Hi everyone,
‘It’s Circus Time!’ should be available on the Team Fusion #3 server in the next few days hopefully. A big thanks to Artist, Spiritus Mortem, Oskar and a small number of testers for their assistance. And thanks as well to those of you who have provided feedback and thoughts on MP missions in general – I’ve included some of these ideas in this mission.
Before I post the Red and Blue briefs and target decks here’s a few notes
(a) There are essentially 2 different ‘wars’ occurring in this mission; Circus / Rhubarb type missions in Northern France circa June 1941 and a night bomber war (but in the day) in the west. Points from both ‘wars’ contribute to the overall score. There are bases in the west for bombers/nightfighters and bases in the east for the circus players as well.
(b) There are 2 types of targets; 1 x airfield target per side and several non-airfield type targets on each side which can be attacked by bombers and fighter bombers and even can be destroyed by strafing in some cases. When you drop bombs on the airfield targets you will see a percentage score displayed on the screen and when that reaches 100% your side is awarded the points (each airfield target requires just less than 1 x Welly / 111 bombload to destroy it but they are a reasonable distance away). The other targets are different in the sense that you wont get a percentage score displayed as your bombs rain down (Artist has created some script that will do this in the future for some bomb-able non-airfield targets - see his post from earlier today).
Each of these non-airfield type targets have a reasonable number of trucks/aircraft/1 or 2 trains in the target area and you have to destroy a set percentage of these to trigger the tgt destroyed message. The percentages are ~ 30-70% so you don’t have to destroy every truck or parked aircraft to destroy the target. The target decks have the aim point for many of these targets and you need to get your bombs reasonably close to the aim point to destroy the designated trucks etc. Those of you familiar with the FMB will understand how this works re triggers. So if you drop your bombs and get no message this means you haven’t destroyed enough trucks within the set range of the aim point. Or you have dropped them too far from the aim point. So bombing accuracy is rewarded in a few of these targets. And you need to take into account the tgt’s altitude when doing high alt bombing especially for those inland targets like Rouen – check the flashcard manual for target altitudes using nearby airfields as a guide
(c) Tab 7-1 has been neutered. Its still present and displays ranges/bearing to fighter and bombers but these are not relevant to the missions being flown. It wont track lone bombers flying at 5 feet out over the ocean like it does in some other missions. So this will hopefully encourage bomber pilots to do their thing without being worried/annoyed about being hunted down by a single fighter using tab 7-1.
(d) However there is a reasonably comprehensive radar system on both sides that will track bombers / fighters if flying above a specified altitude. Additionally the radar coverage is not 100% over all territory so there are large areas of enemy territory where you will be untracked (mainly inland once you are through the coastal zone). Again this will hopefully encourage bombers to do their thing without feeling like they are just meat for the slaughter. Thru trial and error you may be able to work out the lowest altitude the radar will track aircraft as well as those areas that aren’t covered.
(e) Low server numbers. As we know sometimes the servers are quiet and people dont like to play on empty servers when there’s not much to do. But often all it takes is for a small number of players to be in the mission to encourage others to join and after a while you have a reasonable number of people playing. In this mission there are plenty of targets available for both sides flying fighter bomber type sorties where strafing can take out some targets (ie rhubarb see https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-...tle-of-britain) so this hopefully will provide a nice variety of different target types to go after even in fighters.
(f) One thing you can do when server numbers are low is to spawn in on one side and send an AI raid to bomb the other side – they can be sent every 30 minutes when the number of players is less than 35. Despawn and then join the other side and try your best to intercept the raid – the AI bombing raids are about 20 mins out from their tgt when they spawn in and there are airfields near these targets to let you spawn in and then use radar control to do the intercept. The challenge will be getting to altitude in time (~ 5000-6000m) and worrying about the escort which may or may not be present. Again if you are doing this it might encourage other players to join in and before you know it there’s a few real opponents to duel with.
Comments / bug reports / suggestions are always appreciated so pls post them here.
And lastly - i know for many people (myself included) making a MP mission is daunting especially re the scripting. However Artist and Oskar and co are making available pretty much all of what you need to make these missions in terms of the scripting side of things which largely takes away that obstacle. If i can do it (I'm a scripting numptie) most other people should be able to as well. So if you have some ideas on what you'd like to see for a MP mission jump into the FMB and start building your mission and seek advice as required.
Ezzie
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