Afghanistan Sandbox (WIP)

Clutch · March 7, 2025, 2:05pm

Big update! Haven’t fully play tested the new stuff but did try out a couple Korengal CAS and Ghazni tasks. Helmand and Lashkar should be good, I’ve tested just about all of those. Too many bug fixes, tweaks, and additions to keep track of so I’m re-writing the description.

Version 0.96 Hotfix (09MAR25) download (Google Drive)

Recommended skins for muh immurssion
I tried to recreate units that were actually deployed using default skins, but a few require 3rd party skins:

F/A-18C VMFA-232 by lee1hy
F-14B VF-102 OEF Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Mi-8 Polish forces in Afghanistan
Mi-24 Polish forces in Afghanistan
CH-47F RAF

(Map is huge)

Supported modules

A-10C-II
AH-64D
AV-8B
CH-47F
F-14B
F-15E
F-16C
FA-18C
Mi-8MTV2
Mi-24P
OH-58D

DESCRIPTION

Areas of Operations (AOs)

Helmand: 19 tasks around Camp Hadrian and Camp Coyote.
Lashkar: 10 tasks around Lashkar Gah.
Korengal: 8 tasks around the Korengal valley.

Fixed wing tasks

Enter one of the three AOs and wait for auto check-in with AI voices to enable the F10 radio menu tasking. Some tasks use DCS JTAC. If lasing, JTAC laser codes default to 1688.
Some tasks require further F10 radio commands, e.g. “eyes on target.”
Tora Bora strike task spawns a random set of 4 DMPIs on the mountains in Tora Bora, indicated by map markers. 10ft containers are there for feedback on impacts. There are 4 stackable variations for a total of 16 DMPIs if you want to do a four-ship strike.
All AOs are open to all fixed wing aircraft regardless of spawn location.
UTM coordinates given may not always be 10-digit format, so pay attention to your trailing zeroes.

AH-64 and OH-58 tasks
Same as fixed wing, but helos are limited to the AO nearest their spawn location.

Mi-24 tasks
The Mi-24s have tasks in and around Ghazni. No check-in required, tasks generated directly by F10 radio menu. Task locations will have map markers. Currently 5 tasks available.

CH-47 and Mi-8 Tasks
Transport helos at Bastion, Kandahar, and Jalalabad have troop insertion, extraction, and medevac tasks generated by the F10 radio menu. Task locations will have map markers. No voice lines for these tasks. Currently 4 to 7 tasks available depending on platform and spawn location.

Dynamic Cargo
Dynamic cargo is enabled for all blue airfields, heliports, and FOBs which have a landing pad.

Strongholds
There are three strongholds with technical-mounted AAA and 80% chance of MANPADS spawning in a random location within those strongholds:

Objective Rugby West/East/Center (OP: Medusa) west of Kandahar
Tora Bora south of Kabul
Korengal valley, extreme southern end

Tankers
There are 5 tankers: 2 near Helmand, 2 near Korengal, and 1 between the Arabian Sea and southwest AOs. Tanker tracks are marked with green rectangles. Baskets and booms for everybody. Boom recipients can request speed changes via the F10 radio menu: “fast” is 270KIAS, “slow” is 230KIAS.

Carrier OPs
CVN-71 is on station in the Arabian Sea with AIRBOSS script enabled. 8 three-hour cycles with 45 minute launch/recovery windows. First event at 0600-0645, second at 0900-0945, etc. Deck closed at 0245+1.

Other Features

“Thorns” will take pot shots at you if you wander into their territory. They’re in the cities and in the mountains. No MANPADS here.
Kneeboards with comms, waypoints, and navaids are built into the mission.
Logistics traffic of C-130s and CH-47s flying around for the first hour.

Notes and known issues

Task random roll sometimes rolls a value that’s arleady been used. If no task is generated, keep trying the F10 menu until one generates.
When all tasks are complete you will get a message, but it’s easy to miss. If you’re unsure you’ve run out of tasks check the message history.
Tasks in the three AOs are broadcast to everybody, so if you have multiple people in different AOs at the same time it could get messy.
CH-47s at Dwyer and the Mi-8 at Ghazni don’t have tasks yet.
DCS AI bug with units pushing waypoints after triggered actions may break some tasks. I fixed a few by having the group despawn and a new group spawning to replace them and continue the mission, but there are probably some tasks that I missed.

Enjoy!

Clutch · March 8, 2025, 4:00pm

Found an issue with the tankers. File updated with a hotfix.

If you tell the tanker to change speed it will break the tanker task and he won’t give you fuel. I fixed that, plus a squad of Blackhawks that somehow became alive when they were supposed to be static.

jenrick · March 10, 2025, 7:59pm

Gave it a try out this weekend, worked great. Honestly I don’t understand why ED doesn’t have something like this natively for DCS. Outstanding work sir!

chipwich · March 10, 2025, 9:30pm

Is the link in the OP undated with the latest version? Thanks.

Clutch · March 11, 2025, 2:42am

The one in the OP is old. The time window for editing posts has passed so I can’t update it. This post has the current one. Maybe I should start a Github with the current release

I’ve been testing the Mi24 tasks in Ghazni and the CH-47 tasks in Jalalabad the past couple days and found some minor issues: Ramak task in Ghazni has missing triggers but all the other Mi24 tasks work, and the VIP ramp dropoff point for the Chinooks at Jalalabad is a bit awkard for landings so I’ll be moving that. Some LZs and objectives are hard to identify so I’m probably going to put some kind of burnt out vehicle or some kind of marker near them to make sure the player lands within the trigger zone for the task to progress.

Currently trying to work in some Hueys larping as Venoms from Bastion and might try to add some stuff in Khost as well. I would really like to have all the major tasks played through proper radio freqs instead of “sound to coalition” but the “transmission” trigger originates from some 0,0 coordinate inside the ground causing LOS issues and transmissions from units don’t allow the time delays I need between certain transmissions.

jenrick · March 11, 2025, 3:30am

Excellent, I was going to suggest that!

Torc · March 11, 2025, 3:58am

It does make it easy for everyone to find the latest version, and if you’re happy for other people to extend your work it streamlines that as well

Clutch · March 11, 2025, 4:42am

Thinking out loud with some changes I’m thinking about:

Reducing group slots from 4 to 2. I really don’t see more than 2 people flying the same platform out of the same airbase–exception to the CVN–and having 4 of each really clutters the menus. The user can increase unit numbers in the groups without breaking anything anyway. They just can’t change aircraft type or add new groups.
Having only one CH47/Mi8 slot at each base for the random tasks, then one seperate slot for dynamic cargo/slingloading since the random tasks (embark/disembark) only work for one aircraft and sometimes get crosswired with other units in the group when flying online.
Separating attack helo tasks from fixed wing mostly or entirely. Right now the three AO tasks are shared but some of them are so far away that they would timeout before an Apache can get on station, and some aren’t possible to complete with say a single Kiowa. Online you can still cooperate to complete the tasks together, one party just wouldn’t get the on-screen messages and “radio” transmissions.

Clutch · March 11, 2025, 4:43am

Looking at my spreadsheet with 170 flags and 71 map markers that might put too many cooks in the kitchen

jenrick · March 11, 2025, 6:25am

Are there specific gun-helo tasks that are separate from the fixed wing? For example following a convoy or conducting a route recon for one. How much of a pain would it be to have platform specific tasks vs type (ie fixed vs rotary)?

Clutch · March 11, 2025, 8:00am

Platform specific in the sense that I’m thinking of would probably limit replayability. Instead of having 15 tasks shared among three platforms, each platform might have only 5 tasks each, for example. For the most part it’s not that a certain platform can’t complete the task, it’s just that the messages/sounds/map markers are either sent to the whole coalition or to a specific group.

Maybe I should say “group specific tasks” instead of platform specific tasks, since you could theoretically take a Chinook with door gunners and complete a CAS task that wasn’t even assigned to it .

Current big picture is:

Fixed wing slots can go into any of the three AO boxes and initiate tasks, with messages and sounds broadcast to the entire Blue coalition.
The Apaches and Kiowas use the same three AO boxes and same tasks as fixed-wing, but they’re limited to the AO closest to their spawn point. If you manage to cruise your Bastion Apache up to the Helmand AO box, you won’t be able to initiate tasks because the Bastion Apache slot is only assigned to the Lashkar AO box.
The Chinooks and Hips have their own group-specific tasks that only they can initiate, and the messages/sounds are only broadcast to them.
The Mi-24 at Ghazni is a QRF, as it were, with its own group-specific tasks that only it can initiate, and the messages/sounds are only broadcast to it.

When I add Apache tasks to Khost, Kandahar, and Herat those will be QRF style like the Hind in Ghazni. Which at that point instead of having an inconsistent mess where some Apaches have to fly into their nearest AO and some don’t, I could simply set them to be QRF as well. It also makes more sense to me because the helos are range limited while fixed wing isn’t.

The catch is the Apaches at Tarinkot and Jalalabad. They’re a 30-minute flight away from any of the action. Some people like that, some people don’t. If I want to make everything consistent and have them as QRF too, I’ll need to move them to a FOB within the AO boxes, which I was considering anyway. Those would share the same tasks as fixed wing within the AO boxes instead of being group-specific.

My brain is contorting itself trying to find a balance of consistency for ease of play, decluttering the F10 radio menu, decluttering comms/messages, avoiding scenarios where a client online could “steal” someone else’s task, while still facilitating an environment where multiple people could set up a CAS stack with helos down low, fighters at medium altitude, some dudes doing troop transport, and some doing dynamic cargo simultaneously without everyone stepping on each other’s feet.

Clutch · March 13, 2025, 9:35am

I may have discovered a simple solution without having to change much. I learned some simple scripting to nest the tanker speed requests in a submenu so it doesn’t clutter up the F10 menu items. So, why not put all the non-AO CAS tasks within their own submenu? Basically like this:

F10 ‘Other’

Tanker speed > 1~4 for the two tankers fast/slow
Other CAS > 1~5 for CAS around specific cities/villages outside the three main AOs

When you enter one of the three main AOs those get sequentially stacked 3~5.

This way we’ve got:

Three main AOs primarily for fixed wing but also available to nearest-based attack helos.
Other CAS tasks around 5 cities/villages: Ghazni, Kandahar, Khost, and Sangin that are available to both fixed wing and attack helos (no waypoints), with additional helo slots within those areas (with waypoints).
CH-47 and Mi-8 transport tasks still separate from everybody

That way there’s way more variety and replayability.

Torc · March 18, 2025, 11:50pm

I love the idea - but I was by trade a data analyst type who dabbled in programming so I guess it is the sort of thing that would appeal to me?

Is there an easy way to have the most commonly used options in the top menu and just break out the more fiddly bits into the submenus? Something like, spawning in a CAS task being in the top menu, but fiddling with the specifics being in submenus?

I’m not sure it would work (or even be possible as you’re envisioning it) but that might be less intimidating for new users?

Clutch · March 19, 2025, 2:41am

If I skipped the auto-check-in thingy then I could do something like this I guess:

CAS tasks
<Helmand
<Korengal
<etc.
Strike tasks (something new I’m working on)
<sub1
<sub2
Tanker speed
<Texaco 1 slow
<Texaco 1 fast
<etc.

The only thing I would have to change is to set the tasks to actually start once a player is within the AO boundary, otherwise smoke markers would time out long before the player arrived. A couple tasks require the player to check-in via F10 after making visual contact with something, and I think that item will appear in the main list instead of nested in the submenus, but that should be a good thing because it’s easier to access and once triggered it disappears anyway. That’s really the only fiddly bit in the menu with the CAS tasks. Most of them are simply call-in and go wreck stuff.

The CH-47/Mi-8 is where things get slightly messy since they obviously have to be independent of everything else. I might try “remove radio item for group” to trim them down to just their transport tasks.

Torc · March 19, 2025, 7:26am

That sounds good to me!

chipwich · March 20, 2025, 4:14am

I tried the current released version tonight in the Chinook flying a couple of troop transport missions. It loaded to the chose slot screen pretty quickly compared to Into the Jungle. Of course Camp Bastion has a crap ton of objects so that does take a while to load, but your patience is rewarded with an incredibly detailed base. My cousin served there a few times and would be interested to get his impressions.

I think that everything went as planned. Was shot at with small arms on the outbound leg, but had transited above 3000 AGL, so no issues. LZ was reported hot with the enemy on the to the NE, so I waited a bit before approaching and came in from the SW. Just before landing I received a message that the LZ was clear. Unloaded the troops, then picked some up for the return leg, which was uneventful. Got credit for both tasks.

I have a question about the option “Mark zone” (I think). Is that to leave smoke or a map marker in case you need to return?

I left the server up if anyone wants to try it.

Server name: MUDSPIKE I SANDBOX
Server active - 01:43:41
Password: mudspikeFTW
Max players: 32
IP address: 98.48.181.28
Port: 10308
Public
Current mission: Afghanistan-Sandbox-v0.97

Clutch · March 20, 2025, 8:49am

The thing that’s in the F10 map tool bar at the top? I keep getting the two confused, but the one on the left I think (circle without text box) is a user-placeable map marker that can be annoted with text. Only the client who placed it can see it, but it’s useful to mark things and can be used in some modules (Viggen, etc.) to create/load a flight plan.

I’ve had to use it a couple times after accidentally deleting the task-generated maker lol

Next update (whenever that will be) will replace the confusing “task 1-3” notation for the transport tasks to have proper callsigns. The embark/disembark takes the group name from the mission editor and I somehow just recently figured that out. Most of my group names were pretty non-sensical from a player standpoint.

Clutch · March 25, 2025, 8:55am

Github link

Github was an unintuitive pain to figure out but I think I got it working. Version 0.97 (new) is up there. Some big changes:

All tasks nested in submenus: CAS, Strike, Tanker speeds.
CAS tasks open to all platforms in 7 AOs. No more check-in, tasks are triggered straight from the F10 menu. Players need to make sure they’re in or near the AO before initiating a task so any timed actions don’t timeout.
Tweaked and added more troop transport tasks for the Chinooks and Hips. Jalalabad has the most at the moment.
Khost and Kandahar currently only have 5 tasks. May add more later.
Some tasks instruct “advise when eyes on…” These generate an additional F10 radio item matching the instruction. Basically you find the target, then hit that F10 command, and the rest of the task will progress.
There’s some minor randomization with some tasks. The target or task progression may change each time you play it.
The 19 tasks in Oruzgan (formerly Helmand) have been trimmed to 7 tasks that are randomly pulled from the original pool of 19 tasks.
Added 12 strike tasks split between the South and East sides of the map, with briefing images generated when the task is initiated.
I messed around with “map object dead” triggers for targeting of buildings and warnings if you dish out too much collateral damage near a target building. Not sure how well it works yet.
AI traffic offloaded to lua scripting.

This is a huge mess of triggers, conditions, and flags, so there’s bound to be bugs, but most should work.

chipwich · March 26, 2025, 7:23pm

At lunch today, I flew a troop transport mission departing Jalalabad. In the black of night. The task was to fly to FOB Joyce and pick up some troops to drop on top of a mountain. I’m still learning the Chinook and want to personally thank @Clutch for giving me the opportunity to train in the dark Yes, when they say cold and dark, the emphasis was on the dark. So I found my flashlight, then the battery switch, then got the APU started, etc. It got me thinking that it would be cool to fly this thing multi crew and have the copilot go to the back of the bus for startup and taxi.

Anywho, we made it to Joyce, picked up a rather untalkative bunch of snake eaters, and hauled them up a mountain. There, we poked around in the dark and landed what the thought was pretty close to the LZ. At least it was the nearest spot to the circle on the map that I felt comfortable setting Big Bird down in the dark.

But the door kickers refused to disembark when we arrived. With no one shooting at us, this was a surprise. I mean what was worse, riding around with Mr. Magoo in the dark, or walking .12 nm to their DZ? My bet would be to get some fresh air and stretch your legs.

I was out of time anyway, but it was a really fun mission to that point.

Good:

Mission loads fast.
Mission was realistic and interesting. We passed one bird on final departing Jalalabad and a Chinook on a reciprocal heading passed underneath us as we approached FOB Joyce.
Lots of aircraft and missions to fly.
Performance was good on my system.
The mission settings were good.

Could be better:

The maps. Maybe move the installation (base) labels further away since the static objects tend to clutter them to the point of not being legible, even on the F10 map. Perhaps there is a way to hide those. And maybe turn up the resolution if possible on the kneeboard maps for readability in VR.

I’m not sure if I’m doing the troops transport tasks correctly. It looks like to create the task on the F10 Other selection, but embark, disembark on the Sky trooper (or whatever its called) menu.

I figured out what the Mark option does. The little dudes will pop smoke to mark their posit if you are in the area. The funny thing is that they will also do it if they have boarded your aircraft.

I’ve left the mission running on my server if anyone wants to give it a go. Details a few post up.

Clutch · March 27, 2025, 1:33am

You might have been just outside the trigger zone for the dropoff. If my math is right 0.119nm is a smidge over 700ft. I think I set most of the trigger zones for 600ft but I should probably make them bigger, say 1000ft.

Was this on v0.96? I’ve been thinking about tweaking the helo traffic since in 0.96 I only have traffic running the first couple hours. In 0.97 I use scripting for continuous traffic but the helos take a direct route over the mountains instead of going through the valleys, so you never see them.

The kneeboard pages with the comms and navaids? Or the downloadable maps from the GitHub?

I think I can fix the FOB labels by hiding the FOBs statics and sticking a blue dot or something where they are. The map labels in DCS have scaling issues when zooming in/out that drives me nuts.