Any way to play iconic missions as online coop?

[fdcdude]

Hey all! I'm just learning and browsing the PWCG iconic missions. Is there any way to get them to work as online coop missions? I would love to play these with some friends and as a beginner I really enjoy the ease of clicking a button and having an awesome mission ready to go. Thanks in advance

[Highwayman]

I generated these and then edited them in the Mission editor to change the aircraft type to cooperative, after it was saved, I hosted it on our server and had the 4 slots I setup.

 

I also believe that these will be generated on the specific dates in a campaign as well in the relevant theatres. Thus, you could setup a coop campaign as normal to start on the month that the event happens, then take leave until the actual day and generate a mission if I remember how Pat described it in the update. 

[fdcdude]

How did you manage to do that? I'd like to have 8 slots if that's possible 0.o

[Highwayman]

On 6/5/2021 at 6:58 AM, fdcdude said:

How did you manage to do that? I'd like to have 8 slots if that's possible 0.o

I'd say go with the second option for that.

 

Setup a coop campaign with your 8 pilots in the squadrons that flew in it, and take leave until the day of the event.

 

For example, below I setup a campaign for Operation Market Garden with 4 Allied Players and 4 Axis players, but the teams and number of pilots it entirely up to you...

 

 

First, create a new coop campaign

 

Create your reference player to the 354th Fighter Group (P-51), or any squadron that participated in the event.

 

Then add 3 more players to the squadron (354th in this example) and add 4 players to I./JG77 (Bf 109 K4)

 

Market Garden was 17th September 1944, so take 16 days leave in the Activity section to get you to the correct date.

 

Now generate a mission and select all of the players

 

You should get a mission with the events of Operation Market Garden generated if I remember Pat's explanation correctly of how they worked.

 

 

Load the mission up on your dedicated server (at least I would if I were trying to host it for 8 players), and fly!

 

- Update:

I should have added, that due to the way that the IL-2 Co-op missions work, only the 'reference' players team will receive a briefing in the game, so for the opposing team please bear this in mind. The map however will reflect your actual route that you've been assigned.

 

To work around this, you can during the mission creation phase at the last two screens shown above, click the radio button (circles, not squares) on the left side to switch to the 'other' team(s), and when you progress to the next, or go back to the previous screen, the information will update. I do this for our Co-op campaigns and post only the briefing section to our Discord events channel so that each team understands their objectives, but are not aware of each others routes. It certainly makes for some spicy missions. Sometimes we'll fly our routes and complete our objectives without seeing each other, other times it turns into a massive fur ball, but that uncertainty of what or who you're going to find on your mission really adds a great edge to flying a PWCG mission.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Highwayman

[fdcdude]

Wow!!!! Thanks a ton for the incredibly detailed walkthrough! Made it super easy and we're flying away now. Thanks again buddy!