I'm going to try and join either of them tonight. I meant to tell you WC, that airfield defense mission is fun, in spite of the $&@% anti air. I just had the idea to toss a CBU over a hill using CCRP, can that be done? I'm gonna try it myself single player, might be a good tactic.. IE mark a target from a safe distance and alt and then decend into the grass and lob it from the safe side of a hill for masking?

If the hill is close enough to the target, yes. It's an A-10 though, you won't have much speed to play with.

EEeeeewwwww.... Brokeback mountain... lololol... just pulling your leg.

Regarding the reload problem, I used to fly with a bunch of guys and it seemed that reloading a new or different mission would cause a crash, but reloading the same mission didn't. It's probably that? WC, my main beef with large MP-oriented missions is that to deal with increased number of pilots, most mission builders simply increase the number of targets, but do not "expand" the storyline to cover it. In other words, it simply becomes a practice range with pilots seeking to get the most kills --- no attempt at tactics, formation flying, or any of the other stuff that makes this sim more than just "kill stuff while in an airplane." Anyway, looking forward to testing your mission. Heck, looking forward to simply flying again!


So what is it then?

Lofting CBUs is possible. Heck, lofting dumb bombs (MK82s) is possible, though you need to be really accurate with an -82 while a CBU pretty much gives you a "shotgun" approach. The main challenge with a CBU loft now is "resetting" the CBU as you climb. I've not done this for a while so my memory is hazy, but IIRC, if you are below your CBU burst height, you will get an invalid fuzing message. Why not lower the burst height? Because your CBU will be less effective. IME, any burst height below 800 suxx, I usually set mine to 1,200-1,500 feet. Obviously you are below this altitude on ingress, so you get the invalid fuzing message. Once you start your pop up climb, you have to "reset" this invalid fuzing somehow -- can't remember exactly, but I seem to recall having to cycle through the weapons again. Anyway, you have to reset quick because your release cue is fast approaching! Pickle, slice away, then back in the weeds.

Do-able, fun, exciting, and leaves you with a rush and a big sense of accomplishment.

One thing to remember though --- lofting does not increase your range. Well, it does, but negligible distance. So you are pretty close and pretty low to the target when you pickle. All the lofting does is allow you a low-alt ingress and egress.

Whatever else it might be, it isn't the connection. A poor connection should not be causing the server to CTD. Client disconnections, notifications of not being connected to Master Server, sure, but not crashes.

- Ice,
Of what you said I am suspicious.

GG, in Road Kill things get very busy as the RDR forces surround the air base and last night my Client machine hung up but my server kept chugging through, laggy as heck, but it did not disconnect.


There are victory conditions - for both Blue and Red - in the Road Kill mission. tomcat, if you don't kill the convoys they will capture the base.

There's this pilot - walker - who keeps killing all the convoys and thwarting my evil mission plans to re-capture the Sochi-Adler air base - arrrg! Stayed up till almost midnight to see the RDR victorious and then walker shows up and ruins my plans by defending the base for the BLF! walker - you are a *good* shot (but the active runway is 24!).


So I have this suspicion that reloading a different mission just might be an issue where reloading the same mission may not be.


I have a hot dinner date tonight (sushi yum yum) with a lovely lady but before I head out I'll start Road Kill. Eno is still out at work so it'll be on my server. Hope to see you on line when I get back.


WC

How many units in-game? What are the (enforced) scene settings?

How much area are these units spread over? (A lot of units occupying or traversing a lot of land may cause problems. I don't think the current terrain engine can handle that because it has to load terrain around any unit present, but that's just my educated guess). The same may apply to loading a different mission (resources loaded by previous mission may not be released). This is just edumacated speculation though.

Eh boys...

Well I'm back in Calgary now from my trip down to Wyoming MN... went down to do a final inspection on a fire truck we're taking delivery of at the end of next month. All I have to say about that is: Wow.





On another (related) note- I got an email from crew the other night saying that the server was nowhere to be seen. I talked to the gf and she let me see the screen on facetalk and the game was up and running and just pointed at a zsu-23 site- as it usually is... and it looked normal. No errors or anything... nothing.

So I got her to disconnect it and reconnect it... I'm hoping it's up now but I can't tell from where I am.

The "continuation on the same mission" thing might have hit a point. I know when I've seen the mission reload before it counts down and then everything is ticketty boo. I can see where there would be a bit of a problem going from one mission to the other. I wonder if this is the issue?

Additionally, I wonder if they "time-out" an inactive server after a certain amount of time. That would also make sense.


As for the password protect thing... I'm divided on it as well. The way I look at it is I want guys to go in there who know each other and can work together- without the lone wolves running around doing whatever they want and jeopardizing people's fun. We work pretty hard to do anything in this sim... even the flights back and forth are long and sometimes difficult- then someone comes screaming in like a 300mph asteroid and screws it. Then again, not long ago I was in on my own server working alone on a couple things within the mission environment and a couple of A-10s no associated with me at all were over in the distance working a couple targets over- getting shot at pretty heavilly by ground fire... I was just flying circles and doing some work on the MFDs- pretty cool. I chatted to a few people in the meantime and they were just content to go about their business blasting away at "stuff."

So having it open does maintain some advantages- and I'm not opposed to running with it locked.

I think what we should consider is "locking" the "event" servers- so we pick out a time and date and arrange to have a large group in- then we lock it. If it's just the "float" server that I'm going to try to keep up... I can leave that open. I'll also adjust it to loop the same missions- changing occasionally between the nuke plants and the attack on the airfield. Both are awesome, btw crew... in case I haven't told you that lately.

As for broadcasting TS3 information- I can just add in (TS3) in the title of the server... and if WC can add the link to the site you mentioned earlier in the mission briefing (I don't think it's there specifically?)- that might solve that problem.

So basically where I'm at now guys is I am fully committed to getting the best connection possible for this, and making the adjustments to my hardware to ensure the most reliable gaming experience. I'd like to find out why my server keeps dropping on its own- if you can keep your ear to the ground about that issue...


On an additional note I've just signed in for the best plan my service provider has to offer and should give me upload speeds up to 15mb... I'm committed to making this work and appreciate any and all help to do so.

Wow, very cool on the commitment to this, Eno! Thanks! I'm kinda glad we see eye-to-eye on the password issue (read: we're both confused!), but maybe let's keep it open for now and see how it goes. We can always lock it later, yes?

Like I said guys, I've seen the game crash/ctd/hang when it tried to auto-load a new, different mission. When we tried it so that it reloaded the same mission, things worked fine. Then again, who wants to re-do a mission they just finished? Anyway, this was a few months ago so things may have changed? Try it to test it out.

WC, about how long does it take for, say, 2 well-coordinated A10s to finish either mission?

- Ice,
Less than two hours if you know what to hit, i.e.: read the briefing.

GG,
Jump in, take a look around...
I've been in much bigger missions, such as Rampant Bear. Eddie criticized Rampant Bear's unit count after the November Fly In but then I've seen posts of his on DCS Forums talking stable 900 unit missions. Rampant Bear covers a lot of ground, though. It had ships in it; I don't trust any mission's stability right now if there are ships in it.


Nice fire engine, Eno!

WC