campaign night missions

[slick cowboy 142]

I've been messing around with mission rates trying to get more night missions.

I put the normal mission rate at 0.3 over a 3-month campaign and the offensive mission rate at 0.18.

I tried with several deviations to get various mission times, but I somehow end up with early morning missions around 6 am and then one more the day around 14 or 15 pm.

Somehow I don't manage to influence mission rate to get missions at night.

 

Is there something in the terrain files that might cause this. I check everything, but can't find anything...

Has anyone experimented before with the mission rates?

 

 

[+JonathanRL 973]

Naval Maps do not support Night Missions for some reason. Just a heads up.

[slick cowboy 142]

yeah i never seem to get a mission earlier than around 6 am, no matter what I do with the mission rates.

it's a shame though...

[KJakker 875]

TK may have rigged the Naval Maps that way on purpose so he did not have to provide lighting for the carrier decks.

[+Viggen 516]

TK may have rigged the Naval Maps that way on purpose so he did not have to provide lighting for the carrier decks.

 

That sounds about right. But at the same time I can't recall having a night mission in GermanyCE for a long time.

[+malibu43 142]

I think the game engine doesn't trigger them as much as it used to.  I don't ever get them in campaigns anymore.

[CowboyTodd41 133]

A lot of times when I start a new NF5 campaign I'll pull a strike mission at 0200 the first day of the war but that's about it.

[+Swordsman422 61]

I usually can't get a rate better than 1 a day no matter what I modify, but I tend to get missions 22-26 hours apart starting with the zero hour campaign start time. I have had some success in the Rolling Thunder campaign having it start at 2200 when I am flying A-6s.

 

What I really wish TK had done was have data in each unit block that indicated what time of day the squadron could fly missions and then concentration levels for those missions like we have with mission types. As follows

 

MissionTimeChance_Dawn= 

MissionTimeChance_Morning=

MissionTimeChance_Noon=

MissionTimeChance_Afternoon=

MissionTimeChance_Dusk=

MissionTimeChance_Night=

 

That way, we could tell the game what time of day we wanted each unit to be active and for the player, the likelihood that they would be flying a particular mission type. Unfortunately due to game engine limits that "cost too much" to fix, this is not possible. In order for missions to be a success, the unit has to meet a particular goal. For bombers and escorting fighters, this is no big deal. The target gets destroyed or the escorted aircraft reach their destination. Where it gets hinky is CAP and INTERCEPT missions. In order to be successful at these, a percentage of active enemy aircraft must be destroyed. This is not possible when you are flying a night CAP and the enemy is only using DAY_ONLY fighters that are not active. The game is coded to ALWAYS give you an enemy to kill, so you will never in a campaign have a mission where you do not encounter the enemy in some form or fashion. Personally, I wouldn't mind, say, flying an event that had me doing nothing but drill holes in the sky over the Boat for a 1:45 with nothing encountered, as this is plenty realistic. Alas, the game has no metric for this. Go ahead and create a mission where you just fly. You get a Success even before you take off.

 

If you don't want to end a long campaign with a kill count rivaling Erich Hartmann, you can always modify the needed kills to complete a mission in the MissionText.ini (I think) and have your wingmen do more of the shooting, but even that is not perfect.

[PFunk 198]

Naval maps don't support night missions?  What kind of a decision was that?

[CowboyTodd41 133]

Naval maps don't support night missions?  What kind of a decision was that?

 

Kept him from having to figure out how to light the aircraft carriers

[PFunk 198]

Kept him from having to figure out how to light the aircraft carriers

Oh, good grief.