Flycos's Meanderings about Missions and the Meaning of Life,

[Neil Willis]

The use of a template mission will make that easier Flyco.

Create one mission, add in any standard items such as the dreaded skins, and set up the frequency presets. Also, add any knee board pages, and any other stuff you might find useful.

Then save it as an original miz file, and just create every mission from it, saving it under a different name.

I have suggested that before, but as with a lot of things, it has never happened.

Do it once, do it right and save all the trouble of repeating it.

[Flyco]

The problem with templates (and I have tried it), is that the aircraft will not in general be at the right airfield, and they will almost certainly not have the right weapons on. It is possible to drag flights to a different airfield, but it gets messy and you still have to change the frequencies for the new airfield.

In practice it is not the initial positioning that takes the time, it is the working out of appropriate routes, and synchronising timings. Then checking the timings against other flights, and finally setting up appropriate red interceptions etc.

Then there is the target. A typical ground target will have up to 100 items in it (not counting any fancy scenic items) (Northern Clout has 101 plus around 40 red air, FARPs, R/W etc). They all need to be positioned and then checked to make sure that they are visible (or not) from the air, they are not half in a river, teetering on a crest etc etc. For all that I usually put an invisible Huey amongst them so that I can view my handiwork from the air. (It has also proved useful in picking up an ejected pilot in the past!)

Then there is the setting of the triggers and timings, to ensure that things happen as they should - this often takes some time to tweak and ensure that there are no mutual interferences between them.

The last thing is to fly all the red units using AI to check that they do as I told them to (or as I though I had told them to!). Finally, I try to fly at least one of each of the Blue ac through the whole mission (F-14 excepted).

I am not complaining - I quite enjoy it. But i hope that explains why I get frustrated when asked to 'just change some of the elements. You will see that I have asked for numbers and type by first thing Monday morning, after which I will ensure that the correct aircraft are in the scenario. The with 15 minutes to go I will get the request to just 'stick in 4 F-18s to replace 4 of the A-10Cs'. Again that doesn't bother me - I just say "No" or invite the requester to do it!

If it ever does stop being fun - I will stop. But I am a long way from that point.

[Neil Willis]

One shortcut might be to have semi-permanent home airbases? Possibly some pre-planned routes, which could be moved around at will? Add in to that a library of pre-placed hostile units such as AAA and SAM batteries, and we might be heading towards some shortcuts to initialising of missions perhaps?

I do understand how complex mission planning is, so I bow to your superior knowledge of course, but anything we can do to lighten the load will be useful I am sure.

[Shaggy]

We have a couple of lads in 11F who are very good at mission creating and I have been getting my head around Mission editor. We could have a QA process where someone takes the load of simple checking things like Com freq's, Tacan, ILS triggers etc. Once we have a matrix in place for these freq's and settings? Something I would be willing to do myself.

[0405 Andrew]

Is it possible to have he master in a shared folder like Dropbox and each squadron fills the freqs, tacan etc. in?
It must be easier if your very familiar with the aircraft.

[Chris]

viewtopic.php?f=283&t=3759

Simple post I threw up via Matt some time ago.... it got lost in the chatter as do many. At the same time Scoob I believe was looking at similar standardisation.

Hopefully the new WG will tie things together and press-gang workers as required...

[0405 Andrew]

To cut to the chase, I very firmly believe that we must have more varied missions, and unless there is a playwright of Shakespearean quality among us we need a mission writing team This team should consist of at least a ‘ground attacker’ an ‘air defender’, an ‘in-betweener’ (DF/GA) and (quite recently) a ‘rotary-winger’. They need to come up with an outline scenario (ideally no more than 2-300 words) – agree it between themselves – go away and write their bits – come back again and see if it all fits – fly any area where there is any uncertainty. And then, most importantly write a clear brief. This is as close as it comes to a committee – how many committees have written a good play?

I've had a go and would like to help out in any way.

viewtopic.php?f=145&t=4036&p=28452#p28452

[Shaggy]

I will discuss with the 11F chaps today about our suggestions for standardisation freq's, suggested airbases for each map, prefered supercarrier etc. Once i have this info i will create a new thread in Mission planning that will provide this info but also provide details on what the CAT can do. Hopefully then every other squadron can do the same and add to the thread and mission creators, could then use this as our main reference to create a comms matrix and missions built around each AC abilities, strengths/weaknesses.

[Mad dog]

If we had standardised airfields, comms freqs etc. across the board, then the subject of having the jets loaded with the correct ordnance can be solved by NOT pre-loading the jets at all. The Sqn/Flt Cmdrs know what their mission is, so they dictate what is carried by whom in their flights. Let the pilots choose their loadout from what is available. This will add an element of realism and will contribute to success or failure (providing education along the way) of a mission element if the wrong weaponry is taken up. As an aside, it will also remove the pressure on the mission builder and there should be no more instances of "my jet wasn't preloaded with the right weapons".

I'm happy to help out if I can.

[Mutley]

Shaggy Do and Pongo Porkins ...........Iam loving what you are both saying and your both so right . So let 11 Sqd continue to lead the way !!!