Don’t know if this is possible, but who would be down for a Mudspike squadron campaign against the evil of the DPRK?
Is there a way to keep an online campaign going across several days of online sessions?
I’ve been dabbling more and more in BMS, and given that we are probably looking at end of May ish for the hornet, why not see if we can get a BMS campaign going for a few weeks until we all become hornet drivers?
In my mind I envision a persistent campaign where the squadron leader (someone with experience in the game) divides out the missions and then we go try to execute them. Our performance would dictate what task was needed next. AARs and the games AI could determine what we needed next. I’ve been into the Makers Mark a bit tonight, but I think this would be great fun for the community.
I think that it’s a great idea Gunny. While searching for a guide to do this, I ran across an interview with the programmer at Spectrum HoloByte whom created the dynamic campaign engine in Falcon 4. A fascinating read.
Uhh, I ran one a few years back. I’ll see about raising that computer from it’s grave and putting falcon back on it
Does the server pc have to stay running 24/7, or can you start and stop the campaign? Would be cool if it was up at certain times for people to jump in and go whenever.
It could be either. The way Falcon mp works is that the campaign speed is set by unanimous decision. Everyone has to agree, or it defaults to 1x speed. So if I set the server to pause the game, it will be up 24/7, but won’t progress until people hop on, where it will go to 1x speed.
Well I’m all in. Sounds pretty awesome.
Falcon-online.org has been hosting precisely this sort of thing for several years. Their campaigns (Korea, Balkans, Israel, Egypt, and more) can run for weeks—real time. I would plan my gaming day around day or night in-theater. I haven’t played BMS in their campaigns in well over a year and have no idea what they do currently. But they had this down like nobody else. And its hard. Very little is stock with their theaters. Months of tweaking and coding have gone into making something compelling yet stable within the limitations of the Falcon netcode. I have seen 50 players on at once USUALLY without problem.
What I am trying to say is you might find that something like this will serve. Join their server and Mudspikers can pick an airport and a squadron and treat it as their own little piece of turf. Because it is easy for one player to screw the server for everyone, either innocently or as a troll, the cost of entry is high. Not money, but in the requirement to study their SOPs and pass a verbal briefing with an admin on TeamSpeak. I found it totally worth it. Campaigns come in Co-op and PvP flavors. In the past they would rotate. I found co-op to be more fun because it concentrated the humans. But PvP was not Quakish. One might fly several missions seeing plenty of enemy AI without once being engaged by a human.
That sounds like a good setup. My only problem is the passing a briefing SOP or whatever with an admin. I’m all into hardcore simulation, and I understand the need to not have jackasses buzzing towers and what not, I’m just not interested in LARPing. I had a similar issue in ARMA, where guys wanted to take it to the max with bootcamp, using ranks, etc. Just not for me.
Not saying those guys do that, because i have no clue, but I don’t want to have to remember proper “SOP” or get yelled at online for playing a game wrong.
The biggest issue I had with some ARMA “units” I had played with was they were trying to hard to follow the Field Manuals, when in actuality, combat never goes by the book. At least not in my experience.
Perfect Example:
In training at Mojave Viper (29 Palms), we practiced calling in helos and air assets using perfectly written 9 lines, very similar to the nine line process in DCS AI. It took a long time to get information passed, but ultimately the helo landed where I wanted it, and I witnessed several conex boxes go boom. In reality, the conversations I had and overheard with air assets in country was much more relaxed and efficient.
Their standards are essential. They could give a crap how you fly or what terminology you use. The briefing covers none of that. What the briefing does cover are items that if done incorrectly will crash the server or lose the war. The same mistakes will ruin whatever you set up in-house as well. So it is good to know. The two broad areas do concern are the speeds the player selects for “Up” and “Down” and the IP address for the game and for the radio. You don’t just connect to a host in Falcon. There are settings that were placed there back in the days of 28k Baud modems. The other easy place to ruin a server is how you choose to go into the ATO, and pick (a) plane(s), mission-type, target and time. The game is fighting an AI war while the humans are doing their own thing within the action. If a human sets up the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong way, he can cause a cascade of problems for the ATO and the entire battle plan can fall apart. All due to the actions of one poorly informed player. There is nothing an admin can do to prevent this other than to make sure that only informed people get through the front door. Again, it has nothing to do with military procedures or flying.
If you do your own thing I humbly encourage you to read their SOPs anyway because it is the best primer out there in how to get Multiplayer Falcon off the ground successfully.
Like I said, I can understand the knowing the game breaking no-no’s, and it sounds like they dont go full metal jacket with the lingo. Interesting.
Concur.
This sounds all sweet, but I realized with shock that the last time I played F4 was 13y ago! I will spend all the few weeks just learning the thing again 