In this persistent dynamic sandbox, your goal is to move through the map and capture all zones fr om the enemy.
As you capture some areas, you will unlock benefits for your coalition such as an AWACS, friendly air patrols, or new spawn positions. Beware as the enemy will also launch attacks to retake what was once theirs.
Update v1.4.9: Fixed issue caused by new Group.getByName() behaviour
The goal is to capture all zones.
Helpful video by @Diesel_Thunder to get you started: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzDlYHViREA
To capture a zone, first you need to destroy all enemy forces deployed there, in order to turn the zone neutral.
Neutral zones can be captured either by assisting friendly AI supply aircraft, which periodically spawn at friendly zones, to land at them, or airlifting one of the cargo items found in various zones.
Friendly zones can be upgraded with extra units to improve their defense using the same mechanics as capturing.
If a zone has a group that is missing units, a supply delivery will first restore that group. An upgrade will only occur if all existing groups are in good condition.
These rules are common to all zones, but some zones can provide special bonuses as well, like friendly air patrols, an AWACS, supplies, or unlock new spawn points.
The enemy AI will also launch attacks to recapture lost zones, air patrols to protect their airspace and supply deliveries to reinforce their defenses, so plan accordingly.
Feel free to use the map to get an idea of what is happening, and use the F10 radio menu to get a report about any of the zones.
As mentioned above, some spawns will be blocked until you capture the zone they are in. The name of the required zone can be found in the unit/group name on the spawn menu. Most flyable aircraft should be available, but feel free to edit or set-up any slot you would like in any of the zones. As long as the coalition of the slot is different fr om the coalition of the zone it starts in, it will be automatically blocked. Try to include the zone name in the name of any slots you add, so that players can tell what zone they need to capture for that slot to open up.
~~~~Upd ate 1.1~~~~
Critical Objects:
Certain zones will have structures in them that are critical to their functioning. If all of these are destroyed, the zone gets disabled and will no longer provide any benefits. No side can capture it anymore and any remaining groups there will no longer be repairable.
Support:
You can now call in support to help you in your conquest.
Available items include:
- F-14 Fighter sweep that will attempt to engage any enemy fighters in the area
- F-4 CAS mission that you can direct to a specific enemy zone to attack ground units
- F-18C SEAD mission that you can direct to a specific enemy zone to attack SAM radars
- Cruise missile strike that you can launch on a specific zone
- Instant level up of a selected friendly zone
- JTAC that orbits a selected enemy zone and lases enemy unit
These support items can be bought using credits, which leads us to the next feature.
Credits:
You will now be able to earn credits in several ways:
- Factory and the new Oil Fields zones will provide a steady stream of income to the controlling coalition.
- New Convoy zone will provide a one time credit bonus if liberated fr om enemy forces, reward will depend on number of surviving convoy members.
- All kills will earn the player a certain amount of credits depending of unit killed. These however will not be instantly added to the coalition account. You will need to land at a friendly zone to claim the accumulated credits. Ejecting will also claim 25% of these credits.
- Airlifting supplies to friendly zones.
- Successfully completing intercept and escort missions that happen at random times.
Credits are common for a coalition. The enemy coalition also earns credits that it uses for the next item on the feature list.
Random events:
The red coalition will use credits earned from controlling certain zones to call in its own support. Some of these will just be reinforcements, and some will trigger events that the players can complete for some extra credits. I'll leave it up to you to find out what these are.
~~~~Upd ate 1.2~~~~
Unit level persistence:
Persistence is now on a per unit level, meaning partially destroyed groups will not be fully restored once the mission restarts.
Simulated logistics:
As an alternative to slingloading cargo, you now have the option of carrying simulated supplies.
Helicopters now have a logistics option available under the F10 radio menu.
From here you can load "virtual" supplies that you can drop off at other zones to either capture or resupply them.
This option is currently available for the following modules:
- Ka-50
- Mi-24P
- SA342 (all variants)
- UH-1H
- Mi-8MT
- UH-60L (community mod, not included in mission)
- Hercules (community mod, not included in mission)
While the mission does not include the listed mods for accessibility reasons, the logistics menu should work out of the box if you edit the mission and add them.
You can also make the logistics menu available to any other module by creating a DO SCRIPT action after the included scripts are run and adding your desired unit types like so:
LogisticCommander.allowedTypes['AH-64D'] = true
The unit type needs to match the one returned by Unit.getDesc().typeName of the desired unit.
Logistics can be disabled in the same way for any of these by using the same line of code, and specifying false instead of true at the end.
For logistics to work correctly please do not add more then one unit to each logistics enabled group.
New support options:
- Smoke markers (chooses 3 random targets from the selected zone and marks them with smoke, lasts 5 minutes)
- AWACS (circles the area for aproximately 1 hour before leaving)
- JTAC now has an option to mark its current target with smoke on request (smoke lasts 5 minutes)
For mission builders and editors:
The radio menus that list zones should now allow for an unlimited number of pages (previously limited to 19)
~~~~Update 1.2.1~~~~
[Hercules mod] You can now capture and resupply zones by airdropping or unloading the "Generic Crate [20000lb]" payload within the zone.
Zones that can accept supplies can now be marked with green smoke from the logistics menu.
~~~~Update 1.2.2~~~~
Added search and rescue option for ejected pilots. You can now pick up ejected pilots in logistics enabled modules and drop them off at a friendly zone for a credit reward.
To pick up a pilot you need to either land in close proximity, or get into a stable hover under 150ft AGL in proximity of the ejected pilot, and sel ect the CSAR/Pick up option fr om the logistics menu.
To drop off the collected pilots, you need to land inside any friendly zone, and use the CSAR/Drop off option from the logistics menu.
You can carry a maximum of 4 pilots at the same time, and you can pick up friendly as well as enemy pilots.
The mark zone option from the logistics menu now contains all zones, but the smoke marker will only be deployed if the selected zone is neutral or friendly.
~~~~Update 1.3 2022-03-10~~~~
Added supply convoys, which work with similar rules to supply helicopters
Added ground assault convoys, which work with similar rules to preexisting attack missions launched by the enemy.
Added Krymsk combined arms assault event, which has a chance of being triggered while Krymsk is blue, and enemy has enough funds.
Added coordinates of zone to its status message.
Added carrier spawns on shoreline.
JTAC now has a priority setting. If se t, it will try to prioritise targeting units of that category.
If no such units can be found it will fall back to targeting anything else.
Fixes:
Fixed zones not behaving correctly if placed on high altitude locations.
Fixed issue that prevented upgrades to a zone in some cases, when first group of zone was destroyed.
For mission builders and editors:
Added quad zone suport (Make sure not to turn the zone inside out while editing its vertices)
GroupCommander class now works with ground and naval units.
You need to se t an extra parameter when creating the object in order for the script to track it correctly: type='surface'.
To add an aircraft group that operates off a carrier se t the type parameters to 'carrier_air'.
Hercules cargo drop resupplies work by tracking the Generic Crate weapon object that is dropped by the mod.
You can now enable any weapon to trigger a zone capture or upgrade, by defining it as follows: HercCargoDropSupply.allowedCargo['weapons.bombs.Generic Crate [20000lb]'] = true
The name must match the typeName of the weapon returned in the SHOT event.
~~~~Update 1.3.1 2022-03-19~~~~
Added AH-64D to mission
Added alternative to the radio suport menu.
Allows targeting zones for suport items by placing the marker in the zone and setting its text to the appropriate command.
Put a map marker anywhere and se t its text to "help" for a list of available commands.
~~~~Update 1.3.2 2022-03-20~~~~
Fixed script error when killing anything after intercept event has started.
~~~~Update 1.3.3 2022-03-27~~~~
Fixed not getting rewards for certain ground kills
Fixed error when F14 suports manage to leave the area
Adjusted AH-64D waypoints to be ground level.
~~~Update 1.3.4 2022-04-16~~~
Fixed AWACS using wrong frequency after death
Fixed issue with slotblock script interfering with multicrew dialog. (update slotblock.lua if you are running this on a server)
~~~Update 1.3.5 2022-04-19~~~
Fixed AWACS using wrong frequency after death (yes, again)
~~~Update 1.4 2022-07-07~~~
Moved savefile under Missions/Saves directory in dcs savegames folder
Added tactical commander slot
Added support options to spawn ground units for use with Caucasus
Added jam radars suport
Added missions
Added slight delay between AI groups being allowed to spawn and actually spawning to simulate a reaction time.
Added ability to change JTAC code (map marker command)
Added tracking of players stats for bragging rights (map marker commands to display stats)
Create a new map marker anywhere and se t its text to "help" to see the new commands
~~~Update 1.4.1 2022-08-18~~~
Fixed corrupted savefile caused by certain player names.
~~~Update 1.4.2 2023-01-15~~~
Added BS3 and Mirage F1
~~~Update v1.4.3 2023-04-21~~~
Fix for issue wh ere AI spawn inside their previous wreckage
~~~Update v1.4.4 2023-05-04~~~
Disabled clearing of wreckage, as it was causing crashes
~~~Update v1.4.5 2023-12-01~~~
Fixed issues introduced by scripting API changes
Added F-15E spawns
~~~Update v1.4.6 2023-12-19~~~
Added FCR to apaches
~~~Update v1.4.7 2023-12-21~~~
Fixed unit category detection
~~~Update v1.4.8 2024-02-04~~~
Fixed JTAC not retargeting in some cases when target is dead
Removed the need for slotblock.lua in MP
~~~Update v1.4.9 2024-02-23~~~
Fixed issue caused by new Group.getByName() behaviour
~~~~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 from the start, delete the foothold_1.3.lua found in the DCS savegames/missions/saves directory.
