Alright the black sheep are going to begin active SEOW campaigns in Jan of 08. What we want to do is have a war within the squadron (basically splitting the squad up to two teams, axis vs allies) and have a single map for the campaign basically with the front split in two.
We want to simulate a war between us to explore the full potential of the SEOW setup. We would have one commander on each side issuing the orders and such.
Now I have a few questions:
1) Its possible to have two separate people issue orders on the same map and have them both compiled into the same mission correct?
2) I need some help explaining the finer details of this setup. Such as how to count factory area's and such as targets for either side.
3) Is anyone here interested in participating in this ? The war would be between Germany and America.
*edit*
Oh and would anyone here be willing to create for us a template to use? We want the war to be neutral from both sides... this way one side does not have the advantage of knowing where the other sides units are at. If one of us was to create this template than the person who created it would know everything about the map from the start and have a headstart on where to plan the missions.
For clarification
Moderator: SEOW Developers
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IV/JG7_4Shades
- Posts: 2202
- Joined: Mon 08 Jan 2007 11:10 pm
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
Hi Jaw,
1) Yes, that is the essence of SEOW.
2) Not sure what you mean exactly by "count". If you mean what facilities are controlled by each side, essentially if you have a significant force near each industrial installation in your template, then that installation will be controlled by that force and will appear as either red or blue on the map accordingly. If no controlling force is nearby, the installations will appear as grey (neutral). Once installations are red or blue, they can be targeted directly by opposition flights for GATTACK bombing (use the target selector box AFTER you finalize your mission). You can make ALL defined industrial targets live by using the corresponding DCS setting.
3) Timezones will probably rule most Australian squads out.
To create a template you might consider using the Merger tool in the MP. This allows the red and blue commanders to create their respective map halves independently. The admin then uses the tool to combine the maps without viewing them, creating a full (red+blue) template file for initialization. With this approach, you can simply specify numbers and types of aircraft, flak etc, and the dispersal of these at airbases, industrial areas etc is entirely up to the respective commanders.
Cheers,
4Shades
1) Yes, that is the essence of SEOW.
2) Not sure what you mean exactly by "count". If you mean what facilities are controlled by each side, essentially if you have a significant force near each industrial installation in your template, then that installation will be controlled by that force and will appear as either red or blue on the map accordingly. If no controlling force is nearby, the installations will appear as grey (neutral). Once installations are red or blue, they can be targeted directly by opposition flights for GATTACK bombing (use the target selector box AFTER you finalize your mission). You can make ALL defined industrial targets live by using the corresponding DCS setting.
3) Timezones will probably rule most Australian squads out.
To create a template you might consider using the Merger tool in the MP. This allows the red and blue commanders to create their respective map halves independently. The admin then uses the tool to combine the maps without viewing them, creating a full (red+blue) template file for initialization. With this approach, you can simply specify numbers and types of aircraft, flak etc, and the dispersal of these at airbases, industrial areas etc is entirely up to the respective commanders.
Cheers,
4Shades
IV/JG7_4Shades
SEOW Developer
SEOW Developer
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IV/JG7_4Shades
- Posts: 2202
- Joined: Mon 08 Jan 2007 11:10 pm
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
hmmm, I was wondering if anyone here had some good suggestions on limits to allow for certain things. Such as max number of squads/airplanes, tanks, artillery and the like. We want it to be a evenly matched battle, that way the outcome of the war would reflect directly on the commanders ability to command.
I was thinking something like:
1000 planes/pilots for each side
500 tanks/artillery etc... for each side
100 ships.
Would this fit ? or maybe be too many? Oh and is directly limiting things like this allowed with seow?
I was thinking something like:
1000 planes/pilots for each side
500 tanks/artillery etc... for each side
100 ships.
Would this fit ? or maybe be too many? Oh and is directly limiting things like this allowed with seow?
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IV/JG7_4Shades
- Posts: 2202
- Joined: Mon 08 Jan 2007 11:10 pm
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
SEOW does not place restrictions on the number of objects allowed per side (although the merger tool does limit you to 1000 per half-template).
It is up to the campaign designer to assess the playability of any template. SEOW has a couple of tricks up it sleeve to reduce the frame-rate impact of large numbers of aircraft, but basically SEOW mission playability is the same as FMB mission playability. If you put 100 aircraft in the air in the one mission, then you will get a slideshow. In terms of performance and playability, you can't do anything in SEOW that you can't do in FMB.
SEOW's tricks are:
1/ Aircraft Parking Rate: You may well have 1000 aircraft present in air regiments all over the map (but this is an unusually large number). SEOW will place all aircraft that are not flying in the mission on the ground as parked (and targetable) aircraft. So if in the first mission you have 43 aircraft in the air, there would be 957 parked on the ground. However, by adjusting the Aircraft Parking Rate value, you can reduce the number of parked aircraft visible in the mission, thereby reducing the performance hit of so many parked targets.
2/ Vehicle Breakdown Rate: You may also have a large number of naval and army units on your map. Again, SEOW will place ALL of these on the map. For units like tanks, artillery, flak and combat ships, each object placed on the map carries its own performance hit as it scans the surroundings for enemies and commences firing etc. By varying the value of Vehicle Breakdown Rate you can determine what percentage of stationary naval and army units are inert (i.e. not hostile) due to "equipment malfunction". Inert units are still able to be targeted and destroyed. For example, if you had 200 flak guns with no movement orders, and a Vehicle Breakdown Rate of 30%, then approximately 60 of those guns would be inert during each mission. This again helps frame rates.
3/ Naval Rate of Fire: For naval campaigns, ship flak can be murderous for attacking aircraft and for frame rates. You can adjust the Naval Rate of Fire to lessen the load when fleets are under attack.
4/ Engagement Range: Artillery, armour and flak can be configured to start shooting at designated ranges. A useful set of default Engagement Ranges for each object type is found in the Object_Specifications table of the DB. These can be applied in each mission by enabling the associated DCS option. Basically, it is configured so machine guns and light flak have short ranges, tanks have medium ranges and heavy guns have long ranges. This gives you a nice layering of weaponry and good frame rate performance. Astute commanders can construct flak traps by luring aircraft down low in seemingly peaceful conditions, then hitting them with a wall of light flak at close range.
The usual scales for campaigns that I fly in range up to 200-300 aircraft per side (some in Off-Map locations and Resupply Points, several hundred ground units per side. Shipping is a heavy frame rate hit, so we usually limit ships to 20-30 per side at most. In each mission we try not to exceed 20-24 airframes in the air for each side, with no more than 30 ground/sea movement orders per side per mission.
Cheers,
4Shades
It is up to the campaign designer to assess the playability of any template. SEOW has a couple of tricks up it sleeve to reduce the frame-rate impact of large numbers of aircraft, but basically SEOW mission playability is the same as FMB mission playability. If you put 100 aircraft in the air in the one mission, then you will get a slideshow. In terms of performance and playability, you can't do anything in SEOW that you can't do in FMB.
SEOW's tricks are:
1/ Aircraft Parking Rate: You may well have 1000 aircraft present in air regiments all over the map (but this is an unusually large number). SEOW will place all aircraft that are not flying in the mission on the ground as parked (and targetable) aircraft. So if in the first mission you have 43 aircraft in the air, there would be 957 parked on the ground. However, by adjusting the Aircraft Parking Rate value, you can reduce the number of parked aircraft visible in the mission, thereby reducing the performance hit of so many parked targets.
2/ Vehicle Breakdown Rate: You may also have a large number of naval and army units on your map. Again, SEOW will place ALL of these on the map. For units like tanks, artillery, flak and combat ships, each object placed on the map carries its own performance hit as it scans the surroundings for enemies and commences firing etc. By varying the value of Vehicle Breakdown Rate you can determine what percentage of stationary naval and army units are inert (i.e. not hostile) due to "equipment malfunction". Inert units are still able to be targeted and destroyed. For example, if you had 200 flak guns with no movement orders, and a Vehicle Breakdown Rate of 30%, then approximately 60 of those guns would be inert during each mission. This again helps frame rates.
3/ Naval Rate of Fire: For naval campaigns, ship flak can be murderous for attacking aircraft and for frame rates. You can adjust the Naval Rate of Fire to lessen the load when fleets are under attack.
4/ Engagement Range: Artillery, armour and flak can be configured to start shooting at designated ranges. A useful set of default Engagement Ranges for each object type is found in the Object_Specifications table of the DB. These can be applied in each mission by enabling the associated DCS option. Basically, it is configured so machine guns and light flak have short ranges, tanks have medium ranges and heavy guns have long ranges. This gives you a nice layering of weaponry and good frame rate performance. Astute commanders can construct flak traps by luring aircraft down low in seemingly peaceful conditions, then hitting them with a wall of light flak at close range.
The usual scales for campaigns that I fly in range up to 200-300 aircraft per side (some in Off-Map locations and Resupply Points, several hundred ground units per side. Shipping is a heavy frame rate hit, so we usually limit ships to 20-30 per side at most. In each mission we try not to exceed 20-24 airframes in the air for each side, with no more than 30 ground/sea movement orders per side per mission.
Cheers,
4Shades
IV/JG7_4Shades
SEOW Developer
SEOW Developer
I have used the FMB quite a bit and am very familiar with the settings for AAA. thanks for the extra info though.
Lets see, maybe if I tone down a bit,
100 AC per side
200 cars/tanks/artillery
20 ships
The map we are going to use is the northwest Europe map, it seems to have some decent balance for factories and map layout with rivers and defensive points and such.
We are going to allow the commanders to place as many aircraft in the air as they need for a mission, again we will be doing missions once/twice a weekend every weekend until the war is over.
So if I gave each side 100 ac and say a mission was generated with 40 total (20 from each side) that would scatter the placement of 80 ac each side on airfields? You mentioned something about offmap area's that things are placed at, what area's are these?
Another question I had is if a factory area is taken down on one side of the map (say for blue) does this directly effect production in anyway? For instance will it effect the tanks ability to operate and receive supplies?
Lets see, maybe if I tone down a bit,
100 AC per side
200 cars/tanks/artillery
20 ships
The map we are going to use is the northwest Europe map, it seems to have some decent balance for factories and map layout with rivers and defensive points and such.
We are going to allow the commanders to place as many aircraft in the air as they need for a mission, again we will be doing missions once/twice a weekend every weekend until the war is over.
So if I gave each side 100 ac and say a mission was generated with 40 total (20 from each side) that would scatter the placement of 80 ac each side on airfields? You mentioned something about offmap area's that things are placed at, what area's are these?
Another question I had is if a factory area is taken down on one side of the map (say for blue) does this directly effect production in anyway? For instance will it effect the tanks ability to operate and receive supplies?
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IV/JG7_4Shades
- Posts: 2202
- Joined: Mon 08 Jan 2007 11:10 pm
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
Hi Jaw,
If you allow commanders to use as many aircraft as they need, you will find them using ALL their planes in one mission to assure air superiority. I suggest that you will need to make an explicit limit on aircraft flying per side per mission.
Once your mission is planned the DCS goes through ALL aircraft and determines if they are going to be airborne or not. If not, they are parked at their respective airfields (if the Parking Rate calculation allows them to be visible). There is no "scatter", they are all parked at their respective airbases.
The "Off Map" term refers to aircraft that are simulated to be entering the map from remote airbases. You can tell a flight to go Off Map by selecting an Air Supply Point (not Air Withdraw) as the landing waypoint of its next mission. If the flight survives, it will appear in the MP as located at the Air Supply Point and can be tasked as normal from that point. Flights starting from Off Map bases are given air starts in missions.
If you have enabled Factory Production, then each controlled factory can be allocated an object type to produce, e.g. Fw-190A-4, or P-39Q, or Wirbelwind, etc. As long as the factory remains undestroyed it will continue building that object at the rate determined by the DCS production settings and the object cost. Once built, each object is placed as a reinforcement in the nearest resupply point. The Factory Production feature is completely independent of the Supply Tracking feature.
Whether your tanks stay viable, i.e In Supply and with good Morale, or not is purely determined by whether you (i) get supply to them regularly, or (ii) keep them close to large supplies, and (iii) position morale-influencing units (flak, staff cars, radio trucks) nearby. Once you have that under control, you are a good staff officer. Now all you have to do is keep them alive!
Cheers,
4Shades
If you allow commanders to use as many aircraft as they need, you will find them using ALL their planes in one mission to assure air superiority. I suggest that you will need to make an explicit limit on aircraft flying per side per mission.
Once your mission is planned the DCS goes through ALL aircraft and determines if they are going to be airborne or not. If not, they are parked at their respective airfields (if the Parking Rate calculation allows them to be visible). There is no "scatter", they are all parked at their respective airbases.
The "Off Map" term refers to aircraft that are simulated to be entering the map from remote airbases. You can tell a flight to go Off Map by selecting an Air Supply Point (not Air Withdraw) as the landing waypoint of its next mission. If the flight survives, it will appear in the MP as located at the Air Supply Point and can be tasked as normal from that point. Flights starting from Off Map bases are given air starts in missions.
If you have enabled Factory Production, then each controlled factory can be allocated an object type to produce, e.g. Fw-190A-4, or P-39Q, or Wirbelwind, etc. As long as the factory remains undestroyed it will continue building that object at the rate determined by the DCS production settings and the object cost. Once built, each object is placed as a reinforcement in the nearest resupply point. The Factory Production feature is completely independent of the Supply Tracking feature.
Whether your tanks stay viable, i.e In Supply and with good Morale, or not is purely determined by whether you (i) get supply to them regularly, or (ii) keep them close to large supplies, and (iii) position morale-influencing units (flak, staff cars, radio trucks) nearby. Once you have that under control, you are a good staff officer. Now all you have to do is keep them alive!
Cheers,
4Shades
IV/JG7_4Shades
SEOW Developer
SEOW Developer
hmmm after reading this it seems a small training session might be in order for myself and my squaddy bulau, we will be commanding the teams during the battle and we could use a good explanation on exactly how to use everything.
What we know is how to use the MP to set waypoints and such and how to control those things.
What we don't know is exactly how this production system, morale system, and resupply system works.
If we could setup a time to get with you and talk about it that would be great?
Say maybe this weekend sometime?
*edit*
Or maybe I could just read the tutorials and have him read them as well
that would be easier.
What we know is how to use the MP to set waypoints and such and how to control those things.
What we don't know is exactly how this production system, morale system, and resupply system works.
If we could setup a time to get with you and talk about it that would be great?
Say maybe this weekend sometime?
*edit*
Or maybe I could just read the tutorials and have him read them as well
that would be easier.