I, for one, enjoy online groundstarted missions. I also enjoy landing at a friendly airbase and pulling up close to a hangar to re-fuel and re-arm when I am out of ammo.
However, multiplayer missions only run in real time, and there is no time acceleration possible. So for game play both enemy and friendly bases need to be reasonably close to the frontline. It works well in ETO with allied bases in Kent and axis bases in Northern France.

In some other theatres suitable bases are few and far between. That is why I made a modified target set for SPAW in order to have groundstarted carrier and seaplane missions.

Currently we have one saved online set-up for SAW, and I would like to have a few more.
As this might involve moving some targets in SAW I checked with the target editor. The current one I had did not distinguish between bases and non-bases, and it did not refresh the frontline picture if a frontline is loaded.
So I made a new one which does this





I am away in Lyon with my old laptop, so the display quality of the screendumps is poor.
In the top picture bases are red and other targets are black.
In the bottom one bases are red, other targets are blue, and frontline nodes are white.

This allows me to move a few more bases closer to the frontline for a more varied multiplayer target set.
Ideally we use two reasonably close allied bases and two reasonably close axis bases.
Careers, and to some extent single missions are historical, but this is never the case in multiplayer

Good work Tony..I've always liked ground starts and soon I'll be able to land

I'm only bringing this up since you've broken out the target editor.

I fully understand and support the need for these edits to facilitate online game play.

However.

A long time ago you moved a carrier group in SPAW to about 1/2 mile off shore of some islands. I only noticed it by accident and brought it up at the GEN. Actually, I kinda threw a fit. In the interest of harmony you offered two version of SPAW, online and offline.

The offline option is no longer offered but how about a nod to the effort the ModSquad put into achieving as much accuracy as possible and move the fleet about 10 miles away from the islands?

Check the planesets Ray, particularly 1, 2, 3 and 11, 12, 13

Ok, haven't had a chance but sometime last week you posted a picture from SPAW where the carrier fleet was sailing away from an island in the background that was unrealistically close.

If it's fixed then never mind.

Thanks.

1,2 and 3 use your original target map.
11, 12 and 13 are the same as 1, 2 and 3 but with the multiplayer TM.
It has been like this for years

Hi Jell,

not really needed in SAW since there are target rich environments and plenty of airbases close to the front lines already in the base setup... but it's your call.

regards,


Pobs

Ok, thanks.

Any way of conveying that info to the player other than if they read about it here?

Using the Multiplayer mission making tool you see this:

The red dots are bases.

I have circled possible areas.
The one we tend to use for groundstarts is the one in the middle of Spain.
There are quite a few allied bases close the FL, but it is difficult to find two corresponding axis bases for ground started missions.
No coastal areas are suitable.
The other complexity with SAW is that the aircraft are relatively slow, so it consumes flying time.

Here is a part of the ETO equivalent:


Four good bases either side of the 1940 FL.

The 1944 FL has lots of choices:

The basic info is in the mainscreens for each planeset as it is contained in the MSText.str file.




Info can now be provided via the latest DSPicker if there is a PSInfo.txt file in the planeset folder.



In multiplayer sessions things are discussed between players via the chat system or with teamspeak.

Ok, so if I understand this PSInfo.txt file it could say something like "Original ModSquad SPAW" or "Modified SPAW for online play".

How long can the text be? It looks like there's room to stretch all the way across the bottom of the screen.