weyne/dcs-retribution
1
0
Fork 0
mirror of https://github.com/dcs-retribution/dcs-retribution.git synced 2025-11-10 15:41:24 +00:00
Code Issues Packages Projects Releases Wiki Activity

Created Battle of Abu Dhabi -- A Tutorial (markdown)

Jeet Sukumaran
2021-06-30 17:39:34 -07:00
parent 22c96b2112
commit 0eab698087
1 changed files with 457 additions and 0 deletions
Download Patch File Download Diff File Expand all files Collapse all files

457
Battle-of-Abu-Dhabi----A-Tutorial.md Normal file

@@ -0,0 +1,457 @@
<!-- Image Sources -->
<!-- https://imgur.com/a/aXIQk0z -->
<!-- https://imgur.com/a/kfTmkzp -->
## Setting Up a New Campaign
1. Click on the "New Game" icon on the toolbar.
![](https://i.imgur.com/cvrerq0.jpeg)
This will start the new game wizard.
![](https://i.imgur.com/0R5s9bd.jpeg)
Click on "Next >" to continue.
2. The next page of the wizard will allow us to select a campaign as well as configure some context for the campaign.
![](https://i.imgur.com/f4pbmiI.jpg)
- **Item 1**
This is a list of campaigns available in Liberation.
Each campaign listing begins with the name of the map or terrain it is set in, follwed by the name of the campaign itself.
We click on each campaign to select it, as well as to get some more details about setting it up or running it.
(If we are interested in developing our own custom campaign, have a look [here](https://github.com/dcs-liberation/dcs_liberation/wiki/Custom-campaigns)).
- **Item 2**
As we click on each campaign from the list on the left, in the top box on the right we will see a brief description of the campaign, including the default factions that the campaign designer has selected for the campaign.
In terms of game mechanics, a "faction" essentially determines the types of hardware that each side will have access to during the campaign (i.e., what aircraft, ground vehicles, ships, air defenses, etc.).
The default factions may reflect historical or pseudo-historical units for a particular conflict a campaign is replicating, if any, or otherwise something that the campaign designer selected for balance or whimsy.
We will have the option to customize the factions on the next page, so don't worry if we do not like the default factions, or even if we do not really understand what hardware is associated with each faction as this will be listed later.
- **Item 3**
Take note of the performance impact rating.
We have some *limited* ability to [tweak this](https://github.com/dcs-liberation/dcs_liberation/wiki/Performance-Options) later on in the game, but we really should take into consideration the power of our machine or server when selecting a campaign.
- **Item 4**
Clicking on "Invert Map" under "Map Settings" will reverse the starting positions of the sides of the campaign, essentially letting us play the campaign from the other side (with appropriate faction selection later on). We will ignore this for now.
- **Item 5**
Under "Time Period" we can select the time period we want to set the campaign in.
The time period that we choose has TWO effects on gameplay:
- The season (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) determines the season textures on the campaign map.
- The year will *ONLY* make a difference if we later on choose to have era-dependent weapons restrictions in our campaign setup. Selecting this option (which will be available under the game settings once we start the campaign) will result in Liberation restricting all flights to only load up on ordnance that was in service by the year we set here. So, for example, if we set the campaign to play out in the "Cold War -- Fall [1970]", then our flights will not have access to AIM-120's, JDAMs/JSOWs, etc.
Next to the campaign itself, the time period is probably the most important option we will want to consider on this page.
For now, let us select "**Persian Gulf - Battle of Abu Dhabi**" as the campaign, and leave all the settings at their defaults, including the default time period (Summer 1995).
Click on "``Next >``" to proceed to the next page.
3. The next page of the wizard allows us to select both ours as well as the opposing forces: "Player faction" and "Enemy faction", respectively.
As noted above, a "faction" in game terms essentially determines the types of aircraft, ground vehicles, air defenses, etc. that each side will have available.
Changing the faction using the dropdown boxes next to "Player faction" and "Enemy faction" will change the listing of types available under each.
Obviously, this will have *massive* difference in the campaign play, and we can set up anything we like, realistic or not, balanced or not.
In actual play, should spend some time stepping through different factions and reviewing their hardware/equipment to see what suits our whims, interests, etc.
For the same campaign, we can set up factions so that we play out everything from a peer-to-peer symmetrical conflict to a COIN conflict, or anything in between.
Moreover, we can select factions with hardware from different periods to capture WW2-ish, Cold War, or post-Cold War technologies and dynamics.
Note that this page only selects hardware *availability* (the types of equipment available), not capacity (the numbers of each).
We will later have the ability to select this for each side as we desire.
For the campaign we have selected, the campaign designer has set "Iran 2015" as the player faction and "United Arab Emirates (2015)" as the opposing faction.
This makes perfect sense for the geography and politics of the region, as well as the game balance.
However, just to explore the possibilities, we are going to change the factions around.
We are going to select "USA 1990" as the player faction and "Iraq 1991" as the enemy or opposing faction.
We can "lore up" this conflict any way we please (maybe Iraq has invaded and occupied UAE very rapidly, and now the US has stepped in to push them back?), or just accept that this makes for a nice scenario to be explored.
After selecting "USA 1990" and "Iraq 1991" for player and enemy factions, respectively, we click on "Next >" to proceed to the next page of the wizard.
4. In this page of the wizard, we set the availability of some specialized hardware.
So, for example, in the top box we can decide whether or not we want to allow aircraft carriers (and, if so, the supercarrier), helicopter carriers, or even any form of navy at all.
We can also set the desired mission duration.
Note that the only thing this effects is the AI mission planning -- the AI (our, side if we do not opt out later on for the AI to plan our missions, as well as the opposing side either way) will not plan any missions past this time.
We will still be able to play the mission for longer than this, but we will find things strange as the enemy may not have any CAPs on station or indeed much activity at all.
(Also note that we can always end the mission anytime, with the caveat that some of the AI may not have completed their assigned tasks).
The second box lets Liberation know what game modification we want to use in the mission generation.
Two very important things to note here!
- First, we need to have independently downloaded and installed the mods for the missions to work! Liberation does not bundle these mods, nor will it download them for us.
- Second, even if we have the mods installed, if the factions that we have selected do not explicitly include the various types offered, Liberation will not generate missions that include them!
For now, the only option on this page that we are going to select will be "Use Supercarrier module" (assuming we have it).
After that, we click on "Next >" to proceed to the final set of options in the wizard.
5. This page allows us to set the "economy" of the game.
The economy essentially determines how *much* of each side will able to buy out of the various types each faction makes available.
There are two things to consider here:
- Next to equipment types (SA-10's vs SA-2's? Su-35s vs MiG-19's?), this is probably the single most important way to dial in the game balance.
If we find outselves going up against an anemic opposition that can barely put together a noticable CAP to provide a nice challenge to our strikes, or find ourselves rolling into victory without much satisfaction, increase the opposing faction budget.
Alternatively, if we find ourselves facing hordes of aircraft and SAMs and tanks and are overwhelmed, do the opposite: decrease the opposing faction budget.
We can also, of course, decrease our budgets to make our life more challenging, or increase our budget to allow us to generate extra sorties to deal with the hordes.
The approach we take should probably be driven by the second consideration below: performance.
- The single biggest crunch to our game performance is the number of units in play in a particular mission: more units, less performance.
The single biggest way we can influence the number of units in play in a particular mission is by changing the budget.
If we find our games are a stutter fest or unplayable on our computers, then we can dial down the budgets for *both* sides here (e.g., dropping both sides down to 1000 or less).
This page also allows us to decide whether or not the Liberation AI will automatically use some of our funding to repair damage or purchase aircraft.
This is for the players who do not want to deal with these issues, but honestly, it's really is a fun part of the game, and the "I" part of the AI is pretty limited so it is better for us take charge of this and leave these boxes unchecked.
6. Clicking on "next" will take us to last page of the wizard.
Here all we have to do is click on "finish", and Liberation will do its thing to generate the campaign based on our options.
Then, the next screen we will be presented with will be the main Liberation interface, ready for us to dive into Turn 0 of our brand new campaign!
## The Interface and Its Elements
Looking at the main interface of Liberation, we see a number of elements and panels.
1. This is the toolbar. From here we can create new campaigns, load saved ones, change the campaign and mission generation settings, etc.
2. This is our package window. Once we have planned some missions, we will see each package listed here.
3. This is our package flights window. Each package consists of one or more flights. For each package currently selected in the previous panel, the flights that make it up will be listed here.
4. This is our information window, where a log of various activities carried out by Liberation gets reported.
5. This is our main map view window, and is discussed in dtail below.
6. This is our "budget" in the abstract notional economy that Liberation uses to manage the game balance in terms of units and equipment fielded.
7. This is where we will go to generate a mission.
### The Map Window in Detail
The main map window is what we will use primarily to visualize and plan our campaign.
- We can zoom in and out of the map by hovering over it and using our mouse scroll wheel.
We can actually get some really nice terrain detail at the maximum zoom, allowing for some pretty fine-scale mission planning that exploits terrain.
- Our forces are represented by blue icons, while the enemy is represented by red icons.
- The darker shaded icons represent *Control Points* --- important strategic objectives that structure the battlespace, as well as places in which we will base our aircraft, vehicles, and troops.
Most of these Control Points lie along the campaign axis (discussed below), but note that our carrier and helicopter carrier are also Control Points, given their capacity to base aircraft.
- Hovering our mouse over each icon shows we some information about the forces represented by each icon.
- Right-clicking on a non-Control Point icon brings up some details about the group's composition.
- Right-clicking on a friendly (blue) Control Point icon brings up a dialog which allows we to manage assets and resources related to this group, including "purchase" (under Liberation's notional econonmy) of aircraft, ground units, etc.
- For special naval Control Points, such as aircraft and helicopter carriers, right-clicking and dragging on its icon allows we to relocate the ships. The (future) new station will be indicated by a semi-transparent icon connected to the current location by a line, and it will only take effect the next turn.
- Left-clicking on any icon brings up a package scheduling dialog which allows we to frag missions relating to this group. For friendly groups, we can, for e.g., plan BARCAPs. For enemy groups we can plan various strikes, CAS, BAI, DEAD, SEAD, etc. missions.
- A thick line, running shows the principle axis of the compaign, which connects all the Control Points of the campaign, both ours and the enemy. This is discussed in detail below.
- This is the primary axis along which the campaign will be fought, and on which we will advance or retreat as we capture or lose Control Points arranged upon it.
- The dark red section of the axis, which runs from FOB Ras Al Khaminah to Liwa in the southeast, represents the part of the axis under enemy control.
- The salmon-colored section of the axis, running between FOB Ras Al Khaminah and Khasab, represent the current segment of the campaign axis that is being fought over.
- The orange line across the axis represents the front line, the current FEBA.
- As our missions prove successful, this front line will advance down the axis, toward the next enemy Control Point on the axis (FOB Ras Al Khaminah).
- If our forces advance far enough to capture this Control Point, then the this segment of the campaign axis will turn blue and the next one down (between Al Khaminah and Al Minhad) will turn salmon, and this continues to the next Control Point.
- Conversely, if the enemy proves more successful, the front line marker will retreat up the campaign axis until the enemy captures Khasab.
## The Gameplan
Before we get into the game in any more detail, let's first consider our overall strategy, as this will influence the composition of the assets we acquire.
We are going to play the game by working our way down the campaign axis, taking Control Point by Control point.
We can only take the first enemy Control Point after the front line, i.e., we cannot carry out any vertical envelopment, Operation Market Garden style of capturing any Control Points deeper down the line.
So our entire campaign will be driven by pushing the front line down the campaign axis of control as we take enemy control point after control point.
And the capture of enemy control points can *only* be done by ground troops.
*Everything* else in the game, whether its fancy F-22's or old school Hueys, is utterly and entirely in support of the troops on the ground, either directly or otherwise.
Our strategy to achieve this victory is going to be using our airpower to shape the battlespace to favor the ground troops advancing on to the next control point, while making difficult for the enemy to do the same.
We are going to:
1. First, take out the long-range SAM's that are going to intefere with the free movement of our air. We will prioritize, first, SAMs that cover the front lines and/or protect enemy forces near the frontlines, then, secondly, those that protect their airfields.
2. Second, we are going to turn our attention to:
- destruction of enemy ground assets near the front
- destruction of enemy *airfields*
Note there are a multitude of other strategies, and we may want to think about running some of this as well (maybe supplementing if not replacing the above).
For example, the enemy economy, like ours, is based on a number of strategic resources, such as oil fields, factories, depots, etc. etc.
We may decide that it makes sense to hold back on the war on the ground and bleed the enemy's economy for a bit, in which case we would prioritize strikes against these strategic resources.
The strategy we pick will drive everything from our asset acquisition to our mission planning.
Thus if we favored the "war against the economy" approach, we would invest in strategic bombers rather than CAS-specialized tactical fighters.
For this example, however, we are going to adopt the "SAMs > airfields > ground" formula, and thus our inventory will be dominated by tactical air assets and their suppporting aircraft.
## Turn 0
Turn 0 is actually a "pre-game" turn, where we will do two things:
- We will use this turn to set some options and other settings to adjust how the campaign and the missions it generates plays out.
- We (and the enemy) will make initial purchases, populating our bases and filling out our orders of battle table (i.e., determine our force dispositions).
### Settings
1. Let's begin by selecting our mission generation options/settings as well as some other options for the campaign.
Click on the "Settings" icon in the toolbar.
2. The first page that shows up is the "Difficult" page.
- We can set the skill levels of various elements in the missions with the first three options.
- The income multipliers are another way of setting a game balance. Whereas the budgets we set in the campaign generation dialog affect the *initial* capacity of each side, here you can influence how subsequent turns go.
- At the bottom, we can also set whether or not you will allow external views or how much players can see in the F10 map.
We can leave all of these at their defaults, though we may want to select the "No night missions" options if our preferred aircraft does not do well in those conditions.
3. Select the "Campaign Management" page from the list on the left.
Here we can decide whether or not you want to allow full unrestricted access to all weapons available in DCS for each platform, or restrict them in some to enhance (or at least modify) gameplay.
For example, if we chose 1990 as the period of interest, checking the "Restrict weapons by date" box will only allow AIM-7's but not AIM-120's for all our Hornets and Vipers.
Similarly for air-to-ground weapons: no GPS weapons will be available.
Of course, *both* sides will be affected by the same weapons restriction.
Obviously, this will have a major impact on the dynamics of the game, potentially make it a lot more interesting and challenging.
Another option to set here is whether or not the Liberation AI plans our side's missions every turn in addition to the enemy's.
We are going to disable this by selected "Disabled" from the "Automatic package planning behavior" drop down box.
4. Select the "Mission Generator" page from the list on the left.
- The top box has the following options:
- "Use Supercarrier Module": check this box if we have this module.
- "Put Objective Markers on the Map": selecting this option will create a separate waypoint for each strike target.
- "Player flights ignore TOT and spawn immediately": checking this box will allow we to spawn in anytime, as opposed to waiting for our flight's fragged start time. Your published route and waypoint timing will still reflect the mission plan, though, of course, it will be up to you to fly it accordingly.
- "Default start type for AI aircraft": We can adjust the start type for each flight individually when you frag them, but this sets the defaults for our side as well as the enemy.
- "Desired mission duration": As noted above, we are free to spawn in anything and quit the mission anytime. What this option determines is mission planning time frame that Liberation does for the enemy faction as well as our side (if you allow Liberation to plan your missions).
- The bottom box has some important ways for we to manage performance.
In particular, we probably want to *UNCHECK* "Smoke visual effect on frontline" and "Generate infantry squades along vehicles".
As noted in [the optimization tips](https://github.com/dcs-liberation/dcs_liberation/wiki/Performance-Options), culling of distant units will help by preventing aircraft spawning more than a certain distance from the frontlines.
5. Select the "Lua Plugins" page, and select some extra mods, plugins, or scripting goodies we want Liberation to implement in our missions.
- "JTAC Autolase": we want this checked if you want integrated lasing of targets by an AI pseudo-JTAC (visualized as a invulnerable and invisible-to-the-enemy Predator drone currently).
- "SkynetIADS": we want this checked! The default SAM behavior in DCS is very dumb -- their radars are active all the time, and they instantly launch as soon as the tip of our aircraft pokes into their wildest maximum range.
This makes them easy to detect and defeat by "cheesing" (just poke in and out of their maximum range until they run out of ammo).
Skynet *greatly* improves their behavior in a range of ways, including: simulating an IADS (Integrated Air Defense System, by linking together information from multiple sensor platforms including EW radars); the radars being dark until something is in range; the missiles not firing until something has a decent probability of not escaping; radars going dark when they detect anti-radiation missiles heading their way, etc. etc.
It changes the gameplayer entire and for the better.
SAM sites can actually be suppressed for example, by HARMs.
Furthermore, it also improves performance as radars are a major resource hog.
- "EWRS": if we select this, you will be provided a sort of "super-AWACS-on-steroids" feed during the DCS mission.
- "Splash Damage": we almost certainly want this option. By default DCS does not model fragmentation or "near-impact" damage from explosives. This mod fixes is this.
After we have selected all the settings and options you want, close the dialog box, and now you are ready to select our order of battle!
## Setting Up Our Order of Battle
1. As noted above, the darker shaded blue icons are our Control Points.
Also as noted above, Control Points are the primary objectives of our campaign along the campaign axis.
In addition to serving as strategic objectives by which the campaign progress and success are measured, they are all also places at which we base and manage our forces.
2. Let's start with placing some ground units on the frontlines (we *always* want to have some ground units on the frontlines, otherwise you will almost certainly lose the turn).
"Khasab" is the Control Point just behind the front line.
Left-click on the dark blue icon representing this base to call up the resource management dialog.
This dialog has two tabs -- "Airfield Command" and "Ground Forces HQ".
Click on "Ground Forces HQ" tab to switch to managing the ground forces.
On the panel on the left, we see all the various types available for this faction, followed by a number indicating how many are actually at this base now, followed by an indication of how much this type costs in Liberation's notional economy currency.
So, for example, the first row indicates that we have exactly 0 "LAV-25" vehicles at the base, and they cost 7 (million) each.
Next to this is a box with three elements: a "-" button, to remove one unit of this vehicle from the base; a number, indicating how many units of this vehicle we have "purchased" in this turn; and a "+" button, to tell Liberation to arrange for purchase of one unit of this vehicle the next turn.
Scroll down to "M1A2 Abrams" row, and click the "+" button 20 times to command the "purchase" of 20 units of the Abrams tank for the frontlines.
We should see that the while the current number of Abrams remains 0, we have 20 now indicating as coming in the following turn.
We should also see that our "Available Budget" on the lower right of this dialog has gone from 2000 million to 1500 million.
Close the dialog box to return to the main map view.
3. Now let's set up some support aircraft assets, but at a base that is quite a bit further away from the front lines.
Right-click on "Bandar Abbas Intl", on the southern coast of Iran.
Under the "Airfield Command", scroll down to the "E-3A" row and press the "+" twice to acquire two of these AWACS aircraft.
We only need one AWACS operational in every mission, but as there is a turn lag before our "purchases" get delivered, if the AWACS gets shot down in a particular mission and we have only one in the inventory, that means that even if we have the funds to replace the AWACS, we will have to wait a full turn for it to arrive and we will at the very least have to fly the following mission without AWACS support.
We will apply the same conservative logic to our land-based tanker assets: scroll down the list to find the "KC-130" and "KC-135 Stratotanker" entries and add two of each.
4. Now let's take a look at our carriers.
The darker shaded naval icons indicate the two carriers we have in play: the fixed-wing CVN carrier strike group and the helicopter carrier ("LHA").
If we are unhappy with the placement of the carriers, we can move them by right-clicking and dragging them to a new location.
For example, if this were a (slightly) more realistic play, we may want to move at the carrier out of the Persian Gulf into at least the Gulf of Oman, as carrier strike groups love blue water and are really not comfortable moving into, let alone operating tactically, in restricted waters such as the Persian Gulf proper.
A line will appear from the current location leading to a semi-transparent icon indicating the future location.
Note that the future location will only take effect on the next turn.
For this example, we are going to leave the carriers in the Persian Gulf.
5. Once we are satisfied with the placement of the carriers, we left-click on the carrier icon to call up its asset management dialog.
We will add:
- 2x E-2C Hawkeyes, to give us local AWACS capability
- 4x S-3B Tankers, to give us organic refuelin capability
- 12x F-14A Tomcats
- 24x F/A-18C Hornets
Next, left-click on the LHA to bring up its asset management dialog, and add:
- 16x AV-8B Harrier II's
And, with that, we are *done* with the initial order of battle setup!
6. The final step of this stage is to start the ball rolling.
Before doing anything else, though, let us quickly save the game in its current state, so that all our campaign setup does not get lost should something go wrong.
Now we click on "Begin Campaign" on the upper right hand corner of the Liberation window to proceed to Turn 1.
## Turn 1
Now we are ready to plan our first turn.
Note that are budget has been increased.
This reflects "income" that we gained from various intact assets that contributed to our economy in the previous turn.
We will put off "buying" new hardware until after we have set up the missions this turn.
All activity in Liberation is organized into *packages*.
A package consists of one or more *flights* with a specific objective and, crucially a TOT (Time on Target) that determines when that objective should be completed.
A *flight* consists of one or more aircraft with a mission that either achieves the package's mission directly, or otherwise supports it.
If we had not disabled autoplanning in the settings, Liberation would have thrown up a whole bunch of packages for us, and then the only thing would *have* to do is to pick which one we wanted humans to fly and edit the package flights to replace the AI pilots with human player slots.
Here, we are going to build up the turn from scratch, though.
1. We'll start by planning our AWACS patrol.
Right-clicking on any blue Control Point (e.g., Qesh Island) will call up the Mission Package dialog.
Clicking on "Add Flight" on the botton left will call up the "Create Flight" dialog.
From the "Task" drop down box, we select "AEW&C".
From the "Aircraft" drop down box, we have two options available -- The E-3's out of Bandar Abbas Intl, or the E-2's out of our carrier.
We are going to assign an E-3 for this task.
We will leave all the other options at their defaults, but will set the "Start type" as "In flight".
As noted, this will make it impossible for this aircraft to be targetted by enemy missions, so should be used judiciously.
The only reasons to change this from "Cold" is because of performance (some airfields can get buggy if many aircraft are on the taxiways at once) or timing.
Here we are doing it for the latter: we want this mission up and running before any other flights are in the air.
Clicking on "Create" will add the flight to the package.
We could (and probably *should*) assign some sort of escort to this package, but we are going to ignore it for now.
Note that the mission TOT defaults to "ASAP", where the specific time is calculated based on the package route and waypoints (which itself can be edited later).
We can set a later time ourselves, and often will want to (to, for example, coordinate a strike package TOT to be after a DEAD package has dealt with a theater-scale SAM covering the strike target), but for now, ASAP is fine.
We click on "Save" to save the package.
The AEW&C package now appears in the package listing window, and in the flight listing window the single E-3A flight appears.
On the main map window, our mission is represented by a flight route extending from the Bandar Abbas Intl airbase to, in this case, an arbitrary location on the map.
We left-click and drag the waypoint marker to something closer to the action, and in particular, making sure that the orbit location represented by the waypoint marker has a clear view of the north coast of the peninsula where all the action is.
2. Now let's implement our game plan and frag some SAM strike packages.
In this example, there are two SA-6 sites on the coast and a SA-3 site a little further in.
While the front line itself does not seem to be in the threat circle of any of these, the larger battlefield around the front line is, and these SAMs will interefe with our interdictions and CAS missions.
So we are going to plan three packages: one for each of the two SA-6 sites, and a third against the SA-3 site.
We are going to coordinate the packages such that the SA-3 site strike will not be exposed to the SA-2 on their ingrees, so it will have a TOT adjusted accordingly.
3. We begin by right-clicking on the first SA-6 site to call up the package editor that will help us put together a package targetting this site.
We click on "Add Flight" to setup a DEAD flight consisting of 4 F/A-18C Hornets out of the Stennis.
We decide that this is one mission a human player will want to fly by clicking on the "Player" boxes next to the pilot assignments (though we could, with varying levels of success, decide that this mission would be flown by AI only by leaving all the "Player" boxes blank).
We click on "Create" to add this flight to the package.
Now, we can edit or fine tune the flight configuration by double-clicking on it.
Double-clicking on the flight calls up the flight edit dialog.
- The first page of this dialog allows us to change the number of aircraft in this flight, change (or add/remove) the slots that are assigned to human players, or change the start type (cold, warm, runway, in flight, etc.)
- The second page ("Payload") allows us to change the default loadout of the aircraft.
The default loadout will vary depending on, of course, the aircraft type, but also whether or not we have era-specific weapons restrictions or have [customized loadouts](https://github.com/dcs-liberation/dcs_liberation/wiki/Custom-Loadouts).
We can select a pre-configured loadout from the drop-down box, or create a flight-specific custom loadout by clicking the "Use custom loadout" and then select ordnance on each station using the appropriate drop-down boxes.
- Closing the dialog box saves the loadout.
While in the example above, we have configured our DEAD strike for self-escorting with 4x AIM-120's apiece, let's add a dedicated escort to this package anyway by clicking on "Add Flight" again, and selecting "Escort" from the "Task" drop-down.
Closing the package editor saves the package, and now we have two packages listed in our package listing: our earlier AEW&C package and the DEAD strike package.
Again, we can always edit the package composition by double-clicking them in the package list to call up the package editor, or the flights by double clicking them in the package editor.
Before proceeding, let's adjust the strike package route.
On the map, we see highlighted in yellow the route for the selected flight for the selected package.
The package is selected from the Packages window on the left, and the flight from the Flights window underneath it.
The currently selected flights will have pins for each waypoint, with details on the altitude and timing for that way point.
We can adjust any of these waypoints by dragging them.
This is something we typically want to do exploit terrain, avoid threats, come in from different axes/angles etc. etc.
Here we see the default route created for the DEAD package in Liberation puts the egress path right through the threat circle of some picket destroyers with nasty SAMs.
We almost certainly want to take out those ships eventually to give us access to that airspace, but for now we will adjust the route of the package to avoid them.
We click and drag the "5 Egress" waypoint pin and move it such that the route goes further north.
Note that currently, we have to adjust the route of each flight in each package independently.
Above, we just edited the route of the the first flight in the package.
We have to select the second flight in the Flight window on the left, and see then that *its* route gets highlighted in yellow (while the previous flight's route goes back to blue), and we get the waypoint pins show again, which, again, we can use to adjust the route to follow the first flight.
4. Let's repeat the above to set up a DEAD strike against the second SA-6 site, again adjusting the route as needed.
For this one, as can be seen by lack of player slots, we leave it to all AI.
5. Now let's set up the DEAD strike on the SA-3 site.
This proceeds along the lines of the previous (with a player slot thrown in), with one crucial difference.
Instead of choosing an ASAP TOT, we are going delay the time such that we are sure that the previous two DEAD strikes have completed the mission and destroyed the coastal SA-6's that are protecting the SA-3 site.
So we uncheck the "ASAP" box and set at TOT for T+00:25:00.
6. Next, let's get same CAS set up on the front lines.
We right-click on the orange front line marker to call up the package editor and frag a CAS flight of Harriers from our helicopter carrier (with a player slot thrown in).
Again, we double-click on the flight after we create it to modify the default payload, this time throwing in some GBU's into the mix for a little more impact.
We frag a TARCAP flight to join the package to provide some protection against possible enemy air as well.
Crucially, we adjust the package TOT such that we are sure that our SA-3 strike mission would have done its job before any of the CAS elements get on station.
7. Ok, now all our primary targets and missions are setup, we can set up some secondary and defensive missions.
Clicking "AIR WING" pulls up a dialog showing all our assets, and the "Inventory" tab allows us to see at a glance all our unsed assets.
8. Let's set up a BARCAP over the carrier.
Right-click on carrier and use the package editor to frag a Tomcat BARCAP mission.
Once the mission has been created, we can use adjust the "RACETRACK START" and "RACETRACK END" waypoints to adjust the geometry of the coverage.
We would probably want to frag a two more BARCAP missions, staring at T+00:20:00 and T+00:40:00, respectively, to ensure continuous coverage throughout the mission.
9. Following the above, we set up a BARCAP over Khasab, which will cover the helicopter carrier and the front line as well.
If enemy air is strong, we may want frag additional BARCAPs in addition.
10. Now let us set up some refueling missions.
As with the BARCAP missions, we can adjust the refueling race track waypoints to put the tankers where we want them.
We will typically want at least a recovery tanker (for flights to top up before landing on the carrier), and some mission support tankers (for flights to top up before they ingress, or for CAPs to refuel to extend their station time).
Be aware that the AI will not behave for refueling, so all refueling is only to cater for human players.
We can right click on the carrier to frag refueling packages, and then adujust the tanker racetracks as needed.
11. Finally, let us arrange for "purchases" for the next turn.
Here we would typically invest in replacing anticipated losses in addition to aircraft and vehicles that we want to carry out future operations.
12. Now we are all ready to actually fly the mission inside DCS with our fellow human and AI pilots!
- Before anything else, let us save the game in its current state so that we can always return to it if needed.
- We click on the "Take Off" button in the upper right, and Liberation will generate a mission for us.
Liberation will create a file called "``liberation_nextturn.miz``" in our DCS saved missions directory (typically "``C:/Users/<Name>/Saved Games/DCS/Missions``").
Liberation then shows us window, indicating that it is now waiting for use to run and complete the mission in DCS.
## Flying the Mission in DCS
Upon starting DCS, we will find the mission file located in the default Mission folder.
When we load up the mission we will be offered all the client slots that we allocated during the Liberation planning phase.
If we made sure to select "Player flights ignore TOT and spawn immediately" or our fragged start time is T+00:00:00, we will spawn in to our cockpit right away.
In the cockpit, calling up the kneeboard and jumping back a few pages will give us:
- Our flight plan, including our waypoint times, as well as ATC comms, TACANs, etc.
- Our support plan -- tanker and AWACS comms and TACANs
The flight plan consists of *at least* (there may be more) the following waypoints:
- **HOLD**: this will be the waypoint at which we will orbit or loiter with all the other flights of the package until the entire package is assembled.
The kneeboard flight plan publishes the departure time, i.e. the time we leave the HOLD waypoint and start heading toward the JOIN waypoint.
- **JOIN**: this is the waypoint where the entire package coalesces into a formation and pushes toward the INGRESS point.
- **INGRESS**: this is the final point from which we push off into chute toward the target.
- **TARGET**: this is the package objective
- **EGRESS**
- **SPLIT**
Regardless of our spawn time, it will be up to use to keep (or not keep!) the mission plan.
If we spawn early, we can take the extra time to set up, look around, etc., before rolling up to take off.
If we take off early, we may need to spend a longer time orbiting the HOLD point to meet the correct departure time and keep the mission timing.
If we take off too late or are otherwise delayed, we may need to speed up, skip the hold, etc. to keep our mission timings.
Timings are everything.
We can quit and exit the mission at any time.
So it's up to us whether we want to fly the whole 9 yards from start to finish.
But note this: the state of the "world" at the time we exit the mission (that is, actually quit the game, not just slot into another client) is, as far as Liberation is concerned, the absolute final outcome of the turn.
Any missions, AI or player, that have not completed will not have their tasks magically completed.
So if we exit the mission before other flights have started or completed their missions, whether or not we have completed ours (or if we have crashed), then we will not have progressed as far as we have planned and probably have to frag those missions again in the next turn.
If we are unsatisfied with the outcome of the mission, ours or any other flights, we can also simply restart the mission and play it again.
## Completing the Mission and the Next Turn
Once we have exited the mission, Liberation will automatically detect its completion, and it's dialog box will change to offer us chance to accept the results.
(Note that we will have to Alt-Tab to switch focus to the Liberation window to see this dialog, especially if DCS is still running.)
Here we can click on "Accept" if we are happy and want to proceed to the next turn, or just "Abort" if we want to try the same mission again (remembering that we need to click in "TAKE OFF" to generate the mission and get Liberation prepared to read the results).
If we accept the results of the mission by clicking on the appropriate button in the , then Liberation will present a summary of all the losses during the missions, including base capture events.
Then these changes will be applied to the Liberation's version of the "world", new income generated is added to the budgets, and we are ready for the next turn!