Here is the AOE file. You can save it in your import/export folder (I'd make a seperat sub folder) and then import it. You may wish to experiment with a stock CVN in a blank scenario to get things working.
B
I've already built a test mission with 1 CVN and 1 supply ship. The supplier has stuff and the CVN has totally empty magazines. Still can't get them to swap spit, so to speak. I haven't messed with it too much because I was working on a lot of other stuff at the same time. Magazine management remains almost my sole frustration with this game.
It's not the most intuitive that's for sure. When you emptied the CVN magazine, did you simply delete the entries or reduce them to 0.: (i.e. AIM-120C 0/240). I suspect, but don't really know, that the record needs to remain in the magazine with a balance less than the maximum (i.e. 200/240) to fill that record.
In Phase III, I can't seem to be able to do the main landing. That is, despite hovering helos inside the target area, the events do not trigger. Not sure what to check?
Started with the latest build (Phase I) tonight. I think I missed some orders from CINCLANT (missing a trigger?) but the campaign went forward on my initiative none the less. Just finished the first evolution of airstrikes to significant success. Split off a CG/DDG for an inshore group, moving about 50nm further in than the CVBG. I assign a legacy Hornet group as the carrier CAP squadron and the F/A-18F & F-14B squadrons as the strike CAP squadrons. Some fencing with snooping fighters from the Kola but I beat them all back with no losses. A limited TLAM strike is launched on peripheral radar sites to reduce overall coverage.
Six hours in I launch the first SEAD strike. The second legacy Hornet squadron is loaded down with HARMs and the remaining Super Hornet squadron has JSOWs w/ CBU warheads. Escort with the majority of the two strike CAP squadrons and a Prowler. A second Prowler, lacking ALQ-99 pods, is set up in Ferry to provide ESM support to the north to help fix the SA-10 batteries that my Hawkeyes have been sniffing from time to time. The whole strike is preceded with ~60 TLAMS, assigned 3 per remaining surveillance radar site. These TLAMs draw the attention I want them to and the first wave of Red fighters are low on missiles to combat my lead fighter screen. Many TLAMs get through and others draw a lot of SA-10 fire. I get fixes on all Grumble sites and begin to attack. Barrages of HARMs and JSOWs decimate the outer ring of SA-2/3 batteries surrounding Murmansk and all but one of the SA-10 sites are degraded to combat ineffectiveness. Only the occassional AAM or SA-5 is lobbed toward the USN air attack, but none connect. Several Su-27 and MiG-29 a/c are downed for no losses.
In the process of rearming for the next airstrike. The JSOWs were awesome in clearing out the older SAM sites, a pair of them wiping entire firing regiments from the map. The Russians are firing their AA-10Cs but are not able to keep them guided due to return fire.
IDEA - I'd like to replace the USN airwing with a notional OOB based on the F-14E, A-12 and F/A-18E/F, as I really like those tail-end-of-the-Cold-War platforms...
As Primarchx mentioned earlier those JSOWs work wonders, except on things in revetments, there they do very little. Good lesson. All SAMS & Radars destroyed, and if it flew it wasn’t for long.
Gained air superiority by drawing the Red CAP out to its max range and swarming them with AMRAAMs, took about 5-6 hrs. When the bombers were ready the first strike went in with a flock of TLADs with Harms to swat the radars as they lit up. Followed closely by a swarm of TLAMS on the first band. Had Jammers up and kept two 4 ships of Hornets dancing around the SAMS and keeping the airbases covered. Then launched 5 more TLAM swarms at about 5 min intervals to nail the deeper targets, leaving Olenegorsk and the Sub base to the east for the second strike. After this most radars were down and all SAM sites had taken at least one and more likely 2-4 TLAMS. Then came in with the JSOW and Mk82 loaded Hornets to clean them up - got the last bit with guns just for fun. For the remaining targets (Olenegorsk and the Sub base) there were only about 30 TLAMS left so had to rely more on bombers but it was a sweep up by that time.
The first 18 hrs or so were good fun. After that it was a targeting exercise with very little left to challenge the player.
Comments:
-Trigger issues mentioned earlier
-May wish to consider shortening the game to 24 or 36 hrs
-Should probably have Prosecution zones set up for fighters
-At endgame I checked and there were Migs at Taybola out of Ammo and in reserve. Also Migs at Kilpyarv not assigned to a mission
-The ASuW patrol did not trigger (and there are a few Su-27s not assigned)
-You may wish to complicate the USN players life by sprinkling in a few mobile jammers and a few Mobile SAMs & Radars
-Did not see any points for sinking the container ship
-Did not see any points for the Trigger Happy chaps.
Really like the scenario and the set up. Well done.
Since the campaign phases in the game take place over the course of several days, maybe consider putting all the aircraft on sustained ops rather than surge.
Playing Phase 2. Had a crash (I think my puter is tired [;)]) so am taking a break.
Good scenario for exercising the whole spectrum of carrier ops. So far: OCA, DCA, SEAD, Mar Patrol, Mar Strike, Land strike, and I'm sure there is more. The timing of things allows the player to properly plan and resource the missions which is good. The triggers and point counters all seem to be working. Some points so far:
-The TARPs mission has a short timeline and there are no TARPs ready F-14s at start. Had to fix in editor or the timing would have been missed.
-For the 'Covered Dry dock' instead of using 'Building - large' you could use 'Structure - sub pens'. Not only is it appropriate and will cause the player to drop 3-4 x 2000Lb penetrators on it - the photo is cool [:D]
-The SAG has no ASW up, unlikely in this context I think. You probably kept it down to avoid detection but you can mitigate this a couple ways:
---Set patrol alt at min, set patrol emcon to passive
---Set the patrol to activate on detecting a USN unit or when a USN unit detects you
-The SAG also needs some sort of targeting ability I think perhaps more lurking Tu-142s..
-The SEAL team task could be a little slicker
---Should probably have MH-60's, probably on the Oiler. They were just coming into service at this time but possible they would be available. Alternates; legacy MH-53, or even USAF Pave Hawk. With these you can actually load the SEALs (although that is just window dressing, you still need to do the teleport)
---SOF ops take quite a bit of preparation, and it is a pretty quick turnaround in the scenario. May want to work it up a bit: Another TARPs mission perhaps, loading the SEALs etc
---Both SEAL teams teleported when the first Helo hovered, the two should be separate I think.
I played through Phase 1 with no real issues. I would suggest that the number of double digit SAMS were increased - a few SA11 in place of some of the SAM 2 & 3 would make things a bit livelier. I went through RED FORCES fighters like a dose of salts and had them all killed after about 16 hours then spent time killing all the remaining SAMS and Radars. Given the bad guys were out of targets to kill I was pretty much left to kill time randomly bombing air fields.
Maybe limit Phase 1 to no more than 36 hours or add more blockade runners or hostile ships. I killed the OSA's with HARMs just to avoid them sortieing against me at an awkward moment.
Started Phase 2, I had an instruction to launch a SEAL raid but can't find any Seals aboard the Ronald Reagan.
Finished Phase 2, no losses. Major Victory with 435pts
Good scenario, not overly challenging but a really good work out of a CAW, and I even got a bit of surface action going. Very good for new players to learn skills and capabilities, and it fits the storyline.
Was in the middle of the Hurc transfer, wasn't sure where that was going but looked interesting. Anticipated needing to smoke the Ammo bunkers so had the SAMS eliminated, jamming the world and 6x BLU 109 loaded Hornets waiting for the execute. Took out the tanks and some of the infantry with Mk82s for sport while waiting [:D]
Only two points additional to the ones above:
- I think the VP event for sinking a RR ship should be repeatable. Only happened once. Not sure if you want to include the OSA's in the VPs though
- Was in a bit of a dilemma on what to do with the blockage runners, ended up sinking them (or almost in one case, its only a matter of time) because of the Side brief and that we sank a merchant in Ph 1. however, the message states something about receiving more orders later, and they came up 'Unfriendly' so I hesitated - for a min or two anyway [:D]
On to Phase 3 then I have to get back to building my own!
Finished Phase 3, another good scenario. The three together would almost make a great advanced tutorial for Carrier operations.
Once I got the targeting orders I launched some TLAMs and all my Cobras to clean up some identifiable targets. So in the end by the time the Raid happened there was nothing left on the ground to attack but the reaction in the air was almost overwhelming. In the end, the biggest PITA were same marauding Fulcrums which managed to snap 2 SH-60's I had doing radar over-watch- gurr they died but too late. Another pair popped up almost underneath an F-14 and buried a missile into it! They go away the buggers...
Followed a couple of the mobile columns south and found a bunch of stationary infantry which I did some bombing practice on. Got the Triumph message before evacuating the raid so ended it there. All the events and counters seemed to work except the Marine Teleport but I think I screwed that up (see below).
Triumph - 326 pts, lost 2xSH-60 and 1 F-14
Points:
-Should have speed set for the TFs at start
-may wish to comment about the inactive missions in the brief, was a bit confusing having them set up
-there were a couple typos in the brief and messages. Can't remember exactly but something in the JSTARs para and something in the Strike targeting Para 2
-CHOPed is not a doctrinal term and would not be used in these type of messages. Better to use something like: Detached to Under Command...'
-Timing with the CH-46's. One is needed to extract the SEAL team at 1100Z, they are all needed to insert the raid at 1400Z, with a ready time of 2 hrs, that only leaves an hour for two transits, I was about 25 min slow on that last Marine insertion.
-Had a problem with the teleports with the Marines - it did not work with the first group of 5 but the late one did work. I suspect that the reason is the Helo's were in a formation and the Event editor did not recognize them. Not sure if this is a game issue but will mention it in the Tech forum. A note in the tasking telling the player to fly them individually would fix this I think.
-As mentioned, I had previously killed all the RR ground units so there was no ground reaction. Some teleports would help spice things up a bit here
-Got a message from the Force Recon about tanks in the DZ, but they were already dead. Not sure how to resolve this except perhaps another teleport.
-The air reaction to the raid was really good, was down to guns trying to stop it! One thing I noticed however was that the Migs were not really fighting back. Did not check if there was a prosecution zone set up but perhaps if there was a corridor from the launch base to the Raid area about 40NM wide, it would make it more interesting [:D]
-Some hand held SAMs and perhaps a few non radar capable guns down in the south to protect the RR infantry would make the bombing practice more interesting.
-In the success message, the wording in the first paragraph confused me a bit. Got the impression that I was to cease fire immediately. The second para sorted that out but it could be clarified a bit.
Getting very close to what I hope is a 'final release' for Phase I. Look for Revision 2 fairly soon, and then I will revisit the latest issues pointed out with Phases II and III.
Finished Phase 3, another good scenario. The three together would almost make a great advanced tutorial for Carrier operations.
Once I got the targeting orders I launched some TLAMs and all my Cobras to clean up some identifiable targets. So in the end by the time the Raid happened there was nothing left on the ground to attack but the reaction in the air was almost overwhelming.
That is a bit deliberate. The Marines specialize in pre-empting their opponents and the use of maneuver warfare- I wanted to reward the player for being pro-active about destroying ground units before the raid actually takes place. Try it without knocking out any ground units beforehand and watch what happens.
Points:
-Should have speed set for the TFs at start
-may wish to comment about the inactive missions in the brief, was a bit confusing having them set up
-there were a couple typos in the brief and messages. Can't remember exactly but something in the JSTARs para and something in the Strike targeting Para 2
-CHOPed is not a doctrinal term and would not be used in these type of messages. Better to use something like: Detached to Under Command...'
-Timing with the CH-46's. One is needed to extract the SEAL team at 1100Z, they are all needed to insert the raid at 1400Z, with a ready time of 2 hrs, that only leaves an hour for two transits, I was about 25 min slow on that last Marine insertion.
-Had a problem with the teleports with the Marines - it did not work with the first group of 5 but the late one did work. I suspect that the reason is the Helo's were in a formation and the Event editor did not recognize them. Not sure if this is a game issue but will mention it in the Tech forum. A note in the tasking telling the player to fly them individually would fix this I think.
-As mentioned, I had previously killed all the RR ground units so there was no ground reaction. Some teleports would help spice things up a bit here
-Got a message from the Force Recon about tanks in the DZ, but they were already dead. Not sure how to resolve this except perhaps another teleport.
-The air reaction to the raid was really good, was down to guns trying to stop it! One thing I noticed however was that the Migs were not really fighting back. Did not check if there was a prosecution zone set up but perhaps if there was a corridor from the launch base to the Raid area about 40NM wide, it would make it more interesting [:D]
-Some hand held SAMs and perhaps a few non radar capable guns down in the south to protect the RR infantry would make the bombing practice more interesting.
-In the success message, the wording in the first paragraph confused me a bit. Got the impression that I was to cease fire immediately. The second para sorted that out but it could be clarified a bit.
I'll take a look at these things when I start on Rev 2 of Phase II this week. Thanks for all the feedback- it definitely helps to refine/improve/debug the scenarios.
ORIGINAL: jmarso
Where is this Build 710 you speak of? The latest I've been able to find is 678.3.
That's a beta build the developers are working on. Improvements they make in those internal development builds are later rolled out as public releases.
