New Package For ETO BoB Campaign

[Daiwilletti]

Questions questions

OK seeing as I can't "reply with quote", I'll try to past your questions here.

Not really test criteria as such, but you might (or might not!) be interested in my list of things I will be trying to answer/looking for that are probably also applicable to the base campaign, that I'm still not sure about from playing it so far in the original version.

1. It's very desirable to enable player to choose A/C or sqn at campaign start – any way to enable this eg allocate high opening stock of prestige points? Seem to remember this was possible. Some of the stuff you are looking for is solved in the proprietry software developed by OBD Software in Wings Over the Reich. The solutions able to be developed in stock CFS3 are far more circumlocutary. For example, it is possible to get finer-grained control over fighter groups in England by setting them up as "nations" in the country.xml\global_layer.csv framework. It would be possible to go right down to setting up some individual squadrons as "nations" for spawning purposes.

One early attempt at differentiation between fighter groups was the work by Charlie in is 1939 and 1940 campaigns (like DC diary package - here at SOH). His techniques hae not been fully replicated in subsequent addons. For example, by attaching specific spawns triggered at geographically located facilities, he tried to get a spawning environment that provides more accurate locations of squadrons and Groups flying in the right places. He also pioneered radio traffic but that is another story.

1. Possible to set a different player flight strength, other than 8? EG 12? Useful if attacker strengths are being increased. But maybe not a good idea, as 8 is enough of a handful for a leader! There is always more than one way to skin a cat! When you read about the pitifully small resources that were allocated by Fighter Command in the early stages of the BoB, and the way they were cobbled together from different squadrons, it might be easier to get more aircraft in the air by using other spawns rather than trying to modify the _mission.xml file to contain bigger flights. Have you found the _mission.xml file? It is in the missions folder of your install's AppData pathway. I played around with hotkey software and managed to exert a primitive level of control over the _mission.xml file, to enable assigning higher skill levels to flights because the default is "skill="1" which is very frustrating. I've tried to get around that limitation by assigning all the unlimited pilots available as AI wingmen, to have higher vision gtolerance and health and experience, via the pilotattributes.xml found with the pilotcontants.xml in the root of the install.
2. Are larger than stock raids spawned? EG 18-30 A/C? (here, raids = bombers, as opposed to escorts) This can be achieved through air.spawns and intercept.spawns. The sweep.spawns are different, they involve you flying high over an enamy airfield to try and draw up someopposition. Unfortunately the bomber_intercept missiontype is not supported by the campaign engine so bomber raids have to be build into the intercept spawn set.
3. Are formations closer? Player's? AI's? Both? I've added some specific offsets to many of the spawn files cobbled together inthe ETO_BoB.zip. Offset="0.3" is used, this could possibly be better at 0.2, but the AI may struggle with it - worth a shot though!
4. Are close escorts (or sweep cover) spawned for raids: in enough strength (=8-24 A/C) and often enough (= majority of raids ARE escorted)? This is one area where a well-designed air.spawns set are maybe a better way to achieve the desired effect than writing in the escort formations into the specific spawns for a campaign mission. If you take a look at the MJ air.spawns for the BoB set, you will see that "modifiers" at the bottom of the air.spawns file, are extensively used. By installing specific modifiers for the "intercept" mission type, air.spawns get biased toward escort enemy fighter flights. There are a wide range of modifiers available; I think MrJmaint has utilised the technique as fully as anyone.
5. Are LW jabo raids spawned; and if so, given their rarity, at a relatively low rate, compared to other raids (say 10-20%, tho higher would be ok from October)? Yes, even with the current air.spawns, low altitude flights of 6-8 me110s have been spotted on search_destroy missions at low altitude over British soil! This can easily be proliferated - just need time!
6. Are (non-jabo) raids spread reasonably well between all four LW dive- and level-bomber types? The categories availbable to work with are fight_bomber, tactical_bomber (my preferred categoryfor Ju-87s), and level_bomber. Fouteman has trialled non-standard pick-types (ie not in the SDK) for air spawns, so it should be possible to establish a dive-bomer pick-type whichis used in spawns triggered by, for example, radar stations along the English Channel (Charlie has probably done it already!).
7. Does the LW mount single aircraft recce or 'pirate raid' flights, or just raids by formations?
8. Are raids spawned to targets in something like historical progression (shipping & ports, then also coastal airfields & RDF, then also inland airfields and industrial targets)? The quickest waty to achieve this would be with sequential campaigns over shorter periods, with different campaign MissionEffects and OffensiveEffects sections. The biggest weakness is properly representing the period when the LW attacked airfields. Unfortunately the standard campaign "strike" missions involve spawn sets and hard-coded elements which do not provide for specific "strike airbase" missions. However the current air.spawns trigger some bombers near airbases, and more often than not, the bombers choose to attack the airbase, although they are not above dropping bombs on nearby bridges! I have trialled a work-around where the airbase facility.xml file has two types at the top - "isairbase, isFactory". Given that campaign Strike missions often attack factories, I found that flying Axis bombers on strike mission over Britain were attacking airbases about half the time when the airbase facility files were modified in that way. I think using specific spawns triggered by the facility files is the best work-around, as trialled by Charlie. In several of my installs, I have (such as my modified Stock Upgrade install linked here in the Sticky thread) I have added a small flight of fighters at every airbase, tasked with "Combat Air Patrol". This spawn is written into the airbase facility files. Trouble is, it worked too well and so I limited it to ber triggered only when the player aircraft is between certain altitudes. But occasionally it has worked fantastically well. I've taken off on a campaign mission, enemy bombers have spawned over the airbase (air.spawns flights), and a group of intrepid fighters has taken off amongst the bombs behind me (spawns triggered in the facility file), tasked with beating off the bombers. Which is just as well, as my campaign flight has other mission objectives to meet if we are to win the war. ..
9. What are the campaign’s victory conditions eg LW wins if London occupied by 31 October, else RAF wins on 31 October? Or something less obvious? The campaign.xml parameters are Invasion Areas and Victory Areas. There is a bug in most Bob Campaigns where the invasion areas are hard to install without generating error messages.
10. Could campaign run on beyond 31 October? Best if it was resolved on some basis on or soon after that date, if RAF is not clearly already defeated earlier. I prefer campaigns that can run on longer than the "historic" version of the BoB. Campaign length is controlled at the top part of the campaign.xml file.
11. When’s the earliest an invasion of England could happen? Should not be before early September! This can be influenced but not controlled specifically. In the Campaignparams section of the campaign.xml, IIRC there is a "roundstofirstoffensive" parameter. There are also national supply and strategic supply levels which can be set so low that an invasion will not occur until the levels are built up over time. There is another paramter at the bottom of the campaign file, supplyburndown indicator for each nation, which can be increased and hinder any invasion plans.
12. Is a counter-invasion of France possible? Completely unhistorical, so threshold best set at a level the RAF player can never reach. Stopping a successful invasion (not just an invasion) should be enough for RAF to win. An invasion which hasn’t occupied London by the time winter weather sets in can probably be considered to have failed, hence some date during Nov-Dec is probably the latest date at which the victory conditions should be resolved and the campaign concluded, allowing a little longer than the official end date of 31 October. Yes, as I've indicated there are numerous contributing factors able to be set in a campaign.
13. If the campaign can continue into Oct-Nov-Dec, will newer A/C appear - in small numbers only eg Spit II (which was around from early Sept), Hurri II (also from Sept), 109E-7 (from about Aug-Sept), 109F (from Oct)? Better they didn’t appear, than they replaced ALL the older marks at once, which should only happen when the newer marks had widely replaced them, which probably would be early 1941 in most cases. In the two relevant setcions, you can set total numbers of suadrons by month for each nation (or Group if you set up Groups as "nations". Also you can set up the entered service dates for aircraft. But I find too many of the newer aircraft do appear, although this may be influenced by the nation,s supply and reserve levels.
14. Is there any particular reason why - if the spawn and era setters are used - this mod can’t be left in place and the ETO can then be played with other campaigns eg for France/attack in west 1940 or for other eras eg SCW? It could probably be done but the finer the level of control you want, eg. for BOF, the more complex it gets. That's why I think that Pat's BoB is a good place to start to achieve a tolerably decent set of BoB campaigns, together with specific global layers for specific parts of the BoB periods - coastal raids, airbase attacks, bombing london.

 

[33lima]

Hi Diawiletti

I'm sure you're right that a dedicated BoB mod like Pat's is always going to be able to do things better than something that has to accept at least some constraints from a bigger mod like ETO. Perhaps that's the best thing to invest in. But even if this mod does no more than improve the BoB experience when playing ETO, then it will have been worthwhile, and might be best packaged as an improved BoB campaign for the ETO (that will leave the ETO otherwise 'intact'), than a 'mod of a mod'. Probably not explaining that very well!


My first mission has just been flown and confirmed as expected that it didn't do anything to allow a choice of aircraft or squadron. Also that there are still far too many pilots (about 50) in the player's squadron, more like a US one of 1943-45 IIRC, than an RAF 1940 one when there should be up to 26. These of course are general observations on the CFS3 campaign not this mod.


As for the mission itself, my JSGME version of this mod has obviously messed up with your modified Hurricane files! My kite has an invisible pilot and though the AI A/C seemed to have at least landing lights, mine had none, no nav lights, and none of the ETO mod's wingtip vortices at low airspeed.

Warp took us up to the usual height of nearly 21,000 feet. A nice touch is that there was a convoy in the target area and the Huns when they soon appeared, although lower, were only a few thousand feet so, not much lower than before. They appeared just left of our assigned track just after the pic below was taken. One unusual thing was that the usual purple marker was not visible.

Maybe that was because these Huns were 109s, and there were bombers about which were our real target. If so, it was neat to run into a fighter sweep!

One thing I don't like about the ETO mod's effects is that there is often a sizeable fireball when an enemy is hit which subsides after a few seconds - by which time you have stopped shooting and broken away, thinking your target is doomed. A dastardly Hun ruse, possibly! This 109 looked to be a flamer a second or two before this pic was taken. I think Pat's BoB mod is better in this respect.

What happened next was very strange and again, maybe down to me messing up installation. In trying to get back onto the 109's tail, I spun out and could not recover; I don't recall the eTO Hurricanes being so tricky before, but maybe it's just me.

To add insult to injury, the 109, although clearly damaged, managed to hit me with unerring accuracy as I spun down.

I tried to save my invisible pilot but the results were...well, invisible. I opened the canopy (I wish the little escape hatch would not open when you did this!!!) and tried again. the camera stayed with my spinning plane.

The briefing didn't tell me I'd got the chop so the bailout must have worked. How an invisible pilot got spotted and fished out of the Channel, I can't say.

Anyhow if I can fix the Hurricane I'll play on, possibly resuming the campaign I've been reporting on in the hope switching won't mess up anything. I was going to start MrJMaint's version in Pat's BoB mod too - and ideally try out rince33's modified spawns, which were designed for that rather than the ETO anyway. You can't have too much of a good thing - I also have BoB campaigns I intend to continue at some point, going in BoB2 and WotR, as well!

 

[33lima]

PS can't find the Hurri problem yet. But one clue is that the new files seem to have added underwing pylons to the Mk2a. My kite started this mission with two drop tanks and also had bombs in the loadout drop down. Which would be ok for a IIb but probably not for a IIa and certainly not for one that's really standing in for a BoB-era MkI. Otherwise, this A/C's folder - ETO_Huri_Mk2 - looks fine to me, so I'll back out that part of the mod and see if I'm good again.

PPS good again but not much wiser. Re-enabling the mod WITHOUT the Hurricane IIa files restored the visible pilot. However, the loadout options were still there, I just never noticed them before so were not what the mod added to that A/C. Anyway stock ETO YB-J and the same plane in this mod (but the Huri files removed) now have visible pilot again.

 

[Daiwilletti]

hi 33 Lima, a few things. First check the path of your JGMSE install of the hurri xdp. ETO has a bit of a trap for a number of aircraft - almost identically named aircraft folders and xdp names. I suspect the modified xdp may not have installed to the correct folder. Unlike for ship folders, the aircraft folder name does not have to be identical to the aircraft xdp name and this makes for more potential confusion.

As for the spin - I almost tear my hair out after a long mission, when I get into a flat spin and cannot by any technique get out of it. It is an AvHistory v 4.xx flight model and this is a feature of the hurri V4.0 flight model. You could swap out for an earlier AvHistory flight model using the .air file and aircraft .cfg from an earlier 3gb hurricane. (with a couple of edits to the names).

And hmm, yes, looks like the entered service date for the hurricane 2a is a bit optimistic.

 

[33lima]

Thanks for all the info.

I suppose I was just wondering aloud how close CFS3's particular campaign system could be adapted to meet what I (FWIW) would see as the most desirable characteristics for a BoB campaign, and at what sort of effort. Somewhat bigger formations coming in at 10-15,000 feet, often if not always with escorts or sweeps, would go an awful long way compared to what I saw before in ETO (small formations, mostly unescorted and at well under 10,000 feet). And if this mod does that, then it's a big step forward in my book.

A set of scripted missions would likely be a good alternative, especially if missions can incorporate variable elements, so giving at least some re-playability. As for the dynamic campaign, it would be a shame to abandon entirely what CFS3 does offer ie the invasion/counter-invasion thing, as that's what you get instead of the 'conventional' pilot career as in WotR, where it's about surviving the history amongst your mates, not trying to influence it amidst an evolving battlefront.


I'll have another look at the Hurricane - what changes did your files make to it? And if I wanted to have clones of the current BoB campaign so that I could fly a Spit, a Defiant(!) or a Blenheim fighter (!!) from the outset, instead of a Hurricane, how is that done? I can see nothing in any campaign file which controls allocation of starting aircraft, even in those in the mossie combat add on, which does just that. I used to know stuff like this - I think!

And is there an easy way to increase mission frequency, beyond the one a day I'm seeing now, which is ok for stock CFS3 but not so good for the Battle?

Sorry about all the questions!!!

 

[Daiwilletti]

Thanks for all the info.

I suppose I was just wondering aloud how close CFS3's particular campaign system could be adapted to meet what I (FWIW) would see as the most desirable characteristics for a BoB campaign, and at what sort of effort. Somewhat bigger formations coming in at 10-15,000 feet, often if not always with escorts or sweeps, would go an awful long way compared to what I saw before in ETO (small formations, mostly unescorted and at well under 10,000 feet). And if this mod does that, then it's a big step forward in my book. Its not a big deal to change the campaign spawn sets (intercept.spawns, sweep.spawns and cap.spawns and escort.spawns and recon.spawns) to do a lot of what you want. I just like the wider variability possible by haveing unecpaected formations appearing using the air.spawns file with extensive use of modifiers. I have only modified existing MJ BoB ETO spawn set a bit beyond what Rince33 has done so far.

A set of scripted missions would likely be a good alternative, especially if missions can incorporate variable elements, so giving at least some re-playability. As for the dynamic campaign, it would be a shame to abandon entirely what CFS3 does offer ie the invasion/counter-invasion thing, as that's what you get instead of the 'conventional' pilot career as in WotR, where it's about surviving the history amongst your mates, not trying to influence it amidst an evolving battlefront. I love the dynamic campaign, scripted mission sets tire quickly for me, but most people haven't done what I do routinely to campaigns - increase pilot skills, increase spawning diversity, modify facilities to trigger spawns, etc etc to make every mission unique.


I'll have another look at the Hurricane - what changes did your files make to it? And if I wanted to have clones of the current BoB campaign so that I could fly a Spit, a Defiant(!) or a Blenheim fighter (!!) from the outset, instead of a Hurricane, how is that done? I can see nothing in any campaign file which controls allocation of starting aircraft, even in those in the mossie combat add on, which does just that. I used to know stuff like this - I think! Very few changes to the hurricane xdp - merely add Recon to the MissionTypes to support the recon campaign mission that is available. Hence the effects you are observing (lack of pilot etc) lead me to suspect it is an installation thing. For different aircraft - why not fly Britain_FAA stuff for a bit - a warning the Sea Hurricane burns like a torch with very few hits. You could add a Blenheim 1F to the techtree (Brit and FAA both available). The first fighter or bomber that is available to fly is usually the one with the earliest entered service date - although if there are too many choices in the techtree you may get a more recent one assigned first up. You can always just choose the one you want to fly, providing it doesn't cost any points (older ones are free), or you have built up enough points.

And is there an easy way to increase mission frequency, beyond the one a day I'm seeing now, which is ok for stock CFS3 but not so good for the Battle? Yes there is! One of the easiest things to do in a campaign. But you will have to watch for the adverse effects of pilot fatigue which will climb faster. Under CampaignParams in the xml, are variables RoundLength="60" RoundsPerDay="60" RoundsToJump="300". This says there are 5 days between stock campaign missions. The BoB campaign Rounds to Jump (between missions) is shorter. I would guess you need you need Rounds to jump="30" to get two missions per day, if you have roundsperday="60"

Sorry about all the questions!!!

See the answers in blue above

 

[33lima]

Thanks again for the tips. As you reckoned, the Hurricane problem was an installation error - I omitted to include the regenerated .bdp file.

Those parameters in the stock campaign being 60-60-300, 60-60-60 in the unmodified BoB campaign (giving me 1 mission a day) and 60-60-180 in yours, I dropped the last one to 30 and added the Spit Ia and Blenheim If to the techtree with start dates in June, ahead of the Hurricane 2a, so will see what happens!

 

[33lima]

Well, that worked! The Hurricane is working properly, and after starting a fresh campaign with the tweaks mentioned, I was allocated a Spitfire this time. And after an exciting and busy early morning mission, we got a second call in the afternoon, instead of skipping to the next day!

I'll start a fresh mission report thread and post some pics of the action, shortly!

 

[33lima]

Some feedback based on the latest mission...we intercepted what turned out to be two flights of maybe six Stukas each, flying roughly north near Ipswich. One group was at about 15,000, the other at about 7,000. I'm fairly sure neither group was carrying any bombs, despite flying into our territory.

 

[Daiwilletti]

Some feedback based on the latest mission...we intercepted what turned out to be two flights of maybe six Stukas each, flying roughly north near Ipswich. One group was at about 15,000, the other at about 7,000. I'm fairly sure neither group was carrying any bombs, despite flying into our territory.

I'm finding it difficult to make a diagnosis, I keep wanting to "look under the hood"! I think what is going on is that in ETO the ju87 is called a "fighter_bomber". So it shows up in the wrong spawns. I went through my install of ETO many years ago, and tidied up so many anomalies that I've forgotten about them. Hence its hard to get what works for me, to work for other people.

I recommend changing the Ju87 type to "tactical_bomber". Hope that helps!

 

[33lima]

Both the ETO and BoB Alpha Luftwaffe Ju87Bs are already set as tactical bombers and the .bdps appear to be up-to-date with the xdps.

It's vaguely possible both groups of those Stukas had bombed before I ran into them, but I think that's highly unlikely.

I was thinking then maybe the loadout options are at fault, and anyway what's the point of a 'clean' loadout for a bomber, for anything other than an unarmed test flight. Better to zap and live without it, than to have bombless bombers of any sort stooging about on a combat mission. I guess the stock CFS3 campaign supported recce missions but even so.

Most of the Ju87B loadouts aren't associated with any mission types (including the ahistorical 3.7cm A/T guns), so I'm thinking the mission types associated with a clean loadout are worth tweaking.


<Loadouts>
<Loadout Name="Clean" MissionType="Recon,Nothing"/>
<Loadout Name="(1)500kg Bomb" MissionType="Anti_Ship">
<Hardpoint ID="0" PylonType="pylon_null" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sd_500_stabo" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
</Loadout>
<Loadout Name="(1)500kg Bomb 4 50kg Bombs">
<Hardpoint ID="0" PylonType="pylon_null" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc_500" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="1" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_right" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc__50" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="2" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_left" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc__50" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="3" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_right" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc__50" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="4" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_left" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc__50" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
</Loadout>
<Loadout Name="(1)500kg Bomb+(2)50KG Bombs+(2)Parachute Flares">
<Hardpoint ID="0" PylonType="pylon_null" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc_500" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="1" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_right" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc__50" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="2" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_left" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc__50" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="3" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_right" PayloadType="paraflare" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="4" PylonType="pylon_gc_etc50_left" PayloadType="paraflare" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
</Loadout>
<Loadout Name="(1)500kg +(2)300lt Drop tanks" MissionType="Strike,CAS">
<Hardpoint ID="0" PylonType="pylon_null" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_bomb_sc_500" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="3" PylonType="dr_pylon_bf109_300l_Rack" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_droptank_300L" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
<Hardpoint ID="4" PylonType="dr_pylon_bf109_300l_Rack" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_droptank_300L" Quantity="1"></Hardpoint>
</Loadout>
<Loadout Name="(2)BK37mm cannon anti tank" MissionType="Search_Destroy">
<Hardpoint ID="1" PylonType="pylon_null" PayloadElement="AvHistory_gr_gondola_Ju87_BK37_1" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_round_Bk3_7-flak18" Quantity="1" Fill="1.0"/>
<Hardpoint ID="2" PylonType="pylon_null" PayloadElement="AvHistory_gr_gondola_Ju87_BK37_2" PayloadType="AvHistory_gr_round_Bk3_7-flak18" Quantity="1" Fill="1.0"/>
</Loadout>
</Loadouts>

I figure that either:
1. spawns need to be set not to give Stukas a nothing or a recce mission (maybe impossible to single out the Stuka there); or
2. those mission types need removed from the clean loadout option; or
3. the line with the clean loadout needs zapped from the .xdp and the .bdp then regenerated.

I don't really want clean Stukas so I'm going to go for 3. I would also be tempted to remove all the loadouts, except for the 1xSC500 and 1xSC500+4xSC50 as the rest are ahistorical for a Bertha - it was the JU87R that was fitted for long range underwing tanks, the Ju86G for the A/T cannon, and the SD bomb with the probe designed to set it off above ground level was more of a Russian Front thing, more suitable for a Ju87D - likewise parachute flares which are more for the later night ground attack role taken on by the Dora.

 

[33lima]

PS Diawilletti I think your inclination to transfer this effort to the BoB mod is spot on. And a certain amount will probably be transferable or adaptable to the ETO mod. For example, whatever's needed to stop Stukas (apparently) flying offensive missions with a clean loadout might be needed there too, since an improved campaign experience will be an important part of the package - I hope!

 

[33lima]

Update on the Stuka - I left the ETO Rudel Ostfront bird alone, but removed all the loadouts from the 1940 StG 77 aircraft, except 1xSC500, 1xSC500+4xSC50, and so that it can masquerade as a Ju87R, 1xSC500+2x300l drop tanks. The latter would probably be better done as a cloned, separate A/C. Anyway no more clean loadout, no Dinort daisycutter, no para flares and no 3.7cm cannon.