Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16

[Zaslon]

Brainstorming...
IMO Can you consider that Saudi led-coalition won the war in Yemen, Yemeni air Force can have a mix of MiG-29, Su-22 and former saudi equipment (Tornado F3 retired fron RSAF instead of MiG-25 and F-5E). Another option, only with the strategic partnership with China is better (China established strong business relationship with many African countries to obtain his natural resources) in order to give the Sultan access to the Russian weapons market. A third option is that the Houties won the revolution and Yemeni is backed by Iran and with strong links with China and Russia sell like France to all sides.

So French and Russians can be pleased to sell to this new misterious Sultan of Socotra some recent retired weapon systems or light new weapon systems. Brazilian and South african industry surely are open to sell weapons to the Sultan.

P.S. Spain put in 2014 in the market Mirage F1M, another interesting option for the Sultan, only we need to correct the F1M in the D3K.

[CCIP-subsim]

A huge thanks again for the feedback folks! This is crucial to me because with a scenario that huge I can only do very limited testing and obviously I've got my own bias since I know a little too much about the mechanics. I definitely see that the power imbalance is a big one and I'll get that looked at.

For the next version, the priority list is:
-Reduce air threats (I think to start with, I'll scale the Yemeni air force down to its actual equipment level and remove the MiG-25s/23s)
-Reduce ground threats (mainly the SA-23 equipped units, although there actually aren't that many of them)
-Reduce the cost of the base upgrades
-Replace non-useful units (like that MD-500 and Edjern) with more functional units, buff up the upper end slightly. I think the Viggen, Mirage and I-HAWK are all great ideas!

The only thing I'm being wary of is encouraging the player to actually take on full-on frontal war with Yemen - by design, they're supposed have the upper hand if you start trying to destroy them instead of avoid them, but you should be able to get as far as your targets and back. You should also be able to at least defend a chunk of airspace around your ships with fighters.

Another future thought is that maybe a good way to go is to give them reinforcements gradually - so they don't deploy anything advanced while you're weak, but once you get some upgrades, they do too.

I don't think I'll be able to get to for a couple of weeks (work to do, plus there's at least another scenario that I wanted to get to a working version first), but I'll get that worked on soon enough! Again, thanks for all the feedback [:)]

[wild_Willie2]

You could indeed go for a scenario where all parties just have heat seeking AA missiles to even the playing field a bit more, this would remove some issues but would leave the Yemeni MIG-29's with those extremely deadly AA-11's v. older sidewinder versions... But I definitely would remove the "loose the HSV, instant loss rule" from the game, I would consider the HSV to be just another buy-able asset, similarity priced as a tier two patrol boat. I would much rather have an invasion like event to remove you by the Yemeni after 35 days or so.

[Luidzi]

I got stuck at the 3rd list of terrorist targets - it includes several ammo bunkers. Against them I need aircraft with deep penetrating bombs, but I've found no aircraft available for purchase that can carry them. I've included an F-4D, it can carry GBU-10 with BLU-109 warhead and at the same time it has only old variant of Sparrow for A/A.

[Ferret69]

Just started playing this scenario and judging by the comments things are going to get messy quickly! As I was looking through the Cat C and Cat B units I saw an opening to try to get a more exotic unit in; I think as a cheap 'bomb truck', the A-5 Fantan. The A-5 is a distant cousin of the MiG-19 but with a restructured fuselage and an array of weapons and avionics suites. They can be equipped with the AIM-9P, Matra Magic or PL-5 heat seeking missiles. It can also use dumb bombs or rockets. If you want to keep the western theme on the other hand there is there is the Jaguar Gr.Mk1/1b; It could be used for reconnaissance or conventional strike. Anyway time to go back to this great scenario[:)]

Ferret.

[wild_Willie2]

The beginning of the scenario is quite doable, its the later targets that are problematic with the current OOB.

[Ferret69]

Well it wasn't very doable when SU-22's and MiG-23's started rolling in when my only asset was a mere Pucara light attack aircraft and the starting assets... it wasn't pretty.

Ferret.

[wild_Willie2]

Yep. lesson one: Never put your mother ship near the African east coast, once spotted and unlucky, the SU-22 will come in for the kill.
Lesson two: Get the hell out of dodge once a special message arrives that alerts have been sounded, night bombing is your friend as you will get seen less often.
Lesson three: With the current OOB, killing pirates in the ease/southeast is a whole lot safer then flying over the African mainland.

[Luidzi]

For some reason, my strike aircrafts trigger sector air defense alerts even while flying to minimize detection as much as possible. I’ve tried carefully planned ingress/egress routes, flying below radars, hiding in clouds and also jamming with Falcon. I didn’t try „the best ECM ever“ (500lb bomb falling on air search radar) yet, I presumed the Yemeni would get even more mad at me than before. No matter how much I try to hide an incoming airstrike, after some time over enemy territory I always get a probability check for alert event.

Edit: Found it - working as designed. The sector air defense alert is not triggered by detection, as I thought, but by proximity and time. Therefore, careful piloting will not delay enemy scramble at all.

[Ferret69]

Having played a bit more I have incorporated the 35% price cuts in a separate version, have to say it's much easier and smoother! I think in this separate version I might also test some of the ideas for new units and concepts ( if okay with you,CCIPsubsim). I've also had another idea for gameplay/ concepts; if we are supported by the CIA then why not use that, have the CIA (at random) ask for supply drops and the insertion of agents, after all that sort of deniability would be the sort of thing the CIA is trying to do by using your budding air force to strike terrorists. The way you could inform the players would maybe be in the style from Feltan's Under African skies. This would also open up all sorts of interesting aircraft such as Venezuelan Mi-8's and South African Puma's, maybe some French C-54's as well, that sort of thing.

Ferret.

[jun5896]

Wow.. wonderful. It is great idea! [:'(]

[ussdefiant]

A few comments on the scenario, if anyone is working on it:

1)All the civvie/pirate/maybe Yeman ships seem to be set to do UNREP on their patrols instead of returning to port to fuel up. This is leading to a giant ball of ships forming north of Socrota as everyone tries to fuel off the Unregistered Oil Tankers.

2)the Yeman subs seem to be set to have their radars turned on when they're at the surface for air. This makes it extremely easy to find/sink them with the ESM-equipped Seasprites from Cat B.

3)Speaking of Cat B. that AMX-11 has JDAMs, which seems to render all the other LGB toters superfluous.