ACG's Public Server

[JG1_Shadepiece]

Hello all,

 

ACG is happy to announce that we are going to be looking into providing a new public server located in North America. The goal is to provide good public mission that are fun and promote teamwork.

 

We are in a teething process, so I ask that you all bear with us as we get the server on its feet. Please, understand that we are currently only in a testing phase, and we may have some bugs and kinks to work out. Additionally, we do not as of yet have a rotation of mission, but the map we are using as a test bed that I made. This is not necessarily representative of what our end content will be like.

 

Be aware that we are working on some things so the server might be down at random times for various maintenance. Additionally, you may find that the server is password protected. In this case please bear with us as it usually means we are trying to get something tested.

 

I encourage everyone to hop on, have a go, and provide any feedback in this thread if you feel so inclined. I hope everyone has fun with the new patch! 

 

Cheers!

-Shadepiece and ACG

[Bilbo_Baggins]

Hopefully perhaps a chance for the downfall of the Wings of Liberty status quo?

 

It would be a great thing if this server has potential to become the main ATAG style western server and move the WOL playground to a more favorable part of the world for many players. 

 

The critical mass of players needed for a changeover from WOL as the go-to playground is surely not far now with the increasing player numbers. 

 

I hope all the best for the server!

 

 

Edited March 23, 2018 by Mcdaddy

[Cybermat47]

I agree with Mcdaddy about this server hopefully being like ATAG. The guys at ATAG have made what I think is the best flight sim MP server at the moment - I highly recommend that ACG looks to them for inspiration 

[Haza]

I would perhaps not use such a strong phrase as "downfall", however, i agree with the sentiments of McDaddy, that it would be nice to have a little bit more variety with servers, especially with their location as it can effect players pings. Regarding various organisations coming on-board with the IL2 Grand battles , I believe that ATAG are potentially looking into starting a server as well. See link: https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28545

 

Therefore, I think that the future is looking bright for Il2 (CLOD and BOx) and there is always plenty of room to allow for this server growth, depending on players wishes, demands, skill level (icons on/off) etc and look forward to trying out the ACG server and giving feedback when and if required.  However, I would just like to thank ACG for taking this initiative and giving us all another avenue to enjoy this great sim as I'm sure that setting up a server is not something that can be done at a drop of a hat, therefore, I would ask everybody to at least provide feedback as requested, as i'm sure it will be to our benefit and encourage greater variety!

 

Regards

 

Haza

Edited March 23, 2018 by Haza
SPELLING

[Haza]

Gents,

 

First impressions!

 

Very smooth graphics and no lagging as other servers (Not sure what my real ping is from Australia, however, FPS at 60 so max for me)

For me realistic ground fire as AAA appears to wake up if you loiter, so very immersive and not taken out within 5 seconds.  There appears to be a nice mix of AAA and machine fire.

Ground targets are very nicely laid out and feel real.

On your test map, targets are not spread out too far and as such perhaps brings the fight closer, so plus and minuses for that, although good when few players on.

Map objectives clearly written and very understandable!

 

In addition, will ACG host a stats server?  I'm sure that there are those out there who would want to see their stats displayed so that they could see how they were developing, therefore, I would strongly suggest that a cumulative historical stats sheet area would be essential.

 

Overall, I enjoyed this map.  Thank you.

 

Wow,  a  BF110 with the 1000Kg, at last!

 

Regards

 

 

Edited March 23, 2018 by Haza

[Bilbo_Baggins]

I thought the size of the maps was excellent, with thought gone into designing the targets. Very nice to have believable and immersive AA, rather than the insane barrage from WOL targets, as well as targets that can actually be taken out without silly tonnages of bombs. 

 

The targets are numerous, yet defeatable, and this really makes sorties as a ground attacker actually worth the effort, as opposed to demoralizing futile efforts from impossibly accurate AA. 

 

Very nice to have proper briefings written in actual English as well! 

 

Seems like a top server. Looking forward to seeing numbers migrate over. 

Edited March 23, 2018 by Mcdaddy

[354thFG_Leifr]

I'll look to spend a few hours on this over the weekend, I had fond memories of your Cliffs server!

I hope there's some room for level-bombing at altitude.

[JG1_Shadepiece]

Thank you all for the gracious feedback. I put a lot of effort into this map, and have been largely unavailable to do others at the moment. The goals reached and lessons learned will go towards making other good maps, and I hope that very very soon we will have a bit of a rotation.

 

This test map is giving us a lot of good info and feedback currently. We are in fact developing a stats system which is currently pulling a lot of data for us to use, but it's currently in a very early phase on a temporary website. We are having a few issues getting it to where we want it, but it is in the pipeline.

 

The map is pretty condensed, and in all transparency this is for a few reasons. First and foremost when I made this map it was only my second attempt at a public mission of this sort and the other one was on the tiny Lapino map. In other words I didn't realize how condensed it really was until I was already pretty commited. This did however, make testing the targets, objectives, and things I placed a much faster process which has been truly invaluable at this point of the process.

 

Again, thanks to everyone give our server a shot! We've been in the works for this for a few months now, and just recently felt we had a good enough mission to go public. We hope to get some higher numbers on the server soon to test if the hardware and software hold up with a large player load.

 

I am really glad you guys are enjoying the mission, because I had a great time creating it. I hope to do more soon, and I hope that some of the other ACG mission builders are going to be able to produce the type of missions we are striving for. We ask for patience in this department, but I believe that we'll be ready to deliver some stuff in about a month.

 

Cheers!

-Shadepiece

[Haza]

I enjoy the fact that the targets are not always exactly where they appear on the map, however, reading the mission  brief explains the rough area.  Therefore, it is not a precise GPS coordinate for all of the targets that can/might move or targets where the intel is scant. 

The only immersion killer for me and one that is not a major problem as I understand that you are in test phase, is the lack of details at some of the spawn areas around the airfields  (spawning as a bomber at a fighter base), such as no visible defensive AAA, bunkers, or broken aircraft to make you feel that you are at a base. In some cases all of the is is located at a different end of the base (barely visible if you look to the other end of the airfield, therefore just ensure at least a few bunkers are near the spawn areas. 

 

However, I do like the addition of taxing arrows as well.

 

Regards

[56RAF_Roblex]

On 3/23/2018 at 12:28 AM, Mcdaddy said:

Hopefully perhaps a chance for the downfall of the Wings of Liberty status quo?

 

I hope this does not mean you have GPS icons on!   Don't get me wrong,  if that is what the majority want (the popularity of WoL supports this) then it is a valid market to support but it would be a shame because ACG made some great maps in CLoD. I would love to see what they can do in BoX but not with GPS.

[JG1_Shadepiece]

14 hours ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

 

I hope this does not mean you have GPS icons on!   Don't get me wrong,  if that is what the majority want (the popularity of WoL supports this) then it is a valid market to support but it would be a shame because ACG made some great maps in CLoD. I would love to see what they can do in BoX but not with GPS.

I think something may have happened with the update that changed the settings to GPS on, but it is not our intention to leave it on. If it happens to be available when you're on it's probably to expedite some testing. For example we are trying to work on the stats reflecting captured/escaped back, and therefore might turn the icons on for a while to complete that testing.

 

In future though, we will not have icons/GPS on.

[56RAF_Roblex]

9 hours ago, 7./JG26_Shadepiece said:

I think something may have happened with the update that changed the settings to GPS on, but it is not our intention to leave it on. If it happens to be available when you're on it's probably to expedite some testing. For example we are trying to work on the stats reflecting captured/escaped back, and therefore might turn the icons on for a while to complete that testing.

 

In future though, we will not have icons/GPS on.

 

Great to hear.   On the subject of captured/escaped stats,  have you looked at how the Random Expert does it (Did it?) ?  It is very detailed and much more realistic than other servers.   Whether you manage to escape or get captured depends on Weather,  injury,  closeness of enemy units, closeness of frontlines etc.

 

If a pilot lands alive into enemy territory, they either make their way back to friendly lines or are captured.

The probability of capture depends on how far from friendly lines have you landed (the further, the least chances of returning), the pilot's health (the more wounded, the least chances of returning), and the weather (the colder it is, the harder it gets to return).

How are these factors accounted for

The first thing is to measure the distance from the landing site to the nearest enemy position. If the enemies are closer than 5km, then you have no chance of returning.

If there are no enemies within 5km, the pilot's status is looked at:

• Uninjured: highest chance of returning;
• Lightly injured: half the chance of returning compared to uninjured pilots;
• Heavily injured: no chance of returning;
• Dead: you are dead!;

Finally, the distance between the landing spot and the frontlines comes into play. A healthy pilot has a chance of returning if they are at most 30km away from friendly lines in warm weather (from the second half of spring to the first half of autumn), and at most 10km away in cold weather (from the second half of autumn until the first half of spring). For slightly injured pilots, the numbers are 15km in warm and 5km in cold weather.

Finally, the distance between the landing spot and the frontlines comes into play. A healthy pilot has a chance of returning if they are at most 30km away from friendly lines in warm weather (from the second half of spring to the first half of autumn), and at most 10km away in cold weather (from the second half of autumn until the first half of spring). For slightly injured pilots, the numbers are 15km in warm and 5km in cold weather.

For example, a healthy pilot's chance of returning after landing within 1km of friendly lines is close to 100%, while a wounded pilot who landed 4,5km from the frontlines has very small odds of returning.

Edited March 25, 2018 by 56RAF_Roblex

[KingstonDE]

Hi gents,

 

one question to you admins,

 

 

Is it planed as soon it is possible to switch off techchat serverside to do it to come closer to the old 1946 "full real" server?

 

regards

 

Little_D

[Hoss]

Another point to consider is emergency landings at alternate fields.  Having a field either populated or not that would fire the white flare to denote it's a viable place to land if your plane is heavily damaged and you can not make it back to your home base would really increase the immersion of the game.  Or if the plane could fire a flare (if available) to get an answer back from the field that it needs to land ASAP.  not sure if this would be doable but it makes sense.  And of course you could reduce the points for those that really count on them. 

 

Cheers

 

Hoss

 

[56RAF_Roblex]

37 minutes ago, 19//Hoss said:

Another point to consider is emergency landings at alternate fields.  Having a field either populated or not that would fire the white flare to denote it's a viable place to land if your plane is heavily damaged and you can not make it back to your home base would really increase the immersion of the game.  Or if the plane could fire a flare (if available) to get an answer back from the field that it needs to land ASAP.  not sure if this would be doable but it makes sense.  And of course you could reduce the points for those that really count on them. 

 

Cheers

 

Hoss

 

 

I like how you are thinking but how are you seeing it working?  You can't have alternative fields firing flares constantly so I am guessing you want it to fire only when someone is in the circuit but surely that is too late?    Imagine this scenario:- Your aircrafts engine is badly damaged at 4000m and you are not sure if it will get all the back to your home base so you divert to a closer field.  You descend to 500m and enter the circuit but no flare is fired.  You wonder if you have just not given it a chance to trigger so you turn finals anyway.  Still no flare.  You now decide it is not worth the risk  and abort the landing and turn for the  home base but you have wasted too much time and now your engine fails before you get home and you have thrown away all your altitude so cannot even glide the last bit.  

 

One thing you could use flares for is to reduce the occasions when pilots accidently land at an inactive airfield because they made a nav error and thought they were somewhere else.   It might also be useful for letting people on the ground know that there is a plane on finals so not to taxi onto the runway though I am not sure how the game distinguishes between a plane about  to land and a plane that is just passing or is defending the field.   OTOH, the game does seem capable of recognising a lot more than I thought  as I was on a server a few weeks ago that had AI transports and I saw one being told to abort its landing several times because people (humans) were on the runway about to take off.  It finally got permission to land and started its final approach only for someone to taxi onto the runway and nearly get rammed by the AI.  This shows that the game can at least sense when human pilots are on the active runway so if it can sense that a human is wheels down with nav lights on in the final approach corridor it might be able to fire a flare to show you are landing or maybe put out a message telling people to clear the runway at X Airfield.  Maybe it uses a trigger point below a certain altitude  a few hundred meters from the threshold?

[JG1_Shadepiece]

As far as the captured/escape probabilities, I like the idea a lot however, I have no clue how they are getting that to work with the MCUs in the mission editor. Perhaps if more light was shed on this subject we could look into something a little more in-depth.

 

Unless it's part of the new  update I am currently unaware of the ability to force off technochat from the server. If that is possible it will be discussed and looked into. Similarly to the GPS icons I believe that this vastly improves immersion, but additionally understand why some prefer the technochat. We'd have to discuss this matter internally. Please, link the information that explains how to set this up if you have it.

 

As far as non-active friendly airfields. This could potentially be done, but it would be a lot of work for not much reward. Currently, the active airfields are marked by bonfires at the ends of active runways. This shows you the direction you should taxi along with posted arrow signs. The bonfires are activated by a friendly aircraft's close proximity. Spawn airfields already have quite a bit of static object blocks as is. We do not want to populate the active airfields with more things than are needed to keep them optimized for smooth performance. Unless all airfields are made as active ones you cannot recover a "ditched" aircraft from a non-active field. We are not interested in making every airfield active, because just as in the real war not every airfield was utilized at any given time.

[56RAF_Roblex]

 

Are you aware that your server still has GPS?  You said last week you were not intending to have GPS turned on.  Have you changed your mind or is there a bug that keeps adding it back in?

[JG1_Shadepiece]

No, I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I was away on a work trip all week.

[TeufelHunden]

Interested in helping test server if you all need help... I know the game well but nothing about mission editing... just thought I would over my time would love to have an American server running! 

[JG1_Shadepiece]

Absolutely! Sorry Teufel for not getting to you earlier, I've been slammed irl. We had a good tussel on TAW the other day as well!! We would be more than happy to have you on the server. If you ever want to meet on TS we can arrange that, and you can always send a PM on anything you wish.

 

Update: Progress has been slow recently, but I finally got around to sorting our .sds file so that the nav markers are now off! After the update the DServer client changed our mode from "custom" to "normal" which toggled the nav markers on. It was honestly an easy fix, and we should have gotten to it sooner, but life has a way of delaying hobbies.

 

Additionally, as ACG nears it's transition to BoX for our campaign we are getting more and more stuck into the editor and things. This will both help us develop the public server, but will also limit the amount of time we can spend on it. I really hope to have a few missions in rotation before August. It's just about finding the time to convert a lot of the event missions we've used. Bear with us, and we'll have some diversity eventually.

Edited April 26, 2018 by ACG_RED_Shadepiece

[354thFG_Leifr]

Morning Red!

If I may enquire, what capacities are you allowing for folk to fly high-altitude bomber sorties? My lot and I currently take the 88 up to hit larger targets on Finnish Server but it's growing tiresome. It would be most excellent to have some new bombing targets in our sights.

 

Cheers

[KoN_]

Shall keep a look out , is there AI on this server . 

Edited April 27, 2018 by II./JG77_Con

[JG1_Shadepiece]

We have some active ground AI, but no aircraft for now. We'd like to add some if we determine that the server will stay stable.

 

As far as 88's go they are definitely available in server, and I think you'd be quite happy to see the objectives we have through yoyr bomb sight. Try your hand at hitting a moving convoy from up there. I'd be significantly impressed. 

 

Sorry for not being quicker on the replies. Real life has been very much in the way recently.

[ACG_Smokejumper]

Also some ACG members are slack. I volunteered to make some map tools..... Almost started.

Edited May 19, 2018 by 7./JG26_Smokejumper

[Hoss]

On 3/25/2018 at 10:39 AM, 56RAF_Roblex said:

 

I like how you are thinking but how are you seeing it working?  You can't have alternative fields firing flares constantly so I am guessing you want it to fire only when someone is in the circuit but surely that is too late?    Imagine this scenario:- Your aircrafts engine is badly damaged at 4000m and you are not sure if it will get all the back to your home base so you divert to a closer field.  You descend to 500m and enter the circuit but no flare is fired.  You wonder if you have just not given it a chance to trigger so you turn finals anyway.  Still no flare.  You now decide it is not worth the risk  and abort the landing and turn for the  home base but you have wasted too much time and now your engine fails before you get home and you have thrown away all your altitude so cannot even glide the last bit.  

 

One thing you could use flares for is to reduce the occasions when pilots accidently land at an inactive airfield because they made a nav error and thought they were somewhere else.   It might also be useful for letting people on the ground know that there is a plane on finals so not to taxi onto the runway though I am not sure how the game distinguishes between a plane about  to land and a plane that is just passing or is defending the field.   OTOH, the game does seem capable of recognising a lot more than I thought  as I was on a server a few weeks ago that had AI transports and I saw one being told to abort its landing several times because people (humans) were on the runway about to take off.  It finally got permission to land and started its final approach only for someone to taxi onto the runway and nearly get rammed by the AI.  This shows that the game can at least sense when human pilots are on the active runway so if it can sense that a human is wheels down with nav lights on in the final approach corridor it might be able to fire a flare to show you are landing or maybe put out a message telling people to clear the runway at X Airfield.  Maybe it uses a trigger point below a certain altitude  a few hundred meters from the threshold?

 

 

A pilot command declaring an Emergency would be the trigger for an airfield to fire a flare, or having the pilot fire a red flare when nearing an airfield and getting a white or green one in return would be perfect. But with the new score filters of getting partial credit for air/ground kills even if you don't return to your original airfield solves the problem a bit. 

 

[JG1_Shadepiece]

For the record, the active airfields have bonfires at the end of the runways. If you're not landing past a bonfire, it's not an active airfield.

[JG1_Shadepiece]

Hello everyone,

 

I have some unfortunate news, but nothing too terrible. We are currently in the process of relocating our server which means that it'll be down for a period of time. I do think that ultimately this will be a large improvement in the long run. Additionally, it should give us some time to get a few more missions done up, and prepared for the next server launch!

 

I have been beyond busy in my real life with a very big move, so my work on the server has been put on hold. We were hoping to sort out at least one or two new missions, and be able to move the server location all seamlessly, but as real life often does, we are going to have to take the server down for now. More news to come.

 

Cheers!

-Shadepiece

[LP1888]

Where is the stats for this ?