Fighting 99th Forum
Just a thought.....
Topic Author
Just a thought..... #7964
I thought I would throw out an idea in this forum for what I would think would be a great mission. Let me tell you first I have no I clue what goes on with making missions but I thought I would throw out an idea from one of my favorite books and movies.....would it be possible to make a mission inspired by the battle of la Drang? The battle portrayed in the movie and book "We Were Soldiers Once....and young". I would suggest if you haven't seen the movie or read the book to do so.
I would think it would mainly be a "blue" only mission since in the battle there wasn't any "red" air just an overwhelmingly amount of "red" ground forces. Helicopters would have to continuously supply troops "not armor" and Air assets would have to do close air operations with some of the munitions restricted to what was available at the time. The blue side would have to hold the area for a pre determined amount of time or take over the enemy HQ on a mountain to win.
I could see this as a F99th event rather than on the public server since it would need a good amount of pilots on throughout the whole thing to stand a chance.
thoughts?
Since I am bad at describing here is a link to the wiki for the battle.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ia_Drang
I would think it would mainly be a "blue" only mission since in the battle there wasn't any "red" air just an overwhelmingly amount of "red" ground forces. Helicopters would have to continuously supply troops "not armor" and Air assets would have to do close air operations with some of the munitions restricted to what was available at the time. The blue side would have to hold the area for a pre determined amount of time or take over the enemy HQ on a mountain to win.
I could see this as a F99th event rather than on the public server since it would need a good amount of pilots on throughout the whole thing to stand a chance.
thoughts?
Since I am bad at describing here is a link to the wiki for the battle.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ia_Drang
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Just a thought..... #7965
It seems like a fine idea to me. Would this be on the Georgia map?
Can I suggest you try and construct it yourself, so that you know it is to your liking? The ME is not the end of the world, and as several of us have mentioned before on other mission proposition threads, there are very able hands on the F-99th at mission building who will be only too happy to help you, on TS or on the forum. I know I've had many productive chats with Tracer about it, for example.
I'll just add a consideration or two. Regarding "overwhelming" Red OPFOR, you probably will not want to have them all present at mission start up, but have them entering the sim progressively as spawns, so they don't cause lag issues and such on the server. You'd have two options, at least, there. One; make all the units in the ME, but have most of them late activation (in waves), triggered by the destruction of the previous wave, or two; there are scripts, made by current members even, that can dynamically spawn new units.
Regarding the chopper deployment of troops only; yes, you could modify CTLD to do that, or otherwise I have a much simpler and less resource hungry script (over on my noob thread) that does exactly what you mentioned; allows deployment of only troops, without the need to open menus, and such.
Of course, it goes without saying that some thought needs to go into the conditions that cause Blue side to either win or loose the scenario.
Finally, that is a Vietnam Conflict book I have not read, and it is on my reading list now. Thanks!
Hope you give it a try, and good luck!
Can I suggest you try and construct it yourself, so that you know it is to your liking? The ME is not the end of the world, and as several of us have mentioned before on other mission proposition threads, there are very able hands on the F-99th at mission building who will be only too happy to help you, on TS or on the forum. I know I've had many productive chats with Tracer about it, for example.
I'll just add a consideration or two. Regarding "overwhelming" Red OPFOR, you probably will not want to have them all present at mission start up, but have them entering the sim progressively as spawns, so they don't cause lag issues and such on the server. You'd have two options, at least, there. One; make all the units in the ME, but have most of them late activation (in waves), triggered by the destruction of the previous wave, or two; there are scripts, made by current members even, that can dynamically spawn new units.
Regarding the chopper deployment of troops only; yes, you could modify CTLD to do that, or otherwise I have a much simpler and less resource hungry script (over on my noob thread) that does exactly what you mentioned; allows deployment of only troops, without the need to open menus, and such.
Of course, it goes without saying that some thought needs to go into the conditions that cause Blue side to either win or loose the scenario.
Finally, that is a Vietnam Conflict book I have not read, and it is on my reading list now. Thanks!
Hope you give it a try, and good luck!
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Just a thought..... #7967
That's an incredible book. I remember the movie being pretty good as well, but I'll give it another watch.
The mission sounds fun, I'd like to have a go at it. I have yet to play with the mission editor myself though, so I'm no help there. One of these days I'll fire it up and figure it out.
The mission sounds fun, I'd like to have a go at it. I have yet to play with the mission editor myself though, so I'm no help there. One of these days I'll fire it up and figure it out.
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Just a thought..... #7968
First, ditto everything Cygon said. Nothing wrong with a COOP mission on a public map. A lot of people dig a pure coop mission where they know real players aren't shooting back at them.
Consider a few more things on top of Cygon's most excellent comments.
Scale and Scope:
The first mission I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every line of DCS code, thus I redesigned it to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of DCS Mission making. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection and DCS scripting.
err..sorry..
One of my first mistakes when I first started making missions, was to make the biggest most bestest, most awesomeness supercalifragilisticexpialidocious mission in the whole wide world. All missions in comparison to it would have paled you see. You've never played this mission. You've never played it because it sucked. It sits in the dustbin of my failed and forgotten missions.
What I am saying with all that is simply this: Don't go and try to make your supercalifragilisticexpialidocious mission the first time you open the ME. You will waste a lot of time and be pretty disappointed with the results.
Have clearly defined goals for each side. I.e. if these 4 units are dead - blue wins.. or whatever. The mission should be winable or if it becomes unwinable - it reloads or starts a new mission. You don't want folks flying around going "hey, are there any targets left?".
You should be able to make it look like there are lots of units, but in reality, most of it is scripted to show up dynamically based on conditions. Having 1000's units on the map (late activate or not) will increase the size of the mission. The more units on the map at any given time will require more and more resources from both the clients and the servers so there is a balance.
I've noticed that a lot of infantry can cause lag. I am guessing when I suggest the following: For every ai unit, the cpu is having it 'consider' all the other units around him. He has to calculate his closest enemy and perhaps track and shoot and move. Though the move is done via a group move, the individual infantry units can track and shoot on their own. I use infantry units sparingly in my missions because of this perceived behavior. To many of them, coupled with everything else I usually have going on and I will notice a difference. I only mention this in particular because your idea while good, sounds like it would rely heavily on infantry.
Also consider that the ground ai (troops in particular) are about as simplistic as you can get. They are dumb. They probably won't do what you want them to do, or go where you want them to go if you use CTLD. The would likely get themselves killed pretty quickly in fact. Sounds like cygon may have some help there.
There are probably 2 or 3 ways in which to do a particular thing. Some are better than others depending on the details.
Don't let the word 'scripting' scare you. A script in most cases is something that someone else has already written for you. You just get to take advantage of all his/her hard work
- You don't know how to build a car I'm sure. But you do know how to drive one I bet. This is the same thing. Once we show you how to get things plugged into the correct spots in the ME, you just become a user of the script. You rarely need to author your own.
You have many resources in the squad who can help out, myself included. I've sat for many hours with various folks who are interested in making missions and happy to do so with anyone else..
Maybe a mission workshop night for those interested? We could cover the basics of getting the various scripts to work. Maybe a 1 hour class on how to create a mission template that you can use over and over for other missions. etc. I like this idea so much as I'm typing it, I will set it up! Stay tuned and watch the site events list and I will post more about it soon.
In the mean time, do not hesitate to:
a) start a mission
b) ask questions
go go go!
Consider a few more things on top of Cygon's most excellent comments.
Scale and Scope:
The first mission I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every line of DCS code, thus I redesigned it to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of DCS Mission making. However, I was again frustrated by failure. I have since come to understand that the answer eluded me because it required a lesser mind, or perhaps a mind less bound by the parameters of perfection and DCS scripting.
err..sorry..
One of my first mistakes when I first started making missions, was to make the biggest most bestest, most awesomeness supercalifragilisticexpialidocious mission in the whole wide world. All missions in comparison to it would have paled you see. You've never played this mission. You've never played it because it sucked. It sits in the dustbin of my failed and forgotten missions.
What I am saying with all that is simply this: Don't go and try to make your supercalifragilisticexpialidocious mission the first time you open the ME. You will waste a lot of time and be pretty disappointed with the results.
Have clearly defined goals for each side. I.e. if these 4 units are dead - blue wins.. or whatever. The mission should be winable or if it becomes unwinable - it reloads or starts a new mission. You don't want folks flying around going "hey, are there any targets left?".
You should be able to make it look like there are lots of units, but in reality, most of it is scripted to show up dynamically based on conditions. Having 1000's units on the map (late activate or not) will increase the size of the mission. The more units on the map at any given time will require more and more resources from both the clients and the servers so there is a balance.
I've noticed that a lot of infantry can cause lag. I am guessing when I suggest the following: For every ai unit, the cpu is having it 'consider' all the other units around him. He has to calculate his closest enemy and perhaps track and shoot and move. Though the move is done via a group move, the individual infantry units can track and shoot on their own. I use infantry units sparingly in my missions because of this perceived behavior. To many of them, coupled with everything else I usually have going on and I will notice a difference. I only mention this in particular because your idea while good, sounds like it would rely heavily on infantry.
Also consider that the ground ai (troops in particular) are about as simplistic as you can get. They are dumb. They probably won't do what you want them to do, or go where you want them to go if you use CTLD. The would likely get themselves killed pretty quickly in fact. Sounds like cygon may have some help there.
There are probably 2 or 3 ways in which to do a particular thing. Some are better than others depending on the details.
Don't let the word 'scripting' scare you. A script in most cases is something that someone else has already written for you. You just get to take advantage of all his/her hard work
- You don't know how to build a car I'm sure. But you do know how to drive one I bet. This is the same thing. Once we show you how to get things plugged into the correct spots in the ME, you just become a user of the script. You rarely need to author your own.You have many resources in the squad who can help out, myself included. I've sat for many hours with various folks who are interested in making missions and happy to do so with anyone else..
Maybe a mission workshop night for those interested? We could cover the basics of getting the various scripts to work. Maybe a 1 hour class on how to create a mission template that you can use over and over for other missions. etc. I like this idea so much as I'm typing it, I will set it up! Stay tuned and watch the site events list and I will post more about it soon.
In the mean time, do not hesitate to:
a) start a mission
b) ask questions
go go go!
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Just a thought..... #7969
Oh wow, that answered a ton of questions. Thanks Tracer! I think a mission editor night would be awesome, I would attend.
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Topic Author
Just a thought..... #7971
Thanks for all the advice guys. I would totally attend mission workshop. I don't have the slightest idea about setting up a mission but its something I will look into trying to learn on the weekends.
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Just a thought..... #7983
Count me in....been building a similar mission of my own and between Youtube and painstakingly testing everything I employ....a dedicated night/s would be very helpful.
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