Mission planning - dcs-liberation/dcs_liberation GitHub Wiki

Note: The Tips for AI Handling page contains advice on which AI aircraft are best for each task. The auto-planner follows priorities for the best aircraft for the job when it can, but that guide may be useful to players planning their own AI missions.

Each air mission is defined by a "package". A package is a group of one or more flights all working toward the same goal. The flights of the package can perform different tasks, at different times, and depart from different airports. For example, a strike mission attacking a factory will include a strike flight whose task is to attack the factory, but it can also include a SEAD flight to suppress any SAMs the package encounters, and an escort flight to protect the package from enemy aircraft.

All of the planned ("fragged") packages of a coalition for the turn comprise the coalition's Air Tasking Order (ATO).

Mission timing

Each package has an assigned time-over-target (TOT). The even corresponding to the TOT varies based on the flight. For strike and DEAD flights it represents the desired time for the weapon to hit the target (the AI cannot be given such precise attack commands, however), whereas for CAP it defines the start time of their patrol.

Other mission waypoints, takeoff times, and mission start times will be planned based on the mission's TOT. Travel times to the target will be estimated, as will startup times and taxi times.

Flights will have their takeoff delayed long enough that all flights can arrive at their target at the assigned time. Behavior for delayed flights varies based on the number of players in the flight, the origin point, and the player's settings:

AI flights from the shore will be spawned uncontrolled (the plane will be parked, but no pilot will be in it) until their mission start time. This is to provide targets for airfield strikes and for ambience.
AI flights from the boat will be activated late (the plane will not be spawned) until their mission start time. This is to decrease congestion on the flight deck.
Cold start player flights from the shore will be spawned uncontrolled. The player will not be able to enter the cockpit until the mission start time. This is to prevent AI wingmen from starting their engines prematurely and wasting too much fuel before a long delayed flight.
All other shore player flight start types will spawn immediately. Use delayed runway and air starts with caution, as there is no way to prevent the player from being spawned into the path of another flight.
Player flights from the boat will spawn immediately (https://github.com/dcs-liberation/dcs_liberation/issues/375).

To prevent player flights from being delayed, use the "Never delay player flights" option in the campaign settings. This does not alter your mission time. It only lets you sit in a cockpit while you wait.

When planning a mission, if you do not care specifically when the package reaches the target but instead want to plan the mission to begin as soon as possible, use the "ASAP" button next to the TOT in the package UI.

Rendezvous planning

Some task types will rendezvous with the rest of the package before proceeding to the mission area. This is typically the case for strike/DEAD flights and their escorts. For these task types, additional waypoints will be added to the flight plan:

A hold point will be added after the ascent point. Climb to altitude and orbit until the assigned departure time. Flights are planned with an assumed five minutes of hold time to allow for last minute preparations and to accommodate unexpected delays before takeoff.

A join point is added after the hold point. At this point the flights will rendezvous with the rest of the package and head toward their target. The TOT of this waypoint is set the same for each flight.

A split point is added after the egress point. This is where flights will split off from each other to head to RTB.

Task types

Below is a list of all the currently available task types for flights. More will be added in future updates. Subscribe to Issue 277 for updates.

Air Assault

An Air Assault mission is a special helo mission which can be planned against enemy control points to insert troops and capture the point. The flights will fly to the pickup point to load troops and continue to the drop off location where they will insert the units. The units will then head to the center of the Zone created by the Assault Waypoint. It is important that the drop off waypoint is within the boundary of this assault waypoint zone. Otherwise the troops will not head to the target zone. When this mission is tasked from a carrier then there will be no pick up needed as the troops can be loaded directly from the deck of the carrier.

This mission type is only available when the CTLD plugin is enabled as it is required for the troop loading and extracting.

Airlift (Transport)

An Airlift is a transport mission for a unit transfer and can be created from the Unit transfer dialog. It will also be automatically created for transfers if there is no other transport route (convoy, ship) available. To enforce an airlift the user has to choose Airlift as the requested transport type within the unit transfer dialog.

When the CTLD plugin is enabled liberation will automatically create the necessary pickup and drop off zones as well as a special logisitc unit which allows to spawn crates which can then be sling loaded. It is important to check the actual position of the Pickup and Drop off Waypoint as the CTLD zones will be placed at these locations. These zones will only be generated for player flights. The AI will not use the CTLD specific logic.

Anti-ship

An anti-ship mission can be planned against enemy ships. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and proceed to its ingress point, where it will fire its weapons at the enemy naval group. AI flights targeting a group of ships may split their weapons across multiple ships. After firing, the flight will RTB.

Many ships have significant point defenses. Large numbers of anti-ship weapons are usually needed to overwhelm the defenses.

BAI

A Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) mission can be planned at enemy objective areas with ground vehicles. Its purpose is similar to CAS, but instead of supporting friendly troops it eliminates enemy forces before they can reach the front line. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and proceed to its ingress point, where it will begin to search for its assigned targets.

Convoy Interdiction: Convoy interdiction is a subset of BAI. An interdiction tasking can be created by selecting the CP that a convoy originates from, looking at the Departing Convoys tab, and clicking on the Attack button. From there, create a flight package as you would normally.

BARCAP

A BARCAP mission can be planned at any friendly objective area. Its purpose is to prevent enemy aircraft from entering the area. The flight will arrive at the target area at the package's TOT and begin a race-track pattern patrol and remain for a predefined amount of time (currently 30 minutes). The race-track will be oriented toward the nearest enemy airbase.

NOTE: You might see some BARCAP flights that look like their waypoints are too far away from their objective but they will still be covered within their engagement zone. You can verify that they are still in range by selecting the "Display Selected BARCAP Commit Range" in the Display dropdown menu.

CAS

A CAS mission can be planned at a front line by right clicking on it on the map. Its purpose is to provide support to ground forces. The flight will arrive at the target area at the package's TOT and begin searching for targets within a predefined range of the center of the front line. The flight will search for targets until it is either bingo or winchester.

DEAD

A DEAD mission can be planned against enemy air defenses. Its purpose is to destroy enemy air defenses. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and aim to have weapons on the target at the package's TOT. After releasing its weapons, the flight will RTB.

DEAD missions are typically planned in coordination with a SEAD flight when then the target is a radar SAM. The SEAD flight will suppress the target with decoys or ARMs while the DEAD flight ensures the kill with bombs and ATGMs.

Escort

An escort mission protects any other flights that are requesting an escort. Most mission types (CAP types are the exception) will request escorts for their mission. An escort will fly a flight plan similar to the rest of the package and RTB.

Note that the escort flight will not remain in the target area even if the rest of the package does not complete its mission quickly. To assign long-term air-to-air defense, use a CAP flight.

Fighter sweep

A fighter sweep mission can be planned against an enemy objective. Its purpose is to clear the target area of enemy fighters five minutes before the rest of the package arrives. The flight will move to a point near the package's join point and then proceed to engage enemy fighters on its way to the target area. The flight will RTB when it is bingo, winchester, or reaches the target area without encountering any fighters.

OCA/Aircraft

An OCA/Aircraft mission can be planned against an enemy airfield. Its purpose is to destroy aircraft on the ground. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and proceed to its ingress point, where it will begin to search for and attack grounded aircraft at the target airfield.

OCA/Runway

An OCA/Runway mission can be planned against an enemy airfield. Its purpose is to damage the runway to prevent the enemy from using the airbase to launch future missions. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and proceed to its ingress point before lining up with and bombing the runway. If the runway is sufficiently damaged in a single turn it will be destroyed.

The amount of damage required to destroy a runway is defined by DCS. Currently it takes a total of 6000 lbs of general-purpose high-explosive to destroy a runway: e.g., 12x 500lb MK-82/MK-82Y, 6x 1000lb MK-83, or 3x 2000lb MK-84 (or their LGB equivalents). On the other hand, with "bunker-busting" or penetrator warheads only 2000 lbs is required: e.g., a single GBU31v3 (or GBU31v4) is sufficient to kill a runway. (The GBU-24 in DCS is graphically shown with a BLU-109 warhead, but is modeled in the game as having a BLU-117 non-penetrating GP warhead, so until this is fixed it still takes 3 of these to kill a runway rather than 1). A successfully destroyed runway will show up in the DCS debrief as a "dead" event with initiator "0".

An airfield with a destroyed runway will not be usable for missions and aircraft cannot be purchased or sold until the runway is repaired. If an airfield has multiple runways, it is only necessary to destroy one of them. Repairing the runway takes four turns and costs $100M. The AI will attempt to repair the runway whenever they can afford to do so. If the runway is damaged again before repair is complete the repair progress will stop and need to be purchased again.

SEAD

A SEAD mission suppresses the package target. This can be accomplished with decoys or ARMs.

In contrast to DEAD, its goal is not to score a kill. SEAD flights employing HARMs might kill a radar, but that isn't required for mission success. The objective for the SEAD flight is to keep the target's radar off (or occupied, as is the case with decoys) so the DEAD flight can score the kill.

The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and fire its weapons (or decoys) at the package target once it reaches its IP. After releasing its weapons the flight will RTB.

SEAD flights will be planned to accompany DEAD packages. When the SEAD flight uses HARMs it is quite likely that they will destroy the emitters (when not using Skynet), but they will never kill launchers/TELs without their own radar. DEAD will often carry bombs rather than ARMs or decoys so they can destroy the non-emitting parts of the SAM as well.

Note: SEAD flights have a ToT 1 minute ahead of the rest of the package.

A player performing this mission is expected to fire HARMs in PB mode so that the weapon's TOT roughly aligns with the package's TOT, even if the emitter is off. It is best to fire HARMs one by one, staggered by a minute or so to keep the site suppressed for as long as possible, always trying to keep one HARM in flight near the target. When using decoys rather than ARMs the principle is the same, but you'll just have to guess at the decoy's TOT.

SEAD Escort

A SEAD escort mission protects any other flights that are requesting an escort from SAM threats. Flight plans that pass within the range of enemy SAMs will request a SEAD escort. A SEAD escort will fly a flight plan similar to the rest of the package while engaging detected SAMs near the flight path and will then RTB.

This differs from SEAD by engaging any SAM threatening the package between the join and split points rather than only the package's target.

A player performing this mission is expected to fly the route while searching for SAM threats (using TOO mode for the Hornet, HTS for the Viper, etc) and engage any emitter that begins to threaten the package.

Strike

A strike mission can be planned against enemy ground targets. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and release its weapons on the predefined location. Some bombers will carpet bomb an area in a single pass, but most will aim at multiple targets. After releasing its weapons, the flight will RTB.

Note that strike packages are assigned coordinates to attack, not units. If the target moves the flight will not hit its target.

TARCAP

A TARCAP can be assigned to any enemy objective area. TARCAP flights behave similarly to BARCAP except that it will only remain at the target area for as long as the members of the package that are requesting an escort plan to be there. If there are no other package members, the flight will patrol for a predefined amount of time (currently 30 minutes). TARCAP will arrive on station 2 minutes ahead of the join time of the rest of the package to ensure coverage has been established by the time the package arrives. This means that TARCAPs are not a good choice for targets that are near enemy SAMs.