“Falklands Foothold” is a dynamic war of conquest, inspired by the ‘Foothold’ missions and based on the same scripting framework. The zoneCommander framework is made by the very talented ‘Dzsekeb’. Please support his work if you’re able to. :-)
The objective of this campaign is to gain a solid foothold on the Falklands Islands, and then advance from base to base. Freeing every occupied base from the Red Force – in this fictional scenario it’s made up of Chinese/Argentine military with a lot of Russian and French hardware mixed in.
This dynamic campaign is designed for a 4-8 pilot strong Blue Force Squadron. (Difficulty 1.0 in Global Settings in the first Mission trigger.) Because that’s how we fly it in our DCS Fighterwing Danica community. You can adjust it up or down to your liking, depending on your skill-level and how many pilots you have flying with you.
Working together on a tactical level and using your resources wisely, is key to winning this scenario!
I hope you enjoy it!
Please remember this mission requires you to own the South Atlantic map by Razbam!
ZONE CAPTURE MECHANICS:
A zone can be in 3 different states: Blue, Neutral or Red
A Neutral zone can be captured by the first coalition who lands there bringing ‘Supplies’ from one of their coalition Supply Zones. (Not all zones are Supply Zones.)
An Blue / Red zone needs to have all units in the zone killed, to enter into Neutral state.
Some zones have some sort of bonus by having it as a captured zones, bonusses come in many varieties like:
Creditflow, ie. a steady trickle of credits flowing into your account.
Some sort of combat bonus, like a free Combat Air Patrol, ship patrol, tankers on station or similar combat bonusses.
More or unique spawn aircraft for your coalition pilots. Maybe you get a C-130J Hercules, that can be a very powerful resupply aircraft. Or maybe Combat Helo’s close to the front.
Some zones can be disabled by destroying critical infrastructure in them. If this happens, you remove the bonus from the enemy – but you also deny your own coalition the possibility of gaining this bonus. The disabled zone will remain disabled for the remainder of the campaign.
Disabling a zone will not destroy units in the zone, but they can no longer be repaired/reinforced.
BUDGET MECHANICS:
- Blue / Red coalition earn credits by having zones, performing combat operations (and getting home safely) and performing ingame missions, rescue operations and special objectives.
- As a pilot you lose your potential credit earnings from takeoff, if you don’t get home safely to a friendly zone and land. (10 sec. delay from touch-down)
- If you survive via ejection, you get 25% of your earnings.
- If you die and/or lose your aircraft, your coalition account will be deducted 200 credits for the loss of your aircraft. (This includes ejection.) If you don’t have any credits in your coalition account, the aircraft loss will be replaced for free.
- Use your coalition credits to get a tactical advantage – or to fill your ranks if there aren’t enough human pilots available.
- Coalition account credits are used to purchase different sorts of assistance and resources:
- AWACS support on a part of the map, for 1 hour at a time.
- JTAC support over a selectable hostile zone.
- Repair/upgrades of a zones defences. (Level 1-8 depending on the zone configuration.)
- An AI piloted one-time mission, some have selectable target zones :
- Fighter Sweep, Ground Attack (CAS), SEAD, Jamming or Anti-ship mission.
- A cruise missile strike on a selectable hostile zone.
- Small units to supplement your defenses, intended for use with Combined Arms:@Artillery group, Armor group, Reconnaissance group.
- Redeploy a brand-new US Navy or Royal Navy Carrier, if the enemy should succeed in sinking or heavily damaging one of your carriers. (This is an expensive option though!)
And several other types of assistance, dependent on what the mission creator has made available for in the mission.
OTHER STUFF MENTIONING:
Rules of engangement for the scenario:
Chile is a neutral country, respect their neutrality! This means you should only liberate Chilean bases seized by Argentina/China – never assault and capture a Chilean base unless it was our enemy making the first move. Even Punta Arenas Airbase. which is under a limited-use agreement with the US for AWACS a.o. support missions.
Beyond the Global Setting difficulty factor, you can adjust other things to make the campaign a little easier: Change Client flights from Ramp to Hot Start, will reduce your downtime. Reduce AI level on Red Force opponents. Reduce the number of units in the Red Force groups. (Don’t delete AI groups though, as that will most likely break the scripting.) Or give yourself lots of credits, to purchase reinforcements will also reduce the difficulty significantly.
Not all DCS modules are present on all spawnable bases. This is not an error, but an intentional campaign mechanic. Plan your tactical advance to go for the bonusses you need, in the order that you would like to utilize them. Similar to a real campaign, momentum and good strategic decision making is your key to win the day.
Expert advice / advanced tactics:
Remember that as Tactical Commander of your coalition you can:
Move your mobile SAM and Armor units in a zone to be more effective.
Move your ships in the Carrier zone to provide better defense for the Carriers.
Move your ships and Carriers closer or all the way to the Mainland. (It will take quite long time to sail the route though.)
If you move units and restart the mission, the amount of units is persistent – but the placement is not!
If you have moved your Carriers far from their start point. Be careful about restarting the mission or buying replacement Carriers. As they will then respawn at their respective start points.
Using a human AWACS/CGI with a tool like LotATC in this mission is of huge benefit. Try it out if you have the opportunity to do so!
SUPPORTED FLYABLE MODULES FOR BLUE FORCE:
You can change almost all modules to suit your needs, however this is what's in the mission you download:
- C-130J Super Hercules mod by Anubis (Recommended, not required - in this Foothold you need to LAND the Hercules to capture - but you can resupply from the air)
- UH-60L Blawk Hawk mod by Kinkkujuustovoileipa (Recommended, not required)
- A-10CII Warthog, AJS-37 Viggen, AV-8B Harrier, F-14B Tomcat, F-15C Eagle, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16C Viper, F/A-18C Hornet, Mirage F1-CE (All modules are hotstarted).
- UH-1H Huey, AH-64D Apache, KA-50III Black Shark (All modules are hotstarted).
~~~~Note on Persistence~~~~
Persistence is also available in case you want to stop and resume the mission at a later time. The state is saved every minute.
In order for persistence to work you will need to edit the following file in your DCS install directory: \Scripts\MissionScripting.lua
Edit the following section:
do
sanitizeModule('os')
sanitizeModule('io')
sanitizeModule('lfs')
_G['require'] = nil
_G['loadlib'] = nil
_G['package'] = nil
end
to look like this:
do
sanitizeModule('os')
--sanitizeModule('io')
--sanitizeModule('lfs')
_G['require'] = nil
_G['loadlib'] = nil
_G['package'] = nil
end
To reset the persistence and play the mission again fr om the start, delete footholdSyria_1.0.lua found in your DCS save games/missions/saves directory.
~~~~Note for running this on dedicated servers~~~~
For the slot blocking to work, you will need to copy the slotblock.lua file into the savegames folder on the server under Scripts/Hooks and restart the server.
