Setting up and running a DCG competition

[|450|Leady]

DCG Basics

I’m writing this article to outline how DCG is setup, how the system works and how it can be used to create a really interesting online campaign for two online squadrons. DCG is in a lot of ways very similar to SEOW in that every unit is tracked. Front lines also move depending on the success or failure of each night’s missions. A tank or gun destroyed in a mission tonight won’t appear in the next mission generated. Unlike SEOW commanders don’t have to micro manage every detail of the ground and air war.

A word of warning many of the stock DCG campaigns are very basic and well... dead boring. User made DCG campaigns are usually excellent.

Any basic DCG campaign is made up of three basic types file. These are used to setup an online campaign. There are others but these are more useful for setting up offline campaigns.

1) The mission file (.mis). This is where all your airfield detailing and setup is done, town defensive lines, flak traps, supply dumps etc are setup. Most of the items in this file are stationary objects (AAA guns, AT Guns etc) or objects (Buildings). This file also contains moving tank and vehicle units, trains, ships and aircraft flights. These only have two way points for each unit or flight. DCG looks at these units and puts them into the missions it generates depending on the unit’s availability.

2) Route files (road network files .rds, rail network files .rls, and sea network files .srd.). These files dictate how tanks, vehicles, ships and trains move around the mission map. Tanks and vehicles move from their own supply zone toward the enemy supply zone. Networks can be simple and go from location to location across the map in a linear fashion or be complex and branch out from your friendly supply location then join back together as they approach the enemy supply location.

3) The Ngen data (.dat) file. This is found in your Il2 Ngen folder. This sets up the squadrons to be available in the campaign generation screen in Il2. It allows the person generating the mission to force a squadron to be generated, not be generated or be randomly generated.

[|450|Leady]

The .RDS Route File

Now I’m going to explain how each of these files works, I’ll use the Prokhorovka map to explain things. Lets explain the Road Route file (prokhorovka.rds) for this DCG campaign. I’ve thrown out the standard one as it bears little resemblance to the real battle. It is also not well laid out for an online competition.

I’ve decided to setup the most complex part of the road network in front of Prokhorovka, the German target for the southern part of the Kursk pincer. The rest of the road network is designed to get units from the German supply location of South Bel to Prokhorovka and Russian units from Stariy Oskol to Prokhorovka. Here both sides will meet and the battle shall be joined.

Below is a picture of the basic road network layout.


Ok let’s look at how it looks closer up.


Each part of the road network is consists of tank waypoints between two Locations. It looks a bit complex as there are 5-6 routes between the various locations on screen. In simple terms a Russian tank leaving Prokhorovka can follow one of the waypoint paths south and reach Belenhino. The one it takes is randomly determined so there is plenty of potential here for a nice running tank battle if a German tank unit is headed toward Prokhorovka in the same mission. When you draw a new part of your road network it must start on the Axis side and go toward the Allied side. Most people do this one section at a time but here I’ve drawn all of them in one mission file and written down each set of locations as I went along. This way both sides can use this file to see the paths along which vehicles take on their way to the front.

In the .rds file each part of the road network looks like this
[Location_1 to Location_2]
Waypoint1
Waypont2
Waypoint3
etc

Here’s two parts of the road network between Belenhino and Prokhorovka
[Belenhino to Prokhorovka]
50549.51 43855.04 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
50809.16 43899.20 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
51119.19 43828.100 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
51393.45 44004.32 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
51801.13 43950.57 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
52217.05 44057.39 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
52556.62 44396.99 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
53647.87 44938.80 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
54190.59 45918.11 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55276.78 46500.64 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55111.41 46701.31 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55003.64 46808.86 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55121.27 46919.29 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55256.98 47066.05 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55425.95 47252.82 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55556.89 47356.88 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55710.86 47530.79 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55650.27 47619.87 120.00
[Belenhino_Depot to Prokhorovka]
49323.18 43478.20 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
49424.64 43684.44 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
49604.81 43858.02 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
49775.07 44096.92 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
50069.27 44191.65 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
50343.79 44345.20 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
51122.74 45391.31 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
52680.02 46151.44 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
53573.40 47264.77 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
54648.08 47634.08 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
54789.63 47630.86 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
54920.29 47618.57 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55003.06 47531.24 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55147.16 47625.41 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55329.87 47614.64 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55488.70 47603.27 120.00 0 2 2.3611111640930176
55644.12 47612.26 120.00

[|450|Target]

Do you know where to find some missions as I tried the basic stuff and it was not real great.

[|450|Leady]

Hi Targs

Lowengrin has 22 user made campaigns on here
http://www.lowengrin.com/download.php?list.6
on his site. You might also find some on the Mission4Today site.

Cheers

Leady

[|450|Leady]

Ok

Lets look at the mission file. This is really a template that sets up where buildings AA etc are placed by the DCG mission generator. Buildings, trees etc are always placed in the generated missions, however, non moving, trucks, tanks, AA, and aircraft get placed in a mission depending on who owns the location where they are placed. That is, if the Axis side has captured a town the mission generator will take the Axis tanks, trucks and AA that were placed at that location in the mission template and place them into the the generated mission.

When you place aircraft on airfields you only have to place one type. The mission generator knows which squadrons are based at which airfields and will place appropriate aircraft for the airfield, at the location you put the aircraft in the template. Its best to use bombers to mark these locations so you don't have large aircraft generated with their tails or wings sticking into buildings etc. That just looks stupid!

Moving units, aircraft, ships, trains tanks and supply columns are also placed in the mission template. When you place these they only need need to make 2 waypoints per unit. Place them near the locations that you wish them to start at and it is highly likely they will start, generated in that location.