CampaignData.ini variables. Need understanding.

[csb 12]

I would like to know what certain variables in this ini do.

 

The problem I have is in the yom Kippur campaign. When on any ground missions, there are no enemy a/c in the area.

 

After doing this'n'that I finally copied over the values from another campaign and got enemy ai. Hooray! (With a BUT!)

 

Thus:

Original values in red

[CampaignData]

StartDate=10/06/1973

StartDateDeviation=0

ForceWithInitiative=0

MaxMissions=30 22

NormalMissionRate=240 1

NormalMissionRateDeviation=90 0

OffensiveMissionRate=30 .50

OffensiveMissionRateDeviation=15 0

CampaignEndW...............

 

BUT with the NormalMissionRate=240 the time flies by, 2/3 of a year between missions. These missions were VERY challenging though.

 

I lowered the value but then found the enemy in the area weren't interested in me, and wingie #4 kept wanting to do ground attack, no matter how many times i ordered him to attack enemy a/c.

 

Have been juggling values for all the entries in this section of the ini but keep getting unsatisfactory results - either no enemy a/c in mission area or they just ignore me.

 

Also copied from other campaigns but not so good either (including wingie 4 wants to be a hero).

 

Can someone tell me how these values work?

 

Bunyap's campaign tutorial says that MaxMissions denotes "Number of missions until the campaign automatically ends". But this can't be correct. It contradicts the campaign length settings in the game's campaign menu and also what the manual says (stock campaigns have a lesser value).

 

He doesn't seem to be too sure about any of these values.

 

(Sorry, Bunyap. Please don't take this personally. Your tutorial is a great help.)

[jtin 0]

I would think that the mission rates are the missions that you fly vs. the missions in the campaigns. For example, with a normal mission rate of 240, for every 240 missions, you play one of them. That's why it flew by so quickly. Same with the offensive rates, except for offensive missions. I think the deviation just gives the engine some leeway on if it can't find a "interesting" mission in the allowed time, it can see if there's some in the extra missions. Just a thought. No clue about the rest.

[FormerlyKnownAsSaywhat?! 0]

I'm pretty positive that those values represent the number of days that pass between sorties.I've played around with these values before and found myself doing a sortie roughly every second day (the entire campaign would have lasted about 200+ sorties!!)

 

But what I can't remeber is if the ~missionratedevitaion lines randomise the types of sortie (even though there's a section where you can specific the chance of different types of mission) or whether NormalMissionRateDeviation has something to do with operating in an offensive or whether that's covered in the OffensiveMissionRate line. By the entry you have there, that would suggest an offensive every month when seems about what it was for the default campaigns for SFG.

[sparky 0]

I've found the mission rates to be the days between sorties.

As regards the max missions figure, if memory serves me correctly, it is the maximum number of missions before the campaign automatically finishes based on 'normal' campaign length setting. Altering the campaign setting to long or short will alter this figure, while achieving mission objectives consistently (and thus capturing your goal(s) in enemy territory will shorten the campaign).

As far as activity during ground attacks are concerned, I would recommend examining Charles' euro1962 campaign as I've had several hunter CAS sorties getting tangled up with su-7 CAS's and escorting migs. I suspect it's a combination of overall supply values being large (enabling continuous ground war until your ground units run out!) and setting of AI squadron mission types.

[csb 12]

Thankyou fellas for your help. Still hoping for some more concrete answers though.

 

Jtin, I think you may be right with the MissionRate because when it is set to 1 (or not much higher), you can get more than 1 mission in a day (ie you fly a mission, then next mission may still be same date).

 

But I wonder why is it called NormalMissionRate? I wouldn't think this is as opposed to OffensiveMissionRate though.

 

Sparky,with regard to MaxMissions,you may be correct, it certainly does more than just setting max missions in campaign. But I did change this value, twice (while leaving other values alone), and it did something which seemed to indicate otherwise (but now can't remember what happened - will have to investigate again)

 

Yesw, I suspect some of these variables are inter-related.

 

The Yom Kippur is the only campaign that doesn't have enemy ai show up in the area for ground missions. I used campaign on unmodded install also with some problem.

 

Calling all campaign authors. How do you get your campaigns to work correctly.

 

This is my biggest bugbear to date with this sim and only cause it's my favourite campaign.