving on the beach).

3) If airbases are overrun, then cargo aircraft will head to the overtaken base. Once they land, reinforcements will appear that will more than likely result in more than your fair share of work to overtake. This will happen base by base- depending on which or how many are overrun. If you are able to overthrow, a relief force of friendlies will move in so that you can use that base again with full services.

One of the things I've been doing as well- not sure if you have been noticing- is that when I update the mission between versions I have been changing many (of missions) to the current month / day- that way the season and hours of the day will be somewhat similar to what we are experiencing in our daily lives. I get the sense that it adds just a tiny bit of familiarity to the sim- and though the times may be a bit off (depending on when you start)... having it as June 26th (I was pessimistic in my delivery of the mission) now and October in October- I don't know, maybe it's just me. It's an EASY switch that's two mouse clicks so I figured why not!

Anyway- looking forward to some feedback. If the points above to not function correctly, please let me know.

Eno, I was in there playing the mission before getting banned by SLmod. IMO while the idea is good the kicking/banning needs to be toned down a bit. I did a guns run on one of the ships and somehow (I think this is what happened) I hit a passing F-15 with a ricochet round. After getting kicked I rejoined as a Huey to do some recon and in the process the F-15 crashed with valor into a hill and I got flagged for a ban.

As for the mission, first the good. I absolutely love the atmosphere of the overcast with the fleet out there, and flying the Huey on my second sortie the gloomy look of the mission over the shoreline was great.

A few things that could be improved:

- The ground forces took Senaki despite a few people hammering them well, and they couldn't retake it. AFAIK 2 A-10s and a Huey. I guess it was a tad too difficult but I'm hearing this second hand as it happened before I joined. This may not be a bad thing considering my later points.

- After Senaki was taken (not sure if transports started landing at all) during the rest of the freighter approaches we had multiple A-10s, and a Huey and F-15 available and we basically found everything quickly and sunk everything as it came. Seemed like lacking other tasks it was easy to dispatch them. One recommendation made to me was to perhaps have much more difficult to find infantry landing and spreading out from the helos or first wave of landing craft (or speedboats perhaps) as recon for something for the Hueys to find and take out.

- A third suggestion was to have some more specific intel on the incoming ships (assuming the blue forces would have better intel available than a 30 mile radius). Assuming the Hueys are the focus for recon (the fighters need to be kept busy to keep this task I think) 30 miles is a massive amount of sea to watch and scout out. The general flow of the mission was airfield immediately got taken, then it really slowed down until everyone decided to shoot at Senaki some more.

- FYI the FARP south of Senaki there's no ability to rearm. Probably an easy fix.

- Batumi popped a message that the units there (defending I assume) died, but they seemed fine on ground commander.

Don't take this as hard criticism, so far this has been my favorite mission concept out of them all and I love the atmosphere. You seem to have a bottomless pit of creative mission ideas

Some screenshots from the mission:

Me, Wheel, and Bast (in the F-15) heading towards the shore to start scouting for incoming waves of ships. Afterwards Bast kicked in the afterburners to break off to another target that was mentioned and I giggled from the cool factor. Everything looks more cool during overcast conditions


Same, internal shot


Molasses doing flybys during my taxiing


Doing recon in the Huey over the overcast sea (atmosphere was great). Flyby from Bast in the F-15 (I mistook the sonic boom for explosions multiple times). He honorably gave his life flying into an enemy mountain afterwards


External shot of Huey recon

Hi Peally- I'm going to try and address your post point by point.

First of all, with SLMOD- there is a new dynamic system in use that is supposed to measure the amount of time a person is in the server with how hasty the discipline. It definitely sounds like it is a bit hasty. On the positive side, I can add guys like you and Mace to the regulars list so that you are excluded from the SLMOD ban hammer. I still audit the logs so I don't recommend that the regulars get rammy- but generally that helps protect those whom we know aren't in there for foul play. I will take another look at the overall (I don't want to be throwing the book at the non-regulars just because we don't know them and it should still be fair)... I thank you for mentioning it.

Losing Senaki and couldn't retake it while also not having other tasks to distract from sinking ships goes hand in hand. When all forces at Senaki are destroyed, a friendly force moves in to secure the base. I hope to hear more feedback about how that went down- as I think once the base is overtaken I may need to set a time limit. That way the forces can focus on the task at hand- taking them away from the ships... this should allow for more "progress." Infantry around the base is a good idea as well- once there are a certain number of "units in zone" I can spawn infantry as if they dissembarked and assumed defensive positions.

The invading force is by no means unstoppable- what I suspect happened was an LZ (or two or in the case of senaki four) went unnoticed and the ground forces took over the base.

About the more accurate info- there's a reason I left it a little ambiguous... which is exactly what you said about everyone being able to rush out to sea to sink everything. If anything what this has told me is to pull that perimeter back substantially to add a sense of urgency and an increased likelihood that you will have ground forces to worry about soonest.

Not sure about the message at Batumi- possible that the "retaking" force was spawned in prematurely (or not late activated) and was killed by incoming forces.

The farp by Senaki was mentioned to me by Mol when he first got in. I will have that fixed and think I know the problem.


Thanks again Peally!

In some cases guys I am measuring your feedback against the desired outcome of the mission. Perhaps I should be more open about that in the beginning so that you know what I'm TRYING to achieve and give me ways by which I can do that.

A couple things I don't want to do:

I don't want to make it easy for you to go and find / hit ships.
I don't want to make the ground forces EASY to kill (until they take over your bases)- though I don't want it to be an insurmountable obstacle either. (I need to find that delicate balance and I think you're right in that the infantry presence may be a nice equalizer.)


A couple things I'm considering:
Red Force Ground Commander
Red force fighter presence if F-15Cs are in the area. Both restricted to shorter range heat seeking missiles.

A screen shot from the other nights Huey free for all



Two helicopters one building ... fail

that was a fun day tempus

Thanks Eno

Those were the points that everyone wanted me to make, hopefully someone can pop in and get a little more in depth as I wasn't around the whole mission.

@tempus: Yeah...that was embarrassing. At least the building blew up after and covered up any evidence.

I don't know what was more surprising, you crashing a ka50 or me landing a huey without a fireball and where I wanted to land

Is that the building that then blew up and continued to cook off for ages afterwards? lol

A few more screenies

I must admit, I really do like the ambiance of the environment out there. Dreary- but still with decent visibility.

I'm trying to think of a way to increase the challenge with the ships. I'm wondering if I need to activate the KUZ battlegroup to provide a limited SAM umbrella over the ships until they get a bit closer. I know I said this was a "reward" mission without AA and by my way of thinking if you don't overextend that's exactly what you'll have. If the SU25Ts want to head out on SEAD and deal with that threat then a SAM / Radar free environment will be the reward for good coordination!

The battlegroup is out there- but I have had it running green and on a weapons hold- I know weapons hold hadn't worked for ships on the last update... so I went in a green alarm state as well in hopes that it would mind its own business.

Hmmmmm.

I do want it to be fun- but a challenging, rewarding fun... Not spoon feeding fun.

I believe it. The biggest thing I can take away from the mission while I was in was other than Sukumi it was very slow (not a lot of dynamic ground movement, felt like they just took it and that was that), and the aircraft were in reverse roles (fast jest scouting and attacking shipping, Hueys patrolling the shore).

After they took the North field it was extremely easy to just plink the ships as they came at the other two fields assuming you ignored taking back Suk (not sure if cargo planes land after individual fields are taken or after all three?). If there was a threat of infantry sneaking around or units from Suk's cargo landings threatening to move towards the other fields over land it might keep the A/C busy. I also noticed that the first wave at Kras (or whatever the center field was) would sit out in the wide open waiting for the other waves to bulk them up before moving out. Not sure if it'd be possible to put them near some trees or buildings or something so the BTRs aren't chilling in a field.

Just random thoughts for you.

^ How about 2 blue su27 slots along with the 2 f15 slots. The reason I'm thinking is that it would be nice to have a fast mover that can drop some dumb bombs and still use radar to search for invasion aircraft. It would be nice to have a choice of either the 15 or the 27, not sure if having that many fast movers would upset the scenario balance though.

ok tempus/blooze/mace i got the ts over lay working guys thanks

Skoop- no that doesn't offset anything and isn't a bad idea overall. Actually, some of that discussion does give me some ideas about how to heighten the stakes a bit. What's the point in taking back a base if there isn't going to be any tangible threat to the aircraft in the mision?

So... how about after a certain amount of time we start making red AI fighters available from those bases? How did they get there? Well, that's for me to worry about but that certainly increases the intensity of the mission. Leave the base to the reds and suddenly within 30 minutes you have fighters to deal with. Lose two bases and within 30 minutes of that now you have fast moving bombers dropping ordinance on Kutaisi. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I would have it set up so that if you retake the base, the enemy fighters no longer respawn. That's a simple flag action and can be implemented easily. Thoughts?


I have made a few additional changes:

1) Kuz and its battle group now have active radar and ROE turned off. They will fire if you get in range. It is separated from the group but my suggestion is not to stray too far west. It is moving progressively inland so as it advances the free space over the ocean will diminish.
2) Added "advance parties" at MOST LZs. These include infantry, 1 small AA component as well as a small (FARP) command post as well as a few other structures. Messages will alert you when you have destroyed them- plus remind you to make a note of their location as a landing will occur at some point nearby.
3) Added civilian vessels that can be viewed to help spot incoming ships. This may make it too easy what with hogs flying around with 6 mavs and 4 cans apiece.
4) Added messages for when vessels are approaching particular areas- the coast is divided into 3 sections- you will be told roughly which area the vessel is approaching.
5) Also adjusted the FARPs so that they should now work to rearm / refuel / repair.
6) Added 2 submarines amongst the incoming vessels. These have IR missiles and will appear generally at random amongst the vessels out to sea. My suggestion is to be VERY alert. The odds of blundering into one are remote- however... One thing I'm learning is that when people decide to load up with everything when they have nothing to fear you quickly run out of targets and the mission slams to a halt.

To add to your question about when the troops on land leave-

Specifically, they wait until all 3 contingents are on land before advancing. Either that, or they will wait a certain amount of time before all moving at once no matter what... I may need to bump that time up slightly depending how the mission tends to play out. Currently I have it set so that all vessel arrival times will have occurred- and then added a margin. This does sound like a long time but that will quickly be eaten up especially if you're dealing with airbases being captured and enemy fighters in your midst.