Liberation Syria 10192022

[Xpendable]

I wanted to give some feedback on the Syria Liberation mission we've been doing. I fully understand we are working within the constraints of a mission mod that was created by others, and I recognize that we're trying to tweak / tailor things for our purposes. I appreciate the work Trichome (and whoever else has worked on it), and I know it's not easy working with the mission editor or dealing with the stuff in this Liberation mission. Unfortunately, as it stands right now, I'm having zero fun. We are grossly outnumbered 20:1, which isn't realistic at all. I have zero air cover for every flight I do, and I usually get shot down before I even reach the release point for my munitions. It takes a good chunk of time flying to the target in a slow Harrier... 80 nm takes awhile. I went up twice. Both of my spawns are at King Hussain. My objective is 80 some nm if I skip right to waypoint 4, and even further away if I follow the flightplan to a T. My AI wingmen suck. They take off before me and don't respond to radio commands and pretty much go on ahead and do their own thing ignoring me completely. I'm a lone duck when I get out there, and as I said, I'm shot down pretty much instantly. I'm not sure what can be done to make this more fun. It seems like Liberation is designed for a much larger player base where 20 to 30 humans are online at the same time. That would seem like the right scale for this. At any rate, if next week is going to be more of the same, I'm probably not going to fly. Please don't take any offense. I'm not ripping on any of you, and I'm certainly not faulting Trichome and anyone else who's worked on trying to tweak this thing. I blame the mission, which, as I've said, seems geared towards a larger player base. It could be very awesome on a big server with lots of players - I don't know. I just don't think the mission is working well for me, and it's pointless for me to even get airborne with this particular mission. I don't know what anyone else thinks, and maybe I'm the only one not having fun. I'm cool with that, I certainly don't want to influence anybody if I'm the only outlier. Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Have a great night!

[Bones]

I find the mission/campaign to be very frustrating. My biggest beef was having the 30+ MiGs coming at us all at once. I mean, really?

I know that there are alot of things that need to be fixed or tweaked and that it's time consuming and I also join Xpen in saying thanks to Trichome and Creeper for their work. BUt it does seem like it's meant for more blue force people. Thing is, as Grif pointed out, what will that do for the server and clients in terms of lag?

I think when we did somewhat of the same kind of campaign where you had to buy gear and not lose it...but I think that was only in Nevada that that was fun and we didn't have much complaints except that it was NV.

The other maps though, I think though we got a little bored with them, that we still had fun with them, at least more than we are now. One of the things that we did was ignore the mission handed out by the campaign, but make our own mission with its own storyline, briefing, intel, etc. I think we all liked that. Maybe we can do that in other maps too?

v6,
boNes

[Trichome]

Im going to circle back around to this and I agree with most things being mentioned. I dont want to say im not having fun because I enjoy being in missions with you guys and flying towards (might not seem like it) a common goal. M goal is to sort this out so everyone is having a good time and enjoys flying on Wednesdays.

We all agree the enemy AI is wild. Way to many of them. This may not have been the right campaign for our group size. Ill see what I can do on this turn. Im good with the Liberation UI but when it comes to amending directories or miz files thats a bit out of my wheelhouse to be completely honest. Im willing to learn if anyone knows how.

Xpen I will set you up with Escorts (only AI) so you aren't short of escorts if someone doesn't show up or shows up after 9. We should be doing a better job protecting you but I think we all get scattered because of all the Enemy AI and aren't able to TARCAP close to you without getting sidetracked or dragged into a fight.

We do need to be aware of a few things.... for all of us

-Try and stick to Cold War eligible weapons. Yes - Liberation will have AIM 120C and other stuff we shouldn't use - I can make customer loadouts but... time....
-We should follow our kneeboards - If you are part of a package with multiple flights you will have a hold and meetup WP - you must hit these on the mark. If not the whole flight is out of whack and you may be ahead or behind.
-We should ONLY load into mission once everyone is on TS. If we load in early the mission will start.
-Use the radio menu for request to taxi - when you do this your whole flight will depart. I did this yesterday and my escorts' left ahead of me because I was not prepared. I then switched to Fighter Sweep (from Strike) as requested but my package had already left. I may have wasted that flight.
-Use the right runway - we had a few close calls yesterday and the week before. Some planes spawn far from the correct runway to depart. Sorry.
-We currently only have 1 Airport to take off from and it wont let me load Harriers on to a FOB from what I saw - sorry for the long journey. Once we take a few Airbases it'll be a shorter trip.

Im open to any other suggestions.... Im also thinking maybe to decrease the enemy Intelligence and up our income multiple. More cash is more assets (limited to the number of slots at Hussein Airbase).

On a Mondays we can go on TS and I can share my screen if we all want to have some input on flights and purchases. I would welcome that so everyone has some input.... just a thought.

[Cr33p3r]

All good ideas in my opinion. However, we may want to decrease enemy cash. They have unlmiited AI it seems so the more Migs they buy, the more they will send up to kill us. We have plenty of money, we just need less enemies. Plus, the more aircraft in the air the more it will hit Xpen's frames.

Two points I can think of right now:

- My kneeboard was almost useless as far as maps. Maybe its an Mi24 thing. The Apache route pre-programmed was easy to read and follow. It must be an Mi24 thing.

- My kneeboard did have times associated with my attack. I was not to take off until +26 min into the battle. That may have some things to do with what's going on. We're not all supposed to take off together at the start and go in guns blazing.

- One more point: Perhaps we fly a feint mission to draw out the Migs, like me in an F18. Then, before really engaging I hightail it out of there and they thing the threat is over and RTB. At that point, the strike forces and air protectors enter the battlefield while the Migs are landing or on the ground. The first time we ran this campaign the Migs were not so plentiful and also landed about 60 min into the battle and didn't come back, like they were done or something. Maybe our strategy is lacking.

From a helo CAS standpoint, I think things are balanced. i only got shot down when my Apache Gunner missed his targets and I got too close to AAA. :p Friendly tanks who had advanced actually turned back towards home to engage enemy infantry. I did see an SP Howitzer turn around and run for the hills though too. Tacview will be very revealing of what went on so please send me so I can dissect too.

We need to do some tweaking and can do it. i can help Trichome. Xpen I get your frustration. Limited time to fly and you buy it fairly quickly. Last week I had my Apache AI gunner decide not to shoot. Then I ingressed from 45nm away in the Mi24 only to get damaged and RTB and have my computer restart. I have not been that disappointed in a while but last night was a bit better. I'm liking the Apache less and less each time I fly it, even though I have a human gunner. I probably need to practice more. I know I complain about it every week.

[Bones]

On my end, I had one thought that in retrospect I should have done. There were so many bandits/friendlies/bogies in the sky that even with Phoenix and the AWG-9, there were too many contacts to process. I had to figure out which contacts were hostile or not so me and Grif don't launch a Phoenix at them. IN the real world, i I'd have one hand on the radar hand controller and the other on the HAFU ID so that it only looks at the bandits. But not so in the sim. I have to select the target, turn to look at the HAFU button, designate them, then back to the TID for the next target. 6 times minimum last night out of a good 30 potential targets.

Then the AWG-9 had to keep track of which ones to fire on. The AWG-9 can track up to 24 of them, but then they move around and it has to keep up. THis is where my restrospect comes in...I had it set to TWS-A. I should have set it to TWS-M so that I can control the bar and azimuth scans. When the computer does it automatically it may decide that since there are more targets to say the right, it will concentrate on that area rather than look at the single bandit come at us dead ahead. Just the nature of the beast. It's a powerful feature if all the targets were in the same area ahead, but in this campaign they are all over the place. So it often loses the target I want it to concentrate on in favor of the larger group.

I also should have paid attention where enemy lines were. I dodged at least 2 MiG-29s' missiles but would up in SAM country where a second SA-11 got me. I should have just turned 180 degrees after my Phoenixes went pitbull and flew away.

Also, the first time we were shot down was by an R-27ER...and when the MiGs were shooting at me Hammer called an R-27ER was inbound. I don't think MiG-29s would be carrying that in the Cold War if at all since it as Jedi was saying is wasted on these MiG-29s since it was designed for Su-27 radars and does nothing for the Fulcrum that can't use its radar at that range foe the ER to have a purpose. Either that I don't think that's a Cold War weapon...?

v6,
boNes

[Grifter]

I've downloaded a copy of Liberation 5.2 and I'm also going to take a look. I don't have any idea what I'm doing, however. But, I'll see if there is something I can do to help.

[Cr33p3r]

You'll need the liberation mission save file and also the miz file from the server (and the squadron files) in order to replicate what we're seeing online.

I started my one single player campaign to help me understand stuff more.

[Cr33p3r]

This is a bit long but synopsis of watching the battle playback on tacview:

Here is what I saw (its late so please forgive the poor grammar and spelling):

- Initially, lots of enemy BARCAP's well off the front lines. some never engage or come close to the battle lines.
- AI F14 engages fighters. Shoots 2 down. Then a 3rd enemy fighter joins and downs Ai F14
- Jedi destroys Mig 29
- Trichome joins up with Jedi and Jedi kills another Mig29
- 2 mig29s engage jedi who is not far ahead of trichome
- its 2 v 2 as trichome goes defensive and jedi kills another mig29
- trichome heads south as jedi engages mig29 with another joining the fight against him
- jedi shot down as trichome engages jedis attacker mig29s
- that same mig29s kills trichome too
- grifter is now approaching the line with xpen behind him
- pair of mig29s down an ai f18 as grifter approaches that area
- grifter is engaged by the two mig29s
- ai AV8 destroys one of the mig29s as xpen approaches the target area
- ai Av8 destroys remaining mig29 as xpen attacks ground targets
- ai av8 and xpen attacking ground targets and ai av8 gets shot down by sam
- ai F14 starts to engage mig29s from near the front line as xpen attacks ground targets. this f14's actions draw the red BARCAP towards the front lines. As the ai f14 approaches, he fired off two aim54's at mig29s way to the north. this causes them to drift south until they engage xpen and shoot him down.
- at this time 4 mig29's that the ai f14 engaged have drifted closer to xpen so there are 6 mig29s in the vicinity of the front lines as trichome and jedi ingress.
- jedi and trichome get shot down by 3 of the mig29s at the front lines
- grifter approaches the front line by himself. Panzer is to the south but in su25 CAS mission.
- when grifter fires, there are 6 mig29s in the immediate area
- one of the mig29s follows panzer as he retreats and friendly sams get him as grifter fires also
- grifter engages a mig29 while 4 more are in the area heading his way (1 v 5)
- a separate mig29 wanders south for panzer and he shoots it down
- everyone fires and grifter heads north with 4 migs in pursuit
- 2 migs engage grifter as 2 other egress the area. grifter shot down.
- at this point xpen is approaching the ground targets as a pair of mig29s with 2 more behind them engage and shoot him down.
- grifter and bones approach the line. grifter engages 2 mig29s on his own. bones engages 3 pair of mig29s on his own but a red sam shoots him down.
- grifter shoots down one of the mig29s as a pair of ai f18s get the other one.

Here is what I surmise and notice:

- of all the migs, only one crossed the battlefield line chasing a blue aircraft. one was close enough to engage xpen so he cut a corner across the line.
- xpen had no fighter cover when he attacked except by another av8b
- the blue ai BARCAP's are aggressive and drawing the enemy BARCAPs closer to the battlefield
- exfil away from the conflict results in the enemy fighters letting blue pilots go mostly. there was only one incident where a mig chased panzer before sams got the mig.
- there is a lot of 1v2 which doesn't always work out when 2 more red aircraft show up.
- jedi is a beast with that f16!
- we should run if outnumbered
- friendly cas should not attack without fighter escort or leave the area if enemy fighters show up.
- we really need awacs seeing all that is going on to direct the battle.
- we may be served better by backing off if the hornets nest gets poked too much and if we wait for things to calm down. there might be less fighters to engage.
- we should not go so deep into enemy territory. that will cause more far-off BARCAPs to engage us.

[Cr33p3r]

...all this to say we could have done a better job collectively and used some ATC/AWAC direction to help us with this battle. We're not going to send in 3-4 fighters to take out all the enemies. There are too many. But, we can take some out enough to help with the ground assault. Wars on won on the ground, not the air but air superiority is essential near the battlefield.

When we were playing Persian Gulf missions, it was a few pair of enemy fighters and there was no ground war going on. the battle was very different from Liberation.

[Hammer]

it seems that a ground attack mission should not proceed to the front line area without escorts. did you all coordinate to make that happen? i think that is the point to all of us flying together.

now, given the red air situation it may not have helped...

Trochome, try taking the red air off of auto mission generate and auto purchase. see if you can edit things then. yep - it gives a LOT more work to the Campaign Manager (TM!), but I believe that is what I did in out Nevada Liberation mission.

[Cr33p3r]

I agree.

The escorts were way ahead of Xpen and they died before he got there basically. Plus keep in mind a lot of the red aircraft were waaaaaay off to the east and really no factor in the fight.

In the liberation campaing I'm playing single player, the blue team (I am red) spent all their money on F15's and have like 20 of them but no money left. I think the ai general did this. IF this is what's happening with our campaign, it seems we could whittle them down a bit at a time. I also realize that we don't want to bomb red factories and ammo depots so we can take them over but doing so directly affects the red income and ability to buy more stuff go kill us with.

[Bones]

In your report, I will add that at the end of your report that Grifter was not alone per se, he was with me in the RIO seat. Also, I engaged 3 MiG-29s afterwards and I killed one of them with Phoenix before dodging 2 missiles from the surviving MiGs but it had me wander into the threat circle of the SA-11 that shot me down.

v6,
boNes

[Cr33p3r]

Ah yes. I forgot and tacview does not show copilots.