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slothrop posted:I just tuned in for the last minute or so, looks like Kelpie got shot down Plus side is I'm pretty sure that was an engine kill so Kelpie probably survived. orcbuster posted:We are the new gun fixated Hired goons! There was an incredibly satisfying amount of gun jousting and gun kills going on in this mission, yes.
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Oct 13, 2019 04:04
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Upload is done-ish. Should be live shortly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd-gmdRteAM I'll get the summary up tomorrow as time permits.
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Oct 13, 2019 04:11
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Awesome-lovely cold war jets, cluster bombs, gun kills. I like how this campaign is starting. Plus I think I bagged a Starfighter - usually those things crash before they get a chance to be shot down!
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Oct 13, 2019 04:59
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I feel that our bombing run leaves somewhat to be desired Also given my codename I feel very weird Having hit something other than the ground and I think maybe gotten a kill
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Oct 13, 2019 06:51
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wedgekree posted:I feel that our bombing run leaves somewhat to be desired Test runs were about 50-60% to shutter the runway. The other 40-50% does nothing because runway damage is very poorly modeled in this game. We'd need to hit with about 3/4 of our bombs to succeed. That having planes close in stopped the opfor from doing anything at all - didn't expect them to have no radar but that's how they acted. e: also bombs miss a lot, hope you get used to this because we sure have a lot of bombs
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Oct 13, 2019 08:43
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The Cheetahs' impromptu BARCAP made the Hornet's flight a milk run. Shame about our guys, but of the five losses, the pilots probably survived four of them. My favorite part was the F-104's realizing their runway was getting bombed and suddenly starting to turn around after the Cheetahs popped up over the ridgeline. Shame we didn't get it. From how thick the bogeys were after the bombing run, if we'd taken out the runway we'd have been going home early because all their planes would be stuck on the ground. Did the Drakens fly out of Shamsi? Or was there another runway further east causing trouble? All in all, a good show. The world knows we're back.
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Oct 13, 2019 09:15
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That went pretty well, but I think the tail-end of the mission did expose a real flaw in this plan. We really should have had some fighter cover based out of the south. Maybe the Lightnings? Might have saved a couple of the Cheetahs that way.
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Oct 13, 2019 09:53
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OOC Time, pass by if you don't want to hear mission building stuff. So the hostiles did have a radar, but our planes are so crappy none of them noticed it emitting. An ELINT bird of some sort might be a necessity or something that can actually detect emitters. The OPFOR launched on detection, escalated on losses, and were sometimes very effective (in testing). In some of my runs the OPFOR managed to do a good job of engaging, so I held the Lightnings back in case the tide turned. Instead the hero Cheetah's swatted them out of the sky. Condibs actually did really well but as TheDemon said, runways are hard to kill. Super-saturation might be the only reliable way to do this sort of thing with non PGM munitions. I'll get the summary up this afternoon.
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Oct 13, 2019 13:05
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 Corporate is quite pleased with the overall performance. It seems the budgetary group is a bit perturbed that the financial impact of the Cheetah D's wasn't higher, but this is going to work to our benefit for the next op.  drat near every 3D printed plane we had is in various states of falling apart. Not that we did much beyond what was needed to keep them in the air. This is a situation we understood at the outset of purchase, so no surprises. It was sad to see the Shackleton drop a wing though. The US State Department is in the midst of rebuilding and it seems we played an interesting role. One, we extricated an expensive aircraft for the Navy, but also did some whack-a-mole in Pakistani Airspace. The Pakistani 3D Print Industry has been operating as air cover for sea based pirates. Our smash em up has set those efforts back and allowed the CVN-71 to move out.  Just as quickly as we setup, we tore down and left. This has an additional benefit that what our opponents can't find, they can't kill. Running on the cheap has that nice benefit.  CORPORATE EDIT : More welcome is the proliferation of additional targets for maximum customer satisfaction. We're awaiting an update from the procurement team then we'll select the next batch of airframes. If you got in the air, you'll go to the end of the list. If you never launched, you'll be first in the next round. Back to you Hired Goons!
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Oct 13, 2019 16:19
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Q_res posted:That went pretty well, but I think the tail-end of the mission did expose a real flaw in this plan. The second group of J-7s were supposed to be based out of the southern base, but regardless I was warned that it had to be a minority of the force. e: Does that mean we managed to preserve our Lightnings for the next round? TheDemon fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Oct 13, 2019 |
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Oct 13, 2019 16:24
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NATO is really only crapping their pants about BVR/PGMs, right? A real AWACS that won't fall apart after one flight should be on the table.
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Oct 13, 2019 16:37
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It feels like the support aircraft (like the Shackleton, and whatever transport we used to get out) should stay around for some continuity. Gives us a reason to protect it in mission planning, and feels like everything is less disposable.
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Oct 13, 2019 17:16
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Brovine posted:It feels like the support aircraft (like the Shackleton, and whatever transport we used to get out) should stay around for some continuity. Gives us a reason to protect it in mission planning, and feels like everything is less disposable. We might do that. The Shackleton is useful enough without being an overpowered eye in the sky. Time to send it to maintenance and see if they can glue the wings back on. edit : My bad on the J-7's not basing out of the alternate airport. It's on my todo list and unchecked. Sorry about that TheDemon! Yooper fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Oct 13, 2019 |
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Oct 13, 2019 17:21
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As an open question to the Goons, what type of aircraft do you think would be the most popular 3DP aircraft out there? Yooper posted:drat near every 3D printed plane we had is in various states of falling apart. Not that we did much beyond what was needed to keep them in the air. This is a situation we understood at the outset of purchase, so no surprises. It was sad to see the Shackleton drop a wing though. Could we squeeze 2-3 missions out of a 3DP aircraft? With a between-missions buying round to top up our force as needed? It'd be nice to give goon aircrew more stick time and get a little more continuity between missions. The Scooters and Fishbeds acquitted themselves surprisingly well, and it'd be fun to see them fly again, especially since some pilots didn't really get to see action this mission.
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Oct 14, 2019 02:25
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Bacarruda posted:As an open question to the Goons, what type of aircraft do you think would be the most popular 3DP aircraft out there? The Fishbed. It's supersonic, modern ones can carry "good enough" versions of every munition you'd care about, and it's cheap. Plus if you need spare parts, they're everywhere. F-16 in second place for being generally better but presumably more expensive. I'm okay with cycling the the combat aircraft after every mission, but as a compromise, maybe only if they actually fire a weapon (anything, even the gun)? Or get shot down, of course. That way if your pilot gets sent up and you just do a racetrack 50nm from the action for three hours you don't get retired for your trouble but once you decide to joust a starfighter with your weird and horribly ugly trainer you give up your seat for the next hapless goon who gets charged with piloting some Korean war surplus. We could even justify it as the high-G turns stressing the airframe or something. And I definitely think keeping the Shackleton is the right call because it's such a wonderful mascot.
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Oct 14, 2019 02:46
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Bacarruda posted:As an open question to the Goons, what type of aircraft do you think would be the most popular 3DP aircraft out there?. Fishbeds, Mirages, Falcons probably in that order.
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Oct 14, 2019 03:55
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The F-7 (export J-7, which is in turn a MiG-21). There are versions with AIM-9Ps and PL-9s. The design has been exported so widely that I wouldn't be surprised if manufacturing was both easy and cheap, with optimized blueprints readily available (and therefore more reliable... or even cheaper). The SU-25. If you want lots of bombs this is your aircraft. If you want limited PGM this is also your aircraft. They are also incredibly cheap. Super Tucano. If you want lots of aircraft for your bombs this is your aircraft. Everyone and their mother should have one. There should be enough flying around that it's difficult to tell who owns which in a heavy traffic environment. Also the strike Cessnas that Iraq and Lebanon have in the DB. For when you can't afford a Super Tucano. The F-5 Tiger II. These should be cheap, readily available, and mount a wide array of weaponry in many variants. Also there are probably specialty shops that chop your F-5s into F-20s that are much worse than the real F-20 would have been. The F-4 Phantom II. If you want to bootleg an illegal BVR weapon onto a widely proliferated 3dp plane this is your go-to, although the F-16 gives it a run for the money. Even the F-18 and even F-15 are options but probably more expensive. MiG-29s also are in this category. The A-4, mostly because I think it's super cheap after accounting for inflation. Also in this category, the BAE Hawk and the A-10. I think the A-10 is the cheapest non-drone strike aircraft in the air force's reimbursement rate schedule. Vikings. The only disallowed weapons on these are the Harpoons, but they still shoot torpedoes and can lay mines so they're good for making GBS threads up a 3dp navy. Helicopters. The Huey has a few attack variants, but the Hind would be a good one. Early ground radar sets. AEW Helicopters for the larger outfits. Hawkeyes or the TU-126 for the extremely big budget groups. Legit the drones and also Golden Eagles should also be easy to print and dirt cheap to fly but that goes against Yooperverse convention so idk. I'd list the SU-24M but that swing-wing must be a nightmare. Same for the Harrier, although I'll bet there's an appeal to running them off of someone's driveway. TheDemon fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 04:15
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What about an su-24 modified to run with fixed wings only?
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Oct 14, 2019 04:18
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Can we have one of those attempts the Lufftwaffe made at a rocket powered helicopter? Sure, they were abominations of physics that Wile E Coyote would approve of and backfired just as spectacularly, but still.
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Oct 14, 2019 05:15
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An excerpt from 'Air Combat 2020-2040: Rise of the Air PMC' Chapter 3: 'The Early Era of Regulation' posted:
Hopefully I didn't presume too many things world building wise, but I figured it was worth making something up about how Sabotage lived.
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Oct 14, 2019 09:41
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TheDemon posted:The F-7 (export J-7, which is in turn a MiG-21). There are versions with AIM-9Ps and PL-9s. The design has been exported so widely that I wouldn't be surprised if manufacturing was both easy and cheap, with optimized blueprints readily available (and therefore more reliable... or even cheaper). This is a pretty solid list, but I'd go so far as to say, anything that's readily available from 3rd rate (or lower) powers would be getting 3D Printed. In terms of what would be popular, the Mirage III, A-7 Corsair and any version of the Fitter (Su-17/20/22). There are some others that haven't been mentioned that I think would definitely show up, but I'm not so sure about the popularity of them, like the SEPECAT Jaguar, Mirage F-1, F-8 Crusader and MiG-23/27. edit: I have a suggestion I've been hesitant to make because it might make Yooper's life harder, but what about different airframes having different operational lives? For instance, on this last mission, what if the F-18s were only good for 1 mission, but the F-4s would have been good for 2? Might make procurement votes more interesting. Q_res fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 11:04
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TheDemon posted:The F-5 Tiger II. These should be cheap, readily available, and mount a wide array of weaponry in many variants. Also there are probably specialty ships that chop your F-5s into F-20s that are much worse than the real F-20 would have been. That's about what I was thinking. The original F-5A/B and the F-5E/F were literally designed to give fledgling air forces an affordable, simple tactical jet. They're cheap and easy to build, simple and forgiving to fly, all while being relatively high-performance aircraft. There are some really cool ones in the DB, too. The Taiwanese F-5E (1984) has all-aspect Sidewinders, Mavericks, and even 500-pound Paveways (they do need to be buddy-lased). The Singaporean F-5E (1985) has a loadout with two Mavericks and two all-aspect Sidewinders, although the rest of its loadouts have rear-aspect missiles. The F-20 Tigersharkyou mentioned is also a nifty little bird. F-16 performance matched with all-aspect Sidewinders and TV Mavericks. The Chilean F-5E (1990) is more of a fighter with its all-aspect Sidewinders. The Jordanian F-5E has all-aspect heaters and a DECM pod as a bonus. If you want a strike aircraft, the Saudi F-5E (1989) has Mavericks and buddy-lased Paveways. TheDemon posted:The F-7 (export J-7, which is in turn a MiG-21). There are versions with AIM-9Ps and PL-9s. The design has been exported so widely that I wouldn't be surprised if manufacturing was both easy and cheap, with optimized blueprints readily available (and therefore more reliable... or even cheaper). The two Fishbeds that jump out at me are the Chinese J-7IIH Fishbed (1991), with its Python 3 copies and the Egyptian MiG-21 Fishbed J (1986) which has all-aspect Sidewinders and DECM, and the Pakistani F-7P Airguard (1990). Sadly, most of the cool upgrades, like LanceR, fall after the 1994 deadline. Q_res posted:This is a pretty solid list, but I'd go so far as to say, anything that's readily available from 3rd rate (or lower) powers would be getting 3D Printed. In terms of what would be popular, the Mirage III, A-7 Corsair and any version of the Fitter (Su-17/20/22). There are some others that haven't been mentioned that I think would definitely show up, but I'm not so sure about the popularity of them, like the SEPECAT Jaguar, Mirage F-1, F-8 Crusader and MiG-23/27. In the Mirage family, the Israeli Kfir C.7 (1993) would definitely be printed in pretty big numbers, since it's a powerful plane (it has a J79 mashed into a Mirage III fuselage) and it carries decent weapons. The Swiss Mirage IIIS (1990) is the poorest of the early Mirages that is still worthwhile. The French Mirage F.1C-200 (1990) and the Mirage F.1CT (1992) have an awesome selection of all kinds of guided and unguided bombs (three flavors of cluster bombs), along with some decent heat-seekers. The F.1CR (1994) has the same weapons, along with some recon gear (we use to have two of these, actually). I can see these flying off the 3D printers (no pun intended). The South African Mirage F.1AZ (1994) is a poor man's version of the F.1. The Mirage 2000 has a few 3DP worthy variants, too. The Egyptian Mirage 2000EM (1992) and the Mirage 2000-8 (1991) have a good mix of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. Definitely the way to go if you want a western strike fighter that doesn't say "F-16" on the side. The Greek A-7 Corsair II (1994) has a nice mix of our new favorite Condib cluster bombs, Sidewinders, Mavericks (it has 6!), and buddy-lased Paveways. The Air National Guard TA-7D is a two-seater with Mavericks and shittier Sidewinders. For Jaguars, the French Jaguar A (1993) is a good striker, with various cluster bombs (including a runway-buster), laser-guided missiles and bombs, and some dumb weapons ... but it has no AAMs. The RAF Jaguars (1991) have all-aspect Sidewinders, but no PGMs. They get the job done at low level with cluster bombs and retarded bombs. I think both would be pretty popular as light strikers! There are three different variants of Russian MiG-27 Floggers, all with a similar flying arsenal of guided and unguided air-to-ground weapons. They don't have any way to defend themselves in the air beyond their guns, sadly. If you want Mach 2 interceptors with a secondary ground attack capability, the Taiwanese F-104G Starfighter (1984) and the Swedish JA 37 Viggen (1988) both pack *four* Sidewinders apiece. The Viggen's low maintenance requirements and short runway performance would be especially useful. Q_res posted:edit: I have a suggestion I've been hesitant to make because it might make Yooper's life harder, but what about different airframes having different operational lives? For instance, on this last mission, what if the F-18s were only good for 1 mission, but the F-4s would have been good for 2? Might make procurement votes more interesting. It might work better if it was vice versa. You get a smaller number of more advanced, more expensive, more durable planes. Or a larger number of trashy, cheapo planes that you can ration out over multiple missions. Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Oct 16, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 11:57
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See, I think the trade-off of taking more capable planes that are only useful for a single op vs less capable stuff you can reuse is a compelling choice to make. The thing is though, if Yooper actually used my idea, he could actually do it both ways during different procurement cycles. I'm imagining something simple like each plane type having a stat like "Ops = 1" with the options being 1, 2 or 3. It could be a trade-off with different planes in a package having different lifespans. Maybe our J-7s would have been single-use, but the Cheetahs would have been good for 3 ops. Wouldn't have actually worked out really well for us in this case, but it could make things interesting. Anyway, I think it's pretty clear what I have in mind, whether or not he uses it. So I'm going to drop it, because I don't want this to come across like me trying to tell Yooper how to run poo poo in his thread.
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Oct 14, 2019 19:23
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Let's just not increase the workload and assume the surviving planes lost to alcohol-fueled celebratory fires of the post-mission parties.
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Oct 14, 2019 19:37
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I can understand wanting to get more players/pilots a chance to fly, but a 1-turn lifespan does seem pretty short. We may not even need policies to increase pilot turnover- with the level of technology available to us, it seems like we're going to sustain a lot more casualties compared to last time. We got off lucky this mission, if Yooper's testing is any indication.
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Oct 14, 2019 19:38
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Grumio posted:I can understand wanting to get more players/pilots a chance to fly, but a 1-turn lifespan does seem pretty short. Yeah, I don't think hoarding F-15Es or lucking our way into the kinds of situations that make us super risk averse are going to happen when we're limited to picking over the boneyard rejects for airframes. I'd almost say scrap the one-and-done rule altogether. Let our J-7's become legendary Chinese knockoffs. Admittedly, I started participating very late in the LP, so I may not have seen the worst of this behavior.
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Oct 14, 2019 22:18
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I just want the lovely radar plane to live forever until it dies gloriously to a missile or bullet like God intended.
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Oct 14, 2019 22:21
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Night10194 posted:I just want the lovely radar plane to live forever until it dies gloriously to a missile or bullet like God intended.  Let us keep it and keep upgrading and tinkering with it until it's the Hayard Guunes equivalent of the Millennium Falcon. "That thing's a hunk of junk!" "That hunk of junk will detect a mosquito from 200 miles out."
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Oct 14, 2019 22:27
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Warmachine posted:
"How do you even operate this arcane piece of poo poo?" "You need to buy it a six pack of cheap beer before every flight, none of that hipster poo poo. Every couple of weeks it needs a blood sacrifice from the new guy in maintenance..." "C'mon man, that's just a bunch of pilot bullshit, what's the real deal?" "No, seriously, that's how it works" Radio Free Kobold fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Oct 14, 2019 |
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Oct 14, 2019 22:37
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Warmachine posted:
I do love the mental image of slapping so many parts/electronics onto the drat thing to the point where it's completely unusable by anyone who isn't a part of HG. Don't know how that would work mechanically, but it'd be great. Actually, for full Falcon-ness, it could end up being one of the best AWACS planes in the world - so long as the circuit on the right of the plane doesn't blow out when you turn the plane a little too hard...
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Oct 14, 2019 23:25
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Dr. Snark posted:I do love the mental image of slapping so many parts/electronics onto the drat thing to the point where it's completely unusable by anyone who isn't a part of HG. Don't know how that would work mechanically, but it'd be great. Which of course it would because why would we spend money on a better breaker panel? edit: as a side note, its this kind of stuff that drew me into this LP. It's like... D&D for military aviation grogs. CMANO is just the dice.
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Oct 14, 2019 23:28
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Dr. Snark posted:I do love the mental image of slapping so many parts/electronics onto the drat thing to the point where it's completely unusable by anyone who isn't a part of HG. Don't know how that would work mechanically, but it'd be great. Unfortunately (unless this changed recently) you need the special "you have to ask" license of CMANO to change the stats on anything besides I think editing hardpoints on ships. I'm not sure we could do anything besides replace it with another aircraft entirely and just pretend it's still a Shackleton in our hearts. Nonetheless this is absolutely my interpretation of that thing.
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Oct 15, 2019 00:49
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i actually asked how much the licence was and it turns out the state department has to ok you getting a copy of that version. we aren't getting an editable version.
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Oct 15, 2019 01:17
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Yooper posted:So the hostiles did have a radar, but our planes are so crappy none of them noticed it emitting. An ELINT bird of some sort might be a necessity or something that can actually detect emitters. Yooper posted:Corporate is quite pleased with the overall performance. It seems the budgetary group is a bit perturbed that the financial impact of the Cheetah D's wasn't higher, but this is going to work to our benefit for the next op. Is there any possibility to buy unarmed, non-3dpg asssets to use like this? As in stuff that isn't covered by the mercenary equipment treaties? A mix of short and long shelf life stuff in the procurement chain, I mean. tangible assets to use as centerpieces for a campaign (before goldman sells them off)
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Oct 15, 2019 01:48
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Yeah, we were getting first detections off our radar warning recievers, of all things. Didn't we have some recon mirages early in the game? With side-looking sensors or something? We should get those.
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Oct 15, 2019 02:36
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Yooper posted:So the hostiles did have a radar, but our planes are so crappy none of them noticed it emitting. An ELINT bird of some sort might be a necessity or something that can actually detect emitters. TheParadigm posted:Is there any possibility to buy unarmed, non-3dpg assets to use like this? As in stuff that isn't covered by the mercenary equipment treaties? There are a bunch of nifty little low-end ELINT birds in the DB we could get our hands on. We could make a South African C-47TP Turbo Dakota by getting an old DC-3 and sticking some ELINT gear on it. A perfect partner for our aging Shackleton. The IAI 201 Arava ELINT is a weird little plane that looks like a shrunken C-119 Flying Boxcar. It is STOL, though, which would be great when we are operating in wild and woolly parts of the world. The Venezuelan Falcon 20DC SIGINT is a converted business jet with some ELINT gear stuffed inside. There's also a Norwegian Falcon 20C with ELINT gear and some 70s-era jammers. Realistically, we should also have a couple of transports for hauling people, spare parts, and the like around, too. Radio Free Kobold posted:Yeah, we were getting first detections off our radar warning recievers, of all things. We did and they are actually 3DP legal. Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Oct 15, 2019 |
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Oct 15, 2019 02:51
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Warmachine posted:Which of course it would because why would we spend money on a better breaker panel? I pretty much do this because it's exactly plane D&D without the fiddly poo poo. It's all narrative and choices for you guys with the accounting done by a simulation. As far as keeping the planes go, we'll do a vote once I'm back in the US and can organize it properly. There is a way to strap poo poo onto other poo poo, even a way that isn't onerous. I've read about it, but have not played with it enough to see how it behaves. I'll dig into it some more and see what sort of upgrade path we could find for our beloved And do please continue to toss planes of interest into the thread. The HG Procurement Division is always looking for the next great deal.
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Oct 15, 2019 04:32
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Might a blimp be a useful recon platform if in the database? relatively cheap, stable air platform that should be able to go up -well- high over any reasonable interception point. Sure, a single random bullet has it going up like the Hindenberg, but it'd be reasonably good at being a flying observation station. Plus, we could put advertising logos on it and have neon signs.
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Oct 15, 2019 04:32
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Most common plane would be an F-16A of some variety. Not even a competition.
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Oct 15, 2019 11:28
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wedgekree posted:Might a blimp be a useful recon platform if in the database? relatively cheap, stable air platform that should be able to go up -well- high over any reasonable interception point. Sure, a single random bullet has it going up like the Hindenberg, but it'd be reasonably good at being a flying observation station. orcbuster posted:Most common plane would be an F-16A of some variety. Not even a competition.
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Oct 15, 2019 12:00
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