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news about ODS?

Posted: 2008-09-06 10:25:39
by RingoSurf
hi to everyone,
any news about this wonderful theater?
thank you...

Posted: 2008-09-06 10:59:05
by derStef
uhhm, i don't think so...

Posted: 2008-09-06 13:38:21
by molnibalage
??? There is FF4 compatibile ODS theater.

Posted: 2008-09-06 14:26:17
by derStef
Molni, yes it works, but it's a bit buggy tho...
but some of the campaigns work in RV/FF4...

cheers
Stef

Posted: 2008-09-18 16:13:09
by RingoSurf
I think It would be sufficient to modify campaign files, ground troops,squadrons,rules of victory etc...

the rest is enough !

Posted: 2008-09-18 17:11:55
by Fafa
http://fafa.griffons.free.fr/Falcon4/Th ... Final1.rar

http://fafa.griffons.free.fr/Falcon4/Th ... ernier.rar

-> for OF
never finished so if someone wants to, feel free
FF lods need to be updated in the DB (gear and flaps probs only).

Posted: 2008-09-18 20:56:39
by RingoSurf
thanks fafa but....... is it only for OF?

Posted: 2008-09-19 03:55:50
by Fafa
Unfortunatly yes, this is always the prob with different DB. Maybe one day I'll update the OF/RV one but I wait for RV5 release before.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-14 04:49:32
by toonces
Hi folks.

With the renewed (or re-broughttothesurfaced) interest in "completing" the ODS theater first, I thought I'd get some thoughts on what, exactly, is broken right now.

Rather than start a new thread, I bumped this one since it's essentially the same question.

What works right now in ODS? What doesn't work? What are the primary limitations/biggest issues that need to be addressed to get moving forward?

I remember flying a half dozen missions in this theater a while back. The theater looked nice, the ATO tasked jets (but it seemed like the tasking was very, very slow compared to a typical Korea campaign), the Iraqi air and air-defense forces seemed to get smashed down almost immediately, and overall I didn't find the campaign typically engaging...it seemed a cakewalk on the Coalition side.

But, since everyone wants this theater working, has anyone else played it? What are your thoughts?

Lets get some discussion started...

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-14 05:18:58
by ccc
But, since everyone wants this theater working, has anyone else played it? What are your thoughts?
if you search this forum you'll find my posts. sorry i don't want to repeat my posts again.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=21382

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-14 13:13:00
by Snake Man
toonces wrote:What doesn't work?
- Full set of country flags I cant recall if those are correct.
- Few places have auto tiling errors (only a few).
- Few remaining 128x128 resolution tiles left to be replaced with 512x512 ones.
- Airbase tiles are poor quality on some cases.
- Airbase auto tiling is wrong on some cases, airbase object lays "one coordinate off" from the tiles.
Iraqi air and air-defense forces seemed to get smashed down almost immediately
I don't have many historically accurate SAM sites placed... if I'm correct. I never remember adding killer air defenses for Iraq, there are few SAM sites near Kuwait, but that's as much I can recall the object placement.

However the possibilities for campaign creation for ODS are mind blowing. Its the hot off the CNN/FoxNews item today, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Israel etc... like I created those wild fictional campaigns just spamming airbases with planes and stuff, I mean with careful and intelligent thought & planning we can create awesome campaigns for this theater. Its called "ODS" but sometimes I hate that name, it should be like "Middle East" or something to give more range for campaigns and stuff, of course its a catchy name and you have to be a total retard if "Operation Desert Storm" isn't in your knowledge base ;)

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-14 15:11:15
by Sherlock
Snake Man wrote: However the possibilities for campaign creation for ODS are mind blowing. Its the hot off the CNN/FoxNews item today, Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Israel etc... like I created those wild fictional campaigns just spamming airbases with planes and stuff, I mean with careful and intelligent thought & planning we can create awesome campaigns for this theater. Its called "ODS" but sometimes I hate that name, it should be like "Middle East" or something to give more range for campaigns and stuff, of course its a catchy name and you have to be a total retard if "Operation Desert Storm" isn't in your knowledge base ;)
I couldn't agree more SM. The possibilities for this theater are out of this world. You actually might have a good thing there with your thought of changing the name. ODS could still be one of the campaigns but the theater could be called "Middle East" (or something else appropriate along these lines of thought).

Toonces has some good ideas in that other thread here in the ODS forum for new campaign ideas. Worth a look IMHO.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-22 17:32:27
by toonces
The road ahead:

This is in partial response to the 2009 vote that ODS is the theater of choice for development.

I've read ccc's posts and SM's posts with respect to what is currently broken in this theater.

The very first thing we need to do, imo, is to check the road and bridge network. I haven't tried this yet, and I'd like to stick with what I'm doing in Nevada until I crack the ground movement problem. I don't want to start over from scratch in here right now when I'm actually making some progress.

So, somebody or some group of people needs to install this theater, create some TEs, and check out the roads and bridges. Create some blue units outside of Kuwait and run them all over Kuwait and Iraq- I'd say up to Baghdad would be nice.

Document which paths work, and on which paths the units stall out.

Let's get that done first. Maybe by then I'll know how to fix them...

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-22 18:03:35
by Sherlock
toonces wrote:The road ahead:

This is in partial response to the 2009 vote that ODS is the theater of choice for development.

I've read ccc's posts and SM's posts with respect to what is currently broken in this theater.

The very first thing we need to do, imo, is to check the road and bridge network. I haven't tried this yet, and I'd like to stick with what I'm doing in Nevada until I crack the ground movement problem. I don't want to start over from scratch in here right now when I'm actually making some progress.

So, somebody or some group of people needs to install this theater, create some TEs, and check out the roads and bridges. Create some blue units outside of Kuwait and run them all over Kuwait and Iraq- I'd say up to Baghdad would be nice.

Document which paths work, and on which paths the units stall out.

Let's get that done first. Maybe by then I'll know how to fix them...
I have begun working on the save0.cam file in Desstorm1 to setup objectives and linking as closely to what I see in the Korea SP4.2 save0.cam file as I can possibly get. I am concentrating on the border areas between Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait for the most part. Then I will start testing unit movement across these areas. This is a huge theater is an enormous amount of objectives so this will take quite a lot of time of course to complete just setting up the objectives in accordance with (IAW) the SP4.2 Korea cam file. I will keep you advised as things develop.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-22 18:59:58
by toonces
Question: Have you noticed any of the dmz obj's in SP4.2 Korea have attributes like 'border', 'beach', 'frontline', etc?

If you are taking the time to re-link things, it would be useful to see if the obj attributes in ODS need to be tweaked as well. I am of the opinion that the attributes matter. I don't think ccc agrees. But it would be a good idea to get a third set of eyes on this issue.

Comment: I'd work in small steps. You don't need to do the entire theater at once. Let's work on the path to Kuwait City and Baghdad first, then we can worry about all of Saudi and all the other stuff in the theater. (just my thoughts).

If you can get working links, I'll work on the ground unit movement along those links.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-22 21:00:44
by Sherlock
toonces wrote:Question: Have you noticed any of the dmz obj's in SP4.2 Korea have attributes like 'border', 'beach', 'frontline', etc?

If you are taking the time to re-link things, it would be useful to see if the obj attributes in ODS need to be tweaked as well. I am of the opinion that the attributes matter. I don't think ccc agrees. But it would be a good idea to get a third set of eyes on this issue.

Comment: I'd work in small steps. You don't need to do the entire theater at once. Let's work on the path to Kuwait City and Baghdad first, then we can worry about all of Saudi and all the other stuff in the theater. (just my thoughts).

If you can get working links, I'll work on the ground unit movement along those links.
I am doing the objectives attributes (border, flat, repair, etc.) at the same time I am doing the links if that is what you mean when you say "obj attributes" ?

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-23 01:26:42
by ccc
If you are taking the time to re-link things, it would be useful to see if the obj attributes in ODS need to be tweaked as well. I am of the opinion that the attributes matter. I don't think ccc agrees.
no. i've no idea about this obj attributes thing. i've not checked them before.. it's quite exhausting.
You don't need to do the entire theater at once. Let's work on the path to Kuwait City and Baghdad first, then we can worry about all of Saudi and all the other stuff in the theater. (just my thoughts).
right. tho a complete working road network is good, it's just too much workload for a 512 theater. better focus on 1991 ODS campaign first. check the main combat routes, from a (larger, costal) Saudi city to Kuwait, to Barsa, then maybe to Baghadad. and probably a another inland route at left hand side, as Swazkoff?'s "left hook". to Barsa. you may check my campaign test report in ODS bug thread.

for a iran-vs-iraq war, then got to check roadnetwork between the two. another story.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-23 03:15:31
by toonces
@ ccc, I don't know what to say about the obj attribute thing man. All I can tell you is that objs along the dmz in the FF4 Korea campaign have alot of attributes assigned to them. I can only presume that they serve some purpose. I don't know what. This is why I wish someone like Biker would chime in. If somebody actually figured out how to make this all work once, then they should know whether obj attributes matter. This is "my pet idea" right now; I could be way too focused on it.

WRT ODS in general, I agree that the thing to do is get a historical campaign working first and foremost. That is the shortest route (pun intended) to success. But, the problem I've been dwelling on is related to what I've been saying all along about historical ODS. It is just so overbalaced towards the coalition forces. Historically and in game, the coalition simply dominates Iraq. Not only is it boring, but I don't know how this will affect a working ground war. The ground movement definately seems to be related in some way to force levels. If Iraq is bombed into the stone age and its airforce drilled to nothing, the red forces might just totally freeze up.

But, I guess the way ahead is to get the roads fixed first. Get the roads in a small manageable section definately linked up and working. Then I will be happy to get in there and practice with different things on the ground units to see what they do.

One last thought: the stock Korea campaigns were (probably) lovingly crafted after a year or more of work, by a team of guys all working together everday full time. It's not unreasonable to think that generating a campaign through a 'mod' will be any less work. While tedious, I truly believe that to get to the next level in this creation stuff is going to require time-consuming, tedious, loveless work. I totally understand using TCL scripts and such to build and populate a theater, but to take it to the next working level isn't going to come through TCLs, it's going to come from someone like us going in and looking at every single obj, unit, tile, and whatever, and tweaking it to suit the overall plan of the campaign. Just my opinion, but I firmly believe it.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-23 05:09:07
by Sherlock
toonces wrote:@ ccc, I don't know what to say about the obj attribute thing man. All I can tell you is that objs along the dmz in the FF4 Korea campaign have alot of attributes assigned to them. I can only presume that they serve some purpose. I don't know what. This is why I wish someone like Biker would chime in. If somebody actually figured out how to make this all work once, then they should know whether obj attributes matter. This is "my pet idea" right now; I could be way too focused on it.
Although you directed your comment at ccc I have to say that I agree with you 110% about the attributes. I started looking at the differences between the ODS objectives and the original Korea SP4.2 campaign (save0.cam) and they are significant. I believe also this is another thing that needs to be rolled into the PMC campaigns to make things work properly.
toonces wrote:WRT ODS in general, I agree that the thing to do is get a historical campaign working first and foremost. That is the shortest route (pun intended) to success. But, the problem I've been dwelling on is related to what I've been saying all along about historical ODS. It is just so overbalaced towards the coalition forces. Historically and in game, the coalition simply dominates Iraq. Not only is it boring, but I don't know how this will affect a working ground war. The ground movement definately seems to be related in some way to force levels. If Iraq is bombed into the stone age and its airforce drilled to nothing, the red forces might just totally freeze up.
Although I have started working on the objectives and links in the Desstorm1 campaign (save0.cam) just let me say that the objectives and linking can be exported (I know the objectives can; Snake Man does the linking go with the exported data when it is exported from TacEdit?). With the exported data all three of the cam files can be built to address whichever scenario including the historical ODS.
toonces wrote:But, I guess the way ahead is to get the roads fixed first. Get the roads in a small manageable section definately linked up and working. Then I will be happy to get in there and practice with different things on the ground units to see what they do.
toonces wrote:One last thought: the stock Korea campaigns were (probably) lovingly crafted after a year or more of work, by a team of guys all working together everday full time. It's not unreasonable to think that generating a campaign through a 'mod' will be any less work. While tedious, I truly believe that to get to the next level in this creation stuff is going to require time-consuming, tedious, loveless work. I totally understand using TCL scripts and such to build and populate a theater, but to take it to the next working level isn't going to come through TCLs, it's going to come from someone like us going in and looking at every single obj, unit, tile, and whatever, and tweaking it to suit the overall plan of the campaign. Just my opinion, but I firmly believe it.
I agree. We need to find what attributes for each objective are needed, what defines a solid path in the linking/terrain, etc., then check each and every item to ensure it is all working correctly together like the original Korea version.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-01-23 08:49:04
by Snake Man
Yes links export with the objectives. I'm not sure what happens if you export objective A and C, but the original cam file has objectives A, B and C linked ... so what happens when one is missing, I think tacedit shows you the link to a non existing objective, an empty location on map. Dunno really. Or the link is just listed on the data field and when you do check links it will notify that this link is missing/broken etc.

Anyways, links are exported, yes.

Err just noticed, this is "news about ODS" topic... what does technical linking data do in this topic? Lets stick to topic guys, lets continue technical stuff in the proper terrain/theater area...

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-27 13:39:26
by toonces
Hello gents.
In case you haven't been following along, we're making some interesting progress in creating a "working" campaign.

It seems that the first fundamental thing that needs to happen in this (or any) theater is to have a working road/bridge/link network.

Reading above, it looks like we started on this. I'm going to start learning to do this myself, but before I burn time re-doing what somebody else has already done, how about we get a status update from everyone that is still interested in working on this campaign?

We can get this thing working in a few months of hard work if we all get cracking on it again.

Post what you have done, or are doing, in this thread and let's get going again.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-27 14:22:08
by Sherlock
toonces wrote:Hello gents.
In case you haven't been following along, we're making some interesting progress in creating a "working" campaign.

It seems that the first fundamental thing that needs to happen in this (or any) theater is to have a working road/bridge/link network.

Reading above, it looks like we started on this. I'm going to start learning to do this myself, but before I burn time re-doing what somebody else has already done, how about we get a status update from everyone that is still interested in working on this campaign?

We can get this thing working in a few months of hard work if we all get cracking on it again.

Post what you have done, or are doing, in this thread and let's get going again.
Well, as to an update status, I didn't finish what was working on as I posted earlier. Real life bit me in the A$$ and I haven't gotten back to it due to time constraints. I probably had about 5-10% done so not much accomplished (it's a BIG theater!).

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-27 18:42:14
by Snake Man
toonces wrote:Reading above, it looks like we started on this. I'm going to start learning to do this myself, but before I burn time re-doing what somebody else has already done, how about we get a status update from everyone that is still interested in working on this campaign?
Well as you refer to the road network, its complete for this theater. Is it 100% working? No idea, I mean I would have to say no, but the extend of the broken roads is everyone's guess before someone posts screenshots of units refusing to use specific piece of road. I have built the road network as in any other theater, to the best of my ability and always drag a link between two objects trying to use roads as possible... in fact, dunno if I ever create links where there is absolutely no roads available (exception being some Taiwan style "just get teams working" over the ocean linking).

Someone should start to test the road network from some major Saudi city to Kuwait, from Kuwait to Al Basra, from Al Basra to some nearest big Iraqi city (An Najaf?)... and we go from there. At this point we should focus on the ODS 1991 campaign, its not important if road network is complete from Kuwait to Tehran for example.

Oh and yeah the specific question about what have you done... well I haven't done any theater work for ODS since its last development cycle release.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-27 19:15:07
by toonces
Ok.

I had alot of down time today at work.

First, re: broken roads. I am referring to ccc's post that he linked to above; I believe it takes us to the v 0.7 bugs report. He says that he thinks part of the problem with ground movement is due to broken roads and missing bridges. He further mentions something about changing the rivers to dry river beds (which you started a post about). FWIW, I think that is a good idea, especially around major road routes.

I agree that the roads around Kuwait into Baghdad should be a priority. Let's focus on the Iraq/Kuwait/Saudi border regions for now since anything we do will start there.

Now, here's what I did today. I spent alot of time googling Desert Shield/Desert Storm OOBs. I have a reasonable amount of info from wikipedia, fas.org, army.mil, globalsecurity.org, and maybe a few other places. The globalsecurity site gives a fair rundown of the Saudi OOB prior to Desert Shield, and a timeline for the buildup after Desert Shield started. I think I have enough to build a reasonable Iraqi and Saudi OOB, along with US reinforcements (if I ever get reinforcements to work, a whole other story). I have a good idea of the Saudi SAM network before the Desert Shield forces arrived. I have a reasonble idea of air forces for Saudi Arabia prior to Desert Shield, and the initial DS air forces deployed there. And I have a bunch of maps and such.

I've been meaning to learn how to repair a road and terrain anyway for Nevada, so I'll continue with that and once I have it down, I will start on this theater. I need to take a good look at the ODS map (I don't have it installed right this minute) and I will figure out how/where to start once I get oriented.

Priority 1 is to get the road/obj links working. We've already determined that a working ground war is totally dependent on that. Not every road has to work- just the ones along major axes of advance. I can't believe there are all that many highways in Saudi Arabia anyway.

Once that works, I'd like to start gutting the units and building an historical OOB. I recommend two OOBs to start: A Desert Shield OOB based on August 7th (about) 1990, and another for December 1990. As far as I can tell, except for purists, the Iraqi OOB would be about the same for both. So, we can build that OOB and then export it to either campaign. I still think that the August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia scenario is the most interesting. It pits the lower quality Iraqi forces against the better quality US/SA forces. It allows for victory by either side. However, I will work on whichever scenario the crowd prefers for the first campaign.

So, if nobody's really invested any time in this campaign yet, and nothing's been done, I'll start looking at the road/obj network this week, and I'll start shooting screenies.

[edit- I mean invested time since we started this new dialogue this year, not invested time ever. I know it took a long time and alot of sweat to get the theater to this point.]

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-27 23:23:48
by Sherlock
I would really like to see the main "thoroughfares" between Iraq and Iran made to work also since that opens things up for a Iraq/Iran scenario(s).

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-28 10:16:45
by Snake Man
Sherlock, please don't quote whole post and then reply with one line.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-28 16:24:15
by Fafa
Hi,
I Tacedited this campaign scenario for OF and RV4 a long time before. I'll take a look if I deleted it or if I can upload it. If you are interested in an IRAN/IRAK campaign take a look at FF forums but it is only for Iran theater and there is much work to do.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-29 01:51:23
by ccc
hi Fafa,

im interested in checking your tweaked ODS 1991.. and iran ones - if the files are compatible with FF4/RV.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-04-29 19:33:09
by Fafa
Hi CCC,
thanks for your help.
But unfortunatly I lost them with lots of files, I suppose a year ago when I left the community.
And my copy on my FTP went down.
Sorry. :?

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-05 18:49:09
by Tom
Hello, I'm pretty new on this forum boards and as Stef can endorse, I have no theatre editing skills or experience.
But , as Stef noted at FF forums, a very important part of fixing the existing theatres is to search for broken, misaligned tiles, especially airbases, for example.
So if work on ODS restarts, maybe some guys could work in groups to make notes on wrong tiles/ unlevelled tiles at airbases and such..
It's a huuuge theatre, so splitting work seems to be mandatory..
Carry on,
Tom

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-05 20:40:48
by Snake Man
Tom wrote:Hello, I'm pretty new on this forum boards and as Stef can endorse
Welcome to the PMC Tactical forums :)
So if work on ODS restarts
Who told you work has stopped on ODS?

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-05 23:23:14
by Tom
Snake Man:
Hello, Snake Man,
I think I put it in the wrong words...I had the ODS appearance in FF in mind, but off course, ODS never has been dead.
I think I'll stay in contact with the folks at FF involved in theatre building to get informed whenever I can help out with testing or anything that makes your work easier regarding ODS (..whenever my job allows it, smile.).

Thank you,
Cheers, Tom

PS: Thanks to everyone here who worked hard to make the Falcon 4.0 experience way more attractive with your beautiful theatres!

Toonces:
Hi, toonces, nice to meet you here!
I think I've got your point. I know it would take me probably years to reach a level of knowledge to, e.g., help the editing pros out with the hardcore editing works.
I surely agree to the point that cosmetic changes are not to important compared to the functional aspects of a working, logical campaign and the main axes of advance, regarding roads and objects.
And that re-building ODS from scratch to make it FF compatible is way too much work to demand from anyone, given the fact that you gents have RL jobs.
So, given the fact that it's not clear which aspects of ODS can be imported to FF5, I surely appreciate that my question is not easy to answer, first and foremost at this point.

I will keep visiting this forum, but I will only post when I can add a useful contribution, regarding help or campaign issues.
For now I just want all of you to know that your hard work is highly appreciated and never taken for granted. Take care..

Cheers, Tom

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 04:20:18
by Sherlock
Tom wrote:I think I've got your point. I know it would take me probably years to reach a level of knowledge to, e.g., help the editing pros out with the hardcore editing works.
I surely agree to the point that cosmetic changes are not to important compared to the functional aspects of a working, logical campaign and the main axes of advance, regarding roads and objects.
Let me stop you right there and tell you that is certainly not true. I will admit that you can't step right in and immediately start editing things but your total contribution will be exactly proportional to the amount you read here at the PMC Falcon forums and then try to do on your own. It took me about 3-4 months of reading continuously here at PMC while trying things out using the different tools/utilities available for theater creation. And for me, being an AF theater editor, it is tougher since tacedit doesn't work directly with the AF .CAMs. But my point is that if you push yourself, read what is already here in the forums and ask questions of us who have already learned, you will pick things up quickly. But it only works if you TRY! 8-)

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 11:09:42
by toonces
I deleted my post, but Tom, I guess you were just too quick. It couldn't have been up there for more that 2 minutes or so :)
I've been trying to compose a post like it for a while, but everytime I do, my utter frustration with some things starts coming through, and I don't want to do that.

Speaking specifically to Tom, if you want to help, the best thing to do is find an aspect of development that interests you and start running with it. If debugging is your thing, then jump in and start at it. If you like developing OOBs, do that. Skinning? Tiles? There's plenty of work to be done.

With respect to ODS in general, what this theater REALLY needs is a project manager; someone like Derstef with Taiwan, or me with Nevada. Somebody who is passionate about the theater, and will keep focus on developing it. I don't mean this in a negative way towards the real heroes of PMC. But you can see how Taiwan keeps moving forward because Derstef keeps pushing it. This theater (ODS) really needs the same thing.

I'd consider taking on that role if I knew what it was the fans wanted with this theater ultimately; AND I knew that it would be backwards compatible with FreeFalcon 5. I just don't see the point in investing the kind of hours this theater will need just so it will work in FF4.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 12:19:30
by Snake Man
Tom wrote: And that re-building ODS from scratch to make it FF compatible is way too much work
Eh, where did you pick up on this line that there would be an even hint of "re-building ODS" somewhere? Did I miss some quote or something?

This starts to sound bit strange...
So, given the fact that it's not clear which aspects of ODS can be imported to FF5, I surely appreciate that my question is not easy to answer, first and foremost at this point.
ODS imported to FF5... again you are making no sense. I take the assumption that English is not your native language and you're not that skilled expressing yourself on proper words... but damn you do sound strange indeed.

I just want to kill all the rumors and pieces of text that there is even hint of ODS doing this or doing that or being ported if possible etc.

I mean nothing has changed, ODS is what it is and continues to develop as time passes and work is done for it.

I see nothing on the horizon to cause any alarm regarding ODS theaters future.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 12:27:06
by toonces
SM, he's responding to a post that I deleted. I'll just PM you and you can take it from there.

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 13:25:18
by Echo300
toonces wrote: Now, here's what I did today. I spent alot of time googling Desert Shield/Desert Storm OOBs. I have a reasonable amount of info from wikipedia, fas.org, army.mil, globalsecurity.org, and maybe a few other places. The globalsecurity site gives a fair rundown of the Saudi OOB prior to Desert Shield, and a timeline for the buildup after Desert Shield started. I think I have enough to build a reasonable Iraqi and Saudi OOB, along with US reinforcements (if I ever get reinforcements to work, a whole other story). I have a good idea of the Saudi SAM network before the Desert Shield forces arrived. I have a reasonble idea of air forces for Saudi Arabia prior to Desert Shield, and the initial DS air forces deployed there. And I have a bunch of maps and such.

...

Once that works, I'd like to start gutting the units and building an historical OOB. I recommend two OOBs to start: A Desert Shield OOB based on August 7th (about) 1990, and another for December 1990. As far as I can tell, except for purists, the Iraqi OOB would be about the same for both. So, we can build that OOB and then export it to either campaign. I still think that the August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia scenario is the most interesting. It pits the lower quality Iraqi forces against the better quality US/SA forces. It allows for victory by either side. However, I will work on whichever scenario the crowd prefers for the first campaign.
As you may or may not remember, I was putting together some ORBAT/strategy info recently. Unfortunately, I just don't have enough time on my hands these days to pull that off. Since you've nicely taken the initiative, I would point you to a wonderful book called Every Man A Tiger written by the CENTCOM CINC AF during the Desert Storm period, General Chuck Horner. It contains nearly all the strategy info you'll need, some ORBATs, and a very large amount of info about the air war/ATO that you'll need for Desert Shield and Desert Storm. (It's pretty cheap, too.) Hope it helps, sorry for backing out on my promise, and thank you for working on this. :)

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 21:40:58
by Tom
Hello, gentlemen, I just wanted to clear some stuff:

Most of the rumours I pickep up about ODS were topics at the Free Falcon forum.
And yes, being there almost every day, a Falcon fan could get the impression that ODS is nothing of future interest-
for the Free Falcon developers. The campaign was described to be something that would need huge attention, the size of the theatre not adding sympathy for that task.
This situation is now cleared at FF, ODS will be worked on to function properly with Free Falcon5, at least the campaign seems to be more or less compatible now.

It was derStef who pointed the theatre interested guys to this forum in general. He pointed out, that if ODS should make sense in FF, the WHOLE theatre would have to gain a lot of attention to be completed. So the focus would be on multiple tasks, be it the Tiles or the campaign, the skins, the database...

I registered here because ODS always was my favourite theatre and it drove me mad that its existence/compability in FreeFalcon for a period of weeks seemed to be more than uncertain.

All I wanted was to offer help if something similar to derStef's Taiwan approach would be useful in this theatre project.
He figured out for himself that it is very helpful to have some people focussing on broken/misaligned tiles and objects besides the main work-process of creating a new, FF compatible campaign etc.
I think that was what he had in mind for ODS..to clean up the theatre in the beginning.

And yes, English is not my native language..I'm from Germany. I have to admit, I did not read all the ODS-related posts here, that is why I must have sounded unspecific or unclear.
Whatever you think of my 3 posts, thank you very much for the existing ODS theatre and campaigns.

If I insulted anyone with my posts, I apologize.

-Thank you, gentlemen-

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 21:46:03
by Snake Man
Tom wrote:Most of the rumours I pickep up about ODS were topics at the Free Falcon forum.
I rest my case.

Seems like we have new frugals world at our hands. Oh man... :x

Re: news about ODS?

Posted: 2009-05-06 21:49:46
by Sherlock
Tom wrote:Hello, gentlemen, I just wanted to clear some stuff:

...
If I insulted anyone with my posts, I apologize.

-Thank you, gentlemen-
@Tom,
No problem mate. I know I didn't take offense/insult from anything you said. I would just encourage you to read, read, read here at PMC, then try, try, try and ask questions when you don't understand. That is how you will learn the Falcon theater business. Welcome to PMC by the way! We are glad to have you join us! :)