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Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/24/2016 8:04:16 AM

CCIP-subsim

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Hi folks,
I've made this scenario mostly as a result of my own experiments with recent additions to Command Lua/event capabilities, and I thought I'd share the current results. Perhaps this might be entertaining!

IN BRIEF:

In this scenario, you command a sort of ad-hoc mercenary force. In this (totally fictional) scenario, you get to play with a mix of relatively obsolete, mostly-Western made air and naval units. I've had to make some obvious realism/plausibility concessions here to make the scenario a bit more fast-paced and open-ended than it would realistically be - but wait, don't lose interest yet! The twist here is elements of resource management, vaguely in the style of real-time strategy games. It works like this:

-Your points, instead of just a victory score, are now your currency, with which you can "buy" units and facility upgrades.

-You spend your points through the "Special Actions" menu, where you can "buy" units and have them placed on the map.

-By saving up your points and upgrading your base facilities, you unlock access to more units.

-You make more points in two ways: a) by keeping resource-gathering units (fishing boats, oil exploration ships) in designated areas of the ocean (slow but steady income); or b) attacking pirate boats and terrorist hideouts, as well as blockading enemy ships, for a bounty (quick but dangerous income).

It looks something like this:

There is a far bit more detail to this, but fortunately, I've included a pretty comprehensive "manual" in the scenario briefing, which you should definitely read. At the moment it is very open-ended, although there are some defeat conditions and checkpoints for success. Even the 3-month timeline right now is just a suggestion (though I'm yet to play it for much past a week of game time). I will hopefully be able to put in some more work into it - although I spent somewhere close to 100 hours building and testing it so far, it's still a bit raw, so I'll appreciate any reports and findings!

Three important notes for starting this scenario:
1) Please make sure that you unzip all the files included, including those .inst files under the game menu folder.
2) Make sure to ENABLE the "Unlimited Magazines" option when you're starting the scenario. It is designed to be played that way.
3) Make sure to enable pop-ups for "Special Messages" in your message log settings.

Enjoy, and let me know what you think of this experiment

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/24/2016 10:23:19 AM

Gunner98

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First I have to say that this is a brilliant idea! Very imaginative and well thought out. Have just read through the briefing and am about to start, should be fun.

A couple of very minor points picked up so far:

-when extracting, got a message to replace an existing readme file. Suggest a unique name or perhaps the game and readme file in a separate folder.
-a typo in the very well done briefing:
---It is thought that Yemen has built some new airfiends deep in the Somali interior and deployed some aircraft there as well.

Am giving this a go, too bad I need to go to work today....

B

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/24/2016 12:17:56 PM

Zaslon

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Incredible. Great idea.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/24/2016 4:12:25 PM

mikmykWS

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Brilliant idea! Good work!

Mike

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/24/2016 5:01:14 PM

CCIP-subsim

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Thanks folks :)

And now that I have your attention, a quick technical question for the experts: is there an easy (i.e. copy-paste) way to embed the content of the .inst files into LUA scripts instead?

I mostly used the .inst files to a) try out the import function with Lua; b) save on processing power by not having all the units placed from scenario start. If I could get it embedded in the .scen file it'd sure make things easy!

I figured there might be a way, since .inst files look like fairly straightforward data.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/25/2016 12:26:20 AM

Sakai007

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Wow! Absolutely brilliant! I had never in a million years thought of approaching the sim in this way, and I really love the concept. LoL, with a three month or more timeline, this would almost qualify as a stand alone game separate from CMANO.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/25/2016 2:13:40 PM

wild_Willie2

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This is REALLY nice, you did an amazing job with this!! :)

This one should be made a sticky once it's been a bit refined...

W.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/25/2016 4:34:13 PM

Randomizer

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A remarkably bold concept wedded to an innovative use of CMANO features. Outstanding!

Those wanting to "push the envelope" that is Command using re-fighting WW2 with battleships or pining for triremes and the like should take note to see how you've pushed the simulation using its features in a quite novel manner. Simply Marvelous!

-C

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/25/2016 8:10:34 PM

wild_Willie2

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After playing for a few hours I must say that the difficulty is VERY challenging and does not really permit any errors or losses. As soon as Yemen starts trowing MIG-25's at you, your basically are screwed because you don't have any real fighters and no radar coverage..Maybe I accidentally activated the Yemen side? I'll restart and try again.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/25/2016 8:26:54 PM

CCIP-subsim

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Thanks again folks, I do appreciate the feedback :)

I realize that it might be a bit unbalanced at the moment, so any reports are welcome of course. Even myself, I've only made it past the first couple of sets of targets so far (mostly because I've had to go back and rebalance things over and over). I'm suspecting that one thing I'll need to do soon is lower the "upgrade prices" and raise the enemy "anger threshold".

wild_Willie2: One quick tip is to be careful with how you pace your attacks. Depending on the types of targets you're hitting, they're more or less likely to retaliate. They only somewhat care about pirates and terrorists, unless you're attacking a lot of targets in a short period of time, but they do strike back immediately if you hit something that belongs to them. The enemy's aggression level resets regularly (I'll keep it a secret exactly how often), so any time they retaliate it's likely to only be temporary - at most, you can expect two waves of strikes and maybe a few MiG sweeps, and then they go back home. Keep an eye out for "Enemy Radio Traffic" events which pop up in the message log to get a clue about what they're up to.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/25/2016 8:28:47 PM

mikkey

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Excellent idea!

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/25/2016 10:13:00 PM

wild_Willie2

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Hi CCIPsubsim,

Ok, now I get it, depending on the amount of targets I strike the enemy aggression level goes up, culminating in a big sweep...

But I have to agree with you that the upgrades need to be made cheaper than they currently are. I have managed to upgrade my AF just once and then got my four AMX fighters shot out of the sky by Mig-25's, leaving me with almost zero assets so I needed to restart. At this point of the game, an air search radar equipped asset would have really helped, but I only got to about 1000 points before things went to hell in a hand basket. Lowering the upgrade costs by about 40% should really help balance things out a bit more.

Also the fact that some "neutral" tribal ship are actively following/spying on your own vessels without you being able to do something about is is HIGHLY annoying. Giving these vessels actual transport missions and destinations instead of sea control missions would prevent them from being so obvious about it and would give your own vessels a chance to avoid them or to get away once sighted.

Also, the MD-500 Defender is useless as the TOW warhead only has a single damage point, good against a technical but otherwise useless and to short ranged to use from ships effectively anyway.

But otherwise a brilliant concept and a very promising mission.

W.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/26/2016 10:42:12 PM

wild_Willie2

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Some more playing hours, some more remarks. I lowered the upgrade costs 35% and things start to go a whole lot more fluently. The Seasprite radar makes taking out the souther pirates a piece of cake, locate them with the Seasprite and then either sprint in with your October gunboat, HSV or airpower and kill them, then sprint out again before the hoard of tribal "neutrals" race in to stalk your ships. If you station the Seasprite on the HSV, things are even easier. This provides you easier and faster with credits then trying to dodge SA-24's with crappy AC (the SA-24's are overkill this early in the game).

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/26/2016 11:18:49 PM

CassioM

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CMANO RTS... Best idea of all! Someone delivers a bonus for this guy!

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/27/2016 12:17:30 PM

Dimitris

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Very nice

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/27/2016 2:08:21 PM

Skjold

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This is genuinly awesome, really cool idea.

I would like to add that the Swedish sonar bouy vessel you can buy, B01 Ejdern does not function properly. You can't drop the bouys, so you might want to replace that with another vessel.

< Message edited by Skjold -- 6/27/2016 2:55:18 PM >

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Post #: 16

RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/27/2016 7:06:02 PM

Zaslon

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I played it some hours and its superb.

Like Skjold, Ejdern don't drop sonobuoys.

Add unit tag of each unit can be useful in the side briefing in order to check each unit in the database viewer before buy the unit.

Yemeni Air force is overpowered. A lot of Foxbats (it's not neccesary use old Foxbats and Floggers, they can buy JF-17 or Su-30SME) but in less quantity.

Another interesting aerial asset for class C are Mirage F1E, Korean TA-50/FA-50 (withouy guided ordnance) andgreek's A-7.

Very fun. I was glued to the seat when I was playing this scenario.

< Message edited by Zaslon -- 6/27/2016 7:10:28 PM >

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/29/2016 8:48:56 AM

wild_Willie2

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I have to agree with Zaslon, the Yemenites are currently overpowered with their Foxbats. I would replace one of your third tier AC (The A-4 or the F-5) with an sparrow carrying F4 Phantom variant to counter these fighters.
It would also be nice to get an upgraded radar with the upgraded airfields.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/29/2016 7:24:04 PM

wild_Willie2

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After playing around a bit more, I found that there is a very severe need for survivable recon assets in this scenario. The only AC with halfway decent sensor suites are way to slow or to short ranged to operate in the contested Somali- let alone the Yemeni airspace. Once an alert gets triggered, these slow assets are now an easy MIG-25 prey. I would suggest changing out a tier two AC (the Hunter UAV?) for a SH 37 Viggen to remedy this. The viggen is a dedicated recon plane with a RWR and sufficient legs to perform an excellent recon role without having a major impact on the rest of the game.

Also the Somali fitter strikes are virtually impossible to stop early and mid game and there is a good chance that these will destroy your mothership if you are even slightly unlucky. Only after getting tier C (radar equipped) fighter AC you have a half chance of intercepting these strikes if you can detect them early enough. The Hawk can fulfill this role mid game but is rather slow.

Why not make the Yemenites a separate party from the Somali, that way you can build up your forces BEFORE having to engage an overpowered Yemeni AF with inadequate forces (put in a 30 day activation time for the Yemenites to get more agressive?). I would also put the naval spawn point closer to Socotra so you don't have to wait 2-3 days before you can start using naval assets.

W.

< Message edited by wild_Willie2 -- 6/29/2016 7:29:03 PM >

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/29/2016 7:51:46 PM

Gunner98

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You may want to consider SAMs as an option to buy. Someone already mentioned Air search radars which is a good idea. The SAMs would allow a bastion to hide beneath if the world starts caving in and you need a respite.

Perhaps tier 2 = basic HAWK
tier 3 = I-HAWK

B

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/29/2016 9:07:39 PM

Zaslon

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Brainstorming...
IMO Can you consider that Saudi led-coalition won the war in Yemen, Yemeni air Force can have a mix of MiG-29, Su-22 and former saudi equipment (Tornado F3 retired fron RSAF instead of MiG-25 and F-5E). Another option, only with the strategic partnership with China is better (China established strong business relationship with many African countries to obtain his natural resources) in order to give the Sultan access to the Russian weapons market. A third option is that the Houties won the revolution and Yemeni is backed by Iran and with strong links with China and Russia sell like France to all sides.

So French and Russians can be pleased to sell to this new misterious Sultan of Socotra some recent retired weapon systems or light new weapon systems. Brazilian and South african industry surely are open to sell weapons to the Sultan.

P.S. Spain put in 2014 in the market Mirage F1M, another interesting option for the Sultan, only we need to correct the F1M in the D3K.

< Message edited by Zaslon -- 6/29/2016 9:10:42 PM >

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/30/2016 3:15:43 AM

CCIP-subsim

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A huge thanks again for the feedback folks! This is crucial to me because with a scenario that huge I can only do very limited testing and obviously I've got my own bias since I know a little too much about the mechanics. I definitely see that the power imbalance is a big one and I'll get that looked at.

For the next version, the priority list is:
-Reduce air threats (I think to start with, I'll scale the Yemeni air force down to its actual equipment level and remove the MiG-25s/23s)
-Reduce ground threats (mainly the SA-23 equipped units, although there actually aren't that many of them)
-Reduce the cost of the base upgrades
-Replace non-useful units (like that MD-500 and Edjern) with more functional units, buff up the upper end slightly. I think the Viggen, Mirage and I-HAWK are all great ideas!

The only thing I'm being wary of is encouraging the player to actually take on full-on frontal war with Yemen - by design, they're supposed have the upper hand if you start trying to destroy them instead of avoid them, but you should be able to get as far as your targets and back. You should also be able to at least defend a chunk of airspace around your ships with fighters.

Another future thought is that maybe a good way to go is to give them reinforcements gradually - so they don't deploy anything advanced while you're weak, but once you get some upgrades, they do too.

I don't think I'll be able to get to for a couple of weeks (work to do, plus there's at least another scenario that I wanted to get to a working version first), but I'll get that worked on soon enough! Again, thanks for all the feedback

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 6/30/2016 5:21:56 AM

wild_Willie2

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You could indeed go for a scenario where all parties just have heat seeking AA missiles to even the playing field a bit more, this would remove some issues but would leave the Yemeni MIG-29's with those extremely deadly AA-11's v. older sidewinder versions... But I definitely would remove the "loose the HSV, instant loss rule" from the game, I would consider the HSV to be just another buy-able asset, similarity priced as a tier two patrol boat. I would much rather have an invasion like event to remove you by the Yemeni after 35 days or so.

< Message edited by wild_Willie2 -- 6/30/2016 5:36:16 AM >

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 7/18/2016 7:44:22 PM

Luidzi

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I got stuck at the 3rd list of terrorist targets - it includes several ammo bunkers. Against them I need aircraft with deep penetrating bombs, but I've found no aircraft available for purchase that can carry them. I've included an F-4D, it can carry GBU-10 with BLU-109 warhead and at the same time it has only old variant of Sparrow for A/A.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 7/19/2016 10:40:38 PM

Ferret69

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Just started playing this scenario and judging by the comments things are going to get messy quickly! As I was looking through the Cat C and Cat B units I saw an opening to try to get a more exotic unit in; I think as a cheap 'bomb truck', the A-5 Fantan. The A-5 is a distant cousin of the MiG-19 but with a restructured fuselage and an array of weapons and avionics suites. They can be equipped with the AIM-9P, Matra Magic or PL-5 heat seeking missiles. It can also use dumb bombs or rockets. If you want to keep the western theme on the other hand there is there is the Jaguar Gr.Mk1/1b; It could be used for reconnaissance or conventional strike. Anyway time to go back to this great scenario

Ferret.

< Message edited by Ferret69 -- 7/22/2016 1:07:35 PM >

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 7/20/2016 10:15:56 AM

wild_Willie2

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The beginning of the scenario is quite doable, its the later targets that are problematic with the current OOB.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 7/20/2016 12:25:55 PM

Ferret69

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Well it wasn't very doable when SU-22's and MiG-23's started rolling in when my only asset was a mere Pucara light attack aircraft and the starting assets... it wasn't pretty.

Ferret.

< Message edited by Ferret69 -- 7/22/2016 1:07:21 PM >

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 7/20/2016 2:15:44 PM

wild_Willie2

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Yep. lesson one: Never put your mother ship near the African east coast, once spotted and unlucky, the SU-22 will come in for the kill.
Lesson two: Get the hell out of dodge once a special message arrives that alerts have been sounded, night bombing is your friend as you will get seen less often.
Lesson three: With the current OOB, killing pirates in the ease/southeast is a whole lot safer then flying over the African mainland.

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 7/20/2016 5:19:40 PM

Luidzi

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For some reason, my strike aircrafts trigger sector air defense alerts even while flying to minimize detection as much as possible. I�ve tried carefully planned ingress/egress routes, flying below radars, hiding in clouds and also jamming with Falcon. I didn�t try �the best ECM ever� (500lb bomb falling on air search radar) yet, I presumed the Yemeni would get even more mad at me than before. No matter how much I try to hide an incoming airstrike, after some time over enemy territory I always get a probability check for alert event.

Edit: Found it - working as designed. The sector air defense alert is not triggered by detection, as I thought, but by proximity and time. Therefore, careful piloting will not delay enemy scramble at all.

< Message edited by Luidzi -- 7/20/2016 10:57:42 PM >

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RE: Sultan of Socotra (experimental scenario) 0.16 - 7/22/2016 1:04:10 PM

Ferret69

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Having played a bit more I have incorporated the 35% price cuts in a separate version, have to say it's much easier and smoother! I think in this separate version I might also test some of the ideas for new units and concepts ( if okay with you,CCIPsubsim). I've also had another idea for gameplay/ concepts; if we are supported by the CIA then why not use that, have the CIA (at random) ask for supply drops and the insertion of agents, after all that sort of deniability would be the sort of thing the CIA is trying to do by using your budding air force to strike terrorists. The way you could inform the players would maybe be in the style from Feltan's Under African skies. This would also open up all sorts of interesting aircraft such as Venezuelan Mi-8's and South African Puma's, maybe some French C-54's as well, that sort of thing.

Ferret.

< Message edited by Ferret69 -- 7/22/2016 1:07:10 PM >

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