Posted By: EinsteinEP
104th Phoenix / SimHQ DCS A-10C Fly-In Report - 09/25/11 12:40 AM
The 104th Phoenix / SimHQ DCS A-10C Fly-In on Sept 24, 2011 was a big success! The community owes a big thank you to Wrecking Crew and the 104th Phoenix administration for coordinating and supporting this event.
I joined on at 9am Mountain Standard Time (GMT 1600) and the 104th server was nearly packed: 22 slots of the 32 available in the Rampaging Bear mission were taken. The SimHQ Teamspeak 3 was decently filled as well, with about 8 or 10 folks chatting away there.
Smoke trails point to target-rich areas.
Text comms supplemented TS3 in coordinating the action.
This Fly-In was intended to be a low-key, unorganized get-together with an emphasis on fun for all, and, considering there were no enforced communications protocols, strict flight procedures, or task assignments, the missions played out very well.
There were some server and/or mission stability issues early on that caused a few server crashes, but the 104th administrators were monitoring the events and brought the server back online as quickly as possible each time.
The fires of victory burn brightly tonight!
Some of us found out the hard way that the 104th Phoenix server has a kick system that instantly kicks players that are involved in the death of another friendly aircraft, player or AI, and prevents them from logging on for another 15 minutes. This is true even if a friendly AI vehicle happens to be located in your spawn location when you join the mission. A number of us were temporarily blocked from playing when these instances occurred.
We also ran into a number of issues that seem to be bugs with the DCS A-10C game in multiplayer: the JTAC would only respond to whatever player had first checked in and would ignore requests by other players for target info. Maybe this is tactically correct, but it got confusing in a mission where not all the players were in close communication with each other. There were also numerous graphical glitches that didn't really affect the play of the game but made for some odd screenshots.
I think you got too much nose down trim there, Rooster.
Despite the mass mayhem that can occur at high traffic airports without a dedicated air traffic controller (the in-game AI ATC cannot efficiently de-conflict incoming and outgoing human traffic on this scale), there were only a few intermittent traffic issues in the air or on the ground, none of which stopped the game.
Busy night
Aircraft landing the wrong direction on an established runway can cause traffic headaches. Follow the active traffic pattern flow unless in an emergency!
The good turnout turned out to be too good at one point as the missions running on the 104th Phoenix server ran out of open slots! Folks started heading over to the related stallturn server, which was running the same missions.
Player-player cooperation is why I play multiplayer games and there was plenty to spare.
I was pleased by the overall demonstration of respect by fellow pilots. Right-of-ways were yielded, there were no intentional air-to-air teamkills (that I knew of), and folks were doing their best to make sure everyone was having a good time. Experts were answering other folks' questions, guiding them to targets and helping them put weapons onto said targets. I know I learned quite a bit from listening to the advice of fellow fliers today!
From an execution standpoint, I think we learned a bit about how to make the event run more smoothly next time, but I'd like to hear your feedback: what worked for you? What didn't? What could be done next time to improve your experience?
Post here or feel free to PM me.
Thanks to all who participated in today's event, and a special thanks to Wrecking Crew and the 104th Phoenix. Hope to fly with you next time!
I joined on at 9am Mountain Standard Time (GMT 1600) and the 104th server was nearly packed: 22 slots of the 32 available in the Rampaging Bear mission were taken. The SimHQ Teamspeak 3 was decently filled as well, with about 8 or 10 folks chatting away there.
Smoke trails point to target-rich areas.
Text comms supplemented TS3 in coordinating the action.
This Fly-In was intended to be a low-key, unorganized get-together with an emphasis on fun for all, and, considering there were no enforced communications protocols, strict flight procedures, or task assignments, the missions played out very well.
There were some server and/or mission stability issues early on that caused a few server crashes, but the 104th administrators were monitoring the events and brought the server back online as quickly as possible each time.
The fires of victory burn brightly tonight!
Some of us found out the hard way that the 104th Phoenix server has a kick system that instantly kicks players that are involved in the death of another friendly aircraft, player or AI, and prevents them from logging on for another 15 minutes. This is true even if a friendly AI vehicle happens to be located in your spawn location when you join the mission. A number of us were temporarily blocked from playing when these instances occurred.
We also ran into a number of issues that seem to be bugs with the DCS A-10C game in multiplayer: the JTAC would only respond to whatever player had first checked in and would ignore requests by other players for target info. Maybe this is tactically correct, but it got confusing in a mission where not all the players were in close communication with each other. There were also numerous graphical glitches that didn't really affect the play of the game but made for some odd screenshots.
I think you got too much nose down trim there, Rooster.
Despite the mass mayhem that can occur at high traffic airports without a dedicated air traffic controller (the in-game AI ATC cannot efficiently de-conflict incoming and outgoing human traffic on this scale), there were only a few intermittent traffic issues in the air or on the ground, none of which stopped the game.
Busy night
Aircraft landing the wrong direction on an established runway can cause traffic headaches. Follow the active traffic pattern flow unless in an emergency!
The good turnout turned out to be too good at one point as the missions running on the 104th Phoenix server ran out of open slots! Folks started heading over to the related stallturn server, which was running the same missions.
Player-player cooperation is why I play multiplayer games and there was plenty to spare.
I was pleased by the overall demonstration of respect by fellow pilots. Right-of-ways were yielded, there were no intentional air-to-air teamkills (that I knew of), and folks were doing their best to make sure everyone was having a good time. Experts were answering other folks' questions, guiding them to targets and helping them put weapons onto said targets. I know I learned quite a bit from listening to the advice of fellow fliers today!
From an execution standpoint, I think we learned a bit about how to make the event run more smoothly next time, but I'd like to hear your feedback: what worked for you? What didn't? What could be done next time to improve your experience?
Post here or feel free to PM me.
Thanks to all who participated in today's event, and a special thanks to Wrecking Crew and the 104th Phoenix. Hope to fly with you next time!