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#4502967 - 01/07/20 04:43 PM F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC  
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Wizard43 Offline
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I'm trying to create my own training mission using a ground based FAC. I have placed a friendly ground object and successfully assigned is as a FAC. I couldn't get the FAC to show up in the radio dialogue until I created an area event with an action of FAC at one of my waypoints. I think there must be a better way to do that but that works for now. I create a group called Enemy Targets. There are four packages, each with a 25% chance of appearing and all at different bearings from the FAC. I wanted a random element to it so I wouldn't already know where the enemy are located. I can check in successfully with the FAC. When I ask for a target, new target or say I'm blind, the FAC says stand by for words, then he says copy, RTB like I'm checking out. I know the targets are appearing on the battlefield as I can eventually find them with ground radar and FLIR. Initially there were no goals to this mission except for the player needing to survive. I tried next made each of the packages a goal that must be destroyed but that had no effect. The FAC never assigns me a target. Anyone know what I need to do to fix this?

Thanks,
Wizard

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#4502984 - 01/07/20 08:25 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Recluse Offline
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No, you did it right. You MUST have a FAC action somewhere, either a TIME or AREA event to turn him on.

Here is a FAC mission/tutorial I created back in the day along with a FAC tutorial from Gielle.


FACTUTORIAL

FACFinder Mission

Gielle FAC tutorial Mission


Readme Files attached to this post

I am pretty sure I have used FAC missions with moving ground targets with randomization before. I think it is implemented in FACFINDER...

Attached Files
fac_tutorial.txt (59 downloads)
facfinder_readme.txt (71 downloads)
F18FACSetup.txt (60 downloads)
Last edited by Recluse; 01/07/20 09:27 PM.

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#4503107 - 01/08/20 05:09 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Wizard43 Offline
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This looks awesome. I have played the FAC tutorial from Gielle many times over and it is great for learning the flying portion of the FAC mission. I tried to dissect it in the mission builder to understand what little puzzle piece I'm missing. I know my FAC action is working because I can talk to the FAC; he just never gives me a target. I can't wait to go through the other two tutorials. The readme files look very informative. Thanks for the help. Very much appreciated.

Wizard

#4503118 - 01/08/20 05:38 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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My Pleasure!! Hope it helps.

Note that all these missions were probably built on Win 98 or XP. While F/A-18 seems to run pretty well on Windows 7, it is POSSIBLE that some features broke. I don't know if I have ever flown a FAC mission on Win 7, but if you have flown Gielle's on your current system, then at least we know the FAC is working OK..

EDIT: I just flew the FAC_TUTORIAL_AREA mission and it worked fine.... except that I located the FAC in an area with buildings, so the first targets called were big buildings called "SUPPLY DUMPS" rather than movers.. Should have made that a little better as they are hard to destroy.. BUT The FAC called out targets just fine and put smoke on them.. Expended all my ordnance destroying 2 buildings a tank and some trucks. Gets confusing sometimes when the old smoke is still showing and it isn't immediately obvious which "Supply Dump" is still standing.

The setup on this one is much like you described for your AREA event.

Last edited by Recluse; 01/08/20 10:30 PM.

Long system spec sig follows:






PowerSpec G436
Lian Li ATX 205
MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard
Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz
32 GB RAM DDR4 1600
Nvidia RTX3070

Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

Flight Gear:

Cougar Hotas S/N 26453
Thrustmaster RCS Rudder Pedals

#4503203 - 01/09/20 05:47 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Scott Elson Offline
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Wizard,
Is the ground object you placed as a FAC something that can actually "see"? You might want to try swapping what the FAC object is. I believe the FAC is restricted to those things it can actually spot from where it is though it's been a long time so everything is really fuzzy. Just a general thing that came to mind I think for ground FAC their ability to pop smoke might be random (either that or lazing). For air I seem to remember it being loadout based. Recluce might have covered this in the stuff he shared (thanks for doing that). I tried searching the old comp.sys.imb.pc.games.flight-sim newsgroup to see if I had posted anything about that there but my Google Fu is weak today if I did. I also might have posted something in these forums but it would be in the Archives and I don't have time to check those at the moment. Actually I think if you click on my name and select "Forum Posts" it will show all the posts I've made so you could look back in the early days for any subject with FAC. I tried doing a search here but wasn't getting any hits.

Elf

#4503204 - 01/09/20 05:52 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Hey Elf,

Good to see you!! Have been enjoying the links you've posted in the community forum on various Gaming personalities and retrospectives.

From Wizard's description, everything was done right. Maybe the stuff I shared will clarify. I have successfully placed FACs in Warehouse Complexes, Icebergs and other things..

Aerial FACs do seem loadout based. I think the S-3B was the only platform with a FAC Loadout..


Long system spec sig follows:






PowerSpec G436
Lian Li ATX 205
MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard
Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz
32 GB RAM DDR4 1600
Nvidia RTX3070

Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

Flight Gear:

Cougar Hotas S/N 26453
Thrustmaster RCS Rudder Pedals

#4503205 - 01/09/20 06:14 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Scott Elson Offline
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Hi Recluse,

Good to see you too and glad you're enjoying the links.

I'm sure it's some minor little thing that I hope will soon be discovered. I think when testing I used an F/A-18 as the FAC so one of those loadouts might have smoke as part of it.

Elf

#4503259 - 01/10/20 04:06 AM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Wizard43 Offline
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Hi Recluse and Elf. I just love SimHQ. This is great getting help from two of the legends of the Janes F/A-18 community. Thanks for taking the time to help me. I'm actually playing JF18 on an XP box. I keep it solely for this game and nothing else. I flew the FAC_TUTORIAL_AREA and experienced the same issue; the FAC targeted the nearby buildings. The FAC I assigned in my mission is a small building in a communications relay site. But both of you put me on to the solution, that the FAC needs to "see" the targets. In the tutorial missions, the targets were much closer than I placed mine. Each of my vehicle targets have waypoints that move them closer to the FAC. I wonder if I had waited longer for the targets to drive within close enough range of the FAC, if he would have started marking targets. But I just edited the mission and started my targets closer to the FAC and everything works as expected now. So yes, it was a minor little thing. Again thank you both for the help today and everything you've done over the years for this great game.

Wizard

#4503293 - 01/10/20 11:54 AM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Great! Glad you got it sorted out. After the buildings, my FAC_TUTORIAL_AREA FAC finally got around to targeting the movers. I modified the mission by moving the FAC farther away, but I guess I didn't get far enough. In your case, I guess he was too far....so we have to find the magic target distances.

I also have an XP machine running with many old favorites, but have been running F/A-18 (not as often as I used to, admittedly) on the Windows 7 box with no issues. Recently tried to help a friend get it going on Windows 10 with no luck, though there is a thread here linking to a Vogon's post where it seems it MIGHT be possible.

EDIT: It occurs to me that one way to overcome the STRUCTURES FIRST issue would be to have the FAC and targets OUTSIDE the FENCE. That way permanent structures on the map would be FRIENDLIES, or at least NEUTRALS. While not always possible, this is a likely scenario when enemy forces make incursions into Friendly territory. As long as any movers or even Mission Builder Placed Ground Objects are marked as ENEMY, the FAC should target them.


Last edited by Recluse; 01/10/20 12:07 PM.

Long system spec sig follows:






PowerSpec G436
Lian Li ATX 205
MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard
Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz
32 GB RAM DDR4 1600
Nvidia RTX3070

Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

Flight Gear:

Cougar Hotas S/N 26453
Thrustmaster RCS Rudder Pedals

#4503352 - 01/10/20 10:30 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Scott Elson Offline
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Glad you were able to get it working. Thinking about it more being able to mark buildings and such as the FAC makes sense since I was thinking they would be in the building. With that in mind I probably gave them generic search capabilities.

Sorry about not setting up the FAC so that you could give it a target type preference. It would probably take longer to update the builder's interface than it would take me to update the logic to do so. I don't think the FAC was used too often (you guys would have a better idea at this point) so the designers never asked for any enhancements at that time.

Elf



Last edited by Scott Elson; 01/10/20 10:31 PM.
#4503397 - 01/11/20 02:29 PM Re: F/A-18 Mission Builder Help - FAC [Re: Wizard43]  
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Recluse Offline
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LOL... no need to apologize after all these years...

I think you are correct that the FAC (and JSTARS) was not an often used function in most missions, though it could add a new element to the "usual" mission.

The only thing I WISH had been done was the real Datalink giving the FAC message "Sending Coordinates on Dolly" more weight.

I recently watched this video of FAC/JTAC in DCS with the A-10C. I am an old dog that can't learn new tricks. While doubtless (more) realistic(tm) It kind of made my head hurt....
Note this video is several years old and may not represent the current state of DCS.....




Long system spec sig follows:






PowerSpec G436
Lian Li ATX 205
MSI Z490 Plus Motherboard
Intel Core i7 10700K 3.8 GHz
32 GB RAM DDR4 1600
Nvidia RTX3070

Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

Flight Gear:

Cougar Hotas S/N 26453
Thrustmaster RCS Rudder Pedals


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