girls can't fly

I beg to differ, me wife managed to take off and land in Rise of Flight. Bristol Fighter fully loaded.

I used to say that just to get this lady, Flutterby, worked up. I did take her for a ride in F-15 Strike Eagle III once - she was the GIB - Gal In Back. I've since flown with a few gals in co-ops, but not many. And I know Panther can handle a jet - and a stock car - a lot better than 99% of guys.

Flutterby & I met on the MicroProse BB and became good friends after finding out we have the same birthday.

WC

Well ,,, that was strange -

Riders had been up for 3+ hours but time in the mission was not advancing in the Multiplayer Lobby. I joined and the mission was Paused. Logged into Servman and got it going only to get a Server Ping Timeout 2 minutes later.




.. .... ..... ...

Ants

That is odd- but it sounds like what happened before too... Not sure what caused it because I know I hadn't set servman to "pause when not occupied"- though that's how it was set when you checked on it. Wonder if it switched for some reason.

I tried to log into the server last night but got a timeout trying to get in. 8pm mst.

^^^ Yes, likely due to it being Paused, which is unusual.

If this happens again, and you can get into the server, try typing this into the Text Chat line:
/resume

That may need to be done by one of the server administrators, though.

WC

In my sadness, I turned to Coors Light.

I would be trending towards Silver Bullets of the 30mm variety!

Well, I didn't manage to get up early, but I did have a blast with Allizdog in Highway. Maybe see you guys tomorrow!

I think I've discovered what was going on with our connection issues. Seems my antivirus / firewall installation was corrupted-


I'm not 100% sure that it was causing the problems everyone was having but I'm pretty sure it wasn't helping either.

I'm reinstalling now.

Ah ha! Yes, I did see a warning dialog on the server but was not sure what to do about it.

When I rebooted yesterday I forgot to turn on Servman.

One of our new visitors was in The Highway last evening and started shooting up Gelen Airbase and did hit another A-10C pilot who complained, rightly. The shooter made the mistake of thinking he was at Novo and admitted to being a bit surprised that an A-10C was taking off from there... :-) - a mistake that likely won't be made twice. If Servman had been running it would have been obvious right away. Apologies to naxx... (sorry, I don't recall your full handle) we will get Servman running again to prevent that stuff.

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We had Friday night Internet issues again - all got disconnected a few times but the server kept going.

XRay - looks like we just missed each other.

I am planning to start iShot The Shilka at about 2 PM today - in about 5 hours.

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We nailed the the Red Ants - first time I saw this -

I do like night flying...

WC

Poss that I'll be on around 1 mst today.

Hmmmm this whole "servman isn't restarted" thing has me concerned a bit. NOTHING should be turning it off per se... unless it's just failing to initialize.

Keep in mind by request we changed the number of friendly kills that occur before a temporary boot... so all servman would have done in this case is wag its finger disapprovingly at the offender. It wouldn't have booted the guy (immediately.)

I do recall at least one more individual- I think they're a regular now- who was working over Glenz before being told that it was the wrong airbase. It's a pretty innocent mistake.


RE: Servman... The computer may have just needed a reboot- I'm going to take another look now while I have a chance.


Edit: Okay, well I'm looking in there now and the servman message is coming up- so it is active. Whether or not it was the other day... well- not sure.

I had rebooted the computer to deal with another issue. Hopefully that fixes some of the instability.

OK! I will start iShot.

Then I will come back here and put up the Briefing.

Then I am joining the Red dogs.

WC

iShot The Shilka Mission Briefing

(But I did not shoot the Tunguska.)

Blue BLF:
Min-Vody Tower: 135, Runway: 30 (Active)/12, ILS: 109.3/111.7,
Nalchik Tower: 136, Runway 06/24, ILS: --/110.5

Red RDR:
Beslan Tower: 141, Runway: 10/28, ILS: 110.5/--
Mozdok Tower: 137, Runway: 08/27

Blue Liberation Forces (BLF) are located an Mineralnye Vody Airbase.

The Red Democratic Republic (RDR) army is at Beslan Airbase.

Both sides have equivalent capabilities. Only the aircraft pilots can make the difference. Armor is not involved - it's air defense and air base domination.

Each home base is well defended by medium range SAMs to their rear (Blue Hawks and Red BUKs) - while the forward areas within 20 miles are ringed with AAA and IR SAMs.


Each side will advance air defense units toward the target base. Supply convoys provide the materials for these ADA sites to operate.

These air defense sites will establish an ingress corridor of cover for your aircraft. Use these corridors to approach the enemy base, and to lure its defenders to their destruction.


FARP ground support is activated after the nearby zone ADA activates.

To Win all the vehicles in the near vicinity of the target airfield (Min-Vody for Red, Beslan for Blue) must be destroyed. Messages will confirm base captures and losses, and a countdown to mission victory.

Ground units that have a name like iBeslan are covert intelligence video feeds. These units are IMMORTAL.

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Designer notes
Mission by Wrecking Crew

Blue or Red - the coalitions are a mirror image in unit effectiveness and logic. Each side has its counterpart.

What you have on Blue is essentially what you can have on Red.

This is new in that everything on the Blue side is mirrored on the Red side. It is heavy on air defense at the respective air bases. All you have to do is tear through the defense and score - by destroying all the units at the other base and staying alive.

There are not really any vehicle columns to spend time chasing.

Once the other base units are destroyed then a contingent of your units will enter the base with AAA. If you can hold the base for 30 minutes then the mission goes to the occupier.

Each side has two chances to re-capture their base.



Red Task -
Clear Min-Vody Airbase and hold it for 30 minutes.

You have two chances.

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Reload and rearm at Nalchik Airbase. An insurgent force, friendly to the BLF, is located near Nalchik and will service your aircraft. These units are IMMORTAL.
Don't bother to talk to them - just pay with the gold you were issued - that is all they care about, anyway.

Intelligence reports that the BLF dogs made similar pacts with the locals near Mozdok Airbase. Stay away from Mozdok - those slimers cannot be trusted, and they just run back into their burrows and hide.

Blue Task -
Clear Beslan Airbase and hold it for 30 minutes.

You have two chances.

---

Reload and rearm at Mozdok Airbase. RDR friendlies are at Mozdok and will service your aircraft. These units are IMMORTAL. Pay with the gold you were issued but get a damn receipt!
They are fierce fighters and may just want to hire you some day.

iBLF intelligence reports that rival groups are helping the cat-poop drooling-spit red dogs of the RDR at Nalchik Airbase. While Nalchik may appear neutral, it is under proxy control of the RDR. Don't land there.

I left the iShot mission with both bases at 90% destroyed.

A lot of pilots came through at times and we had some really good air-to-air for some extra play. Flying to Min-Vody with Lewis, he commented on the A-10 that flew by us and I was like Holy Cow thats a bad guy (Meatwod) and we had a little furball for about 3 minutes.


It will be dawn in the mission in about 3 hours and maybe easier to find one's way around.

Red dogs - there are two targets left at Min-Vody - a firetruck (I think it is .. sorry Eno) to the north side of the blown up terminal, and another truck on the far side of the next big square building north.

XRay and blindone complained that the BUKs were too tough all the while trying to annihilate them. Next thing both Min-Vody & Beslan are 90% destroyed. Good Red/Blue balance this time around. Doesn't take much to tip the scales though.




WC

I think, in the end, I take it back about the Buks being too tough - we eventually figured out we could get to within about 8 miles of Beslan without being fired on, so I'd call it good. Some fun flying today!

I'll concur with Xray on the frustrations. After being frustrated with getting shot at constantly by the SA11s defending Baslan, we rethought our strategy. It was easier to fly at high altitude/standoff range with the mavs and pick off targets one at a time. Flying with XRay was great. He was a great help with some questions I had during the flight. It would have been nice to stay on a little later and finish it out, but the game warden put me on lock down.


Can't wait to do it again fellas.

Yes- TC and I learned that lesson the hard way as well. I wish I'd been there because I would have recommended a standoff strategy from the beginning.

I'm also enjoying that new moderator's discussion about formation flying with the intention of enhancing visibility- not necessarily trying to fly close together (on the way in, at least)- but instead allowing the flight lead to concentrate on the ground targets, while allowing the wingie (as he calls it) to standoff and keep his eyes open for Crew Bandits- whether it's eyes in the sky or F5 (rhymes... coincidence?)-

I talked about it in the other firehouse thread- I think... TC and I were trying everything to come in around the mountains and hit the buks from their blind side- but when you dropped low enough to come in from behind a mountain you made yourself vulnerable to SA13/9. Then slowly realized (a few hours of cold starts after getting shot down plenty) that we could hit the base from further away with the mavs.

There came a time when I needed to get in closer because I couldn't find targets yet I was not getting any messages that all targets were eliminated. Some of those targets are cleverly camouflaged and required our high speed pass to draw fire. It draws fire, alright- and if you're not careful it'll be from the buks.

One thing I did want to ask was how the new supply bases worked out? Any thoughts on those emplacements? How did it affect strategy / tactics?