Diverted enroute to BARCAP
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Silly question I am sure, but last night’s TS campaign I was tasked for a BARCAP. While enroute, about 20mins into the flight, my flight of two was diverted by AWACS to engage an A50? that was 80nm to our west. It was pretty far away and would take us out of our flightpath quite a distance.
I decided to divert and engage the A50 and after it was all over we had enough gas to return home. I got a partial success for destroying some SU25’s (never did find that A50 as it was still around as we returned home and were still being tasked to engage it). I got a mission failure, as I never did make it to the BARCAP waypoints.
So, I assume that I should follow any divert messages from AWACS or should I just continue on my mission and see if AWACS will task any other nearby flight to engage? I can’t recall if there were any other closer flights than mine, maybe that’s way we were tasked to engage?
Thanks!
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Hi Captain. I guess the answer depends on your mindset, and how you roleplay your pilot.
Unless you zero-out the vulnerability time on your BARCAP, you are tied to those steerpoints until the time has elapsed. So if you want to get a good rating (which helps your campaign) you need to stick to the steerpoints and prevent aircraft from getting through.
However, you may want to obey the AWACS, and follow their instructions. Unfortunately, unless you zero the station time you cannot successfully complete the mission objective and also perform an intercept 80 miles away.
This AWACS divert is a source of never-ending consternation for me. Many times I have watched as my carefully fragged CAP are diverted to attack a target far away from their assigned station. I mean I have seen 3 or 4 CAP flights all pulled off to some distant point to attack the same An-124. That kind of leaves the door open for those crafty Red buggers.
I’ll add that there is no ‘scoring’ malus for failing to perform the intercept that I can see.
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Debriefing mission success or failure has no REAL bearing on anything. Your troops will still move on objectives and you can still win the campaign even if you “fail” every mission. It really comes down to personal preference, do you want to go find the bomber who is harrassing friendlies and potentially shutting down an airbase you may need for divert or hot fuel? Or do you want to go fly circles as a potential preventative for enemies which may or may not ever try to break the barrier?
If the success/fail has any bearing on anything, it would be your score/medals/promotions but I am not even sure if it actually effects that. There is a section in the manual which outlines the requirements for medals and promotions, it may mention in there if success/fail plays a factor.
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Unless you zero-out the vulnerability time on your BARCAP, you are tied to those steerpoints until the time has elapsed. So if you want to get a good rating (which helps your campaign) you need to stick to the steerpoints and prevent aircraft from getting through.
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What is your basis for this argument? I have never seen any impact whatsoever from this. If I am missing something please let me know.
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Hmm, I guess if I had changed the station time from 30mins to say 5mins or even 0, I may have still had a Success mission rating even though I was diverted. Hmm, next time I’ll change the loiter time and see what happens if/when I get diverted.
You’d think AWACS would dispatch a closer flight than one that is 80nm+ away!
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What is your basis for this argument? I have never seen any impact whatsoever from this. If I am missing something please let me know.
Well, just that it is the way Falcon has always been. Has that been changed for BMS? Player rating has always affected the results of AI combat.
Based on anecdotal evidence only, based on what I see, I would say this is still a factor in BMS.
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Well, just that it is the way Falcon has always been. Has that been changed for BMS? Player rating has always affected the results of AI combat.
Based on anecdotal evidence only, based on what I see, I would say this is still a factor in BMS.
I’d agree DBond, in that on a BARCAP at least, as long as you prevented enemy aircraft from entering your airspace and/or harassing your forces, you should get a Success rating, even if you didn’t make your station times, whether they be 30mins or zero.
Not sure if that would be a thing BMS team could fix or if it’s something that’s a holdover from the Falcon 4 days.
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If you open a save file with tac editor you will see a value in the teams field called pilot rating. It ranges between 0-100. The higher the value gets, the better all the friendly units will be in the 2d environment outside the player bubble. If you score well on missions the pilot training increases. I have tested the value, setting it to 100 will cause all friendly forces to kill anything they encounter anytime while not taking any losses. As far as i know however, it only affects the 2d campaighn, so dont expect your wingmen to get smarter
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@Master:
As far as i know however, it only affects the 2d campaign, so don’t expect your wingmen to get smarter
Yes, thanks, and that is my understanding as well.