Syria Generic Mission

[Telson]

Hi Chris
I like the new FOB,
Still an issue with the carrier I'm afraid, is it being spawned in rather than placed in the mission editor? Could it be spawning in to high or too low?

[Chris]

No mate, none of those things....

Checked the Tacview off the server for 2 days and no strikes, stray migs missiles or own goals...

It is a strange one. I'll keep checking the tacviews.....

[Telson]

Daft question time, where is the carrier placed on the map?
I think I read somewhere Cyprus island is not in the game yet, but it does appear under the water in the correct place, could the carrier be damaged by grounding in the shallow water?

Edit: Nope not that, nowhere near where Cyprus should be, I also took the .trk file and opened it in mission editor and it doesn't do it when I run the mission.

[Chris]

There is a conflict server side, possibly an unused old mod in play.

TheTarawa / Hermes is bursting into flames at mission start. Deleted it and place new model in, now it will not show, harrier parked on ramp = no ship and a forced air start... We;ll keep investigating. In the meantime use Harriers David or FOB

[Neil Willis]

I will make sure the server has no unwanted mods installed.

[Neil Willis]

All deleted and the servers are now reset.

How now?

[KEULE]

Hi,

thank you for being open to feedback. I already excuse for the length of subsequent text.
These are my two cents from mission version as of Feb 16, 2021:

- I dont understand why there are flags in addition to the markers on the F10 map.
- Markers on the F10 map are not read only. They can be deleted and shouldnt I assume.
- All ground targets seem to be protected by SAM. Which is great if you have HARMs but makes it impossible for any other airframe to attack any ground targets. I propose to have way less SAM to be able to attack ground targets without to use HARMs beforehand.
- I would like to see flyable airframes on the red side too.
- When tankers are out of fuel there is no replacement.
- Briefing says Tarawa is on TACAN 68X, callsign HER and on freq 129,5. In mission TACAN is set to 1X, callsign TKR on freq 127,5 and not assigned to the unit.
- Briefing says George W has callsign SCG. In mission its set to SCGW. TACAN is not assigned to the unit.
- Briefing says Teddy has callsign SCT. However, its set to SCTR.
- Briefing says there are northern tankers in addition to the three south tankers. In the mission there are the three tankers only, the two northern are missing.
- AWACS freq is missing in the briefing text.
- AWACS is set to invisible and immortal upon reaching waypoint 2 only. It takes AWACS about 30 minutes to get there. If red air is spawned within the first 30 minutes after mission start red air is attacking AWACS as its not invisible already.
- There is no air defense on any blue airfield. Red air is chasing you even if you are landing on a blue airfield.
- Red air is hunting you down whereever you are going. They are not retreating as long as you are in the air. I think it should be more like if they are getting outside of a certain zone they should head back.
- Whenever blue air enters a trigger zone (e.g. the most south) at least three bandits are spawning, sometimes even six. They are already high (10k 20k) and fast. Also, they are quite close to you. When you are alone its impossible to counter this threat, especially if you are up for a bombing run and not have a doomsday AtA loadout. It would be great if amount of spawning bandits can be according to entering blue air. Basically you cannot attack ground targets if you are alone and even if you are multiple jet its still very hard as there is also the SAMs.
- I would like to see Hornets and Tomcats taking off from the same carrier. This would enhance flying together and to get involved with each other outside of a planned flight.
- All carriers are very close to the coast: about 20nm to 40nm. They are even within SAM detection range. Usually carriers are not that close to the coast if air and ground superiority is not established. I propose to move them away from the coast.


Again, thank you very much for all your great work.

Best regards
Keule

[Chris]

This map is in early stages of development, so thanks for your feedback, it is truely appreciated, but voice would have been so much easier to reply to than an essay

Currently on server change a problem has arisen that we are trying to resolve.

- I dont understand why there are flags in addition to the markers on the F10 map.
Look at the briefing data on the introduction slides. the one that says READ THE 5 SLIDES... especially slide 4 which says the circles are intel data and the red triangles give the exact location (if known) The concept being a group of folk get together, look at the threats, pick appropriate munitions and plan WPs and the mission etc..

- Markers on the F10 map are not read only. They can be deleted and shouldnt I assume.
Correct - DCS is what DCS is...

- All ground targets seem to be protected by SAM. Which is great if you have HARMs but makes it impossible for any other airframe to attack any ground targets. I propose to have way less SAM to be able to attack ground targets without to use HARMs beforehand.

Damascus area is protected by SAM umbrella and heavy fighter presence. It is designed for Combined Squadron training rather than individual forays. North of the map there are plenty of less protected sites and yes some of these have SAMS but these can be dealt with individually or in pairs.

- I would like to see flyable airframes on the red side too.
They are available but controlled by Squadron Admin as the map is often public and I do not want uncontrolled red air in a training environment.

- When tankers are out of fuel there is no replacement.
All tankers respawn when out of fuel and drop below a certain height.

- Briefing says Tarawa is on TACAN 68X, callsign HER and on freq 129,5. In mission TACAN is set to 1X, callsign TKR on freq 127,5 and not assigned to the unit.
You are probably looking at an interim version, we are trying to ascertain why the Hermes and Harrier suddenly started to be on fire at spawn. If you were then the original was deleted and a new one imposed without configuration. We are still investigating so expect worse.

- Briefing says George W has callsign SCG. In mission its set to SCGW. TACAN is not assigned to the unit.
Only 3 letters will show in cockpit hence SCG, RAF template sets it as SCGW and it is fine. TACAN is assigned and working fine.

- Briefing says Teddy has callsign SCT. However, its set to SCTR.
as above

- Briefing says there are northern tankers in addition to the three south tankers. In the mission there are the three tankers only, the two northern are missing.
Read this thread a few posts up and you will see they have been removed due to a conflict. Once resolved they will be resolved.

- AWACS freq is missing in the briefing text.
- AWACS is set to invisible and immortal upon reaching waypoint 2 only. It takes AWACS about 30 minutes to get there. If red air is spawned within the first 30 minutes after mission start red air is attacking AWACS as its not invisible already.
RED air is spawned by radio comms. CAP needs to do their job.

- There is no air defense on any blue airfield. Red air is chasing you even if you are landing on a blue airfield.
Correct.

- Red air is hunting you down whereever you are going. They are not retreating as long as you are in the air. I think it should be more like if they are getting outside of a certain zone they should head back.
Blame DCS ai. A DCS change is in the pipeline, in 2 weeks!

- Whenever blue air enters a trigger zone (e.g. the most south) at least three bandits are spawning, sometimes even six. They are already high (10k 20k) and fast. Also, they are quite close to you. When you are alone its impossible to counter this threat, especially if you are up for a bombing run and not have a doomsday AtA loadout. It would be great if amount of spawning bandits can be according to entering blue air. Basically you cannot attack ground targets if you are alone and even if you are multiple jet its still very hard as there is also the SAMs.
Designed for multiple AC tasking not individual.

- I would like to see Hornets and Tomcats taking off from the same carrier. This would enhance flying together and to get involved with each other outside of a planned flight.
Both carriers have a mixture of F14s and F18s

- All carriers are very close to the coast: about 20nm to 40nm. They are even within SAM detection range. Usually carriers are not that close to the coast if air and ground superiority is not established. I propose to move them away from the coast.
By design, it is a training map and some are good and some not so good at Air Refueling.

Again, thank you very much for all your great work.

Best regards
Keule

No problem

[KEULE]

In regards to the flags and markers on the F10 map, you say that circles indicate approximate location and the flags give the exact location. I should have been more precise in my question. I don’t understand the use of both as if there is only an approximate location one may use the marker and if there is precise location use the flag. Why having both for location where you already have the exact location? Also, the center of the marker is in all cases very close to the actual location of the ground unit(s). So even with the marker you cannot miss the units. Of course, you need the precise location for GPS guided bombs. But then the marker is redundant.

Speaking of markers…it’s not that DCS doesn’t let you to set markers as read only. You can set them as read only. You just have to use the tick box.

You say Damascus is heavily defended, also by fighters. As these fighters do not stay within the vicinity of Damascus once spawned the whole map is protected by these fighters. And the reason they are not staying within the assigned Zone set by you is because you set as waypoint option “CAP” before the “Search Then Engage in Zone” command. As long as the CAP command is not over, which it is never as no condition upon ending is set by you, they will be in CAP forever and never get to “Search Then Engage in Zone”. So this is not up to DCS to fix but you to configure.

You say that there are plenty of less protected sites in the north of the map. I guess you mean those south of Incirlik. Those are the only ones with “just” one SAM, and SA-19 Tunguska. Still very deadly and can engage targets up to 16k ft. Basically all other ground units are protected by SA-2 up to SA-10 and SAMs that are ranging in between these two.

It seems that the mission is made from a Hornets perspective for Hornets. Only Hornets and Vipers can engage Sam sites, and up to a very little portion Harriers with their Sidearms. And only the Hornet has GPS guided bombs to engage even SAM defended units, Viper will get them eventually too. All other airframes cannot engage any of the ground units due to not having anti-radiation missiles or GPS guided bombs. Also, please keep in mind that only Hornets and Vipers see the threat rings in their MFD’s to know where it’s dangerous. For instance, in a Tomcat I have no idea about the distance to any SAMs until they open fire. Same is true for the Harriers and the choppers. Frankly, what bothers me is that this training mission is not for everyone but mainly for Hornets and to some extent Vipers. And this is a shame, because it’s an awesome map, where you put so much effort and love into creation and everyone not flying one of the two above is neglected and cannot participate. Also this cannot be overcome by numbers as you outlined that this training mission is designed for multiple aircrafts and not individuals. 10 Tomcats can engage SAMs just as little as 1 – not.

I know the issue about the Hermes Mod. Don’t know if there will be any fix soon but I personally try to avoid mods wherever possible because of this very reason. However, I think even if the Tarawa is just an interim solution configuration of the Tarawa should be according to the briefing. After all no one can tell how long interim will be. The same applies to the Tanker, if they are not where stated in the briefing, briefing should be adjusted or at least amended saying that they are currently not in the mission.

I am creating missions and server templates in DCS for ages. Maybe it will help if we speak to each other in due course.

Best regards

[Chris]

Dear Keule,

I have no intention of responding in depth again to all the points made. Some are good and have validity, thankyou, I will adapt accordingly, other however do not, often it is all a matter of opinion. It is clear you have spent much time, again, examining all the details in the editor and are troubled by your personal conclusions. Please contact any member of the governing staff if you feel you or any other person is disadvantaged and the mission can be banned or withdrawn from use.

This is a experimental developmental training map using 1 of 4 servers. It is a WIP. All missions on all servers can and are changed dependent on demand.

If you have any ideas for generic or program specific missions please write them and submit them for approval and for the good of all.

Incidentally there is no issue with the Hermes. The problem was an old MOD server side.

Best Regards