Close Air Support - ECAS

[StrongHarm 13]

Available on Steam

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=250649307

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ALTIS AIR STATION

CLASSIFIED

FM 102-5-3

SUBJECT: EMERGENCY CLOSE AIR SUPPORT REQUEST

BRIEFING:

Archer, ALTCOM. Mission is as follows: Emergency Close Air Support, IP grid 063132. Guns only in support of SPECOPs CSAR. Be aware, on-scene commander reports enemy forces well within minimum safe danger close. You are authorized MSD danger close, commander's initials Bravo Gulf. Two Ghosthawks en route for extract, no other friendlies in area. Team CCT will make contact for talk on, TYPE1 Control.

TASKING:

Wipeout Archer flight 1 of 1.

Task CAS on ALTCOM Command priority.

SUPPORT:

Altis Air Base mid runway ARP for rearm, repair, and medical.

TRAINING:

You're authorized rearm and retask to East Live Fire Range if you need flight hours.

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NOTE: Turn your music and radio volume up.

More pics and vids coming up.

BETA - I would much appreciate any bug reports, and all suggestions to expand and enhance the mission are very welcome. THANK YOU to all the community members who've contributed feedback and suggestions for my Close Air Support Missions! Your ratings and comments keep me developing.

Edited April 25, 2014 by StrongHarm

[phronk 898]

Excellent mission! Loved the atmosphere of the base and the use of real CAS radio transmissions as part of the actual CAS objective.

[sproyd 2]

A new StrongHarm mission? Thank you Easter bunny!! Been waiting for something like this from you and was just thinking yesterday how I was missing a good A-10 A-164 CAS mission in my life. Will come back with feedback/bugs.

[StrongHarm 13]

IMPORTANT: Some people have asked questions about how many OPFOR need to be taken out to succeed in the mission. The answer is: none. As long as you suppress the OPFOR enough for BLUFOR to make it to the extract choppers and get off the ground, you're golden. In my experience, if there are more than 5 OPFOR, it's probably not going to happen, but it is uncertain since it's dynamic and happens differently each time. Remember though, BLUFOR are out of ammo... they'll get shot in the back making their way to extract if you don't suppress well enough. The timing of when BLUFOR moves to extract is variable as well. It depends on how close OPFOR is getting, etc. You'll hear CCT say 'We're moving! We're moving South!' when they actually move. I achieve this through variable timing between radio calls, and making the actual move event consistent with the 'moving' radio call in the sqf.

TASK1 Success/Fail params:

FAIL: BLUFOR < 3 or CSAR choppers cannot move

SUCCESS: OPFOR = 0 or Choppers loaded and off the ground

[sproyd 2]

@StrongHarm

Haven't managed to beat the mission yet, some feedback

- When starting, I opted for a long take-off (turn left) despite orders. Unfortunately there is a bloody plane right in the taxi lane that I crashed into. Can you move this plane back slightly so its not blocking the taxi lane?

- Couldn't hear any music

- Everything seemed to work well but I always run out of cannon rounds from strafe runs before the SF troops start moving for extract. And then subsequently fail the mission although UAV is only showing 3 enemy troops alive in the grove.

Q: What is the trigger to get them to move? Is it time based or once enemies have been taken out? Or once I'm out of ammo? Should I be saving my strafe runs for when they start moving?

My thoughts are: if the SF troops are hemmed in and I've only partially eliminated the enemy force why would they start moving towards the extract choppers if the situation is still dire? In theory they could stay put, wait for me to RTB, re-arm and then take out the remainders.

Also it would be really cool if there was fellow AI CAS although I can't imagine how you would programme the strafe run and make sure that they don't complete the mission for you.

Overall its pretty great but just a few things that I think need clearing up.

[StrongHarm 13]

Sprod, read my post just before yours. It outlines success/fail. As far as no music and other aircraft: could you disable some mods and see if you still have the issue? I've received no other reports of the radio calls not working... and there were no other moving aircraft placed in the mission. Did you read the mission briefing? It explains how to effectively strafe without running out of ammo. The mission wasn't designed to be easy, but I may consider adding params to make it easier. What do you think?

[StrongHarm 13]

I've received some requests in Steam for mission coding help and redirected them here. That goes for anyone who's hit a blocker in coding their mission: feel free to send me a PM or post here and if I know the answer or can figure it out I'm happy to assist. I really just use the scripting reference page and trial and error... it's a lot of fun solving the puzzle... even if it takes several hours.. it can be rewarding.

[StrongHarm 13]

The question came up in Steam about whether Close Air Support(Day3) would be fixed or rotor wing. My thought was that I might have 5 tasks for each and trip each task type from radio request based on what aircraft type the request is made from. This would be 10 tasks, 5 for each platform. The only question is how mission complete is arrived at. Is it all tasks complete for a single platform.. or all 10 tasks complete before mission complete? The alternative would be to split the tasks and mission up by platform. Close Air Support(Day3r) and (Day3f)? Anyone have suggestions?

[StrongHarm 13]

timokujansuu 4 hours ago

Helluva mission, nicely done. The audio gave me the chills, knowing it was from the real deal. I succeeded after couple of tries, third time's the charm. Had zero rounds left when they extracted and there was still 1 enemy shooting so i was pretty nervous!

This is exactly what I was shooting for. I intentionally did not make the trigger for extract dependent on all OPFOR being dead. I took pains to add a lot of randomness. This recreates a tense situation where the outcome is uncertain. You'll find if you play it multiple times that it goes down slightly different each time. The dynamic nature is what took a very long time to get right. I hope more people are seeing this mission through fresh eyes rather than looking for structured and timed events. It's all variable and intentionally unclear and tense. Thanks for dropping a note timokujansuu.

Edited April 23, 2014 by StrongHarm

[StrongHarm 13]

If you decide to try this mission and like it, please take a quick moment to rate it. I've received a lot of really nice comments, but very few ratings. Some people have taken the time to give it negative ratings, but I'm not sure why. The only negative comment I got was that they didn't see in the briefing that you needed to turn your music and radio sounds up to hear the radio. I had to use 'music' instead of 'radio' in some parts because radio is sometimes bugged and works point in space.. so you leave it behind and don't hear the whole thing when moving really fast..

The ratings seem to be inconsistent with the comments:

hot dayum, this is by far the most awesome mission i've yet played in both A2, A2 OA and A3, and it's pretty damn challenging! +big thumbs up for the awesom and ultra-realistic radio chatter

This is one of my favourite mission every on Arma 3 this is because I was in the Air force and it is pretty much the same as in real life. Outstanding and amazing

[StrongHarm 13]

Added YouTube vid in description of the real ECAS mission this mission is in tribute to.

[corporal_lib[br] 396]

StrongHarm, loved your mission, ArmA3 lacks of real work missions ([RWO] has made few missions, we need more like these...) and yours is surely a winner! I must confess I´ve got out of the A-164 and Spawned Stillmans A-10A to do your mission and oh boy, it was a blast (I only used the Gau-8, no more cheating except spawing an A-10A), so I´d like to suggest you a version of your amazing mission featuring stillman´s A-10A or Peral´s A-10C!

Anxious to see more missions with this level of fidelity and craftmanship!

cheers!

[StrongHarm 13]

I typically don't put dependencies in my missions, and I'm convinced BIS is going to continue to expand on the already awesome A-164. I will however, review both mods for stability and compile two separate missions such as (ECAS.a) (ECAS.c). I may also see if I can add them without dependencies and do a detection. If both A and P then provide a choice. I'll work on it and tell you what I come up with.

[[evo] dan 79]

Use this command to detect addons and give a choice:

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/activatedAddons

Hope that helps you with mod compatibility.

[StrongHarm 13]

Can do Dan, thanks a bunch.

[StrongHarm 13]

Did anyone pass up the maintenance crew working on a bird across the street? Do I need to do something to make this more obvious so people will see it? I spent a significant amount of time on it. Even though it's not necessary to the mission, I wanted to set the atmosphere.

[StrongHarm 13]

More negative ratings with no feedback. I hate to say it, but I suspect there are other mission builders padding this mission with bad reviews to bury it. I know I know.. but just because you're being paranoid, it doesn't mean there's not someone really after you.. right? It's just that all the feedback I've received has been really stellar, and there's been no negative feedback to go with the negative ratings. My last mission didn't start receiving negative feedback until after BIS talked about it in one of their SITREPs. This one is getting hit hard.

I guess I was born in the wrong era.. I don't get how people can lack honor and integrity. As much as I see it happen it still just doesn't compute.

Do me a favor and if you like the mission enough to give it a good rating, please take the time to hit the thumbs up button so other people might give it a chance and enjoy it. I don't want all of my hard work to be for nothing.

Thanks,

StrongHarm

[[evo] dan 79]

More negative ratings with no feedback. I hate to say it, but I suspect there are other mission builders padding this mission with bad reviews to bury it. I know I know.. but just because you're being paranoid, it doesn't mean there's not someone really after you.. right? It's just that all the feedback I've received has been really stellar, and there's been no negative feedback to go with the negative ratings. My last mission didn't start receiving negative feedback until after BIS talked about it in one of their SITREPs. This one is getting hit hard.

I guess I was born in the wrong era.. I don't get how people can lack honor and integrity. As much as I see it happen it still just doesn't compute.

Do me a favor and if you like the mission enough to give it a good rating, please take the time to hit the thumbs up button so other people might give it a chance and enjoy it. I don't want all of my hard work to be for nothing.

Thanks,

StrongHarm

To be honest, they probably found it too challenging for them. I wouldn't change it though as those people are the kind of people who would find anything not holding their hand hard. I've still to try the mission myself yet, probably will during the week.

[StrongHarm 13]

Added original video of the real ECAS mission this A3 mission is based on to OP and Steam page.

[daneplant 5]

Dude nice mission we have added it to our site for our community to train with, hope you are OK with this :)

[neojd[ny] 10]

I gave you my thumbs up on steam allready, but also like to say Thanks in here. You CAS missions are very nice and I like them. I hope there are some others to follow. Thank you

Edited May 2, 2014 by NeoJD[NY]

[StrongHarm 13]

Thanks NeoJD much appreciated. If you have a moment to click a thumbs up in Steam, it goes a lot further than youtube ratings. That's how people notice and try out new missions. This mission isn't getting very many ratings, and some of them are bad with no comment saying why (fishy).

Edited May 1, 2014 by StrongHarm

[StrongHarm 13]

Pics of maintenance bird:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3316083770675207759/F564B49BCF2C7F854CEAE0B4C4DB531CE7F4C95F/ (227 kB)

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/3316083770675206122/D60B1771CC29EC847DCD75235461F5A4BE27FF5A/ (234 kB)

[L3TUC3 32]

It's possible some are trying to use the workshop landing page as advertisement for community servers or something, though unlikely. What's your current workshop stats?

Maybe drop Dwarden a line to take a look at more detailed metrics to pinpoint where the detraction is coming from?

[StrongHarm 13]

I've had questions asked about why there's a mention of Ghosthawks in radio coms if this audio is from a real ECAS mission. Let me clarify; the ground radio coms are real.. the voice acting of ALTCOM for briefing was done by me. Sorry I didn't make that more clear. :)

L3TUC3, yeah I sent a message to Dwarden. I'm sure he's pretty busy and may not have time for something like this. Guess we'll see. Stats of the mission are 76 positive 4 negative out of 2700 subscriptions.. which puts it at 5% and 4 stars (up from 3 after a few new positive ratings.. woohoo..). This has effectively buried the mission despite comments by a lot of people saying it's the best they've played. This is a better mission that CAS day2 in my opinion, but only has a quarter of the subscriptions it did after the same amount of time. I wonder if it's people who think for some reason it will increase their chances at MANW. Oh well.. I'm enjoying flying the mission... hope those who can find it will too... that's why I make 'em.