Offensive Posture, you had part of it!
That’s the just refreshed V2 of the first scenario ever made for HPN by Franze and has a lot of scripting updated with lessons learned over the last year+ of gameplay and other mission builds.
C101 and L39 were a compromise, as the Su-25 and A-10 AI would be too overpowered and take away from the player’s work. Watch the L39s though, recent updates mean they aren’t so passive A2A.
Similarly, the Helicopters are AH-1 and Mi-24 instead of say, Apache and Havoc.
Regarding F10 - it’s based on the AI line of sight which varies from so blind they can’t see what’s visually right in front of them to omnipotent with AWACS seeing enemy planes as spawn, start and taxi.
Offensive Posture used to make use of the in game warehousing to limit munition types to be period correct as well as set limits so that if the enemy spawned CAP etc. too rapidly, they would run out of stock for a time.
The problem is that nearly every update, ED would alter the ID codes for various weapons in the system which would make the warehouse data invalid.
You can only set things via the unlimited or quantity systems - no general whitelist or blacklist, so that means a fully manuall re-entry of all values for every weapon at every airbase. It was too much work and so is temporarily out until we decide to add a scripted restrict system (like those that give you an F10 option to check before takeoff, but despawn you if you takeoff with an invalid load) or a major logistics update comes to DCS.
So for now you have JSOW-C and other modern goodies, but that won’t stay that way down the road.
In the original version, I had to bomb Senaki’s runway by having cover and flying in with MK-83/84 and releasing from angels 30 in AUTO and hoping one would not be wind deflected, hit the runway, and give us respite from waves of enemy MiG-29s.
It is really nice…and the briefing is very good. I was curious to explore the F10 menu and the artillery use thing (probably be cool in a helicopter), but ran out of time yesterday.
I liked seeing them. And the mix of MiG-29A and L-39s gives a nice opportunity for a terrible A2A guy like me to feel some of that glimmer of hope that we might evolve into marginally competent CAP pilots.
Are you me? My loadout yesterday was 2x HARM, 4x Mk-83, 2x AIM-120C, 2x AIM-9M, 1x center fuel tank.
I was supposed to be studying LGB and TGP bombing, but was having too much fun with the old school bombing.
This reminded me to ask that very question (@fearlessfrog and I were wondering about it on the SFrog Syria mission) - does a cratered runway prevent the AI from taking off?
Yes, the AI will fail to path and stop moving wherever they are in their taxi route, or remain parked if they haven’t left the hangar/ramp. I believe taxiway damage works on this as well.
In the original, we had dynamic weather with enough cloud cover to make LGB impractical. Loitering over an enemy airfield, looking for a cloud opening to bomb a runway? Not a great plan! Did I mention the adjacent SA-11 and SA-2? (The air defenses were revamped since as well.)
Server crashed last night so I restarted it, this time it has loaded up Trivial Perplexion on Syria. Similar general concept, more modern setting, fancier looking terrain!
Those were the first things I went after with the HARMs. The SA-2 fight was fun…we exchanged missiles and mine hit and a few seconds later the massive SA-2 missile went flying past my vertical stabs… I was surprised a proximity type fuze didn’t go off…
Franze built some of his own integrated-air-defense-system (IADS) script rather than using the well known community one (keep it simpler to debug) so the air defenses are “smart” - they may decide your HARM isn’t worth dying for and shut down, only to pop up when your complacency puts you in the kill zone.
Afaik, we don’t have proxy fuzes (no frag damage either) - it just appears as such due to latency over the network. 50ms ping adds up….say a missile is going 1400kts that is 720m/s. So in 50ms that missile covers 36 meters (appx. 118ft).
(1400kts is the peak speed of the AIM-7 which is around Mach 2-2.5, our sparrows are slow. R-27s and AIM-120 get closer to Mach 4.)
I think it will come after the damage models are all updated. Proxy + frag will make sense at that point. Then we can also have frag damage from bombs, airburst fuzes, etc.
I mean, the bloody missile is a third of the length of the target aircraft It doesn’t even need to detonate, it can just sit on top of the L-39 like the fat kid at the school playground and it’ll fall from the sky.
To be fair there were “29” nails in the direction of the radar contacts. No NCTR for the AWG-9.
I saw the chance so I took the shots
Besides: TWS multi shots are a guilty pleasure for me. Since L-39 don’t have a RWR (even not the crappy SPO) they have no clue until they blow up. Unfair? Most certainly. But it’s only AI.
Haha fair enough - but please don’t take my chuckles as critisism! It just brought me joy to consider how completely those poor guys got taken to the cleaners.
Just an FYI, the 55G6 EWR seems “impervious” to direct LGB hit due to some kind of laser/hitbox issue. Did some test with both pods and other units to confirm it’s just this one unit so far that has this issue.
It may not die from the near miss but a GBU-16 left it within an inch of it’s life.
Very kind of you to dig it a pool. I was having some odd behavior from an SA-9 yesterday as I was doing some testing. It would track and show interest if you were heading straight at it, but then the launcher would go vertical as I went overhead and would not swivel to take a tail end shot at me. It would NEVER fire if I was flying directly over it…only if I was arcing around within its range circle. And despite pouring tons of 20mm fire into it, it wouldn’t take any damage.
As I recall the missile it has may be tail aspect only.
It is short ranged and so if you are moving fast it may see that a shot is a waste of time as you’d out run it.
The 20mm cannon via ED (Hornet and Viper) lacks proper dispersion, even with the update it’s wider than is real. Run a strafing pass with the F-14 which is a laser by comparison - the Tomcat’s dispersion is set at an amount that would IRL indicate a fully worn out, to be replaced barrel set. (If you want really bad guns - use the F-5E.)
If you shoot even at max range (6-7,000ft slant / 6-7 oclock on the pipper’s ranging / pipper on target 15° dive) you don’t get enough rounds to rip up a vehicle on target.
The other problem is unlike the Viper, we don’t get choice of rounds in the Hornet.
So consider the gun for trucks and infantry only more or less.
It doesn’t even need to detonate, it can just sit on top of the L-39 like the fat kid at the school playground and it’ll fall from the sky. 
It just brought me joy to consider how completely those poor guys got taken to the cleaners. 
