Warfront Server

Hi Guys,
Is it possible to obtain the password for the 401 server to fly solo in the mission showing in the Cliff's server column?

I'd like very much to enjoy a designed mission during off-hours which for me is usually morning hours Pacific Time.

Possible?

Thanks,
Cats . . .

EDIT: found it. Sounds like an excellent challenge

Hi Catseye,

Please note that the Warfront server has been designed from the ground up as a PvP system, so you won't find any AI 109/110 response to your sorties in France. You will find ground resistance at all enemy held towns that are currently within the scope of the mission. This includes all territory in France from the Western edge of the map to a line running from Dieppe to Les Andelys. We hope to be adding the territory up to the Somme river soon.

The Allied side currently has a limited Bomber Command function that allows players to launch large scale attacks against Bayeux and Courseulles Sur Mer from England. This feature is currently in test and more bomber missions will be added over time. If the cities targeted by bomber command are held by Allied forces, I would advise against sending them.

S!

Wolverine

Wolverine wrote:Hi Catseye,

Please note that the Warfront server has been designed from the ground up as a PvP system, so you won't find any AI 109/110 response to your sorties in France. You will find ground resistance at all enemy held towns that are currently within the scope of the mission. This includes all territory in France from the Western edge of the map to a line running from Dieppe to Les Andelys. We hope to be adding the territory up to the Somme river soon.

The Allied side currently has a limited Bomber Command function that allows players to launch large scale attacks against Bayeux and Courseulles Sur Mer from England. This feature is currently in test and more bomber missions will be added over time. If the cities targeted by bomber command are held by Allied forces, I would advise against sending them.

S!

Wolverine

Hi Wolverine,
Just took a tour of the Northern Area of the Map and the above info explains why the lack of flak. Next one I'll fly down towards the Bayeux area in a Blennie and see what comes up to meet me.

I have to say it is nice to fly on a server with some planning involved in the mission and without all the ear-bleeding chit-chat.

Cheers,
Cats . . .

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding planning.

A successful attack on an enemy position on the server requires either persistence or planning and execution.

A single player with persistence can turn over a few positions on their own, but without support those locations (depending on their surroundings) are likely to simply be lost again when the enemy forces bombard it from distance.

Proper planning and execution of the attack on a location requires:

a) area awareness - if you are attacking a location that is next to other enemy held locations you need to identify the effective range of their artillery and simultaneously engage and destroy the artillery to prevent counter attack

b) coordination - small numbers of aircraft attacking an enemy position are very likely to be damaged or destroyed by ground fire so a successful and safe execution of an attack requires that a coordinated effort be done by multiple aircraft

c) proper use of aircraft - the safest way to engage an enemy position is high above with a level bombing run. Unfortunately, the Blenheim is the only aircraft we have to use meaning that you have to get a sizable force together, have someone scout the exact positions of the enemy, and then precision bomb. The Germans have it a little easier with their 111s. Hopefully the Wellington for player use arrives soon.

d) air superiority - all of the above is harder if you have enemy opposition. It's critical to obtain air superiority over the area of operation such that your bombers and ground attack fighters can operate effectively.

Everything above sounds great, but unfortunately there has been virtually 0 buy in. The Russian players have shown a good deal of interest, but without anyone to play against in their timezone (they fly blue mostly) I can't blame them for playing elsewhere.

I can only imagine what it would be like with a steady group of players on both sides.

Currently the Bomber Command missions are using a very large number of AI bombers simply due to the fact that very few people play on the server so we can afford to load up the AI attackers. I plan to reduce these levels in future updates (though it is fun to watch 40 Wellingtons carpet bomb Bayeux).

Wolverine wrote:

Everything above sounds great, but unfortunately there has been virtually 0 buy in. The Russian players have shown a good deal of interest, but without anyone to play against in their timezone (they fly blue mostly) I can't blame them for playing elsewhere.

I can only imagine what it would be like with a steady group of players on both sides.

Hi Wolverine:
This is very depressing. Here is a server with a complex dynamic map. It just seems primed to take over from the SOW group participants who used to arrive in droves on Sunday's to do battle.

I know that there are quite a few ATAG member bomber pilots on ATAG (DRock unofficial leader), and quite a few ATAG member pilots that get together to have a bomber "day". This group seems to tend to like to participate in more than just dogfights.

As far as Osprey's group - perhaps they are more inclined to self-preservation of their weekend fly-ins but one would think that some of their squads might want to participate. (Their own campaigns also suffer from a lack of outside interest - but that's another story.)

My thoughts lean towards invites to a planned/coordinated event on a particular day and see what kinds of confirmations show up? I know you have gone through this before on 401 server and also with SOW. Perhaps an introduction to a new type of dynamic campaign that could tally squadron scores over a 4-6 week period or so? Try to get each squad to outdo the other?  

I guess the rewards for participating could be a bit different between red and blue as their motivation would be different?

I know, it's like beating ones head against a wall.

In general terms, although officially I can't speak for all of ATAG without a group agreement on specific issues, I can though tell you that this type of scenario is always interesting for us and that ATAG squadron pilots hold 401 in the highest regard.

Cats . . .

SoW and ACG's servers are both excellent and innovate well in what they're attempting to do. We're very lucky here to have benefited from improvements and support that those two groups have given us over the years (yes, years!).

We remain with the overwhelming issue however of too many restaurants and not enough customers. Those of us looking for a specific experience and who have the means and ability to create one are stuck struggling to find like minds in the face of apathy and path of least resistance. If all the servers were full and humming you'd see more people trying out other servers and learning what it is that they like best. But the honest answer is that people are going to play on the server that has people on it.

We've had ATAG players join us during our Saturday night campaigning in the past, but they've not been back for a while now. Perhaps because they consider the server in its current state to still be in testing and, to a certain extent, they're right. The server is always being improved and new ways of doing things tried. The previous campaign was a little more clearly defined.

I'm honestly tired of attempting to promote our server. I'm bad at it for one. I'm not a very big personality. I don't have the chutzpah or the charisma for it. Osprey and Reddog certainly have the chutzpah. Phil is certainly charismatic. Me? I'm just forgettable. This is probably why we're still so small a group.

But I'm very happy with the people who are here. StiC, Alpine, Hawk, DNR, Badfinger, and all the |450| guys (Squiz, Devil, Target, Kooka, Caveman, et al). They've shown incredible and frankly ridiculous loyalty to the group. Honestly, I feel like I've let them down most days and that they should probably join a different group and get more out of the game, have more wing mates to fly with, etc. But they stick around and that, more than anything else, keeps me doing this when by most other metrics I should have stopped a long time ago. I have to especially call out StiC, Alpine, DNR, and Hawk as they've pretty much been around from the very beginning through everything. I don't care how many online kills you have, what your kill death ratio is, or how many 50 mission challenges you complete - those guys are the best and I'll take anyone and everyone down to the floor who tells me any different.

So what does that all mean? Well, it just means that I'm really pretty much finished with trying to create a mission or a server that caters to the general audience and brings in large numbers of players. Let SoW and ACG gnaw on that one. My goal is to make a server and deliver content that my friends like and enjoy.

EDIT: Re-reading this, it kind of sounds like a sob story; woe is me and all that. I don't need anyone to come to my defense or lavish praise. I'm a big boy. I'm just trying to explain why I think things are the way they are for us. I should say also that if any of 401's members came to me tomorrow and said 'I'd like to join a different group', I'd be perfectly supportive of them doing so. Every one of them has put in their tour of duty here and then some.

Wolverine wrote:Honestly, I feel like I've let them down most days...

Not at all. On the contrary, I feel like I have let you down. You spend what must be hours of designing, coding and testing. Not to mention the many more hours of frustration that goes along with hosting it all, and all I ever offer is a curt thank you on Saturday and a lousy ten bucks every month. The missions and campaigns you create are second to none and it's about time I showed some real appreciation for your efforts, starting tonight.

Wolverine wrote:...and that they should probably join a different group...

Not a chance in Hell!

No let downs here,I enjoy every minute.

These guys need a promotion from the ranks.

ATAG_Catseye wrote:These guys need a promotion from the ranks.  :)

+1

I'm still waiting for the announcement that warfront has transitioned to official campaign status. I don't mind shilling for blue players, but I don't want to burn out the market on constant pre-nights when the actual consequenced event is still to come.

ATAG_Catseye wrote:and that ATAG squadron pilots hold 401 in the highest regard.

+1 Cats...always a pleasure flying up against No.401/|450| squadrons.

Sometimes, it`s not the Sim or the game or the numbers but the caliber of the individuals your gaming with that will make the evening. What you have here Wolverine is pure gold...no need for me to tell you, you know that already.  :)

Let down? On the contrary, each week we see the campaign growing and improving. Consider the following.

On the positive side the absence of blue forces these last few weeks have enabled the 401/450 guys to hone their ground attack skills and Wellington co-operation techniques without fear of being bounced. Some of us are getting pretty good, some of us have a way to go.

I am not sure if Wolverine planned it but the Warfront campaign has given birth to a new kind of sortie, the reconnaissance
flight.

Under Squiz's leadership he and I have put together a quite effective Spitfire photo reconnaissance unit, which we operate during the week, and have been able to produce quite a few black and white recon photos marked up to show the location of targets. In carrying out these recon flights we stick to a fairly stringent set of rules, i.e. if we sustain damage and can't make it back to friendly territory and land/crash land safely then the aerial photos are deemed lost and we cannot use the Fraps screen shots from that sortie to mark up to identify the location of targets. We have to re-fly the sortie.

The plan is to make the recon photos available to the 401/450 guys for the Saturday night missions so that attacks can be planned, tasks allocated and flack traps avoided (just like in RL).

Reconnaissance flying requires a different set of skills to the more usual fighter or bomber mission and will no doubt get quite exciting when the blue forces re-appear and try to intercept us. Maybe some-one who is adept at skinning could produce a duck egg blue/pink photo recon Spitfire just to make it a little more challenging for Glorious and his squad mates.

The Warfront campaign is growing and having new wrinkles added all the time and I firmly believe that in due course the word will spread and we will see more players, if I am wrong there will always be group of us flying as long as Wolverine has the will to continue to develop the best CoD campaign.

I know I've been offline for way too long due to my technical breakdownk, but I can add 2 cents worth here and say that loyalty and dedication flow both ways and Wolverine and the guys from 401, 450 and our friends from ATAG and ACG very much appreciate the dedication and innovation the comes from the efforts of one guy. Namely Wolverine.

In the years we've all flown together, the team functions best under his leadership that produces a quiet esprit between all of us. This is not to suggest elitism, quite the contrary cause we're all a rather humble group, but the efforts to build CoD through the 401 Sqn server missions has created a very worthwhile and dynamic experience. We might be small, but the important aspect of this is that we simply enjoy flying together.

Where have I been under a rock? I see your server up all the time but with the PW on it I thought it was a squad only server(thats what I get for not reading about it). Its a dynamic type server too! We just joined up in SOW last month after just getting tired of the same old rinse and repeat type servers in ROF. We all have cliffs( I've have since day one) but spent more time in ROF and '46, Until about last month.
I hope you don't mind if I pass the info on to my squad on our forum. I'm sure the guys will be happy to hear there is another place to fly as well. Dynamic, mission based servers is what we look for not the "Dude I totally pwnd you, loser!" type servers

Hi Blackwolf, a password is used to prevent randoms from coming on to practice their flying. They completely trash the ongoing accumulative score of the side that they are flying because when they destroy an aircraft and its crew, points are deducted from that side's score. (Tab-4-2). Blenheims are -3 points at a time.

Our aim is to capture territory with the minimum loss of life which means that we take a more cautious approach when attacking ground targets.

Next Saturday night our team will be attacking a target in enemy territory. The target map, plotted with known ground defences and vehicles, as determined by reconnaissance flights during the week, and fighter and bomber tactics will be discussed in No401 Sqadron Barracks section open only to Red eyes. There will be a Blue manned fighter presence which we hope will be neutralised by our fighter escort before the bombers reach the target. In these type of attacks, our Blenheims generally join a large group of AI Wellingtons to cross the Channel before breaking off to do their briefed mission.

I hope that you and your team can join us.

Squiz

Sounds like our type of gameplay. Is it like SOW where each squad has a base and a select amount of A/C? Or more a pick a base and fly from it and score counts for the whole team. We fly to live and try come home, if we can. So would going in for a flight or two during the week mess up the accumulative score for that side if we did not make it back or is that just on mission day when that could happen? I would not want to go fly around,get hit by ack and lose -3 points during the week before a mission. Sorry for so many questions, I need to read up on the whole thing. We like SOW just fine but are always looking for more mission based type servers to fly in. SOW missions are Sundays for us, but one pilot can't fly at that time so he's stuck flying alone during the week. Saturday nights he may be able to fly with the group so this server may fit for that. So my week, weekend would be full, Tuesday and Thursdays in good old '46 and Saturday and Sunday in Cliffs and add some DCS, ROF and BOS in between. Its a wonder I'm still married!

Before we start on a Saturday, we brief our mission on TeamSpeak and then select our base(s).  If we launch from airfields England, we use two bases, one for fighters and the other for bombers.  The fighters generally join up with the Blenheims on the way to rendezvous with the AI Wellingtons which will be heading to the target.  If we launch in France, bombers and fighters generally launch from the same base, closest to our target, unless that base is under threat from the enemy.  It is less formal when we launch in France with pilots returning to base individually when ammo is expended and returning to the target ASAP.

We fly in flights of four.  Fighters use callsigns of Red 1 to 4, Yellow 1 to 4 and Blue 1 to 4.  Bombers use Black 1 to 4 and Grey 1 to 4.  We start engines together, taxi to the duty runway and when the last aircraft is in position we take off in pairs or stream.  Join up formation for the bombers will generally be left hand finger four unless the leaders call otherwise.  Fighters will be similar but will be directed on the climb and in the escort by the Squadron Commander, Red 1.

The score is carried over with mission reboot and is therefore accumulative.  I think the scoring is: Flying a mission and returning to base safely, one point, capturing a city, 10 points and a penalty of one point per aircrew lost or captured during that mission.  Wolverine will confirm or correct that when he gets back from holidays next week.

I have a very tolerant and loving wife, but yours must be a gem.

Squiz

Hi Blackwolf,

Welcome to the forum and to the Warfront mission! Just to clear up anything about the scoring I'll put a few points here:

Each sortie you make is worth a point to the team, so as soon as you go wheels up you've contributed to the effort (the assumption being that as a participating player you're not simply taking-off, circling, and landing 20 times to gain points - the system works assuming that we've got responsible and honorable people playing).

Your aircrew (pilot, gunner, bombadier) are worth -1 point if they are killed, presumed dead, or captured in enemy territory. So if a Spitfire's pilot is killed, the score is less one. If a Blenheim's crew is all killed, the score is less 3. This is to make the pilot more important than the airframe and give an incentive to nursing a badly damaged aircraft back to friendly lines. Even if you can't get home, there's still something to be gained by getting back to your troops. Airframes are more easily replaced than aircrew after all.

If your team captures an enemy position, the team gains 10 points. This can be by direct air attack or even by ground assault. Ground units with guns that have enough range will attack nearby enemy held territory. If these guns can destroy the enemy's ground units they can take the territory and gain 10 points without the need for air units to be involved. This is, however, unlikely to happen without direct air support of some kind (by neutralizing the enemy's long range guns first for example). So you can see that there are tactics that may involve simply taking out the enemy large artillery, capturing a key ground position, and then letting the ground pounders do the heavy lifting against the light flak which is deadly to aircraft, but doesn't have the range to hit the ground guns.

The score is cumulative and persistent just like the map itself. What we've created is an environment that doesn't act like a typical CloD server in many respects, even SoW's maps and missions. Our 'mission' runs 24/7 and never stops. The server does reset for stability purposes, but when it comes back up it maintains the same battle lines and same score it had when the server was rebooted (with any damaged positions 'resupplied and repaired').

This means that it's important to clarify that the Squiz saying that the mission runs on Saturday just means that our own organized mission runs on Saturday in the environment of the server. Any group could run any mission they want at any time they want and the result would be counted towards the overall battle lines and war effort.

So, for example, if your squadron is best able to get together to fly on Wednesdays at 5:00pm EST (or whenever) that you can still participate in the same war that we're fighting at 9:00pm on Saturdays. In fact, coordinating with other groups to do things at different times during the week is an excellent way to maintain forward momentum on the map in the face of any opposition that might be able to act at a completely different time.

If you want to have a look in on the server during the week and can't get the number to design a proper sortie or attack, what you can do is make a recon flight in advance of a real attack. Get a photo of your intended target, make some passes to identify the locations of ground guns and enemy vehicle positions, and then do up a map for your squadron to help minimize losses when you do eventually attack the spot.

The map has a 6 hour running time. Currently, there's no command like ATAG has to determine how much time is left, but you do get a half-hour warning when the server is preparing to go down, and again at 15min, and at 5 min. Because the weather and time of the mission is randomized, I can't give you any better way to determine how much time is left right now. I'll look into putting a time left option in the game (maybe I'll add it to the Team Score info).

Be sure to check with the tower about the weather to get the wind direction. It will tell you where the wind is coming from and how fast it is. Use this as your guide to finding the best runway. Blenheims are pretty stable, but if you're trying to take off in a Spitfire or Hurricane, you'll be sorry if you don't check!

I'm very much looking forward to returning from Denmark and getting back into the server. I'm eager to hear about your experiences with the server (good or bad).

Cheers,

Wolverine

Thanks for the rundown of the server. It sounds fun. I haven't had a chance to get in there yet but I will try it out this weekend. Enjoy your holiday Wolverine. S!

This Warfront server looks really interesting! I used to fly on the now defunct '46 WarBirds Freehost server and liked it a lot. This seems to be the closest one to that what has been implemented in CloD. Too bad most of the time the server is empty. I would think removing the password protection might help. I know that the password there is because of points calculation, but maybe the calculation could be adjusted a bit to account for the odd training pilot stumbling in every now and then. Certainly, there aren't that many CloD players, and there are servers where they can stumble into in addition to the Warfront one.

Do you happen to have some kind of web page that concisely explains what the server is about and which could be used to promote the server?

I like having the password on it. You come here to the forums to get the pasword. And it keeps the rinse and repeat players from jumping in for 10 minutes and messing up the type of gameplay that is here. I don't want to sound like an elitist or anything but there are far more dogfight, airquake servers than mission type ones like this. I think there are three mission only based servers. The DF servers are fun but not my type of gameplay.

You don't sound like an elitist; I don't like the df/airquake either that much. There just isn't much gameplay to mess up when there usually is 0 players on the server, at least during the times I would be playing (i.e. evenings EET). I guess promoting would be the way to go to get more players.

Hi Temuri,

Thanks for coming by and trying out the server. We may be disabling the scoring temporarily to fix an issue with AI bombers not able to land properly / despawn without "killing" their crew. As such, the password probably isn't required. However, the nature of our server and how we wish to play lends itself to groups who are more organized and so having the password on shouldn't be too much of a barrier. Just spread the password our to other members of your group.

We've promoted in the past when the server was first up and running (this scenario has been up and running for nearly a year now) but found very little buy in. We continue to play on Saturdays at 9:00pm EST as our 'scheduled' get together time but some of us can be found playing throughout the week, checking in on the progress of the front.

What the Warfront server really needs to realize its potential is two teams of players that include a bomber group and a fighter group for each team.

I think what the situation is now is that with the limited number of people playing Cliffs of Dover, the larger more organized groups have already chosen their preferred method and place to play. The people who play on SoW's server will stay on SoW. The people who participate in ACG's large events will continue to do so. Et cetera.

My best suggestion to anyone who is interested in participating is to find those people in your timezone who are also interested and get a commitment to come and play one evening a week. If you're a North American or Australian / East Asian player, come out on Saturday 9pm EST and join us. We have a Teamspeak server that is available to anyone playing on the server and we can be found there on Saturdays.

Saturdays 9pm EST, I will add this to our calendar. We do fly in SOW but we have days and members that can't make the time frames for the missions in there. We were looking at the AGC as well. I'm a little on the fence about that. Nothing against them at all but their mission day is the same as our SOW day. I will see who can make it this week, we may be able to put 3 to 4 bombers in the air or more depending on who is free that night. I might go in and do a little recon this week. See you Saturday. S!