Call to scen authors: Improved tutorials

[Dimitris]

Hi all,

It is our understanding that our current air-ops tutorials are inadequate for walking through the massive chunk of Command that is air ops, and they are also quite steep in terms of a learning curve for new players. We need something better, more expansive but at the same time far more gradual.

As the dev team is currently fully engaged in ongoing projects, we are turning to the user community and asking for volunteers to put together a series of such tutorials.

Here is an example of how these tutorials may be broken down:

* Basic manual flight: Launch single aircraft, manually control course / throttle / altitude, and manually order to RTB.

* Unattented flight (patrol mission): Set simple air patrol for single aircraft, observe it take off, fly around and RTB.

* AAW #1 - Simple air intercept: Launch interceptor against aircraft being auto-tracked (Side awareness = Omniscient or simply mark as autodetected), intercept and engage with cannon and/or simple fire-forget weapon (e.g. AIM-9). Target is unarmed and cooperative.
* AAW #2 - Realistic detection and intercept: Similar to AAW #1 but this time target must be initially detected (ground radar or AWACS) and engaged. Weapon may be simple AIM-9 or more demanding radar-guided (AIM-7?). Target is unarmed but will try to evade.
* AAW #3 - Challenged intercept: Similar to AAW #2 but this time the bogey is armed and hostile - you may get shot down here! Interceptor force may be more than one aircraft to stack the deck against this.
* AAW #4 - Many vs. Many: Similar to AAW #4 but this time the intruders are multiple; need to carefully practice cooperative tactics to prevail, even with superior weapons.

* Strike #1 - Simple CAS/BAI sortie: Launch manually and destroy an auto-detected truck unit with simple ASuW weaponry.
* Strike #2 - ASuW patrol: Plane launches on its own and searches in defined area for target (not auto-detected this time). May give target some light AAA cover to make this more challenging.
* Strike #3 - Strike mission: Against static target, without any defences.
* Strike #4 - Target is covered by light defences this time. May need to finetune ingress/egress path enroute to avoid fire.
* Strike #5 - Target is covered by more comprehensive defences incl. SAMs. No run-around possibility, have to punch through (stand-off weaponry).
* Strike #6 - Target is covered by long-range SAMs, outranging available stand-off weapons. Have to use terrain masking and/or OECM to get to suitable launch point.
* Strike #7 - As Strike #6 but now target is also covered by air patrols. Need to coordinate fighter sweep with main strike force. (<--- This is roughly our current AAW tutorial).
* Strike #8 - SEAD strike: Joust with the air defences themselves. May or may not include enemy fighter coverage.

* Maritime Ops #1 - Simple maritime patrol; close and ID detected vessels.
* Maritime Ops #2 - ASuW-naval patrol: Plane launches on its own and searches in defined area for target (not auto-detected this time). May give target some light AAA cover to make this more challenging.
* Maritime Ops #3 - Naval strike against single ship, with some defences.
* Maritime Ops #4 - Naval strike against task force with strong defences (LR-SAMs). Need to carefully allocate stand-off weapons, use jamming and low-level etc.
* Maritime Ops #5 - Similar to Ops #4, but this time at really long range; need to employ air refuelling.
* Maritime Ops #6 - Simple ASW strike against auto-detected sub.
* Maritime Ops #7 - ASW patrol on defined area; need to actually find the sub this time (sonobuoys etc.)

This is just an example; aspiring authors are free to adjust this.

The format of the tutorials themselves is up to the author(s); ideally some hand-holding through events would be desirable (e.g. player accomplishes step-1, pop-up congratulates and provides instructions for step-2 etc.) but again the author may do this as deems best.

Feel you can handle it? Let us know!

Cheers.

[Coiler12]

Almost immediately after reading this, I threw together an extremely simple, extremely rough air tutorial. See what you think.

[Dimitris]

Nice! I think you're on the right track.

[kevinkins]

How would the new set of tutorials be distributed? Via game updates or the Community Scenario Pack. I think updates actually come out quicker than the pack, hence the question. I don't have an opinion right now one way or the other. But it sounds like you want these tutorials in the hands of new players right away.

Kevin

[Gunner98]

It may be better if we did them one author per series for consistency. I can do the strike series if no one else has started that.

B

[CCIP-subsim]

I think some of these can be done very well as a single mission, in stages triggered via events and scripts

I'm going to see if I can do an 8-in-1 strike tutorial - I'm thinking of doing it in the format of an international exercise from Nellis or something like that.

[Dimitris]

I was deliberately thinking about "one scenario per lesson", to keep things simple. If you think a "long scen" format (JFC-style) is more suitable, feel free to give it a try.

[kevinkins]

Feel you can handle it? Let us know!

Does this mean there is an official "sign up" process as if we are applying for the "job"? I am asking since I am not sure who will be ultimately responsible for delivering the new standard in tutorials? I think it's all up to the Community. Please confirm if that is correct. This question feeds back into the means of distribution I asked about above.

This is a great idea that needs a bit more definition. Once defined, I give the Community like 8 weeks to deliver the learning situations outlined above in one neat package.

Kevin

[HalfLifeExpert]

This is a good idea! I am not close to qualified to try and create something, but I can have my father try them out, he is new at CMANO and has been trying to learn Air Ops.

[AlphaSierra]

I have one I am building with more of a Time on Target theme 4 groups of bombers, ships, subs I could scale back to just work on basic time on target practice if there is interest.

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin
Does this mean there is an official "sign up" process as if we are applying for the "job"? I am asking since I am not sure who will be ultimately responsible for delivering the new standard in tutorials? I think it's all up to the Community. Please confirm if that is correct. This question feeds back into the means of distribution I asked about above.

This is a great idea that needs a bit more definition. Once defined, I give the Community like 8 weeks to deliver the learning situations outlined above in one neat package.

Kevin

There is no official sign-up process. Whoever makes a scenario gets the credit for it. We intend to distribute any improved tutorials as part of future updates.

[Gunner98]

Here is my shot at a Strike Tutorial #1. Have included a word document for the player to follow along with - not sure that is a good idea or not.

Should we post these here or on the Scenario page, as they could probably use a quick round of testing.

B

[AlGrant]

With a structured progression like those listed in the first post you could easily combine the final training scenarios into a Command: Flight School campaign!

Of course they could still be run individually in standalone mode.

[kevinkins]

There is no official sign-up process. Whoever makes a scenario gets the credit for it. We intend to distribute any improved tutorials as part of future updates.

Thanks for that. Looking forward to the project and results!

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

Here is my shot at a Strike Tutorial #1. Have included a word document for the player to follow along with - not sure that is a good idea or not.

Should we post these here or on the Scenario page, as they could probably use a quick round of testing.

B

Sure, do as you think most beneficial.

[Eggstor]

Looking over Strike Tutorial #1 now. I like the idea of a document to follow along because side briefings and special messages have a way of getting "lost".

I cleaned up the companion document somewhat, mostly because the links that were transferred over to the scenario briefing and various special messages try to open within the game window instead of an actual browser (in Word, the target frame needs to be "New window", which appends the 'target="_blank"' to the HTML). That's attached, though I don't know what the weapons state is supposed to be set to for Target 3 as that got cut off.

Two items of note in the tutorial itself:
- The northern tank unit is simply labeled "Target" instead of "Target 3".
- There are three targets labeled "Target 6" while there are only 2 JASSMs available to take them out.

[Gunner98]

Thanks Eggstor

Sunburn - is there an easy way of building these in a non-CoW state? Its just been pointed out to me that the file I posted is not accessible to anyone who has not installed CoW. I think that these should be universally available to any player though.

It is simply a matter of reverting to an older DB before saving? If so, which DB? Or is there a better way.

Thanks

B

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98
Sunburn - is there an easy way of building these in a non-CoW state? Its just been pointed out to me that the file I posted is not accessible to anyone who has not installed CoW. I think that these should be universally available to any player though.

The only reason that the scen would demand a CoW license is if any of the CoW-specific features is activated. Have you enabled aircraft damage or any of the other CoW-only features?

[Gunner98]

Nope - I'll double check with him to make sure he's using DB build 467

[kevinkins]

The Steam version only allows the selection of 466 - which is the highest number available. There is no selection to choose above that numerically in the drop down. Pretty sure this is the issue with opening Gunners's tutorial.

Kevin