Coconut's dynamic campaign server

[coconut]

I've just added a WWI mode to my campaign system, and I've started running it on my server. See

Note that it's still early work, and the WWII DNA might make itself seen in places in should not. For instance, if you see heavy flak (other than machine gun fire), please let me know. I think I've removed most of it, but if I've missed something don't hesitate to let me know.

The settings is with icons, with GPS, but without engine assistance; that might change depending on what people prefers. Personally I still can't identify planes well enough to play without icons.

 

I hope you'll enjoy it!

[J2_Trupobaw]

What a welcome surprise! 

[J37_GCF]

Very nice Server, just had a quick go, looks excellent

[coconut]

Stats are now in place: http://coconutside.eu:8082/en/

 

I have also disabled spawn restrictions, disabled captured planes, and made wrecking ban limit more lenient (see note below). These measures are necessary in a more popular setting, but I don't think that's needed at the moment.

 

(wrecking ban: If you would crash your own plane without being attacked first, and would do that too often, you would get a one-hour ban; not applicable on this server)

[NO.610jailor]

Just spent an hour on your server, loved it and thanks for giving us all entry.

Great variety of targets available, runs smoothly and looks really nice. Well done!

 

Is there a way I can disable the mini map?  Server gave me  ping of 35.

 

Salute. Ron.

Edited January 21, 2019 by NO.610jailor

[Leon_Portier]

9 minutes ago, NO.610jailor said:

~~

Is there a way I can disable the mini map? 

~~

Yep, take a gander at the settings.

If I remember right, its settings->general->Minimap and set that to off.

[NO.610jailor]

1 hour ago, Leon_Portier said:

Yep, take a gander at the settings.

If I remember right, its settings->general->Minimap and set that to off.

Thanks for that, will have a look. 

[US103_Hunter]

I've created the 103rd Aero on the scoreboards and plan to have a go at this campaign soon!

 

If it's a realism server we need to turn off icons.

 

S!

Captain Hunter

CO 103rd Aero Squadron USAS

Edited January 22, 2019 by US103_Hunter

[No.23_Gaylion]

What is the pin thing and reserved plane about?

 

This is cool and cant wait to see it tweaked  for WW1.

Edited January 22, 2019 by US103_Talbot

[J2_Trupobaw]

Pin thing likely with stats page. 

Reserved plane - initially you can only fly from the airfield without "RESTRICED" word (usually the back field). If you want to fly from a forward field, you have to ferry your plane to Restricted field and land there; then, you can fly that plane from that field (it is restricted for your use)  until you lose it... then you have to bring another plane from Flugpark. 
The ferry flights took about 15-20 minutes in WW2 planes, in WW1 they may be bit to much.

EDIT: most of below has been already considered and often implemented by coconut; my fault in assuming things work closer to WW2 version than they do. Sorry, coconut.

I've looked a bit on current campaign and, some WW1 tweaking is in order. Coconut server is much about ground support  tactical bombing, which wasn't nearly as potent during WW1. WW1 planes had much smaller bombloads in general, and German single seaters were pure interceptors, with no bomb option at all. The four 12.5 kg bombs on Camel are the biggest load a current FC plane can take. So, when I looked on the map and saw 70 Entente tanks attacking German position... how am I supposed to affect that :)? 

Even the two two-seaters we're getting are not bombers. Halberstadt is escort gunship / ground attack plane, and Bristol is a recon/fighter. Both have bombloads of 150-200 kg.

So, how to make coconut fun in WW1 enviroment? Because yes, we'd love it. My Staffel moved to coconut when RoF dried up and often discussed how we'd love to have such a permanent campaign in RoF.

-distances should be shorter than in WW2 - these biplanes rarely exceed 200 km/h, that's less then takeoff speed of some WW2 planes :). Smnaller sectors, airfields closer to each other. 
-emphasis on "soft" targets like trucks. Untill we get WW1 tanks, even armoured cars are tough nut to crack.
-balloon busting - I think we already have balloons in BoX, I saw them over the city of Moscow as part of scenery. Having a balloon constantly observing the frontline was very important, so they were often attacked and quickly replaced. They were usually defended by insane flak. 
-recon was very important - both photo recon and ordinary eyeballs v1.0 recon. In WW2 coconut, discovering an object just puts it on the map so pilots on your side can attack it. In WW1, especially in trench war, concentrating troops and materiel unnoticed to launch a surprise attack was about the only way to breach the front, so counting the trains, truck columns or supply dumps had great value of its own, and was the reason for planes to go behind enemy lines. Making discovered assets lose some of their "strength" if the pilot who saw it lands at friendly field because your troops are now warned and prepared makes much more sense in WW1.

-guiding the artillery, strafing the defending soldiers and killing enemy balloons in the sector were the way planes affected the ground assaults - killing tanks Rudel-style wasn't possible yet. There should be much more dug-in artillery (Katiushas?) on both sides that pilots can actually kill with rifle-caliber machine guns, rather than tanks. Balloons deployed close to battlefield could guide enemy artillery and spot reinforcements - and they had cable to instantly inform  commander on the ground.  It may even go as far as replacing tanks as deciding factor in assaults with balloons and artillery pieces entirely - number of balloons means how accurate your artillery fire is, and losing them means your troop loose artillery support. Also, when baloons were not present or out of range, planes were the second best means of guiding artillery fire. A simple logic modification could be planes "signalling" the artillery by firing the flares when flying low over the battle area (or enemy artillery position). Of course, this makes artillery plane very, very visible to  enemy pilots.
In short, rather than moving tanks rushing dug-in tanks, WW1-style breakthrough should be more of two forward lines of dug-in MGs shooting in each direction insanely (these don't damage each other, but will fire on planes trying to strafe them!), with lines of artillery behind shelling enemy MG, and balloons guiding the artillery (and invisible infantry rushing the lines). They are decided by making sure enemy loses more MGs than you, which is done by 1) strafing the MGS( very risky!) 2) strafing the artillery (risky, low impact), 3) destroying the balloons (risky, high impact) 4) guiding artillery to enemy MGs with flares (less risky then strafing them until enemy planes show up). 

Of course, this would also lure fighter pilots form both sides looking to kill the pilots trying to kill balloons, bomb, strafe, etc, turnign assault area into big airquake - not unlike it was historically.  

Edited January 24, 2019 by J2_Trupobaw

[J37_Daedallus]

Excellent post Trupobaw, I had been thinking the same thing. Big thanks to Coconut for providing what he has and hopefully he can shape the maps to give more of a WW1 feel.

 

cheers

 

Daedallus

[coconut]

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Pin thing likely with stats page. 

It's to see your reserved planes on http://coconutside.eu:8083 , and gift them to friends or the public

 

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Reserved plane - initially you can only fly from the airfield without "RESTRICED" word (usually the back field). If you want to fly from a forward field, you have to ferry your plane to Restricted field and land there; then, you can fly that plane from that field (it is restricted for your use)  until you lose it... then you have to bring another plane from Flugpark. 
The ferry flights took about 15-20 minutes in WW2 planes, in WW1 they may be bit to much.

I disabled the spawn restrictions a few days ago. Not sure if it works, though. I haven't used that option for a long time on the WWII servers, and I haven't had time to test that it works. In any case, the labelling of the airfields follows the same schema, something I'll need to fix. For the time being, and considering the experimental nature of this... well... experiment, I think I don't need to have restrictions enabled.

 

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

So, when I looked on the map and saw 70 Entente tanks attacking German position... how am I supposed to affect that :)? 

Normally there should not be tanks. But there again, I haven't had time to test... The idea is that in battles, tanks should be replaced by howitzers and machine guns.

 

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

distances should be shorter than in WW2 - these biplanes rarely exceed 200 km/h, that's less then takeoff speed of some WW2 planes :). Smnaller sectors, airfields closer to each other. 

That's already the case, I picked a sector of the Kuban map that was tight with airfields. I could also pick the regions near Moscow, or Stalingrad. I thought Kuban during spring might better remind of northern France.

 

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

-emphasis on "soft" targets like trucks. Untill we get WW1 tanks, even armoured cars are tough nut to crack.

The storage areas are filled with trucks, fuel tanks and nets instead of dugouts

 

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

-balloon busting

Last time I tried the balloons from the Moscow map, they had no collision model and could not be shot

 

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Making discovered assets lose some of their "strength" if the pilot who saw it lands at friendly field because your troops are now warned and prepared makes much more sense in WW1.

Technically, that's hard to do in the dogfight setting. Maybe when I get to implementing coop

 

23 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

There should be much more dug-in artillery (Katiushas?) on both sides that pilots can actually kill with rifle-caliber machine guns, rather than tanks

I don't if you've noticed, but there are now artillery sites exchanging fire at the borders.

 

To summarize, you are pretty spot on with all your comments, but I wonder if maybe you didn't notice the changes I've made. In any case, it's work in progress, and it will surely feel more WWI-ish as devs add planes and models.

 

Disclaimer: As I said, I haven't even had the time to test all that yet, so it's in the code, but it's possible it's not working yet.

[J2_Trupobaw]

No, I admit I didn't look to closely. I'm glad to know you are so well ahead of us with planning the WW1 variant . Thank you!

 

[J2_Trupobaw]

I did fly a bit (then a bit more, then again) on the server, and love it. Please give us EXPERT version (same settings as your WW2 realistic server) and it can become mission oriented WW1 server with planes we have already. (With icons, mission-oriented part goes out of the window once enemy plane appears in 10km) 

Edited January 26, 2019 by J2_Trupobaw

[J5_HellCat_]

I would prefer a mix not unlike WoL ...no icons with GPS enabled  makes it more friendly to the VFR navigationally challenged ? but that's just me .........

 

Big thanks to Coconut .....love the server and the map location!

[J2_Trupobaw]

WW1 planes have lower speeds and better visibility, navigation in them is much easier . There's more time to re-check where you are.
 

[Garven]

I'd prefer icons and GPS off, but I'm glad to see work being done on a dynamic campaign for WW1. 

[No.23_Gaylion]

Ideas:

I know there aren't balloons now, but once they are here, need to have them coordinate with artillery fires. Shooting them down disrupts artillery etc.

 

I don't know if its possible, but to add ground troops for strafing and vehicle columns everywhere. 

 

Could also do narrow guage rail transporting ammo, troops, arms etc from large railways to the front lines. 

 

Would be really cool if you could make the entire scenario revolve around actual events, st mihiel, meuse argonne- etc. 

 

AA trucks were moveable and in short supply. Could have them moving around the map staging at certain spots, rendering certain areas more dangerous than others. 

 

All these are long term suggestions of course.

Should also figure out how to do "drumfire". 

[Panzerlang]

I went on this last night, it was pukka. Thank you Coconut.  My first 'live' outing with WW1 VR and I got me two Camels (and a twisted neck, lol).

[Garven]

Thank you for turning the icons off.  

BTW I noticed trucks aren't rendering at  the storage facility unless I zoom in or fly really close to them.

Edited February 4, 2019 by =AVG77=Garven

[Garven]

Putting one of Pat Cartier's excellent skins to work on Coconuts

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by =AVG77=Garven

[J2_Trupobaw]

J2 pair preparing for ground attack sortie (which ended up a defensive patrol around our forward field; we never made it to enemy airspace).

[J37_GCF]

Just a reminder, T - 1 hour to the start of the Clash of the Coconuts event, all welcome.

[variable]

There's two set of servers and one set seems to have better ping for me in North America.  Is there a website for that Dynamic Campaign Normal server?  I've been flying on it but can't find any records on http://coconutside.eu:8081/en/

[No_85_Gramps]

This is the stats page for the normal server: http://coconutside.eu:8081/en/?tour=8

[Darkowl]

It is port 8082 for the FC campaign.

http://coconutside.eu:8082/en/info/

 

[variable]

I'm an idiot.  I was on the AKA normal server which is running Coconut's Dynamic Campaign.

[No.23_Gaylion]

More unsolicited suggestions: . 

 

Instead of tank units, perhaps infantry units change the course of the battle. Tanks are there but are very limited. Have infantry moving on roads, staged in marshaling areas, traveling on train, in the trenches. Hospitals regenerate troops loss, headquarters and ammo depots that if destroyed changes combat effectiveness of the infantry assaults. 

 

Figure out a way to make recon missions affect the battles more than bombing-as was historically accurate. The more recons done, the more effective your infantry and arty are. Incorporate low level arty recons for more accurate arty fires and high trench mapping recons that make infantry units operate quicker or better during assault.

 

Instead of factories supplying aviation ordinance have them supply the arty guns themselves, the arty ammo, and equipment or food for troops- all which in turn affects the ground war. Maybe somehow incorporate a "morale" function that affects the ground troops by destruction of food, supplies, hospitals, trains.

 

It seems like some of these ideas could easily plug in to your system when I read your manual.

 

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by US103_Talbot

[Garven]

Could the dolphin and DVII be added to the airfields?  Noticed you don't have them available.

[Clyde_McCloud]

Links to the stats for the normal server are not working....

[J2_Trupobaw]

Coconuts server have neem discontinued for long moths, he lost interest in the project. 

The campaign engine is open source, though, so anyone can make a campaign server out of it.

Edited October 5, 2019 by J2_Trupobaw