It’d take some brute forcing, but how about having the airfield have no supplies by default, then move/unmove a FARP with the actual supplies as needed?
I wish you could have AI move cargo… like ammo and fuel…
It’s worth a try 
1 Like
I have bad news and good news. The bad news is you’re a masochist. The good new is you’re not alone. They have tools for people like us.
https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/Simulator_Scripting_Engine_Documentation
If at any point you feel inexplicable anger towards this game, yourself, the world in general, and some anonymous Moscovite coder in specific, keep going, you’re on the right track.
2 Likes
if(“OMG” == “WTF”) then
{
_brain say “screwthisimouttahere.ogg”;
_leg1 goto [0,0,5000];
_leg1 setvelocity [0,0,50];
_leg2 goto [0,0,5000];
_leg2 setvelocity [0,0,50];
};
5 Likes
I think the supply issues can be tackled in a dynamic campaign vice dynamic mission.
Without getting into Joint Doctrine, the JFAAC, the ATO and the 72 hr targeting cycle…which I am unfortunately very familiar with-real world and exercise-a “mission” (not a Joint Doctrine term) sets out to do just one thing.
So mission goal is to capture an airbase. Assume an airborne assault. So in multi-player a bunch of strike aircraft go in to conduct SEAD and other airbase intersection ops. Others conduct a Mig-sweep. If successsful, some Huey drivers swoop in, offload troops and capture the base, followed by more troops/vehicles in AI transport planes, and eventually the J4 guys arrive in more C-17s to set up logistics. If all those things happen, it’s a Blue win and the mission ends.
Of course All the while human flown red fighters and strike aircraft are defending / counter attacking.
Blue wins or Red wins. At that point the mission ends.
The next mission in the campaign should depend on that outcome. If Blue wins the designer removes all the AA-10s (sent to the intel bubbas to examine) and replaces them with AMRAMS, sets up a new supply chain, etc.
If Red wins…?
3 Likes
So you see this as a limited scope mission that is part of a larger chain of missions that revolve around adversarial Red vs Blue? Is that a decent summary?
1 Like
Though if we’re playing Red… What would the next mission be? “Deliver vodka to great defenders of the Soviet Motherland”?
2 Likes
In my original intent, I was imagining a persistent, online multiplayer Mission that is essentially a “conquest” mode. Battling for Airfield supremacy. The red side would have the same mechanic available via whatever ripped off, cheap attempt at a C-17 they use. As a PVE mission, it could work in a similar fashion, but there are maybe 3 or 4 airfields that Blue needs to capture in a certain time frame (1 week?), if they don’t, the scenario ends and restarts.
PVE scenario:
Iran has invaded UAE, taken over dirka-stan in a Reverse Arab Spring type uprising. Blah blah blah, US carrier group arrives out side the straight. Players fly aircraft from the Stennis and Tarawa only because realism, capture a base using above created fashion, now they can fly sorties out of there and so on. With an airbase/port captured the MPF ships and ARG can offload Tanks, Devil Dawgs, etc and commence ass kicking on land.
Obviously its easier to come up with theoretical scenarios rather than code them, but I dont know how to code. I think some kind of mudspike mission like that would be fun to jump in and do your part. ONLY IF you could save the mission state on server restart.
1 Like
Maybe…depends on our definition of “limited scope”.
My example was meant to be simple, however, I can see all kinds of CAS, AFAC, transport, CSAR and even recce elements included in such a mission…and tankers, you always need tankers…so the scope of the mission can be as expansive as one wants.
But at the end of the “mission”, yes, a goal or specific set of goals have been achieved or not.
My point was that we can worry about setting up the actual logistics for the next mission, based on the outcome(s) of the first dynamic mission.
I readily admit to being a nugget in DCS so perhaps I got things wrong. That said, isn’t the definition above essentially what Blue Flag is for the Causcus theater?
Yes. That is what I was getting at.
I didn’t mean that “limited scope” would restrict those additional roles, a lot of which would go a fair way to providing the ‘dynamic’ environment. For me, ‘limited scope’ means limiting the ‘time slice’ of the mission (say, 2 hours as an example) with a lot of secondary activity happening to make the mission feel alive (and dynamic).
Hmmmm…an excellent point.
Thinking out loud…
US doctrine works on a continuous 72 hour targeting cycle…what you target today gets hit the day after tomorrow. This work gets folded in with all the supporting air missions (CAP, Sweep, SEAD, tanker, etc) into the Air Tasking Order (ATO) for the day (which comes out the day before execution so aircrews can Plan).
How our adversaries work? That depends.
So a up to a 3 day “missionl should work. Day 4 would depend a lot on what happened on Day 1…which may be where the dynamics could come in?
I guess it all comes down to what we want to do and what we want the AI to do.
Personally, I’ve worked to help “craft” and/or execute too many ATOs in my life…I’d rather the AI handle as much as it can. 
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The major thing I see with a persistent “dynamic” mission is trying to get a little too into the weeds on realism. Air base seizures are a battalion or regimental mission for the 75th, and would be supported as such. If that airbase is big and important enough that we are going to air assault or parachute hundreds of Rangers onto it, it’s going to take a lot more then a few C-17’s to get it up to anything approaching usefulness besides being a FARP or emergency field for fixed wings. I’m assuming it’s a hot war, and not a one sided aerial supremacy the first night like GW1 and GW2, so we can’t really be sending a steady stream of C-17’s for days on end.
I think trying to figure out how to “plus up” the warehouse over a period of time, etc is complexity for complexity sake in this context. Yes if this was an operational wargame, and I now needed to setup my supply lines before I can begin utilizing said airbase, sure why not. However as this is DCS I think most of that complexity would be lost, and probably complained about. No one is going to want to wait for the real time cargo flights coming in (and we’d probably be on the timeline of 24-48 hours at a a minimum) to plus up munitions.
If I was going to go into that sort of detail, I’d go with Hangar200’s suggestion about discrete missions. After the airbase is captured, near term missions are very short of munitions (not just the fancy stuff either, you can only pack so many Mk82’s in an airlift). As the campaign progresses this is relaxed at some rate to be determined.
Regardless I like the overall concept!
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Sling loading to supply air bases and farps. Thats a reason for helos and its a trackable object.
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I would LOVE to make this, and I intend too as soon as the spawning on the Tarawa isn’t borked!
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sometimes adding a LITTLE Hollywood for the sake of fun is worth it IMO. Striking the right balance between realism and fun/coolness is pretty difficult. Obviously you can’t fully rearm an entire air base with 1 C-17, and taking an airfield is a monumental and time consuming task. During OIF I witnessed the growth of a captured/ repurposed airfield grow over time, outside of fallujah. The vast majority of supplies were driven in over land. The MPF ships offloaded in Kuwait I believe, I wasn’t involved in that aspect, but convoys would make LONG trips.
If you look at which airfields were taken in Iraq (Al Asad, BIAP, Al Taqqadum, etc), and how they were used, it would be pretty cool to do something like this in the PG map. Al Asad was pretty far away from the action, and most fixed wing strike aircraft (Marine) operated out of there. Ground Combat Elements utilized chartered commercial flights into Kuwait, then C130 into what ever occupied base was closest to their AO. From there It took several helo chalks over a few weeks to get everyone to their FOB or Combat outpost. Moving an entire battalion took about a month.
The point is, I don’t think anyone wants to fly taxi service for weeks just to get the units set up. I don’t think speeding this process up takes away from the realism so much and it greatly increases the fun factor.
2 Likes
The original intent of this thread was to add some “spice” to the current variety of missions that we have, like Blueflag etc. Make the base capture mechanic a little more of an involved process rather than just killing everything dropping troops from the Mi8 and calling it a day.
Really looking forward to what you coding guys can come up with, some great ideas in here.
1 Like
Also something else to consider is the MASSIVE log train necessary to support expeditionary operations such as these. The logistical capabilities of the US forces is what enabled us to reach baghdad in about 3 weeks. Tanks and IFVs are thristier than a Marine in Thailand, and any kind of sustained combat away from the base will require significant support.
Have any DCS missions utilized an MPF concept? Is there Transport ships in the Editor? Just having a port captured and use these to put units on the battlefield rather than Helos moving crates to LEGO assemble a tank would greatly improve realism.
The order of events would go something like this:
ARG kicks ass with its reinforced BLT (tank company, AAVs, LAV’s), Cobras and harriers support.
Capture shore offload point (commercial port),
MPF ships arrive and offload more tons of FREEDOM
At some point after the tip of the spear is inserted, the CSG arrives and gains/maintains Air Superiority
GCE moves from port to spread FREEDOM.
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I would love to use the PG map but my C-130’s kept disappearing on roll out… I suspect a bug there…