Old Campaigns

[Talon]

One of the fun things I like to do is update some of the old campaigns.The Nagumo campaign is one of my favs. With all the new scenery,planes and ships for it,it makes it more interesting. New gsl ports helps alot too.

Other fun missions for me are USMC Cactus Airforce missions.

Most of the time now I fly the DCG Campaigns I've made over the years.It's nice when all you do is push a button and a mission is formed and you can fly right away..

[nik112]

Hi Talon
i thought about cactus air force (87days.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=36974) ), (p38cac10.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=40828)) or tbf new Georgia campaign (ngv10a.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=43966) ), TBF-1 Avenger Guadalcanal Campaign (tbfgdcpn.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=42592)). You can find them at flightsim

cheers:guinness:

[Ettico]

Hi Talon

Ditto on the push-button campaign generation. I like that. I can set up a whole DCG campaign in less time than it takes me to do a decent mission with mission builder.

It's good to see you relaxing and enjoying yourself instead of slaving away for the benefit of the community. I was just wondering if you use AIRBOSS with DCG. I'm asking for a couple of reasons. First, I have a 64-bit version of the AIRBOSS executables which works with the new machines, which I haven't gotten around to uploading. Second, if you don't use AIRBOSS, I was wondering if you have a problem with collisions in your campaigns. Whenever I've used DCG without AIRBOSS spreading the formations, I've always had ridiculous numbers of collisions, which really mess up a campaign. That was the main reason I went to all the trouble to create AIRBOSS.

BTW, I know you're an expert at building DCG campaigns, so I have a couple of technical questions to run by you while I have your attention:

1. By trial and error, I"ve estimated that there is a 34 squadron limit in DCG missions involving sea-based air. DCG will generate missions which contain more than 34 squadrons, but the mission will crash if I try to run it. My question is, have you noticed this apparent limitation, and if so do you agree with the 34 squadron number I've come up with? FYI, I think the limit only applies to campaigns containing sea-based air. I don't know what the limit is for entirely land-based campaigns.

2. Do you happen to know the size limit for the DCG "squadrons" file? I seem to recall it's either 52 or 54 squadrons, but I'd have to do a lot of trial-and-error testing to find out for sure. The reason I'm interested in this limit is because I"ve also estimated by trial and error that only about 40% to 50% of task forces will appear in a given DCG mission. So, even with the 34? squadron mission limit, it's still possible to safely have considerably more squadrons than that in a sea-based campaign, since only a fraction of them will show up in a single mission. I'm not sure if there is any real advantage to having more TF's in a campaign than are likely to show up in a mission, but I've been toying with the idea of building a very large kind of 'what if' DCG campaign involving the USN 3rd FC fleet and the IJN Mobile Fleet. If I decide to try it, there is a little math involved, figuring out how many carriers and squadrons I can safely cram into it.

3. Are you aware of a limit on the number of task forces that can be in a DCG campaign? I seem to recall, from previous trial and error testing, that there may be an effective 12 task force limit. If I recall correctly, having more than 12 TF's in the files won't cause a crash, but DCG will simply ignore everything beyond the first 12. And in any case, only 40% to 50% of them will ever show up in a given mission.

OK, I won't bother you any more right now. BTW, I like your idea of upgrading the old DCG campaigns. There are a lot of them out there which could benefit from upgrading. With your building skill you'll never have a shortage of campaigns to fly.

[Talon]

Ettico,

I'm no expert with the DCG,I just learn as I go along.A couple of months after the DCG first came out I did my first campaign with it.It worked ok but I needed to improve my skills. The last campaign I did with it until last year was in 2007,even though I did update some of the older campaigns.

My Burma42 is much different now then the original,new planes and new scenery.I'm still working on the Guadalcanal Campaign,updating and improving it.With all the new scenery and planes it makes a big difference.

I have downloaded AirBoss but haven't tried it yet.I never had and problems with bombers being escorted in any of my campaigns,that may be because of the number of fighter squadrons I have.If you have more fighters then bombers more will be set for escort.

Air Crashes. I have very few of them if any.This may have to do with the planes I use.The biggest problem for air crashes with the DCG is the formation it chooses.

Task Forces,The most I have used are 5.

Squadrons,The most I have is 33 in my Coral Sea.I know the person who created the Burma42 later updated it to 50 squadrons.

My DOA Campaign only has 14 squadrons,3 RAAF P40s Squadrons and the rest are Japanese.In thsi campaign something ha[[ned I never saw before in DCG missions,2 squadrons takingoff from the same airfield.The other squadron was in front of mine and I had to wait for it to takeoff before my squadron could.

I even had a DCG campaign setup for WW1 a few years ago.

As you can see I haven't dug into it as much as you.I just do basic things with it.

As for the Community I don't thing alot of people even know about the DCG now,especially the new members.The ones that do know don't really understand what can be done with it.It's really not that difficult to write a new camapaign or upgrade an ols one.Basically I think you and I are the only ones that do new campaigns with it.Most people may just be intimidated by it and afraid to try making a new campaign.

[klausreiss]

Hallo Talon,

somewhere exist USMC Cactus Airforce missions?
Someone has made missions for the Marines on Guadalcanal?
Where could I find them?

Best wishes

klausreiss

[Talon]

Hallo Talon,

somewhere exist USMC Cactus Airforce missions?
Someone has made missions for the Marines on Guadalcanal?
Where could I find them?

Best wishes

klausreiss

Klaus,

Yes there is a Wildcat campaign for Guadalcanal.It's an old campaign and I don't know where you can get it anymore.It needs to be updated with new planes and scenery though.It starts in October 1942. I started a USMC campaign for Guadalcanal that begins August 21,1942 but there was no community interest so I stopped work on it. I plan on doing more with it someday but when I'm not sure.Right now I'm just doing my own thing and making missions for myself that I enjoy.

[nik112]

Talon
check post #2
cheers

[Rami]

Good afternoon,

If I may be of some usefulness here...this is my Pacific project folder. Within it lies the 87 days of Cactus campaign, as well as parallel campaigns for the F4F Wildcat and the P-38. There is no support for this, or a readme. Caveat emptor!

[Ettico]

Talon,

Thanks for the reply. You brought up a couple of interesting points.


FYI, AIRBOSS changes the DCG echelon left formations to finger four with a slightly wider spread, which sharply reduces collisions. I'm sure you're correct that the AI have far fewer collisions when they fly planes they can handle well.

Are you sure about the AI escorts? I use DCG version 6.32, and in all my testing I've never seen DCG assign anything except the player squadron to escort duty. My AI fighter squadrons always get assigned to CAP's and strikes unless I use AIRBOSS, which reassigns surplus CAP's as escorts.

i"ve never seen an AI squadron take off either. My AI squadrons are always airborne when the mission starts. The ones flying from other airfields are already approaching their objectives at mission start.

I understand the mystery surrounding DCG. I know it isn't widely known or understood. I can see how someone trying to build a DCG campaign for the first time would probably give up on it. I almost did. Some of the stock campaigns that ship with it do not showcase it's potential very well. I've seen people post about giving up on it because nothing happened in the missions they tried. They didn't know that the stock campaign they were using was starting out with no planes in the squadrons and adding planes at the rate of 1 per mission, in a "buildup" phase. So they tried a couple of missions, nothing happened because there were no planes aloft, and so they quit in the erroneous belief that nothing ever happens in a DCG campaign. Of course, as we know, nothing could be further from the truth. I've been in furballs you'd have to see to believe. Hair, teeth, and eyballs flying in all directions.

And then there are all the tricks that hardly anyone knows about, that aren't covered in the tutorial. And little bugs like DCG continuing to assign strikes to ship formations after they've all been sunk. I was sent out on that wild goose chase several times before I figured out what was going on. AIRBOSS finds and fixes that, and a couple of other minor bugs that pop up occasionally.

I only persevered with it because, like you, I like the concept of being able to fly endlessly variable campaigns with the click of a button. And, as I said, now that I know the drill I can build a DCG campaign faster than I can build a single mission with mission builder. And I don't have to test fly the missions DCG generates to see if they work. If they fly, they work.

Anyhow, if the DCG campaigns you use work to your satisfaction without the AIRBOSS tinkering, then you don't need AIRBOSS. Stick with the click-once-and-fly simplicity. With AIRBOSS, you'll have to click 3 times and fly.

But if you get bored, you might want to look into some of the options I've included in AIRBOSS, such as airfield suppression. Without going into a lot of detail, it is possible with AIRBOSS to put airfields out of action, or nearly so, by attacking them effectively. This is especially a good thing if you're attacking land bases from a carrier, for obvious reasons. The option has to be activated by a code, and the mission infrastructure has to be set up a certain way for it to work, but I think I provided an adequate explanation in the readme files.


One more thing: the versions I've uploaded are not 64-bit, so won't run on the new 64-bit Win 7 machines. I'll have to put together another package with the new 64-bit version.

End transmission. Cheers :icon29:


PS: forgot to mention: have you ever wished you had escorts when your fighter squadron was flying a strike? I have. Enemy CAP's will hang over you like the sword of Damocles, wait for you to go down to attack, then follow you down, wiping out your squadron and ejecting you from the war in disgrace. Well, AIRBOSS will give you an escort in that situation, if any extra fighter squads are available at your airfield.

[Talon]

Ettico,

It's nice to dicuss things in the forum and exchange ideas. That is the one thing that has been lacking in the community the last few years on certain topics. IMO most people don't want to learn and just want someone else to do all the work for them and upload it for them.

I'm not just working on DCG Camapaigns but regular campaigns and updating some of the older ones. I mentioned the Nagumo carrier raid in my first post and have done alot of work on it. I've done alot of gsl work on the ports for it and fixed the mistakes on the missions. During some of the raids on Rabaul,Lae and Ambon not the whole Task Force did them.For example Rabaul was attacked by Akagi and Kaga while Lae was attacked by Shokaku and Zuikaku and Ambon by Hiryu and Soryu.
When you do reseach you find out alot.

[Ettico]

Talon,

I haven't been doing anything to talk about lately except putting my installs together after switching computers. I now have 1942, 1943, and 1944 installs for the PTO, and now I need to refit all my campaigns to the new install setup.

I did build a rudimentary Pearl Harbor DCG, mainly to see if my new computer could handle it with the dense PHP scenery. It did handle it OK, with a lot of planes flying around. I had culled out all the extra trees and parked aircraft, which took some of the load off. My DCG campaigns require things like parked aircraft to be in the DGC "infrastructure" file instead of GSL, so they go into the mission file, so DGC "knows" when they get destroyed.

I considered trying a "what if" involving a couple of USN carriers showing up for the party, but never got around to it. I realized that the IJN carriers might not show up if DCG knew USN carriers were in the area. That's what happened when I tried a Midway DCG. It seems that DCG doesn't want to engage in carrier battles east of 0 degrees longitude. And I do know about the side reversal trick. That wasn't the problem. The IJN still wouldn't engage with USN carriers present. But leave out the USN carriers, or put them west of 0 degrees, and they'll fight. Go figure.

[Talon]

All my carrier ops are in the Solomons right now. I may do a Marianas one when I get the time. I just flew a few test missions for my Santa Cruz.I need to add more squadrons to it.

My USN attack on Rabaul seems to work fine so far. I was thinking of doing the attack on Truk also.

[SgtT]

I still remember the DCG campaigns; ones like Fall Weiss, 1939, Poland, 1939 and others.

For those that don't know what DCG is check out this site: http://members.shaw.ca/dcgen/index.html

Unfortunately some of the links on the site don't work but there is still some good info.

I think the latest CFS2 version of DCG can be found here: http://www.lowengrin.com/download.php?list.4

T.

[Talon]

Over the weekend I did some testing of planes in my DCG Marianas.With the stock Hellcat they did alot of anti ship misiions including the player while with the FDG Hellcats they did all fighter sweeps and CAPS.

[Ettico]

Over the weekend I did some testing of planes in my DCG Marianas.With the stock Hellcat they did alot of anti ship misiions including the player while with the FDG Hellcats they did all fighter sweeps and CAPS.

Right. I don't think you'll see DCG assign any AI as escorts. Only the player squadron. I don't know if that's good or bad in carrier battles. You don't need as many fighters on board to defend the carriers, because they all fly CAP when enemy carriers are present in a mission. AIRBOSS will scavenge any spare CAP's to fly escort for the bombers, which frankly can be brutal if you're trying to defend your carrier. You go after incoming enemy bombers and get bounced from above and behind by their escorts.

When there are no enemy carriers around, fighters will get anti-ship and ground strikes. AIRBOSS might give a striking fighter squadron an escort if there are spares available to be scavenged from the CAP ranks. That has saved my virtual butt a couple of times. One of CFS2's favorite ways of getting rid of you is to bounce your squadron with fighters while your squadron is fixated on ground or sea targets.

Generally, it's a good thing today's computers are fast and RAM heavy, because you need all the fighters you can reasonably cram into DCG carrier ops - without sacrificing bomber strength, because DCG won't send fighters after carriers. Got enemy carriers, the fighters are all flying CAP. But you, as leader of the player squadron, can load out with bombs and go carrier hunting with the help of AIRBOSS, which facilitates changing player squadron loadouts. And you don't have to worry about getting canned for going off mission. In DCG campaigns, mission types are just suggestions. DCG doesn't really care what you do in a mission as long as you don't get your squadron wiped out. You get promotions and medals based on how much damage you do (to the enemy), irrespective of how you do it and what you do it to. I like that freedom. That's why I called it AIRBOSS.

But get your squadron wiped out, and you won't be the Air Boss any more. You'll be packing your bags.

[Talon]

I'm still having fun redoing old Campaigns and missions.

Nagumo Force Camapign.

I made ports for Ambon,Ceylon,Darwin and Tjilatjap. I also redid a few missions to fit the new ports.

Carrier War USN.

All missions are redone with new ships and planes.

For the Yorktown,Hornet,Lexington,Saratoga,Wasp and Enterprise I have Wildcats and Dauntless's with the right skins for each.

AF= Midway

I updated a few missions with ships and planes that weren't available when it was first done.

Marianas

I did IJN Missions for this back in 2003 and they were in my first Marianas package which is no longer available,I plane to update them with the new planes and ships that came out since then.I probably will upload these missions when done.

Solomons

I have been doing work here also to get my CFS2 to where I want it.
My Espirito Santo now has port facilities.


Anyone can do what I have done if you take the time. It's really not that hard to do.

[Ettico]

I just completed a more sensible version of my DCG "Black Sheep" campaign yesterday, leaving out the Saratoga this time. I generated and flew two missions to test it. The frame rates are great on my new laptop. The campaign has 34 squadrons in it, but there wasn't much of a frame rate hit at full density setting.

In the second mission, I was escorting two flights of TBF's on an anti-shipping strike. At waypoint 1, I was joined by two additional flights of escorts from Black Sheep squadron. We had those bombers covered like a blanket. That's because there are a total of five eight-plane flights of Corsairs stationed at Barakoma, representing two AirSols squadrons, along with two flights of VMSB-232. Plenty of corsairs to go around.

Nearing the target, a flight of bandits showed up. At first I thought they were zekes covering the IJN cruisers, but they turned out to be Vals heading south on a bombing raid. I immediately abandoned my escort duties, since the other two flights of Black Sheep had that well covered, and went after the Vals. I shot down five of the Vals, and the rest of my flight got the other three. But one of the Vals gave me a nose full of bullets when I failed to stay below them. Nothing fatal. I guess that rear gunner fix worked. Those guys were shooting back.

So I got an Air Medal for going off mission, instead of a cussing. That's one thing I like about DCG campaigns. As I mentioned earlier, you're free to make judgement calls, and get rewarded for damaging the enemy instead of blindly following orders and fulfilling quotas. That squad of Vals will be gone for a while, and when it comes back it will be manned by rookies.

But the unescorted Vals got me thinking the Japanese forces need to be more consolidated. I currently have them spread over 6 airfields all over Bougainville and Rabaul. If they were more consolidated at fewer airfields, the bombers would get more escorts.

The whole campaign probably needs to be more focused. I have a few squadrons stationed at Guadalcanal, mainly protecting shipping, including one squadron of B-24's that can strike anywhere. The fighters at Guadalcanal are too far away from the action to be much of a factor, and the Japanese could use more fighters.

So I'll do a bit more tinkering with the campaign. Several of my campaigns will need to be retooled to fit my new Pac installs, which now have different airfields and non-standard infrastructure at the airfields. I'm using several of Maskrider's Solomons airfields, but I redid the GSL infrastructure at some of them and got rid of the docked GSL ships to improve frame rates. The only infrastructure that matters in my DCG campaigns is the mission infrastructure in the "infrastructures" file, mostly consisting of guns, parked aircraft, and docked ships. Taking those out can cripple the enemy's ability to launch aircraft, or vice versa. But taking out GSL infrastructure doesn't do anything, since there is no way of recording it. Still, the mission infrastructure needs to fit what's already on the ground in the Global Scenery Layer - which I've changed since I built my campaigns.

[p14u2nv]

Those campaigns involving Cactus Air Force campaigns that you spoke of Talon and Rami are I think called F4FCac12.zip and/or Cactus4F4V2.zip by Kevin Sison and believe it or not one (F4FCac12.zip) appears to be still available at his site for those wishing to get it. Excellent thread by the way.

http://kevs747.tripod.com/cfs2.html

[Talon]

Those campaigns involving Cactus Air Force campaigns that you spoke of Talon and Rami are I think called F4FCac12.zip and/or Cactus4F4V2.zip by Kevin Sison and believe it or not one (F4FCac12.zip) appears to be still available at his site for those wishing to get it. Excellent thread by the way.

http://kevs747.tripod.com/cfs2.html

The link for the F4F August 20 to October 15 doesn't work on that site.

I'm making my own to cover it.

[p14u2nv]

Thanks Talon...

[Talon]

Hi Talon
i thought about cactus air force (87days.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=36974) ), (p38cac10.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=40828)) or tbf new Georgia campaign (ngv10a.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=43966) ), TBF-1 Avenger Guadalcanal Campaign (tbfgdcpn.zip (http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=copyright&fid=42592)). You can find them at flightsim

cheers:guinness:

Nik,

I've been looking at 87days and P38cac. Both need alot of work to update and 87 days isn't to historical from the research I've done. I also found missions for US and RNZAF P40s from Guadalcanal.

[Worthless]

I flew the 87 day Campaign and found many missions unrealistic, requiring P39 and P400 intercepts at high altitude. Something they were never expected to do. I finally had to resort to substituting the simtech ( somewhat souped up ) versions in order to be able to be competitive.