Realistic ATO
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According to Wiki…
“The ATO is a large document written in United States Message Text Format (USMTF) that lists air sorties for a fixed 24-hour period, with individual call signs, aircraft types, and mission types (i.e. close air support or air refueling).”
So that means we’re doing it wrong in the sim. Generating missions in real time (generally around one to three hours before takeoff) isn’t realistic. Also, according to my research, a realistic sortie rate for the F-16 is 1.2 per day per aircraft. Most other (US) aircraft hover in the area of area of 0.7 to 1.5 sorties per day. Look at table IV.1 in the following document for a list of sortie rates for various aircraft in ODS.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/gao/nsiad97134/app_04.htm
By playing around with the “mission.dat” and “falcon4.AII” files (or any other applicable files), would it be possible to generate missions at a set time (midnight-ish) for the whole day? If not, could one at least push the generation many hours in advance? What about the sortie rate? I tried increasing the turnaround time from 60 minutes to 12 hours, but that just resulted in the ATO fragging a bunch of missions for the first few hours, and then sitting idly for the next 12 hours. Not very useful, of course.
Anyway, I’ll keep looking through the files for a way to do it, and any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
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Hi Catty, while i appreciate that you would like the ATO to be as realistic as possible, I disagree and like it the way it is. This way, we are able to get some air time and we can actually contribute in the progress of the campaign…
Unless you are an advocate of flying 0.7 missions a day… Then I invite you to fly the mission and set the timer to x1 and wait in real time for next day’s mission… Now that’s realism! Why not add some real life ROE’s in the Balkan Theater where your hard deck is 10000’ and you are only allowed to monitor ground movement, unable to engage…Yes, this is a Sim, but it needs to be practical too…
Anyway, this is my humble opinion…Sent from my LG-D722 using Tapatalk
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Hi Catty, while i appreciate that you would like the ATO to be as realistic as possible, I disagree and like it the way it is. This way, we are able to get some air time and we can actually contribute in the progress of the campaign…
Unless you are an advocate of flying 0.7 missions a day… Then I invite you to fly the mission and set the timer to x1 and wait in real time for next day’s mission… Now that’s realism! Why not add some real life ROE’s in the Balkan Theater where your hard deck is 10000’ and you are only allowed to monitor ground movement, unable to engage…Yes, this is a Sim, but it needs to be practical too…
Anyway, this is my humble opinion…Sent from my LG-D722 using Tapatalk
I’m by no means advocating the idea that this should be implemented into the vanilla install. I’m just curious how I could go about setting it up that way for myself. And honestly, I could totally get behind complex ROEs, but that’s a conversation for another day.
Thanks to time acceleration, a realistic sortie rate wouldn’t impact my ability to play missions at a reasonable (real time) rate.
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I remind u that this is a SIM, and we all want it to be as realistic as it can be.
But some aspects should be kept game related for the fun and excitment . . . and if it means more air traffic from both sides, let it be, i don’t want to fly a three hour mission with nothing to engage and no help from blue aircraft’s around me. -
I understand that it may not be everyone’s (or even most people’s) preferred way to play the sim. That said, I’m still curious if anyone knows whether or not it’s feasible, and how I could go about doing it.
Thanks!
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If you are going to stretch out your own mission rate you can add “set g_nNoPlayerPlay X” and set the number of hours you want between your flights. Your mission performance has a multiplier effect through the whole campaign, and if you don’t fly the default of a mission every 2 hours, it will effect the campaign.
I would also throw out there for Korea, your operational tempo will probably be higher than 1.2 missions/day/aircraft due to the shorter distances involved and trying to stop the tide of larger forces the North has comparatively.
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well, for realism in this area, of the ATO, you first need to generate an OPLAN, before you start the campaign. To generate the OPLAN first you need to have objectives for the war effort, and some ideas on how to achieve those objectives. Then, iteratively evaluate possible solutions to this problem set. When you have a good one, write it up as an OPLAN, say BMS OPLAN 5040, and generate a few in that sequence - OPLAN 5041, 5042, and so on.
Start the campaign, pause it, assess your units available compared to the units used in your various OPLANs, and the situation compared to the plans. Pick one and amend it as needed, producing a document OPORD 5041 (or whatever number). This document should outline the missions required of your various units.
Once you have this finalised, start thinking about each unit and its mission. Generate missions for a given 24 hour period at a time for each unit, consistent with the OPORD and each units assigned mission. This might mean selecting targets from a master list of priorities outlined in the planning documents, choosing a desired munitions effect, assessing the potential means of generating that effect, selecting a unit that can generate that effect for minimum effort and maximum effect with as minimal a risk as feasible IAW the acceptable risk level, and planning the mission using the Falcon UI to include as many packages as required.
Repeat for each unit, every 24 hours of in game time. Consider amending missions after making them, if intelligence gained later makes missions risky or ineffective. For maximum realism, form a committee to discuss these amendments before making changes, especially if considering aborting a mission that would otherwise be too dangerous. Take notes on absolutely everything, keep copies in triplicate. Remember - you may only take off, when the weight of the plane is equal to the weight of the paperwork.
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While it would be cool and all for the sim to do that… it might be asking a bit much of it…
Realistically, all I’m looking for is for the ATO to generate far fewer sorties each day. Ideally the campaign could frag these all at once, but just creating them many hours in advance would be fine, too.
A nice side effect would be that the war would probably last a lot longer.
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I do basically agree with you. I tried, and does’nt work simple because tasking a strike can be done 24h before. This is not true for an XCAS. You will have very few mission generated. The less you have a/c in flight, the less you will have enemi units location updates and less and less flight generated. And if a CAS or a BAI are scheduled 24h in advance, the location of the unit will not be updated and flight will not find the target.
Be reassured Catty, you are not the 1st one who thought about it. Unfortunately Faclon4 is not designed to work like this.
You can try on your side and report for results.
Good luck.
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While it would be cool and all for the sim to do that… it might be asking a bit much of it…
Realistically, all I’m looking for is for the ATO to generate far fewer sorties each day. Ideally the campaign could frag these all at once, but just creating them many hours in advance would be fine, too.
A nice side effect would be that the war would probably last a lot longer.
Im not asking the sim to do it. Im saying you can get the realism you want by doing this stuff outside the sim, and spending some time and effort yourself fragging missions more ‘realistically’.
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Im not asking the sim to do it. Im saying you can get the realism you want by doing this stuff outside the sim, and spending some time and effort yourself fragging missions more ‘realistically’.
I’m a pilot, not a war planner!
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I’m a pilot, not a war planner!
As a pilot you can (and will, sooner or later) be assigned to the CAOC anytime for a 2 month (or more) duty period to create and publish the ATO. Yep … A pilot do not only manage the stick.
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As a pilot you can (and will, sooner or later) be assigned to the CAOC anytime for a 2 month (or more) duty period to create and publish the ATO. Yep … A pilot do not only manage the stick.
I know, I know. It was a joke.
In all seriousness, though, I simply can’t justify putting in days of work into planning BMS missions (no surprise there). I am going to continue to try and “fake” a more realistic ATO, though, through scheduling missions farther in advance.
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I am going to continue to try and “fake” a more realistic ATO, though, through scheduling missions farther in advance.
ATO itself won’t be more realistic at all.
It is just that missions will be scheduled and frozen earlier (loosing accuracy on enemy units location and possible that CAS flights will never be able to find their target.)And this is even not realistic either because ATO is published for all the missions of the D+1 at a given time, usually at 1600z, … not xx hours before takeoff.
Example:
_FLIGHT SCHEDULING
1.1 ATO (Air Task Order)
1.1.1 Daily / Effective time
Daily ATO runs from 0600z (D) through 0559z (D+1), and all times referenced for planning and execution will be Zulu time. (GPS time is reference time).
ATO are named according to the day (xx) of flight : ATO_xxExample: ATO 09 is planned on the 8th (D-1) and executed the 9th (D) of the month.
1.1.2 ATO production / execution
ATO will be planned by the MAOP CHIEF on duty and executed as tasked.
ATO production is expected to occur between 1500z to 1600z.1.1.3 ATO dissemination
EXCON officer is in charge of MAOP flow and ATO dissemination. The MAOP flow will be published at 1200z and the ATO will be published at 1600z …_
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a438397.pdf
http://www.dodccrp.org/events/6th_ICCRTS/Tracks/Papers/Track7/062_tr7.pdf
This is something you definitively can’t do in the sim.
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Well, I suppose that we can’t do much with the ATO, then. What about sortie rates? Could I get squadrons flying a realistic number of missions each day? Without the ATO fragging all the jets in the first few hours and then not having anything available for half the day?
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… BTW … what is an ATO looking like IRL …
It is a several dozen pages documents of text featuring all the mission of the considered day:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/army/fm/6-20-10/appc.htm
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/usaf/docs/aoc12af/part03e.htm
If you want to have a “more realistic” ATO, you will have to put the hand in the UI to make it displayed as above.
Some ppl are doing it in Falcon4 for MP sessions: http://www.vitaf.it/AMVI_Sito/Activity/Campagne/Falcon/CombatDawn/ATO_ACO_QUICKGUIDE.pdf
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Could I get squadrons flying a realistic number of missions each day?
set g_npercentage_available_aircraft 75 // Determines what proportion of your squadron’s roster will be available (in %)
set g_nminimum_available_aircraft 4 // Setting allows you to limit the effect of a low ‘percentage’ setting (lower-limit of available aircraft)… this also have some drawbacks.
Without the ATO fragging all the jets in the first few hours and then not having anything available for half the day?
Nothing you can really do here.
Only valid option: You take the control of few squadrons to keep them in reserve, and use them to manual tasking. Otherwise, ATO will use all available assets (depending on mission requests, PAK and available slots)
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In the “falcon4.AII” file there is a line that reads “AirPlanTime = 5”. From the little I’ve found online, this is supposed to affect the sortie rate in some way. Do you know how it works?
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I’m a pilot, not a war planner!
I know, and with all due respect, that is what I am getting at.
According to Wiki…
“The ATO is a large document written in United States Message Text Format (USMTF) that lists air sorties for a fixed 24-hour period, with individual call signs, aircraft types, and mission types (i.e. close air support or air refueling).”
So that means we’re doing it wrong in the sim. Generating missions in real time (generally around one to three hours before takeoff) isn’t realistic.
Thanks!This is what Im addressing. You are right; we are doing it wrong in the sim. We dont have to do it wrong, but we choose to. Generally because its easier, and because we dont want to put the effort in to do the harder, more realistic option.
You have options to fix your issue; they are just not solutions that are fun.
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Just a note regarding sortie rates here, if you look in the order of battle of any campaighn you will notice that the number of squadrons is considerably lower than in real life. Sure, you get some squadrons that exist (14th my fav ) but overall there are far fewer airplanes than in real life. Now to counterbalance that you get LOTS of sorties per day per squadron. The other night i looked at my squadrons flown missions in the end of a 24hr period, we flew about 90+ missions. That’s 360 sorties if they where all fourships or 180 if they where all twoships!!! On top of that, the squadrons get replacements every 6 hours(attacker) or 12 hours (defender). The end result is meant to give you a somewhat more realistic air activity. If you go and modify (decrease) somehow the sortie rate then you also need to increase the number of squadrons heavily. Also keep in mind that squadrons in BMS have a 100% availability. If an airplane exists and is not flying its available for a mission. Historically though about 30% of a squadron wont be available (maintenance etc). Regarding sortie rates this is an excellent article: http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=3262